Engaging Christian Gnosticism

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00:00

Non -rockabodas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it

00:08

Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie? Or are you gonna bite? We're being delusional. Delusional?

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Delusional is okay in your world view. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional.

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So you calling me delusional using your world view is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt. Is he hung up on me?

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Yes! What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.

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The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Right. Don't go into the world and make homies.

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Right. Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke,

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Pastor. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

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Date and home is your journey. So you will never be the same.

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But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead. The firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, for as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

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For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order,

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Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.

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Then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.

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For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

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The last enemy to be destroyed is death. What's up, y 'all?

02:10

Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. I am Jeff the Calm of the Ninja. That's Luke the Bear right there. What up?

02:16

This is the gospel heard around the world. You guys can all go to ApologiaStudios .com

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So go sign up today. And let's get right into it today. Do you have anything you want to start with?

04:18

I just wonder if you're having lunch on the show today. Oh, you see that? Yeah. I did. I put my lunch right here today.

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I'm just, because I'm a hunk, man. I've been exercising and getting back in shape again and everything, doing my training in the morning.

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And so I'm trying to eat well. I'm foggy if I don't eat consistently.

04:35

Welcome to my world. I need lots of protein. Yes. Lots of protein. So welcome, everybody.

04:41

Hey, welcome. This is the quarantine special. Everybody, how you guys doing with the lockdown?

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That's spelled C -O -R -N -T -E -E -N. Hey, look at this. Quarantine. This tonic water here is called

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Q. Oh. It's an omen. You think that's saying something?

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There's some special message? There's COVID in it. Yeah, COVID. There's COVID water. So, yeah, welcome, everybody, from the quarantine special.

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We are going to do something actually very important today. If you saw the title of the show and you're like,

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I don't know what any of that means. I don't know why it's important. I don't know if I invest an hour of my life into this. Trust me, you do.

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I think you're going to learn things in this show that might startle you theologically.

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And that's always a good thing, to be startled, in terms of realizing traditions that you've adopted or we've adopted that are not in accordance with Scripture.

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I am going to challenge you to watch this show and see if you can find any of your Gnosticism.

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And you're like, wait, what Gnosticism? Who are they? Well, the Gnostics were like the arch enemies of the church and remain so in many ways.

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And you do see the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John dealing with early forms of Gnosticism in the

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New Testament itself. They are the enemies of the church. And unfortunately, very, very unfortunately,

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Gnosticism has found its way into the minds and hearts of many Christians over church history.

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And I would say much of evangelicalism in the West has adopted a very

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Gnostic perspective of the world and the future and particularly heaven and earth and those sorts of things.

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And so I think many, many of you watching today may actually discover that what you've believed about the future, what you've believed about the world and heaven one day and those sorts of things are actually

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Gnosticism. And if you don't believe me, stick with us. Stay with us.

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Please listen. Be humble because we need to shed this nonsense quickly. The quicker we shed it, the more effective we'll be,

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I believe. And so what we have done today is pulled together one of our good friends. You know him.

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You love him. So do we, Dr. Andrew Sandlin. I was talking to Candy the other day. She knew we had

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Andrew on. And I said, yeah, we had Dr. Sandlin on. And she goes, man, I love that man. I was like, me too.

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My wife always says the same thing. And she's like, I love him so much. And I was like, me too. She's like, he's such a humble and sweet man.

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And I was like, yeah, and he's a beast when it comes to theology. So he's got it all together.

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It's funny. We love him for different reasons. Like you and I love him because of the size of his brain. Yes. And our wives love him because he's sweet.

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He's a super sweet man. He's like a big teddy bear. Stellar feels the same. He's like, is Andrew going to be at that thing?

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Is he? He's so nice. He's such a sweet man. So yeah. Anyway, Dr. Andrew Sandlin is a good friend of ours.

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We love him very, very much. Appreciate his ministry. If you don't know him, get to know Dr. Sandlin. We'll make sure you guys have resources after this.

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But anyway, Luke, the other day on the Elder Thread, we have a private Elder Thread where we all rap with each other.

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And Luke sent... Not literally. Yeah, that's right. Not literally. It'd be cool to see

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Dr. White just rapping. But Dr. White's been doing a lot lately on Gnosticism. So that sort of kind of helped with this show's creation.

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Luke sent a link to Dr. Sandlin's talk on Gnosticism there. And I listened to it twice

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Saturday night just because it was just so encouraging and just a wonderful, wonderful message. We'll make sure that in this show later, we'll put a link to that message so you guys get a chance to listen to that.

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Please do. Please, please listen to that message. And I got to say this. I was contemplating this. You sent the link.

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I was studying. So I listened to it, and I listened to it again. And I thought to myself, I got to find a way to advertise this and tell people, like, hey, gird up your loins.

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And, you know what I'm saying? People go, oh, this seems like a deep, thick, sort of out there theological thing.

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Get through the first 20 minutes. Not that it's not good. But if it seems like,

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I don't get it. Like, why is this important? Get through the first 20 minutes. Like, you know, gird up your loins.

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You said that like you're from New York or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, gird up your loins there, kid. Look, you got to get with it.

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Look, I don't want any laziness, idleness. Look here. Look here,

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Tony Lazy Buns. Like, Tony two times. Get through the first 20 minutes because some of this stuff may be unfamiliar.

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So it's like a different language in terms of, like, they have its definitions, those sorts of things. Get through it.

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Get through it because you need this. You need it desperately. Well, it's funny. The reason that this conversation came up, and Andrew, I haven't even had this conversation with you.

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We haven't brought him in yet, by the way. Andrew, welcome to the show. I was just relishing all the love

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I've been getting in that wonderful introduction. Thank you. Love you guys, too. And you guys are truly remarkable.

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It's a privilege to be your friend and to labor with you. So go ahead, Luke, whatever you were going to say. You've been, it's just, you're part of the family.

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So I didn't even think about it. You've been on here so much recently, too. You're just part of the gang. Just grand.

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Sort of the ugly step -uncle. So James White, Dr.

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White, Pastor James, he has been, I don't know if you've been following him lately, but he's been doing a lot on Gnosticism and Manichaeism, and he's, like, delved deep into that tunnel.

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And so he's, every day, he's, like, you know, finding new information, and he's all excited about that. And so I said, hey, we got to get you and Andrew together to film something on Gnosticism.

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Oh, that'd be great. Because I know I've heard you, especially, I would say, a lot in the last year and a half to two years,

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I've heard you and Joe talk a lot about Gnosticism and how it's affecting modern theology and stuff.

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So anyways, that's how that conversation came together to begin with, is I was like, hey, listen to this. We got to have you guys get together.

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Do something together. I'm proposing that to you now. We would definitely encourage that. I think it would be very beneficial. Sounds great to me.

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Yes, we'll make sure to try to make that happen. So before we get into it, because it is quarantine,

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Andrew has been putting up a lot of links and helpful commentary over the last month in terms of quarantine and righteousness, justice, love for neighbor -related things.

