A Call to Defend — Shane Idleman

A Call to Defend the Faith

The message this morning is a call to defend. A call to defend. I was going to go through the book of Jude on Wednesdays but I feel it's very impactful for Sundays as well and we need it mainly for the the congregation on Sundays so we switched that recently.

So a call to defend. The book of Jude you'll find in the New Testament obviously and it doesn't make for easy reading. I love the book but those who are carnal, those who are false prophets, false teachers, well they won't even avoid it.

They'll get the scissors out on that one because it's just calling it out and sometimes you know it's good to do that. We have this impression in the church that we're just supposed to be doormats. You know just love them in their sin.

Never confront the sin. No, no, no, no, no. How dare we? Just love them and we do have to have love as our underlying, undergirding, umbrella motive. Of course it all has to come from love but there is a time to defend the truth and stand up for the truth and things that are right especially in the church, in our country and what I'm gonna do when I'm talking about a lot of these things, God's given us different callings.

So for me to defend the truth it's gonna look a lot different than you defending it sometimes. You might just be witnessing to your neighbor, to your friends and that is the same as what I'm doing. Sometimes we think, oh what you're doing is so much bigger and better.

No it's not. It's just calling. It's gifting. What God has called the single mom to do and her spear of influence is no different than what I'm doing this morning because we have different gifting, different callings and you can defend the faith and stand up for the faith in your community and with your friends and I've seen so many people, they'll say this, well that's your job Shane.

Well that's what you're supposed to do. Well we're all supposed to defend the faith and to some degree. So keep that in mind as we look at the book of Jude chapter 1. Actually there's no chapters, it's just verse 1.

Jude who is a bond servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James to those who are called, meaning to those who are believers. This is a specific letter to those who are called of God, the believers.

Sanctified by God the Father, meaning they've been changed, they've been transformed by God and preserved by Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ holds us. He holds our faith together. Mercy, peace and love will be multiplied to you.

So let me just stop there for a minute. Most scholars identify the writer as Jude, the half-brother of Jesus. So he might know a little bit about what he's talking about. I'm thinking. He came to know Christ as Redeemer and Savior later on in his life.

Obviously his family members at first didn't believe and what he's doing, he is writing a plea. A plea to defend the faith and many times when you plea, you turn up the volume. If I'm pleading with you, it's probably not going to be like this.

Okay guys, next week we're going to, you know, try to be here, try to defend the faith. No, pleading has some volume in it. It's got some edge to it, that knife. It's a pleading. It's a slap in the face and that's what Jude does.

He slaps us in the face. It's a hard book but it's very good. And the irony is, I learned this this week, when he talks about mercy, peace and love will be multiplied to you. Do any of you want that this morning?

Do you want mercy? Do you want peace in your life? Do you want the love of God in your life? It often follows those who contend for the faith because when we don't contend, what's the opposite of contending?

Coward. Closet Christianity. I'll never forget. I worked in construction, some of you know, many years ago. It was a water district here in town. I ran heavy equipment. Very stressful job crossing gas mains and water mains and different things.

But I worked with two guys separately and I've talked to this guy about faith. He went forward at a Billy Graham crusade. Loved the Lord. I mean, at least he said it. And we talked all the time about it.

Then I had this other guy. His name was Heath. I won't mention other last names. And I love this guy. Younger kid. We talked about, I'm trying to get him back on track. He's going to church here locally and we're talking about the God a lot.

And pretty much every one day, we all work together. Now these guys have been working together at that point about three months. And so now we're all working together. I bring up the topic of somehow God came up and they said to each other, I didn't know you're a Christian.

Well, I didn't know you were either. Like you guys have been working together for three months. Closet Christianity. They'll talk about alcohol and the game, pornography, but not God. Now they're either not saved or they're very carnal in their walk.

They're not filled with the Holy Spirit of God. So they will not experience mercy, peace, and love because that boldness of the Holy Spirit is not there. They're not contending. They're not living like God has called us to live.

So be encouraged in this. When you step out in boldness and contend, these things will follow you. You will have love and peace. Maybe that's what some of you are missing this morning. If God feels distant, you don't have the love of God that you used to.

There's not a lot of peace. There's a lot of turmoil and you're avoiding controversy. You're not talking about God much, if at all. There's not a lot of peace in that because that's not what you were called to do.

