June 12, 2015 ISI Radio Show with Pastor Jeff Durbin on “The American Media’s Response to Bruce Jenner’s Voluntary Mutilation”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arnton. Good afternoon,

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I was about to say Long Island out of old habit. Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity and the planet

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Earth. This is Chris Arnton, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you a happy Friday on this twelfth day of June 2015 and I'm very excited that we have for the very first time as a guest on Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church in Tempe, Arizona.

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He is featured on the History Channel special called The Stoned Ages about the

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Christian approach to drugs and alcohol. He's also a world champion martial artist with five black belts and he starred as Michelangelo in Donatello for the

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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise as well as Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat the

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World Tour. Younger folks may have seen him as a fighter on The Final Foo and it's my honor and privilege to have you as a guest for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron, Pastor Jeff Durbin.

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Hey Chris, thanks for having me brother. Oh it's my pleasure and it was great to meet you down in Pensacola, Florida at the

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Herald Society Conference in April and it was a real joy and I gotta tell you that I know an adult male who has three children who acted like a giddy little schoolgirl when

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I told him that I met one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yeah, I like to use that to my advantage with little kids.

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And I definitely want to have you in the future back on the program to discuss a

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Christian view of martial arts since you are a black belt and you have five black belts in the martial arts.

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Today we're going to be discussing the American media's response to the

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Bruce Jenner fiasco, the Bruce Jenner voluntary mutilation and in particular we're also going to be addressing the recent fiasco on the

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Dr. Drew show in which James White appeared as a guest and had probably about two and a half minutes of things to say during an hour program and was constantly being interrupted by the entire panel that was totally stacked against him, who were in favor of Bruce Jenner's self -mutilation.

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But before we even go into that, tell our listeners something about Apologia Church and Apologia Radio and Apologia TV.

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I know that our mutual friend James White always makes fun of you mispronouncing

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Apologia which he says it should be rightly pronounced Apologia and I wonder if I should start calling

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James White a reformed Christian apologist and should

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I say that Alpha Omega Ministries is an apologetics organization?

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You see, thank you Chris. Full vindication.

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Yeah, I don't think of it, James is not only my hero of the faith but he's someone

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I consider a friend and he loves to jab at me with the Apologia comments but that's exactly my point, brother, is apologetics.

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But I don't think it'll ever end and I don't know if I want it to. Yeah, well

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I want to say this to you first, Chris, it was really cool for me to meet you in Florida because for me, becoming a

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Christian later in life and then listening to Dr. White over the years, particularly watching his debates,

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I got to see you a bunch in his debates, you know, doing introductions, being sort of the funny comic relief and stuff like that, and so when

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I met you in Florida I was a going fanboy. I was just a fanboy because I was like, wow, this is

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Chris Harmon, wow. It really threw me. So let's see here, so Apologia Church is a

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I was already the pastor at a church here in Phoenix and the pastor at a hospital.

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I was the chaplain at a drug and alcohol rehab facility and what happened was so many people were coming to Christ out of this drug and alcohol rehab that it was clear we needed a place to take care of them and we needed to really invest in all these people that had these specific needs and so the church

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I was a pastor at laid hands on me. I went to the church at the hospital and that was five years ago.

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We were known early on locally as that drug church because everybody there had come out of drug and alcohol addiction and it was really surprising to me.

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I didn't plan on ever planting a church. That wasn't my thing. I wasn't thinking I'm going to plant a church someday.

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I just wanted to reach people with the gospel. I was a pastor and this is something that God sort of forced me into to be honest and so here we are five years later.

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We have about 200 people on a Sunday. Many, many, many of them new

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Christians. I mean really new Christians, no church background, never been to church or rarely at all and lives totally transformed and it's just amazing and so we have a heart for reaching people with the gospel.

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I've always wanted in particular the influence of Dr. White on my life really provide the world a rigorous answer or defense for the faith and so I've always you know been on the streets since 1996.

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I've been to the Mormon temple in Mesa. Dr. White's been there so I have spent all these years sort of engaged in apologetics and really reaching people in the tough places and so that's what we've always done.

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So out of that sort of ministry our church has also started our radio program,

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Apologia Radio, that really has surprised me and I definitely wanted it to be an effective tool for Christ and for his kingdom and I'd always wanted that to happen but I don't think

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I saw how quickly it would become a popular show. It's heard internationally through podcasts.

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We did have it playing all over Arizona on the radio station KBXQ which is the most popular station out here for Christian talk radio and we were just getting such a big response we decided we could do better with the money we were investing in the radio program locally by actually doing it ourselves and so God over the last couple months, one of the situations where I didn't expect it, wasn't planning on it,

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I wasn't saying we're going to do this, it just sort of started to come together and happen and God just poured out on us the money we needed to do our own studio.

