WWUTT 1475 Responding to J.D. Greear's Pharisee Sermon (Part 2)

There's this approach to ministry that says, if a method works, it's good. If it doesn't work, it's not good.

This is pragmatism, and it causes many to compromise on the gospel, which we must never do when we understand the text.

Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When We Understand the Text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the

Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty. Here's your teacher,

Pastor Gabe. In 1 Corinthians 1, 18 -19, the Apostle Paul said,

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning

I will thwart. This is part two of my critique of J .D. Greer's sermon delivered a few weeks ago at the

Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. Greer likened his opponents to the

Pharisees that Jesus confronted in Matthew 23. But as we examined last week,

Greer never even read from the text that he was teaching from. We'll hear more twisting of the word here in part two.

The sermon was filled with hypocrisy. In the first half, we heard Greer say, We need robust, careful,

Bible -open, on -our -knees discussions about race and justice. While at the same time, he and his camp used their platforms to shut down discussion and made fun of anyone attempting to have a

Biblical discussion. He said, It is clear that as a convention we need to clarify and strengthen our position on critical race theory, yet he and his camp would not allow any resolutions clarifying and strengthening a

Southern Baptist position on critical race theory. This all comes back to the Southern Baptist Convention's long -running affair with pragmatism, which we'll talk about and consider further here in this second half.

As a disclaimer, the transcript of this episode is being published to my blog on July 8th, but the audio is being published to the podcast dated

July 2nd. That's the spot that I had reserved for part two of this review, but I was not able to finish it until about a week later.

As with last time, Greer's comments are in italics, and I will break in with a response. We pick up where we left off at 12 minutes, 22 seconds, according to the timestamp on the video at Lifeway Digital Pass.

Here is Dr. James David Greer continuing to explain how his critics are like the

Pharisees in Matthew 23. Third, Jesus said the Pharisees ignored

God's focus on the outsider. You know, like many of you, I grew up with flannel, flannel -graphed

Jesus. You remember Him? Cutouts of Jesus in various poses that you could insert into different stories.

There was Jesus with a compassionate look in His eye. There was Jesus preaching, Jesus healing. You could insert these various Jesuses into many different stories.

My favorite flannel -graphed Jesus, however, was always Jesus with a bullwhip. But there was only one story that you could insert

Him into, the one where He drove out the money changers. Whenever I heard that story taught, the teacher usually emphasized

Jesus' anger at what the Pharisees were doing.

They were buying and selling in the temple courtyard with the application that the pastor should not be selling his books or the student ministry shouldn't be selling their t -shirts in the church lobby, and that's probably fair.

But perhaps the emphasis in that story ought not to be on Jesus' anger at what they were doing, but His anger at what they were concealing.

Now that's kind of funny, honestly, to hear Greer say that the Pharisees were guilty of concealing something.

There's a lot of concealing going on right now in the SBC, right? Yes, there is. There's a number of different things that this could apply to, but I'm thinking specifically of the plagiarism scandal that's going on.

Current SBC president Ed Litton and at least one other preacher at his church have been caught plagiarizing numerous sermons from J .D.

Greer. When I did part one of my critique, the scandal was still in its infancy.

I'm going to talk about this later on. We're going to wait until the end here. They had set up these tables in the court of the

Gentiles. The court of the Gentiles was the one place where Gentiles were supposed to be able to come and observe worship and learn about the gospel.

My house, Jesus said, my house, as he turned over those tables, my house is to be a house of prayer for all the nations, the ones who don't know me.

No, Jesus was not saying my house was to be a house of prayer for the ones who don't know me.

The temple was not the one place where Gentiles could learn about the gospel.

Yes, they came there to the temple to worship and to pray and to offer sacrifices. But the word of God was preached in every synagogue throughout the

Roman Empire. Acts 1521 says specifically in reference to the Gentiles from ancient generations,

Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him for he has read every

Sabbath in the synagogues. Now, I have listened to many young pastors do sermons for means of critique.

So take this as if I were a teacher lecturing a student. This is such a poor retelling of Jesus cleansing the temple that if I were

Greer's teacher, I would tell him he needs to go open his Bible again and read all the accounts of Jesus cleansing the temple before he writes his sermon.

He's reading from a manuscript, mind you. This is not Greer freestyling. So he has no excuse to get this wrong.

The story of Jesus cleansing the temple with a whip of cords, a bullwhip, as Greer had said, is not in Matthew.

