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Sunday school from October 16th, 2016
Okay, let's pray. Oh Christ, our defender, protect us from all those whose plans would subvert your truth through heresy and schism, that as you are acknowledged in heaven and on earth as one and the same Lord, so your people gathered from all nations may serve you in unity of faith.
For you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.
All right, if you were here last week, last week we finished the book of Genesis. In a, well, shortly, not today, we will begin diving into the book of Exodus and we will note the parallels to Christ and the biblical typology that points to Jesus and his work in the book of Exodus and how that relates to us as Christians.
I think it's very important that we see how the whole book works together. And today I'm gonna use the occasion of our epistle text to do a little mini study on a topic that is guaranteed to be politically incorrect.
We now live in a society where everything is tolerated except for intolerance, which doesn't make any sense.
It doesn't make sense.
No, no, it makes no sense at all.
The way the earth is.
I have an example on that very topic.
You do.
Two weeks ago, our celebration held in, a few of the Gideons decided to go out and pass out New Testaments at that event. And after about giving out 100, they were asked to stop. Because they were making some people feel uncomfortable.
We've invited every God to our unity event except for the one true God. That makes perfect sense.
He didn't get the invitation.
Huh?
No, he didn't. This is the world we live in, right?
They didn't realize that they didn't have to take one?
They didn't have to take one. The way it's done is, would you like that?
I don't like that. Worse among people.
And then when you handed it to them,.
Say, you're gonna burn in hell, you sinner.
Right? Wow.
The organizer of the event personally asked them to stop.
The organizer personally asked them to stop.
Wow.
Okay.
Now, today we're gonna talk about, we're gonna look at our epistle text today, and we're gonna talk about a recent survey that was conducted of American evangelicals by Lifeway Bookstores, and it was co-sponsored by Ligonier Ministries.
And I hate to say this, but this survey and its results objectively prove that the majority of American evangelicals are heretics. I know that's gonna sound like crazy talk, but we'll objectively walk through some of the survey questions and the results in light of our biblical text and some other things, and it's a very fascinating survey, and we're gonna look at what the Bible says about these questions that were asked.
Okay?
You had a statement?
Oh, a question. Uh-huh.
The Ligonier Ministries, is that actually sprawled?
Yeah, it's actually sprawled.
So it's actually a good survey?
Well, yeah, no, the survey, the questions were great questions. The answers given by evangelicals, not so good. And the best way I can put it is that, based upon their methodology, this has a margin of error of plus or minus 2%, which means it's 95 accurate.
That's a good margin of error, and the results are frightening, and here's the thing. What we see and we experience in the culture, you know, this intolerance of intolerance, which seems kind of, yeah, hypocritical, right?
This has crept into the church, and how this has crept into the church is, well, if you've been around other churches, we don't do this here at Kongsvinger, but if you've been around other churches, doctrine is bad.
Doctrine is, you know, doctrine divides. We don't want that doctrine stuff. And so we've literally come to a day and age, and I wish I were making this up, but in many of my conversations with people who are trying to wrap their head around what's wrong with their church, people have literally told me, Pastor Roseborough, I was told by my pastor that reading the Bible is bad, that it'll make you arrogant.
And I've heard this more than once, that somehow reading your Bible, knowing what Scripture says, believing that there's a such thing as sound doctrine is somehow antithetical and actually contrary to the Christian faith.
Now, the irony here is this, is that this is what we call a self-defeating worldview. And I want you to think about it. We can talk about a self-defeating worldview in this sense. Have any of you ever talked to an unbeliever who says all truth is relative?
There is no absolute truth, somebody says. No absolute truth, really. But that statement that you made is an absolute truth claim. Yeah, exactly. Is that the absolute truth, that there is no absolute truth?
It's self-defeating.
I beg to differ with him.
You do?
I do.
The truth is the truth.
Well, yeah.
But see, we in our irrational postmodern society, our postmodern society, they think that all truth is relative and they don't recognize that that statement is an absolute truth claim. It is not a relative truth claim.
And so if you come along and you say,.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
There's a such thing as truth. Let's sit there and go, oh, you're a hater. Oh, there's something wrong with you. Oh, you are just behind the times. You are, you live in the medieval period. You're just a backwards rube, a country bumpkin.
All you farmers out there in Minnesota, clearly you had a deficient education because if you had had a better education, you would be smart enough to know that there is no such thing as absolute truth.
