Discussion About What Matters: Freedom, Dividing Lines, Catholicity, the Lordship of Christ

And greetings, welcome to the dividing line. I'm not sure why I'm just seeing a blank screen up there and now everything stopped and The are the cameras on maybe yeah, they are but nothing's oh, hey there there it went

I Don't know. It was just still showing the other thing. What can I say? Technical difficulties

Of course we Most people are aware that there's something going on in France right now

I'm seeing Of course, this is Al Jazeera Several attacks reported across Paris don't know what the nature of them are

I guess some some report you just had a dozen dead so far

Civilization is such a fragile thing and And what's going on in Europe You know secularization eats the heart out of meaningful civilization it really does

Civilization requires that mankind have a view that he has a transcendent purpose that there is a value to human life and the the secular worldview can't provide those things and Europe has been fully secularized a lot longer than we have we're catching up at lightning speed, but they've been there longer and The secular socialist communist worldview cannot stand up to the barbarian

Salafi radicalized form of Islam and I Don't know what's gonna happen there.

I really don't but it does sort of fit in with what

I want to talk with you about today because I I got up this morning and We had

Clementine over last night we're doing this on a Friday instead of yesterday My daughter was due yesterday and both children so far.

She has had exactly on time I taught the young lady to be prompt So I Will take credit for that.

She actually gave me credit for that yesterday so I'll I'll gotta take it when

I can get it, you know and So January Owen pinch was born at 537 yesterday morning a full pound heavier than her sister and She's been eating really well.

So think Clementine's Only gonna be the big sister for a while.

I think I think January's hot on her on her tail already as far as that goes, but Clementine stay with us last night.

We were doing the the grandparents thing and that was that was very enjoyable, but I get up this morning and I Even make comment on Twitter and Facebook The absolute insanity

Moral ethical Common -sense insanity stuff that just Deluged me this morning was really depressing.

I mean You know, you've got all these young people that Have no earthly idea how things work.

They have no earthly idea The history of this nation the sacrifices that have been given to allow them to have the many things they have they have no clue and The fact that our educational system has been taken over by communists for a long time now and It's it's now coming back to bite them a lot of people are commenting about oh

Gosh, look at all the liberals now. They're getting thrown out by the people that they have liberalized

In that fascinating But bringing destruction in the process. I mean, you know, there was a day we were concerned about turning out competitive college graduates so we could

Compete with other nations and they we don't even think about things like that anymore now

It's just gimme gimme gimme gimme, you know, take all the money. I mean, they're literally

Karl Marx level communists running around going just just take all the money from the rich and give it give it to us and and that's just the way things should be and and Then you've then you've got the the wild -eyed ethical pygmyism of the transgender movement and the the bathroom stuff and and and just just a

Complete and total lack of common sense Which again the only explanation

I can give for any of it is the judgment of God And I just I'm looking at all this and I'm going you know

And of course when you have grandchildren Really makes you think more You know,

I I didn't think a lot about what it was gonna be like After I was gone until I had grandkids

Cuz yeah, your kids are gonna survive you. Yeah, but then you start thinking about that next generation and you start seeing things and a little more of a timeline and I think

Well, I was holding January yesterday and I looked at my wife and I said if she lives to 80 she'll see the next century and we both just looked at each other like Wow Wow and You just you just go

What's what's this world gonna look like? Barring the Lord's return. What's this world gonna look like?

given current trends I Don't have any earthly idea.

I am NOT a futurist. I am NOT a prophet nor a son of a prophet But it does make you think it really really makes you think and so I'm looking at this stuff and I'm looking at the

Just the you know, we've said it before the people who are calling good evil and evil good and openly

Turning morals and ethics on its head and and don't even seem to recognize What the effect of that is going to be upon the nations in which they live.

I mean, there's you know anarchy right around the corner when all the systems of authority and and control and Appropriate things

Romans 13 level things are just being Thrown off and you think about these things especially when you're holding little teeny babies that are completely defenseless and And it really makes you

Fearful if you don't know that God has a purpose in all these things and even then let's let's be honest ourselves

We we may know that that our eternal destiny is sure in the hands of God.

