Judah Smith is to Preaching As Boy Bands Are to Music

Okay, so the question that's on the table today, after watching Judah Smith's performance at the Awakening revival last night in Jacksonville, Florida, you know, at Celebration Church, home of Stovall Weems, my question is this, who is responsible for making Judah Smith into a premier seeker-driven conference slash revival speaker?

Okay, as you're going to hear, he's clearly not an exegetical prodigy. He's not even a model of maturity or Christian manhood at all. So my thinking on this is that there is some inner sanctum, some marketing cabal of evangelical power brokers out there who are basically out there creating products.

And I think, after listening to Judah Smith last night, that it's very clear that Judah Smith is a product. Makes me wonder if Stephen Furtick and Perry Noble are products as well. Because, like I said, a hundred years ago, nobody, nobody in Christianity would take Judah Smith, Stephen Furtick, or Perry Noble seriously.

They basically say, oh, you're a bunch of man-boys and you're not even qualified to be pastors. Well, I think Judah Smith is the latest iteration of this. And just listening to his performance last night and what was said about him and what he said makes me just go, he's not qualified to be a pastor.

So that means somebody out there is responsible for creating this product similar to the ancient boy bands and putting it out on the market. I think Judah Smith is a market-created product the same way as the Backstreet Boys were.

Stovall Weems' Introduction of Judah Smith

So let's go back to the tape from last night. Here's Stovall Weems introducing Judah Smith. And listen to how he introduces him. Listen. We're so glad that you're here tonight. I want to.

Introduce tonight's speaker. So let me think about this introduction, Judah. First of all, Judah and I, we've become really good friends about over this past year. We both have a common passion and that's golf.

And so when I, I want to let you know how, how Judah really freed me up. He really ministered to your pastor when we played golf, because how many of you know, your pastor is kind of an emotional, passionate guy.

You know, I can kind of tend to be that way. And so when, so I can, you know, sometimes I can be that way on the golf course every now and then. So when I played with Judah, you know, when Judah hits a bad shot, he yells when Judah hits a bad shot, man, he might throw something.

And I'm thinking, man, I've been reserved and holding.

Back all my life. So yeah, you heard that, right? So at the revival Stovall Weems introduces Judah Smith is yeah. He loves golfing, man. When he makes a bad shot, he throws his golf clubs and he yells.

Okay. Now back in the day. Okay. When I could afford to do it, I played, I used to play golf. It was one of my favorite sports. Okay. And there was nothing worse than being in a foursome with somebody who is a screamer, a yeller and a club thrower.

It's, it's embarrassing to watch. It's absolutely childish. And you know, it makes you just wonder, you know, you need, this person needs to grow up. I mean, life happens. Golf is not that easy. It's really easy to hit a hard, a bad shot.

You just got to get over yourself and get over it and go and collect yourself and make, you know, make the next shot count. But so here, Judah Smith is being introduced to us, you know, and those of you who play golf know exactly what I'm talking about.

These kinds of folks are the worst type of people to play the game with. Okay. In fact, if, you know, when I would play with friends, if anybody was like that out on the golf course, I usually wouldn't invite them back.

The last people I want to hang around with are, you know, that's just not an enjoyable round. So Stovall Williams is basically telling on Judah saying, Oh yeah, this guy's got a temper. He's out of control.

He yells, he throws his clubs. Um, and he's a head pastor of a church. And he's somebody who's going to bring revival to Jacksonville, Florida. Really?

And finally, here's a golfer who doesn't mind throwing a club or a rake or whatever every now and then. So he really freed me up. But let me tell you something about Judah, Judah.

First of all, I mean, anybody who's seen the movie, happy Gilmore knows that that's bad behavior because happy Gilmore had to learn how to get over that. Oh man. He is a man after God's heart.

He is a seventh generation preacher, seventh generation preacher. And so does that make him.

A prodigy? I mean, I mean, is there some kind of genetic chromosome that makes you a preacher? Okay. Now again, listen, my point is that, okay. From what you're hearing about him, he's clearly not a model of Christian maturity.