You see the idea? So the problem is, is that they're, well, if they were playing cards, they're dealing from the bottom of the deck. They're not recognizing that the standard by which they're judging us is exactly the same standard they're employing.
Intolerance of intolerance is still intolerance. How come it's okay for you, but it's not for them? Does that make sense? And so the way the system has been set up, the way the system has been set up is that the only truth that will not be tolerated is that which comes from the one true God.
And the problem is, is that much of this has crept into the church. The church has become very worldly, and as a result of it, it's kind of like everything goes, theologically and doctrinally. And then when you say, well, wait a second, the Bible says, well, that'll shut the conversation down, even among Christians, which is weird.
So let's take a look at our epistle text. I'll back it up just a smidge. Well, actually, we'll start at verse 10. You, however, Paul says to young Pastor Timothy, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my patience, my love, and my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra, which persecutions I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me.
Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Take that one to the bank. You'll notice that the Apostle Paul sounds nothing like Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen says that God wants you to have your best life now.
Paul says, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be what? Persecuted. While evil people and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. So notice, remember the sermon today, in that in-between time, keep praying, don't lose heart.
Evil people are gonna go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings.
Now for Timothy, he didn't have the New Testament,.
He had the Old Testament.
And he may have had some of the early writings of the New Testament as they were being published and circulated through the church, but he didn't have the full canon. So keep that in mind. So the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus, all scripture is breathed out by God.
Is the Bible a man-made book? In part, yes. It has unique individual human authors, but they're all inspired by God the Holy Spirit, okay? They're physically their hands doing their thing, but God's, it's not dictation for most of it, but they're inspired in what they're writing.
And what's fascinating is when you read the original languages, you can see the different stylistic ways in which the apostles and even the prophets wrote. They all wrote a little bit differently. You can tell this is, like you read a Greek text and you go, that's Pauline, it stands out, right?
But all scripture is God breathed. That means God the Holy Spirit is the unique author, the single author of all of scripture. And one of the reasons why in our study of the book of Genesis, I keep pointing out how these different people are pointing us to Christ is because when you see the connections, then you can sit there and realize how miraculous this book is.
I mean, have you left here on a Sunday, after Sunday school, hearing about the story of Joseph or Jacob or one of the patriarchs in Genesis and thought, holy smokes, there's no way somebody, a human being could have pulled this off.
This has to be a God book, because it is. That's the idea, because it is. So all scripture is breathed out for God, and listen, it is profitable for teaching. And this word for teaching, didaskaleion, can also mean doctrine.
In fact, doctrine and teaching are synonyms. If somebody is teaching you something, the content of what they are teaching you is technically doctrine, got it? So scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for one or two good works.
Every good work, every good work. So it begs the question, how many of the good works that God has called you to do as Christians, how many of them is God's word incapable of preparing you for?
None.
This is one of the arguments we have for what's called sola scriptura. Do you need somebody who claims to have special revelation from God, that they're really tight with God, so tight that God and that person, they talk all the time, they go to Starbucks and have coffee together, and they get revelation, and they come to you and say, listen to what God told me about you, or what God told me to tell to you.
Do you need that?
Nope, not at all.
What happens if you don't want to hurt anybody's feelings?
That doesn't sound like you, Dave.
No, but listen. Okay, so you don't want to hurt someone's feelings.
So you get into an argument, or some doctrine, and somebody is approaching you saying that the stuff that's in the Bible just makes people feel bad, okay, and my knee-jerk reaction would be, well, then we need to read more of it, okay?
But sometimes you just don't want to go there.
Okay, all right, so I'm going to say something that needs to be said. I've said it before, but it needs to be reiterated. We live in a part of the world where there are a lot of Norwegian immigrants, and people who grew up as the children of Norwegian immigrants.
This place is a lot like Norway. They call it the Janteloven spirit, or the Janteloven culture, and Norwegians are culturally taught that conflict is bad.
I'm famous, conflict is bad.
Okay, we just went all Pentecostal here. That's weird, okay. Okay, so here's what happens, though. Here's what happens. Because they're conflict-averse, that when something comes up, and something always comes up in human relationships between sinners, right?
Here's what the Janteloven spirit teaches you to do. Stuff it down, don't rock the boat, right? And wear blinders, and what does that cause? All kinds of more problems, because it's kind of like a pressure cooker, and there's no relief valve, and then the idea is that when the conflict comes, it's volcanic, it's explosive, all right?
Now, here's the issue. We, as Christians, always have dual citizenship. You are a citizen here of the United States, growing up in this Norwegian Janteloven culture. That's part of your citizenship and your heritage, but you have another citizenship.
