Phil Johnson is on the board of directors for Wretched radio.  He does a program regularly with Todd Friel, called Too Wretched for Radio or what Friel calls “Philsosophy.”  At the beginning of this segment is a montage of audio of Phil Johnson from sermons and speeches, and one of the statements that surely is included to characterize Phil is “Act like men, not like girls.”  In a sense, Friel is saying, “that’s Phil for you.”  Especially among evangelicals, Phil is considered to be a tough guy.

Incidentally, the military tone of this verse is clearly deliberate. These are orders for an army going to combat. Paul was reminding them (and us) that the Christian’s existence in this earthly realm is a battle, not a banquet. We are soldiers engaged in warfare, not merry-makers enjoying a party. Do we get that? because frankly, most contemporary evangelicals don’t get it. The typical evangelical church seems to think Christ has called us to be clowns who entertain the world rather than soldiers whose duty is to wage war against false religion and spiritual lies. There are churches not far from here this morning where the pastors are doing exegesis of the latest movies or trying desperately to plug into whatever the latest cultural fad is. Look around and listen to what’s happening in the evangelical movement today and you might get the impression that friendship with the world is the number one goal of the church. It’s not. It is a grievous sin to be avoided. “Friendship with the world is enmity with God.” The church is supposed to be an army waging war against worldly values.

The following appertains to two posts that I wrote related to a claim made by Mark Ward in a blog post about the NKJV not deviating from the same underlying Greek text as the KJV (here and here).  I gave him a list of fifteen.  In a new post, he said none of them are legitimate examples, so I looked at his (and two assistants) arguments, and here is my conclusion about what they wrote.

*Asterick meaning that I don’t accept the argument.
1. In Matthew 22:10—Don’t mind giving this one, although a pattern starts to emerge where the text is different and the translation favors the critical text, but it is said to be a translational decision by those who might hope to cover for the “no deviation” claim.
*2. In Luke 1:35—The translators followed the critical text, but said they were making a translation decision, not following the critical text.
*3. In Luke 5:7—Matthew 6:5 is a different usage of “tois,” which is used as a relative pronoun in Luke 5:7.  That relative pronoun isn’t in the CT or the NKJV.
*4. Luke 6:9—The issue here is that the TR uses the plural for “Sabbath days” and the CT doesn’t, which is why the KJV translates the plural “Sabbath days.”  The NKJV deviates here.  I could follow the argument about other places of the plural translated like a singular except there is a deviation here, making this obvious.
5. John 10:12—This is not a good example by me, so I defer here.
6. John 19:10—This is not a good example by me, so I defer here.
7. Acts 15:23—I defer here.
8. Acts 17:14—I defer here.
*9. Acts 19:9—The NKJV translation matches the CT and deviates.  This reads as obvious.
*10. Acts 19:39—The NKJV uses only “other” as “further,” which is following the CT, as opposed to the clear translation of “concerning other matters,” which one can plainly read is the TR.
*11. Romans 14:9—What is very interesting about this refutation is that there is a double “kai” later in the same verse translated as both-and in the NKJV, so Ward and his group have this one wrong.  If they really were relying on contemporary English, they would have done it both times.  It could not have been grammatical.
*12. Colossians 3:17—This one stands.
*13. Jude 1:3—This one stands.
*14. Jude 1:19—Both the ESV and NKJV have the same translation because they both follow the CT, and you won’t see “themselves” (eautou), as in the KJV.  It also changes the meaning as some of these others do.
*15. Isaiah 9:3—the King James translators did not rely on the Qere reading, so it’s different.  I had to tell the truth.

I appreciate the service of Mark Ward and his two other assistants in eliminating five of my bad examples, and I believe leaving ten of them.  They are saying that none of those are left.  However, I believe there is more than the above.  I said that I stopped at fifteen, because I think there are more than this, so here we go again

1. 2 Corinthians 3:14—the NKJV departs from the TR to the CT with the TR (ho) and the CT (hoti), so the NKJV translates the conjuction, “because,” and the KJV translates the relative pronoun, “which.”
2. Philippians 2:9—the CT has the article (to) before “name,” “the name,” and the TR has no article, “a name,” and the NKJV reflects this deviation.
3. Revelation 6:11—the KJV follows the TR and the NKJV follows the critical text in the plural “robes” in the KJV and the singular “robe” in the NKJV.  The Greek word in the TR is plural and in the CT it is singular.
4. 2 Corinthians 4:14—the NKJV says “with Jesus” following the CT (sun) and the KJV says “by Jesus” following the TR (dia).
5. 2 John 1:7—the NKJV says “have gone out into the world” following the CT (exelthon) instead of “are entered into the world” (eiselthon) in the TR and KJV.

