Apologetics Session 1 - What is Faith? - Part 1

Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for this apologetics class, and we devote it to you, Lord Jesus. You have said that we should always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us, and Lord, we pray that you now would equip us to do that.

It says, first of all, though, that to sanctify Christ as Lord of our hearts. And so we do that, Lord. We confess you are

God, and we pray now that you would just come and equip us and strengthen us and encourage us in the work of apologetics.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. And what a pleasant sight the parking lot tonight is.

What does that have to do with it? Okay. Everybody come on in. So I'll give you a quick background on me.

I was in school years ago. Unlike John Laskin, who got apologetics at the first class,

I didn't get it until later, a couple years later. I don't know,

Jeff, if you got it a couple years later, but we didn't go into that. We kind of went through kind of the foundational truth parts first.

And apologetics was very, very important in my life because it kind of opened the door to logic and reasoning, which, if we look at salvation, we accept that Jesus Christ to our mind, and it comes to our heart.

That's how that change happens. So God uses our mind to go ahead and really expand what his truths are, and it's very, very important.

And my assumption here today is that everyone here knows the Lord and Jesus Christ as their personal

Savior. They don't. This is a good class for you to be in. But if you do, the process of that happening there where you're hearing the word and you're hearing the

Holy Spirit come into your life and you are regenerated through that comes to your mind and to your heart.

So there's a logical piece to this that needs to come together, and for some reason we have kind of moved away from all that, and we need to begin to embrace it because the enemy is really trying to take over the church, and it has happened.

It really has taken over the church. So I want to read really, well, let me say it this way.

We can't really go into apologetics unless we know what faith is. Does that make sense?

So we need to understand and really drill down what faith is all about and what we're defending in terms of that.

And then we can go into all the different types of theories and theology and logic and doctrines that have happened there.

This really is the starting point where what does faith mean because so many people think they have faith.

So we're trying to present a rational case for belief. So apologetics, this is what they say, it means to give a logical defense of the

Christian faith. Apologetics is a branch of Christianity that defends the authority of God's word, the character of God, Christianity as a whole, and also uses the

Bible as an offensive weapon. That's a big, big, big, big key here.

Against all other worldviews and opposition, preparing the believer to become a warrior for Christ.

And that's our mandate. You cannot escape that. Go ahead. I would just say, ironically, it's something we don't have to apologize for.

Right. Right. Evan, do you have more of the handouts for the guys that just came in?

I don't have any more because I didn't know how many, but I will make sure that I'll send an email with the attachment because it's actually, there's a 20 -page booklet that I have together that I'll be sending to everybody on this.

So before we begin, we have to have some sort of, do we agree or don't agree on certain principles, okay?

So I'm going to go through certain things and it's open to the floor to push back and say, hey, yes, no, maybe, okay?

First of all, we have a big problem. 69 % of the people in the

U .S. believe they are Christians, 69%. That was taken in November 2021

Gallup poll. So our class is, it's about love.

Learning is about love, okay? We do not win here. God always wins.

But we share and we share knowledge and that's the church, that's the community there. But we are at war.

Make no mistake, we are at war. The time of sitting and being pew potatoes is over.

We are at war. We are demanded to stand up now for faith, okay? There are only two groups of people in the world.

So any argument you ever have in life with anybody about God, about creation or anything else, it comes from two sources.

Those in Christ, those not in Christ. That's it, all right? And it's a very freeing thing to believe it that way.

Because what Satan does is, he tries to drill it down in so many different ways that that confusion is something that marks a sense of longing that's not there.

God is not one of confusion. He's very direct. So there's only two types of people in the world, okay?

We are commanded to be Jesus -like. People either see you in Christ or they don't.

And Paul is very specific about this, you know, and so is James, that you can claim to be in Christ, but the fruits of your spirit is what shows that to others and to yourself.

But it shows over time. And that's the whole idea of sanctification after regeneration, all right?

So what does that mean for us? Being in Christ means about suffering, okay?

And make the mistake, if you're going to be in Christ and you're going to be a warrior for Christ, you will suffer.

You will not get away with it. I'm an example of that. I have story upon stories of things that happened when

I dedicated myself to the Lord Jesus Christ, right? And I was warned by a guy who was in his 80s, and he says, oh, welcome to the kingdom.

You will begin to suffer, and it's so true. Now it's not a bad thing. I'd rather suffer for Christ than suffer away from Christ.

So, and why is that? Because this is not our world. We agree on that, right? This is not our world. Our world is beyond.

We're here to do his work, but our world is beyond. So here's where the controversial stuff is.

Faith is not religion. Is that understandable?

Faith is not religion. So you have two choices then. A person's either leaning towards God or leaning away.

There's never a neutral position, okay? There's nothing neutral about it. So when you're talking to somebody and you're trying to understand their life story and what's going on there, in terms of discernment, in terms of understanding, you can get a very good grasp if someone's leaning towards the

Lord or not, or away. And you know, Jeff made a great analogy, and I often spoke about that, about sanctification.

