WWUTT 1825 Q&A He Gets Us

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Why are the books of the Bible in the order that they are in? What is moralism and how does it lead people to hell?

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And what's with the He Gets Us campaign? What do we need to know about it? The answers to these questions and others when we

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Understand the Text. This is

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When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ, to help encourage your time in the Word.

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Find devotional books and other ministry resources when you go to www .wutt .com.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Speaking of those books and devotional resources and stuff,

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I just updated the books page on the WUTT website. Nice!

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I did not realize how outdated it was. Uh -oh. How outdated was it? I had stuff on there

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I don't even have for sale anymore. Aw, that's a bummer. Yeah, but I got the 25 Christmas Myths book right there at the top, since it's the

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Christmas season. You can find the book there through the WUTT website, or you can just go to Amazon.

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Find it there. If you've got an Amazon account and it's just a one -click thing, Becky is an Amazon shopper.

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I am. I don't need to give Amazon any promotion, but just letting you know, it is an easy way to shop.

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It is. So the book is there if you want to get it that way. Or for your Kindle. Yep. I read most of my stuff on my

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Kindle these days, I think. It is weird, because you have a huge wall of bookshelves that are filled.

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Well, I think of the reading that I do at home. This is all research book up here.

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That's true. And I got that awesome Sharnock Volume 1 and Volume 2 from Reformation Heritage Books.

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Nice! And I just grab one of those and sit here and read it for like 10 minutes, if all

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I've got is 10 minutes, I don't want to start another project. That was great that Reformation Heritage put those into two volumes, because as I understand it, the previous series was like five books.

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Oh, wow. So they compressed it down into two volumes. James White took a picture of his set that he had and said, so now what do we do with these?

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Now that Reformation Heritage has put them into two books. Yeah. That's really cool. I don't think they're the ones that did it, actually.

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I can't tell the logo from here. But anyway, I know you can buy it through them. There were some other reformed bookstores online that were selling it too.

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Yeah. Just to share. Anyway. Very cool. I'm going to promote those guys. P &R Publishing, that's another good one.

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I'll promote them before I promote Amazon. Right. But in case you have Amazon. In case you're an

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Amazon shopper. You can get the book there. This is the Friday edition of the broadcast.

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We take questions from the listeners, which you can send to us via email when we understand the text at gmail .com.

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This one comes from Kevin in Springfield, Missouri. Dear Gabe and babe, I love the name of the new show.

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It's actually the new name of the old show. There we go. He says, you should totally get

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Reftoons to do some artwork for you guys and do up some t -shirts. I'll buy the first dozen.

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Cue the meme of that Futurama guy holding out a fistful of dollars saying, take my money. I'd love to do some t -shirts, but I don't know how.

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I'm still trying to figure that out. Well, we'll have Paul Cox draw us up something nice.

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There we go. If I can get in touch with him. I don't know how I do that. I've sent him an email. We'll just see if he responds. Yeah. Kevin goes on to say,

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I just wanted to share that I have now listened to the podcast enough times that when Becky is not there,

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I can tell from the introduction before Gabe says that he's flying solo.

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Does that mean I've listened to too many episodes that I can now pick up on those little nuances? Anyway, since I feel like I need to ask a

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Bible question, why are the books of the Bible in the order that they are in? Oh, I have that question too.

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Really? Yes. Well, he concludes by saying, thank you for a great show. Thank you,

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Kevin, for a great email. Yes, thanks. Okay. So on to this question that you also have, why are the books of the

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Bible in the order that they are in? Yes. I'm afraid that is a, what would that be?

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A church history question? Not necessarily a Bible history question. Could be that too. But a church history question,

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I don't know the answer to. Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, I can give you a general idea based on some things that I've read, but I don't know for sure why the books of the

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Bible came in that particular grouping. I know the Old Testament, we have the books of the law. That's the first five

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Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. I would imagine that's pretty consistent to the way it's always been ever since Moses wrote them.

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After that, you have the history books, and that's Joshua through Esther. Mm -hmm. And I can't see that there would really be anything any different in that grouping of books either.

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Yeah. If any of that's changed over the years. Just the order of where those groupings have been, maybe that's changed.

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I don't know. Yeah. Because you would go with books of the law, then the history books, then you've got the poetry or the wisdom books,

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Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, then you've got the major prophets, which

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I just started on yesterday with Isaiah, Introduction to Isaiah, which by the way, everybody, I'm sorry, I was like a day late on everything this week.

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Yeah. But it was just one of those busy kinds of weeks. It's one of those weeks. Yeah. So the major prophets, the reason why they're called the major prophets is because they're big books.

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Oh, okay. It's not because they were more important prophets than the other guys. See, I was wondering about that too, because I just assumed that they were more important or did bigger things or something.

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No. Yeah, it's just because they're bigger books. I need to read through them again, obviously, but...

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You've got Isaiah. You've got Jeremiah. Lamentations is fairly short when you consider the major prophets, but it's believed that Lamentations was written by Jeremiah or by Baruch, maybe his scribe

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Jeremiah telling Baruch to write this down. Then of course you have Ezekiel and you have Daniel. Then you've got all the minor prophets and you've got

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Hosea through Malachi. Yeah. And that finishes up the Old Testament.

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In the New Testament, you've got the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and then you have Acts, but all five of those are considered history books.

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Okay. They're narrative and they're the only five books of the New Testament that are narrative.

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Yeah. Everything else after that, you've got the letters. You've got Paul's letters that goes from Romans through Philemon.

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Then you have Hebrews, which a lot of people would group as a letter of Paul's, probably why it's placed where it is.

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Yeah. The author is not explicitly mentioned, but it sounds like Paul. So they put it at the end of Paul's letters or at the beginning of the general letters.