Alright, me and my assistants, well, just me, have added five more, while watching the 49ers preseason game.  I’m stopping at adding five more.  That doesn’t mean there are only five more.  I’m saying these are deviations.  Mark Ward asserts that he has debunked all fifteen of the former, and I’m saying he’s overturned five of the original fifteen.  I thank him for eliminating the five for me.  Good work.  Here are five more before victory is claimed, conspiracy theories reasserted, etc.

I purchased Presuppositional Apologetics: Stated and Defended by the late Greg Bahnsen for my kindle, and have been reading it in bed at night a little at a time.  I haven’t read anything yet with which I disagree.  However, he writes things in the book I haven’t read anywhere else.  Below I want to include just a few quotes with analytical comments.  These are not in order, except in the order I found them when I looked back to record them in this post.  Bahnsen wrote:

Thinking to maintain neutrality with respect to Scripture, any natural theology that reasons autonomously from logical an/or empirical grounds to God results in an exclusion of revelational necessity and authority, endorsing some other imperious philosophy.  Knowledge of God must be rooted in his own self-disclosure.  Because the clear revelation of God in nature’s and man’s constitution is suppressed in unrighteousness, it is impossible for theology or apologetics to base their efforts in a rebellious understanding of the world of history, independently working up to a verification of God’s written revelation.  Faith must necessarily start with the clear, authoritative, self-attesting, special revelation of God in Scripture coordinated with the Holy Spirit’s inner testimony to the regenerated heart. 

Historically, when David Hume and Immanuel Kant exposed the invalidity of the theistic proofs, apologists generally balked at returning to revelation as the basis for their certainty of God’s existence.  They elected, rather, to maintain status in the blinded eyes of the “worldly wise” by attempting to prove Christianity’s credibility by means of arguments that hopefully pointed toward the probability of God’s existence and Scripture’s truth.  They settled for a mere presumption (plus pragmatic assurance) in favor of a few salvaged items (i.e., “fundamentals”) from the Christian system.

Read both paragraphs (the second a half of a paragraph in the book), but especially consider the last line of the second paragraph above.  Bahnsen says that using the “worldly wise” to prove Christianity through means other than scripture, settle for a few salvaged items, “fundamentals,” from the Christian system.  I’ve written on this a lot.  The reduction of doctrine to fundamentals or essentials proceeds from a wrong apologetic.  He calls them “salvaged items.”  It is as though Christians are sifting through the rubble, when God didn’t lose anything.

Here’s another:

Resting upon the authority of the living God rather than that of independent human reasoning, the apologist must presuppose the truth of Scripture and lay siege to all apostate presuppositions.   This must be his method because the Word of God in the Bible has a unique epistemological status for the Christian:  it requires no corroboration and carries its own evidence inherently or self-attestingly.

Whatever Bahnsen may have said about his view of the preservation of scripture, this quote undoes the reliance on textual criticism to come to a point.  The teaching of preservation of scripture “requires no corroboration and carries its own evidence inherently or self-attestingly.”  This should and will result in the textus receptus.

The Lord Jesus traveled from Galilee to Judea and the Jordan River, some 70 miles by foot, for John the Baptist to baptize Him.  This inaugurated His three year ministry.  John baptized unto repentance.  Jesus didn’t need to repent, so John said, I shouldn’t immerse you; it should be you immersing me.  John was the sinner, not Jesus.  That was the point John made with no uncertain terms.  Jesus said, “Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.”

Jesus didn’t say, Suffer it to be so now, to enjoy myself or have fun or make money.  It was about doing right.  Jesus wasn’t held hostage to doing right.  He wanted to do right.  What does someone really get out of doing right?  The value in doing right is the value of doing right.  The value is greater than anything else, but it must be seen as greater.  We know it is greater, because Jesus said it was.

