Chris Huff: Being a Pro, Chasing out Wolves, and a review of the LSB Bible Dead Men Walking Podcast

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Send it. Exploring theology, doctrine, and all of the fascinating subjects in between.

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Broadcasting from an undisclosed location. Dead Men Walking starts now.

00:20

Well hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Dead Men Walking podcast. Oh what a day, what a week, what a month it's been.

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We are getting out of the swing of the holidays and into the new year. Appreciate you guys listening, commenting.

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I appreciate you guys, how you how you come on the social media platforms,

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Instagram, YouTube, and you guys just comment. You give me updates on things, recommendations on who to follow.

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It's pretty cool just to have such a wide group of people that are out there listening and suggesting and even sending guest suggestions too, which

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I find very very interesting. You'll hear one of those guest suggestions coming up next week. I won't spoil it for you, but let's not talk about what's coming up.

01:06

Let's talk about who's here right now. It's one of our favorites. I think you might be tied for the most often guest on the podcast in the two and a half year history.

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I think Darren Doan is up there with three and I think this is his third. One of my favorite guys.

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It is Chris Hough from Matter of Theology podcast. How are you Chris? I'm good brother, how are you?

01:27

Good, so excited to have you here. If you guys are listening to this podcast right now, pause it, get out of your pod player wherever you're at, go find

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Matter of Theology podcast, go subscribe to it, listen to it. It is as the

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Italians would say, right? You can't see me if you're listening, but absolutely delicious nuggets of the

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Bible and Chris explaining it and getting into all type of topical issues and we absolutely love it. We fully endorse it here at the

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Deadman walking podcast. So make sure you support that brother. But Chris, how was your Christmas? How's your new year going?

02:01

Talk to us brother. Brother, it's a better than I deserve. Much better than I deserve. It was

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Christmas was here and gone. You know, it's the Christmas season was here and gone.

02:12

And then now, uh, you know, we're recording this, we're, we're, um, over a week into the new year and, um,

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I, I can't believe that already. So it's just crazy to me to say, and I said this on, um, on my last episode of Matter of Theology, but 2023, uh, is wow.

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I mean, to, to say that, to think about that. And then you, you start thinking about how old you are and then it's just like, well, okay, slow down there.

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And then we're still waiting on our flying cars from back to the future. I'm, I'm very, you know, I'm still waiting on the

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Jetson shower personally, bro. All right. No, I love it. So, uh, things are chugging along for you over there at the podcast.

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I know, um, you're all sorts of busy as well, but we were kind of talking offline and I said, man, you got to come on the podcast and talk about this because I know we have some similarities and I, this is the reason

03:02

I said this to you offline too, is Hey, what do you, you know, what are you rolling around in your head? What are you chewing on? What's the

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Lord talking about? I'm the same way. I might chew on something for a good six months, maybe even a year. And you're just trying to dissect it and take it apart.

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And you were talking about being a excellence and being a professional in all you do, uh, for Christ.

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And I went, yeah. And I was, yeah. And that's an absolutely great, uh, uh, episode topic because I feel like that's lacking in the

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Western Christian church. Absolutely. Um, tell me what you've been thinking about lately on that topic. Yeah, man.

03:36

Yeah. So, uh, uh, it was last year. Uh, so 2022, I, I just started following, uh, a couple of guys who are former

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Navy SEALs. Um, a gentleman by the name of DJ Shipley and, uh, Cole Fackler. Uh, they started this company called a

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GBRS group. It's a global battlefield research solutions. And what they do is they, they specialize in what they call knowledge transfer.

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And that is taking the things that they've learned from their time in the teams and transferring that to law enforcement, people who are still in the military civilians.

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Um, when it comes to personal defense, self -defense, um, what they call CQB, close quarters battle, close quarters combat.

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And, um, and then the way you, when you watch DJ and Cole and you watch what they do and how seriously they take their craft.

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Um, I just started chewing on that, man. And, um, and one of the things that DJ, uh, has said, um, uh, just in, in social media posts and zoom calls and stuff like that is be a pro, right?

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Yeah. Be a pro. I started adopting that in my job and the team that I was leading. And I would always sign off with that.

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Hey, be a pro, be a professional and all that you do. Um, and, and then I started examining my own life, brother.

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I started examining my own life and going, okay, can I say that in all I do,

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I'm a pro. And obviously the answer to that question is no. So, uh, no, it's not.

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And it's a, it's a very, very convicting thing, but it's a very challenging thing as well. And so, so this is a, this is a concept you see in scripture and, um, a brother of mine, a good friend of mine, a very close with his name is

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Alex Rodriguez. He's the pastor of Outpost Bible church in McHenry, Illinois. And, um, and he and I talk and he's a former military guy and we, he, he's big into men's leadership, men's ministry, the brotherhood.

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Um, and, and, and, and so you start to see some similarities and how some of these team guys, special operators, uh, the, the military traits, how they, how they have drawn, they are drawn from scripture.

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Ultimately they're drawn from the law of God that is written on the hearts of everyone made in the image of God. Um, and, and it just, it just, brother,

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I just started chewing on this and, and examining what the scriptures teach about what it means to, uh, to, to live with excellence, everything we think, say, and do be a pro.

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Um, and, and so brother, I just started chewing on that. And, and since I've been, and, and I just started chewing on that, uh, gosh, summertime, early fall last year.

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And it's, the Lord is starting to, starting to work to where there's some fruit coming from it as I'm starting to kind of put some stuff out about it.

06:03

Yeah. And you're kind of talking about in all aspects of our lives, right? I mean, the Puritans were, were big on this too, of just like, of all aspects of life, glory to God, excellence to God.

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Sometimes there's two things here. I see we get caught in and you tell me if, if we're tracking on this, I see sometimes

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I'll see people say, if you, if you, if you're focusing too much on excellence, maybe it's in the instrument you play or the business that you run or whatever it is.