People have this idea that if you're being sanctified, you're supposed to be going like this, but it's not like this, so it's like this, and like that, and you're kind of going up and down like that, and that's usually the pathway, and that's part of the growth process of testing suffering.

People in Christ live in a flat plane, and it's a very important concept to know.

We are very blessed to have Jeff, and John, and the elders here to do their work that God has given them to do.

We also have work here to do. Jesus' organization is very, very flat, you know?

People have a tendency in their mind to idolize leaders, you know, instead of idolizing the

Creator. And so we have to be very, very mindful that we're all human beings, by God's grace we've been given a plan through His spiritual gifts to do what we're going to do.

When I was in school, I can't tell you how many times people came to me, well you came here to be a preacher.

That wasn't my calling to be a preacher. I like to talk about things, teach people.

Jeff's calling was to be a preacher. Mine was to teach, to learn, and to be among the people, to really kind of get to know that.

And the same thing happens with all of you there. That's why apologetics is so important in your life, in terms of how you go ahead and fill those gaps that people have there with God's truth, okay?

And judge appropriately. Separate the essentials from the non -essentials. That's a trap that Satan uses all the time, is that when it comes to understanding what is happening in the world, that he pins point different shortcomings in people's lives.

And he makes them as if that is the reason why, well he's a great accuser, that is the reason why you're never going to be that much closer to the

Lord. And it could be completely non -essential. And Paul talks about it when he says that some people you will have to respect where their belief is, and you may have to do a few changes in your life to go ahead and honor them.

And the same goes true for yourself, too. But it's very, very important to really understand what the essential components are about God's grace, his salvation, what his mandates are for the world, what the gospel of the

Great Commission is, compared to everything else. And unfortunately, and Jackie didn't go through this, seminary can really mess that up.

They can do a number on that because they kind of put everything as everything's important.

And you kind of, you have to sift through that. You've got to sift through that. So what is faith?

What is faith? So the question I have for everybody here, and I really want to hear a response is, can you have faith and not have an enemy?

Depends on what your faith is in. What do you mean? Well, if your faith is in Christ, you'll have a boatload of enemies.

But if your faith is in Allah, you'll have some, but maybe not as many. Depends on where you're at and who you believe in.

Depends on your geography, what country you're in. So you're recognizing that we have an enemy? Yeah.

Oh, we do have an enemy. Okay. So the question for the group is, is that, can anybody accept

Jesus Christ as a personal Savior, just on faith alone, without understanding what the enemy is? Okay, can you do that in a vacuum?

It's an important question. I don't think so, because we don't live in a vacuum. We have to do it where we live.

Right? Okay. Anybody else? I mean, I don't know, I'm just saying.

Go deeper in that question, because, pose it again. Well, you can't just have faith in faith.

You need to have it, like you said before, an intellectual understanding in your mind of what and who you are believing in.

Right. And the reason we're believing. And that's what you're getting to, is because, you know, it's like, okay,

I have faith. What does that mean? What does salvation mean? Like, what am

I being saved from? Right. You know, to know that God, there is a

God. Okay. Right? And we all know the verse that says, even the demons believe that.

Right. But they fear and tremble. So, what exactly is, you know, our heart putting our trust in?

And we have to have the intellectual, you know, understanding of what we are, you know, committing ourselves to.

We have to know the God of the Bible. It would seem that if you just have faith, the first time the enemy attacks, your faith might crumble.

I mean, you don't have the awareness that it's not all you need. Right. Sometimes, I feel like I am the enemy.

I am my own worst enemy, and, you know, I pray that he'll fill me with the beliefs and everything that I have, but he'll, you know, keep me from my unbelief.

You know what I mean? Well, to that point, I'm glad you brought that up. It was something I was going to bring up later. But there's three spheres of sin around us.

Okay? That's, um, there's demonic realm that comes down. There's the world.

The world, the flesh, and the earth. Right. And then there's our innate sin nature. So, there's three fears that we may tackle one, we may not be able to get the other one yet, or we've got this.

So, we're always being attacked. That's why we have to be very alert and vigilant about what we think and believe in faith and understand what the enemy is and who the enemy is.

My suggestion to everybody here is that the biggest enemy right now is the church.

It's not even the people outside. It's not even government. It's the church. The church is imploding inside out.

And I'll talk about that in a little bit, about why that's happening. And it has to be for us to go ahead and change that.

And Cornerstone is becoming that sort of epicenter.

Yeah, that center now where that is, people are waking up to that. That we're seeing that the church is imploding and we need soldiers out there to help.

We need a generation that's going to change all that. You know, because we sit in sidelines way too long.

Right? So, number one is that having faith is also knowing the enemy.

