The Oppression of Zero Tolerance

I'm going to mute everybody, here we go, we're now all muted. Let's pray, and then we will find out what our

Bible study is going to be today. And I will say this, Bruce has been good for the past couple weeks. He has not been the source of, or the impetus for the rabbit trails that we have been on.

It's been a lot of our guests, and the thing is, I welcome it. I mean, the whole point of learning is you have to be able to ask questions, and so it's a big deal.

So let's pray. Blessed Lord, you have caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning.

We ask that you would grant so that we may hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest your scriptures, so that by patience and comfort of your holy word that we may embrace and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life through Jesus Christ our

Lord. Amen. Okay, so just so you know that...oh

man, I have to go through the chat real quick to see if I missed any questions. You are welcome to ask questions anytime, during the sermon, during the

Sunday school lesson, or anything like that, and I just want to make sure I didn't miss any questions that came in.

Wow, we have people from South Africa, from Finland, from Australia, Nebraska, that's practically a foreign country too.

I'm joking. And let's see, New Jersey, Ontario, from Finland, wow,

San Diego, people from all over. I'm so glad that you've come to receive and to hear

God's word with us today. That Adam hymn was excellent. Yeah, it really was, Eric, that was one of the better hymns.

Oh Eric, I see that hand, hang on a second, I'm gonna unmute you. Okay, yes sir, you have your finger in the air.

Okay, so you'll note when Jesus talks in figures of speech, and in fact let me do this, let me pull this up because you can kind of see this is a unique feature of this particular gospel text, is that Jesus kind of changes things up a little bit.

And so here at the beginning part of our text, and let me make this just a little bit smaller, there we go.

Jesus says, amen amen, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, okay, in this particular way he's using this figure of speech, he's not referring to himself as the door, but instead is referencing how somebody accesses the sheep.

So in this particular figure of speech, it's slightly different than the second use, and you can kind of see that.

So he climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. So if they're not coming in through the door, they're not, you know, but the shepherd though, this fellow, he doesn't jump the fence, what ends up happening, the gatekeeper opens the shepherd, hear his voice, he calls him.

So this is a figure of speech that kind of stands by itself. But then when you get to the next part of it,

Jesus is doing this thing that John really likes to highlight, and that is these egoe me statements.

So Jesus says, I am, I am, and so he says I am. And when he says

I am, then oftentimes in the Gospel of John he will say things, you know, he says egoe me,

I am ha 'artos, you know, I am the bread of life, you know, azoi. So you get the idea here.

So in this, the second part starting in verse 7, now Jesus changes up the metaphor just a little bit, still same imagery, but works it just a little bit more.

He says, I say to you, I am the door, egoe me hathura, I am the door.

All who came before me are thieves and robbers. And so the idea here then is that if Jesus is the door then, those who are true shepherds, who have legitimate access to the sheep, are properly trained and stuff like that, they all enter through Christ, all right?

That's the idea. And so I've seen good commentaries on this really kind of drilled down into the

I am the door language that Jesus is using, and then expanded out to the office of the ministry.

So the pastoral office, a pastor is one who must have listened to the qualifications, studied and shown himself approved as a workman who need not blush with embarrassment, who can rightly divide the word of truth.

Okay, that's from, I think, 1 Timothy. But note here, when somebody has studied and shown themselves approved, by saying that they've shown themselves approved, that means he's not a renegade, he's not a cowboy, he has actually done what is necessary and has been examined by others, and that there's accountability going on.

Accountability in his training, accountability on the part of those who train them and say, yep, this guy is qualified, he's demonstrated to us that he can rightly handle

God's word, and things like this, so he's not a renegade. But if you were to listen to today's so -called modern charismatic vision -casting leaders, okay?

I'll give you an example. So y 'all remember when

Perry, what was his name, hang on a second,

I'm trying to think, the guy from Anderson, New Spring, can't remember his name now, it's like, you know, anyway, oh, what's his name,

Perry Noble, that's it, that's it, thank you, thank you, not Perry Stone, Perry Stone's, he's disappeared from ministry for a while under a cloud of mystery, that's weird, but Perry Noble.