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And so I just thought I'd do it because, I mean, everyone's in quarantine. Good to sort of have a current event update for the future.

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So let me... Did I seriously lose it? Did I lose it? Mentally?

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I think I did. Why did it... Oh, no, here it is. Okay, good. All right, good. Sorry about that. I don't even know why that just did that to me.

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It's blame COVID. Yeah, blame COVID. All right, so some of you guys may have heard that Rand Paul, Dr.

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Rand Paul... I didn't know he was a doctor, by the way. I saw that. Yeah, he's Ron Paul's son.

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Rand Paul recently spoke on the Senate floor after he recovered from coronavirus.

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So Rand Paul is a senator who had coronavirus and he's recovered now. Looks good, too.

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He's got a beard going on. I have said, I just said to Dr. Sandlin before the show started here, guys, if I see one politician with a fresh haircut,

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I'm throwing something. I cannot get a haircut right now. Carmen looks like a wildebeest.

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I called him Wolfman Jack the other day. Yeah, and he's like, I need a haircut. The hard part, too, is once it opens up for haircuts, getting in line for a haircut is going to be really hard because everyone needs a haircut.

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If I see one politician with a haircut, I'm throwing something. One. One of you guys who shut everything down.

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If you get a fresh haircut, I'm not happy. At least a good haircut because it's possible that if they have a hack job going on, like a bowl cut, they just put a

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Tupperware bowl and then a bowl cut, then that's what I expect. That's what I want to see. That's what I want to see. I have seen a couple of wives that are friends on Facebook who had decided to go ahead and give their husband a haircut, and they should not have.

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With the Flowbee? Remember the Flowbee? The Flowbee! Every morning I woke up before school and the Flowbee commercial was on.

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I was like, maybe. Maybe. The Flowbee. Check the stock on that. The stock numbers may have gone up recently.

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So Rand Paul's got a beard going on. He's on the Senate floor. He recovered from coronavirus. And this is nine minutes long.

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I'm not playing the whole thing. I might just play a couple minutes here, and then just have a quick discussion. Then go right into Gnosticism. And let's go ahead and play this right now.

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Rand Paul, Senate floor, dropping a, quote, nuke from the Senate floor. That's what the title of the video is. Not all the money in China will save us from ourselves.

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Our only hope of rescuing this great country is to reopen the economy. If you print up billions of dollars and give it to people, they're unlikely to spend it until you end the quarantine.

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The good news, though, is that the scientific community finally has facts instead of conjecture.

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The models that use 3 .4 % mortality were fortunately very wrong.

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Random samples now of thousands of people have now been tested for antibodies or immunity to coronavirus.

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Two large randomized studies in California show similar results. The number of people who have already developed antibodies to the coronavirus is 25 to 50 times higher than the number that is being reported as infected.

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This is great news. This study means that the mortality rate may well be 25 to 50 times less deadly than previously thought.

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The virus is still dangerous, and we shouldn't ignore the risks, but we should put those risks in perspective.

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These randomized tests indicate that instead of a 3 .4 % mortality, that the rate could be as much as only a tenth of a percent or two -tenths of one percent.

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We now have solid scientific evidence from randomized studies that we can manage this disease without continuing the draconian lockdown of the economy.

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So I thought I'd play that, because you're hearing from somebody who is a politician, but also he had the virus.

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And he thinks we should open the economy back up because we're destroying the world.

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And I think he is right. And I think he has something to say there when he talks about the fact that we now know about the virus more than we knew initially, obviously, and the mortality rate is going to be much, much lower than we had initially thought.

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And here's the point. We don't close down the world economy and plunge people into the Great Depression and poverty for these kinds of communicable diseases that we deal with every year.

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People die. It's a fallen world. We need to hold to Christian presuppositions. This is a fallen world. People die.

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So we have to figure out how do we work in light of a fallen world with biblical principles and wisdom when you face a communicable disease and a pandemic like this?

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Is this the Black Plague? The Black Death? No. Is this something where we need to destroy the entire world and quarantine preemptively all of the healthy?

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No. And, look, you can't argue with the numbers. You can't argue with the numbers coming out of a mouth of a person who had coronavirus and is now recovered.

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I think that says something. So, Dr. Sandlin, I'd just like to get some opening comments from you. I know you've been talking a lot about this lately on your pages and platforms, so go for it.

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Yeah, I agree with that. A great statement. I'd heard parts of it from Rand and Paul.

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I won't mention as much the health issues, but what's really clear is how that when almost any crisis or alleged crisis comes up like this, the default in most people's minds, certainly the elite, is statism.

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Immediately the answer is, what can the government do? Now, a Christian response committed to,

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Christians committed to sphere sovereignty, that is that there are various spheres, the family, church, and state, is to say, what should each institution do?

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What should families do to address this? What should businesses be doing to address this? What should the church be doing to address this?

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But no, because we've bought into statism, that is the great god of Western civilization is the state, whenever there is a crisis, a real one or a perceived one, the first question is, the government immediately has to get involved.

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Well, tragically, we have seen now what has happened. We have had, sadly, was it 45, 46, 47 ,000 that have either died by or with, those aren't the same thing,

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COVID -19, the vast majority, of course, being the elderly, but we've had millions and millions.

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I think the numbers today indicate, I think, Luke, you might have, is it 24 million now are out of work?

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We definitely are reaching depression level. And as you guys have pointed out, it is not loving your neighbor to support policies that are destroying people's livelihoods and lives.

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That really is sinful. So don't say, I'm loving my neighbor by social distancing and not going outside my house.

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Actually, you're not loving your neighbor by supporting that, you're harming your neighbor. So this really has demonstrated statism.

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And as an article I pointed out recently indicated, there is a demonic element behind this.

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And I don't support a lot of the wild charismatic and Pentecostal notion that everything that happens, of course, is a result of demonic activity.

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That's certainly not what the Bible teaches. But it does teach that there are principalities and powers. And these principalities and powers like to commandeer the state because it has a monopoly on violence.

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And sadly, that's what's happened, I believe, in this case. And therefore, the state is crushing.

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Remember this, Satan loves to destroy. He loves to destroy. Jesus Christ said,

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I came to give life and that the people might have life and have it more abundantly. But Satan comes, the evil one comes to kill, the thief, to steal and kill and destroy.

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And that's exactly, think about this virus. It's stolen income from people.

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It's killed and it's destroyed. Not just the virus itself, but also the politicians, commandeered by Satan, has destroyed so much.

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And that's why Christians have to stand up and oppose it with every fiber of their being. It was interesting, last night,

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I'll make a final comment here, and Luke, if you want to jump in. Did you see the thing I shared from AOC last night?

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I think so, remind me. I saw that you did share it. I didn't see the whole thing, though. It was from Vice.

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Go check it out later. It's on my personal page. There was a quote I saw from her. Basically, she mocked the idea that President Trump was saying we need to liberate people so they can go back to work.