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Well then that that's, it's almost religious. It's legalistic. You're just trying to be perfect. Sure.

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And then, and then on the other side of it, I see people limited to just one or two things. Well, I just need to be a real excellent, uh, guitar player for the

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Lord or real excellence, you know, Sunday school teacher for the Lord and then let everything else in life fall to the way center.

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Are you talking about excellence in all aspects of life? I think you are, but I just want to make sure.

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Yeah, no, absolutely, man. I mean, yes, of course. I mean, obviously you want to be a professional in the craft, uh, the, the, the skill, the job, the, uh, the vocation the

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Lord has you in definitely. But, but when was the last time you stopped and examined, um, your ability to be a pro when it comes to killing, not just the deeds of the flesh, but the desire to commit the deeds of the flesh.

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Right. When was the last time you said, okay, no, I'm going to be a pro in this way. Not because I'm trying to earn favor with God.

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That would be workspace salvation. That would be Roman Catholicism, which is not what we're about. Um, but, but it is, it is because of what

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God has done because of what Christ has done on the cross, the life, the death, the burial, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and, and his grace and mercy that he has shown us that our desire should be in all that we do.

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We do under the glory of God. And Thomas speaking of a Puritan, Thomas Watson, the glory of God is the silver thread that should connect and bind.

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I'm paraphrasing a little bit, everything that we do. Um, and, and so often in our lives, if we're honest, it's not, um, it's never going to be, we're never going to arrive at that, but that's what we aim for.

08:04

Right. Aim small, miss small. Um, if we're aiming for that, if we're seeking to mortify, like I said, just a second ago, if we're seeking not just to mortify the deeds of the flesh, but the desires that lead to the deeds, because James tells us, right, where does, where does sin begin in the heart with lust epithumia epithumia in the

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Greek. And so that is a desire, a lustful, evil desire. Jesus said in Matthew five to kill that, right.

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That Kakos epithumia, that evil desire that exists within you. Are you, are you approaching it in that way?

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Are you willing to take your violence scale? Let's listen to somebody else talk about this recently, the violence scale of zero to 10.

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Are you ready to go to a 10 when it comes to your sin? Yeah. Because if you're not, then we're, we're, we're not, we're not living a life of, of continual repentance.

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So that's, that's, that's so true. You even putting it in that frame of having excellence and killing not only the acts, but the desires that convicted me as I'm sitting here right now, just because I haven't thought of it like that.

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Uh, I don't think ever, um, really having an excellence towards, uh, killing it.

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Who, who's the, what's the famous, is it? John Owen, uh, be killing Senator, it'll be killing you. Mortification of sin. Right.

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Excellent. So, yeah. So, uh, man, so convicting. And, and I feel like a lot of us don't look at it that way.

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Uh, that's self included. That's what I'm saying. Me sitting right here. And it's very timely for me personally.

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I always joke and say, uh, I love doing this podcast because it's like, uh, every week I have a guest on much smarter than myself and I just get an extra sermon once a week.

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You know, it's like, it's more of a blessing to me than it is to, you know, anyone else. So it's a little self -serving, but, um,

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I've been convicted of that. I'm in a prayer group at my, at my church, a men's prayer group, and just talking about them praying for me on self control and self -discipline and doing things in excellence.

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Um, how I'm eating, uh, my sleep patterns, how, how I'm, uh, talking with other people, friends, family, business, you know, business associates, and really lacking.

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And I think it all comes down. A lot of that excellence comes down to, uh, lack of self -control, lack of self -discipline, which is a cause of not, uh, meditating on the word and being in prayer.

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Anytime I see my prayer life or the time in the word slipping, uh, that self -control lack of self -control and self -discipline comes back and excellence is brought down four or five, six fold.

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Um, so would you say, would you track with that and say, Oh bro, that's where we, you know, that, that's kind of the root of, uh, of having a lacking in excellence or what are some things we can do to, to have excellence in those areas we just talked about?

10:42

Man. I mean, you, you just, you, you hit on so much, man, you hit on so much right there. So the, uh, the meditation piece, um,

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I just, the first podcast, a matter of theology for this year was on, was on that meditating museum. The title of it was musing on the word in 2023.

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Oh, check that out guys. And, and it came from this little book right here. It's meditation, a

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Christian on the Mount by Thomas Watson. Um, and it's edited and put together by our brother Dustin binge. Um, phenomenal, phenomenal little book, man.

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And, and, and he talks about that brother. He talks about the musing, um, the groaning, uh, over scripture and, and seeking to apply that in everything we do.

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So brother, so here's, here's, here's how I approach this year personally. Uh, obviously the end of the year, you know, you're, you're reevaluating and you're going, okay, what

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I want to do in 2023 Bible reading plans book, you know, book lists, uh, physical, physical exercise goals, et cetera, so on and so forth, whatever it is.

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Another book I want to, I want to plug here cause I read it in December of 2022 redeeming productivity by Reagan Rose, redeeming productivity by Reagan Rose.

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Get it, uh, get it on audible, get it in, in, in, in print copy. It is phenomenal. You're going to want to mark it up.

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It's very practical, very biblical. Uh, Reagan is a graduate of the master seminary, dear brother and a dear friend.

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So check that out. Um, but he's, he talked about, you know, productivity and stuff in there. And, and this is what he said.

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This is what got me thinking. It started really churning the wheels, really turning on this, on this concept of being a pro and all that we do.

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Okay. He's talking about productivity. And he said, he said, uh, productivity, we don't measure productivity by how many things we start, but how many things we complete.

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And so when I, in an approaching this year and approaching how, how am I going to study scripture this year?