Okay. Now those of you who missed the passion 2013, he said, OMG, what five or six times at the, at the passion conference just a few weeks ago. Okay. I mean, so now we know he takes God's name in vain, like while preaching and he he's on the golf course, he's screaming, yelling, throwing clubs and throwing rakes.

Um, how is this a model of Christian maturity and sanctification? Huh? Has incredible wife, incredible kids,.

Pastors, an amazing church in, in Seattle. He's a Seahawks fan. We forgive him. Uh, but, but pastors, an amazing church, a city church in Seattle speaks all over the world. He's got.

A great book coming out in February called G. So he speaks all over the world and has a book coming out. And again, my question is why, who made the decision that Judah Smith has, well, it would really be considered the cream of the crop and, um, you know, in American preaching out there that we need to read, we need to be reading his book and we, you know, and that he, he needs to flown all over the world to, to preach to people who made this decision.

Jesus is that we're going to have right here in our resource center. And some of you ladies know, Judah spoke at shine, uh, this past May and, uh, Judah, we're so grateful that you're here. Come on celebration church.

I want you to put your hands together and give Judah Smith the best.

Welcome you can. Here he comes. Judah Smith. I mean, you would think that he was the first.

Person to put his footprints on the moon. Come on. Are you? Well, you look good. That's half.

The battle. That's what my mom said. You can be seated. These people behind you already are. Well, uh, now, you know, I have an anger problem. Um, shut up. Okay. Wait, I just got angry. Um, so he's just going to blow it off with a joke.

Okay. I, I, I love celebration church. I have to say, and, um, you know, I don't speak at women's conferences a lot, um, to, to be exact, but, uh, to, to, to be here about, about a year ago, uh, I just fell in love with celebration church and fell in love with your pastors, pastor Stovall and pastor Carrie.

A Fresh Revelation on the Plane and the Problem with Revivalism

Okay. So this is the,.

The opening segment, you know, to this, the obligatory, you know, thank yous and all that kind of stuff. I'm going to fast forward just a couple of minutes and, you know, listen to this little bit, which we hear a lot from people nowadays.

And, you know, in this, I think is a form of spiritual manipulation, but I'll let you hear it first.

And then I'll explain, you know, something happened to me again. And I heard that it happened to a few of the other speakers. Uh, I just got on the plane, got up at three 45 this morning, Pacific Northwest time.

That's, that's where God lives and, um, got up and, uh, got on the plane and I was fully prepared to sleep and honestly couldn't write fast enough. Same thing happened to me on my way to shine. And, uh, I kinda already had a message prepared, but I just got something brand new on my heart.

And, uh, if, if, if it goes over well, I might use it at home.

You know what I mean? So, so, okay. So are you ready for that? He's received a form of direct revelation from God. I mean, he was prepared to preach a particular message, but then God intervened. I mean, he was on the plane, he couldn't sleep.

And all of a sudden God said, Judah, this is God. Yeah. God, I need you to change your message. I'm going to put it on your heart. Okay. God, you know, I already have it written. No, don't worry about it.

This is even better. It's something new, something fresh. Thanks God. Yeah. How many times have we heard this from somebody? The job of pastors to preach the word. Okay. The reality is, is that, um, we don't need anything fresh or new.

We need somebody to rightly handle and preach and proclaim God's word, to proclaim Christ and him crucified for our sins, to preach law and gospel, sin and grace, repentance, the forgiveness of sins, to do proper exegesis, to do pro you employing proper hermeneutics to really point us to Christ.

By the way, just quick aside here. The whole premise behind revivalism is really, um, dubious to me. Um, cause here's the deal. If a, if a pastor is doing his job of rightly handling God's word, preaching and proclaiming it, um, then the folks in any particular congregation aren't going to need revival.

Are they? Nope. Just, you know, just saying anyway. All right. So I'm going to fast forward again. So that's him saying he got a fresh revelation. God laid something new on his heart and I'm thinking ick you cause you know, um, out of the heart is where sin comes from.

