WWUTT 1340 Q&A Avoiding Pragmatism, Black Hebrew Israelites, and the Perpetual Virginity of Mary

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How weak is our flesh to pragmatism in worship and how can we avoid it?

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Who are the black Hebrew Israelites? And is the perpetual virginity of marriage a biblical doctrine?

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The answer is when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the Word of God that we may be conformed to the image of Christ.

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Visit our website at www .utt .com. And don't forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. I'm flying solo again this week and I'm hoping to get

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Becky in next week. I know I say that every week. But we're putting off our Christmas program until next week.

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The episode that we were going to do, taking your questions about Christmas, you can still submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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When I talked about this last week, I missed that Christmas falls on a Friday this year.

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So of course we got to wait to do our Christmas episode until Christmas Day and I will make a concerted effort to make sure

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Becky is on that episode. Right now we are recording from a storage closet at First Baptist Church in Lyndale, Texas.

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This was like the most soundproof room that I could find. It didn't echo a whole lot.

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All the junk in here actually keeps the sound contained. It doesn't bounce off the walls and stuff.

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And so because the studio is set up here at the church, it makes it a lot more difficult to be able to get Becky here and record.

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We had a friend watch the kids for us a couple of weeks ago when Becky was on the episode. Someone was so kind to do that for us.

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And until we are able to get our own house and I'm able to move the studio back home, this is probably the way it's going to be from one week to the next.

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Either we bring the kids with us, we find something for them to do, or somebody watches them for us.

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But yeah, it's going to be as it works out for Becky to be able to come and do this with me.

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That'll determine whether or not she's going to be on the episode. But since we have a much shorter week in the office this coming week,

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I've got more days to work with. Hopefully I can get her in here and we can get that Christmas episode recorded.

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A lot of the stuff we're going to share probably going to be coming from my book, 25 Christmas myths and what the

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Bible says. You can download that for your Kindle right now. In fact, it's just, I think like three bucks for your

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Kindle. Very easy read, good holiday read for you there talking about the wonder of this holiday that we love so much and remembering as we read in first Timothy one 15 that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

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That's what we celebrate at Christmas. We celebrate that as Christians all year long.

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We don't just celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Christ at Easter. In fact, we remember that every

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Sunday that we gather as a church because that's the day that Jesus rose from the dead.

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So that's why Sunday is the Lord's day and we as a church gather to worship the

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Lord on that day. So it's not just at Christmas we remember the gift of our Savior into this world.

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We're preaching that gospel message all the time and it's not just on Easter that we remember the resurrection of our

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Lord, but that should be something that's in our hearts all the time that we know

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I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me. I've been baptized into his death and risen again to new life and I'm looking forward to the new resurrection when we will join the

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Lord forever in glory on that day. And Christ will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.

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The passage that we have in Philippians 3 verses 20 and 21, our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a

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Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. So do not cling too closely to the things of this world, long for the things of heaven and let your whole life be a longing for the eternal kingdom that is to come.

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As we have in Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 through 4, if then you have been raised with Christ and you have been right buried with Christ in my sins, risen again to new life.

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If you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

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Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

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When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

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These words from the apostle Paul, much like the words that Jesus shared in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter 6, where he says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all the things you need on earth will be added to you as well.

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I'm very pleased speaking of the Sermon on the Mount that here at the start of 2021, we're going to be preaching through the

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Sermon on the Mount at First Baptist Church here in Lindale, Texas. I'm going to be doing that with Dr.

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Tom Buck. He and I are going to alternate sermons. I think he's going to do three or four at a time and then

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I'll do one or two, something like that. By the way, you can watch the sermons when you go to our website, fbclindale .com.

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I'm not putting sermons on the podcast feed for now, simply because I'm not preaching every

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Sunday right now. I am going to be doing Sunday nights with regularity. There's a class I'm going to be teaching on Wednesday evening, and then there's other stuff

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I'm doing throughout the week. But Sunday morning sermons are not a regular thing for me since I'm not the senior pastor.

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I'm the associate pastor. Therefore, I'm not going to try to put a sermon on the podcast feed, which you're subscribed to.

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I hope anyway, right. You're subscribed to when we understand the text. Anyway, used to be that I would put my sermons on the on the

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Sunday upload, but I'm not doing that right now. You can still listen to sermons, whether they come from Tom or from me or whoever would be preaching.

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When you go to fbclindale .com, you can either listen to the sermon audio or you can watch it as a video.

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There's there's both of them that are there. Dr. Buck just finished up going through Exodus and all of the

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Exodus sermons dating all the way back to 2017 are right there on the website. So you could get a whole

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Exodus series there if you wanted. I contributed one. I got one sermon in there. It was like the third to last sermon, but it was great to be part of that because that was a multi -year endeavor there for First Baptist Church to be going through the book of Exodus.

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We're going to go through the sermon on the Mount for the first, you know, third of 2021 or the first half of 2021.

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And then we've got another sermon series we will be doing after that. I'm also trying to work trying to write a 40 day devotional series through the sermon on the

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Mount. I thought about publishing this to go with our sermon series, but I think

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I'm going to wait until the end because that way I can rip off some of Tom's sermons to get them in the book.

