F4F | Jentezen Franklin Picking Up Dropped Dreams

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for Faith. My name is Chris Rosebro. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying and the name of God to the Word of God. Sadly, no shortage of really bizarre things being said out there.

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Now, if you've ever been told the false narrative, and we'll call it that right up front, we'll explain how this all works, the false narrative that Christianity is all about you hearing from God, who will then give you a dream that you are to accomplish, and then the devil, once he figures out that you've received a dream from God, he's gonna send a nightmare in order to try to knock you off the dream, you know.

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Yeah, if you've ever been taught that, go ahead and hit the subscribe button down below. Don't forget to like the video and ring the bell so you can be notified when we update the channel.

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You've been taught a false narrative that changes the entire warp and woof of Christianity because it's a false metanarrative.

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We'll explain how that works along the way today. So for this installment, to kind of make the point, we're heading down to the

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Free Chapel as Jensen Franklin explains to us how to pick up dropped dreams.

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All right, now I know I can see the the look of consternation on your face. What biblical text teaches you to pick up dropped dreams?

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Answer, I know which one he's gonna use for this, but we'll let him kind of spin this out.

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We'll set this up first, then we'll come back to, you know, to make sense of this.

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So here's Jensen Franklin as he sets up the message picking up dropped dreams.

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Here we go. But I want to talk to you today about picking up dropped dreams, picking up dropped dreams, and I'll show you where this is in in the scripture.

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It isn't in the scripture. This is a text he's twisted to fit his false narrative of what he thinks

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Christianity is about, but his false narrative changes everything about Christianity. But I think a lot of times that we need to understand that God is a

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God who gives his people a dream, a purpose, a mission, a plan for their life.

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Okay, in order for that to be true, I need a biblical text that tells me that I am as a

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Christian to expect a specific dream or plan or purpose for my life.

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Now, I always like to go to Ephesians chapter 2, Ephesians chapter 2, and specifically verses 8, 9, and 10 to kind of make the point, and here's what it says.

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For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It's the gift of God.

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That's right. Salvation is a gift given by God. It's not the result of your good works.

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You can't earn it with your good works, and you don't maintain it with your good works. It's not the result of works so that no one may boast, for we are his,

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God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for agathois, ergois, ergois agathois, good works.

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Plural. We are created in Christ Jesus for good works.

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Plural. Notice then, a right understanding of Christianity, at least in this regard, says

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I'm not to expect from God a special, unique, singular dream.

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Instead, God has created me in Christ Jesus for good works.

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Plural. I'm not created for a purpose. I'm created in Christ Jesus for good works. You see, when you get this right, then you just ask the question, well, what is a good work?

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Yeah, these all fall into the category of loving your neighbor as yourself, or loving them as Christ has loved them, and then you learn that, you know, our good works are done in our vocations as husband, wife, child, father, mother, employer, employee.

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These are where our good works are done. So you'll note here, Scripture clearly says that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, and there is no biblical text that teaches us that we are created in Christ Jesus to fulfill a unique dream that God is going to give us.

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Nope. No biblical text says that. So coming back then to Jensen Franklin, picking up dropped dreams, we're already into murky territory, but again, the whole point of this is to point out that he's teaching a false narrative about what

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Christianity is about. A dream is a

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God -given projected destiny. It means you see it out there, or something that God shows you that he says, this is who

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I see in you. No text says this.

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And that's called a dream. It's a designated end. It's a vision of where I shall be when

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God places his hand upon my life, and there's no question that God has a dream for every person, but with that dream...

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No text says that. Why should I believe it? Always comes with God's dream, there always comes hell's nightmare to try to steal that dream.

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And if you don't learn to endure the nightmare, you will never experience the dream.

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So many people give up and quit because they have a dream planted by God in their heart, but then comes the nightmare.

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I want to show you that this is a biblical pattern. Now, he claims this is a biblical pattern, but in order for a doctrine to be a biblical doctrine, it has to clearly be taught in Scripture.

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There's no text that teaches this, so he has to go with some kind of a pattern or a principle to say that this is really the case.

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But what he's doing, and like I said, he's spinning a false narrative, and the narrative kind of goes along the lines of,

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God has a unique thing for you to accomplish. You need Jesus.

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You need to ask Jesus into your heart. As soon as you do, he will reveal to you what your unique dream purpose is, and the devil's gonna try to knock that out of you.

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And it always seems to be part and parcel of this unique dream, is that you're gonna have a victorious life.

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You are going to be important. You are going to be influential. You are going to have health and wealth and well -behaved children and just a stellar family, and you are gonna be amazing.

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You, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you. And you'll notice the emphasis is on you, not on Christ.

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But like I said, this is a false narrative. Now, let's do a little bit of work in the biblical text, and we'll kind of see if we can kind of get the idea of what's going on here.

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We're gonna start in Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3, and we're gonna note that with the deception of the serpent with our first parents,

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Adam and Eve, and yes, they were historical people. Jesus said they were, and he rose from the grave, so I'm gonna go with him on that one.

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Yeah, it'd be kind of silly to oppose Jesus. I mean, he actually is the God who created all of these things that we see, and all of the people that we are.

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Anyway, so yeah, just saying. So let's take a look at the serpent's deception, and we're gonna note that the serpent's deception is a very, very compressed and elegant narrative.

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It's a false narrative that infers things about God that are not true.

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So it's an inferential false narrative, and that's what we'll call it. So here's what it says,

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Genesis 3. Now, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that Yahweh Elohim had made.

