Spiritual Warfare with Steven Hendrickson

Are we ready? Okay. Oh, okay. Here we are. Hi, this is

Robin with Creation Fellowship Santee. Tonight we were supposed to have our...

Okay, it did work. Okay. Our former leader, Alan Smith, but he has called in sick tonight.

So we have Steve Hendrickson standing in. Right now we're live, we're recording, and we're live on Facebook.

Steve Hendrickson, thank you for filling in for us. And I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to you.

All right. Well, we're just going to... I'm just going to do a quick prayer as we start this. Heavenly gracious Father, we thank you that you are a sovereign

Lord. And Lord, just help us to hear what we need to hear tonight. And to be able to use that in a way that will bring you glory.

I ask this in Jesus' precious name. Amen. All right. Anyway, my name is

Steve Hendrickson. I think many people who are on here, live at least, have had a chance to meet me.

But I do have some... I'm an electrical engineer. I have a bachelor's and a master's in electrical engineering.

And the things that got me interested in apologetics was when

I was on faculty at the Air Force Institute of Technology. I'm a retired Air Force officer. But when

I was there, I was witnessed to by a fellow faculty member. And I became a

Christian during that time. And I became pretty much on fire for apologetics. And so one of the things that I have been doing this last summer is...

I gave a talk on here about an engineering side of apologetics back in June.

And this one's going to just be on some spiritual warfare aspects. And I've titled it...

I'm going to go ahead and pull it up full screen right now. I've titled it, Spiritual Warfare Threat to Apologists.

But what I actually mean by that is anybody who witnesses for the faith is giving somewhat of a defense of the faith or an apologetic that's out there.

And there are things we have to be careful about, things we should know about. And so I'm going to just talk about that tonight.

Do we need an armor? We do. And fortunately, we have Ephesians chapter 6, which talks about that.

So we're going to discuss that as well. So let's go ahead and take a look at this.

What the armor of God is going to be for us. But also, we're going to talk about some potential failures and other things that can occur.

So I will be covering that. So next slide. I went ahead. I know a lot of the people on here are women who go out and give a good apologetic.

So I went ahead and used a little meme that was made. It says, Do not mistake my quiet and gentle spirit for weakness.

I am a mighty warrior princess, child of God, and my prayers move mountains. Okay, I thought that was good.

So as Christians, we are to always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us. That is 1 Peter 3, 15 and 16.

And when you read that, it's with the right attitude. It's with a, I would call it a winsome attitude we're to do that.

We are to earnestly contend for the faith. This means we are to reason carefully.

And that's the next verse, Isaiah 118. So Jude 3 and Isaiah 118.

If you take that seriously and you do it as a part of your Christian witness or obedience, then you will learn the

Bible. That's one thing that will help you learn the Bible. And you will learn your Christian faith. Educate yourself.

Yes, do so on Christian apologetics and systematic theology.

Okay, so what do I need,

God? Apparently, according to Paul, you need the armor of God to defeat satanic attacks.

And you're going to come under that when you're defending the faith. So the armor of God is well known from Ephesians 6, 11.

And Rose Publishing has put out a very nice little flyer that goes with that.

You can, they're five bucks or maybe six bucks at a Christian bookstore, but you can often get it at Christianbook .com

or other places for about $3 .50. But it's pretty nice. And this is one of the types of pictures you're going to see from it.

And here's what Paul writes. He says, salvation. This is our need.

Salvation. We're lost because of our sin. That is a real problem. And people don't realize that.

But the gospel is good news that there's a way to spend eternity with God and be reconciled to him.

Faith. Faith in Jesus Christ alone as he is revealed in the scriptures. And so that is where we need to sometimes do an apologetics on the inerrancy of the scriptures.

Righteousness. We must be perfect before God. It's not just be a little bit good. You need to be perfect in order to have fellowship with God.

And there's a way to do that if you have the righteousness of Christ. Truth. Jesus Christ.

That is the truth. It's a trinity is what is taught in the Bible as far as the fact that the

Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ are also listed as God. And there is one God. So you have

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Spirit. It's offense and defense.

God gives us the ultimate helper, which is the Holy Spirit. And then there's the gospel of peace. We can be reconciled to a holy and perfect God omnipotent.

So here are some of the pictures we have. The helmet of salvation, which is the foundation of which the warrior stands.

The breastplate, which is from verse 14. Breastplate of righteousness. It's to protect the warrior from the evils of the world.

The shield of faith is to extinguish the arrows of the evil one. The sword of the Spirit is used to attack his enemies, and it's with the word of God.

