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 wanna go because there's all these bands playing
before Billy Graham, that sounds fun.
I was just gonna go for the concert.
All the Christian rock bands that are gonna 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 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 gonna save anybody
'cause 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.