WWUTT 935 Q&A Draw Near to God, Did God Break the Law, Does God Still Speak?

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Responding to questions from listeners about entertainment choices including Game of Thrones, did God break the Law for love, and does God still speak to us. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

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What kinds of responses have we been getting to the videos that we have produced? Did God break the law for love?
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And does God still speak to us in ways other than through the Bible? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.
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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, that we may know the voice of the
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Good Shepherd and follow Him closely. If you have been blessed by our ministry through the videos or this podcast, please share it with others.
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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. So we're going to start today with a very kind email from somebody who just discovered the ministry.
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This is Terry. Hello. First of all, praise and glory to God. I am so thankful and grateful with your wonderful videos that I found on YouTube.
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Awesome. As I am a baby Christian compared to others, I'm reading and studying the
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Bible. Wow. It is a big, eye -opening, I'm loving it journey.
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That's awesome. That's a great description of the journey. That is. It is a big, eye -opening,
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I'm loving it journey. I'm loving it. Sorry, I couldn't help it. I couldn't help it.
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I couldn't help it. I had the same thought come in my mind. I just wasn't going to do it. I couldn't help it.
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Okay, continue. You and your jingles. I tell you what.
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She goes on to say, which also applies to the Christian journey. Does that mean the baby
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Christian journey? Or maybe the discovering the what videos is a big, eye -opening,
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I'm loving it journey? I don't know. Because it's obviously something different than the Christian journey.
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I'm just going to assume it's the what videos. He loves the what videos that much. I have shared some of your videos with my
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Christian brothers to give a better understanding of the scriptures as I watch them also learn and grow as my spoken words and actions will glorify the good
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Lord. Your videos with a dash of humor has me smiling, sometimes laughing.
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These videos have helped me to share and give a better understanding of certain scriptures when I'm evangelizing at work or on the streets.
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From the bottom of my heart, thank you and God bless to all involved. I appreciate that so much,
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Terry. And I'm glad that the videos minister to you in such a way and even bring a smile to your face.
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Yes. I know they make you laugh too. They make me laugh too? Yep. Whenever you're doing them. You hear me laughing when
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I'm recording them? Some of them. Like that. I don't think I've ever noticed this.
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I'll point it out next time. Like what, when you're upstairs and you hear me laughing, you're going to knock on the floor or something.
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You're laughing. No, I remember it being either you, well, more than not in the dining room whenever you giggle.
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Oh, while I'm putting the slides together. Yes. That's usually because something about the slide makes me laugh.
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Yes. Not necessarily the script. Well, no. Yeah. That's what I thought you were saying.
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Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, okay. No, no. The slides. I chuckle myself. Yes. I tickle myself.
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Wait, don't say that. Don't say I tickle myself. That sounds weird.
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That's the expression. I tickle myself. That's the expression. You tickle yourself. Yeah. Like, you know, sometimes how you'll say something goofy late at night and you start cracking up.
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Yes. And I'm not quite as humored as you are. Yeah. I'm mostly laughing at the fact that you're so humored by it.
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So you tickled yourself. That happens. That's where that comes from.
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Yeah. It's just weird. You know, like when you go to the doctor and if they're ever pressing on a part of you that becomes ticklish, they'll say, here, you put your hand there and then
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I'll put my hand over your hand because they're trying to see, you know, putting applying pressure to a certain place. See if it hurts there.
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No. Never had to do that before. Yeah. As ticklish as I am. No. There was a period of time when
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I was younger, we thought I was having an appendicitis. So the doctor would push on my side and, oh, that tickles.
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So he would put my hands. So I'm pushing and he's just pushing his hands over my hands.
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Yeah. I would still tickle myself. I guess that's why. I guess you're supposed to not be able to tickle yourself.
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But in that particular instance, you would be tickling yourself. I am unique. All right.
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So on Friday, we're just having a conversation between each other. We typically have these conversations anyway, you just happen to be a part of it sometimes on Friday.
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This is true. So we take questions from listeners and you can submit those questions to when we understand the text at gmail .com.
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This next question comes from Jonathan in South Carolina. And this is in regards to the video that I did last week on Game of Thrones.
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Okay. So last week I recorded one of the extended videos taking some of those comments that we had received on the
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Game of Thrones. What video that I did, which wasn't exclusively about Game of Thrones. It was about any kind of entertainment that we would put before our eyes that would have some very inappropriate scenes in it that we as Christians just should not partake in.
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Right. So being more deliberate about our entertainment choices. One of the things that I didn't say in that particular response video is that we live in a time in which you can know beforehand what's in that movie.
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Very true. There's no excuse for going into a film or especially renting something online and not knowing the content that's in there.
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There are all sorts of parental guides, even imdb .com, which is kind of the biggest online resource for films that's out there.
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Right. I mean, it's a secular resource, but it's still going to have a parental guide in there that you can click on and will tell you exactly the kind of content that's in the movie.
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Right. So there's not an excuse to go into a film not knowing that there is some sort of a scene in there that you should not be a participant in.
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But because Game of Thrones is big right now, having entered into its final season.
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Right. Then that was kind of the focus of that video since that was the buzz at that time. Game of Thrones was the one form of entertainment that was singled out.
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But it's any kind of movie or television that we would watch. Yeah, it always applies. Yeah, that might be sexually explicit in nature.
