I Told You the Sacralists Were Coming, Didn't I?
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So Joel Webbon dropped a webcast about how the State is to correct the Church, and how this has been normative throughout church history. Well, do forgive me, but I've always opposed sacralism, still do, always will, and the errors and holes in the presentation, historically and logically, were big enough for me to drive my big GMC through, so, we did. Lots of stuff about Constantine, ecumenical councils, etc. Ninety minutes plus today! Also made reference to this article I wrote many years ago on the Council of Nicea. https://www.equip.org/PDF/DN206.pdf
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- 00:30
- Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. It's travel week. I will be heading out at the end of the week and in fact, we'll be picking up the unit tomorrow and excited about that.
- 00:43
- I really am excited about the Louisiana loop that we're doing and we just announced,
- 00:49
- I'm not sure if we put this on the website, maybe it's on the calendar. I'm not sure. My topic is toward the end of the trip, so after the second debate when
- 01:03
- I'm at Skip Rainbolt's church. It is there? Okay, yeah. It's asked me to speak on the rise of anti -semitism, the anti -Jewish craziness that is infecting churches and people and everything else and so just added that to the list of things we'll be doing on this particular trip.
- 01:26
- And of course, I should find out pretty fast how the unit handles differently now.
- 01:35
- Yeah. Hey, let's not even think about that, okay? We put shock absorbers on her and I'm sure they wouldn't do that if it wasn't safe.
- 01:50
- We'll find out. We'll find out in the wind and stuff like that. I'm sure I'll run into, I don't know, I've done trips where I didn't run into any weather.
- 01:57
- So, you know, it's possible. But anyway, so the plan right now is to do another program tomorrow and probably going to do, my thinking is, unless there's a big huge blowout because of the day, we might do story time with Uncle Jimmy again.
- 02:21
- It's been a long time and I might read to you, it's not that long,
- 02:28
- I might read to you the Acts of Paul and Thecla. Now you go, that looks like it would be way more than a program.
- 02:35
- Yeah, that would be if I was reading all of it. This is Barrier's rather full commentary, original text, all, you know, all the rest of that kind of stuff.
- 02:48
- But most people have no earthly idea what the
- 02:54
- Acts of Paul and Thecla are, who Thecla mythologically was, how
- 03:00
- Thecla has been made into an Eastern Orthodox saint equal to the
- 03:07
- Apostles is the term that's used of her. But she didn't exist, she was made up.
- 03:14
- And so, just one of, let's be honest, as we will find out in today's program, church history is not the first thing that people necessarily study in seminary.
- 03:26
- And if they don't go to seminary, they don't necessarily study at all. Now to be honest with you, I've met some folks who just, you know, do a fantastic job with church history, who didn't go to seminary.
- 03:41
- Because the data is all out there, everybody thinks that, you know,
- 03:47
- AI is the big thing today, but it's funny, you can sort of tell who the internet historians are.
- 03:56
- There's holes at really important points in their understanding, as we will see today on the program.
- 04:06
- So, yesterday a video was posted,
- 04:12
- I guess it was done live, from Right Response Ministries, Joel Webben and his crew, in their nice leather chairs.
- 04:24
- And they did a program basically discussing when the state has corrected the church and they are promoting the importance of this happening.
- 04:52
- Look, we can document this. Starting last year,
- 04:58
- I said that by April of 2025, we would see major theological shifts amongst the people who are going to be a part of the
- 05:15
- Defeating Trash World Conference, and that those would continue throughout 2025.
- 05:22
- So by the end of 2025, the distinctions and lines would be very, very clear.
- 05:28
- Now, it's been happening faster than I expected, but it is happening.
- 05:33
- And I don't want to get in the way. I don't want to, you know, that conference is coming up, that's the same weekend as the debate that I have in Livingston.
- 05:43
- And so I'm probably not going to be listening to it till maybe on the way home, listening to parts of it anyways.
- 05:51
- I don't know, I may just leave it to other folks to look at, honestly.
- 05:58
- But, I start, you know, when
- 06:05
- Stephen Wolfe's book first came out, Doug Wilson and I did two sweater vest dialogues.
- 06:13
- We're gonna be doing a sweater vest dialogue at ReformCon, by the way, at the end of April, and I hope you've got your tickets.
- 06:20
- We'll see you there. We're gonna be doing a sweater vest dialogue there. We did two sweater vest dialogues on the subject and my concerns were consistent in both of them.
- 06:33
- And this was before all the nuttiness started.
- 06:40
- And when I say nuttiness, I mean the incredibly immature kids with their frog memes.
- 06:54
- It happened again last night. I wrote two, three paragraphs on a topic and this guy's like, there you go again, a wall of text.
- 07:05
- I'm just like, oh my goodness. Okay. All right. How do you, how do you have serious historical discussions with people who think that if it's more than three sentences long, it's not worth reading?
- 07:18
- I don't, I don't know how you do it, but there you go.
- 07:23
- Anyway, from the beginning, my concern was sacralism.
- 07:30
- It was the violation of biblically defined spheres of sovereignty and authority and it was based on church history.
- 07:43
- And unlike many people now who have only learned their church history via the internet over the past year or so,
- 07:55
- I've been studying church history for a long, long time. The term sacralism was popularized by Leonard Verdine.
- 08:02
- I've sat in his home and discussed these things with him. He was over a hundred years of age and could quote
- 08:09
- Luther in multiple languages. These people have never done anything like that.
- 08:15
- They haven't been, I was studying this stuff before they were born, but they're experts now. Oh, yeah, they're experts now, all thanks to the internet and maybe a few sessions with their favorite
- 08:27
- AI. Anyway, here we have in this video the promotion, blatantly, openly, may not use the term, but it's right there, of sacralism.
- 08:40
- And it's, I said last night, and I've had, I think
- 08:45
- I've had over 100 comments on it. I retweeted the tweet to this live stream, and I said,
- 08:56
- I've never seen a more inaccurate historical presentation by men who claim to be
- 09:04
- Reformed. And of course, Dean was like, stop with the claim to Reform thing, you're just from the 1970s, blah, blah, blah, blah.
- 09:11
- The man, the man will say in his book, I'm not a theologian, don't hold me to those standards, and then he'll pretend to be a theologian all the time.
- 09:19
- Really annoying. Anyway, what I was saying, the reason
- 09:24
- I said who claim to be Reformed is Reformed people have done some of the best church history around.
- 09:33
- And I think one of the reasons is we can be honest about church history. Unlike Roman Catholics who have to turn church history into their history via dogmatic stuff, same thing with the
- 09:46
- Orthodox. Or a lot of liberal Protestants who just have a animus toward anything
- 09:54
- Christian, really, conservatively Christian. Some of the best church history,
- 10:00
- I mean, Nick Needham's work is good example. And that's all
- 10:06
- I meant by that was, these guys claim to be Reformed, but man, did they slaughter church history in this thing.
- 10:13
- So, I want to get to the fundamental argumentation.
- 10:19
- There's a lot in here, and I'm not going to get, I'm not going to try to get to all of it. There's, you know, stuff about Charlemagne and stuff where people are going, yeah, what are you talking about?
- 10:29
- But I, I just want to look at a couple clear examples of the fact that the brothers who put this together just don't know what they're talking about.
- 10:42
- They, they, I don't know if they went to school. I don't know where they went to school.
- 10:47
- I don't know what they've been reading. Again, you don't have to go to Bible college to come to understand church history.
- 10:57
- But the reason it helps is that in seminary anyways, you're going to be faced with a perspective that's not exactly, you know, representing you.
- 11:17
- You know, your church history professor is probably not going to be identical to you in your, in your views.
- 11:24
- And you're going to be forced to read people, you know, I don't,
- 11:30
- I didn't bring it in here, but the two volume set main textbook that we used in my church history class at seminary with a tremendous professor was
- 11:44
- Kenneth Scott Lauderette's two volume set. Still have it. Not in good shape.
