This sermon emphasizes the danger of replacing the Holy Spirit with worldly influences like Christian rock music, money, and psychology in churches today. It challenges the focus on material gain over spiritual growth and warns against imitating worldly trends rather than seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The speaker highlights the importance of discernment, root issues, and staying true to the standards set by Jesus, rather than conforming to worldly standards for acceptance or popularity.

A lot of young people today who don't have time to read the Bible, but have time to listen to what they call Christian rock, which is imitating the worldly rock music. It is not originally Christian, it didn't come from the Holy Spirit, they saw something in the world and they imitated it and put Christian words to it to try and attract the young people. Do you think that Jesus tried to attract the young people in that day by seeing what worldly people were doing, the Greeks and the Romans, and said, let me reach people like that? No, he depended on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been replaced by a music today. The Holy Spirit has been replaced by money. Why is it there's so much emphasis on money today in Christian work, but no emphasis on money in Christian work in the New Testament? They had emphasis on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been replaced by money, music, and psychology today. You got to be very careful, and that's why you have a generation of young people growing up in many churches, including many young people in our midst, who are taken up with what they call Christian rock. Trace the source of it, that's what I want to know. Always take the source. A good doctor will not just look at a fever and say, where does that fever come from? It comes from tuberculosis. Don't just give them a crocin and get rid of their fever. Deal with the root. So when you think of Christian rock, please trace it to its root. You'll find it's not the Holy Spirit. It's worldly, demonic rock musicians, and the Christians try to imitate them with wearing vests and black dress and black strumming guitars and all that. And you watch these Christians. They don't overcome sin in their life. They don't have time for the Bible. They spend hours practicing their guitars and listening to these worldly rock musicians and trying to imitate that in their own life. No. All I'm saying is it's not godly. I cannot imagine Jesus, when he was 15 years old, listening to that type of thing, even if such things were there in his day. And do you really want to follow Jesus? This is not the way to reach the world. I'll tell you that. People ask me, what do you think of Christian rock? I say, Christian rock, that's like asking me what I think of Christian adultery. Christian adultery, what's that? Adultery between two Christians? Christian murder. What's Christian murder? What is Christian stealing? What is Christian rock music? There is no such thing. So, I'm just saying that, you know, all this sentimental stuff, today's music has so much of sentimentality. If you compare the music written by people today compared to the music written 100 years ago and 200 years ago by people like Charles Wesley and Fanny Crosby and all those people, you'll see one fundamental difference. They wrote hymns of tremendous devotion to Christ and of service that drove people to the mission field and sent people to preach the gospel and sacrifice. Today's musicians, they write about three lines which you sing about ten times. If you don't believe me, look at the song you sing. Three lines. They don't have any more inspiration and most of those lines are, I love him, I love him, I love him. The lines itself have repetitions and then you repeat that ten times or something like that. There's no, and do you know another difference? Charles Wesley didn't make money from his music, from his songs. Today's musicians produce CDs and produce millions. Now I want to ask you all a straight question. If you have a preacher here who does not take money for his preaching, but preaches really sincerely seeking the glory of God, and another preacher who wants to make money out of his sermons and out of his books, you tell me, which of these two do you think would have a word from God? The first one or the second one? Okay. You're sure? Okay. Now here we have two musicians. One who did not write any of his songs to make money and never made many money. And here's another musician who wrote his songs and produced CDs to make millions. Which of these things, which of these songs do you think will be inspired by God? Give me a right answer and you'll know why I'm not so fascinated by today's music. Money is the greatest opposite to God. And the thing is, many of you don't have discernment. You say it sounds so nice. What sounds so nice? The beat. And that's why your Christian life is so shallow. And that's why your children go astray. I want to tell you straight. I'm holding you to the highest. It may take time to get there. Now you may be passing through a phase where you young people want to, you know, appear like they say, cool and accepted with your friends. That's fine. All I want to say is, when Jesus was 15, he did not want to appear cool and accepted with his friends. What shall I hold up to you? The standard of some third rate, half converted cowboy? Or the standard of Jesus when he was 15 years old? That's the only one standard we hold up in the church. So when we talk about love for Jesus in all these modern choruses and all, we have to be very careful. Some of them are excellent. But some of them are written by these half converted cowboys who don't know Jesus. It's sentimental love ballads which they used to sing in their unconverted days to men and women, to other boys and girls. Now they think the thing. It's a frothy, a frothy, sentimental love for Jesus which does not make them obey God's commandments. Which does not make them fervently love others. And that is why you see that the hymns that people sang years ago, made many of them leave their countries and come to difficult lands like India as missionaries. All these fellows who are singing these songs today in the United States and other places, you don't see them coming with that type of missionary passion today. That missionary passion has gone. What are they doing? They are singing sentimental love songs. And what are their leaders? These charismatic leaders who teach people to sing these songs, what are they doing? They never come here to these jungles of India and Africa. No, they go to the posh amphitheaters in America and charge $10,000 per evening to preach a message. They'll arrive there in their helicopters, preach the message and go away. These modern preachers are being brought up in this so-called Christian rock and all this rubbish with sentimental love for Jesus. I want to tell you my brothers and sisters, this is the truth I preached 33 years ago. It's the truth I preach today. We haven't changed the standards in the church. We don't judge anyone. If you want to go that way, you can go. God himself doesn't stop people from going to hell. So we can't stop you from being carnal. We can't stop you from being worldly. When God doesn't stop people from going to hell, do you know how many millions went to hell yesterday? Do you know within the three days that we had this conference, how many people God allowed to go to hell in the world? He didn't stop any of them. He didn't catch them by the neck and say, Hey, don't go to hell. And I'm not going to catch anybody by the neck and say, Stop listening to Christian rock. No, no, no. Go ahead and listen to it. There's a verse in the Bible that says, Be filthy. There's a verse in the Bible that says, Be unrighteous. Can you imagine a holy book teaching us to be unrighteous and filthy? Turn to Revelation 22, verse 11. It says here, If you are doing wrong, please continue to do wrong. You'd think that is in some book written by the devil. No, this is the inspired word of God written by the Holy Spirit. And he says here, Those who are doing wrong, please continue to do wrong. Those who are filthy, continue to be filthy. That means become more filthy. Do more wrong. You'd think John didn't hear that right. John, did you hear God correctly? Yes, sir. He heard God correctly. Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong. Let the one who is filthy continue to be filthy. I never understood that word for many, many years. Until God gave me light on it. You know, you can't understand Scripture until you get light on it. Go and ask some Bible college professor what it means. He won't be able to tell you because he doesn't have revelation. I didn't have for many years. I said, Lord, what does this mean? And this is what the Lord showed me. If you have read the 2,000 pages of this book, the Bible, and you've come to the after all its warnings and exhortations against sin and warnings and exhortations to be holy and at the end of reading all that you come to the last page and you still want to be filthy, go ahead and be filthy. You read all the Bible and you come to the last page and you still want to commit sin, go ahead and commit sin. In other words, God is saying go to hell. It's true. Go to hell. What shall I say? Shall I stop you from ruining your life with Christian rock and with seeking to be friendly with your peers? I say, go ahead. Go ahead. Go and watch internet pornography as much as you like. Go right ahead. Watch more of it next year. Go to hell. After all that you hear in CFC, all these years warning you, all the conferences you've come to, elder brothers, you heard so much about humbling yourself. Be broken. You don't want to be broken. Don't be broken. Go. Continue to think that you're somebody. Go ahead. Think that you're somebody for the rest of 2009. Go and mess up your life. Go and ruin your life. Go and ruin your family life. But he who has ears to hear, let him hear.