F4F | Rob Bell Lessons Learned from His Apostasy

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Rosebro. I am your servant in Jesus Christ, and this is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the

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Word of God. Now, we're going to do a little bit of a wander through time on this installment of Fighting for the

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Faith. And there's a very specific lesson that I really want to make as the central point, and that is that in the

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United States, and I would say much of Western culture, the entertainment focus has led to a bunch of false assumptions that open us up and make us susceptible to false teachers, at least a particular type of false teacher.

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What we're going to do today is we're going to take a look at the past, if you would, and also the current, present, as it relates to a fellow by the name of Rob Bell.

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And I have been doing, you know, Christian apologetics against false teachers in the body of Christ long enough now that it has been almost two decades that I've been doing this.

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And two decades ago, 20 years ago, Rob Bell was all the rage in invisible evangelicalism.

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And he was absolutely untouchable. He was practically a rock star.

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And where he is today is, it's mind boggling.

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It's just, and the thing is, is that I look at where he is today, and it doesn't surprise me at all.

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And other people, they just say, well, Rob Bell has really fallen. He never fell.

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He's been consistent the whole time. So this will be an interesting episode of Fighting for the Faith. The Wander Down Memory Lane.

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But this is another type of a postmortem episode. But where is Rob Bell today?

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So let's do this. Let's whirl up the desktop. And then we're going to start here.

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And we're going to start with False Assumptions Lead to False Doctrine Lessons Learned from the Liberal Apostate, Rob Bell.

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And you'll note that I'm not mincing words here, just kind of cutting to the chase.

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But before I get into this, would you like to see where he is nowadays, what he is up to?

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Yeah, let's take a look at this. Because when you hear

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Rob Bell, and I'm going to note that this particular video, so this was released two months ago.

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And this is on Rob Bell's YouTube channel. And it has 474 views in two months.

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And when you see what he's saying nowadays, which, by the way, isn't much different than what he was saying two decades ago, you're going to realize something's really off here.

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But the thing is, it's super easy to see right now, because Rob Bell isn't all the rage anymore.

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He was the bee's knees. He was all the big fad back in the day. Not anymore.

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Let's listen in a little bit of Rob Bell and see if you can make heads or tails of this.

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So certain spaces are just so lifeless. It's like nothing ever happened here.

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They're like all other places. Like in art, we talk about thisness. There's a thisness to certain things.

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They're only them. But like when you pull off the freeway, and every single store and restaurant is at every single other exit, very low thisness.

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It all feels like it's just been mass produced. But when something is a one -off, it has high thisness.

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So mass production equals low thisness. One -off -ness equals high thisness.

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OK. Thisness doesn't mean beauty or perfection. It means some sort of accumulation of history and event in a time and an actual space.

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Yeah, it's located here now. This. Yeah, thisness. That may be one nasty painting, but very high thisness.

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So I certain space. OK, I kid you not.

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Two decades ago, evangelicalism thought that Rob Bell hung the moon.

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In fact, let me show you just a historical document back in the old

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Nine Marks website from March 3rd of 2003.

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OK, this is almost 21 years ago. They gave a basically a little bit of a review of Rob Bell's book,

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Velvet Elvis. Velvet what? Oh, listen, this was all the rage 20 years ago.

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And here's what Greg Gilbert wrote. Rob Bell, pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Granville.

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Actually, it's Grand Rapids, Michigan. That's where he was the pastor. He's not there anymore.

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It is in many ways taking the Christian world by storm. His Everything is

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Spiritual tour sold out 24 of 25 venues in 2006.

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Makes me think that they've updated this review, you know, because the sold out things was in 2006.

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But you get the idea. And a series of short videos called Pneuma are selling thousands of copies each.

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Apparently, Bell has a message that is resonating with vast numbers of people. And he's presenting that message in a way that's obviously connecting.

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And believe me when I tell you, two decades ago, I mean, all the evangelical youth groups, they were showing

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Pneuma videos left and right. And back in 2008, I took this photograph of the bookstore at the

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Willow Creek at Willow Creek Church, you know, the big megachurch there in the suburbs of Chicago.

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And they had an entire shelf dedicated specifically to moving

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Rob Bell merchandise. In fact, if you know the story of how Rob Bell planted

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Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Willow Creek played an instrumental role in launching him into that church plant.

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And so, you know, it wasn't any wonder back in 2008, all of the

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Rob Bell merchandise, I mean, that was a hot commodity. Zondervan was making money hand over fist as a result of this guy.

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Let me refresh your memory. And this is a portion of his video, the

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Pneuma video called Bullhorn Guy. And man, this guy was snaky and serpentine as they all get out.

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In this particular video, they were depicting a guy who was a street preacher as basically some kind of, you know, really cringy guy who was kind of like psychologically unbalanced and looks like, you know, if he weren't out there street preaching, he'd probably be driving a minivan looking for people to off and he'd be a serial killer or something.

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That's the way he's depicted in this Bullhorn Guy video. And just listen to Bell's smarminess and his mockery of those who would actually defend biblical

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Christianity. Listen to this. I mean, that's why so many of us are so fascinated with Jesus, because he never stops insisting that God really, really loves us exactly as we are.

