Note: This item was written in 2011 for the Ticker blog by guest author David Sorrell and was updated/moved here in November 2020. Furtick is still pastor of Elevation Church as of this time.
If you live in the Charlotte, NC area, there’s a very good chance you’ve heard of Elevation Church, led by one Steven Furtick. It’s currently one of the fastest-growing churches in the nation by every count, with over eight thousand members at a number of campuses in the Charlotte area and beyond.
Furtick himself is something of a rising star in the seeker-sensitive movement; along with those like Perry Noble, Erik Dykstra, Craig Groeschel, and others who took the Purpose-Driven Church model from Warren and applied it unsparingly—and it worked. Big time. Elevation started in 2005 and has been growing ever since.
In 2010 Furtick published a book named after a successful series of sermons called Sun Stand Still. It is intended as a sort of exposition on this sermon series, but also as a sort of an updated “Prayer of Jabez” gig.
So why does this book need a review? I think that will be evident as things come out and measured against Scripture and context.
While Furtick occasionally gets some things right (and those will be pointed out too), some of the things he gets wrong…he really gets wrong.
Prologue: This is how it feels...to read a book by a thirty-year-old megachurch pastor
It is perhaps a sign of things ahead that the book starts out with Furtick saying it’s a good thing to have Bono opening for him. It also sets the stage for the tone of the rest of the book.
Chapter one
Page 3: the dissonance begins here. Are the people living in the slums of Kampala not praying audaciously enough? Considering that the things that are listed as situations deserving of SSS prayers, which are mostly material concerns, do the poor Christians in the slums have audacious faith? Why or why not?
One unsettling theme rings through SSS against Furtick’s design: And it’s the same problem with the prosperity gospel. Over and over, Furtick talks endlessly of people that have done great and ‘audacious’ (more on that later) things—mostly about himself—is that those who pray SSS prayers have great things happen to them. Even though he does address when God doesn’t answer prayers, the same theme rings through: it’s happened to us, it can and will happen if you pray boldly enough.
Which leads me to my primary criticism of the book: It is not that Furtick’s prayers are too large; if anything, they are too small. This shows up through the whole book. And as a result, it distorts the Gospel, it distorts God’s word, and it distorts God’s will.
Page 8: “Let me ask you: does the brand of faith you live by produce the kinds of results in your life that you read about in the Biblical stories of men and women of faith?” Who said it had to? Is this the faith that the Bible in its entirety encourages us to? Biblically, what is faith?
Page 9: This is the first serious mangling of Scripture. He quotes Galatians 2:20 and says, “If this is too clunky for you, trade it in. Exchange it for an easier, no-money-down model.”
Excuse me? Exactly what does he think the Gospel is? This is the core of the Gospel. Read verse 20 in its context—what did it mean to Paul, and the Galatian church that he sent it to?
If Galatians 2:20 is “too clunky” for you, it’s not a sign that the text is too tough. It’s a sign that you’re not studying the text seriously enough. It’s a sign that your culture has so informed your approach to Scripture as to distort it like a funhouse mirror. Furtick has a degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Mohler’s school—hint hint, why don’t you aim the big guns at Furtick, who is doing a whole lot more damage to studying the Bible, than someone like Licona?)
Furtick quotes Hebrews 11:6—and gets something right, but in doing so, also gets something wrong. He says that “faith isn’t just a get out of hell free card”—and he’s right about that; but he goes too far in treating it like a blank check from God. He rightly says we can’t shy away from seriously acting in faith “because some have treated it recklessly and unbiblically”—well, yes, I wholeheartedly agree, but unfortunately Sun Stand Still is a great example of exactly that.
Chapter 2 sets out the main premise of the book: a brief explanation of the events of Joshua 10 and the miraculous intervention of God on behalf of Israel.
But Furtick critically misses the point of the backstory to Joshua. He briefly describes the incident with the twelve spies, and describes the people being afraid and turning back. “But fear won out that day. God’s people didn’t understand that if you want to experience God’s blessings, audacious faith is not optional.” WHAT? Their problem wasn’t fear. Fear was a symptom of the real problem: UNBELIEF. They did not believe that God would save them. This was in direct contrast to God’s getting them across the Red Sea and out of Egypt in spectacular fashion; after the Law was given to Moses and all the rest.
Ultimately this is a very big problem for Furtick: he doesn’t even treat the next forty years in the wilderness, and all that happened there, as the judgement of God. He doesn’t even mention it. He doesn’t even mention the death of all the unbelieving Hebrews—just Moses, and only then because that’s when Joshua got promoted.
