Machen - Christianity And Liberalism [Chapter 2]

Our great God and Savior, we come before you this morning thankful for all the blessings that you've poured out on us, and thankful for our lives.

Thank you for our wives, our material blessings, all the things that you've blessed us with.

Father, we do want to pray for Natalie Hilt this morning, just the sting of losing

Scott. See him go to glory and just pray that you would comfort her, help her to make decisions as just so many have to be made.

Father, we pray that the service on Friday would be glorifying to the

Lord Jesus Christ and would honor Scott's life. Father, I pray for these men here today, that we would be able to focus on things that are important, that we would leave here this morning better focused, better enabled to lead our wives and our families.

Father, give us the grace to better grasp these eternal truths, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Well, so last week we started this book, and I just want to recap a few things before we move into new stuff.

I thought one of the things that I wanted to emphasize again from last week was number five from last week, and I don't have any copies of that, so true or false, we can see what is important by the willingness of two parties to dispute it.

Absolutely true. Is that always true? I think it usually is, except for oddly in marriage.

Now why would I say that? Wes is nodding his head, but he's got a mouthful of donuts. Good, good man.

I mean, you ever notice that? I think

I listen to it because I get pulled into some, not debates by my wife, but debates with other couples are having, and I think, boy, if I could just get you guys, if I could video record this for a few minutes and put it on TV and make you watch it, you'd go, that's a really stupid argument.

What are we arguing about? Married couples can argue about things that don't matter at all.

But in terms of politics, in terms of religion, yes. Islam says

Jesus is a prophet. True enough. It doesn't go far enough, right? So there's a dispute there.

That's an important, vital distinction. Ostensibly liberal

Christianity has good motivations. True or false? Who remembers that from last week?

The answer is true. Why does Machen say that?

He says because they're trying to explain away some difficulties.

They're trying to, you know, every theological error, I would say this, every theological error stems from the idea that we're going to protect

God, protect God from some false accusation, whether it's tritheism or whether it's, you know, him not being loving, whatever the case is, they're always trying to protect

God, and the answer is stop trying to protect God. He doesn't need your protection. So where we left off last week was number 15.

And true or false? Majority rule leads to utilitarianism. First of all, what does utilitarianism mean?

Okay, whatever works, works. It's pragmatism. And, I mean,

I had a, I can use this as a political example here. I had a discussion with somebody recently, or with something,

I don't know, with someone recently, and this person would describe themselves as a conservative. And yet he's going to vote for somebody who votes, yeah, who votes all the other way.

And I'm like, why is that? And he says, well, so -and -so does a lot of good for the town.

And I'm like, so all this stuff you talk about, about keeping taxes low, all that other stuff, you don't mean any of that as long as somebody does something for the town.

And apparently, that's pragmatism. That's utilitarianism. It works, it works. That's kind of like the

Rick Warren method of running a church. How do you do that? How do you start a church?

Keep them from leaving. But even more importantly, how do you start a church? Because that's what he did. And how do you, anybody know how

Rick Warren, some of you guys will know, yes. Actually, his name was

Saddleback Bill, but yeah, I get your point. Yeah, what they did was they actually went out and did surveys in the community.

You know, I know you don't go to church, right? You're reaching the unchurched. But if you did go to church, which one of these things would make you more likely to keep attending?

And so you rope them in, you rope them in, and then you keep them coming, and you keep them coming with pablum, with things that work.

You know, ten ways to be a better neighbor, how to divorce -proof your marriage, etc.,

etc., etc. Practical, keep them practical. Machen said this, he said,

When the majority has determined that a certain regime is beneficial, that regime, without further hesitation, is forced ruthlessly upon the individual man.

Now, we don't know anything about that, do we? If something is perceived, or, let's just get real here, if the

CDC declares something good, beneficial, right? Then the regime, without further hesitation, forces it ruthlessly upon the individual man.

You can't have a job if you don't do something. You can't go to the store if you don't do something.

You can't go to church at all. Okay, that's neither here nor there. But they put all these rules and regulations.

Why? It's for the benefit of everyone, right? That's the story. And the same thing can be true in religion here, which he demonstrates.

In other words, utilitarianism is being carried out to its logical conclusions in the interest of physical well -being, the great principles of liberty are being thrown ruthlessly to the wind.

He says, The dominant tenancy, even in a country like America, which formerly prided itself on its freedom from bureaucratic regulation of the details of life, is toward a drab utilitarianism in which all the higher aspirations are to be lost.

Now, how could this be true in a church? How could you, not just Rick Warren, or something like that, but what sort of thing, because he talks about majority rule, is there such a thing as majority rule in churches?

Okay, congregationalism. What's the problem with congregationalism? One at a time.

It turns into liberalism. Okay, John. The congregants are the problem.

I mean, what happens? Congregationalism, the requirements for membership are high or low?

Low. So you have a bunch of either low -information voters or no -information voters, and they're making decisions about virtually everything, including who the pastor is.

You can expect things to get ugly. But I like what he says, formerly prided itself on its freedom.

I mean, again, he's writing a hundred years ago, from bureaucratic regulation of the details of life is toward a drab utilitarianism in which all higher aspirations are to be lost.

And we look around the country now, we go, if it was true a hundred years ago that there was this growing bureaucracy, what does it look like now?

I mean, I'm amazed. Does anybody know why we have, for example, the, what are they called?

I want to call them the water police. They run around in these vehicles. No, no, no.

No, no. Yeah, the environmental police, you know, rolling code three because some amoeba is being eliminated by bleach or something.

Lights and siren. Woo, woo, woo. Why is that? What's that?

Well, historically what happened was something called the Clean Water Act passed, right? Which basically said to companies, don't dump your water or your chemicals in the water and whatnot.

But out of that has come all this stuff, right? And I mean, it just grows and grows and grows.

