That Pesky 2nd Commandment

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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All right, let's get started. We'll begin with a word of prayer.

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Lord Jesus, again, as we open up Your Word, we pray that You would send Your Spirit, help us with our hearts and our minds to understand what

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You've revealed here for us to believe and to do. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so I've got to get used to this new view here.

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You know, we're trying something very different. If this doesn't work, it was Janet's fault. I didn't, whoa, wait.

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I'm joking. Oh, this is a bad way to start. I need something?

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Janet says I need something, hang on. Oh, is that better? I don't feel like I'm in the dark.

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There we go, that'll work. Today, I have to warn you, the topic is politically incorrect, but that's never stopped me from actually teaching what needs to be taught.

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The problem is is that this is gonna step on some toes, and I don't know whose toes it will step on, but we'll see if everybody leaves here today with some waffle prints on their sneakers.

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Last week, we talked about how the second part of the first commandment regarding graven images and what it actually refers to, that it does not prohibit liturgical artwork.

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That's not its point. And we noted that this was borne out due to the fact that God himself commanded that a graven image be cast and made, and that image was of the bronzed serpent.

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Moses did it without sinning. And then later, it had to be destroyed because they were worshiping it as if it were an idol.

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So we talked about the idea of where freedom is as Christians and how we are to use our freedom in a way that does not hurt or harm our neighbor.

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Today, we're going to be talking about the second commandment, and here's what it says.

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You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

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And sadly, in our day, many Christians really think that the extent of this commandment has to do with OMG.

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You are a mother and your daughter gets lippy and she says OMG, you slap her in the face and say, how dare you blaspheme

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God and take his name in vain. I hope you wouldn't do it that way, but we've all seen the stereotypical way in which that is done.

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That is what I would say the tip of the iceberg, and it's the least part of what this commandment is talking about.

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Now, I'm not saying that it's right for you to use God's name in this way. And I'll give you another example, kind of culturally.

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Many people, I don't know if you've noticed, they've turned the name Jesus Christ into a cuss word.

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That's a form of taking God's name in vain. In fact, you think of Bill Cosby.

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He used to have a comedy routine where he said that until he was like four years old, he thought his name was

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Jesus Christ. You laugh because it's kind of funny, and at the same time, that's like morbidly bad funny.

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That's dark humor. And what I find fascinating is that nobody uses the name

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Buddha as a cuss word. Nobody does that. It just doesn't happen.

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Yes, Janet? Have you used Buddha as a cuss word? Are you gonna prove me wrong? Okay, in school, what we've observed is kids are not realizing that they are swearing.

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Yeah. Oh my God, Jesus, no. Right. They just think of it as words. Yep. So, on a whim one day, and said that, oh my

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MG, Jesus Christ, because I told him not to do something. I turned to him, and he was of a different faith.

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Yeah. And I turned to him, and I held out my hands, and I said, I know you're praying. And I said, let us pray together. Oh. And the other child looked at me, and I said, oh my word, it just came out.

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And that kid's eyes got big. And you still have your job. Yeah.

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Yeah, I thought they forbade prayer in the schools, but that's a different story. Well, he was already starting it. Right, so he was invoking the name of God and Jesus Christ and all this kind of stuff.

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And he was, isn't that how you start a prayer? So I said, well, now that we're praying, I said, let's hold hands and pray together.

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It just came out. Yeah. That was great. Yeah, because his eyes got big, and he took off.

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Yeah, yeah. Now, like I said, this is clearly a problem.

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It absolutely is. And it's so pervasive that we don't even really pay attention to it. And it could offend you, and it does.

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But this is, like I said, the least part of this commandment. This is the commandment that many pastors today are breaking in spades.

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And we don't like to think about that. In fact, our society is set up in such a way, and it works kind of in the church, that if somebody points this out, that there's a breaking of the second commandment occurring in a church, that usually it's not the pastor who gets punished for preaching false doctrine.

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It's the person who brings it up and makes it an issue who gets punished. But we're gonna do a little work.

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I wanna do some cross -reference work today in this. And we're gonna look at the New Testament. Today, we're gonna specifically deal with false teachers.

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And I hope that next week, we're gonna talk about false prophets. But false teachers in the church, we're gonna look at Titus chapter one.

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This is a go -to text. Before we get to it, would any of you attend a church where the pastor was an open womanizer?

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Why not? Why would you not go to a church where the pastor was an open womanizer?

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Well, because, and this is maybe wrong, but some people hold pastors at a higher level as themselves, and that's just wrong.

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I mean, you just, I don't care who it is, it's just wrong. Okay. Would you go to a church?

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He's certainly committing adultery. Well, he's committing adultery, clearly. I mean, yeah. But so if he was openly, out in the open, a known womanizer and adulterer, impenitently so, right?