Jesus did everything right.  Through the imputation of justification, we receive the righteousness He lived by faith.  Doing right for Jesus was doing everything His Father wanted Him to do, so at His baptism in Matthew 3, the Father said in one of the rare occasions He spoke out loud for everyone to hear, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

“Suffer it to be so now” were the first recorded words of Jesus in scripture since what He said as a twelve year old in Luke 2, which was similar:  “I must be about my Father’s business.”  “Business” is supplied in the English.  Jesus must be about His Father’s.  Whatever His Father’s, but surely His Father’s.  That was the Son.  Then in essence, I want to do right, which we know was what the Father told Him to do.  Then the Father validated it with, Son, I am well pleased with you.  Of course, none of what the Father wanted the Son to do was sin.  It was all right.

Going back to the point of my second paragraph, the value of doing right is greater than anything.  Why?  God created everything and sustains everything, and God the Father wants righteousness.  He rewards righteousness in numbers of different ways all over scripture.  The world rewards, but it’s all temporal and in the end, it isn’t even reward, but punishment.

We turn the page to Matthew 4 and the Son is tested to the greatest extent by the greatest tempter, Satan himself.  The first Adam failed at the first temptation in the Garden of Eden by Satan.  The Father had commanded His son in Genesis 2.  That son did what he wanted.  He didn’t do right.  He failed that test.  God’s son, Adam, didn’t trust Him, so He didn’t see the greater value of obedience. He convinced himself that he was justified in his disobedience.  That was a son who had every tree of the garden, which he could freely eat, much like the prodigal son, who lived in his Father’s house in that parable of Jesus.

The Second Adam, Jesus, abode in a wilderness.  He fasted forty days and forty nights.  He was hungry.   Those were His conditions.  Then He was tempted.

The temptation started with Satan exalting the Son’s position, “if thou be the Son of God.”  Of course, He was the Son of God.  Wasn’t the Son entitled to certain benefits as the Son?  He was the Son of God.  He could do what He wanted to do.  Jesus didn’t assert His position or office as the Son.  Satan tempted Him to do that.  Jesus’ job as a Son was to do what His Father wanted Him to do.

The temptation, one might say, is turning stones to bread.  The temptation was asserting His own will ahead of His Father’s.  Life did not reduce down to physical needs.  It did reduce down to obeying the plan of the Father, staying in tune with what He wanted.

The Son quotes Deuteronomy 8:3.  Even the Son would obey God’s Word.  That was again, doing right.  In the original context of the quote, Israel, which was also God’s son, also in a sense of the representative son, Israel seed of Abraham but Jesus the seed of Abraham.  Israel didn’t live by bread, but the Word of God.  Jesus had fasted forty days and forty nights.  No one could live like that unless He was kept alive by something beyond the natural.  People live by the Word of God.

There is the Latin, fiat, used with Divine fiat.  It refers to God’s creation by spoken word or by divine order, let there be light.  Jesus said to Lazarus, come forth.  Man lives because of the Word of God, not because he is doing all that it takes to live — eating, drinking, exercising.  The Son didn’t need bread to live.  He had the Word of God.  Israel didn’t need bread to live.  She had the Word of God.

When Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor, this was an admission that Jesus was God.  Jesus had all riches.  If the rich young ruler had needs, Jesus could meet those. The rich young ruler could live by the Word of God, just like Jesus lived by the Word of God.  That was too hard for the rich young ruler.  He couldn’t see the value.

The Father was pleased by the obedience of the Son.  Nothing was wrong with eating bread.  It wasn’t a sin.  However, it would be outside of the will of the Father.  Jesus never operated outside of the will of the Father.  He wouldn’t turn the stones into bread, even in order to live.  He would continue in hunger.

Life is not about having your own way.  It’s not about independence.  It’s not about being on your own.  No doubt, if a father wanted just arbitrary obedience to unbiblical instruction, that’s not good. Both the Father and the Son authored truth.  But if a son’s focus is the will of the true Father, the actual Father, and even beyond sins of commission, where the son doesn’t do something he’s not supposed to do, he does what the father wants.  Jesus could have eaten bread, but it was more important to do what the Father wanted.

The obedience of the Son to the Father is a model of obedience of the son to the father.  It’s of greater value than satisfaction of short term gratification of physical needs, even if it is as something seemingly permissible, like eating bread.  I don’t think that’s usually the issue though.  It’s both doing what the father doesn’t want and then also not doing what the father does want — both.  Short term gratification of physical needs becomes the priority.  If the father gets in the way, he’s in trouble.

