The Andrew Tate Saga Isn't That Tough, Then, the Alleged Seventh Ecumenical Council (787)

Greetings, welcome to the dividing line. I'll turn the monitor back on in here. I had that monitor on I know

I had that monitor on that monitor was on when

I came in here and now it won't turn on So and you walked in here since I was here last

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, cuz yeah, yeah you did and notice it won't turn on now. So it's all your fault

Okay, there you go. Well, it came up now it wants terms and conditions

But you know, I'm old enough to remember You know, okay,

I could I actually have something now you can't get through the gate you can't operate the TV.

Yeah That gate is a mess It truly truly is but I remember

I remember TVs that you know you just walked up to it and you click and it came on and It didn't ask you for things you didn't have to do setups it just it just came on and Showed you

Gilligan's Island and other stuff in black and white And that was that was fun.

That was how I was how it worked anyway Alright welcome to the program today we're gonna do a little

Got some history to get to eventually here I did

I I don't know how much time to spend on this Because I Wrote something.

I don't know four or five days ago about the

Andrew Tate stuff and I Posted it and It actually got a fair amount of traction

I think I even posted it on the theology matters blog if I recall correctly and And Interestingly enough

Andrew Tate saw it and Despite everything that it said and the fact that it included pretty straightforward discussion of the judgment of God and The fact that living the kind of life he's living will lead to fundamental disappointment emptiness

At the end of his life Loneliness Because these relationships whatever relationships he has with thousands of different women and Children by all sorts different women and things like that doesn't produce family produces a lot of legal headaches, but doesn't produce family and And They're empty relationships their relationships that well,

God didn't design us to live that way and so they bring heartache and And things like that his response so is so I guess

I win and You know, it's just his attitude he doesn't take anything overly seriously other than himself

And of course I responded to that too and I'm like, hey, here's a neat opportunity

Because I got up one morning and I start seeing these responses and they're clearly not from Christians So, how did they see them?

Well because he had responded to me and So that means there are non -christians reading this.

Well great Man, if the Lord would use that just to bring one of his people to himself, it'd be worth worth all the

Nastiness that comes along with it So I've tried to think

Back to You know the years when Alpha Omega started back in the 80s and if there had been anyone like him now we had

We had people similar and when you think of Magic Johnson and What came out later night now when he was playing they may have

Talked about this, you know quietly that he was Having relations with anything that moved

But that wasn't he wasn't talking about that he wasn't making that a part of his persona

So we know that Men have acted like this for a long time

You may be aware of the fact that genetically a large portion of Eastern Europe has one man genetically in their background as Genghis Khan and That evidently

After a day of war and pillaging he spent the whole night with captured women and And You know from a from a

Darwinian perspective He's the biggest winner of them all because from a from a

Darwinian perspective you win by Getting as much of your genotype into the next generation as possible.

That's That's the only concept of victory in a neo -darwinian

Perspective and So Wow, he he won because he has

Multiplied hundreds of thousands if not millions of people carrying at least a part of his genetic code

Because of what he did now, he's also Abiding under the wrath of God and will for eternity.

So there's that that's not really winning But from a neo -darwinian perspective you can't beat that There have been lots of people in the past Julius Caesar and you think of Alexander the

Great and Yet you read up on them and You know a million people dead a million people enslaved.

I'm not sure that's how that That makes you great it's just it's just so obvious that especially today people do not have the perspective to identify greatness from God's perspective from God's view and what that tells you especially in In our modern day is that we tend to look at well, we've talked about this before Remember It's about ten years ago or so Some books came out there were some fairly well -known theologian apologetic type people and They were addressing

The the problem of the Old Testament and specifically the problem of Genocide the problem of the judgment of God coming upon the

Nations remember in Genesis 15 I think it is No, or is it

Exodus? It's one of the early books the Bible Genesis the this sort of cryptic little comment is made

About the children of Israel being in Egypt for so long because The iniquity of the

Amorites was not yet full Okay. Now obviously this is a comment that's made later on once you have an idea of Who the

Amorites were and what was gonna happen to them and they were gonna be wiped out and stuff like that but the the whole idea was that The judgment that was gonna come upon them was a just judgment and it was an appropriate judgment, of course

The Bible does tell us a lot about what their idolatrous worship was but Archaeology is filled in a lot of the blanks and it was bad man.

I mean it was It was what had caused the flood in the first place it's amazing how fast mankind can descend into the abyss of Horrific nasty behavior and so people are really uncomfortable and Especially today now that we live in a very secularized world the idea of God's Wrath being expressed judgment taking place

Submission to God's wrath. I mean this is where we have a disconnect when we read history because we look back at what

Christians used to say and how they used to interact with say natural disasters and The first reaction and this wasn't all that long ago first reaction was what have we been doing?

