The sermon warns against Bethel and Hillsong movements, emphasizing the critical importance of the sufficiency of Scripture in church life. It argues that Hillsong and Bethel, through their practices and music, illustrate a departure from biblical orthodoxy, driven by pragmatism and creativity rather than scriptural authority. Hillsong is criticized for promoting a form of the prosperity gospel and an unregulated worship atmosphere, while Bethel is labeled as a heretical cult with dangerous teachings, such as the Canonic Christology and a distorted view of the Holy Spirit. The sermon cautions against supporting these movements through their music, which is seen as a gateway into their broader theological errors.

Well, we this afternoon want to sound a bit of a warning on what really is the matter that most warnings ought to be issued, and it's on the matter of the sufficiency of Scripture. The battle lines for the purity of the church almost always fall on the lines of the sufficiency of Scripture. You might think, well, what about the authority of Scripture? Yes, that's true, that too. However, it can be the case where you have people who embrace on paper the authority of Scripture, but they don't embrace the sufficiency of Scripture.

In other words, that Scripture is all we need for church life. And so, as a result of a rejection of the sufficiency of Scripture, we have all kinds of manifestations, aberrations, that really are the inventions of man in the worship of God. So when you when you embrace the idea that scripture is not sufficient, then man is sufficient, and man can create any kind of church he wants to. Another way to say it is, if you believe that only God can regulate the worship of God, then it implicitly eliminates the creativity of man. John Knox said that The creativity of man in the worship of God is idolatry, because only God can determine what should happen in worship.

So but what we have today is an age of creativity, and people are playing with the church as a result of their own understandings, as their own understanding of what works, which really lays on the foundation not of the sufficiency of Scripture, but rather pragmatism. Pragmatism is the philosophy that whatever works is right. And so marketers and social technicians can figure out how things can work right. There are really a few things that you have to do to grow very, very large churches and very large organizations that come from the brain of man. One of the realities that we have to face is that if you say that Scripture is not sufficient, if you say that God is not the only one who can regulate worship.

What are you left with? Well, you're left with man. And if you reject the idea that only God can regulate the worship of God, what you end up with is that the church is subject to the next most creative, most vocal, most forceful, most interesting, most fascinating, best leader communicator around. And churches will rise to the level of that man rather than be regulated to the level of the Word of God. So this is always the danger of the church.

I think the battles over the purity of the church over the last decades have all centered on the matter of whether only God can regulate worship. So as a result, there are many movements around us that really reject the idea that only God can regulate worship. They fall along the lines of learning the ways of the Gentiles. I was just reading in Jeremiah last month, and over and over again, Jeremiah is warning the people about entering into the customs of the nations. And he repeats it over and over again in the book of Jeremiah.

That was the problem with Israel. They had rejected the regular principle of God, and they looked to the nations and the things that worked well with the nations. So with that as a background, there are movements afoot today that we want to say are dangerous. They're dangerous for the church. Those Two of the most popular movements that we want to identify today are named by Bethel Music and Hillsong.

And we want to really sound a warning. I'll say a little bit more about this after Robert kind of walks us through the theological and some of the ecclesiological footprints of these two movements. But we want to warn you, we really do. And so There are three parts to this. First of all, I wanted to give a brief introduction.

Then Robert is gonna come to give the meeting, then I wanna come back and do a summary statement. So Robert, if you could come up. Okay, thank you for laying that foundation. So we're primarily, as our elder said, talking about the two movements that go by the name Hillsong and Bethel. These are two churches, loosely using that word, that have massive influence in the broader evangelical Christian world, primarily through their use of music and social media and things like that.

So why do we want to bring this up? One, because these two groups are so massively influential. You go to almost any evangelical church and they will be singing songs coming out of Hillsong and Bethel. And there are other groups we can throw in there too, Elevation Worship, Jesus Culture, things like that that are, doctrinally also have issues, but these two are kind of the flagships for this movement. The problem is both of these groups are unorthodox at best.