Citizenship is kingdom of Christ. This is where you have to say, when my citizenship and my duties and responsibilities as a citizen of the kingdom of God are in conflict with my citizenship here, this has to govern.
So you have to say, I can't obey Janteloven here, and for the sake of my neighbor, in love for my neighbor, I go to my neighbor and I say, neighbor, you know I love you, right?
Right.
What you're believing or what you're doing is wrong. Brrrr. We'll watch the mushroom cloud rise up over the north,.
Right?
But this is what must happen. And when the storm has blown over and they've blown up and gotten angry and done their thing, you say to them, yes, I understand, and I still love you. And still, what you're believing and teaching is wrong.
What you're doing is wrong. God's word says so, not me. This is not my opinion. And so the idea is we always correct in love for the neighbor. We don't correct in order to say, look how smart I am, I got it right, you stink, you got it wrong, uh-huh, uh-huh.
Yeah, not that. Sorry that you had to see that.
Those are some sweet moves.
Yeah, Steve.
So it's even worse than like when the Norwegians first came here. This isn't just Norway, it's American Norway. And what I mean by that is it's post-modern Norway.
It's post-modern American Norway.
Right, which that essentially means, well, the post-modernity point is truth is relative. The American point means we're individualistic. The Norwegian point means we don't talk about anything and we try to cover up all conflict.
So it's like the perfect storm of horribleness, you know? Because you confront someone and they're like, well, this is what I believe, this is what I feel, right? And then it's the American part, well, I have my right to my own feelings.
And then it's Norwegian part, let's stop talking about this.
Right, now let's talk about where this goes. Let's talk about where this goes. When you don't do what's right and you buy in and you let the earthly culture dictate what you're doing, especially when it comes to the kingdom of God.
Remember, this church is an embassy. This is an embassy of the kingdom of God. So what goes on here is not dictated by out there. What goes on in here is dictated by the word, period. But what happens is, is that people live out there and they bring the ideas from out there in here.
That's what happens. And so in a Yontalovan context then, when somebody brings an idea from out there in here that is in conflict with the word of God and nobody is addressing it and everybody's upset about it, how does it get addressed?
Well, people start gossiping about it. Nobody talks to the person who's doing wrong. And what ends up happening then is that the problem becomes political. Two different groups, maybe three different groups.
The problem becomes political. And then, once it becomes political, then it's all about power. And many times, the group that is wrong will be able to succeed in getting political power and push out or suppress those who are standing for the truth.
You see what I'm saying? And so, when you buy into the world's culture and the way of doing things, rather than doing what God's word says and you are conflict-averse, we are soldiers of Christ. Soldiers don't get to be conflict-averse.
Does that make sense? That doesn't make any, I mean, you imagine a World War II soldier, you know, out there in the battlefields in France against the Nazis and saying, you know what, I've come to realize that I'm really kind of conflict-averse.
I just don't feel like I should fire my weapon anymore.
Actually, there was one guy who did that.
Yeah, well, the Hacksaw Ridge guy. He went into it, though, as a pacifist and that's what he knew he was the whole time. But if you had the entire platoon like that,.
Nothing would ever happen.
They would never survive against the Nazis. You see what I'm saying?
What you're saying right now is, and I think I've asked our church to pray for my home church in Cavalier. Basically, what you're saying is what is happening to that church. And there are a few who are struggling and trying their voices to be heard of what their church used to be and needs to go back to.
And they're not winning.
No, they're not.
They're not winning and it is causing, like you said, it is mushrooming and it is, it's not pretty.
That's why you get so many splits.
Yeah.
Split.
Look at the history of the ELCA.
Yeah, you know, but they're talking about splitting it up.
Pull it off the cliff.
Yes, and they're really, really struggling.
I mean, it is a battle.
You said, I mean, it is a battle.
When theology becomes political, you always run the risk, and no joke, you always run the risk of losing the whole operation, politically, because the devil is extremely good at maneuvering politics.
Well, when you're saying your prayers, please pray for the Calvary Presbyterian Church.
I also would like to ask about, so you've been talking about Christians talking to Christians. Now, when a Christian talks to a non-believer, does the idea of, like, becoming, like, like, do what they do and, like, be as, you know, like, be culturally acceptable to them and love them, and then when you have the opportunity, share law and gospel with them?
Or, like, what's the, can you elaborate on that?