That's brought God's wrath You know, you can't even say that now Can't even think about it.

Let alone say it out loud and you can't even say it out loud in the church that's where everything has changed so much and so, you know, like I said, there was this period of time where everybody's coming up with Ways of trying to explain the commands of Scripture for the

Israelites to wipe out a particular people man woman and child and And The general way was to just deny that it ever happened.

This is this isn't really Scripture This is just men Writing what they think

God wanted them to do it all It all ends up with a view of the Old Testament that Jesus didn't hold the

Apostles didn't hold and therefore we shouldn't hold but And I've warned you before You go to almost any

Seminary or Bible college in the land anymore and that's the perspective. They're gonna be holding anyway it

I mean that the number of schools today that you could go to where you would get a believing education

When it comes to the Old Testament Very small very small.

So you need to realize When you look at churches It's one thing to see

You know The the rainbow -stoled priestesses in the

United Methodist Church or in the PC USA or in the liberal Lutherans or United Church of Christ or crying out loud

Talk about the walking zombie Church It's one thing to see that but When you look at what we're once anyway is supposed to be conservative denominations and you still see this real discomfort it's

Primarily because the I the idea that we should have the same view of the Old Testament that Jesus did has been abandoned

Don't ask me how they explain that I mean it seems so obvious, you know We're Christians here, but Jesus's view of the

Old Testament was foolish I don't know. I don't

I don't pretend to understand how that works because it clearly doesn't but That's that's what's out there.

Anyway Back to what we've got here People looking at Andrew Tate are

Looking at him in a way that only 40 -50 years ago

Would have been completely impossible Even even in broader society

I Mean there were lots of whispers about John F Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe and stuff like that, but there were meant to be whispers

You know, it wasn't that he's coming out and saying I'm I'm having a grand old time here as president

I'm Sleeping with every everything it moves. Yeah, you didn't do that wasn't considered manly

Okay, I was considered that was considered to be like the junkyard dog Okay, that that's like the alley cat, you know, no morals not really human not controlled not disciplined

And it didn't matter how big your muscles were anything else so Things have changed radically and they have changed within the church and so when some old boomer like me comes along and You know,

I I just open up my Bible and I quote scripture

It's sort of like who do you think you are and Do you really do you really got a lot of comments like this when

I posted that stuff about Andrew Tate and I quoted scripture.

I quoted Acts chapter 17 About the coming judgment Or I I said

I said to individuals, you know, I I pointed them to passages, you know Titus chapter 2 for example

Yes, I know there is no Titus 2 thank you very much. There's supposed to be space there. I Paul says to Titus, but as for you speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine

Older men are to be temperate dignified sensible sound in faith in love and perseverance

So I say to my fellow old men Temperate Hmm Dignified sensible sound and faith in love and perseverance

When it when it uses a term Sensible, it's one of my favorite terms

Sophronos, Sophronos moss discipline self -control being sensible

The stuff that the society doesn't care anything about anymore They're to be dignified

Sound in the faith Where do these things rate in our thinking when you get up in the morning?

And once you get past all the stiffness Yeah, and the aches and the pains and you make all those noises as you're getting out of bed

Yeah Where does where does this come in our thinking

Sound and faith sound in love sound and perseverance. Wow that There's where we get finishing.

Well Finishing well And I don't want to be

I do not want to be the next example of Someone who didn't finish well

We're all thinking about the same guy right now and one of the main reasons we're still thinking about him is

Because we don't have any closure, we don't have any Conclusion we are left with multiple theories and multiple stories and the truth hasn't been put out there quite yet, and it's like Hey, it's one thing if this guy

Owned a grocery store chain and Went to a particular church in a single state

Okay, that's for that church to deal with. Okay, I get it. But when you're traveling all over the place and You're speaking at everything.

I mean, I can't think of a major conference. He didn't speak at I really can't and He was tied in with big big big names, you know and Made big big big money

Doing the things he did. Yeah, that's got him. There's got to be a Accountability and closure

So that other people can be warned That's what that's what perseverance is

So That's what older men are to be shooting for that's

That's given to us by Scripture. This this shows it. This is for Christians. I get that This is for Christians But that would also seem to indicate that for a non -christian

These would at least be things that would help them with the whatever amount of life they have left, right?

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior Not malicious gossips

Telling that to Titus too. Ooh, I can just see Titus seeing that going.

Oh I'm gonna have to actually talk about this and have to preach about this and Except by now he already would have known how malicious gossip can tear a church apart.

Oh Nor enslaved too much wine Teaching what is good?

Well, who are they supposed to be teaching? Well young women So that they may instruct the young women in sensibility

To love and what what are they young women are to be taught to love their husbands to love their children to be sensible

Same term is up above disciplined self -controlled This is if this is

God's Word Then he doesn't want us acting like animals Okay Pure That's holy workers at home

Kind being subject to their own husbands. So the Word of God will not be slandered

Oh, you mean there's something more important than just our personal happiness more more important.