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He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?

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That's not what God said, and you notice by asking it in this way, the devil seems,

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I heard that God's not letting you guys eat. He's forbidding you from even eating from any of the trees in the garden.

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What a terrible, awful God that is. Is it true? Yeah, and so you'll note this is an inferential false narrative about God has begun by the devil inferring that God's forbidding

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Adam and Eve from even eating. Oh, he doesn't care about them at all. He's gonna starve them to death, or something like that.

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That's the idea. And so the woman said to the serpent, well, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you should not eat of the fruit of the tree that's in the midst of the garden.

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The knowledge of good and evil tree. Neither shall you touch it lest you die. No, that's not exactly what

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God said, so already she's wobbling on her recalling properly what it is that God said, and it was her husband who taught him, heard this, by the way.

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Her husband taught her this. Yeah, because God said these words to Adam, not about the not touching it lest you die, but the day you eat of it you will surely die.

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And so he's now taught it to his wife, Eve, and so now watch how the inferential false narrative works.

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So the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you're gonna be like God, knowing good and evil.

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Mm -hmm. So here's how the inferential false narrative works. You will not surely die is

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God's lying to you. He's keeping things from you. In fact, I mean,

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I knew he was awful because, I mean, I heard he was not even gonna let you guys eat, you know, and you kind of see how this is working.

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So you will not surely die. Oh God, he's straight -up lying to your face.

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He's not telling you the truth. You can't trust God. No, no, no. And here's the reason why.

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He knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be open, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil.

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And see, God, you know, he's really insecure. Yeah, he's really, really, and he's jealous of you.

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Yeah, you were made in the image of God, and he doesn't like people to reach their full potential, their full

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God potential, because that begins to make him feel jealous and insecure.

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And, oh man, he's got, so he's a liar, he's insecure, and he doesn't have your best in mind.

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But here's the other part of the inferential false narrative. The devil is basically saying, but I care about you.

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I have your best in mind. I want you to be all you can be.

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I want you to, oh, I want you to be like God, because being, I mean, don't you want to be like God?

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Yeah, you see how this works? So this is a very highly compressed, inferential false narrative that paints

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God out to be a monster, and the devil himself to be an angel who only has our best in mind.

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And, of course, Eve fell for it, and Adam ate too, and plunged us into the misery that we find ourselves in.

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But note, it happened by way, here in Genesis 3, of an inferential false narrative.

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Now, let me give you another example of a false narrative, and you can see how this one comes into play. We'll fast forward a little bit into the

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New Testament. We're gonna go to 1 Samuel. We're gonna look at the tail end of 1 Samuel chapter 20, and then go farther into 1

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Samuel 21, because here you can see how the false narrative is playing out in light of, you know, in light of the contradistincting thing.

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Is that a word? Anyway, contradistincting. It's contradistinction to what we know is actually the truth, what real historical narrative is.

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But where we find ourselves here is that Jonathan is finding out, to learn one, you know, definitively whether or not his father,

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King Saul, intends harm for David. David, at this point, is the anointed but not yet coronated

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King of Israel, the son of David. Not son of David, but King David, the guy who is in the direct line of the

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Messiah, and there's messianic type and shadow going on here like you wouldn't believe. But all that being said, so Jonathan is gonna go find out whether this is the case, and so we'll jump in when

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Saul really lets his fangs out, and he lets it be known that he has decided, you know, the demise of David is what's called for.

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And then Jonathan will return and, you know, warn David, and then David is gonna flee for his life.

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So we'll get the context here, because remember our three rules for sound biblical exegesis are context, context, and context.

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So 1 Samuel 20 30, Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said to him, you son of a perverse and rebellious woman.

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Yeah, there's some really great dissings in the Old Testament. If we want to weave that into your vocabulary,

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I don't recommend it because it's coming from a bad guy, but anyway, you son of a perverse and rebellious woman, do

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I not know that you've chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame, and to the shame of your mother's nakedness?

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For as long as the son of Jesse lives on the earth, neither you nor your kingdom shall be established.

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Therefore send and bring him to me, for he shall surely die.

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So there it is, definitive. Saul intends to kill David. Now Jonathan knows, and shortly he's gonna return and give the warning signal to David to let him know that, yeah, it's true, my dad wants to kill you.

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So then Jonathan answered Saul his father, why should he be put to death? What has he done? Saul hurled his spirit at him to strike him, so Jonathan knew that his father was determined to put

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David to death, and Jonathan rose from the table in fierce anger, ate no food the second day of the month, for he was grieved for David, because his father had disgraced him.

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Now in the morning, Jonathan went out into the field to the appointment with David, and with him a little boy, and he said to his boy, run and find the arrows that I shoot.

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And as the boy ran, he shot an arrow beyond him, and when the boy came to the place of the arrow

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Jonathan had shot, Jonathan called after the boy and said, is not the arrow beyond you?

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Which is a code that they had set up. That's to signal to David, yep, my father Saul wants to kill you.

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So Jonathan called after the boy, hurry, be quick, do not stay. So Jonathan's boy gathered up the arrows, came to his master, but the boy knew nothing, only

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Jonathan David knew the matter, and Jonathan gave his weapons to his boy and said to him, go and carry them to the city.

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And as soon as the boy had gone, David rose from beside the stone heap, fell on his face to the ground, and bowed three times.

