Never the twain shall meet. Undoubtedly you’ve heard that idiom in one setting or another. But have you ever heard, “Always the twain shall meet.” Well that is the case with mysticism and seeker-sensitive, at least for Bill Hybels of Willow Creek.
As one of America’s most prominent pastors, Bill Hybels of Willow Creek does everything except what the Bible says. It is no wonder that he is called seeker-sensitive.
Of course, the “seeker-sensitive” concept is an oxymoron, as the Bible says “no one seeks for God” (Rom. 3:11). Instead of consulting what the Bible says the church is, seeker-sensitive churches consult the seeker, the unredeemed person, and give him what he wants in a church.
In the following video, Bill Hybels says,
“God’s low volume whispers have saved me from a life of boredom and self-destruction. Whispers that have arbitrated key decisions. Nudges that have rescued me from dark nights of the soul. Promptings that spurred on growth. God whispering to human beings. Do you really believe it? Do you think that the transcendent God customizes little promptings and then directs them to rank and file human beings for the purpose of assurance or direction or just to convey his love or his warning about something? Do you really think this happens? I’ve staked my entire life on these things called whispers. I’ve started a church in a movie theater because of a whisper.”
God’s low volume whispers? What about God’s loud volume message in His Book, called the Bible?
Nudges? What about Holy Writ?
Promptings? What about the Scriptures?
As for assurance, I have the Apostle John’s first epistle. As for conveying His love, He already did that on the cross (Rom. 5:8).
*Please excuse me for a moment—I think I’m being interrupted by a whisper. . . . Wait, false alarm. We continue. . .*
As for warning, I have Jesus Himself (Matt 7), Peter (2 Peter 2) and Jude warning me to stay away from false teachers like Hybels. In fact, Jude changed the original intent of his letter because of the importance of this (Jude 3).
One has to wonder: who wants to be taught by a pastor who started his church because of a whisper? Well, apparently thousands of members of Hybels’ church want this, or perhaps many are unaware of Hybels’ claim and if they did know, would in fact not be comfortable with a church started by a “whisper.”
In his book Ashamed of the Gospel, John MacArthur writes concerning Hybels,
The largest, oldest, best known sanctuary of seeker-sensitivity acknowledged in 2007 that its programs had failed to produce authentic, growing, committed disciples. The church’s senior pastor then explained the results of a survey designed to determine whether the church’s programs were really helping people grow spiritually.
“That survey just rocked my world,” he said. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to digest as a leader.”
Data showed that non-Christians rated the church’s style of ministry “very high”(around nine on a scale of ten); but with people who described themselves as fully devoted followers of Christ, the pastor said, scores got “scarily low.”
“That bothers me,” he said. “That really bothers me. Like, we’re not helping them that much.” He went on to report that people in the “devoted” category were saying “they’re not being fed, that they want more meat of the Word of God. They want more serious minded Scripture taught to them. They want to be challenged more.”
“That’s hard for me to hear,” he acknowledged.”
(quotes from Bill Hybels, “The Wake-up Call of My Adult Life,” Leadership Summit, August 9-11, 2007)
The writer of Hebrews emphasizes the power, not of a whisper, but of the Word of God:
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
Heb 4:12
- ONLY the Word of God is living and active. Hybel’s whispers are not.
- ONLY the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword. Hybel’s whispers are not.
- ONLY the Word of God is piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and of marrow. Hybel’s whispers are not.
- ONLY the Word of God discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hybel’s whispers do not.
The reason Hybels does not preach the power of the cross, but rather the power of a whisper, is because “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing”(1 Cor 1:18). In the Greek, literally it is moronic. The reason Hybels does not preach the Word, but rather the power of a whisper, is because “people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Tim 4:3–4).