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So I did the response video last week, the 30 minute response video, which
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I then took the audio from and put it in the podcast. So since you weren't on the podcast with me last week,
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I just took the audio from that video and that was the Q &A.
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Yes, I was not feeling well. Jonathan from South Carolina, having watched that, has said that he was thankful for the video regarding Game of Thrones and pretty much everything else related to holiness that was mentioned in that video.
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I've been doing some holiness cleaning recently over the past couple of months in my house and it has been wonderful.
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Although the stuff isn't out the door yet, it is very well segregated from everything.
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My problem is what is next? I feel like it would be sinful to give away or even sell all the garbage that I've accumulated seeing as that I'm getting rid of it for my spiritual well -being.
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Don't you think? Do I just throw it away? Do I burn it? Thank you for your time.
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We did this. I had all my college stuff and whatnot whenever we got married and we put it all in the garage because there wasn't enough room for everything.
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I remember that. And when we were finally going through all that, I'm like, what do
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I do with this? I don't know what to do with this. Throw it away. We did. Dumpster, it went.
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And it wasn't just movies and books and stuff like that that you had accumulated. There was also stuff that people had given you.
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Yeah. Like self -help tapes. Yep. And there were, I think, some self -help books in there, too.
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Was there anything Joel Osteen? I can't remember. Possibly. I know there was like the spiritual guru stuff.
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Some of that was in there. But yeah, we just took it and threw it in the dumpster. We did. Not going to pass that on to anybody else.
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You're just totally cold turkey. We're getting rid of all of that. Unless you have a stamp that says heretical garbage.
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If it's for research purposes only. Yeah. Perhaps. Yes. But I went through this, too.
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And in fact, I've already responded to Jonathan. I sent an email back to him. And it was in my mid -20s.
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I was helping out in a youth group at that time. It was a very large youth group.
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I think it was about 100 students. And there were 10 leaders. No, I take that back.
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There were 8 leaders. And 4 couples. So, among those 8 leaders, they were all couples.
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4 couples, 8 leaders. Husband and wife. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. I think I got that figured out now. Finally. But then there was also another single adult male and single adult female.
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Okay. And we happened to be classmates. We graduated in the same class together. I was considered the single adult youth sponsor.
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Male. Single adult male youth sponsor. And there was a talk that I did with the youth at one point about making good listening choices.
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And it was mostly related to music. And I realized in giving that particular talk that I did not have anything in my music library that I should have been ashamed of at that particular time.
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I was listening to mostly Christian music or classical music, film scores, stuff like that.
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To this day, I still listen to hymns, film scores, classical music. That's mostly what I listen to.
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But I was being convicted over giving that talk and all the research that I did in it, whether it was giving out facts or statistics or even reading from the scriptures.
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And over the course of doing that lesson with those students, I was convicted in heart over the movies that I owned.
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Even though that wasn't even the talk. And none of the students even asked me about that. None of them were coming up to me going, you're saying this about music, but we happen to know that you own these movies.
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Because I would have youth come over to my apartment, knock on the door and say, hey, do you have such and such a movie?
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And I would go, so I would say, yeah, sure. So I'd go over to my shelf, grab it and hand it to them. And then they'd go have a movie night or something like that.
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They knew what I had on my shelf because they would come and borrow movies from me. But none of the students ever said this, even though I was talking about music choices.
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Don't be listening to this kind of music. No one came to me and said, but you own these kinds of movies.
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Again, in the process of doing that for the youth, I was convicted regarding the movies that I own.
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So what I did in week two, the first week I addressed music, I actually went to the head youth leader and I said,
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I want to do this again. I want to do it next week, but I've got a different approach I'm going to take. And he said, sure, we'll give you another week.
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He thought it was great. He wanted it to keep going anyway. So I came in the second week with a box full of my
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DVDs. And I set them down and explained to them. Now, over the course of putting all this together for you guys,
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I've been convicted over the movies that I own. I had about 30 DVDs in that box. Given the amount of money that you pay per DVD at that particular time, it was somewhere between $300 and $400 worth of DVDs.
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And I started pulling them out, opening them up, taking a DVD out of the case, and I would bend it and it would burst in my hands.
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And when I did that the first time, the students were just kind of sitting there wide -eyed. What did he just do?
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I didn't know a DVD would do that. You know, when you bend it and it explodes. It doesn't just snap.
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It blows up. That's crazy. I've microwaved one, but I haven't made one blow up.
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Yeah, I've done the microwave thing too. I mean, that's like every guy's got to do that. You've got to microwave a DVD.
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It stinks for weeks. But I did that with all 30 DVDs. I just bent them until they popped.
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And the whole while I was doing that, I was quoting from Scripture and explaining what we put before our eyes.
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The passage in Philippians chapter 4 was one that I use. Whatever is pure, whatever is honorable, think about these things.
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That was kind of the basis of what I was doing. So I explained to them I didn't have any music that I needed to change.
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I didn't need to change my listening habits, but I do need to change my viewing habits. So even in the course of doing this for you guys,
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I've come to be convicted over the movies that I own and realizing I needed a holiness purge. I needed to get this stuff out of my house.
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And it was so stunning to the students when I was doing that, saying our focus needs to first and foremost be on Christ.
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We need to focus on Christ. Does any of this honor God in our viewing and in our listening?
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And the students were so shocked by that, they thought that I had gone to the video store and asked if they had any scratched up DVDs.