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I mean, isn't that what draws you to him? It's what draws me. And see, all I can figure out. God loves you exactly as you are.

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Didn't Christ die for the sins of the world? It calls us to repentance. Yeah, yeah.

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Let's continue. I mean, isn't that what draws you to him? It's what draws me. And see, all

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I can figure out, Bullhorn Guy, is that you think you're giving people the good news. But the problem is it doesn't come across that way.

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It doesn't appear very loving. And when Jesus is asked, what's the most important thing? Jesus' response is to love, love

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God with everything that you have and then love those around you in the same kind of way. Jesus doesn't separate loving God and loving others.

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For Jesus, everything hangs on these two. And so the defining mark of a Christian is love.

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Like this writer. So it's not loving to, you know, street preach and call people to repentance of their sins, faith in Jesus Christ.

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John in the Bible writes a series of letters to some of the first Christians. And in one of them, he says this. He says, if you say that you love

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God and you don't love the people around you, then you're a liar. So it's unloving to proclaim

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Christ and crucified for our sins and call sinners to repentance. It's almost it's almost as if John says that how you love others, that's how you love

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God. There's this great passage in the Bible. There's one writer. He says, like, I could say all these great things, but if I don't have love,

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I'm like a gong or a clanging cymbal. And see, Bullhorn guy, this is why the yelling and the bullhorn are so disturbing to us is it seems like you're just trying to convert people to your religion, like they're notches on some sort of spiritual belt.

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But they're not. They're people. They're people that God loves. The people that Jesus wants us to love.

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And how is it not loving calling sinners to repentance? John the Baptist did that. Christ and his disciples who became the apostles did that.

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So you kind of get the idea. And so if you remember, I did that video before Christmas of the fellow who was denying the virgin birth of Christ, but he was just directly denying the virgin birth of Christ.

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Rob Bell had a really sneaky, snaky way that he did it. And if you have his book,

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Velvet Elvis, this is the Kindle edition of it. The very first book that Rob Bell puts out that that goes that blows up and becomes all the rage of evangelicalism.

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First chapter, first book, right out of the chute. Rob Bell attacks biblical

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Christian orthodoxy. No kidding. And so it starts with a metaphor.

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I'll read a couple of salient portions here. Several years ago, my parents -in -law gave our boys a trampoline, a 15 -footer with netting around the outside so kids don't end up head first in the flowers.

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Since then, my boys and I have logged more hours on that trampoline that I can begin to count. When we first got it, my older son, who was five at the time, discovered that if he timed his bounce with mine, he could launch higher than if he was jumping on his own.

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So the opening chapter begins with this idea of a trampoline, and then he kind of springboards, trampolines into this becoming a metaphor for Christianity.

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So let me kind of read a couple of places here. As a Christian, I am simply trying to orient myself around living a particular kind of way, the kind of way that Jesus taught is possible.

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And I think that the way of Jesus is the best possible way to live. By the way, that's a confusion of law and gospel.

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The telling us what to do and how to live is the law, but it's not the gospel. OK, and so he then makes this big metaphor, you know, is that that Christianity is like this, is like a trampoline and it's supposed to be fun.

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And God invites you onto the trampoline and stuff. And so he says, this is where the springs on the trampoline come in.

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When we jump, we begin to see the need for springs. Springs help make sense of these deeper realities that drive how we live every day.

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The springs aren't God. The springs aren't Jesus. The springs are statements and beliefs about our faith that help give words to the depth that we are experiencing in our jumping.

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I would call the doctrines of the Christian faith. They aren't the point. They help us understand the point, but they are a means and not an end.

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Rob Bell writes, we take them seriously and at the same time, we keep them in proper perspective.

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Take, for example, the doctrine, the spring called the Trinity. This doctrine is central to historic

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Orthodox Christian faith. While there is only one God, God is somehow present everywhere.

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People began to call this presence, this power of God, his spirit. So there is God and and then there is

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God's spirit. And then Jesus comes along, comes among us and this and has this oneness with God that has people saying things like God has visited us in the flesh.

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Does it sound like he believes in the incarnation properly? Not at all. So God is one, but God has also revealed himself to us as spirit.

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And then as Jesus sounds almost like modalism, Patrick, one and yet three, this three in oneness understanding of God emerged in the several hundred years after Jesus's resurrection.

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People began to call this concept the Trinity. The word Trinity is not found anywhere in the

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Bible. Jesus didn't use the word and the writers of the rest of the Bible didn't use the word.

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But over time, this belief, this understanding, this doctrine has become central to how followers of Jesus have understood who

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God is. It is a spring and the people jumped for thousands of years without it.

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It was added later. We can take it out and examine it, discuss it, probe it, question it, it flexes and it stretches.

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So his claim that many Christians were jumping on the trampoline of Christianity for a long time without the doctrine of the

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Trinity and the doctrine of the Trinity is just a spring that you can use to make your experience of Christianity better.

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He goes on then. So this truth about God is why study and discussion and doctrines are so necessary.

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They help us put words to realities beyond words. They give us insight and understanding into the experience of God that we're having, which is why the springs only work when they serve the greater cause, us finding our lives in God.

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If they ever become the point, something has gone seriously wrong. Doctrine is a wonderful servant and a horrible master.