So Perry Noble, if you know his story regarding New Spring, is that he was one of these guys who bought into the model of Church that was developed initially by the

Crystal Cathedral fellow, then Rick Warren, and Peter Drucker, and the

Druckerites, and the basic idea behind it is that somebody, a man can receive a vision from God that he's then supposed to cast to his leadership team for the purpose of creating a

Church that God has called to be created in a specific locale for particular reasons.

And so Perry Noble, if you know his story, early on would talk about the fact that God had given him a vision for planting

New Spring, and that God had revealed to him that New Spring was to be a

Church for the unchurched, okay, which just doesn't make any sense.

And if you challenge to question his vision, you are out, you are gone.

So, and this whole concept was developed by, initially kind of by Robert Shuler and then his

Church planting organization, which then got eclipsed by Rick Warren, and then co -worked it all out with Peter Drucker, which is a fascinating story in and of itself.

So Perry Noble would oftentimes make jokes from the stage at New Spring, I don't want to say the pulpit because they don't have one, so he would, the jokes would go something like this, you know, this is not one of those dead churches, and I haven't been to cemetery.

That's the way he would talk. He would brag about the fact that he had not been to seminary, and that he had been called directly from God to plant a

Church for the unchurched. And so his credentials for being a pastor were his claim to this direct revelation, the vision to plant

New Spring, and then he then put on leadership conferences for the purpose of raising up more guys like him, guys who had not received a right call to serve the

Church, they had not studied and showed themselves approved, but believed that they had been called directly from God to plant similar churches, which were churches for the unchurched.

And it's in that context that somebody like Stephen Furtick came up. Now Furtick, he actually went to seminary, which is bizarre, because he went to Southern, the

Baptist seminary where Albert Moeller is the president, he actually went to Southern Seminary.

And my question is, did he pass any of his classes, especially like exegesis, hermeneutics, how to preach and stuff like that, because he doesn't show any aptitude when it comes to rightly handling the

Word of Truth. And Southern right now is slipping, because Albert Moeller has bought into this

SJW nonsense, he's pretty much gotten rid of all the conservative guys, and now you've got a bunch of SJW seminary profs at Southern, so they've drifted off into some kind of postmodern version of liberalism.

So anyway, yeah, there was a time when there were really good professors there, at least we Lutherans recognize that as far as you can go as being a good seminary professor as a

Baptist, they had those. It's questionable nowadays. So anyway, so you'll note then that somebody who's a pastor has to have studied, shown himself approved, they must rightly teach what's in accord with sound doctrine and be able to rebuke those who contradict it, that's

Titus chapter 1. And then they're called by the Holy Spirit and they're ordained and put into the ministry, this is a public office, but guys who are false teachers, over and again, they subvert that path to becoming a pastor and claim some special glow -in -the -dark anointing or direct revelation from God, and that's a sheer sign you're dealing with somebody who has not entered through Christ.

And the reason being is this, is that Christ does not call men into the pastoral office that have not met the qualifications to be a pastor, okay?

And so those men who openly malign the biblical path into the pastoral office, that's a sure sign you're dealing with a because they despise authority, and that's part of this.

And so they despise authority, they do not want any accountability, if you try to hold them accountable you're going to be cast out.

And I also note that one of the things that happened during the transition, so I'm old enough to remember when churches began making the switch over to the purpose -driven methodology, and there was a fellow by the name of Dan Sutherland.

He's still active in Seeker -driven ministry, he's doing work with a church down in Kansas City now.

But Dan Sutherland, he had an organization called Church Transitions, Inc.,

and he has a book called Transitioning, and I've actually reviewed some of the audio from his courses.

And he, for real, basically teaches that anybody who opposes the vision that God has given to a vision -casting leader, that that man is a wolf and he needs to be shot, okay?

