Acts pt 3- Laborers' Podcast

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TiL- Reformed Covenant Theology pt 4

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Welcome to the Laborers Podcast. Thank you for joining us tonight. We're going to be discussing

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Acts Part 3. Welcome to the Laborers Podcast, which is a part of the

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Truth In Love Network. Join us as together we strive to grow up together in all things into Christ.

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Subscribe and follow the Truth In Love Network on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Spotify, and iTunes.

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Now, let's join our laborers for tonight's broadcast. Welcome again to the

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Laborers Podcast. Thank you for joining us. We so appreciate it. We appreciate your prayers. Appreciate your support.

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And it looks like Facebook has done it to us again. We are not streaming on Facebook.

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But we are on Rumble. We're Rumble and YouTube and X. I saw somebody call it

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Twix the other day. So are you guys calling it X? I'm calling it

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Twitter because apparently I'm the anarchist in the group. What's the proper etiquette? I don't know.

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Call it 10. 10? 10. Number 10.

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We're on 10, okay? We're on 10. I'm thankful to be joined by Big John, Real Talk with Big John, Tyler, Noah with Bread of the

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Word Podcast. Tyler just had as a guest

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The Reform Recon, Jay Antello. Is that correct? Yes, I did.

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How did that go? It was fun. You can tell I'm a little nervous because I don't have guests very often on the show.

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So I'm a little bit out of my wheelhouse there, but it was great to sit down and talk with Jay about the church.

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Specifically addressing some concerns about when the church gets too big and how sometimes we can miss the point when things get too big.

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And just discussing what the church is so that we have a baseline for navigating some of the challenges that come with growth.

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Do you think that—well, I'm going to watch the podcast before I ask any questions because I could be asking questions that you answer in the podcast.

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So I want to get to that. If you're interested,

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Big John has been doing some podcasts on the church as well. So I'd encourage you to go listen to his podcast and his guest,

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Preaching and the Church. Thank you. Yeah, we're trying to discuss. See, in the more

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Reformed world, you can go to a myriad of places and hear really good

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Bible teaching and get the history of your denomination or your confessionalism or whatever.

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Whatever it is that's inside of you, if you're Presbyterian or Baptist or Reformed or Southern Baptist or whatever denomination you're in, there's going to be somebody out there.

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And there's not a lot of that in our Pentecostal world. And we need to have more to offer than a really cool band.

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Absolutely. And I just want to publicly commend and say how grateful

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I am for the friendship, the brotherhood that I have with all my fellow

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Labors. But John specifically, the encounter that we had recently because I listened to a particular episode that he did.

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I had some questions about it. I responded to him privately. And he was so gracious to me in responding to me and what

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I had to say. So I really wish that so many other believers could experience what we experienced, the difference that we have, but the grace that we have when we share with one another.

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It's just it's a supernatural work the Holy Spirit does within us. I know,

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Tyler, you talk about it quite a bit or you're used to all the animosity sometimes on Twitter, sometimes on Facebook and these conversations.

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And it seemed to be very difficult. Well, that's actually why I brought Jay on the show yesterday because of some of the animosity on social media because he had posted something and it was apparently very divisive.

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And I was wracking my brain trying to figure out why. And what he's invited me to come again on his his program, because it seems like I did the same thing and I caused a bit of a stir.

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So he wanted to have me on to give some clarification. So once again, just brothers doing what brothers do.

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And I'm grateful for it. One of the things that isn't talked about a lot outside of this circle, like I've been watching your 10 part series on cessationism.

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Right now, publicly, we disagree on this on this topic. Right. Right.

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However, it's it's my conviction that if your study of Scripture leads you where you are,

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I think that that's where you're supposed to be. I don't I don't expect everybody to think the exact same.

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And barring there being a heretical worldview on either end of the spectrum.

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Right. I don't see why two people can't agree. And I listen to a lot of debates that I can't.

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I want to really root for the guy that's always on my side. But one of the things that I can't stand is whenever it becomes something that I don't see the love of Christ in.

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Even when you're right, if you're right, but you're still hateful when you're right. What's it do you?

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What good does it do you? They're not listening. At the end of the day, you've proved your point. And nobody had had a rebuttal that you couldn't beat.

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And both of you went home mad at one another. That's to me. That's pointless. At least that's for nothing.

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Did you really win? No, you didn't win. Nobody won. Right. I guess the devil won.

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Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. So before we jump into acts and let me let me play.

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Amen, brother. Me being from a Pentecostal Spanish church of God. I love my fellow Pentecostals, brothers and sisters.

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I'm so glad to have the Reformed bringing with us again. Thank you so much, brother. And that reminds me, the comment lines are open.

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I'm not there yet. Thank you, John, for filling in for me and popping that up. But the comment lines are open.

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We'd love to hear from you. If you want to interact with us while we're having this discussion, questions about acts or anything else concerning the church or our differences that we have, we would love to talk to you.

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And we appreciate you so much. But I do want to talk about our conference and play this little clip, 30 -second clip concerning our conference because there's 75 seats.

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It's going to be a Reformed Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. And so we would love to see you at the last weekend in April, 2024.

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Reformed Baptist Church. And here's a little 30 -second clip. I think it has some bass in it.

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I must have put the volume way up when I made that video because I had to quickly turn my volume down.

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So now on to the comments. And please leave us a comment. At least let us know that you're watching. Say hello.

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We'd love to hear from you. All right. So Acts, and we are in chapter nine.

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What I've done is I have went and made some questions from each chapter.

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Instead of just giving a summary of the book, I took some questions from each chapter. And you can go back and look at Acts part one, part two.

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And we are currently in Acts part three, starting in chapter nine. So we are at Saul's conversion.

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The question is, what is God doing concerning the gospel and the conversion of Saul? Well, right off the bat,

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I was thinking about, honestly, the significance of his name Paul. I mean Saul, I'm sorry.

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My church is working through 1 Samuel right now, verse by verse. And we've been working through the kingship of Saul the last couple weeks.

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And it's interesting to me that God chose Saul to be an apostle of God when his namesake was rejected by God in the

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Old Testament for disobedience. But yet Saul, in his disobedience, was called by God here and set apart as an apostle.

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I just think that's beautiful. Yeah, it is. You guys might have come across this before, but you're talking about name change.

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I know it happened. We read about it in Scripture. There's name changes, and we know that there's significance in people's names meant something.

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But I'm just curious, and this may be something I need to look into a little bit more, but how common was that?

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Did it happen for everyone? Not everyone's name changed at conversion or turning to Christ.

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That's just an interesting, intriguing topic I think I'd like to dive into one day. I've wondered about it.

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Like with Saul, I had read that in the Greek, which now I'm going to put Ty on the spot, if I heard wrong,

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I trust you'll straighten me out in front of everybody, that Saul changing his name to Paul had to do with the way that Saul was said in Greek is similar to the way a prostitute walked.

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The name, the way you use the name is like strut or something like that. It's nearly vulgar in Greek, and he had changed his name.