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He had us run into, from our perspective by accident but totally God's providence, a

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Christian owner. Sorry about that, I just pressed the wrong button there.

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A Christian owner of an industrial plaza who essentially had given us the space to use for our studio.

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Yesterday was our first day of Apologia TV. We had as our first guest Dr. James White to talk about the

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Bruce Jenner situation on CNN and we have our own studio now so we can produce more content for the gospel and our goal really is to bring the conversation and the biblical worldview and the gospel into the highest levels of discussion.

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So the purpose of the studio is to bring the gospel into these areas where if they generally don't want to hear it, everyone's on social media, everybody's on YouTube, Vimeo, all these platforms and so we want to make sure we get the gospel into those platforms in a meaningful way and in a quality way and so that's what we're doing.

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Well that's a great thing to do and how can people listen to Apologia Radio and how can they watch

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Apologia TV? I'm so glad that I have an advocate Chris. I'm so happy and I hope

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Dr. White hears this and that he thinks very hard about how he's treating me. You can get to, there's two things you can do.

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One is go to ApologiaRadio .com and that site over the next couple weeks is going to become brand new.

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It's already being fixed right now and revamped and all kinds of really cool additions made to it.

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You can get all the past episodes and podcasts we've done. We've done excellent episodes with some of the world's leading scholars,

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Christian scientists, theologians. It's just been such a blessing and so ApologiaRadio .com and soon

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Apologia TV will also be up on there. But I think one of the most, I think, helpful things to do immediately is go to YouTube and type in Apologia Studios.

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Go to our page and there are just tons and tons of videos there of live, of just actual conversation with atheists, with Mormons, with Jehovah's Witnesses.

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So you get to see and hear the gospel being brought into a conversation with people who are hostile to the

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Christian faith and Mormon missionaries and those sorts of things. So I hope it'll be a blessing to a lot of people.

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And God willing, I will certainly have you back to also discuss what you addressed on the

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History Channel special, the stoned ages about the Christian approach to drugs and alcohol.

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Because it is quite also an unusual and interesting and fascinating situation that you have there, having a church that was born out of a drug rehab facility.

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Yes, yeah, it'd be my pleasure to do that. And I'm going to start off with a little piece that Jeff Durbin filmed in response to the

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Dr. Drew fiasco. For those of you who did not see Dr. Drew recently when he addressed the issue of Bruce Jenner's self -mutilation through surgery and hormone treatment and all other kinds of things, they of course referred to him as Caitlyn Jenner throughout the entire program.

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And with the sole exception of Dr. James R. White, our mutual friend who is a

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Christian theologian, who was invited on to give a spiritual response to this situation.

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And of course he was shouted out or smothered through most of the program and given very little to say.

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But what he did say, what the Lord gave him the opportunity to say, was profound and the only part of the program worth listening to.

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I'm sure that even liberals and those who despise

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Christianity or have no view of it at all, have a neutral view of it,

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I'm sure that they even saw that Dr. White was the most articulate and knowledgeable person on that program.

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But anyway, Dr. James White versus Dr. Drew talking about Bruce Jenner. This is an

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Apology in a Moment. I gotta break this for a second just to let our listeners know that you're gonna miss some of the humor since you can't see some of the jokes that Jeff made, especially about the

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NBA great James White who looks nothing like James White of Alpha Omega Ministries.

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Nine foot tall black man that looks like he could pick up a Buick over his head. But anyway, here we go.

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Guys, this is Jeff Durbin with Apologia Studios here with the Apologia Moment. Last night's episode of Headline News with Dr.

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Drew was incredible. Dr. Drew, who actually might be confused with Phil Vischer from Veggie Tales.

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Dr. Drew engaged the Mr. Bruce Jenner situation. Mr. Bruce Jenner, you all know, is the famous athlete and grandfather who has recently attempted to go from being a man to pretending to be a woman.

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Dr. Drew interviewed Dr. James White, who actually could never be confused with the

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James White from the Knicks. Never. Not even if you tried. Not if you dressed James White up like a basketball player, put a basketball in his hand.

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Could never confuse the two. Never happened. It's impossible. Well, maybe. And that's closer.

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That's closer. I mean, they both can dunk. What we're hearing here is a fundamental clash of worldviews, and that's not really what we've gotten into a discussion of yet.

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What's the question? What if Jesus was right when he said, have you not read from the beginning that God made them male and female?

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But your religious beliefs don't necessarily apply to something that humanity has been doing since before the

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Bible was even conceived. Right. But he's saying. But the point, of course, is this is a worldview issue. This is a worldview issue.

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And we're going to have to decide what our ultimate authorities are. I'm not sure who you are referring to, but the

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Jesus I'm referring to rose from the dead. I think that gives him a little bit of extra authority to address a particular issue.

