Posted on 08/24/2019 7:36:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
After weeks of wrestling publicly with his Christian faith, Marty Sampson appears to have said goodbye to Christianity - or at the very least, the Church - once and for all in an emotional Instagram update posted on Friday.
In the post, the Hillsong worship leader of many years expressed his love for the Church's senior leaders Brian and Bobbie Houston and for fellow worship leader Joel Houston, among others.
He called Hillsong his "beautiful family of amazing souls" as he thanked them for the memories and their love.
In the highly charged update, Sampson, who started out with Hillsong back in the nineties, said he had tears running down his face and that he already missed being around his Hillsong family.
He wrote: "I love you @brianchouston I love you @bobbiehouston I love you @joelhouston I love you @benjaminhouston I love you @lauratoggs - Thank you for all the amazing memories, for the nights at your place sleeping on the floor, for the amazing times when I saw what a BEAUTIFUL family looks like.
"For the days where I fit in, where I was received with love, Brian when you officiated my wedding, for asking how my kids were, for letting me write songs and sing and have trust in me to go around the world doing what I always dreamed of doing.
"Thank you for the good times and for all the belief you have put into so many. You are genuinely inspiring, I love you."
"To @hillsong my beautiful family of amazing souls, I have loved being close to you all and I really miss being around you all. You are some of the most wonderful people I know. Thank you for all the love and all the grace and kindness you have shown me for these many years."
But his message went beyond Hillsong Church as he went on to express his love for all Christians and said that he had forgiven the Church. He also asked that Christians to forgive him if he had ever spoken badly of them.
However, before ending, he said that while he had been a Christian, he was "not any more".
"To the CHURCH of Jesus Christ, I forgive you, and I LOVE you. I've got tears running down my face because it's so true. I adore you Christians. I love you SO MUCH. That's all," he wrote.
"It was amazing being one of you, but I'm not any more.
"I love you all, and I always will. I won't forget how much I love Christians, even if they don't love me, I will always love you. Sorry for any bad words I have ever said about any of you. Forgive me. I love you all."
Sampson has penned songs that have been sung by Christians and churches the world over, like "Better Than Life", "For Who You Are", "Carry Me", "One Thing" and "O Praise the Name (Anástasis)".
But he took the worldwide Church by surprise earlier this month when he vented his frustrations about the Christian faith and the apparent "contradictions" of the Bible, saying he was "not in any more". He later deleted the post.
"Time for some real talk... I'm genuinely losing my faith.. and it doesn't bother me... like, what bothers me now is nothing... I am so happy now, so at peace with the world.. it's crazy / this is a soapbox moment so here I go xx how many preachers fall? Many. No one talks about it," he said.
"How many miracles happen. Not many. No one talks about it. Why is the Bible full of contradictions? No one talks about it. How can God be love yet send 4 billion people to a place, all coz they don't believe? No one talks about it.
"Christians can be the most judgemental people on the planet – they can also be some of the most beautiful and loving people... but it's not for me. I am not in any more."
He continued: "I want genuine truth. Not the 'I just believe it' kind of truth. Science keeps piercing the truth of every religion," he writes.
"Lots of things help people change their lives, not just one version of God. Got so much more to say, but for me, I keeping it real.
"Unfollow if you want, I've never been about living my life for others. All I know is what's true to me right now, and Christianity just seems to me like another religion at this point."
What has followed over the last few weeks has been a succession of posts further scrutinising the Christian faith and sharing his inner struggle. All the posts have been subsequently deleted.
Initially, many Christians took Sampson to be renouncing his faith, before he clarified a few days later that although he wasn't renouncing it, it was on "incredibly shaky ground".
With his latest statement on Friday reading like a farewell letter, it seems like this time, it really is goodbye from Marty Sampson.
He’s an idiot who NEVER believed or had faith.
He was a charlatan zealot who cares more about appearances and status than ever what God wanted in his life.
Well, better to be honest now than pretend to be in the fold and deceive others.
You can’t leave something you never belonged to.
He was a charlatan zealot who cares more about appearances and status than ever what God wanted in his life.
I tend to agree.
RE: Seems using Christianity was his best opportunity to take the stage and he took it.
I wonder what’s next for him...
If you think that God will condemn those who love and follow Him (I am including the entire Trinity), you are not much of a Christian.
If you think that God should accept into His presence those who have mindfully rejected Him, you don’t understand His word.
God is love. He has reached out to all of humanity. Those who hear His call and choose to separate themselves from Him are making an eternal decision. There are two places for your eternal soul - in the presence of God, or outside of the presence of God. You get to choose which of these will be your resting place.
I choose to be with God. This composer has chosen the alternative. How very sad.
Sorry!!! I think I used the WRONG IMAGE.
but that is where faith comes in.....
Coming out of the closet in 5 ... 4 ... 3 ... 2 ...
I wonder what’s next for him..
—
He’s either going to go mainstream music or come out as gay.
*Side note - I think I used an incorrect image.
All progress begins with telling the truth.
It is the correct place to start.
Now may he come to saving faith in Christ.
Does anyone have any more info on why or what happened? Ive played in a church band and it was always like family. we had our ups and downs. some got dis-illusioned, but no one denounced their faith. We laughed and we cried together but always had each others backs. My own family wasn’t as close as the band.
If he never encountered questions (and answers) about why evil things happen, or hell, or sickness, or apparent contradictions in the Bible, then he didn’t read the Bible much (Job?) and Hillsong utterly failed him.
Rather than condemn him, I condemn Hillsong for using someone who apparently was never grounded in the Word. For thrusting him into the limelight before he was ready. And for not teaching the whole truth. Babes should not be required to be leaders, and any church needs to teach the whole truth, not just the convenient truth - “the whole plan of God” and not just the parts that make people feel happy:
“22 “And now I am on my way to Jerusalem, bound in my spirit, not knowing what I will encounter there, 23 except that in town after town the Holy Spirit testifies to me that chains and afflictions are waiting for me.....25 “And now I know that none of you will ever see my face again—everyone I went about preaching the kingdom to. 26 Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of everyone’s blood, 27 for I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole plan of God. 28 Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock that the Holy Spirit has appointed you to as overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood. 29 I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 And men will rise up from your own number with deviant doctrines to lure the disciples into following them. 31 Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for three years I did not stop warning each one of you with tears.
32 “And now I commit you to God and to the message of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all who are sanctified.” - Acts 20
Shame on Hillsong.
It’s difficult to know what the Lord is doing at times. Sometimes He pulls away people’s self delusions before He shows them the truth, sometimes He gives people bound and determined to depart from any knowledge of Him their wish.
This guy is in a perilous time. Will he be restored or will we soon hear him rabidly standing up for homosexuality (which is a sign, like a canary dying in a coal mine)?
He needs prayers.
Why should anyone be surprised? Judas walked and talked with Jesus every day as one of the Twelve, and he fell away.
One of the signs of the End Times is a “great falling away,” a winnowing of the wheat and the chaff. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.
I think it is appropriate for some to take three minutes and see this.
https://youtu.be/0iaZp3CzUXk
I suspect he never was a Christian, just another con man using religion.
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