Ligonier False Teaching Quiz (part 1)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Our Father in heaven, we're thankful to be able to be here this morning.

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Thankful physically because of the issues with the building, but also thankful spiritually that you would save, that you would sanctify us, that you would bring us together as a body of Christ.

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Lord, I pray this morning as we look to study these things, to remind ourselves, to dig a little deeper into these issues of basic theology, things that we ought to know.

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I pray that you'd remind us, that you'd encourage us, and that more than anything else you'd underscore for us the need that we have to understand you in truth.

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We pray for these things in Jesus' name, amen. Well I think there will be a theme, there has been a theme over the last several weeks, and there will be a theme for the next several, because before I take my summer break,

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I'm going to let some other men teach during the summer. But I want to sort of set the stage for what

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I'm going to be doing in the fall, which is we're going to be talking about the Trinity. Why would

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I even want to do a series on the Trinity? No answer given. Andrew, well it's confusing, it's complicated, it's not fully comprehensible by humans.

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But there's another reason why I want to do it. Okay, now I'll let

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David answer if he wants to. I don't know, this is the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me,

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I can hear myself from about a minute ago. Interesting.

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Okay, some Christians don't believe the

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Trinity, was that technically true? I don't know.

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But some people who profess to be Christians don't believe in it.

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But why else, David? Because it's very difficult to speak three minutes without saying some kind of heresy about the

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Trinity. We did it the other night at the Bible study, and it was like, I should have set my watch, you know, and every three minutes it's going to be, okay,

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I'm going to, you know, just jot down heresies, it's really hard. And mostly

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I would say this, that we have gotten so accustomed to wrong teaching, not just about the

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Trinity, but about other things, that it seems like it's just so much background noise, right?

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But I think it has real -world implications, and we're going to talk about some of those real -world implications this morning.

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All right, so let's go to the quiz. And I took this from the Ligonier False Teaching Field Manual, which

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I meant to bring this morning, but I didn't. It looks like a little military pamphlet, and when I say military it's because it's just this nasty cardboard brown -looking thing that, you know, nobody in their right mind would publish and expect to sell a lot of, so that's why

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I think it looks like a military field manual. Okay, number one, true or false, most religions that claim to be

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Christian stick pretty closely to Christian orthodoxy. It's really false.

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Now, when I say, when I use the phrase Christian orthodoxy, what I'm talking about is historical

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Christian orthodoxy, according to the creeds and confessions, what's been understood for hundreds of years. And even if we looked at groups like the

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Roman Catholic Church, we'd find out that they depart from orthodoxy in a number of places.

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But Ligonier notes that 30 % of the world professes to be Christian. That was as of 2017. 30 % of the world says,

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I'm a Christian. What does that mean? And for most of us, we're just sitting there going, well,

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I know what it means to be a Christian. Well, what do they think it means? I mean, if you recall, I'll get you.

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If you recall, when Mitt Romney ran for president, what did he say? I'm a

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Christian. I'm here to tell you right now that Mitt Romney, as of yesterday, was not a

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Christian. Maybe God saved him today, but as of yesterday, he was not a Christian. Because what the

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Mormon church believes is anti -Christian. Why do

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I say it's anti -Christian? A different Jesus. A different Jesus. A Jesus who was created, not the creator.

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A Jesus who became God and not always existed as God. So this is a completely, say,

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I'm a Christian, to say I'm a believer, it can mean something, but it often means something, well, it means something, but does it mean what we think it means?

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And the answer is typically not. If 30 % of the world professes to be Christian, how much of the world is actually

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Christian? I don't know, because I'm not God, but it's a lot less than 30%. Ligonier goes on to say, they said, however, there is an astonishingly wide variety about doctrine and practice under the umbrella of Christianity.

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Astonishingly wide. I mean, everything from, you know, name some of the groups that would profess

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Christ, that would name the name of Jesus. What's that? Okay.

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Charismatics. Adventists. Nazarenes.

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Jehovah Witnesses. I mean, all these different groups, and if you brought them all into the same room and started asking them, you know, who's

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Jesus, you're going to hear about eight or nine or ten different answers, and you're right away, you're going to go, all right, we have an issue.

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Houston, we have a problem. Or if you said, who is man? The answers are going to be significantly different.