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She was like, he's the only person that would say going back to work is liberation. That's because she has a communist ideology, and she's a leftist, and she does not have a biblical worldview about labor, about work, about creativity, about production.

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And so for her, her worldview, it's what's driving her political moves.

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And you see it right now. Open the country back up, liberate people so they can get back to work and be productive. She's like, only this president would say that being liberated is being able to work.

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It's like, yeah. Here's the quote I saw. I actually got it from someone else, but she said, when we have this discussion about going back or reopening,

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I think a lot of people should just say no. We're not going back to that. We're not going back to 70 -hour weeks just so we can put food on the table and not even feel any semblance of security in our lives.

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And there you go. Yeah, which shows you the basics. She has not just a welfare mentality, but a welfare ideology.

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Essentially, we need people at home doing nothing and the government providing for them. Did you say ideology?

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It's a welfare ideology she holds. So it's not just for coronavirus. This was just an occasion for her to lay out a new normal.

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And that's what, sadly, what she said, I believe, and a number of other politicians guys believe, is that she was, quote, bold enough to stand up and say so publicly.

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Oh, yeah. Actually, it's right here. Let's go ahead and play it right here. We're talking about it. It'd be beneficial to hear it. This is the clip.

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AOC on Vice. There's a lot that we could be doing right now, but ultimately, the,

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I think, when we talk about this idea of reopening society, you know, only in America does the president, when the president tweets about liberation, does he mean go back to work?

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When we, you know, have this discussion about going back or reopening,

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I think a lot of people should just say no. We're not going back to that. We're not going back to working 70 -hour weeks just so that we could put food on the table and not even feel any sort of semblance of security in our lives.

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Give me a break. I can't. Guys, the irony of that is she would not like to live in a world in which people actually lived like that.

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She has all of the benefits of a world in which people are liberated to work as long as they want, within reason.

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So she gets fruit from that. She has her nice iPhone or her smartphone and all of her nice clothes.

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Well, she has those because people work hard. So basically, it's a hypocritical ideology. Yes. Yes, yes, yes,

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I agree. Look, the reason I brought it up, I mean, why talk about that right now, I brought it up because we have to understand that all of these decisions, they don't exist in a vacuum.

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The decisions that people are making as politicians, the votes that they're, you know, that they're producing, they come from presuppositions.

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They come from a worldview. And so you'll see that initially for them, it's the virus, the virus, the virus.

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But now that the numbers come out about the virus, of course, it's deadly. Of course, it's serious. But we deal with these things all the time and we don't destroy the world.

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And now the numbers are coming out and people are realizing, uh -oh, we're going to have to be consistent here. If I say we need to destroy the world now,

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I have to say that, again, next December for all the other diseases and communicable viruses we're dealing with, and I don't think

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I'm going to do that. So then all of a sudden now, you start to see these people, they're showing their cards, all right?

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This is a poker game. They're showing their cards and you see what's really on them. And they're showing you, this is what

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I've really got. The Joker card, is that what she's holding? Exactly. This is what I've really got. It's not about the virus, it's that I'm basically a communist.

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And this is my worldview, is that I don't believe in productivity and work and labor. I don't believe in private property.

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I think the government should own you from cradle to grave. And I think that this should all be community -owned stuff, and everyone should just get a standard kind of paycheck, everyone's sort of equal, and work, whatever is that, and should people really be working?

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I mean, for me, I see the idea of being freed right now to work as a glorious God -honoring thing.

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And she, because of her worldview, says, only in America, with a president tweet, that liberation is being able to be productive and work.

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Oh, as opposed to sitting on your butt and doing nothing, and starving? That's right,

23:59

Jeff. And I would say not just God -honoring, but it's a requirement of God's law. I mean, it is a privilege, but it's also, and the

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Bible says, if one doesn't work, he shouldn't eat, with exceptions like old age and illness and so on. So to keep people from working is to keep them from obeying

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God's law. We need to say it that starkly. Yeah, and the problem is, someone like her in our culture today, is that she's a woman, and she's pretty, and some people go, oh, maybe

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I should listen to her. No, no. What she's saying is dumb. And also, you have to see, having a woman in a leadership position like that, trying to legislate and make decisions, you're going to have something that you don't want to have in that kind of position, and you're going to have that motherly,

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God -given, woman instinct to care for and to nurture. That's a gift from God.

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That is a glorious gift from God, but it belongs in the home. It belongs in the home.

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It doesn't belong on the Senate floor or in Congress, trying to nurture all of society, because what people need to do is they need to work, they need to be productive, they need to produce.

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And I love what Andrew just said there. She's sitting there with this amazing technology, sending her out across the planet at a moment's notice, and she's wearing the nice clothes and a nice house, and it's like, what gave you that?

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Oh, the biblical worldview and capitalism. Ya momo. Okay. My girls watch a cartoon,

25:24

Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse, all the time. And I swear, she's a character on that show. That's where she is from, the

25:32

Barbie show. By the way, I know I've blown my nose ten times during the show. I'm having a massive allergy attack right now, because Arizona right now is in bloom, and so is my nose.

25:40

It's full, blooming everywhere. It is bad. Arizona has got the worst allergens imaginable.

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It sure is pretty, though. It is beautiful, but man, it hurts, man. When it gets to the end of March, April, it hurts.

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It hurts so bad. It's just bad. It's just treacherous. I think we need an allergy lockdown. We can't come out until all of the bloom goes away.

25:58

Well, let's be consistent, right? A lot of people are damaged by this, right? Alright, so let's get right into it, guys.

26:04

Thank you all for hanging in there for that discussion. We do think it's important. Welcome everybody who's jumping into the feed right now.

26:10

So, we're talking to Dr. Sandlin, and look, I titled the thing Engaging Christian Gnosticism.

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Now, by the way, those are two words that should not be together. Engaging Christian Gnosticism.

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Those don't belong together, my friends. And so you might be asking the question, why do I care about this? Brothers and sisters, please hear me on this.

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You need to care about this. Oh boy, is it important, and oh man, is it destructive. I think James said last week on his show, he said that Gnosticism is the most demonic and satanic thing he's ever studied, because it knows the

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Bible, and it purposefully tries to distort it. And you need to understand, look,

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I'd be willing to wager something right now. I'm not a gambling man, but let's just play a game for a second. I'm willing to bet right now that probably the vast majority of people watching right now in our feed, right now live, you've got some

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Gnosticism in you. You do. It's there. And I hope not.

27:06

I'm rooting for you. But I hope not. But you need to hear it. So we're going to talk about that.

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Are we Christian Gnostics? Is that how we're approaching the world and life and the future? And so Dr.

27:17

Sandlin, I'm going to hand it over to you, brother. We need to know what is Gnosticism, and why should I care?

27:24

Good question. So Gnosticism is the oldest and most dangerous and most persistent heresy in the church.

27:32

You even, I think you mentioned this earlier, Jeff, you even see it in some of John's statements, the beginnings of it, and some of John's statements.