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You got James, first and second Peter, first and second, third John, Jude, and the last of all you have

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Revelation, which is the one book of prophecy in the New Testament. A lot more prophet books in the

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Old Testament. You have one prophet book in the New Testament, which is Revelation, but also works as a summation of everything that you've read in the

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Old Testament and New Testament. Because out of 404 verses in the book of Revelation, there are 500 references to the

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Old Testament. Yeah. That's true. So not only telling us about what the last things will be, but also seeing everything over the course of redemptive history summed up right there in the book of Revelation.

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That's actually like prophetic. What do you call it whenever a prophet says it?

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Prophetic. Yeah. Right. Okay. You said that right. Well, I mean, like phrase, saying, what is it?

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He prophesied. He prophesied. There you go. He profited. He profited. P -R -O -P -H.

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E -T -E -D. Oh, now I forgot what to say. Whereas the prosperity preachers profit with an

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F. So anyway. Anyway, profited. And then it was the solution.

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Like it showed that it came to be. Yeah. That it was all finished. Yes. It's all done.

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Yes. Christ is the victor. Anyway, that's the grouping that we have. Now.

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I mean, that makes logical sense that they would put it in that order. Yeah. The groups.

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If it was up to us in the Western world, we might have tried to put it in chronological order. That would be me. That would totally be my choice.

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But if I remember correctly, some of them do overlap a little bit, and that would be a little difficult.

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Well, they overlap. Yeah. Within the books. In First Kings, for example, you'll be trotting along and then, oh, we've got to go back to this event.

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Right. Things like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I have a hard time. So I have to have you walk me through that.

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Oh, the Bible is fun. It is. I love the way it's written and the way that it's laid out. But how we came up with that particular grouping,

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I don't know. I know I've read it at some point. It might be in Michael Kruger's Canon Revisited even, which is a good book that I've shared with people.

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If you want to understand why the books are written the way that they are and you want a good, solid defense of this is the word of God and this is our authority, the church is not the authority over the

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Bible, but rather the Bible is the authority over the church. All of those arguments laid out extremely well by Michael Kruger in his book.

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So he may have talked about in there why we came up with the order of the books the way that we did. I just can't give it to you off the top of my head today.

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I had prepared for something completely different. I just wanted to share that email at the very beginning here. But we said last week that we were going to talk about He Gets Us.

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So let me come back to the email that Ken sent to us. I read it at the end of last week's podcast.

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But since He Gets Us is in the title of this episode, I'm guessing some people are going to come into it because they were searching

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He Gets Us. So to keep everything in context, I'm going to go ahead and read the email again and play the video that I did.

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And then we'll get to this material here. So Ken from, well, I said Louisiana, he said from LA.

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That could also be Los Angeles. It could. No idea. Yeah, that's true. But anyway, dear

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Pastor Gabe, thank you for the video that you did on He Gets Us. Do you think that you could do a longer video or maybe a blog on this as well?

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Something that maybe goes through their articles and shows more specific problems with the content on their website.

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Some people at my church have started to pass around stuff from He Gets Us. And while my pastor has been skeptical, he's not really one to research this kind of thing and warn about the dangers.

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Thank you for what you do. So let me go ahead and play the what video that I did on this.

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And then we will get to the He Gets Us website. Oh, boy.

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Perhaps you were watching college football and you saw this strange ad about a teenager who got pregnant and had a baby and wait, this is the story of Jesus.

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Only Mary had to take a pregnancy test and she was sad about it. The ad directs viewers to a website called

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He Gets Us dot com. When you go to their about page, they insist they're not a church or political, even though they sell shirts that say

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Jesus was a refugee. They say we simply want everyone to understand and relate to the authentic Jesus as he's presented in the

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Bible. But then there's nothing about the Bible. So you go to the topics page and they have articles like how did

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Jesus deal with injustice? How would Jesus be judged today? Why did Jesus cry? But not one of these pages.

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Yes, I read them all say anything about Jesus being savior or God. One page says some believe

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Jesus lived a perfect life for others. That's a stretch. Either way, Jesus set a high bar for himself and for others.

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Jesus said you are to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. If you don't think Jesus lived a perfect life, you don't get

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Jesus. If you get on their chat and ask them if Jesus approves of homosexuality, they will say he does.

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They'll even connect you with a church that loves your sin. These guys are heretics spending $100 million in advertising to preach a different Jesus.

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But evangelical leaders Ed Stetzer and Kevin Azzell think they're great. Makes you wonder how much they're getting paid.

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The Bible says that if anyone preaches a different Jesus, they are accursed. Jesus gets us in that we're sinners in need of a savior.

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And he is that savior when we understand the text. So in the video,

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I said that I read every page on the He Gets Us website. And that is true.

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Before I made that video, I did. Well, in preparation for this episode, I went back to the

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He Gets Us website and started pulling up pages. And I can say just about everything on the website has changed.

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Oh, really? There's things now about this so -called ministry. You're going to hear me call it that, even though I'll say they're full of false teaching and you shouldn't be following He Gets Us.

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Is it more of an organization? Organization, yeah. Well, they do say on their website they're a 501c3 organization.

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There you go. Which means they're nonprofit. So you can call it an organization. Yeah. They're an organization. That's a better word then.

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Don't confuse people. Anyway, I went back to the website and started reading pages and particularly their

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About page and stuff's changed. Ever since we started exposing this organization,

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Pastor Tom posted the stuff that he did on his Twitter page. I made the video.

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We've addressed it in podcasts or in blogs or some other things. Now suddenly they're changing stuff on the website.

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Like what kind of stuff? Well, on the About page, it used to be that you could not find anything anywhere on the

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He Gets Us website about Jesus being God. There was no mention of that whatsoever.

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There's nothing about sin, nothing about repentance and following Jesus Christ. Nothing about that.

