The Alcoholics Anonymous Cult & Addiction

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Non -rockabodas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it!

00:07

Are you going to bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite? We're being delusional. Delusional?

00:14

Delusional is okay in your worldview. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional.

00:21

So you calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt. Is he hung up on me?

00:32

Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

00:44

Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Don't go into the world and make homies.

00:52

Disciples. I got a bit of a jibberwack. That's a joke, pastor.

00:59

When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

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If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

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Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

01:41

When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory. That's Colossians chapter 3 verses 1 through 4, y 'all.

01:50

Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. You can get more at ApologiaStudios .com.

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04:52

Very exciting things today on the show. We're going to be talking about Alcohol Anonymous The Cult.

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I know many of you are already angry. Yep, I just saw some. I already know.

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I want to just say let me just ask you humbly be willing to hear us out. I would love to hear your arguments for Alcoholics Anonymous and I'd be willing to reason through those with you, but just be willing to hear us out.

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I know many of you guys came out of addiction. You may have gone to 12 -step groups and you're still going and you're still calling yourself an addict.

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I think that's a problem. We're going to talk a bit about that today on the show. We're going to reason through stuff.

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We're going to go through scripture. We're going to compare scripture to the 12 Steps. The big book. All that. We're going to go through the 12

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Steps. We're even going to touch a bit on Celebrate Recovery, which is supposed to be the Christian version of the 12 Steps.

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So we're going to talk about that and all I would do is ask you to please keep an open mind and an open heart.

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Be humble enough to listen to our arguments and then we'll move on from there. So we are going to talk about Alcoholics Anonymous today and biblical approach to addiction.

05:57

Let's call it that. But just some announcements real fast. Things to be praying about. End abortion now.

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Big things happening. I want to encourage you guys. I know you hear us talking about it a lot. You need to know what God has done.

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Over 6 ,000 babies saved last year just through the churches and the coalition. The churches who have started with us got free training and free resources.

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Over 6 ,000 babies. That is a way underestimated number. There's no way to fully tell how many babies are actually saved.

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These are confirmed saves. Over 6 ,000 saves. We're looking at about 8 babies per day saved because of your partnership with End Abortion Now.

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So all glory to God for that. I don't want to neglect announcing that to everybody who has given and prayed and been a part of this ministry with us since the very beginning.

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That is a very, very big deal. About 800 churches now. Free training. Free resources.

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They're out now. Thousands of hours a month between all of them preaching the gospel at abortion mills.

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So glory to God for that. And as we've announced last year, we got bills started of equal protection and abolition criminalization in a couple states.

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We had Arizona, Texas, South Carolina, Pennsylvania. We helped the guys in Oklahoma as well. This year we did a video where I had said in front of the

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Supreme Court that we were working on I think five states for next year. Right now we have 16 states. Possibly 17.

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Possibly 17 states we're working on. We've got confirmation from a bunch of these legislators that they're putting it in.

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This is going to be a very big year for us. This is unprecedented to have the church across the country working so consistently on this issue.

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And for us to be able to actually work with these legislators to get this into these states, it's going to be

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Lord willing an amazing year. So praise God first and foremost. And if you would, help us.

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Some of you guys are like, I can't go to the abortion mill. I can't do this. I can't do that. I understand. Some of us have providential hindrances to do certain ministries.

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But what you can do is you can help. You can give. All this has happened because people just like you gave.

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And we have a $250 ,000 matching donation. We are almost there at matching that donation.

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We have a total budget for the year, but we have a very generous gift from a friend who wants to have a $250 ,000 donation matched.

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And that is happening right now. You can go to endabortionnow .com forward slash donate.

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Endabortionnow .com forward slash donate to give towards that. Help us to get to our budget goal. It's going to be a busy year.

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And most of all beyond that, please, please pray. Please pray for us. Please pray for this year.

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It's going to be extraordinarily busy with this, and we are so happy and so grateful for it. It's going to be a lot of work.

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It's going to be a heck of a lot of work for our team, for Joy, for Luke, for me, for our entire Apologia Studios staff and End Abortion Now staff.

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It's very busy to do this. It's difficult to do this stuff and to pull it off well. We want to do it well. So pray for us.

08:49

That's what we need. We need your prayers. Am I missing anything else that's big on the horizon for the moment?

08:56

No. Let's get to it. We've started off 22 with a real bang. It's been tough.

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Crazy week. Already. But let's get to it. Focusing on the issue before us, we are talking about Alcoholics Anonymous cult.

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As I said, I know, and we know, because we've been doing this for a long time. We know that that is highly offensive to so many people.

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We know that there are faithful brothers and sisters in the Lord who find that claim highly offensive.

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I know that some of you watching this right now, because I've sat in front of many of you, and I've even listened to many of you writing letters to us, making comments to us.

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I know that you are extremely upset with me right now for saying that. It's like I've stepped on something that is very meaningful to you.

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It's almost like we're melting down an idol. And I would just ask again that you hear us out.

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So let's talk a bit about history. We planted Apologia Church while I was the head chaplain at the oldest addiction recovery hospital in the state of Arizona.

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It's one of the most renowned addiction facilities, really, in the country. People fly out every day to come to this place.

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It is 24 hours a day. It's a full -time medical staff, nurses, therapists, and it's a professional detox facility, so you will go there and get medical treatment and detox.

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We had people in throes of very serious addiction to opiates and to benzodiazepines and alcohol and all the rest.

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People that could have died had they not come in. It was a professional addiction recovery hospital.

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I was there, because it started as a Christian addiction recovery hospital. I was there, and I ran the

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Christian program. There was the secular treatment program, which was AA, and then there was the

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Christian track, and that was mine. They gave me total freedom to do anything I wanted, and so I saw countless people come to Christ out of drug and alcohol addiction through what happened at that hospital.

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We planted Apologia Church while I was already a pastor at another church here in Phoenix. We planted

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Apologia Church because so many of those people needed long -term discipleship and care more than the 30 days that they had with me.

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Many of these people traveled to the state from other states, but many of them lived locally. It became very clear through a lot of prayer and a lot of providence, and I won't share that story now, that God was calling us to plant the church, and so we did.

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When we planted Apologia Church, it was me, my family, Luke, his family, which was just a pregnant wife at the time, and it was

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Joy. That was the planting team of Apologia Church.

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We planted at the hospital in their family building.

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We used the facility Tuesday nights, Thursday nights, and Sunday evenings to do worship services.

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We started our first day. We're almost having our 12 -year anniversary. End of February, 12 years of Apologia as a church plant.

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We started in the family building. It's a really small space. Air conditioning didn't work, so that made summer very hard for us.

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Our first night that we did service there on a Sunday, end of February, 2010, there were probably 10 people present in the room, and I think everybody in the room was still on detox medication, many of them in halfway houses.

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I can only think of one that wasn't actually in a halfway house. That's to my recollection.

