WWUTT 1995 Q&A Does Jesus Hate Religion?

Did Jesus hate religion? Did he say that he came to abolish religion?

Is religion somehow contrary to the mission and work of Christ? The answers to these questions when we understand the text.

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

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

Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings everyone. I am flying solo for this particular episode, which is getting posted really late, like the weekend is already over, and I'm dating this for Friday.

It's on the Friday edition that we take questions from the listeners, and you can submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

I am going to respond to a few questions here and explain why this episode is so late.

But first, let's open up the scriptures. We've been reading in Psalm 71 on Friday, so let me pick up here in verse 12, and I'm reading from the

Legacy Standard Bible. O God, do not be far from me. O my

God, hasten to my help. Let those who accuse my soul be ashamed and consumed.

Let them be wrapped up with reproach and dishonor, who seek to do me evil. But as for me,

I will wait continually, and I will praise you yet more and more. My mouth shall recount your righteousness and of your salvation all the day long, for I do not know the sum of them.

I will come with the mighty deeds of Lord Yahweh. I will bring to remembrance your righteousness, yours alone.

So the psalmist here praying, God, do not be far from me, hasten to my help.

Do not let me continue here wallowing in my misery. Now even though the psalmist is saying here how desperate they are and how longing they are for God and wanting

God to show himself in the midst of the psalmist's circumstance, yet the psalmist isn't complaining and not being pushy about it.

Because consider the line in verse 14, as for me, I will wait continually, and I will praise you yet more and more.

So between these two statements, be not far from me, and I will wait continually, is this about the psalmist's adversaries.

This is verse 13. Let those who accuse my soul be ashamed and consumed. Let them be wrapped up with reproach and dishonor, who seek to do me evil.

They try to tempt you to do evil, but you continue to resist, so they mock and deride. This is in 1

Peter 4, where it says, there are those who are godless, and they are puzzled by you, because you won't join them in their flood of debauchery, and so they will malign you.

But they will have to give an account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. So they try to entice you in.

They try to pull you into their sensuous deeds, their worldliness, their pursuing the flesh.

But as you continue to resist, they will continue to hate, desiring to do you evil.

But the psalmist says, I wait continually, and I will praise you yet more and more.

My mouth shall recount your righteousness and of your salvation all day long, for I do not know the sum of them.

When somebody is attempting to tempt you with evil, or maybe in your flesh, you are starting to desire those things that you should not desire.

When stuff in the world is starting to look pretty good, be reminded of the things of God and his word, of his righteousness, what he has said that we are to do, continually pursuing holiness.

Be holy as your heavenly Father is holy, as Peter says in 1 Peter 1. My mouth shall recount your righteousness.

Preach to yourself. Recall words of scripture. Say them to yourself. Or sing hymns, sing songs to yourself that recall

God's goodness to you in Jesus Christ. That Jesus died on the cross for your sins, he rose again from the dead.

Whoever believes in him, our sins are forgiven, and he leads us in paths of righteousness, as said in Psalm 23.

And so the psalmist goes on to say in verse 16, I will come with the mighty deeds of Lord Yahweh.

I will bring to remembrance your righteousness, yours alone.

So while everybody else is going off in wickedness and attempting to entice you into that wickedness, attempting to do wickedness against you, come with the mighty deeds of God.

Continue in the holiness of Christ. Bring to remembrance his righteousness.

Preach those things to yourself and communicate it to others. Tell them the law that they may be convicted of their sin.

And if they are convicted, sharing with them the gospel. For it is only by the gospel, it is only by Christ that we can be forgiven.

All right. If you have the chance to read more of Psalm 71 today, open up your

Bible and do so. Now then, why am I so late with this particular episode? And where is

Becky? Why isn't she with me? Well, we've got a lot going on. We're about to head to G3.

In fact, at the time that you're hearing this, we're probably on the road already, heading down to Georgia. My parents live in Atlanta.

So we're going to spend some time with my parents and then the G3 conference is coming up on Thursday and Friday.

You know if you're a regular listener to the podcast, we're coming up on our 2000th episode.

This particular episode is episode 1995. So we're just five episodes away from 2000.

Even though Becky can't be with me for this episode, we're going to try to make it up to you later on this next week while we're at G3, we're going to live record.

So it won't be a live broadcast, I don't do live streaming, but we'll live record it. We'll record it right there at our table at our booth.

We're going to record two podcasts, two Q &As on Thursday and Friday.

