A Dividing Line of Clarification

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:38

Greetings and welcome to at least the last Dividing Line I'm going to be doing for a while, at least scheduled.

00:45

I will leave open the option of Skype Dividing Lines, FaceTime Dividing Lines.

00:53

If I need to, I can record something and somehow get it back here and put the beginning and the end on it and call it a

01:03

Dividing Line if we need to. And that's just so that my critics don't go, oh, he's leaving for three weeks, let's throw a bunch of stuff out there that's misrepresentational and there's nothing he can do about it.

01:18

Now, there might be a few days in there where I might not be able to do anything about it, but we'll keep an eye on things.

01:27

But today is a program of clarification. Yes, a program of clarification.

01:35

We want to clarify things before we go overseas. Obviously, your prayers for the trip to South Africa, Zambia, the

01:45

Midlands, Glasgow, Belfast, London. Very much appreciated, especially, first and foremost, that I survived this without succumbing to the many, many, many, many bacteria and viruses that will be floating about me in the various places where I will be.

02:10

So that's the biggest thing, that we get through this thing in one piece.

02:16

Because I have a whopping four days at home before going to teach for a week.

02:23

Then I've got another engagement after that I'm going to have to fly straight to. So yeah, no time for any of that.

02:30

So your prayers would be appreciated. Okay, but I want to start off with...

02:35

Can you see this? I want to...

02:41

I don't know that I can do that with this. I mean, that's going to look...

02:47

It's not going to change anything. Don't want to see it.

02:54

Just briefly, I wish to show you a...

03:01

Yeah, there you go. There you go. That's best. Let's start with a clarification about something.

03:10

According to Radar Online, and I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the beloved

03:16

Radar O 'Reilly, who I don't believe would have anything to do with anything like this. I would hope not, anyways.

03:22

You recognize the individual on the left as Bruce Jenner doing his thing.

03:34

Age 68. According to Radar Online, Jenner, 68, is set to marry trans woman and Pepperdine University student

03:43

Sophia Hutchins, 21. 21. So let me do some fast math.

03:51

That's 47 years. And what you're actually looking at are two guys, because Sophia Hutchins, I guess, started the whole chemical, medical, surgical thing very young.

04:12

And so is set to marry trans woman and student Sophia Hutchins.

04:17

Now, what I see here is there are a number of Hebrew terms that we can use here.

04:29

Tevil is one of them. It means confusion. Not confusion like, oh,

04:34

I don't understand or, oh, I made a mistake. But confusion in the sense of a violation of the borders and paradigms and rules that God builds into the very creation itself.

04:57

This is not a marriage. It cannot be called a marriage. Now, our society doesn't want to argue this point.

05:05

So they say, oh, that's hate speech. So we're going to shut you down. It's not hate speech. This man on the left is a grandfather.

05:15

A grandfather. I didn't look it up, but something tells me he's got kids older than this other kid.

05:30

Can you imagine the impact of this man's behavior on his children and his grandchildren?

05:43

I mean, this man has been identified as woman of the year. I mean, this tells you much about our society.

05:49

It tells you much about, you know, we talk all the time about the withdrawal of God's hand of restraint on a society.

06:05

Well, it's not just that this kind of thing is being accepted, allowed for, but the fact that we're being told we have to celebrate it.

06:16

I've said we can document this. I have said for decades that the homosexual lobby does not want equal rights.

06:27

They want uber rights. They want to force us to celebrate their sexual lifestyle, which is exactly what's going on in California, in the

06:36

California public schools and in every other leftist totalitarian state in the union.

06:44

But when you look at this picture, the danger is we just become accustomed to this.

06:56

You know, when we look at the trouble that Lot got himself into, he had been in Sodom and Gomorrah for so long that, you know, you can call it a survival mechanism if you want.

07:10

But it's pretty obvious that he had become accustomed to what was around him.

07:18

I mean, his soul was pained by the sinfulness of man, but when you're constantly exposed to it, you can't help but getting numbed eventually.

07:31

And when we look at something like this, yeah, there should be an ick factor.

07:38

As someone said long ago, it should just be blah for so many different reasons.

07:45

But it should be an ick factor that is informed by a recognition of the damage to the term marry, as in marriage, husband, wife, grandfather.

08:02

There can be no children from this relationship by design and intention.

08:12

By design and intention. And so to call two guys who, to various levels,

08:24

I haven't kept track of what Jenner has done as far as how far he has taken all that stuff,

08:34

I don't know. Last I heard, he hadn't done the surgery stuff. But the whole point is that when we see this, we should be first and foremost grieved by the damage that it does.

08:54

People say, well, it doesn't matter to you. Yes, it does. It impacts the culture in which my children and my grandchildren are to be living.

09:08

And hence, the meaning of marriage, the value of father and mother, husband and wife, it just jars me every single time.

09:17

I hear today in news stories and things like that, a man talking about his husband.

09:28

That's wrong, it's perverse, it's evil, it's sinful, and it brings the wrath of God.

09:35

It will bring the wrath of God. Well, again, we could go back and start having a discussion.

09:42

Will it bring the wrath of God or is it the wrath of God? We could have a valuable discussion about both of those aspects.

09:54

But we need to clarify. This is an issue of clarification. You can take that down. It's an issue of clarification that this is not a marriage, never will be a marriage, cannot be viewed as a marriage in any way, shape, or form.

10:15

It just can't. However, we need to guard our hearts in that our expression of detestation must be theologically informed.

10:28

Because our sin is detestable before God as well. But there are sins that are natural for man, and then there are those sins that are unnatural.

10:41

That are tevil, that are confusion, perversity, violation. Toeva. They are the disordered sins that don't even flow from man's nature, but are fundamentally a denial of man's nature.

10:57

And that is what you see being promoted in something like this situation there.

11:05

Now, whether it actually ends up happening or taking place is another issue. It's one thing for people to say it's going to happen, it's another thing for it to actually take place.

11:16

In light of—I didn't drag this one out, some of you probably saw on our second point of clarification.

11:25

In light of the—and no, I'm not getting into all the Israel stuff that was going on over the weekend with the— not only with the embassy thing in Jerusalem, but then the stuff going on with Hamas.

11:42

You know, basically sending people to their deaths. Hamas just loves death.

11:49

And sending people to die at the border in a little mini -invasion thing, knowing what's going to happen.

11:56

I mean, it was all purposeful. Killing people for a publicity stunt. That's great.

12:02

Hamas. There you go. Anyway, we could get into a lot of that stuff, but not today.

12:14

But lo and behold, somebody on Twitter—I forgot who it was—retweeted

12:25

Mitt Romney's tweet yesterday. Did y 'all see that? And I found it really interesting because it was

12:34

Mitt Romney taking a shot at Pastor Jeffers.

12:40

Jeffers. Jeffers? Whatever. From Dallas.

12:48

And, you know, the guy who's about as political as they come, yeah. But the content of the tweet basically was that this guy has said that Jews are going to hell, and yet he's offering a prayer at the opening of the embassy in Jerusalem?

13:07

And then he used the term religious bigots. Religious bigots.

