Bible Study, James 1, c

CARM

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July 14, 2022

00:00: All right, we're going live. There we go, we're live, all right.
00:05: We had a lot of problems here with the internet, with some other stuff, and so it took us a bit to work around it. And now we're not on the internet, on my network at home, but we're on my phone.
00:15: So hopefully everything will be fine, and we'll just see how it goes. All right, so we're gonna pray.
00:21: We're gonna get right into James chapter one. We're gonna start at verse 19 and continue on to the rest of the chapter.
00:27: I wanna tell you that when we get to James two, it's really gonna get interesting. James two is a very important chapter in the
00:34: Bible. Believe it or not, a lot of cults use it. And so I've gone over it countless times.
00:41: I'm looking forward to getting into James two, and there's some other stuff around there we'll be getting into as well.
00:47: So as you know, I've given you some notes, and this is the compilation of James chapter one.
00:54: And hopefully you guys can follow along. And I hopefully also have, excuse me, fixed all the typos.
01:03: All right, let's pray. Let's just jump right in. We turn that, oh, that light's on already, good. All right.
01:10: Lord, we thank you for today. We ask Lord that you would be with us. And I ask Jesus that you would open up our hearts, our minds to the truth of your word, and that it would go forth with power, and that for all who would watch, all who would listen, all who would learn through it, that you would bless them.
01:28: And we give you thanks, Lord. We ask this in your precious name, amen. All right, so let's just jump into James 119 and 20.
01:38: This you know, my beloved brethren, but everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger, for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.
01:48: Now, this is kind of a proverbial statement. This was in Proverbs.
01:54: It would fit perfectly in there. Proverbs is very practical. Proverbs is full of wisdom ideas, statements of just good truth.
02:04: This is good truth, of course. And he says, this you know, my brethren, everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.
02:19: So what he's doing here is offering an exhortation. James is relating what you believe with what you do.
02:26: It's called orthodoxy, proper belief, leads to orthopraxy, proper actions.
02:33: James is extremely practical, and he says to speak slowly, not with anger, because it does not accomplish the righteousness of God.
02:40: Now, we'll get into some stuff here. So orthodoxy is what you believe. Now, people behave based on what they believe in, not what they don't believe in.
02:50: So if they believe in something, they're gonna behave accordingly. And it's a very important principle.
02:56: A lot of times people don't understand that principle, and they think that you can behave based on what you kind of believe in or lack belief in, as atheists say, but it doesn't work.
03:05: So out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. We'll get into that. That's what Jesus says in Matthew 11, or 12, 34.
03:12: But for now, let's take a look at a few things here. Anger is the word orgizo, and that's the verb form.
03:20: The noun is orge. The noun form occurs 36 times in the
03:27: New Testament. Now, a lot of people don't know this, but anger is not automatically a sin.
03:33: Some people think it is a sin. God gets angry. Jesus got angry. If you go to Mark 3, 5, after looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the man, stretch out your hand, and he stretched it out, and his hand was restored.
03:48: So it actually uses this word, orge, anger. So he says,
03:53: Jesus was angry at them. Obviously, it wasn't sinful to do that. I looked for other instances in the
03:59: Gospels of similar things with Jesus, couldn't find it. This is the only place that it occurred like that.
04:06: I also did a phrase, a search on the phrase, anger of the Lord, and it occurs 35 times in the
04:12: New American Standard Bible, and they are all, I think it's interesting, in the Old Testament, none in the
04:19: New Testament. Just interesting. All right, and I gave some references there.
04:26: I could have listed all 35 out, but I didn't think it was really necessary. But there's some that you can check out.
04:33: Exodus 4, 14, then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses. And Judges 10, seven, the anger of the
04:39: Lord burned against Israel. So God is actually getting angry.
04:46: So there's some doctrines dealing with the nature of God and the attributes of God. Does he have emotions?
04:55: And it's called the impassibility of God. Can we do anything that will affect God? Yeah. Now, how can we affect him if from all eternity he's ordained whatsoever shall come to pass?
05:10: Ephesians 1, 11. Therein lies the paradox. And we know that it says here that he got angry with Moses.
05:20: He got angry with Israel. So my conclusion is that yes, he gets angry with people because of what they do.
05:28: I would just simply say that he ordained that he would get angry with them at some point in history.
05:35: And it works, all right. But anger can be an act of love as well. It depends.
05:43: Yeah. To say anger's an act of love, generally, huh?
05:48: If you care. Yeah. If you care, like a father. Yeah. It could be looked at that way.
05:58: And here, because in Exodus 4, 14, the anger of the Lord burned against Moses.
06:04: And he said, is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he speaks fluently.
06:10: And moreover, behold, he is coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he'll be glad in his heart. Moses was saying, I can't go and talk to Pharaoh.
06:17: And he made God mad. You think that God might know when he says,
06:25: I'm gonna send you to Pharaoh. And then Moses said, well, I'm not a good speaker. Oh, I forgot about that.
06:33: Oh, no, you keep going. It doesn't happen like that, okay? So, you know, it's like, no, duh.
06:42: So, it upset God, because it's an issue of not having enough faith in God. And God's right there before you, doing all this stuff.
06:52: And what do you do? You still doubt him. Aye, aye, aye, aye, aye, aye. I wouldn't have doubted him at all, ever.
07:00: Perfectly. Oh, man, I'd have been, and I've been humble about it, too. And no problems at all.
07:10: Some thunderstorms, yeah, I had to hide in a cave. Hopefully, the earthquake will get me. But, yeah, all right.
07:19: Now, our anger is good when it's against unrighteousness, hypocrisy, sin, hindering others from coming to Christ, the promotion of ungodliness should be in society.
07:34: There, I've got my pen on me. Oh, thanks. I was gonna make a little note, because it should be in.
07:41: I tried to, you know, tried to get that. So, thank you, fixed everything.
07:52: So, homosexuality's promotion in society. Should we be angry about that? Yes, we should be.
07:59: What should we do about it? Stick our heads in the sand and hope it goes away, right?
08:06: And then we hope that the unbelievers don't come and come after us later, because we're gonna get raptured out.
08:13: They're gonna come anyway, that's right. So, homosexuality, the woke, socialism, all these things that are against scripture, hypocrisy, sin,
08:26: I do get angry. I'm more geared towards the good. Angry towards hypocrisy and heresy that brings people to a place of damnation.
08:39: It makes me mad. And believe it or not, a subtle righteous anger has been a substantial motivation for all my apologetics.
08:54: Some people might think, it should be better if you just loved them. Maybe, but I'm just telling you what's in me, that it upsets me what they say, it upsets me what they do, and I'm gonna fix it.
09:08: That's a righteous anger. That righteous anger comes from God. I do not like false doctrines.
09:15: I do not like those things that lead people to damnation. And I wanna stand up against it, and I do.
09:21: Our anger is bad when it's there to satisfy our emotions or to injure another without a cause.
09:30: We could lose some more stuff in there. So anger is not automatically bad. Now, the next few scriptures,
09:40: I gotta tell you, worked in my heart because I wasn't very skilled at working with people and talking to people.
09:52: And because I was so quick -minded and had a lot of information, I could just slay people with scripture, with logic, and just go out there and then carve a notch in my
10:05: Bible, say, I'll show that guy. And I did that, I did that. And gradually the
10:11: Lord, you know, rubbing his celestial forehead at me and allowing me to make a fool of myself, started to convict me years and years ago.
10:22: And these are the verses that he used to do it with. Colossians 4, 5, and 6, "'Conduct yourself with wisdom toward outsiders.
10:30: "'Make in the most of the opportunity, "'let your speech always be with grace.'" That means anger can't be there.
10:37: "'As though seasoned with salt, "'so that you will know how you should respond "'to each person.'"