That's his language, okay? So you challenge the vision of a vision -casting leader, that guy's of the devil, he's a wolf and has to be put out.

And as a result of it, there are stories, you can still find them in different news agencies from about a decade ago, when churches started making these switches where a vision -casting leader would rise up in a congregation that had normally been a traditional congregation, and anybody who opposed him, they would file restraining orders against those people, put them out, threaten them with arrest and trespass, and things like that.

And so, I mean, again, abusive behavior. And you're going to note, this is then following with this idea that Jesus says,

I am the door, which means that anybody who comes in has to come in through Christ and the path to pastoral ministry that is established in Scripture.

Christ has set that up, not the Apostle Paul. That's how that works out, okay?

So then Heather says, are these thieves and robbers, verse 8, redeemable like the prodigal son?

The answer to the question is technically yes, they are. And I will say this, but it's a rare thing to see any of them repent.

Over the course of time that I've been doing my podcast and now the YouTube channel, you know, so we've been at this...is

it really 12 years, Josh? Is it 12? Oh, I'm getting old. Hey, hey, watch it, watch it, watch it.

All right, so the idea then is that in that course of time,

I have probably received emails from men who were trained to be vision casting leaders, maybe about three to four of them who, having their methodology stripped bare and shown to not be biblical, have repented and have switched course altogether.

And so it does happen, but for instance,

I hate to say this, but certain men I do not consider redeemable, like Perry Noble, like Stephen Furtick, like Rick Warren.

I would be shocked if they ever repented of what they did. That would just not be consistent at all.

So the idea here is that you've got to be careful. Christ is the door.

Nobody who is a legitimate under -shepherd of the good shepherd enters into the pastoral ministry other than receiving a right call, properly being trained, demonstrating an aptitude to be able to teach others and to rightly handle

God's Word. And then you'll note then, I'll point this out as a good...

the other issue here is that when we look at the Pastoral Epistle Titus, I, from time to time, will point this out as a good to -do list of the duties of the pastoral office.

And so I'll say within certain denominations they have this really bad habit, and that is they'll call a pastor, they'll ordain him, install him, and then three years later they'll say, you know, we don't really like this guy.

You know, this guy is...he doesn't look good in skinny jeans, you know, and we really want a disco ball and a smoke machine, and he doesn't want that, and so we're at odds with the direction we want to take the

Church, as opposed to this guy who wants to faithfully teach God's Word, he keeps telling us we're sinners and things like that. And so they try to get rid of a man who's rightly called.

But if a Church is being biblical, then if you were to do annual evaluations, okay, y 'all get this at your employers, right?

I used to do this when I was an employer too, and then, you know, although I don't do this with you, Josh, you know, but what do you do?

You take a look at the job description, the duties of the job, and then you get your annual review, and your boss sits down, and he says to you, and they usually start off with the good stuff, right?

They'll sit there and go, we really like the way you do this, we like the thing you do here, and then they say but, and then here it comes.

But we really want to see some improvement. We want to see some improvement in these areas of your work.

You just aren't really smiling enough, you're not wearing enough flair, and your TPS reports are not coming in on Saturday like they should.

And so those of you who know the reference, but anyway, you get the idea.

And so you get the things that you're supposed to be doing, and those are all laid out for you. So if you want to know what's required of a pastor, and fascinating, again, people oftentimes have an intuitive understanding of what they think a pastor should be doing, and then they judge a pastor based upon whether or not he's doing the things that they've established in their mind as what a pastor should be doing.

I've had some people tell me, you know, Rose, bro, you're not very pastoral. And of course,

Mike, I'd say, well, it depends on which standard you're using. If we're going to go with your subjective standard of what you think a pastor might be, then

I don't think I would measure up. But if you look at the standard set out in Scripture, so Paul, writing to Titus, he says, this is why

I left you in Crete, so that you might put what remained in order and appoint elders.

These are going to be the presbyteroi, these are your pastors, in every town as I directed you.

And here are the qualifications. And we all recognize the first part of the list as being legit. Nobody questions this.