The comparison in the gospels to Matthew 4 was when Peter told Jesus that on Peter’s watch, Jesus wouldn’t suffer and die.  Jesus said, Get thee behind me, Satan.  Peter was tempting Jesus, like Satan had in the wilderness.  The will of the Father was for Jesus to die.  Peter instead wanted Jesus to meet short term physical needs.

Look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

Call this is an update of the post I wrote on Thursday, Does the New King James Version Deviate from the Textus Receptus, the Text Behind the King James Version?  Mark Ward wrote Authorized: The Use and Misuse of the King James Bible, which he said was a different approach to the English translation issue.  King James Version (KJV) Only folks of whatever stripe weren’t going to change based on reason of the underlying text, because it’s too difficult for them.  He thinks they’ll move from the King James Version to a modern version based on readability, which is his stated motive, that is, getting them to move to a modern version.

I would probably want to be called a “One Bible” man (not KJVO), since there is only one Bible.  God gave it to us in one set of exact words in Hebrew and Aramaic in the Old Testament and Greek in the New Testament.  Scripture teaches a one Bible position.  That one Bible can be translated into any language and even be updated in a particular language, such as English.  The King James Version is an update.  It could be updated again.  There would still only be one Bible.  God wrote one.  One.  I’m more concerned about the one Bible than I am about the update.  Some either don’t care or don’t seem to care about that same concern of mine.  Mark Ward is one of those.  He says he doesn’t care.

Since there is one Bible, it can’t change.  Changing it would make it different, not the one Bible.  This seems simple, but it is still missed.  Enter this New King James Version (NKJV) issue.

Ward has been doing a series at his blog answering the objections to the thesis of his book.  I didn’t know he was doing it, but I check on the blog, SharperIron, every day, and they linked to one of his posts in which he made the following point.  King James Version advocates, who won’t follow Ward’s desires for them to move to a modern version, say that the NKJV deviates from the same underlying original language text as the KJV, when it doesn’t.  The NKJV translators said they didn’t deviate, he purported, and they not only have not deviated, but the KJV advocates don’t have any list of deviations as proof.

Mark Ward starts off his essay by saying that the above KJV advocates are sinning.  He charges us with sin.  Here are the two sentences:

I am going to charge my theological opponents with sin—though a sin of omission rather than of commission. But I can’t avoid it: the KJV-Only movement as a whole, and many individuals within it, are not telling the truth, and the leaders at least should know better.

Maybe I’m a leader.  I’m sinning, he says.  I want to confess the sin.  It’s interesting here, because I’ve thought the opposite as Ward.  I have seen some of the NKJV translators as sinning.  They know they did deviate from the underlying text of the NKJV and then said they didn’t.  When asked, they’ve said they didn’t.  It might be a Clintonian lie, it’s all a matter of what deviation is.

Years ago, I provided a short list of deviations, almost as a test case. 

I deleted the rest of this post, because Mark Ward posted my comment with the list of deviations in his comment section and he has also answered that post.  I am respecting the work that he and others have done there, and I will be writing an answer to it soon, maybe as I write this edit.

• “Sexually active teenagers are more likely to be depressed and attempt suicide. . . . Similarly, girls who reported three or more partners were significantly more likely to report sadness, suicide ideation, suicide plans, and attempts than those with fewer partners.” 

• Teenage boys and girls who are sexually active are three to four times as likely to say that they are depressed “all, most, or a lot of the time” as those who abstain.

• Immoral girls are nearly three times more likely to attempt suicide, and immoral boys are eight times more likely to attempt to murder themselves.

• Nearly two-thirds of teenagers who have lost their virginity wish they had waited and not committed fornication.

I wrote a comment under his post, showing him instances where he is false, that is, producing a list, albeit not a complete one, but a satisfactory one to make that claim (as of this writing, he’s published another comment, who “quotes me”–not actual quote of me–and did not publish two comments, where I sent just a list).  I hope he publishes it.  He’s very, very nice, and this is important to him, as he very often categorizes King James supporters by whether they are nice or whether they aren’t nice.  I’m assuming I’m not nice.  Some people online think they are the niceness pope and can come down with a condemnatory judgment of “not nice.”  If something is unbiblical and you don’t like it, and you act like you don’t like it, you might not be nice. God wasn’t “nice” at the flood, the tower of babel, and at many other times. But today, you’ve still got to be nice, which seems to be more important with many than being biblical.  Plenty of critical text people are not nice, and I could produce an all star list of them, which would mean what?