10:43: I literally printed this up in Greek and had it next to my monitor so that I could look at it.
10:50: I didn't want people to go, what, you know, see that. I just wanted it between myself and the
10:55: Lord, and I worked on it, okay, and I remember it. And if that wasn't enough, 2
11:00: Timothy 2, 24 -26, "'The Lord's bond servant must not be quarrelsome.'" Because anger can lead to quarrels.
11:08: "'But be kind to all, able to teach, "'patient when wronged, with gentleness, "'correcting those who are in opposition, "'that perhaps
11:14: God may grant them repentance "'relating to the knowledge of the truth. "'And they may come to their senses "'and escape from the snare of the devil, "'having been taught by him to do his will.'"
11:24: So today, for example, I was on the net. It was interesting. I'll do this, go on the, is be calm.
12:43: So I've taught myself, right? So I go into these rooms and I wait, then they come and they talk.
12:49: And what'll happen is sometimes, as happened today, just an example of something. They'll give me a bunch of things that I've done wrong.
12:56: One guy said something, I'm writing it down. That's not true, it's not true, it's not true. You misheard me, I didn't say that.
13:03: One guy said, I went to a cemetery and it had a bunch of made -up words. I'm writing that down.
13:09: Okay, because I'm gonna get on and I'm gonna talk to them. And so, get on, start to talk, and they jump in and interrupt.
13:17: And I just wait. And then I say, could you please let me finish my sentences? And they'll say, well, you know, see, because I just wait.
13:26: You please let me finish my sentences. And sometimes I'll say, can you confirm to me that you'll let me finish my sentences?
13:33: And if they don't, I say, well, we're not talking then. Next. But the goal is to remain as calm as possible.
13:42: And in the context of that room and rooms like that, what happens is it causes others to be calm.
13:49: And then we can have real conversation. And it's an unexpected side effect of what goes on.
13:55: And it took years to do it. And now, atheists will even say, Matt, you're very calm.
14:03: People will call me up and say, how do you possibly show that much patience to people?
14:10: Takes a lot of practice. But the point is, you know what? We fall on our strengths as well as our weaknesses.
14:18: And there are things that take a long time to work on, and this is one of them, at least in my life. Just use it as an example of something.
14:25: If you go to the next page, 1 Peter 3 .15, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who would ask you to give an account for the hope that is in you, you get with gentleness and reverence.
14:38: But instead of being a bulldozer or a gunslinger with a Bible, the idea is to go in and be as patient as possible.
14:47: And a lot of times, it doesn't lead much anywhere. But this is what
14:52: God's spoken to me about. And now I have to work on it in other areas of my life. You know,
14:58: I wish it was just one thing I had to fix, but it's not like that, at any rate.
15:05: So God does not want us to be unrighteously angry because it can be a detriment.
15:12: It can be deleterious, hidden harmful effects, deleterious. It can have deleterious effects on relationships, on witnessing, on other things, on businesses, on your health.
15:24: And the idea is to calm down. Next, I got to start working on dealing with traffic.
15:34: That's gonna take a miracle, because I'll tell you, they don't drive the way they ought to drive. They should get out when the light turns green, get out in the intersection instead of making me wait for five days and stuff like that.
15:45: And then instead of going up to a four -way stop, going, what did I do? You on the right, you go first.
15:55: You've been there, done that. All of us who came from California, we drive here in Idaho now, they all say the same thing.
16:03: What is wrong with that? Not just California. Not just California? What is up with the
16:10: Idahoans? The potato farmers. Virginia? I've driven in Virginia.
16:15: I've driven in New Jersey, all over the place. LA, oh yeah, rush hour.
16:23: 80 miles an hour, around the curves, airborne a couple of times, coming around the corner, when you got three feet in front of you.
16:31: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The potato farmers, that's right.
16:37: There's a green light up there. We've got to stop eight miles ahead. Okay, I'm sorry. I've been whining. As you can tell, there's some other areas
16:44: I got to work on. When I can handle it and go, it's okay. Just merge, merge, everybody merge.
16:54: I'm kidding. It's a smile. I'm just kidding. I'm telling it, Matt. We've worked that out. It's like Corey, he wouldn't even be done with that.
17:02: Yeah. Hey. Just from a corner, instead of coming to a full and complete stop. Yeah. Like a green light.
17:08: Or how about, how about when they come up to the red light and you could turn right, they pull over to the right so they can go fast and they block you.
17:16: Okay. I could complain. Let it go. But let it go.
17:23: Now, here's a, there's a fun example of what anger can do to you. And, boy,
17:30: I'll tell you, it's just, letting it go is hard. Letting it go is hard.
17:36: So what's my profession of faith? Trusting in the Lord. He's ordaining all this. And yet when
17:41: I'm in my car, what's up? That's what happens. Except I will say this in Idaho, for some reason, there'd be two lanes up to a light and everybody's in one lane.
17:56: I've never seen that anywhere. That's crazy. Yeah, it happens all the time here. And I'll go up the other lane.
18:02: I'm always, when I first started doing it, I thought the lane's going to explode. Yeah. It's going to explode. And I'm, that's because I had to merge a mile up.
18:11: We can't merge. Okay. Calm down.
18:19: Breathe. Deep breath. So, hey, drivers. Okay. My wife says, here, they're oblivious.
18:28: That's a good word for them. Oblivious. All right. I hope you guys enjoyed that. So, therefore, verse 21, putting us,
18:38: I don't like this. Oh, yeah, yeah. Putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility, receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.
18:50: Now, in my head, of course you put aside all filthiness and wickedness. And with humility, receive this.
18:57: I can talk about it. You know, am I filthy? Of course not. Am I wicked?
19:05: No, I'm not. If there was somehow a glass plate that could shine over, pass over my chest, you know, and you can see my heart, and then the blacker it is, the more wicked and filthy it is, it'd be at least dark gray.
19:21: Okay? Because I know what I am. And when
19:26: I read stuff like this, you know, I don't abide in those things. We don't abide in those things, but we know that we have issues.
19:34: We know that we're not pure in our hearts and our minds. We know that we have struggles. We know that there are filthy things in us and wicked things in us.
19:42: But you know, what's amazing is that Jesus loves us. And he's still with us. And he continues to love us.
19:51: That's just, it's amazing to me. Now, what he's talking about really is those other people who really live in wickedness, maybe pornography and drug abuse and theft.
20:03: And we're not doing that. But we can't look down our noses at them and say, I'm not like those guys.
20:10: You know, I'm not like that tax gatherer over there. We gotta be careful. Because when we point, you know, that adage, you got fingers pointing back at you when you're pointing at somebody else.
20:21: It depends on how you hold your gun. If you do with the carb method, then it doesn't work. Put them all aside and receive the word implanted.
20:32: Now that's an interesting turn of phrase. So how many of you have ever read the word and it struck you?
20:44: It struck you. And you have a hard time getting rid of it or not that you want to get rid of God's word, but that striking, that getting to, you know, it's like, whoa.
20:56: I've got stuff like that. And I read Colossians three. Colossians three.
21:03: At every point I fail. When I look down deep at every point I fail.
21:09: You know, I was reading, editing my book, The Influence, and the main character has a very profound spiritual experience of the presence of God.
21:21: And the result of it is, he says nothing good about himself.
21:27: Nothing. He's been in the presence of the Lord Jesus in this fictional account.
21:34: And he has nothing good to say about himself, period.
21:39: Not a thing. And all he has is just hope in the mercy of God.
21:45: That's all. The closer we get to the Lord, the brighter his light is, and the deeper it shines into our hearts, and the more we see of ourselves.
21:54: And that's a problem. And that's what I'm talking about here, when we say, okay, the things we have to deal with. You know that.