- 11:50
- It was, it was falling apart before I finished using it in seminary. So it's a lot less good shape now.
- 11:57
- I imagine it's available in hardback, but I can't imagine what that would cost now. Anyway, Lauderette's not exactly aligned with where I'm coming from.
- 12:06
- And that's the whole, whole thing. You have to, you know, we were given other books to read and we had to do a lot of reading.
- 12:13
- I probably did a whole lot more reading just for that class than these guys have done given stuff they said.
- 12:21
- But that would, you were forced to learn about the context of things.
- 12:31
- And that context is frequently what is missing in electronic forms, in how church history is taught today, via internet or whatever else it might be.
- 12:46
- So it can be very helpful to have that challenge.
- 12:52
- And of course, that's what I had in my initial studies into church history.
- 13:00
- So I want to give you some examples. I'm going to give you two examples of just how did they get here to establish what
- 13:11
- I said at the beginning. And then I want to play, because it was obviously written out and this is what they wanted to communicate.
- 13:18
- I wanted to play the opening to the video where you're sort of given the, almost the conclusion before you get to it, that this is what we want you to hear.
- 13:30
- Because this is what's important to me. This is going to address this acceptance, full -on acceptance of sacralism, promotion of sacralism, but also the fact that I'm going to say these men claim to be
- 13:45
- Baptists. If they believe what they're saying, they have no reason to be Baptists. None. None.
- 13:53
- In fact, I don't think they have any reason to be Protestants if they accept what they're saying.
- 13:59
- Because they're talking about specifically the calling of the first seven ecumenical councils.
- 14:07
- And unironically, when I was at Grace Bible Theological Seminary a few weeks ago on the last trip that I did,
- 14:16
- I did a little get -together for the students and I addressed the seven ecumenical councils.
- 14:24
- And I didn't go into a lot of detail on this aspect of it, but one of the things I brought up was any semi -unbiased review of those councils, and they were all in the
- 14:37
- East. There's a real major distinction between what are called the first seven ecumenical councils today, which are all in the
- 14:45
- East, and what comes after that as far as ecumenical councils as far as Rome is concerned, because East and West count different councils as ecumenical or not ecumenical.
- 14:57
- Was the increasing role of the
- 15:04
- Byzantine government and Empire in determining the subjects of the councils and especially with like a second
- 15:16
- Nicaea, the outcome of council. That council could not have come to a different decision than it did and that was the decision that Empress Irene wanted.
- 15:28
- And so you have infallible authority, infallible dogmatic authority.
- 15:34
- You must kiss the icon. You must venerate the icon. This is what the
- 15:40
- Apostles taught. That's baloney. It isn't what the Apostles taught, but you have to believe it, especially if you're
- 15:48
- Eastern Orthodox. And why? Because the government said to. And here we've got Baptists, and I'm gonna do this,
- 15:55
- Baptists Um Going yeah Church needed that Okay, wow just the holes that you could drive semi -tractor trailers through the holes the utter inconsistency and incoherence and look
- 16:15
- Joel has even said hey, my theology has evolved changing He didn't believe this stuff when
- 16:21
- I spoke to the council at a conference that he did Isn't that no didn't believe this stuff then had no idea and it's like Someone might say well, you know, they're evolving.
- 16:34
- So yeah, there's could be some inconsistencies and incoherences and I'm sitting here saying, okay but if this is a
- 16:43
- Place where you're really putting a stake down. I mean Other I guess before this you were blown about by every wind of doctrine
- 16:49
- But you're putting a stake down here You need to realize you're gonna have to get rid of all this stuff over here that you used to say was absolutely definitional of everything
- 16:57
- You have to You you can't You cannot be a Baptist and say the church was being corrected by the state
- 17:07
- Appropriately at Nicaea to it's not possible You you you can't do it.
- 17:13
- You can't hold that together Something's got to give something will give It will
- 17:21
- And we all know what it's gonna be So anyway, yes, sir. I Just keep coming every time you say this it comes to mind picture this scene.
- 17:30
- It's 1835 Joseph Smith is evolving His he's not, you know, the the
- 17:39
- Doctrine and Covenants hasn't been published yet 1833 Book of Commandments is in play We're working with the
- 17:46
- Book of Mormon only we don't have a multiplicity of gods We don't have God we're coming
- 17:52
- It's it's it's evolving. It's okay. It's fine
- 17:58
- We're all fine here now, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well now the the cult leader that I know of today is
- 18:09
- Cory Mahler and Don't let me finish this program Without you know, and Wow, where did
- 18:18
- I put it? Um Without pulling up His stuff.
- 18:23
- I I'm almost concerned You know, I'm go ahead and mention this now
- 18:30
- Cory Mahler over the weekend Posted Quote blacks have been the u .s.
- 18:38
- For centuries end quote His response so have pigs, but that doesn't make them human
- 18:46
- Blacks are not American If you
- 18:53
- We have posted we have talked about so many things that Cory Mahler has said and Just what was it ten days ago or so?
- 19:02
- his dialogue with Chris Roseboro comes out and I was disappointed in that because in that dialogue he played the attorney and He obfuscated everything
- 19:20
- And that's what he's excellent at He'll post stuff like this and then spend 30 minutes in the weeds
- 19:27
- Making it sound like he has some basis for saying what he's saying, which he doesn't but that's his that's his mo
- 19:32
- That's the stone choir cult Blacks have been u .s.
- 19:38
- For centuries so have pigs, but that doesn't make them human This is Cory Mahler, this is the stone choir cult and And There is no reason none zero
- 19:51
- There is no reason today why anyone should sit there and say
- 19:57
- Yeah, they've got some crazy conclusions, but they do some good history You know, that's like saying go ahead and drink cyanide.
- 20:08
- It actually has a sort of salty taste to it at first You know for the first three seconds and then you're gone
- 20:19
- There should be no hesitation on anyone's part anywhere to straight up front say
- 20:28
- Stone choir is a cult Cory Mahler is an unbeliever. He is an enemy of the faith he's excommunicated and You should have absolutely positively nothing to do with anything related to this cult and You should be watching your churches because it is their stated intention to infiltrate that's what they want
- 20:53
- But there is no excuse for anything. I mean this is if you can if you can read that so of pigs, but that doesn't make them human if you can read that and Not recoil in utter horror at the white supremacy and racism the
- 21:08
- Nazism that this man is I don't even know how to talk to you. I Don't know how to talk to you.
- 21:14
- I really don't and I in nobody else that I know of who has a
- 21:23
- Christian bone in their body Can sit there and ignore that and go
- 21:30
- Well, you know, uh, you know, we don't want to you know, no if you can't condemn that shut up Get out of public life just shut up just get out of there
- 21:43
- All right, so, um, so yeah, there you go. Oh what you were doing your thing, you know the whole idea of manhood and masculinity
- 21:55
- The name I don't think you've seen us this on Facebook It's been in my feed because I follow stuff going on in Prescott right now
- 22:02
- The name mark Martin ring a bell with you. Nope Former pastor of pastor at Calvary Chapel up the road mark.
- 22:11
- Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's the 1990s Yeah, well, he's still around and Calvary Chapel is having a conference in Prescott on Biblical manhood.
- 22:22
- Oh and guess who their example is Jesus Okay, these guys haven't got a clue what those guys are going to be talking about and I've got more more in common with the
- 22:35
- Guys up at Calvary Chapel than I do with these guys. Oh, there's no two ways about that. Absolutely Yeah Okay, yeah, yeah lost me there for a second
- 22:45
- I was gonna go who's who's their example I don't know Anyway, okay, so I need
- 22:57
- I was gonna forget that if we didn't get to it I was gonna start off with it and I didn't It would be really interesting if the
- 23:10
- The folks Who play games with neo -nazis would cut all that stuff off quote that tweet from Cory Mahler and say never
- 23:27
- Never going there if you've gone there you've gone you've you've you've lost it Challenge you to do it
- 23:34
- We certainly have done it anyway So, let's get back into how the state
- 23:43
- Corrected the church and that this has been God's normative way They actually said that God's normative way and we're talking on key doctrinal issues here, we're not talking about arguing about odd minor areas of eschatology or something
- 24:05
- We're talking about Christology. I mean Fundamentally the ecumenical councils Up to Nicaea too.