It's only in John. And there, Jesus does not say, my house shall be a house of prayer.

He says in John 2, 16, take these things away. Do not make my father's house a house of trade.

As Greer said, this trade was conducted in the court of the Gentiles. They were selling animals for sacrifices on site so that Jews traveling long distances would not have to bring their animals with them.

Their business favored the Jews and disrupted the worship of non -Jews. But the non -Jews knew

God. That's the whole reason they were there, to worship God. No one came to the temple to worship the

God they did not know. Matthew 21 is about another temple cleansing, which does not mention a whip.

And Jesus' rebuke is different than the cleansing of the temple that is mentioned in John. In verse 13, he said, it is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers.

Mark 11, 17 adds, my house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations. In both temple cleansings, whether the first in John or the second chronologically, as told in Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus drove out the merchants and the money changers to purify the worship in God's temple.

As it says in John, zeal for my father's house has consumed me.

God is holy, and so worship unto God is to be holy. This was in fulfillment of what was prophesied.

In Malachi and in Zechariah, we read in Zechariah 14, 21, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holy to the

Lord of hosts, and there shall no longer be a trader in the house of the

Lord of hosts on that day. Greer's understanding of the text is obscured by his pragmatism, which is influencing so many

Southern Baptist churches for years, and it was on full display at SBC 21. I'll explain what

I mean here in a moment. Listen to what Greer says next. The Pharisees had obscured the portal for the outsider with conveniences for the insider.

They had forgotten that they were to live out their worship in a way that made the gospel accessible and attractive to outsiders.

So according to Greer, what made the Pharisees wrong was that they were not living out their worship in a way that made the gospel accessible and attractive to outsiders.

Is that what the Bible says? Where in Scripture are we instructed to do that? Rather, what we read in 1

Corinthians 1, 22 -24 is this, for Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach

Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.

But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

That sounds quite the opposite of making the gospel accessible and attractive to outsiders, doesn't it?

There are books written about how to attract people to your church. The hallmark is the

Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren. One of the models Warren presents is the attractive church model, encouraging churches to have a style that attracts people from the community.

This is why modern praise music is largely performance -based and sounds more like a concert than congregational worship.

The songs are even in keys that the average person can't sing, but the lead singer sure sounds good.

The lights are bright on stage but low over the audience. Also, the pastor is dressed like we're supposed to go see a movie with him rather than standing behind a pulpit and declaring the scriptures and exhorting with all authority, as it says in Titus 2 .15.

Recently, Nathaniel Jolly, a pastor friend of mine in Alaska, was rejected by NAMM, the

North American Missions Board. One of the critiques that NAMM gave him was that he wears a suit and a tie when he preaches, which according to NAMM, displays that Nathaniel is out of touch with the people around him.

It seems some of Nathaniel's theological convictions may be hindering his contextual engagement, they said.

Even down to what he wears does not seem to fit the people that are around him."

Now, according to Nathaniel, no one from NAMM who did his assessment lives in Alaska, so how do they know what fits the people around him?

Their gurus have a certain pragmatic model that they follow, and Nathaniel did not fit their model.

Pragmatism means that if the method works, it's good. If we do something to attract people into the church and the people come, that's an effective attractional strategy.

By that same extension, if it's something that turns people off or drives them away, then it's not good.

But if it means more memberships, more baptisms, more decisions for Christ, then the ends justify the means.

What might be the dangers to that kind of approach? Well, if there are any hard truths or difficult subjects or disagreeable doctrines, we tend to avoid those things so not to offend anyone and push them away.

Worse than this, a church may be tempted to compromise the gospel itself and make it into something more socially appealing.

Remember the example that I gave last time from Dehati Lewis of NAMM, who is influenced by the pragmatism of the social justice movement.

He said that the gospel, quote, falls short of offering emotional, economic, and social restoration.

Paul told Timothy to avoid those who have the appearance of godliness but deny its power, 2nd

Timothy 3 .5. Pragmatism is antithetical to evangelism, for pragmatism denies the power of the gospel to convert sinners and instead relies on appeal.

As I've heard Paul Washer say, if you use carnal means to win people, it will require carnal means to keep them there.

Church is not for unbelievers. You labor to reach unbelievers through evangelism, the church going out into the world and preaching the gospel.

The church gathering is for believers. More than this, it's for God.

When we gather for worship in the church, our audience is not the world, our audience is

God. The Bible says, the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

Once again, 1st Corinthians 1 .18. If you want to compromise the gospel, strive to make it accessible and attractive to outsiders.

