One more giant has fallen! Hillsong’s Marty Sampson declared that Christianity is ‘not for me’. We love to listen and watch his worship songs. Now, we are shocked his faith is on a shaky ground. He wrote on Instagram,
“Time for some real talk, I’m genuinely losing my faith … and it doesn’t bother me… like, what bothers me now is nothing… I am so happy now, so at peace with the world… It’s crazy.
“This is a soapbox moment so here I go… how many preachers fall? Many. No one talks about it. 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 love yet send four billion people to a place, all coz they don’t believe? No one talks about it. Christians can be the most judgmental people on the planet – they can also be some of the most beautiful and loving people… but it’s not for me.”
“I am not in anymore, I want genuine truth. Not the ‘I just believe it’ kind of truth. Science keeps piercing the truth of every religion. Lots of things help people change their lives, not just one version of God. Got so much more to say, but for me, I’m keeping it real. Unfollow if you want, I’ve never been about living my life for others.”
“All I know is what’s true to me right now, and Christianity just seems to me like another religion at this point,”
“I could go on, but I won’t. Love and forgive absolutely. Be kind absolutely. Be generous and do good to others absolutely. Some things are good no matter what you believe. Let the rainfall, the sun will come up tomorrow,”
He later posted the pictures of five Christian apologists: John Lennox, Ravi Zacharias, Mike Licona, Frank Turek and William Lane Craig. He quoted Francis Collins: “The evidence supporting the idea that all living things are descended from a common ancestor is truly overwhelming. I would not necessarily wish that to be so, as a Bible-believing Christian. But it is so. It does not serve faith well to deny that.”
These words reflect the state of Christians in our time. Let us unpack his words sentence by sentence.
I am so happy now, so at peace with the world: The modern Christian wants to be at peace with the world. That is the root of the problem. He forgot the words of Jesus, ‘If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.’ (John 15:18-19). Jesus told us clearly that the world will hate us because we are not of this world. But the modern Christian wants to be ‘at peace with the world’. He or she will sacrifice anything to be in harmony with this world: the existence of God, the inerrancy of the Scriptures, the divinity of Jesus Christ, the exclusivity of the gospel, the heterosexual marriage; he or she will toss anything out of the window if they can get to a place where they can be ‘at peace with the world’.
how many preachers fall? Many. No one talks about it: Yes, many preachers have fallen. But, we are talking about it. We should never stop calling out the unrighteousness among our leaders. ‘Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall’. (1 Corinthians 10:12). Bible says, ‘make sure you don’t fall’. Marty says, ‘I am falling because many preachers fell’. Sad!
How many miracles happen. Not many. No one talks about it: It seems Marty is too much into Hillsong’s charismatic theology. I agree with him that there are not many miracles happening in our time. But some charismatic preachers promising and demanding more miracles from God. Let us turn to Matthew chapter 16.
The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven.He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?
A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. Matthew 16:1- 4
The Pharisees and the Sadducees demanded a miracle from heaven. Jesus rebuked them for asking a miracle. Their problem was they could not discern the signs of the times. The long-awaited Messiah was standing right before them. What Abraham prophesied, what Jacob prophesied, what Moses prophesied, what David prophesied, what Isaiah prophesied, what Jeremiah prophesied…that great Messiah standing right in front of their eyes. Yet, they did not believe in Him but wanted to see more miracles. Jesus called them for who they were: “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas.”
Those words are pertinent to our times also. We are living in a wicked and adulterous generation demanding more miracles from God. But God wants us to consider only one miracle. That is the sign of the prophet Jonas.
What is the sign of the prophet Jonas? It is the resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ. Just like Jonas was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale and then came out alive, Jesus was dead for three days and three nights after the crucifixion, then came out alive. We become Christians by faith in the resurrection of Christ (Romans 10:9). We become Christians by faith in that one miracle, the greatest miracle of all human history. We do not need any more miracles to trust God. Yes, God still does miracles according to his will. But our faith should not depend on them. But thanks to charismatics in our time. They are erecting a belief system based on current day miracles. Marty is a victim to this false teaching.
Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it: Charismatic churches made music the center of worship in our time. That is another tragedy. So many Christians are carried away by the music and entertainment. They do not take time to study the word of God in depth. This is an exciting time in Biblical archaeology. Great discoveries are being made in archaeology which prove the trustworthiness of the Bible. The Bible is a book written over 1400 years by over 40 authors living in three different continents. In an ancient book of such complexity there will be apparent contradictions. If we take time to study them properly, we will find out there are no contradictions in the Bible. The tragedy is atheists are taking time to study the Bible and show Christians the apparent contradictions of the Bible while Christians have no time to study the Bible in depth. Marty should put away his guitar for some time and start reading a scholarly book such as Norman Geislers’ Big Book of Bible Difficulties.
How can God be love yet send four billion people to a place, all coz they don’t believe? No one talks about it: God is not sending people to hell, every one chooses their eternal destiny. Jesus talked about hell more than heaven. He warned humanity about hell with all the seriousness he could muster. Unbelievers are mocking him, ‘Jesus, you do not know what you are talking about. There is no hell.’ By rejecting to believe in hell, they are turning the Son of God into a liar. Yes, hell is a terrible place. But God did everything to keep us from hell. He sacrificed His Son. What more you want Him to do? If you don’t want to believe what Jesus told you about hell, what will convince you to believe in hell and get saved?
