TiL- A Defense of Cessationism part 8

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September 19, 2023

1 Corinthians 14:26-40, Does my background influence my position? Does 1 Cor 14, Acts 2 and Joel support Cessationism? What are evidences today for salvation?

A Defense of Cessationism part 9

00:00: Welcome to the Truth and Love podcast. Welcome back. We're glad to have you. We are continuing in our series on a defense of cessationism.
00:09: This is part number eight. Alright, welcome back to the love podcast, a defensive cessationism.
00:48: We are continuing that series. We hope you're enjoying it. If you are, let us know. If you're not, you can let us know that if you want to give us a critique, we can take it.
01:02: If we can improve in any way, if you have any questions, we'd love to hear those. If we can pray for you, we'd love to do that as well.
01:09: These are recorded. These are are not live, but we can see your notification and we appreciate you liking, talking to us, and hitting the share button as well.
01:21: We are recording back -to -back, which is good because we left the last podcast leaving some cliffhangers out there.
01:31: That's good for me because if there would have been a week in between, I'm not sure that I could have recalled all of our cliffhangers, so I'm glad we're recording back -to -back.
01:42: I'm going to start with the first one. I kind of want to defend myself. We started the episode and I made a statement and I kind of felt like I was contradicting myself based on my argument.
01:58: So the argument kind of went, Scripture comes first, and things like natural law, nature's law, creation's law, argumentation, or archaeology are basically evidences or supports for Scripture.
02:19: They don't have to prove Scripture because Scripture proves itself. It can handle itself, handle its own, but Scripture always comes first.
02:29: And then I talked about how we go back and forth with a cessationist and a continuationist.
02:35: We'll go back and forth and say, well, if somebody does speak in tongues or prophesy, it won't contradict
02:40: Scripture, and a cessationist will say, well, why did you need the tongues of prophecy anyway if you could get it from Scripture?
02:50: And I felt like at the time I was contradicting my earlier statement, my earlier argument, but after I thought about it, no,
02:58: I don't think I did because here in Corinthians in the first century, that's what we just finished talking about in the last episode, that how these signs, this particular sign, tongues, was for the unbeliever.
03:11: This particular sign, prophecy, was for the believer. So it had that feel to it of being evidence.
03:21: It didn't come before Scripture. It's not above Scripture.
03:28: It doesn't determine your salvation, whether you are saved or not saved, but it did help support and give evidence to the person.
03:39: It was a sign. That's why we call them sign gifts. So that part was not contradictory in my argument.
03:46: It was definitely the case here in the church at Corinth, but for us today, those of us who are cessationists, we believe that this is not normative, what
03:59: Paul was teaching to this church, because he was calling them babes, still drinking milk from a bottle, wanting them to move on to maturity, use their mind, and we believe that he was speaking directly to them concerning their abuses of the
04:19: Spirit, their lack of understanding on how the Spirit worked, calling them to maturity.
04:25: And so we believe that as cessationists that this particular message was for them and not necessarily to us.
04:36: Principles, yes. So the question is, what are evidences for us as believers in the 21st century, in 2023 is when we're recording this, what are evidences for us in the church today, in the kingdom today, if it's not a sign for the unbeliever and a sign for the believer is tongues and prophecy?
05:01: What is it for us today? I would say that our submission and obedience to Scripture is evidence.
05:21: Our desires change. It becomes evidence.
05:30: Fruit of the Spirit. Yeah, fruit of the Spirit. Our desires change. We no longer have a desire for sin or continuing in sin.
05:38: They may creep back, but our desire is not to swim in it and flow in it and go in that direction, but to repent of it and get out of it and flow in a different direction.
05:49: A flow in the Word. I think that's popular terminology now, flowing in the
05:56: Word through the Spirit. If I'm going to flow in the Spirit, I'm going to be flowing in the
06:03: Word and leaning on Him, making it come alive in me, helping me to understand it, helping me to obey it.
06:12: That's how I'm going to flow in the Spirit, and to me, that will be evidence of the work of God in me of salvation.