I want to inform you that for sure I would never take a position that the New King James Version differs than the King James Version in its underlying text, unless I could see those differences with my own eyes.  I wouldn’t just make a claim.  I would have to see it myself.  Who would even do that?  I would like to know the name of a person who would make that unsubstantiated claim.  Produce the list!  Ward makes the claim that there is no list of verses that changed based upon a different underlying text, because he’s searched a lot and hasn’t found it.  I’m going to have to believe that he really searched.  One way to search is to look yourself at the Greek New Testament or read the New King James Version along side the King James Version.  I haven’t done a thorough search in my opinion, but I have found several examples to support the claim.

The first list I ever saw was sent to me, and I reprinted that list.  Before seeing that list, I myself just assumed that the NKJV came from the same text as the KJV.   Once I saw it with my own eyes, I changed on that.  I’m going to give you several examples just so that you can have that at your finger tips.  I don’t think the critical text critics of the KJV even care.  I’ve already written about it, and it’s just a tool to use for them.  They don’t even retract their previous statements.

KJV users have the NKJV and we don’t use it, which shows how ridiculous we are, because “it comes from the same text” (but it doesn’t), so it isn’t a textual issue.  But it is a textual issue.  Even then, move along.  Doesn’t matter anyway.  That’s what I’m saying.  They don’t care.  It’s just a tool, when no longer useful, it is meaningless.  I’ve never seen an apology once it was revealed that they have been lying.  Yes, I’m saying they’re lying, because they are too smart to not know this.  You can see that you are translating from a different word.  You know you are changing the text when you do it.

Mark said he really searched for a list.  I took the list I had, and then I started looking some more, and my list grew, so I’m assuming there are many more examples than what I’m producing here.  My gut says that the best answer to this list is that the deviations are minor.  The changes are not minor, because they are still a lie.  They don’t respect that words were changed, indicating that the very words in the end are not an issue.

I know now I could make a longer list than what I’m going to produce, especially since I didn’t look much into the Old Testament, but here is a mainly New Testament list (since we’re focusing on the TR):

Matthew 22:10, the critical has “hous” (“whom”) and the TR has hosous (“as many as”) and the NKJV follows the critical text with “whom.” 

Luke 1:35, the NKJV follows the critical text in leaving out “ek sou” (“of thee”) unlike the KJV. 

Luke 5:7, the TR has “tois” (“which”) and the critical text doesn’t have that word, and the NKJV follows the critical text, while the KJV does not. 

Luke 6:9, the TR has a plural “sabbasin” and the critical text has a singular “sabbato” and the KJV is plural, Sabbath days, and the NKJV is singular “the Sabbath.” 

John 10:12, the critical text leaves out the last word, “probata,” sheep, and the NKJV follows that, while the KJV follows the TR, which has that word, “probata,” sheep. 

John 19:10, the critical text leaves out a second “echo” (“have”) and the NKJV follows that, not the TR, differing than the KJV. 

Acts 15:23, the NKJV follows the critical text in omitting “tade”, or “after this manner”. 

Acts 17:14, the NKJV omits “as it were” (“ws” in the Greek) and thus once again follows the critical text. 

Acts 19:9, the NKJV follows the critical text in omitting “tinos,” so it effects the translation in leaving out the word “one,” as in “one Tyrannus.” 

Acts 19:39, the the NKJV follows the critical text in “peraiterw” instead of “peri eterwn”, subtle but different. 

Romans 14:9, the critical text leaves out the first “kai,” which is translated “both” in the KJV and left out in the NKJV, following the critical text. 

Colossians 3:17, the critical text leaves out another “kai,” which the NKJV follows instead of the TR, which keeps the “kai,” which changes the translation, from “God and Father” to “God the Father.” 

Jude 1:3, the NKJV leaves out “our” (“hemon”) following the critical text. 

Jude 1:19, the critical text omits eautou (“themselves”), as does the NKJV. 

Isaiah 9:3, the NKJV changes the Hebrew text behind the KJV by leaving out the “not” (“lo”) with OT textual criticism, the difference being that joy is increased instead of not being increased.

Edit:  This list will be given an edit based on some critique at a post, which answers this post.  I will return and give a link to this post that will give the edits.