Suffice it to say that this entire approach suffers from the “Prayer of Jabez” syndrome: ripping a passage out of context, allegorizing it, and thinking that it’s a way to apply God’s same power today in our own lives.
Are we really so self-centered as to fall for this? Everything wrong with PoJ is wrong with this; indeed one little verse in Joshua 10 torpedoes the whole premise of the book: “There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD heeded the voice of a man, for the LORD fought for Israel.” (Joshua 10:14)
The ‘before or since’ should be a pretty big clue to the reason for the miracle—and as we see later, Furtick fails to understand the purpose of a miracle.
Right after briefly describing the event, he does the usual song-and-dance of “I don’t know how it happened, other than that it happened.” While the Hebrew allows for some interesting alternate ideas of what happened (see here), there’s no doubt that it was a meteorological miracle—one designed by God to vindicate himself and to save the bloodline of the Messiah, as well as to demonstrate the bankruptcy of Ba’al, the false god who was supposed to be in control of the weather.
But what’s the reason for the miracle? Let’s put it in its historical context and see if that sheds any light. First, you have Israel, who has been delivered miraculously from Egypt, and who spends the entirety of the book of Joshua conquering the Promised Land by the miraculous power of God. Jericho had occurred a few chapters earlier, and after the time of Joshua, there are miracles throughout the book of Judges—not in conquest, but in liberation of the spiritually bipolar Israelites. And this clues us in to the real purpose of miracles: God intervenes at times of spiritual immaturity. Through the course of Israel’s existence, and even the early church, the miracles performed by God authenticate the message of whoever was speaking on behalf of God at the time. They are attention-getters for precisely that reason: miracles, while often signs of God’s blessing, arrive in times of inattention to God’s message. In every case of a miracle, they were the ultimate vindication of the honor and glory of God, and the overarching theme of the Bible: the Gospel. Such is the case with Joshua 10.
Page 19: “If we have the audacity to ask, God has the ability to perform.” Remember the dissonance I mentioned earlier? It builds every time he says something like this—which is very, very often. At least half of this book is him talking about himself or his church.
Which brings me to another point: this book is an attempt at apologetics, even if Furtick doesn’t realize it. He’s trying to prove God by way of His acting miraculously in his own life. We will see later how this backfires. Make no mistake—this is John W. Loftus grade narcissism here.
Page 20: “You and I may not see the same miracles Joshua did, but we serve the same God.” Good so far. “His nature never changes.” Even better—we’ll revisit that theme again. “The same power that stopped the sun and raised Christ from the grave lives in every believer.” Pretty good. “God still demonstrates his power and supplies his provision...” Definitely true. “...in direct proportion to the faith of his children.” Nope! Swing and a miss. If anything the reverse is true; and this is exactly what I mean with the dissonance I’ve described between Furtick’s idea of prayer and the true nature of God’s will. This paragraph was great until the last line; in my own life (and I’m quite certain that this is true of most who would read this), God’s faithfulness has often been in spite of my faith or my performance. I’m a sinner. I frequently find myself asking how it’s even possible for one person to sin so much. I’m timid. I’m nervous. I’m diminutive in stature. But God has seen fit to bless me in spite of all of my shortcomings, and the Bible is quite clear as to why: His Spirit is at work in me (Ephesians 2:8-10).
Sun Stand Still Chapter 3: Page 23 Vision
Before I begin this chapter I’d like to take a brief interlude to explain a few things. First, I’m sure Furtick is the real deal—a genuine Christian. The problem is that his understanding of Christianity and the Bible is firmly embedded in a specific culture: American, and particularly Southern. What we wind up with is a book that is designed for that specific culture as well.
Diving right into Chapter 3, on page 21 Furtick starts off on the wrong foot by claiming that “God gives people the exact experiences he wants them to have in order to shape the specific destiny he’s designed for them.” To the culture that the Bible was written in, of course, this would be absolutely foreign—akin to the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch on Monty Python’s Flying Circus. But I would argue that Furtick is missing the point. There is a God-designed destiny for those who believe, and Furtick misses it: to be conformed to the image of Christ. How we do that is up to us, but there are some key Biblical themes missing from Furtick’s description of that ‘destiny.’
One thing that stands out in this introduction is his description of the ‘typical chief of sinners’ testimony. It does get mentioned later, but his primary identification with the Gospel is that it transforms a person’s life to turn them around from addictions, and attitudes, and other things that harm themselves and others. Slight problem: That’s not the Biblical gospel. Sanctification is not justification, and he clearly managed to leave that out. While being conformed to Christlikeness is one of the sanctifying works of the Spirit, there is a real problem with identifying ‘having your act together’ as the evidence of faith—and this shows up in spades later on.
