Holiness, Part 1, What We Believe, Part 34

Paul makes the argument with the meat offered to idols and now I'm trying Murph it's I think it's Romans But it's

Romans and first Corinthians that he mentions it But one of them he talks about not causing your brother to stumble to sin against his conscience by by eating meat offered to idols

He makes the case you defend your brother over the unbeliever you you offend an unbeliever if you must

To protect your brother's conscience We don't often think that way

Andrew Rappaport where we provide biblical interpretation and application This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the

Christian podcast Community for more content or to request a speaker for your church go to striving for eternity org

Welcome to another edition of the rap report I'm your host Andrew Rappaport the executive director of striving for eternity and The Christian podcast community of which this podcast is a proud member

I'm joined by another member of the Christian podcast community drew Vanita He is half of the matter of theology podcast another podcast

You should be checking out some great stuff that he and Chris Hough put out. They are two laymen who boy

You know, you gotta wonder sometimes you got a lot of guys that claim to be pastors and yet They can't produce the brilliance that matter of theology can produce

So just saying you want to check out that podcast. So drew welcome again to another edition of the rap report.

Thank you I'm honored to be here and it's great to be back with you in your audience And as we've been doing been having different co -hosts come in so you guys can hear some different voices from the

Christian podcast community With today's topic what we're gonna cover is well salvation, but specifically what we're calling

Separation and this is really dealing with the issue of holy living Now I'm going to say up front we have covered this in different ways but repetition is

Important why because well, sometimes you didn't listen to every episode I don't know why you don't have to listen to every episode of the rap report to be saved

But why take the chance? I'm just saying okay. I stole that from Erwin Lutzer he used to say that with going to Moody Church, but The reality is that we know that there's a lot of theology where we build it upon other thoughts

And so a lot of this interacts. So we've dealt with sanctification. We've dealt with issues in a last episode

We dealt with the the issue whether we can lose our salvation or we secure in our salvation that led into a discussion on Christian liberty and that now flows right into this issue that we're gonna cover in this episode

So this is part of our ongoing series this is number 34 in our series on what we believe so just go to striving for eternity org and Check out from there.

Go to the about section and you'll see what we believe Scroll down till you see

Soteriology open then expand that good at the bottom where it says separation and read along with us and you can

Follow what we're gonna be covering. So drew if you wouldn't mind reading those three paragraphs for us in that section.

Absolutely on separation Separation from sin is clearly called for throughout the

Old and New Testaments and the scriptures clearly indicate that in the last days apostasy and worldliness shall increase out of deep gratitude

For the undeserved grace of God granted to us and because our glorious God is so worthy of our total consecration all believers should live in such a manner as to demonstrate their adoring love to God and So as not to bring reproach

Upon our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You should insert a doxology right there separation from all

Religious apostasy and worldly sinful practices is commanded of us by God believers should be separated unto the

Lord Jesus Christ and Affirm that the Christian life is a life of obedient righteousness that reflects the teaching of the beatitudes and a

Continual pursuit of holiness Now I will admit that there is a certain pleasure and make and having drew read that this because in this first section we say something that drew probably had a hard time reading as a post -millennial but You know when

I read that I was like But even still there are post -millennial in the post -millennial view there

They do believe that there will be a great apostasy that still does take place

And so I firmly Approve of this statement. I can sit here even as a post -millennial go that is absolutely true

Yeah And that's so one of the things with with a doctrinal statement what we're doing this series is so people can see

Everything that's in a doctrinal statement We hoping to teach some theology as we go through it But we want to show you how to read a doctrinal statement how to see what's said and what's not said what's meant by things

So that you could be more precise as you read you're gonna go look for a church You want to see a thorough doctrinal statement?

Yes, and you want to see one that not just three pages where we believe in the

Bible. Okay good That tells me nothing. What do you believe about the Bible? Let's dig into that.

Well, that's what we're doing We're digging into this by the way, this total doctrinal statement. I think is about 10 to 12 pages if you print it

So we're saying here as we start with this section that separation from sin is

Clearly called for throughout the Old and New Testaments now. Let me say something.

This is a dividing line now okay, this makes a division between shall we say the progressive

Christians and well traditional biblical Christians Regressive Christianity wants to get along with the world and accept certain sins if they want to be part of the world

So they're gonna look at things like homosexuality and say it's not a big deal. Love is love it does it shouldn't matter

We shouldn't judge people for who they love. So what you end up seeing there is a

Distinction this becomes a watershed issue that we're saying that separation from sin is

Clearly called for so By stating something like this.