A stronger obligation than ever exists in professional sports today to hire a younger coach, who played himself, and can relate better to the younger players.  The consideration behind the thinking is that young players won’t just respect a coach any more.  Greater value is put on relating.  The coach indulges them if he wants to see some kind of positive response. The days of expecting obedience and confronting disobedience are long gone.  A coach who says, jump, and thinks a player will ask, how high, better think again.  A popular sentiment is that younger players just aren’t coachable anymore.  They can’t be coached, only cajoled.

An at least small tremor erupted within Big Evangelicalism in the last several weeks when celebrity evangelical Josh Harris announced he left the Christian faith.  Many other big named evangelicals followed his declaration with an analysis, including Albert Mohler.  I think another evangelical, Carl Trueman, makes a more accurate assessment of the relationship of Joshua Harris to evangelicalism in his post at FirstThings, called “Kissing Christianity Goodbye.”   He writes:

While Harris seems to be making a clean break with his past, the style of his apostasy announcement is oddly consistent with the evangelical Christianity he used to represent. He revealed he was leaving the faith with a social media post, which included a mood photograph of himself contemplating a beautiful lake. The earlier announcement of his divorce used the typical postmodern jargon of “journey” and “story.” And both posts were designed to play to the emotions rather than the mind. Life, it would seem, continues as performance art. 

In a sense, that is exactly how and why the YRR was so successful: savvy harnessing of fashionable idioms and marketing strategies, exceptionally clever use of social media, large and well-organized conferences, and professional-grade websites—all fronted by attractive personalities and brilliant communicators. Orthodoxy as performance art, one might say. And Harris was both a product of and a player in the YRR project.

Later he continued:

But the movement’s leadership was often arrogant. In public, critics were derided and then ignored; in private, they were vilified and bullied. An extensive informal network of individuals, institutions, and organizations who wanted a slice of the YRR action was happy to oblige the padrini by keeping critics on the margins. And one by one big leaders fell from favor: Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald, Tullian Tchividjian, C. J. Mahaney, now Josh Harris. On Friday the news broke that The Village Church, home of YRR megastar Matt Chandler, is being sued over alleged mishandling of sexual abuse.

Sing! 2019  has all the earmarks of Trueman’s words about evangelicalism, which I’m calling “A Mess” here, and with Sing! 2019 an exhibit.  It mixes many and varied contradictory characters in the name of the life of Christ and worship.  It really is the jello running into the mashed potatoes and gravy into a soupy matrix, the latter evangelicalism for a lot of reasons, but a major one because its leaders either can’t or won’t draw necessary lines between the holy, the good, the true, and the beautiful with the profane, the bad, the false, and the ugly.  Because of the confusion arising from association and toleration, most of these, like the Samaritans of Jesus day, think they really are worshiping God.

Trueman lists C. J. Mahaney, who brought Josh Harris into the “sovereign grace ministries.”  Mohler writes like he knew all along there was a problem with Harris, even though Mahaney was his close friend as part of the smash, Together for the Gospel quartet.  Mahaney seemed like an outlier in the four, because even though they were all Calvinists — Mohler, Dever, Duncan, and Mahaney — he was also charismatic.  Still working right with Mahaney is his longtime partner and still assistant, Bob Kauflin, a part of the Sing! 2019 line-up, which is packed with continuationists, who report extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit and God talking to them.

Sing! 2019 uses the world’s music, characterized by its fleshly lust, sensuality, and breathiness.  It uses ecstatic experiences as a counterfeit of the Holy Spirit, what John MacArthur has called, strange fire, the headliner of the conference.  MacArthur has allowed his image, associated with his preaching and preaching about worship, to syncretize with the worldly, entertainment spectacle of Sing! 2019, it’s rap, rock, country, and other forms of popular music.  The promotional video includes the “worship” of Irish dancing.  The Gettys, who lead the conference, promote their national tour on their website with more of the same.

MacArthur called charismatic worship, Strange Fire, an offense to the Holy Spirit and counterfeit worship.  The worship of the Sing! conference is strange fire.  Open the lid and look into what the “artists” of Sing! 2019 and you see the influences secular, godless, and pagan, just the opposite of what God accepts in worship.

There is only one true imagination of God and it is according to what He has revealed in His Word.  The god of Sing! 2019 uses the name “God,” but it isn’t the same God.  The God of the Bible would not be represented by what its adherents say is their worship.  If you are a professing Christian, who keeps the world’s music in your life and then think God accepts it in worship, you have a different God than what I have.  We are not worshiping the same God, and a different God than the true God isn’t the one who can and will save from sin and death.