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It'll be like a condensed version of of the sermon series and put into 40 days in the sermon on the

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Mount. I think that's going to be the name of it. It'll be something like that. Anyway, look for that in the in the mid to late spring.

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I've got some questions I'm going to get to here in just a moment. But first, I wanted to play this clip from Todd Freel, which he featured on Wretched recently, and I happened to catch that they changed their studio like the color scheme in their studio is different.

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I'm not sure how long ago Todd had done this. I was listening to the podcast occasionally, but I don't always catch the video clips.

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I like the look. It's very retro. I love the look. In fact, I think it looks absolutely fantastic.

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You'll have to go on Wretched's YouTube page and watch some of their most recent videos to see what

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I'm talking about. Anyway, this particular clip caught my attention because how he starts off here talking, he describes a scenario that's all too familiar.

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I've been through this many, many times. In fact, I'm even going to jump in and share my own experiences here.

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Listen to this from Todd Freel. Welcome back to our Wretched. Prepare for a drama that perhaps you have starred in.

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It's the pastor's study preacher working on his text for his

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Sunday sermon when suddenly hears a this is a pretty lavish recreation we're doing here.

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Budget wasn't spared. Come in, parishioner pragmatic.

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How can I help you today? Oh, pastor, we're so glad that you're here. We wanted to let you know how much we love your preaching.

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We have never been the same since we started attending this church. You open up the

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Bible. It teaches us. It convicts us. It comforts us. We can't thank you enough.

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And because the pastor has been in this drama before, he waits for the shoe to drop and it is a conjunction.

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You know what the next word is. Pastor. And you know where this is going, right?

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Have you been this person or you've seen this happen in your church, or maybe you're a pastor or somebody that works in the ministry of the church somehow, and you've been on the receiving end of this before now he sets the

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Todd sets this up as the pastors in his office. Somebody comes over to talk. That's not usually how this goes.

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It especially didn't go this way in 2020 because we've had to, you know, social distance from one another.

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So hardly anybody's ever come to the church. And I actually worked from home for most of the year as well.

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So this isn't a sort of a scenario that plays out with somebody coming to my office and saying, Hey, we've loved the teaching, but I don't think we're going to be coming back.

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Usually it's a phone call and it's a call that I have made. So this family has come to the church for two, three weeks in a row.

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I give them a call and I say, Hey, it's nice to meet you guys. We've seen you for a few weeks. I just wanted to follow up and see if you had any questions and it's opening that door that they respond with,

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Hey, we've loved the teaching. You are a faithful minister of the word, such a wonderful thing to find a church where the pastor is going verse by verse through the scriptures, giving us the meat of the

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Bible. Thank you so much for that. We love the teaching. We've been growing through that teaching, but we're not going to be coming back.

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And when I asked them, why aren't you coming back? And then the answer goes like this.

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Let me pick up where Todd left off here. But pastor, the church is so small.

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We don't understand why you're preaching. It's so amazing. And there just aren't any programs for the kids.

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So I'm afraid we have to go to a church down the street.

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The pastor who has been around this block before wisely asks, tell me about that church, do they preach the

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Bible? Because if they do, he will most certainly give them his blessing.

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I understand we'd prefer you stay, but for the sake of your family and their spiritual growth, we can understand why you would go to a another

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Bible based church, but lo and behold, that is not the case.

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It is a fun center with whoop -dee -doo programs that amuse the masses and that entertain the kids and the parents decide that's where we got to go.

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So the kids won't crab all the time about going to church.

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Congratulations. If you have been in that play, you have succumbed to the illness, the malady, the virus of pragmatism.

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And rarely will I ever argue with the person in that scenario. They say that they don't want to stay.

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They want to find more programs for the kids. That's fine. I'm not going to change your mind.

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We're going to sit here and argue about it and you're going to get offended by something I'm going to say. So I know that's not going to keep you here.

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But there was an occasion about a year ago where we had a nice family came to our church.

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They were there for several weeks. I followed up with the husband and he told me that they weren't going to be coming back because they needed more programs for the kids.

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And I don't know if there was just something about that day. I was more frustrated. And this guy got all my frustration from all the people who answered the same way that he does over the last several years.

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Poor guy. You know, this time I decided to argue with him. And when he said he wasn't going to be coming back,

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I put it on him and I said, well, then where are you going to go? And he was just kind of like caught.

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He hadn't thought that through. I don't think he really knew where he was going to go, or he really did know where he was going to go.

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And he just didn't want to admit because he just told me, I love the teaching here. You're teaching verse by verse through the scriptures.

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I have a pretty good idea. I know where he was going and he didn't want to admit that he was going there because that was not what he was going to be receiving at that church.

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It was not doctrinally sound. It was not expository in the preaching. It was, it was not where you receive good sanctification and growth through the word of God.

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In fact, the church that I'm pretty sure he went to was even egalitarian. They had women pastors there. He just didn't want to answer the question.

