Hearing the Voice of God with Jim Osman

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Welcome to the Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

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This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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Well welcome to another edition of the Wrap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rappaport. We have, we're going to have a special guest on later, maybe, we'll see.

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I don't know if we could trust the guest to come on. Sure, you can trust this guest, absolutely.

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Well, but I'm glad that you came in. You're the guest. Oh, thanks! Discount what

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I just said. Never mind. You know, actually, actually, what is very fitting right now is a post that I saw from you on Facebook.

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Oh, no, really? What was that? It says, quote, he that knows nothing will believe anything, unquote.

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Yeah, yeah, that's very fitting. It's the spirit of the age. Yeah, you know, I love, I love what,

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I don't know if you know Mike Riddle, but from Christian training, Christian training, I have to remember if it's

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Institute, I forget what the I stands for, but CTI. But Mike always has this thing that he'll do in one of his talks where he says, okay,

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I want you to give me the right answer. Now there's some qualifications to it.

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The question is, what is three plus four? However, you can't say seven. You can't spell seven.

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You can't have an, you know, you can't do seven in binary. You can't give me seven in, you know, with some, you know, you know, like calculations so you can't, whatever you do, you cannot give me an answer that means seven.

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What's the answer? Three plus four. And he just sits there, people look dumbfounded.

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So someone will just shout out 11. He goes, right. You get 24. Yes, you're right. And it's, and his whole point is if you, if you're going to ignore the truth, anything becomes truth.

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You know, Jim Wallace does it, and this is Jay Warner Wallace, it's probably if a name like Jim Wallace, it's common, but it's about to say we're quoting sojourners now, the conservative

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Jay Warner Wallace, you know, he does a thing where he says, you know, because he's a, you know, 20 year police detective, right?

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So he says, you know, you go into a room and you, you see a guy that's, that, you know, has been shot, but there's no gun in the apartment, but someone says it's suicide.

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You know, the captain says, this is suicide or, or, you know, like, or the guy has a gun shot himself.

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And, you know, the, you know, and the guy says, no black guy did this. You got to go find the black guy, you know, like in either one of those scenarios, the problem is, you go, is when you already start with the conclusion, that's now the truth.

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You just are going to do whatever to make that. Yeah. Yeah. Make that fit. Boy, we live in those times now.

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You know, it was, I think tolerance was supposed to be the prime virtue of postmodernism, but I think gullibility has overwhelmed it since.

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Well, yeah, we've, we've gotten into, you know, I think, I think what's becoming really popular again is the book 1984.

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Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I look at when I remember reading that in high school, and the thing that I thought was the stupidest thing was this whole thing of newspeak, that the government would actually change the language and people would go, oh, yes, this is the new way, like they'd ignore what the word meant yesterday, and just buy into a new definition.

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I said, that's so stupid. That would never work. I'm wrong. I'm wrong. I mean, we have, we have a gentleman who claims he's a girl that is running for governor now of California, you know, goes by the name of Caitlyn Jenner, but that's not really his name is it?

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No, Bruce Jenner, which by the way, actually, I mentioned Mike Riddle and a funny story with Mike Riddle and Bruce Jenner.

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It's a funny thing that I always like to bring up to Mike is I asked Mike if he if he ever lost a dicathlon to a girl.

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And he's quick to say no, he lost him to a man, Bruce Jenner at the time he so Bruce Jenner beat out

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Mike Riddle to go to the Olympics. Oh, yes, that's how good Mike is, you know, he was, he was next in line to go to the

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Olympics that year. So, but so yeah, I like to bust on Mike and say he he lost to a girl.

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It's the only time I actually refer to Mike or refer to, you know, Bruce Jenner as a girl. So so we got a review in this week.

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And so let me read the review. Now, I'm going to start by letting you know, this review has no review or no stars.

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So this is one where we just got you with no stars, which is kind of interesting. I did take a look. And I was looking at this and we got we got several very, very brave, very brave reviewers.

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We have we have two reviews with no stars, no rating at all.

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They just left a comment. But then we have four very brave people. They left a one star rating with no review.

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In other words, I guess they don't want us to actually engage with why they think this show is bad.

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They just want to knock it down. If you're going to leave us a one if you're going to leave us a one star rating, at least give us a review so we can engage with you and find out why you don't like us.

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It's probably that postmodernism again. They felt like it was a one star, but they didn't have any reason for it.

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But it's also interesting to see where this is coming from. I don't know that I could pronounce the name, but this person writes from Nigeria.

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But it's like Adebukola Esther Iroh, I probably butchered your name.

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Forgive me. Someone will have to like pronounce that properly for me, but but here's the review.

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And this this review comes on a specific episode. It's the episode that was talked about.

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God doesn't whisper. That was with Pastor Jim Osmond from Kootenai Community Church, and he wrote the book.

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Hold it up. God doesn't whisper. See, I'm only that far into it.

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See, yeah, I actually, to be honest, I just I put the bookmark in chapter eight there just so that I could claim

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I've told him I'll never read a book of his. I was going to write a review that just said, you know, best book

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I never read. But I thought you said the reason you stopped where you did is because you had a dream that told you all the rest of it.

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That's true. Maybe that was a different text. No, the the reason I really didn't want to read this one is

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I was very offended by by Pastor Osmond, you know, the author, because, you know, when we first talked, he talked and asked whether, you know,

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I would write something up. I mean, you can see on the back that that character, Justin Peters, he he got like he got, you know, his review right on the back.

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I was asked if I would I would write something, you know, and I was really kind of bummed because I got bumped.

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Look at him. He bumped me for he bumped me for who's that guy, John MacArthur? I mean, he bumped me for so how would

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I ever read this book? I got bumped for John MacArthur like like he's a bigger name than me.

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Well, OK, yeah, but but here's the review.

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And we got some questions that maybe we can engage with here that this review asks.

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So this comes from Nigeria. And but as we know, in Africa, like this whole idea of hearing

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God's voice in the prosperity gospel is rampant throughout. And so here's here's what we got.

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It says, at first, when I listened to this, I was upset.

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Like, why shouldn't I expect to hear from God audibly? I had to ask

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God, please help me keep an open heart and teach me what I need to know, which he did.

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I still have questions, by the way. But at the end of this podcast,

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I can truly say I have learned something fresh. I don't know if I agree with all that he said, all that was said, but I definitely see why

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I need to work on my need to work on. Sorry, what

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I need to work on in my walk with Christ. I've had to ask myself, is the word truly sufficient for me?

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Why exactly do I desire to hear God's voice? I do have a question or two that I need answered.

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I was disappointed it was not really talked about or perhaps I missed it when it was discussed.

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Question one is, does God speak audibly in this day and age?

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Two, is it wrong to to desire to hear from God audibly, even knowing that it is not a compulsory part of the

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Christian walk and shouldn't be expected? But are you saying don't even think about it?

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Thank you. So he's got a couple of questions he or she, because I don't know if this is I just don't know the name of it's male or female.

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But so he or she has some questions, but we should try to answer it. I mean, it would have been good if we could have gotten

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Jim Osman just to come in here. You know, it would be good if he could if he would come in and just answer.

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But yeah, because I'm sure he's got he's probably not got a great answer to this. It's probably black and white.

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So, yeah, I just wish he would come in. And but we couldn't get him. I could call him and see if he's available.

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There he is. Oh, wow. It's almost like he got a word from the Lord that he should show up here.

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Yeah, I had a dream last night. Show up on Andrew's podcast. So, Jim, it's good to have you back.

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And we did this because we wanted to we wanted to get your you know, we could answer this easily, but we needed an excuse to get you back on.

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You know, I recently came on to the Apologetics Live all because and but I don't know if you saw that Apologetics Live, but, you know, there was something that Jim had in one of his sermons.

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It was his resurrection Sunday sermon. And I he mentioned something that I was like, wait, what?

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I had to go back and relisten. And, you know, I said, Jim, you got to come on to Apologetics Live.