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

God's steward. And so these are important language. God's steward. So pastors are stewards, okay?

As God's stewards. They are stewards of the mysteries of God, that's the idea here. They must be above reproach.

So if you have a pastor who is out there womanizing, he's a drunkard, and all this kind of stuff, everybody would say, that guy's not qualified to be a pastor, and he'd be run out on a rail really quick, okay?

He must not be arrogant, he must not be quick -tempered, a drunkard, violent, greedy for gain.

And this is the part that everyone seems to ignore when it comes to the televangelists just saying, but hospitable, a lover of good, he must be self -controlled, upright, holy, disciplined.

So if you have an undisciplined, unholy, out of control, lover of evil who is not hospitable, is greedy for gain, a drunkard, a womanizer, arrogant and quick -tempered, we'd all say, that guy can't possibly be a pastor, right?

But that's half the equation. There's more to it, all right?

So the next part, okay? And the next part is then verse 9, he must hold firm to the trustworthy word and then watch the words as taught according to how it has been taught, which means he's going to have to understand what is sound doctrine, what is historic biblical orthodoxy, and he has to be able to be able to give instruction in not any doctrine, but sound doctrine, and now the next part, and to rebuke those who contradict it.

Now I have, for real, in my career of listening to all these really strange false teachers,

I have heard men, for instance, Joel Osteen. When Joel Osteen first took over for his father, everybody noticed just how way off his preaching was, and how intentionally positive it was, and how he went out of his way and took great pains to not mention the word sin and to say anything that might hurt somebody's feelings.

And no joke, Joel Osteen, when called on the carpet, his response was, the

Lord has not called me to speak negativity, he's called me to be a positive influence, to speak positive words.

And my immediate response was, how did you get out of the requirement to rebuke those who contradict sound doctrine, which all pastors are under as part of their duties in Titus 1 -9?

Notice, it is a duty of the pastoral office, which means when somebody's going off the rail theologically, either within the

Church at large or within your own congregation, you don't get to just turn a blind eye to it, you got to get in the person's face and say, this is false doctrine.

You're listening to a heretic, you're believing heresy, you need to repent, all right?

And if you think that's not, that it is really not that big of a part of the duties of a pastor, then note then that Paul now is going to extrapolate on this requirement, and he says, and here's the reason why, for, okay, gar, for there are many, not some, many, not a little, not few, many who are insubordinate.

And note, this is talking about Korah's rebellion, they're insubordinate, they reject authority.

These are people who are empty talkers. This is describing today's false teachers, too.

They are insubordinate, they are empty talkers, oh, and they're deceivers, okay?

And he gives you an example from his own day, from his own day, especially those of the circumcision party, so these are the

Judaizers, and watch this. They must be silenced.

And I'm just gonna, let's do a little Greek work here, and present accent, so they must, yeah, so they must be shut up.

They have to be silenced. Now, who wills that they be silenced?

Paul or God? It's God. God wills that the many insubordinate, empty talkers, deceivers, that they are silenced.

Silenced by whom? Oh, back to the pastors, the pastors who are called to rebuke those who contradict sound doctrine.

So the deceivers must be silenced. Why? They are upsetting entire families, and they are teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

All right, so you're gonna note, Paul really drills down on the rebuking part, gives you the reason why,

God wills that they must be silenced, and then goes on to say, okay, and you're gonna note here how politically incorrect

Paul is, one of the Cretans, a prophet of their own. Notice the sarcasm here.

It said, Cretans are always liars, they're evil beasts, and they're lazy gluttons. Oh, wow, that's kind of a racial slur here, you know, you just see the

Cretans going, ooh, ooh, you've just taken my whole people and, you know, slandered them.

But he says this testimony is true, and because of that, rebuke them sharply. Not just rebuke them, but sharply, so that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth.

