A House Divided, Then Guilty of the Blood of Men

Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line, we're here for now. Now, Rich assures me that after the power loss a couple weeks ago,

I think he took that as a personal affront to his power management skills and purchased all sorts of backups.

I see one of them over here. Actually, I see two of them over here. Oh, you purchased one?

Oh. All the rest of them we had here. Oh, OK. Anyway, supposedly, supposedly we will stay on the air or something.

The lights may go out, but I'm not sure what that's going to mean. But we are getting blasted.

I can show you the radar right now. Nice big red thunderstorms on top of us. It's going to pass fairly quickly as things do.

But yeah, we scheduled a little bit of winter in for like a day or two here in Phoenix and then it's going to be back up to 71, which for most people is like summer weather.

But so I got to wear a Coogee today. One I haven't worn yet this year. Most of them

I have not worn this year because it's just been so blessedly warm. Let's hope that's not telling us anything about what's coming up, you know, this summer here in in Phoenix.

But you just never know. You just never know. So if everything if everything goes sort of wonky and stuff and it gets dark in here or something, you'll know what happened.

Because Rich told me that as I pulled up this afternoon, everything went black.

And so did all this stuff. Well, you didn't have any of this stuff on, so you wouldn't know whether it survived. Everything was fine.

Okay, well, we'll see. Already I can't hear the brrrr anymore. So it's a fast moving storm system and we'll be clearing out here.

So if we get through it, we'll be we'll be doing great. Anyway, so I wanted to I don't know about everybody else.

I'm just going to mention this at the start and hopefully move on fairly quickly.

I live to say that I live in a divided nation is a major understatement.

Somebody sometime said a house divided against itself cannot stand.

And there are at least two nations within one border here.

I've never seen this nation divided the way it is today.

I obviously have very strong feelings about who's causing this and why.

And there are all sorts of theories out there and there are people who use big long names and and things like that that are sure they know what's going on too.

But it's very obvious to me that there are global forces at work that want ultimate power through technology.

The USSR came along too early in history to be able to pull that off.

Can you imagine what the KGB could have done with satellites and with the ability to trace every person, you know, as long as they have one of these things?

And I think I recall that South Korea required you to carry a phone during COVID.

So they could follow you. And one major national election and that could be happening here.

And we could be facing, you know, what would happen? Honestly, I'm just thinking,

I'm just spitballing here. What if the government comes along and says, look, we're not infringing any of your rights or anything here.

But you will carry a cell phone and it will be registered in your name. And it will be attached to your identity.

And that basically means you can be followed anywhere. Everybody and their second cousin will tell you that they will be talking about something out of the blue.

Haven't talked about before. And half an hour later, they have Facebook ads and all sorts of things going on.

And everybody pooh -poohs that like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I've seen it happen.

And what are you going to do when the government says do it?

This is for national security. This is for our safety. Now, these are the same people that opened the borders to foreign invaders, some of whom have proven that when you invade a country that was founded on Christian principles of responsibility, morality, you know,

I keep thinking of what Adams said, the Constitution was designed for religious and moral people.

It is totally incapable of governing anyone else.

If someone comes here who has no morals or their morality is whatever makes my tribe richer, as long as I can steal from you, that's great.

I mean, that's Somalia. Somalia is a failed state, warlords. When you hear the word pirate today, what's the first word that goes with it?

Somali pirate. Okay. I mean, and these are guys with machine guns that take over tankers and kill people to do what?

To extort money. It's what their society does. And, you know,

I remember back when the Antioch Statement said something about that some cultures are better than others.

That was a given at one point in time. You can't say that anymore, but that was a given at one point in time.

And so I look at my nation today that has, and I look at the

United Kingdom, I look at Europe, and Europe is led by suicidal individuals that are seeking to completely end the existence of their nations.

And it may be too far gone to stop. It may be. They've opened the borders.

There was a book I read in high school. I mentioned it once on the program.

That was written back in the 70s about a third world invasion of Europe.

And how Europe lacked the capacity, the self -will to fight back and to stop it.

It's not that they didn't have the capability, but it was the collapse of Western civilization that brought this about.

And as with so many of those books written in the 70s, they've turned out to be prophetic in their fulfillment today.

The name will come to me after the program is over. That's normally how it works. I'll be in the middle of taking the trash out and go, oh, yeah.

But anyway, nations that choose their own self -destruction.