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From right here, I got to go to our audience member who has a question. Swish. After the obvious groaning from one of the panelists,

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Dr. James White tweeted, someone should let the very kind panelist lady know her deep sighs at the mention of God or Jesus are very audible, even to me, to all of us,

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Dr. Weitz. And then this happened. If we don't discuss the worldview that gives rise to our decisions, then all we're doing is giving our own personal opinions.

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That's that's not how you deal with societal issues. Why? Those issues are not being addressed. This is a societal issue.

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This is a Caitlyn Jenner issue. It's a personal issue. You can do it with your body. You can do whatever. It very clearly is a societal issue.

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I feel like I hear some fear in your voice. I'm just saying, I feel like there's fear that if it.

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Yeah. Dr. James White has debated over one hundred and forty times in public, moderated debate from mosques to universities all over the planet.

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And what gets him is feminist, hipster, pop psychologist. And James, you have an opinion on this.

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Yes. Oh, most definitely. I'm very concerned that so far we really haven't heard a meaningful moral and ethical worldview brought to bear on the big issue here, which isn't about television programs or reality shows.

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It's about what has happened to this man and how the nation is responding to it.

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And happiness is found in a completely different direction. Dr. White is right. Happiness is only found in one place, and that's in the

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God of peace. That's in Christ. What we're faced with today is a collision between two antithetical worldviews, a worldview with God as the foundation and a universe of total meaning or worldview apart from God and a universe of total meaning less ness.

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When we abandon God, it's been said we don't believe in nothing. Now we'll believe in anything.

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When you abandon God up is not up. Down is not down. Right is not right. Left is not left.

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Darkness is light. There are no definitions. There is no meaning. There is no truth. God became a man to rescue us from our sins.

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He died for sins and he rose from the dead and he calls all to come to him for life, forgiveness and peace.

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That is what Bruce Jenner is seeking. Peace. All of us are. It's only found in the

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God of peace. For more on engaging the culture with the gospel, go to YouTube, Apologia Studios and subscribe.

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Excellent, Jeff. Excellent job that you did there. Thanks, brother. Thanks for blessing me. And by the way,

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I just want to give a quick plug to a guest that we're going to be having on in about two weeks.

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On the 24th of June, we're having Dr. David Murray of Puritan Reform Theological Seminary to discuss

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The Happy Christian, just dovetailing off of what Jeff was just mentioning, the fact that Bruce Jenner is seeking some kind of happiness and peace.

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And The Happy Christian sounds like a book that Joel Osteen or some heretic would have written.

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But I can assure you that Dr. David Murray is nothing of the sort. He is not a fluffy, syrupy, sweet type of author.

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He is a thoroughly trained reform theologian, and we are going to be eagerly looking forward to hearing what he has to say on that subject.

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But going back to this whole Bruce Jenner situation, now obviously

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Christians are going to be not only revolted by this, but they're going to grieve over this and even have pity for Bruce Jenner, some of us.

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But in regard to this person's freedom to engage in something that even we would call self -mutilation, do you think that a person such as Bruce Jenner, who chooses to be known as Caitlyn, should have the freedom to set about doing this because it is something that he believes in and he has been told by Christian psychologists will help him to receive that inner well -being and peace and happiness that he's longing for?

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Well, no. Obviously, you mentioned it, Chris, that there's a part of this that we should all grieve over because we need to recognize that what separates us, obviously, from Bruce Jenner, Mr.

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Bruce Jenner, is the grace of God. But beyond the grief that we should feel for other sinners that need the gospel, no, we shouldn't placate to those feelings and emotions because they're destructive.

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They're destructive with certainty because God has spoken. This is the important thing. We live in a culture today that wants to say, like I said in the video, there are no definitions.

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There's no absolute truth. There are no oughts. Now, they can't live consistently with that because they're in the image of God and it's

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God's world and that's impossible. They can't. But they want to say, to herald the truth, that there are no absolutes, there are no oughts, and I can do whatever

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I please. Now, again, they will not live consistently with that because they also believe that people who, say, molest children should be in jail, so they have their inconsistencies.

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But we need to recognize that this is God's world, he has spoken, and he has defined what sexual relationships ought to be, what harmonious sexuality actually is, what gender is.

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I mean, Jesus, his very, very popular statement in Matthew chapter 19, he talks about marriage.

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And Jesus answers him in 19, have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, therefore a man shall leave, now listen to this, his father and his mother, and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

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So in this little, this statement by Jesus, Jesus defines not only harmonious sexuality, but gender roles, and he does it by saying

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God, from the beginning, created them male and female, and you shall leave your father and mother.

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So what's really important to recognize here is this, when God created the world, he created the very first society, the very first form of government, the very first foundation of the world, after he creates man and woman in his image, in the image of God who created them, he creates the blueprint for all of society.