Now it won't hit the morning because we're going to record it while we're there. So it'll be sometime later on in the day, but we'll get a

Thursday and a Friday episode in. Episodes 1999 and 2000, God willing, will be recorded right there at Atlanta at the

G3 conference. We'll do it at our booth. We're going to have a booth at the conference in the exhibition hall.

So come by and find us. And if you do, somewhere during the day, we're going to schedule that time to record and maybe we can get a live audience around us there.

You know what I need to do? I don't have this packed yet, but I got to do it. I'm going to get a microphone on a stand that I can put out there that anybody who's coming by our booth can stop at the microphone and ask a question.

You can have yourself on the podcast. We'll have live questions asked, and then we'll respond to those questions on the podcast.

That can also set me up for failure doing that, though. I'm not the Bible answer guy. I don't automatically know the answers to all of these questions.

But hey, if anything, we'll just have a good chat. That's why we like to go to these conferences, meeting the folks there.

We love to hear from people who listen to the program because we just sit in a little small eight foot by eight foot room here and do this.

We don't see anybody when we do this. So we're looking forward to meeting folks at G3 and do hope that you come by our table.

I'm going to have some books there. I think as far as merch goes, that's all I've got. Brochures to when we understand the text as well, if you've never heard of the broadcast.

So anyway, come by our table. We would love to see you. We're going to have the whole Hughes clan with us so you can meet all the

Hughes's, even our kids. There's going to be thousands of people at this thing, 8 ,000, 9 ,000.

I can't remember the last count that I heard. So we're going to have to keep our kids reined in. I don't know how I'm going to do that.

But you can meet the whole Hughes family this year at G3. You can meet the little one, the two -year -old who a couple of years ago was making all the noise and the chatter on the podcast.

We had to record at the church. We had our baby with us. He's two now, wandering around all over the place.

Hard to keep control of him. But anyway, meet everybody. And like I said, we would love to meet you.

Okay, I had another reason why this episode is so late. So since we're coming up on the 2000th episode,

I wanted to do an eighth anniversary. So eight years since I published my first book, after debuting

When We Understand the Text, I wrote the book 40 of the Most Popular Bible Verses and What They Really Mean, which was published in 2015.

So I wanted to do an anniversary edition of that book in honor of coming up on 2000 episodes.

I was hoping to get that done by 2000 episodes. So I was working really, really hard last week on getting that done and maybe even be able to have print copies, because I can get the print copies pretty fast.

So I was hoping I could get all of that done. I would have the print copies available for G3. It would be the new revised edition of 40 of the

Most Popular Bible Verses and What They Really Mean. Something like 60 to 70 % of this book is totally different than before.

It's like buying a brand new book. So once I get done with it, you're going to have to buy the book again, if you already bought it the first time.

Anyway, long story short, I did not get it done. I've had a ton of stuff going on, and trying to get the writing done and everything.

I was using every free moment that I had. That was part of the reason why all the episodes were kind of late last week, why this episode was late.

Becky's not been feeling well over the weekend, so that's part of the reason why we didn't get the Friday edition done as quickly as we wanted to.

I was waiting for her to get better. She's better now. We're going to hit the road. But yeah, it just didn't happen for us over the weekend.

So those are some of the reasons why this episode was so late. And I'm hoping I can still plug it this

Thursday and Friday, even though I won't have the print copies with me at G3. But the

Kindle will be up. I think the Kindle edition, the e -book edition, will be online. So I want to be able to plug 40 of the most popular

Bible verses and what they really mean when we get around to Thursday and Friday. I put so much work into this book that I didn't get other books done that I was hoping to have for G3.

I will have some books at my booth. It's just not going to be 40 of the most popular Bible verses. And I'm also trying to finish up 40 days in the

Sermon on the Mount and 40 days in the Song of Songs. So those are a couple of more books that I hope to have maybe by the end of the year.

We've got a lot of stuff coming up, and we're really, really busy. But this week, it's G3. Hope to see you there in Atlanta.

Okay, let's get to a couple of questions here. I've got a few comments, two comments, and then one question.

So this one is from Grover, and he says, my drive to work is 45 minutes plus traffic problems.

I get up each morning and listen to Justin Peters read the Bible. Then I drive to work listening to what?

Starting from as far back as Apple would let me. That's a long way. I think Apple will keep 999 episodes.

So you go back pretty far. You just can't get back to the very, very beginning. Anyway, Grover goes on to say, my wife asked if I listened to other podcasts.

I said I like my routine as it is so far. So to keep my beautiful wife happy,

I listen to you and Justin talk about The Chosen, problem solved. Yeah, that was fun to be able to have that conversation with Justin.