27:40

Gnosticism is basically the idea that the creation, the physical world, is evil.

27:46

And if we're going to say Christian Gnosticism, you're right, they shouldn't be put together, but sadly, in many people's minds, they are.

27:52

It's that Jesus Christ came to deliver us from the physical world. Gnosticism is a profound heresy, and I'll mention just quickly there are different views of Gnostic origins, but it's basically that a lower god, called the

28:08

Demiurge, not the true god, who's really sort of an impersonal principle, not the true god of the

28:13

Bible, this lower god was deceived and created the physical world, which was inherently evil, and that somehow another and slightly higher god, it was a female god in many of the tellings, put little souls, dropped little sort of non -material souls in some humans, and the goal is for those souls to escape from the body.

28:36

The idea, basically, is that the human body, in this part, is like a shell, and the real fruit, the nut, we might say, is on the inside.

28:45

And like Plato of old, the real idea of life, like Socrates would have said, the goal of life is to die.

28:52

Because then what happens is this very bad, evil, corrupt body that we have goes away forever, and the soul inside sort of flies up into the heavenlies, and is forever liberated from the body.

29:06

Now, I'll tell you right now, whatever that is, that's not even close to Christian. Gnostics also believe, by the way, and I neglected to mention this, that the god of the

29:17

Old Testament is not the god of the New Testament. Oh, by the way, is any of this sounding familiar? The god of the

29:22

Old Testament is a god of law, he's a god of anger, he's a god of cruelty, he's a god of genocide, he's a god of oppression, but the true god sent

29:33

Jesus Christ, not in an actual body. Jesus, you see, actually was a deceiver.

29:38

He had what looked like a body, but wasn't really a body. Couldn't have been, because then he would have been evil. But Jesus' goal was basically to convey a special form of secret knowledge.

29:49

That's where we get the word Gnostic. Sort of a secret knowledge to a few people, to understand that the material world is evil, and by changing their minds and giving them the secret handshake, as it were, the secret knowledge, they can eventually get rid of the body and can fly up into the heavenlies and everything else will go off into oblivion.

30:08

Now that, in short order, is what ancient Gnosticism was, but it has continued, it has been persistent in the history of the

30:15

Church, and sadly, their whole theological systems today, and I'm going to mention one.

30:22

Am I allowed online to mention a false, but prominent? Okay, it starts with a D, and it ends with an

30:28

M, and it's kind of a long word. Dispensationalism, and there are many good people involved in it, many

30:34

Bible -believing people involved in it, many sincere, some of them my friends. Yet nonetheless, there are

30:40

Gnostic elements in this, which says that the Old Testament is essentially about Israel, because anybody that reads the

30:46

Old Testament guys can actually see it's a very earthy book. I mean, a lot of earthy stuff is going on.

30:52

I mean, land promises, and Biblical laws covering sanitation, and like we would say even today, coronavirus, staying away from it, and so on.

31:01

Quarantine, yeah. That's the Old Testament. But the New Testament, they say, because Paul speaks of sitting in the heavenlies, they misunderstand the

31:09

Biblical term, the meaning of heaven, by the way, which we can get to later. But the point is that the

31:15

New Testament is basically on a plane higher than the physical. And essentially, Jesus came to get us away from the

31:22

Old Testament. Sadly, there are a number of Dispensationalists, basically in its most crass forms, that tend to lean that way.

31:30

They're not total Gnostics, but they have Gnostic elements. Now, the Biblical view is that the physical body and the love for good food, and sex within marriage, and enjoying creation is a wonderful, good, and holy, and righteous thing.

31:46

The only problems in this world, and this is really key to understand, guys, and all you listeners, the only problem in this world at all is a result of sin.

31:55

The problem with this world is not creation. Now, it's amazing how some people say, well, if I just think, if I spend too much time in creation, that will lead me away from God.

32:04

No, it can, because of your sin. But the Bible says the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows

32:11

His handiwork. We see God even among the animals, and how God Himself causes them to do what they do.

32:16

So if we have a right contemplation of creation, it will lead us toward God, and not away from God.

32:22

But sadly for many people, they think that the goal is, and this is, I think, Jeff, you mentioned this earlier before we went on the air, and I really want to bring it to this, and then

32:30

I'll be quiet and let you guys talk. Really, it comes down to a theology of godly engagement and dominion, which the

32:38

Bible teaches, versus a theology of escape. And essentially the Christian life and salvation is about escape.

32:46

Our goal is basically to trust in Christ, and sort of get through this life, and oh, I have this terrible body, and this body is always leading me to lust and addiction, and all these sorts of things.

32:55

But thank God, He's going to deliver me from the body, and then I'll be pure spirit, and I'll go up to heaven, and all of those that have trusted

33:03

Christ, we will go up and live up in heaven, and maybe we'll be floating around in the clouds and have halos and so on, and we'll live forever, and all of this terrible physical creation will be done with forever.

33:14

Now, I'm exaggerating, but only a little. Yes. That is a theology of escape. The Biblical theology is very earthy.

33:22

It's one of dominion. But our responsibility is to exercise benevolent, gospel -based dominion in the earth, getting the gospel to the world, having people trust in Christ, reorienting their lives and their families, church, every area of life, including the state, according to God's standards, pushing toward that time when the entire earth will be truly liberated, and that doesn't mean from the physical.

33:45

The Bible says in the book of Revelation that God himself and heaven will be joined to earth.

33:51

In the Bible, the new heavens and the new earth are the resurrected heavens and the resurrected earth. So this physical earth that you and I are standing on right now, unless you're listening in an airplane, this one is actually the same earth.

34:03

It will be renovated. It'll be resurrected. But this earth is the same earth that heaven will come down and join, and one day we will live on it.

34:11

So that's why the promises of the Word of God are such earthy promises. Because we are earthy people.

34:17

That's not to say we're worldly people, but we're earthy people, and God created us to be this way.

34:23

So we have here fundamentally, and I'll close on this point, two fundamentally different visions. One of escape, and one of engagement and dominion.

34:31

That's right. And I think it's important for us to recognize from the beginning, hear this everybody, from the beginning of the

34:37

Biblical story, when you open up the book of Genesis, what you see is God creating the physical cosmos.

34:43

He creates the world, and he put people in it, and he puts animals in it, and all the rest.

34:49

But what's he say about it? This is important. What's he say about this creation? He says it's good.

34:55

And what happens is you see this amazing story, very rudimentary story of again, a commandment from God, this but not that.

35:03

But he's walking with, he's there with his people. You have God's presence with his people in the beginning of creation.

35:12

And of course, as sin enters into the world, you have now our relationship with our creator broken.

35:20

However, that doesn't make creation no longer good. That doesn't make the material world and universe no longer good.

35:28

It doesn't make humanity no longer good. Now, that's vital to get. This is so critical because one thing that Dr.

35:35

Sandlin says in that lecture, and again, it'll be under here this episode later on after we post this and get it all going.