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That's how we started. So, if you were to come to Apologia Church early on, we said this often, we were known as That Drug Church, and I'd like to have you guys speak to this, too, just sort of give everyone a feeling of what was it like early on at Apologia Church, because we're very different now.

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If you came to Apologia Church today, you would see families everywhere, children everywhere, and you'd never know where he came from.

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I'll leave it to you guys. If you could paint a picture to everyone, what was Apologia Church like at the very beginning in terms of addiction and all that?

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Well, one thing we always joke about is that you had to walk through a cloud of cigarette smoke to get into the church.

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We actually had to ask everyone to not smoke right outside the door, because it would come in with them.

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Yeah. Which we'll get into, I mean, idolatry and all that at some point.

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The cigarettes ended up becoming an idol for a lot of people. That's a whole other story. Yeah. On one hand, it was really cool, because brand new baby

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Christians never been to church, didn't come with any preconceived notions of what church should look like, so we were able to say this is what we think church should look like.

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This is the kind of church culture we're going to establish. It was a very transparent church culture.

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Also, had to say stop wearing your booty shorts a few times, I think. Yeah. Also had to say that.

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So that side of it was cool, because they were like, all right, great, let's do this. So we were able to develop this really cool church culture.

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Then on the other hand, it was really, really difficult, having to rescue people off the street in the middle of the night.

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I know you've got all kinds of stories trying to locate people. Like you said, people live in halfway houses, no jobs, so there was zero scrilla for a while.

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So that was challenging. Some amazing worship, that's for sure.

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Nothing like worshiping with a bunch of brand new baby Christians out of addiction who are just totally on fire for God and just transparent and open and just like, they don't care.

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That made worship pretty amazing. I think that in the vein of where this conversation is going,

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I think what it revealed is that it's tremendously helpful for people to have a community that is small and close -knit and everyone can drop what they're doing and attend to one another and be with one another and be held accountable and be counseled and taught.

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It's like nothing I've ever been a part of ever. There was a lot of intimacy.

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And not a lot of pretending that everything was okay when it wasn't and really just getting to know people at their darkest, really really meeting with people who were actively trying to not do sin instead of, which sounds crazy, that I don't know,

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I grew up in church so it seems weird that I had to wait until I was 20 or 21 to really see that happening but it's so up close and yeah, like I said,

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I guess just helpful. There was a reason why it was it was

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I mean, people came and they weren't going anywhere because I think it was even just in terms of addiction, we'll talk about all this, but it was effective.

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Yeah, very. Everyone was able to be honest. That's what I loved. It was refreshing to have somebody come in, and this happened to Luke and I a lot, more times than I can remember, to have somebody come in and come to worship, hear the word, be totally challenged, and then come up to you afterwards and hand you a bag of pills to say,

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I was about to go I was about to lose it tonight, and I bought a bunch of ecstasy, or I bought this heroin or whatever, coke or cocaine or here's this bottle of Perks that I got, and to have them come up afterwards, they were so affected by the word of God and worship and fellowship of God's people that they were just able to honestly come to their pastors and say, hey,

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I almost blew it tonight and went back here, and then we would go to the toilet together and we would do a little worship ceremony and we would toss it as an act of putting your idol to death and onward.

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It was refreshing. It was refreshing even for me, for us as pastors of course being in church for such a long time and being in fellowship, good solid churches, but it was refreshing too just to be in a place that was like, no one here is trying to put on a face.

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It's like, yeah, I just had a needle in my arm two days ago found me almost dead in the bathroom, sort of a thing, and everyone's like, oh man, praise

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God. People still had track marks on their arms at times. You could still see the wounds.

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It was fresh. People were trying to get their kids back from Child Protective Services.

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Just like a lot of brokenness people were trying to deal with the consequences of the things they've done.

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So in a weird way, not struggling with some of maybe your more like common typical church issues, but obviously then dealing with some issues that were just very intense.

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Yeah, there were some intense moments for sure. So okay, so Christopher says here in the feed, he says,

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I think there are worse organizations that we can spend our energy and time rebuking than AA. Great. Let me ask you a question about that.

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And again, humbly, just try to receive this with humility. Would you say that about Mormonism? Would you say that about the

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Watchtower Bible and Tract Society? Would you say that about the

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Rosicrucians, Islam? Would you say that about them? I'm going to take a guess here what your answer might be.

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It might be, well no, those are like false religions. They need the gospel. And then

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I would say, that's my argument against AA. It's exactly that. It is a false religion.

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It is a Christless system, and it is a false message of hope and salvation.

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They need the gospel there. Yeah. And I want to just say, Luke and Joy and I were talking about this before we actually came on today.

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I was just saying that, okay, so not to belabor it, you can see my testimony elsewhere, it doesn't matter.

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My testimony is not important here, but I came out of drug and alcohol addiction to Christ, and when

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I did, I immediately began the process of discipleship, of being discipled, of having people around me, having accountability around me, and I began to go after all the areas of my life that were leading me to the addiction, whether it was the alcohol, the ecstasy, the coke, or the marijuana, whatever the thing was.

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It was something there, and I could see that this is truly a spiritual foundation to this. It's rebellion first and foremost, it's idolatry, but I'm going to these things for something, whether it's pleasure, loneliness, guilt and shame, whatever it is.

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And so I went through this process of sanctification out of drug and alcohol addiction, I went through it with just straight

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Christian discipleship. I didn't go to AA, I didn't ever research AA, I knew that what was happening within me was sin, and it was rebellion, and I knew that the

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Word of God had every possible remedy to make me complete and make me whole, in all these different areas which lead people to addiction.

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So when I was asked to take over chapel one night at this hospital, I didn't know what it was, and I discovered when

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I got there, oh my goodness, this place is running 24 hours a day with a bunch of addicts. I looked into the face of myself that night in that room with all these addicts, and I knew what they needed.

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They needed the Gospel, they needed Christ, they needed to be made alive and new with new hearts, and they needed to be discipled.

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And so that's what got me into it. So when they actually asked me to be the head chaplain over their Christian program,

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I'm entering into this thing, and they're going, I'm like, well, what can I do? Like, what is this exactly?

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They're like, well, they were like, you're the pastor, we don't know this field, because they lost their chaplain.

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They said, we have a Christian program, people fly here every day for it, so you do the

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Christian program. And so, admittedly, totally, I have to confess, I was just like, sitting in the office they gave me one day, and I was like, just going, alright, so I have to figure out a way to in 30 days minister to addicts that are going to be detoxing.

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Many of them, they don't know Christ, I've got to get them the gospel, they turn to Christ, then we have to work discipleship within 30 days.

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So I'm like thinking through this, and then I'm like, well, what's done here? They have a secular program, AA, and then the

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Christian track, mine. And so I'm like, give me everything you've got on AA. So they gave me the big book, they gave me all the folders, they gave me everything on AA.

