So in his sermon at Fishers Point Community Church, Sean starts off saying that he is only the "primary talker," but the Holy Spirit is the "primary speaker," I don't believe him because the Holy Spirit will be in perfect correlation with the Word of God. (Btw, this is a narrative he repeated from the last time he gave a teaching, and he didn't teach from the Word of God then either.) Sean hides from the truth of Scripture, so this is all a fanciful outward appearance to appease his audience and make them think he is humble, when the fact is that in his heart, he is filled with pride, which grows greater every day he gets closer to his masters degree.
Oh, by the way, I found his ministry page on facebook. Here it is:
https://www.facebook.com/Sean-Rose-Ministries-550738291952272/I cannot see his facebook profile because I blocked him a few years ago, but my wife looked it up and his most recent post (from when she looked at it today) show photos of his new psychology textbooks for the classes he's taking to become a licensed "Christian" counselor.
He starts off with the teaching from James 4:6 (from his new-age bible version), but generally teaches that God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble, and that Jesus taught that those who enter the Kingdom of Heaven should be as children, in that they should be humbled like children. All correct so far.
Then he goes into anecdote mode in which he talks about his daughter for a long stint because his daughter is a child and he describing things a child does. I suppose he thinks everyone in the audience (most of which are older than him) are morons because he believes they don't understand what a child is.
He then goes on in his sermon to talk about how his love never fades for his daughter. Most of us can probably already see where this is going...
Of course, Sean's not saying anything that is necessarily wrong yet, until he makes this very dangerous statement:
"
But Jesus says that we can learn about relating to God from a child's perspective."
Okay, where did Jesus say that? Notice that Sean doesn't say where Jesus said that; he instead implies that Jesus said that based on the Scripture he quoted earlier from Jesus talking about having to come to the Kingdom of Heaven as a child. Jesus never said what Sean just claimed He said. Jesus told us that we needed the humility of a child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but He never taught us that we would gain our understanding through children.
Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men.
-1Co 14:20Also, knowing Sean personally, I can tell you that his dramatic pauses and pacing and wincing and pointing fingers is all for show. He doesn't talk that way with people normally; meaning that he's training himself to "act like a typical preacher," which also means his mannerisms are faked as well. (i.e. There's almost nothing real about him on that stage.)
Perhaps it doesn't mean anything, but his black shirt and black coat really give off that Catholic priest vibe.
The problem from a philosophical aspect is that Sean is using the term pain deceitfully. He refers first to his daughter's pain of bumping her head, like from a physical injury, and then immediately connects that to the emotional grief. Those are not the same thing. Even Jesus said:
But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
-Mat 9:12It is not that you do not go to God with sickness, but if someone is sick, they should see a physician who can help. So to answer the question Sean is posing: "Where do you go with your pain?" is not being properly answered from a Biblical perspective because he's blending together two very different definitions of pain.
Ha ha... and then I'm thinking, once he's done studying these new psychology books he's going through in his seminary counseling courses, he'll probably change the answer from "God" to "a Christian counselor."
He mentioned that his wife was at home taking care of her sister who had brain cancer. I just now emailed her, even though I know they don't want to speak with me, and pleaded with her to look at my teaching on cancer. I don't know if that will go anywhere, but I tried.
I should also mention, now that I've paused for a moment, you'll notice that all of Sean's teachings is always about feel good stuff, and never about sin. That's typical church-ianity preachers for you.
At 11:30, he quotes from C.S. Lewis, which is typical of church-ianity preachers, to quote from a fiction writer who was part of the occult. He had no wisdom from God, and his so-called "testimony" was void of any salvation the Bible speaks of. You can learn more about that here:
https://www.creationliberty.com/articles/fantasy.php#1@12:00 min -- I was also thinking the same thing, "No! 16 more pages of this garbage?!" Although, to cover 16 pages in the next 20 minutes; he's either a very fast speaker, or he's using REALLY large font. (Sixteen of my pages would take me anywhere from 2-6 hours to cover depending on the context and material--so it sounds like his pages are void of actual Biblical content.)
So now he admits that he's talking about one particular kind of pain; emotional anguish. That's different than the example he gave in his opening, in which he ties it to learning from a child, which means we are about 40% of the way through his teaching, and he's just now getting to the opening context.
At 14:50 - he defines shame as "a feeling that something is wrong with you." Again, Sean demonstrates his lack of understanding of the Word of God because we've been covering that very topic in the weekly teachings on pride that I've been doing the past month.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbY08k2vP8_l42DSn-o39qRI9_ao67wlUshame: a painful sensation excited by a consciousness of guiltGuilt is the condition of having done a wrong, and the shame is the feeling you get from being guilty of something. It's not a "feeling that something is wrong with you," it's the reaction of emotion in wrongdoing which you have actually done. Sean makes shame out to be aloof rather than specific.