There are 401k It's so that the Word of God will not be slandered

Yeah, if we don't have these behavioral goals and This isn't the only place in Scripture where this is said it's it's common

Not only throughout the New Testament. I mean you find this in Timothy and Titus and Ephesians and Colossians and Well Hebrews whenever you're addressing the church

There is exhortation as to how we are to live It's not left up to us

But how many of these are quoting to us from the Psalms giving us the same principles we see in Proverbs Foundational concepts found the prophets

It's consistent all the way through so if the

Word of God will not be slandered when the people of God do not listen to the exhortations of God and Do not live in that way

The Word of God will be slandered and oh have we not seen that take place

Over and over and over again. That's not fair. We're held to a different standard.

Uh -huh Yep, we are as we should be likewise urge the younger men to be

Same terms used three so far three different times in this text Self -discipline

Sophronis moss Self -discipline

To be in the right mind it is it is controlling the way you think it's a worldview thing

It's a it's a way of thinking that I'm going to put all of my life under the

Lordship of Christ younger men are to be disciplined in How they how they act how they speak how they think

In all things show yourself to be a model of good works with purity and doctrine dignified

Sound and word which is irreproachable You mean how we speak that would include what we type

Who we follow on social media the movies that we watch

The things the world sees us doing these things We are to be a model of good works with purity and doctrine

That doesn't mean Spending your entire day arguing on Facebook or Twitter, but it does mean that you want to be

Sound and disciplined in what you believe because it honors

God purity and doctrine Dignified again, the same thing that is said to the older men is said to the younger men

That means the way you behave the way you dress is to be dignified Just because the world doesn't care about stuff like that doesn't mean that we don't and then

Sound in word, which is irreproachable We all know the day of judgment is going to come and every spoken word is going to be judged and That's a frightening thing, especially to those of us who

I mean how many tens of thousands of hours of Me speaking are there sound in word, which is irreproachable

So that the opponent would put the shame having nothing bad to say about us Well, look, you know, don't don't start arguing with Paul Because I know what people will say.

Oh But but look at how often we're lied about even as it is people people, you know slanders it.

Okay, that's true Leave that to God Paul's point is you don't give them basis for Saying bad things about that that actually has a basis in truth in how you yourself have been speaking so I've realized it's like yeah, but this is all about Christians and The Tate brothers are not

Christians, in fact Andrew Tate became a Muslim about what about two years ago or so.

I remember when I first saw that was just like really I know far more about Islam than Andrew Tate will ever know about Islam and I know that the things he says

I saw stuff that he said I think it was Right at the end of December I saw a quotation from some of the stuff that he had written

So only a matter of weeks ago it was that the terms vile

You know if you want to see misogynist fulfilled True hatred of women true denigration of women

The reduction of women to nothing but a sexual object That's what the man's all about Always has been still is yeah, but he's a four -time world champion kickboxer

Okay Put that on your resume before the judgment seat of God See how far that gets you

It's astonishing to me how many Christians are like yeah, but well he's just done so much stuff man

And you know, you know, it's just you know, he had to be disciplined to be able to you know, be a kickboxer

Okay There are people Who are more than willing to? Discipline their bodies

For what for what end to what end Pride arrogance

The man's most narcissistic person I think I've ever seen and he celebrates it.

So I Guess yesterday. I saw some of it live. I guess yesterday there was a live webcast on Twitter From some folks who are

East And one of the things that was said, you know, oh, yes, he does lots of vile things and he promotes vile stuff

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, all that stuff. Yeah. Sure. Sure, but at least

When Andrew Tate is sinning He's sinning in the right direction sinning in the right direction and the idea was and Look, I've seen the picture.

I I I Probably could have asked Grock to pull it up or something like that. I like Grock Grock is

I've gotten used to You got to check stuff out but in almost every technical conversation

I've had with Grock we were talking about something I know about It's been spot -on Been very very interesting, especially in textual critical stuff church history stuff things like that not so much theology, but When it's historical stuff,

I guess I could have asked Grock to pull it up. There's a There's a picture. I saw it just recently somebody had posted it and it the whole idea is to the guys that are really pushing all the masculinity stuff and the big beards and Crusaders and and you know all that all that stuff that They're trying to sort of make a niche for themselves and carve out an audience and get followers and things like that the thing they like to to put out there is

That we're the ones standing against this and then they have this picture of Matt Chandler and These three women and look

There's I don't I don't remember now. I think it's I think man,

I think she's been doing this for ten years now Yeah, I think it about ten years but my daughter summer has a webcast called sheologians part of the apologia family of webcasts and She and her partner have been

Going after Feminism from the very start that's basically why they started was to be responding to feminism within evangelicalism and and you know

So they know all about first wave second wave third wave all know much more about than than I even ever want to know

So I'm not going to be studying any of that. But anyway, they've been going at this stuff for a long long long long time and You better believe that feminism is

Battery acid to biblical Christianity it is battery acid to biblical ecclesiology

It has gotten People into so much trouble. I remember I was thinking recently Back in January of 2019.