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They gave me, I had to watch Pleasure Unwoven, one of the most popular things on the disease model of addiction,

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I watched that whole thing, it was playing constantly at that place, and I start researching

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AA, and I'm looking at it going, how does this play out? So what did I do? I start going to the meetings.

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They're happening all day, and so I go to the meetings, the AA meetings, and I'm sitting in these rooms, with my mouth shut, in the back, while these people hold these meetings, and everyone's standing up saying,

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Hi, I'm Bill, I'm an alcoholic, I'm a pill addict, I'm a coke addict, I'm a sex addict, whatever the case may be.

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I am, I am, I am. And then I'm watching them, the therapists who are running the

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AA groups, I'm watching them take people through the first step, the second step, and so I'll give you some examples here, everyone, as you're listening, maybe you're not familiar with this field.

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It says first step, right? You've got to get through the first step in AA. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.

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And I thought to myself, like as I'm thinking through this, I'm like, okay, it's not really the problem, that your life is just unmanageable, okay.

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Step two, step two. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to, ready, sanity.

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Now obviously, the twelve steps have gone over, have undergone some revision, let's say over the last generation, that's acknowledged, right, that's fine.

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But these are the AA steps people are doing today, this is what you're going to get, right? So, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves, go ahead.

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Upon investigating this previously, a decade ago, you came across these same issues.

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Yeah. So I'm doing this, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, and I'm going, okay, from a

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Christian perspective, I can't do this. I can't take people through these steps because that's not the problem.

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It's not that you're just needing a restoration of sanity, and it's not just some power greater than yourselves that you need to be restored to sanity.

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Your problem is sin, your relationship with God is broken, you are a rebel against God, you are fallen, you need salvation and forgiveness of sins, you need peace with God.

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That's the Christian message, for goodness sakes. And it's true about the addict, it's true about the liar, it's true about the adulterer, and the murderer, and the thief, and the prideful, and the envious, go down the list.

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We don't have a special 12 step program just for the envious. The problem is sin, and you need peace with God.

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I said this a lot, this is what really bothered me. Jesus never sat people down, like say for the Sermon on the

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Mount, most famous sermon in history. He doesn't sit people down and go okay, everyone, before I get started here, can

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I have all my drunkards, you sit over here in this group, and anybody struggling with adultery, you sit in this group over here, all my liars in this group over here, it never happened.

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You're not going to find it anywhere in Scripture. Sort of dividing people up by their pet sins or their idols.

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You have a mass of humanity, all guilty, all needing the same redemption and salvation.

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The problem is the same for all of us, but interestingly, AA goes a different route here.

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What really started messing with me was I'd be in these rooms, and this is where I would really like you to humbly hear me, if you are really upset with me right now.

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I sat in these rooms, countless of these meetings, and I can't tell you how many times

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I was ready to stand up, and just pull my hair out, because I watched these people being led into false religion and idolatry in the room.

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Okay, everyone, you've got to believe you have power in yourselves to restore you to sanity. For somebody like, I'm agnostic, I'm atheist,

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I don't believe in that. That's okay. That's okay. Just as long as you believe that it's some power outside of yourself that can restore you to sanity.

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That power could be your family. That power could be the doorknob. I mean, that's the famous one, right?

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Everyone says, oh, the doorknob. That power could be electricity. As long as you are looking outside of yourself to something that'll restore you to sanity.

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Right? And they'll give you the definition. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing every day, expecting a different result.

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That's insanity. So that's what I need restoration from? Right? That just because I'm doing the same thing every day, expecting a different result?

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Well, that's the kind of thing I heard. I'm just sitting there as the pastor, and I've kept my mouth shut for the sake of the Christian program.

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I didn't want to get fired. I wanted to collect all these people, bring them to my room, which is what I worked on for four years full -time.

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And God bless that. And so, I want you to hear this. When you hear me saying cult, false religion, false message of salvation, false teaching,

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I want you to know it's not just me, you know, just not liking AA and the big book, and I don't like 12 steps sort of thing.

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I'm telling you, and I'll debate you on it. You wouldn't be able to survive a debate with the

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Bible in one hand and the 12 steps in the other, and tell me that it's Christian. You cannot do it.

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It's an idolatrous system at the core. It is a, it adopts the myth of neutrality when you talk about things like celebrate recovery in many ways.

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It is a system that has an authority over here that says, this is the problem, here's how we solve it. And here is the way you work out these religious principles.

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Because they are religious principles. Listen to them. A power greater than yourself. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood

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Him. Ah, there it is. As we understood Him. In other words, any God goes in 12 steps.

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And if you deny that, you are unfamiliar with this field, or if you've been in this realm, you're lying.

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Because you know that a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him is something that's adopted in these groups.

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You'll have a group, heck, there's a meeting that meets less than three minutes from here, like every single day.

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It's a huge group. And that room is just filled with people who get to have any God they want.

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Any God they want. And so the system itself is unbiblical, it is Christless, crossless, redemptionless, forgivenessless, because it's devoid of Jesus.

28:06

It's completely devoid of Jesus. So you guys speak to that, because we're going to move on in terms of really unpacking it. Yeah, without getting too much into detail,

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I want to say that we've lost count of how many people that have come through our addiction program and stuff.

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Which isn't really a program so much, we'll get into that. I hate programs.

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But the point is, I've lost count of how many people were ex -addicts, came to Christ, put their addiction to death, and said, you know what,

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I spent the last 5, 10, 15, 20 years in AA, and it was the same thing over and over again, and I came to Christ and it was done.

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We just talked to someone the other day, we had no idea, we weren't even having that conversation with them.

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And he just said, I went through all the AA stuff and it didn't work, and I came to Jesus and it was gone.

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Didn't know Christ, now I do. And so that's just from personal testimony on our end, just to see why this is so important.

29:11

Yeah. And what I was alluding to earlier, I guess, is that we acknowledge the necessity for community, fellowship, accountability, counsel.

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So we acknowledge the practical benefits of a program like AA or NA, or Celebrate Recovery.

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That's not the conversation that we're trying to have here. And it, to me, makes sense that secularists would attempt to offer something like that.

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Because they're made in God's image. Right, yes, exactly. And obviously, it makes sense that I mean,

29:54

I guess I just want to point out that a lot of times, when you talk about the addiction model, or even just psychology in general, sort of the standard for like, if it's a problem, is it affecting your daily life?

30:07

And we can all agree that things like active drug and alcohol use just rampant, it affects your life much more than maybe envy.

30:19

But that's it's not different. It's easier to see. It's certainly more destructive.

30:26

The consequences are easier to see on the surface, but it's the same root problem. Ultimately. any while we acknowledge the practical benefits of resources like NA or AA, we have to reject them because of their foundational beliefs.

30:49

Just like just like I would tell anyone listening to not who's having troubles in their marriage to not go to a therapist that doesn't believe in sin.