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If that's true, and I can't give you the link where I read that at, but if that's true,

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I think that it is wildly awesome, really, since he was the apostle to the

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Gentiles, that he changed his name so that he was more likely to be heard when he went somewhere as opposed to,

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I mean, could you imagine a flyer that had somebody's name on it that was crude or vulgar?

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You wouldn't take your kids to listen to that man speak, would you? Let's go see Pastor Wounded Lover. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like a, yeah,

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I'm not even going to say that. Never mind. Let's just move that on. I shouldn't have brought that up, but if that's true, is that true,

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Tyler? I'm pulling up Logos right now because you've piqued my curiosity. I just threw out Wounded Lover because it was humorous.

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Oh, okay. Oh, mercy. Well, one of the significance that I see as far as the gospel is concerned is that, my page got turned, the

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Lord is saying in verse 15, to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel.

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So this going to the Gentiles is significant. I mean, this concept of,

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I mean, it was in scripture, it's in the Old Testament, it's in the New Testament, yeah, that all nations will be blessed in Abraham, but it was one of those concepts that was not registering, that they did not get.

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And the Lord is telling them, this is my man, and he's going to the

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Gentiles. And so that's significant to me that it's being reiterated, that it's being pointed out that this is for all the nations.

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And it's also interesting here that he says kings as well. It just makes me think about how afraid we are.

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I think a lot of it has to do with 501c3. Excuse me. You okay?

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I heard something in there. We're so afraid, but the

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Lord had his men speak to kings. That's right. I love to hear somebody say,

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I ain't careful answering you in this manner, King. I might bow, but it ain't going to be this statue right here.

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You go jump that river out there, old son. You know, that kind of brazen boldness, you know, when

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God answered prayers, you know. But, yeah.

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Did you find anything, Tyler? Go ahead. I'm still looking. So I don't know that this is going to answer this part of the question.

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So if I'm not, you know, you stop me. Is there any symbolism in Saul's conversion?

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Well, obviously, there's the fact that Saul is the one who's noted in Acts 7 for being the one who holds the jackets of those who stoned the first martyr,

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Stephen. Then he's got his orders to persecute the church, which he did more zealously than anybody else, according to his own testimony.

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But the way Jesus confronts him, right? This whole thing.

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Falling to the ground, he heard a voice from heaven saying, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

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He says, who are you, Lord? He answers his question as he's asking it, isn't he?

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And the fact that I've always took peace in this.

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When you're persecuted for Jesus's sake, he is the one who views it as taking the persecution.

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I mean it like this. If something happens in this house,

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I'm responsible for fixing it. This is my house. Whether I do it or not,

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I've got to fix it. Right. That's biblical. Whenever somebody come against the

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Lord's house, it was a direct attack on the Lord. That's the way he viewed it.

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Why are you doing this to me? He didn't say, why are you doing this to my children? Why are you doing this to me? And the fact that the king of glory would take that so personal has given me more peace.

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Knowing that if in the day comes whenever I'm persecuted for Jesus's sake, that I'm not going to be alone.

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That it's going to be them doing it to him. Well, it fits right along with the concept in the

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New Testament that we are his temple and he dwells within us. Therefore, if it's done to his children, it's done to him.

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So the Greek word for Saul is actually the

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Greek equivalent of a Hebrew word, meaning the one asked for. So that was wrong.

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I was told incorrectly or I read incorrectly. Maybe I just read it wrong. Now, I don't have the resources to go as deep into the names.

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I have the pretty basic Logos stuff here. I'm sure there's added nuance that I just don't have access to.

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But it looks like Saul means the one asked for. I can't find anything on what

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Paul means. But it is interesting nonetheless. One of the symbolisms that I see in Chapter 9 is here the

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Lord is using a physical again to give a spiritual reality.

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Saul is blinded. And you have to be blinded to be persecuting

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Jesus, to be persecuting his believers. Only a blind person could do that.

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And here he has been made blind to show his spiritual blindness.

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Do you see parallels with Christ referring to the Pharisees as blind guides? Yeah. Yeah.

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The uber -religious crowd with absolutely no relationship with God whatsoever that's zealous to keep their own practices and their own,

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I won't say their own power, their own political persuasion.

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Everything I read in the New Testament about the Pharisees with very few exceptions is more to do with them obtaining and holding some power over their countrymen and not wanting to lose any more ground with Rome than it does about pleasing

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God whatsoever. It's just over and over again. If we do this, then they'll take our temple from us.

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If this Jesus of Nazareth don't stop doing what he's doing, it's going to cause us trouble. Is it not better for one man to die for all of us that we can live?

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Let's get rid of this one guy who's causing trouble everywhere he goes. And, yeah.

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Well, you can see how that's, to me, in every man. That just, no matter the situation or circumstance, that principle holds true in every man.

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We can have a form of godliness. We can put on a display, but in our hearts, we're far from him.

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Yeah, that's true. That's true. Acts chapter 10.

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Explain Peter's vision. Does anybody want to talk about Dorcas before we leave Acts chapter 9?

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Because that's an awesome name. If you got something to say, look.

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No, no, no. I would like to say something about Ananias before we moved on.

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One of the things that I would encourage everybody is to be obedient to God regardless of your own personal feelings towards someone.

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Ananias was clearly given a command from God to go pray for this man, right? And he didn't want to.

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And logic would have said Ananias is right. Why would I go over here? If he gets his eyesight back, he's just going to go right back to terrorizing the church.

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But in the end, God knew best, right? And it's not us to know.

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We're not to lean on our own understanding. It's just to be obedient to God and let God be responsible for everything else.

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And Ananias gets no credit in the church from as far as I can see. There's never any sermons on the subject of Ananias' surrender to Christ and to surrender to God's will and opposed to his own.

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And as a Gentile -born believer, I'm thankful for men like Ananias and Paul.

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Well, he was in a fearful circumstance himself. He even says to the Lord, many have told me about how he harmed your saints in Jerusalem.

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And here you want me to minister to him, bring him in my home? Yeah, but now, isn't that not what

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Jesus has said for us to do in Matthew? To love those that hate you, to pray for them to despitefully use you.

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I mean, it's not like he's like, hey, remember there was a time we was on that big old tall mountain out there and I was talking all kinds of stuff.

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And y 'all were writing this down like crazy because you never heard anything like it. Yeah, I was talking about this kind of thing. So, you know, in the world we live in, those that are against us are typically against us in a hate -filled, war -raging manner.

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You think about the pro -abortion movement and how much they hate the abolitionist movement.

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You think about the homosexual agenda and how they despise

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Christians standing up for biblical tenets of marriage. And they want you to call it traditional, not biblical, right?

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And they want you dead, you understand? And we're not to come at them that way.

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We're actually supposed to pray that God save them, that God give them repentance so that they can be made in right relationship with God.

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That's not – our job is not to ask God to call fire down on them. And I think we see

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Ananias doing something that most of us would not have been able to do if we're being honest.

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God condescended to us and said, hey, the leader of Al -Qaeda is going to be at this house in this town.

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He's a Christian now. I want you to go talk to him. Oh, I just don't feel led.

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Is that when God takes you by the hand and says, okay, now do you feel led? Based on our conversation before we started,

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John, I think that may be when I start requesting an audible voice. Won't he do it?