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And so refusing to tell me where it was that he was going to go. I said, so let me get this straight. You think that we're preaching through the word.

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You want to go somewhere else where they're not preaching through the word, but at least they have good programs for the kids.

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Do you really think that's better for your kids to go somewhere? They're not preaching the Bible as long as they have a good entertaining programs.

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And boy, he got really mad when I asked him that question. I wasn't heated when

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I said that I was arguing, but I wasn't heated. Am I my argument? And he got really upset with that.

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And of course he didn't come back. And that's why I don't ever argue whenever a person tells me that, because you're just going to get upset at whatever it is that I got to say that I'm going to say, and then

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I know you're not going to stay. Uh, we did have something similar to this happen. Just six weeks before I left the church, uh, in junction city for Southern Baptist church there in junction city, there was a couple, they did not have kids, but they called me before, uh, six weeks out before I'm about to leave.

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And they say, we're not coming back. We don't feel welcome here. We don't feel like we belong.

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And that really was not an indictment against me. I felt really terrible for the way he was talking about the members of the congregation.

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I couldn't believe he felt that way about people in the church. Cause that wasn't true. It was absolutely not true that they just didn't feel like that they belonged or that they were a part of this church.

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I know why he wanted to leave, but again, I wasn't, I wasn't going to argue with him about that. And it was, uh, it was very sad because, um, a lot of his responses there were similar to what

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Todd was saying there. Why aren't there a lot of people here? We just don't see a lot of fruit here.

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That was some of the things that he was saying. He did not have a heart for our church, but he was blaming us.

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You don't make us feel like we're welcome. There's not a lot of people here. So we don't, we don't see any fruit here.

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Things like that. It's pragmatism. You're following your feelings instead of knowing that this church is faithful to preaching the word.

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This church is preaching the gospel. I hear it in what is coming from the sermons, but because I'm not feeling something, it must be your fault.

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Be very, very careful about that. This was something we talked about this past week as we've been going through Romans chapter 12, where, uh, it says love one another with a brotherly affection.

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And I talked about how that differs from let love be genuine because loving one another with brotherly affection indicates devotion, there is a devotion to one another, you're not blaming others because you're not feeling a certain thing in church, but rather a commitment to that church means that we're with each other through thick and thin.

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That's the way families are. That's the way we are to be in the family of God.

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Let's continue with, uh, with Todd Friel's, uh, little thing here. He's going to bring in some clips from Votie Bauckham as well.

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What is your seemingly good goal to make sure the kids want to go to church?

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Unfortunately, that is not the right goal. If you decide we just need the kids to be happy, quit squawking and go

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Wednesday nights, therefore what's going to happen? You're not going to send them to a dull

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Bible study. You're going to send them to a center that amuses them.

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That is pragmatism. Now, I want you to imagine for a moment, you're the pastor and you have been in that meeting more than once.

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How many times would you endure that before you started to think, well, huh, maybe we need to become more like that church down the street.

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I mean, we're losing everybody here. I guess we better stop with all the Bible studies and the boring youth group teaching, we better become seeker sensitive.

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It is a temptation for pastor and parishioner alike.

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And I will admit I've been there before. I have asked those questions. I think there is something reflective in that sometimes that can be good.

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You know, if people are leaving, it's worthy to look at yourself and say, are we doing something wrong?

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But if what I'm looking at is we love the people that are in our congregation, we care for others.

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We're faithful to the text. All of our classes are preaching scripture. We're teaching the

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Bible to our kids. We are expositing the scriptures from the pulpit. If everything there looks like it is being done to the glory of God, faithfulness to his word, worship unto his name, then there's no reason for me to have to doubt what it is that we're doing.

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I know why people are not coming to church when you're faithful to the worship of God and worshiping the way that God says he is to be worshiped.

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I know why people don't come for that. It's because they don't want to worship God. They don't want to worship him the way that God has said he is to be worshiped.

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They want to worship their own way. And then they even run the risk of raising up an idol and worshiping a

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God who's different than the God of the Bible or the Christ that's different than the Christ of the scriptures.

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That's a very scary place to put yourself. But that is that's why

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I know people are not coming to here and sitting under or remaining under faithful teaching.

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It's because they want something in their flesh rather than with their whole heart wanting

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God. So there is something there, I think, in in being reflective, looking at what you're doing and making sure that the church is continuing steadfastly in the principles that God has laid down in scripture.

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But then there's also that tendency in my flesh to wonder if I could be doing something to attract more people.

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That's a scary place to get to as well, because then I might want to compromise on the word.

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I might want to I might think to myself, maybe not preaching on this so much or maybe even softening what it is that I'm saying because I don't want to drive anybody away.

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What is it that I can do to bring more people in? I admit it. I can be weak in my flesh in in those occasions when

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I start thinking about maybe there's something that I can do to become more pragmatic, to make people like us more.

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But Todd and with his friend Vody are going to give us some solutions to that feeling that tends to creep into our flesh.

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Listen in. Question, how do we go about the business of warring against and defeating the disease of pragmatism?