Their theology is truly dangerous, and that comes out in their practices and it can affect their music that they create and promote and their music is often it's somewhat of a gateway drug into the wider movement as a whole. And these two movements really almost create sort of a case study of what happens when you reject the sufficiency of scripture. One, on one hand you have a movement that runs off into the prosperity gospel heresy, or a form of it, and the other into a signs and wonders cult. And so I'm gonna take a few minutes and look at these two different groups. So first I'm gonna talk about Hillsong.

So what is Hillsong? So Hillsong is a church that has its origin in Australia. It's also a brand with several different music groups and genres. They have children's music, they have contemporary worship music, they have a whole variety of products that they push. This is a church that began as part of the Australian branch of the Assemblies of God.

It is now a fully fledged denomination. They separated from the AOG in 2018 and have essentially become a denomination to themselves. They were for many years styling themselves as a multi-site church, which there are enough issues with that. But they took it a step further and have now formed their own denomination, essentially, not just in Australia, but worldwide. The leaders, the lead pastors are Brian and Bobby Houston.

Bobby is Brian's wife, and so there, right off the bat, we have a rejection of a biblical complementarianism. That is, that should be a sign. When your lead pastors are husband and his wife, there are issues. I think it's safe to say we'll never see our pastors wise as lead pastors here. I think that's a pretty safe bet.

As of right now, over 100,000 people attend churches in Hillsong locations around the world any given Sunday. It has over 80 churches, branches worldwide, and of those 100,000, about 40,000, so a little less than half actually attend in Australia. Again, this was a part of the Assemblies of God, so it comes from a charismatic Pentecostal holiness background. Now, officially, Hillsong as a denomination, as a group, is still standing against the LGBT and sexual revolution. They have published statements that they do not affirm gay marriage, they believe homosexuality is sinful, and so on and so forth.

However, there have been indications of a softening in this stance over the years. A few years ago, I believe it was 2015, one of the lead pastors at Hillsong, New York City, Carl Lentz, created a bit of a firestorm in social media when it was discovered that two members of the worship team there were a gay couple. Again, part of the abandonment of Scripture is a bad ecclesiology, a bad understanding of what the church is and how the church works. I think it is indefensible for you to say, well, we can have unbelievers in our music team. And this isn't even an issue of is worship team, choir, whatever.

We're not talking about music styles. Should unbelievers be directing the worship of God's people? This is a simple question that anyone who accepts the sufficiency and authority of scripture does say, well, no, of course not. But they had a homosexual couple in their worship team, which after that creative firestorm in social media, they actually removed them to save face. So theologically, doctrinally, Hillsong teaches a low-grade form of the prosperity gospel.

It's not as in your face as the Benny Hens and Creflo Dollars of the world, but it is essentially the same theology. In fact, just yesterday I listened to part of a sermon by Brian Houston. I do this so you don't have to. I listened to part of it and it was point by point prosperity theology about God is promising to bring rain and he was all over the place. Basically he did a word search on rain in the Bible and was using rain as a metaphor for wealth and prosperity and these things.

And it was just a complete abuse of scripture. And this is not a one-off thing. This is a consistent pattern in the teaching of this denomination, is a form of the prosperity gospel. They also, being part of the Pentecostal and Charismatic tradition, they do have an emphasis on signs and wonders. They do believe they are continuations.

They are Charismatics. They believe the spiritual gifts are still active today and to be expected for the full Christian life. So if you are not engaged in these things, there's something wrong with you. That would be their theology on the Holy Spirit. And their worship services have no regulation whatsoever.

They will engage in all sorts of skits and plays and bringing in all sorts of things as entertainment. I've seen videos of them having a Star Wars day at their church. That you will have all sorts of insanity at these places, because there is no desire to regulate worship according to the word of God. Their worship services are largely fueled by a desire to have an emotional experience, a desire to feel good, and with minimal exposition of scripture and no clear doctrinal direction whatsoever. The Bible is used to proof text points that the pastor wants to make.

He's not there to exposit what God has actually said. And this often will come across in their music as well. If you listen to much of Hillsong's music, it may sound nice but it's saying nothing. And this is not a contemporary Christian music is bad perspective. That's not what I'm coming from.