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Let's talk about this. He made a comment about talking about the resurrection and why that points to premillennialism.

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And it's the first time I had heard the argument. I was like, oh, come on in. So we talked about that on Apologetics Live, which

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Matter of Theology has now responded to that. Jim, Drew has. And so we're going to try to get you and Drew together on Apologetics Live to to talk about that.

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But the funny thing was, Jim was like, you know, he's like, oh, that was just a throwaway comment. So and I said, even

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Jim's throwaway comments are gold. That's the whole thing. So so, folks, if you if you don't listen to Jim's preaching, you can if you go to ChristianPodcastCommunity .org

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look in the in the podcast shows, you'll see Kootenai Community Church Morning Worship Service.

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And then you can listen to each of his his sermons. He's going through Hebrews. How long have you been going through Hebrews?

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I mean, was was Paul still writing it when you started? Close. Paul, Paul didn't write it.

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I, I, I think it's probably been three, three years now, at least.

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I need to go back and check and see when it was that I started that series. Yeah, so so, you know, at least,

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Jim, you know that I do listen to your sermons. I even pick up your throwaway comments. I know.

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So so I encourage folks to listen to that. But let's let's engage with with this. There's a couple of things that I saw right off the bat with with this comment.

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One is the teachable spirit. I mean, this actually surprised me,

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Jim, you've probably seen this a lot. When we talk about things like this, it's very rare that we get someone that is willing to even listen.

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I mean, I was speaking to a guy. He wants to try to partner with the Christian podcast community on a project he's doing and, you know, doing the research.

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I was like, you know, OK, I'm kind of having concerns with what what I'm seeing with where he goes to church and stuff like that.

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And who he's associated with. And then I start talking to him and he's like, yeah, you know, we started this project because someone gave someone came to me and said

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God told them to give us this money to just, you know, so we could start this project. And, you know,

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I'm like, look, you know, I mean, clearly at this point, I'm like, I'm not going to partner with the guy, but I'm going to at least try to teach him.

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And I start saying, well, you know, I really don't believe God did that. You know, God didn't speak to that guy. And God, you know, you're you're you're doing all the stuff saying

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God's leading you, but unless you have, you know, book, chapter and verse, I'm not buying it. And I was actually like going,

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OK, I'm going to get into this long debate where I'm going to have to defend what I say. And the guy actually was like, yeah, you know,

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I'd like to get together with you more. You really taught me some things I I need to grow in my my Christian walk.

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And maybe we can continue discussing it. So I was like, wow, OK, but that seems to be an oddity.

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Do you experience that as well? Do you see that people are when we talk about not hearing

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God speaking to us, that people are some do they take that with open ears?

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Put it that way. Are they ready to hear what you might have to say? Not not typically simply because of the emotional attachment that people have to these experiences and because the experience seems so real to them.

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And so, you know, it's their connection to God. It's their feeling that their walk with God is real, genuine, intimate, close.

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And then you suggest to them that these things that you claim that you're experiencing are really not the way that God speaks to us.

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Then they feel as if you've robbed them of their intimacy with God and taken that away. And one of the challenges is getting people to realize that your intimacy with God comes in knowing scripture, reading scripture and absorbing that and walking with God in scripture and not in these subjective experiences of nudgings and promptings and all the other stuff that they associate with the voice of God.

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People typically are not real open to having their intimacy with God challenged on that level.

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And I think that's really a product of our age, right? Is this I mean, we see this clearly in the political realm that people are feeling their way through issues and not thinking their way through issues.

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Otherwise, we wouldn't be talking about a Caitlyn Jenner and people like like actually demanding that we refer to this gentleman as a, as a girl, just because they feel like it today.

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Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, and, and I think that we'll get it, maybe get into more of a discussion.

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I think the dangers of that when we look at just the church, but you know, this, this person is, you know, was questioning the fact of should we, should we expect to hear

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God speak audibly? And so let me ask you the first question that they said in, you know, does

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God speak audibly in this day and age? Audibly? No, but that doesn't mean that God is not still speaking through his word, that he is not, that he is not communicating to his people and that people don't hear

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God speaking in scripture. And we have to clarify what we mean by that because when we talk about God speaking through scripture, we're not talking about reading, reading a verse of scripture and having, reading a passage scripture and having a verse or a phrase jump off the page with some new meaning something it means to us that it didn't mean to the original writer or the original audience.

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What we mean is that when we read scripture and we understand scripture and we hear the meaning of that passage as intended by the author and the

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Holy spirit and as understood by the original audience, then we are hearing the voice of God. In that sense, we are receiving the same message, the same communication that God gives to his people.

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And so we, he is speaking, but he uses his word to speak to his people and to instruct his people, to teach them for their edification and equipping.

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But he doesn't give us private messages that are unconnected from the original meaning of the text. So does he speak audibly today?

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No, we have no reason. That's not to say that God could not, if he desired to, or he intended to, he could, God could do whatever he wants, but we have no reason in scripture to believe that God needs to speak audibly today, or that we should expect to hear

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God speak audibly today, or that we should expect to hear, or that we need to hear God speak in any way outside of scripture.

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We simply don't need that because scripture is sufficient. You know, let me check this.

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There's a guy that is in the back of your book that wrote a review that I think disagrees with you.

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This guy, Justin Peters, he's got hired him off of Fiverr. Fiverr. You can get somebody to write almost anything for you.

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But you know, Justin Peters has a famous quote that I like, and maybe it disagrees with what you're saying, but no, he always says, if you want to hear

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God speak, read the Bible. If you want to hear God speak audibly, read it out loud.

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That's a play on words that he's using there. And that's really the only way we should expect to hear

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God speak audibly. Is through his word, if you're reading it out loud, but it really is.

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That is how he speaks to us in this day and age. Yeah. And the reformers had such a high view of preaching that they would say that God speaks audibly through the mouthpiece of the preacher, that when the preacher gets up and communicates

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God's word and teaches God's word, that God is in that moment through the lips of the speaker preaching and speaking to his people in doing that.

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And anybody who is an expositor of scripture and knows how the Holy spirit works in the hearts of people who listen to the preaching of the word, then they would affirm that, that yes, that when people understand what

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God's word means there, the spirit of God is working there to speak through the lips of the, of the proclaimer of God's word.

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So how does this, because even, even the reviewer tied this as we did in the episode to the sufficiency of scripture, what is the connection here that we make about the sufficiency of scripture and why we shouldn't be looking for dreams and visions and audible voices telling us what to do?

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Yeah. Because if scripture truly gives me everything I need for life and Godliness, then that means that God has provided in his word, everything

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I need for every decision I will ever make. It doesn't tell me which woman to marry or which house to buy or which job to take, but it does lay out for me, all the principles that I need, the moral will of God and the wisdom of God that is in the examples, illustrations, good and bad.

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So that if I'm understanding what scripture teaches on how it is that I glorify God and how I should live my life, then

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I'm free to make whatever decision I want in that regard without fearing that I have disobeyed

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God. So if God's word communicates to us everything, we need to live a

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God honoring and obedient life. Then I don't need to have guts say anything outside of scripture because I need no further information.

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Now God having provided everything I need, he leaves the choice up to me and I'm free to make that choice.

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Yeah. And I think that if I had to pick what I would think would be the number one problem in the church today, it would probably be this issue, the sufficiency of scripture.

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Oh definitely. It just seems like people are looking for answers to life and Godliness in everything else but the scripture.

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Yeah. In dreams, in visions, in preachers, in culture.

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All the fads that run their way through the church that blow through the church with every stiff wind, you know, whether it's the prayer of Jabez or the 40 days of purpose or the

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Daniel diet or whatever it is that just the constant churning out of fads by the

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Christian publishing community that grips a church. All of that is nothing more than a desire to find some answer to how to grow the church, how to strengthen the church, how to, how to strengthen relationships within church, how to help marriages, how to increase giving and everything else in some other way other than just with scripture.