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You wouldn't attend that church, okay? I don't know. How could you in good,

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I mean. Okay, yeah, all right. How about if he was a guy who, in the past six months, has been arrested, not once, but twice, for a

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DUI? He now has a whiskey plate, and he refuses to actually go to AA or get any treatment whatsoever, and insists that he was part of a sting operation, and the problem was law enforcement.

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He doesn't have a drinking problem. Isn't it the same thing? Both of those, aren't they the same thing? Uh -huh, they're kind of the same thing.

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Yeah, the answer's still no. The answer's still no. So none of you are comfortable going to a church where a pastor is an open womanizer or clearly is an alcoholic who's in denial.

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How is that any different? I'm gonna just be blunt. How is that any different than a pastor who habitually, chronically twists

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God's Word and teaches doctrines that are not in Scripture? It's not different at all.

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But you would not know necessarily all the time that they're cheating, that they're twisting.

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You would know all the time? Not necessarily, no, you would not. Because you're like a student. We would because we've been taught by normal church people.

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They know not what they're doing. They know not what they're doing. Okay, now, you bring up an interesting point.

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Now, I've been a pastor, it'll be three years in June. It'll be three years in June. And the one thing I learned really quick is that within the congregation, as far as Christian maturity as a disciple goes, that I've got people who are very mature.

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I've got people who are maturing. And I have some people who are very immature when it comes to the faith, that there's a spectrum.

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And those who are more mature in the faith, I actually, in my mind, consider them to be anchors within the church.

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If something were to go wrong, they're the first people I would call to address a problem.

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Those who are immature or just learning the faith or just still maturing, I wouldn't actually call them right away if there was a problem.

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They're kind of like lower on the list. So the idea then is within our own congregation, those who are mature in the faith, they actually have really a mandate as a mature person in the faith that if the pastor is up to no good, it actually starts to fall back on them and say, wait a second, what's going on here?

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But so much of what happens in Christianity today, the mature, for whatever reason, have been kowtowed into silence.

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Now, I wanna show you a text and kind of work through it and we'll see how to appropriate this with the second commandment.

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Yeah. So, how would you think about, like for myself,

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I have heard a lot of different ways of coming up with different ideas.

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Me too, by the way, me too. Because I was young, I just believe. I believe what

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I was told to.

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I compare what I've heard before, what you are saying,

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I see all my relatives and friends that I grew up with who really believe and so I want to just believe.

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But it's just such a mishmash going on. Yeah, you are describing a very common thing.

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In fact, I've been exactly where you are, exactly. And here's the idea, is that I never want anyone to come to Kongsvinger or listen to me on the radio with basically an open mind.

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Under no circumstances are you to give me the benefit of the doubt, none whatsoever. What I do want you to do is listen with an open

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Bible. And as we walk through the text together, just ask this simple question. Is Pastor Roseborough saying the same thing as this text?

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That's the question. Is he saying the same thing? Because there's a lot of different ways in which you can play language games to make a text say something that it doesn't say.

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There's a lot of different ways, but there's really only one right way of addressing a passage and giving its proper sense.

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One thing that I have noticed that is different about you is you have picked phrases here and there, and you know, there was at one point

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I went to a place and they said, well, you know, for your daily inspiration, you just go in the

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Bible and you point your finger and there comes, you know, that's your daily prayer.

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No thought. It's just that's, because it's God's word and you just,

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God has brought you to this place. All right, look, yeah, I hate to say this.

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I've done that. Okay, I've done that. Yeah, and so that is,

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I do believe kind of out there, and so I like that I'm learning it as a book, as not just, oh, this little piece we like, we like this little piece, and fitting it into some sort of way.

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Yeah, and let me kind of build off of this because you're bringing up some amazing points.

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Number one, one of the ways in which you can twist God's word, it's called the string of pearls method of taking verses out of context.

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I'll find a half a phrase or a sentence over here, rip it out of context, say God's word says this, and then

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I find another phrase out of context and stick it together with this one, and then another one and another one, and you can make the

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Bible say anything you want using this method. I'll just give you an example. I can open up the

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Bible and randomly put my finger down and it says Judas went and hung himself. Take the

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Bible, do it again, put my finger down, go thou and do likewise. See, the Bible teaches suicide.

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It's just that simple. But see, you laugh because you realize that's absurd, but that's how a lot of people read the text, and they're looking for the pieces that you said that they like, and this is no way to teach the

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Bible. I'll be blunt, coming into the sermon for today, it was very tempting for me to say,

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I just talked about John 3 last Sunday school. I just preached on Romans 4 on Reformation Day last year.

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I don't wanna do this, so I'm gonna preach on what I wanna preach on. No, I don't get to do that.