The belt of truth is to stand firm in the word of God. And finally, the sandals of readiness to leave a righteous trail for others to follow.

All right. So this is part of that pamphlet that's out there. And this is kind of the long version, but I'm going to give a little bit shorter version in the

NIV. And so I'll read this. The Armor of God, Ephesians 6, 10 -20 by the

Apostle Paul. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground.

And after you have done everything to stand, stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist and with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, and pray in the

Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the

Lord's people. Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which

I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly as I should."

All right, so here's part of the pamphlet that's given out by Rose Publishing, and I'm just going to give the description of the armor that is in here.

And so the first one they talk about on page two of where I downloaded this is the belt of truth was named after the leather belt.

I mean, let me actually see if I can magnify this a little bit. I think I can. There we go.

The belt of truth was named after the leather belt with an apron that hung in front of the

Roman soldier's groin and lower abdomen. Small brass plates were attached to the apron to provide the greatest possible protection.

Okay, next we have, and I'm going to magnify, oops,

I'm going to go backwards. So I need to back up one. There we go. Now I'm going to magnify that.

All right, here we go. Breastplate of righteousness. The Roman soldier would have fastened the breastplate around his chest.

There were two types of breastplates. The first one was fashioned by joining several broad curve metal bands together using leather thongs.

The other was a type of chain mail constructed by linking small metal rings together until they formed a vest, and that would prevent being penetrated with a sword or an arrow or something like that, to some extent at least.

Okay, let me see if this can actually move over some. Yes, good. Okay, so next was the feet prepared with the

Gospel of Pete. Marching with an essential part was an essential part of a soldier's life, and no soldier could march far without sturdy shoes.

Even before the Roman era, the breaking of a soldier's shoe was a metaphor for weakness or defeat.

The Roman soldier's shoes were fastened from thick leather and studded with soles with hobnails.

Okay, next slide. Zoom in.

The shield of faith. Made from goat skin or calf skin stretched over sturdy pieces of wood, the

Roman shield stood four feet tall and was three feet wide. Iron rims were fitted along the top and bottom edges, and an iron circle was attached to the center of the shield.

The boards curved inward, and the leather strap was fastened to the shield's back.

Let's move over to the next one. The helmet of salvation. The Roman soldier's helmet was fashioned from bronze or iron.

Two hinged chink pieces protected the sides of the soldier's face. For the sake of comfort, the soldiers frequently lined their helmets with sponge or felt.

At the time of Christ, a crest with a plume of horse's hair was placed on top of Roman helmets.

Okay, next. Next slide is... I'll go ahead and magnify this.

Here we have the sword of a Roman soldier. It was a little more than two feet long. And by the way, having a sword that small made it very quick to handle and attack rapidly, and that was important to have a lot of speed in their methods, and they practiced that well.

Blacksmiths hardened the blade of the sword by covering the red -hot iron with coal dust.

The coal dust formed a hard carbon coating the blade. Sword handles could be made from iron, ivory, bone, or wood.

So that is what they talk about, and this is where the relationship is the word of God. Okay, now

I'm going to escape out, and we're just going to see the whole armor of God there with the soldier, where that's how he stands, and that's how it's described, and that's where we have the

Rose Publishing section. So that's a full armor that's given in Ephesians chapter 6.

Also, a very interesting thing, and this is also part of that pamphlet. It just was not online.

One of the things about the Roman army is they would practice ways of getting in and out of crowds, and so this

Roman army tortoise formation was one of those, and if you look at it, you can see in many cases, they were protected from above for arrows coming in or from strikes in other areas, and they were so solid when they put these together that they could get right inside a group of men and then just burst out and win.

It was a very strong and dangerous tactic for whoever their opponents were. So this is what the tortoise formation is, and if you ever see some of these films on television and stuff, you'll sometimes see the

Roman soldiers exercising this. So one of the big books, and this is a thick book.

It's about two and a half inches thick. It's by a Puritan named

William Gernal and written on the inside flap of that book, and when

I presented this to the men's breakfast where I was at, I went ahead and had a copy of the book and just showed them how big it was, and I said, this was a big deal for Puritans.

They were trying to figure out how to handle the spiritual warfare they were going to run into, and here's what

Charles Spurgeon said. He said, all we do, we do to the glory of God. That was their motto.

It's an excellent motto. So here are some more Armor of God verses from the

ESV translation. This is Isaiah 11. 1

Thessalonians 5 .8 James 4 .7

So there are lots of verses that are out there, both Old and New Testament, talking about this.