Or else why would you have faith if you don't know the enemy? It's a very, very important concept to put in your mind there in terms of getting to the next level of what apologetics is all about.

If I could jump on that for a second. So, I think one of the, I'm a big fan of the

Screwtape letters. And if you listen to what Screwtape said to his protégé, he told him to make the

Christian comfortable. Make him, yeah, warmly, make the Christian comfortable.

Make him feel good and that he's going to church on Sunday. As long as he's not evangelizing, as long as he's not.

And I think that that gets to the point of in America, one of the reasons why the church is important is because we're so comfortable.

And so, I think in recent days there have been circumstances that have forced folks, you know,

Christians to confront whether they actually believe what they've been saying they believed all along.

And you're seeing sort of a self -sorting of people going to these oases of places like Cornerstone or The Rock or, you know,

Grace. Like the different churches that are standing firm on the

Bible and God's Word and those who are bending their doctrines and bending their faith around the culture.

And so, I think that the idea of knowing an enemy and how that really operates,

I think, is important. It's super important. Thank you. So, one of the things we were talking about,

I just went over the agreement that I had there. We're trying to build a rational case and getting to the idea of do we have an enemy?

And we're going to talk about the pagan construct, which is, but before we do that,

I just want to read something and I'd like to get some feedback for it. Why did we do all this?

So, the point of all theological study or apologetics and or reading scriptures is to not principally arrive at sound doctrine.

That should be found out as we grow with our walk with Christ. But our studies, most importantly, are to know and worship

Jesus in spirit and in truth. Not worship the doctrines themselves. Sound doctrine will always point to the living

Lord with His truth, but never back at itself. Remember that. Secondly, it would be foolish for us to expect that this work that we're doing together will meet with general approval.

It's not going to. The trend of modern theology, if theology can be called, is ever towards the deification of the creature rather than the glorification of the creator.

That is a key component to what's going on right now. You have to embrace that. That the paganism that's come into the church is about people being their own

God. We need to talk about that. The leaven of present -day rationalism is rapidly permeating the whole of Christianity.

That is the truth. Hence, the social theological pendulum that we go through swings towards other side of extremes from one end being antinomianism or towards the other side, which is legalism.

So, you're constantly going back and forth like this. And depending on which group you're going to be at, you're going to see that.

But the idea for here with the apologetics is discernment. Cut through all that and understand what God's truth is because he breaks through all that.

And it's extremely important that you understand that. So, with this study, we want to rationally understand the nuance of what, why, how we believe our beliefs or, in short, have faith.

It was once told to me, and this is a mentor of mine, that we always lean on our faith in Christ alone

If we always lean on our faith in Christ alone, we will falter. It warned me.

That was that 80 -year -old gentleman I was talking about. Why? Because we are humans saved by his grace and there is nothing we can do to produce more faith but certainly can produce less.

And that's the truth. You'll find through sanctification that and Dave just brought it up a little while ago that sometimes he feels that he doubts everything and he's pulling away from that.

That's why knowing truth is absolutely key in terms of continuing to grow in Christ.

That's just the stage that our faith must have proof points to validate why we believe what we believe or else everything becomes about feelings more than faith.

And that's key. And you go into a person, you ask them

What do you believe in? Oh, I believe in God. Oh, you're a Christian, right? Yeah. And I feel it.

That should raise a red flag right away. That should be something that you say in the back of your mind.

Okay, what's going on here? Yes, of course, we absolutely feel this glory of times and all that stuff. But if we always pursue our faith based on feelings, we will fail every time.

And I can't tell you in my life that has happened to me personally. So it's surprising for me that in this day and age so many claim to have faith but do not know the gospel or scripture.

And the results of this are when turmoil cares, which is what Bob is talking about, many walk away from the faith they claim to have known yet others twist it to fit their own narrative and paradigm which we'll talk about and even others will exploit the word faith for their own devices.

And Paul talks about that, about the wolves coming in. Christ warned us of all these things with the parable of the sea's landing in Piraeus bearing ground in Matthew.

So what is faith to be replaced by is what I'm going to talk about is tribal spiritualism.

All right, tribal spiritualism. And it's no different than New Age pagan religion monotheism or deism whereby your belief in culture constructs, overshadows

God's truth through his word. It looks like a church but it's not God's church of his truth.

Additionally we made the most important decision in our life in accepting Jesus Christ as our

Lord and Savior should we not defend our faith as his elect? And that's a question that you have to take personally and really think about it.

I mean, you made the most important decision in your life. You know, it's the above everything else.

You know? Shouldn't you defend it? Should we have non -irrational response for who do not believe or challenge even those who claim to believe but do not show any fruit of their confession of faith?

This isn't a nice to have. It's a must have. Last but not least the belief in the 11th commandment thou shalt be nice does not apply in defending the faith.

It's that disjunction that many think believers in Christ are all over. And they have every reason to believe this because we do.