06:21: And you gave another one offline. What was your evidence of salvation? Oh, yeah. Do you believe in Jesus?
06:27: The answer is yes. I mean, now some people give a false profession of faith, but if you say you believe in Jesus, I'm going to take you at your word, and we're going to go along until you prove otherwise.
06:43: No, I mean, obviously, the less you know someone, the more you may want to be cautious and discerning.
06:49: I mean, even if you know somebody for a while, people can fake it for a while. You don't want to be cautious and discerning, but you should take people at their word.
06:57: If they say they believe in Jesus, then all right, let's move forward. Yeah, and that sounds very familiar to the first John passage.
07:05: You will know that those that confessed Christ as coming to the flesh, those are the ones who believe.
07:15: And of course, you have to be careful. I've always thought that there needs to be some meat to those bones.
07:23: Just like you were saying, people can give a false profession. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, if you're attached to the vine, you should be producing grapes.
07:34: It's also why the Bible tells us that we should be involved in a local church. It tells us in the end of Hebrews that we should submit ourselves to our elders as those who have care over our souls.
07:45: So one of the things that happens when you come to church, you're brought into the fold of people who are having your souls watched over by the elders of the church.
07:59: So that profession of faith or that bringing into the covenant, you're going to watch and they're going to tend and shepherd and raise you up to where you ought to be.
08:14: Or call you out if you're not. The keys of the kingdom.
08:20: That's right. So we got two more. Let me go to this one and then we'll go to the one that you were going to give us some evidences of cessationism.
08:31: That one may take the rest of the time because I'm long -winded. Nice, nice. That's okay. I need to hear it.
08:38: So one of our fellow laborers, I think we're going to try to dedicate an episode or at least an end of several episodes after we have some more time to contemplate.
08:51: One of our brothers in the Laborers podcast, he is in the Truth and Love Network. He's a continuationist.
08:57: We love him. We appreciate him. He sharpens us and teaches us. Love his input that he gives and his fellowship that he provides in the
09:10: Lord. He gave us some loving pushback. He didn't want me to, and I'll do this again whenever we bring up his questions, but he did not want us to...
09:24: He didn't want anybody to think that because of the questions he asked that he didn't believe in the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture.
09:31: Absolutely. That's right. He absolutely believes in the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture, but he wanted to push back with some questions.
09:38: He said, I don't want anybody getting the wrong idea. We don't want anybody getting the wrong idea about you either, brother.
09:44: That's right. That's right. And that was a good way to put it. Thank you for covering me there. His question was, does the lack of, and I guess it's directed to me or a cessationist, does the lack of personal experience with signed gifts, in other words, the way
10:00: I'm taking it, growing up, being involved in a church that the gifts are not practiced regularly or at all, does my lack of personal experience mold any of your personal worldview?
10:17: Or I would also include my theology. And Dan and I both agreed, unfortunately, our circumstances influence how we think, how we view things.
10:31: And step number one in... Did you mean our as in yours and mine or ours as in humans?
10:40: Humans. Human beings. If you're a human being, you have life experience and it's going to influence you.
10:47: We can't avoid that. We can't help that. So the answer to that question is yes, with this caveat, number one step in going in the right direction is recognizing that truth.
10:59: Because we want to go to the objective source of truth, which
11:04: God has revealed in scripture. That's His revelation of truth to us in His Son and in His Word.
11:12: And so recognizing that we have been influenced, we have life experiences, we want to set them aside so that we don't let that influence our interpretation of scripture.
11:31: We can minimize our experience as influence. Yeah. Yeah. Keep us from error.
11:38: And I even want to do that with some of the doctrines that I believe. If I'm trying to understand this conversation, it was
11:47: Thursday on the Labors podcast and we were looking at a passage of scripture and I'm like, I don't want my post -millennialism to influence or me try to squeeze a meaning into this text that helps lean toward or support post -millennialism because I'm a post -millennialist.