Just like when it comes in that healthy, like up at the High Sierras, I've talked about this before, that beautiful river out of the June Lake Loop and Rush Creek, beautiful, runs right into Grant Lake and then out of Grant Lake into Mono Lake.

It's dead. It smells. I think brine shrimp is the only thing living there. But this beautiful water's coming in, but nothing's going out. There has to be an outlet. So as we're getting fed, we go out.

That's where the health comes from. Healthy heart, mercy, love, and that's one of the reasons why we promote the hospital homes. We have hospital homes. Every Sunday people leave here and they will go out and minister to people.

And often I hear this and I love it. I don't get upset. That was better than going to church. And I'm happy when they say that. Shane, you wouldn't believe this person. I encouraged them. I went to Walmart, bought them socks.

I put them in connection with their family again. I prayed with them. See, that's what we're supposed to do. And I've been there myself. We sit in the pew. We get fed. And that's about it. And that's why often there's not a lot of peace and love in our lives.

And we're not doing things for God. If we were to take a survey, I would think that many of you in this room would want to do a lot more for God than you are right now. I go through those seasons. I feel that way sometimes too.

And a lot of it is because when I'm not giving. Fortunately, I get to give right now. Give of what God's put in my heart. But that doesn't take the place of giving outside of the church. Another big misconception is the church is just where we come like a pep rally.

We worship God. We get built up. We equip the saints to go out and do the work. But what's happening a lot of times is we don't go out and do anything. We just come here locally and get fed. A coward has little fellowship with God.

They miss out on his powerful presence. And I'm not using that word coward to poke fun. I have to go back and forth with this word too. Sometimes I coward back from things and should be more bold. I should be more lovingly aggressive.

What I mean is pursuing people and their faith when they lack faith and go out and kind of talk to them. So this is a struggle we all have. But I think Jude makes it clear that we need to defend the faith.

He goes on here in verse 3. Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation. So he was very diligent. He wanted to write about their common salvation. He says, but I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once and all delivered to the saints.

So it's kind of this change here. I'm writing to you about the common salvation. However, there's a call that needs to go out exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith. Now, is anybody kind of curious about or upset about what's going on in our nation?

Or is it just me? I better stay out of that for a little while. But the problem is many people don't contend. We don't say a lot. We don't challenge in love. But it has to be inspired, motivated, and inspired, motivated, and ultimately driven by the Holy Spirit or it won't go anywhere.

Because if all I'm doing is contending and the cheerleaders are being encouraged and I'm upsetting everybody else and nobody in the middle is being changed, that doesn't accomplish a lot. Politics won't save us but prayer will.

Protesting won't save us even though it's a good idea sometimes but prayer will and the power and the moving of the Holy Spirit. And often he changes things through bold contending for the faith. What are we celebrating Monday?

What happened? Ruffled some feathers. The abolition of slavery even before that ruffled some feathers. The big movement now trying to stop the murdering of innocent children in the womb. When you contend, it gets interesting.

And I heard a video, I think it was Ben Shapiro speaking at the Right to Life. I was kind of bummed. I was asked to speak at one of their gatherings a couple years ago and I wasn't able to. I've always regretted that.

But anyway, he was, he said something not along these lines but I thought, you know, I want to share that with you and I'm going to kind of paraphrase here. But the position sometimes we take, what I take especially from this church, what you take, that's why you're here, is we're labeled sometimes as extreme.

And you have to get to the point, you say, you know what, you're absolutely right. We are living in extremely critical times. This is not time for passivity. This is a time to be extreme. Not violent, extreme.

Fasting, prayer, seeking God, worshiping, contending God, pull down heaven, change our churches, change our nation. So he's saying here, don't wear out. Don't wear out. I'm exhorting you, I'm encouraging you to still contend earnestly for the faith.

Contend for the things that are right. Contend for the things that are righteous. I will tell you up front that any time you contend for what is right and contend for what is righteous, you will be mocked.

You will be ridiculed. There is a battle. There is a fight. You're not going to stand up for the truth of God's word and everybody's going to like you in your school district or in the governmental offices.

I'm not talking about going out and getting fired. I think we should be the best example of an employee wherever we are at. Gracious and loving and understanding. But there's a boldness there. So however you do that, write, speak, blog, pray, contend somehow.

And if you don't know what to do, here's a good prayer. I prayed this prayer before, oh boy, 18, 19 years ago and I had no idea how God would answer it. God, help me. Show me how you want me to contend.