Okay, the opposite of this, being the bull in the China shop, is not the solution. All right, you still have to have some decorum and love and respect in how you conduct yourself in your rebuke. Like, getting in someone's face and shouting so that their hair is blowing backwards is not an effective way of correcting somebody who's sinning or theologically deviating from scripture.
Every, it needs to be from the approach of, I love you, I'm gonna fight for you, you are in the wrong, and here's what scripture says, let's open up the book and let's look. The authority is not here, the authority is in the word of God.
Now, addressing a non-Christian's a totally different issue. Okay, so, now I'm gonna have Mark make one comment, and then we're gonna continue with the lesson.
I was gonna say, it seems the conflict we have is we live in the world where we have a voice, we can petition the authority to see things our way, but in the kingdom, our kingdom means nothing. The king makes all the rules, and we just have to live by it.
Yeah, no, and you bring up a great point here, and here's the issue. Do you get to vote in a kingdom?
No.
You don't.
And see, this is where it gets interesting. We live in a republic, in a representative democracy. That being the case, we're culturally conditioned towards the way things are settled, is there's one group that has one opinion, another group has another opinion, and we vote on it.
And if you can't get a consensus, then you have to sit down and hammer something out and compromise. This is how things are done in a representative republic, and we bring those assumptions into the church, and that's a problem.
This is a kingdom. Right now, you currently are not in the United States. You are sitting in the kingdom of God. This is an embassy. We're not on U .S. soil right now. My job as your servant is to tell you what the king has said, and what he wants us to believe and do, and we don't get to vote on it.
You have to have faith in the king.
Yes.
Yep, that's correct. Now, let's continue with our epistle text. So Paul writes to young Pastor Timothy, notice the solemnity of this charge. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, the one who's to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom.
That sounds like something you might wanna pay attention to, right? Get this, Pastor Timothy, here's what you need to be doing.
Ready?
Preach the word. Do you know how many pastors are not doing this right now?
It's not even funny.
How much of it?
All of it.
Well, there's a lot there. I know, get busy. The whole purpose of the lectionary that we follow is so that in 12 months time, if you are coming to church Sunday after Sunday after Sunday in 12 months, you're going to get literally the grand sweep of all of Christian doctrine, from creation to the return of Christ and everything in between.
And then you know what we do? We wash, rinse, repeat. We do it again. And when we get to the end of that, you know what we do? We do it again. And then we do it again. We do it again. When do we stop?
When Jesus comes back. Period. So here's what he says, let's preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. Oh yeah, there's out of season times when preaching the word is not in vogue in the church of all places.
So you though, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and doctrine. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves, teachers to suit their own passions, and they will turn away from listening to the truth, and they're gonna wander off into myths.
That's right. Y 'all heard of Zeus?
Myth.
You've heard of Athena? Myth. You've heard Joel Osteen say, God wants you to have your best life now? Myth.
Evolution.
Myth. You've heard that, well, God wants you to be rich.
God says that you can decree and declare and create your future with your words.
You wanna hear a lot of myths? Sadly, all you gotta do is turn on Christian radio, you'll hear a lot of myths. You wanna hear nothing but myths? Turn on Christian television. People will turn away from sound doctrine, and they will gather to themselves, teachers who will tell them what their itching ears want to hear.
I don't want you to tell me I'm a sinner. I don't want you to tell me that Jesus did it all for me. There's something I gotta do. I'm not a bad person. I really am a good person. I'm gonna get rid of that pastor who keeps saying I'm a sinner, and I'm gonna replace him with somebody who has a big smile and shiny teeth, and he's gonna tell me how wonderful I am.
That's right. And when I leave church, I'm gonna go, I feel so good about me. And then when they go to hell, they're gonna curse the pastor that they put there to tell them that nonsense.
And we're seeing this today.
Mm-hmm, yeah.
I did not know that you spoke French. Parlez-vous Francais?
But Paul seems to be telling, or talking to Timothy, like he's gonna be saying, oh my God.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
When did the last days begin? Yeah, Christ, death, resurrection, ascension. So here's the deal. The birth pangs already started by this time.
Oh, yeah.
One of the first heresies that came up through the ranks was you got the Judaizing heresy. You have Gnosticism. And boy, was that nasty. Oh, huge, huge. And now we live in the day where heretical strains, they've crossbred.
And so you get these hybrid heresies that are fascinating.
Yeah, and then the way they dealt with heresies was church councils.
They would come together, and they would say, what is the Word saying?
Mm-hmm.
What does the Lord say?
Here's the truth, and here's the falsehood.