It means that those who want to say well, I'm an adulterer Christian, by the way I never hear that.

I'm a lying Christian. Wait, I never hear that. I'm a drunken Christian never hear that.

I'm a gay Christian Oh, I do hear that that one all the time, right? But here's the thing

Any Christian or anyone claiming to be a Christian? I should properly say that first identifies themselves by their sin is

Not seeking to separate themselves from that sin So if you're okay with drunkenness and Being a

Christian you're probably not a Christian because there's not that separation you're embracing it

So what this statement says is there has to be a clear line of demarcation Between you the believer and sin now, does that mean you're never gonna sin?

No, it doesn't you're still gonna sin Go listen to last episode and you're gonna hear as we describe through all that, but we will continue to sin

The difference is we hate the sin we do and if we hate it, we don't identify ourselves by it

We want to avoid it But to a person who claims to be a Christian and wants to embrace sin

That becomes a struggle because as we're saying both Old and New Testament is clear You know, there's a lot of people that will say we'll deal with the the elephant in the room the homosexuality

People will say well that was Old Testament New Testament is about love No, there's plenty of New Testament passages that speak against homosexuality as well and people go.

Oh, but Jesus never did Well, okay, but God the Holy Spirit wrote the whole book so he did

Right, even if Jesus didn't literally say that but he did say, you know marriages between a man and a woman

He didn't give any other options there. But the thing is when people try to get wiggle room

It's because they're not trying to separate themselves from what the Bible calls sin Now I'm gonna be upfront with you folks

Do I like everything that's said in the Bible? No There's a lot of passages where if I was like Thomas Jefferson, I would want to cut them out because I just don't like them

There's a lot of things. I don't like like every passage about gluttony I wish I could just remove that and just feel good about gorging myself like I want but I can't so the reality is we don't get to pick and choose what we wish the

Bible says and It's very clear that we have to be separate from sin now, it's interesting the way we're laying this out now why

Because we're talking about a separation from sin, which makes sense. If you listen to last week's episode. We talked about Christian Liberty and Having that assurance of salvation that leads right into this but notice then what we say the separation of sin is clearly called for throughout the

Old and New Testament and The scripture clearly indicates that in the last days apostasy and worldliness will increase

But here's why those two are connected Because it is those professing to be

Christians Who end up acting worldly that bring about the apostasy you see?

When Christians act like Christians the world goes well, yeah, they're they're not giving themselves over to sin

They're not identifying by their sin. That makes sense. They're Christian, but when those that profess to be

Christians The Joel Steen's and those who want to just have big stadiums and have nice smiles

But what happens with a Larry King an unbeliever? He'll turn to a John MacArthur and say you know what?

I like having you on because you'll tell me what you believe I have Joel Steen on He'll never say what he actually believes because he just wants to please people

He's wants the worldliness and the riches and all this world has to offer and He's not willing to tell a man that's dying and going to hell you're dying and going to hell

Probably because Joel Steen's going to the same place That's why he could write a book your best life now because this is

Joel Osteen's best life because he's got hell to look forward to if he doesn't repent and so The reason these are connected is because the lack of separation from sin will lead the church

Into worldliness and bring about a great apostasy And it will bring about the the the increase why because in the last days people have itching ears

They want to be tickled. They want to feel good now I know drew you have never on your podcast matter of theology you and Chris have never ever

Addressed any of these issues is that correct? Never I mean we wouldn't be caught dead addressing anything like this

I mean, this is just because this is too controversial Right, and we don't deal in anything controversial, right we want to be like I mean the reason our platform continues to grow is because we just want to be light and so we do everything we can

Absolutely, not. You know, we we address holiness all the time and the the need

For the Christian to leave the world leave worldliness out we point out all the places where worldliness is coming into the church and We argue against those things because it is the

Christians duty To progress in holiness to look to holiness to look at Christ and be moved in The direction he is that is to be moved in Holiness being conformed to the image of our

Lord and it's so great that you actually have this in your doctrinal statement because Many doctrinal statements don't even have this the idea of being separated from sin

They don't they don't want to they don't want to discuss those things But let me let me let you answer this question because we're we may get this people listening may may be thinking this

But I know you have heard this as many times as I have heard this as we talk about holiness and we talk about some of these issues

But drew someone is gonna say We're not being loving So it is is addressing issues of holiness is that loving or not

Addressing issues of holiness is most certainly loving because first we are to be concerned with what glorifies

God Holiness glorifies God and then secondly it is loving because To the person who is maybe claiming to be a believer that doesn't that doesn't view holiness in the same way

They don't think that that's important. It's loving for us to confront them and say hey you need to move in holiness

You need to move towards that because that's what God wants. He says it in his word

I mean Romans 12, okay Romans 12 the beginning Paul says therefore meaning as a result of so what is that?