But anyway, uh, here's Judah. Okay. He's going to read literally the entire chapter of revelation 21 to us. And I'll note the, uh, the gospel nugget in the middle of it. Cause there was two by my count, two different times where we got a gospel nugget and it was slow enough moving that you could identify.

It's like, Hey, wait, that's the, that's the gospel. And then no sooner did you really recognize that, you know, he, he changed the subject and moved on, but he at least got to the gospel two different times.

And so it was like the gospel kind of circled the, you know, the, the building there and made two appearances. So one of the appearances is while he was reading from revelation 21, but I want you to listen to him, read the entire thing.

And then what he does after reading all of revelation chapter 21, because that kind of tells you how the rest of the evening went. Here's Judah Smith, setting up his need to read from revelation chapter 21.

Here we go. Go with me to the last book in the Bible. Now, if you can't find the book of revelation, it's a good thing. You came to a revival. Okay. He'll fall on a great deal away from the Lord. And, uh, it's time to return.

It's the last book that's Christian jokes gone wild. Okay, here we go. Tough crowd revelation 21. Okay. Now here's the deal. I'm gonna read the whole chapter. Fair enough. But here's the bonus. Here's the bonus.

Like if you didn't get your Bible reading in, uh, we're going to get it in right now. Okay. Deal. And, uh, for the record, uh, it's been a long time since I fasted. Okay. And I just got to get that off my chest because I kind of feel guilty.

I'm up here with the microphone and y 'all been like seeking the Lord, fasting and praying. Uh, but my dad raised me with the motto said, son, fasting's good, but eating's better. If you believe that somebody shout amen.

I felt that I really did appreciate that. All right. Revelation 21 and verse one. Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first seven and the first earth had passed away. Also, there was no more seed.

Then I, John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them.

And they shall be his people. God himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain for the former things have passed away.

Then he who sat on the throne said, behold, I make all things new. And he said to me, write these words that are true and faithful. And he said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirst he will overcome, shall inherit all things. And I will be his God and he shall be my son, but the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable murderers, sexually immoral sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake, which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

It should be noted upon this juncture in our reading that what that verse does not mean is if you, that you, if you lied, you're going to go to hell. Now it means if you lied, but you didn't trust Jesus to pay the penalty for your lies, you will have to pay the price.

But if you lied and you lied a hundred thousand times, a hundred thousand times, but you put your faith in Jesus to pay the penalty for your lies, you are going to spend.

Eternity with him. Come on somebody. Okay. Now notice that was a bonafide gospel nugget. So I should play them the clip. Hang on. So there was the gospel flew in and flew out and notice that, you know, he turned it into kind of like a slogan or an applause line here, you know?

Um, yeah, let me back it up just a smidge so that you can hear how he turns this into really an applause.

Line for your lies. You are going to spend eternity with him. Come on somebody. It's.

Revival. You know that little thing it's revival. He did that so many times I lost count, uh, last.

Night. It was actually kind of obnoxious. It feels good to say that Seattle. We don't even know what revival is. You know what I mean? The South is the home of revival revelation 21 nine. It gets good.

It gets, it's good. I mean, it's all good, but it gets gooder. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me saying, come, I will show you the bride, the lamb's wife.

And he carried me away in the spirit to great and high mountain and showed me, listen closely the great city, the Holy Jerusalem descending out of from God, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a Jasper stone, clear is crystal.

Also, she had a great and high wall with 12 gates and 12 angels at the gates and the names written on them, which are the names of the 12 tribes of the children of Israel, three gates on the East, three gates on the North, three gates on the South.

Are you in a hurry? I mean, why are you reading this so quick?

Often three gates on the West. Now the wall of the city had 12 foundations and on them were the names of the 12 apostles of the land. And he, you talk with me, had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates and its walls.

The city is laid out as a square. It's length is as great as its breadth. Then he measured the city with a reed, 12 ,000 furlongs. It's length, breadth, height are equal. Then he measured his, then he measured its wall 144 cubits.