12:10: I want to read it and hear it and understand it for what it is and what it's saying and not let my doctrine or beliefs influence that interpretation.
12:20: So that's where we start. We recognize those things. With that being said, I think
12:30: Paul here in Corinthians slightly speaks to that.
12:36: And again, I'm not trying to squeeze something in there that's not there, but it's that verse that says in verse 28 of chapter 14, but if there is no interpreter, he must keep silent in the church and let him speak to himself and to God.
12:52: So it seems like Paul is indicating that there may be situations where there's no speaking.
13:08: If you don't have somebody speaking in tongues, then you don't need an interpreter.
13:14: But if you have somebody speaking in tongues and there's not an interpreter, then there's going to be silence there as well.
13:21: So it seems like there are situations where if one of those things are not present, there's going to be silence in the form of tongues and prophecy or tongues and interpretation.
13:35: And I don't think that he's saying that's unbiblical for that scenario to take place.
13:41: If they're not there, they're not there. You know, what he's saying is don't force something because you're going to have, and he's explained it, the person that doesn't have an interpreter, he's not going to be edified.
13:55: He's not going to be able to say amen or give praise or glorify God with you because they don't know what you're saying. And so he explains why you don't do these things.
14:06: So I guess I say all that to say that if these things can continue until today,
14:16: I don't think Paul is saying that it's unbiblical, not possible for you to be in a scenario where there's not tongues and not interpretation.
14:29: And it's not unbiblical for that scenario to take place. Does that, I know that was a lot, but does that make sense a little bit?
14:37: So are you saying it wouldn't be unbiblical for tongues to have ceased? Correct.
14:45: Yeah. I agree. I don't know. But that's kind of the whole debate, isn't it?
14:51: It is. Yeah. Yeah. Because I don't think any of the continuation, well, continuations that we are in on our network, folks on our network,
15:05: I don't think any of them would say that from time to time, you should just be quiet.
15:15: Because from time to time, people need to be quiet. I think that they're all pretty much on board with it being decently in an order.
15:22: They would just push back to say that just because sometimes things should be quiet doesn't mean that all the time things should be quiet.
15:32: But I see your point that you're saying that just because those things may not take place doesn't mean that something is necessarily missing because it's not a necessary element of worship in order for worship to have said to be taking place.
15:50: That's right. That's right. And he may not have meant it this way, but that question could be taken in a negative light because you grew up or you were in a scenario where these things aren't present.
16:06: Like you said, you missed out. Because you missed out is that influencing how you interpret scripture?
16:14: Sure. On the flip side, the question could be because you grew up in an environment where you do believe that tongues was exercised on a regular basis, does that influence your interpretation of scripture?
16:29: The answer would obviously be yes, but we try to minimize how much that influence happens.
16:39: I mean, the same thing happens. I've heard of several pastors, and this is not anywhere related at all.
16:45: So several pastors have come out recently saying they're now in favor of the
16:51: LGBTQ community, saying that it's no longer sinful. They're in favor of gay marriage, stuff like that.
16:59: And when you go and talk to them later, it's because a son, daughter, or someone close to them has entered into that community, entered into that lifestyle.
17:11: And so they've rethought their position based on their experience. So that was an instance where their experience has dictated their thought process when
17:23: I don't see how you get that from scripture. So it could happen to anyone.
17:28: We try to minimize that, I think is what we're getting at. Yeah. And something that you mentioned just a few seconds ago, talking about those of us in our group and how close we are on this issue, even those of us who are cessationists and those who are continuationists in our group, we're tight knit, especially on the foundation, the essentials.
17:54: And we're really close even on this issue. But you talk about how they would agree that things need to be done decently in order.
18:01: And that goes back to something I was saying in the previous episode. You can't just take one verse, in particular, the verse that says, oh, we need to desire all the more.
18:16: We need to desire earnestly for these gifts so that they're in abundance in my life.
18:24: They're in abundance in the church. And Paul's like, whoa, pump the brakes. That's not what
18:30: I'm saying at all. Here's what it looks like. And we touched on that in the previous episode.