Don't do so overnight. It's generational.

And a lot of people want to accuse, well, it's all the church's fault.

I have always struggled with that. You can rightfully criticize the church for becoming too comfortable with the culture, not calling the culture to repentance.

There's lots of stuff that you can do. But I just think of how many times there have been faithful churches in nations that came under God's judgment.

And what happens to those churches when that happens? When judgment comes upon a nation, what happens to that church?

Does not the church suffer with the nation itself? Were there not faithful Christians in Germany?

Were there not faithful Christians in Dresden who died horrible deaths in the firebombing, which

I still think this day was a war crime on the part of the Allies? The church suffers as well.

But I don't know that it's right to blame the church. Everybody says that politics is downstream from religion.

Well, I don't know if that's always true. I don't know when you have a majority of the population that doesn't allow the

Christian faith, or any faith really, to have any meaningful impact upon the decisions they make. I don't know that it follows that you can blame the church for all these things.

But right now we live in a divided nation in the United States. And the only possible solution that I can think of is the only solution we can offer.

We can't have peace with one another when we aren't even seeking peace with God, with our

Creator, our Maker. And what do you do with a nation that's become so benighted and so deceived that it doesn't think it has a

Creator in the first place? Once you get rid of the

Creator, the state becomes God. And I don't care if it's a

MAGA state, or a Biden regime, or an Obama mess, or whatever.

That's what the state's going to become. And now with the technology that they have, that they possess,

I just, I don't know, call me, you know, my kids call me

Debbie Downer all the time. But I just look at the last election and I realize there's one coming up in 10 months.

And if things go a certain direction in 10 months, I can guarantee you, if the

House of Representatives falls into the hands of the communists, and can we call them communists now? Because they support

Mamdani. Mamdani is clearly a communist. All the people he's appointing are clearly communists.

They're opposed to personal property rights. The state is God. The USSR has been re -established in the city of New York.

And once they have power in the House, nothing will ever get passed. Nothing can really get passed now.

We do not have a functioning legislative branch. We don't. You can't get any type of major legislation through.

The Senate used to be the place where you actually had to have cooperation based upon the betterment of the nation.

Forget it. The left won't allow it. It's impossible. So, one election and the president will be impeached 10 times in the first week.

I mean, whenever they take their positions in January, there will be 10 petitions for impeachment and three of them will pass.

And that'll be the end of any, you know, all this, Oh, we're winning and da -da -da -da -da -da -da.

At the same time, I'm not the only one sitting here looking at some of the stuff that's being done even now.

And I go, Uh, quite a precedent being set here.

I mean, I'm not talking about like what's happened in Minneapolis. I don't know what's going to happen with that.

It, everybody said the same thing and that is, well, here's George Floyd for the

ICE generation taking place right there. That's possible.

It's possible. But the nation has been invaded.

And when the nation tries to un -invade itself, you almost end up in civil war.

I don't see how a nation called the United States can long survive in the current context.

I just don't. Oh, you're a pessimist. Well, I'm just simply looking at the nation going, what signs are there of a positive turn that is widespread that would allow the nation to extricate itself from its self -imposed divine punishment?

Um, do you see anybody mourning over the murder of unborn children, the mutilation of young children, the profaning of marriage?

You see any of that? Not even the Republicans are doing that. They're not even playing at it anymore.

And, you know, Trump with the reversal of Roe v. Wade figured that's it.

That is no longer an issue for us. It's done. And hence is promoting stuff that is extremely anti -pro -life in its perspective.

Because he's not really, in his worldview, his worldview does not have a foundation or understanding of what life is.

Now, sure, there are people who write speeches for him and he reads the speech, fine. Does that represent what he actually believes?

Because honestly, the interview that was had with him, I think yesterday, about what are the limits on your use of United States military power globally?

He said, my morality, not international law. That's okay.

Okay, one election and the government uses that to promote LGBTQism and force nations to adopt these types of things and abortion and they can do the same thing.

Believe me, once they have the power, they won't let go of it. They won't let go of it.

That's how it works. I said a couple weeks ago, we were talking about Mondani.

A democratic socialist is simply a communist who gets elected.

So he uses dumb people to vote for him and then holds power. A communist just uses a gun to get the power in the first place.

It's the only difference. It's the same end point for either one. So all of this leaves me again going, when

November of last year took place, November of the year before, already been coming up on a year and a half.