So if a congregation's being, how shall we say it, biblical in providing feedback to their pastor, they should be saying to their pastors, you know, pastor,

God's Word says you need to be sharply rebuking those who teach false doctrine, and we've noticed that you keep giving us sunshine rainbows unicorns and care bears, and not that there's anything wrong with that, but we're gonna need a little bit more of what

Christ has commanded you to do by rebuking those who teach false doctrine and not permitting people within the congregation to deviate from the truth.

You kind of get the idea. All right, so, all right, now let me, I went a little bit long on that first part, let me check here.

Sheldon, I see your hand, give me a second, and I thought there was another person who had put their hand up, and now that hand has disappeared.

If you put it back up, I will ask you, I will give you the ability to ask questions here. So what does it mean to be above reproach?

Okay, so James, so above reproach is generally a standard that it's not that the person hasn't ever sinned or been forgiven.

We see a similar phrase being used by Paul in another epistle where he uses almost an identical phrase in the

Greek. To be above reproach means to be forgiven, but the idea here is that to be above reproach means that the people in your general, in the general surrounding area where the pastor is preaching and teaching, that people would say, yeah, that guy, you know,

I don't agree with him, but there's nothing morally reprehensible that is outstanding as part of his character.

And so above reproach basically is, you know, the idea is that you don't want people saying, you know what,

I will never attend that church because I hear that that pastor does blank, okay?

And whatever fill -in -the -blank is is something that even pagans recognize as sinful, okay?

That's the idea. So you need...and so, you know, the Apostle Paul is an apostle.

He's an apostle. He's been made above reproach by Christ, but everybody knows he was a murderer, okay?

So the idea here is your sins do not disqualify you from ministry. They can disqualify you from forever being a pastor, you know, depending on the sin, but especially if it makes it so that in somebody's mind you're not above reproach.

You do not want the pastor's sins to be the thing that is keeping people away from Church or driving away

Christians because they're morally incensed. I can't believe that that guy who's doing this and hasn't repented continues to be in the pastoral office, and that's the idea.

So that's the basic gist of it, okay? And this is why it goes on to kind of list certain things, you know, husband of one wife, you know, things like that.

Okay, all right, so keep going. Studying the elder qualifications was our wake -up call.

Yeah, I know that. Okay, what about someone who was divorced and now married? Are they able to serve to be a pastor?

So LJ, I'm going to answer this question this way, is that there are kind of two schools of thought when it comes to the husband of one wife.

And so let me kind of give you, we'll take a look at how the Greek works on this so that you can kind of see this.

Okay, must not be a drunkard. Here we go. Husband of one wife. So this is our English translation.

And this is weird, because in the Greek, it's mias gunaikos aner, and so if I were to just literally translate this

Greek here, he's a one -woman man, okay? So the

Greek literally reads a one -woman man. All right, so the question is, can a person who is divorced and remarried be a one -woman man?

Or let me ask you this question. Can a man who was married and his wife has died, you know, tragically or whatever, and he's remarried another person, can that man still be a pastor?

Okay, so the answer by one camp is yes, because, and here's the reason why, this is in the context of sexual immorality.

Above reproach, a one -woman man, he's not an adulterer or drunkard. So it's a moral qualification.

So for instance, a man who was married, his wife cheated on him, left with the milkman, and now is shacking up with the milkman, and he's divorced because she's committed adultery on him, is that man, according to Scripture, free to remarry?

Yes. If he remarries, is he still a one -woman man? The answer is yes, because he's not divorced of his own volition, he's divorced because his wife cheated on him.

Now, let's go take a look at a different set of circumstances. A man who was married, and he was married for three years, and traded up his wife for a newer model after the lease was up, and then did that again.

So he's on wife number three, and now he wants to be a pastor.

I would say, that guy clearly is not a one -woman man. That's a totally different thing.

Now, there is another group, by the way, another group within Visible Christendom who reads it differently.

They see the one -woman man, and they translate this text as married only once.

That's how they translate this text. And so for them, the way they want to interpret this

Greek is to basically say, if you're a pastor, you get one shot at marriage. If it doesn't go well for you, too bad.