13:13

And I sat back and I said, now wait a minute. Mitt Romney is part of the

13:23

Romney family. And the

13:28

Romneys have been involved in the general authorities and the leadership of the

13:35

LDS Church for many decades, going way back. I mean, he has got the

13:42

Mormon pedigree. I'm pretty certain. I didn't verify this, but I'm pretty certain Mitt Romney was sealed in the

13:48

Salt Lake Temple. He knows Mormonism.

13:55

He knows Mormonism well. And as a result,

14:02

I just found that tweet wildly hypocritical.

14:08

Just wildly hypocritical. For a number of reasons. I responded by pointing out that the

14:21

Qur 'an says that those who say three, the

14:29

Qur 'an's significantly less than accurate way of describing the doctrine of the Trinity, those who say three will go into hellfire.

14:39

And there will be no helpers for them. And that this is an act of shirk and kufr.

14:47

And so I guess that would make Muslims religious bigots, based upon the idea that, well, if Christians say that Christ is necessary for salvation.

14:59

But we also know what Mormons believe. And I went back and I tracked down an old, this is one of our old information sheets, actually, from long ago.

15:18

It's in the vintage section. So this is when it was posted, but this is not when it was written.

15:28

This is from the 80s. It's posted November 17, 2012. It's titled,

15:33

Quotations from Mormon Leaders on the Christian Faith. But let me just read you a few things that Mitt Romney well knows his church has taught in the past.

15:51

First Nephi 14 .10 says, Behold, there are saved two churches only. The one is the church of the

15:57

Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil. Wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongs to that great church, which is the mother of abominations, and she is the whore of all the earth.

16:08

That's First Nephi 14 .10. Now, I realize that's not the most popular part of the Book of Mormon any longer, but it's still printed there.

16:17

I think, I mean, you know, I didn't drag out my new edition of the quad down there, but I'm going to guess it's still there.

16:33

Documentary History of the Church, Introduction, page XL. Nothing less than a complete apostasy from the

16:40

Christian religion would warrant the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. Joseph Smith and Joseph Smith History, 119.

16:47

I was answered that I must join none of them, the Christian churches, for they were all wrong that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight.

16:57

Good old B .H. Roberts, man, he was one of Mormonism's leading scholars back in the day.

17:04

The Mormon Doctrine of Deity said, Orthodox Christian views of God are pagan rather than Christian.

17:12

Apostle Charles W. Penrose said, The God whom Christians worship is a being of their own creation. Brigham Young said,

17:17

The Christian world, so -called, are heathens as to their knowledge of the salvation of God.

17:24

He likewise said, We may very properly, this is Brigham Young, say that the sectarian world do not know anything correctly so far as pertains to salvation.

17:33

Ask them where heaven is, where they are going to go when they die, where paradise is, and there is not a priest in the world that can answer your questions.

17:42

Ask them what kind of a being our Heavenly Father is. They cannot tell you so much as Balaam's ass told him.

17:48

They are more ignorant than children. Good old Brigham Young had a lot of fun things to say.

17:55

The Christian world, I discovered, is like the captain and crew of a vessel on the ocean without a compass, tossed to and fro with a sway of the wind listed to blow them.

18:02

When the light came to me, I saw that all the so -called Christian world was groveling in darkness.

18:07

What, are Christians ignorant? Yes, as ignorant of the things of God as the brute beast. John Taylor said that. So what does the

18:13

Christian world know about God? Nothing. Why, so far as the things of God are concerned, they are the various fools. They know neither

18:18

God nor the things of God. Also John Taylor mentioned these things.

18:25

So I just found it. There's so many more. It just goes on and on and on. Good old, we've got to let, you know,

18:33

I have a feeling Broussard -McConkie saw today coming. I have a feeling that even back in the 80s, he sort of knew that things weren't going his direction.

18:46

But, you know, you got to respect old

18:52

Broussard. He was a believing Mormon. And they're easier to talk to, in my opinion, than modern

19:01

Mormons are. Broussard -McConkie, his book,

19:07

Mormon Doctrine, said evil spirits control much of the so -called religious worship in the world.

19:12

For instance, the great creeds of Christendom were formulated so as to conform to their whispered promptings.

19:20

Hmm. So Christian, the Christian creeds are the whispered promptings of evil spirits, according to Broussard -McConkie.

19:32

And so you can look some more up if you'd like. It just struck me as so very, very interesting that Mitt Romney, the politician, would tweet something like that out when he knows, he very well knows.

19:52

Look, he's old enough that he went through the temple when the Christian minister was still being openly mocked in the endowment ceremony as a hireling of Satan.

20:06

So, it's just like, yeah, no thanks there. No thanks there,

20:12

Mitt. We got you figured out. Now, I have a video here.

20:22

I'm only going to play a portion of it. Here is a clarification for our

20:32

Muslim friends. I'm going to be doing some debates, or at least one debate, on Islam while I'm traveling.

20:41

And speaking numerous times on the subject of Islam.

20:50

When we, in any witnessing situation, you have to evaluate the level of knowledge possessed by the individual to whom you're speaking.

21:06

And this is especially true when dealing with interreligious discussion. When you're talking to a

21:15

Mormon, you need to find out whether it's a conservative Mormon, liberal

21:21

Mormon. These weren't real big issues for us back in the 80s, but they are now.

21:28

And what level of knowledge they might have of Christianity. When you're talking to a

21:33

Muslim, you have the exact same situation. You, for example, if you're talking to a first -generation immigrant from another country, the highest probability is going to be you're talking to someone who has many fundamental misapprehensions of what the

22:00

Christian faith actually teaches. Many fundamental misapprehensions. And that means you're probably going to be answering questions that part of you is going to go,

22:17

I shouldn't be having to answer this. If you're going to say my religion is wrong and I'm going to hell, don't you think you should know what

22:24

I believe? Well, that's going to close down the conversation real quick. Because that's just not the case. They don't.

22:31

And so you have to be gracious, you have to be patient, you have to maybe answer the same questions a number of different times.

22:38

And there are, of course, certain doctrines that we would recognize outside of the work of the

22:44

Holy Spirit of God, the natural mind of man is not going to find to be comprehensible or understandable.

22:55

The Trinity and the relationship of the Father, Son, Spirit and the relationship of the divine and the human in Jesus, the hypostatic union, are two such doctrines that plainly within Islam, very few

23:13

Muslims, very few Muslims, in my experience, have an accurate knowledge of these beliefs, partly because many

23:23

Christians are not properly taught on this subject as well, but partly because of a bias of a closed mind to hearing what it is we're actually saying.

23:39

And here you've got an example of that. Here's a video that was just posted.

23:44

I think it was just posted. I've got to look to see what the date was. I assumed it had just been posted. Attempting to demonstrate an inconsistency in my own position.

23:57

We have folks who just watch this program from many religious viewpoints, recording it and downloading it solely to find material to make more videos, and I'm really sorry that you're going to have three weeks off.

24:11

I'm not sure what you're going to do with your lives. What are you going to do? You might find some good books to read or something like that.

24:23

Anyway, so there's two arguments that are being made in this video, and I think I can get them done in just the first couple of sections here.

24:32

So let's take a look at it. James, you know, one of the points he normally raises is this, that inconsistency is a sign of a failed argument.