The Americans with Disabilities Act. Because of that, you know, when we were talking about moving the stage back here, they want us to put lifts slash elevators on both sides of the stage to make sure that handicapped people could, well, actually it was here, make sure that, you know, people in wheelchairs and whatnot could, because otherwise it's discrimination.

We have an elevator back in the back, even though it never gets used. And we, by the way, a couple years ago got a $20 ,000 fine for that.

Oh, man, that's, yeah. No, because it wasn't inspected.

It's a long story, but nobody knew it hadn't been inspected because we fell in between inspection companies.

One company bought another and, you know, we're just like, what? $20 ,000?

Eventually we negotiated it down shrewdly to $10 ,000. Yeah, that was great.

I loved every second of that one. Okay, number 16, true or false, compulsory public education is deadly for true education and soul killing.

That's subtle, isn't it? Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, by way of,

I will just say this. I went to public schools, thus my handicaps.

Our kids went to, you know, my wife went to public schools. Our kids went to public schools. Our grandkids started in public schools and now are being homeschooled thanks to the pandemic.

But it's just interesting reading what he says, such laws as compulsory public education law in Oregon that he referred to, which if the present temper of the people prevails, will probably soon be extended far beyond the bounds of one state, mean, of course, the ultimate destruction of all real education.

Why? I mean, we see it, I think, now clearer than ever. Let's see, where are we now?

Six, nine, oh, we're just about at the limit. Everybody have a sheet? Did you get a sheet back there?

We're not to the new stuff yet, but you might as well just, or actually this is new stuff, it's just not.

Why would he say that this is the ultimate destruction of all real education?

I mean, I'm pretty surprised, because I've been out of the school business for a while, seeing as how my kids are in their late 30s.

I was kind of surprised by this concept that all these people have, what is it, the something

EP, what are those things? IEP. So many kids are on IEPs, right?

And I'm like, when I went to school, basically nobody was on, there was no individualized education.

We all did all the same things, right? If we had a school -wide competition, which we did, called the

Great American Project, which was basically just writing a bunch of reports on famous Americans, it was school -wide, and nobody said, oh, you know, little

Billy can't do that, or little Andy can't do that, or Sally can't do that. We all did it, and some of us did better than others.

Same thing in mathematics and everything else, right? Some people were allowed to succeed, and some people were allowed to fail.

But we live in a world now where no child can be left behind, because every child is equally valuable, is that true?

Yes. Is every child equally abled? No. But now we have to act like they are, and if they're not, then you have to have an

IEP to make sure that that kid in individual education program, to make sure that that child catches up to everybody else.

And I think sometimes they have IEPs to slow the advanced kids down from everybody else.

Yeah, Brian? Big -time money.

And where does that money come from? Back there. Yeah, from the federal government, which people sometimes forget.

The federal government, look around the room, you're the federal government. You just don't have any authority. You just get the bills, right?

It's kind of like being a parent. No, I'm just saying they've proliferated so much that I think it's like if every...

I mean, think about it this way. If you're in public school, and every child has an IEP, then what does that mean? Essentially, yeah, he's got his own program, so there is no uniform instruction.

Everybody has to have their own, and so you have assistant teachers all over the place, yep. But see, and I think...

So what would have happened in the 1960s if somebody has a speech issue?

They just kick him to the curb? He's off on the side doing his own thing? It might.

It's possible. Yep. The question ultimately is, is that a federal government issue?

Does the federal government need to get involved in all that? And I think the answer is probably not. But anyway, his point wasn't about IEPs.

His point was this. What the government was even trying to do then, and it has expanded its efforts to do now, is to make everybody come out equal.

And when your determination is that everybody should be equal, what's the problem? What's the common denominator?

I mean, you're ultimately... I dare say that they probably spent more on...

What's the phrase that they used to use?

Mentally gifted minors in California, MGMs. They probably spent more on them back then than they do now, rightly or wrongly, trying to take the kids who were more gifted and push them to go further.

And now I think it's kind of like the opposite. But I think if you have

IEPs for... If there are 30 kids in there and 25 of them have IEPs, you wind up with assistant teachers and all this other thing, and you don't have an environment in which some are allowed to thrive.

You have an environment where everybody gets equalized to some extent. So here's what he says.

He says, When one considers what the public schools of America in many places already are, their materialism, their discouragement of any sustained intellectual effort, their encouragement of the dangerous pseudoscientific fads of experimental psychology, one can only be appalled by the thought of a commonwealth in which there is no escape from such a soul -killing system.

I just enjoyed the soul -killing stuff. Yeah. It was a profit, right?

Yeah, I mean, are there some good things in the public education system today? Yes. But I think it's telling also, you know...

What's that? Yeah, babysitting. Well, I mean, so many things that they're doing.

Some kids don't have nutritious lunches.

So what's the solution? Everybody gets a free lunch. Yes, there is.

Yeah, the federal government's paying for it. And they're trying to figure out... I sat in a meeting where they're trying to figure out how to get more kids free breakfast, even though the federal government isn't going to pay for it.

The people of Holden were going to pay for it. So, you know, they're always trying to find new ways to spend somebody else's money.

But just with regard to, you know... Again, I just know mostly about our town. But they're putting a lot more emphasis on things like diversity, equity, and inclusion than they are on...

It's sad to me to listen to parents get up at these school meetings and they say, my daughter can't identify coins.

My son can't read clocks. You know, all these other things. And why is that?

Because they're spending the time teaching something else, right? I mean, it's not important that you be able to read analog clocks.

Well, it's not important until Russia drops a nuke. Well, it won't be important except for those who survive.

And I want to wish you guys well. I'll be praying for you. Because I'll tell you what, if they announce missiles are heading for Boston, I'm driving into Boston.

I'll be fighting the traffic going in. Okay. Soul -killing system.

I mean, we'll talk more about that in a minute. So, number 17. True or false? Public education not only fills the mind with materialism, but stomps out liberty.