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And it betrays a lack of belief in the sufficiency of scripture. The whole approach to preaching where we put a video clips up on the screens behind the preacher and exegete the latest

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Marvel blockbuster. That's just an indication that they don't believe scripture is sufficient to do that work of transforming the hearts and lives of people.

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Well, you said it quickly, but I think you nailed where the problem is. It's in the publisher, right?

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Cause that's really where you get all this nonsense that comes out. It's the publishers. And what people don't know is most of the

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Christian publishers are owned by secular companies. They're just looking at churn things out to make money.

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They're not caring about its content and they're perfectly happy with debate in Christian circles and people tearing each other down just for the sake of selling books.

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I first became aware of that when MacArthur's book, um, gospel according to Jesus came out.

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And I remember all the publishers, the same publisher that I think that did that book was doing either

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Ryrie's or I forget who the other guy was that, you know, but, but the publisher, like even when you saw that they would sell those books right next to each other to try to get you to get by both or all three, if you did, uh, forget who, who was the other person.

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Zane, Zane, Zane Hodges. That's who I thought. Okay. So yeah. So, you know, publishing is

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I think really where a lot of this, these fads really did come from.

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And it's, it's so funny you're mentioning the different things and I'm just going, Oh yeah, we forgot about the Daniel diet and the prayer tree is like, that was really big and then just gone, you know, and it is so much of it is the, this thing of where it just seems like people are just,

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Oh, I'm going to jump on this. I'm going to jump on that for whatever. And they're looking for, and I think prayer, prayer,

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Jay Baz is a good one, a good example, because, you know, with that one, it really was this thing where people were like,

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Oh, if I just do this prayer, God's going to give me, you know, bigger territory. And, and I, my guess was like, everyone realized it didn't work.

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Or maybe the, the, the Daniel diet quit because people weren't losing the weight that Daniel did, you know, and, and gave up on it.

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But, but there's so many of these fads that do go through the church. And so much of it is, you could look at either the

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Daniel diet or prayer, Jay Baz, neither one of them are really rooted in scripture, not a proper understanding of scripture.

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That's the thing you see with these is so much of it is, okay, Daniel did this diet.

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They ripped that out of its context of why Daniel was dieting. You know, it, it didn't have to do with the diet itself.

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And it wasn't that he was doing it to lose weight. He was doing it to honor

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God and the whole thing that, you know, of him losing, it's not just that he lost weight, but he looked better, you know?

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Yeah. And so people rip that out of that context and go, Oh, this is a diet that's going to help you lose weight.

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But that really isn't from scripture then, you know, this is part of what

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I ended up seeing so much with, you know, with a lot of these fads. And I think, I think the latest fad, although it's not so new, but it's, but everyone's jumping onto it is hearing from God, you know?

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That's a long lasting fad. I mean, that's been going through the church for at least a better part of almost two generations now that that has, that has been creeping its way slowly, but surely out of charismaticism and into the evangelicalism writ large.

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The reason I think that this is so dangerous though, and I want to get your feedback on this.

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My view is that the whole idea of hearing from God, having a dream or vision is not just a lack of sufficiency of scripture, but I think what it also ends up doing is for, for many, they're not trusting the scripture.

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They're trusting their dream. That's the, I think that it shifts the trust and, and leads people to, to,

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I mean, I I've, I've actually had a guy in prayer meeting that claimed that God, you know, he was following God's will because God told him to lie to his boss so that he could protect a fellow employee and witness to him.

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Yeah. And I was like, the guy you're trying to witness to now knows you're a liar. Like he's going to believe you, you know, but this is what

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I ended up seeing is that people feel justified. And if you, because they say it's of the Lord, you cannot, they don't listen to anything you say to try to correct them.

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No, you can't disabuse them of that because they, the source of authority then becomes God himself and not the vision of the dream.

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And so why, why would I, why would I consult a book and do go through the effort of studying and reading and exegeting a book to find out

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God's mind revealed to somebody who lived 3 ,500 years ago, if I can just wait and God's going to download it immediately into my heart and mind, some new, fresh revelations, you know, it's why, why would

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I want the old revelation? If I can have the fresh new thing that's custom designed for me. And so people end up expecting that and trusting of that.

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And in the end, the Bible gets the short shrift. And really what it is, it's, it's their own desires.

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I mean, it's not that this comes from nowhere. It's either their own desires or I'll say a lot of it, it, you know, it could be demonic, but God is going to speak through his word.

27:08

Right. Yeah. More often than not the personal revelation ends up being nothing more than an expression of what the person wanted to do to begin with more often than not.

27:19

Yeah. I remember in college, young gentleman who really liked a young lady.

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She happened to be engaged at the time, but he got a word from the Lord during a prayer meeting.

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God spoke to him audibly and told her through him to marry him.

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Quite convenient. And so she, she broke off the engagement and did marry the guy.

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And the, you know, the fact that they got married was the proof for them for many years that God did speak.

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Of course they're divorced now. So I don't know what you, what you do with that, but, but yeah,

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I've seen, this is what I've seen with people that have this. It's really their own desire, but it's, but Jim, it sounds so spiritual and it's gotta be right.

28:12

If it's coming from God, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. That's what, that's what they assume that it, that they have this connection with God.

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And if he's speaking it, then, then they have a connection with God that nobody else has. And it ends up becoming almost a form of Gnosticism in some ways, because you're believing that you're getting revelation, private revelation from God that is not available to anybody else.

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Whereas scripture is available to you and me, we both have copies of it. We can both read it and understand it and, and, and see and know the mind of God revealed on the pages of Holy scripture.

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But the person who's getting their own private revelations, well, they have a connection with God that you don't have. They have a way of receiving information that is not available, but only to them.

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And then, then that they write books like Priscilla Schreier and Charles Stanley and Mark Batterson, the rest of them, they write books that talk about how you too can hear this voice.

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If you'll follow their steps, you know, these, these are the steps is the way that God speaks. And if you follow this system, you follow this pattern, then you'll hear the voice of God for yourself as well.

29:09

But see the common response I get, I'm sure you do too, Jim, is when you challenge them and they're, they feel so spiritual about it.

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They then will push back and say, but this is from God, right? Yeah.

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That's the assumption. That's, that's, it's a form of question begging because they're assuming that God is going to speak this way that he needs to, or that they can expect to.

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And so then when they have the experience, it becomes a form of confirmation bias where they, they say, well, I was expecting

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God to speak. And then I got this prompting and nudge, and I followed the prompting and nudge and it turned out well. So it must've been

29:42

God speaking. And so that's just a, it's a method of circular reasoning, which is why in the book, I, at the beginning,

29:48

I lay out three assumptions that I need to hear from God outside of scripture, that I can expect to hear from God outside scripture, and that I can learn to hear from God outside scripture.

29:57

And you deal with those three assumptions and that show that scripture does not teach this in any of the passage that they quote to, to try and prove that point.

30:04

Then you, you remove the foundation, you remove the presupposition that goes into that argument. Because really what

30:10

I'm driving at is God has no need to speak to you outside of scripture. There's nothing that he needs to tell you that he has not already told you.

30:17

And you don't need to hear from him outside of scripture, because there is nothing that is not in scripture that you need to hear or know in order to walk with God in obedience.

30:26

And so therefore God has not promised to speak to you outside of scripture. So you should have no expectation to hear his voice.

30:32

And when you deal with those, then people, then what are we left with? Well, we're left with scripture. Yes. And if we're trying to bring scripture to them and they have their emotions that, and that becomes their authority.

30:45

A lot of times you're, it's hard to deal with because you're trying to lay out a logical argument and they're, they're going, but I have this experience.

30:54

They trust in the experience over anything that you bring to them. Yeah. I mean,

31:00

Justin did a, Justin Peters did a, his seminar in a church here that's about 45 minutes

31:05

South of us. And unfortunately it was one that I lined him up to speak in thinking that the pastor and the leadership was on board with him.

