Road Trip DL from St. Charles

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. We are live coming to you from, well, technically

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St. Peter's. I'm not sure what the big thing about Saints is around here.

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Must be a lot of Roman Catholics. But St. Peter's, St. Charles. What did Peter and Charles?

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Huh. I wonder if that's Charles. I wonder which Charles that is. I've never actually asked in all the years.

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I wonder how many people in St. Charles actually know anything about St. Charles and which of the many

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Saints named Charles might be. I don't know. Anyway, we are here and I got to tell you something.

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Living in Phoenix is hot and, you know, I explain to people it gets hot in April and it stays hot till November.

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But at least, you know, the weather is sort of predictable. And last night, when

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I went to bed, it was like 33 degrees. And halfway through the night,

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I got up and it was 38 degrees. The sun's not up.

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That just doesn't happen in Phoenix. You know, the temperature goes down and the sun comes up.

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The temperature goes not here. The wind started and weird stuff started happening.

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And so I guess I've forgotten to check again. But let me see what we're looking at tonight.

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Yeah, tonight and tomorrow night, 17 degrees for the low. Tomorrow, the high.

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The high tomorrow, 29 degrees. 29 degrees.

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A whopping 12 degree difference between the low and the high. And 39 on Friday.

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And then it's just downright balmy over the over the weekend, 56 and 39. So with a good chance of rain on Sunday.

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So I'll probably be breaking all this stuff down and getting ready to head out on Monday in the rain. That'll be fun.

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Anyway, the exciting thing for me is, as most of you know, this particular, you know, we're on the road, dividing line.

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And this unit, this is its first cold weather experience.

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We know, thankfully, who owned it before us. I found their email address in the computer.

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These things are all computerized these days. And got in touch with them and they responded.

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You know, I wouldn't have been upset if they hadn't responded. You know, that's cool. But they did.

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And I think we've mentioned to people when I pulled this the first time earlier this year, it had all of 80 miles on it.

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80 miles, just nothing. But that also means it lived its life in Mesa, Arizona, which is not a cold place in any way, shape or form.

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And so this is the first time this unit has experienced it. We got down to about 28, 29 in Oklahoma.

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And so, you know, you're testing out all the heating things for the various tanks.

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They don't freeze and keeping the lines from freezing. You know, stuff like that.

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And she is much better situated to handle cold weather than the ones we had before.

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The ones we had before, we were always really concerned about weight. We're not concerned about weight, not with a not with a 6 .6

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liter turbo diesel engine and a 10 speed Allison. So she has dual pane windows and a big old honking furnace that can run on on gas or electric.

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And so so far there's a there's a you know, those little fake fireplaces.

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I love those little things. There's an orange right now, orange with orange and sort of blue flames,

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I think. Anyways, I've had one of those. The grand design.

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I don't think the grand design had one. No, the but the didn't. No, I don't think it did.

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The the second unit we had had one in it. This has it and it has a heater in it.

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And I only run it on low. So two little space heaters and that on low so far has maintained the unit.

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But I don't think it will at 17 degrees. So the big old furnace is probably going to be kicking on. So we'll see.

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It'll be a bit of an adventure. I'm sure my wife, who I think is watching right now, is happy to be staying with friends here in St.

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Charles who have a nice big house and and you know, nice warm beds and stuff like that. And because I don't

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Yeah, I'm not sure if she would enjoy the adventure in the RV with the cold, cold weather, but the wind is blowing.

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You may hear of you may actually catch a little bit of the chimes right outside the front door, chiming away in the wind, and you may hear some little tapping.

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I actually have Christmas lights. Well, are they

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Christmas lights? They're just have you seen these thin bands of LED to sell

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LED? You can roll them up in a little spindle type thing. And they're really bright.

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And they're really nice. And I have them sort of pretty much almost completely wrapped around the unit here.

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Along with a little, you know, those little laser things you can get for your house. You know, I started doing that about two years ago.

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And so I've got all that stuff. And if the wind is making it because the wind's coming pretty much straight at my nose here, which is good.

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But every once in a while, I'll sort of do this number as the as the wind blows and I see white caps on a little lake next to the

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RV park. So yeah, we're having we're having fun out here and looking forward this weekend to speaking on God's response to the

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LGBTQIA plus I've lost track of them revolution.

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And it'd be interesting to see if anyone shows up that has some interesting questions to ask.

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At the end of sessions, that would be I just hope nobody shows up and starts banging drums and tries doing silly stuff like that.

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Because, you know, that's that is how the OSI operates. I do realize that.

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But we'll we'll see. So have you know, we have the opportunity to speak the truth right now.