True. I mentioned a public school system in itself is indeed of enormous benefit to the race, to the human race.

But it is of benefit only if it is kept healthy at every moment by the absolutely free possibility, and this is killer, again, 100 years ago, of the competition of private schools.

In other words, let's keep it honest. He says, but once it becomes monopolistic, it is the most perfect instrument of tyranny which has yet been devised.

He says, place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the conviction of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state.

Force them to attend schools where the higher aspirations of humanity are crushed out, and where the mind is filled with the materialism of the day, and it is difficult to see how even the remnants of liberty can subsist.

Such a tyranny, supported as it is by a perverse technique, used as the instrument in destroying human souls, is certainly far more dangerous than the crude tyrannies of the past, which, despite their weapons of fire and sword, permitted thought, at least, to be free.

In other words, the goal today is to get people to all agree on the same thing.

I mean, it's interesting to me, here's another thing that's happened at the school meetings.

A parent gets up and says, you're only allowed to think one way. And the school board committee says, or school committee person says, what do you mean?

Well, we're allowed to have an LGBTQIA++ multiplication, square root, you know, club, right?

And those signs can be posted all over the campus. But if you put conservative student union, it says all those signs get torn down.

If you put up Bible club, all those signs get torn down. Well, why is that? Well, because you're only allowed to think in the prescribed way.

That's it. You're allowed to bully, to demean, etc.,

any conservative thought, but everything else is free game.

And there's absolute silence from the school committee now because they're just like, well, it's true. Because what are you, a loser?

They would shut up the parent if they could. I think he'll be running for the school board next spring.

Number 18, true or false, one good thing about public education is it brings about equality. Well, that's the idea, right?

I mean, this is what he understood 100 years ago that people don't understand now.

It's equality of opportunity. That's what we should want. And there are some good arguments for public education.

There are areas of the country that don't have a lot of money, and so it seems right that the federal government take from one area and give to another, that sort of thing, right?

Of course, I did, it was several years ago now, one of the richest areas in Massachusetts got a new high school with rock climbing and all the,

I mean, they did like a video tour of the school, and I was just like, I'd like to go to that high school. I mean,

I'd like to go back in time. What's that?

Yeah, but I mean, it was with all these great, no, it was with all these, and again,

I'm trying to think of where the first few grandkids were born. There's a hospital there.

Oh, Wellesley. It was in Wellesley, I think, and super nice high school, and I'm like, so the people of Wellesley couldn't afford that?

I mean, like half of it was paid for by the state? And I'm like, no. So everybody in the state paid for this school.

I thought, that's just loopy. So, Machen.

In view of the lamentable defects of modern life, a type of religion certainly should not be commended simply because it is modern or condemned or simply because it is old.

On the contrary, the condition of mankind is such that one may as well ask why it is that the man, or what it is that made the men of past generations so great and the men of the present generation so small.

And I was thinking about that in terms of, you know, it's interesting. If you read, here's an example.

Hoover, President Herbert Hoover. Read sometime just a brief biography of him before he was president.

He negotiated for, you know, just off the top of my head, I think it was with four states who had all these competing interests to come to an agreement to build the

Hoover Dam because of all the water rights and everything that were involved. And so, you know, it was people like that that eventually would become president instead of, you know, now you're on a reality show and you wind up president of the

United States. There's something, you know, I mean, you can go right down the list.

Not every person was, I mean, Andrew Johnson was not terrific, but most men had accomplished something before they became president.

Nowadays, you know, if you appear good on TV, then you get a shot at it.

Brian? Who's that?

Okay. All right, sorry. Number 19, true or false, the gospel not only represents spiritual freedom but cultural freedom.

I thought it was interesting because it's true is the answer, and I thought it was interesting because what he talked about is how, because as the,

I'll just say it this way, the influence of the

Enlightenment and individualism increased and the influence of religion decreased.

He was like, look at our literature, look at our art, listen to our music, and note the change.

And the change isn't for the better, in his estimation, and I'm like, I have to agree. The things that are considered literature now are, well, they're not very profound.

And, you know, if I could just say a word, since we're talking about education and everything, when people start talking about banned books, you've seen that, that little meme and all that stuff,

I think people should look at some of those books that are quote -unquote banned, because A, they're not banned, but B, they should not be, you know, for example, there's one called, what is it?

Queer something. Genderqueer, yeah. If you ever look at the contents, yeah, the contents of that book, you'll just be like, not only should it be banned, you know,

I'd punch anybody that gave it to my kid. I mean, I'd take them out. And next year, we'll do better, because we'll appoint a committee that will review things.

Well, what about this year's committee? Well, we'll get rid of them and put new people on a new committee, and, you know, what'll make that better?

The answer is nothing, but like that book, Genderqueer shows,

I mean, it's child porn. It is absolute child porn. The pictures in it are pornographic and depict children doing sexual things, and I'm like, so yeah, it should be banned.

There was a time where you would wind up in federal prison for having that book, and now it's like, you're not going to let your child read that book?

No, I'm not. Pretty disgusting. Number 20.

One aspect of liberal Christianity is its emphasis on grace. That's false.

By showing what Christianity is not, we hope to be able to show what Christianity is, in order that men may be led to turn from the weak and beggarly elements and have recourse again to the grace of God.

In other words, he's like, liberal Christianity is not a religion of grace.

Okay, number one, on chapter two. Eighteen. False. It brings about equality.

No. It says it's going to do that, and what it's really doing is dialing down the amount of…

I would just say it turns off aspirations. It sets that to zero.

Number one, true or false. False teachers are often plain about their intent. False.

How do we know that? Wolves in sheep's clothing, yep.

I mean, just listen to how Jude describes it. He says, for certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for their condemnation.

You know, what does it mean they crept in unnoticed? Because they don't make their intent known, right?