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It's that first thing that he lays down to build everything else. When you think about family, think about children, you think about multiplying and filling the earth, taking dominion over the earth, what was the foundation underneath all of that was male and female, husband and wife relationship.

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The gender roles are defined by God, and what our culture wants to do today is say, we don't want to allow

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God to speak, we want to reject God's created order, his creative decree in history, we want to reject that, and we want to build our own kingdom, we want to define for ourselves what is good, holy, harmonious, and we're going to do that, we're going to reject

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God. But the amazing thing is, is if you remove the foundation from a building, that building only has one direction to go, it's going down.

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And so, yes, we have something to say to anybody that would try to redefine what

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God has spoken as holy, and as good, as true, as beautiful, as harmonious.

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We have something to say, because sin does not simply affect the person committing it.

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Sin always has consequences. Sin always has consequences beyond the person who's making that decision.

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Sin destroys not only the person, but also society. When God, in his Word, in the

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Old Testament, would define what harmonious sexual relationships were, and then he would define what was toevah and abomination, there's not just the opposition that those things bring against God, it's the destruction it brings into God's created order.

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And when a society attempts to redefine what is God's creative decree, and it attempts to redefine what is sexually harmonious in a culture, it is asking for destruction.

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And when people in our society today have said, well, I can do what I want with my body, and I can live any particular way that I feel, who are you to tell me that I can't?

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They're not only being inconsistent, because they don't live consistently with that claim, but they are affecting the world around them.

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When you destroy the family, when you destroy gender roles, when you destroy what is harmonious sexual human activity, then you do affect the culture around you.

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And now, we all recognize this. This is what's really important. We all recognize it. Now, I'm not comparing the homosexual with the child molester here in terms of what actually happens, but I want to show the inconsistency.

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We all know that we can't just do what we want with our bodies. We can't just make the decisions that we want and nobody has anything to say, because we all know that when somebody does what is sexually perverse, we all have something to say about it.

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We ask for those people to be picked up. We ask for those people to be put before a judge. So, we can't live consistently with the claim that you can't tell me what to do with my body, because listen, we all recognize that our actions affect the community around us.

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They affect society. And when you have society like we do today, drinking in darkness, trying to redefine what

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God has said is good, we have a society that is going to collapse. Well, it's interesting that, yeah, in another example, a prime example of not being able to do whatever you want with your body, if somebody attempts suicide, they're going to be picked up by the police and they're going to be brought to a psychiatric ward against their will.

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So, our nation does have laws in regard to that. Another thing that comes to mind, these people are being legally,

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I'm assuming, recognized as the opposite gender that they wish to be.

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And if that hasn't happened yet, I'm sure that that is going to be happening. I don't know if you are aware of the legal situation on that, but that just makes me think, what about these people who become, quote, quote, women, we know that they're not women, but they, after surgery and hormones and so on, take on the appearance of being the opposite sex, are they going to be given the legal right to pursue marriage without informing their potential mates or spouses about what they had gone through?

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Because if they are considered to be legally members of the opposite gender, they could be fooling people unaware of their situation into a very horrible and grotesque situation, couldn't they?

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Yeah, they absolutely can. Absolutely. And the way that we have gone today in our culture and abandoning our foundations, abandoning the word of God to define these roles, and again, to define harmonious sexual experience,

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I think that that is definitely not far away. And I think that we need to recognize something as Christians, that to not speak up in a culture that is drinking in darkness, as ours is, and to act indifferent towards it, or to try to avoid the conversation, is to hate your neighbor.

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And people say, well, why can't you allow Bruce to be called Caitlin? Why can't you let him do with his body as he pleases?

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Who are you to say this? And here's my answer. Jesus commands me to love God and to love my neighbor.

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And it is the greatest act of hatred toward my neighbor. When I see them going the opposite direction of what

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God calls good, it is the greatest act of hatred to say and to do nothing.

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Christ commands me to love my neighbor, and to say and do nothing is to hate my neighbor.

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I will not hate Bruce Jenner. I will not. The culture can beg me, plead with me to hate

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Bruce Jenner. I will not hate him. I will love him. And the greatest act of love is to sacrifice self and reputation and desires and wants, and to sacrifice it for the cause of love and truth for your neighbor.

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And the culture wants us to hate Bruce Jenner. They want us to hate him.

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They want us to hate God and to say and do nothing. And that is something that Christians cannot do.

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Jesus commands us. This is an amazing thing, Chris, in our culture. Our culture, and I'm talking about Christian culture in particular in the

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West, it just wants to have the message for the world that Jesus will punch your ticket for heaven one day.

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He'll nod at you. He'll tip the hat. He'll punch your ticket. I'll see you when you get here, sort of a thing.

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And if you would just let Jesus into your heart, that becomes sort of the message. And God just wants you to be happy in this life and your best life now and every day of Friday.