Ultimately I have a question for Furtick: He describes ‘walking the aisle’ to make Jesus the Lord of his life, but why? If it was to repent and ask the forgiveness of sins, why did this necessary part of the gospel get left out here? This is a pretty glaring omission.
Page 24 is where Furtick mentions the epiphany of sorts that endows him with his grand ‘vision’ (a term we’ll mention later) for his life and ministry. It mentions one sentence in a book by Jim Cymbala called Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire.
And thus we get the first hint of the Charismatic influences on Furtick’s ideas—and this starts showing up a whole lot. But ultimately what emerges is a picture of a 30-year-old megachurch pastor with little in the way of discernment: he’s open about who influences him, and this gives us a good idea of where he’s coming from.
Furtick is very clear about how he read about the things God was doing in Cymbala’s church in Brooklyn, and how he didn’t want his life to be wasted. Unfortunately, this is where the influence of the “Experiencing God” stuff shows up: for Cymbala, and then in Furtick. This is why I call SSS an attempt at apologetics: it is trying to prove God through personal experience. And I think I know why—because we live in an age of experience, and personal, subjective experience can’t be called into question by those who doubt (or so it is thought).
It is no surprise that Furtick would come to the conclusion that the experiences described by Cymbala and others are an ironclad proof for God. Interestingly enough, Furtick does say on page 25 that “[i]f the dream in your heart isn’t biblically based, focused on Jesus, …” among other things, then it’s likely it’s not a God-given vision. With this much I readily agree. However, this means that Furtick’s own book fails that test because it’s decidedly lacking on the Biblical content, and what Biblical content it uses it mangles out of context.
Page 29 introduces one very big problem: the praise of naiveté as some sort of virtue. He relates the story of knowing he was supposed to start a large church in a large city, but knew nothing about how to go about doing it. Why is this treated like a virtue? This is not biblical faith. This is blind faith that the Bible repeatedly denies. His wrap-up for this section is “The legions of the naïve can change reality just by being ready to respond to the visions God gives them.” Mr. Furtick, why aren’t you a Mormon?
The entire book is centered on Furtick’s understanding of Joshua 10, and the life of Joshua in general. But as a result of the Western, American Christianity he grew up with, we are treated to some slack-jaw-inducing statements like “Before Joshua could change the world through audacious faith, he had to seize God’s vision in a Page 23 moment of his own.”
Say what? For Furtick, the historical importance of the event takes a backseat to an allegorical view: that it contains some principle that can be applied to our own lives. Suffice it to say that those in the times of the Bible would have keeled over laughing at such an idea. And the entire book is chock full of statements just like it, and about more passages than just this one. Such an understanding of the miracle of Joshua 10 manages to completely misunderstand both the reason for the miracle, and exactly who did the world changing (hint: it wasn’t Joshua).
The chapter ends with Furtick listing all the things that would not have happened ‘without his Page 23 vision.’
He does mention sin again, but treats it strangely: he speaks of simply trying to ‘manage’ sin, or feeling like a spiritual failure by comparing yourself to others instead of Jesus. And I simply have to question his understanding of the Gospel here, because there’s no better way to feel like a spiritual failure than comparing yourself to Jesus unless you know what the gospel means.
“Rules without revelation result in rebellion.” Excuse me, please read the Old Testament. Rules by revelation still resulted in rebellion because that’s our nature. What about looking to Jesus deals with sin? How does Jesus deal with sin? Why leave that out here?
Chapter 4 is the “Sun Stand Still Lexicon,” and as such there’s definition and explanation of his terms. Great! Let’s take a look.
“Sun Stand Still Prayer”
“Sun Stand Still is based on a prayer in Joshua 10 that affected time and space. […] As it applies to you, SSS is a metaphor for the seemingly impossible things God wants to do in and through your life.”
And what sort of ‘impossible things’ does Furtick have in mind?
“Broken relationships, financial provision, career aspirations, spiritual breakthroughs at work, in the community, or elsewhere in the world, physical and emotional healing, loved ones who are far from God, standing strong against temptation, achieving important life goals, finding and embracing purpose, and ministry resources and momentum.”
Why does the gospel not show up until number six in the list, and even then not directly? How is the inability of man to save himself from his sin not the most important ‘impossible thing?’ Everything else mentioned is ‘secular’ in nature and not really evidence of God’s working—good things happen to unbelievers too, but the one thing that is truly impossible is the one thing that God has already done for us in Christ. Is that really ‘afterthought’ material?