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Oh, wow. And that I was actually just popping DVDs for effect, but they weren't really my
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DVDs. Right. And so there were some other students that stepped up and said, no, we borrowed some of these
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DVDs from Gabe. So we know these are his DVDs. And I blew apart three to four hundred dollars worth of DVDs in front of my youth group that night.
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I bet that was fun to clean up. Somebody's mess. I don't remember doing it. So, Jonathan, yeah.
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To give you a response to your question, you just need to throw it away. You need to toss it. If you haven't gathered, that's what
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Becky and I have been talking about all this while. It needs to be destroyed somehow that no one else comes into the stuff that you know has been corrupting you for the last however long it's been.
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And I've had other responses related to that video that I did last week, similar to what
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Jonathan sent to me. There was another comment that I made on Twitter recently and some people were responding to that comment saying,
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Gabe, you need to take this comment down. It is not having the effect that you were hoping that it was going to have.
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Clearly, look at the responses from everybody. It's not having the effect you wanted. So you need to take it down.
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That's simply not true. There are conversations that I'm having behind the scenes that you're not seeing in public on Twitter.
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Of course not. And I'm not even gonna tell you who those people are and what kind of conversations that we're having.
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So Jonathan sent me this email and I've had some other emails I've responded to or comments that had been shared either on, even under the video, there's some comments that have been mentioned there about how much it meant to them and this was the push that they needed.
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There was one person that emailed me. I didn't get this email out for today, but they said,
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I had been watching Game of Thrones and you started your video by saying you are not gonna watch any more videos or any more episodes.
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And just my saying that, she made the decision, you're right, I'm not gonna watch any more episodes.
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Praise the Lord. And then she said the next day on Twitter. So she saw that on Sunday before the next
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Game of Thrones video or episode aired that night. The next day on Twitter, the leading buzz out of that second episode in this final season of Game of Thrones, the leading buzz was the sex scene that was on last night.
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Yep. And so she emailed saying, I can't even begin to thank you for saving me from seeing yet one more scene in that show.
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Praise the Lord. Amen. Yeah, that as a Christian, I should not be setting before my eyes. You know, friends, like I said in that video, our desire as Christians needs to be the holiness of God.
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And when we excuse these kinds of things and say that they're okay, because I'm just enjoying it as art.
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Right. And it doesn't have an effect on me and I'm not lusting. Well, that's bad. That's actually bad that it's not having an effect on you.
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Yeah, you should be mourning these things. Yeah, you should be disgusted by it, not entertained by it.
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Right. When that is your behavior toward this kind of art, you fail to understand that God hates sin.
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Yeah. He hates it. We were talking about that last night at Bible study. That's right.
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As we were going through Psalm 5 and Psalm 7 again, Psalm 5, 5, you hate the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.
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Psalm 7, 11, God is a righteous judge who feels indignation every day.
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Yeah. He is angry at sin every day. That's right. And you are watching stuff like this convincing yourself that this doesn't bother
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God. Yeah. This is okay. This is okay with God that I'm doing this. And how are you growing in holiness and righteous pursuits?
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And there were some that would argue with what I was presenting in that video and saying that this is a freedom of conscience sort of a thing.
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This is Christian liberty. It's a Christian liberty discussion. I'm free to do this and it doesn't have a tinge on my conscience even though it may affect yours.
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Find me a passage in scripture where it says it's okay for you to participate in a sex scene and that's actually
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Christian liberty. Right. That's for your edification and sanctification that you would partake in something like that.
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Yeah. Good luck with that. When the Bible says That's not going to happen. Right. When the Bible says flee from sexual immorality, do you think that means watching sex scenes is okay?
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Yeah. Well, it's not real. Right. It's not real. That one bugs me. Yeah. It totally irritates me because, hello, do they have a body suit?
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You know, this is not my real body. This is the body that I put on today.
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No, that is really their body and you need to stop. Yes. I wanted to go into greater detail but we didn't give the parental disclaimer at the start.
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But you, I said it all last week anyway. for dressing and things like that.
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If it's any sort of temptation, you need to turn it off. That goes for all age groups.
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Yeah, our desire is what pleases the Lord. That's right. That should be our pursuit.
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What am I doing here that is pleasing unto God? Yeah. Am I dressing today to the glory of God? Are they doing, am
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I doing all the right decisions, not entertaining the wrong decisions? You're not trying to find excuses for these behaviors.
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Right. Like, can I do this and it still be okay? Then it's not okay. Right. If you have to ask that question, it's not okay.
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You need to probably go the other direction with it. Mm -hmm. These are not matters of Christian liberty.
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When Paul gives the examples of Christian liberty in Romans chapter 14, he uses food and days.
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Mm -hmm. He does not use sexual immorality. You can tiptoe around this sexual immoral area and that's okay as long as you are convinced in your heart that what you're doing is not sin.
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That's not all right. Otherwise, he would have addressed that specifically. Well, he did. He said flee from sexual immorality.
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No, I mean like if that was okay as the same way as food or drink. I know what you're saying.
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Quit. It was addressed. It just doesn't fall under the category of Christian liberty. Exactly.
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You're taking something that the Bible explicitly says have nothing to do with.
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Yes. And you're putting it in another part of the Bible that says, well, this is okay as long as it doesn't make another man fall.
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You're putting it in the category that gives you permission to do the thing that the Bible explicitly says you should not do.