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Hmm. The springs are huge. They hold up the map, but they aren't God. They aren't

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Jesus. And then watch where he goes next. Somebody recently gave me a videotape of a lecture given by a man who travels around speaking about the creation of the world.

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At one point in his lecture, he said, if you deny that God created the world in six literal 24 hour days, then you're denying that Jesus ever died on the cross.

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It's a bizarre leap of logic to make, I would say. But but he was serious.

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It hit me while I was watching that for him, faith isn't a trampoline. It's a wall of bricks.

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Each of the core doctrines for him is like an individual brick that stacks on top of others.

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If you pull one out, the whole wall starts to crumble. It appears quite strong and rigid.

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But if you begin to rethink or discuss even one brick, the whole thing is in danger.

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Like he said, no six day creation equals no cross. Remove one and the whole wall wobbles.

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What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real earthly biological father named

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Larry and archaeologists find Larry's tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of Mithra and the

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Dionysian religious cult that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose gods had virgins, virgin births.

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But what if as you study the origin of the word virgin, you discover that the word virgin in the

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Gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah? And then you find out that the Hebrew language at that time, the word virgin could mean several things.

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And what if you discover that in the first century being born of a virgin also refers to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse?

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And what if that spring was seriously questioned? Could a person keep jumping?

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Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian? Is the way of Jesus still the best way to live or does the whole thing fall apart?

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I affirm the historic Christian faith, which includes the virgin birth and the Trinity and the inspiration of the

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Bible and much more. I am a part of it and I want to pass it on to the next generation. I believe that God created everything and that Jesus is

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Lord and that God has plans to restore everything. But if the whole faith falls apart when we reexamine and rethink one spring, then it wasn't that strong in the first place, was it?

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And you're going to note that what Bell was a master at and still is, is the ability to ask deconstructing questions, to basically deconstruct the

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Christian faith. And you sit there and you go, if you allow yourself to go down this train of thought, well, we can get rid of the virgin birth.

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We can get rid of the bodily resurrection. We can get rid of the thing that Jesus died for, our sins on the cross. The whole, all of Christianity comes flopping down and there's a reason for it.

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And so let's now kind of talk about where this all goes. And so you can kind of see what

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Rob Bell did subtly denying the virgin birth, although affirming it while attacking it and using deconstructing questions.

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You know, the fellow that we covered, Dr. Lines, the guy we covered a couple weeks ago, he just comes right out and just says it.

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So let's come back here. All right. So this gives you an idea of what we were dealing with, with Rob Bell.

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So what was the problem? False assumptions lead to false doctrine. Lessons learned from the liberal apostate,

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Rob Bell. So many times evangelicals ask a question.

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The question is this, what is God doing on our day? And who are the leaders that he's chosen to do it?

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You know, and so who are, where can I find the activity of God? And here's where American consumerism, the

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American focus on entertainment has completely led you in the wrong direction with a false set of assumptions.

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The belief is, is that influencers with the largest growth or the greatest platforms are the only place that you need to look.

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And I would note that biblically, influencers with largest growth and greatest platforms, you shouldn't look there at all.

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Okay. But the basic assumption is, is that if somebody is successful, then that must be the thing that God is doing.

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And so the American cultural assumption is this, success equals God's blessing and God's presence.

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And so back in the day, Rob Bell was selling out venues, you know, 24 of 25 venues sold out for his tour that he was giving for, you know, for everything is spiritual back in 2006.

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And so when I was pointing out and I, myself and others were pointing out that Rob Bell is a false teacher and that he is contradicting the scriptures and that what he's doing is deconstructing the

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Christian faith, people would accuse me of all kinds of nefariousness. Oh, Rose, bro, you're just jealous because he's selling out venues and you can't get more than a hundred people to read your blog, you know, nonsense like this.

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That's an ad hominem argument, by the way. And so myself and others really began to take

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Rob Bell to task on the internet, on the internet. And at first we were fighting with blogs, you know, this is before podcasts were a thing.

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And my best friend at the time, the late Ken Silva, he spent quite a bit of time spilling a lot of ink covering

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Rob Bell. And you can still find the articles that he wrote over the years against Rob Bell at Uprising Ministries, which you can find at Uprising .org.

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And, you know, and there's two pages of his different blog articles that he wrote taking on Bell's false doctrine and his very subtle yet poisonous attacks against Christianity.

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So you're going to note then, okay, the American cultural assumption, success equals

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God's blessing and presence, scripture. In fact, I will say Jesus Christ himself contradicts this cultural assumption.

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If you are working with this as an assumption, you have been perfectly set up to be deceived in a horrible way.

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So let's take a look at some biblical text. Matthew chapter 7 says, enter by the narrow gate.

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Note the red letters. This is Christ talking. Enter by the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction.

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Those who enter it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life.

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And those who find it are few. So I would note Jesus Christ makes it very clear that if your basic cultural assumption is that, well, success equals

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God's blessing, you are well on your way to being deceived and you are most likely on the wide road that leads to hell.

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And that's the thing is that we basically go with this idea of somebody is talented, entertaining, can tell an engaging story, can build a platform and people are flocking to hear this person.

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They have to be, have to be somebody sent by God and they're telling us the truth because how, why wouldn't they, why would

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God allow them to so much popularity if they were lying to us? And you're going to note here,

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Christ says, enter by the narrow gate for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction.