He has just gone through chapters 1 through 11 laying out Systematic theology he's laid out the the indictment of all man under sin saying you are condemned, but Christ Came and took your place and because of all of that Therefore I urge you brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies that is the fullness of yourself a

Living sacrifice a living and holy Sacrifice which is acceptable to God So if you are not presenting your body in how you live how you speak how you think

Which those who would be pastors who would make excuses for using foul language or crass joking at the pulpit or in just every day every day language or Conversation.

Okay, you are not presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice a living and holy sacrifice to God And so if you don't have that desire to present your bodies and self -control

Talking about pastors, right? Let's talk about qualification for a pastor Self -control if you don't have that desire and moving and always guess what

God says that is not acceptable to him so you want your life to be one that is

Acceptable to God and the only way that is going to be acceptable to God is if you are desiring holiness yeah, and this is the thing that we end up seeing is so many people make pit it as if It's either holiness or love.

But one of the things I want to caution people with and think about is What do they mean by love?

the most loving thing drew could do is Confront me on my sin

Because that will correct me and get me to live more the way God wants me to be but we call love

It's really I want God and everyone else to spoil me and give me what I want Yeah, so Love is an attribute of God and you've been speaking about the attributes of God the necessity for us to know the attributes of God And dr

Steve Lawson has said that the greatest study you can give yourself to is the attributes of God because that's who

God is God has revealed himself to us But because love is an attribute of God What people try to do is they try to take this one attribute and they try to deify it they try to make love

The God that we should be serving rather than the God who is love

Which it also connected with all his other attributes as well

And in presenting that God that we should be serving because what they end up doing is

It's so many of these people that talk about God is love Ask him is

God wrathful. No That's not what John what Romans 9 22 23 say.

Mm -hmm They make it really clear that what if God wanting to display his wrath? hmm prepared vessels for destruction right, so Clearly God is a

God of wrath as well So they make it all about that. Everything should be about me

Myself and everyone giving me what I want. No, they don't often want to argue it that way, but that's what it is and When we want to live for self, we are living for sin.

We are not living for God and as believers It is an either -or

Situation you cannot Jesus made this clear You cannot live for both

God and money, but money is a substitute for any sin Money is a clear one as someone who does counseling

I can I can tell you what you love by looking at your checkbook You know, let me see your credit card statement.

I'll tell you what you love Because where you spend your money tells me where you what you love.

It's really funny you say that Because I I graduated high school from a

Christian school. Yeah. Oh, I know it's hard to believe sometimes It's like I can't put two words together to make a sentence

But uh, so I graduated from from a private Christian high school, and I only went there my senior year

Before that it was public school, but that same school Okay, I look at now and back then we didn't they didn't have a football team.

We didn't have a football team We had baseball and basketball and I played both of those sports and we had a couple other sports

But the only good ones are baseball and basketball But now they have this football team they have this football stadium and I interviewed with the headmaster about two summers ago and I said

Where you invest your money is an indication of what you value most

Are you investing your money in the football team? Or are you investing it in the theology program because I can tell you right now because I've been a substitute here

You're not investing in the theology program. Yes, one of the funny things it just brings up a story

You know what what got me to develop a relationship with dr. Thomas white not dr.

James white a different dr. White But he's from Cedarville University was when my daughter went there and they had orientation for the parents

He's talking about how they're gonna disciple the kids they want to disciple them in And help them in their theology help them to grow to be

Christians to have and and he goes, oh, don't worry They're gonna get a good education as if that was like secondary

You're paying money. We're good. They're gonna get a good education, but that wasn't his focus and that mindset,

I mean, that's why we got along and And This is a guy who could be a seminary.

He could have been a seminary President at like any of the Southern Baptist seminaries.

He went to Cedarville because he's like, you know, he told me he's like at Seminary I can affect the future pastors

It's Cedarville. We can disciple the rest of the world Mm -hmm, right and it's real interesting mindset.