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You don't know, you don't know. Okay. You were saying about chapter 10. I apologize. I didn't mean to get a sidetrack.

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Well, I was also going to respond to what you were talking about as far as speaking to officials and using that terminology, traditional versus biblical, and our objective – well, not objective, but our responsibility is to say thus saith the

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Lord. That's right. But then I've been reflecting on this the past couple weeks as well, that there's a balance in our approach.

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I mean, you're speaking to people. Some may profess Christ but are not acting like it in their decision making, and then some are just flat out not believers.

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And so they're blinded. They're going to behave like unbelievers. They're going to pursue legislation that's not

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God -honoring. Sure. And so therefore, they're just behaving the way they're going to behave.

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They're not going to hear – you can go to them and say, you need to use this terminology because it's more biblical.

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You need to submit to Christ. You need to submit to Christ. Yes, and I totally agree with that.

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I'm an abolitionist. I totally agree with that, that God has placed these people in their positions.

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God puts leaders in their positions and that all men everywhere, kings to peasants, are to submit to Christ because he is the king.

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I agree with that. I believe in that. But as far as our approach goes, I think you're totally right about it's the gospel that's going to win.

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It's going to be his spirit who changes their heart because going in there full blaze, bull in a china shop, it's not going to persuade them.

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That's right. Only a changed heart is going to persuade them. Only the gospel and the spirit is going to change them.

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So I think there's a balance in that approach. There's a standing firm and uncompromising position that we can have, but yet we can speak to them truth in love, full of the gospel.

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I agree. I agree. So on to Acts chapter 10 and Peter's vision.

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I love this. So explain Peter's vision. What happened there? So in Peter's vision, he sees a blanket or a sheet with all manner of animals on it that were previously forbidden from any

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Jewish person to eat. And he was told in his vision to go kill and eat.

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Right. And Peter says, no, I'm not going to do anything like that because I don't eat things that are common. That's just whatever

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I've cleaned. You don't call common. And for those who are watching that don't know what

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I'm talking about, there would have been a kosher dietary restriction that any Jewish person reading this would have understood that there are certain things they're not allowed to eat.

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And go with Leviticus and Deuteronomy and you can see them. Among them would have been like shrimp and pork. And when he sees these critters and he's told to go kill and eat it, his assumption, and I believe it's because he said he was hungry that he was thinking this way, but I might be wrong, was

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I can't do that because that's not Jewish enough. But he had been summoned by God to go to an

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Italian man, man's name, named Cornelius, who had been praying and an angel visited

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Cornelius and told him to send a messenger to go get Simon Peter from Simon the

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Tanner's house, I believe. I actually hadn't read Acts chapter 10 in preparation for this. I just turned to it.

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So how right am I? Pretty good. So the most important thing about this, from my point of view, is that we see a

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Jewish man who is normally not permitted to go inside of a quote unquote

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Gentile hot home and sit with him, let alone preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to him, then be saved and baptized.

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Right. I mean, this is this is crazy. Now we're seeing the exact same thing happened in the upper room happened in Cornelius's house.

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It goes back to what we were talking about in chapter nine. God said, I'm going to the Gentiles. That's right. God said to do something and we're to do it.

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It's almost like he knows what he's talking about. I mean, it's kind of like I thought about this last night.

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I was speaking at high shows. And right before I got up there to speak, something just as heavy as it could be laid on my heart was laid on my heart.

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I said, I have to share this, but it's not in my notes. And I don't like I don't like deviating from a plan.

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Right. I just don't like doing that. I might be one of the only Pentecostals who don't like doing that.

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But I don't like doing that. So I feel like I'm standing up there in my drawers now. Right.

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And I was like, I'm just going to read you something that was that was just burned into me whenever we were starting this service.

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And I think it's appropriate. So I read it and. I'm not going to say

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God told me to read this, but I felt compelled to read this.

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So I did. I think we need to be a people whenever the evidence points to this is something that God is pushing you to do.

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You just do it and you don't apologize for it. You just do it. Now, obviously, it's a little bit more strategic here with Peter.

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When after all, you have a voice, you have a vision and you have a voice giving you an understanding of the vision.

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Right. But if we believe God's sovereign. We ought not to argue with him.

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Right. Well, when looking at the purpose of the vision and what he was teaching, teaching

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Peter, this this hurdle, this threshold, he was trying to get Peter to come and go across so that Peter would know.

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He wanted him to that he was bringing the Gentiles in, go to the Gentiles, take the message to the

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Gentiles. So to me, here we have, again, the

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Lord using a physical to teach a spiritual application. You know, here are these unclean animals.

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So if I call them clean, you don't call them unclean. So here once you're out of the vision, you're calling these

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Gentiles unclean. I'm bringing them in. I'm making them clean. And so what's the application as far as for us today?

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We don't necessarily have the the Jew Gentile. Oh, sure. Gentile.

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Specifically. Specifically. But what does it look like? One says that to the pure, all things are pure and to the unbeliever, all things are impure.

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And well, that's not necessarily saying that if I go and live like a devil, that that's all good.

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But rather, the things we do now, there's not this distinction between that's the God stuff and that's this over here.

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But everything we do is before the face of God, that if anything, the things we do matter more as people in Christ.

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Because all of this before the face of God, all of it is open and exposed to him.

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That to the pure, all things are pure. Simply put, to the pure, it all flows from one heart.

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That we look at the things we do now with a new heart. The things we do echo through eternity.

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What I was going to say, Robert, was that we we have the unbeliever and then we have the redeemed.

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And and what I would say to that is when you see when you see or the testimony of someone is that they've been born again.

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We treat them like brothers or sisters immediately, don't we? They don't owe me an explanation for what

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God's forgiven them of. And this is this is really so simple, yet it trips everybody up somewhere.

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Everybody listening this right now has got somebody in their life that they're thinking about that they absolutely can't stand because they've done something to them that they feel is unforgivable.

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Right. And truthfully, that's not yours to carry.

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You don't have the right to hold someone in unforgiveness because we've been forgiven so much. And if God will save them, how can we if God will forgive them, how can we do anything less?

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I mean, how can you how can you hold something at somebody? How can you hold a sin at somebody's charge that God don't go back to Acts chapter seven?

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What did what did what did Brother Stephen say? Lord, please don't hold this sin at their charge.

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Please don't. You know, that's it's it's one of those things that, you know,

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I say this not as a position of strength, but as a position of weakness. That there's that there's things that I have to crucify because they stay as aggravations in my life that I'd rather not ever think about.

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But the fact of the matter is, if God forgives them, I have to welcome them as family because they are.

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And that's whenever we have to put Christ first and we have to say this is really all about Jesus, not about me.

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I can get over myself. I can rub some dirt on it and keep getting back up with him. So that's that's our version,

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I think, today of the Jew Gentile complex. These Gentiles are no longer heathen.

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They're believers. Peter's a believer. Now, if Paul would say it in Galatians, he said, there's neither

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Jew nor Greek. There's neither free nor Roman or nor slave, male or female. We're in Christ or we're not in Christ.

