Apologetics Session 39- Ecclesiology - Part 1

God, I thank you for this church. I thank you for all these brothers who've come out to to just be enriched by your

Word. God, I pray for Ivan, who's prepared all of this content for us.

God, I pray that it would be a productive session. I pray that we would all get something out of it and that we would all be able to contribute to it,

Lord. I just thank you so much for your Son, who came and died on the cross for us, to save us from our sins and provide a way for us to be reconciled to you and spend eternity in heaven with you,

Lord. Just pray for this night and pray all these things in Jesus' name.

All right, so we're gonna start with like a 12 -minute video, which is actually a connector between what

Matt and Drew has done to where we're gonna go with the church thing. As if we planned it. As if we planned it.

Just to let you know, this is just one map of early Christian history.

I'm gonna be giving this to each one of you. You'll have a copy of this. This kind of gives you the scale of what we're talking about.

And it's hard if we don't have a good idea of what church is originally supposed to be in Scripture compared to what happened here, because this is a mess.

And it's a very interesting mess, but it's a mess nevertheless. So with that being said, what

I'm going to do is click this. So Let's look at this.

Once you see this, and this, you will know that God really parted the

Red Sea. You're not gonna believe this, but professors from the University of Arizona have recently confirmed by using radiocarbon dating that the story of Moses splitting the

Red Sea might not be far -fetched after all. But if that wasn't enough evidence for you, look what they found at the bottom of the

Red Sea. Now, in case you haven't looked in your mind why this is such a massive discovery, let me refresh your memory.

God spoke to Moses through the burning bush, and he told him to go to Egypt and tell that stubborn

Pharaoh to let my people go. But Pharaoh would not listen. And so God had to send ten curses to get

Pharaoh to listen to him. Eventually, Pharaoh did obey the voice of the Lord, and he let the people of Israel go.

But only for a period of time. The Bible says that Pharaoh again hardened his heart. And it leaved 250 ,000

Egyptians with their horse -drawn chariots after the people of Israel who were on foot.

You can imagine how scared the Israelites must have been as they found themselves cornered, and in front of them was this big body of ocean.

God never leaves his people floundering. He told Moses to stretch out his hand over the

Red Sea, and it would be parted. And that is exactly what happened. Miraculously, gallons and gallons of water began to gather into these big two walls on either side, and there was a clear path for the people of Israel to cross safely to the other side.

Now, let's just hit the brakes for a minute, because I want to show you a 3D simulation of what the seabed, the topography, looks like from Nuweiba Beach in Egypt all the way to Saudi Arabia, where we're going to find

Mount Sinai in a moment's time. Can you see how it almost looks like there's a land bridge beneath the water?

This land bridge, this natural formation of a third system beneath the water, and the evidence would suggest that it's wide enough to fit 2 million

Israelites as they made the journey to the other side. But what they found on this land bridge is going to blow your mind.

You see, the Egyptians even had the audacity to follow the Israelites into the parted sea.

And the Bible actually records this. It says that their chariot wheels started to get clogged up.

Some translations say that their chariot wheels even came off, so it made it very hard for the

Egyptians to drive the chariots. But that didn't stop them. They started to catch up to the

Israelites. And you can imagine the Israelites, they're terrified now. They think, we're going back to Pharaoh, we're going back to this harsh rulership.

But God knew exactly what he was doing. He told Moses to raise his hands again over the sea, and Moses obeyed.

As soon as Moses did this, the ocean swept all of the Egyptians, so not even one was left standing.

So, take a look at that. You tell me, right? If we scanned the seabed of the

Red Sea, what would you expect to find? You would expect to find many, many chariot wheels, would you not?

Well, take a look at this picture that was found on the land bridge, and you tell me, what does this coral formation look like?

It looks just like a chariot wheel. But get this, when scuba divers went down with metal detectors, they found circular patterns that were consistent to the exact shape that you would expect to find on a chariot wheel.

Now, come on, even if you're the biggest atheist on earth, you've got to admit to me, that's pretty strong evidence.

Now, this is crucial. For many, many years, the popular tourist destination for Mount Sinai was in Sharm el -Sheikh in Egypt.

That's where everyone went, that's where everyone believed it was. But now, as we look at this evidence that I'm going to show you in this video, and as we listen to what the

Saudi Arabians have said for many, many years, they claim that Mount Sinai is our country in Saudi Arabia.