21:59: That's what it is. The word filthiness occurs only here in the
22:04: New Testament. And when a word only occurs once in a body of text, it's called a hapox legomena.
22:15: I've paid for that word in seminary. I've got to use that every now and then. That's two words, actually. And so look what the
22:22: Greek word for wickedness is. Guys, you see it in number two there? Kakia.
22:28: We get kaka, right? So it occurs 11 times in the New Testament.
22:34: It's rendered as trouble in Matthew 6, 34, evil in Romans 1, 29, malice in 1 Corinthians 5, 8, et cetera.
22:41: So it does occur a lot. By contrast, James tells us to put aside filthiness and wickedness and replace them with humility, the humility with which we receive the word of God.
22:53: Now think about that. We read that Bible. We read what God's word says.
22:59: And what we're choosing to do is to believe it in its authority and power over our own lives.
23:05: And by the automatic reading of it, we are saying it's above me and it is superior to me.
23:13: Now that is a form of humility. Now, humility is like pride.
23:20: Both of them hide themselves in your heart and you can't see them, but others can.
23:27: So we joke about, yeah, I'm proud of my humility and things like that. So when someone argues with me and said,
23:33: Matt, you're prideful. I never say, no, I'm not. You're arrogant.
23:42: You know, if they say you're humble, I go, well, I don't know about that. Okay. I have people say that,
23:49: I don't know about that. You know, I just, I don't want to contradict them and be rude, but I say, I don't know about that.
23:54: You know, and it's happened once or twice. Okay, it's like, what is wrong with you?
24:03: But humility, there's one definition of humility I like. Knowing your proper place before God.
24:10: I like that one. Because then we can retain some form of humility and know it.
24:18: Not in a boastful, hey, look how humble I am manner, but I am what I am by the grace of God.
24:24: It's only his grace has saved me and kept me. And in that there's humility. So we can possess that in that sense.
24:36: Yeah, let's go to verse 22. But prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.
24:45: So I can read through this and go very quickly. That's true. Be doers, not just talkers. Next, we can do that.
24:54: But what he's talking about here is a deep. We need to obey the word of God, not talk about obeying the word of God.
25:04: And it's easy for us to hear what the word says, publicly affirm what the word says, and then not live it in our hearts.
25:19: Now, we can publicly affirm it and publicly do it. And still in our hearts, we're in rebellion.
25:31: The doers of the word should be the ones who do it from the heart.
25:38: Now, that's very difficult. My heart's desperately wicked and deceitful. I can't trust it.
25:43: I don't know about you guys, but I know mine. And when
25:49: I hear the thing, prove yourself doers of the word, it's not just going door to door as a doer of the word, but a doer of the word in my heart before God.
26:00: And that will lead to other things like going door to door or going on the net or whatever it might be. Because what you believe is what's gonna lead you to do.
26:11: The doers of the word do it because of what's in them. Hopefully they have the humility, they know their position before God, and they want to act based on that relationship with God, what they know to be true.
26:22: I find the most difficult thing is dealing with my own heart. That's the absolute most difficult thing.
26:30: When I don't like taking communion, I tell people, because I have to deal with my own heart beforehand, and I don't like doing that.
26:40: What I mean is I gotta face my own sin before God. And I do confess my sins, and it's unpleasant because I'm exposing myself in the seriousness of communion.
26:53: When I go to preach, I haven't preached in over a year, I love preaching, and I'll be sitting there waiting for the music to end, because usually there's songs, and then you go and I get to preach.
27:06: And I love to preach, and I wish they would just not do any songs so I can go up and preach, okay? Okay, be patient.
27:13: And I'm praying, Lord, please don't let me take my pride with me and my arrogance with me up into that pulpit.
27:22: Please just use me in spite of my own sin. But Lord, I want to impress everybody so they think
27:28: I'm great. Oh, by the way, Lord, forget what I just said, because I shouldn't be like that, but I do hope it happens.
27:37: And so, oh darn, Lord, and so I have this wrestle that I go with. The things I don't want to do,
27:43: I do. The things I do want to do, I don't. The wickedness that's in me. And so what
27:49: I do is, is I put myself before God and say, may you speak through this fool.
27:57: And then just quiet my heart and go, and go to speak. And hopefully by God's grace, then truth goes out.
28:07: See, the doers of the word is not just going out there and reciting a hundred verses and giving a doctrinal dissertation related to a particular verse.
28:15: The heart is necessary up there too. Just as the heart is necessary for you when you deal with your husband, your wife, your children, your business partners, it's hard.
28:32: And that's something that I think is one of the very hardest things for any and all
28:37: Christians. And I'll tell you, I've got so far to go.
28:45: You know, I'll use Nika as an example. She's got a lot of problems and I'm having to pick up the slack. And there'd been a few times when
28:51: I was like, crap, I don't want to do this, but not very often. Because the doer of the word will say,
28:59: I love you, I'm going to serve you. And I've dealt with that in my own heart to say, it's an opportunity to serve.
29:06: And I rejoice in that, teaching it and living it as best I can. Not that I'm perfect at it, and she'll tell you
29:12: I'm not perfect at it. But the attitude in everything we do, even in our service, needs to be from the heart.
29:20: Now, sometimes we can say, I want it to be from the heart, but it's not there.
29:26: Then what I tell people to do is, then do it anyway. Just behave as though your heart believes it.
29:34: Even though you know it doesn't, you're not being a hypocrite, you're being faithful.
29:41: A hypocrite is a deceiver. But we're not deceiving people, not intentionally.
29:48: You know, I mean, we're trying to be good and stuff like that. It's not our intention. But the issue of our own heart before God is really important.
29:56: And the way he tests our heart before him is to test it before people. And with a wife or with a husband, because you may not know this, but I've got a few faults.
30:11: Yeah, see, they didn't even know that. I just probably just crushed them, you know? You can't come here anymore?
30:20: Yeah, it's true. You what? Crestfallen, that's right.
30:27: So, you know, I'm sorry to really ruin it for people, but you know, that's what it is. And what's that?
30:37: Bubbles burst, must've been a small bubble. So, or as they say, your bubble wasn't leveled or something,
30:43: I don't know, it's a whole bit. So I kind of got lost last year. The thing is that it works both ways, you know, in relationships.
30:53: And sometimes we have to act according to the profession and hope the heart follows.
31:03: Because God does say, pick up your cross daily and follow after me. He doesn't say, get your heart right and then come follow me.
31:13: Pick it up, follow me. It's heavy, I'm whining. It's hard, I don't like it.
31:19: Follow me. He doesn't say stop the whining. He goes, keep following. But it's heavy. He likes that whining,
31:27: I'm pretty good at whining. Whining is a little biblical. Take a little whine for your stomach. I was driving on the freeway five years ago and I'm coming up and I see some guy on the side of the road, for real.
31:38: And he's carrying a cross. He's got a wheel on it. I've seen two guys do that in my years.
31:44: And I went, I passed, look at that. And I went way up, way back, took me 20 minutes.
31:49: And I pull up behind him and we get talking. And he goes, yeah, I've been doing this for months.
31:56: There's a wheel on the back of the thing because otherwise it'll grind down from the dragging the wood, four by four.
32:02: And he says, people throw things at him, they'll honk at him, the whole bit. And I gave him some water and hey, here's a little bit of cash here.
32:10: Because he goes, the Lord provides. Now he's walking it and talking it.
32:16: And he was full of joy. Me, I'd be like, man, they'll honk at me.
32:22: Look at that, they're all in one lane. What is up with them?
32:28: So the issue here I'm trying to get into without getting too deep and hurtful is that we have to live what we profess.
32:37: And it means down deep as well. And sometimes living that means to confess it, to admit things, and it's not easy.