A few people said, hey, we've got some time. Well, that time is passing quickly, very, very quickly.

And the draconian exercise of executive power that happened under Biden, that now because of the fact that our government's non -functional, has to continue under Trump, will be back under the next person, whoever it is, whether it's

Republican or Democrat. It's going to be back. And eventually, it's going to be a communist.

Can you imagine Gavin Newsom with the power of the White House? Can you imagine the threat to religious liberty, homeschooling?

Every single public school would be draped in enough rainbow flags to make you want to puke.

They already are. I mean, the educational system in this nation has been completely taken over.

Does anyone have a question about that? Oh, I know a nice Christian lady. They're not running things.

You listen to these school board meetings and it is astonishing. The people on these school boards are such amazing zealots for evil.

They are the high priests and priestesses of the cult of Moloch. They really are.

And you have to realize in Germany, if you have children, they have to go to the public school system.

You will be arrested and the children will be put in state care if you try to homeschool them.

And how far are we away from that? What could get in the way? Well, we have the

Constitution. The Constitution as interpreted by whom? People who universally now have graduated from law schools that are completely soaked in an anti -Christian, anti -logic, anti -language, communist worldview.

That's nothing but a piece of paper. Nothing but a piece of paper. So, I don't know.

I just get the feeling that people have bought into the,

Hey, we won. Everything's gonna be great now feeling. And it's like, but we're not making any progress.

Oh, yes, we are. Well, show me where it's actually manifesting itself.

Well, they're trying to. They've deported a lot of illegals. Yeah, but in comparison to how many came through during Biden, what's the percentage?

And okay, the border may be closed now. The instant

Gavin Newsom becomes president, the border will be overrun.

There won't be a border. There won't be a nation. And it'll all be said to be because we're so open and loving and until the whole thing collapses, which is exactly what people in the shadowy conspiracy world.

They're not really in the conspiracy world. They're pretty much out there. They're wide open. The UN and WEF and all these people.

It's exactly what they want, exactly what they want. And there's been a few bumps in the road, but they're not long -term detours.

And so all the questions we were facing in 21, 22 about government power and all that, they haven't gone away.

We've just enjoyed the vacation without actually making any changes.

And I'm saying this to myself. You know, I mean, that's just sort of how it is.

That's just sort of how it is. So anyway, I wanted to hold on a second.

I tweeted something before the program started. Wow. Wow.

So I so check this out. So I made the announcement for the program.

And so I said the dividing line will be live in five minutes. Join us or Joel Webben will call you retarded or something.

Smiley face. You didn't see that. Okay. And that's because obviously

Joel Webben and it's a mate on January 7th.

Well, this says January 7th. I thought that was day before that. Anyway, start off a response attacking a

Christian woman and he attacks Christian women regularly. He really seems to have a problem with women doing anything.

The average Christian woman on social media is retarded. This is how he started the post. The average

Christian woman on social media is retarded. That's how he started and he's defending it. He's double down on Eric on of course, his little sidekick runs runs to defend him and all this kind of stuff.

And of course Joel immediately does the victim thing. I'm so attacked. It's just like I did this to myself, but I'm the victim.

That's great. Anyway, so there is a Monty Python.

I think they have been watching way too much Monty Python. But so I'm just I'm just let's see.

Okay, here's one with 55 followers. There is a there's someone who's invested in the platform, right?

And block gone so long loser. Yeah, I did just going to going to going to bounce these these buddies out here.

The responses. Nobody's like, yeah boy.

That was a little weird. But what Joel did there, you know, just insulting all

Christian women, but calling them retarded, but but we'll defend it because he's our man, you know, he's our man.

Why can't I there it is. Okay, the dude to do remove this follower. Goodbye. Have a nice life and block.

There he goes. I almost all of them are. Sub 500 folks that you know, you so expect the trolls.

But as soon as you have you noticed that as soon as you mentioned certain names. These people just show up.

I mean, they're searching. They're sitting there on social media searching by names to see if they can get trouble started.

And I I suppose maybe. Somebody on my side does that too?

I hope not, but it would never cross my mind. What are you doing with your life? I just I just don't understand.

What are you doing your life? I don't know. But all of this all this led me to some thinking this morning about the program.

And I remember. Maybe it was this hat.

I have a hat over and this is a really cool hat.

Okay. I I wished I had in my last trip. I did. It was just buried in the backseat. It is waterproof windproof.