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When it comes to the way that we approach worship, there are a couple of historical ideas that we have about worship coming out of the

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Reformation. There were two main ideas. There was a Lutheran Anglican idea that was called the normative principle, and the normative principle of worship basically said that in our worship and think about this, we're coming out of the

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Reformation. We understand worship from a Roman Catholic perspective, and we understand that theologically that's wrong.

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It's inappropriate. That's not what we're doing in worship. But what do we do? What do we let go of?

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And what do we keep? Well, from the Lutheran Anglican perspective, the idea was in worship, we do those things that God prescribes in his word plus anything that is not expressly prohibited.

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That's the Lutheran slash Anglican idea. The Puritan idea was known as the regulative principle, and the regulative principle states that we can and must only incorporate in our worship those things that are expressly prescribed in scripture and nothing else.

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There is your cure to pragmatism, the regulative principle of worship.

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Not asking what seem to be good questions like, what type of worship do

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I like? What sort of services do I prefer? What must we do on Sunday morning to grow attendance?

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What must we deliver to the masses to keep them coming back? Wrong questions.

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The right question is, what does God want church to be?

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Normative worship says, this pleases me. I will give it to God as worship.

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Or worse yet, this pleases lost people, so we will give it to God as worship.

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Whereas regulative worship says, I will look and investigate and listen and hear exactly what

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God says he delights in, in worship, and I will give him that.

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Because my starting point in worship is not man and what satisfies him, but God and what satisfies him.

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Take a dose of the regulative principle and you will kill the disease of pragmatism.

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Let us, as we consider what we are doing as a called out assembling of the saints on Sunday morning, let our question not be what pleases people, what pleases me, but what pleases

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God. That correct question will forever put an end to pragmatic, seeker, sensitive, unbiblical methods forever.

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You can find more great clips from Todd Freel when you go to wretched dot

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TV. Let's get to some of our questions here. Good morning or afternoon. I don't know what time it is in the

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U S my name is Linda. I live in France and I always follow your YouTube videos.

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WWU TT. I sometimes don't agree with some things that you say, but again, I don't know much during the black lives matters thing.

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I wasn't quite okay with all that you said, but I can see why you said it. Anyway, your videos helped me a lot with my faith during these last two years.

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Today, I come to seek for help with a matter concerning my elder sister. She met this guy here in France and he is from the

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U S he claims to be a black Hebrew and says really extreme things such as only the blacks are the true

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Hebrews and are saved and that the Caucasians along with the Asians will be destroyed by the

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Lord. My sister has been seduced by the guy and the movement. I have tried as much as I could with very little knowledge

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I have of the text, but it is not really doing much. I tried Galatians three 14, which talks about the promise made to Abraham and his posterity,

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Jesus Christ, and how through him, all nations who believe in his sacrifice will be saved.

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I tried John for God. So love the world, but still nothing. I think it is because I am her sister that she really does not listen.

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Please pastor Gabe. Can you do a video on the black Hebrew racist movement?

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I have lost several family members through the years. She is my only living sister.

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Pray for her, please. And can you please make a video that I can show her and that might help have a beautiful day.

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Thank you in advance. Well, I appreciate your email, Linda. Yeah, she is definitely caught up in false teaching and she needs to run from that guy.

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But I understand what you say about her being your sister. And there does kind of seem to be that thing sometimes when we're talking to a sibling and they don't want to hear it from us, they might receive that message from somebody else a little bit better than if it came from one of their own flesh and blood brothers and sisters.

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So I'll certainly pray for you in that. The Hebrew black Israelite movement is definitely a cult.

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It is heresy. It is damnable heresy. And as you identified, Linda, it's most definitely racist.

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So I'll work on putting a video together for that. I had worked on a script at one point. I'll actually have to go back and see if I still have that script.

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Just never produced it. I was going to do it after the whole Covington thing.

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Do you remember this? Would have been almost two years ago now, January or February of twenty nineteen.

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There was an indigenous people's march that was going on in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D .C.,

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and there was also a group of high school students from Covington High School somewhere in Kentucky.

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I think they were just in Washington, D .C., just touring D .C. I don't think they were there for the march or anything like that.

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But some of those students were wearing were wearing MAGA hats, the red Make America Great Again hat,

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Donald Trump. Right. So Nathan Phillips, who was one of the Native American or the

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Indian descendants that was marching in this group, went right up to the face of Nicholas Sandman, who was one of the high school students.

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He was a high school kid as a part of this group. And he and Phillips is beating on this drum in the face of Nicholas Sandman, wearing a

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MAGA hat. And he's just grinning at Phillips, because what are you going to do in that sort of a situation?

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There was all sorts of protests that were going on. Anyway, I bring this up because it wasn't just the the indigenous people's march.

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It wasn't just the Covington kids that were there. There were also black Hebrew Israelites who were there and they were kind of escalating the whole conflict.

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Hardly anybody talked about that group who got all the attention. Well, it was Phillips and Sandman, because Sandman got painted in the news as being some white supremacist.

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Why? Because he was wearing a MAGA hat and he was a white guy grinning in the face of Nathan Phillips, who was confronting him.