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Those who enter it are many. If there are a lot of people flocking around this current, current, super popular person, chances are that person is a deceiver.

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And I haven't, I would note that those who teach sound doctrine, it takes them a long, long, long time to, to build any kind of a substantial following.

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And it's earned by their blood, sweat and tears in exegesis and study and carefully preaching and rightly handling

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God's word. But that's not a popular thing. The masses are never going to go for that.

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So go with Jesus on this. Another text here, and this is where we're going to note that when you start to compare

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Rob Bell to the scriptures, attacking the virgin birth, calling it a spring, and you can just still bounce on the trampoline of Christianity.

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Even if you take out the spring of the doctrine of the Trinity and the spring of the, of the virgin birth, you're not a

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Christian at that point. Okay. And second, John, the apostle John, who happened to be the disciple whom

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Jesus loved, he says, many deceivers have gone out into the world. Note the word poloi, many, not some, many, not few, many deceivers have gone out into the world.

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Those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.

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Watch yourself so that you may not lose what we've worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have

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God. Let me say it again. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have

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God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the father and the son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house.

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And here the house is referring to a house church. Don't let him into your church. Okay. Or give him any greeting for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

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And I would note, it was obvious what Rob Bell was and what he stood for and what he stood against.

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From the very moment he showed up on the scene, first book, first chapter of the first book is a flat out assault on the doctrine of the

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Trinity and the doctrine of the virgin birth of Christ. And the claim that you can still be a

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Christian and deny both of those things. Baloney. It's just, that's not how sound doctrine works.

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And how did he do it? Through his deconstructing questions. That sounds so, you know, reasonable.

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Kind of like the serpent in the garden of Eden. Did God really say that you shall not eat of any tree that's in the garden?

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Starting off, no, the devil's the master of deconstructing questions. He, Rob Bell was serpentine from the word go.

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Okay. Note here, next text, Matthew 24, red letters.

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Again, see, talking about what will be the sign of his coming. Tell us when will these things be?

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What would be the sign of your coming and the end of the age? Jesus answered, see that no one leads you astray for many, not some, not few.

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Many will come in my name saying I am the Christ and they will lead many astray. Okay.

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So note, Christ warns us that in the last day, there will be many false

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Christ, many false prophets, and they even, some of them will even be able to perform signs and wonders so as to lead astray if possible, even the elect.

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Christ says, see, I've told you beforehand. Well, if you got many false Christ, many false prophets, many false teachers, and some of them being able to perform great signs and wonders, how are you supposed to spot them?

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By their fruit, by their doctrine. If they're attacking the Christian faith, they are not speaking the truth.

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If they are teaching doctrines that are not in accord with sound doctrine in the right handling of God's word, they are deceivers.

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Okay. It doesn't matter how many followers they have. And I would note that we also have wonderful examples of godly men who have fought against the popular opinions of their days with sound words given from God.

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Jeremiah, for example, have you ever read the prophet Jeremiah? Jeremiah was a fellow who, he was like the only prophet speaking the truth in a whole sea of false prophets and false teachers.

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Jeremiah chapter five, I'll just give you a little context here. God tells

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Jeremiah to give this prophecy. You go through her vines, Israel's vine rows, and destroy, but make not a full end, strip away her branches for they are not

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Yahweh's for the house of Israel and the house of Judah have been utterly treacherous to me, declares

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Yahweh. They have spoken falsely of Yahweh and have said he will do nothing.

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No disaster will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine. The prophets will become wind and the word is not in them.

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Thus shall it be done to them. Yeah, I would note that's similar to Rob Bell.

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Let me explain. Um, are you familiar with his book Love Wins? Well, back in the day, 12 ish years ago, um,

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Rob Bell put out a teaser for his book Love Wins on YouTube.

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And boy, I'll tell you, you know, at the time I was basically feeling very vindicated saying,

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I told you this guy was wicked. And a bunch of people were saying, well, maybe we just need, he can't just judge based upon the video and stuff like that.

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But it turns out you could. But, uh, let's listen to just a little bit of this teaser video for the, for his book

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Love Wins. Several years ago, we had an art show at our church and people brought in all kinds of sculptures and paintings and we put them on display.

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And there was this one piece that had a quote from Gandhi in it. And lots of people found this piece compelling.

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They'd stop and sort of stare at it and take it in and reflect on it. But not everybody found it that compelling. Somewhere in the course of the art show, somebody attached a handwritten note to the piece.

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And on the note they had written, reality check, he's in hell. Gandhi's in hell.

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He is. And someone knows this for sure and felt the need to let the rest of us know. Will only a few select people make it to heaven?

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And will billions and billions of people burn forever in hell? And if that's the case, how do you become one of the few?

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Is it what you believe or what you say or what you do or who you know? Note the deconstructing questions here.

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And for some of you, this is like your first exposure to this. And you can definitely see there's something really wrong here.

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Gandhi was a Hindu and he died a Hindu. He did not confess Christ. So this is interesting what he's engaging in, because who is he attacking?

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The person who's standing on biblical truth. Or something that happens in your heart or you need to be initiated or baptized or take a class or converted or being born again.