31:11

But during one of the Q and A's, somebody asked him about this hearing from God outside scripture. So Justin gave the standard answer that God speaks in scripture and scripture alone.

31:20

We shouldn't be listening for still small voices, et cetera. And one of the elders of the church got up and said, I audibly heard

31:25

God tell me to marry my wife, that this is a woman I was supposed to marry. And no matter what Justin said, you could not disabuse the man of that notion because he had experienced it.

31:34

So whether scripture was sufficient or not is irrelevant to the conversation as far as he's concerned.

31:40

But only thing that matters is that he experienced this, he heard this, he knows that God spoke to him and therefore you can't convince him otherwise.

31:48

But what do you think? You look like you were going to say, I have so many thoughts about all of this and, and agree with everything that you guys have said.

31:56

The one, the one fundamental thing that, that always surprises me is that when you engage with someone like this and you ask them about the sufficiency of scripture, they are never going to deny that.

32:07

I've not at least had anybody say, Oh no, scripture is sufficient. But then you recognize, well, wait a minute.

32:13

In practice, you're doing something completely contrary to that. And the other division, the distinction that I see that people don't, it's like, we've got this category of scripture over here.

32:23

We've got this category of our experiences over here. And then we had this other category, which really should be our focus, which is

32:30

Christ. Well, if, if you're by practice denying the sufficiency of scripture by your emotionalism and your experientialism, if you're denying that sufficiency of scripture there, what you are effectively doing is denying the sufficiency of Christ.

32:45

You can't, you can't divide these two things. I mean, it's, it's mysterious. It's as mysterious as the concept of the

32:53

Trinity, which is in scripture, but the, the mystery of Christ is the

32:58

Logos. He, He is the word of God. What does this mean? We have to really be cautious when we tread on this kind of ground, because what you would ultimately end up doing by practicing this emotionalism, moving things from the objective standard of God's word to the subjective experience you think you've had.

33:17

And maybe you did have some kind of experience. When you move that you are attacking the sufficiency of Christ himself, not merely a book that you read things in.

33:26

It's the word of God. And Christ is that word the way the truth and the life. So this kind of thing concerns me.

33:32

And I think just one other brief comment back to the first thing that you started with Andrew, with the guy who said he has a teachable spirit, as you engage with people like this, and maybe it takes a little bit of time, but you will be able to distinguish a disciple by their willingness to learn.

33:49

And if they don't have that, if they just want to contend for a position and not be willing to learn from the word, you may be dealing with a nominal believer.

33:59

However, fiercely they may defend their position. Yeah, that's true.

34:06

So, so Jim, the second question that they asked, I think we sufficiently answered that. No, God doesn't speak audibly in this, at this age.

34:14

The second question that was asked is, is it wrong to desire to hear from God audibly?

34:23

That's a bit more, that's a bit of a tougher question because we got to nuance this a little bit. Um, if the desire is to hear from God audibly because they're not trusting in scripture because they don't believe the scripture is answered or given them enough information, then yes, that's a sinful, that's a sinful desire because you're desiring something that is illicit, something that is actually undermining scripture.

34:44

But somebody might desire to hear from God audibly simply because they long for this relationship, but they believe that this is the symbol of intimacy.

34:52

And so what they really want is a feeling of intimacy and to draw near to God. So if they're thinking that this is the means by which

34:58

I draw near to God and drop, draw close to him and experience God, like Henry Blackaby would say, this is how we experience

35:05

God in our day -to -day life. If, if, if that's their desire that they want to experience God and draw near to him, and they think that that's how they do that, then no, that's, that desire may not be simple, but simply because their desire, what they're desiring is based upon an ignorance.

35:19

They're really ignorant of how it is that God speaks to us and what they should be expecting and where they should be hearing

35:25

God's voice. So that might not in itself be a sinful desire. So if what they mean by desiring to hear

35:32

God intimately or personally and audibly is I desire to be closer to God. And I desire to feel him more and experience him more and draw near to him and be intimate.

35:42

That's not a sinful desire, but if what they're desiring is information outside of scripture, then that's an illicit desire.

35:48

And then they are desiring something that is wrong. Well, I know that, you know, when I was trying to get my wife to say yes to marrying me, that she was, she was saying she wanted, she was waiting to, she didn't know if it was

36:01

God's will. And I remember her saying, you know, I said, what would it take for you to know that it's

36:06

God's will for you to marry me? And she said, an audible voice would be nice. And so I just went, marry the jerk.

36:13

And you know, she got the audible voice. It just, I didn't say it was from God, but that's the thing.

36:20

I mean, like we're really saying when we're, when we're seeking that audible voice, to me,

36:29

I think it seems that do we not trust the scriptures now, if scripture has an answer, but this is part of the thing as well as Jim is, this is hard work to determine

36:38

God's will through scripture with some things. I mean, some things are really clear, right. It is really clear when, when you have someone trying to argue for a woman preacher, like, okay, scripture is really clear.

36:50

First Timothy two, 12 to 14, a woman shouldn't be a pastor. She shouldn't be teaching or having authority over men, whether we like it or not.

36:59

That's what God says. And when, when people try to go, Oh no, this is a cultural issue. No, it's based in, in creation.

37:04

It's the creation order that we have that. And so when people do that, every anytime

37:09

I see that, I see people saying, no, culture is going to interpret scripture. And so now culture, anything that you use to interpret scripture, whether it's culture, the

37:18

Catholic church, the watchtower, any, any of those groups, when you put them as the only, as the ones to interpret scripture, that becomes a higher authority than scripture.

37:28

And I think the same with dreams and visions and wanting to hear an audible voice.

37:33

I think that, that, that feeling of having, you know, heard

37:39

God's voice that ends up being something that we use to then interpret scripture, but it isn't it hard work to determine

37:47

God's will by looking at all the principles, because I mean, who, who to marry? We don't have in, in, in scripture.

37:54

You have two job opportunities, which one to take. That's not going to be in scripture explicitly, but there may be principles.

38:01

If, if one job is taking you away from family and one job is going to keep you with, with the family, you know, things like that.

38:08

We can see principles, but it takes more work to do that. Doesn't it? Yeah. It takes a lot of work because you've got to exegete scripture.

38:14

You've got to know scripture. You have to read scripture and understand it in this context and make sure that you're walking in obedience to it and, and searching the word of God.

38:22

And fortunately he has not given us a revelation the size of the Encyclopedia Britannica. So we don't, it's not like we have 42 volumes that we have to go through.

38:29

It's one, it's one book that you can easily read through in a year's time with about 15 minutes a day. So you can, you can process all of scripture every, every year.

38:38

You could read through the entire revelation every year in the time it takes to drink a hot cup of coffee every morning.

38:44

So it's not, it's not a lot to go through in that sense, but it is a lot to go through because it's so deep and so profound.

38:50

It's so, it's so interwoven together and the revelation is so divine that there is, there's a lot there to swim through, but you've got to take the time and the effort and that's far more difficult than just, you know, waiting in stillness to hear a nudging or a prompting or getting an impression.

39:08

Yeah. And I think that's why people prefer this experiential thing because it's easy and it makes them feel more spiritual at the same time.

39:17

Yeah. Yeah, it is. So, you know, the, the last thing that they're in, in this review was he or she says, but are you saying don't even think about it?

39:34

So, you know, should we not even think about hearing from God audibly? Uh, my answer would be, you should not expect it.

39:42

No, I don't. I never, I never have one moment in my day -to -day life at not one moment do

39:48

I ever think, I wonder if I'm going to hear from God audibly today. I don't expect it. I don't anticipate it now. God could, because we're not talking about what

39:57

God does, not what God can do. God could speak to me if he wanted to, but I don't think he needs to and I'm not expecting him to, but I do sit down every morning and read my

40:06

Bible. I open up scripture and I read it consistently trying to go through it once a year, go through the all scripture once a year in my morning time.