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And Phillips lied about the whole thing when he was interviewed and he talked about the whole scenario. He just lied about it.

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Sandman was was painted horribly in the media and got a huge payday as a result of it as well.

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He sued those media groups that were calling him a white supremacist, got millions of dollars,

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I think hundreds of millions of dollars from the settlements in these lawsuits. Good on him, because this this was an agenda and he became a victim of that agenda.

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And there were a lot of Christians, Christian leaders who were involved in this whole painting.

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Sandman is some sort of a white supremacist as well. J .D. Greer, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, he was one of them and even apologized for some of the tweets that he made.

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Beth Moore never apologized for hers, and she probably had one of the worst comments she said to glee in dehumanizing any person is so utterly anti Christ.

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It reeks of the vomit of hell. That's what she said about Nicholas Sandman.

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She deleted the tweet, but she never apologized for it. Thabiti Anuabili, he also made some comments about it.

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Karen Swallow Prior tweeted, I'm sick to my stomach, Lord help. And all of this was reaction to the way that the media was painting this situation, which was totally wrong.

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And again, the black Hebrew Israelites that were there, they got hardly any press from it at all, because this is during the height of Black Lives Matter.

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And we can't make any of the of the blacks who were involved in this look bad.

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So that's why they mostly got kind of passed over on all the coverage of this thing.

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But they were there escalating the situation. They were taunting people as they walked by.

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They were shouting scripture from these red books that they have. So there were some people that wrote in and they were asking me, can you do a video on the black

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Hebrew Israelites? Because this is started up a lot of conversations about this online, but we don't have any quick go to videos where we can show people here's who the black

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Hebrew Israelites are. So I wrote a script from that. I don't know if I ever even finished the script, but I know that I never finished the video.

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I'll have to go back and revisit that again. And yeah, Linda, I'll certainly put a video together on that.

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But let's talk about this group for a little bit here. Who are the black Hebrews, also called the black

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Israelites or the black Hebrew Israelites? Now, some of the stuff I'm going to read to you here comes from got questions dot org.

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So some of these words are from got questions and some of them are mine. I'll be interjecting with my own commentary here.

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The black Hebrew Israelites, that term actually refers to several independent groups whose unifying characteristic is that their members are of black

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African descent and they claim Hebrew or Israelite ancestry.

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That's what they have in common. But there's going to be some different groups that believe in different things. Let me single out two of them, the original

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African Hebrew Israelite nation of Jerusalem and the nation of Yahweh.

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So that's two different black Israelite groups and they believe different things. The African Hebrew Israelites believe that after the

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Roman expulsion of the Jews from the land of Israel, many Jews migrated to West Africa. And from there, their descendants were transported by slave ships to the

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United States where the group began in the 1960s. And according to this view, the biblical

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Hebrews of the Old Testament times had multiracial descendants. Members of the nation of Yahweh believe that all of the

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Old Testament prophets, Jesus Christ and God himself are all black. They believe that all whites, but especially

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Jews, are infidels whom they call white devils. Only blacks are true

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Jews. This group is considered a black supremacist group by many and has a history of violence and terror.

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That might be the reason why you did not hear about the black Israelites exacerbating things during the whole

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Covington debacle in Washington, D .C. back at the start of twenty nineteen. It's because they're black supremacist.

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So if we're going to paint a certain group as white supremacist, we got to be sure to leave out the black supremacist group because they're according to the

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Black Lives Matter philosophy. There's no such thing as black supremacy. The title of supremacy belongs only to the majority race, ethnicity or skin color.

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Really, who who is it that has the certain shade of melanin and who is the most dominant group?

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Therefore, since there's more whites than blacks, there are only white supremacists, but there cannot be black supremacists.

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That's one of the reasons why the narrative was spun the way that it was surrounding the Covington high school kids and the black

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Hebrew Israelites were just kind of left out because they were definitely going to be raising accusations of black supremacy.

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And we can't make the blacks look bad. We're trying to make the whites look bad.

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That's what this whole narrative was going on that was being spun anyway. So continuing on in in nineteen sixty six, the

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African Israelite founder and leader, Ben Ami, which means son of my people.

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His birth name is Ben Carter, and he's from Chicago. Anyway, Ben Ami claimed to have been visited by the angel

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Gabriel. This sounds really familiar, right? Where have we heard this before? You have Joseph Smith claimed to be visited by the angel

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Moroni. You have Mohammed claimed to have been visited by the angel Gabriel. According to Ben Ami, Gabriel instructed him to lead the children of Israel to the promised land and establish the long awaited kingdom of God.

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Ben Ami then established the original African Hebrew Israelite nation of Jerusalem and led approximately 400 members to the

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West African nation of Liberia for a two and a half year period of purification. From there, those who remain for the entire two and a half years began migrating to Israel in waves.

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That was in nineteen sixty nine was when that started. The authorities in Israel did not accept

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Ben Ami and his followers as biblical Jews. Imagine that and did not deem them entitled to citizenship under the

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Israeli right of return law. Instead, the African Israelites were granted temporary tourist visas.