According to the measure of a man, that is of an angel. Judah, what does that mean? I'm not entirely sure. Let's keep reading verse.

18. Again, I'm going to pause it. Listen again to what he's doing. He's reading revelation 21 rather quickly. Okay. And so he's come across something that's piqued his interest. You're not sure what it means.

Watch his exegetical explanation again. And that is of an angel.

Judah, what does that mean? I'm not entirely sure. Let's keep reading verse 18. So now he's.

Making a joke of it and basically saying, I have no clue. He can't expect me to. Yeah. You, you were fast and you tell me verse 18. So he, like I said, he's not a model of Christian maturity and he's clearly not an exegetical prodigy, like far from it.

We continue.

The construction of its wall was of Jasper and the city was pure gold, like clear glass, the foundation of the wall, the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones. The first foundation was Jasper.

The second Sapphire, the third is there. Read it for yourself. The fourth is Emerald. The fifth is also there for your reading enjoyment,.

As is the sixth. So he doesn't even know how to pronounce these precious jewels from the tax that God, the Holy spirit laid on his heart to share with everybody.

And the seventh and the eighth, the ninth is Topaz, the 10th help yourself. Same with the 11th.

And the 12th is Amethyst. Come on somebody. So they're going to give him an applause line for his inability to actually read the details of revelation 21. I mean, I mean, like I know how.

To say them. I just, just, you know, just trying to engage you guys, you know, right. Verse 21, the 12 gates were 12 pearls. Each individual individual gate was of one pearl and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.

But I saw no temple in it, right? John for the Lord, God almighty and the lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or the moon to shine in it for the glory of God illuminated it. The lamb is its light.

That'll preach right there, man. That will preach. Now I'm going to stop here. Okay.

Listen to what he's doing here. I mean, my question is, Oh really? If you think that's going to preach, well then preach it. But he doesn't, he did. Oh, this will preach pointing out some very interesting nuance here as if he's looking into a crystal ball and going, Oh, Ooh, Ooh.

Hi. Hi. Ooh. Here's some ugly stuff in there about your future. Well, what is it? I, you know, you don't want to know, but it just, trust me. It's, it's not, it's it's not looking good. I mean, this is what this reminds me of basically a show.

Illuminated it. The lamb is its light. Ooh, that'll preach right there, man. That will preach. If you're a preacher, that's like putting a chubby kid in a candy store. The lamb is its.

Light. So how exactly for a preacher would that really preach? I've been a teacher in the church for 20 years now. And I see that little detail and I'm not seeing the chubby kid in the candy store going, Ooh, yeah, that'll preach.

And you don't end up preaching it. That's good stuff.

And the nations of those who are safe show walking inside and the Kings of the earth, bring their glory and honor into it. Its gate shall not be shut at all. By day, there shall be no night there and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it.

But there shall by no means enter into anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the lamb's book of life.

The Gospel Nugget, the Prayer, and the Shift to Self-Referential Humor

So there we go. He's done the unthinkable. He's actually read an entire chapter from the Bible at a secret driven mega church. No one ever thought it could be done. And now that he's finished it, he's got to quickly change the subject and talk about himself.

Watch.

Why do drugs when you can do revelation 21?

There we go. Another reference to somehow the Bible being a drug. Yeah. Boy, that's really.

Mature and a right understanding of God's holy word. Why do drugs when you can do revelation 21? That's some good stuff, isn't it? Inhale deeply. Yeah. So there you go. That's some good stuff.

Uh-huh. Again, my question is, who's responsible for making the decision to make Judah Smith a product? I'm telling you, he is to the preaching world what the Backstreet Boys were to music. Sorry, let's pray.

Okay, so now he's going to pray and listen to his prayer. Jesus,.

Thank you for your grace. Thank you for your goodness, Lord. We love you. Thank you for the scripture. Help us now by the power of the Holy Spirit in these brief moments we share to really encounter the person of Jesus.