- 24:15
- So the first six were theological and Christological so they're pretty much they were the relationship between the
- 24:24
- Father and the Son then the relationship to the Father Son Spirit and Then the questions about the relationship of the divine the human in Christ and so Apollinarian is an historian ism
- 24:33
- Uticchian ism And then monothelitism versus duothelitism and stuff like that And then
- 24:41
- Nicaea too broke the mold on all that with though, of course
- 24:46
- Eastern Orthodox Try to say that the whole thing with icons is if you if you do not
- 24:54
- Kiss the icon you do not venerate the icon then you're an historian. So they they try to make it
- 25:00
- Christological It's it's a long reach but anyway, you know
- 25:06
- Jay Dyer can make anything work, right? so These councils were became more and more and more politically oriented and controlled and this was the results of this are
- 25:26
- Clear in history and And The fact that Baptists Continue to be martyred all the way into the 17th century in Europe By both
- 25:44
- Catholics and Protestants is all a function of sacralism
- 25:51
- These men's predecessors as Baptists are rolling in their graves
- 25:59
- That they are actually promoting sacralism again and Outside of The Puritan hope we'll talk about that and Stephen Wolfe inserting himself into this
- 26:14
- Hopefully I remember to get to it as we work on this stuff. So the the first thing the first example of What did he just say?
- 26:26
- Came about 17 18 minutes in There's a discussion going on about Constantine now, let's let's just Not go too fast here
- 26:39
- There have been a lot of Constantine's in church history the first Constantine the
- 26:48
- Great Is of course the one who called the Council of Nicaea in 325
- 26:56
- You have the piece of the church that comes about You know prior to that you have the
- 27:05
- Battle of the Milvian Bridge you have the later story about Him seeing a vision of The Cairo, not the
- 27:18
- Chairo, but the Cairo Some set across and you know things like that, of course, he he doesn't receive baptism till shortly before his death
- 27:29
- And from an Arian bishop, that's something that was completely lost in this that was something I'll talk about here in a moment
- 27:36
- But there have been a lot of you know, like Constantine the sixth
- 27:45
- Was Princess Irene's of Empress Irene's son He's the one she had his eyes gouged out and threw him into prison so he couldn't become
- 27:56
- Emperor and He died there in prison. She's the one who called Nicaea too, by the way
- 28:03
- So it can it can get confusing You know
- 28:08
- Was it Sixtus the fifth or Sixtus the sixth that did this? you know once you get all these numbers and you know
- 28:15
- Benedict the 16th and stuff like that a bunch of Roman numerals it Easy to lose track of who's who but that wasn't the case here.
- 28:23
- What was being said here was about Constantine the first Constantine the big the big boy.
- 28:30
- Okay at the Council of Nicaea and So two things come up here Let's let's listen, here's the
- 28:37
- Here's the first one But Constantine converts and he then allows Christian worshiping and very quickly quickly in the space of ten years
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- Instead of pagan priests or just pagans in general It's Christian bishops that are ascendant to their counseling on diocese
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- They're serving positions of political office and Christianity becomes greatly favored in the nation to the point where now the
- 28:57
- Emperor he attends in I think it's 320. He attends the Hagia Sophia the Emperor of Rome enters a
- 29:05
- Christian church Just 200 years not even quite 200 years from the death of Christ the ministry of the
- 29:11
- Apostles and then it's all the way Okay, I don't get the 200 years part If he talks about the ministry of the
- 29:19
- Apostles, okay, if that ends say 90 you're still
- 29:25
- Well past that I don't get the timing part, but that's not that's not the main the main issue
- 29:34
- The Hagia Sophia Was built and opened in the 6th century
- 29:41
- Okay, Constantine died in the middle of the 4th century Constantine did
- 29:49
- Commission the building of a great church It was on the location of the
- 29:55
- Hagia Sophia, but it was destroyed early 5th century So Hagia Sophia didn't exist then so and even then the the church that was built there
- 30:07
- Which was not the Hagia Sophia Would have been not would have not have existed in 320
- 30:16
- So I'm you just left going. Well, everybody knows the Hagia. Well, okay, not everybody knows the
- 30:21
- Hagia Sophia is but You know exists today. It's a it's a mosque in Istanbul Which tells you something about well, there's a lot of things could be said about that.
- 30:31
- But anyway, um, and so you're just like Wait, well what
- 30:36
- I mean the more important point would have been to focus upon Constantine's Defection From the
- 30:47
- Nicene Faith Under Aryan pressure in the years after the
- 30:53
- Council of Nicaea, which they didn't seem to get into for some reason But you're just you're just like going
- 31:01
- Where did that come from? I I don't have any idea where it came from You can take that down because I've got to move over and then then they start talking about and I I need to Look at the transcript here real quick Then they start talking about so it's 20 22 and a half minutes in or so About the very essence of the
- 31:31
- Council of Nicaea itself So, here we go Make it full screen again.
- 31:38
- And here we inclusion, but he forces them to actually have the discussion I'm gonna put you in a room until this gets solved under threat of death under threat of burial order
- 31:48
- Okay, let me say that that threat of death what The Emperor Wanted a conclusion.
- 31:58
- There's no two ways about that and the few people Who at the end of the council would not sign the
- 32:03
- Creed were expelled They were not even Arius was executed
- 32:10
- So, you know a little off there but here that that's not the main point You like it put his finger on the scale
- 32:17
- I mean he it would be like a 50 -50 tie and the vice president coming in casting a vote potious of Cordoba, okay
- 32:25
- There was no 50 -50 tie this the the Struggle I wrote an article in the 90s
- 32:34
- For the CRI Journal back when we were all friends Called what really happened to the Council of Nicaea Where I walked through Who the very, you know the various Groups you had the what we call the
- 32:49
- Orthodox group You had the Aryan group and the the Aryan position was the
- 32:57
- Jesus is Hetero Uzias, so Uzias is substance hetero heterodox
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- Other is an a different substance than the father. So he's a created being
- 33:14
- Homo Uzias was the term that the Orthodox ended up choosing to use though Even Athanasius wasn't a huge fan of it
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- He wasn't a bishop at Nicaea yet He would be shortly thereafter but homo
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- Uzias of the same substance and What happened? Was Later on they sort of give the idea
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- That the church had just been going along everything was fine cool and dandy And then they they get freedom
- 33:52
- Edict of Milan peace the church and Now they start fighting and squabbling
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- The fact matter is there had been heresies for a long long time. They have been fighting Gnosticism forever and The Eastern churches and this is this is the part you don't get when you just do
- 34:11
- Internet stuff when you don't have to read widely The Eastern Church had been dealing in the previous century with patripassionism,
- 34:25
- Sabellianism modalistic monarchianism What we would identify today
- 34:32
- It's most it's best known modern form is the Jesus only one this Pentecostal folks though their perspective
- 34:42
- Not quite what it was back then but people who deny the Trinity by denying the existence of three divine persons and One of the one of the
- 34:56
- Problems that people had at the Council of Nicaea is that homoousius had a history in the east
- 35:03
- Now remember, this is these are almost all Eastern bishops by by tradition a little over 300 bishops attended
- 35:12
- Almost all from the east there are like two representatives from Rome and that's it from the
- 35:18
- West so it's Very much an Eastern thing and it was the Eastern Church that had fought
- 35:26
- Against Patripassionism and Sabellianism and the the confusion of the divine persons and the idea is that homoousius either had been used by the heretics or sounded way too much like terminology they had used and that's why a lot of bishops were like we
- 35:50
- We can't agree to this and take this back to our churches because they're gonna say we've compromised that we've to fight this new error we've
- 35:59
- Compromised to open the door for these folks because you know, they may have condemned these beliefs already in the preceding century
- 36:08
- Even while the church was under persecution but that didn't mean that those viewpoints just disappear and so This was the real struggle and that led to an attempt to compromise that happens in every political situation and So the middle group became identified with homoousius
- 36:35
- So you've got homoousius one substance homoousius of similar substance and Heteroousius of a different substance.