What does that look like today? It might look like us not considering how outsiders perceive our statements and resolutions.

Hey, let's be clear, we don't ever bend the truth to please anybody, for if we sought to please men, we would not be the servants of Christ.

But sometimes in our haste to condemn our society's answers, we ignore the legitimacy of their questions.

I got many lost friends, many lost friends who approach politics and life very differently than me, who are genuinely concerned about the suffering of the poor.

They are burdened by the denigration of immigrants and refugees in our social discourse.

They are heartbroken over the damages that years of slavery and discrimination have left in the

African American community. Why wouldn't we want to go out of our way to affirm the validity of those questions even in places where we differ with their answers?

If you're confused as to what Greer is getting at, here it is in fewer words. Greer is saying that a person should be able to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris or any other

Democrat and not be told by the church that was a godless decision. He won't say that outright because he knows he's speaking to a room in which 85 % of those in attendance voted for Trump last

November. Greer is heavily influenced by Tim Keller, who has said that the sanctity of human life and the definition of marriage are primarily

Republican issues, whereas caring for the poor and social justice are

Democrat issues. Listen here. The political polarization that's happening now is a major challenge for churches because here's my reading of the

Bible. My reading of the Bible says that Christians ought to be sold out for racial justice, that all races are equal, all in the image of God.

They should be deeply concerned about the poor and the marginalized. They should be pro -life, and they should believe, at least for Christians, that the sex should only be between a man and a woman in marriage.

Okay? Now, those four things, the early church was marked by them. We know that.

Okay. Two of those look very conservative. Two of those look very liberal.

And so right now what's happening is since those four things are never combined in any political party, they're not combined in any other institution other than Catholic social teaching and, you know, biblical

Christianity. And so what happens is there's enormous pressure, enormous pressure everywhere in the country for churches to major in two of them and get quiet about two of them.

So in New York, huge pressure for the churches in New York City to talk about racial justice and caring about the poor.

Everybody applauds, but if you say we're pro -life or we think sex should be only between a man and woman in marriage, people are going to pick at you.

Yeah. I would say in the middle of Alabama, if an evangelical pastor starts to preach about all four of those things, a lot of the people are going to get nervous about the racial justice and poverty thing and say, that sounds kind of liberal.

That sounds kind of like, you know, wait a minute, what are you doing here? And so I don't know anywhere where it seems to me that there's a kind of red evangelicalism and a blue evangelicalism.

And almost everywhere I see people like play up two of those and play down two of those. Now, I hope you can identify the logic problems with the argument that Tim Keller was presenting here.

The Republican Party is not running on some kind of platform that's racist or opposed to justice, whereas the

Democrat Party is running on a platform that is enthusiastically and unashamedly advancing the slaughter of millions of unborn children and pushing a sexual revolution so perverse,

Sodom and Gomorrah would blush. Advocating for the life of an unborn child in the womb is not a political issue.

Opposing the LGBTQ agenda, which wants to indoctrinate your children and convince boys they can become girls.

That is not a political issue. These are moral issues. The Democrat Party is not only sold out to the abortion and LGBTQ agendas, they want to force the church to bow the knee to these agendas.

They are godless. This is an affront to a holy God. You cannot consistently be a

Christian and vote Democrat. Now, I believe that J .D. Greer is pro -life and that he has a biblical view of marriage.

I also happen to know he voted for Trump in 2020. But pragmatism overshadows his convictions, causing him to view both political parties with a certain neutrality, as if there is a fair balance of pluses and minuses between the two.

And that's just not true. The Democrats are far, far more evil than the

Republicans. As I wrote about last year, the Democrat Party hates family. They hate marriage.

They hate children. They hate that God has made male and female. And they hate

God himself. When we do evangelism, we tell worldly people that they've been made in the image of a holy

God, but they've desecrated that image with their sin. Show them their sin according to what the

Bible says, and then tell them there is forgiveness for sins by faith in Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for us as an atoning sacrifice, so that all who believe in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.

You don't do anyone any favors by telling worldly people you can vote Democrat and still honor

God. The court of the Gentiles must be kept clear so that the Gentiles have as few obstacles as possible in hearing the gospel.

In everything we do, we're thinking not only about making our position clear. We're also thinking about building bridges to them.

One more here. Fourth, the Pharisees said Jesus loved the places of honor. They loved the praise of men.