35:41

I'll let you guys listen to it for yourself. One of the things that's critical here is to recognize that the idea of just wanting to shed this and escape from all this and just leave it all behind us, this corrupt creation and body and all the rest, is a desire to escape your humanity.

35:58

And that is not Christian. No, in fact, if you'll think about it from Genesis 3, that actually is part of the initial sin.

36:07

The attempt to escape your humanity and to be as God, that is at the root of the original sin.

36:14

I mean, God wants us to be human and nothing but human, and we will never be anything but human. It is good to be human.

36:21

The problem is not our humanity, it's just our sin. I think it's wonderful to understand that a glorious truth many people don't.

36:28

Apart from human sin, you are just what God made you to be. There's a great comfort in that.

36:34

You don't have to try to make yourself something else. The work of sanctification by the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God and the

36:39

Church is, little by little, purging sin from our lives, and one day in the

36:45

Resurrection, we'll probably look much the same, and guess what? We'll be fully human, though resurrected. We'll be fully human, just as human as we are now, though with greater properties and so on.

36:56

But to be human is to be what God made us to be. So we should glory in our humanity, because it's what

37:02

God wants for us. It's His will. Very much so, and I think it's important for us to recognize that the

37:08

Biblical narrative has a perspective about Heaven and Earth and the Kingdom of God on Earth and our involvement in the world that is vastly different from what many

37:17

Christians believe today. We think about the Heaven and Earth like Gnostics.

37:23

We think about this as corrupted and evil and fallen, and really God really is done with it, wants nothing to do with it, and so the better thing to do is to get out of this body, escape our humanity, escape this corrupt creation, to get away to this place that's a million miles away called

37:37

Heaven, whereas that is not, that is not what the Bible teaches about Heaven and Earth.

37:43

Heaven is, as one theologian calls it, God's space, and Earth is our space, and in Scripture, those things, this is critical, get this and you'll see what

37:54

I'm saying, in terms of shaking the Gnosticism loose, in a Biblical worldview, Earth and Heaven, they are organically together, comprehensively together in many ways, and if you want to see just how concerned

38:09

God is with physical creation, the material world, our physical bodies, I want to point you to the climax of the

38:17

Biblical narrative, and that's the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

38:24

How concerned is God with the physical world, and renewal, and all the rest?

38:29

Oh, I don't know, he just stepped into it and took on physical form, and then died, and then conquered physical death and rose again in a physical body.

38:38

I do think it's a beautiful scene when Jesus is alive from the dead, and Thomas is doubting Thomas, Jesus says, handle me and see, a spirit does not have flesh and bone as you see me have.

38:47

It's physical body, and this is critical to the story. If our resurrection will be like Christ's resurrection, like if that resurrection of Jesus in the garden is testimony to what

38:59

God is going to do in us, then we have to recognize, hey, guess what guys? You're going to spend eternity with Jesus Christ and other saints and believers with the triune

39:08

God on this physical earth in this cosmos, renewed of course, but this is where we get,

39:15

I think, things wrong. And that is that I believe that the mission of Jesus with the kingdom of God on earth is, of course, to bring a restoration of all things.

39:26

Romans 8, that spectacular passage in Romans 8, it talks about the creation itself groaning!

39:32

It's groaning, why? It's waiting for that liberation, right? All that decay, listen, this world is not a throwaway.

39:43

Jesus says, I'm making all things new. He's not making all new things.

39:49

He's making all things new. Jesus is, look, and I've said this a lot, Luke probably is tired of me saying this because I always try to drop it in somewhere.

39:57

I do think it's important for us to pay attention in the gospel of John. So, so important. Listen, how does

40:03

John start off? It sounds like Genesis. Beginning was the Word, and the Word is with God. The Word was

40:09

God. And it says, and God became flesh. The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.

40:15

And then it goes through, of course, the life of Jesus. John is my favorite gospel of all the gospels. It's probably my favorite book in all the

40:21

Bible. But John, he actually says something. He's Jewish. He knows the story. He knows the whole biblical narrative of where we're going.

40:27

Also, it was John that was fighting the early Gnosticism. You need to know that as well. John happens to mention that after Jesus rose again, that when they came to the tomb and see that Jesus is gone, they're like freaking out, of course.

40:40

And that Jesus is there, and it says that they had mistaken him for the gardener. And it's one of those things you just sort of just pass over.

40:47

Like, oh, well, he just thought he was the gardener. Why would you ever assume somebody's a gardener?

40:52

Like, I've got people that come to my house all the time. I've got Amazon Prime people that come to my house all the time. I've got people doing all kinds of deliveries to my house, because that's the easiest way to get things done right now.

41:02

I've got pizza being delivered to my house. And when a pizza guy comes to my house, he's carrying a pizza box, and he pulls up with a

41:08

Domino's Pizza thing in his car. And that's why I mistake him for a pizza guy. Because he looks like a delivery boy for pizza.

41:16

I can tell. He's got all the marks of a pizza boy. Now, I know the difference between the Domino's Pizza delivery guy in my garden, and the guy who comes over once a month to start pruning things and taking weeds away and all the rest in my yard, which actually happens.

41:29

I can tell the difference. And if Candy says, hey, who's in the back right now? I'm going to say, well, it's the garden guy.

41:37

It's the weed guy. That sounds funny in South Phoenix. It's my weed guy. Oh, yeah. Not far off in your neighborhood.

41:44

Yeah, not far off in Phoenix. But anyway, here's the thing. Why would you mistake a guy like that for gardening?

41:49

Because he's working the ground. That's what he's doing. So when John says, the women mistake

41:54

Jesus for a gardener, isn't it amazing? Isn't it amazing that the second Adam, the

42:01

Adam was supposed to be, who now conquers death in a garden, which is where death entered the world.

42:07

Jesus conquers death in a garden. The first thing, the second Adam, the perfect image of God starts doing is he starts working the ground.

42:15

I think that is glorious and amazing, and it is the death blow, the death blow to any form of Christian Gnosticism that teaches, like, this is all,

42:25

God wants something to do with this. He's ready to throw all this away.

42:30

Now, Jesus' physical entrance into the world with his physical resurrection and what he's doing with the kingdom of God in the world, winning the world, is testimony to the fact that God is very concerned with the material world, the material universe, our material bodies, and I've got to say this, remember this, the whole, the climax portion of the story for us, in terms of the future, is really what

42:56

I read at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15. Listen, of course if we die now, we go to be with God for all eternity.

43:04

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, to live as Christ, to die as gain, yes, yes, yes, to all those things.

43:11

Check the theological boxes. If you trust in Jesus Christ, you're reconciled to God, you have eternal life, you're going to be with God.

43:17

However, the biblical narrative doesn't say that's the ultimate. It actually says that the arc of the story, where it gets really good, is where Jesus wins the world, puts every enemy under his feet, and then he finally defeats death, delivers the kingdom over to the

43:33

Father, like, look Father, see, it's finished, it's all done. But that arc, that beautiful story peaks at the point where actually you're raised from the dead, like Jesus.