We may have that great confidence but it doesn't change the fact that You look at what happened in Israel when

God brought judgment against Israel The godly suffered along with the ungodly And When God brought judgment on Nations like Germany and Japan and World War two that a lot of Christians died a lot of Christians died on both sides that war so I'm thinking about all this and at the same time

In the back of my mind. I've been wanting to talk for a long time About How we get along with each other as Christians Disputable things and it struck me.

I don't know sometime over the past couple weeks that that Some of you listen while running on treadmills and stuff.

I don't want you to fall off and sue us Okay, so I want you to listen carefully to my about to say

Before you freak out. All right but I was looking at things online

I was looking at some of the Conflicts that exist between Christians and how

Christians will treat other Christians and things like that and I thought about the fact, you know for someone who has a reputation.

But what was it? What was that guy's name? McKenzie he was the co -author with Geisler on their book on Roman Catholicism Ralph McKenzie, I'm not even sure if he's alive.

I could be wrong about that But I remember sitting with Ralph McKenzie 95 96 to 20 20 years ago somewhere around there and We were talking about our different approaches to Roman Catholicism the one of the things he said to me was

James you're such a hard -nosed and we need we need to have hard noses in some situations and For someone has a reputation for being hard -nosed you know,

I'm an apologist and So for a lot of people, I'm just constantly attacking

Constantly arguing and if I think it's most people who know me know that I actually try to avoid conflict I mean,

I really do probably too much so I'm not trying to be a bad guy. I'm just trying to be honest with you in certain situations. It's a weakness in some areas

But for someone who has such a reputation be such a hard -nosed I'm very Catholic with a small

C small C In other words, I seem to get along with a much wider variety of people than a lot of my compatriots do

Presbyterian brethren Will tell you that Though they root against me when we're debating baptism

In the vast majority of instances and I'm talking about conservatives here, I'm not talking about I'm not talking about the

Liberals here. I mean liberalism that that's all let's put that off to the side

When it comes down to you know important vital things we stand side -by -side

I Speak I speak in a lot of churches that well a number of my

Reformed Baptist brethren probably would not speak in and I don't have any problem doing it at all and I've taken a lot of heat

For my relationship with Michael Brown And he and I have been on the air and we've talked about all sorts of things and we've we've honestly dealt with areas of disagreement we've debated each other and so For someone who most people would think would be have a very very narrow Spectrum and a lot wider spectrum than people would expect and I Talk with a concern

I've had over the years is I Talk with people who maybe watch this program listen to this program read some books and things like that and They I hope that people that listen regularly to this program do not develop a

Attitude of Well hyper judgmentalism

I Am concerned about that. I Am concerned that when they hear us seeking to apply discernment to certain areas

That they would be imbalanced and going. Well, you know if you if you demonstrate that Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong on the

Trinity and you don't have any fellowship with Jehovah's Witnesses and in fact you say this is a salvation issue, then

I should be free to Apply the same reasoning over here to this issue

Unfortunately, that's not a gospel issue they apply it to Moses today know the

Negative connotations to the term fundamentalism now, there's a historical Use of the term fundamentalism that would describe me to be honest with you but today

That's generally not how the term is used even even in our chat channel We'll have folks who say

I'm a former fundamentalist. That doesn't mean that they've denied The return of Christ to the virgin birth the inspiration of scriptures existence the miraculous none of that stuff

Generally the negative term use of the term fundamentalist is

In reference to someone Who is not willing to hear what someone else has to say

They're not only Convinced of their position, but they are convinced of that position primarily out of ignorance not out of interaction and as such are

Very convinced that everybody else who does not think Look Act like them

Draw their tees in the same way and dot their eyes in the same way

Could not possibly be a Christian not possibly be a Christian now

It is natural when people grow up in a particular Christian tradition

To think that way to be Christian is to look like me. And so when you see somebody else

And they're doing something differently. Well, that's that's not that's not right That's not the way it should be done the whole emergent church movement

If you ever listen to the thing I did with what's his majiggy? Well, I can't hit guys name

Brian McLaren. I don't know why his name just doesn't Come to me very quickly, but if you listen to the unbelievable radio broadcast

I did with Brian McLaren You'll sort of hear that that a whole that whole movement

Was made up of people who were raised in a very narrow conservative mindset and Then at some point in time anybody who's raised in a narrow conservative mindset is going to discover that there are other

