Have You Not Read - S1:E24

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the

Saints. Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast.

Thank you. I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Durham, David Kazin, and Andrew Hudson.

We're handling a question from another one of our listeners. The question reads, why do you and your congregation continuously bash people with different beliefs as you?

Christians are supposed to be all -loving, but you guys are some of the most judgmental people I've ever met. Michael, thoughts, feelings, hurt feelings?

Well, I don't know how our congregation feels being called the most judgmental people this person has ever met.

That sounds kind of harsh, and one might even say to group an entire congregation together in a kind of broad -scale condemnation as the most condemning people that this individual has ever met.

It, you know, it feels a little judgmental. It lacks nuance, does it?

So, you know, and as a pastor I have that instinct to kind of stand in the way of any kind of shots fired at the congregation.

I would hate for, you know, the characters and reputations and the folks here at Sunnyside to be so broadly maligned.

And so I, you know, that kind of judgmentalism is something I would definitely stand against.

So would we say that, we haven't had a disclaimer yet, but our disclaimer would be we, all of our thoughts and our words here are our own and not the congregation's, right?

I would definitely say that, and I'm not sure how many of the congregation this individual has met.

Maybe they have met them all and have had a conversation with each of them and heard their thoughts on the beliefs of others.

However, yes, assessing what the whole congregation believes based on our discussions here in the

Word would not be a fair -minded type of approach, which again comes down to where when judgmentalism is a problem, okay?

So there's there's some thoughts here. When the questioner connects the virtue of love with Christians, that is a biblical connection.

Jesus says, by this all men will know that you are my disciples, by the love that you have for one another.

And Paul, in talking about the triad of Christian virtue, says, and now abide faith, hope, love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.

And when we consider those expressions, and even

I would think a helpful study would be the letter of 1st John, in talking about love, by this we know love, 1st

John 3 16, that he laid down his life for us, so we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

So we see that love is a righteous and sacrificial devotion, that I'm going to be for you in the right way even if it costs me, and that this love is always expressed with context in the

Scriptures. So for instance, faith, hope, and love are brought together for a reason, and my illustration is that of a river.

When you think of a river, the first thing you think of is water, which is the proper thing, but a river has more than just water, a river has shape.

There's the curves, the banks, the bends, does it go straight for a while, does it turn here? And we are reminded that what gives shape to Christianity is our faith, the faith where we, this is who

God is, how he has revealed himself, the good news of Jesus Christ, his person and work. So that as the water flows through the banks of a river, and the water is conformed to the shape of a river, so also our love is conformed to and directed by our faith.

And a river is on the move. If you've ever gotten in a canoe and gone down a river, you know it's on the move, you don't even have to paddle.

And this is true in the Christian life. There's a direction, there's a flow, there's a motion, we are on the move, and this is given expression in the word hope.

There is something ahead of us, and it is the ever -increasing manifestation of the glory and the authority of Jesus Christ, and that wonderful things are ahead of us,

God's promises are going to be entirely kept and fulfilled. And so when we think about love, and Christians are supposed to be loving, and that is correct, that's absolutely correct.

This love is expressed through faith and according to hope. Often we will be giving a critical word about the false teaching, the wrongheadedness, the erroneous doctrines of others.

It is possible that we could do so in a way that is ungenerous, and that would not be correct, and that would not be right.

However, since our love is through the shape of our faith and according to hope, we know that it is a righteous and sacrificial thing, even if it costs us.

We're going to do the right thing for someone and tell them the truth, and we're going to say the truth, because that's the loving thing to do.

Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated, says the Lord. God left Esau alone.

Esau, you can go be Esau. You do you, right? Jacob, you don't get to sit at stay a swindling, heel -grabbing snake.

You're gonna change, Jacob, even if I have to wrestle you and give you a gimp leg for the rest of your life.

And here we see the love of God towards Jacob, because he would not let Jacob be Jacob. No, he turned

Jacob into Israel. And so when we look at what love means, love is shaped through faith according to hope, we're gonna have to say the truth.

Jesus showed his love by speaking the truth and calling those who listened to him to repent, to change, and there's our hope.

We're not criticizing and contradicting others because we think that we are vastly superior.