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Number two, true or false? By the way, the answer for number one was obviously false. Number two, true or false?

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Most professing Christians stick pretty close to, I guess it should be closely, closely to biblical orthodoxy.

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I'm going to fire my secretary. By the way, that's just me. Stick pretty closely to biblical orthodoxy.

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I really think it's false. Ligonier notes this, that not all

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Christians understand the core biblical doctrines of the faith as summarized in the creeds and confessions.

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So if they don't understand those things, and I mentioned Trinity, but, you know, how many other doctrines could

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I rattle off, including just anthropology, the study of man? How many other doctrines could

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I rattle off and say, well, you know, not all professing Christians agree about those things?

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You know, somebody mentioned charismatics. So if we talked about gifts, you know, but that's kind of a secondary, in my mind, probably a secondary issue.

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But there are a number of other things, even, here's one, baptism. What does it mean?

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What does it symbolize? How about how a church is run? Should it be congregational rule?

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Should it be run by the elders? Should it be some kind of hybrid? Should there be no governance at all?

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Should there only be one man in charge of everything? Should there be one woman in charge of everything? You know, there are a lot of different ideas.

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So that's false as well. Now, number three is where we start to see the rubber hit the road.

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True or false, when a church does not stress sound doctrine, it has little impact on evangelism.

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It's false. Why? I mean, there's an interesting thought, right? If you tell

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Jesus or you tell people about Jesus, then they're going to be accountable. What's wrong with that line of logic?

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Yeah, they're already accountable. They're already guilty, right? So it's like telling, you know, don't tell the guys in jail that they're in jail because then they'll feel bad.

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I think they, you know, if they don't know they're in jail, they should know that there's something better than living behind those prison walls.

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In the same respect, you know, if you don't know there's something better than living as a condemned sinner, we probably ought to tell you.

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Did you know that you're a sinner and then did you know that you could have all your sins forgiven? I don't think that's a bad thing to tell people. I know it's not a bad thing to tell people.

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What other ways could it impact evangelism? Okay, if you don't have a sound view of the gospel, if you don't have a right understanding of sound doctrine, then the way you present the gospel is going to be, you know, kind of, yeah, it's going to be a little weird.

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I mean, somebody who does understand the gospel rightly will be sitting there listening, going, so close, nice try.

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I'd give that an 8 .8. You know, I mean, there are a number of ways of looking at it, but yes, it has a negative effect on evangelism.

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Let me put it a little more concretely. Let's say you in the workplace are the

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Christian who has the most knowledge, doctrinal knowledge, but there are other professing

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Christians in the workplace. And from time to time, they talk with your coworkers about Christ.

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So one day your coworker who's heard about Jesus comes to you and starts asking you questions and you answer them properly.

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What are they going to say? Exactly. That's not what so -and -so said, or that directly contradicts what so, you know, they said that God loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life.

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Now, yeah, distorting the gospel can create a lot of false converts, right?

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We've been talking about, oh, well, the last several weeks talking about the sovereignty of God and salvation.

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And just talking about the different ideas that people present. And I remember, and I've probably cited this before, when

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Bill Bright, anybody know who Bill Bright was? Campus Crusade for Christ, right?

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He was the founder of that. When Bill Bright died, I think it was Time Magazine, I'm sure it was Time Magazine, ran a feature on Bill Bright.

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And they quoted him. And he said, and it, you know, just kind of like makes you want to rub your temples of your forehead.

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He said that over a billion people had come to faith in Christ under his ministry.

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And I thought, okay, there are two problems with that. One is, well, there are several problems.

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One is, how does Bill Bright know? How do you suppose he came up with that number of billion? You know, kind of like McDonald's, billions and billions served.

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How do you think he came up with that number? Okay, the crusades he did, the people that registered and whatnot,

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I'm going to suggest, I'm going to suggest, I'm going to, going to, going to, I keep saying going to. I'm going to suggest that it's based on Campus Crusade kind of keeping track of the number of people who did what?

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Signed a card, answered the altar call, raised their hand, you know, made some outward profession.

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And I mentioned this the other night, and I've told this story before, but I was once at one of these crusades.

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It wasn't a Bill Bright crusade. It was a Harvest Crusade with Greg Laurie. At that time,

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MacArthur was kind of coming alongside Greg, and so they wanted people at Grace Community Church to volunteer, and I was one of the volunteers.