I don't know if you've seen the video yet or not, but go to Justin Peters channel on YouTube, and he and I had a conversation just recently about the

TV show The Chosen. You maybe have heard me talk about it on this broadcast. I've answered questions about it.

I did a review on my blog, and then I talked with Justin about it on his show. Justin and I have been friends for years.

We're going to see each other at G3. By the way, Justin's at G3 too. We've been friends for a long time.

We've never been on each other's podcast before. So one of these days, I'm going to have to have Justin on here.

We'll try to work that out. This next comment comes from Tony. I love this comment. He shared this with me in a

DM on X, but he says, back in my charismatic days, my pastor made a

Facebook post where she, yeah, yeah, I know, made fun of one of your videos.

She made fun of one of my what videos, and Tony said, I ended up going to your YouTube channel to pull more videos of your bad teachings to post on the group.

But I ended up watching and learning from your videos, and that eventually led me to Reformed Theology.

Wow! What a great testimony, Tony. I am so appreciative of that.

Thank you so much. You know, in the very beginning, when I started When We Understand the Text, I was a continuous.

I know I wasn't a continuous or a charismatic in the sense that I certainly never attended a church that had women pastors, at least

I was not a member of a church that had a woman as a pastor. But I was still kind of wrapped up in charismaticism.

A lot of my friends were charismatics. I didn't speak in tongues. I didn't think that God was giving me prophetic revelation.

I didn't think that I could perform any miraculous signs or wonders. But who was I to say that somebody else couldn't do that?

So that's where I was in my continuism. It was kind of a practical continuism. I wasn't practicing it, but at the same time, my theology would not have prevented anybody else from following it.

So I'm glad that you didn't find the what videos in that period of time. You might have been encouraged in your charismaticism.

I'm guessing that your pastor had found one of these what videos and had posted them sometime after I had come around, because I did the video on praying in tongues, which was after I became a cessationist.

By the way, that film, the documentary Cessationist, is debuting at G3 this next week.

I was interviewed for the documentary. I don't know if I'm in it or not. I was in one of the early trailers that they did last year, but the more recent trailers they've come out with, they've got really big names in there like Conrad and Bayway, Phil Johnson, Steve Lawson.

They got much bigger names on that documentary now than me. So I don't know if I still have footage in there or not.

I guess we'll find out together and still see a great documentary in the process. Cessationist making its debut at G3 this next week.

Did I finish everything with you, Tony? Yeah, I'm greatly encouraged by that. Thank you so much for sharing that.

All right. This one comes from Ben in Pennsylvania, and I'll respond to this one, and this will be my last one here.

Dear Pastor Gabe, so I was sitting here at my computer watching what videos, always a great way to pass the time, when

I came across an older video you did, Does Jesus Hate Religion? You mentioned that it was a response to Jeff Bethke's poem,

Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus. Well, I had never heard that video before, heard the poem before.

So I looked it up, Ben said. There were some things that I thought were pretty good, but it seems like he's off saying that Jesus hated religion.

I think he means false religion or hypocritical religion, but he could have said it better. Did you ever do a more detailed review of this poem?

Thank you for your ministry. Well, let me come to that video that I did. So here's the video

I did in response, which is just a minute and a half. And then let's go to Bethke's poem and look at it in more detail.

In 2012, Jeff Bethke wrote a poem that became an internet sensation entitled Why I Hate Religion But Love Jesus, saying things like Jesus came to abolish religion and that he hated religion.

Now, while Bethke went on to clarify he was talking about false religion, his poor wording has misled millions to believe some things about the church that aren't true.

Jesus founded the church. He put guidelines in place for church discipline. He instituted a ritual meal.

He told the disciples to baptize others and teach them to obey everything Christ had commanded. Jesus said he came not to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them.

He went to services in the synagogue and observed holy days. So if you're looking for someone who hates religion, Jesus is not your guy.

When the Bible talks about religion, here is what it says. If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

In other words, if a person calls themselves a Christian but does not control their speech, if they do not show mercy and love to the oppressed, if they behave like the rest of the world instead of having the mind of Christ, their heart remains unchanged and they are not saved.

It is Christ who saves us, not our deeds, but we show outwardly that we have been changed inwardly when we obey his commands.

True religion means loving the things that God loves, hating the things that God hates, and delighting in the things that delight him.

We know what those things are when we understand the text. Yeah, so thanks to Ben's question,

I had to go back and pull up this poem from Jeff Bethke which I haven't seen in years.