43:45

And we spend eternity with God and one another on this earth, here.

43:53

Jeff, that's so true. I think many Christian funerals, particularly in the 20th century, fail. I've heard so many of them there, and the minister says, oh, we're glad so -and -so died here, she was in so much pain, and now the great hope is that they have died, they have left their body, and they've gone to heaven, and that is their great eternal hope.

44:10

Well, that sounds good, and as far as it goes, it's not entirely wrong, but that's not their great hope.

44:16

The great hope in the Bible is the restoration of all things and the resurrection, leading to the eternal state.

44:21

That is the great hope that we'll be on earth and that God and Christ and the Spirit will dwell here with us on a resurrected, renovated earth and the kingdom of God will have no longer any barriers, no longer any sin, but will forever rejoice in Him and cultivate the entire earth for His glory without sin.

44:38

That is the hope. The message of the gospel and the promise of the gospel is not if you trust in Jesus, you will die.

44:44

When you die, you'll go to heaven. That is not the hope of the gospel. The hope of the gospel, the good news is that God and Christ is reversing all of the sin that was unleashed in Genesis 3.

44:54

More Christians must understand that. They would have a much more robust and a bigger idea of what

45:00

God is doing in the earth, if they understood that, rather than this individualized idea that, well, I'm going to trust in Jesus so I can go to heaven when

45:06

I die. That's not the hope of the gospel. Is it true that when you trust in Jesus, you're going to heaven?

45:12

Yes and amen. But that is not the total part of the total story.

45:18

That is not the climax. That's not the big deal. It's funny. I've had conversations with my kids.

45:24

This probably happened to you too, where Stella will ask questions about the future and heaven, and I'll say, well, what do you like to do now?

45:36

Like I said, what are we going to do? And I'm like, well, what do you like to do now? Well, I love to go out and hike. I love to go out and swim.

45:42

And I'm like, and that's what you're going to do. Like, do you think about that? Like, I don't know. We don't know all the bits and parts and pieces that make the eternal state so amazing after the resurrection.

45:53

But if it's on a physical earth and creation is good and God created all these things, I'm going to ride a stinking giraffe.

46:01

I am. I'm going to ride a giraffe up a mountain at some point. I'm holding you to that. You better remind me because I'm telling you what's happening.

46:09

Andrew, you're going to ride one with me, my friend. I told Stella, I was like, would you like to swim in the ocean? She's like, I'm like, you're going to swim in the ocean.

46:16

You're going to swim in the ocean. There's no sin, no brokenness, no fear of death, none of those things. It's going to be a glorious, renewed creation, but you're going to enjoy

46:25

God's good world. And that, Andrew, I'm going to take a break here because one of the things that you then went into in the discussion, which

46:32

I think is so vitally important to get right, is you then went into talking about Christian vocation and talking about this really just broken, whacked -out version of thought, of vocation and like, if I really want to be spiritual,

46:51

I've got to be the pastor or I've got to work in ministry. And that's what

46:56

I want you guys all to hear this because this is big stuff. It's big stuff and it's gospel -centered stuff and it's very, very much transformative stuff.

47:04

Let's shake our Gnosticism loose. We're going to take a quick break, come back with Dr. Sandlin. We're going to talk about Christian vocation, what you're doing in the world.

47:13

And it might shock people because I say this a lot. I think it deflates a lot of guys. I think it probably upsets them a little bit. Guys will say, hey,

47:18

Pastor Jeff, I feel like I'm called to the ministry. I feel like I'm gifted to the ministry. And the first thing Luke and I try to do is talk them out of it.

47:25

Amen. That's the first thing we try to do is talk them out of it. Know if you can do anything else and be happy, do it for the glory of God.

47:32

You don't want this life. It is a painful life. It is a hard life. If you do it faithfully, every day can be pretty awful.

47:39

It'll be amazing and glorious and then horrible. Amazing, glorious, because you're dealing with the worst of the worst as a pastor.

47:45

But I try to talk people out of it. And then what I try to say to people is like, look, you can make movies for the glory of God.

47:51

And that role is as important as my role as a pastor in this life and in this world.

47:57

You can go be a county commissioner for Jesus. And that role is just as glorifying to God and ultimately fulfilling in terms of what

48:06

God is accomplishing in the world as my role as a pastor. So you've got this really weird perspective of like, you know what?

48:12

I'll have really made it when I'm standing in that pulpit preaching. And like that's that means

48:18

I'm close to Jesus. And that is the high and lofty spiritual position. And it's like, nope, not true at all.

48:27

And so what we're going to do, guys, is we're going to take a quick break and let everyone go to the bathroom. Do not leave.

48:32

You don't want to miss this. We'll have a quick discussion, of course, on the tail end of this about hyperpreterism. And we will be right back.

48:39

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53:12

I'm Jeff the Coleman the Ninja. We're on with Dr. Andrew Sandlin right now. We are talking about Christian Gnosticism, two words that are not supposed to go together but unfortunately often do and we need to shake that Gnosticism loose.

53:24

We need to get it out of us and we need to have a fully Biblical worldview in terms of how we think about life, how we think about the material world, how we think about vocation, how we think about the future, how we think about Heaven one day and so we are having

53:39

Dr. Sandlin on to talk to us about Gnosticism and again if you are a homeschool mom and you're thinking like I don't know how this is going to help me it will.

53:50

It will in terms of how you raise your children to think about their life, their labor, their work and what their life is all about and really what their hope for the future is.

53:58

You know, all of us are going to have to face death. One of the things that's difficult about being a pastor is doing funerals and I hate them.

54:04

I get really emotional as it is and I have a hard time when

54:09

I do funerals, of course anybody would, but funerals are tough and you got to ask questions about what's happening in front of you.

54:20

This is death. This person's dead and what's the hope? Is it that they're just spirits now and in Heaven or is there something greater that the

54:28

Bible talks about? Is there something bigger? Is there a bigger part of the story that's to come?

54:34

How should we be thinking comprehensively about the Christian worldview and what God promises us for hope?

54:40

That's what we're doing with Dr. Andrew Salem right now. Andrew, you had a part of your lecture where you talked about vocation and you talked about basketball for the glory of God.

54:51

Basketball as a form of worship and I'd love to have you talk to everybody about that because that does relate to the discussion of Gnosticism.

55:01

Oh yeah, good point. I think the best way to begin is sort of offer a little test about are you a

55:07

Gnostic? So here's one little test you can take. We often hear people say, well, a young man, and by the way, it should be a young man doing this, surrendered, that's a beautiful word, surrendered to the ministry, surrendered to the pastorate or surrendered to go to the mission field and we'll have ministers that'll say, where are the young men?

55:28

Why are they not surrendering to this? And of course, there's nothing wrong with that, but I would like to counter and say, oh, that's correct.