Help us to see his beauty, his majesty, his sufficiency. We love you, Lord. Thank you for these moments. And Lord, just forgive the Jaguars, Lord, for passing up on T-Boat God in Jesus' name. And everybody said, you need healing out here.

Y 'all.

Need healing. Yeah. So we get the, let us see the beauty of Jesus, his sufficiency and all that kind of stuff. And he doesn't actually preach about any of that. And then he has to throw in a little joke about the fact that Jacksonville passed up on T-Boat.

Again, okay, he's clearly not a model of Christian maturity. In fact, he's actually a model of Christian immaturity. He's got a lot of growing up to do. I mean, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of growing up to do.

I mean, he's so immature, it's embarrassing. Okay. And on top of it, he has anger issues, throws golf clubs and yells and screams and all that kind of stuff. And just reading a chapter from Revelation 21 is not the same thing as actually exegeting it and preaching it and proclaiming it.

And boy, everyone thought that he, you know, he had bench pressed 600 pounds because he actually read an entire chapter in of the Bible. Oh, give him a standing O for that. And now he's done his little goofy prayer and with a little T-Boat joke in there.

And now who's he going to talk about? Well, himself.

Parenting, Family Motto, and the “Smiths” Identity

Hey, anybody have kids who has kids? Yeah, we're in this together, aren't we? You know, I didn't have kids and then I had kids. That's how it works. And, um, like I used to wonder why in, in, in the, in the animal kingdom, some adults eat their young, but I know now, like it totally makes sense to me.

Y 'all know what I'm talking about? Um, I mean, I love them and everything, but sometimes I want to eat them. You know what I mean? And, um, it's a journey, man. Parenting is, uh, it's very revealing as a person.

Like, um, it's amazing. All the plans I had as a dad, all the nice things I was going to do for my kids, you know, and all like, we were going to read books and stuff at night and, and, uh, now it's like, go to sleep.

Jesus loves you. I'm like, I was supposed to read Pilgrim's Progress. We'll get to that later. You know, it's just like seven 45, Oh, 15 minutes, 15 minutes till bedtime. I mean, no bedtime. It's like, did you learn how to do,.

How to preach a sermon from kid rock? Is that who you learned this from?

Eight o 'clock man is my favorite time of the day. And I mean, 8 PM. But, um, so we were just, I sat down and, uh, we were talking to a grief counselor. My dad had passed away. And so we sat down with the counselor and it's very evident, obviously I need counseling.

So I don't need to go into any of that, but, um, we're sitting down and we started talking about parenting and I said, and I love these kids and everything, but, um, you know, I need some, I need some help.

I need some tips. And she said, well, let me ask you a question. Do you have like a family motto? And I'm like, what do you mean like a motto? And I'm like, yeah, I'm the dad. I brought you into the world.

I can take you out. That's our family motto. And of course, remember God,.

The Holy spirit is the one who laid this message on his heart. So God is the God, the Holy spirit's.

The one who wanted him to tell everybody this. And I'm like, yeah, I'm the dad. I brought you into the world. I can take you out. That's our family motto. That's the family motto. Bill Cosby taught me that one.

Okay. So she's like, well, no, Judah, I was singing something a little bit different. I'm like, but I really liked that one. Can I keep that one too? You know, it's like, yeah, but you need to like, like a motto, like, like, you know, what's the Smiths all about?

I'm like, all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna think about, excuse me, you Chelsea to collaborate and then present the motto to your children. This is what the Smiths are going to be about. And so I thought about all kinds of things to teach my children.

Like the Smiths are about making money and taking care of mom and dad. No, I mean, you know, I didn't say that. So I finally landed on something. And this, this is the family motto. We are Smiths. We are kind and encouraging and we look for lonely people.

So that that's the Smith and nobody clapped, man. I mean, that's, that's the best I got. All right. I'm not going to play the whole.

Thing, but that kind of gives you an idea of what happened last night. And like I said, the gospel made a couple of appearances. You heard one of them. But boy, we, you know, we sure didn't hear about the sufficiency of Jesus, nor were we pointed to his beauty or really taught much about Jesus at all.