30:59

You just can't you can't say the end justifies the means.

31:05

Right, you have really things that are practically helpful to people. So here's what I would say, it's in line with what you're saying.

31:12

If the Mormon Church no, heck, let's do it this way. Scientology does this.

31:17

The Mormon Church of Scientology they create a program to get free from addiction, right?

31:23

And it's within the Mormon Church and it's within a Mormon communion or Scientology and that group and they say, hey, come to our meetings based upon our religious principles.

31:32

We're going to help you get free from addiction. You're probably going to get testimonies like 10 years after the fact. You're going to get testimonies people say, hey,

31:38

I used to be addicted to such and such, but I went to the Mormon thing on freedom from addiction and guess what?

31:43

It really worked. That community there, that accountability all that stuff. It's like, yeah, because there's practical principles there that people are applying, but what's the problem?

31:52

It's a false religious system. It's a false God. You're still going to hell and guess what?

31:57

Your heart's not changed because regeneration only takes place within the framework of the

32:02

Gospel. No other way. You've potentially fixed the most destructive parts of your sin, but you haven't really ultimately done anything with it

32:13

And when I say fix, I just mean you abstain from your destructive sin, but it's still

32:22

You're still guilty. Yeah, you're still guilty because here's the thing. If you get free from drug and alcohol addiction but you don't have

32:29

Christ, you don't have peace with Christ, you're still lost. You're still going to hell and it's a moot point.

32:36

I mean, that's the easiest way to say it. You might function better on the way there. So I don't want to send people to a group that is going to give them false hope.

32:44

It's going to give them false teaching, a false God, and a false message of salvation. I want them to know

32:50

Christ. And, you know, when you go further down here, it just continues to get worse when you think about the 12 steps.

32:57

I'll give you some more. So we stopped at number three, and there's the emphasis. Again, there's been some revision to AA's 12 steps over time, but this is what you're going to get today, okay?

33:07

Across the board. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Because any God goes, you can have anything you want.

33:14

Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Question, how do you do moral inventory of yourself without talking about God, the true

33:21

God? How? Because I'll tell you right now, I know of people who were active homosexuals in these groups, their fearless searching moral inventory wasn't really fearless, and it wasn't a really comprehensive moral inventory of themselves and their lifestyles.

33:40

And not just homosexuality, every kind of sexuality was in there. But my point is if you're apart from God and His Word, how do you do a fearless and searching moral inventory of yourself?

33:50

And then it says this, admitted to God and to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

33:56

Alright, step six, we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Question, how?

34:05

How? The addict says, yeah, you know, I'm insane, doing the same thing every day expecting a different result.

34:12

I need to be restored to sanity. You know, I've done some bad things. Great. So I've done some bad things to people I love. I've done some bad things to God.

34:18

And you ask God to remove these defects of character. Okay. Which God? Which God?

34:25

And what defects of character? And how's the problem solved? How's the problem solved for the sinner if there is no cross, if there is no

34:32

Christ? Because neither is there salvation in any other. There's only salvation through Christ. He's the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the

34:37

Father but by him. So you have a system here that is trying to get people to peace with God, any

34:43

God, a God, devoid of Jesus. But Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by him.

34:48

And again, like Joy said, your argument come back might be, yeah, but they've really helped a lot of people get out of addiction.

34:54

So has Mormonism and the Watchtower and every other religious cult known to man. People say that about Islam.

35:00

So are we going to adopt a Muslim addiction recovery program because it's really helped a lot of people get free from addiction?

35:07

We're thinking like Christians here. We have to think like Christians. And when you continue to do this and you work through these steps, you'll see that this is a religious cycle that you have to go through.

35:20

And it gets me to this next point. This religious cycle where people are constantly active and they're working these steps and they're going through them and they're working them for years and they get their 12 -month chip and their 18 -month chip or whatever the case may be.

35:33

And some people will get 25 years into the program and they're still sponsors and they're doing all this.

35:39

And what do they say at the beginning of every single AA or NA or HA or whatever meeting?

35:48

What do they say? Hi, I'm Joy and I'm a heroin addict. I'm Jeff and I'm an alcoholic.

35:55

I'm Luke and I'm a pill addict. That 25 years in, a person could never have touched a drop of alcohol for 25 years and they still walk through these groups and they first introduce themselves as,

36:09

I'm Jeff and this is my identity. I'm an alcoholic. And so I want to say, from a

36:15

Christian perspective, lies, lies, lies. Not true. Not helpful at all.

36:22

Not helpful to say, your identity now is forever wrapped up in this addiction and no matter what, you're never not going to be an addict.

36:29

And that's something, by the way, that they prize in these communities. I'm telling you,

36:35

I am not lying to you. I'm not telling tales out of the schoolyard. It's the truth. They prize the disease model.

36:44

Many, many of them prize it. You have the disease of addiction. They say, and I heard this mantra all the time, you are never not going to be an addict.

36:54

You have the disease of addiction. You simply have to fake it until you make it.

37:00

In other words, 25 years in, you're still, your identity is, you're an alcoholic.

37:06

Why? Because you have the disease of addiction. And you're never not going to be an alcoholic. Forever. That is your identity. Locked in.

37:11

That's just what you're going to be. You've got to fake it until you make it. Fake what? Fake not being an addict.

37:17

Which means what? In AA, they acknowledge there never really is any heart change.

37:23

There never really is any identity change. You're the same you you always were. So let's just focus on the externals.

37:29

You know what that is? That's man -made religion. Because man -made religion does that across the board.

37:35

Focus on the externals. Focus on looking pure. Focus on the outside stuff. And what does Jesus go for every time with those kind of people?

37:43

On the outside you're whitewashed tombs. On the inside you're full of dead men bones. And Jesus constantly will go after the heart.

37:50

Right? Someone says, you know, don't commit adultery. He says, I'm saying to you, if you lust after her in your heart, you've already committed the act of adultery.

37:55

Jesus isn't impressed by your externals. So is Jesus impressed by a religious system that has any old god that you want?

38:01

It has a Christless system that focuses in upon making people look like whitewashed tombs while the inside has never been changed.

38:09

Is that Christian? Is that something we promote within Christian circles and Gospel saturated communities?

38:16

Do we really promote systems, programs? If I came into a Christian church with some sort of a program that was basically

38:25

AA that said the same things, that was Christless, crossless, and said, let's focus on the externals and just sort of faking it as Christians until we make it.

38:32

People would be like, excuse me, that's not how the Gospel works. That's not how Christianity works.

38:38

But somehow we've been duped, as many of us Christians, into thinking, but AA is just really helpful because it gets people off of drug and alcohol addiction.

38:46

How many Christians are alive today, countless ones, who didn't do

38:51

AA or any secular treatment program whatsoever? They came to Christ, had new hearts, changed, they were discipled, they were in Christian community, and God's people are around them, and that's what happened.