So it's Wow That was six years ago Wow six years ago right now

Basically I was in Munster Germany Meeting with some folks there at the

Institute for New Testament Studies and that's when I got those great pictures of the cages up on the

Munster Cathedral and What and I remember going running and it was snowing which for Phoenicians Price wasn't all that wise.

I knew it was dangerous. I could fall and break something I'm overseas and that was that was stupid, but I went running.

Anyways, I didn't fall thankfully and what I was listening to was JD Greer and it was when he

Remember when I did some programs when I came back, especially He was talking about how he had quoted was a

Jen Wilkin. I think is what it was Well, I think's in his church about how God whispers about sexual sin

And that's when I came back and I did a whole series on Romans 1 and how it actually functions in Romans 1 and God isn't whispering about anything here and and and all the rest that stuff but but Those the type of people so there's this picture of Matt Chandler and these three women and they're all wearing matching pink fluffy

Sweater shirts type things and they're matching and it's just it it is about the least masculine looking picture you can possibly ever come up with oh

Yeah, yeah, they're matching Yeah, and I saw someone post it recently

Maybe somebody will pop it into the year a little channel thingy me Bobby Whopper thingy That you all have that I never see and have no idea what goes on there.

But anyway that's what they try to throw out there and what they'll what they ignore and this is what

I I had said recently is I'm so sick and tired of all these people that are just they just whitewash all of Yes Oh My watch tells me that Chris just said something in our in our element channel

So maybe you'll have to look and see if maybe he's provided it. I don't know But did he?

Us Chandler's family? All matching to you, okay. All right, that's what they threw up there and So they're just whitewashing everybody's like this all pastors are like this unless you're in our cigar smoking whiskey drinking gun shooting beard growing weight lifting

Cadre then this is what you are and they're ignoring all of the faithful pastors who?

Labor in Quietude and in small towns and over the decades

Who just want to finish well and Do well for the kingdom and Just it bugs me to know to know in that This is the kind of thing that's going on now.

It's It can't last forever. You know, we may have to go through it. It can't they're gonna turn on each other eventually and Since it's so imbalanced you know, but I Just I'm just sitting there thinking about Sinning in the right direction.

Okay, so we've got a guy who would never be caught dead in a matching pink thingy with the ladies

Because he's a four -time world champion kickboxer who it's well known has

Raped Endless numbers of women degraded them and That's that's sinning in the right direction

How do you how do you how does that sin in the right direction? I don't get it.

I don't understand it I'll never understand it. I'll never understand yeah, there was a

Only five years ago everybody had called themselves Biblically conservative and reformed would have

Said the same things about Andrew Tate and that's not the case anymore. What does that tell you?

Anyway, I wasn't gonna go into all that Turn the turn the the big boat around here.

I Was in Albuquerque Yeah, I was in Albuquerque.

I was trying to get to a specific gas station Albuquerque. We had this fleet card So that I can get diesel and deaf back with the big trucks because I'm a big truck when

I'm on the road I think 50s 57 58 feet long and 13 half feet tall and 23 ,000 pounds qualifies as a big truck and I had gotten blocked into my lane to where I had to go right instead of left and so I had to get turned around and Do you know it's like to try to bang a ue when you're that long

I I mean I'm astonished that I found a road wide enough and the traffic wasn't coming

I Made it but it was By the way, you still need to repair the

CB antenna Riches rich was telling me you got turn harder.

You got turn harder We were trying to park the thing at the at the RV part you got turn harder and I'm like and I'm like no

We're already we're already farther than I want to go. I'm gonna destroy the CB. Well we did And so rich says

I can I can fix it. I'm like, okay, we'll see We'll we'll say let it be said let it be done as someone used to say and He's not with us anymore.

And we started discovered that that's not really a wise saying anyways, but anyhow, um Banging the ue here on the topic of the program.

Ah You know I've heard so many people and this is a huge topic shift.

Sorry. I Heard so many people say over the years. Well, you know in our church or in our denomination we

We hold the first seven ecumenical councils. I've heard Protestants say this And I've always gone

No, you don't ever heard anybody say that they're trying to they're trying to sound sort of Catholic of the small seed

And they're trying to go. Well, you know yeah, we're connected with church history and and so we we

We like the undivided church and the seven first seven ecumenical councils last last second minute the seventh ecumenical council at least as it's counted today

Was in 787 So, hey 800 years after Christ sounds like a long time ago.