Purpose, of course, is baked in to the whole book because Furtick is one of the top acolytes of the Rick Warren-esque Seeker Sensitive movement. As such it suffers from those flaws as well.
“Page 23 Vision”
“Believing God for the impossible begins with seeing the invisible—understanding who God is and what he wants to accomplish through you.”
I would argue that such a point is made more eloquently in Romans 12:1-2. Christlikeness is nowhere to be found in this book, at least through this.
“Impossible”
“What qualifies as impossible? Anything that seems impossible to you.” He goes on to say that impossibilities don’t exist since there’s nothing God cannot do (misquoting Matthew 19:26 and Luke 1:37), nevermind the philosophical sloppiness of such a claim, it’s clear from the Bible that there are a whole pile of things God can’t do—for which we have great reason to be thankful.
“Audacity”
(Aside from being ruined by a certain book called “The Audacity to Hope”—it gets ruined again.)
Amusing is his comment that his terms might come across as empty jargon.
It’s all empty jargon. That’s been painfully clear from page 1.
“Biblical audacity is a mind-set that approaches God with confidence and believes him for the impossible. It’s rooted in the gospel and it’s powered by the Holy Spirit.”
Actually, I’d agree with this because it comes the closest to the Biblical understanding of faith as based on trust—and for Christians, we can trust precisely because of the gospel and what was accomplished through it. Sadly it doesn’t look like a Sun Stand Still prayer, and is hobbled by the ‘impossible’ baggage.
“Audacious Faith”
He starts off on the right foot here too, mentioning Hebrews 11:6 and Ephesians 2:8 and then goes on to saw off the branch he’s sitting on by saying “Unfortunately, faulty interpretations of isolated verses have resulted in shaky foundations of faith for many Christians.” I’d completely agree. Unfortunately, his own foundations are very shaky, and he has passed on the shakiness inherent in the system through Sun Stand Still.
“Audacious faith isn’t some newfangled, extrabiblical variety of faith. It’s a return to the core of Christianity: trusting Jesus completely” On this I’d wholeheartedly agree up to this point. This is precisely what the church today needs. Once again he mentions part of the Gospel here by saying “We are saved by grace through faith in Christ, period;” but the nagging question that keeps popping up is “What are we saved from?” At this point in the book it becomes apparent that if he spent any more time talking about sin and the gospel’s relation to that, it would seriously change the content and timbre of the book. As well it should—because the book is very silent on the real nature of sin and the gospel.
“A Move of God/The Miraculous”
“When I talk about a miracle or move of God, I’m not necessarily referring to a supernatural phenomenon from a scientific perspective. I’m more focused on the way God’s power infuses the life of ordinary believers to produce results that glorify Jesus.”
Which is an interesting thing to say when he describes both Biblical miracles and otherwise great events in our lives as cheapening the term ‘miracle.’
Chapter 5: Ignite the Ordinary, otherwise known as Storytime with Steve
The entire premise of chapter five is the idea that there is a difference between ‘ordinary faith’ and ‘audacious faith,’ but it takes different forms. On top of that, he writes that the ‘ordinary’ lives we live are numbing and otherwise harmful to ‘audacious’ faith.
Pulling a page straight out of the Blackaby playbook, he begins by talking about how Moses was doing ordinary stuff—like tending sheep—before the burning bush incident of Exodus 3.
And judging by his descriptions of how unappealing such a scene would be in a movie, it’s like he’s never actually seen The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston.
This is immediately followed by a list of examples of ordinary, ho-hum scenarios: negative medical results, becoming a youth pastor with limited resources, being an at-home parent, or a job that only serves to pay the bills. It’s good that he does illuminate ways to be like Christ in each situation he describes, which is a real plus, it begs one unsettling question: based on what was written in previous (and certainly later) chapters, how are these situations anything other than the fault of those who are in them—because they did not pray Sun Stand Still prayers to begin with?
There are a few other examples of normal people doing extraordinary things to help those in need, but there’s a problem: unsaved people do that stuff too. Again, the theme comes through: there’s really not much in the way of difference in the lives of saved and unsaved people, if you look at them through the lenses of ‘life improvement’ or ‘personal fulfillment.’
Furtick commits another Biblical snafu here in saying that the only Biblical task for pastors and teachers is to prepare God’s people for their own personal ministry. I would argue that’s not the case: the task of the pastor is to oversee, feed, and nurture the flock, and that the end result of that is that flock being equipped for personal ministry.