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Christ is in whom we find our identity in. Christ is in whom we recognize with. We're either with him or against him.

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I think we can fall into the ditch and I fought against this. I mean, I've not been bold about it and went after people.

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But in my own heart, you know, I've contemplated this, dwelt on this and fought against this in my own heart.

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But I think in that in that same vein, there's another ditch that we can fall into when we're being we're being so accepting of people, because we hold that truth to be real and to be

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God's truth, that he is saving people of all nations, of all backgrounds, of all men everywhere.

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Yeah. But those people that we we also accept because God is saving them, we we allow them to hold on to their niche.

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Here I go again, trying to kind of be careful about what I say. And correct me, please correct me if I'm wrong going off base here, but.

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Just and it's not even sin.

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Like it could be somebody that's coming from a sinful lifestyle. That God saves, you know, we a popular topic is a homosexual community.

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You know, yes, yes, we would welcome them, love them.

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But you can't hold on to that, which God calls, you know, unnatural. That's one thing you let go.

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But I'm also thinking of things that are not simple. People who

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I can't think of all the names that they use, but people who dress in all black.

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They come in. Well, your identity is not goth anymore. Your identity is

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Christ. Sure. I know what you're saying. Or you wear a cowboy hat and boots. Well, you may be a cowboy, but your identity now is

35:29

Christ. And so on and so forth. I don't think we should fall into the other ditch where we we let them hold on to their niche, whatever it is.

35:44

Which which is a good that's what you're familiar with. That's what you know, that's what your thing is. That's what your your job is.

35:50

That's that's who God made you to be. But your identity now is Christ. So you put that on the back burner is what

35:58

I'm trying to say. That's right. So if I'm hearing right. Yeah, if I'm hearing right. The way

36:05

I approach the way I would approach that is if if God has saved someone, then the way that they dress will should at least naturally become something that is appropriate.

36:24

Put this this way. The other day was up in the town of Newtown, North Carolina. We served at a place called

36:31

Corner Table. You ever heard of it? I have not. It's in downtown. Not far from your church.

36:38

OK, and it's a it's like a homeless shelter and they feed people like a restaurant.

36:44

They come in, sit down with, you know, take their, you know, take their order because there's only one thing good. But you wait on them. You bring the drinks, whatnot, and then you clean up after my leave.

36:51

And they're not they're not in there like their charity cases. They get to come in and sit down like regular grown adults.

36:59

Right. So we were in there waiting tables. And one of the guys that was with me, he he was making a statement or wanted to make a statement really bad.

37:09

He said, when we were over with, there was somebody said something that made him mad. And this man, we're all wearing our work shirts because they want you to recognize that our company is doing something in the community.

37:20

So you have to wear a shirt that identifies you with my workplace, which

37:27

I'm purposely not saying. Right. For the sake of anyway. And he said, these colors on my shirt are the reason

37:36

I didn't say what it was on my mind. And when he said that, I thought, so your behavior was modified because of whom you represent.

37:45

And because they would look down on a company that you work for.

37:52

And in fact, maybe you may have complications with your employment. It may be a career limiting move as far as that goes.

37:59

If you say something too harmful to some of these folks, whenever whenever you're born again and you're

38:06

Jesus Christ's own personal property and possession. Then that's first. I wear boots because I think that they they're more practical than tennis shoes.

38:18

Most of the time. At the same time, I don't I don't partake in the things that I used to partake in that I used to identify as.

38:28

Some people would say that the thing some of the things that I give up were silly and I didn't have to because they were all things are permissible once you're in Christ.

38:37

But my problem was identified with them. I just put to you like this and I don't mind saying it online.

38:43

Right. So I was an alcoholic that used that used tobacco.

38:49

Well, I smoked cigars, cigarettes, a dip snuff. I was real rough, tough cowboy redneck kind.

38:55

Right. And that's why we were supposed to be where I come from. Real men spit black. Right.

39:01

You got a gun in your truck. You don't get messed with and you make sure you drink whiskey without nothing in it.

39:09

When Christ saved me, the last thing I want to be identified with is any of that nonsense.

39:17

I want to be a Christian. And I want people to see me. I want them to see a representation of Christ on this earth.

39:25

Not not big, bad, John. One of the reasons I keep the big John thing is just kind of humor. Right. And as we should want them to see

39:34

Christ in us, not us in us. That means that has to die. So if somebody is

39:40

Gothic first and Christian second, they're not Christian at all. If somebody is a cowboy first and a

39:47

Christian second, they're not a Christian at all. That's just the way it is. I know that it's unpopular, but we've gotten too comfortable with not calling people out on things that are so easily called out on.

40:01

If you're a Christian first and you're Christian, indeed, if you're something else first, you're not a Christian. Indeed. Right.

40:07

I really like what you said about how based on who I represent, modifies my behavior towards somebody else.

40:14

Absolutely. We represent Christ where he is and it modifies.

40:20

It changes how I would act towards somebody in the flesh versus how I act towards them based on Christ.

40:27

And and this is this is my personal opinion, and it may be on a little rabbit trail, but this is my opinion.

40:34

And it's not very popular in my denomination because my denomination seems like champion this this type of movement.

40:42

And it used to be more popular than it is, I think. But, you know, when based on this topic that we talk about in Acts 9,

40:51

Acts 10, where the Lord is telling them, I'm going to the Gentiles. I'm bringing all nations myself.

40:56

You need to get over your bigotry. You need to get over all your thoughts toward everybody needs to be a

41:02

Jew. Everybody needs to be like you to be saved. I'm saving all men everywhere. No matter what, where they come from, their nationality, background, ethnicity, whatever it is.

41:12

And then you have later on in the New Testament where we're told that he has is broken down the dividing wall.

41:20

And he's made the two one. And yes, we're continually talking about the Jew and Gentile distinction.

41:26

But but in our setting, why don't we put that wall back up? And here's where I'm talking about where it's an unpopular opinion amongst especially my denomination.

41:34

But why don't we put that dividing wall back up when we have cowboy church or motorcycle church or whatever kind of church you cater to that niche?

41:49

And, you know, well, we'll we'll have church at this time because these people normally ride at this time.

41:56

Well, in God's church, he has broken down the dividing wall.

42:01

So in his body, you're going to have whites worshipping with blacks and Asians and Indians and all sorts of colors and cowboys with businessmen and goths with and countries with rappers.

42:19

And that's right. Everybody is going to be together. Yeah. We reckon heaven's going to look like reckon a partitioned off in heaven.

42:26

I mean, I want all my Harley Davidson riders over here and I'll put on my Kawasaki riders over here.

42:32

That's a joke. It's going to be more like a bag of Skittles. You know, the thing that I like about the church,

42:39

God, is that there's usually only one in a town. Now, we're unique in North Carolina and that there's more than just one per town.

42:46

But you go to Church of God, it ain't like there's a white one and a black one and a Hispanic one. There might be one that don't speak

42:52

English. Right. There's some brother, the reformed recon here said he was from a

42:58

Spanish speaking Church of God. Right. Which is which is perfect. We have some of those in our county.

43:04

And I've actually gone to their services more than one time. I pick up on a word here and there. True story.