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How does one become one of these few? And then there is the question behind the questions, the real question, what is

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God like? Because millions and millions of people were taught that the primary message, the center of the gospel of Jesus is that God is going to send you to hell unless you believe in Jesus.

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And so what gets subtly sort of caught and taught is that Jesus rescues you from God. But what.

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The scriptures actually say that. Hang on a second here. We're going to do another biblical text here.

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We're going to go to the gospel of John. Gospel of John, chapter three. OK. In the gospel of John, chapter three, we have that passage that we're all familiar with.

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For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

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And everyone says, amen, amen. Are you familiar with the words of John the Baptist that are recorded in this chapter?

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Let me explain. John chapter three, verse twenty two. After this, Jesus and his disciples went into the

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Judean countryside and he remained there with them and was baptizing. John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim because water was plentiful there and people were coming and being being baptized.

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John had not yet been put in prison. Now, discussion arose between some of John's disciples and a

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Jew over purification. And they came to John and they said to him, Rabbi, he who is with you across the

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Jordan to whom you bore witness, look, he is baptizing and we're all and all are going to him.

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Good thing, by the way. John answered, well, a person cannot receive even one thing unless it's given to him from heaven.

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You yourselves bear me witness that I said I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. The one who has the bride is the bridegroom.

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The friend of the bridegroom who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice.

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Therefore, this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase. I must decrease. He John the

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Baptist continues. He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and he speaks in an earthly way.

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He who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what he has seen and heard. Yet no one receives his testimony.

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Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal on this, that God is true. For he whom

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God has sent utters the spirit, utters the words of God, for he gives the spirit without measure.

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And watch this. The father loves the son and has given all things into his hand. Again, John the

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Baptist, whoever believes in the son has eternal life. Whoever does not obey the son shall not see life.

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But the wrath of God remains on him. How does

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Rob Bell know better than John the Baptist? That'd be my deconstructing question.

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And so you'll note that what he's engaging in is a full on assault on the gospel itself.

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And the fact that we are saved by the, by the blood of Christ from what?

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Hell, the wrath of God. In fact, Martin Bashir, think back to remember when there was that big earthquake, you know, back in 2011 and, and right in the wake of all of that Martin Bashir on MSNBC interviewed

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Rob Bell and Bashir came out against Bell like a prize fighter.

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I mean, it was absolutely, whoo, but, uh, let's listen to a couple of portions of this, shall we?

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Has ignited a theological firestorm by suggesting that our response to the Christian message in this life will not necessarily determine our eternal destiny.

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In his book, Love Wins, Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. Rob Bell says that ultimately all people will be saved when though, even those who've rejected the claims of Christianity, he argues people will eventually be persuaded by God's love post -mortem in the life to come.

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And Pastor Rob Bell joins us now. Good afternoon, sir. All right. So Rob Bell joined him, right?

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And that's exactly what Love Wins teaches that eventually, even after death, that God's love will win people over and then, and nobody will end up being in hell.

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Hell itself will be empty. And watch what Bashir does with Bell. It's spectacular.

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So is it irrelevant? And is it immaterial about how one responds to Christ in this life in terms of determining one's eternal destiny?

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Is that immaterial? I think it's extraordinarily important. I think it's extraordinarily important. But in your book, you said that God wins regardless in the end.

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Love Wins for me is a way of understanding that God is love and love demands freedom.

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You are asking for it both ways. That doesn't make sense. I'm asking you, is it irrelevant as to how you respond to Christ in your life now to determine your eternal destiny?

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Is that irrelevant? Is it immaterial? It is terribly relevant and terribly important. Now, how exactly that works out and how exactly it works out in the future.

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We are now, when you die, firmly in the realm of speculation. And my experience has been that a lot of Christians have built whole dogmas about what happens when you die.

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And we have to be very careful that we don't build whole doctrines and dogmas on what is speculation. I'm not talking about what happens when you die.

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I'm asking you how you respond here and now. And the question I'm asking you, and what you seem to be saying in this book, is that God will love, will melt everyone's heart eventually, some even post -mortem in death.

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So you're the one making the speculation about the afterlife. Oh man, just punching him in the face and the punches are landing.

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I'm asking, is it irrelevant and immaterial about how you respond to Christ now to determine your eternal destiny?

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Is that relevant or irrelevant? Does it have a bearing or does it have no bearing? Now, the fact that he would be invited on MSNBC to sit with Martin Bashir, to discuss this book, shows you just,

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I mean, 10, 15 years ago, just how top of the world Rob Bell was in evangelicalism.

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No bearing. I think it has tremendous bearing. It also, at the same time, raises all sorts of questions. And that is why the discussion is so lively and vibrant.

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Namely, what about people who haven't heard about Jesus? And here he goes again with his deconstructing questions, not answering the questions, but answering his questions with more questions.

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The woman I talked to a couple of weeks ago who was abused by her pastor. And so for her, Jesus is tied up in all sorts of things.

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And I assume that God's grace gives people space to work those sort of issues out. One critique of your book says this, there are dozens of problems with love wins.

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The history is inaccurate. The use of scripture, indefensible. That's true, isn't it?