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How do I, what kind of disciplines and you just hit on it? What kind of disciplines do I want to have in place? Well, instead of reading through,

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I've got the MacArthur daily Bible, right? I can read through that again and read through the entirety of scripture. But I reached out to a friend of mine and I said,

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Hey brother, what are you and your church doing this year? And he said, he said, well, we're going to read to read through the new Testament Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes for 2023.

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That's it. And I started thinking about that. I'm like, you know what? I, I, that's what I'm going to do this year.

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And the reason I want to do that this year is because I want to take my time. I don't want it so much to be about quantity.

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I want it to be quality. I've read through the Bible, you know, the last couple of years, but this year

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I want to read through it. I want to take a section of scripture like today, for example, is Matthew seven, right?

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Amazing chapter in scripture. I read it this morning twice. I'm going to read it this afternoon and that's going to be the last thing

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I read before I go to bed because I want, I want to marinate, uh, meditate. And in the

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Hebrew meditate means to groan or to growl. And Thomas Watson equates that as to like chewing your cud, right?

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Um, chewing on that, chewing on the scriptures and allowing the scriptures ultimately to chew on me and prune me and reprove me and admonish me.

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And as, uh, as, as 2023 goes on. So that was, that was what I decided to do.

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So brother, you just, you just nailed something here also when it comes to that. It's like, you know, we as believers in the

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Lord Jesus Christ, if we have been saved by grace through faith alone, we should be in Jesus, uh,

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Jesus sermon on the Mount, right? Matthew five, we should be salt and light. We should be, we should be encouraging and preserving.

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So when, when we profess faith in Christ and this is, this is a fine line to walk, but I want to go here.

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If I'm going to profess faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yet we don't have the self -control and the discipline to care for the temple of the

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Holy spirit in a way where we are not morbidly obese. Yeah. What does that say about us?

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Does that, does that speak to what, does that speak to what we think about God?

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You know, and, and, and again, I know it's a fine line. I know that there's, there can be health issues sometimes that are in play.

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And I'm not, I'm not saying that you have to be in shape and you have to look like Dwayne Johnson. That's not what

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I'm saying. What I'm saying is, is how we carry ourselves and everything we think, say, and do should be reflective of our view of God.

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Absolutely. That's so good. And we've come such a long way, uh, from, you know, especially in Western Christianity.

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I know we always pick on it when we get together, but you know, this is where we live and this is our church. And I think we both have a heart to want, want people to know truth.

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And neither one of us are saying that we have everything figured out. Right. But at the same time, we have such an abundance in this country that we have just, we have just thrown away the sin of gluttony and the sin of lack of self -control and just went well in so many blessings here.

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Yeah. It's, it's fine. We don't even talk about it. It's never heard of in the pulpit because 60 % of your congregation, uh, lacks self control.

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I lack self -control in that area. Uh, for the last three weeks, I mean, for the last six months, I've been convicted about it.

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I'm 35 pounds overweight. I'm going, I don't need to be 35 pounds overweight. I just need self -control.

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What I put in my mouth when I do it and how often, uh, you know, and it's, that's simply what it is, a lack of self -discipline and self -control.

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And why is that? Uh, because I am not in communion, uh, with the one who gives self -control and self -discipline enough.

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So I know what you're saying when you say that. And I know it's a, we, we have to say, oh, it's a, you know, we don't want to offend anyone.

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It's a thin line. I get that. Um, and there's exceptions to the rule, but by and large in the United States, we have an obesity problem and within the church.

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And we act like gossip, gluttony, uh, you know, these, these minor sins

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I've heard people call them. I don't think there is such thing as a minor sin. I think sin is sin. Um, uh, we, we just, we don't preach on them.

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We don't talk about them and we ignore them. And, and I'll tell you what, when you're talking about excellence, like you are, it's in every single area of our life.

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Even the ones is what we see, what we think is mundane is what we're eating, uh, how we're mentioning, uh, someone to another person, uh, even being, yeah,

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I know this is going to sound nitpicky, but even having respect for people, for being punctual, for saying, if you're saying you're going to do something, do it like yes, be your yes and your no, be your no.

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That's a convicting thing for me. Yep. I see. I see a lot of this where people say yes to something and then, Oh, I can't do it because of this, that, or the other.

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And look, there's legitimate reasons why you have to, uh, you know, change things. Heck, we changed the time we were going to record this today because, you know, my fault, something came up, but little things like that and having excellent in those little areas of our life that actually grow and blossom into these excellent things that are huge things in our walk with Christ.

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Um, I just think it's so fulfilling. I mean, does, does that make sense? Are we kind of tracking on there?

17:35

Absolutely. Well, absolutely. It is the little things, right? I said it earlier. Aim small, miss small, man. It's like,

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I mean, if you, if you say you're going to do something, let your yes be yes and your no be no. Don't make a vow.

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If you're not going to, if you're not going to fulfill that vow. I mean, that's why for the believer, but new year's resolutions can be dangerous.

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We're making a vow or making a commitment. I'm going to do X, Y, and Z. Well, it's like, okay, well slow your roll here.

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Make sure this is something, if you're going to commit to it, understand you bear the name of Christ. Yeah.

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You bear the name of Christ, wherever you go, whatever you do, whatever you say is reflective upon him.

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And, and brother, and I'm the same way, man. I have those things, um, that I'm working through right now where I'm going, ouch, ouch.

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Here's one brother. Here's one. Like you look at, um, in reading through the first part of Matthew last week, right?

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You see Matthew chapter two, um, uh, the visit of, of the Magi. And here you see, uh, the flight to Egypt and you see

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Joseph, right? And, um, and I just recorded an episode on this. I haven't released it yet. So by the time this comes out, this, that episode will probably be live, but.

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I noticed a couple of things in reading through this last week, Matthew chapter two, think about everything that Joseph had been through, right?

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Here he is betrothed to this teenage girl. And he is a, the Bible says that he is a man of righteousness.

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He knows the law. He loves the law. He wants to obey the law. And here he finds out his teenage almost to be wife is pregnant.