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Right. You can do that with anything. Mm -hmm. So now it's like, well, murder. I can do that with Christian liberty because I know
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I am not wrong for killing this guy. Right. You can do that with absolutely anything. Anything.
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Try to justify anything by bringing it over in the Romans 14 category. Mm -hmm. The Bible is clear that we should have nothing to do with this stuff.
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And as I started that response video last week from Ephesians Chapter 5, have nothing to do with the fruitless works of darkness.
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The fruitless works of darkness. Right. Meaning that it doesn't sanctify you and in fact darkens your mind and your heart.
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Have nothing to do with them but rather expose them. Right. Know what God's will is and we know what
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God's will is according to what is said to us in the Bible, in the scriptures. 1
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Thessalonians 4, 3, for this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality.
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Mm -hmm. Have nothing to do with it. So again, I appreciate your comment, Jonathan, and thank you to everyone else who did respond to that video with appreciation for what was said.
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Oh, most definitely. Like I said, you know, giving the example of the movies that I owned, I used to be that guy.
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Mm -hmm. I used to justify my viewing choices with what's okay as long as I'm appreciating it or enjoying it from the perspective of it being art.
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Right. I just like a good movie or a good story. Mm -hmm. It doesn't really cause me to lust but really when I examined myself,
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I realized I was justifying a lust that I did indeed have in my flesh. Yeah. There were times
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I went down to the video store, grabbed a DVD, turned it over and I'm looking for the R rating because I want something that is going to kind of tickle my flesh a little bit.
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Yeah. It's what I wanted to do. So we, you know, Game of Thrones, like I said, with HBO and any of these
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TV companies or the premium networks in particular that make this kind of adult entertainment, they know it draws you in.
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Yeah. That's why they do it and you're paying for it. Yep. You pay to watch it.
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And you pay with your soul. Yeah. In more ways than one you're paying for it. We're storing up our treasures in heaven.
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Your focus is Christ. Yeah. And we're instructed in Hebrews chapter 12 that we are to look to Jesus, the founder and the perfecter of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
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Along with that, Paul said in Colossians chapter 3 that we need to seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.
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Right before that statement in Hebrews 12 too it says that we need to lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
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Amen. This kind of stuff that you're justifying and saying is okay for you is actually weighing you down. Right.
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It is not bringing you closer to Christ. It's preventing you from getting closer to him.
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Mm -hmm. And this is the stuff we're directly told to set aside, have nothing to do with it, don't even tiptoe around it, don't get toward the line and see how close
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I can get to this line without stepping over it. Well, then your focus is on the line. It's not on Christ.
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Exactly. You've totally lost where you should be looking. That's right.
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So I want to spend the whole podcast again on that like I did last week. Yes, let's not. We'll go to the next question here.
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Brenda has a question about a YouTube video that I did, or yeah, one of the what videos, the one that was related to, hang on, trying to remember the title off the top of my head.
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It was don't go beyond what is written. Question mark? Don't go beyond what is written?
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That's right, because they all have a question mark at the end. But it was a series of comments, of audio clips from various teachers in that video.
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And there was one teacher in particular she had a question about. So I'm going to play that video. Okay. And then we'll come to Brenda's question here.
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All right. The Bible says do not go beyond what is written or teach any different doctrine or devote yourself to myths and speculations.
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If anyone teaches a different doctrine that does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, he's puffed up with conceit and understands nothing.
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Jesus. So he was born through Mary, the Virgin, and then he was born again in resurrection.
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God gave me a Ferrari because I am a Ferrari. You're a Ferrari, too.
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Do you believe that only Christians can be in relationship with God? No. I believe that when Jesus said
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I am the way, the truth, and the life, the way I read that, he's the road marker. God began to say to me,
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I'm going to tell you something right now, Beth, and boy, you rock this one down and you say it as often as I give you utterance to say it.
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Every Christian who believes in the Trinity, that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, co -equal, co -eternal, believes that because of the authority of the
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Catholic Church. God broke the law for love. Jesus said, my teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.
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If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.
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The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.
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The Bible has been written for our instruction, that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we have hope.
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If you go beyond what is written, you're probably being a heretic when we understand the text. All right, and that was one of those few videos that doesn't have music on it.
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Yeah, I noticed that. So now, as I'm coming in at the conclusion of that video, hopefully you notice the difference between the end of that video and now you're listening to the podcast again.
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Yes, and I'm here too, so that kind of makes a little different. You're not in many videos. No. You're in one of the most watched video, though.
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Oh, shh. No. I don't think it's the most watched anymore, but at one point it was.
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Yeah, that's okay. You don't want me to pull that one out? Nope. So you're going to hear yourself again? Nope, that's okay.
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From way back when? I'm all right with that. All right, Brenda's question. Hi, I'm new to your podcast slash
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YouTube broadcast. I watched a clip attached below that I wanted to know, and then attach the video.
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I wanted to know who the pastor was who said, God broke the law for love.
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Yeah. And also, where was that clip taken from? Mm -hmm. Did you recognize it? No. Do you know who that was?
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No, somebody yelling. That does, they're all grouped together in my mind.
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They're all the same person. Yeah. They all just yell. Well, yeah, they're all going after speculations and myths and going beyond what is written.
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I don't even want to know. It's Steven Furtick. I was wondering. Mr. Hype Man himself.