32:49: So that's what it means to put aside the filthiness. The filthiness of the crap that we hold onto in our own hearts.
32:56: Self -righteousness, self -justification, envy, coveting, whatever it might be that remains of that such wickedness.
33:04: Instead, with humility, receive that word of truth. And then be doers of the word, not just the hearers who delude themselves.
33:12: Because if it's gonna be in us, then it needs to manifest from us. Why? Because we've been bought with a price.
33:21: Acts 20, 28, that's 22, 1, 1 on the outline, where it says in the last part of that verse, to shepherd the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood.
33:33: And you've died with Christ, Romans 6, 8. We've gone over this. Now, if you've died with Christ, we believe that we also shall live with him.
33:41: We're indwelt by the Lord. Excuse me, John 14, 23. Jesus answered and said to him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word.
33:51: And my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him. And then there's
33:57: Colossians 3, 1 through 5. This is one of my favorite pericopes in the
34:03: Bible. Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
34:11: Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
34:20: When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed, which amounts to idolatry.
34:37: That's a fantastic pericope. There's a lot there, a lot of theology in there.
34:44: I love theology, but it's theology that is wonderful, that is pleasant, that is comforting.
34:52: I love that pericope. Next page, hypocrisy. We must be very wary of our own hypocrisy.
35:02: We profess love in Christ publicly, and then we don't do it privately.
35:07: I'm very susceptible to that, I'm a public figure. So for me, it's very easy to put on the airs and make it sound good.
35:15: But you know what? If I ever do that for the purpose of appearing like I'm doing it so that I can be something else and know it,
35:23: I know that disparity right away and I address it. Because it's happened.
35:29: You know, I'm gonna go impress somebody and I'll tell you that's part of it. And Lord, what is, that is wrong.
35:37: I'm not here to impress anybody, I'm here to serve you. That's what I'm gonna do, go serve you.
35:43: We fall right there in our hearts. I don't mind using myself as an example of failure because I got so much to work with that way.
35:51: So many illustrations. It just cuts my research time down a lot. I don't have to go for illustrations, go find them.
36:01: I got them. Long as they just stop, go with the light and then just go forward.
36:10: First John 2 .4, the one who says, I have come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, the truth is not in him.
36:16: What's the commandments of God? Love God and love your neighbor. All right, love God, Deuteronomy 6 .4,
36:23: which is, no, Deuteronomy 6 .5, which is quoted by Jesus in Matthew 22,
36:29: Matthew 22, 37, and then love your neighbor as yourself. He quotes that from Leviticus 19, 18 in Matthew 22, 39.
36:40: He says, and this is the fullness of the law. That's what he says. Then he says, a new commandment
36:46: I give to you that you love one another. John 10, 34, I think is where that is, 35. So we're to be loving, it's a command of God.
36:54: So if you say you know him and don't love, you're a liar, you're a hypocrite.
37:01: So what we do often is hold on to grudges, hold on to resentment, hold on to anger, hold on to varying things.
37:10: Now, dealing with things like that isn't always so easy. Sometimes you gotta process stuff, I get it, because sometimes you can really be wronged.
37:17: And say you're driving down the road and you stop to go out and help somebody, and somebody just beats the crud out of you, steals your car, and he hurts you, and you're in the hospital.
37:29: It happens to people. And you gotta forgive that person. Says the retired officer.
37:40: I remember a story about a man whose son was murdered. And I told you guys before, his son was murdered, and the bad guy was caught and sentenced to prison.
37:53: And I think he, well, he ended up getting out of prison, but he spent a long time in prison.
37:59: One of those things where like parole after 20 years, whatever it was. The father was a Christian.
38:05: The father went and visited him in jail after a while, and forgave him, and continued to visit him, continued to be there for him, discipled him, led him to the
38:23: Lord. And when he got out, he said, you can come stay with me.
38:31: And he did. And that man is so grateful for the love and the humility of that father.
38:39: That man murdered his own son. Could you imagine if someone like that came in, of two men came in, and one of them says, yeah,
38:47: I killed his son, and I'll live with him. What?
38:55: If we really are living as Christians, that kind of love, I don't know if I could do that, but that kind of love, that's what we need to manifest.
39:05: It's a high goal, but it's the goal of Christ. I probably reached after I put them in jail.
39:12: Yeah. Then I worked on forgiveness. Then you worked on forgiveness. After they fell down the stairs a couple of times?
39:18: I'm not saying anything. What if they never go to jail? Well, that's a good question.
39:23: What if they never get caught? Then you just, then you love them in an alley. Find love. All I'm saying is, it would be difficult for me.
39:32: I mean, they have to pay on this earth. Yeah. Then what if they don't? Well, that's a whole other thing, but.
39:39: A lot of people don't. Yeah. But at any rate. Yeah, the Democrats too. But I'd have a hard time doing that, but I know
39:45: I would. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and this is, you know, what
39:51: I'm talking about is the standard and where we are. And there's different examples of it, of good standards from different people.
39:57: And how do we deal with it? He's bringing it up. But what a story.
40:03: It's a true story. And the man got out and lived with this man, the father of the guy he killed.
40:11: Wow. Jesus going to kill the Christians. Jesus going to kill the Christians. Paul, there's some heresy for you.
40:21: Paul going to kill the Christians and Jesus forgives him. He says, you're persecuting me. You're killing my people, my children.
40:29: And he, look what he did. That's one of the goals, all right?
40:34: And look what he says here, Luke 9, 23. And he was saying to them all, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
40:46: The denying myself is something I've been learning more and more about over the years and what that means.
40:53: Not gonna say I got it down, of course, but I know more and more what it means. And what's really interesting is more and more joy is coming with denying myself.
41:05: Because to deny myself means I put my eyes there on that cross. It's easy to say, not easy to do, but you inch your way forward as the compass changes.
41:18: And pretty soon it's more habitual than not. It takes a long time. But that's the goal.
41:24: You want to come after Christ, deny yourself. Don't hold onto things. Let things go the best you can at the right time.
41:32: Someone kills your son, not like five minutes later, hey, it's all good. But, and Jesus says in Matthew 10, 38, he who does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.
41:47: That bothers me because to what degree am I picking up that cross and following? Like that man in the freeway, in a literal sense, he's picking up the cross and following after Christ.
41:56: But there's other ways to do that as well. We'll get to that. Verse 23, for if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror.
42:06: For once he has looked at himself and gone away, he's immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. Now for some people, looking in the mirror and forgetting what you look like is a good idea.
42:19: I hear an amen. Yeah, I hear an amen. I look in the mirror,
42:24: I'm going, oh, I'm gonna need to forget what I just saw. But that's not what he's talking about. He's talking about those who, they hear something and they immediately dismiss it and they move on.
42:39: They don't hear the truth. Well, excuse me, they hear it, but that's it. And they forget.
42:46: It's like someone who looks in the mirror and goes, forgets who it is and goes away. That's an interesting analogy.
42:51: It might be because they didn't have glass mirrors like we do, but they had highly polished bronze surfaces and it was pretty good, but they had that bronzish kind of hue reflection, but they could look and they could see what you looked like.
43:07: I think in that time, I wouldn't wanna know what I looked like, which would, anyway. I do remember once looking after my car accident, looking in the mirror and seeing what
43:16: I looked like. I still remember that. It was not pretty. Wide open door, wide open door.
43:28: And you can say, that explains a lot. Did you ever get better looking? It means all kinds of things.
43:34: You don't use a car accident for that. No. You don't need a car accident for that?
43:39: I was pretty mangled. Don't use a car accident for that. I can, it was mine. Half of 1976.
43:46: I could use it. But you said, you guys are slipping. I'm gonna teach you how to do insults.
