Look, I remember when Billy Graham came to Sacramento, California when I was a teenager
and I was in a backslidden condition.
We'd been out of fundamental Baptist churches for a long time.
We were going to a liberal church.
And I was actually tempted to go there, even though I'd heard my dad my whole life rail
upon Billy Graham as a false prophet, but you know how teenagers are.
Sometimes they think they know better than their parents.
And so as a teenager, I was thinking to myself, I don't care about Billy Graham, but I want
to go because there's all these bands playing before Billy Graham.
That sounds fun.
I was just going to go for the concert.
All the Christian rock bands that are going to be playing, all your friends are going,
all the youth groups are going.
And that's how all these big crusades are.
When you get a flyer for the crusade, it's like pages and pages of pictures of all these
weirdo-looking bands, all these long-haired dudes and all these skanky-looking women and
all these effeminate guys and everything.
And it's just all these weird, punked-out rock bands.
And then it's like, oh, and by the way, here's the special speaker.
And you're like, who's that guy?
You don't even care.
And they bring in crowds and crowds of people.
And then they say, oh, look how successful this preacher is.
Look how successful this crusade is.
Look at all the people who are being saved.
When in reality, it's just everybody's showing up for a rock concert.
Because you know what?
If a rock band showed up, they'd have the same crowd.
Same thing.
Say, well, yeah, but at least they're hearing the Word of God.
No, what they're hearing is a soft-soap sermon from the NIV, which isn't going to save anybody
because it's not even the incorruptible seed of God's Word.
It's a corruptible seed.
It's a perverted gospel from a perverted Bible.
It's not even the Word of God.
It's not even the King James Bible.
It's not even that which has been preserved and passed down to us.
It's a new version that changes the meaning.
And then it's a gospel that's a false gospel.
Give your life over to Christ and make a commitment to Christ.
Not about salvation by grace through faith, but something that's just a thinly-veiled
works-based salvation or commitment-based salvation.
But the real thing that's going on there is just the music.
It's all about the music.
And we need to make sure that we keep the emphasis on the Word of God.