- 36:47
- So the full -on Arian the semi -Arian and Orthodox that's normally in most
- 36:56
- Meaningful historical Sources that you will read you would
- 37:03
- Find that kind of language being utilized. So homoousius
- 37:09
- Was an attempt to say yes Jesus is truly
- 37:15
- God He's divine but by saying homoiousius you were
- 37:22
- Opening the door for a distinction that would allow you to deny the oneness perspective the patripassion ism the people that were
- 37:32
- Saying that Jesus was two persons. He was the father and the son or things like that and So that was where a lot of while the problem was
- 37:44
- For the bishops is that if we use homoousius then we
- 37:52
- We're fighting on this front. Yeah, it works over here, but now that same thing could be used against us over here so These were the these are the different groups.
- 38:03
- These are the different terms homoousius Homoousius Heterous if you may have seen
- 38:09
- I've seen some memes over the years that said at the Council of Nicaea the difference between divine truth and It's it's denial
- 38:19
- Was one letter because there's only one letter difference between homoousius and homoousius little iota.
- 38:25
- That's it. But the meaning is completely different And that's where the argument was and of course post -nicaea
- 38:38
- Even Athanasius had to try to defend unbiblical terminology and the concept and of course he did so from Scripture but that's that's what the issues were and This is extremely important because we run into this stuff, you know
- 38:56
- There's there's all sorts of Unitarians out there and they're not all Jehovah's Witnesses. Okay You know the
- 39:04
- Jehovah's Witnesses have their own rather unique way of looking at things and Doctrinal formulations and stuff like that And not all
- 39:14
- Unitarians have the same doctrinal formulations. And so It is important to know what the different terms are.
- 39:21
- So with that as the background, here we go It was a bishop who?
- 39:28
- Constantine just really admired and he was an older bishop at this point and Hoshius had his ear and he was whispering to him through the whole proceedings whole homoousian versus homoousius, right right and catch that I Was riding my bike.
- 39:47
- Okay, I ride inside most now, you know, it's the only safe way to do things But and so sometimes you don't catch everything but I caught it did you
- 39:58
- You did. Okay That wasn't the issue
- 40:04
- He just said homoousian versus homoousius Those the same word
- 40:14
- One one is the nominative ones the accusative they're the same word He doesn't know the difference between homoousius homoousius and heteroousius
- 40:23
- And you say yeah, but who does That's true But if you don't know don't sit on a webcast and pretend you do
- 40:33
- It's sort of important. In fact, it's really important. In fact, anyone who's dealt with Unitarians anyone's who's dealt with this stuff knows exactly why it's important and Everybody else sitting there's like oh, yeah
- 40:48
- Joel's is it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right. Uh -huh. Uh -huh didn't catch it That's it.
- 40:55
- You know, uh You just go Okay vast majority of people that we meet on Sunday morning in church
- 41:06
- Don't have any idea what happened to council and I see it and they don't know when it happened I don't know why it's important. I get it, but they're also not pretending to tell other people
- 41:15
- About what happened and why it's important. Okay, but that's what we've got going here That's we've got going on here
- 41:24
- So they're not they're not aware of what was happening they're not aware of what was going on like I said, there's there's a bunch of stuff that I could dive into in this
- 41:31
- I just Don't feel like it What I do want to do is
- 41:36
- I as I said, I want to go through the opening and Because look this is
- 41:45
- I don't know what they call this teaser opening or there's there's various terms of use of it
- 41:50
- Well, what you do is you try to put some of the controversial stuff of some of the concluding stuff out there to get people's interest and that way they
- 41:59
- You know listen to the rest of the program. All right, so Let's um, that's what
- 42:05
- I really wanted to dive into I we've established some of the historical things Let's let's look at this now
- 42:11
- The state must correct the church in 8324 the controversy over arianism was dividing
- 42:18
- Emperor Constantine's recently unified Roman Empire Constantine had converted a mere decade previously and achieved
- 42:26
- Spectacular success on the battlefield over his rival Licinius But he was dismayed to return and find that the religion and church that he had come to love was so torn apart with squabbling division and Dissensions.
- 42:41
- So what happened? Did the church realize their need for clarity on the divinity of the
- 42:46
- Sun and come together at Nicaea? Because they knew that they had to hammer out these doctrines
- 42:52
- Did Alexander and Arius sit down willingly for the good of the church?
- 42:58
- Nope Now by the way, let me just mention in passing Arius had been expelled from the church at Alexandria and He had left
- 43:11
- Egypt and Gone What we would call modern -day
- 43:16
- Israel and Was regathering followers there
- 43:23
- History says he was a good -looking man and a good singer. He would write songs He would have done well on YouTube And so But the idea here is well, come on they should have just gotten together and had a good conversation but the state needed to step in and Make this all work out.
- 43:48
- Keep keep that in mind stay believe it or not It was Emperor Constantine who issued an imperial summons to the warring bishops of the
- 43:57
- East and West okay, as I said a couple representatives from Rome and Everybody else was from the
- 44:05
- East That that's gonna be pretty much throughout the rest of the
- 44:13
- First seven ecumenical councils and by the way, they weren't called ecumenical councils at the time.
- 44:18
- Nobody knew what they were No, that that term is anachronistic It is read back into these things
- 44:26
- At Nicaea that no one was talking about That kind of a concept it develops in the decades after that and eventually, you know the
- 44:36
- Council of Hiera Prior to Nicaea to claim to be ecumenical as well and there is no infallible list of ecumenical councils and East and West Divide over which councils were actually ecumenical.
- 44:52
- So that's another fun thing to add in Demanding that they convene at Nicaea the result of that month -long council was the
- 45:02
- Nicene Creed a Creed that has stood the test of time and is the foundational confession of practically all
- 45:09
- Christian traditions 1 ,700 years later now this happened again under Emperor Theodosius one and two at Constantinople and Ephesus under Marcian at Chalcedon under Justinian again at Constantinople and on and on it goes
- 45:31
- Unfortunately the on and on it goes did not include Empress Irene at Nicaea too because it continued the involvement of the
- 45:45
- Empire and Emperors and an empress there at the end. Oh there were empresses involved before that too, but they normally had a husband
- 45:56
- This this is the whole point this is not the benign state
- 46:04
- Helping the church to get over internal struggles Constantine's role at Nicaea is greatly debated
- 46:14
- But it doesn't take long till that's no longer really the issue at all
- 46:21
- The political when when you can take the
- 46:28
- Creed of Chalcedon and You can break it up into phrases and go this phrase is meant to satisfy this group and this phrase
- 46:40
- Keeps these people happy and this phrase is meant to hopefully keep these people in the fold and you can do that and Then it doesn't work
- 46:51
- The divisions that were created at Chalcedon exist to this day but the reason was to try to get that kind of Political unity
- 47:04
- Didn't work didn't work I Gotta keep that in mind. This pattern plays out again and again the church wars divides airs and Even apostatizes and the means of correction that God uses is often the state
- 47:24
- Now this causes This is called sacralism. Okay, here it is.