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Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and play this clip from Steven Furtick. The sermon that that was taken from so that you can hear it in context and then we'll talk about it.
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I did send the clip to Brenda and then explained what was the problem with it.
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All right. Are you looking forward to this? No. Because love will take you way further than the law ever could.
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I'll prove it to you. Let's say your child is in a horrible accident.
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Let's say they bust their head wide open on the monkey bars and they fall off the monkey bars and monkey bars are like 30 feet high.
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I'm making this an extreme example and they fall down and they bust their head wide open and you scoop them up and put them in the car to get them to the emergency room and on the way to the emergency room every sign you see says speed limit.
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How much attention do you pay to the numbers beneath the speed limit in that moment?
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Those numbers mean nothing to you. Why? Because somebody that you love is in trouble and in that moment any parent will break the law for the sake of love.
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Any human parent will break the law for the sake of love. And what will really turn your heart to God is not when you hear his laws which were given for our good by the way but they were powerless because there wasn't enough leverage in our action to keep the law.
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So what God did when he sent his son and this is why we get excited in church and this is why tears fill our eyes when we think about Jesus and this is why the gospel is still good news in the world today because God broke the law for love.
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I said to every sinner God broke the law for love.
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I mean that he scooped you up in his arms. I mean that he's carrying you in his grace.
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I mean that what the law was powerless to do and that it was weakened by the sinful nature. God did by sending his son in the likeness of a sinful man.
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All right. You got the context of that clip now? Don't you think you're better off for listening to that?
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Remember the whole flee from what is evil and run to God? This is where you're at right now.
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I want nothing to do with the fruitless works of darkness. Nothing. But the next part of that is rather expose them.
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Yes, that's your job. So in responding to Brenda I said that part of that really was rather good.
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I mean the way that Stephen Furtick started off that example he said love will take you farther than the law ever could.
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Now the Apostle Paul said something similar in Romans 8 .3 For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do.
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And Furtick even mentioned that particular passage toward the end of that. But then in an effort to make his point he went off the rails relying on his own wisdom rather than the word of scripture.
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Rather than coming back to the word of God and letting the text speak. He's giving this example that goes way out there with his child.
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I mean really way out there because apparently your child's climbing monkey bars that are 30 feet high. No thanks. I don't even understand why that was important.
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Just say your child fell off the monkey bars. Right. That's a pretty big fall in itself.
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It's interesting to me how he feels like he needs to go that extreme with his examples because his examples are extreme.
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They tend to leave scripture. I'm all for doing examples and word pictures to help people understand.
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Right. But this left what it is that scripture actually said. So he went to his own wisdom rather than trying to help a person understand this according to the wisdom of God.
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So your child falls on the monkey bars. They get hurt on the playground. You put them in the car.
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You race to the hospital ignoring every speed limit sign. Breaking the law for love.
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You break the law for the sake of love. And he says that's the gospel. He even says that's the gospel.
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God broke the law for love. Well, when you are trying to be that exacting that's actually heresy.
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Now, I don't know that this clip is a good example of Stephen Furtick's heresy.
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Rather, I think you examine his body of work. And you see this man is not orthodox. Yeah. He hardly ever.
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You mean as a whole? Yeah. Now, I have heard him share the gospel before. I have heard him share the gospel in such a way where I wouldn't disagree with that.
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Right. I think that he got all of the points there that needed to be made. But he, over the course of his teaching, goes so far out in the left field that he's disqualified himself as a teacher.
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That was John MacArthur's assessment of him. Unqualified. Which Furtick then took and made the title of a book.
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Totally missing the point of what MacArthur was saying when he said that Stephen Furtick was unqualified. But he is.
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He's unqualified. Or maybe he was just trying to distract. That MacArthur was trying to distract? No. That Stephen Furtick was trying to distract everybody from John MacArthur saying that he was.
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Well, he took what MacArthur said and he explained, yeah, he's right. I am unqualified.
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We're all unqualified. See, that's what I'm saying. He's trying to distract the fact that he is unqualified.
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That could be true. Yeah. Just trying to take it and run and see if you actually catch on.
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Yeah, right. Now, Furtick partners with a lot of heretics. T .D. Jakes, who is his absolute hero.
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And even T .D. Jakes has said something to the effect of Furtick worships the ground that I walk on. Oh my goodness.
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He's had Joyce Meyer speak at his church. I don't know that I could ever say that he is a heretic to the degree that he is condemned.
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Like he believes a false gospel. He's not a Christian. From what I could tell as far as like basic doctrines are concerned, he affirms all of those things.
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But he's completely unqualified as a teacher. The man can't teach. And what he teaches, because he delves into so much speculation, what he ends up saying is heretical.
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But that doesn't necessarily, I don't know, it's tough to explain. That doesn't necessarily mean he's a heretic because he doesn't affirm those doctrines as base doctrines.
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But when you're following what it is that he's saying, well, that's contrary to orthodoxy.
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I just don't know that he understands that what he's saying is contrary to orthodoxy. Does that make sense? So what you're saying is that he's not as mature in the faith as he should be in order to be teaching in the first place.
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Well, yeah. But he's teaching, and so he's going with what he knows, which is not as much as he should.
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Especially... And then he teaches beyond what he knows. Like just trying to wrap it up, and he doesn't wrap it up well.