43:15

So, I don't know if I should say this, but I will say it. Oh, man, you can record this anyway.

43:21

You can't edit it. It's live. It is live. So I was we was at a service one night and he was there was a man from Puerto Rico speaking.

43:32

And I don't know where his interpreter was from, but he was if he if he wasn't from Puerto Rico with that man, he spoke fluent

43:41

Spanish and English. His English was perfect. His Spanish was perfect. And they obviously had had preached at more than one bilingual church service because he was well, first of all, his notes were already prepared, which was very handy.

43:56

He wasn't standing there waiting on the man to say something before he said it. He already had it prepared, laid out in front of him so he could read.

44:01

He could read in any way. And the man from Puerto Rico was preaching and I was there listening to him.

44:08

And I was like, man, this is great. And I was like, wait a minute, I understand every word he said. And I just about took a hot lap around the church.

44:17

I was like, I'm interpreting. And then and then the man started speaking Spanish like rats. I was like, man, my wife got tickled at me because I said yes and stood up and she said these are speaking.

44:31

I sit back down. She said, what? I was like, I'll tell you later. And he was he was shucking it out to talking about this very thing, by the way.

44:42

Yeah. Let me just share one more dish before we move to chapter 11. That may be the last one we we have to do tonight.

44:49

But I know Doug Wilson is not popular with everybody, but I was just listening to him do an interview.

44:55

He was talking about Tyler. Help me pronounce it correctly. Ken ism. You're as good as mine.

45:03

I'm a little lost on what that one is, too. OK, he was he was explaining Ken ism.

45:09

And and basically he agreed that we we are not to raise one ethnicity.

45:16

We can't raise our ethnicity background, color of our skin above everyone else.

45:23

And and look and act with malice towards other ethnicities or skin colors.

45:30

That is absolutely simple. However, he also included the fact that we don't have to be.

45:38

We can embrace who we are. We can embrace our community. I mean, he said, I think the example that Doug used was

45:45

God gave us the mother and father that we have. And of course, we love our mother more than we love somebody else's mother.

45:55

It's just a natural thing. And God puts you in the community that he puts you in. And so there's a there's a natural affinity towards, you know, that particular community that you're in.

46:06

And there's nothing simple or wrong about that. However, it is wrong when we set one above the other with malice towards others.

46:14

Yeah, you can be more comfortable with somebody than somebody else. But that doesn't mean you can value them more than somebody else.

46:20

And kind of the point that I wanted to make was we want to we want to celebrate the fact that God supernaturally has brought all men to himself and made us one.

46:32

However, we don't want what we don't want to as a vision for our church to to say our goal is for our church to look like heaven.

46:44

No, our goal is to have our church be who God's called it to be. And he draws who he who he wants to our church and accept everyone that he draws and that comes.

46:56

Gospel gospel is is for everybody. That's right. Yeah. And you shouldn't approach somebody differently.

47:05

And that doesn't matter whether they're a different ethnicity or not. I'm talking about if you're coming to somebody that, you know, is trapped in a homosexual lifestyle, you don't approach them with a different gospel than you do somebody who isn't.

47:18

You give them the gospel. And this is the way it is. We fall on it and be broken. There's only two options that I've read.

47:25

Fall on it, be broken, let it fall on you, be grounded dust. So we don't we don't pull punches for people.

47:32

Now, we also don't we're not purposely hateful or purposely vindictive towards people. But we give them the facts as best we understand them in love and say that it is.

47:42

And you have to make you have to do with what you will do. Yeah. All right. Let's look at chapter 11.

47:48

We'll end with chapter 11 verse verse number two.

47:54

And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those who were circumcised took issue with him.

48:00

Here's the question that I had. How should a pastor or other leaders handle a rebuke?

48:06

Well, it's interesting because I've got the CSB in front of me and it calls it the circumcision party.

48:12

No. We got the Republicans, the Democrats and the circumcision party.

48:18

All right. So yeah, just being funny, but. I would never mind.

48:30

How should a pastor handle rebuke? Yeah, I cannot speak to that as a pastor.

48:36

I can speak to that as just just a lay person. Now, I guess to begin with humility.

48:46

We have a tendency, I think, to put the pastoral office on a pedestal on on some kind of elevation point and say he is above us.

48:58

Touch not the Lord's anointing. We sometimes default to this thinking that there is something distinctly better about the pastor than us.

49:07

That they are untouchable when it comes to error, when it comes to misgivings.

49:19

I think this is an example of why that's wrong. That they're human like the rest of us.

49:31

But James tells us that not many should become teachers because we who teach will incur a stricter judgment.

49:42

But we're still human, which means I think there's there's a little bit of give and take there that we're going to be held to a higher standard if we teach.

49:51

But we're still going to mess up and we're going to get called out. And so how we navigate that as leaders and those who are pastors, that also becomes an opportunity,

50:03

I think, to model humility. Before the congregation that I don't know everything about the

50:12

Bible. I've been working through Job for some time and I've been dealing with Job's unhelpful friends who are full of knowledge and empty on wisdom.

50:25

And honestly, I see a little bit of myself in these knuckleheads, which is what makes it that much harder. Because I have the capacity to be

50:34

Eliphaz and Bildad and Zophar. And honestly, these guys need to be smacked around a little bit by truth because they're making assumptions that this isn't who

50:46

God is. He's more complicated than we think. Good word. But we don't know everything about God.

50:53

That's right. And so with rebuke, with what we're seeing with Peter and the circumcision,

51:06

Peter doesn't come at it as if how dare you insinuate that I'm wrong. He goes, this is what

51:11

God says. Let's start here. So do you think that how a pastor or leader responds to, and doesn't even necessarily have to be rebuked, but someone comes to them with a different theological bent or theological interpretation on a passage, how they respond, do you think that speaks to qualification?

51:41

Hmm. I don't know if it speaks to qualification, but it most certainly speaks to a person's level of arrogance.

51:52

We all have a certain amount of arrogance, and that's whether we want to admit it or not. I mean, we're standing here right now on the computer as if people think we care what we really think, right?

52:03

There's a certain amount of gumption involved in that, I think. Well, I've been an associate pastor for some years, and I've been told,

52:16

I don't think you ought to approach it this way, or you ought to do it this way by more than one person. And sometimes

52:22

I disagreed with that, and I went with the direction I thought we should have gone anyway.

52:28

And sometimes I've said, you know what, maybe you're right. And usually what

52:36

I do is I ask somebody else, and I take the

52:41

Matthew 18 route. If somebody comes to me and they say, I really don't think you ought to do this,

52:48

I'll try my best to find somebody who likes both of us equally, and I'll say, or I'll give them hypothetical.

52:55

I know a guy's got this situation right now, and this is what the other fellow thinks. What do you think you ought to do? And I'll take that to people that I know have a good relationship with God, and they're praying people, and I'll get their input from it.

53:13

I mean, I've never been a senior pastor at a church, but that's the way I approach it. Right.

53:19

Well, and I don't think that you have to be a pastor to answer this question. You know, we have the qualifications of a pastor in Timothy and Titus.