But man, we sure did hear a lot about Judah Smith. And again he clearly is not an exegetical prodigy, like far from that, nor is he a model of Christian maturity far from that. And yet he is invited to deliver sermons and keynote addresses at the most prominent and premier seeker driven conference and revival venues he's flown around the world.

So I'm thinking, you know, it's just a theory, but I think there may be something to this theory that there are a group of evangelical power brokers who decide who gets access and exposure to and invited to these premier seeker driven conference slash revival venues.

And they are in the process of making, you know, the next megastar. But these, the one thing that's clear is that these megastars that are out there, they have no preaching ability at all when it comes to actually rightly handling God's word, nor are they mature at all when it comes to like good old Christian maturity.

They are literally immature man boys who spend more time on delivering their jokes than they do in actually studying God's word so that they can properly handle it and exegete it. So why are these man boys being put forward as people we need to be listening to?

He's being flown all over the world like he's a rock star. He's now has a book that's coming out. And my question is why? What on earth has Judah Smith done that is so excellent that he needs to be held up as somebody that people need to be listening to and emulating?

In fact, all I'm hearing from Judah Smith is stuff that you shouldn't be listening to, nor should you be emulating. He's an example by negativity of what you should not be doing. So again, who's responsible for this kid?

Why is he being put forward? Who's putting him forward? I'm thinking that American evangelicalism has some kind of inner sanctum of marketing gurus or whomever who are making decisions and grooming and putting together products, preaching products.

And the product is the person. Judah Smith is one of them. Perry Noble's another. Stephen Furtick's another. Craig Groeschel, Mark Driscoll, guys like that. Because they haven't done anything that merits the amount of influence that they've been given or the money or the book deals, especially in the earliest parts of their career, like here at Judah Smith.

This guy has no skills exegetically, at least none that I've seen. He is somebody who has severe temper problems and has temper tantrums out on the golf course and talks about it publicly as if it's no big deal.

But these are the kinds of things that if your pastor were doing this, okay, if your pastor was known for his explosive temper and throwing golf clubs and stuff like that, dude, don't you think the elders in your congregation might be having a chat with him and maybe considering that maybe we need to uncall this guy or have him move along or get help or something like that?

You understand what I'm saying? So who's making these decisions? Who's pulling these strings? How is it that the church got saddled with this guy as the rock star pastor that everybody's got to be listening to and buying his books and hearing him speak at revivals and stuff like that?

Because I ain't seeing anything that, I mean, really qualifies, I mean, serious. I mean, as somebody who's been teaching in the church for 20 years, I have no clue why anybody would want to listen to any of this pablum.

The job of a pastor is to preach the word and he just, I mean, serious. I mean, if he were in junior high and he were being graded on his sermon and I was the one grading it, he would have gotten a D minus, okay?

And the only thing that would have, the only thing that prevents him from getting an F is the fact that two times the gospel at least showed up. Well, thanks. I appreciate the gospel showing up, being mixed with all kinds of other narcissistic error and some really inappropriate jokes being told by somebody who's supposed to be emulating Christ to us.

Somebody who's supposed to be the model of Christ likeness. Judah Smith is none of that. So again, my question is who is responsible for making the decision to have Judah Smith become, and see that's the thing, he was made just like the Backstreet Boys, okay?

Somebody with power put those people together and spent a lot of time and money marketing them and thankfully there was a lot of junior high girls at the time who were fawning over the pretty boys that they were able to make a lot of money, okay?

I think the same type of formula is occurring here. In fact, I'm like 98 convinced that's exactly what is going on. All right, we're up on our second break. When we come back, we're going to listen to two good sermons by pastors who actually know what they're doing.

Yeah, they're going to preach Christ to us. One from Luke chapter 4, the other from Matthew chapter 9, and they're great. Yeah, just contrast what you just heard to what you're about to hear. It tells the whole story.

All right, stay tuned. We'll be right.

Back. Relevance Schmellevance. We preach Christ crucified for our sins. You're listening to.

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