Perspectives out in the world and there's only two ways to respond to that well, no, there's a couple ways to respond but There are two imbalanced ways of responding to that split this way one of the imbalanced ways is to bounce off of that new knowledge even deeper into your own tradition and become a rock ribbed

King James only Sam Gip type guy, okay, you know where You just you get out the flamethrowers and you just double down on the

Christianity only looks like me type stuff the other

Imbalanced response to that is what Brian McLaren and the rest of them did you realize?

that there's actually areas where there's appropriate disagreement and can be appropriate disagreement and if someone can actually hold views other than your own in certain areas, and they're still

Christians and Not just in eschatology though, that's frequently been starting place

But that people might have different views on the consumption of alcohol on Having body art on going to movies whatever and What happens is those people once they start going, you know

There's there's valid differences of opinion in these areas and then what they do is because they've been so bottled up in that is they explode out of it and now

Everything is up for grabs Trinity Biblical inspiration. It's it's all if I was wrong about this.

I must have been wrong about everything So they go

Off that direction and the others go off that direction into you know, and even double down fundamentalism

What should happen of course is that as you grow up you?

Recognize That there are other valid opinions and you learn to prioritize

You learn to find out what defines my worldview what defines?

The Christian worldview what defines Christianity and You learn to prioritize these things and to recognize

You know, this gives rise to this and this this is foundational and that gives rise that that gives rise that and Each one of us has to at some point in our life

Create whether we do it You know on a computer or write it out, you know people actually use pens and like We create a

Priority list and we draw some lines Where we say this is definitional

This is what's called Adi Afra the things that do not determine what the faith is

And we will disagree with one another As to where some of those lines are now some you can only go so far back

I mean once you get back to a Trinity non Trinity bad justification non -judgment bad, you know

Now you you've you've got nothing left There's there's no There's no essence.

There's no core left that would distinguish Christianity from anything else. So Obviously when people go that far they've lost balance

But what is the very essence of negative fundamentalism but the idea that everyone has to look like me think like me dress like me act like me respond like me and believe like me on every single issue there is and We all have seen how

Repulsive that kind of Christianity is we've all seen it.

We don't want to be viewed that way We want the world not to look at us like we're like those folks where Well, I've I have sat in churches and pulled this this thing out of the other him rack where a particular view

Not just pre -millennial ism as a whole but a particular sub view of that Absolutely necessary to be a member of that church.

I mean just and so, you know you get down to those churches to where You know the kind of dress that you have

It's it's prescribed by the leadership of that church. I've told the story many times.

My mom took me to a church once and I can remember what it looked like. I remember we sat up in this little balcony thing

It was really teeny tiny and we were in the very back um But the end and why

I'd remember this maybe it's just because of Hillary Clinton. I'm not sure but the entire sermon

The entire sermon lost you there for a second didn't the entire sermon? Was about how anyone any woman who would wear pantsuits?

That's there's a connection Anyone any woman wearing a pantsuit? the greased slide into hell

You're and I'm sure something about wearing men's clothing came up somewhere along the line

But you know that that kind of Mindset we see it we go.

I know I don't want to be associated with that I don't want to be associated with that. But where's the balance?

and If someone if you recognize there needs to be a balance in the middle, how can you learn to Extend grace to those who disagree with you as to where that balance is and If you do that, how can you do apologetics is what a lot of people want to ask me

Because their assumption is if you do apologetics you have to have this very narrow Spectrum.

Well, actually if you do apologetics, you have to have a really clear view of what the core of the faith is and What the adiaphora are the things that do not?

Determine the definition of the Christian faith. That's what you need, you know today

I See more in social media. I See more in social media

Doing things like that Going after side issues Then almost anybody well,

I did see for example, I saw I was glad to see that Ligonier Put out an article.

I think it was Ligonier Pretty sure it was Ligonier this morning in one of my feeds put out an article about Um, how many who are quick to judge others for, uh, drinking a thing of wine for going to see a movie, um, for, for having body art someplace, having a cross or whatever they're in a second and would never even think to ask about, does this person believe in the doctrine of imputation?

Does this person teach the gospel in a way that is consistent with the concept of imputation?

How many of those people who are so quick to go after those things even recognize how central the idea of imputation is to our understanding of what justification is as a result, so much of the stuff going on in our society and our social media produces all sorts of heat, but not much in the way of light.

And here's, here's where I'm going with this. We're living in a very, very, very anti -Christian society today.