- 47:31
- They might as well Put it up on the screen Especially when we talk about, you know at Nicaea You can make an argument that if that is as far as it ever went
- 47:48
- You could make an argument that Constantine's role and if you take the most
- 47:54
- Pro -Constantinian perspective, you know, for example Uh Eastern Orthodox have tried to come up with a different narrative for the baptism of Constantine because Constantine was baptized by an
- 48:11
- Arian Bishop and So, oh no, they try to come up with different ways of arguing that particular point even if you take the most
- 48:22
- Pro -Constantinian Pro -Orthodox Spin you can And Sort of go.
- 48:31
- No He didn't suggest it. He didn't suggest the term there have been people who said he did suggest homoousius and And just say hey, he was he was a genuine
- 48:44
- Christian a lot of people would say he wasn't He was a genuine Christian who just had
- 48:52
- The the best interests of the church at heart if you just stop with Nicaea and none of the rest of stuff had happened and there weren't any more councils that were called with all the politics and Armies involved or you know, the robber
- 49:10
- Sunnah and Ephesus and all this kind of stuff If all the rest that stuff didn't happen
- 49:18
- Then you might be able to say here was an example where God used The head of state as a
- 49:25
- Christian to help bring about peace and unity you could if You ignored what happened after Nicaea if you if you just isolate
- 49:39
- Nicaea We'll talk about that in a second us Americans in particular to bristle and protest
- 49:45
- But it is undeniable that the bulk of church reform has been initiated
- 49:51
- Carried out and completed at the hand of the sovereign Yeah, so, uh,
- 49:59
- I'm done with that. Um hand of the sovereign You know
- 50:06
- That's not Even when we look at the Reformation and the reformers were sacralists.
- 50:13
- That's what they that's what they inherited Um sacralism became the functional relationship between state and church through the
- 50:23
- Reformation There's there's no question about that. Like I said, that's why
- 50:28
- That's why a Baptist was burned in London in 1611 the same year. The King James Version came out
- 50:35
- And that there are martyrs after that why because of sacralism the the
- 50:40
- Protestants imbibed it The Catholics continued to express it and practice it there was a unbroken stream of Martyr missionaries going straight from the church in Geneva into Italy almost every single one of them died as They sought to bring the gospel
- 51:07
- Into Roman Catholic lands They were burned right left and center
- 51:15
- That's sacralism, that's what it does it it it it burns it
- 51:21
- Gets rid of those who have a different perspective. It can't do anything other So this is this is the history
- 51:32
- There's no there's no question about it. And I guess Stephen Wolfe's idea is hey if the reformers did it We need to do it too. So let's burn some
- 51:37
- Baptists while we're at it And that's why I'll get I still want to get
- 51:43
- Stephen Wolfe's Tweet when we get toward the end here Because it does it does directly relate to this but this is this is the essence of sacralism and the irony of course is
- 52:04
- Luther's standing Before Charles and Saying I am captives the
- 52:13
- Word of God. I cannot go out against conscience Here stay issues condition under Anders.
- 52:18
- Don't help him in Here I stand I can do other God help me. Uh, this is a
- 52:27
- Man standing against sacralism, but Doesn't recognize what that means yet His followers centuries later will
- 52:41
- But he hasn't gotten that point just just as the the Marian stuff wasn't Wasn't to focus the reformers and say
- 52:48
- Oh look perpetual. They weren't even dealing with it Wasn't wasn't even on the table
- 52:54
- Every time somebody says yeah, well Luther I just go who cares Show me show me where where he actually
- 53:03
- Engaged any of the meaningful arguments on this topic it just simply wasn't what was being argued about it wasn't what was being discussed
- 53:10
- Okay, so stop it but yeah, they were sacralist no two ways about it and So now
- 53:22
- You have the quote -unquote Christian nationalist movement and if Joel Webb and represents the
- 53:29
- Christian nationalist movement I you know, they're This group's getting together on April 4th, is there gonna be anybody there that's gonna say nope
- 53:37
- No, by the way, I want to I want to point out. I don't I don't buy any of that stuff
- 53:43
- You know cuz cuz what they do is They'll they went into Turretin and Calvin and again they're talking about the magistrate and the magistrates duties do this that and the other thing and as We had the conversation with Doug Wilson long ago
- 54:03
- If There has been a massive movement of the Spirit of God to where the vast majority of the people government people everything are truly born again, not just Sprinkled as a baby and you assume that that puts him in a state of grace and everything else
- 54:22
- But if there is a true fulfillment of the work of the Spirit of God in You know the promises the
- 54:29
- Old Covenant to the nation's streaming into Jerusalem seeking God's Torah The nation's being given to the
- 54:37
- Sun as his inheritance, etc, etc in that context Then we can talk about the
- 54:46
- Christian magistrate in a Christian nation truly Christian not externally so but anything today where the vast majority of people are still
- 55:00
- Saying things like Child murder is great and we can't tell what a woman is.
- 55:07
- No, that's we're not there We're not there and so the only way that the magistrates can be able to do anything is through violence and Through suppression and force and that's exactly what you have in the
- 55:20
- Inquisition. The Inquisition is sacralism functioning on its logical conclusion
- 55:27
- You can't have Dissidence you can't have people say but that's that's not what scripture says.
- 55:34
- Oh, yes it is And we're gonna cut your tongue out now, so you can't tell anybody anything different That's what you ended up having that that's how it works.
- 55:43
- So The Reformation was not started by a magistrate
- 55:51
- Luther was an Augustinian monk Um Zwingli Was the pastor of the church.
- 56:00
- I was gonna pull it up I You know, I might still be a little bit
- 56:06
- These these were not magistrates. I Don't need to know what's new in photos. Thank you
- 56:13
- Don't you hate when that happens it's like stop I wonder if I can pull this up Yep, there it is.
- 56:21
- Well, I think that hold on Yep, I think this is it.
- 56:29
- Yep. There it is right there. Okay So Luther not
- 56:38
- Luther Zwingli. Let me see if I can Get this full size There is a picture.
- 56:46
- I took when I visited Zurich. I was teaching there a number of years ago and This is the bridge in downtown
- 56:56
- Zurich From which Many Ananabaptists received their third baptism
- 57:06
- Now what's a third baptism? Well from the perspective of the
- 57:11
- Established church and the magistrates the Christian magistrates of Zurich the
- 57:17
- Reformed magistrates of Zurich Your first baptism was as an infant by law your second baptism as an adult by profession and Your third baptism by the state was drowning.
- 57:35
- And so this is the very bridge where they would take Anabaptists tie their hands behind their backs and They would lower them into the river until they bubbled and they drown and This was the
- 57:51
- Christian state functioning sacrally Doing the right thing
- 58:00
- Because Denying infant baptism was an attack upon the established settled cultural norms the baptismal rolls the church or the basis of the tax rolls of the state being baptized as an infant made you a citizen of the state and The state needs its soldiers the state needs to defend itself and so infant baptism was central to that understanding and the
- 58:41
- Baptists These particular Baptists, you know
- 58:46
- Zwingli had Been very much a part of teaching them the hermeneutic
- 59:00
- That Led them to recognize the New Testament doesn't teach this and He may have flirted with it for a while, but he and Luther both flirted with a free church for a while, but they recognized without the support of the princes they could never survive and so There they went remember
- 59:25
- Calvin's second generation. He this has already passed for him. I Just realized
- 59:33
- Yeah, cool This was I taught Hebrews there in In in Zurich and man,
- 59:43
- I missed that that was that was so much. That was so enjoyable I'm sorry
- 59:51
- Well, yeah Okay, there you go, here's a picture from here's the classroom there in Zurich and I'm That's accordance up on the screen.
- 01:00:01
- And that's not me. That's my translator. I'm not sure where I am at this particular point in time
- 01:00:08
- But That was a super super enjoyable time great folks
- 01:00:15
- And my German had never gotten better Immersion immersion study is the way to do it.
- 01:00:21
- There's there's no two ways about it Be around people speaking it and it will make your vocabulary come back very quickly.