We're gonna cut that off.
Exactly, right.
Now, we live, just like Paul and Timothy, in days when people don't endure sound doctrine. And he's not talking about what's going on out there. He's talking about in congregations. Christian churches.
They're not enduring sound doctrine. They're booting the good pastors, and they're putting in the feel-good pastors. That's the problem. And this is bearing fruit in our culture. Let's take a look at some of that, though.
For our seminaries, for our colleges, for our places where these men go to learn to preach the Word of God,.
What is happening there, that they're coming out and doing this feel-good stuff?
Okay, let me ask you this question historically, and you'll kind of see it. Harvard, remember Harvard? You've heard of it, right? When it was started, what was Harvard started to do?
To create pastors.
Oh, really? Yes, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yes, it was back in Puritan days.
And what happened to Harvard? Would you want a pastor who went to seminary at Harvard today? No, no, that would turn out very poorly. Well, here's what happens. The devil never gives up. The thing the devil has got to get rid of is any pastors or organizations or church bodies that are preaching the Word.
So here's what the devil does. You get these academics who teach in the seminaries, and of course, they want to be recognized as smart, influential, cutting edge. And so they have vanity and sinful nature like the rest of us.
And so here's what happens. A change in the culture occurs, and all the guys who are hanging onto the Word of God and rightly preaching it and teaching it and teaching others to do the same, they are made to look like a bunch of idiots because there's a new thing that's just come out.
Have you heard of post-modernity? Have you heard of modernity? Let me tell you about the latest philosophical movement and its implications regarding what we as Christians need to believe. And so the really ambitious academics, they buy into the new thought.
They get power and they kick out the other guys. This is how this happens. And so what happens then? Over and again, the church constantly, the real church, always looks like it's on the run. 50 years ago, 50 years ago, Kongsvinger was part of a church body that had well-established seminaries.
Would Kongsvinger want a seminary grad from any of those seminaries today?
What has had to happen as a result of the complete theological meltdown in the ELCA? Well, the AALC had to start its own seminary.
Oh yeah?
The devil's always, always, always, always, always on the move. And so the church here always look like she's on the run. She's on the ropes. She never has enough money. She always has to figure out how to bootstrap it because sound doctrine, what Scripture really says, is never going to be the thing that everyone goes, I can't wait to hear that.
And then people in droves come from far and wide to pack in places where God's Word is being rightly handled. It's the opposite. And here's the worst part, is that all those people who are denying the inerrancy and authority of Scripture, they think they're on the side of truth and they're actively, hostily picking on, getting rid of, and persecuting those who are holding the line within the visible church.
And the sad part is,.
Oh yeah.
Boy, yeah.
I mean.
I mean, do you realize just how out of touch we all are here? I mean, for heaven's sakes. I mean, we have prayers during the church. Do you see how much Scripture I use in my sermons? How much, how long we sit here and look, labor over texts during Sunday school, right?
And we even have people with gray hair here.
Really?
And you'll notice, we do not have a disco ball. We don't have a smoke machine. I have yet, I have yet to pull my guitar out and rip out a power cord in a solo during worship.
We need a confetti cannon for the baptismal font, right?
Custodian Nix is that one.
I'm just gonna clean up the confetti though.
I don't think the confetti cannon.
But see, the reasons why we don't do those things are theological. It's doctrinal.
Now, I wanna show you, we'll start this today and we'll pick it up next week. This will be a two-part thing. I wanna walk you through some of the more interesting questions from the survey that was conducted by Lifeway.
Lifeway, by the way, is the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention. If you've heard of Concordia Publishing House, that's the publishing arm of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Lifeway is the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention.
They're the ones who conducted the survey in tandem with Ligonier Ministries. And this was a survey done at their stores and people who are self-identified as American evangelicals.
Ligonier is not a Southern Baptist.
Ligonier is not. They're Reformed Presbyterian, if I'm not mistaken.
In this case, we'll put Ligonier into the good guy category. The important thing right here though are the results of like your average American Christian walking down the street. We'll take a look at some of these.
And so here, they would make a statement and you would say you either agree strongly, you agree somewhat, you disagree somewhat, you disagree strongly, or you're not sure. So God is a perfect being and cannot make a mistake.
50 strongly agree. Now out of, I mean, this is just Bible 101. How is it that the other 50 did not say, well, duh, the Bible says this about God. So God is a perfect being and cannot make a mistake.
Coin toss. It's a coin toss.
Was this survey given to people in the church?