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There's no gospel on the page whatsoever. And incidentally, when I was preparing for this yesterday,

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I pulled up the He Gets Us website and in their search bar, I typed gospel and it came up. No search results.

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The word gospel does not appear on the He Gets Us website anywhere. Okay. I went to the

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About Us page and I noticed this paragraph. Ultimately, we want people to know his teachings, talking about Jesus, and how he lived while here on earth.

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And this will be a starting point to understanding him and his message. Though we believe that he was what

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Christians call fully God and fully man. That's new because that was not on the website a month or so ago when

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I made that video. That was not there. I know it wasn't there. So going on, though we believe that he was what

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Christians call fully God and fully man, that may not be what you believe. We're simply inviting you to explore with us at He Gets Us.

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How might things be different if more people followed his example? So look at this as an open invitation to engage and learn more.

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We're also here to support and listen to you. Connect with us here and via social media. If that's their objective, moralism, that's moralism.

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They're not leading anyone to Jesus Christ, right? Nobody. They're just being moral. There is no gospel on this page.

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This saves no one. And they have from their very confession on their website.

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They're not even trying to save you or convert you or give you an understanding of your sin and your need for the gospel.

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All they want you to do is just consider he's a good example to follow. Right. And they don't even say that they say that he's fully

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God and fully man. They say Christians say. Right. Well, they say though we believe he was what

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Christians call fully God and fully man. They say that. That's still kind of passing the buck.

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But then they say that may not be what you believe. Right. So they're still just asking you to follow an example.

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That's all they're asking you to do. And yeah, it's moralism. They're leading people straight to hell. And they're going to convince people that all you have to do is follow

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Jesus example. Just be a good person. Just be a good person. Wow. Of course, the example that they want you to follow is the version of Jesus that they put out on the

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He Gets Us website. Because they don't quote scripture. They don't give you the

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Bible. Yeah. So how are you supposed to explore it without the Bible? I mean, that's the number one resource.

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We could call this Andy Stanley -ism, incidentally. Sorry. Because you know,

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Andy's always trying. Andy's always trying. How can

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I present Jesus without the Bible? Yes. Andy's constantly doing that. By the way.

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Unhitch it. Unhitch it. Yeah. See, Andy doesn't just want to unhitch from the

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Old Testament. He's trying to unhitch from the Bible altogether. No joke. But you can't even know who Jesus is without the

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Bible. But listen to this from Ed Stetzer and Andy Stanley.

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This is the two of them talking about He Gets Us. There is not a bigger champion out there for the He Gets Us website than Ed Stetzer.

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He is really pushing this thing. So you know, of that $100 million they're spending on this campaign, he's getting something out of it.

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Either that or he donated. I mean, you know.

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I'm not going to speculate further. I'm just saying he's got to be getting something. There's something in there.

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Anyway, listen to this. Here's Stetzer and Stanley. That should be a new act. Stetzer and Stanley.

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Anyway, you're saying to give them permission not to believe, but you are calling them to something.

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You're calling them to a belief. How do you do both of those things? Let me stop right there.

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I did not get this whole clip in context. But you'll catch right at the beginning of that, that Stetzer is saying to Stanley.

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So you're telling them they don't have to believe. So is Stanley behind this website?

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He's partnered with it. Okay. Partnered. When you go to their partnerships page, North Point Community Church, which is

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Andy Stanley's church out of Atlanta, they're one of the partners with He Gets Us. Now maybe they're not getting money from He Gets Us, maybe they're paying money into it.

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I don't know. Whatever a partnership is supposed to look like. But Stanley is every bit as much behind this as Stetzer is.

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Let me play that again. So you can hear Stetzer say it. Yeah, I was lost.

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Listen to Stetzer say it. And then he's asking this question to Stanley, and then Stanley is going to pick up from here.

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Okay. Okay. But you're saying to give them permission not to believe. But you are calling them to something.

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You're calling them to a belief. How do you do both of those things? It's a great question. And tell me when I'm talking too long.

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The invitation is to follow Jesus. That's it. The invitation is not to believe something.

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I'm not sure you can make yourself believe something you don't believe. That's a big discussion for another day.

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The invitation is to follow Jesus. This was his invitation before they even believed, before they knew anything about Jesus.

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Follow me. Take a step. Follow me through the Gospels. So it affects our apologetic.

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It affects our invitation. It affects our approach. It affects everything. Once we decide, you know what, we are creating a safe place.

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And of course we're going to challenge people. But the great thing is this, a practical sermon works for anybody that's willing to practice it, whether it's on marriage, relationships, fixing a relationship, money, whatever it might be.

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So there's a way to approach it. And one of the things that I've just gotten in the habit of doing is I've just, I'll say in the middle of a sermon, hey, if you're not a

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Christian, what I've said so far, knock yourself out. This will help you. And from this point on, you may just want to check out because this is really just for us crazy

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Christians. I mean, I will be that specific because I want them to know I know they're there and I have no authority over them and I'm not expecting them to do anything.

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They're a guest in our home. This is how we do it here, but we're so glad you're here. And again, that's my language.

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I think the better we get at that, the easier it is for people who are exploring faith or re -exploring the faith after maybe a bad church experience.

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So yes, there is a call to action. There is a challenge. All right, babe, what are you getting out of that?

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A headache. So they've got this wonderful paradox going on here.

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We're not telling you to believe anything. But we are. But we are. We're not telling you to follow, but we are.

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We're not telling you to go to church, but we are. We're not telling you to listen to everything, but we are.

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I'm just, you're confusing everybody. It sounds like the first part of that is to please the unbelievers.

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We're not telling you to do anything. And then the second part of that is to please the believers. But we are.

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Yeah. So that nobody will go, well, what are you guys doing? You're leading people into unbelief. Right.

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But they're not. But this is what Stanley wants you to do. This is all he wants you to do.