- 01:00:27
- I I will miss that No, no two ways about it. But anyway, so Here you have
- 01:00:36
- Zurich and One of the most expensive places in the world to live by the way really is
- 01:00:44
- Ah, this is sacralism and Without So let's go ahead and look at this.
- 01:00:56
- Let's I can't believe the hour has already gone by Let's go ahead and look at this
- 01:01:03
- I can't There you go. Look at that So when
- 01:01:10
- I commented on this program on Twitter In the middle of all the responses here comes
- 01:01:22
- Stephen Wolfe and What it was talking about what what
- 01:01:31
- I said and what he's talking about They are related but you have to think it through He says
- 01:01:39
- I love it when you mention the Puritan post mill hope in support of revivalism now wolf like Cory Mahler Likes to do these single sentence
- 01:01:54
- I'm gonna let people interpret this in a bunch of different ways and Then I'll snap back at them like I'm the victim because they're being so mean to me even though I'm the one that put it out there and Specifically and intended to make it weird so people would
- 01:02:12
- Guess what I'm saying. I love it when you mentioned the Puritan post mill hope in support of revivalism
- 01:02:18
- What's he talking about what I was just talking about? Um what he calls revivalism happens to be
- 01:02:27
- What Joel Webben once believed? I don't know what he believes now but We talked about this at the conference at his church when
- 01:02:38
- I was there not long ago It was not long ago Joe boot did
- 01:02:43
- I did it was part of my sermons you know Yeah, and what he's talking about is
- 01:02:51
- That the only way that the the Puritan hope was the work of the
- 01:02:58
- Spirit of God in bringing about the wholesale conversion of nations
- 01:03:06
- Bring them the feet of Christ So it means true conversion. I guess that's what revivalism is because Wolfe's perspective being sacralist is
- 01:03:17
- You force Christian law Because that's you know,
- 01:03:23
- God made The world this way so God's law. Well, not not on theonomic sense, but more of a natural law type perspective
- 01:03:33
- Can be derived from the creation itself and so the
- 01:03:39
- Christian Prince's duty is to well interestingly in the comments at one point
- 01:03:51
- Joel Webbin brought up what happened with the Ditsy rainbow stalled chick at the
- 01:04:03
- Cathedral Went with Trump and Vance and she's preaching right at him and stuff and he said
- 01:04:11
- I would be perfectly fine if President Trump had stood up and said that's enough drag her out of here
- 01:04:20
- Drag her out of here arrest her I'd be fine with that Okay so Then you must be fine with when the magistrates in Zurich Captured the
- 01:04:36
- Anabaptists drag them to the bridge and drown them right And we need to be consistent because What's the standard by which the magistrates can be judged?
- 01:04:50
- And if you have Unregenerate men in that position Just going by natural law
- 01:04:57
- Then was there anything wrong? With the fact that every missionary sent by the
- 01:05:04
- Church of Geneva into Italy in fact Let's ask this question. Was it wrong for the Church of Geneva to send those missionaries to Italy?
- 01:05:13
- Was it was that a wrong thing to do? Because the
- 01:05:19
- Italy was a sacral state and they had an understanding of What God wanted them to be and having
- 01:05:28
- Protestants coming in and preaching the Gospels of Grace That's going against the the political order
- 01:05:36
- So was it right for Italy? for the Italians to burn all
- 01:05:42
- Of those Calvinists those crazy Calvinists who came from Geneva to try to proclaim the
- 01:05:48
- Gospel of Grace in Italy Was that a right thing to do? Was that appropriate?
- 01:05:56
- Because you see sacralism has a long history of Murdering God's children and doing it in the name of God and that's why you have to have changed hearts
- 01:06:12
- That's why you'd have to have a church where there is unity Because the problem is when you don't have unity when that hasn't been brought about by the post -millennial hope the
- 01:06:21
- Puritan hope when that has been brought about a Long history of these people using their power
- 01:06:30
- To bring about that unity, but it's not a spirit born unity. It is a sword born unity and So you end up with these little groups meeting out in the woods, oh
- 01:06:44
- That's what Christians did during the Soviet period and we lionized them today, don't we don't we say that they were the brave ones
- 01:06:53
- But when they did that during Roman medieval, you know Rome's supremacy
- 01:07:00
- They were heretics and they were burned and the magistrate did that The state corrected, can you imagine
- 01:07:10
- Donald Trump Correcting your church with Paula White's theology.
- 01:07:22
- Are you gonna submit to that? Vance is a relatively new convert
- 01:07:28
- Roman Catholicism They talk about integralism. In fact someone
- 01:07:34
- You know, they do this, you know You and I we've we've just been so stupid because we don't if we if we did this live on YouTube We could be getting these things called super chats and I do a lot of programs where they have people
- 01:07:46
- You know, they'll do a $5 super chat And of course when they do that, then you end up getting bumped up and you know
- 01:07:53
- Your question becomes more they had somebody do a $300 super chat during this thing and somebody did a $50 super chat
- 01:08:00
- One of them was about we're so thankful that you're teaching the things that our elders wouldn't teach us You know you you young guys those old guys
- 01:08:07
- They're all worthless and you're great. By the way, those folks will turn against you so fast You won't even know what happened, but we'll see that in a few years but Someone asked
- 01:08:17
- I think it was a $50 super chat Asked, would you would you rather have a
- 01:08:25
- Roman Catholic Um Magistrate And one of the guys answered well that's called integralism and They all went.
- 01:08:37
- Yeah Then then what we have now. Yes, it would be better to have that. I'm just going um
- 01:08:49
- You look I realize that there are some Historical issues with Fox's Book of Martyrs.
- 01:08:56
- Okay, it's not Quite the standard that we have today, but it still contains a whole lot.
- 01:09:02
- I'm not sure they've ever read it. I Don't I don't think they understand That a
- 01:09:08
- Roman Catholic integralist system is what we had and that's what brought about the Reformation You know
- 01:09:18
- The gospel being encrusted by tradition, that's what the Reformation was about Um, it really was how to get there how did the clarity of the gospel
- 01:09:32
- Become so encrusted with tradition that you needed something as radical as the Reformation Well the state helped sacralism helped
- 01:09:44
- This was it was what it was all about and I know what's gonna happen
- 01:09:51
- When I blog this thing and rich uploads the file and we put it out there and we I tweet it there's gonna be all these responses of Frog memes with people going say
- 01:10:07
- Equalism, that's the that's all I've got. They know anything about history. They don't I think about theology They're they're children.
- 01:10:15
- They're just gonna react emotionally like children do It's astonishing but I can't worry too much about them
- 01:10:24
- My concern is for serious Christians We've we've only started struggling with this stuff in the
- 01:10:32
- United States over the past number of years and Somebody has to be the one to go, um
- 01:10:43
- Hey This has happened before People have suggested this stuff before and it it really went really badly
- 01:10:54
- You big meanie you're so hateful you're against our fun
- 01:11:01
- Well, you know what that's what adults have to do That's what adults have to do sometimes adults have to step in and go yeah no, this is this is gonna lead to some really really bad stuff and Trust us.
- 01:11:15
- We've seen this before. Ah, you bunch of boomers. Oh okay, and You know,
- 01:11:22
- I've had to tell some of my own friends who agree with me about this stuff, you know They're they're wanting us to do this that and the other thing and I'm like look guys
- 01:11:33
- Sometimes you just have to let the kids Burn their hands on the on this on the stove you know you tell them no and no and no and no and they just keep doing it and it's like Okay, here we go
- 01:11:50
- So That leads me to the last thing to talk about on the program today, by the way, just just in passing
- 01:11:58
- This isn't this is something completely different Two things tomorrow
- 01:12:03
- March 26th At the Georgia Capitol I'm pretty sure
- 01:12:10
- Jeff's gonna be there because I know he flew out yesterday Did you know he his sermon on Sunday was 24 minutes and 55 seconds
- 01:12:21
- That's a new record That's because we challenged him We had baptisms to do we had new members to greet
- 01:12:30
- We had all this stuff and he had done 85 minutes a few weeks ago.