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Legal troubles ensued when it became apparent that the African Israelites had no intention of ever leaving.

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The Jewish authorities did not want to expel them, however, and face accusations of racial discrimination.

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Now, the thing that's going on here is that the African Israelites are claiming that they're

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Jews and the Jews are saying, no, you're not. So they're self identifying as Jews and the nation of Israel is refusing what they're identifying as.

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Now, this goes back years, this was decades ago. This has been going on for a lot longer than what we've just been experiencing in the last decade with people claiming to be, you know, whatever they want to be.

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Men claiming to be women, women claiming to be men. That's perfectly OK, according to the culture.

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But you cannot claim to be another ethnicity or race. Remember the whole thing with Rachel Dolezal a couple of years ago?

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She was a white woman claiming to be black, was even serving as an official of the

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NAACP. And she got outed for that. This woman is not actually black. She is white.

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She could not claim to be a black person. So you can now if she was a woman claiming to be a man, that would have been totally acceptable.

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But she cannot be a white woman claiming to be black. However, there are blacks who have made the claim to be ethnicities that they're not going back with the black

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Hebrew Israelites, for example, and because the nation of Israel would not recognize them as Jews, Israel was called racist.

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Right. After much perseverance, the group was finally granted residency in 2004.

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This allowed them to stay in Israel, but not as full citizens. In 2008, there were approximately 2500

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African Israelites living in Israel. They adhere to strict dietary and behavioral laws, which include veganism and the

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Old Testament mosaic law. Now, these are just two of what are many black

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Hebrew Israelite subsects, each one distinct and independent from the others.

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Other black Hebrew Israelite groups include the Church of the Living God, the Pillar Ground of Truth for all nations, the

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Church of God and Saints of Christ and the Commandment Keepers. What they have in common is that they are of black

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African descent and they claim to have descended from the biblical Hebrews of the

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Old Testament. That's all that they have in common. But these groups are all independent from one another.

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So if you find one group that's called a black Hebrew Israelite, they they're not going to be the same as somebody else.

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They may not necessarily be of the same group as someone else who calls themselves a black Hebrew Israelite. There's a group of black

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Jews living in Africa today who practice a very ancient form of Judaism. And unlike the modern, original

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African Hebrew Israelite nation of Jerusalem, that's quite a name. But the

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Beta Israel group of Ethiopia is accepted by the majority of Jews and by the nation of Israel as being historically

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Jewish. Remember that there were Jewish colonies that were set up in Africa even at the time of Christ because the

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Roman Empire extended into the northern portion of Africa. Alexandria, for example, there in North Africa, had a

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Jewish, a Jewish settlement. And that's where Joseph and Mary and Jesus would have fled to when they were trying to escape from Herod.

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They would have gone into Africa because we know they went into Egypt and they would have stayed in the settlement there in Alexandria.

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So there is a group of Jews who have become Jews because they would have converted to Judaism with those

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Jewish groups that were planted there on the northern end of Africa. They became Jews.

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So there are some Africans that do have or are from a

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Jewish descent. They're recognized as being historically Jewish. When it comes to the question of the black

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Hebrew Israelites, though, it's not so much a matter of whether there are groups of blacks with partial

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Jewish ancestry living in the world today. The question is whether these particular groups claiming Jewish ancestry truly are descendants of the biblical

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Hebrews, whether or not any of the black Hebrew Israelite groups have Jewish ancestry is not the most important issue, even if it could be conclusively proven that a black

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Hebrew Israelite faction is partially genetically descendant of from the biblical

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Israelites. What these groups believe is far more serious, and each one has varying degrees of beliefs that are completely unbiblical.

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There is not, to my knowledge, a black Hebrew Israelite group that is actually

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Orthodox in their teaching. They're all downright heretical. The most crucial error is a misunderstanding or in some cases even a denial of who

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Jesus Christ is, what he taught and how his death and resurrection provide the way of salvation.

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But a lot of these black Hebrew Israelite groups, and it sounds like the one that Linda's sister's boyfriend is a part of, a lot of them believe that only the blacks are saved.

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The whites are going to go to hell or you have to become a black

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Hebrew Israelite in order to gain salvation. That's heresy. And you would literally have to change the color of your skin in order to be saved.

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And it simply cannot be done. So just because someone is descendant from a

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Jewish race does not mean that that group is more favored by God than anyone else.

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And I think that Linda was on the right track, even though she says there that she is not very learned in the scripture, she was on the right track to point right to Galatians chapter three.

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It's in verse seven where it says, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

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And at the end of the chapter, if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

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Those who are in Christ Jesus have been baptized into Christ and put on Christ.

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Our salvation is Christ, not the color of our skin, not even because we are descended from Jews.

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Salvation is by faith in Christ alone. Thank you again for your email,

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Linda. And and I'll do my best. I'm putting a video together on that as quickly as I can.

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The next video that I've got coming out is actually in regards to the Sixth Commandment. Thou shalt not murder.