If your wife dies, it doesn't matter, you can't remarry. And I don't think that's really the gist of what

Paul is getting at here. And so I am of the opinion that a man is capable, but it's not an absolute.

You have to look at the circumstances. It's possible for a person who has been divorced, or whose wife has died, to be remarried and can be a pastor, but you have to look at the circumstances of the divorce in order to make the qualifications, because this is in the qualifications of something to do with the issue of being above reproach.

So a guy who's been married three times, and each time he's been married it's because he was cheating on his wife, that's not a one -woman man, and he's not above reproach.

But somebody who's been cheated on, whose marriage has dissolved, not because he willed it, but because he's a victim of adultery, nobody would fault him for being remarried because Christ releases him from the marriage vow at that point.

He's not an adulterer. So again, the overarching thing is above reproach. So pagans recognize that womanizers are immoral and shouldn't be pastors, and so that's the idea.

So you have to really look hard at the circumstances. And so there's the idea.

Okay. All right, so we answered that question. Nothing positive about not preaching the gospel for those broken by sin.

Nothing positive about not preaching the gospel. You see, the thing is, if you're not preaching the gospel, you're not rightly handling

God's Word, and you're not teaching the Word as taught. Because the Scriptures, especially in the

Testament, explicitly lays out the distinction between law and gospel, and when somebody does not properly understand that distinction biblically, they're going to hurt people, because they're going to always err on the side of either all law, or worse, they're going to go antinomian and preach all gospel and no law at all.

So Heather says, rebuking contradictions is loving. I know it is, because Scripture defines it at that, but you're going to note that in our world today, it is considered, it's just assumed that rebuking contradiction is unloving.

So one of the things that happens with irregularity with me is, because I so publicly point out how different people are not teaching what's in accord with Scripture or sound doctrine, there are people who will rebuke me.

And so there are videos out there dedicated to explaining why I do what

I do. You know why Roseboro contradicts people? Why he goes after these men of God?

You know why? It's because he's jealous. He's jealous because his ministry is small, and these people are known worldwide.

Oh, he's just jealous. He's... And all this kind of weird stuff, okay? And so they think they know the reason why

I'm doing what they're doing, but in the process, they're slandering me, and they're assuming that what I'm doing is unloving.

And other people will say, this is terrible that you are tearing down these people of God. You just need to leave them alone and let the

Holy Spirit sort this all out. But the Scripture says, those who teach contrary to sound doctrine, that God wills for them to be silenced.

Silenced. Okay, so let's see here. John MacArthur teaches divorced men are not for the office.

Sounds dodgy to me. So J -Mac is going to be in that group where he's taking the one -woman man and basically saying, you know, a guy who's divorced, and he's not giving any thought as to whether or not the guy has been released from the marriage vow because his wife has been unfaithful, and just saying you can't continue on in the pastoral office.

You can't even be a pastor if he's divorced. That's, again, it's in the context of being above reproach.

A guy who's been cheated on, who's been left by his wife, been abandoned by her, and she's committed adultery, biblically he's released, and nobody would consider that man to be immoral when he remarries, and he has the freedom to do so.

Okay. All right, zero tolerance policies equal zero thought policies.

That's absolutely correct. All right, and so in this regard, yeah, if you're going to go with zero tolerance policy regarding divorce, that requires no thought.

I think it's kind of lazy. I remember back in the 90s when my kids were in grade school and they first started implementing zero tolerance drug policies in the public schools in Southern California, and the effect that it ended up having was not getting rid of the illegal drugs.

What it did was end up making it so that good students were being expelled, okay?

So you have an A student, a girl who's 12, 13 years old, and she's having menstrual cramping, and she's put some

Midol in her purse, and she's taking some Midol to ease her symptoms, and she's now broken the zero tolerance drug policy at their school, and this

A student girl is expelled from school because she broke the zero tolerance policy.

This is idiocy, okay? And there are great instances recorded at that time in the news of good students expelled because of zero tolerance policies.