“The people don’t fill the seats to watch my exegetical dunking skills.” I’d say that’s true, and it’s a problem: because the purpose of pastoral exegesis is to explain and illumine the truth of Scripture for the believers. It’s part of the building up of the church, and I think Furtick has missed the point of it. I’d even say that doing some exegesis could have saved him a lot of trouble with this book.
In the section titled “Jesus’ affinity for the ordinary,” Furtick claims that “There was no shortage of talent in the seminaries of Jesus’ day, but he passed over the MDivs and scooped up a collection agent named Matthew.” Did Furtick forget about the MDiv named Paul?
The irony in all this is that for all his talk of igniting the ordinary, Furtick spends an awful lot of time talking about how extraordinary his church is, and more disturbing still, is how those close to him spend an awful lot of time talking about how extraordinary Furtick is (the ‘documentary’ put out by Elevation is still online, and provides an alarming glimpse of how he is viewed by his congregants). That unavoidable dichotomy comes roaring back: we’re extraordinary. We prayed sun stand still prayers. You could be like us.
Furtick makes a really unfortunate remark at about this point: “Over the course of his three-year earthly ministry, most of his recorded miracles happened in the marketplace or by the side of the road, not in the synagogue. Put that in your theological pipe and take a toke.”
Well, Steven, if you’d been doing your exegetical practice like you should as a pastor, you’d know that Jesus did not perform miracles there because of their unbelief. It wasn’t the ordinary/extraordinary dichotomy that Jesus saw, it was the ‘believing or unbelieving’ dichotomy that Jesus saw. Now why don’t you take your own advice and put that in your theological pipe and fire that up?
But because of this failure to mention the reasons, he actually introduces a critical problem into his idea: and that is the unintentional statement that he didn’t go for the rabbis and ‘DMins’ of his day because they already had their act together. And this is a symptom of a more critical problem: people today don’t think they need God because their lives are already decent. People have this funny tendency to turn to God only when things get bad. Furtick literally has no reason for an unbeliever who is content with his life to consider the gospel as he understands it. They’ve already got the life change. They’re already motivated and set. And capable—sometimes really capable. What good would an Elevator’s (the term given to those who attend Elevation) experience of God in their lives be to them?
“Don’t be disillusioned by a lack of special effects in your life.” He’s speaking of ‘big’ missions from God (I can’t help but think of the beginning scenes of Blues Brothers), but after all he’s written about God doing the impossible for people with audacious faith, this seems a little…hedgy. He’s spent five chapters talking about special effects and then says, don’t be surprised if there aren’t any. Might that be because the entire premise is mired in personal subjectivity?
Chapter 6: Wave Jumper
More of the same, but one notable mention: Furtick seriously mangles the understanding of 1 Samuel 14 when Jonathan raided the Philistine camp.
He quotes 1 Sam 14:6 and then says, “Wasn’t Jonathan sending the ultimate mixed message? If you were trying to convince me to join you in an initiative this dangerous, I’d want you to do better than ‘Perhaps the LORD will act on our behalf.’”
Incidentally he preached a sermon not long ago on this same passage at James MacDonald’s church; it hasn’t gotten any better. He focuses way too much on the ‘perhaps’ of the verse as indicative of some sort of doubt about what God will do, but this is just the result of being a naïve Westerner. Needless to say, good exegetical dunking skills could have saved him some trouble here. This wasn’t an example of ‘faith in uncertainty,’ as Furtick seems to think it is, it is faith understanding that God is fighting on behalf of Israel and that their task is fully reliant on God’s will for the matter. But that is the biggest problem with the book, as we’ll see later.
The rest of chapter six is Furtick talking more about how Elevation got started.
Chapter 7: Tiny Babies, Giant Faith
I have a soft spot for preemies. And I should, because I was one of them. This is a chapter relating the story of a family at Elevation who had twin girls who were born twelve weeks early, who miraculously lived.
Rather than nitpick the events of the story, which would be tacky, this is a good time to begin a constructive criticism of the book: how are we, as Christians, supposed to pray? What is our relation to the will of God? I’m inclined to think that God did act to preserve the lives of the twins; I’ve seen lives spared and taken away, blessings come and blessings go, but what does the Bible really say about all this? And this is where Furtick’s gifts could be used to great effect and advancement of the gospel.
Here’s a hint of what it will look like: of all the Bible has to say about prayer, Joshua 10 isn’t one of them. And for a reason.