This is what is being taught. Music is teaching, we understand that, right? We are to teach one another by singing. And you're not teaching one another if there's nothing really being said in the song. It's emptiness that goes to the ceiling and no further.

It does nothing for you. And so This shallow, emotional-driven experience, it really impacts people. There was in August a man who, I'm not sure if he still is, but at least at the time, he was one of the main songwriters for Hillsong Music, and he posted on social media how he was losing his faith. Let me bring this up. So he said he's genuinely losing his faith.

He posted this on Instagram. And this is a window into what happens when a church abandons the importance of theology, abandons the importance of doctrine, of teaching the Bible, as well as understanding where you fit in the history of redemption. We are not the first generation to do this. There have been those who have come before and all these things should ground us in our faith and there are answers to the problems. But I'm going to read this.

This is his post on on Instagram he said this is a soapbox moment so here I go how many preachers fall many no one talks about it really how many miracles happen not many no one talks about it Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it. How can God be loved, yet send four billion people to a place, all because they don't believe, but no one talks about it? I'm sorry, but that's revealing your ignorance. If you really think no one talks about these things, I mean, we've, the church has been in existence for 2,000 years, we've touched on these issues once or twice.

This is basic rootedness in Scripture and church history and this is why these things are important and yet Hillsong because it's a brand, a corporation more than anything, they minimize these things, and the result is deadly to souls. So that's Hillsong. Out of the two, out of Hillsong and Bethel, Concerning everything I just said, Hillsong is the less dangerous. Keep that in mind, considering everything I just said. So Bethel.

Bethel is a church in Reading, California. This is a charismatic mega church. It was initially established in 1954. It also began as an Assemblies of God church. It separated in 2006 and is technically a non-denominational church.

And they are currently led by their lead pastor, Bill Johnson. And it has grown to approximately 9,000 people attending every Sunday. So this is not a small church. This is a mega church. Their music brand has, similarly to Hillsong, exploded across the world.

It is being used in churches all over the planet. Their music is. And I do not say this lightly. If you know me at all, you know I don't use strong language like this very much, but Bethel is a heretical cult. Their leaders, especially men like Bill Johnson and Chris Vallatin, have an almost untouchable status.

You cannot criticize, touch not the Lord's anointed, because that's what that verse means. But Bill Johnson is seen as an apostle in a literal sense. They believe he is an apostle. They are part of what's called the New Apostolic Reformation, which is a loose organization of charismatic and Pentecostal type churches that believe that we are in a reviving and a reestablishment of the apostles and prophets from the early church. So Bill Johnson speaks with the authority as if he were Paul or Peter.

So you do not question him. The Bethel as really the flagship of the NAR movement, New Apostolic Reformation, has taken part in a Bible. I don't even want to call it a translation, but it's called the Passion Translation. First of all, it's not a translation. It is a mess.

If anyone's ever read the message Bible, it's a paraphrase, the message is better than this, okay? So if you have to read a bad Bible, read the message, okay? Don't read either, but the Passion translation is an abuse of scripture. It adds their doctrines in. It is intended to be a sectarian false Bible used to promote their theology.

And it is the primary Bible used at Bethel Redding. And they are part of those who have developed and promoted it. Bill Johnson himself, the pastor of Bethel, he has openly promoted heretical doctrine, openly and unrepentantly. Two points that I want to cover here on his heretical theology. He has advocated a heretical Christology, the doctrine of Christ, and a heretical pneumatology, Doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

So as for Christology, he is a proponent of what's called the Canonic Christology or Kinoesys theory. Kinoesys comes from the Greek word Kinao, which is present in Philippians chapter 2. If you read Philippians chapter 2, I believe it's verse 5 or 6, Paul says that Christ emptied himself, or I think the New King James says he made himself of no reputation. That translates the form of the verb cannot, an emptying or a lessening, a pouring out. Cognetic Christology or the Knosis theory says that Jesus in the Incarnation not only laid aside his glory and his divine attributes, or the prerogative to use his divine attributes, he laid aside his deity itself.