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One of my commitments is to preach on the lectionary, which means that the texts are assigned to me, and I am to preach the texts that are assigned for the benefit of the church, so that they never have to worry about being tyrannized by my favorite passages.

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Does that make sense? So I don't have the luxury as a pastor to pick and choose those passages that I like.

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In fact, sometimes when people are coming through the line, they know that I've preached a text and it's a tough text, and they'll say, thank you for teaching us what we need to hear, not what you wanted to teach us.

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Because they recognize that I've got a tough road to hoe, because these words mean things, and these words, what

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God has revealed, sometimes comes right up against and conflicts with our own idolatrous ideas.

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And believe me when I tell you, I have a list of certain things that I know that are happening in this congregation that I will preach against, but there's no joy in doing that, because I know that if I do this wrong, my head's going to be on a pike, and right there in the parking lot.

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It could happen. Norwegians aren't known for that particular way of torture, but you get what

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I'm saying. So the idea then is that I don't have the luxury of preaching what

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I want, I've got to preach what the text says. And so I appreciate the fact that you're noticing the difference, but again, always fact check me.

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Don't let the fact that I'm a theologian, have a radio program,

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I've studied theology formally, don't let any of that basically baffle you into believing, well therefore, everything he says must be true.

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I mean, after all, he's Chris Rosebro. Yeah. Thank you.

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Exactly. You made my point. You should say, he's

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Chris Rosebro, we better make sure that's actually what the scripture says. Yeah. So that's the idea.

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Okay, now let's take a look at this passage as it relates to sound doctrine, and the qualifications of a pastor.

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And let me pull this over into my Greek, because I want to show you something from the Greek as we work through this.

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Titus one, and let's make this readable. How's that? So this

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Titus is a pastoral epistle. There are three pastoral epistles. They are 1 and 2

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Timothy and Titus. 1 and 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy is probably the last, if not close to the last letter that Paul ever wrote.

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But in Titus, we see a very fascinating thing here. We see the qualifications for a pastor.

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And in the Greek, the word elder or overseer is what's used for the pastoral office. And here's what he says.

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So Paul writing to Titus, he says, this is why I left you in Crete, so that you might put remained what is in order and appoint elders in every town as I directed you.

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If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.

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For an overseer as God's steward must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant, quick -tempered or drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of the good, self -controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined.

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And many people think the qualifications of a pastor end there. We want a guy who's moral, he's got a good marriage, his kids are obedient, he's not a drunk, and he's not clearly in it for monetary gain, fleecing

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Christ's sheep, right? This is what we want. And they think, full stop, those are the qualifications of a pastor.

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But it doesn't stop there. And watch where Paul goes. He must hold firm, and here's the important phrase, to the trustworthy word as taught.

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Notice, there's an expectation in Scripture that a pastor must know what sound doctrine is, and that sound doctrine is identified by how the word has been taught.

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Does that make sense? The apostle, Jude, sorry, literally says that to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.

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We have a faith that is once delivered. How is this best summarized then?

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How do you best summarize? I would say, take a look at the Apostles' Creed, the

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Nicene Creed, or the Athanasian Creed. These are very ancient creeds, and the concept of the word confess.

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You know, I confess these things. When we think of confession, we think, well, somebody's going and unburdening their soul because they've committed a sin.

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That's one way of talking about confession. But in this sense, confession, the Greek word is homiligeo.

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Homiligeo literally means to say the same thing. So the reason why we confess the

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Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, and the Augsburg Confession, and the

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Small Catechism is because these things say the same thing as Scripture.

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What do you believe? Well, I believe in God the Father Almighty, the maker of heaven and earth. And so these confessions inform us how the trustworthy word has been taught going all the way back.

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Does that make sense? In the ancient church, before the Nicene Creed was actually hammered out at the

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Council of Nicaea, an ancient version of it that we still have was recorded by the

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Church Father Irenaeus in his work against the heresies. And in his work, he talks about what's called the

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Rule of Faith. And the Rule of Faith reads kind of like a pre -polished version of the

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Nicene Creed. And it has all of the same tenets, but also even it has in it a confession of hell and of judgment and things that are kind of left out.

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But the idea then is that these confessions, these creed, they take all of Scripture and squish them down into a zip file.

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And they're true because they say the same thing as the Bible. They're not the Bible, but they say the same thing.

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And then when you uncompress the file, you should be able to pull in all of the different parts of Scripture to say, see, this says this because Scripture says that same thing in all these different places.