18:37: That's why you look at the whole chapter. That's why you look at the whole book so that you see the reigns and you see the boundaries, the bumper guards.
18:47: Yes, these exist. Yes, desire them. But this is their use and this is their usefulness.
18:56: Right. And the way that they are manifested is by the
19:01: Spirit at the Spirit's discretion. Absolutely. Absolutely. So basically, the argument is over, is the mind of the
19:12: Holy Spirit to allow gifts to continue today or not? I don't know. Maybe we all ought to take a step back and be a little humble to say,
19:22: I definitely know the mind of God when maybe he hasn't revealed it as strongly as we think he has.
19:32: With that said, I've got a pretty strong argument. Oh, man.
19:38: Kind of set myself up there, didn't I? Let's hear that strong argument. All right. So obviously, with more humility than that was,
19:53: I think I got to backtrack some. In verse 20 of 1
20:03: Corinthians 14, it starts telling the people of the
20:09: Corinthian church to be mature in their thinking, to be infants in evil. So be low on evil, be strong in your mind and in your thinking.
20:21: And then he takes them back to Isaiah. He takes them back to Isaiah, he shows them that one of the signs to a people who have rejected the gospel, a
20:31: Jewish people who have rejected the gospel, Ephraim and Jerusalem, he's telling them one of the signs that they have missed the rest that has been promised to them is that they will hear people speaking in foreign lips, foreign tongues, and that will be a sign to them that the gospel, the
20:52: Messiah that they've been awaiting, the gospel that is foretold to them has passed them by because they've rejected it.
21:00: Now, on the flip side, prophecy then is spoken. There's a bug.
21:06: Prophecy is spoken then in order to bring a people to faith.
21:13: So he's saying that that is the purpose there. Now, tongues is also brought up when we see it in action in the
21:26: Bible. We see it in action in the book of Acts. The book of Acts chapter 2 says this in verse 14,
21:41: But Peter, standing with the 11, so the other apostles, even the new one,
21:52: Matthias, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my word.
22:00: So listen up and understand this. For these people are not drunk because the flames of fire came and rested on them.
22:10: They all started speaking in a language that wasn't their own. And people heard them and they were mocking them saying, these are drunk.
22:16: He's like, no, that's not anywhere close to what's happening because we're speaking in languages that people know, which is we don't know them.
22:23: We're all from Galilee or around. He says, these people are not drunk as you suppose.
22:29: It's only the third hour of day. It's only 9 a .m. Give us a break. We're not drunk, but we're not still drunk from the night before.
22:36: We're making sense. But instead, this was uttered through the prophet Joel. And so when
22:43: Joel speaks, Joel says this, and in the last days, it shall be.
23:00: Now, the new covenant fully takes over. There's a little bit of a transition period there.
23:08: In the last days, it shall be, God declares, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.
23:23: Now I'm going to get into the rest of this, but real quick, if you jump down into verse 22, after he gets done quoting
23:32: Joel, he says, men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst.
23:44: As you yourselves know, this Jesus was delivered up according to a definite foreknowledge, a definite plan of foreknowledge of God to be crucified by the hands of lawlessness.
23:55: He told them that Joel spoke of this and that they killed
24:03: Jesus. He also told them that these words here were something that was fulfilled to them in their day.
24:15: So you've heard this. This is what Joel was talking about when he said this.
24:20: So when you hear these tongues, when you hear the prophecy in your own language, when people who don't speak those languages, when they're speaking in tongues and you hear the word of God, you hear a prophecy, you're hearing it.
24:33: And later on, many of them turn and believe because well, they understood the language, but it was still the gift of tongues.
24:42: That was what Joel was talking about when he said, he's going to pour out his spirit on all your sons and daughters will prophesy.
24:48: It says even on my male and female servants, verse 18, in those days will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy.
24:55: And I will show wonders in heavens above and signs on the earth below and blood and fire and vapor of smoke.
25:04: The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes the great and magnificent day.