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And so I'll never forget this evening because they had MacArthur give the opening prayer, and it was really quite a magnificent prayer, and I thought that was really great.

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And then it just, if I could put it this way, it just went downhill from there. I mean, we had the lead singer for Foreigner.

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We had, you know, a singer from the group En Vogue, and, you know, just these different people, and then the gospel presentation, which was, oh, so close to a gospel presentation.

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And then the invitation for people to come forward, and all these people are flooding forward. And I'm standing there. I'm one of the counselors.

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You know, I mean, I'm ready. I'm ready to give the gospel to people who are, you know, ready to receive it.

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So some men come forward, and they come to me, and I'm talking to them. And so I go through a gospel presentation, and they're like, oh, we know, we know, we know, we believe, we believe, we believe.

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And I'm like, this is too easy. I go, you know, tell me something about yourselves.

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Well, they'd been in prison. They'd been saved while they were in prison. And I'm like, okay, why did you guys come forward?

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Well, we were excited. We thought, you know, we should come forward. Well, do they count?

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You know, are they little tick marks? And, you know, I think under, you know, this kind of billion, the accounting system, if you're just going to count all professions, you wind up with inflated numbers.

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I mean, imagine 1 billion people coming to faith in Christ. I think the world would be a little bit different than it is right now.

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But I remember, too, when I got saved, now, this is going to sound like I must have been a horrible person at work, but one of the people who works for me one day,

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I mean, it was shortly after I got saved, she goes, man, you're happy today. And I said, you know, finally, you know, after enough inquiries,

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I said, well, I think, you know, God saved me. She looked at me and she goes, what do you mean, like, one of those born again

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Christians? I mean, just like disgusted. And I thought, what are you, you know, what are you so upset about?

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So I started asking her, I said, you know, what do you think a born again Christian is? Here's what she said.

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She said, well, it's those people who fall around on the floor and flop around, you know, and they speak in tongues and all this.

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And I was like, where did you get that idea? Well, this is exactly what I'm talking about. If you have unsound doctrine and you present that to unbelievers, the only thing they know, you know, is what they see on TV or they go to some charismatic church and they watch people, you know, speaking in tongues and roaring like lions and falling around on the floor.

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And they think, well, that's what Christianity is. It's an empty headed, empty doctrine, you know, nonsensical playground kind of thing.

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And so when you come up to somebody and you say, can I talk to you about Jesus? And they think this is what

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Jesus is. I think it's a problem. Now, let's again, other thoughts before I move to this.

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It's not the next question, but the next point in my sub outline here. Why do you think the false doctrine exists?

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Why does it exist? OK, the Bible. Exactly. And the Bible might say something like, you know, there will come a time where men will not endure what?

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Sound doctrine. But instead, they'll want teaching that will scratch their ears, itch their ears.

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So that's exactly what you're talking about. How about.

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Well, let's look at Second Corinthians, chapter 10. Verses three to five, and I'm oh, there's my

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Bible. Not that I need it because I put the verses in my notes. I don't know why I do stuff like that, but all right.

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If somebody would read Second Corinthians 10 verses three to five. The advantage of being the teachers, you can cheat on your own notes.

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Yes, go ahead. OK, so. The picture Paul gives us, this is spiritual warfare.

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Spiritual warfare is not, you know, praying against demons and the angels come swooping in to beat them back after we pray and all that kind of stuff.

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Spiritual spiritual warfare. Is a war, it's a war of ideas,

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OK? There's the truth and there's error. The Holy Spirit is the author of truth, he's the author of.

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Well, he's not the author of confusion, so we can assume that the author of confusion is. Satan, right?

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He propagates these lies. These false doctrines seeking to stir up division, confusion, muddy the water, water down the gospel, all these kind of things.

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False doctrine is satanic, right? Yeah, I think I think it's frequently used, that idea that I need to take every thought captive, my own thoughts, right?

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I'd like to refer to that simply as self -control. If we look at this, if we just analyze this, we walk in the flesh, we are not waging a war according to the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power.

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Well, what kind of weapons have divine power? Spiritual machine guns, as it were, it's the word of God, right?