That video that I just played for you, I did that one seven years ago, so it's been at least that long since I've watched this poem, and I just forgot how bad this was.

I think I dislike it more now than I did then. You know, originally when

I did that video, there was another version of that video that I made first before that one, and I did a little poem at the beginning mocking

Bethke, and I just changed my mind about it. It just kind of felt like that it was going to turn people off, that they weren't going to hear what it was that I had to say, that it was just something to mock

Jeff Bethke's poem. So, I ended up dumping that video. It was up for a little while,

I think for a day or something. I ended up dropping it and putting the version up that you just heard. I think

I still have that video. I think I still have the original. One of these episodes, I ought to do the

Lost What videos, because I think I've got seven or eight of them—videos that previously had been up that I deleted or took down.

Every once in a while, I'll get an email about it. Somebody will say, hey, I remember you having a video about this, whatever happened to it, so I should do the

Lost Episodes of What one of these days. Anyway, so coming back to this poem that Bethke did, let me go ahead and play it.

We'll just get into it here and critique the problems with this, all right? Yeah, sorry.

It's got an annoying introduction. Let me fast forward a little bit here.

What if I told you Jesus came to abolish religion? What if I told you voting Republican really wasn't his mission?

Those two thoughts really have nothing to do with one another. You can see why this was popular already.

Why did this get so many views? Well, there you got it right there. Anytime you can take the chance to slam

Christians voting for Republican, it's going to be a popular watch on YouTube. But yeah, so he opens with this statement, what if I told you that Jesus came to abolish religion?

Well, you would be wrong, if that's your claim. That's your thesis statement to this poem, that Jesus came to abolish religion.

No he didn't. Jesus said in Matthew 5 .17, Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets.

I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill them. You mean to tell me that Jesus, who instituted a ritual meal, the

Lord's Supper, and told his disciples, do this in remembrance of me, who told his disciples before leaving them that they were to go out into all the world, baptizing, which is a ritual, in the name of the

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

Jesus said also in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Purity, holiness, is a very religious thing. You mean to tell me that this guy came to abolish religion?

He institutes all these religious things and you want to say that Jesus came to abolish religion.

Christianity is a religion. Yeah, I know you've heard people say, Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship.

It is a relationship. It's a religion. Christianity is a religion. This is a religious practice.

And in fact, Scripture tells us about religion that God our Father finds pure and faultless, which

I had quoted in that video, from James 1, 26 to 27. The religion that God our

Father finds pure and faultless is this, to love orphans and widows in their time of need and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

And really, the way that you sum that up, James 1, 27, is love God, love people. That's exactly what

James is saying there. Love your neighbor, care for orphans and widows, because the orphans and widows in the

Old Testament, they were the people that could not help themselves.

And by helping them, they weren't going to be able to give you anything in return. And to keep oneself unstained by the world means to draw near to Christ.

Be like Jesus. Have the mind of Christ. So loving God, loving people. It's the first and second greatest commands.

You will love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You will love your neighbor as yourself. That's right there in James 1, 27.

By the way, I wrote a chapter on James 1, 27 in my book, 40 of the most popular

Bible verses and what they really mean. So as soon as that's available later this next week, be sure to pick up a copy.

Let's continue on with Bethke's thing here. What if I told you Republican doesn't automatically mean

Christian, and just because you call some people blind doesn't automatically give you vision? Yeah, I don't know if you've watched anything in the news lately about the

Republican Party, but the way some Republicans are acting right now, they definitely don't look Christian. It's definitely not a

Christian party. However, the Democrats are still way, way worse.

And Bethke never mentions anything about Democrats here. We've got two statements about Republicans at the very beginning of this poem, and I don't think he mentions

Republicans again. It's just right here at the beginning. And of course, that's going to be a quick slam. That's going to get people to say, hey, thumbs up.

And that's going to draw them into this poem. But he never mentions Democrats. There's professing Christians that claim to be

Democrat. But we're not we're not going to be concerned about them. We're just concerned about those that claim to be

Republican. Already this is kind of hypocritical itself here at the very beginning.

I mean, if religion is so great, why is it started so many wars? Why does it build huge churches but fails to feed the poor?

Now, I forgot about that line, and I found that really ironic when I heard that. If church is so great, why does it build so many buildings, but it fails to feed the poor?

Jeff Bethke preaches in a lot of big churches, including Life Church, which is one of the largest churches in the country.

I saw on YouTube that he had a message that he preached there at Greg Rochelle's church. So Bethke is preaching in a lot of entertainment driven churches.