And it seems every morning I get up, it's, it's incrementally moved farther toward being willing to see persecution in a full board sense.

I mean, you know, right now people getting fired for being Christian. No problem. No problem. Not, not, not an issue.

Um, but when's it going to get to, you know, destroying property and burning down churches and, and moving on and on and on.

And it seems to be happening really quickly when that happens, great pressure is going to be put upon us within what is called

Christendom, um, within what's called Christendom.

Don't worry about it. It's something for Rich to deal with. Um, to start compromising so that as our numbers shrink and we're, we're, we're pushed closer together with one another, all of us are going to have to think through what defines the faith.

What's going to define our fellowship with one another and where we're going to have to draw the, the absolutely strict lines and say,

I'm sorry, though the world is going to treat us both badly and persecute us both.

I cannot have fellowship with you. And this is already a big issue in regards to Roman Catholicism.

It's already a big issue to where a lot of Christians are already like, uh, we're, you know, as long as you believe in the least common denominator

Christianity, you know, just the, just the minimal Trinity. There's a lot of folks that are even questioning that, but Trinity resurrection cross what the cross does.

That's way too sticky. Don't worry about that. Um, there's a lot of folks that are already at that point.

Can't go there. Can't go there. But each one of us, this is not something you're going to be able to look to somebody else.

So you can't look to me to do it. Each one of us is going to have to think through in a very serious fashion, how we're going to draw those lines and why, why we're going to draw those lines.

And that means for a lot of folks, traditions, things they were raised with are going to have to be challenged and things you're just uncomfortable with, but are not definitional and where you have to admit, all right,

I'm uncomfortable with that, but, and I won't, I can't go there, but it's not definitional.

For example, let me give you some examples and I'm going to blow some of you away with these. This is, this is where, this is where you really start finding out where your tradition stuff is.

I was totally shocked when I went to England the first time, first couple of times, the hymnal wars in England, the hymnal wars.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Hymnals are very different in Europe. I should have,

I should have brought some in. Sorry. I didn't think to do that, but I have some, um, very different than ours in the

States, you know, ours in the States are fairly large books and they've got the music and well, that's for churches that still have hymnals.

Um, whenever I go to a place that doesn't have hymnals, I really miss them because do forgive me, but, um,

I'm, uh, I sing bass and I like to sort of know what that is, you know, like to be able to read,

I actually read the music and I can sing the bass part for most everything. There are a couple in the Trinity hymnal that I just go, what?

Nevermind. Forget it. Kids. Yeah. Can't do it. No. Um, and so I, I was blown away by the fact that there were serious, just almost fist to cuff level divisions amongst people who otherwise would believe almost the exact same things over something like what hymnals you're going to use.

And, uh, you know, over here we, we have the, uh, we have music wars and I'm not saying that it's not a important issue to think through the regulative principle and what's the purpose of the worship service.

Um, do we, you know, why do you have a praise band? Um, all the rest of that stuff.

I'm not saying that there is not a place to discuss these things. What I am saying is even once you've discussed them and you disagree, are you really ready to send the people who disagree with you off to the flames of perdition because they disagree with you?

And there needs to be a balance for a lot of folks. It's, you know, if, if you've got drums in your church,

I, now, you know, for some, some folks feel so strongly about that, that they can't attend.

They cannot worship in that situation. Okay, then don't. But are you really ready to send those folks to hell?

Think of it. Let me, I'll give you some other examples in just a moment. I was going to read these texts. Remember Galatians 2?

Galatians 2 talks, but it was because of the false brethren secretly brought in who had sneaked into spider liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage, we did not yield and subject to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

There's your rock ribbed, truth of the gospel, cannot be any compromise text.

Okay. All right. So the person who wants to go there then has to realize that the same apostle wrote

Romans chapter 14. And Romans chapter 14 talks about things that don't define the gospel, eating of things, sacrificed, you know, buying meat in the market.

Some people can, some people can't, primarily because some people were concerned that had been offered and sacrificed idols.

And, and Paul elsewhere says, now, if you know that it was, then don't do that.

But otherwise, if you don't know where that meat came from, you know,

I had my wife pick up some, uh, some, uh, ground Turkey yesterday. I made some really good burritos since then.

Um, and it never crossed my mind to go.