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Right, right. Yeah. And that's where he gets... I mean, it's not even that he doesn't wrap it up well. I mean, well, you know what
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I mean. Yeah, I get you. I was trying to be polite. Sure. But he'll say something that falls into heresy, which is the point that I made at the end of that video.
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If you are not teaching according to historically biblical orthodoxy, if you are not following what scripture says and you're going beyond what is written and you're delving into myth and speculation, you're probably being a heretic and not even aware that you're being a heretic.
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Right. And so that's kind of... That's where I'm coming from related to Steven Furtick. Okay. I'm hoping that all that makes sense.
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Anyway. Sure. So I shared that with Brenda as well for him to say that God broke the law for love and to call that the gospel is actually heresy because God didn't make laws and then break his own laws for our salvation because in so doing, he places us above his own word.
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Right. And he does not do that. Nope. God fulfills what he laid down in his own law by the giving of his son to die for our sins so that according to Romans chapter 3, he might become both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
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Right. So he can forgive us of our sins because the penalty has been justly paid for through Christ.
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This is what 1 John 1 .9 means when it says when we ask forgiveness for our sins, he is faithful and just Right.
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He is faithful to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. How is he just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness?
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Because Christ has appeased the wrath of God. He is the propitiation for our sins.
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Right. He has paid the price on our behalf. He has taken our sins upon himself and has clothed us in his righteousness.
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Praise the Lord. So we stand before God justified because of what God has done for us and what he did for us was not break the law.
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Yeah. It was fulfilling the law. Jesus said in Matthew 5 .17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
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I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. And I think he would agree with me in reading that and he would even say well, that's what
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I meant. You know, I get that that verdict may be completely genuine in what it is that he said.
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He is trying to communicate love to his people giving him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he really genuinely is trying to communicate the love of God to his people.
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But that doesn't make it right for him to do it wrong. Okay. Just because his intentions are good.
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Right. When Peter confronted Jesus in Matthew chapter 16 and said I'll never let this happen to you.
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Right. You're not going to go to the cross. Right. He meant well. Right. He didn't want to see his teacher die. Get behind me
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Satan. And how did Jesus respond to that? Yeah. Get behind me Satan. I mean, I can't imagine you telling me that.
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I would be appalled and like just humiliated. Right.
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I don't know. It would take me a while to self -check. Yeah. I think I might be a little bit angry too if you told me that.
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But at the same time you would be totally justified in saying that. If it was a situation where you needed to be rebuked that way.
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Yeah, seriously. And just so everybody knows I've never said that to my wife. No. No, haven't. Don't know that I've ever had to.
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No. I hope not. I hope you never have to. That would be awful. But you think of Peter being a part of that inner circle.
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Peter, James, and John. Yeah. They were like the three apostles that Jesus drew closest to himself.
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And Peter had to be one that Jesus confronted to say, get behind me Satan. Yeah.
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For you are not thinking with the thoughts of God. Right. But you are thinking with the mind of a man.
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Right. And that's what Furtick does all throughout his teaching. That's but a small example of how he does this over and over and over again.
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And it's every sermon. I have never heard of a sermon from Stephen Furtick.
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I almost called it a Furman. That's what was coming out of my mouth. A Furman. A Furtick sermon is a
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Furman. It's a Furman. I have never heard him preach a sermon where there was not some sort of man -made a sermon.
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I've never heard some sort of man -made speculation in there going beyond the text and throwing way too much of himself on top of it.
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He is one of the prime examples of eisegesis or the term that had been coined by Chris Roseborough narsegesis.
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Imposing himself onto the text and reading himself into the word of God. Right. Furtick is like the poster child for that.
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So every sermon that I hear him preach even though I have heard him preach the gospel before but in the rest of the sermon there is still something that's like no that's not what the
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Bible says and you are imposing yourself on the text. It's in his tendency to do this over and over again is why he is disqualified as a teacher and clearly won't take instruction either because MacArthur has called him out as unqualified and instead he makes that the title of a book.
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Right. To sell lots of copies and make the New York Times bestseller list. Oh my goodness. Paul had instructed
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Timothy in 1st Timothy chapter 1. The first instruction that Paul gives Timothy is do not let anyone teach any different doctrine and when you go through 1st
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Timothy chapter 1 it is apparent that many of these guys who isogetically, topically teach, narsegetically teach.
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Right. These are exactly the guys that Paul was talking about. He is not saying get the heretics out of your church although they would certainly fall in that category.
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Right. But he is talking about don't let anyone teach who is teaching a different doctrine contrary to the one that we have taught the true word of God that flows from the word of Christ that is our salvation and our sanctification.
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Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ. Faith does not come by saying God broke the law for love.
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Right. God did not break the law. Makes me cringe. We broke the law. We did.
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He's got it all backwards. Yes. God upheld his own righteousness by sending his son to fulfill the law and pay the price for us who broke it so that he might be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
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I guess he doesn't have it completely backwards because he did say that we would be sinning and breaking the law for our loved one.
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But anyway. Did he say that? Did he say we would sin and break the law for our loved one? No, but in his example as we're driving and you don't even pay attention to the speed limit.
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Breaking the law, you're sinning. Yeah, but he doesn't say that. Right, he doesn't.
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But yes. Okay, that's what I thought you were saying. I was like, whoa, did I miss that? Where he said, so you would be sinning.
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No, no, no, no, no. He didn't ever say that. But you know what I mean. And in so saying,
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God would therefore be sinning by breaking the law? That would be my equation there.