So we'll go with that and I and I hear people saying this I I can't prove this but man

I have a Strong recollection of Norm Geisler saying that which would surprise me.

He should know better But I do have a memory of that At some conference we were at but anyway

It's it's a common enough statement and yet the vast majority of All Christians all

Christians have never read almost any firsthand material from any of the councils

Obviously the earliest Nicaea since it was so unique. It was right after a period of persecution

We don't have a lot of Firsthand stuff

As you get farther down history Record -keeping Improved shall we say and we've got a whole lot more.

So for example sitting over here. I have the standard work on The seventh ecumenical the acts of the

Second Council of Nicaea 787 by Richard Price. This is sort of considered the go -to

Resource for all that stuff and there there are other books here like Leo Donald Davis the first seven ecumenical councils

Obviously significantly I mean if you're covering seven councils and this is one you can sort of tell the difference between the depth into which these go but Still there's not most people have

Very little idea. I mean I Would think especially people who listen to this program, you know, the first council and I see it was about you know

It was in 325 everyone who has ever Why are you looking at me like that?

I didn't oh I think Nicaea and si ri sound similar to certain nosy

Well a couple nosy things here. It's there there. It's ubiquitous. Oh call it what it is.

It's a spy Yeah digital spy. It's a digital spy. There's no two ways about I can just take this thing and stick it up to my mouth

I only have to say si ri it knows by the the wrist turning that it's up at my mouth

And so anything I tell it to do it will then do automatically so Hey You're thinking about a smart smart

Alec comment and you're gonna you're not gonna interrupt the continuing discussion Okay, now you are no,

I'm just you know thinking about a particular movie called Terminator and yeah Yeah, so nice.

I wouldn't be thinking of Terminator. I'd be thinking of something like Minority Report or something like that That's even scarier

Robot, you know Yeah, those are all yeah. Yep. You just keep on going there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Hey, look when they insert this into you That's when it becomes a problem when it's connected to your body to where it's you know, it's in your brain or something

That's when it becomes. Yeah So you've had that moment where you're looking on social media and the thing you just thought of didn't say out loud pops up Yeah, okay

Yep. Yep. Yep. That's when it gets a little scary. No two ways about it. All right. Well, thank you

That's it for the dividing line today No Back to back to anybody who's taking my church history class, you know that I tell everybody you need to know the

Council of Nicaea took place in 325 It will be on the final examination free points for you. If you Can remember to do that But we have lamented many times over the years

The Council of Nicaea the first Council of Nicaea 325 Most people don't even know there was the second

Council of Nicaea they don't even know that 462 years later

That's a long time that's almost half a millennium See, we we squish stuff together when we think about time in history

So we think of we here is 787. We think of 325 Is just a few numbers off but no, that's almost a half millennium between those two councils and I cannot think of a wider

Chasm as to the quality of the decisions

Argumentation then you have between Nicaea 1 and Nicaea 2 There are no

Athanasius's at the second Nicaea Council at all and The Biblical argumentation is laughable the historical citations are laughable

The the things that are cited Are just So many of them are fraudulent their forgeries

People Just didn't have the Capacity at that point in time it's not because they were dumber than us

It's that Anachronism was already starting to develop and tradition gets in the way and it was all political

I mean Nicaea Started the influence of politics with Constantine but by the time you get to Nicaea 2 it's all politics and It's not just quote -unquote secular politics that Sacralism is developing at this time.

The church -state Relationship is getting all has become completely entangled At least

Nicaea yeah Constantine's there, but he's not telling everybody what to do That changes over time over the the course of of the councils and so you can you can see a degradation as the politics become more and more central as you go go from Nicaea to Constantinople and then

Ephesus and Chalcedon and and Going hundreds of years down down the road so all of that to say

Vast majority of Christians Eastern Orthodox and Protestant have never read

Anything like what you would have in a book like this because I mean How long is this baby 700 and about 750 pages?

Okay, and you know I've got a bunch of stuff marked here And I'm gonna be marking a whole bunch of more stuff here, but you know here the 7th century 7th session with all the anathemas, and I think

I've read through the anathemas at Some point in the past we may have to do it again because that's why this is that's why this is important Is that this?

second council of Nicaea as the first is as well is considered an ecumenical worldwide

Representation of the entire church in all the world Council and therefore it has infallible authority in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, this is before 1054.