And he doesn't get those gigs standing in front of those guys rebuking them for their huge buildings.

He's since become a shill for those entertainment driven churches.

I don't know if you remember the Bible miniseries that came out a decade ago, Justin and I talked about it in the interview that I did on his channel.

But I remember when they kind of had like some behind the scenes videos and stuff like that, that they would shoot while they were filming the

Bible miniseries. And Jeff Bethke was the guy on set that was taking people around and showing them, you know, this thing that was going on.

He really found his niche in Big Eva, in big evangelicalism.

The very things he's rebuking here is the system he's part of.

Until single moms, God doesn't love them if they've ever had a divorce, but in the Old Testament, God actually calls religious people whores.

Religion might preach grace, but another thing they practice, tend to ridicule God's people They did it to John the

Baptist. They can't fix their problems. And so they just mask it, not realizing religions like spraying perfume on a casket.

See, the problem with religion is it never gets to the core. It's just behavior modification, like a long list of chores.

You have to obey God's word. You have to. That is religion, by the way, and it's not some long list of chores.

It is obedience to God. Jesus saying in John 14, 15 to his disciples, you will show me that you love me when you obey my commandments.

And his commandments are not burdensome, Jesus says in Matthew 11. We delight, we love.

To worship God and obey his commands, we love that because we know that Jesus has fulfilled the law and the prophets, as I said earlier from Matthew five, he has taken our sin upon himself with his death on the cross.

He was raised again for our justification. Romans 4, 25, all who believe in him, we are no longer under the law in the sense that we will not be condemned by the law, but we are under grace, as said in Romans six.

It is still our delight, though, to obey God's command. Psalm 119, how

I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. God's law is good.

We know what God's will is for us. We know what obeying him means when we look into his law.

It's not some long list of chores. It is a religion. You do have to obey them. And is it behavior modification?

Well, yeah, in the sense that the Holy Spirit is working in our hearts to change us from the old sinful worldly person we were into this new creature that desires to obey

God and follow him. Like, let's dress up the outside. They can look nice and neat, but it's funny.

That's what they used to do to mummies while the corpse rots underneath. Now, ain't judging. I'm just saying, quit putting on a fake look because there's a problem.

If people only know that you're a Christian by your Facebook. Now, that's true. And like Ben said, there is some good content in this poem.

I just can't recommend it to anybody because of the way that he so mishandles the word religion.

Jesus never abolished religion. He did not come to abolish religion. He called out hypocritical religion, but he did not say that he hated religion.

He hated those whose whose religion was a facade, just like what

Bethke was was sharing there. That's not all religion, though. Those are the hypocrites.

You have the woes that were given to the Pharisees in Matthew chapter 23. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte.

And when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. I'll mention this other one here, because this actually sounds like something that Bethke had just said.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.

In this way, you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Now, when Bethke calls that out, I agree with him because that's exactly what Jesus said to the religious hypocrites.

But he did not speak out against religion like Bethke is doing here. I mean, in every other aspect of life, you know that logic's unworthy.

It's like saying you play for the Lakers just because you bought a jersey. See, this was me, too. But no one seemed to be on to me acting like a church kid while addicted to pornography.

See, on Sunday, I'd go to church, but Saturday getting faded acted if I was simply created to just have sex and get wasted.

See, I spent my whole life building this facade of neatness. But now that I know Jesus, I boast in my weakness.

Yeah, and praise God for that. It was not being religious that saved

Jeff. It's Jesus that saved Jeff. But the problem still remains that he's calling religion this thing that Jesus hates.

We'll do religious things as the outward expression of the inward change that has happened inside of us.

If you have been transformed by Christ, you will demonstrate it by your life. We do good works not to save ourselves, but those good works are to show that we are saved.

Because if grace is water, then the church should be an ocean. It's not a museum for good people.

It's a hospital for the broken, which means I don't have to hide my failure. I don't have to hide my sin because it doesn't depend on me.

It depends on him. See, because when I was God's enemy and certainly not a fan, he looked down and said,

I want that man, which is why Jesus hated religion and for it. He called him fools.

Don't you see so much better than just following some rules? He was so on to something, and then he dropped in to see that's why

Jesus hates religion. Again, doing the religious works, doing those works will not save you.

The works demonstrate that you have been saved. As we read in Ephesians two, eight and nine, it is by grace you have been saved through faith.

And this is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.

But then verse 10, right after that goes on to say, for we are

God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared for us beforehand that we should walk in them.