So Ivan and I I'm cheating because we talked about this the other night but it is funny because I've heard that before the 11th commandment thou shalt be nice and the response

I gave Ivan was what is more kind or nice than telling someone the truth?

Right? And you know the analogy that's been used over or metaphor that's been used over and over again you know throwing a life preserver to a drowning man, right?

Is it telling them the truth doing that? Especially the truth about the Gospel, right? Isn't that essentially trying to save someone's life and what is more kind or nice than that?

Right. It's not true. So the key takeaway is we don't believe in easy salvation accepting

Gospel accepting the whole Gospel not part of it. Self -examination repentance is a starting point

God's intervention is on His terms not ours. In short as Paul says we are a slave to Christ when we accepted

Him and He bought us with a price we are His slave we are to Him.

And today's preachers and I have when I sent out the the these notes there's a list of preachers there that really don't preach that you have to be mindful of that.

So any questions about what I just read? Does that make sense to you? I assume since people are actually here for the apologetics that everyone agrees that we're called to defend to make a defense for our community.

Does anyone think that's not something we should be doing? Ivan, just one thing we're defending the biblical faith because I see the

Pope trying to form an ecumenical interfaith movement of Buddhists Hindus you know

Muslims and Christians Right you know so we've got to be sure of our definition of what our faith is.

which brings brings into this Soteriology Soteriology which is the doctrine of salvation

Right But this is the pagan construct that's all over the U .S. I would say probably more than 90 % of the churches are in this.

Okay And there's a connection to what's going on here. I don't know if you ever heard of this term called tribal spiritualism it's something that that was kind of coined when

I was in school and I pushed it along and I got a lot of pushback from when I was in school because it was shaking things up but tribal spiritualism is basically taking the church and making it honed in to where whatever the cultural issue is so it could be the church of pro -choice the church of transgender the church of Black Lives Matter the church of whatever prosperity gospel it becomes the church of that Right and so this this this is really the beginning of paganism and what happens there and could someone look up ethical nihilism nihilism yeah if someone can look that up and just read it to me because this kind of gives you what how the energy of that is being driven there's moral nihilism is that the same thing yes you can use that too ethical nihilism or moral nihilism rejects the possibility of absolute moral or ethical values instead good and evil are nebulous and values addressing such are the product of nothing more than social and emotive pressures go from the absolute to the realm of the my truth do you understand the church now my truth my truth right so the mission of this is to make the church a blank this is we don't really believe anything because there's no absolute truth so the moral relativism is the motivation behind it and then there's this phenomenon that's happening right now we're living in it it's called religious speciesism okay so religious speciesism makes two results less thans and nones not anywhere in the thing so who are the less thans who's the less thans anybody doesn't what anyone who doesn't prescribe to that and who would that be anyone outside of that christians

I think all we're all less thans right here all right this is where this is where we're landing there okay the nones are the group that pulls out

They're not affiliated with anything. They're so neutral that they have no affiliation religiously or doctrinally.

They just don't really care about that. But where are the lessons? The church here, this type of church, thinks that we're off base.

That our truth, and it's really not our truth, God's truth is something that's outside their sphere.

So we have churches all around here that have this, and I'll submit to you this.

That is paganism. Make no mistake, that is paganism. That's what happens.

And this church, the little light that it is right now in the rock, the little light it is, is one of the beacons there against all this paganism activity that's happening there.

So the question I have for everybody here, and it's a tough question, do you think there's believers in these churches?

I think they're believers. I think they're believers. They've had belief on an art belief.

They haven't. Take it to the next level. Do you think if they're going into a community of a church that's practicing paganism.

Let's parse, though. There may be believers that aren't buying into what the teaching is there, but are there for other reasons, like family ties or what have you, that they haven't actually left the church, but they're not buying it.

But then there are those that are sitting in the pews, soaking it up, and are completely bought in to that.

So I think we should probably differentiate between the people that don't buy in to the, whether it's the ethical nihilism or the church of, that just haven't left yet.

Chad, could you read Romans 1, 18 to 23? For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, knowing that his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made.

So they are without excuse, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him.

But they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal

God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. I would say that's a lie in the sand.

I would say that's a lie in the sand that God has said to us.

And either on one side of it or on the other side of it. And when we don't want to parse words that there are nice people in there, make no mistake, this is how paganism starts, and this is how it's become entrenched in there.

Uh, Christchurch is, uh, if you can zone and read

Acts 2, 37 to 43, and this is

Christchurch. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?

And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit. Two, one, 43? Two, 43, yeah. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the

Lord God calls to himself. And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation.

So those who received his word were baptized and they were added to about 3 ,000 souls that day. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to breaking the bread and the fruit, and awe came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

So that's Christchurch, and then we see what we have in terms of the church is now, what's going on.

So two completely ways of the way church is being done. And we need to understand that, and know the nuance of it.