All right, this is another good warrior princess type meme or picture, and it's

Ephesians 6 .12. The battle is real. This is an interesting prayer.

This was on another handout that I had, and this was a prayer for the

Armor of God. Heavenly Father, I put on the Armor of God with gratitude and praise. You have provided all

I need to stand in victory against Satan and his kingdom. I confidently take the belt of truth.

Thank you that Satan cannot stand against the bold use of truth.

Thank you for the breastplate of righteousness. I embrace that righteousness, which is mine by faith in Jesus Christ.

I know that Satan must retreat before the righteousness of God. You have provided the solid rock of peace.

I claim the peace with God that is mine through justification. I desire the peace of God that touches my emotions and feelings through prayer and sanctification.

Eagerly, Lord, I lift up the shield of faith against all the blazing missiles that Satan fires at me.

I know that you are my shield. I recognize that my mind is a particular target of Satan's deceiving waves.

I cover my mind with the powerful helmet of salvation. With joy, I lift the sword of the

Spirit, which is the word of God. I choose to live in its truth and power. Enable me to use your word to defend myself from Satan, and also to wield the sword well to push

Satan back to defeat him. Thank you, dear Lord, for prayer. Help me to keep this armor well -oiled with prayer.

All these petitions I offer you through the mighty name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. That's a nice prayer.

Okay, I have this in here. This particular meme on the right side came out just after July 13th, and you probably know why.

There were many at that time claiming that with the circumstances that occurred, former

President Trump could easily have been killed had not the exact right circumstances been there.

And people like Mike Huckabee and others were claiming that that seemed to be an act of God to protect

President Trump. In Daniel 2 .21, this is a wonderful verse about the sovereignty of God.

He changes times and seasons. He removes kings and sets up kings.

He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. Great verse for us to know.

All right, here's another meme that's fairly common. When someone asks me, you in what army?

Well, there you go. But, and here's another meme along those lines, but it's a wonderful Bible story in 2

Kings 6, verses 8 through 23. Elisha and the chariots of fire.

This is the demonstration that our invisible forces encamp around us. In verses 13 through 19, the

Aramean army is captured by Elisha alone as he leads them out.

So, it's something to read. It's really a good Bible story, and we probably all know it, but it's worthwhile to take note of it again.

Why wasn't David afraid of Goliath? Well, because he had confidence in God who was much more powerful than any human giant.

That's from 1 Samuel chapter 17. Okay, so Matthew 9 .34

talks about the prince of the devils. The prince of this world is from John 14 .30

and 16 .11. The prince of the power of the air, Ephesians 2 .2.

So, the Bible has a significant amount to say on spiritual warfare. John 8 .44,

you are of your father the devil, and you want me to do the desires of your father.

He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

John 8 .44. Also, for those who've done proper research to establish the truth and accuracy of the

Bible, then you know why we have national news articles replete with false statements.

In systematic theology, this is called angiology or spiritual forces are at work.

Bing image searches provide some of this information on the prince of the power of the air and the father of lies.

So, these are areas where you can do your own research and look for some of these things in terms of images or other areas which will lead you to those articles.

I'll talk a little bit more about that right after I get done with the slides. In many cases, it's kind of like, and I like to play chess, and I've achieved some pretty high status, basically a correspondence master at chess and stuff like that.

And there's a lot going on when you see what's going on in the world, and it's like a chess game between good and evil.

And some people, here's another one that was interesting to see. I think Jesus is going to win this pretty easily.

One of the guys I really enjoy is Dr. Erwin Lutzer. He has written quite a bit on spiritual warfare at the layman level, which is much more understandable than maybe a dry systematic theology textbook.

So, some of the many outstanding books he's done on apologetics, life after deaths, and spiritual warfare.

Well, here's three examples of spiritual warfare. God's Devil in 2015, he wrote.

Seven Snares of the Enemy in 2001, and the Serpent of Paradise in 1996.

And some of those are readily available, used, and would be worthwhile for you to get a little more study up on spiritual warfare.

Okay, this is going to change just for a second. I'm going to talk about some bad arguments.

And it's useful for apologists to sort of prepare beforehand for arguments. But there are things, little snares and stuff that we sometimes fall into that are not good.

And the first one's kind of interesting. This is a person saying, be careful, telling someone they cannot disprove the existence of God.

If you say that you cannot disprove the existence of God, there's a very good response to that.

And here it is. If you've ever heard of the Harry Potter series, there was Hermione, who is one of the witches.