What have you called me to show? Lord, show me. That's why some of you should pray this morning. How should I contend? And contend doesn't mean fighting all the time. It just means standing up for what is right.

We're contending. We're contending. Be gentle. Some of you have it in your hands. If not, it's on our website or at least shaneidleman .com. A lot of news organizations picked it up the last few days and a few more are picking it up this week.

Interestingly enough, I got an email from the lady who did my last Fox News interview and she's interested in possibly me talking about this with somebody on the other side on a podcast. I don't know if that will go anywhere.

But the title is an open letter to the United States of America. The atrocious demeanor of our elected officials must stop. From F-bombs and death threats towards our president to the total lack of humility in governmental offices, our arrogance has reached a new level.

We are calling good evil and evil good. We turn a blind eye to sexual sin and wink at pedophilia. Where is the outrage? What I also included is there was recently a posted a photo to Instagram showing a 10-year-old transgender boy who was next to a naked man.

Where is the outrage? America, your silence is deafening. Yet we have a mental breakdown when a border wall is being considered. And I don't mind different views on this, but my Lord, put things in perspective.

We protect LGBT rights and I love those people, but we murder the innocent children in the womb. We encourage children to switch genders but not turn to the one true and living God, the only true source of hope and peace.

Our schools resemble battlegrounds and our families remain shattered while churches stay silent. It appears that pastors would rather cave in than fight, tickle the ear than challenge the heart. And our pride will be our downfall.

Are we striving to be pleasers of men or pleasers of God? And I went on to say, what kind of a nation do we live in where a newly elected congresswoman can tweet and impeach the explicit about our president?

Any president, Obama, Clinton, Bush, our current president. Where in God's green earth do we live where that is allowed? To say that I and countless Americans are embarrassed is an understatement. Many of our leaders need to look in the mirror and repent or resign.

And that is a portion of contending for the faith. It's a platform God's given me. Not everyone. I don't like this platform. I wrote this whole article down in five minutes and then I had some editors work on it.

But it needs to be said. When God gives us that burning fire. And Jude is also a call to passive believers. Silence is not always an option. When we are filled with the world, we are not bold. I think that could be the problem.

Some of you listening to this right now. When you are filled with the world, when I'm filled with the world, I'm not bold. What am I bold with? I'm bold with the things of the world. But the more you read God's word, just spend some time in Psalms.

When you spend time in that word, this boldness comes out of you. I like what Vance Havner said, the tragedy today is that the times are desperate, but the saints are not. So content here means earnestly, sincere.

There's an intense conviction. And if you say, but Shane, I just don't have that. You will not have that without the empowerment and filling of the Holy Spirit. You won't. I won't. Nobody's going to contend for the faith without that.

So you have to ask for that filling, that mighty empowerment of the Holy Spirit. And he says here, once and for all, there is a finality. There is one gospel, one truth, one God. There's a finality. There's not many different gospels.

He says, once and for all, deliver to the saints. What was delivered is it. So here's the key that we can take from this. Don't be a closet Christian. Step out in faith. Begin to witness. But Shane, I don't know what to do.

Do you have friends? Do you have family members? Just say, hey, have you ever thought about God? Do you know where you'll spend eternity? And you can open some good dialogue and begin to contend for the faith.

Balancing Boldness With a Right Heart

Or, and this is a different call, don't hide behind a judgmental attitude with the words, I'm defending the faith. See, on the flip side of this, it's really ugly. Because on one hand, you guys can be the passive side.

Well, that doesn't look good. Let's do this side. Easier to remember. You're the passive side. Okay? And it's a call not to be passive. But this side, it's equally dangerous. And this is the person who yells and screams and is mean and nasty.

But I'm defending the faith. They put down everybody online. They're a modern day Pharisee. They're not defending the faith. They're pulling down everybody and everything. And so we have to find that balance.

Because most people gravitate or tilt one side to the other. Right? Type A's over here. Type A personality, judgmental, can just tell them like it is. There's no black, there's no gray. It's black and white.

And I'm going to defend the faith. And you have these heresy hunters. They're looking for sin in everybody's life. And we get those emails too. Oh, I can't believe you played some of those songs. I thought you were a solid church.

What songs are you talking about? Because they don't meet your criteria. You don't like emotional songs. So you're going to put down things. You misquoted Proverbs. Yeah, and I might misquote a scripture today.

We're imperfect people talking about a perfect God. See modern day Pharisees, that's dangerous because they love this verse. They use all capital letters and explanation points. Two or three of them. They don't know grammar rules.