I wonder if this Turkey was properly sacrificed. I wonder if it was raised by a

Mormon or maybe by a Satanist never crossed my mind that Turkey's long gone and it doesn't matter.

It's just Turkey meat and all the rest of that stuff just doesn't matter.

Now, somebody walks up to you with meat and says, I sacrifice this to Satan.

Do you want some? That's different issue. Now you got a witness issue. But the point is there are things where you will stand or fall before your own

Lord. It's between you and your Lord and everybody else just simply needs to not worry about it.

And, but boy, do we like to worry about things like that? Boy, do we like to worry about things like that?

Now there's, where do you draw the line? Where do you draw the line? How do you determine you start talking about alcohol?

Oh boy, you get everybody up in a tizzy.

You get everybody up in a tizzy and we should be able to talk about it.

And we should recognize that I think it's obvious beyond any shadow of a doubt, you cannot prove from the

Bible that you can make it a dogma. Thou shalt not partake.

Can't do it. But at the same time, there's all sorts of warnings against drunkenness.

There's all sorts of warnings about what this stuff can do to the mind. And if we don't have enough evidence in our culture of what this stuff can do, well, then we're blind, deaf and dumb.

And so we should recognize the dangers that are inherent in it. But in most of my, most situations

I've seen, what do you get? You get the abstinence folks on the one side and the folks that think you've got to smoke a stogie and drink a beer every time you get together on this side.

And they just launch missiles at each other. And it's sort of like, and they can't have almost anything to do with the other side.

And you end up going, in other words, the middle gets evacuated and you end up with everybody out on the outside.

And if you are in the middle somewhere, you sort of feel out of place and you sort of feel like you're going to get attacked from either side.

And so you keep your mouth shut because you just don't want to be attacked about stuff like that. You just don't want, you just don't want to go there. There's enough stuff to get attacked about that you just keep your head down and ends up, you end up not really having any meaningful conversation.

I have used it as an example. I have presented it in multiple situations,

Leviticus 18, 29, 1928, as an example of where a tradition needs to be examined.

I was certainly raised, well, I was certainly raised that if someone smoked or drank, had long hair, rode a motorcycle,

I've had a motorcycle license since I was 19 now, I think. Long time. Rode one in today.

Well, can we really call that a motorcycle? Hey, it's got two wheels and it's legal on the road. So it's an over 50 guy bike.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, thanks. It's an over 50. It's a 112 miles to the gallon bike is what it is.

Okay. Let's just keep that in mind. If you did any of those things and if you had a tattoo, auto pagan stamp right there, just that's it.

So I get the mindset and when that's all you've ever known, it can take a lot of work to get out of that mindset.

And so I've told the story on the program before we've gone through it on the program. When I, when I preached through Leviticus 19,

I did, I discussed it directly. When I wrote the book on homosexuality,

I was challenged to be consistent in the, you know, have you checked to make sure that there is no mixed fibers in your shirt thing, um, shellfish and the issue of Leviticus 1928 came up.

You shall not cut yourself the dead. You should not tattoo yourself. I am the Lord you got. And so I dug into it and discovered certain things.

First thing was the Hebrew term, that is used there is a hoppox legamina, a disputed hopox legamina.

What does that mean? Well, hopox legamina is a term that's used only once in the Bible. And if it's disputed, we're not a hundred percent certain as to what it actually means right there, that, that in and of itself is enough to put that issue into the

Romans 14 category, because you, a, a basic element of exegesis is you never make a dogmatic case out of a text that has a disputed hopox gun.

You just, you don't do it. It's just inappropriate exegesis and interpretation, but there was more to it than that.

I, I could have done what most people did with the texts and to go, well, it's a ceremonial law.

It just has to do with Israel. Dismiss it. I don't go there. Anybody who's listened to my holiness code knows that I don't,

I don't dismiss it in that way. Instead, what I discovered was there is a

Deuteronomy parallel in Deuteronomy 14 .1 to Leviticus 19 .28. And there, the parallel to Akka, Akka tattoo in Leviticus 19 .28

is to shave your forehead, which for some of us we do every day, actually couldn't think of it.

If I didn't, I'd have these two little spots that grow and they look like horns and the King James only folks would love it.

So, you know, there's nothing I can do about that. Um, but, uh, oh yeah, that's the comb over thing.