This is before the split if you ask Rome today well Okay, if you asked

Rome 10 years ago 15 years ago You might get a different answer and you get out of Francis today who knows where Rome's coming from now

But if you ask Roman Catholics to enumerate the ecumenical councils and you ask

Eastern Orthodox, they will give you different lists and You might even get differences depending on who you're talking to in each group

As to what an ecumenical council is but second

Nicaea 787 is agreed on by both That means they're bound to what those documents say now we live in a day of post -modernism and so One of the

Arguments that we must have is how do you know what they said? You remember I back during John Paul II's years

I Compared and contrasted something he said with what had been said by I forget which early earlier

Council Roman Catholic Council like Trent or something like that and I had a Roman Catholic apologist who

I've named in the past. I'm not gonna get into that right now I had a Roman Catholic apologist write to me and say Who were you?

to Tell the church what those documents meant only the church can interpret those things

So if you put the church in charge of the interpretation of these earlier Materials then they get to interpret anybody want to to maintain their current authority

This the words that were written and spoken in 787 had a meaning in 787 just like the words that John wrote in The first century had a meaning in the first century and if you're going to be honest

With history or with yourself Then you're gonna go for that first You want to find out what what did the authors mean when when this when the

Second Council of Nicaea? Anathema ties to people and said that they were separated from the church

What did they mean by that? It ain't what Jimmy Akin believes today. I can guarantee you that even even

Roman Catholic apologists today recognized that Jimmy Akin is sort of on a little boat by himself out there with his

Cowboy hat on with the strange views. He has and that kind of stuff. So What they meant then

Led to people's deaths Okay, it wasn't just oh, you're not with us anymore

It's that you're not with us anymore and you're gonna die now and we're gonna cut your hands off Then we rip your tongue out and then we're gonna burn you

So it was had a little bit of a different flavor to it then then it seems to have today but the

Second Council of Nicaea of all the first seven Is without a doubt the worst in Political influence

Completely ahistorical assertions biblical argumentation of Just it's just horrible

It's really really really bad, but it's an infallible council Interpreted rather differently between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.

They both hold to it but the impact it has and how it's been interpreted historically is rather different and One of the statements made in this particular text that a couple of people

Jason Jason Wallace has done a tremendous job the the videos if you go to www .orthodox

.video so www .orthodox .video

That will bring up The videos that Jason has put together and they're hours long

Remember we did I still got this the Make Lucaris great again

Program that that he and I did we talked about Cyril Lucaris and the Calvinist Patriarch of Eastern Orthodoxy that they're really really embarrassed about But he has other videos where you know, he's he's using this as well

And you'll find other folks Gavin Ortlund Talks about this kind of stuff a lot in his videos as well and both

He and Jason quote the same material from Richard Pricer who's sort of considered to be

The expert on this subject The Roman Catholic by the way

It says the iconoclast claim That so, okay.

Let me back up a second here iconoclasm What percentage of People at your church this coming

Sunday, do you think no What would be able to even get close to identifying the term iconoclast or the iconoclastic controversy or iconoclasm or What an iconophile is?

vast majority could not would have no idea and That's not putting anybody down.

That's just simply a recognition that If if people do have almost any interest in church history, it's either in the first 300 years or From the

Reformation onward and the rest of it is just a big black hole Just who knows

Brad Burtis, Radtramnus, what? Gottschalk? Huh? Got no idea Fascinating stuff was taking place there that does have impact today, but vast majority of people don't think about it.

The iconoclastic controversy Took place over about 150 years ish

Depending on where you are. I guess remember Ancient history doesn't move at the speed of the

Internet. Okay, so so you can have stuff developing in one part of the Empire. That's not heard of over here for years because just takes time

Anyway, the iconoclastic controversy had to do with the veneration of Images Now, you know

They even came up with a rule at one point, you know, if you could pinch the nose

Then that made a statue not an icon so you could have an icon that had some Texture to it, but you can't pinch its nose.

So anyway The iconoclast was saying no you're not to have images in worship

Uh, there is this thing in Moses's law about this and and look there were arguments about The incarnation and both sides accused the other side of being

Nestorians and Denying the real nature of the of the incarnation and and all the rest of this kind of stuff and people died

People were killed people were in prison people were tortured on both sides The iconoclast did it to the iconophiles the iconophiles did the iconoclast it was

Wasn't good, but it was also deeply deeply deeply deeply influenced by politics who the

Emperor was who the Emperor's wife was Whatever else it might be and so The second council of Nicaea Settled and Ended the iconoclastic controversy in favor of icons

Even though that's gonna be interpreted differently east and west as far as statues and all the rest I guess But the iconoclasts were defeated finally in 787 the council nice a second council

I see So one of the things that said in this book is quote the iconoclast claim that reverence towards images

Did not go back to the Golden Age of the Fathers so 325 451

I was only a couple hundred years earlier still less to the Apostles Would be judged by impartial historians today to be simply correct

Now realize this is a Roman Catholic. So he has to accept the cans and decrees of the second council

Nicaea as Dogma But they said that they were defending the ancient faith of the church and the apostolic tradition

But even he goes Actually the iconoclast claim that reverence toward images did not go back to the

Golden Age of the Fathers still less to the Apostles Would be judged by impartial historians today to be simply correct and that's because it's true and so what you had happening here is you had a traditional development taking place and It was motivated especially

By the monks and you if you get all the monks on one side, it's really hard to win a battle

Because they're willing to die for stuff and if they're all deceived they're willing to decide die for deception and they're very much in love with icons and iconography and so Here comes this council.