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And they kissed one another, and they wept with one another, David weeping the most, and then

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Jonathan said to David, go in peace, because we have sworn, both of us, in the name of Yahweh, saying,

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Yahweh shall be between me and you, and between my offspring and your offspring forever. And he rose and departed,

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Jonathan went into the city. So now Jonathan has delivered the message, my dad intends to kill you, he truly desires your harm, not your good.

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And so now, David knowing what's going on, definitively, this isn't slander, this is really the truth, he now is on the run, but he doesn't have any provisions at all.

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So then David came to Nab, to Ahimelech, the priest, and Ahimelech came to meet

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David, trembling, and said to him, why are you alone? Why is no one with you?

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So David said to Ahimelech, the priest, the king has charged me with a matter, and said to me, let no one know anything of the matter about which

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I send you, and with which I have charged you. I have made an appointment with the young men for such -and -such a place, and now then, what do you have on hand?

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Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here. And the priest answered David, I have no common bread on hand, but there is holy bread, if the young men have kept themselves from women.

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And David answered the priest, well truly women have been kept from us, as always, when

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I go out on an expedition. Now a little bit of a note here. David is not telling the truth to Ahimelech.

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No, not at all. And so you'll note then, by not telling him the truth, what

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David is doing is clearly trying to protect Ahimelech. Because if he were to tell him what he was doing for real, and why he was doing it, and Ahimelech helped him, then

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Ahimelech would be guilty of treason. So David is giving him misinformation in order to protect his life, and we know this, because the text has told us what truly happened, and what went down.

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So Ahimelech is not knowingly or willfully participating in some kind of a coup d 'etat, or any kind of rebellion against King Saul.

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So that's an important bit of all this, because that's the truth. So the priest gave him the holy bread, for there was no bread but the bread of the presence, which is removed from before Yahweh, to be replaced by the hot bread on the day that is taken away.

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Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before Yahweh.

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His name was Doeg the Edomite, the chief of Saul's herdsmen.

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Then David said to Ahimelech, then have you not here a spear or a sword at hand?

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He doesn't even have a weapon. For I have brought neither my sword nor my weapons with me, because the king's business required haste.

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Indeed it did. The king's business was to kill David, and he had to leave in haste. He didn't even have the ability to get a weapon.

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So the priest said, well the sword of Goliath, the Philistine whom you struck down in the Valley of Elah, behold it's here, wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod.

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If you will take that, take it, for there is none but that here. David said, there is none like that, give it to me.

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So David rose and fled that day from Saul, and went to Achish, the king of Gath.

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Now all that being said, we know what really happened. That's the real narrative. That's the real history of what happened.

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But when Saul shows up, he's gonna put forward his false narrative, and he will not allow any data that contradicts his false narrative to be spoken, to be said or considered at all.

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He will not permit the false narrative to be challenged. So David rose, fled that day.

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The servants of Achish said to him, is this not David, the king of the land? Did they not sing of one another about him in dances?

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Saul has struck down his thousands, David his ten thousands. So David took these words to heart, and was much afraid of Achish, the king of Gath.

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So he changed his behavior before them, and pretended to be insane in their hands, and to make marks on the doors of the gate, and let a spittle run down his beard.

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Then Achish said to his servants, behold, you see, the man is mad. Yeah, you'll note that David again engages in some deception, this time to save his life, pretends to be loody -toods.

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All right, so that being said, the story continues, and here's what it says in 1st

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Samuel 22. Saul heard that David was discovered, and that the men who were with him, Saul was sitting at Gibeah under the tamarisk tree, on the height with a spear in his hand, and all of the servants were standing about him.

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Saul said to his servants who stood about him, hear now people of Benjamin, will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards?

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Will he make you all commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds, that all of you have conspired against me?

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No one discloses to me when my son makes a covenant with the son of Jesse. None of you is sorry for me, or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait as at this day.

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And there's the false narrative. There it is. The false narrative is that David and Jonathan have conspired, and that Jonathan has incited

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David to rise up against Saul, and that David is lying in wait to kill the king, and that Jonathan's part of it.

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That's the false narrative. It's straight -up, not even remotely true. But it's the impetus and the pretense for this entire expedition.

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And he cannot allow this narrative to be challenged, to be overthrown, to be shown to be false, because the goal here is to kill

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David. And the motivation for the troops to participate in the death of the son of Jesse is for them to believe that he and Jonathan have conspired to lie in wait to kill the king.

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That's the false narrative. So then Doeg the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul, he said,

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I saw the son of Jesse coming in Nod to Ahimelech, the son of Ahutab, and he inquired of Yahweh for him, and gave him provisions, and gave him the sword of Goliath the

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Philistine. Now this is true, that Ahimelech gave David provisions and the sword of Saul the

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Philistine. But now this is gonna be woven into the false narrative. Ah, Ahimelech is part of the conspiracy to lie in wait to kill the king!

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He's part of the con - there is no conspiracy, by the way, we know the truth. So then the king sent to summon

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Ahimelech, the priest, the son of Ahutab, and his father's house, the priests who were at Nod, and all of them came to the king, and Saul said, here now son of Ahutab, and he answered, well here

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I am my lord, and Saul said to him, why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, and that you've given him bread and a sword, and have inquired of God for him, so that he has risen against me to lie in wait as at this day?

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That's a loaded question, and in the loaded question is the false narrative.