43:52: What a big kind. We're learning from the book of James. You're looking for that?
44:00: Okay, there you go. All right. So our relationship with Christ and our relationship to what we are to do before him must not be a temporary mental acknowledgement that's easily forgotten.
44:19: That's the point. Unlike the man in the mirror who sees himself and then quickly forgets when he walks away, we must remember who we are in Christ.
44:27: We are to remember what God has done and what he is doing in us. That's the point there.
44:35: And that's why Colossians 3, one through five on the previous page says what it says. We've died with Christ.
44:41: Our life is hidden with him. Focus on the things above. I look at this next paragraph here.
44:46: Also notice the tenses of the two verses. In verse 22, he speaks about the person who looks in the mirror, but then once he leaves, has immediately forgotten.
44:56: That's the aorist middle. Aorist means past tense. Middle voice means you do it to yourself.
45:03: So he's willingly just turning away from it. It's his choice to do so. Which means here, is it the past tense action that a person does upon himself?
45:11: In other words, he's voluntarily abandoned the truth and responsibilities set before him. That's what's going on.
45:20: Hopefully we're not doing that. Hopefully we don't, in our own lives, purposely abandon our oughts, our moral oughts, our responsibility before our
45:31: Lord. And hopefully we don't bury it under a blanket of anger and self -righteousness.
45:40: Because if we do, we cut ourselves off from seeing more around us, what needs to be done.
45:47: We're gonna be in heaven one day. And I've always thought about this. I don't want to, it's gonna happen anyway, but I don't want to be in heaven and say,
45:55: I wish I could have done more, okay? It's gonna happen. But I wanna be able to say, as much as possible, spent my life for you.
46:05: I made a lot of mistakes in the process, but at least I tried. Now, I'm not saying you have to do what I do. Whatever God calls you to do, you do.
46:13: That's on you, between you and him. But the idea is that you do what he wants you to do for his glory.
46:19: That's the intention. And when you're in heaven, whatever it is you're doing, you wanna do for the glory of God.
46:28: And then you use it to support ministry. You use it to support family. You use it to provide in society as God desires in an honest way.
46:40: That's all glorifying to God, that's a good thing. But at any rate, let's go to verse 25.
46:45: But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer, but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.
46:57: So what he's doing here is he's contrasting, looking in a mirror and forgetting, and then not doing, with looking at the law and remembering and doing.
47:05: But it's the perfect law. That's the law of Christ. The law of Christ says, do because of your heart.
47:15: The law in the Old Testament says, do according to your hand. External law stops the hand.
47:22: Internal law stops the heart. Or we could say, the internal law, the law of Christ and the love motivates us internally.
47:32: So I say the law is for the hand, the gospel is for the heart. The law is for the ungodly.
47:39: I forgot there's a great verse that says, the law is for the ungodly. And I forgot, I think it's, I wanna say 1 Timothy 1, 9, don't know if that's even it.
47:46: I don't know why that came into mind. But the law is for the ungodly to stop them from doing what is evil.
47:56: So the law is good. But we don't need it. We don't need that law.
48:03: If we're really Christians, can you imagine, I could write a novel, a second novella.
48:10: I wrote one called Atheistica about a nation of atheists. What if I could do one, a nation of Christians?
48:16: And what's the laws that would be there? Love God and love your neighbor. Those are the two laws.
48:25: Go. So if everyone did that, how great life would be.
48:38: Sounds like heaven. Yeah. So the law of liberty is the gospel.
48:47: The gospel is that law of liberty. It sets us free from the requirements of the law by which people sought to justify themselves before God.
48:55: I should do a teaching on the law sometime. Okay. John 8, 32, Jesus says, and you will know the truth and truth will make you free.
49:02: The reason it's in fainter text here is because it's in red on my screen.
49:08: It just prints up that way. Romans 8, 15. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you've received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out
49:18: Abba, Father. Second Corinthians 3, 17. Now the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the
49:23: Lord is, there's liberty. Galatians 5, 1. It was for freedom that Christ set us free.
49:29: Therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery. So we're set free.
49:35: We are no longer obligated to follow that law. Now here's an interesting thing.
49:41: Romans 4, 15, I think it is. And Romans 5, 13. If there is no law, there is no sin.
49:49: In Romans 7, 4, if we have died to the law, we've died in Christ.
49:55: According to Romans 6, 6, Romans 6, 8. But he who's died for the law is free from the law. So if we have died to the law in Christ, can we sin anymore?
50:05: In one sense, no, you can't. Because the law is dead to us and when there is no law, sin is not imputed.
50:13: On the other hand, oh yeah, we sin. Because the law serves for us the purpose of being a guide, revealing still our heart, but it's not held, the consequence is not held against us.
50:29: We've died to that law. If we died in Christ and when you've died, you're no longer bound by that law.
50:37: So on one hand, I don't sin anymore at all because there's no law that can hold me accountable for it.
50:45: When there's no law, there's no sin. On the other hand, yeah, I got some problems. I gotta deal with a lot of stuff.
50:55: Okay, make sense? Okay. Verse 26.
51:01: If anyone thinks himself to be religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, but deceives his own heart, this man's religion is worthless.
51:13: I was gonna write number one, expand it, but I didn't. Number two, religion is a threshold.
51:20: She's threshold. It occurs only here in the entire
51:26: New Testament. What do you call it? When a word only occurs once in a body of text? Very good, hapex legomena.
51:35: See? Yeah, there you go. You see, you can say it at a Bible study or if you're on a date, hapex legomena.
51:42: A date? Yeah, a date, yeah. I'll be arrested, what did you call me? That's true, maybe that would not be good.
51:49: I said, wait, use it in context. That's right. Then you could say to your date, hey, you wanna go circumambulate a well -fenestrated edifice while curtailing our relative fascinations?
52:01: We can cogitate and then, if you want, osculate. I said that to Neek one time and she said, should
52:09: I slap you or not? You remember that?
52:16: Lumberata Lake, Lumberata? What did you say? Well, I'm paraphrasing.
52:25: But I think she went, oh baby, yeah. I think that's what happened, because she's sesquipedilian, she likes big words.
52:32: And so I had abs and big words, she couldn't help it. She got a lot of, over there she could throw at me, that's right, but she doesn't wanna hurt herself.
52:42: I'm safe, okay. Anyway, so it's the diligent,
52:49: I looked it up. It's a diligent performer of divinely ascribed duties of outward service to God. In other words, it's appearance, big robes, phylacteries, how are you gonna appear?
53:00: You walk up in front of the church, you're looking good, you're kind of swaying, you're doing fine. Hey, look what
53:05: I've done today, I helped you out, I did this, I did that. Religiosity, okay, that's what he's talking about.
53:13: It's hypocrisy, religiosity. Because the word religious, dealing with external behavior, James speaking about the internal in his own heart.
53:22: I had to make that sentence right. I'll work on that later. After all, Jesus says that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
53:28: So James is drawing a distinction between the outward proclamation and the inward reality.
53:34: This is what's been going on, left and right, back way, different ways. What's in you, what's outside of you?
53:40: The proclamation and how you are. What do you say, what do you do? What do you believe, how do you act?
53:47: That's where he's going, back and forth. We must not be hypocritical by showing proper outward actions while internally we are in sin.
53:58: That's why when I get to the pulpit, I take it very seriously when I preach, I do.
54:04: I'm afraid to be up there, and yet I must be up there. Love to preach, love to preach.
54:13: But I take with me my sin, my pride, my arrogance. But I ask
54:18: God, deliver me from them as I walk up. And may you speak. That's the intention.
54:26: It doesn't mean I don't take those sins with me, but I'm not being hypocritical because I'm laying there before the feet of Christ and saying this is what
54:33: I am. I am what I am by the grace of God and go forward and speak. I take preaching seriously when
54:38: I go up there. I'm in prayer and waiting because it's the word of God speaking to his people.