It says this is what the Apostles have always taught. We are holding to the ancient faith Every council says that but what people don't know

Is that in 754 so 33 years Before Nicaea There was another seventh ecumenical council

Now it doesn't have an official name The area is where it was held, even though it wasn't always held

There is in the area of Constantinople. The last session wasn't held was actually in Constantinople, but it doesn't have an official name today because It was an iconoclastic council

But when they met they met with the Emperor's approval There were more bishops there than had been at Nicaea one

They they claimed to be the seventh ecumenical council and They came to decisions and they anathematized the makers of icons and they made their arguments from history and from Scripture and for 33 years

This is this is what I want to try to communicate to you We're not going into a bunch of stuff on this.

We will eventually I think I think we need to because You're seeing it. I'm seeing it.

All these people are becoming Orthodox and nobody knows anything about Orthodoxy and Back when

Hank Hanegraaff converted we talked about Stuff we didn't go into the in -depth about the second

Nicene Council and things like that But we we talked about justification and sola scriptura and tradition and things like that But now there's this move toward Orthodoxy and Look again, you see this kind of thing over and over again.

I've seen I've seen it happen And normally in the West is more toward Roman Catholicism because Orthodoxy until recently was almost unknown in the

West especially United States now the internet has changed all of that and I think

This is just the next normal role of people looking for the ancient church and And The reason it's not necessarily resulting in a bunch of conversions to Roman Catholicism is because of Francis everybody knows that Francis has two left wings and So it's like well, is there an another option and now the internet goes why there is

It's called Orthodoxy and it's very mysterious it has beautiful music and great incense and you stand for three hours during the church service and And it's the ancient church you see and nobody has a clue it's it's it's like No idea

What church history is about where it came from what the great schism is about you've never heard the filioque clause

Nothing like any of that it's It's it's just this big new mystery and wow, it looks really cool you see

But here's what I want to get to we may go have to go a few minutes beyond here, but um,

I Just looked over What you mentioned to me was on my screen just in FBI closes its office of diversity and inclusion and A Wonderful lady from the seminary who

Kept us all working there for a long time. She was sort of the one who Made everything work.

She made just a brief comment. It was going to be closed anyway Yep, that's true

But you know keep the letterhead around because you never know what's gonna happen four years from now or eight years eight years from now

Those folks aren't aren't done yet. They they still hate Everything anyways, here's here's what

I want to communicate to you just Having given you all this background information so 754

To 787 33 years How did you know what to believe

How did how'd you know what how did how could anyone between those two time periods know

That the more than 300 bishops That had met with the

Emperor's approval had actually produced a robber's synod a

False counsel, how do you know? What standard do you use?

Um Who are you supposed to turn to you?

See that's that's the problem here is After nice after Nicaea one

Before the Council of Constantinople later in that century The Aryans took over and they had all sorts of councils

Ariminum the Seleucia and Most of those councils had more bishops at them than Nicaea did and yet today

Everybody looks back at those as false councils with no authority Their canons and decrees are null and void

Why? How could you know at the time? Well evidently from the

Roman Catholic or East Orthodox perspective you couldn't You could not know there's no no possible way to do it and so I Look at what happened with Athanasius Wrote an article of the

CRI Journal Too bad Hank didn't read it But wrote an article of CRI Journal what really happened the

Council of Nicaea and I made the point that Athanasius who was driven from his church five times during the

Aryan resurgency Made the argument That what the

Council of Nicaea said had said was true because Scripture says it was true.

And he said scripture is most sufficient for the teaching of all things and I just The the entire church was against him even the

Bishop of Rome collapsed That's where you've got the phrase Athanasius contramundum

Athanasius against the world But he was right and his argument was because that's what scripture teaches

That's called sola scriptura That's what it is and There are many times in church history where years and decades passed

Where if you had referred to the official Whatever you decided was the defining people of the of the church

They're wrong If you say this Is an ecumenical council with dogmatic authority

Then for 33 years nobody knew Nobody knew

I think I might have and I let me see if I can Grab it

Yeah, so yeah, we'll probably

I probably do want to look through so many things because some of the quotations From the

The council It people refer to as the council of hereia and It met on February 10th 754 in the palace of hereia just north of calcedon

So a lot of these things took place in the same general area present were 338 bishops

There are 300 by tradition. There were 308 or 318 at Nicaea.

So it's bigger than Nicaea one The same general area, you know

And it meets from February 10th 754 to August of 754.