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We just want you to follow him. You don't have to believe anything. You just need to follow him.

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How did that work out in the Bible? Jesus said, he didn't know you. They'll call my name, but I won't know them.

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I won't know you. Yeah. I mean, that's terrifying. That's a great point. That's Matthew 7. Many will come to me and say,

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Lord, Lord, did we not do many mighty works in your name? Yeah. And I will say to them, depart from me, you worker of iniquity.

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I never knew you. Consider also John 6, 26. Jesus answered them and said, truly, truly,

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I say to you, you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.

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Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the son of man will give you.

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For on the father, God has set his seal. Therefore they said to him, what should we do so that we may work the works of God?

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Jesus answered them and said, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.

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So it's not just follow me. The call to follow is a call to believe.

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I mean, I can kind of maybe get around the idea that he's trying to take baby steps.

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You know, for those who have been hurt by the church, just get them in the door, you know, that sort of mentality.

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But at the same time, I'm screaming in my head, no, because it's like you're apologizing for Christ.

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Like, it's you're apologizing for the Bible. Like, I'm sorry it offended you.

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And it's no, it is offensive. And that is one of Stanley's big objectives is to speak to people who are unchurched or are de -churched.

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Yeah. But then you, how do you grow your church? That's for evangelism. That's not for in your church.

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In the doors of your church should be learning and teaching and growing your congregation.

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According to the word of God and with the word of God. Thank you. Yes. And but the, what he's trying to do is more like evangelism, but you can't evangelize without the

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Bible. Yeah, right. I mean, you can't do anything without scripture, but Stanley's trying to do it without scripture because they don't believe the

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Bible. So I can't give them the Bible. Yeah, it's a wonderful mess that Stanley has created in that he promotes.

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Oh, I pray for his soul. So continuing in John six, verse 53, Jesus said to them, truly, truly,

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I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves.

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He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.

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He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him as the living father sent me and I live because of the father.

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So he who eats me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died.

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He who eats this bread will live forever. And the people said, and incidentally,

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John six, 60 calls them his disciples. Therefore, many of his disciples, when they heard this said, this is a difficult statement who can listen to it.

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But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling at this said to them, does this cause you to stumble?

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What then if you see the son of man ascending to where he was before the spirit is the one who gives life, the flesh profits, nothing.

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The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and our life. But there are some of you who do not believe for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were, who did not believe and who it was that would betray him.

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And he was saying, for this reason, I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted him from the father.

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And verse 66, as a result of this, many of his disciples went away and were not walking with him any more.

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That's John six, 66. Always thought that was an interesting Providence that six, six, six is the passage where the people turned away and we're not walking with him anymore.

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So Jesus said to the 12, do you also want to go? And Simon Peter said to him, Lord, to whom shall we go?

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You have the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that you are the holy one of God.

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As though Peter is congratulating himself for this belief that they have in Jesus.

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How does Jesus respond to him? Verse 70. Jesus answered them. Did I myself not choose you the 12 and yet one of you is a devil.

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Now he was speaking of Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the 12 was going to betray him.

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But we have John six, 44, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

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What Stetzer and Stanley are encouraging people to do is become like these disciples right here in John six, who all followed him and walked away.

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They did not believe in him. Jesus said the work of God is that you believe in him whom he has sent, but they didn't believe.

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Mm -hmm. Following Jesus, the way that Stetzer and Stanley say it right there, following his example, the way that the

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He Gets Us About page says it, will not save you, it will lead you to hell.

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You're following a false Christ according to the version of Christ that they present on He Gets Us.

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Oh, yeah. So let's look at that version. Let's look at some of the ways that they talk about Jesus on the

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He Gets Us website. Okay. Just to compound Becky's suffering here as we struggle through this.

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Now let me go to the video that I mentioned in mine, the first ad that I became aware of regarding He Gets Us, and this was a 30 -second ad.

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The one I'm going to play for you is actually a minute -long ad, so you can find the one -minute ads on their page.

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By the way, when you go to their YouTube account, they have very, very few followers, like 9 ,500 followers or something like that.

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That's very few? Yeah. Okay. I've got 40 ,000. Oh, okay. So to kind of put that, and I mean, what kind of money is there behind when we understand the text?

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I don't have $100 million campaign. Right. So people following He Gets Us on YouTube, they've got like 9 ,000 followers.

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That's all they've got. Okay. And yet, they have videos on there that have been watched 50, 60, 70 million times.

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Oh. So how does that happen? Wow. They paid for that. Yeah, exactly. They paid for those videos to be able to be seen places that people would be able to watch them.

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That, unfortunately, is not something I have in my resource account. I cannot pay for what videos to be seen, even though mine are shortened to the point like theirs are.

28:55

Only mine are full of biblical truth, and theirs are not. Right. But they've got money behind their stuff, and I don't have money behind mine.

29:02

Nobody really cares. They're not going to their YouTube page and following them, even when they see the ads.

29:09

Right. All of this is getting pushed out on people, and even the effectiveness of getting people to follow He Gets Us doesn't really seem to be all that effective.

29:16

Right. It looks like more pastors and Big Eva people, the big evangelical people, looks like they're more excited about this than anybody else is.

29:26

Yeah. I don't hear hardly anybody else talking about this. I don't know. I feel like they're trying to make a celebrity out of Jesus.

29:34

You know, like, follow him, do what he's doing. That sort of thing. But you can't see the real person, because they're not using the

29:42

Bible. They're not doing any real evangelism. So it's like, here's this invisible person, follow, yeah.

29:50

Who is this Jesus you're talking about? Where do you read about this guy? Right. In the Bible?

29:56

So here we go. This is the first ad, as I mentioned it in my what video that I did on this.

30:03

The one that they've been playing around, and certainly, I'm guessing this ad is even going to be ramped up here as we're getting into the holidays.