25:12: And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. So you have two things going on here.
25:20: I mean, you got a lot of things going on here, but you have a prophesying to a people of a different language that Jesus is
25:32: Lord. He says down here, he tells them later, you've crucified God, crucified
25:39: Jesus, according to the definite foreknowledge of God. And later on, they believe he calls them to repent.
25:46: So you've got a proclamation of the gospel and prophecy, but also you have tongues being spoken.
25:53: And like it says in Isaiah 28, that is going to be assigned to these people that the gospel that was proclaimed to them has been missed.
26:03: The Messiah that's supposed to give them rest has been rejected. And it wasn't just rejected by them.
26:09: It was rejected by them, by them killing the Christ that was going to bring salvation. Now, here's the thing that could be a continual thing throughout, except you hear this language, and this is the second portion.
26:31: Verse 19, I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire, vapor of smoke.
26:39: The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes. And it shall be come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the
26:48: Lord shall be saved. That's speaking of judgment upon a nation.
26:53: I know some people want to take that language and throw it to the end of the world. However, in Isaiah, the prophet
27:01: Isaiah uses that same language in a much different way when he's talking about the nation of Babylon.
27:09: Behold, the day of the Lord comes, speaking of the day when God's visiting a people in judgment, comes cruel with wrath and fierce fire to make the land a desolation and to destroy its centers from it.
27:22: For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be dark and it's rising.
27:28: The moon will not shed its light. I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity.
27:35: I will put an end to the pomp and the arrogant. I will lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.
27:41: So what you have there in Isaiah is showing that the signs of the heavens being destroyed is a symbol that God uses in prophecy to show that a nation is going to be destroyed.
27:57: Now you have it here in Joel. You have it there in Isaiah. You also have it being spoken of by Jesus in Matthew 24, where I know a lot of people want to push that off into the future as well, even though Jesus says all these things will take place before this generation passes away.
28:18: And then the same generation that crucified Christ, here's the same warning of blood, fire, smoke, vapor, blood, the day of the
28:25: Lord coming upon them in judgment. Now in Joel, it says it,
28:32: I think it's a little bit more full. Joel 2 verse 30.
28:38: And I will show wonders in heavens and on the earth, blood, fire, columns of smoke.
28:43: The sun shall be turned to darkness and moon to blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the
28:51: Lord shall be saved. Then we've heard all that before back here in Acts, but then it goes on for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, there shall be those who escape.
29:05: So clearly that can't be a full on destruction of the entire earth because some people are going to escape.
29:12: And if the stars fall on you and the moon turns to blood and everything falls on the earth and crushes it, people can't escape that.
29:20: However, it says people from Mount Zion and Jerusalem should be those who escape as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the
29:31: Lord calls. So he's talking about a destruction of, I believe, Mount Zion and Jerusalem, of the temple of God in Jerusalem, the city.
29:42: So I say all that to say this, here in 1
29:48: Corinthians, when he says that tongues are assigned for the unbeliever, it's assigned for the unbelieving
29:55: Jew that they have missed their Messiah, that the rest that has come to them is no longer, that it's there, but they have to crucify the
30:08: Lord of glory. And it's assigned to them in order to get them to repent, to recognize this is what
30:14: Isaiah said, this is the judgment that's coming, and we need to look ahead. What do we do? And like Peter says, repent of your sins, be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, and know
30:27: Christ as your Savior. So the purpose of tongues then, I believe, would have ceased when the, because the purpose was to show people to repent of their sin, to turn to the
30:40: Messiah that they'd missed, that they'd rejected. Because judgment's coming.
30:47: Because judgment's coming. So at the time of judgment, that sign is no longer necessary, because the call to repent, everyone has a call to repent today, as Hebrew says, the day is today.
31:05: But that call for a national Israel to repent went by the wayside as they were judged in 70
31:14: AD. Now, I still believe because of places like Romans 11 and other things, that there is going to be a great coming back of the
31:22: Jewish nation. We can discuss that later, but I believe that Jews everywhere will come to the knowledge of the gospel, and that they will turn to Christ and reject their old ways.