Say just one is fine. Capital letters. I'm contending for the faith. No, you are an arrogant Pharisee. And often it's conservatives bashing charismatics or those who embrace the work of the Spirit is where a lot of this comes from.

I don't know if I should go here, but I will. I saw a video, I'm not going to name names, of some people critiquing Beth Moore because she believed God spoke to her and told her to do something. I'm sitting there, what's wrong with that?

As long as it lines up with scripture, it's edifying others, it's building up others, it's encouraging others. God does lead. Sometimes through things we're not quite clear with. I think she felt God told her to go and comb this guy's hair at the airport.

He looked like he just got out of the hospital or something. And they were mocking her going, oh no, God would never tell you that. He's just going to tell you to go preach the gospel. Yeah, that's going to happen.

That's coming. That's coming, but you might have to step out in love first. Arrogant Pharisees. Arrogant Pharisees who think they're defending the truth and they're actually quenching the work of the Holy Spirit.

They'll bash anybody. Matt Chandler has a dream that he believed God gave to him. Oh, that must be heretical. No, it's biblical. Joseph, Mary, you might want to go a different direction. The wise men, hair's going to kill you.

You might want to go a different direction. Jacob, I mean, I don't understand it. I don't embrace it. I'm not this guy caught up in dreams, but I know God can do whatever he wants. He can warn somebody through a dream.

If it lines up with scripture and it edifies and it builds you up. But what do they say? We're contending for the faith. We've got to pull these people down. No, you're not. You are an arrogant Pharisee that needs to stop.

You have sound doctrine, but you don't have a right heart. Oh, don't. I could stay there a while. The irony is, here's the truth. We're just not well known enough yet to be on their hit list. I guarantee they would tear me apart just like they tear them apart.

If you embrace the work of the Holy Spirit, conservative Christians will mock you because they've never experienced that move of God. I think many times they're prideful, they're jealous. They've never experienced that, so it can't be true.

I've got a master's degree in divinity. Yeah, but does a master have your heart? So be careful in this area. I'm not in any way, shape, or form throwing bad doctrine underneath. Let's hide it. Let's just get crazy.

Let's get odd. Let's get weird. No, let's hold the sound doctrine, contend for absolute truth in a postmodern culture. We love the truth. We put everything through the filter of truth, but let's not put God in a box and then pull apart those who seem to meet God at a deep level.

These same churches would mock a church where there's people at the altar weeping. Oh, that's emotionalism. No, that's people experiencing God straight up. I came to shoot you straight this morning because I'm tired of some of these Pharisees and heresy hunters.

Practical Ways to Defend the Faith

So here's a little information that might help. Here we go. People say, okay, Shane, I understand, and I saw this on Facebook. I told her I might use these, but I don't know what to say. Amen? Can you relate to that one?

I can sometimes. I got a little tongue tied. You might find this funny. Me and my wife were out of town just for a few days, and we're talking. This guy seemed so nice. You know, he could tell he's just God's word, scripture.

He was living it, and come to find out he's a Mormon. I'm sitting there. We're having lunch. I'm like, oh, do I listen for a little while? Do I say anything? You know, and he goes, oh, your non-denominational church?

My friend is, and he tells me I'm going to hell because I believe in all these. I said, oh, that's interesting. You know, what do you kind of listen? What are you trusting in? So it caught me off guard because I wasn't prepared for that.

So what do you say? Fortunately, I gave him a book and said, here, contact me if you have some questions. I want to talk to you about this a little bit more, but it wasn't the right setting. Also, how do you say it?

How do I say it? Or they'll take it the wrong way. What about this one? But I'm not a good example. I'm not a perfect example. They see my life. They see my life. Let's talk about these briefly. I don't know what to say.

Well, what I recommend is learn a few things. Learn a few things about your faith, just bullet points that you can grow in and learn. Do you know what Mormonism believes or Jehovah Witness or different cults?

Fortunately, you don't have to have a whole list. You ask them, what do you do with Jesus Christ? Because most of them will add to the work on the cross. Yeah, we believe in Jesus too, but you have to be a member of our church.

We believe in Jesus too, but you have to worship on Saturday. We believe in Jesus too, but you have to go door to door and knock and do good things. And so you can isolate and have some scriptures handy that not by works and by faith alone and that he's the only way, the only truth, the only life.