24:42

You're correct. That's what he says. We look at Isaiah chapter 11, which Dr. Craig Evans brought up, and he's right, it is talking about the

24:49

Messiah. But what does Isaiah chapter 11 tell us about? Isaiah chapter 11, verse 1 tells us it's from the shoot of Jesse, but verse 2, how does it end?

24:57

It's talking about the Messiah. Everyone agrees. That's critical here. We don't disagree. It's talking about Moshiach.

25:03

You know how it ends? It ends with saying, and he will fear the Lord. Fear the Lord? Are you just telling me that the

25:08

Lord fears himself? Does God fear anything? There's actually two objections

25:13

I just realized. He's going to fear the Lord. Yeah.

25:21

If you're the God man, you are not going to fear the Lord? You're going to be an atheist?

25:27

You're going to break God's law? He gives his life upon the cross. He's raised to life upon the third day.

25:35

He ascends into the presence of the Father, and there he represents all those who are united by faith with him.

25:43

The whole reason, my friends, that I have peace with God this evening, the whole reason that when

25:48

I woke up this morning, I did not fear the wrath of God, was because I know that I am in Christ.

25:55

It has nothing to do with me. It has nothing to do with what I've accomplished. Anything I try to do, I do out of love for Jesus Christ.

26:05

Inconsistency is a sign of a failed argument. Okay. Now, before I play this, do you see what the objections are?

26:17

Because it took me a second to figure out the second one. The first one was easy, because the rabbi was making the point,

26:25

Rabbi Singer, was making the point, how can

26:31

God fear God? So it's the basic, fundamental, well,

26:37

Jesus was the God man. As a man, he is going to be godly.

26:45

He is going to obey the law. He's going to be the perfect man. And the, well, in this case, either the

26:54

Jewish apologist or the Muslim, assuming Unitarianism, assuming the being of God can only be shared by one person, automatically opts for modalism, automatically opts for the idea that, what?

27:09

Fearing himself? No. This is the second person who becomes flesh, fearing the first who did not become flesh.

27:17

That's what the whole doctrine of the Trinity is. Demonstrating you don't understand it is not actually an argument against it.

27:24

That one was easy, but it took me a second to catch what the second one is. So see if you caught it.

27:37

And he will fear the Lord. Fear the Lord? You're telling me that the Lord fears himself? Does God fear anything?

27:49

See, there's the second one. And it took me a little while to figure it out.

27:55

But they've transported the fear of the

28:02

Lord, which is the mark of the godly man. That is a person who reverences God, the person who walks in the fear of the

28:12

Lord, the reverence of God. This is what marks a person who keeps the law, that whole thing.

28:17

They've transposed that over to my statement that the reason I have peace with God and do not fear his wrath is because of the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.

28:30

Completely different context. Completely different context. I fear the

28:35

Lord. That's different than saying I fear the wrath of God against my sins which have been forgiven in Jesus Christ.

28:44

That's completely different issues. I guess it's understandable how very poorly read people or individuals who have a just completely different worldview and don't listen carefully, how they could come up with inconsistent argumentation like this.

28:58

But what it tells us is very rarely are you going to be talking with people, even with people that do dawah, people that do

29:08

Muslim apologetics. Very rarely, there are some, but very rarely are you actually dealing with people who have any serious background in reading, anything like that.

29:19

I mean, you know, that's why Muslims find it so strange. You've actually read al -Bukhari and Muslim and portions of Jamia Eternity and stuff like that.

29:30

Yeah, that normally is not what the other side does in response. You know, there aren't very many

29:37

Christians that do that, there aren't very many Muslims that do that, and most people who end up doing that kind of stuff end up knowing each other too.

29:43

But there's a lot of stuff that partakes of this kind of confusion, and you have to be patient in responding to this kind of stuff.

30:03

And it can be difficult, because it's very easy for you to say, well, hey, look, I've spent the time to accurately represent you, now you're not doing that back to me.

30:13

I understand the temptation, but especially when you're dealing with someone who is from another country, the chances of their having had meaningful

30:23

Christian relationships or even sources of meaningful Christian theology, very, very small. They need to have very patient Christians who will be willing to walk through with them on all this stuff.

30:35

So our third clarification, response to the video that was presented.

30:43

Now, on to our next.

30:49

Let me start this next one actually by inviting you to look with me at Scripture.

31:02

Because once again, I feel like this is by far the best way of approaching this kind of material.

31:14

And I want to look at the seventh chapter of the book of Revelation.

31:22

No, no, no revelations. The book of Revelation, the apocalypse, how's that?

31:31

The apocalypse given to St. John is actually given to Christ. But anyway, Revelation chapter 7.

31:43

And what we have, if you scroll back here, it starts off, and again, chapter divisions, not inspired.

31:57

First three verses are about four angels staying in the four corners of the earth, holding back the winds of the earth. And they're given authority to harm the earth and the sea, but not until we have sealed the bondservants of our

32:12

God on their foreheads. And then you have, beginning in verse 4, the sealing of the 144 ,000, which has nothing to do with Jehovah's Witnesses at all.

32:24

And from the tribe of Judah, 12 ,000 were sealed, the tribe of Reuben, 12 ,000 Gad. So you can see the arrangement and how the tribes are counted.

32:35

And you'll find all sorts of discussions in the commentaries about stuff like that. But, that's the immediate context.

32:43

And then, verse 9, after these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude. Now, for those of you who are especially apologetically oriented, you know that this is where you get the phraseology over here is aklas palus.

33:01

Kayadu aklas palus. And behold, great crowd. And so this is where Jehovah's Witnesses get their great crowd terminology is from here.

33:16

And so here's the great crowd, a great multitude, which no one could count. From every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne, before the

33:28

Lamb, and clothed in white robes and palm branches were in their hands. And they cried out with a loud voice saying,

33:34

Salvation to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.

33:40

Now, I just stop once again. We look at that over here. Here is the content of what they are crying out with a

33:49

Fonei Megale. And salvation to our

33:55

God, to the one sitting upon the throne, and to the

34:00

Lamb. Now, we jumped into chapter 7, but if we had gone back and looked at chapters 4 and 5, we would see that John very purposefully seeks to paint us a picture of heaven where the throne of God is at the center and God is being worshipped.

34:19

And yet, then in chapter 5, there is the Lamb standing as if slain. And he is worthy, and he is then worshipped in the fullest sense by every created thing.

34:36

There is no question about this. And that theme then is being echoed in the words of the great crowd, which no one could count, who are standing before the throne and before the

34:58

Lamb, clothed in white robes. So, these have already overcome.

35:05

Palm branches are in their hands. They've got peace with God. And they've experienced

35:12

Soteria, salvation. Salvation to our God, to the one seated upon the throne, and to the

35:18

Lamb. And notice the close union with distinction, but close union between God who sits upon the throne and to the

35:32

Lamb, similar to what we saw in Revelation 4 and 5. Very important in dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses, those who deny the deity of Christ, even in dealing with oneness theology and its attempt to conflate these things.

35:47

So, salvation to our God who sits on the throne, to the Lamb, and all the angels are standing around the throne, around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped

35:56

God. Amen, blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might be to our

36:02

God forever and ever. And again, if you do a study of that portion of the Greek text, Heulagia, Doxa, Sophia, Eucharistia, Dunamis, Iscus, all of these terms to me, you're going to find them connecting us directly back to chapters 4 and 5, once again, as normative elements of the worship of God in the heavenly places.