So we're saved not by works, by grace through faith. We are saved not of works, but there are still works for us to do because as we have been made as Christ's workmanship, we are going to do the work of Christ.

It doesn't save us, but it's what the saved will do. Now, let me clarify. I love the church.

I love the Bible. And yes, I believe in sin. But if Jesus came to your church, would they actually let him in?

See, remember, he was called a glutton and a drunkard by religious men. But the son of God never supports self -righteousness.

Not now, not then. Now, back to the point, one thing is vital to mention how

Jesus and religion are on opposite spectrums. No. Now, where he made that statement earlier about, yes,

I love the church and I believe in sin, I know he believes in sin. He had shared his testimony about the sin that he was in that Christ pulled him out of.

But his statement about, yes, I love the church. If he had not dropped that in, would you be left with that impression because of what he's saying here in this poem?

See, one's the work of God, but one's a man -made invention. See, one is the cure, but the other is the infection.

See, because religion says do. Jesus says done. Religion says slave.

Jesus says son. Now, that's another place where he throws in what kind of sounds like a false dichotomy.

Yes, we are sons and daughters of God in Christ. We're also slaves. You're going to be a slave to somebody.

You're either a slave to righteousness or you're a slave to unrighteousness. That's what Paul says in Romans six.

Submit your members as slaves to righteousness, not as slaves of unrighteousness.

The Apostle Paul identified himself as a slave of Christ. Now, we are set free in Christ from sin and death, but we are his slaves.

We are servants of God. We humble ourselves before God and desire to do his will.

And like I said before, from Matthew 11, his commands are not burdensome. The will of God does not burden us.

What is a burden is if you take on anything else. If you make yourself a slave to anything else, that's burdensome.

But if you make yourself a slave of Christ, if you are a slave of Christ, then you've been set free.

Religion puts you in bondage while Jesus sets you free. Religion makes you blind, but Jesus makes you see.

And that's why religion and Jesus are two different clans. Religion is man searching for God.

Christianity is God searching for man, which is why salvation is freely mine and forgiveness is my own, not based on my merits, but Jesus's obedience alone.

Because he took the crown of thorns and the blood dripped down his face. He took what we all deserve. I guess that's why you call it grace.

And while being murdered, he yelled, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Because when he was dangling on that cross, he was thinking of you and he absorbed all your sin and he buried it in the tomb, which is why

I'm kneeling at the cross saying, come on, there's room. So for religion, no, I hate it.

In fact, I literally resent it because when Jesus said it is finished, I believe he meant it.

I appreciate some of the gospel points that he makes in there, but he's just wrong when he says that I hate religion.

In fact, I resent it as though religion is something contrary to Jesus' declaration on the cross.

It is finished. And like I said in the beginning, it's ironic to hear Bethke talk about these things now because he's part of the very system that he's rebuking here.

He speaks in a lot of large entertainment driven churches and he cashes those checks.

I'm not saying one way or the other where he's at, where his heart is at with the

Lord. That's not for me to determine. I can just see the people that he's partnering with and knowing some of those guys are heretics.

They are the hypocritical religious folks that Bethke is rebuking in this poem. And yet that's exactly the group that he runs with now.

So anyway, appreciate you, Ben, sort of. I appreciate you sending me this video sort of that I had to watch this again and endure that again.

I had made reference before to something Jesus said in Matthew 11. And that's where we're going next in our study of Matthew on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

So let me read this prayer that Jesus prays at the end of Matthew 11.

And this is how we'll close this out. Matthew 11, 25. At that time, Jesus said, I praise you, father,

Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.

Yes, father, for this way was well pleasing in your sight. All things have been handed over to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father, nor does anyone know the father except the son and anyone to whom the son wills to reveal him.

Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Thank you for listening.

If you want to submit a question to the broadcast, you can send it to when we understand the text at gmail .com.

God willing, we've got two Q and A's coming up next week as we'll be at G3.

Let's pray. Heavenly father, we thank you for the goodness and kindness that you have shown us in Christ, and I pray that we would desire the will of God and we would be obedient to your will, not trying to set the rules as we want to play by them, not trying to make you meet our standard, but we want to know what you have said in your word and desire to keep it.

We want to be pure. We want to be holy. We want to do those things that are obedient unto

Christ, no matter how the world might define them. We go to your word to know how you have said you are to be worshiped.

As we read in Romans 12, 1, in view of God's mercies, present your bodies as a living sacrifice unto the

Lord, holy and acceptable to him, for this is your spiritual act of worship.