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And and this was brought about because of recent debates that have been stirred up due to some death penalties that have been carried out here in the

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United States. People are saying that the death penalty is unbiblical. Well, no, actually, it's in the

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Bible. It's part of the law. If a person kills someone else, what's supposed to happen to them? They're supposed to be put to death because that is a life for a life.

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And that is justice. There are many who are saying that, no, that is an unbiblical thing.

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That's unchristian of us to be demanding the death penalty. We need to abolish it. We mean we need to do away from it, need to do away with it.

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And this is not just coming from the left. There are Christians saying this as well.

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Of course, the left has said this. Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez, she came out and said we need to abolish the death penalty.

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Pete Buttigieg said something about it as well. I mean, the irony there is that you're talking leftist

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Democrats who value abortion, the murder of unborn children, and they're calling the death penalty wrong.

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So putting a person to death who did abominable, heinous things, that's wrong.

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But killing an innocent child is OK. Yeah, that's that's the the moral conflict existing within our nation now, the seared conscience by which

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America operates at the present. Anyway, let's go on to another question here.

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This one is from Joel. He says, hey, I had a topic of review for you to do in your video.

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And he links to one of the what videos you said repent of your sin. There's several videos

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I've said this in, so I don't think it's necessary for me to play the video. Can you show me the scriptures that say to repent of your sins?

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I'm unable to find that passage. Please let me know what you find. I think he sent this email as a gotcha.

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He thought I was going to go look for passages and go, oh, well, there's nothing there that says repent of your sin.

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I've been around this before. There are people even who had come into my church in the past who had said it was wrong to preach repentance of sins because there's nothing in the

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Bible that says repent of your sins. Well, in Luke 1510, Jesus says, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

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In Luke 17, three through four, Jesus said, pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him.

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And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times saying

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I repent, you must forgive him. Repent of what he's repenting of the sins that he just did.

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That's exactly the context. Jesus also said, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer.

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And on the third day, rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations.

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Luke 24, 47, repentance for the forgiveness of sins. In Acts 319, it is said, repent, therefore, and turn back that your sins may be blotted out, because that's what repenting means.

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It means to turn back, to turn around, to stop going the direction that you're going in. Specifically, we're turning from being in pursuit of sin, the passions of our flesh, the ways of this world, the schemes of Satan.

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And we're going from being in pursuit of that to being in pursuit of Christ. So when you repent of your sin, you believe in Jesus.

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Hence why Jesus declared the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel.

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Mark 115, turn from the way of destruction to the way of salvation.

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That's what happens when we repent in every one of these videos where I say, repent of your sin.

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I don't just say, repent of your sin. I say, repent and turn to Christ and be forgiven, because that's exactly what the

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Bible says. Jesus is the one who gives salvation. The one who continues to pursue sin has not repented.

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They continue to be enslaved in sin rather than becoming a slave to Christ, which is what

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Paul talks about in Romans chapter six. If we truly turn to Christ, then we're not going to be walking in those sins for which

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Christ died. If the grace of God has been poured into our hearts, if we've been forgiven our sins and we turn from that way of life to a way of righteousness, then we're not going to be walking in those sins anymore.

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We've repented of sin and now we believe in and follow Jesus. So that's what's being meant there by repent of sin.

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And it is thoroughly a biblical concept just because you don't find that exact phrase repent of your sins written in scripture.

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That's exactly what's being said when we find the command to repent. As we get toward the the close of the program here,

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I'm going to finish up by reading a tweet that I shared yesterday on Twitter. I think it was yesterday that I published this and some of the responses that I got from it.

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What I said was this. The perpetual virginity of Mary is a ridiculous doctrine.

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Do you know what this this doctrine is? It's a Catholic doctrine, although it's not exclusively

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Catholic because there have been some Protestants that have believed this as well. But the Catholic doctrine goes that Mary, after having

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Jesus, remained a virgin. She never her marriage with Joseph was never consummated.

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So she was a perpetual virgin until, well, according to the Catholics, she was snatched away and carried up into heaven, just like Enoch or Elijah.

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But anyway, it's a ridiculous doctrine. And I gave three reasons why the perpetual virginity of Mary is a ridiculous doctrine.

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First, we know Jesus had half siblings. We have mention of his mother and his brothers and sisters in Matthew 12, 46 and in 13 55.

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And we also have the Apostle Paul mentioning that he met with the half brother of Jesus in Galatians 119.

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The second reason why the perpetual virginity of Mary is a ridiculous doctrine, by the way, the assumption of Mary is ridiculous as well.

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That was where I said that she was snatched up into heaven. No, the Bible doesn't say that Mary died a natural death.

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The Catholics teach that she was assumed she rose up into heaven, just like Elijah was taken up into heaven.

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Anyway, second reason why the perpetual virginity of Mary is ridiculous. It's an unbiblical view of virginity, sex and marriage, like it has this implication that sex makes a person impure.

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So if you are married and you're having sex in marriage, you're somehow less holy than a person who is not married and therefore remaining chaste.

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But that's absurd. The Bible doesn't say any such thing. So that's an unbiblical view of virginity, that a person is just automatically more pure just because they were a virgin.