And here's what she said in those books. She said, but that's, I'm sorry, but that's completely ridiculous.

How can I possibly prove it doesn't exist? I mean, you could claim that anything's real if the only basis for believing it is that nobody's proved it doesn't exist.

That is a strong response. And that was written in a Harry Potter book.

So when you're talking about evidence, be careful exactly how you try to use the evidence.

It might be more better if somebody says, well, I know that God of your Bible doesn't exist. And you might just say, you're not claiming to know everything, are you?

That would be how I would respond to it. I wouldn't say you can't disprove God. I know that this type of thing could come right back at me.

Here's one that is really interesting. This particular picture is from a video that was done, actually a movie that was done, that was very popular back in the 1990s.

Or I think it may have come out later than that, but it's a true story. And that's, what's really interesting about it.

But this was the pair that was there and this is from Cokeville, Wyoming.

Okay. And the name of the movie was the Cokeville Miracle. But that's not what

I call it. I call it the Cokeville Deception. And here's what happened.

Cokeville Elementary School hostages, May 16th, 1986.

The elementary school hostage crisis occurred on Friday, May 16th, 1986 in Cokeville, Wyoming.

When the former town marshal David Young and his wife Doris took 136 children and 18 adults hostage at Cokeville and they put them into a single room.

And he had explosives and said he was going to blow everything up. But the only people who ended up dying in that case were the

Youngs. Both of them died during this. And then everybody said it was an absolute miracle because the bomb actually went off.

And everyone had managed to escape. And the interesting thing was, is when they started to talk to the children, the children related the fact that they had seen angels.

And then the parents were showing them pictures of their ancestors. And their ancestors, oh, that's the angel

I saw. Well, that can't be her. She died years ago. And like, how could she lead you away from where the focus of the blast was going to be?

It's really an amazing, and when you watch the video, so many people are enthralled.

And boy, what a great Christian movie. Now, wait a second. Humans don't become angels.

They don't become that, but they do become it in Mormonism. And it was a very interesting circumstance.

When you start to think about this entire circumstance, you need to think about the fact that this was an elementary school.

These were young children, many of them four and five, up to about 12 years old.

And if you know anything about arguments for what is called the age of accountability in children, if there were that many children that were going to be blown up, where would they go if you understand the arguments for the age of accountability?

And most of those arguments come from Jewish history. You have the bar mitzvah and the bat mitzvah at the age of 13.

So most people consider that to be, if they're going to pick a number, that would probably be the age they would pick for the age of accountability.

And do we have demons actually going, oh, wait a second, this is a bad deal.

If this guy blows this place up, it's going to kill all these children. They're all going to go to heaven.

That's not good for us. So let's help them out. And let's try to make this right, because later on, they can talk about this being a great miracle, and they can all bring their families up as good

Mormons. And that is what people think could very well have happened, because it really was a seeming miracle, because that bomb, when it went off, it should have killed an awful lot of people, if not everybody that was in the room, and it did not.

So it's a very interesting thing to study on. And I've got some books I'll show you.

But this ancestor angel thing, that is a Mormon doctrine and a

Mormon teaching. And by the way, Cokeville, Wyoming had a lot of Mormons in that town. About 75, 80 % of the town members were

Mormons. So that's a very interesting one to think about. Watch out for deception, and be able to explain those things.

Here's another one. This person says, a critic of naturalism once said that atheists want you to grant them just one miracle.

That's the big bang. And then they will explain everything else without any reference to miracles. I don't know if you've ever had

Joel Tay come on here, but he works for Creation Ministries International. I know him, he's a personal friend.

And he answered that, he said, hey, except for the miracle of biogenesis, since they have to believe that life came from non -life, the miracle of the

DNA code, and the miracle of errors coming together to create a 3 billion letter software, and the miracle of irreducible complex microscopic machines like ATP synthase, or kinesin coming around by chance.

A whole load of miracles, but without a miracle worker. And that's a great response to this.

And then this guy answers, well, laugh out loud, Drew. Drew, I was just repeating what the critic said in his

TED talk, which brought down a lot of heat on him. So I thought that was an interesting way of handling it as well.

And that's a good apologetic response to some of those things. And if somebody talks about miracles, well, Bible's full of them.

But we're not the only ones who need it. It's the atheists who need it as well. Just remember that. So miracles are biblical.

The Bible's full of miracles, and it's an important apologetic study. Augustine said it.