Oops, that was a mistake there. Did you catch what he said? He said the Pharisees said

Jesus loved the places of honor. The Pharisees did not say Jesus loved the places of honor.

Jesus said the Pharisees loved the places of honor. Matthew 23 6. Power was something that you should obtain and then hold on to.

Listen, I want to say this as clearly as I can. When some say that a call to lay down our rights, privileges, and power for the benefit of others is adrift from the mission, then

I think we have very different understandings of the mission. J .D.

Greer served three years as Southern Baptist Convention president. A presidential term is typically two years.

He got an extra year because the annual meeting was canceled in 2020 due to COVID. That would have been a perfect opportunity for him to step aside and let

Vice President Marshall Osbery, who is a black man, serve as president. That would show that Greer not only calls people to lay down their rights, privileges, and power, he models it.

Now, while the annual meeting did not happen, the executive committee did meet, where Mike Stone stepped aside as chairman of the executive committee for the vice chairman,

Roland Slade, who became the first African -American to chair the executive committee. Those who are woke talk a big game about giving up privilege and power, but who is actually modeling it?

Regarding Greer's statement that we have different understandings of the mission, over the course of these two sermon critiques, it should be clear that we certainly have different understandings of what the

Bible says, how to teach it, and how to apply it. Furthermore, because of their love of power, the

Pharisees were willing to entertain gossip and slander about those who threatened their places of power, including

Jesus. They slandered Him because He threatened them and, and they clothed all of their slander in the garments of theological rectitude.

They used concern over theological rectitude to cloak divisive, self -promoting spirits. Jesus called them whitewashed tombs, squeaky clean on the outside, but filled with dead men's bones on the inside.

Listen, I'm not saying this only to you. I'm saying this to all of us, okay? Have we heard anything self -deprecating in this sermon so far?

He's only going after one side, and it's, it's not the side he's on. The slander, the distortion, the character assassinations and baseless accusations that many of our leaders have had to undergo is reprehensible.

I know I have personally been accused of some of the most malicious things. I could go on for hours here, but.

Me too. Hey, if you want to go through slander, distortion, character assassinations and baseless, baseless accusations,

I can give you my list from just the past week. It's part of the job, especially if you're going to have any kind of public platform.

Now, this segment of his sermon is almost verbatim what he said to the executive committee back in February.

There's no reason to go over that again. It was covered by everyone from the Baptist Press to the

Washington Post to the Religious News Service, who, by the way, reported that Greer likened his critics to Pharisees.

That's how they summarized his sermon, that he was going after the people who disagreed with him. Rather than going over this again, let me jump forward a few minutes to a particular line here.

And listen, I know this is something to describe everybody. It's not even the majority. So there he says that these baseless accusations are not the majority.

When he shared this with the executive committee, he said, quote, These kinds of accusations have become the norm for many of our leaders, and the result has been a breakdown of partnerships and whole segments of our convention that feel unwelcome.

So are these accusations from the fringe or are they the norm? As we go on, the confusion continues.

I got asked in an interview what my biggest surprise has been as president. I asked the interviewer, I said, positive or negative?

Shrugged his shoulders. He said, give me both. I said, my biggest positive surprise is how unified rank and file Baptists are on the primacy of the

Great Commission. Them, you, you who took the time to come to Nashville, you're not obsessing over secondary divisions.

You want to see us focus on the main thing. You want us to be busy with evangelism and church planning. In my travels across this country as your president,

I have been overwhelmed by the unity of rank and file Baptists who just want to be a part of a convention that is focused on doing whatever it takes to reach a new generation.

They're repulsed by the idea of sexual abuse happening in our churches, and they are even more repulsed by the idea that anybody might cover it up to protect their reputation.

I've been amazed. I've been amazed at how unified Baptist across America in big cities and small towns are on these things.

This is such a strange observation. Greer is surprised at how rank and file

Baptist, your friendly neighborhood Southern Baptist. He's surprised at how unified they are in wanting to evangelize the lost, and they're repulsed by sexual abuse and those who try to cover it up.

He's surprised by this. Friends, I would be astonished if I went anywhere and found even one

Southern Baptist who doesn't think we should evangelize the lost and is not disgusted by sexual abuse.

The negative surprise is how loud those are, who would keep us divided on these things, who would have us remain more a cultural affinity group and an institution protector and a political voting bloc than it would a gospel people.