54:46: I wish I could preach again, I'd just love to preach. So number five, the evidence of the internal problem is found in this instance in speech.
54:56: But it can also be found in other areas. And in the lust of our hearts, holding on to resentment, coveting.
55:05: We say we're a Christian, but what's occurring internally? Are you holding on to resentment, coveting, lust, anger?
55:17: Because that's what the gospel deals with, the heart. And if it doesn't deal with you in your heart, you've got a problem.
55:25: If the word of God doesn't reach into your heart and affect you and work against what you are in so many areas, you're either not saved or you're hardened or you refuse to listen to the word of God.
55:39: And no matter what those are, those are all dangerous. Those are all bad. We're not exempt.
55:45: You're gonna be careful. That just because we're Christians and been Christians for years doesn't mean that we're that good.
55:52: Always check yourself. Always check yourself. Don't be so confident and therefore cocky.
55:59: That's one of the things that constantly reminds me because I'm a public figure, constantly dealing with this.
56:05: I happen to face it more and more. That's what it is. It's a requirement of what
56:11: I do. In this hypocrisy, such a person deceives himself and his outer profession of religiosity is worthless.
56:19: So it's a form of self -deception. Because sometimes you can do something and convince yourself and believe the lie.
56:25: Have you ever talked yourself into something that later you found out was wrong or justified certain actions?
56:38: Yeah. Yeah, I got a couple thinking about. I got the holy slap.
56:47: Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and father is this, to visit orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
56:59: And notice that this is in the sight of God, the father. In Greek, it is literally the
57:05: God and father. This deals with what's called the Granville Sharpe rule which states that when there's a definite article, the word the, followed by two nouns that are joined with the word and, then the two words refer to the same thing.
57:22: For example, Titus 2 .13, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great
57:28: God and savior, Christ Jesus. The word the precedes the two nouns joined by a conjunction.
57:36: It's just called the Granville Sharpe rule. And this is really important and I'm throwing it out at you.
57:42: If it ever becomes necessary, you can quote it and off you know. If we wanna be religious, then let's do it by visiting orphans and or widows.
57:54: And maybe going to prisons, finding those who are in need, going to hospitals, checking out your neighbors who need their lawns mowed, buying groceries for somebody, helping them out, fixing a flat tire, doing something that helps someone else out.
58:18: And in other words, we're supposed to show our love for one another. Let's just show it.
58:24: Let's all just show it. And it's interesting because in the line of work that I do,
58:30: I have to enjoy and rejoice in people helping me.
58:39: That's not how it works. I help everybody else. That's what I do. So when people have to help me, that hurts my ego and my ability and things like that.
58:53: And I don't like it. And then the scumbags will say things like this to me, Matt, don't deny me the blessing.
59:00: Then I have to say, you're okay. You can help me now.
59:07: So I'm exaggerating a little there, but I've learned over the years, it's a blessing for others to help others.
59:15: You know, it's just a blessing to help someone else and to be helped. We've got to receive them both. It's a little hard for some of us to be helped.
59:25: I solve everybody else's problems. You fix everybody else's problems. Yeah. When you get older.
59:31: Yeah. Things you can't do. You've always done it. Uh -huh.
59:39: I want to fix your toilet. I can't pick it up. It's supposed to burn for me in my back seat. Uh -huh. Just like that.
59:45: Yep. I know exactly what you want. Oh yeah. Or your friends are - I have a pride fit. You have a pride fit.
59:51: Yeah, that's right. Or how about when your friends are 20 years younger than you and then automatically, we'll pick it up for you.
59:58: Don't worry about it. I got guys, you know, friends are 20 and 30 years younger than me.
01:00:06: And what they'll do is, don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. Cause you know, you're old. But they want to help.
01:00:15: We're joking around here, but you get the principle. We'd like to help. We really do. And it's okay to be helped.
01:00:21: We need to rejoice in that because it's a good thing for them. Wow, what a weird concept.
01:00:28: It is. So I can rejoice in someone else helping me because I know they're blessed by it.
01:00:35: Praise God. But isn't that a weird thing that happens in Christianity?
01:00:42: Now they have to help. Okay, you're going to wait. But what a neat problem to have that I want to help you.
01:00:50: And that's how I'm going to bless you. I need you to let me bless you. And you say, okay, that sounds good.
01:01:01: And learn to accept it. Still struggling with it. Maybe that's one of the advantages of old age.
01:01:09: It humbles us so that others can help. No, it isn't. No wisdom. What?
01:01:17: What? So slick that was, quick and slick.
01:01:28: They're smiling. They're all smiling over here. Different one is going. All right.
01:01:36: I really enjoyed when you shared what you did over the planes.
01:01:42: That was awesome. I watched you. You were just full of joy.
01:01:49: You loved doing it. It was a, it was, that was half the fun. It's like, man, he's loving this. And I'm loving that he's loving this.
01:01:58: There you go. There's an advantage. You got a lot of experience. Tour. I'd do it again.
01:02:08: I want to go again. But I already did.
01:02:13: Okay. I wouldn't take him again. He probably was telling you stuff. Oh, there we go.
01:02:23: All right. That's good. Getting in there. That's right. It was worth it. Okay.
01:02:30: So we need to be living our faith and there's different ways to do it, of course.
01:02:37: And in this, we're to keep ourselves pure, unstained by the defilements of the world. This is not easy to do because there are so many temptations that we face materially, financially, visually, personally, just a lot of things that we have to deal with.
01:02:53: It's just a fact. We live in a fallen world and there's unbelievers everywhere. And basically they're in control.
01:03:00: I mean, homosexuality is being promoted. Scantily clad women promoted.
01:03:06: LGBTQ, ABC, abortions being promoted. Transgender idiocy is being promoted.
01:03:14: Socialism is being promoted. Ungodliness. What's that? Golly. It's upside down.
01:03:21: It's ridiculous. You know, Isaiah 5 .20 says, beware of those who call good evil and evil good.
01:03:28: That's what's happening in this world. So what's the thing we're gonna leave it with then? This is a nice verse.
01:03:35: Philippians 4 .8. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there's any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.
01:03:50: That's a good thing. James is telling us what to do. And Paul tells us what to dwell on in this respect.
01:03:59: I just thought it was a nice way to end this chapter and talk about the things to do.
01:04:05: Don't be defiled. Well, how? You know what? Focus on the good things. Let your mind dwell on those things.
01:04:12: That's what we should be doing. And it will transform us. May take time, but it will transform us.
01:04:18: Okay? All right. Yeah, vulgarity is another one.
01:04:24: That's right. That's true. In fact, we've noticed, Nick and I were talking about this, the
01:04:30: F word is becoming more and more casually spoken all over the place. I've noticed in the past few months, there's an amped up increase.
01:04:38: We watched a series. Chris Pratt was in it. And it's a bunch of Navy SEALs and gun fighting and people dying and a lot of cussing.
01:04:50: I could see that as a context. But then there's other, something we were watching, and there's no need.
01:04:55: And it's just F this, F that, and blah, blah, blah. Why? It's normalized.
01:05:01: Vulgarity is. I remember once I went into a chat room about a year ago, and the women were as vulgar as the men.
01:05:10: And I'm listening. And I said this. Okay, okay.
01:05:22: I said, you know, I listen to the ladies in here, and I'm glad that they're in here. But really what dismays me is that they're as vulgar as the men are.
01:05:34: Oh, I bet that kicked your ass. Oh, man. Guess who jumped on me first? A couple of women.
01:05:40: You mother, son of a. I just listened. And I said, when they paused, I said, see, you made my point.