They come in dressed like sheep, and they're actually wolves in sheep's clothing. Matthew says this,

He says the advocates of a new religion are not at pains, as they are in the church at large, to maintain an appearance of conformity with the past.

If we say conformity with the past, what do we mean? With past doctrine?

Yeah. Maintaining proper tradition, right? If somebody says, I mean, I say this millions of times a day.

No. But a lot, if something's new, does that make it good? No. In fact, new is probably bad.

Our default should be, if somebody says we have a new whatever, unless it's a new laundry soap, of course that would never be bad.

But new and improved usually means new and watered down, or new and unbiblical, heretical, right?

He says the religious teacher in his heart of hearts is well aware of the radicalism of his views, but is unwilling to relinquish his place in the hallowed atmosphere of the church by speaking his whole mind.

It's interesting, because there have been over the last several decades, and I suppose before that, even at Machen's time.

I mean, what did Machen do during the last few years of his life? I don't know if anybody remembers this.

Do you remember he left Princeton Seminary? Why did he leave

Princeton Seminary? It was getting liberal. And it's interesting, because every professor at Princeton Seminary had to sign an agreement at the beginning of the year that they were in agreement with the

Westminster Confession of Faith. And yet, they weren't in agreement with the

Westminster Confession of Faith. How could they sign it? What's that?

Complacency? Yeah, Dave. More or less, right?

I mean, they would say, yes, I subscribe to this, da -da -da -da, and then they would go, mostly.

I mean, there may be some fine print, I don't agree, or whatever. I might have a slightly different understanding of the confession than you do.

That's the other way to go, right? Well, yeah, that's what you think it means. I don't agree with that.

And what eventually happens is liberals wind up taking over the seminary.

So he moves on to start Westminster along with some other men.

And now guess what's happening at Westminster? Same thing. In fact, how many of you have heard

Pastor Mike, maybe me talking about, well,

I mean, you could look at it from this way, Federal Vision, or what it ultimately is, though, there are a lot of men like Piper with his future justification,

Schreiner, another one, Doug Wilson. And what these men will all say, in varying degrees, is that you're brought into the covenant, the new covenant, by, of course,

Piper wouldn't say this, but Wilson and others would say you're brought into the covenant by baptism, infant baptism, and that you remain in the covenant by works.

They wouldn't say works, they would say obedience, by faithfulness, I believe is what

Wilson describes it as. Piper would say that there's initial justification, and then at the end of your life, when you're standing before God, there's a final justification.

What's the problem with that? It is Catholic. I mean, it's a variation on a theme.

Talking about swimming the Tiber, that's become a little phrase for us, too, because if you read

Aquinas, and you take him seriously on the Trinity, you're about to convert to Catholicism. Okay.

I mean, there are several things that keep me from converting to Catholicism, including their doctrine of four people in the

Trinity. I'm better at math than that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, they're always trying to squeeze

Mary into the Trinity, and I'm like, how do you do that? Anyway.

This idea of false teachers are not plain about their intent.

And it's interesting, you know, let's get back to Rick Warren for a minute. If Rick Warren is speaking to a group of Southern Baptists, what does he sound like?

A Southern Baptist. Because he went to a Southern Baptist seminary. He knows all the jargon. But he'll get up there on a,

I was about to say Sunday morning, bite my tongue, on a Saturday afternoon, or Saturday evening, or a

Sunday morning, or a Sunday evening, whenever it is, because they pretty much do services there.

I think they have like five services on a weekend. And he doesn't sound

Orthodox at all. Not remotely. Okay, number two.

True or false. Creeds reflect only the understanding of Scripture at the time they were written.

That is false. What are creeds? Summaries of...

Okay, so there's summaries of doctrine, you know, what we believe that the

Bible teaches. Mason says, liberals treat creeds as merely the changing expression.

Changing expression. I mean, how about the, you know, again, to go back to Jude, the once for all delivered faith, right?

We don't want the gospel to change. We don't want the eternal truths that go into a creed to change.

The changing expression of a unitary Christian experience, meaning we all experience the same thing.

And provided only they express that experience, see how he's repeating that word.

He's trying to emphasize that. That experience that they are all equally good. The teachings of liberalism, therefore, might be as far removed as possible from the teachings of historic

Christianity. And yet the two might be at bottom the same. Well, how could that be?

It can only be if you're basically looking at it from a liberal perspective and the liberal says, well, we both believe in what?

We both believe in the Trinity. We both believe in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now, we might give entirely different levels of import to those things and entirely different outcomes.

You know, in other words, like a liberal might say, well, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not really a physical resurrection.

It's a symbolic resurrection. And it really is just meant to inspire us to live better lives. Every day is like Easter because I feel motivated.

Sorry about that. And Machen's point, and what he makes his point over and over again, is

Christianity and liberalism are nothing alike. He says one more thing, and in this section

I want to mention it. He says, such is the way in which expression is often given to the modern hostility to doctrine.

Why don't people like doctrine? Brian? Okay, first of all, it's work.

Secondly, it hems them in, right? If you say that certain things are true, then what's the other side of it?

Certain things are false, right? There are boundaries to truth.

Wes? Okay, definitely gets in the way of utilitarianism.

Yeah, you can't have that doctrine stopping you from doing what works, what's for the benefit of more people, right?

Mmm, doctrine quenches the spirit. But it's true, right?

I mean, people say things like this, or they just like, I mean, there are memes all the time. You know, the

Thor meme on Facebook, where is it, maybe it's

Bruce Banner, says something like, I like Jesus, I just don't like doctrine, and so then

Thor says, well, who's Jesus? And he says, well, he's the son of God, you know, da -da -da -da.

And so then Thor says, oh, you're doing that doctrine thing. You know, you can't talk about Jesus, you can't talk about the gospel without doctrine, but people try.

Just give me Jesus. You can have all this world, just give me, okay, well, there's truth to that, right?