We are who we are by the grace of God, that's all that we are, but it is a loving thing to speak the truth in hopes of somebody changing their mind, turning around and saying, you know,

Scriptures say otherwise. I am in conflict with the Lord of the universe. Not a good place to be.

Right, it's not that we're superior, but our Lord is superior. We're trying to not just take away what they believe is superior, but give them.

Yeah, exactly. Please don't hear us that we think we're superior. We're all about Christ is superior in all things.

He must have the preeminence. And to the degree that we fail to communicate that, that is indeed a failing on our part.

But it's Christ superiority that we want to come through because Jesus says, by the standard with which you judge, you shall be judged.

And I want to be judged by the standard of Jesus Christ. I want to be judged by his supremacy, his preeminence, and everything in my life needs to come into focus according to his glory.

That is the standard that I want to be judged by because my trust is in him and his righteousness and his saving work on my behalf.

And that's the standard that everybody else is going to be judged by at the end of the world, at the end of their lives.

So that's what we want. You had said something that I want to make sure is not skipped over and I want to highlight it.

And you guys can chime in on this as well, please. It was an act of judgment.

It was an act of hate for God to say, Esau, you do you.

It is an expression of hate for a spouse to look at their life partner, the other half of them, and say,

I don't care what you do. It is incredibly hateful. But to look at someone who says,

I love you, what you're doing is hurting you, and it is in conflict with what

God has set up for you, I love you, that's why I'm saying what

I'm saying. This questioner, and we like piercing questions.

Yes. I mean, if you just want to be, you know, mean, you know, okay, at least have some content to it.

And this is actually a decent question because it juxtaposes, I thought you were supposed to be loving, instead you're judgmental.

But when you look at the Scriptures, God's Word says this, you're in conflict with it,

I am pointing it out because I love you. The least loving thing or the most hateful thing

I could do is say, you know what, you're fine, everything's fine, you do you.

That is some, that's an expression of contempt. Paul teaches that husbands and wives, their bodies are not their own, right?

So my wife's body is mine and my body is my wife's. That mystery of marriage, if we were to take it over to Christ and we being his body, the bride, he has already given his body for us.

Yes. Is it not time for all of us to do the same for him? It's his body.

So that has ramifications for actions and not just thought in Romans chapter 13, it talks a lot about love and you can look at the actions of love.

Um, you can even look at if you might want to define a, some qualities of love in first Corinthians chapter 13.

That'd be good. Yeah. But in Romans 13, 13 it says, let us walk decently as in the daylight, not in clamor and drunkenness, not in the practice of immorality, not an

Indian strife, but call yourself with our Lord Jesus Christ and disregard the lusts of the flesh.

Judgment requires us to live rightly, to know where the lines are drawn, to not live according to the lusts of the flesh.

So if we were to tell people, use your body to go do whatever you want, that's not love.

That's a really good point. When you were mentioning about the dynamic of the husband and wife, each body belongs to the other.

I couldn't help but remember how it is described in Ephesians five, this great mystery that Christ washes his bride with the water of his word.

And that indicates that there is uncleanliness. There is, there are problems with the church.

There's wrong thinking, wrong doing, wrong feeling, and so on, that we're not in and of ourselves.

We are not righteous. Righteous, exactly, meaning we're not in and of ourselves God -approved.

Yes. Right? We're not from day one ready for the wedding, right?

There is some washing of the church, the bride, with the water of the word, meaning that that Jesus is actively, lovingly, correcting, cleansing, changing.

And he, of course, and who's going to argue with Jesus Christ being the supreme expression of love in all

Christian thinking? And as regards, why do people think that love is simply affirmation, right?

The definition of love, I believe, Andrew, a few weeks ago you talked about the definition of love from a

Satanist. Do what thou will. Yes, and we, and that is, that has become the definition of love in our culture.

The definition of love that is in the songs, in the movies, in the novels, in the media.

Do what thou will has become the definition of love, and this from a

Satanist. Now, it can get confusing then, if somebody is operating with that definition of love, encountering those who are

Christians following Christ, and they're not saying in harmony, do what thou wilt.

Well, hang on a second, I thought you were supposed to be loving. But consider, what if your definition of love is wrong?

Then, when you see people acting differently than your definition, you believe them to be unloving.