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And that's sort of the feeling of being in the Christian culture today. And don't confront sin in your culture.

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Jesus is... He'll come back. He'll take care of all that. And that's not your responsibility. But you see,

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Jesus says in the Lord's Prayer, which he tells us to pray, he says, your name be holy.

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That is holy throughout the earth. God, your name be hallowed. May it be holy in Africa, in the

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United States, in Europe. Your name be holy, Father. Your kingdom come.

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Notice it's important. Your will be done on earth, on earth, as it is in heaven.

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The prayer that Jesus tells us to pray is to pray that God's name is holy throughout the world, that his kingdom comes, and that his will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

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And in the most popular sermon of the Lord Jesus, the most popular sermon in the history of the world, the

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Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his people, after pronouncing the blessings upon them, he says, you are the salt of the earth.

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And we think in terms of, well, we make life taste better, right? We're just the kind of people to make things just so nice and taste better.

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But in reality, Jesus is speaking to a culture that has to preserve their food, their meat, from rotting and decaying.

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And so they have to salt it to prevent it from decay. And he tells them, you are the salt of the earth.

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You are. And if it's lost its savor, it's good for nothing but to be thrown underfoot and be trampled by men.

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And that's the description of the Christian church in the West today, largely, not completely, but largely.

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We have lost our saltiness. We are supposed to bring the light of the word of God and the gospel into a culture to salt it, to preserve it from decay.

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And because we've abandoned that responsibility largely in our culture, all we are right now is being trampled underfoot by men, which is what

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Jesus says is the use of salt that's lost its savor. And I think it's important for us to recognize that, and everyone knows this about me, if you listen to me for more than an hour, you'll know

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I have a very optimistic view of the kingdom of God in history. I believe that Jesus is mighty and that I believe that he will have victory, but it doesn't mean that we're not going to face very, very difficult trials and suffering and persecution and all the rest.

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And I believe that because of the abandonment of saltiness in our culture in the

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West, as a Christian church, we have a very tough road ahead of us.

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Unless, of course, God, by his grace, brings a mighty reformation in his church and there's a clear gospel communicated to our culture,

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I think that we have a very tough road ahead of us, and I think what we need to work on, in particular with the

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Mr. Bruce Jenner situation, is very simple. Love for neighbor and love for God.

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When you see Christians, professing Christians, stepping away from a culture while it plunges into depravity,

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I think you're seeing the identifying marks of somebody who does not love God or love neighbor, and that's what we have to work on.

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And it takes sacrifice, and it takes an abandonment of our own desires and what we think are needs, and we need to be able to love our neighbor enough to sacrifice our reputation and even our lives.

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And I want to say this publicly, what causes me to pursue discussing the Bruce Jenner situation is not a fetish to come after these issues of homosexuality and all the rest, it is love.

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It is foundationally love, love for God and his truth, and love for my neighbor. And again,

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I cannot hate him enough to leave this alone. And we're going to be right back after these messages if you have a question for Jeff Durbin on the media response to the

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Bruce Jenner self -mutilation or voluntary mutilation, you can join us on the air with a question at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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email us a question at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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and please include your first name and the city and state you're listening in and also your country if you're not in the

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United States. We will be right back after these messages with Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church in Tempe, Arizona, so don't go away.

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Introducing 1031 Sermon Jams. But now for the good news that sounds like sweet music in the hell -bound sinner's ears, especially if you're like me and you know that you don't need

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That's wrbc .us. Welcome back.

36:44

This is Chris Zarnes of Iron Sharpens Iron. If you've just tuned us in, our guest today is Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church in Tempe, Arizona.

36:53

We are addressing the media reaction response to the

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Bruce Jenner surgery, the Bruce Jenner hormone treatment, the Bruce Jenner self -mutilation.

37:06

And I'm not saying that to be nasty, but there's no other way of describing it. We cannot, as Christians, support such an abomination as this.

37:16

And just jumping off where you left off about this not being a fetish of yours to bring up homosexuality or transgenderism, as they like to call it, the fact of the matter is the media is bombarding the world with these issues.

37:34

So doesn't it make sense that Christians would be bringing up a compassionate, biblical, and loving opposition to it?

37:44

Well yeah, I think Chris, that's the point, is if, say, our culture had started an advocacy movement for adultery or pederasty in our culture, well then we as Christians would have an obligation to respond.

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It's part of the conversation. And with social media connecting us in ways as a global culture that have never happened before, that's why the conversation is happening, that's why it's involving

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Christians, and that's why our voice is being heard, needs to be heard. And that's important.

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I think that if somebody's listening to this now and they struggle with same -sex attraction, that's where they're at, and they need to hear from me as a

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Christian, as a pastor, among a group of believers that just love them, look, we don't, again, have a fetish with your particular sin.