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Yeah. And an angel of the Lord appears to him. The word of the Lord is given to him. And, and what does he do?

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He's a B obedient immediately. Yeah. Immediately. And so when you read in Matthew two, um, it says this already in verse 13, now, when they had departed, behold, an angel of the

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Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream saying, get up, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you for Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him the next words in the next sentence.

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So Joseph got up. Wow. Right. He does it again. Skip down to verse 20, verse 20, get up, take the child and his mother, go into the land of Israel for those who sought the child's life are dead.

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Verse 21, very next sentence. So Joseph got up. Yeah. Immediate obedience.

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And Dr. Stephen J Lawson likes to say delayed obedience is disobedience. And bro, when

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I read that last week, I was like, ouch, man, what I started asking myself these questions, like what areas in my life do

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I need to stop what I'm doing and be immediate, immediately obedient and kill that, kill the desire for that.

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Or what areas in my life, according to scripture, am I not living up to what scripture states?

20:17

Then I need to get up, right? Follow Christ. You see the same thing in the disciples, right?

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The first disciples were called, um, Matthew chapter four. Um, and he said to them, follow me for,

20:30

I will make you fishers of men. And immediately they left their nets and followed him. Yeah.

20:37

And then it does it verse. Uh, and then when he calls James, son of Zebedee, John, his brother, um, in the boat with Zebedee, their father mending through the nets.

20:44

And he called them and immediately they left the boat and their father and they followed him.

20:51

Yeah. Immediate obedience. Yeah. So I'm like, Oh, right in the heart.

20:57

I'll tell you what, there is, there is a, something to be said for, for all of the Proverbs that you see about a wise man and a discerning man, slow to speak, slow to action.

21:06

Sometimes when practicing excellence, when, uh, in communion with the Lord, sometimes there is, and I would say most of the times when, uh, you know, when the

21:16

Lord speaks for obedience, there needs to be swift action there. Yeah. Uh, the longer you debate obeying the

21:23

Lord, the more likely chance that you either talk yourself out of it, your flesh rears up and says, eh, that's not really what

21:29

I should be doing. I don't feel like it. I don't want to, um, when there's something Godly to be done, uh, we need to do it swiftly in the same way that we swiftly, uh, reject temptation and we don't entertain it.

21:41

Right. Right. Um, so there's something to be said about that too. And those two situations that you just brought up,

21:46

I'd never really thought of it that way, but I've noticed in my own life, if I'm being called to something, uh, to obey the

21:53

Lord, uh, the more I want to think about it, uh, that I don't want to do it, or it's going to inconvenience me, or is this the right thing?

22:01

And I'm not saying jump into something blindly and say, oh, the Lord told me, right? Neither one of us are on that page.

22:06

No. All right. Uh, generally when you come up to me and said that the Lord told me, I'm almost tuned out immediately. I'm like, brother, we need to have a 20 minute talk before you even tell me what you're about to tell me.

22:15

Uh, but, uh, my, my point is, is there is times for swiftness to obedience,

22:21

I think. Um, and that's just yet another area of your life, excellence and obedience, which we don't talk about too often on that.

22:30

I mean, any, look at my church does Christ, the word church, which absolutely love does. And I'm sure your church does, but you, you go out and look at, you know, um, the, the vast majority of online sermons by most of these evangelical churches, they're not talking about these things that I think do a disservice to the believer.

22:48

Oh, absolutely, brother. Well, absolutely, man. And I, and I think that that just contributes to when, when we don't see our leaders are under shepherds under the chief shepherd, when we don't see them, um, operating this way, um, and setting the tone and setting the example and proclaiming and heralding the message that is here in the word of God, then that, that absolutely gives a license and permission.

23:12

Um, uh, you know, albeit it may be passively, but it's still permission to, to carry on that way.

23:18

You know, I mean, brother, look, look at how, look at the debate between, you know, that happened, uh, you know, two, three

23:24

Lord's days ago, uh, as of the recording of this episode, Christmas day fell on the Lord's day and how many churches,

23:31

I mean, it's brother. I'm, I'm in the metro Atlanta area in the Bible belt, the buckle, the Bible belt, we had so many,

23:38

I mean, just seeker oriented churches around here that closed the doors. Yeah. They closed the doors.

23:44

Look brothers, your call, your call and command is to be a slave to Christ and Christ's word commands you to keep the doors open.

23:52

What families decide to do is up to them, but you don't close the doors and, and, and, and bind the consciences of those who seek to, who want to obey scripture and want to gather your bind, then binding their conscience because they can't gather because you've closed the door.

24:07

Yeah, that's not excellent. Go ahead. Yeah, no, I was just going to say, um, I was convicted on that as well because I would say up until the last time, uh,

24:19

Christmas fell on the Lord's day, which was, would be what, six or seven years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, is that how he, right?

24:24

That's how up until that, up until this was the first year where I yearned to, to, to worship and, and, and come before the

24:33

Lord of communion and confession on the Lord's day up until this is shame for me, for me to admit,

24:38

I, you know, the Lord saved me at 24, but I would always rationalize it with, well, family's important.

24:45

God wants us to be with our family. What could be tradition had a lot to do with it. I love I'm a,

24:50

I'm a tradition type of guy. I'm an extrovert that loves the seasons and the setting and the feelings, right.

24:55

And the Christmas tree and the family, and you got small children, they're excited. And I went, what could be more godly than to spend time with your family and create a memory with them and be a good father.

25:04

And guess what? Those are good things, but there's a lot of good things that are not more. No, no good thing is more important than, than Christ.

25:11

Right. Correct. So this year it was, um, it was like something had been lifted off my shoulders and I couldn't wait to get to our service on the

25:19

Lord's day and praise him, worship him, confess my sins, be among my brothers and sisters.