36:31

And then, when one of the elders answered, verse 13, saying to me, these who are clothed in the white robes, who are they and where have they come from?

36:42

And I said to him, my Lord, you know. And he said to me, these are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the

36:49

Lamb. For this reason, they are before the throne of God, and they serve him day and night in his temple. And he who sits on the throne will spread his tabernacle over them.

36:57

They will no longer hunger, nor thirst anymore, nor will the sun beat down upon them, nor any heat. For the

37:03

Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd and will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe every tear from their eyes.

37:10

Now, of course, at this point, eschatology comes in.

37:18

To be honest with you, I was just sitting here thinking, up until a certain point in history, not long ago, there wouldn't have been that much disagreement as to what was being referred to here.

37:32

But once you develop this dispensational understanding, and you have a tribulation period, now it introduces all sorts of stuff.

37:45

What I understand this to mean is all those who have already, these are all believers from the founding of the church, well, these are all believers, up until that point in time, who have experienced salvation.

37:59

These are the ones who come out of the Great Tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They have salvation, and they have salvation in one way, the blood of the

38:08

Lamb. The blood of the Lamb. Now, so they are before the throne of God, serving day and night in the temple.

38:18

The Lamb is, I love, the Lamb in the center of the throne will be their shepherd. Isn't that incredible? So much of the beauty of the book of Revelation is lost, and we're trying to howlinzy it into modern stuff.

38:30

Because the reality is, when you think about the men on Earth asking the rocks to fall upon them to hide them from the wrath of the

38:41

Lamb. And then here, those who experience salvation, what do they say?

38:48

The Lamb is their shepherd. Clearly intended to be using these terms in ways that are supposed to catch our attention and say something to us in a specific way.

39:02

Words that would have had deep meaning to the persecuted church at the time it was written, and that's the first and primary meaning and I would suggest it to you as well.

39:12

All right, now, aside from some of the theological argumentation, eschatological argumentation, that could be had.

39:23

Why would I, why would I make reference to this text? Well, because I have seen a number of times, and in some tweets

39:32

I'm going to show you in just a moment, Revelation 7 -9 was cited. After these things I looked, the aklos palus, the great crowd, whom no man could arithmesai, count, from every ethnus, kai fulon, kai laon, kai glason, so it's your standard, just like chapter 5, men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

40:05

Not the same order, but the same terminology being utilized. Before the throne and before the

40:12

Lamb. And the way it's being cited is to demonstrate the continuing relevance of ethnicity post -salvation as an argument against my statement that the

40:40

Lord's table, and I specifically was making reference at that point, to the table of the

40:51

Lord in the sense of the Lord's Supper. That the

40:56

Lord's table is not a place where you have black spaces, white spaces, or any other ethnic spaces.

41:07

In fact, here's what got everything started over the weekend. Here's what got everything started.

41:14

I posted this Thursday or Friday of last week. I forget when it was.

41:21

Thursday or Friday of last week. I was responding to someone utilizing the language of white and black spaces.

41:32

The churches are white spaces, and there needs to be black spaces.

41:41

And my response was when the body gathers around the

41:47

Lord's table, there is only one space. The Savior space.

41:52

The Redeemer space. The Mediator space. Anyone who drags color or ethnicity into that space is completely missing the point and the blessing.

42:07

So, what was the point of this? I assumed this was an inarguable statement.

42:15

Colossians chapter 3 says there's no Scythian, there's no barbarian,

42:21

Jew, Gentile, bond, free. Christ is all and in all.

42:29

So, when the people of God gather around the table, their focus is not upon their ethnicity, their history, the relationship of their people group of somebody else sitting next to them.

42:49

Their focus is upon Christ and Him alone in whom we have our unity.

42:58

Because if you're at that table, what you're saying is, I believe and I accept that my entire peace with God and hence my peace with my fellow believers is found in the redemptive work alone that He accomplished.

43:23

Now, naive me thought here is something we can all agree on.

43:33

Here is something that should be just so self -evidently plain that maybe we can go from here and say, all right, if at that intimate moment of communion, you know, amongst

43:51

Baptists, we called it communion. It was never really explained why we called it communion.

43:57

It's just called communion. That koinonia, that feast of fellowship, at that time where our focus is upon the anamnesis, the remembrance of Christ, the remembrance of His sacrifice.

44:21

How can any of us imagine that we are supposed to bring into that any continued feelings of animosity based upon the relationship of my ancestors versus somebody else's ancestors?

44:41

I can't imagine it. I can't conceive of it. I can't think of any other time where it would be more unnatural and unbiblical to bring in the result of the fallen reality of mankind when we're celebrating the means by which that fallenness has been dealt with in the giving of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

45:13

It seemed real obvious to me that anyone who would sit down at the table and yet they harbor in their hearts towards someone else some kind of animosity based upon something that happened 20 years ago or 50 years ago or 160 years ago that this is the last place that anyone would even begin to pretend to say, no, we really should.

45:51

We really should do that. Well, I learned a lot of things as a result of all of that.

46:07

And I learned that I was wrong to think that that is how everybody would see it.

46:15

Now, I don't have these in quite the right order, but what happened was there were sort of two discussions that ended up taking place.

46:32

Related to that was a discussion that I ended up having and now, of course, when you try to bring it up and find it when you have so many of these things up on the screen

46:47

I had posted that meme and then sometime afterwards, without quoting that a young man by the name of Mika Edmondson Mika Edmondson posted a thread on Twitter Colorblind Theology Denies and then he went through,

47:13

I believe, 8 points. Now, I have multiple times now explained that when

47:28

I and unfortunately, this whole controversy is impacting this for me, sadly.

47:36

We even had a caller last week say he was talking to a pastor friend and the pastor friend said, Man, now

47:43

I'm having to run these filters through my mind because I know what's going on and it's just terrible because I never used to think this way.

47:51

That was somebody you talked to? Well, we had a caller that called in. That's what

47:57

I meant. But remember when

48:03

Thabiti Anyawele just dismissively that's ridiculous dismissed my statement that I don't see my fellow believers through a lens of color.

48:16

Everybody does that. You have to accept that as a given. If you don't, it's because you're blind and there are people who absolutely refuse to even ponder the possibility.

48:27

I've thought because I've found the pictures. I've thought about posting the picture. We've got a picture of me and my sister and the three siblings from the family that, you know, my first friend.

48:47

If you ask who is the first non -family member, first person you know outside of your family that you remember it was my friend

48:55

Kevin. And his dad was a big black cop and his mom was a very white woman.

49:04

And I can show you the picture of all of us.

49:10

At some point, I don't know if it was after a church service or what it was. I don't remember. But we're all sort of duded up.

49:19

You know, I've got my little jacket on. I think I might even have a bow tie on. That might be worth it just to show it.

49:27

Because I do have it on the system here. That's how

49:35

I was raised and I'm being told now that it was wrong that I was raised that way, evidently. Or that it's impossible.

49:43

Or that I'm lying or something. I haven't quite figured out how these folks know my heart so well.

49:49

But when I talk about being colorblind, I've been very clear very clear about what

49:57

I mean by that. Despite Thabiti Anyawele's article today.