And so that's but that's the thing We got to decide what we're living for right and so we have to be separate from sin and Christian the most loving thing we could do is

Live a life of separation from sin. Are we we're not gonna do a perfect but that's what the word Holy means to be set apart to be separated.

What are we separated from the world? from sin So we have do we still have these desires yes, but but we don't give their selves over time we have to be constantly

Warring against the flesh as first Peter 2 11 says that's right. And so we say here out of a deep gratitude so right here this talks about our the attitude that we have because people

We must understand people love sin. It is What we start in this world with we love sin.

We love self. We love our pride. And so what we need to do is Separate from that.

It's out of an attitude of deep gratitude. Why? Well, we say in the statement for the undeserved grace of God Granted to us see what causes us to want to separate from sin

It is that undeserved grace that you and I in no way deserved

The more we understand how wicked and sinful we are

The more we value and understand this this beauty of this separation

It's one of the reasons Todd Friel called his his program wretched It's not because it's a wretched show

It's because you and I are wretched and when we understand how truly wretched we are

The more we understand how much undeserving we are of the grace that God gives us and you want to know something

You want to sit there and go to church and complain about your your brother or sister? Maybe you don't like the pastor and what he's done and you want to be critical

When you understand how wicked you are and I am That person we're gonna criticize yeah, they look far better than us.

Yeah right, and so it's a batter attitude, you know when I when I share the the gospel drew a

Illustration that I always use because it's helpful people think that you go to church do good works and that's how you become a

Christian and get right with God and Now use use this courtroom scene and I'll say okay, you know, so if I was talking with you drew

I'd say so drew. Let me ask you, you know Say you did something wrong and you owed a hundred million dollars or life in prison

I'm just gonna tell you drew you got a hundred million dollars and you're gonna go on. No Okay, so you're looking at what and the person goes well life in prison.

Okay, so drew you're looking at life in prison Not not pretty picture. No, okay

So some guy complete stranger comes in and gives you a check for a hundred million dollars sold this car sold this house

Comes in gives you the check and says here this is for you Now you gotta believe the checks real right? You got to write your name on the back and endorse it

You don't go to jail for fraud, right? So you you trust the check you hand that check over and the judge says you're free to go

Why because someone else paid you're fine. Mm -hmm. So you're outside of the courtroom. You were looking at life in prison

Oh all of a sudden you walk out that courtroom in the day just looks so much better, doesn't it? yeah, why because you were gonna look at a jail cell for the rest of your life and now you could see the star the

Sun and the sky and the beauty and you see the guy who paid your bill and he's hitching a ride

I usually say California unless I'm in California and then I say to New York He's hitching a ride to California and I go do you give him a ride and people are always like yeah

I go. Why do you give him a ride? I had one guy. He goes I said would you give him a ride? No, I give him my car and I'm his chauffeur wherever he goes

I'm taking him everything That's mine is his and I said why he goes because I was looking at life in prison.

He paid a debt. I could never pay Well, I remember one person saying I don't have to worry about going to work or like I wasn't gonna have any of that He made it possible for me to be able to be with my family or go to work

So if I have to take time out to drive him to California, I'm going. Mm -hmm I said so what was the change the motivation right?

Because someone did something for you that you could not repay Even though you can never repay it.

It was a motivational change that you just Love him and want to do something for him not to earn anything because you can't well

Brothers and sisters we have been forgiven an eternal debt

We can never repay it and when we understand how wicked our sin really is then we understand how undeserving the grace that God has granted to us is and That should be the motivation for us to have this deep gratitude to want to be separate from sin because that's what

Christ died on that cross for that sin represents what Christ died for and So we say out of a deep gratitude for the undeserved grace of that of God granted to us and Because of our

Glorious God now, where's the focus here notice? It's not on us and what we do

It's on God and what he did we did not deserve but he did this for us that's the focus and because of our glorious God is so worthy of our total

Consecration now drew you're familiar with the passage. I'm sure many of you listeners are as well in Proverbs the beginning of wisdom

Is what the Lord you're the Lord and you know a lot of people struggle with what does it mean to fear the

Lord? If you think about it Fearing the Lord fear is this negative thing, right? If you live in inner city right now, you fear riots you fear

Well black lives matter protests because they're a protest you you fear

Violence when you when you defund police, right you you fear what people are doing

Maybe some people are fearing the government what they do If fear is often thought of as a negative thing, right?