In fact, I want you to do something. Just listen to this American pilot describe what he was forbidden to do in the 1940s when he was in Saudi Arabia.

And we're talking about where the real Mount Sinai is located.

I had no idea that someone as far back would have seen the mountain, and had been told that the mountain was the holy mountain of Moses.

Well, they made it fly around it, and it was all flesh.

I'm going to bring out a map. Yes. And this map is of the area that you were flying around then.

Can you show me the area that you were flying around? Yeah, they told me it was Mount Sinai, and they told me it was the mountain of Moses.

I thank God that I didn't fly around it, that's what I think. I think, can you let me hear them both later?

Did it touch your heart to have that? It's so nice. Before we reach the mountain itself, let me show you some very convincing evidence that this could well be real.

I'm sorry. In Medellin, Saudi Arabia, there is an archaeological site called Moses's Well.

Islamic sources, which go as far back as 900 AD, claim that this is the well where Moses watered his flocks and met the daughters of Jethro.

But what about this? In the Bible, we read about Moses and the Israelites finding this beautiful desert oasis called

Elam. At Elam, there was many springs of water and 70 palm trees.

So now, cast your eyes onto this collection of palm trees, which is found reasonably close to the supposed

Mount Sinai. And what is it the locals for many years have called this area?

They also have called it Elam. But here's some more compelling evidence for you.

We know that Moses, after writing down God's laws in the Book of the Covenant, set an altar for burnt sacrifices.

Well, here is an ancient altar made of uncut stones, just like the ones they found in the

Bible. And when he would look up years earlier, do you know what he found? The remains of many animals.

We also know that because the Israelites were disobedient, 3 ,000 people were struck down.

And some actually believe that these gravestones right here could be the gravestones of those who worshipped the golden calf.

If you look here, you can see what appears to be mortars that are dotted all the way around Mount Sinai.

And it's been speculated, could these be the mortars that were used to grind the manna every single day?

And just here, inside the archaeological area, we see carvings of the rock of what is quite clearly calf idol worship.

But not only has idol worship been recorded, there's also been found ancient Hebrew mortars found on the rocks around Sinai, which again is more possible evidence that the

Israelites were here. And this is in fact the real Mount Sinai. But here's what's kind of scary.

These menorahs have since been raped either way and you know, all the reason why people are trying to get rid of the evidence.

But for me personally, this is what I'm most excited about. Josephus the

Jewish historian said that the rock of Horeb was so big that it couldn't be moved.

And this split rock right here is estimated to be between 40 and 60 feet high.

And inside the rock, it's smooth with grooves that clearly show some kind of water erosion which is kind of strange to find in the middle of the desert in Saudi Arabia.

But most interesting of all, this rock is found at the foot of the

Mount Sinai that we're about to look at in a moment's time. But wait a second, Joe.

You haven't even told us what the rock of Horeb is yet. Well, when the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they began to get very thirsty.

And so they started to complain to Moses. Moses, you've led us out into this wilderness for us to die of thirst.

And Moses took all of his pot and he cried out, Pot, what do you want me to do with this people?

This was the Lord's response. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb and you shall strike the rock and water will come out of it that the people may drink.

So Moses obeyed God and struck the rock and out of it flowed abundant water and the people drank and were satisfied.

Now, everyone listen to me because when I saw this for the first time I could not believe my eyes.

You see, thousands of years ago in the wilderness, thousands of years ago when we look at the rock of Horeb God was demonstrating a picture of the cross.

How do I know that? Because the Apostle Paul says that rock was Christ. You see, when

Moses, an imperfect human being struck the rock it was a picture of when

Christ would be struck by imperfect human beings. There on the cross the Lord Jesus Christ was smitten was beaten, was struck by Satan.

So there Christ's body was broken. He had nails through his hands and his feet.

He had a crown of thorns smashed into his skull. His beard was plucked out. There the

Lord Jesus Christ bled and died so that we could be forgiven. And just like that rock was split in two and water flowed out of it.

Abundant water. When the Lord Jesus Christ's body was broken when he offered himself as a sacrifice also out of his life flows abundant living water.

And just like the water at Horeb was free, so this water is free. The waters, the rivers of forgiveness that flow out of Christ's life are totally free.

And I'm asking you today are you thirsty? If you are come to the Lord Jesus Christ and drink of his water.