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We're going to speak the truth and continue to seek to call our culture to a recognition that blesses a nation whose

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God is Yahweh. And sin is a rebuke to any people.

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Just keep those things in mind and keep calling calling

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America away from its own destruction or the whole globe, for that matter. We have people watching all over the place and we do appreciate those who are out there, especially those of you in liberal universities in South Africa, for example, or wherever else you may be, where this this program can be somewhat of a lifeline for you.

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And I can't tell you how many times I've had people say that to me. And I am very, very thankful for that.

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That also is something that's always in the back of my mind at times like this, where there is just so much weirdness happening in reform them.

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It's astonishing the things that can happen, the strangeness of things. And it's just it's just a reminder that, you know, for decades we've been doing this work.

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We are going to continue doing it until the Lord tells me to stop. And normally he does that by a physical means or until we get thrown the husk out, whatever comes first,

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I suppose. But it's so encouraging to remember that we've been focused on these things.

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I saw someone I saw someone mentioned that they had just reviewed. What was it?

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I think it was stuff the stuff that either came up in the controversy in 2016 or the stuff in the pre -conference before G3 in 2018, where I preached a sermon.

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Woke is broke, something along those lines. But they said, you know, you're saying the same things then about ethnicity and race and things like that as you're saying now you haven't changed a bit.

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I'm like, yeah, I know. And it's like Doug Wilson said in something he did last week, you know, when you're when you're on the boat and it's pulling away from the dock, it looks like the dock is moving away from you.

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But in reality, you're the one moving away from the dock. And in Reformedville, whatever that is these days, there is there's a great deal of rebellion taking place.

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Let's just put it that way. There is a a real rebellious attitude that has infiltrated reform.

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But now let's let's be honest to be to be truly reformed. And of course, there are people who argue what that is.

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I've said the same thing for many, many years. We truly reformed is to be focused upon the absolute sovereignty of God, his right to do with his creation as he sees fit.

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And a a complete total submission to the scriptures as the inspired, inerrant and sufficient revelation of God so that you have a desire to apply what

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God's word says and what God's law reveals about his character in all of life, in all of your life, family life, church life.

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And yes, to call your culture to a recognition of the fact that the one you serve has been raised from the dead, ascended to heaven and enthroned on high, kissed the sun lest he be angry and you perish in the way.

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That's that is biblical truth. And so to be reformed is to be under the authority of a sovereign

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God who has spoken with clarity in his word. Now, that limits what we really have as far as what it could be honestly called truly reformed.

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There are many reformed churches that are not reformed in that definition. You know, the

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Crystal Cathedral stuff, Schuller and others, those were allegedly reformed churches. Well, okay.

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Historically, they had a connection to the Reformation and to the reformed wing of the

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Reformation, but they're not reformed any longer. There has to be a way to be able to go, that was once reformed and it's not anymore.

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But then remember, I never really said a whole lot about this, but then we had the young, restless and reformed movement.

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And like I said, I never really bought into all that.

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Yeah, there was a period of time where being reformed and even being

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Vantillian and doing the beard thing was considered to be pretty cool and it was popular for a while.

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But I knew then that that's not what it means to be reformed. A beard doesn't make you reformed.

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A cigar doesn't make you reformed. A glass of whiskey doesn't make you reformed. None of that has anything really to do with being reformed.

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You can do that as a Lutheran, you can do that as a backslidden Baptist. The Roman Catholics do it all the time.

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That really didn't have anything to do with what it meant to be reformed. So this young, restless and reformed thing,

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I was like, look, if you call yourself reformed because you think it's cool and you're going to be part of the cool kids club, you're not going to be reformed for very long.

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Someone's going to come along and they are going to apply the entire counsel of God to you.

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They are going to talk to you about everything scripture says and everything scripture would say to reformed men and how to live a life consistent with being pleasing to God.

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And that is going to bother you to no end. And you're going to find greener pastors someplace else.

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That's how it's going to work. And that's pretty much how it has worked. I can't imagine anyone talking about the young, restless and reformed movement right now.

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Where'd all those people go? Well, if they weren't truly reformed then, um, in all probabilities, when people move on, they, they tend to take a very negative view of where they have been in the past because that shows how, you know, you've improved and you've moved on and you're mature and all this kind of stuff.

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And so I'm not sure where a lot of those people ended up, um, ended up going. Um, I know certainly, uh, church

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I was in during that time certainly made no efforts to grab hold of those people and say,

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Hey, you know, come over to here, our, our place, you know, cause you just, you know, you want people, you want to pray that God would send you the saints that are going to remain consistent, uh, that want to glorify

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Christ, that want to be obedient. Those are those, those are the saints you want, uh, not the ones who were doing all this other stuff.