So what does it mean to fear the Lord and this is a helpful illustration, I think but it's helped others so Drew someone comes up to you.

You're in New York City. Well, I guess for you you're down in Atlanta Someone pulls a gun on you

You're walking with your wife and you were having a discussion on what color to paint the baby's room

No little Lawson's room is gonna be painted. It should be blue pink purple Maybe maybe you're in a heated discussion on this.

Your wife is saying blue and you think it should be, you know maroon All right, and so a heated discussion and a guy pulls a gun on you and says give me your wallet

What just happened to that discussion on what color to paint the room? It became irrelevant dead as a doornail, right?

All of a sudden the presence of that guy with that gun Takes your full and total concentration

Right. Mm -hmm. You are not thinking of anything else, but the current situation

You are totally concentrated to him now. Mm -hmm. You are in fear

It means that you are Totally fixated on the present moment and what's in front of you

That is the fear of the Lord is that we are to be living totally consecrated to him We're be living in a fear of the

Lord meaning that we are to be living where every thought is just thinking of him That he captures our complete concentration

Imagination thoughts Now we can't do that perfectly. I get it but that's what it means that's the beginning of wisdom at the fear of the

Lord is that he captivates us completely and That's what we're saying here because God He is a glorious God that is worthy of that.

Mm -hmm. Yeah speaking about this fear Right. So there's two types of fear.

There's servile fear, which is fear that is experienced at the hands of a tormentor

Someone that's torturing us, right? It's this deathly fear.

Is that like listening to Leighton Flowers? Is that in that category? Exactly, exactly it.

I just I just wanted to check. Yeah, and then and then there's another type of fear That's called a filial fear

This is a reverent fear. This is the type of fear we should be relaying to God and It's this as you're speaking about this

Andrew this living in every moment of who God is that right this our glorious God Who is worthy?

So what that means my fear to the Lord is That I'm not afraid of the

Lord. I'm afraid of Displeasing my lord and so I live a life where I seek to live a life

That does not want to displease God That's right.

And that's the whole thing that we have here So what we see is when we look at this we are to be living every second of every day for God That is something we're never gonna be able to do perfectly

I get it but that's what we're saying in this statement Okay, and so we say here all believers should live in such a manner as to demonstrate their adorning love to God now this goes back to that illustration that I gave right if I am truly motivated by what

God did if I'm going to sit there and and Examine this. I'm gonna say okay here

God just paid an eternal fine for me Well, then I want to do anything for him, that's right

Okay, that is so so my separation from sin is not to earn Anything.

I'm not getting brownie points. I'm not getting merits. I'm not saying Oh God. Look you did something for me

Look how good I am. No, it's not about me or any works that I do it is because God is

Deserving That that's a totally different way of approaching this and that's what

I'm I'm trying to express here with this and take the time to explain out We should live in a manner of Adorning the

God we say we love And that that should be like common sense, yeah,

I know Yeah, like a dumb moment and we say here and so Also not trying to bring a reproach upon the

Lord Our Lord and Savior here the issue becomes we don't want to be in our behavior

Doing something that would ruin our testimony. So let me let me tell a story. I still remember this

This was this is kind of will be a condemnation for many churches on their their youth groups when

I started pastoring a church and The guy who's running the youth group really wanted me involved in the youth group now

The youth group back then was like many youth groups You had a bunch of kids from the church that would invite their unbelieving friends now our youth group would meet on Friday nights

Okay, and so it became a safe place for parents to send their kids on a Friday night and so we had a big youth group and It was made up really mostly of people outside of the church and they thought that was great

So they'd start they'd play some stupid games. It was nothing like licking peanut butter out of armpits

It wasn't that bad that you could see it youth group things don't go don't type youth group on YouTube and you don't want to watch what they do, but The thing was that they play a game that have a little

Bible story about morality Have maybe a time of prayer or discussion and then hang out and so I get involved and I start teaching worldviews.

I Start teaching critical thinking. Oh, I also start teaching evangelism and then an hour before Youth group starts.