So when we start to study in depth, in terms of our faith and apologetics, we need to understand what the differences are between the two.

Can someone read 1 John 5, word five? I call that the welcome.

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.

Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God? And that's our faith.

So at this point, you're all semi -seminary students, okay?

All right, so, and now you're gonna get your big class. This is the big class now, okay? There was a school that opened up, and it was only open for a little while, and half the class failed, and the other half passed, okay?

Yet the mark that this school did has lasted for generations, okay?

So can someone read for me Luke 23, 40 to 43?

I got it. Okay. But the other rebuked him, saying, do you not fear

God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds.

But this man has done nothing wrong. And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And he said to him, truly,

I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Could you read it again, a little slower, verse by verse?

But the other rebuked him, saying, do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds.

But this man has done nothing wrong. And he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

And he said to him, truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. Thank you for that, all right.

So, I had to go to seminary all that time, and so did Jeff, and so did a few others, to learn all these different things.

That is the gospel. That is the beginning point. That is everything.

You don't have to be a scholar to understand what has happened. All right, so why did the thief know that many or what, that many not know?

Recognition to fear God was number one. Recognition to fear God. A recognition of his own sin.

A recognition that he deserved to die. A recognition of a sinless man before him.

A recognition of the Christ himself. A recognition that without Christ, he cannot enter paradise.

A recognition of Christ's forgiveness and mercy. That, that's the story.

Congratulations. You all graduated seminary. I'd say, too, you recognized that the death of Christ on the cross was not gonna be the end.

No, exactly, true, absolutely, absolutely true. His kingdom was still coming, right. So, that's all said and done.

The question I always have about this, and it always gives me chills when I read this, is what was the other guy thinking?

What was happening there? And we're gonna talk about election of free will and how does that work.

We're not gonna talk about it today, but how does that work? You have thousands of people looking at the cross.

If you can imagine, thousands are looking. You have the Christ there. You have a man there that's dying.

You have another man that's dying. One says no. One says yes. Why did one say no?

Why? He's gonna die. Why? Always bothered me.

One of the first things he asked Jesus is to get us down. So, he was only concerned about the things of this world, not the next, right.

Which was so, what ends up happening, when we think about what happened in the

Garden of Eden, and Eve took the fruit, and with the promise that she would be like God, that's at the stage for what's gonna happen for the remainder until the

Lord comes back. So, not only is there two types of people that are in Christ or not in Christ, but there's two types of people that, one believes in the sovereignty of God, one believes they are

God, and everything comes from that. So, when you look at that central argument, that's the beginning of apologetics.

Understanding the central thesis of what that is. Either man must be God, or he recognizes

God. That's it. Everything else comes from that. You can't escape the fact.

So, government, religion, finances, science, the motivations behind that is, either they're gonna give the glory to God, or they wanna be

God. And we've seen it time and time again through scripture, with Egypt, with Rome, with the

Pharisees. So, it's not a concept that's very alien to us.

But when we think about it, and this is where I'm pushing this home, when we think about it, we wanna be able to contextually cut that down.

So, instead of getting caught in a mire, take a step back and say, wait a minute, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

You wanna be like God. I always, when I have a situation where I'm talking to somebody who says,

I don't believe in God, well, you believe in something. You have to believe in something. You have faith in something, right?

And they go, what do you mean? I say, well, you believe in gravity, right? Natural theology.

Thomas Aquinas said, for something to exist, there has to be an existence.

Basic thoughts. So, somebody has faith in something. Either they have faith in God, or they have faith in themselves to be

God. And when you look at it from a rational point of view and a critical point of view, taking that from there, you can tackle a myriad of all types of issues that's going on here.

Yeah. And be able to defend our faith accordingly through God's truth there.

Does anybody have any questions about that? No, I will say what

Rich said about the thieves on the cross.

How one was concerned about this world, and the other one was concerned about the world beyond.

I think that's a good reason why a lot of people don't want to try, don't want to come to faith in Christ, because it means that they're gonna have to probably give up some of the things in this world that they enjoy.

And face accountability after that. So, what would that say for us in terms of going to them and talking to them about this?

Or is that something that can't be changed, Matt? Sorry, say that again? How do we address that as believers and talking to people who are going through that?

I mean, you have to lean on the fact that this world is temporary, and that eternity is, by definition, forever, and the fact that their eternal soul is in peril.

And then you can launch into the gospel at that point. And I've heard arguments about Christianity and the fact that it casts us as despicable creatures, and you have to get into the fact that the eternal

God of the universe cared so much about us that he sent his son to die on the cross for us. And that is a testament to our value of work.

So, thank you. So, can someone read, well, actually, someone read

Genesis 1 through 5, just real quick? Genesis 3, 1 through 5. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any of the beasts in the field that the

Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but she said, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you will die.