25:24

That's right. That's something I've been convicted of, but you, uh, in many respects are, uh, you are closer to me than, uh, certainly my unsaved family members.

25:34

Right. I mean, I, that sounds harsh to say, and if any of them are listening, I'm sorry, but Chris and I have a bond through the blood of Christ.

25:41

And that is, that is you, unless you're in that adopted family, you don't understand what that means.

25:49

And it was so refreshing, uh, that the Lord, um, allowed me to have the, to, to get rid of the, the sin of not wanting to be among the brothers and sisters and not wanting to gather to where now it was like,

26:00

I couldn't wait to get there. Uh, I wanted to be there. So, um, just a little testimony on my side and ashamed to say it took me that long to realize that, but I think,

26:10

I think a lot of believers are like that. Absolutely. We are. And I'm not condemning them. I'm not saying, look, you're a horrible person because you want to stay at home with your family on Christmas.

26:20

I'm saying, I think there is a sanctification is a lifelong, uh, process.

26:26

Right. But I, but I think you can, that's an example where, where you turn a corner on something.

26:32

And it's one more thing to where I feel like I've shed a tradition. I've shed the last part of the flesh holding onto something and saying, all

26:40

I want is Christ in that little area. And, and I want everyone to experience that just like you do, just like I do, you know?

26:48

And I think that's why we're, we're very harsh on, uh, false teachers and false gospels and people that lead astray.

26:56

And once again, not we, you know, anytime I have a, a critique of someone or say,

27:03

Oh, you, you should probably look at this. It's not, I'm not sitting from a, from a place of superiority, believe.

27:08

Right. Right. I had no, I know a lot of people and almost all of them are smarter than me, more intelligent, but at the same time, we have to, we have to call those out.

27:17

And I know you do it so well and you do it in love, but with sternness, which is what I like. You've got some guys that are just out there to get clicks and they're going to call this guy every name in the book.

27:27

And they're going to say, he's not a believer. He's going straight to hell, right? Whatever. And it gets those clicks but there's absolutely no edification of why, why we shouldn't.

27:35

And then you have the other ones that coddle. Right. And say, Oh, well they're misunderstood or, you know, they're a pastor, not a theologian.

27:42

We had Dr. Sam storms say that on this podcast about bill Johnson. And I about fell off my chair.

27:49

He goes, Oh, well, he's not a theologian. He's a pastor. I go, geez, I think you should know a little bit about knowing God. Then I actually had a pastor say that to me once I'm not interested in being a theologian,

28:00

I'm like, then you don't have no, you are not qualified to be a pastor. If that's the case. Yeah. Every believer needs to know the study of knowing who

28:07

God is. It's such a beautiful thing. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. You know? So I think, you know, not to change subjects here, but I know that you talk about, uh, you know, uh, calling out wolves and, and, and, and talking about false doctrines and, and false gospels.

28:21

And why do you feel that's so important when you do do it on, uh, your live streams and your podcast to, to call those out and to make clarifications?

28:30

Is that just, is it, you know, are you just nitpicking? Are you just a big meanie? Are you just jealous because they have views?

28:36

Why are you doing it? You caught me, brother. You caught me. You have exposed devil's advocate of you.

28:42

You've exposed me, brother. Um, no man, it's, you know, the reason, the reason that we do it and, and, and this, this, this came up recently.

28:50

Um, this came out recently. So, uh, I'm going to mention some names here. Hope you're okay with that. Um, so, uh,

28:58

Lindsay, Lindsay Davis, knots, um, Lindsay Davis, if you, if you know the name, she, uh, she was shot to stardom.

29:05

If you will not not stardom fame, uh, as far as in our circles, because, um, she, she took off from Bethel supernatural school of ministry and exposed them, called them out, did multiple podcasts.

29:18

I was interviewed for the American gospel film, um, you know, and, and rightfully so she rightfully called them out.

29:26

Well, recently she is, she is recanted that and quote unquote, repented of, of, uh, calling bill

29:33

Johnson and Chris Vallinson and others, false teachers, and that he doesn't actually believe in kenosis.

29:38

And he's actually said he never has denied the fact that Jesus was deity. And, uh, the two or three

29:46

YouTube videos you can go look at right now, except for the books that are still in print and the books that are still in print that you can, that you can purchase today.

29:54

And so, um, I tweeted, uh, I like Twitter, Twitter's fun sometimes. And, uh, so I put a tweet out just about how,

30:02

Hey, just let me be clear. Bill Johnson is a false teacher. Uh, he is a heretic. He is to be marked and he is to be avoided period paragraph, end of discussion.

30:09

When you look at everything that they have propagated. Um, and I'm answering your question, but a little bit of roundabout way.

30:15

Um, no, take your time, brother. And so I, I put this tweet out there and then there was this gentleman on, on Twitter, um, who did follow me, but now no longer follows me, follows me.

30:24

And his whole thing, his whole hangup was, did you reach out to them privately before condemning them publicly?

30:33

And, um, I've never heard bill Johnson say this. I've never heard this. I've never heard that. Um, and so it, it,

30:40

I, I admonished him and I said, brother, I, I sincere, he's like, I've been a believer for 60 years and a pastor for 30 years and all this stuff.

30:48

And I'm like, well, brother, I would sincerely admonish you and encourage you to go study what the scriptures say about calling out false teachers.

30:54

The scriptures are clear to have nothing to do with them. Don't break bread with them, but yet expose them.

31:00

Um, you know, he, his whole thing was Matthew 18. I'm like, well, brother, again, in context, Matthew 18 deals with church discipline and local church.

31:07

I am not required to follow that when exposing someone who teaches publicly things that blaspheme the name of my

31:14

God and things that are contradictory and antithetical to the scriptures. My calls. Yeah, absolutely.

31:20

My call and responsibility is to lovingly pray for them and warn those who would, would see anything

31:28

I would write or listen to anything I would say and saying, you need to mark and avoid them. Here's what they teach.