These are shoppers at Lifeway who I self-identified as evangelical Christians. God is the author of Scripture. We just read all Scripture is God breathed, right? 37%, I agree with that strongly. The rest, somewhat, disagree, less than half.
Less than half. Well, if God isn't the author of Scripture, who is? There is one God, one true God in three persons. The Father, okay, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. This is the Trinity.
53 strongly agree. 47 then don't understand the doctrine of the Trinity. Now this is where we have to make an interesting distinction. When we talk about theological errors, they fall into two broad categories.
The first broad category would be like heterodoxy or biblical, this is an error. The other broad category is heresy, and heresy is actually something that puts you outside of Christianity. For instance, if you attended a United Pentecostal church that denies the doctrine of the Trinity, they believe in what the heresy called modalism.
You're not a Christian. You might use Christian words, but you're not a Christian. Mormons, not Christians. They use Christian words, but they're not Christians. Jehovah's Witnesses are not Christians.
So 53 of the average evangelical actually understands something about the doctrine of the Trinity and believes it. How do you somewhat agree that there's one God in three persons? Well, I somewhat agree with that.
What are they teaching folks in church today? Yeah, they're doing sermons on movies, right. Now this is a frightening one. God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
44 strongly agree. First commandment, you will have no other gods. What does the New Testament say? There is no other name given in heaven by which men must be saved than Jesus Christ. Jesus, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except for through me. The Apostle Paul, when he would go on a missionary journey, and he would go into a town where there were people who were worshipers of false gods, did he say, that's no big deal.
No, God accepts the worship of all religions, and people who worship Zeus or Athena.
God didn't take kindly to Dagon.
Yeah, God did not take kindly to Dagon, right.
The second one?
That's why Paul was his prisoner for a long time.
Oh, that's not true.
So here's the thing. You'll notice that on this one, 64 of the respondents functionally believe that it's okay to be in any religion. God created male and female. 64 agree. Don't you understand? Okay, there's a timeline.
I've seen this on the internet. From all of human history, from all the way back when God created the heavens and the earth, until the year 2015, there were only two sexes, male and female. So it stays constant, two, two, two, two, two, two, two.
Then at 2015, it explodes to 9 ,000.
Was it over 9 ,000 or just 9 ,000?
It's over 9 ,000. This is a ginormous number, right? You've got to understand the nature of human sin. Our human sin, listen, listen. Here's the idea. Our sin is so bad that not only do we not tolerate the truth of the exclusive claims of Christ, we're so sinful, we refuse to acknowledge that God created us male or female.
And so nowadays, we talk about when somebody is born, this is their assigned sex. And then later in life, they can choose their own. And notice, this has crept into the church. If only 64 of Christians strongly agree that God created humans male and female, the rest are flirting with what the world is believing.
But we have to be tolerant.
No, we don't.
But they say we do.
They out there can talk that way. We're in here. We're not on US soil right now.
They can go away.
They can go away. He's like, I'll insure that. Just pay me.
Biblical accounts of the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus are completely accurate. This event actually occurred. Seems like basic Christian stuff right here. 45 strongly agree.
What do you think this would have been saying?
In the 1900s, I would say that 90
It doesn't get that way overnight.
I want you to consider these answers compared to what the Apostle Paul writes. Let's take a look. 1 Corinthians 15. I'll start at verse one. This is a long chapter, but I want you to see what Paul writes about Jesus's resurrection.
Now, I remind you, brothers, of the gospel, the good news that I preach to you, which you receive and in which you stand and by which you are being saved. If you hold fast to the word that I preach to you, unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture. He was buried and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
Then he appeared to Cephas, then to the 12. He appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James and to all the apostles.
Last of all, to one untimely born, he appeared also to me, for I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God. Now, you kind of get the idea here.
Does this sound like Paul is thinking that Jesus actually rose from the grave? Now, watch where he goes, verse 12. Now, if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?
See, the church in Corinth had some of these people in their church. Well, we're not exactly sure if the resurrection really took place or not. This is a common thing to humanity, but the job of the pastor is to preach the word and tell them what the scripture says, and here's what scripture says.
But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. And we are even found to be misrepresenting God because we testified about God, that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise, if it is true that the dead are not raised.
For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is doo-doo and you're still in your sins. Feudal is, you know, you kind of get the idea, right?
Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ, they've perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people to be most pitied. So you come back to the survey. Biblical accounts of the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus are completely accurate.
This event actually occurred. 45%.