But the serpent said to the woman, you shall not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God, knowing good from evil.

So, that's really the stepping stone of everything that's happening here. So, understand and embrace that.

So, in terms of, oh, I just wanna bring this home. I don't think I have anything else for us today, but just understand that if we can take those two concepts, those in Christ, not in Christ, those who wanna be

God, those who recognize who God is, that's really the cornerstones of why we're looking at things that are happening around the world right now.

And make no mistake, God is shaking things up now, so much so that people are questioning their own faith because, and they should, because they really didn't have a strong foundation in what's going on.

So, the purpose of this precursor was really to understand what faith means. We have a second part to this, what we'll do next week, which we'll get a little bit deeper.

This was kind of like a top level, just telling what faith is or isn't or what's going on there.

And we'll delve a little bit deeper in that, and then we're gonna start to go into the different types of doctrines and theology.

It's a quarter of, do we have a video? Yeah, there was, if I can get on here. If there's a video,

I'd love to, it doesn't, let me see, there's something powered off. The TV's powered off, I think. Oh, okay.

Sorry. We can turn the TV back on. There are remotes right over there, by my glass case.

Yep. Which one is it? I guess it's this one. This one.

Yeah, the one on your left. Yeah. I don't know if I can, if it comes up or not. I see it. It's HDMI 3.

Okay. It's telling me I'm not connected. This, yeah. I'm not connected to the, what do you want?

I'll do something. Is there a hotspot? No. Well, I'll just play it off my phone, because it's just, it's easy enough to even hear it.

I don't necessarily have to see it, but we'll just play it off of here. I think it's a good way to end this first round.

So while he's getting that up, if you - The job search, as we know it, is dead. And if you're still out there cold submitting your resume, and getting auto -rejected 80 to 90 % of the time, you're just adding on to the problem.

Okay. I want to show you a different way. Even though scripture permits the righteous enjoyment.

Now, I want to read something. I don't typically do this, but I want to read something right now, from the outset, to set the framework, the theological framework, for the discussion that A .D.

and I have in this episode. I've written this. R .C. Sproul famously preached a sermon called

The Tyranny of the Weaker Brother. His premise comes from Romans chapter 14.

He talks about how the church should welcome the weaker brother into membership with grace. But he warns of the weaker brother's tendency to be a tyrant towards the rest of the body.

The weaker brother, due to his weaker faith, and underdeveloped conscience, has a bad habit of adding the traditions of men to the laws of God.

Unfortunately, he often does not do this merely for himself, but for others.

For example, the weaker brother will frequently insist that their fellow church members, and especially their pastors, not drink alcohol.

Even though scripture permits the righteous enjoyment of alcohol to the glory of God. And yet, churches should still welcome the weaker brother into their membership, and be willing, in certain contexts, to lay down their liberties in order to avoid becoming a stumbling block for him.

But should the church welcome the weaker brother as their pastor? That is the question.

If the apostle Paul labels the one whose conscience is wrongfully bound by man -made traditions as objectively weaker, should this individual be in a position of authority over those who are objectively stronger, according to the word of God?

Clearly, Paul's point has to do with faith. Therefore, the weaker brother is not merely weaker in some kind of abstract way.

Rather, in accordance with scripture, the weaker brother of Romans chapter 14 possesses less faith than his other brothers and sisters in Christ.

Such a man should be graciously welcomed into the church. But is there not a serious problem when the church is led by those with the least amount of faith?

In these cases, by virtue of both the individual's person and position, the church becomes a context for mass tyranny.

Man -made traditions become church -wide requirements that everyone is commanded to follow, despite Christ having purchased freedom from such traditions by the costly price of his own blood.

Is there currently a national and even global epidemic of weaker brothers filling our church's pulpits?

Wearing a mask is not a law of God. And yet, many of our puny faith pastors have wrongfully bound the consciences of all their congregants in this regard.

The same can be said of pastors requiring vaccines for worship, or segregating the people of God on the

Lord's day according to their vaccination status, having a vaccined area and a non -vaccined balcony.

Pastors are actually doing this. Possessing a conscience that is so poorly shaped is not a disqualification for salvation.

That is membership in Christ's church. But it should be a disqualification for pastoral ministry.

That is eldership in Christ's church. Would not the apostle Paul expect the office of elder to be filled by stronger brothers?

The past couple of years have appeared to prove that the vast number of evangelical churches are being led by the weakest among us, according to clear biblical standards.

And rampant tyranny has been the result. Thanks for watching this video.

I hope you enjoyed it. If you... So, that's a little warning.

What's, what the, who is that? Joel Webbin, Right Response. Who is it?

Yeah, exactly. Rapid Response. Right Response. Oh, Right Response. Right Response meeting.

I think Ivan's, he'll have the links Yeah, I'll put the links in there. All right, cool. But, Dan?