Christians can be the most judgmental people on the planet – they can also be some of the most beautiful and loving people… but it’s not for me.”: God is love and God is holy. Christians reflect this dual nature of God. They are judge sin according to the holiness of God, they show compassion according to the loving kindness of God. There is no contradiction there.
“I am not in anymore, I want genuine truth. Not the ‘I just believe it’ kind of truth. Science keeps piercing the truth of every religion. Lots of things help people change their lives, not just one version of God. Got so much more to say, but for me, I’m keeping it real. Unfollow if you want, I’ve never been about living my life for others.”
Science keeps piercing the truth of every religion: Observational science only fortified Christian faith. For example, it had been atheists who believed in the eternal universe for centuries. Christians always believed that this universe has a beginning (Genesis 1:1). Discoveries made in the 20th century like Hubble’s Doppler effect, expansion of the universe and galaxies, cosmic microwave background radiation, gravitational waves, general theory of relativity point us to a universe with a beginning. This is consistent with the Scripture.
The problem comes with speculations out of naturalistic scientists. They put a facade of science over their own materialistic assumptions. They say the universe came 14 billion years ago without God. But that is only their atheistic speculation. It is not observational science.
“All I know is what’s true to me right now, and Christianity just seems to me like another religion at this point,” “I could go on, but I won’t. Love and forgive absolutely. Be kind absolutely. Be generous and do good to others absolutely. Some things are good no matter what you believe. Let the rainfall, the sun will come up tomorrow,”:
‘Just seems to me’: Marty is carried away by his own thoughts and feelings. Christianity might look like all other religions, if we allow our own thoughts to dominate our outlook. But Jesus clearly said, ‘I am the way’ (John 14:6). The exclusivity of Christianity is based on what the Bible teachers, not on what you or I incline to feel or think.
Love and forgive absolutely. Be kind absolutely. Be generous and do good to others absolutely: This another deceptive ideas of our time. Be kind and generous. You can be good without God. Only God can define what is good. Without God, good cannot be defined. We might say, ‘being kind and generous is good. Why do I need God for this?’ You should listen to Nietzsche. He said, ‘showing goodness and compassion is ‘slave morality’ we inherited from Jews and Christians’. The master morality has no place for such benevolence. In his book Gay Science, he rebuked the Western culture for killing God, and yet still hanging on to Christian morality. Atheist John Gray said that today’s Western atheist morality is nothing but a secular rebirth of Christian morality.
There is another misconception here. Being kind and generous is all we need. This is the wide gate that leads to destruction. This is the way of self-righteousness. Many people refuse to believe in Christ or they leave faith like Marty because they believe they are good people. The Bible does not divide human beings into good people and bad people. It divides them into dead people and living people. Those without Christ are dead in their sins. When they come to Christ, repent of their sins, the life of Christ enters them and they get eternal life. Jesus said, ‘For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost’ (Luke 19:10). He came to save us while we were dead in our sins and trespasses (Ephesians 2:1-2)
He later posted the pictures of five Christian apologists: John Lennox, Ravi Zacharias, Mike Licona, Frank Turek and William Lane Craig: Francis Chan recently said, ‘Take off your Ravi Zacharias life jacket’. Many Christians sadly take refuge only in the arguments of Christian apologists. The Bible calls us to a life of faith in Christ enriched with continuous fellowship with God. Many of us do not enjoy the fellowship with God. We are like dry bones which will crush with minimal pressure from atheists. Apostle Paul enjoyed a continual fellowship with Christ. That is why his faith was so strong in spite of all the sufferings he went through.
He quoted Francis Collins: “The evidence supporting the idea that all living things are descended from a common ancestor is truly overwhelming. I would not necessarily wish that to be so, as a Bible-believing Christian. But it is so. It does not serve faith well to deny that.”
The evidence supporting the idea that all living things are descended from a common ancestor is truly overwhelming: In reality, there is more evidence for common Creator than for common ancestor. Evolutionists do not believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible. They have a priori belief in Darwinism. Their materialistic worldview does not allow any role for Creator God. So, they created this idea: descent from common ancestor. When monkeys and chimpanzees are coexisting with human beings, they can not say we descended from monkeys and chimpanzees. So, they came up with a common ancestor for humans, monkeys and chimps. The sudden appearance of living phyla in the earth’s layers in Cambrian explosion is a devastating evidence against Darwinian gradualism. It points to a Creator God.
Marty Sampson walked on the familiar road. Believe in Darwinian evolution, doubt the verbal inspiration of the Bible, just be nice to others, be at peace with the world. This is how Christian West turned to atheism.
But the marvelous fulfillment of Bible prophecies, the preservation of the Jews, the resurrection of Lord Jesus Christ, great discoveries in science, the existence of moral law, the existence of logic provide enough evidence for the existence of God and His workings in this universe. May God help us to see it and live it.
Paul Kattupalli MD is a physician and Christian evangelist.