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And now the false narrative has been expanded. Not only have David and Jonathan conspired to lie in wait to kill the king, now

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Ahimelech, the priest, is involved in this conspiracy. It's treason!

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So note, the question implies guilt, and Saul is not about to let this the narrative be challenged.

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So then Ahimelech answered the king, and who is among all your servants is so faithful as David, and who is the king's son -in -law, and the captain over your bodyguard, and honored in your house?

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Is today the first time that I've inquired of God for him? No! Let not the king impute anything to a servant, or to all the house of my father, for your servant has known nothing of all of this, much or little.

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So he's basically saying, I don't know what you're talking about, there's no conspiracy, at least

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I wasn't aware of one. So the king said, you shall surely die, Ahimelech, you and all your father's house.

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And the king said to the guard who stood about him, turn and kill the priests of Yahweh, because their hand also is with David.

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And they knew that he fled and did not disclose it to me. Not true.

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Again, watch how the false narrative is working. So the servants of the king would not put their hand to strike the priest of Yahweh, and then the king said to Doeg, you turn and you strike the priests.

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And Doeg the Enamite turned, and he killed, and he turned and struck down the priest, and he killed on that day 85 persons who wore the linen ephod.

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So isn't that interesting? Here we have an example, an example, great example by the way, of a false narrative, and an unwillingness to allow the narrative to be challenged, and how the narrative then gives meaning and inspiration for actions, and that the person who spun the false narrative can't allow the narrative to be challenged, because the people who are motivated into action, their actions would be changed, their feelings would be different if they knew that the narrative wasn't true.

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That is the power of narrative. Narratives give meaning. Narratives inspire to action.

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And so the false narrative of the serpent who imputed to God that he was jealous, that he was threatened by Adam and Eve being made in the image of God, didn't want them to become

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God, that he was lying to them, didn't have their best in mind, even was not even permitting them to eat food, you know, that, you know, that whole false narrative about God gave, you know, literally gave meaning then to the actions of Eve, who believed that by eating the fruit she was doing a good thing, rather than doing evil.

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That's how narratives work. That's how powerful they are. Now, all of that being said, we're going to take a look then, because the question is, when we talk about narratives, is there a narrative that explains and kind of gives overarching, you know, meaning to Christianity?

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The answer is, yes, there is. And it's not where you might think it is, and let me explain.

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I'll show you how to get there. If you go to the website ccel .org, the

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Christian Classics Ethereal Library, forward slash fathers dot html, we'll put a link down below, you'll find that this is the writings of the church fathers available in the public domain, and we're going to go to volume 1, so there we go, volume 1, and we're going to say that we want to read online, because that's what we're doing here, and over here, what we want to do is we want to look at the table of contents, and we want the writings of Irenaeus, Irenaeus against Heresies, book 1, and in particular,

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I'd better go to chapter 10, book 1, chapter 10, against Heresies.

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And we're going to read part of this out, but let me explain something to you, and here's kind of how this works, is that Irenaeus is like a third -generation

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Christian, and what I mean by that, he's part of the third generation, not the first. So he was taught the

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Christian faith by the Christian martyr Polycarp, Polycarp, and this is a fellow who in his 80s was martyred for the

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Christian faith, but he was taught, so Irenaeus was taught the Christian faith by Polycarp.

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Polycarp was taught the Christian faith by the Apostle John. So John to Polycarp to Irenaeus.

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We're talking a tight, tight amount of time here, and in his book,

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Against Heresies, Irenaeus is writing against a group of people called the

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Valentinian Gnostics, and boy, their theology and their narrative, their creation, it's just completely wackerdoodle, it's like science fiction.

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But anyway, he, here in chapter 10, discusses something called the rule of faith, and this is a, this is the

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Nicene Creed in unpolished format, and let me explain it. So here's what

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Irenaeus writes, he says, the church, though dispersed through all, through our, throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the

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Apostles and their disciples this faith, she, the church, believes in one

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God. And so this is the faith that we've learned, this is called the rule of faith. The church believes in one

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God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and the sea, and all the things that are in them, and in one

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Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation, and in the

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Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth of, from a virgin, and the passion and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved

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Christ Jesus our Lord, and his future manifestation from heaven in the glory of the

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Father, to gather all things in one, and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that Christ Jesus our

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Lord, and God, and Savior, and King, according to the will of the Invisible Father, every knee should bow of things in heaven, and things in the earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess to him that he should execute just judgment towards all, and that he may send spiritual wickedness, and the angels who transgressed, and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and the unrighteous, and the wicked, and the profane among men, into everlasting fire, but may, in the exercise of his grace, confer immortality on the righteous, the holy, and those who have kept his commandments, and have persevered in his love, some from the beginning of their

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Christian course, and others from the date of their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory."

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That right there, the rule of faith, is the overarching narrative to help you understand what

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Christianity is all about. Now, its modern form is found in the

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Nicene Creed, and at the Council of Nicaea, they took the rule of faith, and kind of hammered it into its polished form, and listen again, as I read this out, you'll see the similarities between the two concepts.

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So, the Nicene Creed reads, I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, and in one

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Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father before all worlds,

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God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the

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Father by whom all things were made, who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the

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Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and he was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.

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He suffered, and he was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, he ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the

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Father, and he will come again in glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.

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I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the

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Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And I believe in one holy,

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Christian, apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

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That is the overarching narrative that explains what

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Christianity is all about. And so you'll note then that its tie -in is back to the ancient

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Church and what was called the rule of faith. Now I'm gonna read a little bit more of Irenaeus because this is a little bit interesting, and I know this is a long episode.