39:03

They got free because of Christ and basic Christian discipleship. They got free. We don't need

39:09

AA to free people from the power of drug and alcohol addiction. You need Jesus. You need the Gospel.

39:14

You need the power of God's Word, and you need his people. That's how God does this. God's been saving addicts for thousands of years.

39:21

No thank you, AA. No thank you. Before we go on to the next piece, I'll let you speak. Yeah, so hopefully

39:28

I'm not stealing any of your thunder here later, but for us, it's a worship problem, and it's idolatry, and going back to identity, what is your identity, and what you just talked about,

39:42

I say all the time we become what we worship, and so if we're worshiping

39:47

AA, that's what we're going to become. So essentially some of the comments in here, people are right,

39:53

AA's helped people, you guys talk about that, it's helped people free themselves from this addiction, but all it does is replace that idol with another idol.

40:03

Yes. So they're still practicing idolatry, and I know people who are really great people that are 20, 30 years sober, and they celebrate that all the time and stuff, but they still don't know

40:15

Jesus, they're still idolaters, they still have a false sense of morality, you know, and they're still going to hell, and so for us it's more than just this one thing, like you guys were talking about, and so we don't want you to just replace this idol with another idol, we want you to put to death your idolatry altogether and turn to Christ and find your identity in Christ and worship him and not whatever

40:43

AA's telling you to worship. It's just worth mentioning too that this, the

40:49

AA method is sort of the nominal Christian method.

40:56

So it heavily informs the principles of a lot of churches that we see anyway, and if we won't accept it in churches we shouldn't be accepting it as Christian just because it's extra church, like outside of church.

41:20

I'm trying to think. Go ahead. I'm still formulating. No, it's okay. So this is really important.

41:27

I talk about this a lot in terms of how we got to where we were, and I want to just say I learned this only after getting into this field working as a chaplain.

41:36

I had to do all the research. I had to dig this stuff up. I had to read through AA, all the stuff.

41:41

I had to go through cellular recovery to figure out where, is there anything already in place I can just run with as a pastor for these 30 days?

41:49

And then I was realizing I'm stumped. I have to just do this with just as a pastor, just foundations of the gospel, and then identity in Christ, and then dealing with all these issues biblically.

42:00

And one of the things that you can see in history is there's been a change fairly recently in our history.

42:06

A change from, have you noticed, where we used to talk, the way the Bible talks about idolatry in this sense.

42:15

Drunkenness. Right? So the Bible we would use the word, that's a drunkard, or that's a drunk, or that's drunkenness.

42:22

And the Bible actually calls drunkenness a very serious sin. It's something you can go to hell for. It's idolatry that is drunkenness, and it will take you to hell.

42:31

And the Bible's not afraid to use those words, like drunk, drunkenness, all those things.

42:36

Drunkard. But have you noticed that now we're saying words like alcoholic? The reason being is there was a fairly recent change in terms of perspective.

42:46

We've all been indoctrinated by our culture. Sometimes we don't even know what happened. We went from a model of this is a sin, and you need to repent and turn to God from it.

42:57

You need to be healed. Yes, there's no dismissiveness towards the penalty and the consequences and how painful this is for people.

43:03

There's none of that disregarded from a Christian perspective. But in terms of integrity about what you're actually dealing with,

43:09

Scripture would call it idolatry. It's switching God for some other God. It's an idol. You're going to it for peace, for freedom from loneliness, fear and shame, condemnation, whatever the case may be.

43:20

You've chosen this substance, this thing, whether it's sex, whether it's a person, whether it's alcohol, whether it's heroin, pills, whatever it is.

43:28

You've chosen to go to this other than God, and so you've switched God for this idol, and there's the consequences.

43:35

But we used to call it drunkenness, and you're a drunk. You've got to repent. Come to Christ. Let's walk through this.

43:41

Let's heal. Now we have a model that's the alcoholic model, and that model basically popularly is the disease model of addiction.

43:51

In other words, you are an addict. You have the disease of addiction. You're never not going to have the disease of addiction.

43:57

You have to fake it until you make it. It's the disease model. And that affects so much of therapy today in these hospitals and how they actually wade through this stuff, and it's why they focus so much on the externals and not the heart level issues, because it's

44:12

Christless, crossless. It's devoid of the Word of God. It's victimhood mentality. It is victimhood mentality.

44:17

You see that constantly in these rooms. It's victimhood mentality. And it's also hopeless. I sat in rooms like, well, how are they going to deal with the problem?

44:24

Look, I'm in my office going, okay, alright, so we do it for pleasure.

44:29

We do it for joy. We do it because we're anxious. I'm listing the stuff that we should be going to God for.

44:37

And I'm like, okay, and so we've got to develop discipleship over this issue and this issue. And I'm thinking through my own experience even, like what was it for me?

44:44

And it was this, and this is how God healed me from it, and here's the resources. I'm going through Scripture, Scripture, Scripture. I need to go listen to what they're saying.

44:51

And so, lo and behold, I look on the schedule, and there's all kinds of classes being offered on like for anxiety.

44:58

Instead of going to the pills or the bottle for the anxiety, come to this class. We'll tell you how to cope with that. You know, pleasure, like you sought it for pleasure.

45:06

So, I'm like, oh great, goody, they know exactly what I'm aiming at. They're talking about it too. Lo and behold, they're in the image of God, of course.

45:13

So, I go in the rooms and I'm sitting there, and they've heard me say this a million times, but I'm sitting in the room and I'm like literally watching this unbeliever share with the room like, alright, now a lot of us we use because like we were very anxious, and you're always worried, and so like the worry course.

45:35

And all they would do is they would basically tell them like coping mechanisms for worry and anxiety, and it was devoid of Christ, devoid of God, devoid of any hope.

45:44

It was more like distract yourself, right? Like you're worried. Distract yourself and just recognize you can't change anything anyway.

45:51

It's kind of like the world's chaos. Everyone's got to live in this world sort of thing, and it was just sort of like platitudes and like all these different things like pithy things, and it was more like, my favorite, okay, people who were like struggle with anger.

46:05

You're really angry, so you use, right, to get peace. And they would say things like, I couldn't even believe my ears.

46:10

It was like, alright, you struggle with anger, so instead of going to the heroin or the pills for peace so you're not angry, try punching your pillow.

46:19

Take a cold shower. It was all that kind of stuff. Like never really dealt with the anger in your heart.

46:26

That sort of a thing. It was like just all external stuff. Because we used to also call anger a sin. Yeah, we used to call anger a sin.

46:32

I guess that's the point I was trying to make earlier, which is that this has helped a lot of people, but this is also the mentality that we have built all modern psychology on.

46:44

So this is sort of, it may have helped a few people stop drinking, but it is a pervasive, secular, anti -god, self -loving, not -believing -in -sin mentality that has invaded our entire culture.

47:04

So there may be some practical benefits, but I would say the destruction it's done is far greater.