It's got little ear things. You can pull down when it's really cold. And I bought it in Zurich, Switzerland.

I needed a hat. It was colder than I expected to be in Zurich, Switzerland. And maybe that's the connection.

I don't know. But. I had. Clear memory of a really wonderful opportunity of leading a chapel service.

I was teaching Hebrews in Zurich for TMAI. And I think that was.

I think that was my only time in Switzerland. If I recall correctly, that's why I visited Zurich and.

Saw where they drown the Anabaptists and. Found out how incredibly expensive things are there.

I can't imagine what they are now. This was back around 20 somewhere between 2016 and 2018.

I would imagine anyway. I mean, a trip to McDonald's was like 17 bucks then and it was still, you know, five or six here.

Now it's almost 17 bucks here as I can imagine what it is there. But. I had the opportunity of leading a chapel service and since I was talking to people who are training to be in ministry.

I chose to speak from one of my favorite passages. I don't know if I've ever called it my favorite one of my favorite passages, but it really is one of my favorite passages from Acts chapter 20.

And it's. It is one of my favorite passages for a lot of different reasons. Partly how important it is in tying together a lot of threads in the

New Testament. You think of the amount of time that the

Apostle spent in Ephesus training the elders there and then you then you look at Revelation.

And the one church that has stayed strong doctrinally and theologically is

Ephesus. And what's the one thing they're criticized for? You've lost, you've left your first love.

You've lost that balance which you can have happen. But it also really, it gives us an opportunity sort of like what church history does.

And Acts is the history of the early church. It gives us an opportunity to sort of step out of where we are and get a fresh perspective.

And so think with me for a moment. Paul is on his way to Jerusalem.

The Spirit has testified that bonds and fetters await him. And he's telling, he tells the elders that he calls to meet him at Miletus.

He calls the elders and he says, you're never going to see me again. Now he had spent three years training these men. Exhorting them day and night with tears.

And he says, you're never, never going to see my face again. And that's what happened.

And so it's a, it's, it's an emotional meeting. I'm sure more was said than is recorded for us, but Luke gives us the important central core of what he says to the

Ephesian elders. And he talks about how you can have a clear conscience.

When it comes to the blood of other people. And we don't think about that. That, that is not, if there is anything, notice what he says.

Verse 26 of this Acts 20. Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all.

When was the last time you heard anyone say that from the pulpit? When was the last time a minister took into his sermon preparation,

I do not want to be guilty of the blood of my people.

I honestly don't remember anything in my seminary training that even talked about this, even mentioned it.

I'm not saying that this, this is not, does not come up in good preaching classes. I'm sure it does. But it's not something that I hear a lot because this isn't, this isn't a part of the way we think, especially in the

West, especially in the United States. The ancient way of thinking here.

Was that if you had truth that you kept to yourself to the detriment of somebody else and they died as the result or they ended up in error as a result, you were guilty of their blood.

You had a responsibility to tell them the whole truth. Make application in our day for that.

Make application here. Here's, here's a fun one. If you know, biblically, that God made men and women and that is a part of his creative decree and that the only way they can ever have happiness, fulfillment, obedience to God, peace with God, is to accept that they are men and women and function in that role.

And the government comes along and says, you can't do that. You have to call this man with a beard a woman.

You have to live a lie. This woman has changed her name.

You have to refer to as her or maybe Zer or Zimwa or Yamada. Whatever they demand you, you get to do it.

Or you lose your job, you lose your livelihood, you lose your freedom. What are you going to do?

Will you be guilty of their blood? It may cause you your blood, but will you be guilty of their blood by not telling the truth?

He says, I am innocent of the blood of all for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.

Well, if that doesn't tell you that you should be very concerned about proclaiming the whole purpose of God.

Not just what's comfortable, not just what keeps your megachurch running. Look, folks.

Every pastor, even the good ones in the good churches, knows that there are topics, that there are topics you can't touch without touching off a firestorm in your congregation.

And in Europe, especially, how many Christians have you seen brought up on charges in Europe for even quoting from Leviticus?

That is intended, that is meant to silence speech and to cause you to not proclaim the whole purpose of God.

That's why it's there. And so it seems to me that when

Paul says, I am innocent of the blood of all, that was really important to him. He's facing bonds, maybe execution, loss of his freedom.

And what's he concerned about? I'm innocent of the blood of all men. You gotta, you can't, you can't skip past that.