50:03

Which I don't know we're going to have time to get to right now. But when

50:08

I'm talking about being colorblind, I'm talking about believing Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4.

50:16

I'm talking about recognizing Christ is all and in all. I'm talking about recognizing that since the handwriting of ordinances which was against us has been taken away, that means the history, whatever you think, how you know who my ancestors were,

50:35

I have no earthly idea because you don't. But you think my ancestors did X, Y, and Z to your ancestors.

50:42

That's been taken away. If reconciliation and forgiveness means anything in the cross, you can't go back there.

50:52

You can't drag that in here. You may want to, but your reasons are not biblical reasons.

50:59

They may be sociological, they may be political. I don't know where they're coming from, but you can't drag that stuff in here.

51:05

And so when I first meet another Christian, my question is, first of all, is this person a

51:12

Christian? So you hear somebody saying religious stuff,

51:18

I want to find out where are you? Because you know, it's sort of like I remember

51:25

I hopped a flight to go buy a PT Cruiser years and years and years ago in Houston, ended up in the window seat.

51:33

I like window seats. It was one of the smaller planes, so it was just two seater. And the guy next to me starts talking to me and at first it's like, hmm, sounds like might be a fellow believer here.

51:48

So I need to find out. Find out, he's a Mormon. Okay, now we know what we need to be doing.

51:55

And now we know what we're going to do all the way to Houston, which is what we did. So you got to find out.

52:03

But if I like walk into a church where I'm going to be ministering, I'm just going to assume, as this got me in trouble a few times when they forgot to keep an eye on me and someone came up to me that was a visitor and made assumptions.

52:18

But I'm going to assume that if this person's at this church where I'm going to be ministering, he's a good Christian, this is a fellow believer.

52:25

And the first thing I see in them is their commitment to Christ, their commitment to his lordship, his resurrection, our union together with one another as fellow redeemed human beings.

52:41

I do not start off by getting out, you know, and pulling out lenses and going, a little darker than that, a little lighter than that.

52:58

Okay, now I've got the right racial lens by which I can make sure to say the right things for this particular individual.

53:09

And of course, I guess I would have to ask that they do the same thing for me, right?

53:15

Oh, no, it doesn't go that way. No, no, no, no. No, you've got white privilege. No matter where you go in the world, even if there isn't any white privilege where you go in the world, you've still got it, allegedly.

53:25

Because it's not really a skin tone thing. I guess it's an attitudinal thing. Anyway, I've simply stated, straight up front, that the grounds of my union with anybody is so much more important, so much more basic in the

53:43

Christian faith than history could possibly be.

53:52

None of that has denied that you can, and I brought this up last week, let me bring it up again, that we can rejoice in what is, remember what

54:08

I quoted from? I know there's a guy named Brad Mason out there that's probably transcribing every word that I'm saying right now because I'm going to show you where he did that before.

54:17

So what verse did I quote from? I didn't actually give the verse, but I figured everybody knew what it was. Nobody mentions this, despite, there's been a lot of misrepresentation of me over the past few days.

54:31

And some people might say, well, you can't expect everybody to watch your program. When they're quoting transcripts of the program as the basis of their attack and calling me a heretic,

54:39

I can hold them accountable for that and so there's no excuse for ignoring that stuff.

54:49

What did I say? When you look at someone's ethnic background in the Christian faith, what we can take from a person's ethnicity is everything that's what?

55:01

True, honest, just, lovely, of a good report.

55:06

Remember when Paul wrote to the Philippians about that? We can take that which is redeemed and redeemable, which is good, reflective of Christ's purpose in their life, and we can rejoice in that just as they then can rejoice in what is true, honest, just, lovely, pure, of a good report from my ethnic background.

55:31

So, if we want to have a night at church where we all dress in our ancestral outfits and rejoice with one another, great, fine, wonderful.

55:50

But, you know, we did a night a number of years ago when I was in a little town between Glasgow and Edinburgh doing a apologetics conference.

56:01

We did kilted apologetics the last night, so I and a bunch of the guys from the congregation, we wore our kilts for the last night of the conference.

56:11

I was not rejoicing in the pagan sacrifices of some of my

56:18

Scottish ancestors when I wore my kilt, or some of the bloodthirsty battles and feuds that took place.

56:30

We were talking about what is true and honest and just and lovely and pure and a good report.

56:36

So, I'm not saying that we all become whatever shade of skin we'd be, sort of a light brown -type color, if we all just took everybody's melanin count and averaged it all out and that that means you have to dump all of that and you have to get rid of all that.

57:02

What I am saying is it is not foundational to our unity in Christ.

57:09

It isn't. It is not. So, I responded to Mika Edmondson and I said, you know, he says, colorblind theology denies

57:21

God's promise to Abraham that in you all the nation shall be blessed. And so I responded to each one of these things.

57:28

I said, this has nothing to do with what I mean when I talk about colorblind theology.

57:33

When I'm talking about colorblind theology, I'm saying that in Christ, Christ is the defining factor before anything else.

57:46

And anything else that would be outside of Christ has to be redeemable.

57:53

But it can never be foundational or basic in our relationship with the church.

57:59

Or we will have fundamental divisions. Fundamental divisions in the church. And so, call my view

58:06

Christocentric, call my view Christ before color, if you want to call it colorblind in the sense that there is no priority to ethnicity.

58:20

That's correct, but it has nothing to do with God's promise to Abraham in you all the nation shall be blessed because it in no way is saying that the elect of God are not derived from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

58:38

You know, colorblind theology denies the Father's promise to the Son that I will make you a light to the nations. It has nothing to do with it.

58:44

Not as I understand it. Certainly not as I have enunciated it. It has nothing to do with it at all.

58:50

Now, I want to make it very, very clear. When I responded to all these things to Mika Edmondson, he came back and said, doesn't sound like you and I are using the same terminology.

58:59

So, obviously, we're not really disagreeing here except maybe on one little point here we could have a nice conversation about it.

59:07

Mika Edmondson responded as a brother in Christ. Many others did not.

59:14

Many others did not. And it was one of the specific comments that I made in response to Mika Edmondson that then prompted the thread that got everything going.

59:36

So, specifically,

59:44

Dr. Anthony Bradley of the Acton Institute, a published author, PhD, Westminster, decided to and if you follow the thread, it goes back to what

59:59

I had said which had likewise been connected to that meme. You go back in Twitter, you follow the thread, this is what was before what he said.

01:00:12

I had said to Dustin, now this is actually the tweet that I then turned into the meme where I had said, when the body gathers around the

01:00:22

Lord's table, there's only one space, the Savior's space, so on and so forth. Anthony Bradley commented on the meme.

01:00:30

Well, it wasn't the meme, but it was the tweet that became the meme. Anthony Bradley, Dr. Anthony Bradley, here's an example of some unhelpful mainline quote, colorblind end quote, white privilege theology.

01:00:50

So what I said, and here's what it is, when the body gathers around the Lord's table, there's only one space, the

01:00:56

Savior's space, the Redeemer's space, the Mediator's space. Anyone who drags color or ethnicity into that space is completely missing the point and the blessing.

01:01:03

So I just got done explaining all of that over again. So, that is then quoted by Dr.