53:30

We have the character that God desires in all of us, especially those who are to lead, by example, in Scripture.

53:39

And so that's, you know, looking at those who came to Peter and rebuked him.

53:51

What about Paul's rebuke of Peter? You had Paul's rebuke to Peter as well. Yeah. I think it does speak to, we have responsibility.

54:06

We have a responsibility to the person that is coming with a rebuke or criticism or difference of opinion.

54:13

We have a responsibility to our congregation, and I think you hit the nail on the head that, you know, there's, we have to have a sense of humility.

54:27

And John, you hit the nail on the head as well, that we can come at it with arrogance.

54:34

You know, my view is right. You know, I've studied this and I'm right.

54:41

And it's offensive to our natural man, to our flesh, to be, to someone to question us and come to us like that.

54:52

And listening to some different sermons this week, this particular idea was brought up in the

55:02

Jewish context, where you had all their lives. They ate a certain thing.

55:12

They ate barbecue. I think, let's see, it was Jeremy. I was listening to one of Jeremy Hull's, one of our laborers,

55:18

Jeremy Hull. I was listening to one of his sermons, and he was in Romans. He was talking about how, you know, in this Jewish culture, all their lives, they had to eat kosher.

55:28

They had to eat a certain way. They couldn't eat certain things. But then all of a sudden, they're told, now all these things are clean.

55:36

And somebody comes in and eats a, he said, a bacon -wrapped shrimp.

55:44

That sounds great. How hard would that be? Gordon, how long you cook it?

55:51

That's right. Well, I mean, even just look at some of the Christians today who were brought up in very legalistic households, where any alcohol was automatically a grievous sin, and you were put out from the body.

56:07

You can't wear shorts in public and things like that, and they come to a church that doesn't operate quite like that.

56:14

They're a little looser around the reins there, not in the sense that they don't care about doing what's right, but they don't take the same stances.

56:23

It's kind of the same thing sometimes. Yeah, and I liked your approach,

56:29

John. You talked about how you received it, and you listened, and you asked other people, and you were willing to take that step forward in the way that you felt like the

56:39

Lord had you go, even though it contradicted maybe the criticism or the other opinion.

56:45

But then you were also willing to receive it and say, you know, maybe you were right, because I've also encountered some who were so, so receiving that they almost become a doormat, and then you have everybody, you're running the church, running over the pastor.

57:03

Yeah. So you've got to have a balance there. In some ways, like in the first case where we had a disagreement on something, it was a ministry -related function, and the biggest disagreement was over the cost of the function.

57:21

So I said, well, I really believe that this is what we're supposed to be doing, and if nobody else agrees, then we'll find another way to pay for it.

57:39

Right? I didn't think it was right to use the church's money to do something if not everybody agreed.

57:46

If nobody else shares your convictions about something, but you feel strongly about it,

57:53

I really believe that God has given you these convictions, and you're to adhere to them, even if somebody else don't.

58:01

As long as it's not causing division in the church, right, as long as it's not causing something sinful, you are to live these convictions out.

58:10

And if it means it comes at some cost to you, whether it be financially or otherwise, if it's really a conviction, you'll pay that cost.

58:20

Right? Yeah. And that's one of the reasons why you and I will disagree eschatologically, right?

58:29

You and I will disagree on cessationism and continuationism, but have

58:35

I ever pushed you to be anything other than you're convicted about? And I'm not going to.

58:43

I told you I don't have perfect knowledge about this. Why in the world would I beat you up about something? Right. That I can't tell you that this is 100 % sure

58:51

I can tell you what I believe based off of what God revealed to me through His Word. That's all I can go off of is what

58:56

I read, what I've seen, and what I've heard. And we have to approach, every one of us have to approach scripture this way.

59:06

I can't stand in judgment for what you believe and what you teach, Brother Rob, but I can for what I believe and what

59:12

I teach. Right. This is personal and the same with those kinds of things.

59:19

So what would you say to pastors and leaders? And I want to use both examples. Okay. So the first one

59:26

I'll give from my side. So what would you say to pastors and leaders from somebody on my side, a denomination on my theological bent, that is standing before his congregation, speaking to his congregants online, in person, wherever it may be, but he is warning his congregation, don't, they are off base.

59:54

I got to stop putting my hand up. You're giving hand signals to your camera. They're warning what?

01:00:02

Yeah, it's a warning to not listen, don't go to their churches.

01:00:08

Those charismatics, those people who speak in tongues, don't have nothing to do with them.

01:00:13

They're wrong. And then on the other side, those Calvinists, don't listen to those

01:00:19

Calvinists. They're unbiblical. There's nothing in the Bible that teaches Calvinism.

01:00:24

Those cessationists, what would you say to those pastors on either side that are behaving that way towards somebody of a different theological bent and warning his congregation to stay away from them?

01:00:45

Warning his congregation to stay away from something that he thinks would derail them sounds natural and pastoral, if I'm being honest.

01:00:54

However, so I say that on either side, if I was a pastor and I had a deeply felt conviction about something that this was dangerous for you,

01:01:03

I would warn you against it and couldn't do anything otherwise. However, I believe that before you stand up and you begin to cast judgment on another church in a way that you're approaching this, that you're approaching this from a position that you have full knowledge of it.

01:01:25

I think you need to take a step back and try to learn some things before you talk about some things. The pastor that was at my church for so long would ask me a question about something that we're talking about on this program.

01:01:42

Before he would make a decision about something, he would do some homework, he would do some research, right?

01:01:49

He might wouldn't come on the podcast and talk about something.

01:01:54

I know him pretty good. I don't think he would come on to try to talk about something on the podcast that he had absolutely zero idea about, right?

01:02:02

So he would do his homework before he got on there. So we're always going to say that there's two sides of the spectrum, and usually they're both equally wrong.

01:02:15

So I don't know that I would tell a pastor anything that was teaching that way, if I can be honest with you, so much as I wouldn't talk to him about it.

01:02:26

Because most of the time, folks that are from that point of view, their minds are made up and they're not listening.

01:02:36

You just as well set up an unsanitary tributary without sufficient means of locomotion. There's going to be no getting around the fact that it's going to turn into an argument.

01:02:46

You need to use the wisdom of God before you approach that situation. Right. So do you think it's appropriate if you are a pastor or a leader?

01:02:54

And I totally agree with you what you're saying. I mean, that's a hard conversation and you can end up beating your head against the wall.

01:03:02

But do you think it's appropriate then as a pastor or leader to stand for your congregation and be honest and say, in my heart,

01:03:12

I'm fully convinced as the Reformed Berean quoted Romans chapter 14, verse 5, each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.

01:03:21

So stand for your congregation. I'm fully convinced in my own mind, this is what

01:03:26

God says in his word. This is biblical based on context and study. But be a

01:03:35

Berean. Test the spirits. Study the scripture.

01:03:43

And, you know, leave it open to the Lord and the spirit teaching the person and not come down as hard on others.

01:03:55

So my Sunday school class when I was teaching, I would give what I considered the full counsel of scripture.

01:04:02

And if we were going over a portion of scripture, it might take me a month to go through it.