So that in the incarnation, Jesus was not fully God. That is what that essentially means. He was God in the past. In the incarnation, he lays aside his deity, and then in the resurrection or the ascension, he reassumes his deity. But during the incarnation, he was not fully divine.

Now why would he believe this? Well, the Knossos theory has been around for a long time, it's been understood to be a heresy for a very long time. But the point of this theory of Christology is, Well, if Jesus was essentially just a man and he did all these miracles and he did all this display of power, he did it in the power and influence of the Holy Spirit. And so if you're walking fully in the Holy Spirit, you can do the same thing. And so if you are not, there's something wrong with you.

There's something wrong with your faith. You're not trusting God enough if you're not doing the same kinds of things Jesus did. And so in his book, When Heaven Invades Earth, Bill Johnson wrote, he, the verandah of Jesus, laid his divinity aside as he sought to fulfill the assignment given to him by the Father. Not just he laid aside his glory or the use of certain divine attributes, but he actually laid his deity aside, his divinity aside. And he goes on, he sets up Jesus as simply a man who performed miracles, exercised demons, and walked with the power of God on him.

Therefore, when Jesus says that his followers will do even greater works than he, it only makes sense that we should likewise experience a life of miracles. And so if you're not experiencing a life of miracles, there's something wrong with you and your faith. So that's his false understanding of who Christ is. Now as for the Spirit, he presents the Spirit almost as a force, not a person. I was touched on in the sermon today.

The Spirit is a person. We worship one God in Trinity, three persons of the Godhead, each co-equal, co-eternal, but one God. Each person is truly personal. Well, Johnson, in his teaching, will present the Holy Spirit as a force. In his book, When Heaven Invades Earth, he says part of the privilege of ministry is learning how to release the Holy Spirit on a location.

Along with that, he teaches and promotes the idea that we as followers, if you're walking in the spirit, then we have the ability to just blanket, forgive cities or even countries of their sin. If that's the case, then what are you doing Bethel? Why don't you just forgive all the United States and we'll be good. It just doesn't work. There's such a cognitive dissonance in their teaching and their practice, but it has its source in this false theology.

Johnson envisions a spiritual kingdom where the spirit receives more attention than Jesus, the spirit should be the emphasis in the church. Well what did Jesus say? That the spirit would testify of him. And Johnson also speaks often of the kingdom in terms of overcoming sickness and even controlling nature, rather than a life of holiness and peace through the power of the Spirit. So the Spirit is there to make miracles happen and for you to control and have power, not for you to be able to resist sin.

With this extreme emphasis on the charismatic and signed gifts as the norm, there have been many stories that have come out of Bethel of various events that they try and pass off as miraculous occurrences at their church, such as all sorts of miracles. Obviously, we kind of expect that with the Charismatic Movement. And again, this is not, in the same way that Hillsong is not a contemporary versus traditional worship issue, this is not a cessationist versus continuationist issue. In reality, this is a false over-emphasis on things that the Bible never even promises. Even if you believe the gifts continue, the Bible never promises these things.

But an idea that sickness should never happen, that healing is always the will of God. Also these strange manifestations they say are the work of the spirit in their church such as feathers falling down that are supposed to be from angels, or gold dust falling as what they call a glory cloud, whatever that's supposed to be. But these bizarre manifestations that they say are supposed to be the work of the spirit and the stamp of approval on their ministry by God. Bethel also has a school. It's called the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry.

Yeah. There's one guy whose podcast I listen to and he reviews sermons and listens to these people and talks about their theology. And he appropriately enough nicknames this place Hogwarts, which I think is just fabulous. Hogwarts from Harry Potter. Nobody knows what I'm talking about.

Anyway, this school is not even a Bible college or a seminary or anything like that. The purpose of this school is to teach people to perform miracles and to live a life of miracles. It's directed by Chris Valleson, which is also, he's also an associate pastor there. He is considered one of the prophets of this movement. And this school teaches students to use spiritual gifts and perform healings.