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Oh well. So as I've already observed, Irenaeus writes, the Church having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it.

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She also believes these points of doctrine just as if she had but one soul and one in the same heart, and she proclaims them and teaches them and hands them down with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth.

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For although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the importance, the import of the tradition is one and the same.

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For the churches which have been planted in Germany do not believe or hand down anything different, nor do those in Spain, nor those in Gaul, nor those in the

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East, nor those in Egypt, nor those in Libya, nor those which have been established in the central regions of the world.

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But as the Sun, that creature of God, is one and the same throughout the whole world, so also the preaching of the truth shineth everywhere and enlightens all men that are willing to come to a knowledge of the truth.

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Nor will any one of the rulers of the churches, however highly gifted he may be in point of eloquence, teach doctrines different from these, for no one is greater than the master.

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Nor, on the other hand, will he who is deficient in power of expression inflict injury on the tradition, for the faith being ever one and the same, neither does one who is able at great length to discourse regarding it make any addition to it, nor does anyone who can but can say but little diminish it.

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So it does not follow, because men are endowed with greater or less degrees of intelligence, that they should therefore change the subject matter of the faith itself, and should conceive of some other

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God besides him who is the framer, the maker, the preserver of this universe, as if he were not sufficient for them.

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Or of another Christ, or of another only begotten. But the fact referred to simply implies this, that one may more accurately than another bring out the meaning of those things which have been spoken in parables, and accommodate them to the general scheme of the faith, and explain it with special clearness.

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The operation and dispensation of God connected with human salvation, and show that God manifested long -suffering in regard to the apostasy of the angels who transgressed, as also with respect to the disobedience of men, and set forth why it is that one and the same

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God has made some things temporal, and some eternal, some heavenly, and some earthly, and understand for what reason

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God, though invisible, manifested himself to the prophets, not under one form, but differently to different individuals, and show why it was more than covenants that were given to mankind, and teach what that what the special character of each of these covenants, and search out for what reason

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God had concluded every man in unbelief that he may have mercy upon all, and gratefully describe on what account the

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Word of God became flesh, and suffered, and related why the advent of the Son of God took place in these last times.

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So you'll note then that a proper understanding of the faith will explain why Jesus came.

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And so here, Irenaeus is saying that if you're gonna rightly understand the Bible, in all of its aspects, and why these stories, and how they all connect together, the narrative of the rule of faith gives that to you.

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To contradict the rule of faith is to basically not understand the Scriptures at all, and Christ is the center of the rule of faith.

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Everything is about how God, for us and for our salvation, sent his only begotten Son to bleed and to die, born of the

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Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate for our sins. So that's kind of the whole point.

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So there's the overarching narrative of the Bible itself, you know, kind of laid out in the rule of faith.

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This is why the Nicene Creed is invaluable in helping us, because it helps us understand what the

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Bible is all about. It gives us kind of the narrative key to unpacking and understanding the

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Scriptures and those stories. But note here now, as we return to Jensen Franklin, that he is teaching a different narrative altogether.

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Altogether. And what he ends up doing with Jesus and Jesus's life is unbelievable.

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And it's actually blasphemous, but we'll continue. I want to show you that it is impossible for God to give a person a dream, and he does give people dreams for their life, a desire to end.

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A dream, again, is a projected destiny of where you shall be, where your family shall be, where your marriage shall be, where your life shall be.

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And never does God plant that in your heart with that dream that the enemy doesn't come with his nightmare.

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And unless you can endure, and unless you can endure hell's nightmare, you'll never experience heaven's dream for your life.

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So note now, the narrative's totally changed. You're supposed to receive a dream, and you have to endure so that you can experience the dream.

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What'd you do with Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven?

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Huh. The moment that most people give up is the moment of the greatest opportunity.

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Everything you want is on the other side of not giving up. Everything you want is on the other side of not giving up?

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That sounds like something totally different than eternal life and salvation.

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And I promise you, when God puts a dream in your heart, the nightmare will come.

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What is the nightmare? It's the pathway to your destiny. You cannot get to the dream without the nightmare and the pathway of the nightmare, because it purifies you.

40:43

It purifies your motives. The nightmare is the enemy trying to steal that dream and get you to give up.

40:51

The question is, can God trust you with trouble? Because the moment that the enemy senses you have a

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God -given dream, he will try to send the opposite and cause a nightmare. Uh -huh.

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Notice, this is mythology here, and it's a mythological narrative that totally changes how we read the

41:20

Scriptures, and it changes the whole warp and woof of Christianity itself.

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And if God can put you in trouble, it's a vote of heaven's confidence in you.

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Trouble and the nightmare is a vote of heaven's confidence in you.

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Yeah, if heaven had confidence in me, then the Son of God wouldn't have needed to become incarnate of the

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Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. By the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, yeah, to save me. God had no confidence in me whatsoever.

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Of course, Scripture says I was born dead in trespasses and sins and under the dominion of darkness.

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I don't know about you, Jensen, but yeah. Heaven looked at me and said, no, no way.

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We've got no confidence that Chris is gonna be able to pull this off. We're gonna have to save him for him. Your trouble is your pathway to triumph.

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Your pain is your pathway to a higher praise. Your mess is a pathway to the miraculous things of God in your life.