No, could never, no, could never, ever happen. It's terrible. It's terrible. Um, and what, what connected them together for the dead, for the dead?

I, I, so I started looking into, I started thinking about the religious background. This was an altering of your appearance to be permanent, not permanent shaving, whatever, cutting.

It's a alteration of appearance for the dead, for the dead. Well, in the religions, those days you either had, it could be honoring the dead.

That's, that's possibility. There was all sorts of people that would do things like that. But in those days, you look at those religions, curses of the dead man, fear of the dead.

And then you think about, they're trying to hide from the curses of the dead, alter their appearance.

And so what are, what are both of those texts saying? They still have relevance to us today. Why? Well, because there's still a whole lot of people that are concerned about the dead.

It's funny. I've talked to people overseas, people in Ukraine. And it's like, Oh man, are the

Orthodox into the dead saints and the dead and stuff like that. And I'm like, really? And in South, South America, Oh, the, the bring to bring in the dead and you know, the

Santeria and all that. Oh, it's all over the place. It's all over. So both texts are still relevant, but in the fundamentalist mindset that only goes, don't tattoo.

Well, we don't know that it's tattooed, but don't do it anyways. We're going to interpret it in the modern sense. They missed the real issue.

And the real issue is God says, the dead can't do anything to you. I'm God. I'm in control.

Fear me. So I came to those conclusions. And so I go, all right, you want to get a cross or something like that?

Romans 14. It's between, well, you're married. It's between you and your wife and the

Lord, because there was that little thing about your body is not your own type of thing when you're, when you're married.

So immediately everybody wants to go. So did you? Yeah, actually

I do. Shocking. Isn't it? Yeah. And the guy that did it now knows more about Greeks.

He never wanted to know, but yeah, I've got, I've got a little, little art.

It means a lot to me. Very encouraging to me, and probably saved my life because I'm a

Scotsman. And once you invest in something, you don't want it to get destroyed. And I live in Phoenix. That means I love sunscreen now.

And that'll probably keep me from getting skin cancer, but be that as it may. And I know a bunch of other people have done the same thing.

Okay, fine. But I sit back and I go, you know, it has never crossed my mind.

Not once, not once in my life. Have I sat in a service or in a lecture hall and looked at that professor and gone,

I wonder if he has moles on his, I wonder how hairy his chest is.

Never crossed my mind. Not once. And yet there are people who are so wedded to their traditions that they'll think about those types of things.

And I just go, Ooh, that's weird. And Ooh, that's not healthy. Now, when you dig into things like that, the people who are comfortable with their traditions are going to go, well,

I'm just, are you looking down at me if I don't do that? No. And no one ever should.

That's one of the things that bugs me about some of the stuff I've read about alcohol and stuff. I have seen people who partake of alcohol, looking down on those who will not as if they are lesser

Christians. And I think Romans 14 is saying exactly not to do that.

Now I know their arguments, you know, their arguments are, well, the Lord's supper is supposed to, I've been in churches where they actually believe that unless it's alcoholic, you're not even partaking of the

Lord's supper. Okay. All right. I appreciate being in the churches that when they make alcohol, alcoholic stuff available, they also make non -alcoholic available.

So I like being in the churches where the outer ring is the alcoholic, the inner ring is the non -alcoholic or whatever.

And they leave it, they, they, they allow for the recognition that there are people who might have a serious problem because of alcoholism in their life or whatever else it might be.

I honestly have never heard anybody seeing anybody who has body art look down at somebody else as a

Christian and go, well, you, you should, you should go. I've never seen it. Not once. Never seen it. Don't think it, don't think it exists. But the movie going thing, the music thing.

I mean, there's just so many things where we glom onto this stuff and we go, this is definitional of the gospel.

And yet at the very same time, I could ask so many of those people about things that are definitional of the gospel and they don't even give them a second thought.

They don't even give them a second thought. Imputation. How many of them have thought through the actual meaning of the cross?

What does propitiation mean? If you are more concerned about what somebody else does in the privacy of their home at dinner or what they have on their shoulder or whatever else, they love

Keith Green. I mean, there's another one, you know, we're back in the old fundamentalist days, you know, they, they love certain kinds of music that you just don't.