47:12

Yeah. We're going to continue this thought. Hopefully everyone gets a full picture of what we're saying here.

47:19

So it was all coping stuff and external so like loneliness. That was another one.

47:25

I couldn't believe my ears. They were like loneliness. Join a singles group. Go to the movies.

47:31

Get away from your home. And I thought to myself, hey, does everyone realize that at some point after the singles group and after the movie is over, at some point you're home alone at 3am and it's just you.

47:43

There's no escape. You can only prop up so many idols in your life before you realize they're all going to fail you because they're not

47:51

God and they can't take God's place. Not the people, not the movies, not the stuff, not the singles groups and the white water rafting, whatever the case may be.

47:59

At a certain point, it's you the sinner, apart from God, still needing peace with God, still needing

48:05

Him as your Father. And the only way to have that is through Christ. And so, okay. So the big thing was identity.

48:12

In AA your identity is once an addict, always an addict. You have a disease of addiction. This is who you are. I'm Jeff.

48:18

I'm an alcoholic. If you think I'm lying you're wrong. How do you open up every

48:23

A, J, N, A AA group? I am Jeff and I am an alcoholic.

48:29

It was all identity. That's who I am. Forever. If I take a drink today after 25 years sober

48:36

I will spiral back into the life I had. No heart change. Exactly. If I can touch it real quick because I wanted to say along those lines this sort of thing this is why this is important.

48:49

This is why practically speaking, we've had people who are Christians so they have been redeemed and have come here and they're like, oh

48:57

I'm a recovering alcoholic or I'm an alcoholic in recovery however they want to say it, for 15 years and they're still they're literally scared to death to drink a drop of alcohol.

49:10

A communion. We've dealt with that several times. They're so fearful of that that it still has control over them.

49:19

They were taught that if you touch the skin you have the disease. There's no escape. They're still being controlled by that fear of something and it's silly.

49:28

We've been like let's go take you to get something to drink and it'll be fine and then they're like, oh and almost every time they're like yeah it's not as good as I remember it but then they don't have that fear.

49:42

It's lost it's luster. But because of that mentality they still are controlled and are afraid of that when there's no reason to be.

49:49

Jesus put wine on the table. It wasn't grape juice. It was wine. And Jesus, of course the

49:55

Bible forbids drunkenness drunkenness is a very serious sin but Jesus still put wine on the table.

50:01

And so people come out of this is what we've had to struggle with people come out of the AA community they're very devoted to it.

50:09

They come to church they love Jesus and they're like you have wine? Actual wine? We're like it's a thimble.

50:15

It's a thimble of wine. They're like I can't do it. I'm like but Jesus put it on the table. He commanded it.

50:22

This isn't us going off on our own. Jesus put that wine on the table. Well I'm not going to do it.

50:28

But hold on now. God himself put that on the table.

50:34

And said it was a good thing. And he calls drunkenness a sin and he told you to drink of it all of you.

50:40

Take this. It's wine on the table. And you're going to say no?

50:46

Why? Because indoctrination. Because they were told in some foreign system that you have the brain disease of addiction you're never not going to be an addict and so this is your identity.

50:55

So one of the key issues is what is addiction? It's idolatry. It's going to something. I don't care what it is.

51:01

It doesn't even have to be a substance. It could be sex. It could be a person.

51:07

It could be anything in place of God. It's whatever you glory in and sacrifice to that is what you're worshiping.

51:14

That's what worship is. Glory and sacrifice at minimum. And so what do you do with addiction? Well the pills you glorify them and sacrifice to them every day.

51:22

What does glory mean? It's weight. It's the weight. It's giving the weight to something. And so think about it.

51:28

When someone was addicted to pills it's like 3 hours and 45 minutes. I've got 15 minutes left. Maybe I could take the pill a little bit earlier now so that I won't feel the detox pain that is going to hit me every 4 hours.

51:42

So you're timing your whole day around the pills. I've got to take these pills. Make sure I have them. Do I have enough left? Do I have enough for the rest of the week?

51:48

And your whole day revolves around what time is it now? I could take a pill in one hour. What time is it now? I've got half an hour. I could take a pill again.

51:54

And so what is that? It's glory. It's your God. Your whole day revolves around it. And sacrifice, we already know as people who struggle with addiction what it means to sacrifice because of your addiction.

52:02

You sacrifice your stuff, your relationships, your money, your life, your criminal record. All that stuff. You sacrifice everything.

52:09

So we get it. Sacrifice. Glory and sacrifice. That's what it is. And so what is it? Idolatry. What do you need?

52:16

Jesus. You need a new heart. But what does the Bible say takes place in a person's life when they are joined to Christ by faith?

52:24

Is they are a new creation. They are described as in Christ. I mean it's all over the

52:29

New Testament. In Christ. In Christ. In Christ. He is your righteousness. You have the gift of his righteousness.

52:34

You're forgiven of all of your sins. You're not condemned. You have peace with God. You've been made alive spiritually.

52:40

You have new hearts. All that's true in Christ. That's not what AA says. It's not what

52:45

AA says. That's what the Bible says. That's the Christian message. Which leads me to this. I'm in there as the pastor trying to stay undercover and not get fired for the things that I'm saying in that room.

53:01

Christ is the only way. That is the truth. That's idolatry. What they're telling you in those rooms this morning is all idolatry.

53:07

That is not true. I'm like literally contradicting all their messages they were taught that whole day in my chapel that night.

53:13

If they'd ever known, they'd have fired me and God and his providence didn't allow it to happen. But I'm telling them this is the truth.

53:19

That's all idolatry. That won't save you. And this is your identity. If you're in Christ right now in this room, this is who you are.

53:25

You are loved by God. You're a child of God. You're raised up with him. You're this. You're this. You have new hearts. You're forgiven of all your sins.

53:31

So now I'm in trouble. Because now these people apparently are not being as cautious as me about not getting me in trouble.

53:39

And so they're going into the next morning the first AA group of the day and everyone else is standing up saying

53:45

Hi, I'm Bill. I'm an alcoholic. I'm Jim. I'm a pill addict. And my group is standing up in those same rooms because they're required to attend them and they're saying,

53:53

Hi, I'm whatever. And they're saying, I'm in Christ. And the room like halts.

54:02

Right? Because it's a secular track. You're not supposed to say that. And I'm like, well hold on now. No, no. You need to be able to identify with where you're at.

54:09

Well, that's where I'm at. I'm in Christ. What was your drug of choice? Well, I did cocaine.

54:15

Can you say that I'm addicted to cocaine? And they would say, no, I'm not going to say that. Because I'm in Christ and I'm a new creature and I'm forgiven of my sins and I don't want to identify with that old life anymore.

54:26

And they would get chastised. No, you need to say you're addicted to cocaine. And they'd be like, I hate cocaine.

54:32

I despise it. I want free from it. And they're like crying in these rooms. Like, I don't want to say I'm addicted to cocaine any longer because I hate that.