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I'm as against homosexual behavior as I am against adultery, against stealing, against hate for neighbor, all the rest, but this is in front of us.

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We're being asked to abandon the Word of God, we're being asked to not love our neighbor, and that's something that we cannot do.

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We have to love our neighbor. And this is really important. On the after -show discussion, after they didn't allow

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Dr. White to speak, really, to be heard on the show, they had another discussion afterwards, and one of the things they said,

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Dr. Drew and another woman said, was, you know, well, Christians are supposed to be loving, they're supposed to be loving, that's what they're supposed to be doing, and they're just, they need to be accepting.

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And one of the things that Dr. White brought up, I think it was even on my show yesterday, no, on his show yesterday, is be loving and accepting of things

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Jesus died for. Jesus died on a cross for sin.

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We can't be accepting of the very things that Jesus, our Lord, died for.

39:45

And again, if there was a movement that wanted to advocate for adultery and relationships,

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I would be as hostile to that movement as I am to any other movement that would seek to destroy

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God's foundation. And I think it's important to be heard. We do have a listener in Newville, Pennsylvania, Susan, who writes a question.

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Do you think that the acceptance of gender transformation will lead to the body dysmorphic syndrome called apotemnophilia,

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I'm sorry, I'm just reading this for the first time here, which is a love of amputation.

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In other words, I believe even James White brought this up on The Dividing Line recently, where there are people who have a syndrome where they think their limbs are foreign to their body and need to be cut off.

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And should surgeons begin to appease this desire of these obviously seriously mentally disturbed people who want to do this?

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So the listener wants to know if you think this will lead to exception of this and it becoming legal.

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Well, if they attempt to be consistent, and this is the thing, we're all in the

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Imago Dei, and we can't help but be what God has created us to be, we can't help reflecting

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God's image, and we can't help knowing his truth. Romans 1 says that we know

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God, we become futile in our thoughts and thinking, we profess to be wise, we become bold. So there's a part of this that's inescapable as image of God when it comes to issues of truth and what our bodies really are, who we really are as our identity.

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It can't be escaped from. But however, when the unbeliever abandons God, they go into futility and foolishness, and if they attempt to be consistent with the presupposition that I define my gender,

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I define my sexuality, and by mutilating a part of my body,

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I can create my identity from male to female. If they try to be consistent with that, then it could lead to an acceptance of, of course, there are people, and this is really, obviously, when people hear it, they say, well, that's strange.

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There are people who believe that my arm doesn't belong in my body, my foot doesn't belong in my body, and they go to doctors,

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I need you to remove it, I need it off of me. And the amazing thing is, is that doctors are supposed to see a person that says that as in need of help, not, excellent, let me go ahead and cut your arm off, damage your body.

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You need help. We need to talk to you about this. You need some counseling. That's your leg.

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It belongs on your body. You need it. And we recognize that there's something wrong when a person sees a portion of their body as not belonging there.

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But the amazing thing is, is that because the culture has so accepted the idea that I determine what is harmonious sexuality,

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I determine what is a proper gender for me, because we've accepted that lie, we're not going to be able to escape from the fact that someone says, well,

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I can cut this off and not be this, and I could be something else. And that's why

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I said, Chris, in the video, I said, when you abandon God, there are no definitions.

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There are no definitions. There's no male and female. It's fluid.

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It's whatever you want it to be, because there's no definition. There's no certainty. And I think that's important.

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And yes, if the unbelieving world tries to live consistently with a

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Bruce Jenner situation, then there really is no response to the person that wants to cut off their leg because they feel it doesn't belong.

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And an amazing thing here, Chris, is this is madness. Yes. It is simply madness.

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And I want to say something to the person in our culture who rejects God, they haven't yet turned to Christ, and they prize science.

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That's the thing that is constantly being heralded by the unbelieving community in our world. As Christians, you guys are so dumb, and you believe in blind faith commitments, and you like to leap off of buildings, take blind leaps of faith, and we believe in science.

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We believe in science. We're the scientific community. And I want to say something. Can you live consistently with that now?

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Can you, with the Bruce Jenner situation, live consistently with what is your constant message of science being the standard?

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Because I would say this. If we were to look at Bruce Jenner at a biological level, ignoring the fact that he's mutilated his body, if we were to get down and dig around in his

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DNA and his the chromosomal level, what would we find? Is Bruce Jenner a woman?

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A female? Because he has mutilated his body? What does science tell us? What is

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Bruce Jenner? And I think that we all know the answer to that. But oddly enough, the unbelieving world, who so prizes, who claims to prize science, is ignoring that basic presupposition of a commitment to science when it comes to Bruce Jenner.

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Because here's the point. Because it's not really about biology or science, or it's really about sin.

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It's that we want to accept sin. We want to accept the demolishing of God's foundations in the world.