30:11

Oh, yeah, probably. But it's the video that kind of, you know, is going along talking about a teenage pregnancy and then you find out, oh, this is about Mary who had baby

30:21

Jesus. A young girl had a boyfriend. She got pregnant.

30:28

She was scared. How could she face her parents? What would they say?

30:36

Can't hide something like that forever. Her parents asked who the father was.

30:42

They assumed her boyfriend, but baby wasn't his. He loved her so much, he offered to help raise the child with her.

30:52

They married and found a small place. They had very little money and no insurance.

31:00

One evening, her water broke. There wasn't time to get help.

31:08

He delivered the child and lay him in a manger. Now, what you, dear listener, did not have to see, but Becky did, was all the imagery that was in that video as well.

31:31

Oh, my goodness. Not appropriate to be showing in front of your church or youth group.

31:38

No, not at all. There's a picture of a girl sitting on a toilet with a pregnancy test.

31:44

With her pants down. With her pants down. It's not even, oh, my goodness. And then there's another one of her, you presume, totally naked.

31:54

Because she's in the shower. I don't even want to say it. And the one with her showing her belly, it's like, you know, you got to pull up your shirt to show your belly.

32:04

Showing quite a bit of herself in that image as well. You can't take these ads and show them to your church.

32:09

No. They think they're actually reaching people with these ads, but what is actually being reinforced there?

32:17

That teenage pregnancy really isn't all that bad. Right. Because, hey, Mary got pregnant and look what happened to her.

32:24

She had the savior of the world. Right. So, you have this attempt to try to connect with people on their level, but what you end up doing is justifying their sin.

32:33

Everybody who's going to watch this is going to think, oh, hey, this is all okay. Yeah, this is all okay. Teen pregnancy, yeah, it's all going to be fine.

32:41

That's not the only one that does that. I'm going to show you more of that here in just a little bit. Thanks. But there's also, there's a number of inaccuracies there.

32:50

Yeah, that's what I'm after. It's not anywhere close. She had a fiance. It wasn't a boyfriend.

32:58

Right. Right. They were married, but without the process. Back in the day, you get married, it's a lot different than what it is now.

33:08

We'll put it that way. Yeah, the betrothal period was married. Yes. Mary was married. Right. Because he was going to divorce her.

33:16

Right. What had not happened yet was they had not consummated their marriage.

33:22

Right. But she was promised to him for all intents and purposes. It was far more committed than what we think of as an engagement.

33:30

Even marriage. Joseph was not a boyfriend. Married back then was a lot bigger than married now.

33:36

Yeah, right. Joseph wasn't a boyfriend and he was even more than a fiance. Yes, that's true.

33:42

And then, yeah, so I'm just going to put this out there,

33:49

Mary was the only human being to have a savior. That's right. That's it. She was the only one to have had a child that was conceived of the

33:59

Holy Spirit. Yes. That doesn't happen to you. Your sex with your boyfriend is not okay.

34:05

That is sin before God. Right. The virgin birth is not the way that Jesus connects to us in our struggles and in our trials.

34:15

Right. The virgin birth is understanding that Jesus was born, he was even conceived without sin.

34:22

Right. Now, as I've been talking, we've been going through Hebrews in the study, in Hebrews 3 and 4, his incarnation.

34:29

In his incarnation, this is how we become brothers and sisters of God, because he put on flesh and dwelt among us.

34:36

Right. He took on the likeness of sinful man, as it says in Scripture. So in the fact that he became man and he went through the same kind of sufferings that we did and he was tempted yet was without sin, that's at the end of Hebrews 4, in these ways we have a savior who is able to sympathize with us in our weaknesses because he was tempted as we were.

34:57

Right. Yeah. But he was without sin. He didn't sin. Separation between us and God is because of sin.

35:04

Right. Sin is the reason why we're separated from God. Christ is the one that we need to be in fellowship with God.

35:10

None of that is ever mentioned in He Gets Us. None of it is ever conveyed as you have sinned and what you deserve is hell.

35:18

The judgment of God will come upon you because of your rebellion against God. But we have been given a savior who is

35:24

Christ the Lord, which is the whole message in the Christmas story. Right. That they're skipping all of that.

35:30

They're instead bringing Jesus and totally humanizing him.

35:36

They're taking the fully God aspect out of fully God and fully man and just making him man and just making every single human experience relatable to us whether sinful or not.

35:46

And it doesn't even say in the ad how she got pregnant or who she got pregnant.

35:53

It just says it wasn't her boyfriend. She got pregnant and it wasn't her boyfriend. Yeah, of course. I mean, everything in there is leading into there was this sinful union that happened.

36:03

I mean, if you're going to take anything out of that, it was like, oh, the guy took care of her even though she was unfaithful to him. Yeah. If somebody doesn't know about Christ, how would you come away from that ad knowing anything about his holiness?

36:16

Anything about perfection? Nothing. Anything about him being the savior that we need? He just gets me.

36:22

He just gets me. I don't even know what that ad is supposed to be saying to anybody. I don't. I don't get it.

36:28

Let's get to another one. Yeah, let's. Babe, I'm going to read an email coming up in just a moment from somebody who says that they love, even though I play this and you're getting frustrated, they love the questions that you ask because you're asking what everybody else is thinking.

36:46

I'm grateful. Yeah, that's right. But, oh, man, this is just, oh, nails on a chalkboard.

36:52

Here we go. A caring man took a walk. Everywhere he looked, people suffered.

36:59

Anxiety ran high. Hope dwindled. Hatred rose. His neighbors had lost trust in the system and in each other.

37:10

I need to do something, he thought. I'll bring them together and feed them. Around the dinner table, they can talk and see how much they have in common.

37:19

Shared struggles, shared joy, shared pain.

37:25

So he prepared a feast and invited all into his home. But some refused to sit at his table because they chose to only see differences.