37:55

No, it's not true. So why do you choose, for example, to accept and promote the works of the early writer

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Origen and not, for example, Arius, who took a view of Jesus's deity as in being not

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God? Why do you select one and not select the other? Because first and foremost, I'm a pastor. And so I deal with real people in a real world asking and wrestling with these issues of faith.

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And what I have discovered over and over again is there are people who have questions and hunches and have sort of, I'm really struggling with this.

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And when you can simply give them the gift of, by the way, within the Christian tradition, there are scholars and theologians and there are other people who have had the same questions.

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But you've just indicated, though, one of the problems with this book, which is in a sense, you're creating a Christian message that's warm, kind and popular for contemporary culture.

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But it's frankly, according to this critic, unbiblical and historically unreliable. That's true, isn't it?

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What you've done is you're a men. Yes, it is. And Martin Bashir in like just five minutes tore

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Rob Bell apart in a way that I don't think he ever recovered from. Warm, kind and popular for contemporary culture.

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But it's frankly, according to this critic, unbiblical and historically unreliable. That's true, isn't it?

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What you've done is you're amending the gospel, the Christian message, so that it's palatable to contemporary people who find, for example, the idea of hell and heaven very difficult to stomach.

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So here comes Rob Bell. He's made a Christian gospel for you, and it's perfectly palatable. It's much easier to swallow. That's what you've done, isn't it?

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No, I haven't. Yes, it is. It's exactly what he's done. In fact, that's what the scriptures teach us that people would be doing.

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Second Timothy, chapter four, passage I go to regularly. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who's the judge of living and the dead, and by his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word.

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This is an admonition to young Pastor Timothy. Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season.

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Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and doctrine or teaching. For the time is coming, and I would note is now, when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and they will turn away from listening to the truth, and they will wander off into myths.

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Rob Bell was a mythologizer. That's exactly what he was, and he was gifted at telling people what they wanted to hear, and anywhere the

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Bible gave a hard doctrinal line, he came along and smudged it and blurred it and basically said, oh, you can just believe whatever you want to, and you're still a

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Christian, and a lot of people were so thankful for him. In fact,

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I would note that he is the direct theological father of the woke left liberals with invisible

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Christianity today. He's the guy who's, he's their daddy is the best way

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I can put it, but let me take a pause right here and note, and that's this, is that sound biblical doctrine is not something that is easy.

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It is something that is difficult. It requires careful study. It requires reading the scriptures.

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It requires an understanding of the original languages of the Bible. It requires you to actually be in conversation with the ancient church fathers and the different debates doctrinally that have occurred over the millennia, and the entire time that Rob Bell was out and about scratching, itching ears and blurring theological lines and, and attacking the

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Christian truth and the scriptures and, and the doctrines of scripture, the, well,

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Pastor Will Whedon, who now teaches on the, on the Word of the Lord Endures Forever, he was faithfully preaching the gospel.

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He still does. And Pastor Will Whedon is fantastic. If you are looking for a resource that is going to give you the historic

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Orthodox biblical Christian faith and not scratch itching ears or create a different message that's more, more palatable, palatable to the masses than the

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Word of the Lord Endures Forever is your podcast. In fact, currently right now, as of the time we're recording this,

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Pastor Whedon is working his way through the book of Colossians and it's just fantastic.

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It's absolutely fantastic. And each episode, they're not that long, each episode is rich in the scriptures, a full reading of the text, uh, and giving you a great exegetical understanding as to what each of these passages mean in context.

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So if you are not listening to the Word of the Lord Endures Forever, you're missing out, and this is a rich resource that will improve your understanding of the scriptures and give you great clarity as to what the

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Bible means. And Pastor Will Whedon will always point you back to Christ. And here's the thing, he's never denied the doctrine of hell, the whatsoever.

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He not only teaches them, he defends them and proclaims those doctrines. So again, if you don't, if you're not on this podcast, you need to get this podcast and you can find it at the word endures .org,

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the word endures .org. So let's come back here and let's talk about a few more things before we wrap up on Rob Bell.

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And that is, is that you're going to note that scripture teaches us that this, that false teachers would arise and they would scratch itching ears because people will not endure sound doctrine.

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The reason why Rob Bell is popular is because he lies. The reason why he was so popular and was all the rage is because he got rid of sound biblical doctrines and got rid of the ones that people were embarrassed about and didn't want to believe and replace them with his own feel good message, as Martin Bashir pointed out.

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But that's exactly what the apostle Paul prophesied would happen. Those who teach sound doctrine, well, they've got a tough road to hoe.

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Titus chapter one, Paul writing to Titus about helping to find pastors, finding pastors to put in the congregations on the island of Crete.

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He says, this is why I left you in Crete so that you might put what remained in order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.

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If anyone is above reproach, he's the husband of one wife. His children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.

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An overseer is God's steward must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of the good, self -controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.

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He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradicted.

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So note, one of the qualifications of a pastor, he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught.

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You don't get to innovate, that's completely forbidden. And he has to give instruction in sound doctrine and to rebuke those who contradicted.

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And the reason why, there are many, not some, many who are insubordinate, who are empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.

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They must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

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One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own said,

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Cretans are always liars and evil beasts and lazy gluttons. Well, this testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.

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Another text is in Malachi. And if you know your Mosaic covenant, then you'll note that the

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Levites were tasked by God to be the ones to teach Israel the word of God. And so Levites were priests.