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Is that where he would be otherwise going with that? Anyway, it's a terrible example. And it goes beyond what is written.
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Which is why, by the way, whenever as preachers, speaking of myself and maybe even some other pastors that might be listening, when it comes to the kinds of examples that we put together to put before our congregation, you need to think those things out.
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Right. Don't come up with it on the spot. You might say something you didn't really mean or want to say.
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Right. It's why we need to be more deliberate. We need to be in the word, studying these things, letting them marinate before we then bring it before our congregation and lead them in it.
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And I've fallen into that mistake before. Where I'm kind of going off away from what it was
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I was teaching. I'm falling into this example and going, okay, that's maybe not the best example. I shouldn't use that story. You don't grab a trail at all.
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You've never heard me do that before. So thank you for your question, Brenda, and for watching the videos.
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Okay, Becky, are you ready for a little bit more? Beth Moore? Oh, no.
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We had a little bit of her in that last video. She will be in this next video as well because the next question that we have has to do with the what video on visions and voices from God.
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Okay. I have gotten to see something that I think is huge.
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And I'll also suggest to you, I am not the only one. And tonight I'm going to do my absolute best to illustrate to you something that God showed me sitting out on that back porch.
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He put a picture. I've explained to you before, I'm a very visual person. So he speaks to me very often and putting a picture in my head.
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And it was as if I was raised up looking down on a community as I saw the church as Jesus sees it in a particular dimension.
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There are plenty of teachers who want you to believe that they heard some kind of voice or received some kind of vision from God.
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How can we know whether or not what they're hearing or seeing is truly from the Lord? Well, there's a very simple test you can apply.
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Does their personal revelation agree with the Bible? If the answer is no, they're either making stuff up or the voice they're hearing isn't from God.
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If the answer is yes, then you don't need their word or vision. It's in the Bible. Many will say, but I hear
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God speak to me in a still small voice just like he spoke to Elijah. Well, Hebrews 1 .1
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says, Long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.
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But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son. In the Old Testament God spoke through burning bushes and talking donkeys in still small voices.
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But today he speaks loud and clear through the word of Christ. Everything we could ever want to hear
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God say is already right here in the Bible when we understand the text. So following that video we got this question from Joshua.
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Good afternoon. Good afternoon. It was apparently afternoon when he emailed this. Morning? Evening? I came across an interesting video you posted in regards to visions and voices from God.
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I'm grateful for you handling difficult topics and easy topics that have been misinterpreted or mishandled.
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Although I have to disagree with this video. And I don't know whether it will make a difference to your perspective.
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John 10 .1 is a perfect example of Jesus communicating to his followers.
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Hebrews 1 .1 and 2 is beautiful in showing the world of God's final word.
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But I don't believe Jesus' voice is now silent and refrained to a book.
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I guess restrained to a book would be the word that he was looking for there. Jesus isn't a book.
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He is the Son of the Living God. Yours faithfully, Joshua. So let's come to John 10 .1
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because he said John 10 .1 is a perfect example of Jesus communicating to his followers and he says that the word of Jesus is not restrained to a book.
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John 10 .1 Truly, truly I say to you he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way that man is a thief and a robber.
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Now I don't know exactly why Joshua would use that particular passage to say this is a perfect example of Jesus communicating to his followers other than to illustrate this is the voice of Jesus speaking.
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But how do we know what it is that Jesus has said? It's in the Bible. Yeah.
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So I really don't understand what the point of that is supposed to be. Why he references John 10 .1
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to say this is a perfect example of Jesus communicating to his followers. Absolutely. Jesus is
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God who put on human flesh and became a man and found in human form he became obedient to the will of the
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Father to the law of God even obedient to the point of death on a cross. And I'm just quoting to you from Philippians chapter 2 in understanding the incarnation of Christ.
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Right. So as a man having called disciples to himself whom he would teach the word disciple means learner.
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So he has these men who are his students and learning from him as he teaches and affirms his word through the miracles that he performed.
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The apostles heard those words that Jesus spoke. They heard it with their own ears. They saw the miracles with their own eyes.
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And they wrote down everything that they saw him do as a fulfillment of the scriptures the prophets and the law that had come before him.
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Right. Peter says in 2 Peter chapter 1 we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we spoke to you concerning the things that we saw.
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But we were eyewitnesses to his majesty. Right. We saw these things ourselves. John starts his first epistle the same way.
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1 John 1 where he says that we were witnesses to these things. The glory on the holy mountain of God that we saw demonstrated through his son
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Jesus Christ. The apostles were the eyewitnesses who wrote down what they heard
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Jesus teach. And everything that we could ever hear God say we have right here in the
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Bible. Peter in that same letter 2 Peter chapter 1 says we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed.
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Right. What we have now as the Bible is even better than if we had been there and had heard
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Jesus talk. Right. Because we have the fulfillment of everything from Genesis through to Revelation.
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God has even revealed to us what he's got in the future. Right. What we're looking toward regarding the return of Christ.
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All of it is laid down right here for us in Scripture. We can see from beginning to end which Paul describes was a mystery that was hidden during the ages past but has since been revealed to us in his son.
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In Christ this has been revealed to us. Right. And how do we know what Jesus has said?
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It's in the Bible. Right. Joshua he is not going to speak into your brain. You're not going to have some sort of voice that's going to come from Jesus.