But I mean, a lot of people listen or think about it, and they're like, I don't care about that. You know, here's another example.

I had somebody not long ago. How many of you have that Be Thou My Vision book that Mike was pushing for a while?

Yeah, it's kind of a, yeah, daily liturgy, kind of, you know, kind of gets your prayer life, your study life going a little bit.

And somebody gave it to me and said, you know, Pastor, I just can't take this book. And I said, oh, what's the problem?

He said, well, it talks about Catholic in a good way.

And I said, let me see that. Yeah, small c, and I go, I said, now do you know why there's a small c there?

No, I don't. And I said, well, let me explain it. It's not about the Roman Catholic Church, it's about the church universal, the things that we all believe, you know, and the death, resurrection, you know, and these are universal truths.

There's a universal unseen church, doesn't meet together on Sundays, but we're all united in Christ, right?

All around the world, there are believers. Do you believe that? Yes. I still don't like this word.

I mean, you might as well say, you know, I've had people say this, I don't like election. What don't you like about it?

I just don't believe it. Do you believe the Bible? Yes. Well, here, let me show you the places where it is in the

Bible. Yeah, I still don't like it. I've got my eye on you,

Chuck Miller. Without being honest about saying that we're just changing the words, there's a lot of truth to that, right?

I mean, well, I mean, like, if you just say we're a Christian church, and yet you go to the church, in fact, there's a denomination in the

Midwest called the Christian church. And if you go to the Christian church, you'll sit there and you'll listen, and you'll go, but there's no

Christianity here. I mean, there's no talk of grace, of sin, of, you know, of anything.

So where's the Christianity? But yeah, they empty the words, and then they, you know, it's like,

I guess they take the jelly out of your jelly -filled donut, except they put something else back in there, and what they put back in there isn't really all that great.

But yeah, I think it's tweaking words, wrangling over words,

I guess we could say. Well, that's true, right?

I mean, it has some cachet, it has some gravitas. Yes, right.

Take the brand. Well, it's kind of like what China does, right? They issue all these knockoffs, and, you know, so it's kind of, it's a knockoff of...

Yeah, I would agree with that. I would agree with that. Okay, number three, true or false, every man, woman, and child is, in the final analysis, a child of God.

You say that so, with such assurance. Why is that? Okay, all right, hotshot.

We're the hymnals. Now, can you think of a hymnal that would really just like, oh yeah, here's one,

I got one. Can you think of a hymn in our hymnal that would really disagree with Machen?

I'm going to give you a hint. The music was written by Beethoven, Joyful Joyful.

Now, if you open it up, you'll see that it no longer is entitled

Joyful Joyful. Pastor Mike has instructed our secretary, and she has faithfully done so, put

God our Father, we adore thee in there. Why is that? There's a line in here, you know,

I don't want to pull it up, because I'll tell the story in a bit, about the brotherhood of man, you know, and there's

Christ our brother, God our father, da da da, and because the man who wrote the original song was a

Unitarian, and that's why Mike's like, can't stand it, so the first thing he does is like, why is that song still in there?

Well, you know, the music's glorious, lyrics not so much.

Machen, the liberal doctrines of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man.

These doctrines are, as we shall see, contrary to the doctrines of Christian religion, but they sound good.

Right? We're all children of God. Now, here's one.

Instead of saying we're all children of God, what if you said to people, well, you know what? We're all creatures of God.

That would be true, but does it sound as good? Nah. These doctrines are, as we shall see, contrary to the doctrines of the

Christian religion, but doctrines, they are all the same, and as such, they require intellectual defense.

He goes on to say, in seeming to object to all theology, the liberal preacher is often merely objecting to one system of theology in the interests of another.

And as I was reading that, and I thought, you know, people who object to doctrine or say, you know,

I don't really want to study doctrine, just give me Jesus. They're really kind of lining themselves up with the liberal people, the liberal teachers, whether they would know that or not.

They are. And, you know, what makes somebody susceptible to a cult, to a liberal religion, or even to Rome?

Yeah, Brian. Okay, I'm going to be more charitable than my good friend

Brian. No filter, no discernment. I'll say they have little discernment.

Little filter. And the reason I want to be a little bit more charitable is because they might recognize absolute falsehood, but if it's, you know, kind of crafted a little bit, then they might not get it.

Why is it, for example, that Mormons can call themselves Christians and many people don't even question it?

It's ignorance. Yeah. What's that, Jonathan? Yeah. The church of,

I mean, they're not called the Mormons, don't call them Mormons. They're the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints.

Of course, an interesting thing that a lot of people don't know about Mormonism is that it teaches that the true

Christian religion disappeared from the earth for 1 ,700 years.

Now, that's an amazing statement. What makes it all the more amazing is this.

Jesus said, upon this rock, the confession of Peter, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not stand against it.

Joseph Smith says the truth disappeared for 1 ,700 years.

And I submit to you that either Jesus was wrong or Joseph Smith is wrong. You can't reconcile those two things.

Jesus said he would build his church, and you know what? He really couldn't do it. In fact, Joseph Smith said

Jesus failed. He said, I've done more for the church than anyone, including

Jesus. He couldn't keep his church together, and I did, with the humility of Kanye West.

I listened to Kanye, and I was just like, okay, well,

I hope he, you know, because he's got this faith, and I hope he's saved, but he doesn't really talk like a

Christian. It doesn't mean he can't be saved, but... Okay, number...

Yep. It doesn't really fly. Nice try, though. Yeah, you know,

I would just say this, that I think he's referring to us being offspring in the sense that we are made in the image of God.

I don't think he's saying... Yeah, which is... Well, it absolutely is a creative context.

I mean, this is a... Yeah, and I think that's exactly right. He's not saying we're offspring in the sense that we're all sons and daughters of God, and there's a universal...