01:01:09

Bradley as unhelpful mainline colorblind white privilege theology.

01:01:19

White privilege theology. Hmm. Then, the beauty of the

01:01:28

Lord's table on this side of the eschaton is celebrating its multi -ethnic victory over death, sin, and the devil.

01:01:37

Explicitly multi -ethnic discourse should be encouraged and then a Bible verse is given.

01:01:44

Well, a Bible reference is given. And what might it be? Well, you've probably already guessed because you were wondering why

01:01:50

I had actually flirted with discussing eschatology. Revelation 7 -9.

01:01:59

Revelation 7 -9. Now, the beauty of the

01:02:05

Lord's table on this side of the eschaton is celebrating its multi -ethnic victory over death, sin, and the devil. Well, the beauty of the

01:02:13

Lord's table on this side of the eschaton is celebrating the Savior, first and foremost, who was victorious over death, sin, and the devil for,

01:02:26

Revelation chapter 5, men from every tribe, people, and nation. So, what is celebrated is the extent of the decree of election.

01:02:45

The God's decree of election is pan humanity.

01:02:54

It covers everything. That's why you have men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.

01:03:03

But, even when we went through Revelation chapter 7, that text was not insisting upon the continued relevance of ethnicity and the relationships between ethnic groups in heaven.

01:03:20

It was celebrating the fact that those who are in all in the same robes had all experienced the same salvation by the same means of washing those robes in the blood of Christ.

01:03:39

So, there was a unity and a union that does not focus upon the ethnicity of the individuals, but upon the perfection of the one who has provided their salvation.

01:03:56

That's what Revelation 7, 9 is about. Now, we read through it.

01:04:02

We looked at it in its context. And it does not substantiate the idea of somehow identifying what

01:04:12

I said as unhelpful, mainline, colorblind, white, privileged theology.

01:04:22

Now, the problem with Twitter is that even with the massive 280 characters we have now, which, believe me, is a lot nicer,

01:04:35

I got to admit, but even then, 280 characters might lead to some miscommunication.

01:04:46

So, a fellow by the name of Dennis rightly commented,

01:04:53

I think a charitable reading of this would be not to discount the beautiful unity of the multicultural aspect, but that the unity is centered on Christ.

01:05:03

He was talking about what I had said. Dr. Bradley responded, and this is what's really troubling to me, other than, you know, he, within an hour, would post just a blatant ad hominem against me, just, you know, attacking my education, the school

01:05:22

I went to, a lot of people commented about how just really cheesy it was, and even,

01:05:31

I think, some of his own supporters were like, oh, why'd you do that? But, before then, here's what he wrote, it's very easy for white people to, quote, not drag color, end quote, into the sacraments.

01:05:51

Blacks in the American experience to, well, again,

01:05:57

Blacks, I'm just reading as he wrote, Blacks in the American experience to have that luxury or privilege.

01:06:05

I think there's something missing there. Colorblind theology denies the reality of what this sacrament means for POC, people of color, persons of color.

01:06:21

We must drag color into the means of grace, its survival.

01:06:33

That's what he wrote. Now, I don't understand that.

01:06:41

I asked for clarification and got slapped upside the head. Dr. Bradley has not been kind to me.

01:06:48

Just hasn't. He just has no interest in having any meaningful exchange.

01:06:55

I'm just a nobody. Okay. Fine.

01:07:01

Whatever. But I really would like to understand how what

01:07:11

I wrote denies the reality of what this sacrament means for people of color.

01:07:17

How can the ordinance given by the Savior to the Church for all the

01:07:25

Church, for every race, for every generation, have a different meaning specifically in 21st century

01:07:37

America? That really concerns me. That worries me.

01:07:44

That the ordinances of the Church could change as to what they mean depending upon who.

01:07:52

I thought the whole point of the unifying nature of the Lord's Supper is that it got rid of all that.

01:08:00

That it allowed the rich man and the poor man, the slave and the freed man.

01:08:10

And in fact, let's just be straight up. There's a book in the New Testament called

01:08:16

Philemon. Are you telling me that if Paul had ministered in a church with Philemon and Onesimus that they would not have been able to partake in the

01:08:32

Lord's Supper together? If so, what does that mean? How?

01:08:41

Colorblind theology denies the reality of what the sacrament means for people of color. We must drag color into the means of grace, its survival.

01:08:57

Okay. So there you have Dr. Bradley. Brad Mason then chimed in, and like I said, this is where he posted as he himself put it.

01:09:12

Yes, I transcribed to the next syllable. That's his own words. He posted, he says,

01:09:19

Colorblind ideology allows folks like James White to employ contradictory strategies of explanation on a case -by -case basis.

01:09:26

Structural arguments are used to explain the actions of heroes, individualistic explanations to explain villains. And so then he quoted from somebody who

01:09:34

I pointed out nine minutes apart where I was discussing Edwards, Whitfield, and I can't blow that up enough.

01:09:52

Yeah, something about Chicago or something like that. Wow, that shrunk it way too.

01:09:57

Okay, now it got too small. There we go. So he's transcribing all this stuff.

01:10:06

Now, what's interesting is if I recall, and let me see if I can pull it up here.

01:10:16

Yeah, Anthony Bradley then quoted this tweet from Brad Mason and said,

01:10:23

James White said this, I am stunned. And if you go back and read the transcript,

01:10:31

I asked Dr. Bradley, what is stunning about this?

01:10:36

And his only response was just slap me upside the head. Had no interest in dealing with me as a fellow believer, anything like that.

01:10:48

I'm just, go away. But he was stunned by what was said, and having read it,

01:10:57

I stand by every single syllable of what I said. So, I'm trying to close some of these down so I can get to the right ones and put them in the right order.

01:11:09

Then what happened is Dr. Eric Mason jumped into the conversation.

01:11:19

I'm getting, trying to get these in order and get them separated.

01:11:25

Okay. Dr. Eric Mason jumped into the conversation. Now, this is the same thread.

01:11:35

This is going back to me. I am the immediate context to Dr.

01:11:41

Mason's statements. Okay. Go back and check it out. I'm not making this up.

01:11:48

In fact, looking at it here, in fact, can I, let me, you want to show that?

01:11:57

The reason I want you to see this is look right here. Who is the second person in the quotation?

01:12:04

Me. That's my Twitter handle, Dr. Oakley 1689. John H. Sather is a guy who loves to come after me about everything.

01:12:14

He's responding first to him. That's okay. I minimized it again.

01:12:21

I just wanted people to see. This is a thread that was referring specifically to me.

01:12:27

We need a modern -day ecumenical council on race and justice.

01:12:33

We need canons and synods and creeds on this. Come to Philly and we can call it the

01:12:42

Council of Philadelphia. Limit it to 300 key men and women pastors and scholarly secretaries.

01:12:52

Rebuke the heretics and affirm the sound. Now, a number of people have written to Dr.

01:13:04

Mason and said, women pastors? What?

01:13:10

I didn't even get into it because when someone's calling for a council at which you will be

01:13:17

Arius, you know, I'm not sure if that's sort of secondary to the purpose, you know?

01:13:29

I'm glad both of you have studied enough church history to get my humor. There's a lot of people just, what?

