When You Reject the Truth, THIS Happens

TreasureChrist

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I view the Holy Spirit like the genie from Aladdin, and he's blue.

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Each one of them is a triune being by himself.

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If I can shock you, and maybe I should, there's nine of them. Here's a question we've got to quit asking, and you're going to hate me for this, but we're not done.

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We've got another week. What does the Bible say? What does the Bible say? What does the Bible say about that? I mean, how many times have you asked that?

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Heard that? I've been asked this, you know, a thousand times. What does the Bible say about that? This is a really bad question. We have to quit asking. Here's why.

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Because the old covenant says stone her, and the new covenant says forgive her. That's what the Bible says.

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It is fine if you came here unconfessional. Just don't leave that way.

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But this conference is built around our confession. And we live in a post -confessional age.

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Not an anti -confessional age, but a post -confessional age. Let me explain what I mean by that.

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There was a time in the not -too -distant past when you could have accurately described our culture, and really most cultures, as anti -confessional.

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And people were anti -confessional for one of two main reasons. One was liberalism.

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Liberalism looked at the confession and basically said, we reject those doctrines.

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Liberalism would look at the confession and what the confession said about the inerrancy of Scripture, and would say, we reject the inerrancy of Scripture.

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Would look at what the confession says about creation and say, we reject the idea of special creation.

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So liberalism was anti -confessional. It looked at the confession and it said, no, we disagree.

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The second major reason that people were anti -confessional was experientialism.

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Experientialism looked at confessions and said, we don't necessarily disagree, but we don't want to put

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God in a box. We don't want to be held to this confession.

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We don't want to be held to an idea of a confession. We don't want to put

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God in a box. We don't want to say what God can't do or can't be or something of that sort.

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But it was based on experientialism. It was based on the idea of immediacy.

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It was based on the idea of continued revelation. It was based on the idea that we're still waiting on God to give us more.

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It was based on the idea that the scriptures essentially were not sufficient. So those are the two main streams as I see it of anti -confessionalism.

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But what we're experiencing now is post -confessionalism. And what

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I mean by that is anti -confessionalism, whether it was from liberalism or experientialism, at least it acknowledged the confession and it knew what was in the confessions.

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It just didn't agree with the confessions. Now we're in an era where most

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Christians don't know what a confession is. If you can't say amen, you ought to say ouch.

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I get emails from a lot of people who've read, for example, they've read my book

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Family Shepherds and I talk about confessions and catechisms. And I get a lot of emails and questions from people about confessions and catechisms and, you know, like, what's a good catechism?

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That's one of the questions that I get, like, what's a good catechism? Well, a good catechism is a catechism that teaches your confession because catechisms were designed to teach confessions in bite -sized pieces.

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And people go, oh, okay, what's a good confession? See, that's post -confessionalism.

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We don't, we don't even, we're so far removed from confessionalism that they don't even occupy a real space in our understanding.

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So now in this era, here we are in a confessional church having a confessional conference, recognizing that many of you may be post -confessional and that's okay.

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It is fine if you came here unconfessional. Just don't leave that way.

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So, our confessions are really our way of communicating what we believe in a very succinct way.

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And a lot of people say, you know, they want to say, well, yeah, my confession is the Bible.

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Great. The Bible's huge. And my confession is the

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Bible. So Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, they both say,

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I agree with that. And you say, well, no, no, no, no, hold on. Not the

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Bible as they understand it. But when I say Bible, what I mean is, guess what?

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You just became confessional. Because now you're explaining what you mean when you say

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Bible. Right? No, I, creeds and confession, no creed but Christ.

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Again, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses could say amen to that. And immediately you start saying, well, when

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I say Christ, what I mean is, guess what? You just got confessional. Because now you're explaining what you mean when you say

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Christ. That's all a confession is. It's explaining what we mean when we say we believe

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A, B, C, and X, Y, Z. They do not supersede the scriptures.

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The confessions start with, here's what we mean by the scriptures. Here's the authority of the scriptures.