40:13

So that is what I do expect. So I don't, I don't go through my day, um, wanting or longing or expecting

40:20

God to hear at all. I shouldn't, I don't think about it. It's not that you, it's not that you shouldn't think about it is that if you believe in the sufficiency of scripture and you're spending time reading that and meditating on that, you won't be thinking about hearing

40:29

God audibly outside scripture. So when you read through the Bible once a year, are you using the

40:35

Jim Osmond study Bible? I mean, should we be expecting that out soon? No, you should never expect that out.

40:41

No, you will never, you'll never see one of those. Okay. So let's deal with what are the arguments that people will make and you, let's deal with something in your book.

40:49

I mean, had I read your book, I should say, um, had I read your book, I would know that you mentioned something about Charles Stanley and he, you know, the incident he had when he was, he needed a

41:00

Turkey for Thanksgiving and he prayed. And, and God answered because he had a

41:06

Turkey, uh, just was able to get that Turkey just in time. And, and you know, the whole story that he gives for that.

41:12

This is one of the things I see is people look for, you know, the expectation that God is going to do something, get me a parking spot real close to the door, whatever it is.

41:24

And look, it happened. Therefore that's confirmation that I heard from God.

41:30

Is that really confirmation? Well, again, it's the, it's the confirmation bias that we're talking about.

41:37

I, is there anything miraculous or supernatural about finding a good parking space? No, I find them all the time, but that doesn't mean that that's the voice of God.

41:44

What does scripture say that the voice of God looks like? And see, this is the thing that, that, uh, hearing the voice of God teachers will often do is they'll say,

41:52

God is speaking today, just like he did in the old Testament, just like he did in the new Testament. God is speaking God.

41:57

So what he did back then, he will do for you to them. He will do for you today. And their assumption is that the hearing from God and receiving revelation is exactly like it was the old new

42:07

Testament. Then they'll go on to promote a methodology for hearing from God. That is nothing like what we find in the old and the new

42:14

Testament. And I began the second portion of my book on dealing with the false methodologies, um, with, with basically kind of a more modern take on Moses hearing the voice of God and the burning bush.

42:26

And I say that if God, if most, if God were to speak the way that hearing the voice of God, teachers say that he would speak, here's what it would look like.

42:32

You know, Moses would get an impression, a word would pop into his mind. He would, he would be reading something from the book of Job and it would pop off of the page.

42:39

He would feel it confirmed in an impression, then something that his wife would say, and, and all of these symbols and signs.

42:44

And of course, that's what they say that we should be expecting today, but that's nothing like what scripture says when God speaks. So they do, they do these two things where they say that God speaks just like he did in the old

42:54

Testament. Then they promote a methodology that is nothing like what God did in the old Testament, nothing at all. Yeah. I, one of the things

43:01

I do and granted, as you know, I have a little bit of a playful streak, so, but one of the things

43:07

I love to do when I get some people, like when I'm on the streets evangelizing, I get someone that's making an arguments like this.

43:14

I'll say, you know, I give them two, two accounts. These are true accounts of people I've spoken to one person who told me he, you know, he heard from God.

43:23

He was outside playing basketball and he was, he was, had been asking

43:28

God while he was outside playing basketball. He was trying to make a decision whether he should go on a missions trip and he didn't know.

43:37

And he looked up at the sky and there was clouds. And it just suddenly kind of opened up and like the rays of light came down and his mother came out side to let him know that the phone had rang.

43:49

And it was the people inviting him on the mission trip. So God had confirmed he should go on the mission trip.

43:55

Another time, again, with someone that was praying about going on a missions and they were, they were trying to make that decision.

44:04

They were sitting in prayer and trying to decide, you know, Lord, do

44:09

I go? Do I not go? Is this really what you want for me? And, and just then someone had come into their room and said, you should really think about going on the missions now.

44:20

Why? And people look at that and go that that's yeah, that's confirmation. I go, yeah, the problem is the first one was

44:25

Roman Catholic and the second was LDS. Yeah. So, so there, there are,

44:32

I mean, it's perfect. It's exactly what we hear from these people. But if, if pagans, unbelievers, false religions, cults are all getting the same nudging, the same experience, how can you say this is uniquely from God?

44:49

Yeah. I mean, the person who has a strong intuition or, or, um, feeling that they might've might've left the house wrong and did something wrong before they left the house.

44:59

And I got to come back in and see why, why do I just feel uneasy about leaving? And they see that they left the iron on the ironing board.

45:04

Well, that could have caused a fire while they were gone. And they say, well, that God spoke to me and told me to go back in and check things. So I went back in and check things and look how it turned out.

45:12

Well, that happens to unbelievers too. And so again, we have this contradiction where hearing from voice, hearing the voice of God teachers will say that in order to hear

45:21

God's voice, you have to be a Christian and you have to, you have to be still and you have to listen. You have to learn to hear that voice and you will hear that voice.

45:28

And then once you learn how to interpret it and check it, you'll, you'll sense the nudging as well. Well, unbelievers have this happen too.

45:34

So whatever it is that you're experiencing intuition, a hunch, a nudge, whatever it is, if unbelievers are having it, then it can't be the voice of God.

45:42

Because on the one hand, you're telling me that I have to be drawn near to God in order to hear that voice. On the other hand, you're telling me that a pagan rank, unbelieving atheist will have the exact same experience.

45:52

And so it's either the voice of God or it's not. Yeah. I mean, last, last night we came home, my wife and I went out to dinner with friends, came home.

46:01

I left the garage door open. Okay. Didn't, didn't even realize it. I really realized that when some other friends came over for, we have a fire pit and they came over for a fire and I realized,

46:12

Oh, I have something in the back of my car to give them. So I went out to the car and went to open the garage door so I can get to the back of the car and went,

46:20

Oh, it's already open. No, I, I came in, I didn't say, Oh, the Lord put it on my heart to get us, leave this in the car so that when you got here,

46:30

I would remember that the doors open. No, it was just coincidence that, and that's exactly how

46:37

I took it. I said, Oh, it's a good thing that we went to give this to them today because I would, I would have left the guard door open, the garage door open.

46:44

It was just coincidence that happens all the time. Yeah. A coincidence or we do believe that God orders our steps and guides our steps.

46:52

So can God cause something to happen that would make me go and do something that turns out really well and ends up protecting me?

46:58

Yeah, he can. I don't have any problem. I don't have any problem with believing that God is intimately and intricately involved in all the decisions that we make and all the things that we do, guiding our steps to accomplish his will.

47:11

But if you had left the garage door open to somebody to come in and ripped off your drill set that I believe is the hand of God as well.

47:18

I mean, I, I one time left all my tools in the back of my truck and the backseat of my truck and my son's truck was parked next door, both of them right next to each other.

47:26

And both of the doors were unlocked. Somebody came and took about $2 ,500 of the power tools out of the back of our two trucks, drills and saws and cordless drills and, and, and nail guns and all kinds of stuff ripped us off for about 2 ,500.

47:39

Well, did I not hear the voice of God? Is there a promise in scripture that says that anytime something bad might happen, that I'm going to hear

47:46

God's voice. And it was I just too busy and not tuned in enough to hear God's voice. Was he trying to tell me that I should go lock my doors or in the providence of God?

47:55

Did I, did I leave those doors open? Both of us leave our doors unlocked on our trucks and something bad happened.

48:01

Well, something bad happened. And in the providence of God, I believe that that was his will. And I believe that for whatever reason, he's working out his perfect plan, even when bad things happen.

48:12

So I don't, I don't look at things when things turn out well, and I happen to stumble into something and say, wow, that was, man,

48:18

I'm thankful that the Lord allowed my steps to fall in that way that there's, I was protected from this.

48:24

That's not the voice of God. That's providence and that's different than revelation. We don't call that the voice of God. We might call it providence.

48:30

We might even call it extraordinary providence or God working out his plan or guarding our steps or guiding our paths or whatever it is.

48:37

God can work those things out, but we don't call that revelation. That's not the voice of God. You know, this is an important thing that I wanted to bring up.