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No text says this. The book of Job has assisted millions of people. God gave

42:38

Job a dream that he would be blessed, that his family would be blessed. Where does it say that God gave

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Job a dream that he would be blessed? Nothing in the book of Job says that.

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Then came the nightmare. Everything that he had was taken and shaken, and Job's life in the book of Job has assisted millions of people.

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Has what you've gone through assisted anybody? If God has allowed you to go through it, the nightmare is because you're supposed to assist somebody else with what you've gone through.

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Biblical text for that please. Notice, he is not exegeting a text.

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He's reading notes, but he's not teaching anything that's taught in the

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Scripture. The closer you get to the dream, the closer you get to your purpose, the closer you get to the goal which

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God has in mind, the tougher it gets. It's just like a woman who becomes pregnant.

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A couple gets married, and they have a baby, and she's carrying around the dream, and they're smiling, and they're laughing.

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She's carrying around the dream when she's pregnant. Uh -huh.

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So note we're allegorizing pregnancies now. She's carrying the dream around while she's pregnant.

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Uh -huh. And they're having a wonderful time, but I promise you the dream will become a pain before the dream is born.

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And all of a sudden, you start hearing words like, push, push. You start hearing words like, breathe, breathe.

44:27

Yeah. Uh -huh. Yeah. So, dude, which biblical text is teaching this?

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So note, this is a very elaborate narrative that he's spinning out here, and he's pulling on things that we're familiar with, allegorizing them, and spiritualizing them for the purpose of supporting the narrative, but this is not a right understanding of Christianity at all.

44:57

This is a false narrative, and notice that the emphasis is on you, not you repenting, not you being forgiven, not

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Christ coming and bleeding and dying for your sins, calling you to repent and to be forgiven, bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and being sanctified and made holy through the work of the sanctifying work of the

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Spirit. Nope. None of that at all. No. Instead, what's being taught here is what? Yeah, how you need to experience the dream.

45:29

Oh, the devil's gonna try to stop you and all. But you buy into this narrative, and you will not be able to make sense of any of Scripture at all.

45:40

Because now, the dream has turned into a nightmare, but the nightmare is the pathway to the dream.

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The same is true in our life when God places something inside of us that we must give birth to.

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I'm a dude. Yeah, I've never given birth to anything, never will.

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The closer that you get to the dream, the more pressure that you feel. It will cost you something the closer you get to the fulfillment of a dream.

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Before you experience a dream, you must first endure the nightmare. The closer you get to the dream, the more pressure you feel on you.

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The more that you feel like quitting and giving up. The dream is your destiny.

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The dream tells you where you're going. The nightmare is your pathway to it.

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Again, no text says any of this.

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In fact, this is a narrative that never existed in Christianity until very recently within the last few decades.

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Your adversity will advance you. The nightmare is the pathway to the dream that you're called to.

46:58

Calvary was the pathway to the dream of the church. What?

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Calvary is the place where Christ died for our sins. It's the pathway for the dream for the church?

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Huh? God said, I have a dream. I want a church. Jesus said, I'll build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

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And hell said, I don't think so. We'll stop you. We'll nail you to a cross. But when Jesus stepped out of that tomb, guess what?

47:28

The nightmare became the pathway to the dream. Yeah, what'd you do with the cross there?

47:35

It's like you evacuated of all of its saving power. Scripture's clear.

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Christ was hanging on the cross, suffering and bleeding and dying for my sins and for yours.

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What is this? You know, oh yeah, you know, the devil tried to stop Jesus so they nailed him to a cross, but yeah.

47:55

So that nightmare became the pathway to the dream, man. Yeah, so note he's now totally hijacked the crucifixion of Christ and evacuated of its true meaning, and now poured in some new meaning into it in order to make it fit within the false narrative of you're supposed to have a dream.

48:21

The purpose of the dream is twofold. The purpose of the dream is to give you a sense of destiny, that you're not just here wandering through life.

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Again, which Scripture says these things? There is a sense of destiny, purpose, and calling that is upon your life, and you don't have to be in ministry to have a dream.

48:40

God has a dream for every person. You're not an accident. Just because I'm not an accident doesn't mean

48:47

I'm supposed to have a dream. I'm created in Christ Jesus for good works, plural.

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And the dream is about a sense of destiny on your life. The second purpose of a dream is to inspire you to reach for it, to stretch.

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Again, where is that written? To get out of your comfort zone, to go beyond what you think you're capable of doing.

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That's what a dream that God plants in your heart will do for you. The nightmare is threefold.

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The nightmare, when you're going through darkness, when you're going through trial, when you're going through setback and adversity, then guess what?

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You're gonna find out three things. The nightmare is about self -discovery. You're gonna find out who you are.

49:34

You're gonna find out... Yeah, where in the Scripture does it talk about how the nightmare is going to...

49:39

its purpose is self -discovery. I'd like to see those texts please.

49:45

Notice he's not referencing any biblical text. What he's doing is creating an overarching narrative of meaning that changes the whole purpose of why the

49:59

Scriptures were written and what they are about. That your security cannot be in what other people say or feel about you.

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That at some point you have to get something inside of you that says, I believe it, and I don't care what anybody says.

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I know what God has told me, and you find out who you are. And not only is the... Yeah, I'm a sinner in need of a

50:22

Savior. That's why Jesus bled and died for me. Nightmare about self -discovery, but it's also about God discovery.

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You'll find more about God in the darkness in your life than you will in the sunshine days.