But then he exhorts the elders, he says, be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the

Holy Spirit has made you overseer. So they have been, okay, theologically.

This is the episcopate. That's the term that's used here.

An episkopos is an overseer, a bishop, a guardian. It is the same office as presbyter.

Paul uses the two terms interchangeably. You can't get around it.

Stand on your head and spin in circles if you want. If you want to be honest with the New Testament, there are two offices.

The episcopate, the presbyteros, the presbyteroi, plural, and the deacons.

Those are the two offices. Those are the two offices for which we are given qualifications.

That's where it is. And that is the line through which people try to trace some kind of magical authority.

Except it's the Holy Spirit who made them overseers in the flock.

There's nothing promised here about some kind of special. In fact, the exact opposite is presented here in Scripture.

Let me explain here. Some of you may have heard that Stephen Boyce finally just did what he needed to do years ago and became

Roman Catholic. And we had had him on the program not that many years ago. We had talked about Clement, as I recall.

And shortly after that, I saw he was making this move. And as always, you know, nobody, you know, whenever anyone who's a member of a church that decides to go paedobaptist, they never talk to me.

They don't contact me. They know what I'm going to say. And I don't want to debate that. And then they, yeah,

I became convinced. I didn't listen to the other side, but give them a chance to answer. Okay, so that's how it works.

And I've seen many, many people swim the Tiber for all sorts of different reasons.

And the last thing they want to do is talk to me. Because especially someone like Stephen Boyce, I'm going to look them in the eye.

And they've probably heard me talking about that one fellow who became part of the

Drunken Ex -Pastors webcast. I wonder if they're still around. Left the church he was at, sat right here, next room over.

And he wanted to play games with how solo scriptura would work around the year 120 or something like that.

And I looked at him and I said, look, you have preached. You have taught that your peace with God is based upon the imputed righteousness of Christ.

That's what you've taught. That the true peace, shalom, is found in that way and in no other.

And now you're telling me that that was a lie. And you're going to trade the perfect righteousness of Christ for the endless treadmill of penances and sacramental forgiveness.

That you do not have any assurance is going to actually bring you that peace.

Because as Ludwig Ott said in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, You can never know for certainty that you have fulfilled all the conditions which are necessary for achieving justification.

Those are frightening words. But you've decided to accept them, to embrace them.

And you're saying to the world, that's what you need to do. So you're telling other people that the imputed righteousness of Christ is a falsehood.

What could possibly cause you to do something like that? They don't want to answer that question. I have never had a convert that wanted to engage that.

That wanted to explain how they went from passionately accepting that work in their behalf, to accepting that they are no longer the blessed man of Romans chapter 4.

So, yeah, they don't talk to me about it. But one of the things that I saw was about the episcopacy.

The episcopate. And I think I actually saw something about veneration of icons being apostolic.

Well, hold on on that one. We hope to have some announcements next week about that particular topic.

But I can assure you right now, when you say something like that, you have abandoned history.

You have embraced Newman. You have embraced the development hypothesis.

And you have abandoned any kind of meaningful claim to apostolic authority, apostolic succession, that has any connection to the apostles.

You need to understand, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, when they talk about apostolic authority, they're not talking about something coming from the apostles.

They're talking about an authority that comes from their church now. That's where they're going.

So, let me go to the thing here and silence it, because it's dinging all over the place.

Mute for one hour. There you go. Okay. Forgot to do that before the program started. You all are chatting.

Yeah, Jason Salmon. Yes, that was his name. At least he had the guts to talk to people.

The vast majority of converts do not. But he did. Didn't help him much, but it did do that.

Anyway, that's the term that's used here. The episcopate. But this section refutes the idea that there is a

God -given promise that the episcopacy will be protected from error.

Because what does it say? Be on guard for yourselves, for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which you have purchased with his own blood.

That's what they're called to do. And what's the next verse? I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves, men will arise speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them.

So what is the biblical teaching? That Paul knows that despite...

You don't get better training for the episcopate than the

Apostle Paul. Three years with tears, day and night. You're not going to get any better than that.

And yet, what does he know? He knows the human heart.

He's already experienced people in his own life who have gone back to the world, who were zealous for a while, then left.

And so the biblical teaching is that you can be an overseer, a bishop, and try to draw the disciples off after yourself by speaking perverse things.

That's the experience of the church. Has been down through the ages.