And just be prepared. Don't try to just wing it. Do a little bit of studying. Contend for the faith. Study yourself to be approved, rightly dividing the word of truth. And also watch Ray Comfort sometimes.

His videos are funny. Dave told me he spoke here, right here, 15 years ago or so, 16 years ago. So that's what I do. I watch a lot of videos. I read books. I read the Bible, of course. And you just have a better understanding of what your friends believe.

How do you say it? Well, that's pretty easy. Say it with love. You seek to listen. You never want to go into this, I'm going to win this argument. No. No, no, no. You enter with love and you listen to them.

And with the person I was talking to, you know, I would listen and say, have you thought about this? You know, because either Jesus Christ is right or Joseph Smith is right. You can't have them both. What do you mean?

Well, did you know that Jesus said this? That God is not human. He's spirit. And those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. And God was from creation. God's always been. In his state, Joseph Smith said that God was once like us.

God was once like us, me. And someday, I'll be like God. Did you know that Bible calls that blasphemy? What do you mean? Well, we're not like God. And God's not going to, was not like us. And you just, you, you, you, and you give them things to think about.

Remember, you're not trying to win an argument. You're just planting seeds. They'll take it the wrong way. Yeah, they might. They may take it the wrong way. But if it comes from love, you planted seeds.

I've had a lot of discussions, which I'm sure some of you have, with atheists or Mormon, different groups. And often, I'd say nine times out of 10, it ends fine. LGBT and those who struggle with homosexuality.

And I look at them as anyone struggles with any other sin. There's not way up here on the sin, anybody struggling with sin. We love them. We point them to the cross. We point them to Jesus Christ, the hope.

And they can, they can listen to you and hear you and hear your heart. If you're not arguing and your tone's, you know, respectful and, hey, have you considered this? Well, I appreciate your heart. Boy, you really seem to have a sincere faith in what you're believing.

But we can be sincerely wrong, too. Want me to show you? And it's often not what you say, but how you say it. But ultimately, yes, you will ruffle some feathers. The gospel ruffles feathers. And we have to remember that.

But I'm not a perfect example. Well, for me, not being a perfect example is a great opportunity to share why we need Jesus. And you can even tell the person, hey, you've seen, you've seen me before. You've seen me get angry and upset, and I apologize for that.

You've seen me do this and hold an unforgiveness, and I've apologized for that. You've seen this in me, and that's why I need Jesus. We're not perfect. And see, that's a big misconception out there. A friend of mine was struggling on Facebook, and I was going to respond, but I didn't.

Somebody I'm kind of helping with, I've known for a long time, struggling with alcohol, and keeps falling into it. And he's posting things like, I'm a hypocrite, I can't do this. And I want to remind him, you're struggling.

You're struggling. A hypocrite is someone who intentionally deceives you. The word, it's a Greek word that comes from putting on a mask. I'm this today. I'm this tomorrow. So there's not a lot of hypocrites in the church.

There are coming in to intentionally deceive. Oh, praise you, brother, knowing they're going to leave here and just be as mean and nasty as ever. They're a hypocrite. But somebody who's struggling in sin is not a hypocrite.

If there's anybody in this room not struggling with sin, I would love to meet you after the service. Tell me, how do you accomplish that? How do you keep that tongue in your mouth? And that anger, you know, lashing out at people?

Yeah, anger. How do you keep that? How do you not stumble or fumble here and there? So see, we have to encourage people. And it's a perfect example. And when I was in construction, I was not a good example sometimes.

They knew I didn't drink. They knew I didn't do anything. But boy, I almost beat the tar out of this one guy. It wasn't good. I had to go back and I apologized. So it wasn't right of me, you know, and I apologized and said, but if you open your mouth like that again, I'm going to pop you.

But joking with them, you know, and so I've, I had to ask for forgiveness a few different times. But people see that. See, that's what, see, people see, when you do that, they see that it's genuine. Okay, it's real.

I like this person because they see it anyway. We might as well admit it. But here's how many people get out of contending. We say, I'm not their judge and I'm not their jury. I see these mega pastors on like the Today Show and Oprah, different things.

And the question often comes up, you know, well, what do you think about gay marriage? What do you tell gay? Well, I'm not the judge. I'm not their jury. What do you think about Mormon? Oh, I'm not the judge.

I'm not their jury. I'm just called Oprah to love people. No, you're a coward. You've just been given an opportunity to tell millions of people the truth that, hey, I love all these people. We struggle with sin, but I would tell them that this is not right according to God's word.