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature. And of course,

David Jeremiah, a very popular pastor, says, I'm more convinced than ever that angels are far more involved in our world than most of us realize.

I believe that they certainly do intervene here, both visibly and invisibly.

And so I gave the ISBN number for the book with that quote. Okay, this is a very sad part of my talk, but it's going to be what

I'm going to end up finishing up with. Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

1 Corinthians 10 .12. Ravi Zacharias.

He was considered one of the great apologists of the time, but he ended up getting cancer.

And after the cancer, it was also found out that he had had some sin, sexual sin, actually, in his past.

And after he died, the whole ministry pretty much collapsed because RZIM was the international ministry that he was part of.

And it was because of this disqualification from sexual sin.

We don't know if Ravi was a believer or not. We all thought surely he was a believer.

And if he was a believer, it is my opinion that he remained a believer, but he certainly lost some crowns in heaven.

So he was an incredible apologist, fell into sin. And in this case, it had to do with massage parlors and women in cities away from his

Atlanta, Georgia, home. So that was a sad thing. And in the background, it says here, you know, we're teaching the thinker to believe and the believer to think is really what they did teach.

It's a good thing to teach. But the most recent one and a very sad one was with Dr.

Stephen Lawson. He was very, very well known. And this is a very recent fall that we have learned about.

And so he's 73 years old. And this fall was publicly announced in 19

September, 24. Stephen Lawson, I followed him a long time. Many of the things he has preached,

I've really enjoyed the kind of preaching God blesses. He's written many, many books, many of which

I have. And he was in a part of many ministries. He was on faculty with the

Master's Seminary, which is John MacArthur Seminary in California. He was also with a teaching fellow with Ligonier Ministries out of Sanford, Florida.

And it was just one of those things, which is a tragic thing to see with him.

And it's big news now. Now here's a statement. And I really did like this statement. Statement from the elders of Trinity Bible Church of Dallas.

So his home church was in Dallas. The elders at Trinity Bible Church of Dallas regretfully announced that effective immediately

Stephen J Lawson has been removed indefinitely from all ministry activities at Trinity Bible Church of Dallas.

Several days ago, the elders at Trinity Bible Church of Dallas were informed by Steve Lawson of an inappropriate relationship that he has had with a woman.

The elders have met with Steve and will continue to come alongside him and pray for him with the ultimate goal of his personal repentance.

Steve will no longer be compensated by Trinity Bible Church of Dallas. In light of this, may we be reminded that we are all sinners.

And Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. And Christ remains head of his church, which is bigger than any fallen man.

In fact, Jesus Christ will continue to lead his church, including Trinity Bible Church here in Dallas, just like he has from the start of this work on January 5th, 2018.

Since that time, the elders have focused on the primacy of biblical exposition, knit together by various men filling the pulpit each week.

The Lord was building Trinity Bible Church of Dallas well before Steve became our lead preacher, and he will continue to build his church long after Steve Lawson or any other man for that matter.

We would ask for your prayers for the elders, for our body, and for Steve and his family.

Let us always be mindful of the words of 1 Corinthians 10, 12. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.

This was a sad thing for me to hear because I have greatly admired him. Off there on the right, and I'm going to bring this up with the magnifier again.

Right here. A sermon without Jesus is like a hospital without medicine.

Sin is a deadly disease. Christ, the only cure. That's a great statement.

A lot of things that Steve Lawson has said remain absolutely scripturally accurate.

And a lot of things Ravi Zacharias said the same. So I didn't throw any of my books by Ravi away.

I'm not going to throw any of my books by Steve Lawson away either, because he was preaching accurate truth.

Sinners sin. Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.

Proverbs 16, 18. Positions with power come with large doses of pride.

Pastors and theologians who travel a lot are alone a lot.

That alone can take a toll on your family. The involvement of prominent evangelical pastors in sexual sin is a complex issue with multiple contributing factors.

And I'm going to be given five reasons for that. It's important to note that these issues are not unique to evangelical pastors and can occur in various religious and secular contexts.

Addressing them requires a commitment to transparency, accountability, and support for both leaders and congregants.

At the end of this talk, I will say, well, what can I do? I mean, when you see people like this fall, you know, what can

I do to be careful about it? Okay, next. The five key points.

Power and authority. Many evangelical pastors hold significant power and authority within their communities.

This can create an environment where they feel untouchable and above accountability. This has happened with a lot of people.

I think it was Jimmy Swigert is one that people can remember, but oftentimes these guys get restored right away and then they get right back into it and then they fail again.

So power and authority within a certain group or something can be a contributing cause.