48:44

So I'm glad you did is the thing that when we see when people are looking to hear from God, when they're, they're wanting to have dreams, visions, nudgings, audible voice.

48:56

The one thing that always seems is it's, it's always to confirm something that they want. I tell the story.

49:03

I think I did. I told the story when we had you on talking about your book, God doesn't whisper. I remember a pastor who, he thought he got a great deal on a car and he got a great price for what he thought he got.

49:16

And he came and was like, see, God has really blessed me because I've just been so faithful to me. This is

49:21

God has blessed me. And I remember turning to him and saying, even if this car turns out to be a lemon, God still blessed you.

49:28

And he had to stop and think about that and was like, yeah, you're right. Cause God is sovereign in everything. So even if we get something we don't like, that's still

49:36

God's sovereign will. And it turned out the car actually was a lemon. It just took a couple of weeks for everything to fall apart and started falling apart.

49:45

He looked at me, he goes, this is still God's blessing. But this is the thing that I think so many don't think about.

49:51

It's, it's God's blessing. If things go my way. Right. And if they don't, then, well,

49:57

I wasn't hearing, God was desperately trying to protect me from this, but I wasn't hearing him. I wasn't picking up the breadcrumbs and following the clues and tuning into the right frequency.

50:06

And so things didn't turn out well, it must've been because God wasn't able to get through to me. And that, that I think is a wrong view of God and an inadequate view of God.

50:16

Yeah. So let me, let me just let folks know, if you want to get a copy of God doesn't whisper, which is a great book, though.

50:24

I won't admit that I've read it. Both halves are good. Yeah. The part you read in the other half that you didn't.

50:37

If you're just going to read half, you should just read every other page. That way at least you get some sense of what's going all the way through the whole thing.

50:44

Just read the even numbered pages. Look, I just, I just happened to open. I just happened to open to a chapter nine where it says,

50:50

God, give me a sign. It must've been a sign that I should read chapter nine, but a great way to get not only that book, but Jim's other books truth or territory selling the stairway to heaven or the prosperity of the wicked.

51:08

And that, that last one is a work from Psalm 73. All of those you can get at jimosman .com.

51:16

So that's J I M O S M A N.

51:21

There's no D at the end of that. I always thought you were related to the Osmonds. You know, no relation to the Osmonds.

51:27

So jimosman .com and there you can get all of his books, but I do encourage

51:34

God doesn't whisper. But the other thing is, so I encourage everyone to go out, get, go out there.

51:42

Also to let you guys know what we're doing for April and May. If you're, if you are listening in April and May, this is one of the things why you want to keep up to date on these.

51:54

You know, a lot of people binge and they, they get, you know, get things backlogged, but any orders from striving for eternity, anyone that orders anything from striving for eternity, we're going to be giving a free booklet called, what does it mean to me?

52:09

This is a kind of in line with what we're talking about. This is it's a small, little book by Josiah Nichols.

52:15

It's easy to get through little booklet. It's a pocket. It's his subtitle is a pocket book guide to biblical interpretation.

52:22

So it is a 20 pages. And so it is basically just a small little booklet that you can give to someone to give them the basics of how to interpret.

52:34

The reason we're having all these issues like Jim is talking about is the fact that people don't know how to interpret scripture and that's why they rely on healings and things like that.

52:44

So he, this is a little pocket guide, any order, no matter what, I think we sell these for, I think $2 though.

52:51

I don't know that they're on the website yet, but but any, any order order, anything you want from striving for attorney .org

52:58

and you will get a free copy of that. The other thing is, you know, that up where Jim lives in, you know, in Northern Idaho gets cold up there.

53:10

And so Jim, I think that one of the things you need to make sure is that you have good blankets and sheets for your beds.

53:17

And so Bud's head shaking. I'm wondering where this is going.

53:23

Yeah. Just keep wondering cause it won't take long. But now knows where this is going. Cause I just love to see how

53:30

I could get Bud with a transition, see the thing you need to do, Jim, to make sure you get a restful night's sleep in cold

53:38

Idaho is you need to go to my pillow and use promo code SFA.

53:44

Cause if you do that, you get a discount on your, not only your pillows, but you, I, you, you should get a, my slippers, you know, get nice slippers and the robe.

53:53

And we, you could walk around with your coffee cup in my, my pillow slippers and robe with your coffee.

54:00

Sleep with your pillows and your slippers and your robe as well. Well, you know, after you get up early in the morning, when you make your coffee, you walk around with that.

54:09

So that you get off of my pillow. Yeah. Well, the, you get, you get off of the, my pillow and the, my pillow topper, you know, out of your, my pillow sheets and, and all.

54:19

So yeah. Then you could take a shower with your, my pillow towels. So they got you completely covered.

54:25

And the thing I know you like about my pillow, Jim, the thing I know you like would like the most about it is it's made right here in the

54:31

USA. I know that you like that aspect of it. I would like that. Yes. So folks, if you would like to sleep as well as Jim needs to, you could go to mypillow .com,

54:44

click on the radio listeners square and use the promo code SFE. That stands for striving for eternity.

54:51

The other thing you can do is call 1 -800 -873 -176.

54:57

That's a special number that they set up with us. So if you call that number 1 -800 -873 -0176, use the promo code

55:08

SFE to get your discounts. And that way you can get a good night's sleep. Maybe if Jim slept better, he, he, you know, he'd have that beauty sleep that many of us get to enjoy.

55:22

It's, it's why he's, he has the face for radio, you know, he doesn't get some of y 'all need beauty sleep.

55:29

Some of us don't. So, so Jim, one of the things that I do want to talk about,

55:36

I mentioned this, you know, as we could transition into talking about the importance of local church.

55:43

Now you are, you know, Justin Peter says you're, you are the best preacher that he knows of.

55:51

You should not trust Justin's discernment. Well, I think we do. He's got a discernment ministries. We should trust it.

55:57

And, and, and you can't disagree with that. You're, you are on the board of directors of that discernment ministry. That's called a gotcha.

56:09

Let me rephrase this. But, but one of the things is, you know, you, you are, you're, you are a premier pastor preacher.

56:20

Your sermons are outstanding. That's why I encourage people to go to, you know, subscribe to the Kootenai community church morning worship service.

56:28

If you want to find it, you could just go to Christianpodcastcommunity .org go to the shows. That's where we hit where that podcast is listed along with like 39 others.

56:37

But here's the thing that, you know, I've always been impressed with you. And the thing that I want that I focus on here is you could be one of these guys, you know, like, like Justin who travels the world, speaks at all the big conferences, be able to have this huge platform.

56:57

You're, you're preaching is, is I would put up there with the John MacArthur's and men like that.

57:03

I know you disagree, but you know, you're, you're preaching is at that level and you could have a big platform.

57:11

And yet you're at a church in a, in a town that no one can pronounce.

57:19

It took a long time to pronounce Kootenai. I actually do. I do enjoy people hearing how people pronounce

57:25

Kootenai, Kookenai. There was someone, someone actually was like, what church is, there's someone that listens to your, to your sermons.

57:32

And he's like, what's the name of that church? Kookenai? It is weird.

57:39

But you're, you're, you've been the pastor there for quite some time. In fact, one of the things that I've always been impressed with, that is the only church you've ever been a member of.

57:49

Correct. Correct. Yeah. So, you know, you have, you could have a large platform.

57:58

Why don't you, why don't you try to build with your books, you know, even the books, the money doesn't go to you.

58:05

Why are you, why don't you try to build this big platform? Why are you, why are you just being a pastor of this local church?

58:16

I don't know. That's, I love my people and I love the church and, and I love doing what

58:23

I do. And I love the men that I serve with as my fellow elders and the deacons there.

58:29

And I, I just have no desire to travel. A traveling for me as a, it's a, it's an onerous thing.