And so if you go to Reading, California, you'll, and you can read about this online, they will often just randomly stop people in the streets and ask if they can heal people or lengthen their leg or do all these strange things that are supposed to be miraculous healings done on the streets as a sign that their ministry is legitimate. But it even gets worse. They teach and practice very bizarre things that really amount to witchcraft. They have advocated and used what really are essentially tarot cards to do readings of people's future. And they will go to these spiritual and new age events and set up a booth just like the rest of the new age folks and present it was The spirit of creation is telling us this, this, and this about your future.

And that's their evangelism. That's a form of their evangelism. It's essentially witchcraft. They also have done something called grave sucking, or grave soaking. And it's as ridiculous as it sounds.

They will go to the graves of these people who are seen as these dead saints who had an anointing from God and they will lay on top of their grave in an attempt to get some of that anointing for themselves. I really hope I don't have to explain that's not Biblical. The Bible knows nothing of things like this. And that's what happens when you reject scripture as what regulates your practice and your theology. It all becomes, well, what can we think of next?

What can we do now? And so this is why we wanted to talk about these two groups in particular. The influence that these two groups wield in evangelicalism is really hard to get out there. It is overwhelming how common their music is. And we really have to ask ourselves the question of, How much of this music are we going to listen to?

Are we going to listen to music? Now I do think that there's liberty here and Pastor Scott is going to talk about the music in particular, but we really do have to think through these things when it comes to issues of music. Music is powerful. God gave music for a reason. It speaks to us.

And oftentimes, one thing that's fascinating, if you listen to the songs from Hillsong and Bethel and Jesus culture and whatnot. Many of their songs are empty and meaningless, but sometimes they have some really good songs. They have songs that have true statements. They have good songs, songs that are much better than their theology deserves. There's good songs out there, but do we want to support that?

And again, that is something I think that each one of us will have to examine and question for ourselves. But just want to sound this warning. What happens when you abandon scripture is that the guardrails are removed, and people will go off into myths and fairy tales and all sorts of error because they are not regulating themselves, they're not regulating their worship according to what God has said. Thank you so much, Robert. I really, really appreciate that rundown.

Ephesians 5.11 says, have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. Matthew 7.15, or James 3.11 says, does the spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening Jesus said, the bad tree cannot bear good fruit? I think we just have to take those very seriously and try to sort this out. You have heretical versions of the doctrine of Christ. You have rejections of the sufficiency and the authority of scripture.

You have heretical monotologies. You have music experiences that are really patterned after a rock and roll concert. I just think you should be really careful with it. You know, these are places where you have demonic laughing and jerking and, you know, waking up of angels and fire tunnels where people line up on two sides and it's like laying on hands of multiple people and prophesying and giving them gifts, things that are so contrary to Scripture. The music comes out of this whole environment And we wanted to do this to help you even avoid the appearances of evil, that dangerous people really should be exposed and silenced.

I think Titus 3.11 makes it really clear. False teachers need to be marked, like it says in Romans 16, 17, 18, and that we should avoid being stumbling blocks. There are a number of issues. Let's just say if you're going to buy Bethel music. The royalties from Bethel music fund their theological operations.

And you have to ask yourself, are you willing to support Bethel Supernatural School of ministry and worship so that they can produce more materials because that's what you do when you buy their music I just think you'd be really careful to fund these kinds of these kinds of operations you know you might say well it's it's not such a bad song but you might just ask yourself where it's going and what is funding. So we just wanted to issue a warning about that. It's a very complex issue when you consider songs that are sound theologically or songs that were written by someone who fell away or things like that, these are difficult issues. But our encouragement is be warned that a good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit. Somebody described Bethel music as kind of a gateway drug or the door prize that gets you at the front end so that you can experience the rest of it.

Incredibly emotional presentations of music, incredibly compelling, interesting, gripping, very gripping, and emotionally satisfying music. Beware. Okay, let's pray. Lord, we pray that you would give us discernment, pray that we would feed on the whole of Jesus Christ. On His word, this would be our greatest instruction, our greatest comfort, that we would comfort ourselves not by these forces that are put upon us by emotional music and things like that, but that we would be guided by your Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth.

Amen.