Lack of accountability is number two. In some cases, there is a lack of proper oversight and accountability within church structures.

This can allow inappropriate behavior to go unchecked. Three, psychological and emotional factors.

Pastors like anyone else can struggle with personal issues, including loneliness, stress, and emotional needs.

Without proper support, they might seek inappropriate outlets. Number four, cultural and institutional issues.

Some evangelical communities may have cultures that inadvertently enable or cover up misconduct.

This can include a reluctance to confront leaders or a tendency to prioritize the church's reputation over addressing the abuse that has happened.

And we've seen some of these things in many cases, they play out on Twitter and stuff like that, where you see it.

Five, manipulation and grooming. Unfortunately, some individuals in positions of power may use their authority to manipulate and groom victims, exploiting their trust and vulnerability.

I have known of cases like this where we've had young men who've gone to seminary and come back as youth pastors and they're in the mid twenties or something.

And all sorts of problems can come out out of that when they have, you know, young girls who are 17, 18 years old, who are pretty and that sort of thing.

So we do run into this quite a bit. Next. All right.

You can go online and see Dr. Albert Moeller who spoke on this. You can just go to YouTube and look that up with just type in Albert Moeller and Stephen Lawson.

And he talks because they were friends and they were, they were part of the Ligonier teaching group and stuff like that.

And so he has a nice presentation. He gives, including, he points out that from the very pulpit he's standing out that Stephen Lawson was faithfully preaching truth from that very pulpit.

I don't know if you know, but Albert Moeller has been blacklisted on our group. No, I didn't know that.

Okay. Well, we can discuss it later. Okay. He's a far leftist, but keep going.

Okay. All right. Well, here was a

Q and a, and I happened to be at this particular conference by Ligonier and this was in 2017 and it was in Orlando, Florida.

And at that time in Orlando, that was before some of the,

I think, failings that occurred at first Baptist in Orlando, where they started allowing gay men, couples to be part of their teams and stuff like that.

But anyway, back in 2017, this is a Q and a that was given and we have

John MacArthur in the second seat on the left, Stephen Lawson, Albert Moeller and Dr.

R .C. Sproul. So they were all there giving talks. And I just pointed out to some folks in my apologetics group that one of the first questions that was here was answered by Stephen Lawson and he just did an outstanding job.

It was a great answer to the question. And I said, you know, there, there, you see very good answers from a person who later on seems to have had a failing.

And I don't know the extent of the failing, but I'm just sad to hear about it.

Why is this? There we go. All right. So the hidden things, sin is an attack on truth.

So be very quiet about it. And by all means, keep it hidden. There are things we see, and these are some memes that I just looked up for that.

They're kind of funny in some respects, but here's one that you probably heard.

Don't believe everything you read on the internet, Abraham Lincoln. Of course he was not the person who said that.

That's just a little humorous when it's, when it's what's it called? When people doing the fact checking are controlled by the same people doing the lying that does seem to happen quite a bit.

Especially with leftist news organizations and that sort of thing.

And as I was researching this, the interesting thing I found was John MacArthur had given a sermon on preaching truth.

And he was talking about the lies that can come through in propaganda. And he quoted a chess champion,

Gary Kasparov. Kasparov was a chess world champion from 1985 to 2000.

And I was pretty active in 1985. So I was keeping track of him during that time.

But anyway, here's what Kasparov later said. He said the point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda.

It is to exhaust your critical thinking to annihilate truth. That was the statement that he made that MacArthur was commenting on and thought it was a very good response.

To what we see as propaganda that's out there. And this is my last slide.

So if these guys can fail, these guys who are really high up with a lot of leadership positions can fail.

Ravi Zacharias, Stephen Lawson. What chance do I have?

1 John 1, 9 ESV. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

This is something we need to do individually. And James 5, 16 says, therefore confess your sins one to another and pray for one another.

And you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has a great power. As it is working.

So those are the final comments. Well, thank you.

Thank you, Steve. I have some comments. So I think

I am going to turn off the recording and the live stream. And we'll just have a talk between a few of us.

Okay. That sounds fine. Okay. And I just got to figure out how to do it. Okay. There we go. Yeah.

And I got to figure out how to quit sharing. They're on.

Our social media platform. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us tonight. We're off for the next two weeks.

But in three weeks, we will be joined by. Doug Gibbs talking about the U S constitution.

And then on the 24th of October. Dr. Aaron Judkins will be speaking on go

Beckley Tepe. I highly recommend looking that up. It's very interesting.