31:36: But I think that between what
31:41: Paul says, Joel, Isaiah, Peter, and Jesus, I think all of that together would say that the purpose of tongues, of calling a
31:54: Jewish people to repent of the rejection of their Messiah, has ceased. And so therefore the normative manifestation of the gift of tongues would have passed away because it was no longer necessary.
32:08: Right, right. And there are several other passages, I had them wrote down at one time, but there's several other passages in the
32:15: Old Testament that confirm that tongues, foreign tongues, are a sign of judgment.
32:22: Sure. A sign of judgment to come. And Dan just gave us a very clear and good explanation of why in other episodes where we talked about these things, that I've presented that tongues are a sign of judgment.
32:40: And a very good argument why they would cease because their purpose had been fulfilled.
32:48: Right. I just don't see that anywhere in chapters 12 or 13 of First Corinthians.
32:57: But that's where you were talking previously, how you saw in 14.
33:02: Right. In 14, I see a connection point. I still don't think that's the purpose of First Corinthians 14.
33:12: It's not to show that they've ceased. But when you look at all the data that is being brought out,
33:19: I think it's a fairly strong case that the purpose of them has been fulfilled.
33:26: And so we shouldn't expect to see it all the time. Now, like we said, the Holy Spirit can do whatever He wants to. He can reach out to whoever, whenever, in whatever means
33:35: He sees fit. But the purpose that caused them to be so widespread in the first century,
33:40: I believe, has ceased. Yeah. Well, I believe that's why many other times in other places that the reason
33:49: He isn't explaining a certain doctrine, I mean, He's talking about something else, but He's including different doctrines in it, but He's not explaining those other doctrines.
34:01: It's because they are probably implied and understood by the original audience, where we have to do some digging and we have to learn a little bit of first century
34:12: Jewish culture to be able to understand what they understood when they were being spoken to.
34:18: I don't have to explain this to them because they understand this. I don't know if that argument works too well in First Corinthians.
34:27: They didn't understand much. Well, correct. Right. But as far as making references to their culture and things that they should have understood because of their tradition and culture, we don't know those things like they did.
34:46: Sure. And so those things that He may not be explaining more in depth, we need to go more in depth on because it was implied because of an understanding that His current audience probably had that we don't have.
35:07: And you're right. Because of their blindness, there's a lot of things that they missed, just like you were talking about.
35:14: They missed the sign. Yeah. Which makes me think that if they were this far off on the gifts that they needed, three chapters to set them straight,
35:23: I don't know as if they understood that they were going to cease like that. Yeah. So that's highly possible.
35:31: So I think when he said back there that tongues will cease and prophecy will cease, the thing is just trying to say, you know, at some point these things are going away.
35:40: So, you know, one day basically you're saying one day you're going to die and you need the stuff that's going to last faith, hope, and love, repent, believe, trust in the gospel, and find
35:50: Christ to be your perfect Savior. Right. Right. And that's at least, at the very least, a good middle ground for both parties,
36:03: I think. Sure. Good middle ground. And I really appreciate how you explain
36:11: Acts and you explain Joel, and it does touch on our eschatology some, or a lot.
36:21: More hermeneutical methodology. Hermeneutics. Because there's some other folks who, other camps who can be partial preterists as well.
36:33: Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I think the point that I wanted to make in saying that is kind of the point that we were trying to make at the beginning of this episode is that we need humility.
36:47: And it's highly possible that you as a listener, you as a viewer of this episode, you were brought up just like I was in a church, in a scenario where the pre -millennial dispensational view, pre -trib rapture view was predominant, was actually taught as the only view.
37:11: And I had never even heard of any other views. So that's the only view that you'd ever heard of. And that's the only view that I'd ever heard of.
37:20: So I was in Bible college. Yeah, exactly. And so we come to scripture like that.
37:29: That's our predominant view. That's how we were influenced. And so with humility, we ask ourselves to approach this conversation.