Brotherhood. Yeah. Either your father is

God, or your father is Satan. So, I mean, we're all related in the sense that we all have human

DNA, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Same nomenclature, same structure, all that other stuff.

But when a liberal talks about the universal brotherhood, he's talking about a spiritual brotherhood, and if we...

You know, we are brothers and sisters in Christ, not brothers and sisters universally to everybody around the world, so...

Okay. Number...

Yeah. True or false. All creeds are not equally true. Doesn't it feel weird to answer that one, true or false?

All creeds are not equally true. Yes, it is true. Mention.

If all creeds are equally true, then since they are contradictory to one another, they are all equally false, or at least equally uncertain.

We are indulging, therefore, in a mere juggling with words. I just like that picture.

To say that all creeds are equally true and that they are based upon experience is merely to fall back upon that agnosticism, which 50 years ago was regarded as the deadliest enemy of the

Church. Now, it's interesting. Let's think back to... What's Machen talking about when he says agnosticism 50 years ago?

Why would there have been agnosticism 50 years before the writing of this? Atheism was rare, true.

Okay. Okay. I don't have any problem with that, but I think we could take it a step further by doing some math.

1919 minus 50 years is what? 1869.

And nothing so sucked the life out of... The big eschatological theme before the

Civil War was... It's coming back in vogue now.

It was post -millennialism. The world was going to get better and better, but the

Civil War, with all those... We look at it now. We can't possibly understand when you're talking about a nation of,

I don't know, 40 million or whatever it was then, to have 1 million men killed altogether or wounded.

That's a ton of people. 600 ,000 dead and all the wounded and everything else.

That's just a lot of impact. And it took the shine off of post -millennialism.

People were like, the world's not getting better and better. That was the most awful thing we've ever seen. And so a lot of people fell into agnosticism, kind of an indifference about a lot of things.

Number five, true or false. A creed is a presentation of opinion. But it sounds kind of true, doesn't it?

Yeah, but if I say a creed is, this is what we believe, isn't that an opinion?

Why not? Because it's supposed to be based on something, not just... Okay. All right.

It's almost like you guys know something. Maitre says...

Maitre says, the enemy has not really been changed into a friend merely because he has been received within the camp.

That's kind of the wolves in sheep clothing thing. Very different is the Christian conception of a creed.

According to the Christian conception, a creed is not merely expression of Christian experience, but on the contrary, it is the setting forth of those facts upon which experience is based.

In other words, truth before experience. What we feel, what we go through, that is not truth.

Experience is not truth. Truth is truth. The scripture is truth. How many times have you heard people talk about how they know something and it almost always goes back to their experience?

Here, true or false, experience is the best teacher. It can be in some situations, but I think generally speaking, we could learn a lot better from scripture.

Yeah, it's a very hard teacher. Okay, number six. True or false.

The best way to define Christianity is to survey current solid theologians.

Why not? Okay, it's false. Why not?

Well, I was trying to get you guys to go, oh, well, you put solid in there, you know. Certainly we could learn from solid theologians.

Yeah, but I mean, here's the thing, you know, it's like solid theologians, boy, they got feet of clay.

I mean, yeah, yeah.

Sometimes people fool you, right? I mean, they go from being really good to whatever happened to that guy, you know.

I mean, I can remember when, what was the guy's name? He was part of T4G, the

Sovereign Grace guy. What was his name? Yeah, C .J. Mahaney.

C .J. Mahaney was all the rage, you know. Of course, some people should have been troubled by a couple of things like, one, how about this?

He was known as an apostle. That should have been like a little, yeah, danger, danger.

Okay, let's see. Oh yeah, here,

Machen's answer. The question as to what Christianity is can be determined only by an examination of the beginnings of Christianity.

Not what current solid theologians think, but how it started. What are its foundations?

What are its roots, as it were? Then question number seven.

What started the Christian movement and event?

Okay, the beginnings of Christianity constitute a fairly definite historical phenomenon.

The Christian movement originated a few days after the death of Jesus of Nazareth. It is doubtful whether anything that preceded the death of Jesus can be called

Christianity. I mean, we talk about it quite a bit.

In fact, even as I've been, I mentioned this last night, but I'll just say that as I've been teaching through Acts, it's rather instructive to look at the difference between Peter, even after,

I think, even after the resurrection. You know, this was not a galvanized, fully on fire, ready to rock preacher.

What happened? Well, I think Pentecost, yeah, but I think the resurrection was good, but I think the ascension was even, it was just like,

I mean, those 40 days between the resurrection and the ascension really kind of galvanized those men.

Okay, number eight, true or false? As it was called the way,

Christianity began as a way of life. I just cannot fool you people.

If any one fact is clear, on the basis of this evidence, it is that the

Christian movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense, but a way of life founded upon a message.

It was based not upon mere feeling, not upon a mere program of work, but upon an account of facts.

In other words, it was based upon doctrine. That's the heart of his whole thesis for this chapter.

And, you know, I couldn't help, because of my background, being a former Mormon, being a

Mormon. How do the

Mormon missionaries set about, you know, getting their prey, hunting down their new kill, so to speak?

Yes, by being nice, but when they come to your door, what is it they want more than anything on the face of the planet?

They want you to do two things. Believe that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, and they want you to read the

Book of Mormon. And in both those instances, what do they want you to do afterwards?

They want you to, because they want you to listen to their story of the first vision that Joseph Smith had.

They want you to pray and see if you have burning in the bosom, good.

In other words, they want you to listen to what Machen said again. It was based not upon mere feeling, not upon a burning of the bosom, but upon an account of facts, doctrine, religions that want you to have an experience, even a

Pentecostal experience. You know, how was worship today?

What does that mean? Yeah, how did it make you feel? What did you, you know, how did you experience what was happening today?

Not, what did you learn? I mean, how about that?

You go home from church and you think, what did I learn today?