01:05:49: I said, why don't you? And they would interrupt me, and I'd just wait. What I was gonna say was, you're gonna wait.
01:05:56: What I was gonna say was, women used to be those things, those beings, those people, those beautiful women who would civilize men.
01:06:05: They were the ones that when men, when a woman walked in the room, we'd stand up. There's femininity.
01:06:11: There's beauty. There's the men that got on the lifeboats and didn't die when the
01:06:17: Titanic broke down, because the men stayed behind. Men stayed behind. Most of them did.
01:06:23: Most of them. Yeah, some were. Yeah, men are expendable. It was the whole idea. Yeah, and that's what
01:06:32: I said in the room. I said, where's your femininity? Oh, that would do it.
01:06:39: I did it, I said it on purpose. And you know what happened in the next 20 minutes? The computer blew up? No, the women started acting more nice.
01:06:50: Really? Yeah, they started acting a little bit more nice.
01:06:57: I said, it's a shame when women become like men. And yeah, you're equal, yeah.
01:07:05: You are. Yeah, that's why you can bench press 500 pounds like an average guy. So I said this in the room and it caused a firestorm of conversation.
01:07:15: I just waited. And I never cussed, I never got angry at them. And I said, you guys are one of the signs of the degradation of our society.
01:07:25: I said, women are the ones who bear children and guard children, and now they're the ones who kill them.
01:07:31: Now they're the ones who are as vile as the men. I said, that's the sign of the degradation of our society.
01:07:38: And I said, and they actually listened. And I said, the first major shock
01:07:45: I got about this was when, I forgot her name, but 20, 30 years ago, this mother drove her car with her three children into the lake and drowned her own children.
01:08:05: Well, the thing is, she did this. I remember on TV, what, a mom did this?
01:08:12: I mean, not that, hey, it's okay if a guy does it, it's all right, you know, no, no, no, it's bad.
01:08:17: But a mom, how does that happen? How did, what, what's wrong with society if moms do that?
01:08:27: Now one mom, okay, psych, go. Then it happens again, and another one, and another one.
01:08:34: What is happening? We're all, men basically are already scraping the bottom of the barrel.
01:08:40: And women, when they get down there, oh, it's bad. So I like this saying, women civilize men, and men expand civilization.
01:08:49: I like that, it's very great, simple as. So, but anyway, just a comment about how things are going and trials and vulgarity, someone brought it up, that's true.
01:09:00: Love your T -shirt, truth and new hate speech. Yes, love of many grow cold, that's what it says,
01:09:06: Noel. That's right, the love of many will grow cold. I think it's in Matthew 24, it talks about that,
01:09:12: Jesus talks about it. Any comments? I don't have my laptop going where I can get in because our internet goes, the internet's still down.
01:09:22: Our internet's been out off and on, and so right now I'm on the phone network.
01:09:31: So how about that? It could be my modem is going out. The modem?
01:09:39: How many, a couple of years, a year or two. It's not that old. Years is, yeah, it could be.
01:09:49: It could be an older one, I've only had it for a year. It could be older, and it is an older model, but they're sending a new one.
01:09:54: It'll be here tomorrow or Monday. So hopefully that it'll be in ASAP. Do you want me to put them on the screen,
01:10:01: Matt? Sure, if you want, put on the, Laura, if you want to put things up, people have commented or questions, that's fine, and I'll read them here on the phone.
01:10:10: So yeah, I want to know the meaning of Hebrews 12, six. Hebrews, if anybody wants this copy, you can have it.
01:10:22: There's an extra copy, I was using it, whoever does. All right, let's see. I want to know the meaning of Hebrews 12, six.
01:10:33: For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines and scourges every son whom he receives. What it means is if he loves you, you're going to get in trouble, he's going to take care of you, he's going to discipline you.
01:10:41: It's self -explanatory, it's right there. Karm videos, hey Matt, can you please expand on what
01:10:46: Hebrews 12, six means, and does it involve sickness? It could involve sickness, that God can cause you to be sick.
01:10:53: People say, no, God never causes anyone to be sick. Yes, he does. Go to Exodus, Josh, 411.
01:11:02: God says, who makes the eye blind, the ear deaf, the tongue dumb, is it not I, the Lord? He can certainly use sickness to discipline people.
01:11:10: It reminds me, when I worked at a company in Southern California, this guy told me of his friend who was a
01:11:18: Christian, and then he started backsliding, and he got in a car accident or some accident, and he fell, and he broke his back.
01:11:26: He was literally on his back for six months while he healed up, it was a pretty bad break. So while he was there, flat on his back, you look up.
01:11:35: Only time he looked up to God was he was flat on his back. So he repented, thank you, Lord, for disciplining me, and he got out, and he got healed up, and he was having a good time, and a couple years later, he started sliding again, and started winning into being sliding again.
01:11:51: Coincidentally, something else happened, and he broke his back again. And he said, after that one, he goes, got it.
01:12:04: Okay, I got it, and that was it. He was faithful from then on. He didn't wanna be disciplined by God anymore, okay?
01:12:12: What does God's discipline look like daily? Conviction of heart. It could be a correction from a spouse.
01:12:21: It could be the consequences of our own action that causes physical pain. It could be the memory of something that surfaces.
01:12:27: It could be all kinds of things, okay? Correction from a non -Christian?
01:12:34: Correction from a non -Christian, it's happened, yeah. Oh yeah, I've got stories of the discipline of God, yeah.
01:12:42: Remember once, literally, I was with a friend in my little office in Escondido, it was
01:12:50: Stan, and he was asking me a question, and I just went off, and it was pretty fleshly, but I was in a momentum of anger about something stupid and heretical, and I just started getting a little bit too much and condemning and stuff like that, and the
01:13:08: Holy Spirit was convicting me. I kept pushing it back, pushing it back, until it was so big that it busted forth, and I stopped and dropped to my knees right there, put my face on the ground, and said,
01:13:24: Lord, I'm sorry. And he said, what happened? I said,
01:13:29: God just convicted me, it was so hard. I had to repent right there.
01:13:36: He goes, man, I wish that would happen to me. I said, well, you gotta be as bad as that was. So I remember that one, that was like instant boom.
01:13:45: Then there's other times when it comes up later. You know, I thought I was done with that five years ago.
01:13:51: Uh -oh, here it comes, yeah. Okay, can you tell me what conviction feels like?
01:14:00: Not good. Well, it's a subjective experience. So what does it feel like?
01:14:05: For me, it's painful. It's a painful reminding of something wrong that needs to be dealt with through confession.
01:14:17: Okay, Noelle, wish I had Matt's memory. What? Not that good, it wasn't that good.
01:14:33: The way to do this is just, the way to do this to get a good memory is to repeat it over and over and over again.
01:14:40: Can you tell me what conviction feels like? Got it, Noelle says, good. Somebody in Arabic is saying something for Nick.
01:14:49: Unrelated, but what's the name of your mono headset? It's a popular brand, and I would know it when
01:15:04: I saw it. I like the voice on it and would want to get it on Karm videos. You mean the one I use on radio?
01:15:10: Or do you mean this thing right here, right now? Or do you mean the headset that I use when
01:15:15: I'm talking to, which one? Wish I had Matt's shirt. Well, then I wouldn't have a shirt on,
01:15:21: Laura. We'd all be suffering. We'd all be suffering, that'd be major bad.
01:15:29: That's a good insult. That's a good insult, that's right, I've used it too many times. So I'm not sure what, but this is just a lavalier mic, you know, like 30, 40 bucks kind of thing.
01:15:36: That's all it is. Does this mic sound good? Sounds good right here, right here, does it sound good?
01:15:43: Sounds very natural. Sounds natural from here? That's good. It's like I'm in the room with you.