I start taking all the kids down to downtown Freehold, New Jersey to start evangelizing

Downtown now, here's what that does by the time we got to youth group All of the youth from our church were in evangelism mode

Mm -hmm, so we cut out the games and we had the fellowship in the beginning Because what happened was all the kids were evangelizing right away because they were in evangelism mode

They just spent the last hour evangelize as soon as you get to youth group. It's like boom they start evangelizing

Which was a good thing is it meant that we either saw kids get saved or leave? Yeah, and suddenly we didn't have problems in youth group

But here's the thing that was interesting. We had one incident. We had one of the kids and These were younger kids that were involved

So this was you know, some of the because we had the younger kids that would come with us and evangelize We had one of the kids and I think he was

I want to say like 10 years old If I'm correct, he might have been older may have been 12 and he was there with with a another

Relative at his cousin of his and his cousin is evangelizing and his cousin is talking to this kid

That's about his age and he goes wait a minute. He goes. Are you with that guy? He's like, yeah, and he goes well,

I'm not believing anything you say because that guy has one of the foulest mouths in school and I sat down.

I heard that went really cuz I mean he's really well behaved in church, right? And I saw the one cousin walk over to his cousin.

He goes. Hey, you got one of two choices you either got clean up your mouth or stop evangelizing with us because your mouth in school is

Affecting my ability to evangelize the lost so in other words that kid's mouth in school brought a reproach upon Christ and When someone was witnessing and said, oh wait, he's a

Christian it affected it You know I know John MacArthur tells a story that he was golfing with someone and Someone he mentioned the church and he says

I would never go to that church John MacArthur asked why and he says, you know, this is an attorney and he says yeah one of the most corrupt attorneys

Goes to that church And so MacArthur confronted the guy The guy who goes to his church and said look this is your behavior at work is an approach to Christ So this is what we're saying.

Here's we don't want to bring a reproach as Christians. We want to avoid sin

Not only because we love God But also because we don't want to be a reproach

Against God, we don't want to bring a stain on his name Just look at what if I mentioned

Now I have this advantage folks You don't right now, but I can see Drew's face as we're recording this and as I mentioned this word

I'm gonna watch the reaction and then maybe I'll describe it for you. But as I mentioned the word tele evangelist

What comes to your mind see right? He gives a smirk. I got a eye roll. He's turning away

This is when we say a tele evangelist all of you had an idea what you thought

Someone who's greedy for money who's just they'll say anything to it's they'll come up with wacky things all for themselves to get money right

That's a reproach Christ so why am I against the

Word of Faith and And and all of the the prosperity gospel because it's a reproach against Christ in the name of Christ So why would

I be against someone who is in church and lying? constantly For the same reason because it's a reproach

It's a reproach against Christ from someone claiming to be of Christ and that's the worst someone who says he's lost and Is a drunkard doesn't bring a reproach against Christ Someone who is an in church regularly and a drunkard is a reproach against Christ.

Yeah, I was thinking of a church that I had attended and From the pulpit

The pastor was talking about Halloween and he was talking about how people in the church are divided about Halloween You've got this group over here that says we shouldn't do anything

Halloween You shouldn't celebrate Halloween because it's pagan and and you you just shouldn't do it and then you have this group over here that's it's okay, and we should just be able to do it because we have

Christian Liberty and This pastor from the pulpit said you guys that are all about just cutting out

Halloween and calling everyone sinners for for celebrating Halloween You just need to relax.

You just need to get over it and I'm thinking to myself This group

That is against Halloween is a more mature group

Because they've progressed in their Christianity. They've grown in their relationship with God and not only that they have big

God Theology they have this fear of God and they they have high views of God and what you just did was you made a stump?

You made this group. That is a mature group a stumbling block For the immature group and now you're bringing reproach upon the gospel because now you're telling these people just get over it and I was thinking to myself.

I should probably send them a little book that someone I know wrote about Halloween Have him read it pastor

Justin Pierce has a book out on Halloween be good for you to read Mm -hmm. So do you know that the phrase stumbling block appears 33 times in?

At least the New American Standard version. So there's a lot of times that this is being discussed from Leviticus one of the earliest books all the way through to Revelation so what we end up seeing here is this is something that the

Bible does speak about and we need to be careful of and there's much warning about being a stumbling block to our brothers or sisters and I'll mention this again.

I mentioned it in the last episode, but Paul makes the argument with the meat offered to idols

And now I'm trying Murph. It's I think it's Romans, but it's Romans and first Corinthians that he mentions it But one of them he talks about not causing your brother to stumble to sin against his conscience by by eating meat offered to idols

He makes the case you defend your brother over the unbeliever you you offend an unbeliever if you must to protect your brother's conscience

We don't often think that way. I mean, let's be honest. You're listening to me and you're saying maybe to yourself

Yeah, what what Andrew saying is right? That's biblical Can we be honest you and I how easy is that for us to do how often now?