01:04:08

It might take me two months to go through it, whatever it took. But I would give them what

01:04:14

I felt like was as accurate as I could be. And then I would try to find an opposing view that was biblical enough to where it was supported.

01:04:28

And I wanted to just give them, this is what I believe. I have to stand on my convictions if you're asking me what

01:04:37

I believe. There are others who would teach this and truthfully may be dangerous.

01:04:45

But truthfully, I leave them to God with that. And so in my

01:04:51

Sunday school class, when we were teaching eschatology, told them where I stood, told them where the church of God stands.

01:04:59

That's between you and the Lord, what you believe, right? When I teach on justification, that's tight and right.

01:05:07

They don't get around that. That's right. When I teach on sanctification, there's two views of sanctification.

01:05:15

There's progressive and there's instantaneous. I'm on the progressive end of sanctification.

01:05:21

But there are others who believe that God has saved them and sanctified them in a moment. I'm not arguing with them about it.

01:05:27

I'm not going to argue with them about it. I don't know enough about what they're trying to say to argue and it's pointless.

01:05:36

Endless debates, endless debates are pointless. This is what I believe. This is what some teach.

01:05:41

Here's the scriptures. I trust you'll study and pray and God will reveal to you through scripture what he wants you to believe.

01:05:47

And you'll draw your own convictions from them. It's got to account for something, doesn't it?

01:05:52

That's right. It's good stuff. Yeah. So verse 12, moving on before we spend so much time on tonight.

01:06:02

Verse 12, it says in Acts chapter 11, the

01:06:08

Spirit told me to go with them without misgivings. And this touches on kind of what we were talking about earlier.

01:06:17

And Tyler gave the example of someone from a terrorist group. God told us to welcome us into their home.

01:06:24

But there are times when God asks us to be obedient, commands that we be obedient, submit to Christ.

01:06:35

And how do we get past our misgivings, our fears, and our uneasiness? And you gave an example earlier about being able to forgive.

01:06:44

And that's just one example. How do we get past that? How do we obey the

01:06:51

Spirit when it's hard? All right, Tyler. I've talked enough. Honestly, this is,

01:06:58

I think, one of the challenges the church at large has right now is walking out that idea, is this idea of navigating misgivings, whether that is hurts, whether that's fears, whether that is differences.

01:07:17

We're not teachable. We're not as humble as we could be, as Big John has eloquently laid out.

01:07:26

But we think we have something worth saying. We're on the internet here because we think we have something worth saying.

01:07:35

But I guess the reality is if what we have to say is not this book, then we don't have anything worth saying.

01:07:42

That's right. That's good, bro. And as far as being willing to forgive, to be taught, those are hard things.

01:07:56

And I think that's part of why we are in some of the mess we are with the church is we like to teach.

01:08:02

We don't like to be taught. Man, get off my toes, brother. I'm talking about self here.

01:08:09

What are you talking about? We like to be forgiven but not necessarily to forgive.

01:08:20

And these are some of the harder lessons of being sanctified by God, of being taught the gospel every day.

01:08:30

When we forgive each other, when we bear one another's burdens, we are acting out the gospel to each other.

01:08:42

We are putting the gospel on display. We are reminding each other that God has the power to save, that God bore our burden, that Christ loved us first.

01:09:03

And we love because he loved. And we love as he loved. When he talks with Peter, he says, do you love me?

01:09:14

And first, if you get into Greek, first off he starts off with just brotherly love.

01:09:21

Do you phileo me? Do you love me like a brother? And he goes into agape, which is a different kind of love.

01:09:33

And so the question becomes, do you love me, Peter, as I love you? In the same way.

01:09:42

But it also implies that Peter is able to love as God loves. And while Peter is imperfect,

01:09:54

I am imperfect. God dwells in me so that I can love as he loves.

01:10:05

And we don't think about that enough, I don't think. I think you answered my next question that I was going to ask you.

01:10:12

Is there any way to work towards humbleness without being pummeled to a pulp by God to teach you humility?

01:10:23

Can we learn it without being forced to learn it? And you just explained tremendously in a beautiful way how we can remain humble.

01:10:35

And it's to keep our eyes on Christ and remember the gospel, remember who we are apart from Christ. And if we can remember that, that would help us with our unteachability, our unforgiveness, and our arrogant spirit.

01:10:51

May God help keep our eyes on Christ.

01:10:59

Amen. So that last question is an extra credit to wrap us up in Chapter 11.

01:11:05

And we kind of talked about this before, probably before the podcast. Verse 27 and 30 of Chapter 11.

01:11:17

And he talked with him. He entered and found many people's symbol. And he said to them, you yourselves know how unlawful it is.

01:11:26

Chapter 10. My apologies. My apologies. Now at this time, some prophets came down to Jerusalem to Antioch.

01:11:34

One of them named Agabus stood up and began to indicate by the Spirit that there would certainly be a great famine all over the world.

01:11:41

So here we have a famine. And I think we also have another statement that says, we may bring this up later if we get to it.

01:11:51

But that the gospel has, Paul says the gospel has gone out to all the world.

01:11:56

And which is a reference to some people, to Matthew 24. Matthew 24, verse 7 says there's going to be great famine.

01:12:05

I know he's going to do that. And, of course, we don't have to go down that rabbit trail.

01:12:14

It's going to depend on which eschatological view you take. Of course, from a partial prayer perspective, I'm looking at it as this is fulfillment of prophecy.

01:12:24

And Christ said this is going to be happening soon within that generation. And here you have evidence, maybe from a historical, what did you call it?

01:12:42

Pre -millennialist. Pre -millennialist. Do you have any thoughts or an answer to a partial preterist when it comes to that?

01:12:50

Not really. Okay. That was quick, wasn't it? Yeah. Good stuff.

01:12:57

I mean, I thought we was going to get into the question that was asked.

01:13:03

Was this gift still in access today? That was a question that you had on there. And I was waiting with raft attention to jump all over that.

01:13:12

What was that? Which question was it? Oh, I said

01:13:18

I was a raft attention. I thought it was in 10. Yes. Does the spirit work the same way today? That was chapter 10.

01:13:24

But we skipped that question. That's okay. Oh, go for it. Go for it. As a continuationist, I would say the spirit works.

01:13:31

Maybe not always in the exact same way, but he still works in the same fashion. Meaning through men.

01:13:39

Yeah. And I would agree. And I would also add from a cessationist point of view, it's always going to be according to the spirit.

01:13:48

Yeah. So, one of the things we didn't talk about, and we've talked about it before, I want to ask your opinion.

01:13:56

Because I've said it. You can go back on record and see it. Why did the angel not tell

01:14:02

Cornelius everything he wanted to know? So, give me a little more detail.

01:14:11

So, Cornelius is a man who fears God and prays often. He's visited by an angel, right?

01:14:17

Who tells him to go see who? Peter. Simon Peter at the

01:14:23

Tanner's house. Well, why didn't the angel of the

01:14:28

Lord just tell him to answer the questions that he was asking? Hold on a second.

01:14:34

I would hold to a double fulfillment. Yes, it's a way to fulfill the past, but it's also going to be fulfilled in the future.