01:13:35

Who? Never mind. We've got a little bit of a studio audience today that found that humorous.

01:13:42

Anyways, but there's been lots of discussion about, well, he meant to put a comma in there and just ran out of space.

01:13:53

I guess what they're saying is limited to 300 key men and women, comma, pastors and scholarly secretaries.

01:14:04

I don't know what a scholarly secretary is. I don't know. As far as I've been able to see, he hasn't answered.

01:14:10

I'll be honest with you, right now, I don't care. The point is, rebuke the heretics, hi, my name is

01:14:19

Mr. Heretic, for having posted that meme. I'm a heretic.

01:14:28

He didn't stop there. Specifically, and again,

01:14:36

I am, now, what's interesting here, is

01:14:41

I'm the second name, he's the first. So, he's making sure, I'm, this is coming to me.

01:14:48

Specifically, I'm talking about the false doctrine of color blindness, denying racism and injustice towards African Americans, which is not in step with the gospel based on Galatians 2.

01:15:03

I've listened, and again, I'm, I don't, I'm just reading it as it's, I've listened to accused, and the conclusions are sad and offensive and a violation of Romans 12.

01:15:16

It sounds, one way to interpret that is,

01:15:22

I'm the accused, he's listening to the accused, my conclusions are sad, offensive, and a violation of Romans 12.

01:15:30

Now, Galatians 2, I'd like to know specifically what application he has made, because Galatians 2 is where we encounter the

01:15:44

Greek phrase pseudodelphoi, pseudodelphoi, false brothers.

01:15:53

We would, and the only thing I can see is that in regards to a quote -unquote counsel, is that Galatians 2 is where Paul says, we did not put up with the

01:16:04

Judaizers for even a moment so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.

01:16:10

And he describes those who had snuck in to spy out the liberty which we have in Christ Jesus and describes them as pseudodelphoi, false brethren.

01:16:21

Is that the application? There's the lovely element of Twitter. I don't know.

01:16:27

Sounds like it. Sounds like it. Then there was a third.

01:16:37

We simply, and again, I'm the second person in the list, after himself.

01:16:45

We simply need to call those who are heretics on this stuff heretics and make a move to clear the air of these false doctrines on race and justice like the church of antiquity.

01:17:03

Sounds like how I just interpreted an application of Galatians 2. Back then, you couldn't just say what you want.

01:17:17

Problem is that there is no theological accountability. Well, no theological accountability.

01:17:26

I have been making sure that my fellow elders are well aware of the things that are being said.

01:17:39

But I guess that's not enough. So, I think the next day,

01:17:48

Kyle J. Howard chimed in. May have been Larry the dad who can keep track. The problem is with Twitter, it will give you how many hours ago but not necessarily what day.

01:18:02

It gets confusing. So, in response to the tweet, we need a modern -day ecumenical council.

01:18:10

Kyle J. Howard said, it needs to happen. It needs to be specific. It needs to draw lines not only with explicit but implicit racism.

01:18:19

Terms like cultural Marxism and ethnic Gnosticism need to be explained and a rebuke issued toward those who use it to malign black

01:18:29

Christians. So, Kyle Howard jumped in on the same thread. And remember, who coined, to my knowledge, the phrase ethnic

01:18:43

Gnosticism. That was Votie Balcom. And as I mentioned, or maybe

01:18:50

I've mentioned, I think I mentioned, at the MLK50 conference, either at the

01:18:58

MLK50 conference or at T4G, I think it was MLK50, a young man got up and did a spoken word presentation which specifically quoted directly from an article by Votie Balcom to rebuke him, to rebuke

01:19:17

Dr. Balcom. So, keep that in mind.

01:19:26

So, then yesterday, I ended up having a, can you describe it as fairly lengthy?

01:19:39

I don't know. We went back and forth three or four times, but it ended fairly abruptly. Discussion with Thabiti Anyabwili.

01:19:49

All this is public stuff. I did not screenshot all of that to show it to you, but once again,

01:19:59

I immediately went to the theological foundation, Colossians 3,

01:20:06

Ephesians 4, and I was told that, and this is not the first time now, this is going to be a theme.

01:20:14

I just need to be quiet. I just need to be quiet. Just hush.

01:20:21

Unhelpful is the term. Unhelpful is the term. And then, interestingly enough, the next,

01:20:29

I think, two articles on his Together for the Gospel, no, Gospel Coalition blog, are about the errors and dangers of colorblind, quote, unquote, being colorblind.

01:20:45

So it was an interesting weekend, and it is very troubling for me to consider what it means, what are the ramifications for saying that there is a different meaning for the means of grace, the ordinances of the church,

01:21:19

Dr. Bradley is a Presbyterian, so he says sacraments of the church, depending on your ethnicity.

01:21:30

Because when I read 1 Corinthians, I can imagine that the church of Corinth had a lot of different ethnicities in it.

01:21:44

And if each of those ethnicities were supposed to, in apostolic teaching, be taking something different from the supper itself, what does that mean for the rest of the church?

01:22:03

You see, I am absolutely convinced that given the nature of the

01:22:10

Lord's supper, to say that we should derive, that we must drag our ethnicity into the means of grace is tremendously dangerous.

01:22:28

Absolutely tremendously dangerous. I see this as very parochial.

01:22:36

I really do. Because you translate this out of where we are here in the

01:22:42

United States to the rest of the world, and it's disaster.

01:22:48

It's disaster. There are tribal issues in nations in Africa.

01:22:57

There are racial, ethnic tensions in the

01:23:04

South Seas Islands, in Indonesia, in so many places. I've mentioned to you the tremendous pressures between Japanese Christians and Chinese Christians and Korean Christians and all of these things.

01:23:19

And the sad thing is, America seems to export its garbage elsewhere.

01:23:27

And in many of these places, believers have learned the

01:23:34

Biblical way of having unity is to not be looking back and looking for hurts, but looking forward to the inheritance that we have equally with one another.

01:23:51

That that's where true peace is to be found. That's where true harmony is to be found. And looking forward, not backwards.

01:23:58

But here we have ostensibly evangelical leaders saying, no, no, no, no, it's right for us to do this, that, and the other thing.

01:24:15

Revelation 7 -9 had nothing to do with the utilization that Dr. Bradley made of it. Nothing.

01:24:22

The only application I can see of Galatians 2 as it was used there was to identify me as a pseudo -Delphoi, well, pseudo -Delphos, as a false brother, to be rebuked having snuck in to spy out the liberty.

01:24:39

I don't know what other application could be made. I asked, I got slapped down.

01:24:48

So I was pretty taken aback by these events.

01:24:53

Something tells me that no matter how careful I have been today to refute misrepresentations of my position, to refute the idea that what

01:25:07

I'm saying is we all just become one blah ethnicity.

01:25:15

We don't. But what we can bring into the fellowship is only that which is true, honest, just, lovely, pure, good report.

01:25:26

That which is reflective of the spirits working in our lives, which is reflective of Christ's honor and glory, we do not drag anything else in or we will fundamentally fracture the fellowship of the church.

01:25:42

And there's almost an Americanism to all of this.

01:25:49

We don't, look, most Americans don't view themselves as part of a global church. We don't.