I mean, that's what we should be talking about to our wives, to our kids on the way home, right? What did we learn today? Because if we didn't learn anything, or if we didn't hear anything, you know, do you have to learn something new every week?

What happens if you do? Every week you go home and you go, I learned something new today. Is that okay?

As long as it's true, right? I mean, with a complete lack of humility,

I'd say I would be somewhat disturbed, me personally at the age of 62, if every week

I felt like, well, I learned something. I mean, I would want to say, well, I think

I maybe learned something new about that passage. That's fine. I maybe learned something new like, because he's preaching through Ecclesiastes.

I maybe learned something new about Solomon today. You know, maybe I learned, but I wouldn't want to say, you know,

I wouldn't want to think to myself, well, I learned something new about God today because I'm like a pastor.

I should know most of these things. I mean, if it does happen and it does happen, and that's fine.

But I think it'd be hard for me to think every week I'm learning something new, I'd be like, I have to study more. Yes, and that's good.

You know, what did, you know, what did Mike teach us today? Whether or not

I learned something new or not, you know, what were the reminders in there, the things that were good to think about?

So I think that's good. You know, and especially if you have kids, whatnot, and it's good to, it's good to discuss these things anyway because we're prone to forget them.

I like what he says about Paul too. He says, Paul certainly was not indifferent to doctrine.

On the contrary, doctrine was the very basis of his life. That's cool.

I mean, I think Paul would be an interesting guy to sit down and talk to. Not just because he spent three years with Jesus, but because of that constant outflow of doctrine.

Okay, number nine. True or false? Christians should have no tolerance for false gospels.

Why would you say that? What's that? Verse eight.

Yeah. I mean, Paul says, if I or anyone else preached you a different gospel, let him be anathema, cursed, damned.

So, yes. Or, yes, we should have no tolerance for false gospels.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, if the Mormons, I mean, I can't really bring myself to do this, but I understand this.

I know a man who used to follow false teachers around the neighborhood and go, don't tell my neighbors that stuff.

I understand that. I usually don't go that far, mostly because my knees are usually sore.

But it would not be wrong when the Mormons or the Jehovah Witnesses or someone else comes to your door and says, we'd like to tell you about Jesus, to do what?

Well, you could do that. You could slam the door. Let me tell you about Jesus.

Boom! Brian, the truth.

You know, how about this? You say that you have, you're out here preaching the gospel.

What is the gospel? And they're going to give you some long, convoluted thing.

Why is that? Because they have no good news. If you go to 1

Corinthians 15, verses 3 and 4, and you say, this is what Paul says the gospel is.

Maybe it's possible that Paul had more insight than you do. I'm just, you know, throwing that out there.

Since he was inspired by the Holy Spirit, right? And you know what? Let's go there anyway, because we're going to wind up going there.

Well, yeah, we're going to wind up going there in a minute. So I think it'll be good for us to keep, have this in mind.

Even if we don't get there today, we'll get there next week. For I deliver to you as of first importance, what

I also, listen, received. Not conceived, not, you know, was deceived by, but received.

He was taught these things. What? That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.

That he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures. If we understand that, we understand the gospel.

And what is that? It's a declaration of what Jesus did. We don't see it here.

What we must do. Where is that?

It's not here. Will you have to go to church? Will you have to be baptized? Will you have to, you know, get sealed in the temple?

Will you have to have, you know, you have to be married in the church.

You have to take the sacraments. You have to, you have to, you have to. It's not here. It's all indicative, zero imperative.

What does that mean, Brian? Indicative. Things that were done by somebody else, right?

Pointing to Jesus. This is what he did. Imperative is what you must do.

What's strikingly true of every single false gospel is it focuses on what?

The imperative. What you must do in order to be saved.

You must be baptized. We're going to hear a few of those here in a week or so.

People that came out of the Boston Church of Christ. You're going to hear, or you know, what else?

What other false gospels are there? You know, you have to do any number of things.

You know, I don't know. Pay for your own sins. You know,

I mean, there are all sorts of different formulas out there, but they're all false. I couldn't resist this quote here in number nine.

Christians should have no tolerance for false gospels. Machen, what is it that gave rise to the stupendous?

You see, he's back at using stupendous again, Dave. Yeah, he did.

He used it a lot. What was it that gave rise to the stupendous polemic of the epistle of the

Galatians, or to the Galatians? And it's simply this, that they had created this whole system of works, and that's what false churches do.

So let's go to number 10. True or false? Christians, number one, believe on Christ.

Number two, obey to the best of their ability. And number three, are justified. Okay. Christians, number one, believe on Christ.

Number two, obey to the best of their ability. Number three, are justified. What about future justification?

Yeah, well, I'm still looking for it in the Bible. Okay. Paul said that a man, number one, first believes on Christ.

Okay, so far so good. Still true. Second, then is justified before God.

There's the rub, right? Number three, immediately proceeds to keep

God's law. That's what Machen said. What do we think about that? Well, how can that be?

Do you still sin? Well, then how do you keep God's law?

The Holy Spirit keeps it for you. I'm going to leave your name off the recording to preserve you from claims of, yeah, claims of shame.

Who obeys the law for you? Nobody.

Oh, man, I'm going to leave your name off the tape, too. Nobody for the unbeliever, that's right.

Yeah, but first believes on Christ, then is justified before God, then immediately proceeds to keep God's law.

Why or how? By faith in the one who did obey perfectly.

Right. Okay, the

Judaizers said that a man, one, believes in Christ, two, keeps the law of God to the best he can, and then three, is justified.

That's not Christianity. That's, you know, it's adding, the Judaizers added the

Jewish law onto Christianity. They said, hey, Christianity is all well and good, but you'll still have to keep the law of God, which perfectly negates it, which is why he went after them so viciously.