37:37: And we would ask you as somebody who's listening to us and watching us to come to it with humility as well.
37:44: Because Dan was just trying to let scripture interpret scripture in his explanation.
37:52: These are the references to the Old Testament. Dan went beyond because that's how, that's one of the things that they would have done that we don't necessarily do.
38:04: Here in Acts chapter two, here's the passage that was quoted or Jesus on the cross.
38:13: He quotes this one little text, but he's referencing the whole passage instead of just that one text.
38:24: And so that's why Dan, when he references these quotes from the Old Testament, he helps us to understand the context of the whole passage and not just that smaller passage or smaller verses that are specifically referenced.
38:40: So that we get an understanding of the context of the whole meaning of the quote or the reason for the reference.
38:46: And when Dan did that, you hear why we believe in impartial preterism.
38:56: Why we believe the day of the Lord is the day of judgment that was leading up to the culmination on 70
39:03: AD. I hope you can see that's why we get what we get because we are trying to let scripture interpret scripture.
39:11: Scripture teach us what God is wanting us to know and not letting our end times theology that we grew up with influence what scripture says.
39:24: And we would only humbly ask that you would do that as well. So I appreciate what you did there,
39:31: Dan, and teaching us on that. It was really good. Really, really good. I'm sorry for our audio only listeners, thumbs up.
39:38: I'm sorry. And Dan, you were talking about the gospel earlier and our common ground.
39:50: Lead us in that gospel message one more time. Yeah, absolutely.
39:56: So the whole purpose of all these things we're dealing with, you know, the gifts of the spirit is because God has done something incredible in the world.
40:07: He has taken sin and destroyed it. And he did so through the person of Jesus Christ.
40:13: He took the sins of men. He put them on himself. He went to the cross and died.
40:19: He went to the grave and then defeated it too. Rose three days later and sits at the right hand of the father, giving gifts to his people, calling sons and daughters to himself, righting the wrongs and relationships between God and man and forgiving the sins of those who deserve condemnation and death.
40:41: So when we talk about these things as a common ground between different camps of Christianity, we absolutely mean that this is what we really, truly care about.
40:53: Now, once we agree on those things, we can fight the rest out as brothers trying to make each sharper, brighter, smarter, more in love with our
41:05: God than we were before. We can truly grow together and edify one another, which is the whole purpose of the spiritual gifts in the first place, to take the forgiveness and love and adoption of Christ and see it made into fruit in one another.
41:25: So we also call out to those who don't know
41:31: Christ, who may have not heard the message of the gospel before or never believed it before.
41:36: You may be hearing of all this language of judgment or reconciliation, or you don't even know half of what
41:44: I said, but you know that something is amiss, something is wrong. And that is exactly what we're talking about, that Christ died for our sins, that he rose again, and that in him, we find him to be a perfect savior, a wonderful brother.
42:01: And he brings us to a loving father who gives us eternal life. That is our
42:06: God, and that is the gospel. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for working in us and opening up our eyes to help us to see our need for you, need for forgiveness, need to turn, need to repent, need to submit, and our need to glorify you.
42:33: Thank you for humbling our hearts. And Father, we plead with you that you would keep us humble so that as we approach scripture where there is disagreement, we may listen with an open ear so that we can be conformed to your likeness, to truth, to your knowledge, and not what we want the word to say.
43:08: And so, Father, I pray that for Dan and I, as much as I pray that for all of us who believe, because we stand firm on your son and the truth of the gospel, and we pray that you would help us to grow in that truth as we have these discussions and disagreements.
43:33: So, Father, we pray that you would use our meager efforts and make them great so that you can be glorified.
43:41: In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you so much for watching the Truth in Love podcast. Again, we hope that what we do is helpful and edifying for you.
43:51: If it is, let us know that you're watching. Tell us hello. Give us a critique.
43:57: Ask a question. Hit that share button. We would really appreciate it. As always, remember that Jesus is our
44:03: King. Go live in that victory. Speak with his authority. Amen.