Chapter 8: The Surcharge of Sacrifice
I have very few objections to the content of this chapter. I would only add the cultural significance of OT circumcision, which served to set Israel apart from the Canaanites that they were going to war against.
His discussion of the trials of Joseph in the book of Genesis once again begs the question of the will of God; it wasn’t really a matter of ‘audacious faith’ and ‘Page 23 vision’ and things like that. Unfortunately he ignores Genesis 50:20, which the death knell for the Sun Stand Still idea. It’s hard enough to appropriate OT historical texts to make them somehow applicable today, but harder still to try to explain prayer in this way in relation to the will of God.
Minor irony alert: there’s a section of this chapter where Furtick says that people might not accept your vision or calling, and to be prepared for the disapproval of others. He’s got a church of eight thousand plus members. I have a sneaking suspicion if he preached a little more about sacrifice and less about audacious faith and sun stand still prayers, he’d have a smaller church.
But if he writes any further books, this is where he needs to begin—because he nailed most of the Biblical material.
Chapter 9: The Simplest Systematic Theology Ever
We’ll be looking at Furtick’s take on Systematic Theology, which should be a good thing, except it serves to give us a better look at why he says what he does about the will of God.
He starts out by rightly admiring The Knowledge of the Holy by Tozer, which is a pretty good little book, but it should have informed him a little more about the will of God. He’s right by hammering home time and again that who God really is matters a great deal for how we approach him. Unfortunately, this begs a few really big questions regarding God’s will and the Sun Stand Still approach to prayer, but the particulars of that will be reserved for a more appropriate chapter.
One thing I would like to point out about his discussion of his treatment of “God is good” (he kind of creates a theology out of the line “God is great, God is good” prayer for simplicity’s sake) is that there is an equivocation on the term ‘good.’
God is not good in the same sense that we are good; when theologians refer to the goodness of God they mean that God is perfect and lacks nothing in nature; the kind of goodness that Furtick speaks of is God’s omnibenevolence. But if you’re going to speak of God’s goodness toward his people, there is simply more to it than His being good.
Furtick’s gift as an entertaining storyteller really shines through in this chapter in the story he tells of being confronted by a bully in school and rescued by a teacher whom the bully feared. Yet the question ultimately remains—which he does try to address later in the book and elsewhere—of what it means when SSS prayers don’t get answered.
Chapter 10: Hear. Speak. Do.
“[…]in the pages of the Scriptures, as God’s promises become personal to you, your faith potential is ignited.”
In what sense to the promises of God become personal to us? How do we know which ones are meant for us and which were meant for those to whom the texts were originally written—and is it fair to appropriate those promises in things like Sun Stand Still? Also, Furtick’s latent charismatic influences tend to show up in this chapter in his talk of activating/igniting faith. Naturally I recommend Tekton’s article on faith as a better understanding.
“If your faith isn’t rooted in God’s promises, it’s not scriptural faith. It’s just wishful thinking.” As written, that’s true and commendable. But God’s promises to Joshua aren’t applicable to us.
It’s clear through the book that Furtick lacks an understanding of how God uses people and nations to accomplish His will. Just because God used someone in the Bible, it doesn’t mean that there’s a principle to be learned that can be applied to our own lives. Again, this is just another product of the brand of Christianity Furtick is from.
Furtick lists twelve Audacious Faith Confessions to bolster our faith. Let’s take a look:
1. I am fully forgiven and free from all shame and condemnation. (Romans 8:1-2, Ephesians 1:7-8, 1 John 1:9)
This is one of the few times he actually gets to the core of the gospel—that we are far from God because of sin.
The rest of them with few exceptions are just Joel Osteen, word-of-faith-esque soundbytes that by themselves are just spiritual fluff (even if they are supported with Scripture). A few stand out:
“I am increasing in influence and favor for the kingdom of God.”
What? He references Genesis 45 (Joseph), 1 Samuel 2:26 (Samuel), and Acts 2:37-47 (the rise of the early church at Pentecost).
Is this a legitimate treatment of the rise of the aforementioned people? No. There’s no guarantee that influence and favor follow from believing in God; in fact the exact opposite is the one thing guaranteed by Scripture. But more importantly, why should we desire influence and favor? I’m looking at you, Prayer of Jabez.
Since the theme of the chapter is hearing the word, preaching, and ‘activating faith,’ he quotes Matthew 14 and Peter walking on the water. Furtick holds Peter up as a great example of someone who heard Jesus call, speaks of a bold claim about his faith, and then activates his faith by getting out of the boat and walking on the water.