58:36

And I don't like to be away from my own local church on a Sunday morning. I would rather be there than anywhere else. And I don't,

58:44

I don't just the idea of building a platform. I don't even, I don't even know what that would look like or why or how

58:50

I would do that. So I guess it's difficult for me to answer because it's just not on my radar. I just believe so strongly in the ministry of the local church.

58:57

And, and John MacArthur, I heard John MacArthur say something when I first started pastoring. He said, you worry about the depth of your ministry and God worry about the breadth of your ministry.

59:05

And I think that that is one of the most beautiful and profound things that any pastor could could be here and to take to heart.

59:11

And I just took that to heart. And I just figured I, when I started pastoring here, I have no desire to move anywhere else.

59:17

I've, I've, I've have no desire to go anywhere else or have a bigger platform or to go do another pond or a bigger pond.

59:24

I just want to serve faithfully with where I'm at and, and the people that are here. And I think that people who seek after bigger platforms that are also seeking after more accountability.

59:33

And I'm not sure that I want that. I just would like to have, I just like to have the Lord say well done, good and faithful servant.

59:38

And I believe that he will give me what I'm, what he has equipped me to handle and nothing more. So I don't want to pursue anything that's outside of that.

59:47

And that's the thing that I don't hear from people these days is that you, what you said in there that you just love your church, the people.

59:55

There's so many people that I see, especially if they're at your caliber of preaching, that they just are looking for, well, maybe

01:00:03

I should move to a bigger church because they get more people. And, and, you know, one of the things that I remember you saying to me was, you have no desire to leave

01:00:12

Kootenai community church. And, and I know with what you're doing there with the building, which is, maybe we should just have you back just to talk, talk about that.

01:00:21

But the, the thing that we end up seeing is that you had said to me that you're trying with that building to set it up for the guy that's going to come after you when you die.

01:00:32

Like you, you have no intention of leaving that church and you want to set that church up for who follows you.

01:00:39

Yeah. When we first started, when I first started pastoring, I took over from two other faithful men who had been gone before me, a father and then his son.

01:00:47

And, um, the church had been about, um, almost 15 years old by the time

01:00:53

I ended up taking it over somewhere neighborhood at 12 years old, I guess. And, um, we were in a small church building, like a little country church, you know, with the steeple and everything.

01:01:01

And it was a beautiful little church building, but it would seat about 80 people. And, and the Lord blessed the ministry and we ended up outgrowing that building.

01:01:08

And I never had expected that I would go outside of that building or we'd ever have another building. But then when it became obvious that we just were not going to be able to run a ministry and meet people's needs in this little tiny building, we started looking at what to do to get some space.

01:01:22

And my vision was never to build a building for the sake of building a building or just so you could have something new.

01:01:29

That was never on my radar. My, my radar was just to, to build a building and to establish a ministry, sound in doctrine and to train men for the next generation.

01:01:37

So that when I leave, there's a light in Kootenai, Idaho, a light in this area, and it will be a gospel preaching, a

01:01:44

Bible expositing, church that, that values the word of God and serves people. And that was, that's what

01:01:50

I think God has called pastors to do. So I don't think that even in doing what I did, that I did anything extraordinary.

01:01:56

No, I mean, it's not that it's extraordinary, except for the times that we live in with social media.

01:02:04

And that's, and it's, your, your focus is really on the importance of the local, your local church, over what

01:02:11

God, you know, people would say God could do with you as if, and this is the thing that, that I guess bothers me when

01:02:18

I hear people say this and why I love men like you and others. I think, I think specifically of two men, you and, and Steve Hamm, because, you know, for folks who don't know

01:02:29

Steve, Steve Hamm, you actually, I got, you said you have to get to meet Steve. I just met him. Yeah. When I was down in Cincinnati at the

01:02:36

Creation Museum a few weeks back, I got to meet Steve and man, what a delight that was.

01:02:41

And then to find out that he was the pastor of a small church in Cincinnati. And his, his story is very similar to mine 10, 15 years ago, in that he started off with a small church that really needed some, some correction and to, it had been established in sound doctrine.

01:02:54

And now he's experiencing this growth that God has blessed him with. And they're looking at expanding and buying a new facility or renting a new facility or whatever.

01:03:02

And I was really encouraged by that. I thought that's, that's good to see that happening. And, and I love to see faithful men whom the

01:03:09

Lord blesses. And I think that one thing we need to keep away from is this notion that if you're faithful and you're obedient, that God's going to bless you with numbers or that God will increase your church.

01:03:20

That that's not necessarily the case. And there's a lot of men who labor faithfully in their churches are 40, 50, 60 people.

01:03:26

And they labor faithfully for, for decades, even in that situation. And there are men who labor faithfully and are obedient and whom the

01:03:34

Lord shrinks their work and removes them from that for a specific purpose. And we have to be open to that too, that sometimes

01:03:41

God's shutting down a congregation is not because of the unfaithfulness of its pastor or God keeping a group small is not because of the unfaithfulness of its pastor.

01:03:50

And that might be no reflection at all upon his giftedness or the spirit's work or anything like that.

01:03:56

Just we can't measure a congregation or measure a work or a man's ministry by the, by the size of his church, because that in this, in this, in the grand scheme of things is one of the least significant things that that we can point to Joel Osteen's ministry is enormous, but I don't believe that it has even a modicum of the

01:04:17

Holy spirit involved in it at all. Yeah. And I mean, for folks who don't know who

01:04:23

Steve is, I mean, they may know the last name Ham and it's because it's Ken Ham's brother. And he had,

01:04:30

I mean, you talk about an opportunity to have a big platform. I mean, he was working for answers in Genesis with his brother for years, maybe even from the beginning.

01:04:39

And he left that to pastor a church. And the thing that I see with both you and Steve that always impresses me so much is the fact that there's no desire to try to make something happen.

01:04:54

And this is what I see. It's you're right. It's unique in our day and age. And it goes to think is lacking so much as people having an understanding of the importance of the local church versus trying to build a big platform.

01:05:08

You know, well, you know, you're, you're on the board with, with Justin's ministry, but Justin and I have this, have a similar policy that we only want to travel half the year because we want to be in a local church.

01:05:21

Yes, we have to travel to speak, but we need to be rooted in a local church. And so many of these people that travel, they don't, they don't have a church because they're traveling every week.

01:05:32

No, you saw that with Ravi Zacharias, didn't you? Yeah. I mean, there was a man who traveled most of the year and what his relationship was or accountability was to a local church governing body of elders and deacons.

01:05:43

We don't, we don't know. It doesn't seem to be strong. Even though he was ordained in a denomination, it doesn't look like his connection to a local church was all that vital.

01:05:52

Yeah. Yeah. So I, you know, the, the, the thing that I think that's always, you know, when

01:06:00

I think about you and what you you're doing there at Kootenai community church, I'm always just impressed.

01:06:05

You you're, because you, your desire is for those people not to try to make something other than what

01:06:13

God might do. And you hit on something that I think far too many people don't understand.

01:06:19

This gets back to what we said about hearing God's voice. It's that a lot of times it's people's desires.

01:06:25

They want to have a big church. I want to have name recognition, things like that. And I'll tell you something.

01:06:32

Name recognition is not all it's cracked up to be. Jim, you, you could speak to this as well. We travel, we travel with Justin.

01:06:39

How, how tired does he get at the end of the day? Like after meeting all these people, it's, it's, you know, walking at shepherd's conference, because that's typically the type of people that are most familiar with Justin and his ministry at shepherd's conference, you cannot walk.

01:06:57

And this is not an exaggeration. You cannot walk more than 20 feet without somebody stopping you to tell you about how

01:07:03

Justin's ministry has impacted their lives or how they've been blessed or how their family member came out of the new apostolic reformation because of Justin's videos or how thankful they are for Justin or to get a picture or an autograph or to give him something.

01:07:15

It's just getting him my job at my job, the shepherd's conference is to get Justin from one event to the, from one place to the next.