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And this is how I've been teaching my catechism class since the fall. We're in the catechism, but what we're doing in that class is we're blowing it up and going to all of the biblical texts that say the same thing as our catechism so that you can see that this is not a doctrine of man that's in the catechism, that what the catechism is is a compressed version of the

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Bible. And if you know where all those texts are, then when you work your way back through the catechism, the

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Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and these things, you can say, I know where the

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Bible teaches all of these things, and your faith then is informed, and the shape of it is based upon Scripture as kind of, and the catechism itself becomes the place where you hang all of the doctrine onto.

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Does that make sense? So it's like a skeleton of the whole thing. So, pastor must hold the firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in, and I'm gonna correct this translation.

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You'll notice in the ESV, there's an asterisk. Okay, it says, give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

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Let me show you the Greek word for it. Pull this up. Hupiaino, hugiaino, sorry, hugiaino is the word, and listen to its definitions.

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To be in good physical health. To be healthy, that's its primary meaning. To be sound or free from error.

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To be correct. I think a good way to understand this passage, that a pastor must teach the trustworthy word as taught that he may be able to give instruction in,

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I would like to say healthy doctrine. The NESV even has that, healthy doctrine, and I'm going to use a metaphor that is really out there.

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I want you to think of every teacher in the church who teaches false doctrine as teaching doctrine that has an

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STD, spiritually transmitted disease. It's unhealthy.

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You don't want what it's diseased with. You don't want that rolling around in your theology, and there's a reason for this.

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Sound, healthy doctrine is gonna point you to Christ and what he's done for you and is going to comfort and assure you of your salvation based upon the merits of Christ.

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All false doctrine ends up becoming a form of self -righteousness, and it's going to terrorize you with doubt.

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It's going to terrorize you with fear that somehow I have no hope of being saved, or it's gonna get you so busy trying to earn your salvation that you have no assurance whatsoever, or worse, it points you to an idolatrous

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God who isn't there, who really doesn't care what you do, and ultimately, false doctrine, diseased doctrine that has an

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STD, spiritually transmitted disease, will send you to hell, and it has its origin not in the mind of God but in the devil and his deceptions.

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That's really what it's all about, and so you'll notice, watch what he says. So the pastor, he must be able to give instruction and sound doctrine, and here's the negative part, and to rebuke those who contradict it.

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Rebuke? Who does that? Who does that?

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If a pastor were to be practicing this today in this area, would people be talking about him?

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Would they be talking positively about him? Yeah, actually, that's the problem. Okay, now this is where we have to recognize something here.

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We live in a context. We live in 21st century America.

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We live currently in 21st century America in the

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Northern Plains portion of the United States, which was founded by Poles and Norwegians and Swedes.

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The Norwegian and Swedish culture, do they embrace conflict or eschew it?

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They eschew it, and if you think about this, this is actually a very unhealthy way of dealing with conflict.

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So somebody has ought with another person, and what does the culture tell you to do?

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Do nothing. Does that solve the problem? Does the conflict go away when you do nothing?

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It festers, and it gets pussy, and it gets worse. How long have

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Norwegians been known to hold a grudge? Right, Noah is still dealing with one.

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So you gotta think about this. The culture that we are swimming in tells us no conflict, but what does

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God's word say? Rebuke. This is not Norwegian.

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Then to camps where we were taught we are sinners no matter how much we ask for forgiveness, are sinners, and that's it.

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Yeah, but that's not the solution. Okay, so that's like a half truth. This is where we have to make a distinction.

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So you went to a camp where you were told we're all sinners, we're all gonna be sinners, so there.

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That's like. It's like, so we have to strive. Okay, yeah,

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I've been there too. I've been to that camp too, you know. So, yeah, campfire and everything, you know, and this guy on the guitar singing about the bear that climbed over the mountain.

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I've been there. So here's the thing, is that there are two ditches, and I've been talking about this a lot lately.

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There are two ditches that we must avoid when it comes to false doctrine. One is the ditch that says you save yourself by your holiness, by your striving.

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Now, is it wrong for Christians to strive for perfection? No, of course not.

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Christ tells us this is what we're to do. But is that what saves us?

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No. So the reason we strive for perfection is because we are holy, because we are

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Christians. The other end of it is called antinomianism. Antinomianism says, listen, you're saved by grace through faith.

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So it's partied like it's 1999. Who cares what you do? You know, you like to sin.

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Jesus likes to forgive sinners. What a great match that is. And so you don't need to worry about striving for holiness or obeying or any of that nonsense over there.

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No, what you just need to do is just be who you are. So do you self -identify as someone who's attracted to somebody of the same sex?

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That's okay. Jesus is okay with that. Are you somebody who thinks that you're the Eiffel Tower and you're hoping that people will take photos of you when they visit

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France? That's okay too. Who cares? You can deny reality any old way you want to. Just be you.