Except Furtick ends the story there. Which means it’s out of context: because Peter promptly loses that faith. In one of the best sermons I’ve ever heard on this passage, Peter, whose name meant rock, sank like one. That this follows the swagger is no accident and not to be left out. It’s about Jesus, not Peter—because Jesus rescues Peter and lugs him back into the boat. In terms of activating faith, Peter’s example seriously backfires.
Sun Stand Still Chapter 14: Pray Like A Juggernaut (But Not Like Jesus)
When last we left off, Furtick was trying to explain why some prayers don’t get answered. Well this week, he’s going to pick up by complaining about how Christians usually pray.
Disliked Prayer #1 is “Lord, be with me today.” While he rightly recognizes that this is a prayer to be made aware of God’s presence and activity, he dismisses it because it appears to be ‘filler’ and meaningless. And for many Christians, perhaps it is. Except this seems to be a rather strange objection, considering he just got done trying to boil systematic theology down for his readers.
Disliked Prayer #2 is what gets him into the most trouble of anything he says in the book. He actually says:
“[…]How about this one? I used to always prequalify my big prayers with this introduction: ‘God, if it be thy will…’
So, does God need an opt-out clause in the contract before he’s willing to sign on the line and cut a deal with Steven Furtick? Or with you? […]On the whole this idea seems very humble.
[…]Over time, though, I realized I wasn’t buffering my prayers with this condition because I was humble. I was doing it because I was scared. […]it was a cop-out. What I was really saying was, ‘God, I’m asking you to do this, but I’m not really expecting that you will. So, just in case you don’t, let me acknowledge up front that you might not.’”
Yeah.
He really said it. Don’t take my word for it, go read it for yourself.
This is a critical mistake on Furtick’s part for at least three reasons. First: had he been doing his exegetical dunking practice, he would have avoided this blunder. Second, it seriously distorts the Biblical teaching of the will of God, and when the teaching of the Bible about the will of God is examined, the whole SSS model is undermined. Third, as a result of the first two, it introduces a level of hubris into the mindset of the believer that is nowhere authorized in Scripture that sets up a dangerous disillusionment should those audacious prayers not pay off.
So what does Scripture teach about the will of God? In attempting to say that praying that God’s will be accomplished gives God an ‘out’ of sorts from answering your prayer the way you want, Furtick flat-out ignores the numerous, and really-tough-to-brush-aside passages that do talk positively about praying for the Will of God. Praying “Lord, if it be thy will” is not a sign of fear or doubt, it is a sign of trust that Furtick does not show an understanding of from his treatment of Scripture.
Like the Lord’s prayer. (Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven—was Jesus giving his Father a cop-out to not do that? If Furtick wants to be consistent, he will have to say yes.)
Or Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane. (And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”—hey, Furtick, had Jesus prayed a Sun Stand Still prayer, could the crucifixion have been avoided? Did Jesus not pray audaciously enough, and as a result give God a cop-out that resulted in the death of the Son of God?)
Perhaps Furtick is just ignorant about what the will of God actually is. Looking at the whole of Scripture, the composite picture of God’s will is that we be redeemed from our sins by trusting in Jesus’ death on the cross in our place, and that we be conformed to the image of Jesus now and forever. (Romans 12:1-2, Acts 2:22-40, Hebrews 10:1-17, Revelation 4:11, among many others).
Suffice it to say that this understanding of the will of God conflicts drastically with Furtick’s. Furtick has presented an understanding of God’s will that ignores the very vast majority of what Scripture actually says about it, and as a result gives people a false hope that if they pray right, that God will do what they ask.
Which reminds me of something else that needs to be discussed. Jesus himself says repeatedly in the Gospels (John 14:13-14 in this quote) that “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”
This is repeated several times through the Gospels and is referenced in the New Testament. It is not a blank check for a PlayStation 3, a fast car, and a billion dollars; as Gary Habermas has pointedly said, “Ask in Jesus’ name, but remember that Jesus suffered, was rejected by men, and died a horrible death on a cross. And he was the Son of God; do you really expect better than what He got?”
Ignore Furtick. If praying expressly for the will of God was good enough for Jesus and the Apostles, it’s good enough for you and me.
But Furtick goes on; he spends a few pages showing some ‘audacious’ prayers that people prayed in the Bible that resulted in miracles. He then twists James 5:17 (“Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.”) and then says, “We are just like Elijah. We are just like Joshua.” The irony is that this follows James 4:13-17, which reads, “ Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.”