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And because of that, we are living in a world of madness by saying that Bruce Jenner is now a woman.

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When in fact, as a matter of fact, he's not. And for anybody who thinks that I'm making up this body dysmorphic syndrome that our listener in Newville, Pennsylvania brought up, you can look it up yourself.

45:55

Apotemnophilia, sorry for butchering it before, A -P -O -T -E -M -N -O -P -H -I -L -I -A.

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And that is a body dysmorphic syndrome where people believe that their limbs are foreign to their bodies and need to be amputated.

46:11

We're going to be going to a break right now, our final break. If you have any questions, feel free to email us at chrisarnson at gmail .com,

46:21

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back with Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church.

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47:24

Jeff Durbin, email them now at chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

47:30

We have a listener in Southhold, Long Island, Jackie, who wants to know, shouldn't we be asking those who support

47:38

Bruce Jenner in this decision that he's made, who is their authority and where do they draw the line with anything?

47:47

I think that's two excellent questions by Jackie in Southhold, New York, if you could.

47:52

You know, yeah, absolutely. That's an important question to ask, and I think this is what I was talking to James about yesterday.

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That is always the landing spot. Whether you're discussing issues of truth with a

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Mormon, with a Jehovah's Witness, with the atheist, or just with the regular secularist in our culture, it's always a question of authorities.

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Jesus said that there are two people, two kinds of people, two kinds of foundations and two destinations.

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There's a foolish one, there's a wise one, there's a rock, there's sand, and then there's desolation, and it is the one that makes it through the storm.

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Van Til actually said that when it comes to questions of knowledge or apologetics, this is where the whole thing always lands.

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Jesus comes into a world and he says, look, you're either going to be the foolish one or the wise one.

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You're going to have a house that makes it through the storm when the issues of life come, or you're going to have one leading to desolation.

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And the amazing thing is that when Jesus says this, he doesn't ask for corroboration.

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He doesn't ask for anyone to sign his papers. He doesn't say, do you need more from me?

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And when he says it, they actually say he speaks as one having authority.

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And when James was on Headline News with Dr. Drew, this is where he brought it. We have to ask the question of ultimate authority.

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Who is the ultimate authority? Who gets to have the final say, the objective truth, the one which we cannot get around?

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And that's the question it always has to come to. By what standard?

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Who gets to say what's true, lovely, beautiful, good, harmonious in the world? You? This guy over here?

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How about the guy who's in prison right now for doing what we would all say are horrendous acts? Does he get to determine what's true, lovely, beautiful, good, holy?

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Who gets to? And that's what this always comes down to, is a question of authority.

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Now, this is really important. As Christians, we are committed to God and his

50:12

Word as the ultimate standard. And that is where we have to stay, and we have to have this conversation there the whole time, or we'll collapse into philosophical inconsistency.

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The unbeliever wants to be autonomous. They want to say, I determine what is good.

50:30

I determine what is true. And the Christian isn't supposed to play neutrality like the unbeliever is pretending to be neutral and answering these questions.

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We're supposed to stay on the rock of God's Word so that we can make it through and weather the storm when the issues of life come.

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The unbeliever can't. There are no definitions. There is no truth when you reject

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God and his Word. And in this conversation as Christians, listen, whether we like it or not, we have to have this conversation as Christians with a commitment first to Christ as Lord before we provide the answer to the world around us for our faith and the claims that we're making.

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We cannot play neutrality. Jesus says, you are either with me or against me.

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And in this conversation with Bruce Jenner, that is true. We are either for Christ in this conversation or against Christ.

51:30

There is no middle ground. There is no neutrality. And this is important.

51:35

We are supposed to stand on the rock of God's Word in defining the gender roles.

51:42

So when Bruce Jenner is born as a man, as a male, and lives his life as a man, and then determines as a grandfather that he's going to mutilate his body and try to dress up like a woman, we're to stand on God's Word and say, no,

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God and his creative decree created you as a male. You've lived as a man your whole life.

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You're a father, a grandfather, and that's what you are. What you need is Christ.

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What you need is redemption, forgiveness, and salvation. What we can't give you is acceptance of a blurring of the lines.

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We can't give you acceptance here because we love you too much to do so. God has made you male and not female.

52:26

And that's the conversation, because Jesus says. Now, Christians might be uncomfortable with that.

52:31

Christians might be uncomfortable saying, no, we need to be neutral in this conversation. We just can't. We can't afford neutrality when it comes to loving our neighbor.

52:39

And the unbeliever is caught in a very, very difficult situation. The unbeliever has now a world they're trying to build where there are no definitions.

52:49

There is no meaning. There is no truth. Male is not male. Female is not female.

52:55

Mom is not mom. Dad is not dad. Grandpa is no longer grandpa. There is no truth.