31:33

Here's why it's false. Here's the correct teaching. Pray for them. Period. Have nothing to do with them.

31:39

And here's why Ephesians five. What does Christ desire when she, when the apostle

31:45

Paul is, is writing that letter to the church at Ephesus and giving the example of how husbands are to love their wives and to wash them with the pure water of the word.

31:54

And Paul says there it is. I'm speaking about the church. The desire of Christ is to have a pure bride, a unified bride.

32:02

And he has left those of us who, who proclaim to love him are an adopted child of his on this planet to, to herald first and foremost, the gospel, the life, the death, the burial, the resurrection of the

32:17

Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins to, to herald that, to, to proclaim, to repent for the kingdom of God is near.

32:25

But then at the same time, he gives us in his word, the instruction to mark and avoid for this reason.

32:32

And so, yes, we call out false teachers and we call them out publicly. We don't do it in a way that makes us look high and mighty.

32:39

I've had people say, yeah, I read in Matthew seven today, right? You shouldn't judge. The Bible says not to judge. Yeah. Keep reading in Matthew seven.

32:46

Matthew seven talks about examining the fruits. Sure. Right. Narrow gate, wide gate, examine fruits.

32:52

And you shouldn't judge is a judgment in and of itself. Correct. Right, right, right, right.

32:57

So, so brother, yeah, man, it's, you know, we do call out false teaching and false teachers and we do name them as we see that example given in scripture.

33:06

Um, uh, you know, but we don't do it in a way of, you know, we have it all together. We know best and et cetera.

33:12

But you know, what's so great about this is, Oh, probably about six months ago. And if you're listening, go back to the back catalog and listen to when, um, pastor

33:21

Burke Parsons came on the podcast, he's editor in chief of Ligonier, uh, I don't know, uh, yeah, table talk.

33:27

And we were talking about the importance of creed and confessions. And I thought it was just going to be the basic, you know, it's good for teaching.

33:33

It's good for, you know, review things like that. Obviously it doesn't supersede the Bible. He says, you know, it's also a very early, uh, in church tradition, a very early way to organize how we find who the wolves are.

33:48

Yes, sir. Don't believe in or, and I went, Oh my Lord. Yes. Yeah.

33:53

The guidebook is right there. We've had it. We, we have a, a London confession. We have a Heidelberg. We have a

33:59

Westminster. We have, we have these, these, you know, guidelines as he called them, kind of the guardrails.

34:05

Right. So we don't, and you can go, yeah. If you have a pastor who, who is preaching and talking and saying things that are against orthodoxy, then, then we, then yes, we have to judge.

34:18

We have to call out the Bible commands us to yeah. What I, what I think is most pastors, uh,

34:24

I don't want to say most, I think some pastors will use that. Uh, did you go to him privately? They'll misinterpret

34:29

Matthews 18 there and maybe knowingly sometimes they, you know, and go, did you go to him?

34:35

Let's just keep it all behind the scenes and talk to them and respect out of, they have a position worse if it's knowingly.

34:41

And look at, I, I respect pastors. I call pastors, pastors, or, or ministers or, you know, those things.

34:46

But at the same time, there has to be some level of introspection and being able to be open to, uh, not only criticism, but reproof, right.

34:55

Um, whether you're a pastor, an elder, or just a member of, uh, of the church of God. So it's one of these weird things where you get a lot of pushback, even within Christianity.

35:07

Uh, because we, you know, once again, um, you know, lacking excellence and even that, but, uh,

35:13

I know we kind of got off on another subject there, but, but it applies, man. It's just, I mean, when you,

35:19

I'm going to use a, I'm going to use a worldly phrase here. See something, say something. Right. Um, I mean the same, the same thing applies here.

35:28

I mean, if you, if you see false teaching, you need to say something. If it's public, if, if, if you're in a church where the pastor is, is, is propagating, you know, heresy or stuff that's just blatantly incorrect found in the scriptures, you need to go to him and say something like, brother, can you, can you help me see how you pulled that from, from this?

35:51

Because you know, I, I'm not, I, in context, here's what I'm reading and here's what

35:56

I see. And, and I'm just wanting you to help me understand it. Right. And just start, start asking questions.

36:01

I'm not saying go to him and be like, bless for me, you know, pull up a washer on him. Uh, they're in public, you know, in private, sometimes that needed that's needed.

36:10

Yes, it is. Sometimes it is. Paul's the guy to do it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Is a gift for it.

36:15

Why are you clapping? I'm talking about you, you know, or an RC sprawl. What's wrong with you people? You know, it's yeah, exactly.

36:22

Absolutely. Brother. It is. I mean, it's a zeal for your house has consumed me. Right. And I've had,

36:28

I've had people come to me and go, well, why do you care? Why do you care? You know, we, we love Jesus. We're doing good works.

36:34

We, we love the same God. Why do you care about your being nitpicker? Why do you care? And I just go look at, I've seen even in my own life,

36:40

I've seen where if I am off a little bit, five years, 10 years, 15, 20 years down the road, 50 heck

36:48

I've talked to people who have been in, in, in a tradition -based religion and go what, and they're in, they've been in church for 35 years.

36:56

And on the 36th year, they go, oh, that's who God is. That's what this is all about. They have a true realization, right?

37:04

I've said many times, I said the sinner's prayer at seven and got saved at 24, right? So there's a difference between hearing something and knowing something.

37:13

And so for me, it is, you don't want to be that far off.

37:18

You're laying a foundation when I hear Bill Johnson or Steven Furtick, or, you know, you're real crazy with the Kenneth Copeland and who's the, uh, who's

37:26

Kenneth Copeland's buddy now, uh, Jesse Dupree. Did you see that just a couple of weeks ago saying he is, he is

37:31

Christ. Uh, he, you know, he, when you look at me, you see father God. I mean, the guy's just so out there.