The Bible is clear on this issue. That's contending for the faith. But they say, I'm not their judge. I'm not their jury. It's not up to me. But you're a proclaimer of truth. You're a defender of doctrine.

You're a broadcaster of righteousness. How can you remain silent? And here's what I've learned. You're either turning toward God or turning away from him. Galatians 1, 6 through 9, I marvel. We might actually have it up there, Galatians 1.

I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Jesus Christ to a different gospel, which is not another, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

Now, this is important. You need to learn the scripture. You need to even show people. I believe the Mormons will even have this in their Bible, and other Jehovah Witnesses might have it in their Bible.

I didn't check this week. I probably should have. But this famous verse, though we or an angel from heaven preach to you any other gospel than what we have preached, let him be accursed. Let him be accursed if we preach any other gospel.

So what is the gospel? The main gospel, most of you know, praise God, but not everybody knows. The main thrust of the gospel, the gospel means good news. I was dead in my sin and trespasses. I was under the wrath and condemnation of God.

That's not very popular. That's not very popular, but it's the truth. But God rescued me and you and those who believe through the redemptive work of Christ on the cross. That's the good news. So you can't add anything to that.

I've told you before when I talked to that priest of a large Catholic church, I said, why do you promote purgatory? Well, we have to be purged of our sins and guilt. No, no, no, no, no. That's the point of the cross.

If that's not what the cross is for, did Jesus go up and do an incomplete work, a partial work? I almost got it for you guys. Now, if you could just finish it. See, that's blasphemy. That is heretical.

That's a heretical teaching. Why do you use that word? Heresy just means a self-willed opinion that opposes the truth. To say we have to go somewhere and be punished for our shame and guilt and sin after we've already acknowledged Christ and we are believers is not correct.

It's adding, adding to the gospel. That's another gospel. That's another truth that is not taught in scripture. So maybe you need the gospel this morning. You need the good news. Have you repented of your sin and believed?

Have you repented? It's that simple. Oh, the simple gospel. We sing that song, the simple gospel. Next week, I'm going to talk about the trademarks of a false prophet. But here's what I want to, it's kind of going to be a long ending, so I don't know when I'll leave.

Maybe 5, 10 more minutes or 15. So here's the key. Is Jesus the central, the main, the chief, the fundamental, the core focus? That's how you determine something is true or not. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the is of God and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come into the flesh is not of God.

It's really that simple. What do you do with Jesus? See, so here's the definition of a cult. You hear the word cult, right? A cult is a group of people that deviate from the essential, essential scriptural truth.

They deviate from it. So that guy, Dave Koresh in Waco, when you're drinking Kool-Aid, right? Somebody just told me on Facebook, hey, you're drinking Kool-Aid. I said, I'm drinking the truth. You're drinking Kool-Aid.

Because they, remember the Kool-Aid guy? They poisoned themselves, Jonestown and, you know, cultish. A lot of other groups are cultish, meaning they deny, deny the main truth is that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, the only life.

He is the son of God. End of story. The essentials of the Christian faith. Now, when they deviate from that, they're called a cult. Often, the irony is, for example, the Roman Catholic Church, when I talked to that priest, he told me that one of the problems they have with, like, denominations is you have so many denominations, but see, we are the one true church.

And I want to remind them that, no, when you look the same, taste the same, smell the same everywhere you go, that's a reflection of a cult. A denomination, there's freedom in Christ. There's differences in their distinction, but they all have the essentials of the Christian faith.

They all agree to the essentials. But if you go somewhere and it's the same thing, the same room, the same building, the same setup, that is control and that is cult. That's a cult-like thing. Now, you can go somewhere, Calvary chapels have Calvary chapel distinctives.

The Four Square, Vineyard, Reformed churches, they have certain distinctions within their denomination. That's different. Denominations, there's a lot of freedom. We just are non-denominational because we just don't line up with a certain denomination.

We take the good from all of them. We, I don't know who we would line up if we did, but a lot of churches are non-denominational, not because they think they're special, but just because, you know, for example, Pentecostals believe that the evidence of the Spirit is speaking in tongues only.

I wouldn't agree with that. Reformed, the Reformed denomination follows that of the Reformation, the Five Points of Tulip, John Calvin. I don't quite subscribe to that. Calvary chapel, part of their distinctives is you have to believe that, you know, and the way they believe the rapture, you have to believe that a person can possibly walk away from their faith.