All right. If you are not more concerned about the central doctrines of the faith, if you don't know the

Trinity, if you can't recognize when liberals functionally deny the deity of Christ, if, if you can't give a meaningful defense of the resurrection and the centrality of the resurrection of the faith, if you don't, if you don't know what the high priest did in the old

Testament, because it becomes central to what the high priest does in the new covenant. If, if you don't have all that stuff front and center, why in the world are you thinking about these other things?

Why? I don't understand. I don't get it. And it seems that those are the same people then that draw very narrow theological lines.

Some, some will say, and I get it.

Some will try to say, well, I think these folks, you know, people over the practice, this kind of view or that kind of view.

If you can't make the connection between what you object to and the gospel and make it real, then you don't have any business, business criticizing them.

A lot of folks recognize the need to be able to do that. And so what they'll do is they'll take um,

Lord's supper issues and they'll literally draw a line to gospel issues and say, if you do it differently than I am, you're denying the gospel.

Even though the other person does not consciously purposefully confessionally make the necessary statements to create that bridge.

They'll say, well, if that person believes this, then they must believe this, this, this, this, this, this.

And that means they deny the gospel. I've seen that. That's what people do to Michael Brown. That's what people do there is they'll say, well, if he can't see that this person is wrong about that, then that must mean consistently that he must believe this and this and this.

Now, Michael say, I don't believe this, this, this and this, but they don't care. If you're consistent, then you're, you're gone.

You're straight off into hell. And I just want to say, folks, why don't you leave that to God?

I have, Michael Brown will tell you that, that as his friend and his brother,

I have looked him in the eye and said, what on earth are you thinking? And he listens to me because I listened to him.

And I don't just simply close the door, slam the door and send you on your way. Why do we have to think about these things?

Because once we keep getting pushed into tighter and tighter and smaller and smaller areas, we are going to be forced to make decisions in these areas.

And once the persecution, the pressure is there, that's not the time to be thinking about it. Now's the time to be thinking about it.

Now's the time to be going, here are my priorities. Here's where I'm going to draw the line. And here's why.

Here's why you got to think these things through. You've, you've got to go. I start with who

God is. I start with what God has said about himself, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the person, the

Holy Spirit. I start there. And then I'm going to go down from there to what he has done to glorify himself.

That's the gospel. And the result of the gospel is the church.

And as you prioritize all these things, you're going to come across places where my

Presbyterian brothers and I, we disagree on the structure of the church.

Now only in one primary area, you know, we believe Christ, the head of the church, and we believe the purpose of the church is worship of God.

And honestly, if you didn't know the distinctives, you would have to look carefully for the little font versus the big font to tell the difference between an

Orthodox Presbyterian church service and a Reformed Baptist church service. If you didn't, if you didn't notice that one difference, you wouldn't, you wouldn't catch it.

We're singing the same songs. We're preaching the same sermons. We're preaching the same theology. You wouldn't notice the difference.

You'd see far more of a difference between Reformed Baptist church and a lot of Southern Baptist churches today than you would going the other direction.

Okay. So what are we going to do? If I think my

Presbyterian friends are wrong about the session and the Presbytery and the overarching structure, what are we going to do?

And here's where some people decide that that's a gospel issue.

And I can figure out how you, you could try to create a chain of links to take you to the gospel.

And, and I've, I've had, I've had Baptists and I've certainly had Presbyterians who will do it on Baptism.

This is a gospel issue. Can't fellowship with Presbyterians. Well, fellowship in what way?

We have the same gospel. We believe they're being inconsistent. They believe we're being inconsistent. And here's where hyperism comes in.

It can be hyper fundamentalism, hyper Calvinism, hyper. I mean, I don't care what the hyper is. Anybody who's a hyper thinks that in this life, we are going to have perfection of theology and perfection of agreement between us.

It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. And so I can fellowship in the

Presbyterian church. I have preached from the pulpit of many a Presbyterian church and the folks have been blessed.

The spirit of God moved, but I can't be a member there. I can't be a member there long -term.

And I shouldn't be if I have someplace else to go. Now I've got brethren who are Reformed Baptists are in Presbyterian church because there's no place else for them to go.

I'm not talking about that. I'm saying we have a difference of understanding in regards to baptism and church government.

And as long as we have the freedom, it's okay for us to have a

Reformed Baptist church and you'd have a Presbyterian church. Now the day may come when there are so few of us that we may still be open about our difference.

