"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. - Matthew 7:1-5 (ESV)
Apparently while I was on vacation the purpose driven apostate church imploded. The good news for me is that instead of having to write multiple devotionals on a fast-changing topic, it appears to have settled down a little now and thank goodness. I had a good brother reach out to me while I was away curious about my view about the Mark Driscoll incident. While I had not researched the incident yet, I did wonder why it appeared so many people were siding with someone as compromised as Mark Driscoll. For me, it is always telling when other wildly false teachers and outlets like Charisma News are rushing to your defense. It was like when Steven Strang asked John MacArthur for an interview because Johnny Mac had started feeding his sheep into the COVID woodchipper. Someone as learned as Mac should have known better but at the end of the day these are just sinful human beings who value their own value before others. At least MacArthur can rest in that his support from heretics was predestined.
Moving on, here are the essential facts of the Driscoll-Lindell hullabaloo. Apparently, John Lindell asked his good buddy Mark Driscoll to speak at his men's convention. The two go way back and Lindell was one of the only pastors willing to stand by Mark when he ran away from church discipline in the middle of the night up in Seattle. So, Mark owed him. Driscoll however has a new book out on typical Charismaniacal nonsense like Jezebel spirits and apparently used this conference to highlight his "spiritual bonafides" at the expense of his friend's church. It seems earlier in the conference, there was a "performance" by a man who took off his shirt and climbed a pole. This was likened by Driscoll as on par with Judas' betrayal of Christ and you would have thought the world exploded by the reaction. I knew something smelled rotten when everyone at Charisma and in the apostate church insisted on referring to this man as a "sword swallower" Their reference was to make Alex Magala sound as gay as humanly possible. Sword swallowing however, is a talent. It is a skill. Mr. Magala holds two world records, performed at the Olympics in 2014, and was a top performer in both America and Britain's Got Talent shows. This is not to promote him but to clear the air as the Driscoll camp has tried to demonize the man, while the Lindell camp has tried to venerate him and as usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Lindell had said Magala had a family and kids and was born again for the past ten years, while being a member of Mosaic Church in Los Angeles. It turns out none of this was true. Magala recently clarified he has no kids, was not "saved" as he considers himself an Orthodox Christian by birth, and while he has been to Mosaic, it is only because friends of his go there. So why would John Lindell lie about so much with such brazen detail? Because that is what he does! In case you have not remembered John Lindell, he was prominent last year when he had Bill Johnson visiting his Missouri church and they claimed a mighty miracle had occurred. The claim was that a female member of the church miraculously grew back three previously amputated toes. Bill Johnson actually said:
"They saw the bone come, wrapped in flesh. And by morning, the toenails, everything had formed, she got three brand new toes," - Bill Johnson
John Lindell quickly asserted this story as being true. Everyone across the apostate church celebrated until someone asked the magical question - show me the toes. Now, the story of the amputations were common knowledge as they resulted from her husband shooting her multiple times in 2015. Therefore, this provided the best opportunity to stick it to the critics and heresy hunters by now showing the fully restored toes. Except they refused. Then they continued to refuse. A local Christian man then launched a website that is still up today with the URL - "showmethetoes.com." Lindell, Johnson, and the Charisma-Charismaniacal machine got behind the movement by try to portray those who simply wanted proof as being naysayers and of all things, Pharisees. You just can't make this up. So, John Lindell is a liar. That in and of itself is unsurprising as all hirelings are. As such, it is also not surprising that Lindell would have thought Magala was a good idea for a church conference. I think back to Hillsong NY "dressing" their youth pastor up as the "Naked Cowboy" for their Woman's Conference and then defending it. It is like when a local pastor painted the Easter Bunny on his head. The modern apostate church hireling is entirely carnal, so why are we surprised when they have carnal ideas or implement carnal strategies? Today's church has seen monster truck rallies in the sanctuary of God. They have sung "Highway to Hell" during worship. Sword-swallowing is a problem? Get in line.
Mark Driscoll, however, doesn't like waiting in line, so when he took to the stage to speak, he publicly rebuked the act, calling it demonic, while adding that he is now an expert on the demonic since you know, he wrote a book about it that no one was buying. Lindell furiously walked onto the stage and kicked Driscoll to the curb. He actually removed him from the stage, and this sent shockwaves throughout the apostate church landscape. The story was originally presented that Driscoll was just defending righteousness for criticizing Lindell's usage of a "gay porn, sword swallowing, act" to entertain the men at their annual "Stronger" conference. Driscoll painted in common Charismaniacal phraseology by claiming it was the dreaded "Jezebel Spirit" he was combatting in Magala. Except was now have more facts and we can see a few things more clearly that when the Twitter-sphere exploded. First of all, it appears Driscoll was doing this to gin up free press for his failing book on demons and the like that came out last year. We would not put this behind the man who once paid a company to buy up his book on marriage." Why would he do this you might ask? So that he could boost is sales numbers to get onto the NY Times Top Ten Best Seller List. This is important because then forevermore, Mark Driscoll can refer to himself as a NY Times Top Ten Best Selling Author. That is a very lucrative credential to possess. Oh, and the $200,000 he paid to that marketing company? Yeah, Mark stole that from the Mars Hill Church tithes. So, who better to lecture us being inappropriate than Mark Driscoll?
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