Yeah, if you have to keep the law of God, you're smoked because you can't keep the law of God. Nobody keeps the law of God. I mean, the

Bible, you know, what do you write the whole book of Romans about? You know, there's no one who obeys. There's no one who seeks after God.

There's no one who... Let's see. No. What about that?

You're an antinomian if you don't keep the law. I would submit that we've got a lot of antinomians, if that's the case.

Does it mean that you're an antinomian if you don't keep the law? What's that?

I mean, antinomianism means against the law, right?

But if we think about it, you know, it's not saying that I am totally against the law.

I would say it's more like the way it's used nowadays. I would say...

What do you think of this? It's more, I'm indifferent to the law, right?

Whether I keep the law or care about keeping the law or try to keep the law, it's a matter of complete indifference.

And that, you know, to the point where basically my conscience can't be pricked.

I can do whatever I want. Some of you believe that. The Bible doesn't give any indication that we are saved unto ourselves.

We're saved for... Right. Again...

Yeah, there is... You know, I think that the trick, though, because we've been...

We... You know, the royal we... I guess that means the king and I, Pastor Mike and I, talk quite a bit about this because here's the thing.

What does it really ultimately mean to... To obey, to be sanctified?

Is it our work in cooperation with the grace of God or is it...

Yeah, God working in and through us. You know, God is at work in us.

I mean, I could open up that whole can of worms, but I'll just suffice it to say that we believe it's monergistic, that God is at work in us.

All that to say that the idea of antinomianism, you know, being indifferent,

I'll say, to the law or indifferent to sin, would mean that apparently

God's not at work in me because I just shrug at my sin. I don't think that's true at all.

Paul was brokenhearted over his sin. You know, who's going to deliver me from this body of death?

And I think that's a good point because, you know, what is legalism? Is legalism obeying the law of God?

What is legalism then? It's adding to, right? It's setting a standard.

That's what the Pharisees did. And you could still see that if you go to Israel today, if you go on a tour next year with Pastor Mike, you'll see where the

Pharisees, the modern -day Pharisees, have set, you know, boundaries around the city of Jerusalem where you're not allowed to walk farther than that on a

Sabbath day. You'll see some of the more extreme Jews park their cars in places before the

Sabbath so that you can't drive a car around because they want to stop people from breaking the

Sabbath. Right? So it's not enough for them to obey. They've also got to force you to obey.

And I think, you know, at that point you go, okay, you are convicted of your own standard and you're going to impose that on me.

I think that's Karenism. Open with politics, close with politics.

Okay. Yeah. Can we really know the difference between somebody who's trying to obey out of gratitude and somebody who's trying to obey because they believe their obedience is salvific?

Okay. So you can tell the difference between somebody who's trying to do it for themselves and somebody who's trying to impose a standard upon you.

Yes. And...

I mean, have you ever known... I mean, this is like should be a universal yes.

You ever known any legalistic Christians? I mean, I think we all have, right?

I mean, it's kind of like what made the church lady on Saturday Night Live so funny, for those of you old enough to remember, was because we recognized the church lady because we'd gone to church with her, right?

Oh, isn't that special? You know, I mean, the kind of, oh, you're going to go home and watch the Patriots today. Are you setting a standard and then trying to impose it on the rest of us?

I've got my eye on you. I just remember, you know, doing this.

And I mean, I was not, you know, I'll let you guys judge if I was being a legalist or not.

You know, Mike was out of town. His wife was dying. No, his mom was dying of cancer.

And I was preaching. And, you know, the Patriots were in the Super Bowl. You know, you remember those days.

And so I said, you know, I think we had communion or something that day.

I think that was right. And we were having, we're in the habit of having Sunday evening service all the time.

And so I was preaching that Sunday and I said, Sunday night too. And I said, listen, for anybody who's worried about missing the

Super Bowl, I said, I'm recording the game. You can come over to my house afterwards.

You know, that way you don't have to miss Sunday service, PM service, and you can come over to my house, whatever. I get this nasty email.

You're such a legalist trying to force us to go to, and I went out of my way to say like, you know, you don't have to come tonight, but if you do, you know, you can come over to my house.

You're not going to miss anything. Well, just fast forward through the commercials, which I think, you know, usually the commercials are either the best or the worst, right?

They can be really funny and they can be really nasty where you're just like, I can't, but cover the kids, cover the kids, they can't see.

So, you know, I can't believe you'd do that. And that person left the church and never came back. And I was like, well, okay.

I said to that person, I go, you know what? We never tracked. Oh, that person comes

Sunday night. That person doesn't come Sunday night. We never know that. So I don't know what you're talking about, but it didn't matter.

Okay. So we are justified by keeping the law of God?

By keeping the moral law? Yeah.

I mean, we don't have time to totally unpack that, but I mean, just think about that. If we're justified by law keeping, by any law keeping, then we're never going to be justified at all.

You know, and yeah, after purgatory, right? Is that how it goes?

I think that's a really bad argument. You know, I mean, we have to go, but we have to go, but let me just say this, that a less than superficial understanding of the

New Testament, generally speaking, would negate all of that. You know, if you look at Romans, for example, you know what it says about the law.

If you even look at, as our friend here, Machen, is expressing over and over again about the

Sermon on the Mount, you know, that in and of itself, that's God's law that Jesus is giving, and it undoes us all.

You know, if you even look at a wound with lust in your heart, what does that mean? Right? I mean, how can you obey that law?

And the answer is you can't. So anyway, we have to go. Let me close in prayer. Father, thank you for this time.

Thank you for these men coming early on a Saturday morning to discuss these things as we examine, look at what

Machen wrote, and examine your word, and just think about how it applies to the world around us and how timely these things are.

Father, I pray that you'd strengthen us, that you'd help us to better lead our families, to be wise about the things going on around us, and even if those men and women come knocking on our doors today, to be ready to give them an answer for the hope that is within us, a hope that they do not have.