Because I'll tell you something Jesus Christ is the rock of our salvation. The Bible also calls

Jesus the cornerstone. And what was the cornerstone? It was the rock that builders built everything around it.

It was the foundation rock and everything else depended on the cornerstone. And I want to ask you are you building your life on the

Lord Jesus Christ? Or are you building your life on other things? I remember when

I was a little boy learning about Moses in Sunday school. And I used to read this story and I used to think it sounds a little bit harsh that Moses was not allowed to enter into the promised land.

Why was that? Let me tell you why. In Numbers 20 Moses finds himself in a very similar situation.

Again the people are complaining. Again the people are thirsty. Again they're saying we will die unless you give us something to drink

Moses. So again Moses approaches the Lord and says what should I do with this people?

So God says to Moses I want you to stand in front of another rock but this time

I want you to speak to the rock and when you speak water will flow out of it.

So Moses stood in front of the rock but what did he do? He struck the rock just like he did at Horeb.

Now why was that a serious thing to do? See the

Lord Jesus Christ only needed to be struck once. He only needed to be crucified once.

Before there was many sacrifices. Before there was many offerings that the people had to do as a way of atoning for their sins.

But when Christ died on that cross it was sufficient. It was a once for all act and never again did

Christ have to be pinned to that cross because forgiveness can be found through that one act.

What Jesus did was enough and really that is why God had to discipline Moses so harshly because he did not want to send out a confusing message to all the myriads of people who would read the

Bible years later. And there is one more reason why Moses wasn't allowed into the promised land.

You see Moses represents the law and the law will not get you into the promised land.

The law will not get you into heaven. No you need a Joshua. What does the word

Joshua mean in Hebrew? It means Yeshua. And what does Yeshua mean in Greek?

Jesus. You need a savior to lead you to the promised land.

It is only Christ who can take the people to heaven and that is why Joshua was the one who led the people into the promised land and Moses was not allowed to enter.

But let's just make something clear right now. Moses will be in heaven in fact we know that Moses is with Christ right now because on the

Mount of Transfiguration the Lord Jesus Christ turned up with Moses and Elijah.

Ok, you've waited long enough. Here is what I believe is the real Mount Sinai.

The Bible says now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire.

Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace and the whole mountain quaked greatly.

And that my friends is why I believe this is the real Mount Sinai. You can see it's got blackened peaks as if it's been scorched by fire and even geologists are really perplexed at why it's only black on the outside and on the inside it's completely normal like normal rock.

As if it's been Nelson. How incredible is this? You can notice a sort of pulpit where you can imagine that Moses would address the people and use this natural amphitheater and if you want to know all about the

Ten Commandments and what they mean for us today, you need to see this video right now.

Once you see this Ok I wanted to play this because it has implications for us in our apologetics and it is proof for us that God is real,

God is not dead. God is never left God is never going to leave and that we're now beginning to see proof of his existence and what he did and it's a comfort for us to know that when we're reading scripture there's a confirmation there and a validation that there's truth

I think it's an incredible honor to go ahead and be in his presence knowing that these are the things he did before us to teach us what's going to happen today.

Which brings us to this connector from just everything else that we talked about in apologetics of really what the church is and what it is really meant to be like I mentioned before this is for next week and we can talk about various different parts of that but this is going to be a takeaway for you to look at but what is church?

What do you think church is? So I'll give you the Greek word translated church in the

New Testament's Ecclesia the literal translation of Ecclesia would be a call out assembly not too different than what happened in the

Old Testament there etymologically speaking the word church means house of the

Lord the modern word church is a direct descendant of Old English circa first recorded use of Old English word is from the 13th century and it could refer to either the body of Christian believers or to a place where they gather but it goes back to really what is church?

someone please tell me what do you think church is? Can you tell me what church is?

Assembly of brothers that believe that Christ died for our sins born again believers born again believers what else?

it's ok, this is meant to be interactive I mean what do you think church is? we go to it at least 50 times a year we go to a

Sunday service there's a reason why we go right Ricky what do you think church is?

a place where people get together to praise God Harry? oh no

Harry Ron same thing Ron what do you think?

well it's obviously a call to assembly but it's important to know the scripture tells us your body is the temple of the

Holy Spirit so a church isn't a building and I think we reflect on that so often and we know from the first several hundred years they met at homes so it was the believers coming together and it is to create the body of Christ and more so than that it's literally the bride of Christ and we'll get into that it's funny is it a building?