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That was their function in ancient Israel. And so the priests then were supposed to be the ones to teach the word of God back in the

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Mosaic covenant. So Malachi 2 says, and now, O priests, this command is for you. God has a few words to say to these priests.

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If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name says Yahweh of hosts, then

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I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them because you do not lay it to heart.

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Behold, I will rebuke your offspring and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offsprings, and you shall be taken away with it.

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So shall you know that I have sent this command to you that my covenant with Levi may stand says

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Yahweh of armies. My covenant with him was one of life and peace.

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I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear and he feared me.

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He stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth and no wrong was found on his lips.

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He walked with me in peace and uprightness and he turned many from iniquity. Faithful messengers of God do turn people from iniquity for the lips of a priest should guard knowledge and people should seek instruction from his mouth for he is the messenger of Yahweh of armies, but you have turned aside from the way you have caused many to stumble by your instruction.

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You have corrupted the covenant of Levi says the Lord of armies and so I make you despised and abased before all of all of the people and as much as you do not keep my ways, but you show partiality in your instruction.

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He said, that's a problem. Partiality in instruction. And here's the idea is they're going to teach you what they want to teach you, but they're not going to teach you the full counsel of the word of God.

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They'll show partiality, say, I like this part of the Bible, but not this part. This part we're going to blur. This part we'll teach.

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We'll emphasize this bit and just deemphasize the other parts and maybe not even mention them at all.

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And if anyone brings them up, maybe accuse them of kind of evil and things like that. Yeah, that's, and you'll know that was a problem all the way back in the time of Malachi.

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That's not the only time you see something like that. Uh, Micah chapter two, verse 11, wonderful verse.

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If a man should go about an utter wind, about an utter wind and lies saying,

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I will preach to you of wine and strong drink. He would be the preacher for this people.

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So there was a problem back in the days of the old prophets of, of people not wanting to hear sound doctrine.

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And somebody, if, if, if somebody had come along, they, they could have scratched itching ears and says, let me be a preacher.

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I'll teach you about wine and strong drink. People would have listened to that preacher and that's not to their benefit.

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It's to their judgment. Right. And then Proverbs 22, 15, and this is something to consider here.

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Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of wisdom is not in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.

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There's a real good meaning to this. And that is, is that, um, the young, uh, and I do mean this, the young, they, they legitimately chase after folly.

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When the young say to the church and the older generation in the church, we don't want to hear your sound doctrine, put your

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Bible away, stop preaching to us. Right. It shows you the folly of their heart.

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And the reason, one of the reasons why Rob Bell was so popular is because he was a mega church pastor and he was telling people what they wanted to hear.

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And he got rid of that stuffy Bible and all those thorny doctrines that were so negative to your, your, your unsaved friends and stuff like that.

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That's all folly. And you'll note, it was the youth leading, uh, you know, leading the revolt against sound doctrine.

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And Rob Bell was basically their, their representative. Okay. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child.

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The younger generation, they are not to be leaders in Christ's church. You have to be somebody who is a man who is married, who has children, who has life experiences, who, uh, whose children are, are not open to the charge of debauchery and insubordination.

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Somebody who has demonstrated that he's able to manage his household well. And these are the ones that God calls to be leaders in the church.

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The young, they were saying, we know better. We know better. They don't. And when those, when the young get in charge, the church becomes the

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Lord of the flies rather than the church of the Lord of Lord of Lords and King of Kings, Jesus Christ.

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Just some thoughts to keep in mind along these lines. So all of that being said, all of that being said,

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Martin Bashir took Rob Bell and beat him within an inch of his life. And it was glorious to watch.

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I mean, when this happened, I, I was shocked at just how on point

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Martin Bashir was and the things that he was saying were flat out spot on. And you'll note now that we're now a long way.

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We're more than a decade since Rob Bell's fall, since the, you know, the, the whole love wins debacle.

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I mean, it became a New York times bestseller, but man, at the time it was the lightning rod issue.

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Is Rob Bell telling the truth? Does the Bible really teach that there's no such thing as hell and that everybody is going to end up in heaven, that eventually

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God's love is going to win everybody over. And that, that was the straw that broke the camel's back.

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And Rob Bell shortly after that was pretty much driven out of his church, the mega church that he planted in conjunction with Willow Creek.

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And, and he, and he then went the way of Oprah spirituality.

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And let's give you an example of just another example. Where is Rob Bell today?

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Okay. This is from three months ago, the Rob Bell YouTube channel, 613 views, 613 views, he's, he's no longer the top of the world, which makes it a lot easier for people to be critical of him and say, is this really what the

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Bible teaches? And he's discussing his book titled, Where Did You Park Your Spaceship?

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Let's listen to Rob Bell. And I remember the interview asked me like, question one, the interview asked was like, what's your stance on, and the question two was something, you know, like, like, where do you come out on this issue?

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And then the third question was like, what's your position on, and it was taking these massive, very divisive, polarizing questions that have just lit people up for years at all sorts of very jagged ways, and they were like looking for me to make like these soundbite sort of one sentence summary answers about what side

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I come out in, you know, what's your stance? I, I remember just thinking, I don't do stances, right?