37:36

He was heartbroken because he wanted everyone to eat and be filled, not with food and wine, but with compassion.

37:53

And? I know, right? First off, no.

38:00

And then, and? Like, why? You just ended. Right. It doesn't really say anything.

38:07

We just need to get around the table together and talk. And if people don't come around the table, it's because they choose to focus on their differences instead of the ways that we're all alike.

38:16

And it makes me sad. By the way, if you're not a - Because I want them all to have compassion.

38:21

If you are not a Christian, you're not a Christian. You cannot come to the table of Christ Very true. That's explicitly said in Scripture.

38:28

You cannot dine at the table of demons and at the table of Christ Mm -hmm, and you shouldn't eat with those and yeah, you cannot eat with those who call themselves brother and yet Demonstrate behavior and sins like the rest of the world if they if they won't repent of their sin, but they continue in immorality sexual immorality

38:49

Drunkenness swindling greed those things that Paul lists in 1st Corinthians 5 and in chapter 6

38:54

You are not even to eat with such a one purge the evil person from among you. You're not welcome at that table

39:01

Yeah, 1st Corinthians 1021. You cannot drink of the cup of the Lord and of the cup of demons

39:06

You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons 1st

39:13

Corinthians 1020 I say to you the things which the Gentiles sacrifice with the pagan sacrifice

39:19

They sacrifice to demons and not to God and I do not want you to become sharers in demons

39:25

You cannot drink the cup of the Lord in the cup of demons You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons

39:31

You cannot come to the table of Christ the the Lord's Supper the bread in the cup that we share in Communion as his church.

39:40

You cannot be there if you are not his follower. It's more than just following Yeah.

39:46

Yeah, as we mentioned earlier believing. Yeah, it's believing you believe in him as Jesus said there

39:52

You eat of my flesh you drink of my blood that he is in you and you are in Christ You are fully devoted to the

40:01

Lord and that you desire his holiness and his righteousness No longer walking in the sins and the passions of the flesh and the ways of this world

40:09

But you are something otherworldly, right? You are something different entirely You have been changed by Christ and with his

40:18

Holy Spirit inside of you Doing the things that Jesus said for you to do, you know

40:24

These guys Stetzer and Stanley say just follow his example. Well, what in the world is his example? Yeah, and the whole thing of what he talks about is is his him being the

40:35

Savior of Can't even spit it out. I mean Jesus says follow him

40:40

The Bible says follow his example 1st John 2 5 whoever keeps his word truly in him

40:47

The love of God has been perfected by this We know that we are in him the one who says he abides in him ought

40:54

Himself to walk in the same manner in which he walked So, yes, we should follow his example, but what is that example if you leave the

41:01

Bible out of it? You don't even know right? Yeah, and I mean, I just Somewhere you're gonna have to get like a finished coherent thought

41:21

So here's here's another one and this is one This is another one of those that I mean you're gonna hear it blatantly encourages the sin, okay

41:31

A rebel took to the streets He recruited others to join him They quit their jobs left their families

41:41

They swore allegiance to him They roamed the hood challenged authority

41:48

And made a lot of people uneasy Community leaders feared them Religious leaders abhorred them

41:57

Law enforcement labeled them outlaws We have to shut them down. They said get them off the streets protect our communities from these troublemakers

42:09

But they weren't part of a gang spreading hate and terror They were spreading love

42:20

You just justified all the riots in 2020 with that ad Including the one that happened.

42:28

What did they call it? January? What January 6 riot? Yeah, right who's to say that wasn't hateful and you know that could have been just as much full of love as all the rest of the riots and the lawlessness and Disrupting things so on and so I mean all any one of those guys could say hey, it's out of love

42:47

It's out of care for our country that we're burning down these cities It's because we care for you know

42:53

People who are marginalized who are being oppressed by the system who are not being paid attention to who are living in destitution

43:00

We care for them So that's why we're causing all of this mess to get you to pay attention to them You can justify anything with an ad like that because in the imagery it shows the the gang

43:10

Yeah, and the imagery it shows all these guys running around acting like hoodlums when Jesus was going against authority

43:17

He was calling out sin Yeah, right, and he was telling the

43:24

I mean he's over he was telling him They weren't following God right that he he overthrew the tables in the temple because they were selling stuff instead of worshiping

43:33

God and hindering other people from worshiping. God. Yes It's just and where he talked about there when he said when he said they left their families mm -hmm now

43:42

There's no context there in that ad no explaining what that meant so you just justified Hey, you can you can get up walk out on your family.

43:49

Yep, that's true Now if you tied that back into what Jesus said in John 14 26 and again, there's no context in this ad

43:56

There's no Bible references. You don't go to the website and get taught any of this stuff. Well, it's

44:01

Stanley So you don't use the Bible? So Luke 14 26 Jesus said if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and Brothers and sisters.

44:11

Yes, even his own life He cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple

44:18

So the understanding there that we we hate our own father and mother wife and children brothers and sisters

44:24

Yes, even his own life means that we love Christ over everything else It doesn't mean hate all your family and walk out on them and you will have eternal life

44:34

That's not what that's because that's contradictory to love your neighbor yourself, you know

44:40

Yeah, and the instructor I mean, you know We have instruction that comes elsewhere from Jesus own disciples in 1st

44:46

Timothy chapter 5 if a man does not care for his own Relatives, especially people of his own household.

44:52

Yes. He is denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever, right? So understanding context is really important, but we're not given context in any of these ads in Mark chapter 10

45:03

Peter said to Jesus behold we have left everything and followed you and Jesus said truly

45:10

I say to you there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms for my sake and For the gospel's sake see that's that's why you would follow

45:21

Jesus and leaving those things means really They're gonna hate you right because you have chosen to follow

45:29

Jesus But you're not about pleasing the people who hate God you're about pleasing

45:35

God So anyway, Jesus says that that all of you who have left these things for my sake and for the gospel's sake

45:41

Each one of you will receive 100 times as much now in the present age houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms along with Persecutions and in the age to come eternal life

45:55

But many who are first will be last and the last will be first. So how is it that we in this time?