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Folks, I was a virgin before I got married, but I was not pure. OK, I had temptations in things that though I was not sleeping around, you could not call me pure.

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I was every bit as guilty of adultery as someone who is actually committing adultery because of what

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Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter five. If you lust after a woman in your heart, then you have committed adultery with her in your heart.

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That was me. I was addicted to that very thing before I got married. So though I was a virgin,

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I was not pure. We should not have this idea that that virginity is inherently purity.

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But that's what the perpetual virginity of Mary teaches if you hold to that doctrine.

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And then it also has an unbiblical view of marriage because a marriage is consummated with sex, like it becomes more whole unity takes place.

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And the Bible says that's supposed to happen. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 19, the two will become one flesh.

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How does that happen? It happens when the marriage is consummated. So the perpetual virginity of Mary is a ridiculous doctrine, first, because we know

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Jesus had half siblings, second, because it has an unbiblical view of virginity, sex and marriage.

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And third, it encourages spouses to deprive one another. In first Corinthians seven, one through five, the apostle

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Paul says that your body does not belong to you. It belongs to your spouse. A husband's body belongs to his wife.

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A wife's body belongs to her husband. So the wife is not to withhold sex from her husband.

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And likewise, a husband is not to withhold sex from his wife. He is to give her her conjugal rights.

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And likewise, the wife is to give her husband his conjugal rights, lest they may fall into sexual temptation or some other sin as a result of that.

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So this is supposed to happen in a marriage. It's what God created sex for, to be enjoyed intimately in a marriage.

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If it was somehow less pure to be married and consummate that marriage and everybody were to live with the utmost holiness, which means singleness and not having sex, then the human race would die.

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We would not be the human race anymore if everybody was doing exactly what the Catholics are teaching about sex and marriage.

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Sex does not make one impious. It is good, duh, and it is consummate.

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It is fruitful. God said, be fruitful and multiply. Genesis 2, 24, which is also something we have in in Matthew chapter 19.

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Children are a treasure from the Lord. That is Psalm 127, verse three, and Proverbs 18, 22 says that marriage is a blessing.

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A man who finds a wife finds a good thing. Marriage is a picture of the way that Christ loves his church, according to Ephesians 532.

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So everything about the perpetual virginity of Mary is unbiblical.

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There is nothing about it that is biblical at all. In Matthew 2, 24 through 25, we read the following.

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When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but he knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called his name

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Jesus. So for that statement to be made there, that Joseph did not know Mary until she had given birth to a son means that they did not consummate their marriage until after she had

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Jesus. The Bible does say that Joseph and Mary, it said indirectly, but it's still there.

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Joseph and Mary did consummate their marriage. So there's no such thing as the perpetual virginity of of Mary.

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However, that didn't stop this anonymous person for saying from saying this.

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It is damnable heresy to believe that Mary had sexual relations. The Holy Fathers from St.

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Cyprian all the way to St. Jerome would count anyone who would dare say such an impious thing as a raging heretic worthy of excommunication.

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That's right, according to this Catholic, I am not a Christian and I am damned because I do not believe in the perpetual virginity of of Mary.

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How ridiculous is that? Our salvation is somehow hinged upon believing whether or not

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Mary remained a virgin for the rest of her life. That's absolutely absurd.

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But the fact of the matter remains that this anonymous person is really following true

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Catholic doctrine. Most Catholics are probably not going to tell you, I believe that you're going to hell because you don't believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary.

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But when you look into Catholic doctrines, when a person rejects that belief, they've rejected the church, they've rejected the teaching of the church, and therefore they've rejected salvation.

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That is according to what historical Catholicism has taught. We're going to talk more about Christmas next week on our

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Christmas episode of when we understand the text. So don't forget to submit your questions to when we understand the text at Gmail dot com.

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Be praying for us. Our house in Kansas just sold. Praise the Lord. So we're homeless.

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Yay. We don't have a house now. We're staying in a borrowed home. Very appreciative of that family that is letting us stay there.

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But now we have to begin the task of looking for a permanent residence to live in here in Lindale, Texas.

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Be in prayer for us as we begin that endeavor. Let me close with prayer here. I want to pray for Linda in France and for the situation that she's got going on with with her sister.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness. Thank you for giving us your son, Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins so that whoever believes in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.

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And it is by faith in Christ that we know salvation, not because of the color of our skin, not because we believe something about Mary, but because we believe in Jesus, we will be saved.

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Grow us in this faith and an understanding of your word. And I pray for Linda, who wrote in today asking for help with her sister.

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I pray that you would give her peace of mind and a soundness in wisdom that she may be able to respond to her sister with the word of God and that the

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Holy Spirit will convict her sister's heart to recognize this man that she's with is a heretic and would lead her to hell unless she gets away from him and clings to Christ.

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I pray that that we would be faithful to the truth that you have laid forth in your word, unwavering in these things, though the world may press upon us, help us to cling to Christ all the more.

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We pray this in Jesus name. Amen. This is when we understand the text with Pastor Gabe Hughes.

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There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours. But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.

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Find a good gospel teaching Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend and join us again Monday for more