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That's not the gospel. That's the other ditch. And if you're honest, there are plenty of churches that have fell into both ditches within rock's throw of grand forks.

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And we pray that this church never falls into either of those ditches. And in order to do that, we have to hold

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God's law and gospel intention, which requires us to preach God's law the way it's intended to be preached.

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And we must preach the gospel the way the gospel's intended to be preached. The gospel is never intended to be a license for sin.

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The law was never intended as a means by which we can save ourselves. Both uses of that use of the gospel, that use of the law are errors.

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And so what do you do when somebody errors in this way? You have to rebuke them.

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See, I would go back and say, okay, who let that yahoo preach that message at that camp?

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If you were my daughter and you went to that camp, oh, I'd be having words with that fellow.

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How dare you tell my daughter that she has to be perfect in order to be saved.

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Let's see how you're doing. I wanna talk to your wife, see if you're doing that yourself. I'd have a conversation with him and I'd let that camp know that if they were to have that fellow back, that not only would

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I not send my child, I'm gonna start warning everybody of the evil that's being preached in that camp.

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And you're thinking, you're getting a little uptight there, Pastor Roseborough.

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Yeah, it's because I love my neighbor. I don't want any of those kids going to hell and believe in this nonsense.

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And then of course he has to go, well, Pastor so -and -so invited him and said this was okay. I wanna talk to Pastor so -and -so.

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Where did you go to seminary? You know, and start talking this way. But you're thinking, nobody does this.

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The answer is nobody does this today. But read church history, not even ancient church history.

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And you see, this is exactly what people did just decades ago. Somebody to teach in false doctrine, it was all the buzz within the church.

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Nowadays, guys teach false doctrine and people go, yeah, so what?

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I got an email this week. Got an email this week from a listener to my radio program. And the email went like this.

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Pastor Roseborough, I was invited to a pastor's luncheon this past week and I had to tell you what

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I saw. At this pastor's luncheon in his metro area somewhere in the

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United States, this fellow said, whole room full of pastors.

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One of the pastors got the mic and he stood up and he informed all of the other pastors from his local area that he no longer believes that Jesus rose bodily from the grave.

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How many of the pastors in that room confronted him and said, brother, scripture's very clear on this.

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If Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain and you're still in your sins. Well, 1

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Corinthians 15. How many of them did that? Zero, none, none, yeah.

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And I think that's the same problem that we have, like you said, the top, those that know the word pretty well and the new ones that are coming.

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Yeah. Because they're gonna come across as holier than thou because of what they're saying against the word of God.

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Yeah, see, that's the other thing. One of the ways in which the culture suppresses conversations is we're gonna label you.

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So if I started preaching here at Kongsvinger that the

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Holy Spirit is actually a goddess, so we're gonna pray to Mother Holy Spirit.

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I wish I was making this up. This happens in the ELCA. They even, there's some women in the

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ELCA who baptize in the name of Father, Mother, and Jesus Christ. I'm not making this up.

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You can be taken outside. Yeah. You'd take me outside. Now, at this point, if you did that to me,

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Roger would say, you're just a Pharisee. You're being holier than thou. How dare you, Roger? And then everyone would go, oh, maybe he is holier than thou.

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Roger, you need to behave. This is how culturally this gets enforced. But you're right.

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You're concerned about being labeled holier than thou or worse, they play the

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Pharisee card. Okay. So many people have dealt me the

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Pharisee card. I have so many of these cards, I can make my own

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Pharisee decks and sell them on the internet for a profit. I'll give you an example really quick.

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I set this up. Let me, I can't believe this is a real example.

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What I'm going to read to you is not satire, and I can't believe it's not satire.

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Have any of you ever considered the dangers of the sneaky squid spirit? Okay. Hang on a second here.

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From Charisma Magazine, charismamag .com, the editor -in -chief of Charisma Magazine, Jennifer LeClaire, wrote this at the end of February.

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When the sneaky, okay, Charisma Magazine is like the magazine of the charismatic and Pentecostal movement.

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We're talking readership of millions. This is like the mainline magazine of the charismatic movement.

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Headline, when the sneaky squid spirit starts stalking you. When my friend told me she saw a vision of herself with a big squid lodged atop her head,

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I knew enough about the unseen world to understand a spiritual attack was underway. What I didn't know was that the sneaky squid spirit would soon start stalking me.

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Right about now, you may be scratching your head and asking with all sincerity or with mockery, what in the world is a squid spirit?

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Essentially, it's a spirit of mind control, but its effects go way beyond what you would think.

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In his classic book, Demon Hit List, Eckhart lists mind control and defines it as, in this way, octopus or squid spirits having tentacles, confusion, mental pressure, mental pain, migraine, sounds a lot like witchcraft, and I imagine that's what it actually is.