Okay, I'm nuts. I know you listener you you don't struggle. It's just me. I get it

But how often do I maybe not you? struggle with this where we

We see a Christian that we know has been walking with the Lord long enough and we just want to like smack him upside the head or just be

Like come on already Just kind of grow up like you you should be beyond this

We get frustrated sometimes and then we have expectations and what sometimes we end up doing

We will hold them to our expectations hmm The reality is is we don't want to be a stumbling block to others

Don't want to be a reproach in the name of Christ. And and one of the biggest reproaches is

When we see someone who is usually if you see a pastor

Especially a solid pastor who struggles who stumbles who falls and the world will jump on that You know, you just look at a case.

I think about the case with with Jordan Hall someone who and now

I mentioned that name and everyone's probably triggered but the reality is Jordan is someone I knew personally in person.

Jordan is a wonderful guy. He's a really nice guy Online I agree with what most people think of him, you know, he's just he's a firebrand

He just says things that he shouldn't say I get it, but you want to know something there was unfortunately even within Christian circles when

Jordan fell and He got arrested There was great rejoicing in many circles

That's really bad If you disagreed with what the things of Jordan that he would do

Okay, but we don't rejoice because you know what happened when he fell and it went in the public record.

That's a disdain on The name of Christ state. Here's a pastor who got pulled over under the influence

You know while having a weapon on Under the influence of what he had a he had prescription drugs

There's been debate whether there's more or not, but we do know for sure as he had prescription drugs the reality is is that that becomes a reproach against name of Christ You know if you have someone who now

I mean if if someone like Benny Hinn Well, he already is a reproach because of his teaching, right?

We joked about Layton flowers and Layton is another person who I know personally very likable guy in person

Can't stand the way he handles the Bible, right? Okay But I would never rejoice even though he and I would be on differing ends.

We've done Disagreements before I would never rejoice If something happened where he fell because because not because oh look the guy who who

I debated he looks bad now No, Christ looks bad, right?

Yep, and if you are focus is not on Christ That our focus is in the wrong place

And this is the thing We're going through this because of this fact When we have a right understanding of who

God is and what he did for us It is gonna change the way we do things like discernment for discernment ministries

Mm -hmm There are so many discernment ministries that need discernment.

Okay. Yes, that is true Unfortunately a guy who did a great podcast about discernment discerning discernment ministries has walked away from the faith

Okay, and so Looking at this is someone who again someone

I know personally Tyler Villa and he was an apologist in Christian circles He was he was did tons of debates really smart guy

Claims he's not a believer. Okay, do I rejoice? That even though we had we had we would debate the days of creation and covenant theology versus dispensational noise things

And do I rejoice that he fell and he's denying her. No No, the thing is as now personally when we look at this, why do we separate from sin?

We really want to be separate from sin for two reasons one a love for God because of what he did for us and to a love for God that his reputation

Would not be tarnished because you want to know something if we're gonna be honest We do a lot of things for our own reputation.

Don't we? Oh, yeah, and We need to be living for his reputation not ours there's a lot of times

I see Christians myself included who do things to protect our own reputation and Don't think too much about God's reputation in it.

Mm -hmm. That's right, you know So I'll end with this crazy way to end but I was reading

Isaiah in my devotions And realized that God asked Isaiah to walk naked through streets to the king to present judgment now

Do you think that had an effect on his? reputation Yeah You want to talk about embarrassing like I'm going?

Okay, wait, did I just read this right? Let me back up what right but Isaiah was more concerned with God's reputation

And Israel the nation that represented God not defaming his name

I'm not gonna ask whether you'd walk naked through streets But would you and I be willing to do anything that God calls us to do

For his reputation and not ours So it's a challenging thing to think about a challenging way for us to end this episode

But it sounded I want to have you consider and think about what as we talk about separation from sin

It is born out of a love for God because our motivations completely changed because of what he's done for us

Now we're gonna pick this up next week. We'll finish up this section in the next episode.

I hope you'll join us Drew will be back for that And so drew before we close up any any comments you want to make on any of that I think it's all gonna come to a head with a nice bow in the next episode as we tackle this last paragraph here

I think I'll save everything for that last episode so you don't want to miss it Come back we'll see you next week and that's a wrap

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