46:01

Will receive even though we've left brothers sisters mother father children land

46:07

How is it that we will receive those things even in the present even in this time? Because we're part of the church.

46:15

Oh Yes, we have brothers and sisters in the Lord. We have houses of worship.

46:21

We have Land farms, whatever, you know, whatever else the houses that we share with one another we share what we have with each other

46:29

This is how we gain those things We may have left those things to follow Jesus, but we gain a hundred times more

46:37

Because we are all sharing together in the family of God as brothers and sisters of the

46:42

Lord Yeah, none of that context in those ads Not understanding love in that way.

46:48

Mm -hmm. They're just Totally absent their abstract terms You don't have any definition to any of this stuff and what you get in the imagery where you see imagery of a teenage girl

47:01

Mackinac her boyfriend images of Of these gangs running around in the streets and committing lawlessness

47:09

Mm -hmm. It just looks like you can behave in this sinful behavior and that's fine.

47:15

He gets us Yeah, Jesus gets us. He's right there with us in those things. He did those things, too

47:20

Yeah, that is blasphemy. That is just downright blasphemous Such a horrible campaign and I get your frustration.

47:28

I understand it But I have to have a certain measure To explain these things and not fly off the handle about it right at the start.

47:36

Yeah, I get so Frustrated that it just comes out as a beginning of a sentence and then it's all gone.

47:45

Yeah Yeah, it's it's a terrible sight. It is incredibly awful the kind of stuff that they're pushing

47:50

I had some other things prepared that I was gonna go through but I'm kind of out of time doesn't matter that much Anyway, I think you get the gist you get the gist of all of this

47:58

Ed Stetzer is helping he gets us, right? sermons So churches that participate in this can teach

48:06

Ed Stetzer sermons One of the things I was going to demonstrate is the way that Ed Stetzer even crafts these sermons

48:12

These are sermons that are preached in churches But the way that he crafts these sermons still doesn't give you a clear presentation of the gospel

48:19

The sermon that I was gonna give an example of he quotes from Isaiah 53 and the gospel is there in high in Isaiah 53

48:26

He was pierced for our transgressions He was crushed for our iniquities the chastening of our peace fell upon him and by his wounds

48:35

We are healed all of us like sheep have gone astray each of us has turned his own way

48:41

But Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him Now you might be wondering how can he take this verse of the gospel yeah and Totally avoid the gospel.

48:55

Well, they took the story of Mary and they totally avoided Jesus Yeah, right well the way that he preaches it is like you had said earlier

49:06

It's just moralism the way that he turns that around is just moralism. So as Jesus was sacrificial

49:11

So we need to be sacrificial. Oh, wow. His sacrifice is not about atoning for our sins

49:16

His sacrifice is about putting somebody else's needs ahead of your own So we need to put somebody else's sacrifice was so much more.

49:23

Oh, yeah sacrifice. Oh, yeah ever be right ever So that's not even on the same playing field.

49:30

Yeah, it's And the thing is I believe Stetzer knows the gospel

49:36

But the way that he writes this sermon you don't get the gospel in that right You get a very moralized version of Isaiah 53 rather than the gospel out of Isaiah 53

49:47

So frustrating we have sinned against a holy God what we deserve for our sin against God is

49:54

Judgment we deserve to go to hell, right? but God had love and mercy and compassion on us and Sent his son

50:03

Jesus to die in our place as an atoning sacrifice for our sins So that whoever believes in him our sins are washed away.

50:13

We are justified We're declared innocent in the presence of God because Christ's holiness and righteousness has been placed upon us our sins put upon him with his death on the cross and His sacrificial act atone for our sins his righteousness clothes us

50:31

So that when God looks at us He sees us with the same love and affection that he has for his own son

50:37

He doesn't see the guilty anymore those that had that had sinned against God and were deserving of his judgment

50:45

Rather what he sees and those who believe in Jesus and are clothed in his righteousness He sees a son or a daughter of God Adopted into his family because of what

50:55

Christ has done for us and all of the blessings of his grace are poured out on us by faith in Jesus Right you and you heard it there from Stetzer and Stanley in the very beginning

51:07

We're not actually calling you to believe in anything. Yeah, just follow just follow his example

51:13

But what example is that? Where does that example come from? They don't even know that example, obviously

51:19

Yeah, don't see avoid it Don't seem to be even interested in presenting it and that that gives me to I was looking at your books earlier

51:29

It's a it's a first A worker not ashamed like you. Oh right up there.

51:34

Yeah worker not ashamed. Yeah, okay So top, I don't know. I saw it earlier just popped out at me

51:44

Okay, but anyway Joel beaky that that reminded me of the the

51:52

Bible verse, you know, you we should not be ashamed of the gospel Yeah, and what are they doing? They're being ashamed of the gospel.

51:58

Exactly They should be proclaiming it rather than hiding. Yeah What is that verse everybody who's been in a wanna knows that verse second

52:08

Timothy to 15 15 You were close you're close be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed

52:20

Accurately handling the word of truth. Yes, that's not Stetzer and Stanley. That's so scary

52:25

It's not the people behind he gets us and so many people are listening to them.

52:31

Yeah sharing their stuff. Yeah Yeah, but like I said, it really kind of feels like the the big

52:38

Eva people are the ones that are pushing it more So, of course they are If it wasn't for them this stuff wouldn't get spread around but I'm telling you if you're watching it in your church

52:48

You need to be going to your pastors or whatever and telling them guys. There's nothing there's nothing actually

52:54

Christian about this website right, I Mean seriously and the graphics and the imagery and the colors by the way

53:01

Oh, my goodness are all made up to look like the black lives matter website. Oh Yeah It's the same presentation it is.