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No, I'll find out more about God from His written Word, which is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

50:41

What are you talking about? God said, I dwell in thick darkness. He actually said that.

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He said, I... Yeah, but that's not what he's talking about. Well, in thick darkness.

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In other words, if you want to know more about God, then He allows you to go through darkness.

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That's not at all what that text is talking about. So notice, he's now hijacked another passage and mushed it up and shoehorned it into this narrative.

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It's not God's will for you to always be in sunshiny, successful, beautiful days.

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Well, that's true. But actually, you'll learn more about God and who He is in the dark places, in the lonely places.

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No, I learn about God from His Word. I learn about God from studying

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Christ, who is none other than the Son of God in human flesh.

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In the times when you don't understand and you feel forgotten and you don't know who you are anymore and you don't know what's happening anymore and God is strangely silent.

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This is an extremely obsessed, weird, existential crisis that he's describing here.

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Very narcissistic in its focus. Many of you are walking through that kind of darkness and you don't want to be alone, but God has you alone.

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He has you cornered. I promise you, He's doing a mighty, mighty work in your life.

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You're gonna find out who you are and you're gonna find out who God is. Biblical text, please notice, whole narrative here without a text.

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And anytime he throws a text into it, it gets chewed up and forced to serve this false narrative.

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And the nightmare, thirdly, is to shut the devil's mouth. When your nightmare is over, it will shut the devil's mouth.

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When your nightmare is over, it's going to cause the voice of hell, that voice that tells you

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God is a liar and you are no good and you'll never do and be anything. You're no good, you're no good, you're no good, baby, you're no good.

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All of those lies that hell screams at us, you might as well give up, you might as well take your life, you might as well, no, you just don't have it, you're a fake.

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Do you have anything to say to these people as far as their sin and Christ bleeding and dying for their sins, you know, calling them to repent, bear fruit in keeping with repentance?

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Any of these concepts, you know, sound familiar to you? That's what Christianity and the

53:37

Bible is really about. Failure. That nightmare is going to shut the devil's mouth when

53:45

God turns it around and I promise you he will turn it around. Where does it say that?

53:52

Do you realize everything that has been built has been accomplished? Is the direct result of a dream and persistence to that dream of someone who would not give up?

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Yeah, I have a dream of Christianity, getting rid of these heretics, you know, because I built pirate

54:15

Christian media, you know. Jesus proved that you've got to go beyond the nightmare to get to the dream.

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How did he do that? When he hung on the cross and he rose the third day.

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Yeah, that wasn't an example of how to live, you know, survive the nightmare in order to achieve the dream.

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Jesus's death was for our sins. God made him to be sin who knew no sin.

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You familiar with these concepts? Job proved that if you will endure the nightmare, you will experience the dream and God blessed him double.

54:54

Yeah, that's not the point of the book of Job. Notice everything now is being forced to comply with this false narrative.

55:03

Even Joseph had a dream, but then came the nightmare. Yeah, Joseph is a type in shadow of Christ.

55:11

Nightmare, the prison, was... It's a picture of salvation. The pit, the prison, the false accusations, it was the pathway to the dream.

55:21

And if you can endure the nightmare, you'll never experience and walk in the dream.

55:29

Yeah, so no, every text now is hijacked. Now, we'll fast forward a little bit here. The text that he was supposedly basing this sermon on is found in Genesis 21.

55:42

And if you were to read it apart from the narrative that he spun, you couldn't make it, you could, you would never think that it worked that way.

55:52

So here's what it says. The Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and Yahweh did to Sarah as he promised.

56:00

Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him.

56:06

Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore,

56:12

Itzhak. Yeah, he laughs. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac, and when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him,

56:20

Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Itzhak was born to him. And Sarah said,

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God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh over me. So God has fulfilled his promise to Abraham.

56:36

And now he's given him a son through Sarah. And so the child grew, was weaned.

56:41

Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar, the

56:47

Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, laughing. So she said to Abraham, cast out the slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son

56:59

Isaac. Now, we're gonna note here, is that the New Testament gives us the explanation as to what this means.

57:07

Galatians chapter 4, in particular, you know, makes it very clear how that all works out.

57:17

Let me see if I could find this. All right, so, yeah, son of the promise.

57:26

Brothers, I entreat you here, you know, coming down here. Here we go.

57:34

The Apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, gives us the interpretation. So tell me you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law?

57:43

For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by a free woman.

57:50

Mm -hmm. The son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.

57:56

Now this may be interpreted allegorically. These women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery.

58:03

She is Hagar. Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. She corresponds to the present

58:09

Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother.

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For it is written, Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear. Break forth and cry aloud for you who are not in labor.

58:20

For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband. Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise.

58:31

So you'll note that the type, you know, the story of Hagar and Ishmael, the story of Sarah and Isaac, and this conflict, and the putting, you know, putting away of the slave child, that's all type and shadow.

58:43

The fulfillment is found in the New Testament, and we are to understand that here we have a type and shadow depiction, then, of the difference between those who are in slavery under the

58:55

Hagar and those who are under, you know, who are born of promise, and those born of promise are

59:01

Christians. Those born of Hagar are those who believe that they are saved by their works.

59:07

That's the point. So back to Genesis 21, cast out the slave woman with her son, you know, for the son of the slave woman shall not be heir with my son

59:16

Isaac. So the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of this, on account of his son, but God said to Abraham, be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman.

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Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named, and I will make you a nation, and the son of the slave woman also because he is your offspring.