is it a group? is it faith? is it people? is it worship? is it a coffee bar

Matt? it is a coffee bar it's a fellowship it is a fellowship it is a fellowship we go to this place where the church is the body of Christ which is the head but the church has been changing and what we see now as thinking what the church is is not really a church anymore it's more of a consumer item it's more of something that there was a funny video that I saw a satire of a young couple trying to find a church and they had almost like a real estate agent taking them to different churches and they were comparing all the different what do you like?

what do you like? and it's a sad commentary about where church is right now because we've kind of lost the genesis of what church was meant to be to what the consumer driven church is all about but the church is the body of Christ the head it's formulated like this where Jesus Christ is the overseer and to Rod's point the

Holy Spirit is our protector within the church itself the bible is the guideline so if you're thinking of a hierarchy or an organizational chart that's what happened what drives all churches is a statement of belief and the doctrines of what we stand for there's a pastor there's a pastor and elders usually handling spiritual leadership deacons and servants are handling the physical leadership and this also expands to various different things group ministries we're used to that and then the area ministries nowhere is there anything about bands or anything like that but that's usually the commonality of there how we moved away from that it's pretty telling ok for just as the body is one and many members are all the members of the body though many are one body so it is with Christ for in one spirit

Rod, for in one spirit we are all baptized into one body Jews are Greek, slaves are free and all we need to drink of one spirit for the body does not consist of one member so when we're looking at this we're looking at a combination of people where the temple in the

Old Testament was almost like a brick and mortar over there and it looked like this where the spirit of our

Lord was over the temple and it turned into this so where the spirit of God who raised

Jesus from the dead lives in you and just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead he will give life to your mortal bodies by the same spirit living within you so the church is a combination of believers that come in there does that make sense to everybody?

I've got a good definition from 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 9 you are a chosen generation a royal priesthood a holy nation his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light the church is the bride of Christ and when we look at the bride of Christ we also have to look at what

God did in Genesis when he created man and woman to be together not having man to be alone our

God is a God of one relationship God always wants to have this relationship with his people so the metaphor of that is to have the bride there of having continued relationship of those and I'll use the word elect in that we can talk about that later but the church is the bride of Christ here on earth and in glory for no one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church because we are members of his body therefore a man shall leave his father and mother hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh this mystery is profound but I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church one flesh however let each of you love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her husband so digging deeper into this text we're looking at what

God wants from his people there as being one flesh with him and that's continuing through here as John was saying and in heaven the church is a family excuse me amen the church is a family or a household of God and it said for all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God for we did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but we have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry

Abba Father the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit for we are children of God and if children then heirs heirs of God fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him very powerful text here of just claiming what it is to be adopted into Christ's kingdom and the church is a temple of God or do you not know that your body is a temple of the

Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God you are not of your own for you were bought for the price so glorify

God in your body so imagine now that we have the Holy Spirit within a church body not here in the brick and mortar but a gathering of believers coming together the

Holy Spirit is on top of this and working through us on this there within our own selves within the temple there we have set it's a miracle it's a glorious miracle that this has happened to us and when we look at it from this perspective there there needs to be a certain reverence that happens when you have a body of believers brothers and sisters of Christ the community the spiritual community coming together of understanding who our

Father is within that and we've lost that that peace of reverence and we need to bring that back

I'm not saying here but in general with so many other outside influences there the church is the flock of God pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flocking in which the

Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood and the church is the pillar and the support of truth and this is a major catastrophe right now happening in Christendom where truth is just what you think it is and not scriptural truth that's happening there he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instructions in sound doctrine and this is really important for us in apologetics also to rebuke those who contradict it and it is really up to us to stand up for what

God's word talks about we don't have to be nasty about it but we have to be able to defend it we have to be able to communicate it in love but hold firm to what

God is telling us does that make sense for everybody the church is the kingdom of God when you start thinking about that the kingdom of God that we're in here on every

Sunday it can be overwhelming to think of it that way we kind of can be very flippant about that are you supposed to be advancing while you do this or are we still in this one because you're hitting your button

I thought you're moving slides oh wow is it going oh it's not gone we're still a family you're still offended the church is still

I'm sorry guys that was a test Mike you passed I'm glad someone said something to me about that oh boy the church is the kingdom of God and to Drew's point ok we're back on and he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church which is his body the fullness of him he fills all in all for some reason and the church is a community of all true believers of all time true believers and please weigh in as I'm going through this because like I said the goal for today is to get the baseline there so when we look at church history next week well