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Like I'm stance for you. What's your position? What's your position? Can you imagine Ashley asking, is he recording that in a padded room?

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It's just, man, how the mighty of Adam, because everything's made of Adams, right, thinking

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I don't do stances, right? Like I'm stance for you. What's your position?

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What's your position? Can you imagine Ashley asking an Adam because everything is made of Adams, right? Can you imagine asking an Adam, an

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Adam that you take a picture of an Adam, which is a cloud of possibilities. Everything is made of Adams. Adams are clouds of possibilities, mostly made of empty space, made of all these sub atomic particles that are coming and going.

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You take a picture of an Adam, take a picture of an Adam a second later, and you don't know what you're going to see because the Adam will have so profoundly changed.

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Can you imagine asking an Adam? What's your position? Yeah. The things that make up everything.

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Yeah. The whole thing is movement. The whole thing is coming and going. The whole thing is energy in relationship.

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And I, that was a tangent. I mean, there are no tangents, but that was a tangent. Anyway, I'm in this interview and I stop the interviewer like three or four questions.

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And I'm like, wait, wait, wait. Is this interview? Just you asking me a whole list of questions about the worst topics to talk about?

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What is this? This is an interrogation. This is an exam. This is a test. It was like,

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I don't want to do this. I don't want to sit here and have to like, why is that question?

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Interesting to you? What do you think about how do you feel? What is your experience then? What does love have to do with that?

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Like, who are we together in this world? What have you learned? Oh, that's interesting.

54:50

Tell me more. What's it like to be you? None of that. It's just, where do you stand? Where do you come out?

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And I remember in that moment, like, I don't, I don't want to, this isn't what I do. I don't want to do this. This doesn't, this doesn't feel like life as I know it.

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We get these pings because, because our lives never stopped talking to us, my friend.

55:18

What is it? The guy sounds like he's certifiable.

55:25

It's the aesthetic. Again, it looks like he's recording this in a pad.

55:32

Oh man. But here's the thing.

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Back when this guy showed up, myself, Ken Silva and others, we immediately knew what he was.

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And the reason why we knew what he was is because who he was attacking and how he was attacking.

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He was attacking sound, sound doctrine. He was attacking those who teach and defend sound doctrine.

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He was defending, he was, he was defending heresy and unbelief and attacking those who were standing firm by what the, in what the scripture said.

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And it was very clear what he was. But the problem was, is that, um, the, uh, because he was made popular by Willow Creek and he, he, he planted a megachurch that became a megachurch overnight and he had a book deals and book deals and he was traveling the country and selling out venues and stuff like this.

56:37

And he was, he was the poster child for Zondervan and American cultural assumption, success equals

56:44

God's blessing and presence. And Rob Bell is the guy that God has chosen to share the gospel right now.

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There were, there were people who were comparing Rob Bell to evangelists like Billy Graham and saying that Rob Bell was the

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Billy Graham for the postmodern generation. He was never an evangelist for sound doctrine and the biblical gospel ever.

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And it doesn't take much, you know, reading of, of his material for people to see this.

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And yet so few saw what he really was until the book Love Wins came out and the controversy that it created.

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And then him going on Oprah and stuff like this. And if I can give you a resource that is a book that is worth reading, that is old and well worth the read because it is old.

57:37

We're talking like a hundred years old now. The name of the book is Christianity and Liberalism by J.

57:43

Gresham Machen. And this is a classic and it is a book worth every penny that you pay for it.

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Because what Rob Bell was, was just the postmodern iteration at the time of, of, of liberalism.

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You know, it was a postmodern liberalism, but it was liberalism nonetheless. And there have been men who have valiantly fought against this, this nebulous and awful cancer that invades the body of Christ and has destroyed so many church congregations.

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J. Gresham Machen really valiantly fought against liberalism and his book Christianity and Liberalism is a great book for you to read because Machen's been in the grave for a long time now.

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And this book was written a hundred years ago, but you can legitimately learn how to fight against today's woke liberal agenda within the visible church by reading this book.

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It'll give you the historical chops to be able to see, see it for what it is and to be able to push back against it with scripture.

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I'll put a link to this down below in the description of this video. So Rob Bell, one flew over the cuckoo's nest is where he's at now, but he was never a faithful teacher.

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And unfortunately, American Christianity's cultural assumptions led them astray and it caused them to turn off their discernment when it came to this guy.

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Had they been biblically critiquing him from the beginning and people recognizing that just because somebody is successful doesn't mean that they're sent from God, that it would have caused them, it would have saved them a lot of heartache and woe.

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And unfortunately, the wake of destruction left in the church because of Rob Bell and those promoting him,

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Zondervan and Harper One and others, and the whole emergent church movement and all that kind of stuff, the destruction has been devastating beyond belief.

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He was a Trojan horse sent by the evil one, the dark Lord himself, but he was never, ever a sound

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Christian pastor, preacher, teacher, or anybody that anybody should have been listening to.

01:00:02

And unfortunately, an entire generation of children were raised on his deconstruction. And as a result of it, many of them,

01:00:08

I'd say most lost their faith if they had any faith at all. So hopefully you found this helpful, a little bit of a walk down memory lane.

01:00:16

If so, all the information on how you can share the video is down below in the description. And until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ, his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.