Everything we go over is gonna be distributed to everyone with references to all the videos and books and everything that were used to put the materials together.

So, don't, don't feel like you have to furiously take notes or anything. Jeff, I have a question for you.

If we do move to a bigger church, will there be a balcony in it? Only for the realtors.

Only for the realtors. Gentlemen, do you have any questions or anything?

Again, this is the starting point. So, we're there. Go ahead. I wanna address one thing. We were talking about if there's any

Christians in those churches. I'm gonna say yes for the reason that some of the churches are just, you know where I came from, right?

Are just starting some of this and people are starting to wake up. I didn't know at the time.

I knew something was wrong. I felt something, but until I talked to somebody that already found out that this church was here, or as I knew, something was wrong, and I didn't, there was confusion.

Where to go and what to do? I think there's a lot of people like that. I think there's a lot of people that are good

Christians that are confused by it because it's, in some churches today, maybe they've been doing it for a year or two years.

Some are starting it new and it's creeping in in such a way that maybe they're not seeing it right away.

So, I do think you have to make allowance for those people that are. Yeah, and I think

I said that early on that there's a difference between people that are buying in to the new messages, right?

And then there are people who, for some reasons, wanna give the benefit of the doubt or have family attachments or other things that are keeping them in a place they ought not be, but in their heart, the

Lord is moving them out and it's just taking them some time to eventually wake up and move out.

But if they start, if they allow themselves to start soaking in, right, soaking in that new teaching,

I'll just call it new teaching, then they're gonna start having problems, right?

So, that's where it gets tricky. So, eventually, they're gonna have to see their way out of there.

But there are also other people, I think you guys talked about this in the men's group, that wanted to stay and fight for the church, right?

To change the thinking of the leadership that was there. People who aren't bought in and they wanna save the church, that specific church,

I don't mean the church as a whole, but save that specific church from within, influencing the leadership in a way that's guided more towards God's word and away from some of these cultural messages that are coming out there.

So, I think there's sort of those two camps of believers in there and then there's certainly a huge cadre of people that are totally bought in and are pushing this sort of cultural nonsense in the church and I don't think those folks are believers at all.

I just praise God that everyone here, I mean, we obviously came from somewhere.

So, we have that gift that God has given us of discernment, much like the person on the right of Christ, on the cross, and on the left.

One had the gift of discernment, one did not. And I praise

God for that. We tried to save our old church, like you were saying, and we could see it was going.

But once you see, and they're not changing, it was time to find a biblically -based place to go.

And I praise God that he gave me that gift of discernment to know when it was time to go.

And I think everybody here has come from somewhere. Sure, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And thank the

Lord for Jeff and for John, too. For being here. For being here. But I can't emphasize enough where we fall into a trap where we kind of say, yeah, it's a church.

It's kind of like a church, you know? And we have to be very, very clear in terms of optics and vernacular of what is

Christ's church and what is paganism. There's no in -between, there's no ambiguity between that.

And if you come with a heart of love to talk to people who are in those type of churches and try to explain to them through God's word and discernment that they're practicing pagan worship, then that opens up a whole new arena of a conversation and dialogue.

They may not want to hear it at first, but I think the mistake that we do is that we kind of give them the floor of saying, well, you're still going to church, so you may have some osmosis of some biblical truth coming through there.

And in some cases, it may be true, but make no mistake, there's either this way or that way.

There's no in -between, as we were reading in Romans. There's a line in the sand. And it's not a matter of being legalistic about it.

This is Christ's church, this is the way it should be, not what's going on right now. Anything else outside of that context is really labeled.

Another way of putting it is anytime anything, any cultural priority, whether it's the

LGBTQ, whether it's racial reconciliation, whatever, any time that's elevated above what the word of God says, it's now become paganism, as you said, because you're now worshiping something other than Christ and God's word.

So when I was in school, we were assigned cohorts, which means you're assigned a temporary mission field.

So I was assigned to go to the Bordertown prison to do ministry there.

And the person that was leading the ministry there was a gay woman from our school.

And that was my first interaction of like, what? After I denied to do the cohort, my life at that point became very difficult in terms of going to school, because now my eyes opened up, like, wait a minute.

You can't be that far away to allow that. Plus having a woman who's a pastor, which is not theologically or doctrinally or scripturally correct, but then having that other thing there.

So the subtlety of it, the school had already accepted it and had already done that and was teaching people to go out to the fields and preach whatever they were gonna preach.

But I can say that PTS now is a pagan school. I had some great, great biblical teachers, my

Old Testament teachers. What school was that? Princeton Theological. Princeton Theological Seminary.

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, Jeff had Dallas. And so that's, I mean, that's very grounded.

Although now they're maybe - A little bit of a drift starting. Yeah, time to drift like this. And so for us, it's really, really important to see the seeds of these things starting to happen and not to kind of play the fluff game of saying, oh, okay, it may go away, whatever.