The loudness of their voices on social media have made me truly apprehensive going into some places, afraid of what

I was going to find there. Only to find out when I got there that both pastors and lay people there were unified in their desire to be gospel above all and great commission

Baptist and to keep the main thing, the main thing. Okay. So it really sounds like he's just spending too much time on social media, or maybe he's spending too much time listening to the media.

If he's surprised to find Baptist unified in evangelism and opposed to sexual abuse, and he's apprehensive of going into places because he's afraid of what he's going to find there, then he's reading too much

Twitter or he's reading too many articles from the Washington Post Houston Chronicle in the religious news service.

In January, Joe Biden was inaugurated as president of the United States. His vice president was

Kamala Harris, one of the most godless persons ever to hold higher office, pushing a very pro abortion and LGBTQ agenda.

Even CBS said she was the most liberal U .S. Senator, according to her voting record.

Yet many Christians celebrated her inauguration because she's a woman of color.

It was in response to this outpouring of admiration that our pastor

Tom Buck tweeted the following on January 22nd. I can't imagine any truly

God fearing Israelite who would have wanted their daughters to view Jezebel as an inspirational role model because she was a woman in power, unquote.

A reporter from The Washington Post said that Tom had called Kamala a Jezebel, which was a racial slur.

The religious news service ran with that, too. Then J .D. Greer got on Twitter and made a comment about it being a racist comment, calling it a personal attack on a newly elected official and labeling it sin.

Greer never called Tom to find out if what was being reported was true.

This further exacerbated the antagonism that we received at our church for weeks.

The nasty phone calls, the emails, even postcards we got in the mail for a time.

We had to take our contact info off of our website until the nonsense died down. The online media mob

Greer is calling out. He's part of it. Greer has contributed to this problem, but I don't hear any personal remorse in his words.

He's saying it's all those guys over there who have made me truly apprehensive.

This is like a fourth grader getting in trouble for bullying other kids on the playground and telling the teacher, well, they made me do it.

Or maybe it's maybe it's more like Adam saying to God, the woman you gave here to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate out of Genesis 312.

Do you remember the Covington High School debacle that happened in Washington, D .C.? This was back in January of 2019.

A video went viral of a Native American man named Nathan Phillips beating a drum and coming face to face with a high school kid in a red hat that said, make

America great again. That kid's name was Nick Sandman, who had a smile on his face in the midst of what was a very awkward, intense scenario.

Of course, the mainstream media narrative had been framing Donald Trump as a racist, as well as the white evangelical base that voted for him.

So Sandman in a MAGA hat was portrayed in the media as a smug bigot.

And even many Christians ate this up, including J .D.

Greer, who retweeted a statement saying this is hate and affirming it by saying, truly,

Karen Swallow Pryor, a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, said that Nick Sandman made her sick to her stomach.

Thabiti Anuabuile, a Southern Baptist pastor in D .C., said that Sandman displayed racist incivility.

Ed Stetzer, Russell Moore, and Ray Ortlin either contributed to the vitriol or encouraged those who did.

Beth Moore made the most scathing comment of all when she said, to glee in dehumanizing any person is so utterly antichrist it reeks of the vomit of hell.

She eventually deleted her comment, but she never apologized for it. This was all because Nicholas Sandman was a white kid in a

MAGA hat. He was not a bigot. But everyone who reacted to Sandman this way, who made a publicly condemning judgment against a smiling teenager in a red hat, they were the true bigots.

If you know the story, then you know that Sandman filed suit against CNN, which settled for $275 million.

Now, here's Greer standing at the Southern Baptist Convention two and a half years later in Nashville, admonishing an online media mob that he's part of.

Yes, at the start of the sermon, he said, I see some of these qualities present in me also. Well, if he truly understands that, then he needs to own it.

He needs to put himself forward as an example and say, here is where I have gone wrong, too.

I was weak in my flesh. I bought into the narrative and I sinned.

And by the grace of God, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention didn't get sued for $275 million.

I don't think Greer understands how condescending he comes across, but that's what we experienced at SBC 21.

My friend Adam Page observed that pragmatism leads to one, thinking everyone is stupid and two, inability at sincerity and authenticity.

When you take a pragmatic approach to doing church, you don't listen to real people as much as you listen to what the numbers and the experts and the media say about those people.

As I said last week, if I acted in front of my church like Greer and James Merritt and some of these guys acted in front of the convention,

I'd either get fired or the people in my congregation would stop giving their money or they'd leave.

And we might find out how true that is of the Southern Baptist Convention as well. I'll tell you this, and I can say this and I would challenge anybody who would say this is inaccurate.

