Responding To Critical Comments… | Ep. 2

Fight For Truth

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Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to the channel where we bring you Christian commentary about the things that matter.

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As ever, please know this video isn't a sinful attack, but rather a Biblical critique. In today's video, we're going to be responding to more critical commenters from the actual comment section of our channel.

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The identities of these people will be kept a secret for their sake, but these comments are 100 % real and have not been edited.

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So with that said, let's read the first one. This comment comes from our video on Elevation Church and the guest pastor who spoke there,

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Robert Madu. And in this video, Robert speaks in the place of Elevation Church's usual pastor,

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Stephen Furtick. Similar to Furtick, he spends a ton of time on entertainment, cracking jokes, and dressing up Bible stories with details that he makes up.

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The outcome is that he effectively makes up a Bible story in order to get a laugh, and then he actually uses the details of this fake

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Bible story as part of basis for his teaching. If you're interested, watch the video using the link in the description.

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Here's what one critical commenter said on that video in response, quote, I mean, God forbid we laugh and have a good time in church.

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God doesn't have a sense of humor, and neither should we, end quote. This is, of course, a sarcastic comment implying that anyone who disagrees with Elevation Church's preaching style must be a stuffy old legalist who's trying to take all of the fun out of being a

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Christian. The picture being painted here is that anyone who disagrees with the amount of entertainment and jokes in Robert Medue's sermons must be a traditionalist who thinks it's a sin to smile in church.

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And of course, this is merely a caricature which doesn't deal with the substance of our position in that video at all.

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You see, in that video, it was never said that you can't laugh or smile or have a happy thought in church.

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In fact, I directly acknowledge that a humorous comment from the pulpit is not sinful in and of itself.

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The issue with Robert Medue's sermon was not that he was funny one time, but rather that he was trying to be funny virtually the entire time, and this happened at the expense of teaching the

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Word of God. More than this, his attempt to be funny actually led to him making up fake details of this story in the

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Word of God to get people to laugh. And then he would preach about those details as if they were actually part of the biblical account, which of course they weren't.

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This mixing of the Word of God together with too many superficial jokes happened in a way that was irreverent and confusing.

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In 1 Timothy 4 .13, Paul tells Pastor Timothy to, quote, "...devote himself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching."

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End quote. You see, Scripture should be at the center of teaching and preaching, not jokes and entertainment and relatability.

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That was the point of the video, and the commenter seems to have unfortunately missed that point entirely.

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The next comment can be found on our video about why same -sex attracted or Side B Christianity is so confusing.

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The point of that video is that many people in this movement, by and large, who teach on homosexuality do so while unnecessarily blending biblical and secular concepts, and the outcome is that there are some biblical truths, some very important ones, and we should acknowledge that, but they're often muddied.

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They're confused by importing many worldly assumptions alongside the truth.

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You can watch it using the link in the description. The commenter said this about that video, quote,

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Jesus said this about homosexuality, Oh wait, he said nothing. Man has said it is sin.

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For those who call homosexuality a lifestyle, please, it isn't. It is who and what we are.

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Happy pride. End quote. Now this is a very common argument used by pro -LGBT Christian activists.

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They say that they're following Jesus' teaching on homosexuality because Jesus taught us to love others, but he never directly condemned homosexuality.

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There are at least two problems with this position though. One, even if Jesus never condemned homosexual behavior, that wouldn't be proof that he endorsed it.

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So the argument here effectively proves nothing that it intends to prove. And two, Jesus did indeed condemn homosexuality, and if you read his teachings honestly, there's no other conclusion to come to.

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Jesus says in Matthew 4 .4, quote, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

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End quote. So Jesus affirmed every word of Scripture. And therefore, you cannot isolate his views to his earthly ministry alone.

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Rather, you have to take what he said in his earthly ministry and receive it alongside the rest of Scripture.

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Jesus himself commands that. So the question then becomes, what did the word that Jesus affirmed say about homosexuality?

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Well, Leviticus 18 .22 calls it an abomination. And in Genesis 19, God pours out his judgment on the city of Sodom for its homosexual immorality, among many other sins.

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The point here is that the word of God calls homosexuality sinful, and Jesus affirmed this entire word of God.

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Therefore, Jesus's comments about homosexuality are actually crystal clear, and any attempt to suggest otherwise is a denial of what he actually taught.

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Now, the third comment we have today comes from our video about Stephen Furtick's Sunday pep talk.

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The basic message of that video, the central point, is that Stephen Furtick is not preaching real biblical sermons.

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Instead, he's preaching cleverly devised motivational pep talks every Sunday which he calls sermons.

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Virtually all of his teaching is shallow and man -centered. It's not deep, theologically sound, or biblically accurate, for the most part.

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See the video link in the description if you're interested. Now, the comment said this, quote, Who do you think you are?

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You are not the one to determine what is and is not a sermon. Stop hurting the kingdom.

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End quote. To answer their first question, of who do you think you are, my answer is the same as it is in most of the end of my videos.

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I am nothing but a wretched sinner saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. That's it. And the commenter is correct when they say that I'm not the arbiter of what is and is not a good sermon.

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That's true. I'm not the standard of anything. But God's word is the standard of a good sermon.

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And because God has given us his revealed word, we can read it and tell people what it says.

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So here's the standard of a good biblical teaching. We actually have a direct account in Scripture of how to tell the difference between good and bad preaching.

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In Acts 17 .11, the Berean Jews, quote, received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

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End quote. So a good teaching or a good message must be in keeping with the scriptures.

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That is the standard. And this needs to be recognized because too many people say things like, well, I'm not one to judge.

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I can't decide whether or not that teaching is good or bad. I'm not God. It's really not my call to say one way or the other.

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And when you say this, you're absolutely correct in that you are not the standard of sound teaching.

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That's good humility. But you are wrong in suggesting that you do not have access to the standard of sound teaching.

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You do. And it's the word of God. And when you compare good teaching from the word of God to the kind of teaching that happens at Elevation Church, you will find that there is no comparison.

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This has been documented time and time again. And that is not making yourself the standard. That is applying

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God's standard. This is an important point. Our fundamental claim on this channel is not we're better than everyone else, or we're smarter than everyone else, or we're the only ones who understand the

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Bible, or we're the only true Christians and everyone else is dead wrong. That would obviously be prideful.

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And we should avoid saying things like that. In fact, if you look at the track record of this channel, you will find that no statement like that has ever been made.

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The truth is, if we do a critique on this channel, our fundamental claim is that whoever we are critiquing is not offering ideas that accord with God's Word.

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The attention is not on our own awesomeness or cleverness or piety. It's on the truth of God's Word.

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It always has been. So please remember that when you work through these things. And please know this. I do not offer any of this correction from a high and mighty position.

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I am nothing but a wretched sinner saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. So let's pray for all false teachers that they would stop their false teaching by God's grace and turn to the truth of God's Word.

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Thank you so much for watching that video. Please give us a like and subscribe so that you don't miss any content.

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Also, don't forget to subscribe to our Rumble channel as well, just in case YouTube ever takes us down.

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The link is in the description. And before you go, take a look at this list here. These are the people who make all of the free content you see on this channel possible with their monthly support.

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Today's highlighted channel supporter is Heather D. If you also want to help and become part of the solution today, hit the link in the description.

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Every little bit keeps us independent and helps us immensely here on the channel. So I hope you'll consider joining the

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Truth Army today. And until next time, fight for truth, never surrender, and keep your eyes open.