It's not gonna go away. It's simply not. And it starts very little, but it gains momentum very quickly.

And then we can be stuck like that. And for the young men here who's gonna have families and everything, this is crucially important for you because it affects everything.

I can almost compare it like a virus. It affects everything. It affects schools, it affects churches, and now it's affecting the medical community.

It affects everything that's happened there. So it's really incumbent on us to go ahead and stand strong for the

Lord. We're not perfect. By God's grace, thank you, Lord, that we're able to go ahead and come together in a gathering to talk as men about this.

But we need to understand who the enemy is. We need to understand what's happening. You know, the mindset that the problem is out there and it's people who are not in the churches is the wrong mindset right now.

The mindset is it's about the church. We wouldn't be in the problems we are right now in this country if the churches did what they were supposed to be doing.

We would not. It wouldn't happen. So it really is for us to understand that this implosion that happens there, we need to address it on a granular level as a warrior one -to -one with people in love, in God's love, but say, hey, you gotta get the scales out of your eyes.

This is a mess. This is not gonna go away, you know? And I know

Jeff and I have spoken about this and Drew and I have spoken about this, that there is obviously,

God is shaking the tree right now. He's really, really shaking it. One of the sifting process.

But yeah, I mean, it is happening and it seems like things are speeding up and that's, well, you know, scriptural, that's what's gonna happen.

Everything's gonna speed up. But thank the Lord that we have the assurance that no matter what happens, we're grounded in what he has done in our lives and that no matter what happens, we know the future.

We know what's gonna go on. We know, because on scriptural truth, on the Holy Spirit within us, on the sermon that is given to us, we have that assurance that no matter what's gonna happen, we will meet him in glory and the charge for us is to finish strong and we wanna finish strong.

That's the key. You said it. The Holy Spirit within you. Many of these people that are coming out of these liberal churches don't have the

Holy Spirit in them. And the ones that do are the ones that have discernment and were discerned enough to get out of the churches, the liberal churches they were in.

Right. Well, I thank you. People look for churches that fit their lifestyle and their beliefs as opposed to someone coming out of a church that are leaning this way and that way, that know the truth, are looking for a church that are preaching biblical truth.

Right. So what we're doing is growing that way because that's what we're teaching.

We're teaching the Bible and not wavering. What they're doing in those other churches, you can't stop what they're doing.

I mean, you can't. People are gonna go there for their own reasons, for their own prideful reasons.

I think what we're doing here is just keeping focused on what we need to do.

Those people are gonna figure it out. Yeah, corresponding to what you're saying, that there are those who are in Christ and those out of Christ, right?

So the sheep, the goats, the wheat, the tare, it's all through scripture. Corresponding to that, the epistemology of the one who's in Christ is

God's word over against man's word. And so what I liked about that Joel Webben video that you showed, he's coming out of Romans 14 and letting that be the authority.

And he's not saying that it's, this person who wears a mask is bad and that person who doesn't is good.

He's making the point that mask, vaccine, whatever, a shepherd cannot bind the conscience of a freedom issue.

So it's a Romans 14 issue. You wanna wear a mask, wear a mask. I don't care, wear what you want. But if a pastor says,

I will assert this authority over your freedom in Christ and you must sit in the balcony if you're not vaccinated or something like that, that is clearly overstepping his authority in Christ.

He's not obedient to the word of God. He's not submitted to his head. And now you know that this is a weak brother who ought not be pastoring.

So any churches that are doing that, they're separating the church. That's what Webben is making the point.

And he's a great teacher. I've watched a lot of them. So I'm glad that you chose that clip. And if that doesn't throw a red flag up and get you to get up out of your pew and get out of the church.

If someone is telling you, you can't walk into Christ's church without having a gene therapy in your arm, then it's, that guy should not be leading.

Right. When they elevate man's word to be tantamount with God's word. Right, man's word versus God's word.

That's key distinction. Thank you, brothers. Father, I, oh gosh.

Lord, thank you for tonight. Thank you for Ivan, Father. As preparation has loved for you,

Father and Lord, just the complex issues and the, yes, the wording, the getting things straight.

But Father, just thanking you for the simplicity as well, that either we're in Christ or not in Christ.

And I thank you, especially when Ivan was talking about when we were reading the scriptures. And Lord, we're not looking for doctrines.

We're not looking for Father to worship, you know, teachings and doctrines.

We're looking to worship you when we read your word. And we pray that you would illumine our hearts, Father, that we will follow and be obedient to your word,

Lord. We pray that you would use this entire series to build up the body of Christ. And that,

Father, we would be, Lord, your ambassadors going forth into this world, Father, with the truth.

And Father, with the, just the equipping that we need to answer the questions that the world has, yes, with gentleness and reverence, but also,

Father, with the offensive word of God, Father. We thank you so much, Lord, and we pray in Jesus' name.