But you have to get back to the presupposition, maybe your definition is wrong. And to David's point, clarifying love and hate, a very specific example is given to us, expression is given to us, in Romans chapter 1, verse 18 says, for the wrath of God, now so we're clear, wrath is the holy anger of God expressed in judgment.

The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness.

Because what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them.

So, in other words, God manifests His wrath, He reveals His wrath against those who suppress the truth of God's existence.

For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even

His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. In other words, if anyone says,

I would believe in God if enough evidence were given to me that He exists. The Bible says, they've already been given the evidence of His existence, but they are suppressing that truth and unrighteousness, that this is sin, and against that sin,

God's wrath is being manifested. Verse 21 in Romans 1, because although they knew

God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of their incorruptible God into an image made that corruptible man, and birds, and four -footed animals, and creeping things.

In other words, in their suppressing of the truth of God, what is left for them to worship?

We're all made in the image of God, the worship switch is hardwired on. So if we're not going to worship

God, what are we going to worship? That which is less than God. If we're not going to worship the

Creator, we're going to worship the creation, the creature. And this is a sad state indeed.

Now, if God is loving, what will He do? If God will express His mercy, unmerited love and mercy towards those who are idolatrous, what will

He do? He will send them preachers with the word, the gospel of Christ, clarification of the righteousness of God, a call to repentance and faith.

There will be a loving expression, a merciful expression, a gracious expression of saying, turn back, turn back.

But what if the wrath of God is manifested against these idolaters? What will He do? Verse 24,

Therefore, here is the revelation of the wrath of God against these truth suppressing idolaters.

Verse 24, Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lust of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the

Creator, who was blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions, for even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.

Likewise, also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men, committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting.

And to the point where they were very much approving of all these things that they know are deserving of death, but very approving of everyone who practices them.

So what do we see here in Romans 1? We see that whereas the

Satanist would say, it is an expression of love, do what thou wilt, the

Scripture says God is expressing his wrath when he says to them, do what thou wilt.

So I think that reflecting on the Bible's definition of what love and hatred looks like, what mercy and judgment looks like, will help clarify these categories for our questioner and our listeners.

And the hope is that in the clear distinction between good and evil, the preached word of the good news of Christ will be made clear.

I read in Titus chapter 3, I think so much about the such were some of us club. I am very grateful that someone didn't just approve of my sin.

Could you imagine a state where your pet sin was not to be eschewed, rejected, done away with, repented from, but rather celebrated.

What type of judgment would that be? You're being turned over to a debased passion.

In Titus chapter 3, I'm gonna read a section. Normally whenever I go to Titus I think about the roles of men and women, servants of the church, and such.

But in chapter 3, I'll begin in verse 3, for we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, misled, serving various lusts and passions, living in malice and envy, hated, and also hating one another.

But after the goodness and kindness of God our Savior was manifested, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the

Holy Spirit, being born again, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our

Savior, that being justified by his grace we should be made heirs to the hope of eternal life.

That's our hope. Our hope is not to be found in loving where we are and just accepting yourself for who you are.

It's being born again into a new life made holy by Christ himself. And when we consider

Christ, we are reminded that he did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

And that kind of humble service is what is required for us in love. We are only serving ourselves when we look at a situation, our neighbor in grave error and sin, and we say, well you do you.

We're loving ourselves in that. We're saying, I don't want to risk myself. I don't want to get into a confrontation.

I don't want to risk the loss of relationships and pain and suffering. This is dirty work for me to have to go serve this person and speak to them the truth in a humble way and in a loving way.

I don't want to have to do that. That's complicated and messy. That's only serving ourselves. It's a lot easier to just say, you do you.

But we follow Christ and he came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

He came to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to save sinners.

He came as the great physician for those who were sick. Praise God. In the very definition of love, which you know

God is love, it says, in this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to do the propitiation for our sins.

So that kind of presupposes that there was a need for this. God defines love. But what this person has been doing, this is an old saying, but what she is doing is not that God is love, but love is

God. She knows what what love is. She defines love. She just is defining right and wrong.

She is saying, I know what love is and you guys aren't doing that. Therefore, you're not being all loving.