There is no promise in scripture that there's going to be a mechanism to automatically keep that from happening.

Everybody who runs around trying to find one just closes their eyes. I don't want to listen. I don't want to hear.

No! There was that Roman Catholic guy for a while.

I don't know if he just disappeared or I finally got tired of him. I don't think I did. I might have.

I might have muted him. Maybe. I don't know. But his saying over and over again just a couple months ago was,

Protestantism has no final authority. And they can't identify what is in and what is out.

He'd keep quoting wild, wacky non -Catholics doing wild and wacky things as if we're all accountable.

And yes, you are accountable for that because that's the Protestant church as if there's a single Protestant church. All that kind of dumb stuff.

And that's the mindset that someone can get into. To where they're like, nope, it's got to be there.

There's got to be, everyone's got to walk lockstep. Now, you look at Rome and go, you don't have that.

Do you see the change, the development? You think that the

Popes in 1600 would recognize the Popes today as their heirs? Come on.

Get real. Deal with history. Deal with facts. They don't care.

They don't care. But, so, it's interesting that this text, which

I wasn't going to spend this much time on, but it's so rich, fundamentally warns us.

And what does Paul say? When he says that they're going to speak, that men are going to come and they're going to look like us.

They're going to come from the eldership. They're going to have degrees.

They're going to have ministerial experience. And they're going to draw away the disciples after them, which is the opposite of what an actual shepherd does.

You don't want them to follow you. This stuff that we're seeing today, but I just got to get my clicks, got to get my followers, doesn't matter who they are, we just got to get them.

It is the opposite of the New Testament. Absolute opposite.

He says, verse 32, And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

Oh, come on, Paul, that's not enough. We need some infallible voice.

We need a prophet. We need a council of the 12. We need a governing body. We need some mystic who can receive revelations from God.

Come on, Paul. And what you're demanding is not what

God provides for his church because it's not his purpose for the church. He commends them to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who have been sanctified.

Now, all of that was not what I was going to comment on today. I was being asked earlier today if I could provide topics for the program before the program actually begins.

And I just laughed. And I'm like, no. No. Never done it that way.

Never will do it that way. Can't do it that way. This would be a boring program if I did it that way. And there ain't no way.

The only way to know what topics were discussed on the Divine Line is to listen to it. And that's just all there is to it.

Yes, sir? Oh, I just had to point out here that Dom and I, I mentioned on the last show that we have a good friend of ours,

Dom, who's going to be taking over social media, and I'm trying to show him the things I do, which he is actually kind of amazed that we actually get it done and accomplish things.

And so this morning he's like, okay. We invented this stuff. Come on. Leave us alone. I've got great ideas here, and I want to pre -prepare certain things, templates, et cetera, and so topics and stuff like that.

And I kind of chuckled. And I said, so here's how this is going to go. You're going to ask James what he's going to talk about today, and he's going to come back and he's going to say religious stuff.

Very much. And I said, then you're going to want more details, and that's all you're going to get.

Can't happen. That's my life. It's been close to 40 years now. Can't happen.

Can't happen. Doesn't work on this program. No. No. All I was going to talk about, honestly, in Acts 20 before I went on to something else here, was the simple phrase, and from among your own selves men will arise speaking perverse things.

So from amongst yourselves shall arise men speaking perverse things, twisted things.

The term diastrepho is the verbal form.

This is a participle. Things that have been turned, perverted, twisted.

So when you twist something, you're not coming up with something brand new.

So we've often said when false teachers come to the church, they don't come waltzing to the front door in a clown suit, with a big old red nose going, this type of thing, drawing attention to themselves.

They're coming out from amongst the elders. They're coming out from amongst the bishops.

They already have that office, and what they're doing, their fundamental purpose is to draw away disciples after them.

That's what they want. And so what they do is they take truth, and then they twist it.

Pervert it. It's similar to what was in, I didn't look it up,

I should have, in Galatians 1, about perverting the truth there.

It's the same concept. It's a little bit like, have you ever messed up a key, because the lock was super super hard, maybe the door swelled or something like that, and you were trying to get it unlocked, and you twist the key.

Now the key still has, it looks like a key, and maybe from a little distance you can't tell that it can no longer function as a key, but it's twisted.

It's perverted. But it still looks like a key. These men are twisted and perverted, but they still look like a bishop.

They still look like someone who has that authority.