53:02

Everything is blurred. And so where the unbeliever is at now is they're forced to be in a situation where they cannot define anything as true.

53:15

And that's a good place to leave them in terms of gospel ministry. Our role as Christians is to call people to repentance and faith and to show the collapse of their worldview when they've rejected

53:29

God. And so it is a question of ultimate authority. And as Christians, we know who that is.

53:37

And as Christians, we have to say, and I've got to say this, Chris, it's so important, and I'm getting kind of long -winded here, but I've got to say this.

53:44

One of, I think, the great failures of the Christian church in the West is to try to solve these problems simply politically by heralding traditional values.

53:55

They're devoid of a commitment to Christ as Lord. As Christians, in the abortion discussion, in the discussion of homosexuality, it cannot simply be a heralding of traditional values.

54:08

It must be because God says. Amen. Yeah, and it's interesting in regard to the media response, the way that they portray, and even on Dr.

54:19

Drew's program, the way that Christians are portrayed we are the ones who are the totalitarians who want to stamp out people's freedoms and rain on everybody's parade and et cetera.

54:36

And yet they really are the totalitarian leftists who are in reality,

54:44

I'm talking about the people in the spotlight of the media, predominantly on the liberal end of these questions.

54:50

They want to silence us completely. They don't want us to have a genuine equal voice with them in the public arena.

55:01

They don't want us to have jobs on school faculties or jobs anywhere for that matter.

55:09

They don't want us to exercise our freedom of religion, which would bring you to somebody on the opposite end of the spectrum who is a self -professed liberal and atheist, but Penn Jillette on the other end of the spectrum believes that Christians should have every right to express their personal beliefs and evangelize others.

55:34

Because as you said before, for us not to do so is hatred.

55:40

Because if we believe in a place called hell, and we also believe that there is eternal life in heaven for those who believe upon Christ, how hateful can we be to not urge people to repent and believe, correct?

55:55

Amen, Penn Jillette. That's what I would say. And I think that that gets down to the point people need to recognize and grab hold of and not let go of.

56:05

There's no neutrality. And so when the unbelieving world has tried to say, look, we need tolerance and neutrality, we have a pluralistic society, that's,

56:16

I have to say this, that is actually an impossibility. Because everybody has ultimates.

56:23

The atheist has an ultimate commitment to self, to a worldview apart from God.

56:28

The Muslim has a commitment to the ultimate authority of Allah. The Mormon has a commitment to the ultimate authority of Elohim, Heavenly Father, who's a resurrected

56:38

God -man, and on and on and on. And Christians have an ultimate authority of Christ. So neutrality's a mess.

56:45

We all have our ultimate commitments. We're not neutral. And Jesus, again, says you're either for him or against him.

56:52

And in a culture we live in, the unbelieving world doesn't want a neutral society that, you know, just lives in toleration.

56:59

They are in opposition to God. And so Christians are seen as the enemies, because we have an ultimate commitment to Christ.

57:08

And it's an amazing thing, isn't it? On Dr. Drew's show, they were trying, on the after interview, they were trying to talk about tolerance.

57:17

But in reality, what it is, is this. It's not tolerance. It's, you hold to our view, or we will not tolerate you.

57:27

When you hold to our views, now we're in a happy place. That's not tolerance.

57:34

And here's the thing, that's the situation we have to all face, is that there's a commitment always to an ultimate by every person, and nobody's neutral.

57:46

And so when you have a society trying to play pluralism, and trying to play tolerance, it's just pretend.

57:53

It's, it's an, it's in a sense, shenanigans. Because there's, for Jesus, only for me or against me.

58:01

And of every culture has to come to terms with that. And Jesus says, Matthew 28, 18 through 30, 18 through 20, all authority in heaven and on earth, we forget that as Christians, on earth, has been given to me, therefore go.

58:21

Go, so go therefore. But what, well therefore what? Because I have all authority in heaven and on earth.

58:27

And so we're to bring the good news of Christ's salvation, and his lordship, into all the world.

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And we come into a culture, and we have these collisions, we need to recognize it's a collision of ultimates.

58:39

We're bringing the full message of the lordship of Christ into every culture we come into.

58:47

And that could come with great difficulty, it could come with hardship, but it's a message of salvation, and of his lordship.

58:53

And we have to recognize that that's going to have a collision always with the ultimate standard or God of any culture we come to.

59:01

And so right now, the God of our culture, kind of, in most conversations, is the

59:06

God Demas. Demas is the word we get democracy from, it means the people. And so what we have right now is worship of the

59:14

God Demas. And our culture says, our God is Demas, and we say no,

59:20

Jesus is God. Well we thank you so much, we got a run, and I want to thank you so much for being a part of the broadcast,

59:26

Jeff. And I want everybody to remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far, far greater savior than you are a sinner.