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So I'm not sure what you'd call the situation today where you have just this amazing amount of rebellion, rebellion against what?

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Rebellion against fundamental biblical parameters of behavior of even what we are called to be as, as Christians and specifically as reformed

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Christians. So obviously if you, if you look at history and you look at those who've been reformed down through history, um, they specifically recognize that what marked them off was their willingness to endure anything for the name of Christ because of his absolute sovereignty.

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And so patient endurance, um, building for the kingdom, even if that means loss of one's life or family, um, discipline.

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I mean, when I look at Calvin's life, that's what I see. He's not seeking to gather the things of the world.

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Um, he doesn't want people to know where he's buried. Uh, he receives very little in the way of, of monetary income and things like that.

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Lives a simple life, preaches constantly. Oh my goodness.

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Um, just, you know, wore himself out and died an early death, uh, because he wanted to serve

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Christ and in such a ferocious manner. Uh, that's not what the young reformed group, uh, today is, is looking for.

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Um, and that's why I have often used the term ostensibly reformed.

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You can say, oh, I believe in the five points. I believe in, uh, you know, what other ever other summary you'd might want to put together.

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Uh, for me, it's yeah. Will you still be there 10 years from now? And are you going to seek to be consistent with those things over the next 10 years?

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Um, and if not, then I'll talk about ostensibly reformed because you're not really reformed in that, in that sense.

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And there is a, a tremendous amount of rebellion, uh, amongst young people today.

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They don't, they don't want holiness. They don't want, uh, discipline. They don't want self denial.

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Um, you know, I think, I think of the books that just hit me between the eyes as a young person who had just become reformed and they're not the kind of books that people that the young, young men today who call themselves reformed are overly interested in at all.

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Um, I'm, I'm thinking specifically of Sproul's, the holiness of God and pleasing

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God. I mean, those, those were just so important, uh, in my early reformed life.

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And I just don't, I just don't see that kind of thing. If that stuff's important, then you're going to be hearing it.

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You're going to, you're going to hear it come out in the conversations. You're going to hear it in the discussions and the webcasts and stuff like that.

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What I'm hearing is dark MAGA, you know, the, um, someone sent me a whole long discussion of what the red, red background, blue eyes stuff is about DMAGA, dark

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MAGA. And I'm just like, you know what? I don't care who started it and I don't care what people think it is.

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Uh, here's my experience. One person, one person since over the past three months, if it was about three months ago, maybe not even that long ago that I started encountering this stuff, one person with that avatar, the red, blue stuff, only one of them had the maturity of a graduate of high school.

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All the rest of them were like bullies on the fourth grade playground, uh, just extremely unwilling to learn, unwilling, unlearned, untrained, undisciplined, and unwilling to change.

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Um, enjoying being untrained and undisciplined. Uh, so I don't care what, you know, we're just, we're just Trump fans, big deal.

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Um, you, you, you behave like children on a playground. And that's what

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I mean by rebellion. And that does not lead to good places.

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That does not lead to good results in any way, shape, or form. Uh, so for pastors and, and those involved in ministry, uh, this is a challenging time.

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You need your young men, but you need those young men to be indwelt by the spirit of God and to have a desire for godliness, a desire for discipline.

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Sophronismos, sound mind, discipline, read first and second

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Timothy. My goodness, you know, when Paul writes to Timothy and he knows

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Timothy is, uh, young, he's facing real challenges.

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Um, he needs to be encouraged to stand firm, let no one disregard him.

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And over and over again, you're, you're indwelt by the Holy spirit of God. Do what is pleasing to God, stand for sound words,

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Stanford, discipline, self -denial holiness. This is the high calling of a

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Christian young man, memes and webcasts and popularity.

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It's not, not the calling. There's nothing wrong with webcasts. I mean, we've been doing webcasting for almost a quarter century before there was a podcast or anything like that to, to even no one knew you knew what it was, but we've been doing it because that's how we get the information out.

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That's how we seek to, uh, edify the church. But one thing you're not going to find us doing, and this was something that, uh,

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Doug Wilson sent this out to a number of us, and I only had a chance to read certain portions of it, but it was a lengthy discussion of how

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Twitter monetization is changing the character of dialogue and discussion.

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Uh, most of us know, I mean, all these other people, what was, what was it called spaces?

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Is that what Facebook tried to do? And it just died a thousand deaths. And then somebody else started another one recently, and it's going to die a thousand deaths.