It's a bunch of pitiful people.
55%. 55%. We're not exactly sure.
You don't do here. I'm trying to get brought up in church. I'm trying to be one.
How long can somebody be in Kongsvinger before they're gonna hear about the bodily resurrection of Christ?
How long?
A few minutes.
Not very long. It might take a couple of Sundays, but it comes up regularly, right?
Will there be a stretch longer than a year before you hear of the bodily resurrection of Christ? If I never mention it except for once a year on Easter Sunday, you're still gonna hear it, right?
You would still mean people that I'm meeting, which I still have a hard time. You know, so they don't know this stuff.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, we're not gonna hear it in the schools.
Because we can't even talk about the schools anymore.
Oh, excuse me. I work at the school. No, you can't.
You're right. Well, you're exactly right, but I'm still saying you've got to live in this world. You've got to hear this stuff, don't you?
Well, is it the world's job to preach this to you?
It's mine.
And you're hearing from a male.
The world sticks their fingers in their ears and goes, no, no, no, no. He didn't rise from the dead. He's not God.
La, la, la, la, la, la, la.
I can't hear you. This is what they do.
It is so hard for me to comprehend that you don't.
But these are people going to church.
Well, that's even stupider, and I don't like that one.
Okay. Next.
But I'm using the water.
This, by the way, this question is, the statement is a statement that comes from the ancient heresy known as Arianism. Here's the statement. Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God. 36 strongly agree.
17 agree somewhat. There's a total of 34 who disagree with this statement, who understand that, wait a second, Jesus is actually God. He's not a creature. And then 13%, I am not knowing. I do not know.
The majority believe the Arian heresy. This puts them outside of Christianity. They're not Christians. Now, let me give you some biblical text to kind of help out with something here. You know, we'll end on this thought this week, but I want to pick this up a little bit more next week.
Where do we get these ideas of error versus heresy? Scripture teaches them. I'm gonna show you the first place and probably the most explicit, the Apostle Paul writing to the churches in Galatia who were believing the Judaizing heresy.
And we'll note what Scripture teaches regarding one type of heresy. Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says to the churches in Galatia, I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him, that's Christ, who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.
See that phrase? Different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be, the Greek word is anathema, and it means damned.
Let him be damned. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one that you received, let him be damned. And when the ancient church councils would come together to address and look at Scripture and confront heresies, they would write what were called canons.
So you have the canons of the council of Constantinople, the canons of the council of Nicaea. And in the canons, they would say, if you believe this, you are anathema. If you believe this, you are anathema.
They would anathematize heresies. This particular statement, that Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God, historically is a statement that has been anathematized by Christians. And there's a reason for that.
Now, let's talk about the next thing. So if you believe a different gospel that puts you outside of Christianity, what is the gospel? We just read it in 1 Corinthians 15. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scripture, raised again on the third day in accordance with the Scripture.
That's the gospel in a nutshell. Now I'm gonna show you another passage, 2 Corinthians 11. And this one takes a little bit to get through, but you'll see the connection here. So we know false gospels put you outside.
Paul writes to the church in Corinth who were listening to this group of yahoos called the super apostles. I'm a super apostle. And he's going to demonstrate that they're not only not apostles, they're outside the faith.
And he says this, I wish you would bear with me, and a little foolishness, do bear with me. I feel a divine jealousy for you since I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ, but I'm afraid as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
For someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you received a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.
And he's not commending them for this, he's rebuking them. So this is now gonna start to unpack what scripture teaches. Different gospel, different Jesus, different spirit, different God puts you outside of Christianity.
That make sense? Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super apostles, even if I am unskilled in speaking, I'm not in knowledge. Indeed, in every way we've made this plain to you in all things.
Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached God's gospel to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you, and when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone.
For the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need, so I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way. As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia.
And why? Because I don't love you? Well, God knows I do love you. And what I am doing, I will continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim on their boasted mission that they work on the same terms as we do.
For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.
Their end will correspond to their deeds. That's a polite way of saying they're on their way to hell. So, false Christ, false gospel, false spirit, false God, puts you out of Christianity. Now here's the other one though.
Another one, now this is error. Error doesn't put you outside of Christianity. It could cause your faith to become unstable. Let me find it real quick here. Yep, it's Acts 18, verse 24. Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus.
He was an eloquent man, competent in the scriptures. Does this sound like a guy who's a heretic?
He had been instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in spirit, he taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. So you notice, we have a guy who's proclaiming Christ.