37:38

Uh, I wish I had the clip. It's total blasphemy anyway. And those guys, you go, who's still listening to them, but they have an older generation that grew up on them that are still very loyal to them, listening to them and, and, uh, believing what they say.

37:53

But my, my point is, is the ones that really worry me are the younger ones, the Steven Furtick's, the

37:58

Judah Smith's, the, uh, Todd White's the, that, that they sound good. They, but when you dig in and then if you're getting that week after week, year after year to where you go no further than that, and you have the surface level idea of who

38:12

God is and what your sin is, I'm sorry, but your sanctification is studded your maturity and Christ is stunted.

38:19

Um, and ultimately it's because I'm concerned about that soul. I'm concerned about that person and that soul.

38:26

Uh, and that's why it's not because it's like, oh, I want to, I want to prove that person wrong.

38:31

Right. I want to be right. You know, or I want to be right. Here's, here's, here's another, here's another example of this, right? I mean, brother, you think about, so I just,

38:38

I wanted to turn to act 1711 real quick and just, just read this because, uh, because I, I just,

38:43

I hope that all of us would approach the scriptures the way, um, the way the

38:49

Bereans did. And so, so a couple of things, right? A couple of things that this one verse says, it says, now they were noble minded.

38:57

These were noble, were more noble minded than those in Thessalonica, the Bereans for, they received the word with, with great eagerness.

39:07

Okay. Uh, they received all of the word with all great eagerness examining the scriptures.

39:16

Okay. Uh, inquiring about the scriptures daily to see whether these things that were being taught were so yeah.

39:27

Excellence be a pro search, the scriptures be a pro. If you are not leaving the

39:34

Lord's day and going home with your family or by yourself, if you're and you are not pouring for that next week or a portion of that next week, or at some point in that next week, and you are not pouring over the, the, the sermon from the last week and examining the scriptures, not so you can catch your pastor and false teaching.

39:56

That's not the goal. The goal is to be conformed more and more to the image of Christ. The goal is to take the labor of love that that pastor has spent, spent hours preparing to give to you and allowing the

40:07

Lord to work on your heart. But one of the benefits is you're going to be able to go, well, wait a second, that, that, that doesn't line up with scripture.

40:16

Wait a second. That person's teaching is incorrect. Here's an example. I got two examples for you.

40:21

I know we're getting short on time too, but two examples for you real quick. Number one, Chris Tomlin. Yeah.

40:26

Now look, if you know me personally, and you've known me personally for a long time, I used to lead music in churches.

40:32

I've done staff at churches. Anybody who has ever played with me in a band understands that there have been sets.

40:39

There have been services where it's been all Chris Tomlin songs, bro. I mean, when the, when the love ran red record came out, there was a, there was a couple of different Lords day.

40:49

It was just every, every song we did was a song from that record. The song almighty love that song, bro.

40:57

Anyway, he just this week, his part, he and his wife have a charity organization.

41:05

They've partnered with the chosen. Wow. Yeah. And I mean, he's been at verdicts church.

41:13

He's been writing songs with Bethel for years now. Look, I know

41:19

Chris Tomlin personally. I worked, I was a volunteer for two years at passion city church. When passion city church first started,

41:25

Chris and his team were there. I'm still friends with his guitar player, Daniel Carson. Okay. Okay. He texted me last month.

41:32

Like, you know, like there's personal ties here. So I'm saying this with a heavy heart, but I'm saying this and going,

41:40

I can't, I cannot stream his songs anymore because that contributes to him financially.

41:47

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I can't do that. He's partnering with the chosen. He's partnering with Bethel who blaspheme the name again, excellence, noble -minded.

41:57

The goal is to with great eagerness, examining the scriptures. One more example for you, brother. And this one, this is a big one.

42:04

Did you know that crossway publishers were, they were reached out to by the

42:13

Roman Catholic church in India. Okay. Uh, about developing an, uh, a version of the

42:21

ESV geared towards Roman Catholicism, adding the Apocrypha and Psalm one 51, et cetera, so on and so forth.

42:30

Yeah. Crossway has done it. Oh my goodness. So here's the question.

42:36

I just bought a Bible last year from crossway. Come on guys at the G3 conference where I met you.

42:41

Right. Right. Right. I mean, so, so here's a question, right? And I'm not saying look, please hear me, please hear my heart in this.

42:48

I'm not saying everybody needs to go out and boycott crossway. I just bought the John Owen set existence and attributes.

42:55

I bought those right. Bottom from, um, uh, Westminster books, but for churches out there and pastors out there,

43:02

I know there's a book division and a Bible division of crossway, but I would, I would implore you to research this and to pray and to seek the scriptures and go, can we can, if we're an

43:16

ESV church, right? Yeah. Should we, can we, how are we going to approach this?

43:21

If we get asked about it, what are we going to do with our treasure that the Lord has given us to steward in response to this?

43:28

Are we going to continue to, to invest in and buy a bunch of Bibles from crossway or are we going to go, okay, we need to research this.

43:36

We need to have some, we need to reach out to them and have a conversation. And it may be your conviction that you're like, Hey, we're going to keep going because of X, Y, and Z then go for it.

43:43

But when stuff like this happens, like we, we have to stop and we have to make sure that all of us, myself included are not capitulating on the altar of pragmatism.

43:55

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's funny that you mentioned that too, because I've been an ESV reader for geez, the last 15 years and the church we've been attending for the last year, um, is, uh,

44:08

NASB 95, I think mostly, except when we read, when, when, when our pastor reads for, it wasn't the same version and we're going to what's on the screen.

44:18

Isn't what he's reading. I said, that's neither one of what I have. He goes, Oh, I'm legacy Bible. Yes.