- 01:12:35
- Okay, and so The rest of us really got on about it
- 01:12:40
- He set a timer just like I had for my sermon the week before he got it done he got it done, so it was it was but Josh Bice, there's a on my tweet feed right here
- 01:12:57
- Josh Bice is preaching somewhere On the subject of abortion g3 is very much involved with all this.
- 01:13:03
- This is not a time for silence It was what Josh was saying join us at the Georgia Capitol tomorrow Wednesday, March 26th the committee hearing on HB 441
- 01:13:11
- The hearing is scheduled at noon Christians are gathering in support starting at 10 a .m. So if you're in Georgia Stand with our brothers at g3 stand with with Jeff and abortion now seeking to bring
- 01:13:26
- Equal justice to the pre -born there in the state of of Georgia, I think that's vitally important far more
- 01:13:35
- Important than the last subject. Um So I was just talking about Joel Webben and we were just looking at him making comments and I Focused on the substance of those comments and the sacralism they present and the fact that they don't seem to oh
- 01:13:58
- Rat I may have to go to 430. I forgot something. Sorry.
- 01:14:04
- I Kept saying I was gonna get to this but What is missing in the understanding of that video is what happened after Nicaea?
- 01:14:17
- It's what happened after Nicaea Vast majority of Christians have no earthly idea what the
- 01:14:25
- Aryan resurgence was for decades for decades
- 01:14:34
- Europe found itself Aryan Nicaea was rejected Multiple councils that had more bishops at them than Nicaea had were called
- 01:14:46
- That compromised the Nicene faith a reminem and Sirmium to the best known In the middle of that century
- 01:14:55
- That's why Athanasius is kicked out of his church five times That's why he it's
- 01:15:02
- Athanasius contramundum Athanasius against the world because The few people that stood with him were so old they died early on Everybody else collapsed under governmental pressure
- 01:15:14
- Even the Bishop of Rome under governmental pressure. Oh, that's sacralism though. Oh The same the same people that Guided and saved the church taught the church then turned around and taught the church the opposite.
- 01:15:33
- Oh So the church should have submitted right see where this goes
- 01:15:41
- See where this goes you guys don't get it. Do you why don't we honor a reminem as the first ecumenical council
- 01:15:53
- Well, because 99 .999999 % of humanity has no idea that the council ever took place, right?
- 01:16:01
- But it did take place and it had such an impact at the time That years later
- 01:16:10
- Augustine writing what early 5th century so, you know 70 80 years later.
- 01:16:16
- I'm not sure exactly when he wrote this letter. I could look it up but he writes to maximum the
- 01:16:22
- Aryan and That's that famous quote comes from where he says You must not cite the authority of a reminem against me and I must not cite the authority of Nicaea against you
- 01:16:35
- Instead let us come together over that which we agree upon and that is the authority of the inspired scriptures.
- 01:16:41
- Oh Really Augustine come on you said that yes, he did but that's how big an impact
- 01:16:53
- That council had there were more bishops there than it were at Nicaea. So Yeah, 381
- 01:17:00
- Constantinople reaffirms Nicaea, but what happened between 325 and 381? How did you know between those two and the state
- 01:17:10
- Constantine compromised he was baptized by an Aryan bishop. He did not stay true to Nicene orthodoxy nor did his sons
- 01:17:24
- So What are you gonna do with that? What do you do with all these people for decades?
- 01:17:32
- I mean we Americans I Was stunned in the last the last election
- 01:17:38
- How many people? totally forgot about Kovac They totally forgot about the lockdowns.
- 01:17:44
- They forgot about the the way that we were treated Attention span
- 01:17:50
- Historical memory that long. Can you imagine? What it was like?
- 01:17:57
- You know everybody's talking about. Well, you got you got these young people. They need guidance. Okay For 20 years for 20 year
- 01:18:10
- Aryanism reigns supreme even Jerome said the world woke up and was astonished to find itself Aryan Wouldn't you use that as a sufficient basis for saying
- 01:18:22
- Aryan isms true for 20 years? And it had the state approval state and church unified
- 01:18:31
- Isn't that great? Guess what when the state and church is unified. It's still subject correction by the
- 01:18:37
- Word of God That's what sola scriptura means. That's why it's so vital and you can't get away from that Absolute importance no matter how you try
- 01:18:49
- Can't get away so why not why not Delve into that and go.
- 01:18:56
- Yeah. Well the state did this and Then a few decades later the state did that Which was on the other end
- 01:19:04
- They did the opposite thing hmm What do you do about that?
- 01:19:10
- I don't know I don't have to worry about because I ain't no sacralist and there will be and I will continue to warn people
- 01:19:20
- That foolish people will push them towards sacralism But we'll be consistent and we have been consistent all along on that particular subject no two ways about it
- 01:19:35
- So back to what I was gonna say here I'm gonna be brief.
- 01:19:43
- We've talked about Cory Mahler. We've talked about the video the big thing over the weekend was the publication of a letter regarding sexual fornication on the part of Joel Webben as Pastor of I think it was called vineyard blue church.
- 01:20:06
- I don't know where you come up with a name like that, but California That's suppose it flies in California And Yes, I was aware of all this stuff for quite some time
- 01:20:19
- I think I was made aware of it Right, all right
- 01:20:25
- It was in within a few weeks one way or the other of when Joel preached at that church because that church
- 01:20:32
- Changed name became right response. I think and now is San Diego Reformed Church Alright, the church still exists.
- 01:20:41
- That's what's important here that the church has sort of been ignored here like nobody cares that it still exists, but it does and So when
- 01:20:54
- I heard about these events, I don't think I saw the letter at that point that was that was later
- 01:21:04
- I'm like Okay, if the church has had him back to preach there's been some kind of rapprochement some kind of reconciliation and My ecclesiology does not allow me to sit there and look at what they that church has done and judge them because I don't know all the detail and I have enough experience now to know the damage that is done regularly by people who go digging through church discipline issues where they only have a
- 01:21:41
- Quarter of the story a tenth of the story secondhand information about it And try to dig that out and throw it out in the public for their own nefarious purposes happens all and so I'm not gonna
- 01:21:58
- Jump in on that and so when the stuff started happening last year
- 01:22:04
- You know, I had other people mention it to me and I'm like No, don't go there Don't go there
- 01:22:11
- You don't you don't know everything And I don't know everything. So no, you don't you don't do that Well now it's out there
- 01:22:22
- And the letter from the church and then Joel's response to it and all the rest of that stuff and I'm rather confused because I'm hearing different stuff
- 01:22:40
- One internet Pugilist Used the terminology of saying that this is all this was all pre -conversion and I saw some other people saying the same thing and I'm like what and then
- 01:23:00
- Joel has Said in some of what he's written and in some people he's talked to I was
- 01:23:07
- LARPing Now I I remember it wasn't that long ago that I first encountered the term
- 01:23:14
- LARPing I had to look it up Had no idea what it was live action role -playing
- 01:23:22
- And he said I Was LARPing a pastor. I wasn't Prepared to be a pastor.
- 01:23:29
- I was playing at being a pastor the theology of the church was super shallow and so it it wasn't a real church except it still exists today and He was ordained by the denomination and it was an established church and Everybody there would have called him pastor
- 01:23:50
- Joel, but now he looks back and goes. Yeah, but I my theology was horrible.
- 01:23:56
- Well Problem I have now is he's now seemingly saying the theology had 18 months ago was horrible
- 01:24:05
- So, where does that end? Where does that stop at some point? Where I've now got a good enough theology to be held accountable for being a pastor.
- 01:24:15
- I Don't know so when I first heard this
- 01:24:21
- Other person saying this is pre -conversion I'm like, okay.