53:10

Yeah, okay Now that you say that yeah. Yeah, it's all and you know when

53:16

I noticed that it was just kind of like this feels like Hey all the stuff that's been working for black lives matter.

53:21

I think we can do this too. What can we do? He gets us yeah, and they just do this whole big campaign

53:27

How can we get a black lives matter thing going? Let's do this with he gets us They're trying to be the next

53:33

WWJB. I was thinking of exactly. Yeah. Yeah, it's not gonna catch on though Oh, I hope not

53:40

It's not gonna be what WWJB was but it's it's still and for those of you who weren't

53:47

Knowledgeable of that is what would Jesus do by the way this this is hilarious. I took a picture of this

53:53

I have it on my phone. I was in the grocery store parking lot uh -huh, and I looked down on the ground and there was a scrunchie and a

54:03

WWJB bracelet and I'm looking that at that going. Oh look. It's the 90s right there a

54:10

Scrunchie on the ground next to a WWJB bracelet there you go anyway throw on a newsboy

54:16

CD And I would feel like I was right back there. I Didn't wear scrunchies, but you know what I mean? I Wanted to read one last thing to you here because like I said,

54:28

I know you get frustrated listening to these videos But there are certain persons who love The that you will ask certain questions in certain ways or clarify things on a certain level that maybe

54:39

I'm just not thinking Okay, so this was a gal. It's a very long email. I'm not gonna read the whole thing

54:44

Her name is Christy and she thanked me for Reviewing Andy Stanley and explaining how his teaching is wrong

54:52

Yeah, and she says I appreciate not only that you called him out, but the way in which you called him out

54:57

I listened to one last night where he was saying that Jesus loves us more than he loves his commandments

55:03

I did a video on that And at one point you paused his recording and your wife said something along the lines of I'm not sure

55:09

Why it's not right, but it doesn't feel right And then you broke it down and gave meaning and reasoning why it doesn't feel right

55:18

You not only pointed out how the teaching was wrong, but how he manipulates words and phrases

55:24

I've seen a couple of people calling out his teachings for being wrong, but not in a way that shows the mind games and manipulations

55:30

I've been convicted lately to share with others my findings on him and why I think he is a dangerous false teacher and this

55:37

Helps me to break break it down and articulate it if you had all the time in the world I would ask you to break down all of his sermons in such a way that I could share that with others

55:46

But I know you have other things to do And Becky is thankful that I have other things to do.

55:53

Yes Well, thank you. Yeah, we will not continue on talking about he gets us

55:59

But the question was asked and we covered it in this particular episode and now you know the problems with it

56:04

I know I feel uncomfortable and Cringing and you get to explain why yeah

56:11

It's like yes that that is exactly why to summarize it. Once again, it's moralism

56:16

They say on their website. They're not trying to get you to believe anything

56:22

He gets us will lead you to hell and it will fool people into thinking that they're doing just enough to pass the threshold

56:29

Into heaven. Hey, I believe in Jesus. I read about him on the he gets us website. I follow him

56:35

Yeah, I follow him. But as Becky pointed out, this is preparing people for that Matthew 7 scenario

56:41

Lord Did we not do many mighty things in your name? Yeah, and Jesus will say to them depart from me you workers of iniquity.

56:50

I never knew you And you'll notice there in the he gets us ads. They're not leading you to doing the actual works that Jesus did

56:59

I know. Yeah, it's just he's relatable. He's just yeah something, right?

57:04

It's justifying your sin and saying see he gets us. He did the same things that you did He said too, but yet he didn't but they don't know that because they're not using the

57:14

Bible Are you fight against the authorities? Guess what? Jesus did too You're in a teenage pregnancy.

57:20

Well, that's where Jesus came from. Okay, you said we wouldn't talk about it Yeah, I said in another episode.

57:26

Okay, we were covering it in this episode Let's Pray and we'll conclude here.

57:33

Oh, yes Let's Heavenly Father. We thank you for the goodness that you show to us. Every one of us have sinned against God we all deserve judgment, but it is by your grace that we've been called out of that and Into your marvelous light out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light

57:50

So may we live in this present darkness as lights in the world as Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5

57:57

Let your light shine before men. There are good works that we're supposed to be doing that others see

58:03

But how do we know what those good works are? we have it according to your word and It's here in your word that we have read that we're sinners in need of a

58:11

Savior and it's in your word that we have Come to know Jesus is that Savior? We've come to know what faith means what it means to believe in him and trust in him and what it truly means to follow

58:21

Him not according to how the world defines it, but according to what you say in your word

58:26

So let us take these things that we know are true According to what the Bible says and help us to teach it to others

58:33

The Commission that Jesus gave in Matthew 28 is that we go out into the world making disciples

58:39

Teaching them to observe all that God has commanded us and so help us to understand these things that we read about in the

58:46

Bible and how to communicate that to somebody else and Let them not be led astray by these false

58:53

Representations of Christ like he gets us or anyone else that presents a type of Christ But is not the

59:00

Jesus Christ of the Bible help us to know Jesus according to your word and we teach these things to others that hearts may be convicted of sin that would turn to the

59:10

Lord Jesus Christ and be saved help us to be patient with them as Jude talks about and to snatch some from the flames as we hold out the gospel to the world and it's in the name of Jesus that we pray.

59:24

Amen I'm guessing this ad is even gonna be ramped up here as we're getting into the holidays

59:36

Oh, yeah, probably but it's the video that kind of you know

59:41

He's going along talking about a teenage pregnancy and then you find out. Oh, this is about Mary who had baby Jesus Okay, here you go.