55:36

Now, I wonder how you would respond if, let's just say men in this case, a young man would say, you know,

55:42

I have surrendered my life to be a professional basketball player or to the

55:47

Lord to be a professional basketball player or I've surrendered my life to write code for a living or I've surrendered my life to sell insurance or be an investment advisor.

55:58

Now, if somebody says, well, no, there's something off with that. Yeah, I get where you're going at, but that's not quite the same thing.

56:06

I would say if we respond like that, we have been influenced by Gnosticism. Because the biblical teaching is this, like you guys,

56:14

I have driving a large white truck picking up the trash in front of our house every week, a group of men.

56:20

If one of them is a Christian and has given his life entirely to the Lord and is doing this for his glory, what he does every week is not one whit inferior to what you guys do in the pulpit and I do in the pulpit in the

56:35

Christian ministry. If that rubs the audience, anybody, those of you listening, I don't mean to be intentionally offensive, but if that rubs you the wrong way, you probably have bought into a little bit of Gnosticism.

56:48

Because every element of life is to be surrendered to Jesus Christ and when it is, we're fulfilling it for his glory.

56:55

And the ministry is not some sort of, what we call the ministry, the gospel ministry, the quote, full -time ministry.

57:02

It's not somehow inherently higher. Now there's a second point here, you guys don't mind if I make it, right?

57:08

No, no, no, go ahead. Of course not. I find it ironic that a lot of modern evangelicals who rightly oppose the errors of Roman Catholicism get very

57:18

Roman Catholic at this point. The original reformers opposed Roman Catholicism's tendency to divide spirituality and spiritual life into a higher story and an upper story.

57:29

The monks and the nuns, for example, were up in the higher story. And then everybody else, they couldn't be quite as spiritual, but they could come to Mass and they could make the confession, and they could get in on a little bit of spirituality.

57:42

But if they really wanted to be spiritual, you're going to have to take the vows to be a monk or a nun.

57:49

That's what one theologian called, they over -specialized. They made spirituality a special vocation.

57:56

They're the spiritual, and then they're the sort of the mediocre spiritual. Now I would say that in the

58:01

Protestant realm, there are many that hold essentially that Roman Catholic view without supporting monks and nuns.

58:09

It's the same concept. Well, the reformers were right then to oppose it in Roman Catholicism, and we are right today to oppose it in much of modern

58:20

Gnosticized Protestantism. That was my rant for the day, guys. No, that's beautiful.

58:26

I think it's an important element to start considering as believers. I mean, I don't know.

58:32

I think it's good to meditate upon, and when I went through this at Apologia Church in our

58:38

Kingdom of God series, a study through the Gospel according to Matthew, I really try to emphasize when we're in the

58:44

Sermon on the Mount, just the earth focus that Jesus gives there. He talks about how to pray, of course, in that amazing section of Scripture.

58:54

He tells us, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, holy be your name. That's asking, Father, may your name be holy in Africa, may it be holy in England, may it be holy in Canada, in the

59:05

United States of America, and in Mexico, and in Japan, and China. You're asking God, God may your name be holy in all these places.

59:11

So you're praying a very evangelistic kind of prayer when you start off praying the Lord's prayer. But then he says,

59:18

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

59:26

I think many Christians, because of Christian Gnosticism, can recite the prayer, but when they get to that section, the mind sort of just washes.

59:34

It goes blank. Like, have I thought about what I'm asking for? Right? Because I'm thinking my hope is escaping my humanity and getting out of this awful, corrupted, sinful world.

59:44

Man, that sounds like Gnosticism. And escaping out into the spiritual out there and just putting all this corruption behind me.

59:50

Yuck. Ew. Like, isn't God feeling the same way? Like, ew. No. God, as a man, said, pray like this.

59:56

That the will of the Father would be done here. Here, on this physical world like it is in heaven,

01:00:04

God's space. So, that's what you're supposed to be asking God for. If you say, how do

01:00:11

I pray? I hope when anybody asks a pastor the question, pastor, how do

01:00:16

I pray? The pastor's first launching point is, well, let's start with the Lord's Prayer.

01:00:22

That's how you're supposed to pray. And then those first bars of the Lord's Prayer is very much earth -focused.

01:00:30

And so all this really matters because if we've thought about like, just, this is a trash heap, this is an infected, diseased, with sin world, and I just can't wait to escape all the body and the humanity and the world behind me.

01:00:43

Just get it away. Ew. We're not thinking biblically. And that'll affect how we view vocation and our labors here in this world.

01:00:51

I think, Luke and I have talked about this a ton. I think that eschatology has an impact, of course, on your labor now, and of course what you're building for the future.

01:01:01

And I believe bad Christian eschatology has led to the indifference of many Christians in the world today and they're escaping out of what is happening around them in the world.

01:01:11

They have no influence because, hey, you know, to hell with it. What I mean is, that's what they think.

01:01:18

To hell with all that. Get it out of here. I want to get out of here to that better spiritual story. So to hell with the world, and I want to go to heaven and get out of here.

01:01:27

But also, I think Gnosticism, Gnostic tendencies, Gnostic worldview, has impacted

01:01:32

Christians to the degree that they also escape out of, like, vocations that matter and, like, laboring and working and engaging and being productive

01:01:42

AOC in the world. And so we need to get these things right. Of course, I think our eschatology needs to comport with Scripture, but also we need to shake this

01:01:51

Gnosticism loose because, you know, Christians should be building amazing things. I was thinking this bothers me so much.

01:02:00

I've been listening to the news a lot lately, and this hit me fresh yesterday again.

01:02:06

I was like, oh, man, that's so discouraging. They were talking about, on the news, these hospitals that are, like, doing, you know, bang -up jobs right now during the

01:02:15

COVID -19 and everything. And they mentioned some hospitals, and the hospitals, as they were mentioning them, they were like, and something something

01:02:22

Presbyterian, and something something Baptist, blah, blah, blah. They're naming all these hospitals, and I'm thinking to myself, those aren't even owned by Presbyterians or Baptists anymore.

01:02:31

They're owned by secular agencies. And we have handed over the whole medicine, hospital thing to the secular world, and let's be honest, they suck at it.

01:02:44

They took it from us, and here's the thing. We gave it to them willingly because of our perspective of the world and the future because we're like, you know, does this really matter?

01:02:52

And I would actually challenge people to think about this. The Christians who were building, like, hospitals and, like, investing in the world and this life, they did have a different eschatology, many of them, and view of the future.

01:03:07

And that's sort of what drove the building of the hospitals and everything else because they saw the kingdom of God as being a transformative force to all of the world in such a way that they were even going, you know, the sick, the destitute, the poor, these orphans, that's ours.

01:03:27

That's ours. Now, boy, Jeff, you've touched on something vital. If people look around, and I find it ironic, so many

01:03:33

Christians complain, all of the evils of abortion and the evils of homosexuality and socialism, but many of these same people also embrace the theology of escape.

01:03:44

They don't understand that this gnosticized notion that gets away from every vocation, every vocation being given to the

01:03:52

Lord and doing everything for the glory of God, the withdrawal from that. You mentioned hospitals, and of course you guys know the same thing is true of universities.

