A Grave Disappointment

The assembly at which we’ve been attending for the past three years was chosen by us due to what we knew about the Pastor’s teachings and the leadership philosophy.  While the teaching and corporate worship there is usually good, there are times when I can really get irritated.

The first issue is the music leader’s choices of songs.  It was originally looking like we were getting at least 50/50 between old hymns and new songs, but I’m thinking now that we get 25% solid-meat hymns and 75% spiritual junk food.  What is worse is that he chooses too much from Hillsong, totally disregarding what I’ve told him about the origin of this stuff (and we had another one this week). When we are singing the newer stuff, the volume seems be louder and the band provides way too much drum, so that you can barely hear the congregation singing.  When we use the older stuff, the pianist or organist play, with a substantially lower volume, and we can actually hear the congregation singing!!

The second issue came in the form of a sermon this week.  Our Lead Pastor and Youth Pastor are both gone this week so we had a replacement speaker who was already scheduled to talk about the ministry he and his family are about to embark on: church planting in Europe. This couple had their normal ministry time and then he later came up for the sermon.

Ir was the worst exposition of Scripture I’ve ever heard outside of the cults!  The referenced text was Revelation 5; this had been read to the congregation right after the collecting of the offering and before the song before the sermon. 

So, the “preacher” began by saying that John asked who was worthy to open the scroll; which my wife and I immediately recognized as an error because verse 2 plainly states that it was an angel who asked the question, and it was John who wept because no one was worthy.  SO, I began taking some notes, which is something I don’t usually do for sermons.  Throughout his message he continued to say John asked the question!!

This preacher then went on and on about how everyone wants to be worthy of something, that we want to have it all, to be enlightened, but no one is worthy — and he didn’t even say why!!! But he brought in stories from Plato, and books, and lyrics from songs, etc, to demonstrate how everyone wants to be enlightened but no one is ever worthy.

Next, he talked about a movie he had recently watched on Netflix about Benedict Arnold.  He discussed how Arnold was an excellent general who was seeking “it all” and so became a traitor.  He then said that the movie talked about how beautiful his wife was and how Arnold used that to advance in his career.  Well, we all know Hollywood likes to play with history so I had to wonder if they added to the real history that Arnold used his wife for advancement (to be “enlightened”), and I also wondered what this had to do with the Revelation 5 passage!

Then came the preacher’s use of a passage in Ecclesiastes which showed the futility of life; he said Ecclesiastes was “written by Solomon or maybe it was just written about him.”  The man had a question as to whether Solomon was the author of if the book was written by someone else to teach about Solomon! So what other parts of Scripture should we question as regards to authors?!?

More references to movies were made, including the series “Lord of the Rings.” He was discussing Rev. 5:6 and how John said Jesus looked like a lamb who had been slain.  Then he said that, just as at the end of the LOR series Frodo was limping, and that this made him more worthy (worthy of what?), so the disfigurement of Jesus made him more worthy (and he also praised the Catholic doctrine movie “The Passion of the Christ”).  I immediately had the desire to ask, “How could the son of God, God in the flesh, ever be made more worthy?!?!" But I controlled myself.

As the preacher moved to verse 6, he stated that the four living creatures did a “face plant” before Jesus — he didn’t even mention the 24 elders doing the same thing!  But my issue was his flippancy about how they fell down in worship — a “face plant.” He then pointed to other passages in Scripture where people did a “face plant” before God.

The he began to get to the point of his whole sermon: “And they sang a new song.”  It seems the church he wants to plant will be named “New Song” and he based it on this passage. Oh, the eisegesis which followed!  He said that this passage showed that Jesus wanted us to open a scroll and write a new song. Seriously!  I tried to find the passage saying this but couldn’t find it in the Bible, let alone in Revelation.  He also said that the “new song” was because Jesus opened the scroll, but Jesus didn’t open the scroll until the next chapter!  The singing was because Jesus was found to be worthy to open the scroll!

Then there was reference to a Monty Python movie, a movie which he said most of us had probably seen (I didn’t?), but I totally missed his point there because I was taking notes instead of paying attention.  But the next thing I knew was that the preacher said that Jesus told the living creatures to sing, but again I couldn’t find this anywhere in the passage.

This preacher also said that Revelation 5 is saying that God wants a new song!!  He pointed out how God sang in Zephaniah 3:17, and that God’s singing has more of a military flavor, and that God’s song wouldn’t be like a hymn or a modern worship song, rather it would be like “Metallica”!  I found that to be rather blasphemous. The whole theme seemed to be an appeal to emotions, and that we should have a very emotional time singing.

The lesson we were to take away was that we were to open our own scrolls and write a song praising God, and that if we prayed to God, He would guide our hands.

The preacher ended by giving an emotional reading of the lyrics from “Worthy,” a song by his favorite Christian “rap” band, Beautiful Eulogy. (Personally, I think “rap music” is an oxymoron.)

When he stepped down from the pulpit a large percentage of the congregation applauded!!!!!! These people have never applauded the meat from our pastors (no, don’t I think applause is appropriate), yet they applauded the tripe from this man!!!!  Seems to me there were few discerning people in that “audience”! 

All I can say is, if this is the type of stuff he plans on teaching when planting a church, he will end up with a poorly discipled congregation who is all about emotion rather than the meat of the Scripture.

Here is the lesson I want my readers to take away from this article: NEVER accept as true everything taught from the pulpit, just because it is from the pulpit.  Use discernment no matter who is teaching, never turn off your brain just because you are in church.