01:14:42

There you go, Rob. The Reformed Berean has given you an answer. Double fulfillment. Yeah. Brother, you don't have to apologize for nothing.

01:14:56

That's right. We all in this together. That's right. I appreciate your comments. Brother, I appreciate you watching.

01:15:03

It means a lot to me that you would spend time with us. I know that there's other things you could be doing in an hour and 15 minutes talking about a handful of things in the

01:15:11

Book of Acts. It's no small feat indeed. That's right. That's right. That's why we're on three weeks of this. I put you on the spot, and if you don't have an answer, that's totally fine.

01:15:22

I don't. I have to look at it some more. Okay. Let me read through Chapter 10 and get back to you.

01:15:30

That's quite all right. I'll absolutely do it. I reiterate what you guys are saying.

01:15:36

Thank you, Reformed Berean, for sticking with us. I think

01:15:41

Reformed Berean has a podcast as well. We need to look into this, brother.

01:15:47

Is there a way you can put your podcast up on the thing?

01:15:53

Praise the Lord. Yeah, praise the

01:15:59

Lord indeed. Put up your link in the comments, and we'll share it before we get off here.

01:16:07

Talking about misgivings, there are several things. John was clearly pointing those things out that we do need to be dogmatic about, to stand on the firm foundation of these doctrines, that we don't need to have any misgivings about who we are apart from Christ.

01:16:25

The Bible describes us as terribly sinful, deserving an eternal wrath because we've sinned against an eternally holy

01:16:32

God. We've broken His commandments. I'm always reminded of James 2, verse 10.

01:16:40

Nobody has even done this, but if you've kept the whole thing and stumbled at one point, you're guilty of it all.

01:16:46

There is no remedy. There is no hope in and of ourselves, in and of this created world that we could find to make us right before God, to please

01:16:56

God. And not only that, but because of our sin, we are deserving of this hell where we are separated from God, and we are receiving

01:17:09

His wrath for eternity. And that is scary. That is a fearful reality, and that's one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, why we come together, the reason we talk and discuss

01:17:26

Scripture, and we want to be on the Internet, the World Wide Web, where we're in this marketplace, we're in this community, because it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry

01:17:35

God. And so we want to share with you that there is hope, there is good news in Jesus Christ.

01:17:43

God came down in human form, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life.

01:17:48

He submitted to the Father, Jesus Christ, fulfilling all prophecy in the

01:17:53

Old Testament of the Messiah. He is the one that was prophesied to come. He fulfilled that, lived this sinless life, was pleasing to the

01:18:03

Father. God said, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.

01:18:09

Then He bore the wrath of God on Himself. He became a curse for us, because He hung on that tree.

01:18:18

A curse is a man who hangs on a tree, and He became a curse for us, so that,

01:18:23

Galatians 3, verse 14, so that the Jews, so that the

01:18:29

Gentiles could receive the promise of Abraham, the Holy Spirit, and could be born again, be new in Christ, new creatures, and live forever in Him, be made new.

01:18:43

So there is hope only because of the amazing grace of God. And we would offer to you that forgiveness in Jesus alone, by grace through faith.

01:18:56

And the Bible commands us to repent of our sin and put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

01:19:02

So we encourage you to do that if you have not, and share it if you have.

01:19:08

Tyler, would you mind to close us in prayer? I'd be glad to. Oh Lord, our

01:19:17

Lord, how majestic is Thy name in all of the earth.

01:19:27

Lord, as we have considered Your history, because that's what this book of Acts is, it is

01:19:35

Your history. It is the history of how You have worked through broken people, through imperfect people, through people that have hard hearts and cold hands.

01:19:50

People prone to divisions, to pride, to all the things that You despise.

01:20:02

And yet You have been glorified in using them as vessels.

01:20:11

You have called us to Yourself, Lord, not because we're imperfect, not because we're impressive.

01:20:18

You have called us to Yourself because that's who You are. You are the

01:20:25

God who calls broken people. You are the

01:20:32

God who makes beautiful things out of dirty sinners.

01:20:41

And that is the testimony of the book of Acts. That You are a saving

01:20:46

God in the midst of all of our humanity. You saw the best part of us and then died to save us from it.

01:20:58

Because that's who You are. That we are grateful for who

01:21:03

You are. That as we struggle to wrap our minds around all that You are,

01:21:12

You are continuing to make Yourself known to us through Your word.

01:21:20

And we see more of Your character in this wonderful book. God, I thank

01:21:27

You for this time we've had to consider all that You are. I thank You for the people

01:21:33

You brought together to talk about who You are. Knowing that none of us have all the answers and we don't have it all together.

01:21:43

But You brought together a group of broken people to talk about how God uses broken people. And for that I am grateful.

01:21:51

In Christ's name, Amen. Amen. Praise the Lord. Did he leave his...

01:21:58

I actually was finding it. I think I've got it right here. Okay.

01:22:05

You probably just have searched the Reformed Marine. This is what

01:22:10

I was looking up. And I believe this link is a share to his channel.

01:22:16

Okay. I noticed the same symbol on here. Again, I actually subscribe to whoever, to him.

01:22:25

So I'm excited to see some of his content. Fantastic. If I'm not mistaken, he's been on with Daryl King, which is your brother.

01:22:32

Yeah. And Jay's. So here's another thing before we leave. If you watch this channel at all, any one of these channels, whether it be

01:22:41

Rumble with Brother Tyler, or whether it be with Brother Rob, Dan, and the Truth and Love, and some of the great things they're doing over there.

01:22:48

If it would be the Here I Stand Theology podcast at the Reformed Recon.

01:22:54

And there's other... I can't even think of all the guys' podcasts that are on here. Conversation with the

01:23:01

Calvinist, Keith Foskey. Conversation with the Calvinist, yeah, Keith Foskey. If you're watching these things, and you comment, by all means, drop us a link to some of your content so we can check it out.

01:23:15

And we encourage dialogue. We encourage dialogue here.

01:23:21

That's how we grow. That's right. And if there's anybody interested in joining the

01:23:26

Truth and Love Network, we're open, but with borders. So go to the website,

01:23:32

Truth and Love Network. Scroll all the way to the bottom. It says if you're interested in being a part of the network, can't remember how

01:23:40

I worded it, but you can click that link and you can see kind of our boundaries.

01:23:47

We're open to different denominations, different opinions, but also we have borders and boundaries as well to keep us in line biblically.

01:23:57

So if you're interested in joining the Truth and Love Network, we're interested in hearing from you. It's a big internet.

01:24:05

It's a big world. And there's room for the gospel everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. Let that be the cry of our hearts, meditation of our minds.

01:24:13

Be pleasing your side, oh Lord. That's right. So thank you, Reform Berean.

01:24:18

Thank you everybody else for watching, for liking, for sharing the content. We really appreciate it. And we hope to see you next time.

01:24:26

Thank you for joining the Laborers Podcast. Remember, Jesus is King. Live in the victory of Christ.

01:24:34

Speak with the authority of Christ. And go share the gospel of Christ. Be sure to tune in next time for the