54:39

It was sin against God. Man, was I in trouble. I used to get called into the principal's office all the time and they'd be saying things like, you know, we heard you said this to the group.

54:49

Can you soften that message a bit? And I would just say, for four years, I would just say, and God protected, I would just say, no, fire me.

54:57

Like I'm a pastor. You hired a pastor. You hired a pastor. You want a Christian program. That's your Christian program. And there was this constant collision where actually we got to the point where there were people

55:06

I found out in the last six months I was there, I found out that they were actually, the secular therapists and stuff, were working in their groups asking, what did

55:14

Jeff teach last night? They're supposed to be doing their group and they're saying, what did he teach last night? And they're like taking notes.

55:20

Jeff says that there's only one way to God and that salvation is only through Christ and that they're no longer to be identified with their sin, but they're in Jesus.

55:30

And I'm coming into the office and they're like, did you say blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? And I'm like, yep,

55:36

I confess readily. I said it. So a lot of trouble. But there was a big issue with identity where AA wants to say this is your identity forever, but in Christ, this is your identity.

55:46

And watch this. This is key because Joy said this. Nobody is saying here at all that there's no need for community.

55:55

There's no need for accountability because we didn't just say, yeah, just say this prayer. You say this prayer, you're good.

56:01

All right, walk away, you're good now forever. No, we recognize that we already mentioned it with even

56:06

Apology at Church. People were new in Jesus. It was a heck of a lot of hard work. It was really tough.

56:13

I mean, you'd have people that'd be like, I mean, it's hard. It's emotionally difficult for us where you have someone next to you in worship just bawling their eyes out like so free and next thing you know, it's like the next day and you're pulling them off the street because they went back to the heroin.

56:27

And you're like, what's going on? And then so many stories of redemption from that and time for the heart to heal and change and accountability and confessing sin where we have people at Apology at Church, still the original, still the

56:39

OGs, OGs from the beginning, came out of addiction, healing, sanctification. We even have people at Apology that were there from the beginning that were even church disciplined.

56:49

And now they're back and with us and everything's fine. Or they've even gotten married and moved on or whatever the case may be.

56:55

But it's a process where like your heart, every Christian understands this. Your heart is new, you long for God, you hate your sin, and then it's midnight and you're dealing with like these thoughts that are sinful.

57:06

Where'd they come from? And you're putting them to death and you're crying like, God, why did I think that thought or why did I do that thing? That's sanctification.

57:13

Sanctification looks the same for the addict in terms of, it's a war and you need the church around that person.

57:22

So we're not denying the necessity of Christian community, confession of sin, accountability. We're saying it has to come in tandem with an actual

57:29

Christian message. An actual Christian message. And AA ain't it.

57:35

Very sophisticated way of saying that. It ain't. It's not. And neither is Celebrate Recovery. I think we're running out of time.

57:41

We got that question quite a bit. What about Celebrate Recovery? I don't know if you want to quickly...

57:48

I know we're out of time, but if you want to quickly... Yeah, I'll touch it. So this is Celebrate Recovery's official site.

57:54

CelebrateRecovery .com Celebrate Recovery 12 Steps and Biblical Comparisons.

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So what about just taking Bible verses and slapping it on to the 12 steps?

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Let me just say this. If a system is pagan from the beginning, if it's unbiblical in its foundations, on how it knows what it knows, if it's unbiblical in its view of God and its view of sin and salvation, no,

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I do not believe we should take a system like that that's unbiblical to its core, that's pagan in origin, and plug

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Bible verses into the steps to say, let's make it Christian. Why do we think we need to do this?

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We're Christians. We have the Word of God. Why do we need to appeal to the world and its wisdom and try to say, let's take that worldly wisdom that's completely

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Antichrist and completely pagan and hopeless, and let's just put some

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Bible verses into that. And I'll show you what I mean. Number one, Celebrate Recovery's official site.

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We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors that our lives had become unmanageable.

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And in the verse that's quoted, Romans 7, 18, I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my sinful nature, for I have desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.

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I had disagreements over how that verse is being applied there, but let's go to number two. We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, for it is

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God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Not how you would apply that verse in this case, but what's the problem?

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A power greater than ourselves could restore us to what? Sanity. What do you need according to the

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Christian message? Salvation. Peace with God. Forgiveness of sin.

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This is still, it's a minimizing of the whole thing of sin, rebellion, all that. It's not there.

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Where is this message? Why can't the Christian Celebrate Recovery program make an emphasis over the issue and what it actually is that's driving us to the idols in the first place?

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We made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God. Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.

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This is your spiritual act of worship. Romans 12 .1. They really need someone to plug in different Bible verses for these because some of these don't quite work, but made a decision to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God.

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In what way? For what reason? What does it look like? How? We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

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But all of this, where's Christ? We were entirely ready to have

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God remove all these defects of character. Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up. James 4 .10. Where's the cross?

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Where's the message that was preached by Peter, by Paul, by Jesus to the crowds of repent and believe the gospel?

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Where is that? It's not in Celebrate Recovery. Here. Now, of course, you might show me workbooks where they're plugging in Bible verses and all the rest.

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And all I would ask you is this. As a Christian, just a challenge, a humble nudge. Let's say, again,

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Scientology or Mormonism came out with a workbook on how to get free from addiction from the

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Mormon perspective with the Mormon God and Mormon view of the world and man and everything else.

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Or Scientology. And they have meetings every 15 minutes and it's helped people. Now, let's say that I gave you that book and I said, can you plug some

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Bible verses into there where it seems appropriate? Where something sort of smacks of Christian principles.

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Could you plug some Bible verses into there? And then we'll use Scientology, we'll use its program with our

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Bible verses plugged into their system to help people get free from addiction. Would you want to do that?

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To take that pursuit? To take a pagan system, an unbelieving system, a Christless, crossless system, and plug

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Bible verses into it so that we have something to utilize to help people get free from addiction? Or could we just go a different way?

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Define these things biblically, talk about them like Christ, and then as people hear the gospel, we disciple them.

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We disciple them. We use God's word without compromise or fear to say this, you're dealing with anxiety.

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Here's what God says about anxiety. Let's heal from that. You're dealing with loneliness. Here's what God says about loneliness.

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Let's heal from that. You're dealing with fear. This is what God says about fear. Let's deal with fear in your heart, in your life.

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It's just basic Christian discipleship. It's what it is. That's what the addict needs. That's what the non -addict needs.

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It's exactly that. You need Christ. You need to be discipled. That's what we're saying in terms of foundations and hope.

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And I know it's a shorter program. You guys probably have more questions. But I think it's an important thing for us to answer because this is a huge need.

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It's a huge need. We talk about Utah. The opiate, the opioid addiction in Utah is through the roof.

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Kauai. Massive, massive drug use and addiction on the island of Kauai. You're like, how the heck are you getting it there?