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There are many expressions and many manifestations of witchcraft. A natural examination with spiritual implications.

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In the natural, a squid is a salafopod with eight short arms, two longer tentacles, different than an octopus with its big round head.

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A squid has a long, skinny body with its fins on both sides. Like an octopus, the squid has tentacles.

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Tentacles are essentially what science calls muscular hydrostat, which works sort of like a tongue.

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Muscular hydrostats manipulate and catch the word, things around it, and people manipulate your mind with their tongues.

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Squids manipulate your mind with their sucker -laced tentacles. This sounds like a scary story you would read to kids.

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Bad B -movie written all over it. Okay. Can somebody send you this in all seriousness? No, no, no.

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She wrote this at the Charisma Magazine website. This is an actual article from just a few weeks ago.

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Wow. Well, somebody sent me the link and said, you've got to see this. Okay, so let me ask you this.

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Can you think of any passage that warns us about the sneaky squid spirit? It seems kind of obvious, right?

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So, I contacted Dr. Michael Brown. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but he's a very famous national radio talk show host who is openly a part of the

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New Apostolic Reformation and the Charismatic Movement and stuff like this, and on his Facebook, I simply asked this question.

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Could you please show me the biblical texts that warn us about the sneaky squid spirit?

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I'd like to see them, because the editor -in -chief of Charisma Magazine is warning the body of Christ to be on the lookout for the sneaky squid spirit, and is saying she's being stalked by it, which sounds to me like a paranoid delusion, and here's what happened.

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When I posted the question, please provide us biblical backing for this, Charismatic came out of the woodwork and said,

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Chris Roseborough, I am marking you, and I'm going to avoid you because you are causing division within the body of Christ.

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You need to repent. I bow to you.

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That was brilliant. That was brilliant. Second tentacles, yeah, okay.

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Now, I think it's a reasonable question to ask, where's the biblical backing regarding this? It's a reasonable question.

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This is the woman who's the editor -in -chief of Charisma Magazine. Now, you got Christians running around going, how do we protect ourselves against the sneaky squid spirit?

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No, no, you're thinking way too logically, way too biblically here.

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So I was rebuked for causing division within the body of Christ, and once again,

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I was dealt the Pharisee card. You're a Pharisee. No, really,

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I'm not, okay? So, but this is the way in which this is culturally enforced.

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Now, of course, I did not go to bed crying that night, going, I'm causing division.

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Yeah. Did you get an answer? No, no, yeah, he'll never, he kind of has a policy to not talk with me, although I called into his radio program once, and you know, that's a different story altogether.

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Anyway, so yeah, I always seem to show up in places where they have to talk to me and they don't want to, but it's a different story, yeah.

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Maybe I'm the sneaky squid spirit, stalker guy, so. I'm thinking, make this into T -shirts, you know, something like that.

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Coffee rooms. Right, yeah, that's right. But you know the back to the room where he obviously was convicted of it?

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I wonder why he didn't, because he would have been singled out with all the other, or maybe if somebody does it, then

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I'm that way, if someone in school, I see bowing their head and praying for a meal, boy, it's a lot easier for Robin to do it.

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Yeah, yeah. So maybe if someone would have stood, maybe somebody else would have, and maybe this didn't happen that way.

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And so here's what I would say. Since we understand that as Christians, we are to strive for perfection, and we do this because we are

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Christians, not in order to be one, because we are holy, not in order to be holy. We want to practice this holiness, and we want to mortify our sinful flesh.

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We must understand that true love for neighbor demands that when we hear false doctrine, that we don't obey the cultural mandate to say nothing, but we must say something, even if that means risking our reputation, or upsetting somebody, or being cast out of Norwegian society altogether.

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Because I think there's banishment that happens in that culture. Now, let me kind of give you a little bit more of this text so you can see this.

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So watch what he says, coming back to verse nine in Titus one. The pastor must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in healthy doctrine, and to rebuke those who contradict it.

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And watch what he says. For there are many who are insubordinate. They are empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party.

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They were like the chief heretics of his time. They must be silenced.

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So notice, God actually wills that the church silence false teachers.

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That's actually God's will and command. And on the front line of this must be the pastors.

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And I don't know what has happened, but Norwegian culture has somehow spread all over the world to where it's taken on the form of political correctness.

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And I think a good way to look at this, this is a phrase that my son uses. He calls it cultural sharia.

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You think of this, where there's no actual written law that says you can't say this.

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And if you do, you go to prison, and we'll put you in the gulag, and you'll die in the salt mines. There's no law like this.

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And we remember back, some of us, we remember back to the day of the Cold War, when we would hear stories coming out of the

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Soviet Union of political dissenters who were arrested for speaking up and disappeared, and they were never heard from again.