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It's the truth to destroy what? Strongholds. Wicked ideas, wrong ideas.

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We destroy, it goes on. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.

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In other words, here's the truth. Here's the error. And what do we do? We apply God's word and we smoke, you know, the error.

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We destroy it. And it gets more difficult when people are out there propagating false ideas of what

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Christianity is. Yeah, that's absolutely true.

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If you're not teaching sound doctrine, you're not obeying Christ. I mean, there's a reason why James says, for example, you know, let not many of you be teachers.

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Why? Because you're going to incur a stricter judgment. You know, you want to be accurate with the word.

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Titus says, or Paul, you know, to Titus, says that elders are to exhort in sound doctrine and do what?

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Refute those who contradict. Right. So and both are true.

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We we need to exhort and sound doctrine or a few of those who contradict. OK, the thoughts before we move on to number four.

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OK, number four, some biblical truths are more important than other biblical truths, true or false.

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I heard a false and a true. I heard several truths. Hmm. OK, well, let's let's hear from the false camp.

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I would hear from the false camp. What? Yeah, yeah.

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Who's on the false side? OK, go ahead. All truth is truth.

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I agree with that truth. OK, all truth is not saving truth.

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True. Brian, that's really not fair.

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Bringing scripture into this. Yes. All right.

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Which part of Jesus is not completely true? I guess we could argue that, too. But let's go again to this.

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Some biblical truths are more important than other biblical truths. Now, let me just kind of give you an example of why this might be true.

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And then you tell me whether you still think it's false or not. If I'm going to preach the gospel, it is essential that they understand that.

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Abraham is the father of Israel. Well, that's a biblical truth, isn't it?

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Is all truth equally important? I mean, there are a number of truths in scripture. I mean, how in other words, if I say, what's the most important thing?

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If somebody is. Dying. Do I need to teach them in the entire

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Bible? What do I need to teach them? The gospel.

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So are all things equally important? I'm not saying they're not equally true. Is that the let me see what the question says again.

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Some biblical truths are more important than other biblical truths. Not more true. More important.

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Well, it can, but I think, you know, here here's the thing. Let me put on my professorial hat for a moment.

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If you're taking a multiple choice and maybe Mark can help me out here. If you're taking a multiple choice question, is it possible to read too much into the question?

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You know, they present four answers and you're like, well, I'm pretty sure that none of those answers are right.

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Well, you can do that. You can challenge the, you know, the question and the test. But I dare say that it's it's unlikely to go well for you, unless it's a civil service exam, in which case they always make a mistake on those things.

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So, you know, you're free to free to do as you like. But if you go to your professor and say, you know what, professor,

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I'm sorry, but you just don't know what you're talking about on number four. It's probably gonna be like,

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OK, F plus for you. He failed, but he tried. It's my favorite grade.

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F plus. It was awful, but good effort. I let me list a few doctrines and see if they're more important or less important.

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Inerrancy of scripture. More important, less important. OK, what?

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OK, well, well, let's say well, let's say I'm going to go I'm going to go evangelize something. And they said and I start by quoting scripture and they say, why should

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I believe the Bible? And you go, you know what? You're right. It could have a lot of errors in it. Is inerrancy important?

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I think it is. Yeah, please tell me where I'm coming from. Yeah, it if you know, yeah, exactly.

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If somebody is about to die, you know, what are the things I have to tell them? Well, I have to convince them that evolution is wrong and, you know, that the

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Genesis account is literally correct. I don't have to convince them of that. Right.

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They need to know that they're a sinner, that they need they need to understand they're condemned. You know, they need to understand that nothing they can do is going to save them.

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They need to understand those kind of things. So, you know, if I say to you, you know,

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I'll do a this or that, you know, is inerrancy of scripture more important than the significance of baptism?

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Daniel, Daniel, which is to say, no, I will not.

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I decline your honor. I'll take the fifth. Hmm. Well, I mean,

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I could certainly have phrased it. You know, the thing about writing questions and I say this, by the way, did you hear me say this in the teaching class?

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One of the goals of writing a quiz like this is to engage the class. Right. And so if they object to the question, awesome, because now they're engaging in the class.

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Thank you. Thank you very much. Some biblical truths are important, more important than others.

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And how do we how do we, you know, estimate that?