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Right. He's not going to give you some sort of picture in your mind. Ha ha! Some new revelation that I do not find in Scripture.
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That isn't going to happen. And Hebrews 1, 1 and 2 is clear about that.
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Long ago at many times and in many ways God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.
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But in these last days he has spoken to us by his son and everything that we need to hear
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Christ say is already in the Bible. And it's not just the red letters. It is the whole text.
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It is. Genesis to Revelation. All of it is the word of Christ. Jesus revealed to us what we did not understand about the
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Old Testament prophets and law. And he opened the minds of his disciples to be able to understand it.
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But once again you only know what Christ said because the apostles wrote it down.
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Right. In the Bible. How are you able to discern between a voice that you have in your head whether it comes from God or whether it comes from you?
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In Jeremiah 17 it says that the heart is deceitful.
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Who can understand it? And in Proverbs 3 it says rely not on your own understanding.
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In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Right. Now what are you looking up there?
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I was looking in Galatians. I can't remember where exactly it's at. But where Paul was saying that even if he comes with something different than what the scripture says.
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Galatians 1, 8 and 9. Okay. Right. Oh I passed it then. There's also in the beginning was the word.
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John 1, 1. And the word was God and the word was with God. Yes. And I mean there's.
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He was in the beginning with God. Right. And there's just so much scripture. So if you keep reading it will start coming together.
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He does speak to us through the Bible. And there isn't anything else that he has to say beyond what we have in the
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Bible. Right. Everything that needs to be said is already here. And we have it and we're grateful for it.
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Oh amen. And we as a generation are more privileged than any other generation that has ever come before us.
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Very true. Because not only do we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed. But you have a lot of them.
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You have a bunch of Bibles in your own house. Yeah. And we have printing presses and we can print more
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Bibles and we can distribute them to more people so that they too can have the word of God. That's right. And know the truth and live.
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In their own language. Yeah. Well just about. Yeah. Many other languages that still need to be the
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Bible still needs to be translated into. But the International Bible Society is working on that. That's right. Continuing to distribute the word of God worldwide that others may hear and live.
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There is no other way that God speaks to us except through his word because he doesn't need to. Right.
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We have the prophetic word more fully confirmed. And as a part of God's plan to spread the gospel to the world he has commissioned you to go out and preach it.
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So you need to know it and preach it so that others hear what is coming from you is the word of God when you are speaking the word of God to them and telling them to repent and follow
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Jesus. Because it came from the Bible. That's right. Because the Bible says so. That's right.
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Contrary to what Andy Stanley might tell you. Right. All right, let's pray. Our Heavenly Father we thank you for your word and we thank you that we have this word more fully confirmed.
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That we can read it and know that it is reliable. It has been tested throughout the ages.
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It has been handed down to us and preserved by your providential hand. And we know that what we're reading here this is what you gave to your apostles to write down.
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It was not by any wisdom of man that they wrote it down but the Holy Spirit guided them to write the words that you wanted them to write.
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So that we would know the gospel and be convicted of our sin and turn from sin and worship
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God and know Jesus Christ and through him his death on the cross for our sins his resurrection from the grave through faith in Christ we have salvation forever with God in heaven.
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God whom we had rebelled against. God whom we had sinned against and we deserved your wrath and yet you showed us your love through your son.
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So may we take the testimony of Christ to the world that others may hear it and know him and believe and thus be saved from the judgment that is to come.
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There is so much sin and wickedness going on in the world right now. We were struck this past Sunday with a word of a bombing that had happened in Sri Lanka.
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Several bombings taking and claiming several hundred lives. And so I pray that the gospel is continuing to be preached there.
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That though many have lost their lives for the sake of the gospel many more will come to hear it and believe.
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Because it is your will and your hand that moves such a thing to happen.
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That even through this evil good might be done for the salvation of many souls. I pray that we would be bold to stand even in the face of such persecution and declare the gospel for we know the promise of God in Christ I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
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Give us courage to stand in this wicked and evil age holding forth the word of Christ in his name we pray.
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Amen. Amen. I hit the wrong button.
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So you have to wait for the thing to load before you can hit the right button. Okay, ready?
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Yep. Can you hear me okay? Can you hear me now? Well, the mic's kind of weird.
55:36
Wonky. Oh, yeah it is. Cattywampus. Cattywampus? Yeah. Haven't you heard that before?
55:43
I have heard that expression before. I don't know I've heard you use it before. I have used it.
55:51
What in the world does it mean? Um, crooked. Sounds like the name of that creature that clubbed
55:56
Luke Skywalker on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. Cattywampus is... Watch out for that cattywampus beast.
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It's either crooked or it's diagonal. Like if you live on one corner of the intersection.
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Oh, cattycorner. Yeah, cattycorner, cattywampus. I know. I don't even know where cattycorner came from.
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I don't know. One of those things. Silly expressions. Is there an official term for somebody that lives across from the corner that you live on?
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Because I've always heard cattycorner or kittycorner. That sounds like slang.
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Like that's not the official term for somebody that lives on a corner opposite your corner. I don't have any idea.
56:45
I don't know if it's slang or not. I would assume it's slang. Yeah, it's slang. But what is it slang for? So what's the actual term?
56:52
Right. That's what I'm saying. Inquiring minds want to know. Until then,
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I don't know what to call the person who lives opposite my corner. Cattywampus. All right.