01:15:50: Oh, man, that's really good. Think on the radio or Clubhouse?
01:15:57: Well, the radio, I use something different than I do on Clubhouse. Clubhouse had the one thing that just goes over one ear, just come down,
01:16:05: I could walk all over the place. And the radio thing is tethered to the box.
01:16:11: Look at this, the internet's still down. We're glaring at her.
01:16:18: It's not her fault. Because to see if she's on the net, because sometimes her phone might pick up, it could be that this is just something here that's not quite picking up right on the laptop.
01:16:27: So I just wanna see if she was on or not. Audio Clay, it's on YouTube daily. Okay, hey,
01:16:33: Matt, thank you for your continued ministry. I've been approached a couple of times by two
01:16:38: Mormon young men, and I want to know how to best evangelize them. Go to Karm, look up, cut and paste, look up the
01:16:48: Mormonism section, go through stuff, print it up, have it there with them. Always do this when you're talking to Mormons.
01:16:54: Always define your terms. Trinity, salvation, resurrection, Jesus, God, the
01:17:01: Father, always define terms, and then you'll know what to do. All right? All right.
01:17:07: Thank you for your time, you're welcome. We have to change YouTube channels because it trolls, because of trolls.
01:17:15: It is posted on all social media daily. That's right. We have people who don't like what
01:17:22: I say, and then turn me into the fascist powers that be, and say, you're not allowed to have your opinion on certain things, and then they cancel me.
01:17:30: So it's happened to two YouTube channels right now. We just created another YouTube channel, and we just broadcast from it.
01:17:37: And I'm not supposed to say things like, the COVID vaccines are dangerous, or I doubt the validity of the president's election of this jerk -faced moron in office right now, and the word salad master,
01:17:54: Kamala. She's worse than him. Could you imagine if she was president?
01:18:00: No one would understand anything she was saying. That would be a disaster.
01:18:10: And then Pelosi would be VP. That's part of all this? Wicked Witch of the
01:18:16: West. God's allowing it. Oh, God's allowing it. Did you see the notice that New York gave out as far as with the nuclear, you know, stop and drop?
01:18:28: And then did you see the professor that was testifying in Congress with that, where the senator had asked, had a question as far as, she asked him.
01:18:41: Who's she? I don't remember her name, but that's her. A congressman or a professor? A law professor.
01:18:47: Okay. She's a law professor. Law professor, okay. So the question came up, she asked him if he believed that a man can become pregnant, and he said no.
01:18:58: And she goes, you know, your answer is transphobic. He listens to that? I would have said, can you tell me what a man is first?
01:19:09: And then can you tell me what pregnant is? Just to find our terms. And then I'll answer you.
01:19:15: And if you don't define the terms, then why are you asking a question if you don't know what the words mean? So what do the words mean?
01:19:21: Since you're using them here in public, I'm assuming you know what they mean. Thank you very much, professor. What do they mean? Is it about women's rights?
01:19:33: Abortion issues and all this. It's like, is this really about women's rights? Because they can't even define what a woman is.
01:19:39: Yeah. Well, because they can't give up the transgender. Yeah. Crap.
01:19:44: So they trump themselves. Oh yeah. But they don't care. I would love to be there asking questions.
01:19:51: But you know who's really good at this? Candace Owens. Yes. Oh. She needs to be president.
01:19:59: She needs to be president. Yes. She's awesome. She is awesome. You guys know who she is, right?
01:20:05: That's an understatement. That's an understatement. She gets a lot of flack. She's so special. But the thing with it, so it's like she did, she,
01:20:13: I mean, listen to Chesapeake and everything else, like she gives it back though. She is awesome.
01:20:22: It's all up there. The only time a woman can become more attractive is she's carrying a weapon.
01:20:31: Then if she could talk like that and have a good, an AR or an AK, oh yeah. Just, you know, just saying, you know.
01:20:46: Good. Yeah, they do really good stuff and he's good too. And he did a thing on the
01:20:52: Twitter. They got banned from Twitter, what he said. He just worked with their logic and. Oh yeah.
01:21:00: Yeah. It's a bunch of morons out there. Yeah, there's some real morons out there.
01:21:31: Why would a woman want to do that? Undo it.
01:21:41: They're a young kid, like don't do it. Yeah, but they're being silenced. Yeah.
01:21:47: Here's another one. Just started listening, man, and praise God for leading me to your ministry.
01:21:54: Says born again, says good. I found you on 106 .5 in Ohio, praise God. And it's refreshing to hear some biblical reform.
01:22:03: It disappeared. Reform theology on the radio. God bless you. All right.
01:22:09: And born again guy must have been predestined to be born again and say that. He's reformed.
01:22:15: All right. Again, I stumbled upon his videos a few weeks ago. Such a wonderful ministry. Praise God. Have a good night.
01:22:22: Rest in your freedom. Yes. All right. You guys have any comments or questions?
01:22:30: Are you enjoying the study? Yeah. Yes. Okay. I felt guilty the whole time. Are you kidding? Good. Good, good, good.
01:22:38: So are you doing the same kind of notes for each chapter? That's the whole thing right there.
01:22:45: So I do it for each thing, print it up, give them to you guys so that you guys can have stuff. Just like the notes on the
01:22:52: Doctrine of the Trinity. When I do this stuff, whenever I do, I like to write it all out and then I'll release it on the web and you guys can have it, you know, right there.
01:23:03: I don't remember when that guy came over. Church.
01:23:09: Tell you what, I want you to tell them what happened, but let me fix this and we'll end so we can just do that.
01:23:15: Any book would you recommend to dig deeper about the transcendental argument? Yeah, read Van Til, Why I Am a
01:23:23: Christian and also go to John Frame, Apologetics of the Glory of God.
01:23:29: And I think Greg Bonson, Pushing the
01:23:35: Antithesis or maybe Biblical Apologetics, okay? So there you go.
01:23:41: Have you ever heard born again referred to as prophecy and of indwelling in John three? Wait, so you put that up.
01:23:48: You ever heard born again referred to as prophecy of indwelling in John three?
01:23:54: Don't understand the question. Being born again deals with the issue of regeneration.
01:24:01: Let's say born again, the Holy Spirit moves and the indwelling makes sense along with being born again because your cause will be born again.
01:24:10: First Peter one, three, you're born again out of your own will. God indwells you, you're made a new creature. Second Corinthians 5 .17.
01:24:17: So yeah, that would make sense. Referred to as a prophecy. It could, I wouldn't say it's prophetic. I'd have to look at it again in that sense and see if it's there, okay?
01:24:25: Let's see. Once you take on the eclipse, the one that comes in 2024, the last one was 2017, it'll be
01:24:31: X over the United States. I'm gonna go see it. It's gonna be down in Austin. I saw the one up here, loved it.
01:24:38: And wanna go down there and see it. Love it. And I'll just tell you, if you're looking up at the ring and you see the lights come out and they come down, just run for cover.
01:24:50: Just run for cover, all right? And if you see things coming down and then you hear sounds like, just run, that'd be bad.
01:25:03: It's hard to do. And so that's what
01:25:09: I'd watch out for. What is your take on the eclipse? I love eclipses. I love science. It's great stuff.
01:25:15: The guy had the idea of born again, not in the Old Testament, but Jesus telling
01:25:21: Nick it was to come. He said, don't you not know these things? What was said, and some people think it's Ezekiel 35,
01:25:26: I believe it is, or 36. Okay, thank you all and God bless.
01:25:33: I thought it said oil. Oil. All right. Well, that's a good thing to quit on.
01:25:39: So Lord willing, we'll be back on next week and hopefully my internet will work. It's been down the longest it's been down now.
01:25:49: So who knows? We'll see what's gonna happen. All right, everybody, God bless. I'm closing it. We'll see you.