I guess I'd try to qualify what Brutim is saying I don't know what the context was for that but you know the

Old Testament believers which who were believers obviously in the Lord for all time wouldn't be part of the church so I'm not sure what he's exactly saying there

I think what he's saying is all true believers in Christ for all time and since you know like you're talking about like Old Testament he wouldn't be a believer in Christ he qualified it by saying the church so that's obviously but he's defining the church didn't it actually start in Acts 2 they didn't believe that the

Messiah was born so they did believe they just weren't there yet David Jeremiah says they became

Christians on credit laughter make time to get the bill is he dispensational or has he reformed we're not going to go there yet because that's a question towards the end of this

I want to talk about that I think he's dispensational but that being said it's a bigger question towards the end of this the church is the elect so the church is the elect those are the ones that have been chosen outside of what we do in terms of our mission having our doors open showing the world our love

Christ's love through there but it is for the elect and that's very important to understand it's not a mall it's not an open door retail store it's not any of that the church was made for people in Christ does that make sense to everybody because that's really a hard one for people to swallow because I often hear the church is a hospital for people and they kind of make these errant suggestions there but the original premise of this and this has a lot of implications there one, not too far away from John 3 .16

and what does John 3 .16 actually mean so you have to think about who

Jesus died for and what the church is for and what's going on there and people struggle with this they really really do to try to get there because of just their whole paradigm thinking of what church is meant to be does that make sense not again ok good so go therefore and make disciples this is our mandate baptizing them in the name of the

Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold

I am with you to the end of the age this is it not any more complicated than that that's what we're supposed to be doing it's there and finally brothers rejoice aim for restoration comfort one another agree with one another live in peace and the

God of love and peace will be with you that's the underpinnings of what our mandate is supposed to be this is the emotional tie that we have for each other and churches struggle with this part very much so especially if you're making it into a product so what does a church do and what runs a church so can we talk about what does a church do what do we do you secluded the mandate what do you think a church does what do you think a church does

I was thinking something that John MacArthur said kind of breaking it down so there's fellowship there's worship and there's studying and then the fourth thing is evangelism what he said was fellowship we will fellowship perfectly in heaven we will we will know as we are known perfectly in heaven and we will worship perfectly in heaven but the one thing we won't do in heaven is evangelize the lost because they won't be there so that is our mandate anybody else

I think 1 Corinthians 4 where it says we're ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God so as ministers you bring forth the truth you make that freely open and as stewards you run the show and you protect the mysteries for example so you have to know the mysteries and not let it get diluted like you were talking about so you have to be a bulwark you have to stand against the tide good point when heresies arose they were actively opposed right many people point to Acts 241 .2

which is so that those who had received his word so the word of God has to be paramount were baptized and then they were added that day 3000 souls and they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching the fellowship, breaking the bread and the prayer so that's a template

I was going to say that it's a place for sanctification between our justification and our glorification the church is guiding us through our sanctification right working out your salvation say again and here in a lot of ways it's iron against iron we're sharpening ourselves as much as we can and the church should also be doing that the stronger we are and the older we are in Christ the better we are to go ahead and carry out his mandate but sanctification is key it's the longest period of our lives where we slowly grow there we can't automatically be there so the church in itself is a nurturing place for that and accountability yes absolutely so who runs the church in the beginning

I had the pastor and everything but who do you think runs the church the Holy Spirit and who else

Jesus so in all those cases there's a certain level of reverence that's happening there that we need to do and I had a talk not too long ago with a friend of mine about this and he

I don't know if he's a believer or not he's definitely Catholic but he said that Catholics do a better job in reverence than what he sees in Christians in the church and he was talking about the brick and mortar structure when you walk in and how ornate it is and that there's all these different things there and I tried to explain to him well that's just how did he define reverence but just like you're in awe in the place that you're there in his eyes it was like you're in awe in the presence of the

God like you come into a church but it's very distorted I think there's a real misnomer there on a lot of Catholics part it's like there's reverence and awe when you're in the building but when you're outside the building there's a whole different persona oh absolutely you know where is the reverence and awe when you're not in the building correct

I'll make a point on Catholicism who are they revering they'll revere

Mary, the saints who knows what they're revering by the time it gets to Jesus it's so watered down because they don't have a direct connection absolutely, it's like a spiritual stew they're throwing everything into the stew thing