44:24

Uh, legacy LSB is LSB legacy standard. Yes, sir. And I thought of you because, because I thought, okay,

44:30

I thought, I thought you had, uh, some connection to that, or we're kind of voting that a year or two ago, you were kind of early adopter that was reading, reading through that.

44:40

I'm telling you, I'm in that transitional phase. We'll lighten it up here a little bit. I'm going, I've been ESV for 15 years. All most of my, now

44:45

I have every, I have every version and sometimes I cross -reference and I do multiple Bibles for different things, but my daily use

44:52

ESV and I'm going, and I'm flipping through, looking at some of the samples on, um, it's actually a link you shared.

44:58

I think it was three 16 publishing. Is that yeah. Three 16 publishing .com. Yep. Read .lsbible .org.

45:03

You can read it all the whole Bible for free. And I'm going, Oh, am I making the switch? Am I going, you know?

45:10

And then of course, when the pastor's like, yeah, no, that's, um, I think the church will catch up, but we've been, you know,

45:15

NASB 95 for the last 20 years. So not everyone has the same. And I went, Oh, okay.

45:21

Chris Huff might be onto something here. And then you tell me that about crossway. Um, and look at it, we're joking about it, but at the same time that tells you something very serious about that publisher.

45:32

They're, they're more concerned about reaching a large 2 .2 billion, uh, religious, uh, mark, you know, customer base than they are about keeping the, the scriptures holy.

45:44

Yeah. And I mean, that's really what that's saying, isn't it? It is, it is. And, and, and their, their defense of that, their, their defense of that, cause people have been reached out and asked about it.

45:52

And I've seen that communication, their defense of that is, um, well, what better way to get a faithful, literal translation of scripture into the hands of those

46:03

Roman Catholics to just give them an ESV version of the 66 book. There you go, brother.

46:08

And that was exactly my response. It's like, okay, then here's what you do. If they, if they, cause they reached out to the

46:14

Roman Catholic church in India reached out to crossway. They reached out to, so they like, we love the translation.

46:20

Then they're already reading it. Let them read it here. Tell you what, here's what we're going to do. We're going to send you cases upon cases upon cases of it here.

46:27

Yeah. You don't have to change anything. You don't have to add the Apocrypha and, and, and other non -canonical inspired books, um, to it, to, to, to reach them.

46:37

The Lord is going to just send them cases of what's already there. But then another layer of that is you don't care about this publicly.

46:46

They're keeping it quiet for a reason. I, I hadn't heard of it until you just brought it up here. It starts with all good things we need to know.

46:53

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But bro LSB man, you're right, man, the legacy, um, translated the 95, the

47:00

NASB 95 was the foundational text. They took the NASB, NASB 95. Okay. And their goal was to change some things.

47:07

Uh, the addition of Yahweh, uh, the covenant name of God and the Old Testament, the Lord. Um, and then, um, the addition of Dulos, uh, everywhere

47:16

Dulos is, uh, in the Greek, you see slave instead of bond servant or servant. And then there are other, some other, uh, just consistent things.

47:24

They, they tightened up in there and there were, there were, uh, there was a translation team that was from the master's seminary.

47:29

In fact, I interviewed one, a matter of theology, uh, Dr. William Barner, dear friend, dear brother, you guys go check out that episode.

47:36

It was an amazing episode. Uh, just an interview with Dr. William Varner is what I called it. And, um, and it was specifically about the

47:43

LSB, his story, his background, and, and just a few different examples of the ways that they wanted things to be consistent throughout.

47:50

And so, yeah, the, the LSB has been the preferred, that's how I say it, the preferred translation of a matter of theology for a little bit, but we love the 95.

47:59

We even broke, I do the same thing. I referenced the ESV I'll reference the Holman Christian standard sometimes.

48:05

So yeah, man. Cool. We've covered a lot on this episode. I absolutely love it. I love when, when you come on, because we can just kind of bounce around.

48:13

Everything is edifying, uh, educational. Um, I think it's valuable for the, for the listeners to guys, like I said before, make sure you go, uh, check out

48:23

Chris's podcast. Um, uh, we'll link it up here too. So when you're listening to the audio, you can just click the link on his name and it'll take them right, right, right.

48:31

To the podcast and everything he's done. Um, why don't you give us a final word as we get out of here, Chris. So we were talking about excellence today.

48:37

We're talking about, uh, uh, making sure we're aware of wolves. Uh, we're talking about, uh,

48:44

Bible versions, but sum it all up in one nice big final word. What's the takeaway for the brother?

48:51

Um, I'll put you on the spot. I'll make you do the takeaway that way. I don't have to work on my own podcast. There you go, brother.

48:57

Hey, and that's fine. I don't mind, I don't mind. Um, I would say this, um,

49:03

I'll, I'll the, the, the final word, I think, Paul, I'm going to give it to the apostle Paul just cause he, he, he could word it better than either one of us could ever hope to.

49:11

Um, and, uh, and this, this is a, this is an admonishment for all of us. Uh, Colossians chapter three, starting at verse 12, he says, so as the elective

49:21

God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and graciously forgiving each other.

49:32

Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord graciously forgave you. So also should you above all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.

49:49

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with gratefulness in your hearts to God.

50:02

And whatever you do in word or deed do all in the name of the

50:07

Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the father through him. Woo. There it is. It's Chris Huff, everybody matter of theology.

50:15

Make sure you go check him out, Chris. Thank you so much for being here, guys. Thanks for listening to another episode of dead men walking podcast.

50:23

Anytime you want to come back on Chris, you're more than welcome. We enjoy these conversations. I think it's fruitful and Hey man, 2023 excellence in the

50:30

Lord for 2023, right? Be a pro, be a pro, be a pro. Let's go guys. Thanks for listening in.

50:36

God bless. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram at dead men walking podcast for full video podcast episodes and clips, or email us at dead men walking podcast at gmail .com.