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And yeah, their bones are somewhere in Siberia somewhere. So I'm curious if you didn't take this on like you're taking this on to the wrong view in the congregation, where you go face -to -face, one -on -one with the pastor first, and you go to the elders, and then the congregation.

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Yeah, in a congregation, if you're a member of the congregation, if I go off the rails, I expect you to be in my face right after church.

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I'm serious. Zero tolerance policy. I have taken a vow to preach only what's in accord with the scriptures as rightly understood in the

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Book of Concord and our confessions. It's spelled out, and I have taken a vow.

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And if I am preaching doctrine that's different than that, I am breaking my vow. That is as serious as if I broke my vow that I would remain chased to my wife.

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It's as serious as that. It's a form of spiritual promiscuity. And you must elevate it to the same status as if I were an adulterer or a drunk.

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It's the same. There's, you just sit there and go, okay, he can't be a drunk. We got that. He can't be an adulterer.

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We got that. He can't teach false doctrine. Well, no.

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But again, if you don't know, you know, what was Pappy had said, if you're not positive, if you're not sure, you're not going to accuse someone of that.

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You don't know any better. Okay, so this means this. Okay, let's kind of wrap this up.

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Do you all have a copy of the Book of Concord? When was the last time you read it? Have you ever thought of maybe, since we're

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Lutherans, Book of Concord might actually be kind of an important document we might want to take a look at this.

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And here's the reason I say it. You want to know if I'm teaching false doctrine or not? Well, you can become a good exegete, which

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I recommend. But if you want the cheat sheet, the teacher's notes, because you know, in school, right, you've got the kids, the student edition, but then you've got the teacher's edition.

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The teacher's edition has all the answers in it. Not that I ever looked at one of those. The Book of Concord is like that.

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It has all the answers. And if you want to specifically look at the part that's like key,

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Augsburg Confession itself would be the place to go. So, just a little experiment.

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Open up the Augsburg Confession. Get a copy of the Book of Concord and read it. And then ask yourself this question.

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Is this what Pastor Roseborough's saying in his sermons, in his Sunday school? Is he saying the same stuff?

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Or is what he's saying actually deviating from this? Does that make sense?

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It gives you something objective. Here's the best part. All the guys who wrote that, they're all dead. They have no political stake here.

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Because when I took my ordination vows, that's the body of doctrine that I promised would inform how

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I preach the scriptures. I would preach the scriptures in accordance with what's laid out in the

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Book of Concord. Do you have to be a Hebrew scholar to do that? No.

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Do you think it might be a wise idea from time to time to have the church council periodically check to see if Pastor Roseborough or any pastor that serves here is still teaching what's in accord with what he promised to do in his ordination vow, which the church's constitution demands that I do.

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Yes. So that group of pastors that didn't speak up that day, is that indicative of political correctness?

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Is that why the church as a whole is not standing up and giving when there's something that's gone crazy?

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The church isn't willing anymore to speak up? Yeah. Are they being taught that in seminary?

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The answer is they're being taught it culturally. It's now taken over many of the seminaries.

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It's this, years ago, the late Dr. Walter Martin actually described this phenomenon.

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It was actually creeping into Christianity decades ago, and it's just taken over in the past few years.

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But he called it the disease of non -Rockabodas. Don't rock the boat.

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And he had a wonderful line in that lecture. The lecture was called The Baptism of Boldness. And in that lecture, he says,

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I don't want to rock the boat, I want to sink it. And of course, he said it with a particular vim and vigor that only the late

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Walter Martin could say it. But the issue is that this has been a creeping thing within the visible church for a while.

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And it's finally taken over, literally, the majority. And as the majority, it is tyrannical.

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And I mean this, it's tyrannical in its oppressive form of keeping people quiet.

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Because if somebody does speak up, they're vilified for rocking the boat and causing problems.

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Yeah, that's exactly what happens. The person who speaks up is the one who's vilified, rather than the one who's teaching the false doctrine.

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The way the system is set up now, the person who speaks out is the one who's punished, not the one who speaks the false teaching.

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That's the way everything is set up. It's backwards, upside down, and set out, yes. It all works under this group thing.

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Yes, yeah. And kind of an echo chamber Christianity. Then we will hear only what we want to hear, and we will not permit anything else to be heard.

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And it doesn't matter if you're actually citing a biblical text or reading it. We will punish you and destroy your character if you speak out.

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I mean, one of the deacons here had that happen to him at a church he was at previously. And it was his own pastor that literally threw him under the bus for speaking out and holding the line on what scripture says.

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And so, these are very, very dangerous times. Now, I'm not saying to be a raving maniac and get into people's faces and spit all over them and all that kind of nonsense.