- 01:24:28
- So did he get saved after the sin? Did he ever stop pastoring during that time,
- 01:24:36
- I mean I sort of figure if you get if you get saved You're gonna go. Wait a minute.
- 01:24:42
- I'm not a pastor. I'm a brand -new Christian I just now found out what it means to repent and believe in Jesus Christ And so man,
- 01:24:51
- I'm getting out of here because I now know being a drop of the Holy Spirit that I'm not supposed to be standing up here pretending to Preach the
- 01:25:01
- Word of God to these people because I don't know what I'm talking about so Was he out of preaching for?
- 01:25:09
- hopefully number of years I Don't see any evidence that he was So you don't just you don't you don't just I'm LARPing I'm pretending to be a pastor.
- 01:25:21
- Oh, I've been converted I'll just keep doing what I've been doing That's not possible So Again it's not my it's not my role to Judge the specific incidents here because There's obviously much more than has been said because you've got the church's letter and then you've got
- 01:25:49
- Joel's response and Yeah, some people I know have actually contact been in contact with the church to look great
- 01:25:55
- I have no interest in getting involved with all that stuff. It is soul -destroying it really is to dive into this kind of stuff and because you have to deal with it in church discipline issues and It's never -ending
- 01:26:12
- It's it's like I think I'm gonna go work in IT someplace type stuff. It really really is and I wasn't a part of that church.
- 01:26:20
- I don't know anything about it I mean, we do have a member of our church was a member then so there there is a little bit of a connection
- 01:26:27
- To that but no not gonna not gonna go there but It does seem very strange to me.
- 01:26:35
- Who was that guy? I was gonna look at him up But there was a who is the guy that got arrested two weeks ago big multi -site church and He was arrested for abuse of minors like 40 years ago
- 01:26:52
- Long long they were plastering his mugshot all over the place And you know all the all the discernment bloggers that get into that kind of stuff were finally got him
- 01:27:02
- Boy, this is great. And this is wonderful And I I was watching that and I sort of sort of sat back and went
- 01:27:12
- If he came out because he's he's posted bond He's out of jail at the moment if he came out and said look
- 01:27:21
- I was LARPing back then I was I was doing live -action role -playing.
- 01:27:28
- I Wasn't really a pastor, you know, and I've been saved since then how many people would be going
- 01:27:35
- Cool with us we're fine with that. No problem the the people that I see
- 01:27:43
- Pounding that drum right now Would never do that They've never do that.
- 01:27:49
- So there's some real double standards being used here massive double standards being used
- 01:27:57
- So Yeah, I there's there's still a lot of questions and And I really thought about asking those questions and I went
- 01:28:11
- It's it's it's it's quicksand it's quicksand and there has been the the
- 01:28:19
- Jumping into this of another individual has made it even deeper quicksand
- 01:28:27
- That it's just like no, I don't I I would like to pursue my ministry without you know, this constant
- 01:28:38
- Hair shirt to be wearing a lot of people don't know what a hair shirt is. But anyway So, yeah that that certainly is
- 01:28:50
- You know, I've seen a lot of people say that's it period end of discussion I Can't I can't argue with your conclusion there fine
- 01:29:00
- I just don't know enough about the relationship to the church and that's my concern My concern is there's two churches involved here
- 01:29:09
- There's the original church and there's the church in Georgetown and there are people in that church That no one seems to care about And Other things have already happened that have raised concerns
- 01:29:28
- I've heard other things about conversions out of that church in Eastern Orthodoxy and stuff like that I don't know.
- 01:29:36
- I'm not there One thing I do know If not in this life in the day of judgment we will we will know but in the way things happen these days
- 01:29:51
- I Think we're gonna get a pretty good idea fairly quickly
- 01:29:59
- If there's If all this if all this stuff comes together at one point in time
- 01:30:06
- We're gonna we're gonna get a good idea of what it all means. We really are we're going to so In response to the video guys
- 01:30:19
- Sacralism stinks and So does your church history? Okay, both of them go together in regards to That situation
- 01:30:29
- I just have to look at the elders of the church in Texas and go You tell me that you all knew all about this
- 01:30:39
- That means you shouldn't have a problem answering those questions, right? and if the answers are yeah, he just kept pastoring all the way through then
- 01:30:49
- I'm like and You're good with that Yeah, no, you shouldn't be good with that let me go that all last thing it is 431
- 01:30:59
- Well, it's 731 for everybody else 431 here in the desert
- 01:31:07
- Southwest where did it hit now my Well, I know it's a record but my home my home thermometer is saying 96 right now
- 01:31:18
- Yeah, there there you go Were you gonna say what I'm gonna was gonna say oh Yeah, okay we are pulling out on Saturday heading for the
- 01:31:29
- Louisiana Loop and the debates and the speaking and everything else and My big diesel truck
- 01:31:37
- I Pull in there and I get those I gotta admit when you use the truck pumps
- 01:31:44
- There's a rush of power Cuz that nozzle you put that baby in there it's that big around and it just Wow You should you should see you remember remember the old -style pumps that had the the dials
- 01:32:03
- That's what that look like. Yeah, they fly apart. This is just it couldn't couldn't keep up with the price
- 01:32:09
- It would be way way way too high I actually there's actually a RV park in Texas that has a pump that you can get diesel at and it's that kind of pump and So they literally have to have you come in and they have to use a calculator to figure out the actual price
- 01:32:27
- Because the pump can't go up to what diesel actually costs that today they have to go Well, it's gonna be times three point better that uh, you know something like that.
- 01:32:35
- So it is funny to see anyways Um Costs coming up those
- 01:32:42
- RV parks actually I think they cost less than a hotel I was stunned on this last trip and how much those hotels cost they cost about half what a hotel does they really do sometimes even less than that and So travel fund at a omen org travel fund at a omen org is how you can help us get where we're going
- 01:33:00
- And I'll just happen to mention in passing That we normally hold that off to the end of the program and I've been noticing the more and more programs
- 01:33:08
- I watch the more and more commercials are in those programs We don't have commercials.
- 01:33:15
- We just leave that up to The people who think this is important. Yes, sir So while you were talking about Nicaea and you you mentioned your article from the
- 01:33:25
- CRI Journal years ago I believe that was 93 wasn't it man? I have no idea was 1993 So I found the
- 01:33:31
- PDF of it online it CRI has it on their website equip org and My thing is if you if you search for it, it won't come up.
- 01:33:41
- I searched it and on equip org Yeah, well, I didn't search it there. I googled it.
- 01:33:46
- Yeah. Yeah, so I but yeah, boom there it is so we'll drop that link in in the description so that folks can go back and And and and reminisce on that yes.
- 01:33:58
- Yes. Well, I'll go we'll reminisce on it on it Wow, look at all the footnotes in that baby.
- 01:34:04
- Yeah. Yeah. Wow. There's no date on it. Unfortunately. Is that all that was 1993? Okay Because boy,
- 01:34:13
- I tell you what that set the Roman Catholic Fire could not have been 93.
- 01:34:18
- Really? Okay, because I The reason they asked me to do this is because how popular
- 01:34:24
- The King James only program had been on Bible answer man, and that book came out in 95
- 01:34:30
- So it had to been after so yeah. Anyway, it's called me boomer.
- 01:34:35
- Yeah So, yeah, I've got the I've got the link up here and I'll put it into the blog article
- 01:34:43
- When I draft that here in just a few minutes. Thank you for watching the program tomorrow I guess what we'll do unless there's just some kind of result from this is
- 01:34:54
- We'll read through the acts of Paul and Tecla. We'll do a Don't worry.
- 01:35:00
- I'm not reading all this we will do a story time with uncle Jimmy episode tomorrow and We read through the acts of Paul and Tecla however long that takes us
- 01:35:11
- And hopefully you'll find that well doing more of the doing more of the church history stuff here for a while So thanks for watching the program today, we will see you next time