01:03:59

Universities were begun by Christians. And Christians, we look at them and I mean, 99 % of them are in the hands of secularists and neopagans and apostates today.

01:04:09

Why? Not because the secularists and the neopagans beat down the doors, but Christians willingly surrender them.

01:04:16

Because of this gnosticized theology of escape. So really, for those of you listening, say, we were saying, what is this new doctrine that these guys on Apologia and Andrew are doing?

01:04:26

We're not actually embracing a new doctrine. We're asking for the restoration of an older doctrine, historically, and more important, the oldest one of all in the

01:04:35

Scriptures, biblical doctrine. That's what we're embracing. It's anti -gnostic to the core. Very good, and some comments that just came in here.

01:04:44

Somebody said, such a bad argument. Lots of non -post -millennial work towards good in the world.

01:04:50

Nobody suggested otherwise. That's right. No, I agree with that, and I think they tend to be inconsistent with their world view, but that's great.

01:05:01

I have wonderful non -millennial friends, and I have great pre -millennial friends, even dispensational friends, and the good news for these guys is almost all of them are inconsistent, because somehow, inherently, they know.

01:05:16

Intuitively, they know, well, I can't just sit back and do nothing. I'm going to see the tragedy of abortion.

01:05:21

And so, in one way or another, whether they're out picketing or they're doing something, they're saying, I have to oppose this.

01:05:27

So, they're acting as though they are post -millennial, even if they're not. And I applaud that, and I don't criticize them for that at all.

01:05:34

I want them to continue to be inconsistent in that way. Amen, amen, amen. Another gentleman named

01:05:39

Mark said, sounds like you're embracing Seven Mountains theology.

01:05:45

No, and only a person who is unfamiliar with the historic issues at stake here and the theology of the

01:05:53

Church, historically, and the eschatology of the Church would make that kind of a mistake. Yeah, I mean, can I jump in?

01:05:59

I mean, 17th, 18th century, 19th century Puritans were the vast majority in England and the

01:06:05

U .S., at least a majority, certainly were what we would call post -millennial. And of course, among the

01:06:11

Dutch, the idea that the Dutch reformed the cultural mandate, so that's just false. That idea of we can do a whole show, and maybe we should on that, but that's just I don't mean this to be a personal attack, but that's just historically uninformed to make that point.

01:06:24

Very much, that was my point. Historically uninformed, and just be cautious what you read as a quick excerpt on the internet when you see something like that.

01:06:35

What we believe is what the Bible teaches. Genesis 49, 10 Shiloh's coming, and to him shall be the obedience of the nations.

01:06:42

We believe that's going to happen. We believe in Psalm chapter 2 where the Father says to the Son, ask of me,

01:06:47

I'll give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth, for your possession. We don't think

01:06:53

Jesus forgot to ask. We think that that's true. Daniel chapter 7, he's looking in the night visions, he sees one like a son of man coming on the clouds, and it says that the son of man comes up, which direction?

01:07:04

Up to the ancient of days. And to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom that all the peoples, nations, tribes, tongues, everyone's going to come and serve him.

01:07:11

His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. That's Daniel 7. We believe that.

01:07:17

We believe Isaiah 42 that talks about this servant who's coming who will bring forth justice in the earth, and he will not grow faint or weary until he's done so.

01:07:26

And it says the coastlands are waiting for his Torah, his law. We believe that one, too.

01:07:31

We also believe any number of the Psalms, Psalm 72 that says he shall have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth, he shall have dominion.

01:07:41

And we do believe the most popular verse in the New Testament, quoting from the Old Testament, Psalm 110 .1

01:07:47

that says the Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make all your enemies a footstool for your feet.

01:07:53

The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, that's happening now. That's not a future thing. He's reigning now.

01:08:00

He must reign, Paul says, now. Now, at the right hand of the Father, until every enemy is under his feet.

01:08:05

So we're not waiting for Jesus to ascend to the throne. He kind of already did that, and it was a really big deal when he did.

01:08:13

And that's what God says, is that Jesus is reigning now, putting all those enemies under his feet. There's much more that can be said, but in terms of dominion, you're right, yes.

01:08:22

We don't hold to the seven mountains theology, but we do believe in dominion, and I hope you do, too.

01:08:28

Because, actually, when God places image in the garden, one of the great dramatic failures of sin and the curse and the fall entering into the world is we lose that, where God says this, that you're to go forth and be fruitful and multiply and take dominion, subdue the earth.

01:08:47

Well, the first Adam failed in that mission and that vocation. And the second

01:08:52

Adam, I've got to say this, he ain't failing. I don't believe that Jesus, the second

01:08:57

Adam, the perfect image of God, is going to fail to take dominion over this earth. I refuse to believe that because I'm not a

01:09:03

Christian Gnostic. And so, you know what, we've gone for a long time now.

01:09:08

I know I put hyper -preterism on here. We're just not going to be able to deal with that in a way that's meaningful, that really will help our brothers and sisters.

01:09:16

So what we're going to do is we'll save that for next week. Maybe we can have Dr. Sandlin join us maybe next week talk about Gnostics.

01:09:23

I'll do whatever I can. Love you guys. You guys love me so much. I better show you some love back. You better.

01:09:28

You better. Alright. Alright, brother. We love you. We'll catch you next week. God bless you. God bless you. Thank you, brother. Thank you for all you did.

01:09:34

Alright, guys. Thank you so much for listening today. Anything you want to add, Luke? No. He's so awesome.

01:09:41

I could just listen to him all day. Now that he's off, I've got to say one more thing about him. I've said this to a lot of people.

01:09:47

I can tell how incredibly intelligent he is if you've ever read any

01:09:56

John Frame because Andrew can regurgitate

01:10:01

Frame in a way that's easy to understand. Frame is brilliant and it can be challenging to read him at times because he's just so smart.

01:10:12

But I've read some Frame and then the next day heard Andrew regurgitate it, but I was like,

01:10:17

I understand it when you say it. Right. And so that's how I know he can say it in a way that's easy to digest.

01:10:24

He is to Frame what Bonson was to Van Til. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. People read Van Til, they're like, wow, that is some high -level stuff because Van Til's like,

01:10:32

I thought you knew all this. Bonson goes, let me tell you what he's saying. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. So you can understand it.

01:10:37

Yes. Very, very good. Alright, guys. So apologiastudios .com is where you guys go to get more. Thank you, guys, so much for loving us, for listening to us, for praying for our ministry.

01:10:44

We're praying for all of you. Praying for our culture around us, all of our neighbors. Blessed to have you guys joining us today.

01:10:51

We are grateful for all of you guys. Go to apologiastudios .com. Sign up for all access. Be a part of what God is doing on this mission to bring the gospel around the world.

01:10:59

That is Luke the Bear. Peace out. I am Jeff, they call me the Ninja, and we'll catch you next week right here on Apologia Radio.