But the point is this folks, they are my brothers in Christ.

And I don't understand the, there's two imbalances.

I don't understand the mindset that tries to find ways of creating division that doesn't need to be created.

And I don't understand the mindset that recognizes that there are certain things in scripture that are absolutely unquestionable that flow from the core revelation of who

God is, what God has done in Jesus Christ, what salvation is, what the scriptures are, that create clear dividing lines.

But isn't it obvious? I hope it's obvious to you. If it's not, let me make it obvious to you right now. We have much more in common.

I have much more in common with the conservative Presbyterian, the conservative Lutheran, the conservative

Methodist, the conservative charismatic than I have with the liberal

Baptist, liberal Presbyterian, liberal Methodist, liberal charismatic, liberal

Anglican, whatever else it is. Machen was right, Christianity and liberalism.

And so the real issue is, okay, put the liberal stuff off to the side.

For those of us over here that actually think God has spoken and that we're not wise enough to edit him, when it comes to our differences, where do you draw the lines?

I know there's a lot of fundamentalists that figure, you know, Chris Roosevelt, gone, headed straight to hell.

I can't do that. These people believe in the deity of Christ, doctrine of the Trinity, the resurrection of Christ, justification by grace through faith.

Are there inconsistencies? Seem to be to me. Let's talk about them. Let's talk about them in love.

I mean, the folks in my chat channel, that's all they can do. I mean, recently it's read and book and it's has something to do with covenant theology.

It's just constant. Okay. All right. No problem.

Sometimes get tired of it, but let's talk about in love. Point is this, need to wrap up.

As we are pushed closer and closer together in smaller and smaller numbers by a society that is greatly opposed to the gospel message, we have to think through what defines the faith?

What defines the fellowship of the saints? Are there different levels of fellowship?

I would say there are. I can have fellowship with many people in the proclamation of the gospel that would be inappropriate within the confines of local church.

For a lot of folks, they're not willing to have that kind of open. Someday we're all going to stand before God.

We're going to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ. And I have thought many times,

I have a great responsibility. We're all going to be judged for every word, every deed.

And how many times will I be judged for having falsely judged a brother or a sister in Christ?

That's the one side. On the other side, how many times will we have failed to honor

God by fearing men and allowing false teachers to destroy the fellowship of the saints?

I've said many times, Christian maturity involves balance.

Sometimes that balance is recognizing that not everybody else is going to have the same balance point that you do. We're all walking this road, some people want to have a black and white, do this, you know, sort of like the

Muslims have in some ways with the Hadith, you know, use this hand to clean yourself with them, this hand not to.

That doesn't work with Christianity. That doesn't work with Christianity. Lordship of Christ in all of life, what that's going to mean is that some people are going to have more freedom than you have.

You look to God, don't worry about them. Never ever use your freedom as a cover for sin.

And you know, in your heart of hearts, if you go to a fellowship where you're regularly challenged to think that through and where the prayer is made,

Holy Spirit reveal to me anything in my life and my thinking that is displeasing in your sight.

Takes balance, takes maturity, takes time, takes grace. But we got to think about it now because the days are coming where we are going to be put together.

We are going to be forced to be dealing with these things and that's not the time to be trying to get your priorities in an order.

Wow, we went everywhere there, but it's been something that as I watch social media and as I watch interactions and I see things going back and forth and I see bombs being lobbed this way and that way and theological speaking that we've got to think about it.

We got to think these things through. I think these things through. And by the way, you have the freedom to disagree with me.

That's the whole point. But as I say to my classes, my job as a professor is to step on your theological toes.

If I don't do it now, it's going to be done out there by unbelievers.

This is the place for me to do it. Well, if I stomped on your theological toes today, do me one favor before writing in or writing me off or anything else.

Be consistent. Think it through. See if I don't have a point.

See how it applies. What does this make? One, two, three, four hours this week.

What are you pointing at? What are you pointing at? Yeah, I saw that.

I'm not really a news source. So yeah, it sounds like something big is going on.

And since there's that many things, I'm sure it was planned. And Europe?

Europe's in trouble. Europe is in a lot of trouble. We're not far behind. We're not far behind.

But you know what? Price is still on his throne. That's the thing we got to remember.

Lord willing, we may be back. Well, I forget. I got to go Thursday to Tucson. So we may front load next week too.