01:25:56

We don't view ourselves as part of a global community. How many Americans can tell you who the Prime Minister of Australia is?

01:26:05

Even of our allies? Someone might know who Theresa May is, but, um, and we do the same thing in the church.

01:26:15

And I just don't think proper thought has been given to what kind of negative impact this kind of Americanized rhetoric could have overseas.

01:26:28

So, if you've, if, I just want to make sure, because I, like I said, getting to respond to any of the responses to this is going to be a little bit difficult for me, as I'm going to be between 7 and 10 hours off of Rich's schedule.

01:26:50

So I don't think Rich wants to come in here at 3 o 'clock in the morning. But, then again,

01:26:57

I'm sorry, your wife won't let you. All right.

01:27:05

You'd be, if it was up to you, you'd be here at 3 o 'clock in the morning if I asked you to.

01:27:12

I understand what you're saying, Rich. I don't believe a word of it, but I understand what you're saying.

01:27:19

Anyway, it's going to be a little bit difficult for me to respond to all these things, so let me just make sure you hear what

01:27:26

I'm saying. I have not yet heard a single reason from anyone why what

01:27:36

I said two weeks ago now or more about Colossians 3 is to be amended or changed.

01:27:46

If you're upset with me for having a theological foundation for approaching this rather than one that comes from some other perspective, well,

01:27:55

I'm sorry. But, could

01:28:01

I apply this to another issue? I had a guy on Twitter today say, someday you're going to be really sad you went this direction.

01:28:10

I've had people say the exact same words to me about my stand against homosexuality and the LGBTQ movement.

01:28:16

You're going to be behind history. You're going to be left behind. Oh, please, let's stay out of eschatology.

01:28:23

You're going to rue this. Well, why stand against the

01:28:28

LGBTQ movement? Because the consistent exegesis of the Word of God leads me to believe that that lifestyle is not affirming of life, it's self -destructive, it's against God's law, and if you love someone, you will not warn them when they're engaging in an activity that would be fundamentally destructive.

01:28:50

So the only reason that I've addressed this is because I see men in leadership position, and when

01:28:57

I hear the biblical argumentation they're using, they're not going to Colossians 3 or Ephesians 4, they're not going to direct didactic passages that you can walk through a text and say, here's what it says here, notice the flow, here's the argument.

01:29:16

That's not what they're doing. They're grabbing a text from over here and a text from over here and a text from over here and a text from and putting it into this system that I believe is coming from external sources of authority.

01:29:31

Just look at some of the books that are being suggested and consider where they're coming from.

01:29:40

Finally, may I say one other thing, over this weekend I saw a number of incredible statements that were made by proponents of this movement against black

01:29:55

Christian men. But these are black Christian men who say, no, my race is not the foundation of my relationship to God or to my fellow believers.

01:30:09

I'm talking about Daryl Harrison, I'm talking about the whole

01:30:14

Votie Baucom group. But there are a number of them and you know who they are.

01:30:23

Well, maybe you don't, but I'm learning more and more, getting to know more and more of them and appreciate them, but my goodness, the dismissiveness with which they are treated.

01:30:36

Now, I know what they're called. They've shown me. Well, not all of them, but some have shown me.

01:30:41

They've told me the type of language that they have to deal with, the type of things that are said to them. First of all,

01:30:50

I'm thankful, brothers, for your willingness to put up with that stuff, but I just want to rebuke anybody who is going to sit there and say, oh, yes,

01:30:58

I'm a follower of Christ, but I will call these men these things because they're sellouts.

01:31:04

They're compromisers without ever dealing with their arguments, without ever dealing with the biblical exegesis that they offer.

01:31:15

I need to start seeing some serious exegesis because I'm not seeing it, and throwing books at me, like Divided by Faith, is not biblical exegesis.

01:31:29

Let's see some serious material from the Scriptures. I'm not seeing it.

01:31:45

I'm not seeing it. I'm really hoping to have about three weeks off from this. I'm going to have to travel about 35 ,000 miles to do it.

01:31:55

I'm going to have to spend, I don't know, how many hours in a pressurized steel tube. Actually, I think one of them might be a carbon fiber tube, but I'm not sure about that.

01:32:04

Anyway, to get away from this, nowhere, nowhere in any of my travels is this a scheduled topic of conversation.

01:32:19

In fact, when I get to London, we're going to do a, you know, we just thought it'd be good to build in a day where you can sort of do some time adjustment without any super heavy schedule and stuff like that.

01:32:32

You know, there's been more than once I've flown from here to Heathrow. You shower up, you eat airline waiting room food, which isn't all that bad for British Airways.

01:32:43

And then you've got a 12 -hour flight to Johannesburg. You get to Joburg, not feeling super human, you know.

01:32:52

We thought, hey, how about you break up that flight, you stay a night in London, and since you'd have the next morning, the flight's not until the afternoon, get together with some folks there in London.

01:33:08

And specifically with folks that helped us to get some of the equipment that we're using, which you didn't use until just now at the very last minute.

01:33:19

I've almost got a crick in my neck from having looked over here the whole thing.

01:33:26

You just never even bothered with this other camera. Wasn't that a good farsight? That was one of the best.

01:33:33

Here's your problem right there. But some of the folks that helped us to get, like,

01:33:40

I can tell which camera is on because there's a red light up there and it tells me that camera is on and stuff.

01:33:48

We're going to get together and we are going to absolutely geek out. I'm just warning the guys ahead of time.

01:33:55

We're going to geek out. We're going to be talking about textual criticism, translations. That's really where my mind should be each and every day right now and not on other things.

01:34:08

Most of my lectures are on Islam, there's some on Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, a few things like that.

01:34:18

I'm hoping that I don't find myself videotaping something off my little

01:34:24

MacBook and having to send it to do another dividing line or something.

01:34:31

We'll see. That option is available. But I'm going to hope that I don't have to take it.

01:34:37

So once again, prayers appreciated specifically for the meetings and obviously foundational to that is

01:34:46

I can't do meetings if I'm in bed sick as a dog. That has happened before my first overseas trip.

01:34:54

Maybe that's why I'm so scared of it. I haven't had that happen since. I've gotten a cough or a sinus thing going but I haven't been knocked flat.

01:35:07

I've had to get inoculations and take antimalarial stuff that some people have negative responses to.

01:35:15

So just prayers appreciated for strength and health for the entirety of the trip.

01:35:22

Very much appreciated. Have you gotten anybody? Have you scheduled?

01:35:30

Something will be happening while I'm gone but as normal the person behind the door will tell me because I think

01:35:39

I might worry about it. It could be trouble. At very least for you it might be entertaining.

01:35:48

Keep an eye open for any announcements about the upcoming dividing lines while I'm gone.

01:35:53

Otherwise I return hopefully we'll try to do a program maybe I forget what day of the week it is.

01:36:00

Let me look here real quick which day of the week it is. Probably on June 7th.

01:36:10

No? So you're not allowing me to do anything?

01:36:18

Dude, I'm teaching the whole next week in southern California. That's not resting.

01:36:26

So you're telling me if in studio the next time

01:36:33

I would be able to do it would be the 21st of June. Okay.

01:36:41

We're doing scheduling live on the air and you all are part of it. Isn't that great? Anyways, we'll see what happens.