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How do we frame that? Because like others have said, if I don't understand, if I'm ignorant of some doctrines, does it matter?

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No. If I'm ignorant of other doctrines, can I be saved? If I don't understand who

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Jesus Christ is, if I don't understand that he's truly God and truly man, can

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I be saved? I don't know. I mean,

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I don't if I disbelieve, then the answer is no. Yes, it would be pretty short.

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Be pretty short. Yeah. Well, and it presumes that he would have no former knowledge either, you know, that he didn't know anything about Jesus and he just sort of showed up and got crucified with him and is like, hey, what's going on?

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You know, so, yeah, I think it's kind of hard to know the extent of everything. But suffice it to say, if Jesus says today you'll be with me in paradise, he understood enough to be saved.

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I just don't think it's enough to just think, OK, he understood that this he understood that he was God. I think if we looked at it, we'd probably say what?

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That he understood he was an innocent man. So, Daniel, I'd like to write that essay because I think

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I'd probably wind up proving that Romans was more important than genealogies. But. Right.

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But but I but I think here's here's the key, though, with Jesus. You know, is it more important for me to understand that he's the rightful heir of David's throne, or is it more important for me to understand that he is truly

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God and truly human? And I think that's probably more important. But I would like to get to all of it.

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You know, I'm just like if I have to. I mean, I don't think I've ever in a gospel presentation necessarily.

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Gone to the genealogies, you know, but I might go to show that he's the, you know, the second

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Adam, the propitiation for our sin and all those kind of things. So, Charlie. Right.

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And. And, yeah, that's that's a good quantifier.

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You know, could you worship with a Presbyterian who believes, you know, in infant baptism? Yes. Could you worship with a

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Christian scientist who I think would probably deny the humanity of Jesus?

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Right. And the and the answer would be no. Right. You could not worship with him.

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Yeah. Situational ethics.

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Go ahead, Tom. Mm hmm.

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All scriptures inspired by God, et cetera. I mean, nobody's saying that it's not equally true.

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OK, which is which is a good point. Right. You know, like it's kind of a

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Lutheran and I don't even want to say Lutheran because then people think it's belongs to the

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Lutheran denomination. But a Lutheran ask argument, which is you meet them at the point of their doubt.

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Right. And you you say, well, wait a second. You don't believe this.

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Let me show you from scripture that that's actually true. Right. So it could be at any point.

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Right. Which is a valid one. Yeah, Taylor. Yeah, there are fundamentals.

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There are building blocks. There are principles that are essential for understanding Christianity. And actually, we're going to eventually get to this.

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Yeah, good. Which is an excellent point. Right. How did Jesus handle things?

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And so often, whether it's the rich, young ruler or others, what do you do? You know, he went to their point, you know, to their particular weakness and address it directly.

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So good. Charlie, thank you. And that's and that's the essence, you know, if there are, you know, and I'm sure there are more than 10000 truths in the

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Bible, but if we line up all the truths and we take out, you know, some of them, is it going to affect salvation?

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The answer is no. But if we take out others like substitution, atonement, is that going to affect salvation?

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Yes. So are some biblical truths more important than others? Yes. Sorry.

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Not sorry, but yes. OK, moving on.

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Number five, true or false. And here's one of those, you know, fundamental truths.

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General revelation is given to all mankind. True, true, true, true.

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I heard one false, but I'm going to overrule. True. What is general revelation?

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Creation. I was reading the Ligonier field guide, though, and I thought this is this part is true and this is one that we allied.

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You know, we kind of well, we either gloss over or we eradicate altogether.

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It's creation, but it's one other thing. Brian. Boom. There's the winner.

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Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Yeah. Creation and conscience. Why is that general revelation?

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Right. Whether you agree with what's right or wrong, you know that there is a right or wrong because God has given you a conscience.

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God has given us evidence. I mean, if we look at Romans one and Romans two, we're going to see two things.

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In Romans one, we're going to see that by creation itself, God has revealed certain aspects of himself, his power, right?

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His the orderly way in which he thinks and other aspects of just looking at creation, everything that is around us.

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But if we look at. Yeah, Brian. OK, so it's only through special revelation that we can know the author.