I think a good example of this to answer this question here is the fact that how reverent

Martin Luther was when he became a priest until he realized the truth and the truth set him free and what the reverent church was doing to quote unquote us believers killing us burning us so you can have all the reverence in the world without having

Christ Muslims are very reverential they are it's not necessarily a building either because Jesus is with us wherever two or more are gathered as it says in the

Bible so it's not necessarily a building itself there's a reason why

Cornerstone is growing there's a reason why and Jeff is my brother

I would like to say, oh yeah, it's all Jeff no, the Holy Spirit is over this ministry and the truth is coming out and the people who are coming there are looking for truth and for God and for a fellowship and a community and a family that's outside there and we're all experiencing some shape, way, and form that being a believer in Christ cuts ties with a lot of things family particularly even church family and people have struggled in their other areas because of that and that's how they ended up finding themselves here so to that point the

Holy Spirit is working through all of that Chad, do you want to say something? no ok um so pastor, elder they've been around for a while the deacons, parishioners they pretty much help drive what is happening there through the

Holy Spirit and we talk about what is the definition of a pastor within the church because the thinking is it's almost like a band wave it's almost like a pyramid scheme where you have a pastor and then everything flows down, but that's not the way church is

I always often say that Jesus Christ ran a flat organization he did but we're appointed to do different assignments and tasks in this world and it could be a pastor it could be an elder, it could be a parishioner that makes the different types of impact and there's something

I'll talk about right at the end there that personifies that but he is the shepherd and the thing is when you look at when you look at this list over here these three will be held accountable to what happens with this we will be held higher standard accountable to the

Lord I think even Ivan the parishioners are going to be held accountable for what they do and what they say within the fellowship true that's why we need to be certain that we know the scripture and that when we speak it to another person we are speaking the truth as it's intended to be spoken yeah so the definition of a pastor the shepherd the

English language translation of the New Testament usually rendered the Greek noun ponim, that's shepherd and so we are meant to help feed the flock and that's what

Jeff does that's what other people do so what a church is not it's not a country club it's not a members only it's not legalistic not based on works number four is probably the most damaging thing it's managed by a small faction you see a lot of church breakup because there's a group that runs the church almost with an iron fist and they don't they really don't allow the

Holy Spirit really working within the church we're seeing a lot of this about places emphasis on cultural relevance which is the whole woke and all that stuff that's happening there and then there's a lot of mega churches that really they make worship music really the front and center of what's happening within the church itself we're none of those we're not meant to be any of those although I would say that it's important to become a member of a church yes while it's not a members only meaning it's exclusive to only members it's becoming a member of a church puts you in a position to be accountable to brothers and sisters in that church as opposed to basically kind of equated to living together before marriage versus marriage you can leave anytime you want in the former versus the latter here we go again oh boy going back to the awe of going into a church like St.

Andrews for example which is a church at RBC I love going to that place and it's the sort of ambiance of it all it's definitely awe inspiring but again that's man made earthly ambiance that you're in awe of not the creator of the universe who spoke the universe into existence and is all powerful and all holy and all just and that's really what we should be in awe of not the ambiance of the place that we happen to be worshiping that creator in so while the ambiance is great

I love it I get caught up in it as well that really shouldn't be the focus and it's funny to piggyback on that what we have with these mega churches that are so huge and everything is so big that you have a large segment of the parishioners that don't do anything they're not accountable for anything which is not what churches meant to have happen

I used to use the term you could go to those big churches and get lost and that's another and I think that's why you know we've talked about this at our congregation meetings our goal is not to become a mega church our goal is to plant churches because once you get to a certain size you can get lost in a church and then you have no real connection no connection for accountability no connection for discipleship no connection for anything and that sort of fosters you know doing my

Sunday morning routine just going through the motions kind of stuff and it's better to stay a bit smaller so that you can have those real connections with brothers and sisters in the body a good question is what is the size of an ideal church for me

I actually wrote a paper about this which caused a little bit of controversy my ceiling for a church this is when

I was in school my ceiling for a church where you need to break off is anywhere between 300 and 400 and I gave scriptural references why that's important one of them being when

Jesus gathered everybody together and the 70 went out you know that was a manageable thing that he had done and I think in our time and the way we look at church and the way we manage church here when you start getting over in the 500's 700's 1000's to Matt's point people people end up being pew potatoes