If you’re thinking this is starting to sound like word-faith teaching, you’d be right. Yes, James does say that the prayers of the righteous accomplishes much, and he is right—but not because the righteous man, or Joshua, or Elijah, prays audaciously. It’s that the prayers they pray are in accord with the will of God; in both OT examples, their prayers have a direct effect on the history of Israel that culminated in the birth of the Messiah.
The darker problem with this whole chapter is that there is the very real possibility that God desires to conform us to the image of Jesus through trials and tribulation (hello, Uganda story from the first chapter)…and that there is a very real possibility that success and audacity may not be from God.
There is a certain irony about Furtick’s prayer he recounts in this chapter: “And each time, I spoke these words of faith: ‘Father, I thank you that our church will have worship services in that warehouse and we will reach thousands of people for Jesus Christ, according to your perfect plan, in your perfect timing.”
Is Furtick going to admit that he ended his prayer by giving God a cop-out to not give them the warehouse (which is itself a notable incident in Elevation’s history)? If not, why did he end it by appealing to God’s planning and timing? Those things directly concern the will of God. In perhaps the biggest flip-flop of the book, he quotes 1 John 5:14-15, which talks about…asking God for things according to His will.
And he gets it right.
He says, “Notice that it doesn’t say ‘if we ask anything we desire’ or ‘if we ask anything audaciously,’ but ‘if we ask anything according to his will.’
So why rant about “if it be Thy will” prayers? He gets most of it right regarding this passage; but he drops the ball at the end and reveals that word-faith strain running through the book: “Every time you kneel before the Father to pray with audacity, you must have his Word in your mind and in your heart. Otherwise, you risk confusing your agenda with his, praying gigantic prayers that bring microscopic returns.”
Microscopic returns are the result of asking God for anything outside of God’s will? If you’re confusing your agenda with God’s, is there any guarantee at all that your prayers will be answered at all? And even if you do pray in God’s will, as Jesus instructed us to do, why do we expect better than what Jesus got?
Furtick is right when he says that Scripture is very clear about the will of God, and that we don’t have to go hunting and pecking to find it. And that’s exactly why we can say that Sun Stand Still ignores the complete will of God, ignores the greater theme of the Bible, and suffers from cultural tunnel vision. It ignores a more sophisticated understanding of Biblical faith and a Biblical understanding of God’s nature and how we relate to him through Jesus (more on that later). God desires that we conform to Christ in every situation. This is why Paul writes:
I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:10-13)
That same attitude is available for us today through faith in Christ and faithful study of God’s Word in the fellowship of other believers, no matter our circumstances. True faith, hope, and love shine even if our audacious prayers don’t get answered; our Godly virtue shines in the understanding that God is still in charge.
Chapter 15: Permission to Pray Practically
Not much can be said about this chapter, since it’s three pages long, but a few things could stand to be said.
Remember at the beginning when I said that one of the problems of the book was that Furtick’s prayers were too small? This is what it looks like: he reiterates the list of things earlier in the book as practical things to pray for, and reiterates that God has no problem changing impossible things in our lives, and while this is true, there is a certain short-sightedness to it: the one truly impossible thing for us is that we can’t pay for our own sin. Everything else he mentions is both possible, and in most cases, completely unrelated from divine providence. And this leads to one of the more serious flaws in the book: it offers nothing to those who think they have everything they need, whose lives are storybook perfect, and as a result think that they do not need God. This is why ‘life change’ is not the gospel. Sure, life change is good. God answering big prayer is good. But it’s not the Gospel. Elevation’s motto is “That those far from God will find new life in Christ;” which is otherwise admirable except that they have nothing to offer those who don’t consider themselves far from God or in need of new life in Christ…which is something that a more robust Christian worldview can address.
Chapter 16 is Furtick talking about himself. Again.
Chapter 17 is little more than a commoditization of faith that gets rather close to word-faith territory; Furtick returns to the text of Joshua and finds something else to turn into a principle to live by. Unfortunately, he gets a bit close to legalism as well by way of quoting James 2:17 and saying, “And most of the time, if you don’t move, God won’t move. That’s just the way he designed faith to work.” As usual, there’s a grain of truth: and he does rightly say that prayer can easily turn into wishful thinking.
But was the purpose of the Joshua 10 miracle to teach us a new way to pray? It’s doubtful. Exegetical hoops practice could have prevented this from happening. Everything else from here on out to the end of the book is pep talk. There’s just not a lot to say about it other than that it suffers from all the flaws pointed out earlier.
Overall review: Not worth it
Recommended reading instead: Finding the Will of God by Bruce Walke