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So, you know, a man as brilliant as Einstein could look around and say, of course, there's a God, but he never knew who he was,

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Charlie. I mean, because how much general revelation did she really, you know, have the capacity to absorb before even understanding language?

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So. Yeah, that's. Conscience, we look at Romans one, we'd see creation,

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Romans two, we'd see that everyone has a conscience. Number six.

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True or false, without special revelation, we could not be saved. I was hoping somebody would say false.

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I don't know why. Why? Yeah, Daniel's going to say false.

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OK, what about the innocent? I'll just stop at the word innocent. Is anyone innocent?

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No, no. We know that. In fact, I'll just read Romans one. 18 to 20, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth.

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For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

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And listen, here's for the innocent person. So they are without excuse.

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Nobody has an excuse. They all can see there's a creator, and yet they do not worship him.

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And you say, well, how can they worship him unless they receive special revelation? And the answer is.

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They can't, but they would not, you know, we you know, I spent the last four weeks talking about this, you know, we have this idea that somehow anyone or someone anywhere could be possibly morally neutral, and the answer is, no, they're not.

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They're not their enemies of God. They don't love him, they hate him, and that's so hard.

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Well, OK, I don't want to say that's what the Bible says. OK, with regard to without special revelation, we could not be saved.

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Romans 10, 17 says faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

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Right. We need to hear the word of Christ. Was there anybody here who got saved without hearing the gospel from the

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Bible? I'm just wondering because I want to take back your baptism. You have it has to come through the word.

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There's no other way. How can you understand who Jesus is without scripture? Special revelation gives us

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Ligonier says a fuller explanation of the character of God, an explanation of salvation.

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How can you understand salvation without scripture? You can't. It also gives us instruction for living that pleases him.

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Instruction for living that pleases God. Psalm 19. Verses seven to 11, and I'll read that in the interest of time so we can get to the end of number six before we go.

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Psalm 19, verses seven or 11, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the

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Lord is sure, making wise the simple. You want wisdom? Study the word of God.

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The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the hearts. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

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The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

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More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and drippings of the hanko.

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Moreover, by them is your servant warned in keeping them. There is great reward.

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So instruction for living that pleases God rather than that which was does not please him.

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Now, this is going to set us up for next week. I want to make this a true or false, but I shorten the quiz by not doing this.

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The Old Testament and the New Testament are the full and this is the important word final revelation from God.

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Why is that so important? Brian, you could add to them.

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So you could say, for example, that there's a new testament to Jesus Christ like.

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Mormons do, or you could get ongoing revelation as the Watchtower does or as the

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Mormons do or as other groups do. You know, we could have somebody stand up here this morning and say,

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God told me. And we'd all have to listen. Yeah, OK, and that's a good response, right?

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Where do you say that? You know, and if he did say that, why do we need you to say that?

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Right. He Hebrews one versus one and two, the first part of verse too long ago at it many times and in many ways,

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God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son.

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The central message of scripture is the person and work of Christ, which is why it's so needful.

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It's why we have to know it. It's why we have to proclaim it. That's why we proclaim it week after week after week after week.

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And why, when you're coming to people with the word of God, you want to present the person and work of Jesus Christ to them.

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Well, we need to close. We'll pick this up next week. And this is good because it's going to let me add some what

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I really want to do, because we're going to be talking about. Prosperity, gospel and some of these false teachers, and I think for some of us, it's probably like, why would you even want to do that?

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Why would I want to do that? Talk about prosperity, gospel, Brian. OK, we want to expose the deeds of of wicked people.

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But I also think it's important because a lot of people will say that they're

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Christians and what do they believe? This. They believe this stuff.

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And so it's important to you know, it's it's great to meet brothers and sisters in Christ.

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But it's also difficult when they think they're brothers and sisters in Christ and they are holding on to some of these just awful doctrines which are not true and are not salvific and are, you know.

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In many cases, I think damning, so we have to talk about this because we want to come alongside people like that and say, well, have you read and have you read?

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Have you read? All right, let's close. Father, we thank you for your word.

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We thank you for the truthfulness of it. We thank you for ministries like Ligonier and others who really want to equip us to be fruitful believers who can proclaim the truth to unbelievers and also to remind ourselves and to exhort other believers in sound doctrine.

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Father, I pray that you would strengthen each one of us, that we might be more discerning in how we can assist those who profess