He then goes on to define guilt as "frustration, rejection, and disappointment" -- wrong, wrong, and wrong. Guilt is a condition, not a feeling.
guilt: criminality; that state of a moral agent which results from his actual commission of a crime or offense, knowing it to be a crime, or violation of lawIf I were to ask any of you the question that Sean is asking all dramatically, namely, "Where do we go when we feel bad? Who do we turn to?" What would be your answer? Obviously, I already know you guys, even those of you who are new Christians, will say that we ought to turn to God. Correct; meaning that these are things that brand new Christians understand, but Sean is teaching this very basic concept to people twice his senior, as if they are ignorant of it. Maybe I'm just imagining things, but that seems really arrogant to me; although, at the same time, if this church building is filled with false converts, which I believe it is, then maybe this is a message they need to hear, not having the principles of Christ laid in the foundation of their hearts.
Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
-Heb 6:1At 17:30 -- "My cares are like pepperoni on a pizza." My response:
And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
-1Co 2:4-5He's using a lot of covetous worldly references; just thought I'd note that too. I'm not saying I've never used them for examples, but I typically do it to point out sin and wickedness, not for commonality between brethren. He uses them a lot. That's because he's of the world.
He did say one thing good: When you're in pain, do you go to worldly things? He makes a good point. Some go to alcohol, some go to drugs, some go to pornography, some go to food, some go to TV and movies, some go to shopping; all to ignore pain. I totally understand that, and that part he is teaching correct.
At 22:40, he admits that the answer to his question is obvious. At least he's aware of the majority of the vanity of his questions. I was waiting for him to add that not only should we go to God, but also go to others with our pain, which is what he ended up saying. The reason I knew he was going to go there was because, in the end, he's getting a degree in Christian counseling, so we have to ask ourselves, who will be his clients by which he will make money? You can't teach people to go to God with your pain without also telling them that they need to visit that good 'ol Christian counselor to get the psychological techniques to overcome the problems that God can't seem to handle, because that's the core narrative in their education. (i.e. They say in their hearts: "
If there's no one to counsel, there's no one to give me a paycheck.") It's not wrong to go to others in the church, and that's what we're here for, but the problem is that there is ulterior motive from Christian psychologists and Christian counselors.
At about 26 min, Sean says that going to others with our pain is not something we're good at. Hmm... I'm curious: Is that something you all have had a problem with? I only struggled with that when I was a teenager, but once I got out of my parents' home for the first time, I started to come out more with my pain about things. I've always been a very emotional person, though God has taught me temperance. I've just always seen that someone who is humbled does not care how he/she looks to others when they are in pain, but the grief and pain in their hearts is pushed back when someone has pride to bottle it up. Thus, if Sean is saying that he, along with the others in that church building, have difficulty sharing pain, it sounds like there is a lot of pride in their hearts, and as he already stated in his teaching, God resists the proud. Hmm.
@28:55 - I find it funny that he's asking that church building when the last time they all confessed their sins (i.e. faults) to one another. The reason I found that funny is because he's pointing out a flaw in their church building, in which they don't really confess those things, but when I judged myself, I confess such things often in my teachings, and our church confesses those things often among one another. However, when I remember going to Nazarene church buildings, like the one he's preaching in, I don't remember anyone confessing anything; everyone was flawless in that place, and the only time they weren't is when you addressed them on it, and then to put on an outward appearance, suddenly they would be guilty of things, but only vaguely; nothing specific.
As he's ending, I notice that the real problem is that this is something that is obvious to those who have already come to repentance. That's because those of us who have come to repentance and faith in Christ came to God with our pain the first time, and we continue that as we live. Sean has to preach that message because the people in the church buildings aren't doing it, and neither is he doing as he should, and that's because they never had that initial grief and godly sorrow of their wrongdoing.
I looked up some of the Scripture he was referring to, and it had little or no contextual relevance to the topic he was discussing. There are others he could have used, but he's not aware of them, and part of the reason for that is because:
1. He's using a new-age bible version.
2. He's following the narrative of the preachers whose jobs he is looking to one day take over.
3. He does't have the Holy Spirit of God to teach him because he's not yet come to repentance.
Finally, as he ends his message, the morbidly obese woman, who is obviously covetous and gluttonous, goes up to play the keyboard. I pointed this out last year, nothing in her has changed, and obviously, no one has rebuked her sin because they don't really care about her.
Last words, he says that Jesus says, "Your refrigerator is full. I'm fuller." *sigh* Wow. This is pathetic, and it's an insult to the doctrine of Christ. These aren't the words of someone who (as Sean claims) trembles in fear at God's Word; these are new-age church-ianity feel good messages that come right out of seminary counseling, which will lead people to hell and the lake of fire.
Let me know your analysis if you guys have any. I did find that he has a couple more of these I'm probably going to go over; I found them on his Facebook ministry page. This is new stuff he created this past year, so if you want me to go over those here, let me know if you like these types of commentaries, or if they're helpful to you.