You can't actually be Christians. You bunch of hypocrites. It says, hold on. God defines love and he just defined it by the sending of his son.

That Christ focus, that propitiation, the most loving thing that, you know, when

Christ himself said, greater love has no man than he who lays down his life for his friends. When I get, when we get questions like this or when you, when you encounter questions like this, it really makes you wonder definitionally why they think their definition of love is superior to anyone else's.

When you, when you say, when you step into their worldview, it just doesn't make sense.

There has to be someone with the authority to place this word in its proper category who has given this word to us to use rightly.

Otherwise language and morality do, they don't make sense.

It's an all an illusion. It's possible that with words so commonly in use such as love or words so commonly in use such as condemning or judgmental or whatever, that there's not a lot of thought about the definitions of these terms.

It's just an emotional provoking. Prior, right. So the definition of the word obviously is whatever the word means to me, right, and that leads to confusion for sure.

To your point about not wanting to engage from a Christian point of view because it's dirty, the closer you get to those who are stumbling to the slaughter, the dirtier it's gonna be and the more you rest away from that, the dirtier you're gonna get or feel like you're gonna have to get in order to rest them away because you're gonna take some punches and you might take a slice or two whenever you're getting so close to help them out.

And we've been really really poignant on the term love from a biblical standpoint.

Now what will we, how will we categorize the hatred we actually see in that approval or affirmation that this questioner is asking, right?

So if she's, I don't know who they are. Is it loving to assume the pronoun?

Nice. Nice, yeah. They're asking for affirmation or their definition of love is affirmation.

In a Christian category, we would have that as a form of hatred, right, and would that be flattery?

Was seeking to have my self -definitions or my own sins affirmed consistently, is that flattery or is that a different kind of, because they're speaking to your vainglory in some way or they're trying to build up your vainglory in some way and I think flattery kind of comes into that, but is there something, another

Christian category that we can kind of give this person as to what they're asking? I think Michael kind of touched on a little bit that in order, when you're building somebody up and saying you do you because I don't want it to cost me, it's really just selfishness and fear, you know,

I'm serving myself. I'm speaking more towards the people who approve. So yeah, we're kind of, what he's talking about is like a hands -off approach, apathy, whereas I'm saying like those who approve like we see in Romans 1 or they're saying get party approval.

Yeah, keep it up. This is love, what you're doing. Well, what about the prophets who only prophesied smooth words?

Were they bringing the word of the Lord? No. No, yeah. Yes, and Jesus says you have your reward.

He talks about this in the Sermon on the Mount, that when you're doing things in such a way to receive the praise of men, you have your reward.

And so when you are, and he talks about, there is no special blessing from heaven for you affirming those who affirm you, buttering up those who butter you up, giving approval to those who approve you.

Jesus says that is no big deal. Everybody does that. That isn't what I'm talking about when it comes to love.

And I would say that in that case, you have your reward. And that's frightening. That is absolutely frightening to know that that is as good as it gets.

But when you speak the truth in love, when you rescue that person from the slaughter, when you take those punches and those kicks and bites,

I mean, metaphorically speaking and sometimes quite literally, Michael, then are you laying up treasures in heaven?

Yes, you are, and you're engaging in a kind of messiness that is

Christ -like. Let me give you some verses from Jude, verses 20 through 23. It says,

But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our

Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. I just want you to hear the anchor for our souls here.

It's about the faith for which Jude contends that it's been handed down once for all to the

Saints. It is about praying, keeping ourselves in the love of God, abiding in the

Lord. It's about recognizing our neediness and the grace and the provision of the

Lord. And then in verse 22, And on some have compassion, making a distinction, but others save with fear, save with fear, meaning reverence, thinking of God first, thinking of him most, not fearing man, not fearing death, but fearing

God. But others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, pulling them out of the fire.

And guess what? Pulling people out of the fire does not mean that you affirm them in whatever they feel and think and do and say.

Notice what it says in verse 23. But others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.

What we are being told today is that Christians should, in some sense, put out the fire by enshrining the garment defiled by the flesh as holy, making the defiled garment sacrosanct and thus you don't need to worry about the fire.

Now it's a completely alien type of idea. The Scripture knows no such category.