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Um, you know, these, these, these things where they're, they're trying to do what Twitter does, but it's, it's all censored and it ends up becoming an echo chamber and nobody cares.

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Um, so what Twitter has done is when you buy your blue check mark, which ain't cheap.

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Um, and I've, I've done it because I love having the ability to do three, four, five, six paragraphs in one shot.

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And it, um, for some reason, uh, despite the number of, of followers,

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I have clicked on the little things that get rid of this fall. Don't want this follower.

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Uh, besides that, I've got like 151 ,000 followers. And so I guess once you're, you've got your blue check, you can monetize your activity on Twitter.

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I have monetized YouTube when we first, when they first offered it. And then rich read the rules and regulations said, yeah, no.

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And so we demonetized all that. I realized we could have made a lot of money, um, from that kind of stuff.

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But we also realized if you do that, you're handing over the control of your content to somebody else.

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And so we're just going to trust the people of God to keep providing what needs to be provided and, and, uh, go from there.

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So I'm not saying there's, if you're monetized, I'm not saying there's something wrong with it. I'm just simply saying, you know, have you looked at the rules and regs, um, and what they can do and what they can stop you from doing.

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But anyways, so Twitter is now monetizing. And as I was reading it, it seemed like it was saying something along the lines of, you know, if I retweet someone and let's say someone has, uh, 1500 followers.

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And if I retweet what they have written and I have 150 ,000 followers, that that somehow is really good for them.

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Or if I interact with them in any way. So the more followers you have having interaction with someone with even more followers than you have, um, ends up really helping your monetization.

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I really don't know how it works because I'm not going to be doing it. But, um, the, the, the point is it's, it seemed like the outcome of all that was that conversation on Twitter could be very, very artificial that you want instead of, um, a couple of days at the beginning of this week,

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I think I posted a three or four paragraph thing about a specific text or scripture going in depth into the, into the original language, something along those lines.

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Um, that's not going to get you your in -depth monetization unless everybody comments on it or shares it or does stuff like that.

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But if you're in a conversation or as we might know, a food fight, um, that can really help your monetization that can really give you a lot of money.

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Um, you know, people, there are people, they make their living online, YouTube channels and Twitter and stuff like that.

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I don't even know how you do that. And I can't imagine that that's a very fulfilling life, you know?

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Um, but there are people who do that. And, uh, it's, it sounds like from what

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I read that the monetization stuff is not an encouragement toward the kind of charitable, gracious, church centered,

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Christ centered conversation that you'd like to see happening. Instead, it seems like it's, um, much more oriented toward people who want to have a food fight online that gets you more money.

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So it just seems to me, I saw someone today, um,

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I don't know if it was today they were commenting or yesterday or something, but there are people who really do think that, uh, those of us who, that head up fairly large ministries,

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I mean, Alpha Omega is not a large ministry people -wise, but, uh, reach -wise and history -wise has got, got 42 years going on now.

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Um, 41 years, um, heading into 42. Uh, but you know,

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Doug Wilson or Joe Boot or whoever that we're all sitting around having, uh, you know, in a cabal someplace, uh, coming up with devious plans to take over the internet or I don't know what people think we're doing.

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Um, look, especially those of us that are true boomers like I am, and like Doug is, uh, we don't have the time or the energy.

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We just don't have it. And, uh, the other guys ain't doing, doing that either.

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Uh, busy doing other stuff. I mean, like I said, here I am, you know, this past weekend,

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I, I spoke on the atonement, uh, at, uh, Grace Life and Prior.

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And then, uh, uh, the opportunity arose that I had not expected, uh, to speak at, uh,

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Heritage in, uh, Tulsa on Sunday night, Sunday, late Sunday afternoon, Sunday night.

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And, uh, that was just a situation where you have an opportunity to encourage a young startup church that's facing trials and tribulations.

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Sure. Uh, we'll, we'll drive half an hour into Tulsa and half an hour back and, and meet with the saints and do what we can do to, to be of encouragement.

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That's what Alvin Omega has always been about. So that's what we did. And it's always enjoyable to get a chance to do that.

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Um, I wore a nice, uh, cashmere Coogee sweater that someone commented on when they watched the video.

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And, um, I'm just like, just listen to what I'm saying from Isaiah. That's a lot more important than the, uh, than the sweater.

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It was pretty nippy there, but anyway, this is the kind of stuff we're doing. This is what we do in life.

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And people who live online, especially who are trying to monetize everything, uh, just have a hard time understanding that their motivations and our motivations are completely different.

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We're not doing what we do, um, to get stuff, um, or to build a platform and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

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I understand why people are doing that, but that's not our motivation. That's not what moves us.