Great commission Baptists are, in large part, ready to walk into the future. But we are spending way too much time ripping each other apart or listening to those who are brothers and sisters.

Let's just call it what it is. These things are demonic. Would J .D.

Greer be willing to confess that he participated in this demonism and apologize for it?

Thus far, he's shown no willingness to do so. It would be like someone singing Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like you.

But I'm not that bad. You're demonic. Not me. I'm not demonic. That's not my word.

James, the half -brother of Jesus, said this, James 3, 14. If you have bitter envy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be boastful and deny the truth.

Such wisdom does not come down from above, even if it's doctrinally correct.

No, no, no. That wisdom is earthly, unspiritual and demonic. For where there is envy and selfish ambition, there will be also disorder and wickedness of every kind.

But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.

The harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.

You know, we're nearly 22 minutes into this message, and this is the first and only chapter and verse reference that Greer makes in the entire sermon.

It is the only place he actually reads and shares a biblical text.

And he's twisting it to say this is for thee, but not for me. By the way, we don't actually know that Greer wrote this sermon.

I said I would come back to addressing the current plagiarism scandal. Greer has been caught giving his sermons to Ed Litton, who has preached them verbatim, even making

Greer's personal experience stories his own. And this has been going on for years. A television station in Mobile, where Litton is pastor, interviewed

Litton and asked him about the plagiarism scandal. Listen to this. Litton is also seeing how brutal things can be as the leader of the largest

Protestant group. Less than two weeks after becoming president, you've been charged with plagiarism.

Allegations Litton lifted passages in sermons from his predecessor at the convention, J .D. Greer. In a statement,

Litton said he had permission from Greer to use those passages and Greer agreed. And where did the where did those charges come from?

Do you know? I mean, no, they're unnamed. That's part of the problem. Right. So unnamed sources have have are presenting these things, which should make everybody take a pause.

No, they're not unnamed sources. Folks, I was one of the first to point out the plagiarism.

I said that a listener named Jacob sent me a video showing Litton plagiarizing J .D.

Greer, and I posted the video. I put my name on it. Dozens of other videos have since surfaced and plenty of others have put their names on it.

This is just an outright lie. He's refusing to address the charge and shifting the blame to the people who are pointing out that the emperor has no clothes.

Ed Litton is lying through his teeth, as he has been doing to his church for years.

Greer admitted that he's contributed to this. He gave his sermons to Litton to use.

Now, there's reason to believe that much of what Greer has preached has come from a company called Docent Research Group, of whom

Greer is a client. But he has not yet responded to the accusation or clarified just how much of his sermons were written by the researchers at Docent.

See, no one even really needs to know their own congregations anymore. And honestly, in a megachurch, they probably don't know their congregations.

This is why they don't think it's bad to plagiarize or have someone else write your sermons. Just follow the trends.

Follow the stats. If it works, it's good. As I shared in a recent article by Toby Smith, sermon plagiarism is always wrong and never right.

And those who do it are being deceptive, lazy, or both. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.

This is what the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4, 2 through 3. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word.

But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

That just doesn't fit a pragmatic approach. Who will hold these men accountable for this pattern of lies, theft, and deception?

Consider what Greer says next. I want you to notice that the difference in the wisdom from above and the wisdom from below is not its content.

It is its posture, its disposition. When you see selfish ambition, jealousy, deceit, slander, you know that you are encountering the wisdom from below regardless of the theological garb that it is cloaked in.

Satan is a liar, and when he cannot destroy the church from without, he capitalizes on the sin within.

It was Pharisees in their theological rectitude, not the liberals, who led in the crucifixion of our

Lord. So, yes, the danger of liberalism is real, but the danger of Phariseeism is also.

Friend, we cannot, we cannot, we must not go that direction. No further comment.

Heavenly Father, we ask for your mercy upon us. Grant us repentance and help us to put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander.

Like newborn infants, may we long for the pure spiritual milk that by it we may grow up into salvation, if indeed we have tasted that the

Lord is good. Thank you for giving your Son, Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins and rose from the grave for our justification, is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, where he is our advocate before the

Father. By faith we have been forgiven, saved from the wrath of God, and have been made sons and daughters of the

Most High God. Lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake. Give us the courage to share the good news of Jesus Christ with a crooked and depraved generation, in which we shine as lights in the world.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web and we thank you for selecting ours, but this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

Find a good, Gospel -teaching, Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend and join us again Monday for more