All right, so 33 years pass Before the second council of Nicaea which repudiates the council of hereia and Does a complete 180 just Exact opposite conclusions

Based upon the same data. Well, that's because neither one of them Were really functioning on that And unfortunately by this time in history like John of Damascus for example

Had defended icons and he's considered the great defender of icons the vast majority of citations

He used were either fraudulent Or he misunderstood them

You know, you can you can respect the man but We have significantly better opportunity to evaluate statements today historically than they had at that point in time and They would only get worse in the medieval period so that the

Pseudo -Isidorean decretals I've referred to you too many times in the past, you know, we're like 98 % forgeries and yet they were considered authoritative and Theology was determined and ecclesiology and everything else on the basis of this type of stuff

Created quite a mess. So if you reject solo scriptura, what are you gonna do?

What are you gonna do with history what are you gonna do with the Aryan resurgence? What are you gonna do with the 33 years similar time frame?

Between Hereia and the second Nicene Council where everything gets flipped on its head

How are you supposed to know these are questions that need to be need to be considered and It's worth going into those things and I know some of you're like,

I don't know. Hey look, like I said there are There are a lot of people make a decision there's a there's a woman on Hmm Oh Someone just Just let my friend at the seminary know that I mentioned her on the radio on the radio

I radio man talk about being old on the on the webcast. It might be on a radio station someplace.

Who knows? Now that made that scene of that made me completely jump my train of thought where I was

I was gonna go there but oh well If you reject solo scriptura

Then you have to recognize That in these interregnums in these periods because remember when

Nicaea one was held no one knew what an ecumenical council was That's something that developed over time

The the the persecution the church only it only ended a few years

You know 12 years 13 years before the Council of Nicaea depending on where you were in the Roman Empire So no one knew what an ecumenical council was

No one had this theology that said well once an ecumenical council speaks, then it's it's unquestionable because they overturned

Nicaea at a reminem But no one has ever heard of a reminem today doesn't have any authority it did then how would you have known that you couldn't

Not not from that paradigm Not from that paradigm you couldn't Of course our argument is obviously the teaching of the deity of Christ is the objectively concluded

Doctrine of the revealed scriptures if you apply the same standards of hermeneutics

To the New Testament and Old Testament scriptures. They will teach you that the New Testament writers identified

Jesus as Yahweh all right, so The council of a reminem can meet and they can't change that they can't change that objective reality

In the same way when it comes to images in worship and The idea of veneration.

Well, well Remember years and years and years ago Patrick Madrid did some commentary about the debate that he and I did on the veneration of saints and angels

And so I think it's the only debate I've ever done this but we went back over it on the program did like three or four programs as I recall

Responding to everything that he had said And one of the things we emphasized is the

Argumentation used at Nicaea to by Roman Catholicism today by Eastern Orthodoxy today is

Simply a gross misrepresentation of the original language. Oh, it can't be the Eastern Orthodox. They speak Greek.

I don't care Tradition can make anybody say almost anything and the reality is that when you look at the

Hebrew term Ahav it's translated in the Greek septuagint as both to serve and to worship

So you can't say well, I'm only serving the image. I'm giving Doolia to the image and not

Latrua That is not sustainable in light of what the

Bible itself says And you can and all you can do on the other side is say yeah But a council said otherwise, so what the council was told what conclusions to come to by The Empire by the governmental authorities and Maybe by you know

The monks all got together and they wanted to do their thing and yeah, you know at Ephesus They'd actually beat each other up.

And so they are at different views, but not the case here at Second Nicaea So it's not a matter of exegesis, it's a matter of all the stuff that comes outside and That's where the problem is.

That's where the problem is. That's where it lies so Yeah it never really discussed all that stuff before and that was just simply a quick outline of This is what happened.

No one's ever heard of he area before Um, so I don't know that it took place because once you lose later on and Look how many people who are at the area are still alive 33 years later?

Lifespans were not as long back then The people that eventually win get to write the histories and So all this stuff just disappears.

Remember what remember what Augustine said to Maximus the Aryan? He said I Cannot quote the authority of Nicaea to you and you cannot quote the authority of Ariminem against me

Let us go to what's common to both the testimony of Scripture. Remember that? yeah, there's a reason why that's important and there's a reason why both

Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox reject solo scriptura because solo scriptura would correct both of them and Since they both claim infallible religious authority in slightly different ways

The the the claim of infallibility for the Orthodoxy is significantly mushier than the real blatant claim of you know,

Vatican one or something like that, but it's still there and Scripture would correct them and correct their tradition

If they'd allow it to but once you establish these things then you you don't want that to happen so Anyway, all right little church history educational stuff today probably weren't expecting that and How do you go from Andrew Tate to the second council of Nicaea?

That's a That was a big jump. That was a big jump. No choice about it The the clutch may never never survive

May need to have that replaced very very quickly. All right. Anyways, thanks for listening the program today