59:37

So Abraham rose early in the morning, took bread in a skin of water, gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder along with her child, and sent her away, and she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba.

59:49

And when the water in the skin was gone, she put the child under one of the bushes, and then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about a distance of a bow shot, for she said, let me not look on the death of the child.

01:00:03

And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept, and God heard the voice of the boy. And the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, what troubles you,

01:00:13

Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up, lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.

01:00:22

Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. And she went and filled the skin with the water, and gave the boy a drink.

01:00:31

And God was with the boy, and he grew up, and he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow.

01:00:37

Now, all of that being said, you can see how this is playing out, but now notice this has nothing to do with you receiving a specific dream from God, and Galatians 4 makes it clear that Hagar and Sarah, and their different sons

01:00:59

Ishmael and Itzhak, that they are type and shadow of the difference between those who are saved by grace through faith, by the promise of God, and those who are trying to earn their salvation by their works.

01:01:13

They are slaves, that's the point. So we have a divine interpretation of this account, but what

01:01:21

Jensen's gonna do here is try to take this text and force it into his false narrative.

01:01:28

So many times people give up, and they quit right on the verge. That's why

01:01:34

I wanted to end with this story in Genesis 21, because in this story we have

01:01:40

Ishmael, the boy, and I just want to read it to you, and I want you to see it, and I want you to see what's happening.

01:01:48

She's out in the wilderness, and the scripture said in verse 17 that God heard the voice of the lad, the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven and said to her, what ails you,

01:02:07

Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Listen to these words.

01:02:13

Now notice, he's reading it out of context, he hasn't given us the background at all, so context, context, context are not in play, and they should be, and he's not letting scripture interpret scripture because scripture does interpret scripture, and this particular story is interpreted for us in the

01:02:30

New Testament in Galatians chapter 4. He's ignoring that, and he's going to offer up his own interpretation and force it to fit his false narrative.

01:02:39

Words, verse 18, arise, lift up the lad, hold him with your hand, and I will make him a great nation.

01:02:49

And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. What I want you to see in this story is

01:02:55

Ishmael's, Hagar's dream. Ishmael's, Hagar's dream.

01:03:00

That's not what Galatians 4 says. Scripture interprets scripture here, and you're ignoring that.

01:03:07

What I want you to see in this story is she had the dream, but she gets into a wilderness, and in a moment of discouragement, she drops the dream.

01:03:19

She gets into the wilderness, in a moment of discouragement, she drops the dream. Have you dropped your dream?

01:03:25

Puts it under a bush, she hears the child crying, and she has no resources.

01:03:30

She has no food, no water, in a hot desert, and so she can't bear to hear the baby die and suffer, so she goes far enough away that she can't hear him.

01:03:42

But there's an amazing thing. The Bible said God heard the dream, or the child. God heard the dream.

01:03:52

Yeah, notice he's totally reworked this text in order to make it support his false narrative.

01:04:01

Crying out, which tells me something really powerful. That if you have a

01:04:07

God -given dream, it can pray and cry even if you've given up on it.

01:04:21

Wow, that's not what that text is saying at all. And she had given up, and she had dropped her dream, and she had walked off somewhere, and she was weeping because she knew her baby was dying.

01:04:33

Her dream was dying, but her dream was dying. The dream was crying out.

01:04:39

The dream was crying out, and God didn't hear Hagar, he heard the dream.

01:04:46

And then he said to that mother, go back. Now I just really feel like this simple message is for somebody.

01:04:53

I want you to go back to some dreams that you've dropped. Go back to some dreams you've dropped, you know, because of Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness.

01:05:05

Yeah, there's some application right there according to the narrative. He's totally twisting

01:05:12

God's Word to force it to support the false overarching narrative that he's created, which totally evacuates

01:05:21

Christianity of its real meaning and the scriptures of what they're really about.

01:05:27

And I want you to pick them back up because I'm not through with them. I know that it looked like a nightmare, but I just want you to know that if you endured the nightmare, you're going to experience the dream, and it's time to pick up some dropped dreams again.

01:05:43

No. Yeah, I think you get the point. Sorry this went a little long.

01:05:49

Complicated topic, but hopefully you can now see it. That there's certain ways false doctrine works.

01:05:58

Obviously it twists God's Word, but you always and again see that it's twisting

01:06:03

God's Word and trying to hijack God's Word and its real meaning to force it into the service of a false narrative.

01:06:11

And that false narrative totally reworks Christianity in a different way than what it's really about.

01:06:18

And if you really want to know the kind of the overarching meta -narrative, look to the rule of faith.

01:06:24

Look to the Nicene Creed. That will give you the overarching narrative of what Christianity is about, and give you a really good compass by which you can then use to rightly understand how these biblical texts work together, and point us to Christ and what he has done for us on the cross in order to save us from sin, death, the devil, the dominion of darkness, from an eternity in hell, and saved us by his grace because of his great love and his mercy, and how he is even preserving us and sanctifying us so that on the day when he returns in glory we don't have to be in shame, but that we will rejoice with him and participate in the marriage supper of the

01:07:09

Lamb. You know, things like that. So hopefully you found this helpful. If so, all the information on how you can share the video is down below in the, you know, share the video, share it on social media, and all the information on how you can support us financially.

01:07:25

This is a financially, we are financially supported by our viewers and our listeners of our podcasts, and those whom we are teaching using the internet and media.

01:07:35

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01:07:46

So until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.