I call them and they don't really do anything and what you don't want to have happen in church is you sit there and all we do is feed and it's just going to milk there's no meat and that's not exactly what you want to do in church you know within church we want to lift each other up by the way as difficult as it was yesterday when

Louise was going home with the Lord the pulse of that service everybody in that service felt the pain and that's what a church is about they felt the pain of a loss together we cried together we laughed together that's what happens in a church

Ivan very important we've been talking about what the church is and our brother here just gave us a model for it he stopped it and we prayed for people this is what we are yes absolutely

I'm praying with you and I'm thinking about what happened and this is a model of what we are and that's what it is and so you couldn't do this in a megachurch you couldn't have any of this happening in a megachurch the relationship that developed under Christ the intimacy the emotional, spiritual and physical intimacy we have together as true believers in Christ is so important I can't even

I can't even emphasize it enough how important that is as we come together as brothers and sisters in Christ that's exactly the relationship we will have when we meet our

Father face to face in Heaven it's that closeness that bond and we felt it yesterday we all felt the pain of it and we all glorified the

Lord to take her home that she isn't suffering anymore and we thank Him for that following up on what

Rod said in a megachurch when one part of the body suffers we can't all suffer like we are supposed to and when one part of the body rejoices we are all to rejoice that can only happen when when we are flattened out and I can tell you from my past experience when

I was going through the throes of cancer which you are going through remission praise

God, Amen there was a point there where I knew my brothers and my sisters were praying for me

I just knew it and that was a certain level of peace that was in my heart about what was going on with this thing that no matter what happens

I'm going to be okay I have my family here that's praying for me and I have the Lord there so what a wonderful place to be as scary as it possibly can be and I'm sure

Dave I was just going to say one thing with the megachurch our son in Atlanta went to a megachurch and he was involved in some life groups that were fantastic and they really got with men and they really helped each other and prayed for each other so you can still have that in some of the megachurches when you come on a

Sunday morning maybe you're not going to do that but you're probably with a group anyway I think it's important that we all are involved really interact more with each other even in the church absolutely let me see if I can there we go okay oh my word so we got there we had this, we got there, we got here

I'm going to go past this because I really want to talk about this should a church be political and by that you mean should a church be political think about that guys do you think so?

I think where it points out truth and error yes do you think that church is separate from politics do you think it is church should inform politics and that's how the founders set it up someone

I forget who said politics is downstream of culture and the church should be involved in culture and as a result of that would be involved in politics because at the end of the day politics is much about morality and the church is certainly about morality next week what you're going to hear is a common theme about politics within the church in the early church it's absolutely insane what people did within the church for the sake of politics but Jesus answered blessed are you

Simon Bar -Jonah from flesh and blood has not revealed to you but my father who is in heaven and I tell you you are

Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it but I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven whatever you loose on earth shall be loose in heaven

I was curious about that whatever you loose on earth loose on heaven and basically it was a person bound in sin and wickedness who are loose through the preaching of or judged or disciplined and by the church based on their works so yes the church is political now one point of clarification because there are those out there that are theonomists which is

I think maybe a bridge too far and then you've got those that are although this is a nebulous term the whole

Christian nationalism idea and so you start talking about Christian nationalism you start talking about theonomy like it's hard to and that usually goes with post mill theology as well because the idea if you guys remember about things like preterism is that eventually the world will be one to Christ and then

Christ will come back if you are sort of pre -mill in your theology then obviously the world would go in an opposite direction and then

Christ would come back so it kind of depends on your theology there but there are folks that and theonomy just means

God's law and thinking but when you have people who are theonomists they are generally thinking that we need sort of a theocracy in the

United States which is different by the way the case can be made

Christian nationalism is not a new phenomenon it's happened since the beginning of the church so it's getting more focused now because it's being aligned with white supremacy and racism and all kinds of things like that but it's perverted the terminology of what really it is there in God's context he said we are not supposed to be part of this world but while we are here though and if the man did in a sense we would love to see whole cities turn to the

Lord and have that happen the world seems to be offended except for sin and it's very true and that's really up against what's happening with the church now where everybody seems to be offended except for the fact that Blayton said in front of them

John MacArthur talks about that the hand of God is being raised off of the

United States where we're really seeing the craziness that's happening there of what darkness can possibly do and it has happened there and it's evident about what the government's doing, what schools are doing, what other churches are doing it is a clear sign that the