01:07:23

And sometimes I have to say, all right, buddy, let's go. We've got to get going. Hey, thanks for stopping by. Thanks for chatting with Justin. It's been great meeting you.

01:07:29

I appreciate that. You know, I'll usually offer to take a picture with him. Cause that's kind of the last thing they do. You know, you'd like to take a picture and I snapped the picture and then

01:07:36

I stand beside Justin and let's go. It's almost impossible. And so that, that is a blessing in that he has had such a wide ministry and such a powerful ministry, but it's, it's also a curse that you just, you know,

01:07:48

I would never want to be as well known as Justin Peters. You can't live life. Yeah. I mean, it literally, he, which shepherds conference,

01:07:55

I remember cause I do the exact same thing that you're do right for him. Shepherd's conference. He actually said at one time, he's like, okay,

01:08:02

MacArthur was preaching. And because MacArthur was preaching, he was like, maybe I can get through the book tent because most people are going to want to go hear

01:08:10

MacArthur. So he actually, to get to the books, he's got to try and plan. It took us like 35 minutes just to get to the book tent.

01:08:18

I mean, MacArthur was half done at this point. And you're just, because like you said, every 20 feet, someone's stopping and they're telling them, you know, and you have, you have to let them express that.

01:08:27

But you do kind of move them on when at some point, even in the book tent, I mean, he couldn't get past one day.

01:08:33

We got to a point where I just said, just on any books you specifically want. And I ran around and found the books he wanted and brought them up to the cashier just said, cause he's, he's stuck talking to anything.

01:08:45

So people will think like name recognition, that'd be really good. And it's, it's a neat experience.

01:08:51

I mean, I've look, we're just in Boston now, granted, granted, Jim, there, there may be an, a bud, you're going to appreciate this, but there's a reason that someone recognized me when we were in this museum of science in Boston.

01:09:02

It might be because I didn't, I wasn't covering my face with something that someone was, but, but yeah, that happens.

01:09:10

I mean, we're up in Boston and there's a guy who is in New York, just in Boston visiting family.

01:09:16

You know, I'm there with my, my daughter and son -in -law and all of a sudden I'm here, you know, Andrew Rapport, you know, now that does not happen nearly as much as Justin has it.

01:09:27

I mean, I'll get it, you know, wherever I go, you know, I'll get one or two people maybe, but maybe it's cause

01:09:33

I don't have the cool scooter to ride around in. It makes it, it makes it more noticeable. It also means he can't, you know, get away from people cause he'd have to run them over to, but the thing is

01:09:43

I look at all of that. If people think of like having a big platform would be a blessing. And it's also, there's a lot of aspects people don't think about with it.

01:09:52

The thing that I love about you is you're not, you're someone who

01:09:57

I believe could have that, but yet your focus is all on your local congregation, the people that you're pouring into.

01:10:05

And unfortunately what I see in our culture is people belittling that like a small town pastor.

01:10:12

Now you got more than 45 people, but you, you, you think the average church in America, I think is 25.

01:10:19

So it means that there's, when you look at the, when they, when they say church, they're just, they're including everyone. So you'd look at the

01:10:24

Joelstein 10 ,000. That means there's a whole lot of more churches that are like 10 or 15 to have, you know,

01:10:33

I think it's like 25 to 40 is the average size in America. It means there's a more, most of the churches are very, very small.

01:10:42

And many of those pastors are very faithful and people belittle that. And yet you have some guy that's pouring into his people, everything he has, that man is more faithful than the guys who are traveling the world.

01:10:57

You know, especially if you're going to look at like a Ravi Zacharias or Joelstein, yeah, they could travel everywhere and everyone knows their name, but some small town pastor or pastors, 10 people may be far more faithful and in, in, you know, on that judgment day is going to get far more rewards.

01:11:12

And you know, I think that it's good to hear a pastor's heart that is just wanting to be with his people.

01:11:20

Yeah. That's why the, I mean, you've said very kind words about me, but that's why the question that he asked me at the beginning is just an awkward one.

01:11:27

Like what, why don't you seek a platform? And I just don't, it's not something that I don't think anybody should seek a platform.

01:11:34

I don't know what the benefit of a platform is. I mean, God hasn't called us to seek platforms.

01:11:40

He's just called us to be faithful and to be obedient. Yeah. Your job is to be faithful. The results are up to God.

01:11:46

That's right. Yeah. That's it. I, you know, being in New Jersey, uh, so much of my life,

01:11:52

I, we, we, it's this common thing we get. We get these guys that come into New Jersey in a very affluent area and they come in and I've probably heard this a half dozen to a dozen times, you know,

01:12:04

I'm going to be the John MacArthur of the East. We're going to set up a seminary. We're going to, they have these big dreams.

01:12:11

And my one comment to each of these guys, when I hear it, I mean, it was funny because in the pastor's fellowship that we had, we, it's, it's just a, we'd laugh because we'd always get these guys that they come in and they're like,

01:12:23

I'm going to be the next John MacArthur. And we actually would sit like most of us would get together and go, how long do you think he's going to last?

01:12:29

Two years, five years. So, you know, and it's, I mean, they would be gone in just a few years. Uh, and what you have is they,

01:12:37

I would just turn to each one of these guys when they'd make comments like that and go, you realize that John MacArthur never planned on being

01:12:43

John MacArthur? No. If you read Ian Murray's biography, if you read me and Murray's biography on John MacArthur, you'll notice that it's, and then you walk around Grace Community Church and you'll recognize that John MacArthur did not make himself

01:12:56

John MacArthur. The Lord brought Phil Johnson, Clayton Erb, these men, Dick Mayhew, the

01:13:02

Lord brought these men across his paths and the Lord built that, which is why nothing is, you know, the campus, the buildings are not named after John MacArthur.

01:13:11

It's not John MacArthur's campus. It's just, John MacArthur just happens to be the most visible elder there, but there are a lot of gifted men and the people that are around the music ministry and the seminary and the college and the kids ministry and the publishing industry.

01:13:26

And Grace to you, those gifted men like Phil Johnson, like Clayton Erb and others who make that run, those men are, have been brought there by the spirit of God.

01:13:35

John MacArthur didn't seek any of that, which makes him so unique and so different than other people who do seek those platforms.

01:13:44

Yeah. And I mean, this is the thing is that he, he wasn't seeking the platform. He was just seeking to be a pastor.

01:13:50

And this is what I think, yeah, this is what more churches and more pastors need to recognize.

01:13:57

We, I think we have far too many men trying to build platforms for themselves rather than trying to shepherd the flock that God has given them.

01:14:07

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. So. Well, as a guy that just sits on the back row, uh, in my church with regards to name recognition,

01:14:17

I can only cite that popular quip, which has a lot of truth in it. The regret over what

01:14:22

I have missed is swallowed up and the relief over what I've escaped. Ponder that.

01:14:29

Yes. Yeah. You must be Baptist that you're in the back row. Why don't you move up? Yeah. Yeah. No, I sit in the back.

01:14:36

Yeah. I know I I've seen you, but when I was there, you weren't really in the back.

01:14:42

You were kind of mid. Yeah. Yeah. There's nowhere to hide from you, but listen, you know, just one real quick comment, particularly with what the

01:14:48

Lord is doing right now, it's going to be churches like that are pastored by men like, like Jim and, and other men.

01:14:57

As, as the Lord does what he's doing in the visible church right now, there are going to be faithful sheep who will recognize the superficial from the true.

01:15:07

And he's going to move those faithful sheep to places where faithfulness in the pulpit with the word of God is paramount and is the focus because they re they will come to recognize.

01:15:18

They need that. They don't need a man with a platform. They need a man with an understanding of the word of God and the boldness to preach it faithfully and continually.

01:15:28

And I think the Lord is going to do that. So platform isn't measured, you know, a church isn't measured by, by the population in the pews, but by the purity in the pews.

01:15:38

And that starts with what happens in the pulpit. Yeah. Very well said. No, I think that that's, that's the important thing there.