He's accurate in the scriptures, but his baptismal theology's all wet. Pun intended, by the way.
Tough crowd, tough crowd. Thank you.
A courtesy laugh, I'll accept that. So his baptismal theology isn't accurate. Does that mean he's not a Christian? That he's a heretic? Nope. So he began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.
Apollos, dude, we love what you're doing here. Let's go take a look at scriptures on what really is happening in baptism, what it's all about. So this is one of the reasons why Christians make a distinction between what they call primary and secondary doctrines.
Now, it's a useful category, and it actually has a basis in scripture. So if somebody is a Christian, they trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins, and him alone. But their baptismal theology isn't accurate.
What they believe regarding the Lord's Supper. No, that's not right. Does that mean they're not a Christian?
All right, we don't put, that's a secondary issue rather than a primary issue. But if they believe that Jesus is a created being, that's primary. Primary makes you heretic. So here we've got a problem.
Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God. More than 50 of evangelicals actually agree with this, either strongly or somewhat. That's primary doctrine. That means they're not Christian. Jesus is truly God and has a divine nature.
Jesus is truly man and has a human nature. Let me show you the biblical basis for this because this is pretty straightforward stuff. Romans chapter one. Paul writes, verse one, Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning his son, who was descended from David according to the flesh, and was declared to be the son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Does it sound like Jesus is the God-man to you? He has both a divine and human nature? Well, let's take a look at what our respondent said. 40%, yeah, I agree with that. 22%, somewhat agree. The rest?
Don't know.
Well, who is Jesus? Well, Jesus is the best example of what it means to be a Jewish Boy Scout. He used to help little old ladies cross the Sea of Galilee. Yeah, you kind of get the idea. The Holy Spirit is a force, but is not a personal being.
The Holy Spirit is a force, it is not a personal being. 28%, I agree strongly. 28%, I agree somewhat. That's more than half are denying what scripture teaches, that God, the Holy Spirit, is the third person of the Trinity and is a person, not a force.
They think they're Yoda or Luke Skywalker.
I would put not sure on this question if I had a survey, only because it's like a weird question.
Force?
What does that even mean? I'm not sure what that means.
That's what I would put.
Yeah, but notice more than half have given answers that are heretical.
Right, well, and if it says not a personal being, that says no right away.
Yeah, yeah.
They don't disagree strongly.
You know, the Spirit is power.
Yeah, it is power, but the Holy Spirit's a person.
How old is that word again?
That's a good question.
You know, because power and force to some people is the same.
Yeah, this isn't a good question.
The importance of it is the second part,.
But the second part negates the whole question.
Yeah, the personal being is not a personal being. That's denying that the Holy Spirit's a person.
Yeah, the but statement destroys the whole first part. It's not a personal being. The Holy Spirit is not a personal being. That's what the question's asking.
The Holy Spirit is a divine being, but it's not equal with God the Father and Jesus.
That's false.
All right, these answers are not so good. Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature. Everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature. Agree somewhat, agree strongly. This is known as the Pelagian heresy.
It's a denial of the doctrine of original sin, that we are born dead in trespasses and sins and at war with God. People have the ability to turn to God on their own initiative.
55 strongly agree, 24 agree somewhat.
Good job.
Goodness gracious, great balls of fire, right? Even the smallest sin deserves eternal damnation. No, no, no, no. Strongly disagree. No, I didn't.
I didn't.
You see the problem? This is the state of American evangelicalism.
Well, this is what you get when you talk to people too.
It's the same.
So, sit.
Am I right or am I wrong?
Yeah, I think you kind of get the idea.
As long as they see the results of these,.
What's really disappointing is you realize Christianity really isn't the largest religion on earth. It's way down.
Biblical, apostolic Christianity. It's a lot smaller.
Straight up.
What was the response of the Southern Baptist leadership?
I haven't seen responses from the Southern Baptist leadership, but I did see an op-ed piece in The Federalist talking about this. Basically, this is confirming what a lot of people have been saying for a while now, that the American religion is heretical, and that's the problem.
Here's the way I like to put it. If the doctrines that you're believing, when you check the label, it says made in America, you know you're dealing with false doctrine. Remember, we here right now are in an embassy.
This is the kingdom of God. When you step outside the doors, you're stepping back into U .S. territory. And what's taught here is not made in America. What's taught here is in the word of God, inspired by the Holy Spirit.
And we are, as Christians, duty-bound in doctrine and life regarding what Scripture says, what we believe and how we conduct ourselves. We will have another study next week.