By what mechanism are you to sanctify that dirty garment? By the

Word. Right, and not witchcraft, right? The Word of God that declares to us what good and evil is.

Right. His knowledge of good and evil, his objective definition of good and evil, not man's rebellious, idolatrous redefinition of what good and evil are.

Yeah, exactly. Well, I think that about wraps up that question. Michael, what are we thankful for?

I'm thankful for my five -month -old infant. He's a hoot, keeps us up way too often, but it is a delight to once again have a little one in our midst and watch him learn new things and see his personality develop and just be reminded time and again of the gift of life that our

Lord gives time and again. I'm just really thankful for Jackson Shiloh.

Amen. I'm thankful for good books.

I've got several that are on my shelf that I read years ago and some of these have moved, being a former military family, move a lot, as Andrew knows, and these have survived a lot of moves and I've had to get rid of things and, you know, there are

Kindle editions and stuff but it is fun to pull old books off a shelf and see notes and things that you wrote and different things in your life and the people that you were being affected by and affecting at that time and just those really neat memories to to kind of go back over.

So I'm thankful that I have a house that has room for these things. I'm thankful to be able to have the time and a job that affords me the time to just take a book off a shelf that I haven't read in a long time and thumb through it and see even sometimes there's an inscription on the front because it was a gift.

So I'm just I'm thankful that those books have been a medium to have really good relationships with people over the years and I'm thankful to have a place to store them.

Give us two titles. Give us two titles out of those books. Okay. Hold on a second.

The first. Why are you thinking about that? No. I define a five -star book as one that you pick up multiple times a year.

So yeah. That's nice. I like that definition. I remember that. Wow. Pick up a five -star book multiple times a year.

That's cool. I'm not nearly as well read as you are. Oh no. I was actually commenting to Joel earlier that I cannot keep up with you guys.

One of my personal favorites was The Church of Rome and the Bar of History. This was

I actually lent this to. Are you saying the bar as in like the legal bar? Yeah. The Church of Rome and the

Bar of History. Yes. And it is a because I like old old history. What a silly thing to say.

Versus new history. But ancient church ancient church history versus something that's more contemporary. So The Church of Rome and the

Bar of History. And then the other one is Sola Supertura. Actually no. It's a scripture one. And it is an anthology.

It has about six or seven different authors including John MacArthur and a couple others that are personal favorite that as I was struggling with that doctrine this was one of the ones that I picked up.

So these two books kind of at the same time I went through and looked through a lot of those a lot of those notes and then

I've lent these books to other people as it's sorry for all the notes and stuff. I mean I have like like I wrote like jokes in there and like smiley face and like what does he mean by this.

Yeah. And so it's always fun to be able to loan books like that out to people and says please enjoy this as much as I did.

And you know if you end up not returning it because you enjoyed it so much pass it on to somebody else that needs it. So there you go. There's my two titles.

I like it. I'm thankful to God for some things that you well okay I'll put it like this. There are times in life that you take daily activities for granted and I'll just use one instance.

Vehicles. Vehicles can be a point of appreciation and point of frustration. And when you have a vehicle that does exactly what it was designed to do there is a temptation to just accept that for okay it's just doing what it's supposed to without necessarily giving

God thanks for a car that started. That there's air in the tires.

That I had enough money for gasoline. That I drove here safely whenever it was raining. And you can go on and on and on.

There are moment by moment acts of his providence that since we're immersed in this water we fish are like well that's just how things run.

But it's his universe and he's doing amazing things. I am into that. Yeah the less amount of cars that we have to around us the more thankful we'd probably be for it.

But they're just ubiquitous so it makes a lot of sense. I'm thankful for the labor of others.

I have recently taken on a couple of little workers and Ben and Jake and I've been very thankful for their attentiveness to detail when we're working on yards.

And their diligence and listening and working hard till the day's done.

They don't stop and that's something that you don't always see in young men. But I credit their parents and the

Lord for training them properly. And they have done quite well with me. And they're also adding.

They don't they don't understand this quite yet I don't think. But they are adding to my my work and in my business.

Because like I've said before the Lord he does not deal in zero -sum games. He's very additive and I appreciate that very much.

And I'm thankful to the Lord for those boys. And that wraps it up for today. We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Happy Knot Red.