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It's not what this is about. This is, a rebuke can actually come while actually speaking calmly.

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You don't have to raise your voice to rebuke somebody. You can say to them, listen, brother, what you just did is a sin.

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You have totally mishandled God's word. And the second commandment's in play. And remember what

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God said. He will not hold him guiltless. Who takes his name in vain. We must see false teaching for what it is.

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It is very dangerous with very serious repercussions breaking of the second commandment.

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And it should not be tolerated in the same sense that an open -eyed adulterer and open drunk in the pulpit should not be tolerated.

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And scripture itself, I know I've said it and I'll kind of re -hammer on the point. When you read the

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Old Testament, idolatry over and again in the Old Testament, God's favorite way of describing it is like prostitution.

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And so we need to adopt this mentality. And then here's the idea.

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My goal, I don't know how long I'm gonna serve Kong's finger but I know I'm not gonna serve it forever because I'm mortal.

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My goal is to leave this congregation when my tour of duty is done here with all of you being equipped and knowing the truth and knowing the scripture so well that if anyone dared to preach false doctrine from that pulpit, you guys would be all over him like white on rice.

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And I never have to worry ever about hearing about somebody who's an impenitent and homosexual being a pastor or a woman being a pastor here.

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And that's the idea. So my job is to equip you. That's my job.

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So the question is, am I equipping you? Are you being outfitted with the word of God to rightly understand it so that you know the truth, can convey the truth, preach the gospel, help in the discipling task and bringing people to faith in Christ and also protect this congregation.

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Congregations must be protected from the pastor as well as from other people. And so this is the one of the reasons why

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I follow the lectionary. You guys don't get any tyranny from me as far as what's being preached.

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It gets assigned to me. Pastor Rosebro, you're gonna preach on this today. And if you wanna know what I'm gonna preach on next week, look ahead in the three -year lectionary.

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And if you wanna know what I'm gonna be preaching on in June, you can look ahead and say, I know that on this Sunday, he's gonna be preaching on one of these three texts.

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And if he's feeling very verbose, he'll preach on all three. And that's the idea. And then at the end of it, the question is this.

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Did Pastor Rosebro say the same thing as these texts say?

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That's the other kind of proof of it. And if you're not sure, go get the teacher's manual,

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Augsburg Confession, summarizes what we believe scripture says and asks, is he teaching these doctrines?

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And I think if you go down the line, go down the line through the Augsburg Confession, you can say, yeah, he preached on that one.

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He preached on this one. This he talked about. This in Sunday school the week before. And just go back through and you'll find that I actually make a very conscious effort to back all this up in a way that if you were to proof text me, if you go test to see if what

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I'm saying is right, you can say, yeah, he's doing his job. He's doing what he's supposed to do.

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You know, it says rebuke those who contradict it. How do you point out to the pastors who tiptoe and cherry pick through the

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Bible? Because they would say, I'm not contradicting anything, but they're keeping, how do you pin them down on that what they're doing isn't right?

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Okay, the question is, am I warning the public about their false teaching or am

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I talking to him? That's gonna be my first question. A lot of times the false teachers have systems set up so that nobody can get to them.

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They're accountable to nobody and they will not permit themselves to be held accountable to anybody, period. You can't.

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So what do you do? You warn the church. In a situation like that, because they're preaching publicly, you warn publicly.

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Now, let's say a friend of mine within the AALC, maybe I got a pastor friend or two, goes off the rails and starts kind of getting squishy on certain things.

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You know what I'm doing? I'm calling him up. Hey, this is Pastor Roseborough. What's going on? What'd you do with that text?

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Why'd you do that? You know better than that. That's a personal relationship and I have the ability to do that and I have done that before.

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So, you know, the question is, do I have a relationship with the person? Is there a way to reach the person?

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And is there accountability? Are they teaching this publicly and impenitently? And there's different ways in which you can do it.

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But as a pastor, one of the things I have as a job, I monitor what types of programs are on the radio in the local area and what's being preached in Christian radio.

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So as a result of that, I'm quite familiar with some of the things you may have been taught that may not be quite right.

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I don't know if you've noticed, today's sermon was dealing with some of that stuff. So I have a job to warn you that if you've been hearing these messages, you're not to listen to them because they're twisting

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God's word. So there's kind of like a whole different, when you deal with false doctrine, you have to consider those who are hearing it and those who are preaching it and those who are preaching it, how to address the issue if it's addressable at all privately.

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And if not, then everything's public fair game. But I've got to warn you guys about the crazy things being said today because I know you're hearing it.

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Because I know I'd be silly to think I'm the only Christian minister that you hear anything from on any given week.

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No, that's not how this works. Not how this works. So yeah, there's a lot that needs to be done there.