And when you look at the early church, we talked about this a couple years ago, especially with the

Ken Wilson stuff, Gnosticism was an astonishing challenge to the early church.

They didn't have the history to rely upon, that we have.

And in those early centuries they didn't even have a finished canon. I mean, they had persecution from the

Roman Empire, and incredibly challenging heresy from within the church.

I can't think of a more challenging time to have been called to minister in the church than that.

I really can't. And we think we have it bad now. Nothing in comparison to what they faced.

And they made authority claims. The Gnostics made authority claims. They claimed to have writings from Peter that those

Orthodox people didn't have. And so all these people had to do is if they wanted to have followers, if they wanted to have disciples, they'd take the truth and just twist it.

Maybe put it into a foreign context. Maybe disconnect it from the

Old Testament revelation of the fact there's only one true God. I mean, the full -on

Gnostics identified Yahweh as Yadavaoth, this demi -urge, this evil

God, this ignorant God. They hated him. But then, those are the

Martianites, people like that. But the Valentinian Gnostics wanted to sound as Christian as possible.

They muted that part. But still, fundamentally disconnected the faith from the foundation of monotheism and the fact that God is the creator of all things, including the physical realm.

What a challenge that was! And how many disciples were drawn away?

And I'm not talking about whether they're true disciples or false disciples or all the rest of that stuff. That's not the issue.

The issue is their motivation, what they're trying to accomplish. And they do it by using the truth but by twisting it, perverting it just enough to make it an untruth.

Not the direct opposite. And that's what's scary about a lot of modern

Christians is that they don't see that danger. They hear somebody speaking and it sounds like they're saying what we're saying.

It sounds like they're using the same words and stuff like that.

In fact, that's what I was going to get to. I had it queued up, but maybe we'll get to it next week.

I had this little video that I ran across just a few minutes ago from a

Mormon. And it was talking about how a deep study has demonstrated that the majority of things that early critics of the

Book of Mormon said were not historical actually are historical. With AI and stuff like this anymore, you can make stuff that looks so professional.

You've got to listen so carefully. And even when you do listen carefully, sometimes you miss it. But we weren't told anything about this study.

We weren't told about who did it. We weren't told about what the sources were. We weren't told where we could go to find this stuff out.

And I immediately caught something. It made the statement that we were told that the ancient

Israelites did not have steel swords. That wasn't the issue.

The issue was the ancient inhabitants of this hemisphere did not have swords at all.

They had war clubs with obsidian chips embedded in them. They did not have swords. The warfare that the

Book of Mormon presents having happened widespread in this hemisphere was old world warfare.

Horses, swords, all that kind of stuff. Which is what

Joseph Smith would have assumed that it was. But it wasn't. They didn't have those things. It was just twisted a little bit.

The actual accusation, you want to know how actual it is? Go back and listen to the radio program

I did on KTKK Radio with Martin Tanner as a host and two BYU professors on the program where we talked about this very thing.

One of them had written an article in BYU Studies or something like that trying to defend...

The Book of Mormon has people pulling a sword from a sheath and scalping people. We all know what that kind of sword looks like.

That sword did not exist at this time in this hemisphere. But it was just that little bit of twisting.

Make it sound good. The deception is real. It's right there in front of all of us.

And now with AI we have to be discerning on a level that we've never been challenged to be discerning on before.

And don't get me wrong. AI is here.

It's not going anywhere. It's only going to get more advanced. And AI is going to develop.

And I don't have all the answers. But Christians normally find themselves on the back end of technological development.

The church hated the development of the printing press. And then advancements and more advancements and radio were always on the back end.

These things are here. They've got to be dealt with. They can either be used for good or for evil.

There you are. That's what you're stuck with. Just that little twist.

Just that little perversion is what Paul's talking about. And the result is drawing away the disciples after them.

I haven't mentioned anybody. I haven't made application. I'll leave that up to you.

Who's trying to get the followers? Who's trying to build the online empires?

At the cost of the church? At the cost of the congregations? Maybe even at the cost of the ministry that they once said they were called to.

I'll let you figure those things out for yourself. I told you it was going to clear up outside.

The sun is shining. The parking lot is soaked. But that's okay. I've got a four -wheel drive.

I can get out of it. Really, Lord willing, next week we'll finally be able to have that announcement and give you an idea of where things are going to be going here the rest of the year.

Hopefully that will be exciting for folks. Thanks for listening to the program today. We'll see you next time.