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I don't know sometimes, but they are getting it there. It's this isolated teeny little island.

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It's the small one off to the side. They're still getting drugs there. I just heard at the end of that Dr.

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Malone interview, what did he say? Drug addiction is up 17 % since COVID.

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Drug addiction is huge. Where are we going to send them? I'll say one final word. I'll leave it to you guys here.

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This is what was one of the things that God used in my life to really firm up my commitments to plant

01:03:41

Apologia Church was I would contact pastors for somebody's benefit, like somebody came to Christ at the hospital, and I would want to get them plugged into a solid church so they could be discipled, so I called pastors all the time.

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I'd call local pastors. I'd call pastors back home in Florida, New York, whatever the case may be.

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I would try to find a solid church. I would call the pastor and say, hey, pastor, this person just came to Christ.

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Here's the situation. They're coming home next week. I wanted to set up an appointment for them so they can meet with you right away.

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The pastors would say things like this. They would be like, what do I do with them? Exactly.

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In awe. What do you mean? What do you do with everyone else? He discipled them.

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Unfortunately, I think that might be touching a little bit on a problem, which is that the pastor's not being fully involved.

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In anyone, not just their addicts, but anybody. There's a Sunday preaching ministry, and that's about the extent of it in reality.

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Instead of the face -to -face counseling, shepherding, that sort of a thing. You're right. The next issue was if they didn't say, what do

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I do with them? They would tend to say, oh, that's great. We have an AA meeting that meets here on Wednesday night or Thursday night or something like that.

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I'm thinking to myself, an AA group like you guys run? They're like, no, no, no. Local AA, Alcoholics Anonymous.

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We let them use our building on Wednesday night. I'm thinking to myself, pastor, do you know what they're saying in there?

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Do you know what they're teaching in that room at your church? The church has sort of outsourced the issue of addiction to the secularists.

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We've outsourced it to the secularists and said, you handle that.

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Then we'll just send our people to you. Because if I send someone who's not a believer to you for help with their addiction, you're going to say something they don't like and they're going to leave and then they're still going to be addicted.

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That's not practical. But that's not the approach. That's not how you handle it.

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The person who hates God is not going to want to hear that he needs to stop doing drugs for all the reasons that we've said in the show.

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He wants a weird magically neutral version of events that allows him to be a better citizen or not steal his parents' money or stop going to jail.

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It's all totally practical. It's pragmatism. And that's just not going to ever work because the

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Bible says that unbelievers hate God.

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Right. Haters of God. Romans 1. Yeah. And so what is the ultimate need for the person, for their soul?

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Reconciliation and peace with God. And yeah. If you run a Christian community with a focus on drug and alcohol addiction, you're going to have a lot of addicts that show up, that hear a very strong message on the

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Gospel and their need for Christ and they never come back again. Sometimes they come to Christ though. Sometimes their lives are totally transformed.

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Our people early on used to use the local AA groups as a mission field, which is awesome.

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So we used to hold a Thursday night Redeemed Rebels Bible study, which was all focused on addiction, and we used to have those rooms were full on Thursday.

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We were not as full on Sundays for worship, but our Thursdays were full because people were going to AA groups saying, hey, there's a

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Christian addiction group that meets here and they would show up. And we had a great time.

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People came to Christ and then I also had a lot of people that were really angry with what they heard when

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I talked about what their problem was. We had people who showed up for months or years and then they weren't

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Christians. Yeah. This is not a, if it doesn't work 100 % of the time,

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God got it wrong type of thing. This is that's what a church actually is.

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It's not a corporate entity that tries to bring as many bodies in as possible, so you have to say the thing that keeps people coming back.

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It's complex and it's just yeah,

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I mean. Sanctification takes time. It does. Sanctification takes time for all of us. And the pastor, even you guys as pastors,

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I know that you guys had to learn a ton about when to go and all of it takes time and energy.

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Do I take this person to detox immediately or do I have a couple hours first to meet with them?

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Like, what drugs are you using? How much have you been using today? How much have you been drinking? How many days have you been binge drinking?

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What exactly have you been drinking? Do I need to rush this person to the emergency room to get professionally detoxed before we can work with them?

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We had our, and we still have, our apologia breathalyzer. I have it in my bag.

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We would tell people, this is an idol for you. Don't touch it. Like, yeah, is it possible for a

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Christian to drink in a way that's pleasing to God and glorifying to God? Yeah, Jesus did. That's going to offend some people.

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Jesus did. The Bible speaks glowingly about alcohol and even strong drink.

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But we knew if this person has had alcohol as an idol for the last 10 years of their life, we would say to them, as an act of worship to God until your heart is healed and completely transformed in this area, don't touch it.

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Don't even go near alcohol. All that. And we had a little breathalyzer. People would come in. Luke and I are looking like a hawk.

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And we're like sniffing people. Luke's talking to somebody and I'm behind her going just trying to smell like Joe Biden.

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I'm just like... And guess what? There's a difference between booze and mouthwash.

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We're not dummies. Yeah, that happens a lot. It's just mouthwash. These guys know. I suppose a lot like vodka.

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No, it's mouthwash. Just a lot of mouthwash. Yeah, don't think so. Breathe into this.

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It's probably the mouthwash that's going to set it off. That's not how it works. Breathe into this. Yeah, you've got a 2 .5

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blood alcohol content. I think you need to change mouthwashes. We're laughing because it's true.

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These things happen a lot. We had the breathalyzer.

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We had to go to the hospital a lot. But it was a glorious, amazing thing to watch God change people's lives.

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And it was a process of sanctification. We were sanctified in that process. They were sanctified. And again, if you came to Apologia today, we'd have to tell you this story for you to know it because you wouldn't just see it around you.

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We have families everywhere now. We have lives transformed. And I can tell you right now the people who are at Apologia that came out of drug and alcohol addiction they don't identify with their drug of choice any longer.

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They're in Christ. And that, I think, is a glorious thing. And I think it's a much more hopeful and better message than the

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Alcoholics Anonymous cult. Amen. Any last words? It was a good show. Thank you everybody for watching.

01:10:53

Go to BonsonU at ApologiaStudios .com Get your free account. Sign up, sign up, sign up. Start learning and just benefiting from all that.

01:11:01

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01:11:09

Help us this year. Pray for us. We have, I mean, 16, 17 states possibly this year. We're going to get bills of equal protection into.

01:11:15

That's the criminalization abolition of abortion in the state. It is unprecedented to have this many states in one year.

01:11:22

It's a very big deal. Praise God for all of His saints across the country who are working so hard on this with the Gospel.

01:11:27

And praise the Lord for allowing us to be such a big part right now in these states to get this going. Pray for us. Pray for Luke.

01:11:33

Pray for me. Pray for Joy. And pray for Apologia Church right now. That's it. So we'll catch you guys next week right here on Apologia Radio.