So if you cannot make the difference, if you cannot in your mind see the difference between Midol and heroin, then we got a problem, okay?

We just have a problem, okay? Does a pastor need to be married?

No, pastor does not need to be married. The Apostle Paul makes a point about the fact that he was not married, all right?

So it's not a requirement for him to be married, but if he is married, he's a one -woman man, okay?

So in fact, the ancient Church, virginity and men who were not married, that was considered to be a positive thing.

All right, I see that hand, Bruce. This is in your wheelhouse, I can feel this. All right, hang on a second, I'm going to unmute you.

All right. I was not aware of that part of...I've not seen that in the writings of the

Church Fathers, so I was not aware of that bit. So the basic premise is that because Paul was a Pharisee, Pharisees are required to be married, and so he had some time in between when he was called by Christ before he starts really heading off on his missionary journey, and he's a 15 -year period, and that 15 -year period, there are some sources who argue that that was as a result of his wife still being alive.

So, yeah, okay. But pastors are not required to be married.

They are not required to be married, so a man who is a pastor can choose not to be.

Celibacy is a gift given by Christ, I would note. It's a unique gift given by Christ, and not many men have that gift.

But I will say this in this regard. Let me go to 1 Timothy, I think it's 3, hang on a second here.

No, it's probably 2 Timothy, hang on a second, I'm doing this from memory. Nope, I think it's back, let me do this.

Okay, I'm gonna hunt this down, it may be 4, hold on.

Okay, yeah, here it is. Now, note this one, okay, in this regard, 1

Timothy 4, now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits.

Welcome to that time, we're here. Okay, and the teachings of demons. Yep, that's today.

So, and then note this, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, and then note part of what is to be expected as this kind of continues to develop, who forbid marriage.

I can think of an entire denomination within the Visible Church that forbid their pastors to be married.

Okay, yeah, I just, you know, thinking about this, yeah, yeah, it doesn't rhyme with anything.

Anyway, so, you know, but you get the idea. So, who forbid marriage, and then they require abstinence from foods, too.

You know, maybe like meat on Fridays or something, right? Just saying that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth, for everything created by God is good.

So the idea here is that, and we recognize this then, Marilyn, is that men who are married generally are married because the stars have aligned and they've met her, okay?

And so, you know, I always note that men who are single, it's a challenge for them.

It's a challenge for them, because they have to meet a woman who's willing to put up with them. And that's hard to do, okay?

So requiring men to be married would be kind of silly, because it's like, all right, you're requiring him to be married, all right?

Which of you women wants to step up to the plate and marry that guy? And I'll go, oh, well, now that you put it that way.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, right. So the idea here is that certain things have to happen in order for that.

So a man is free to stumble in the dark while looking for her, and he's not required to be married.

And at the same time, if he just says, this is too hard, I'm too much of a project, no woman is willing to take me on as a project, you know, because that's what we are to women, we are projects.

And so you get the idea that, well, you know, until some woman has mercy on that fellow and says, yeah,

I'll have pity on you. And when that happens, every guy always says, you know, I'm the most fortunate man in the world,

I married up. We all marry up, okay? Women are the fairer sex.

So anyway, you get the idea. But where there's a real problem is not in requiring men to be married.

There's no requirement for men to be married for the pastoral office, it's when they are forbidden to do so. And you'll note the forbidding of men being married is one of the major instigators as to why there's so many sexual scandals in particular denominations that require men to be celibate.

That, I would say that it, I'd say that has something, a lot to do with it.

Anyway, I know you're disagreeing with me, Bruce, but you're not going to convince me on this one, so just not going to convince me.

And then when they force them not to be married, yeah, when they force them not to be married, I mean, they broke up marriages that were already in existence.

You know, this is terrible. I think the 11th... Yeah, yeah, exactly.

All right, so Josh says, self -defense against bullies in schools these days is also heavily punished, thinking the schools themselves are the worst offenders of bullying.

Self -defense against robbers in Canada is heavily punished. It is? Really? So if you're being robbed, you're supposed to just take it?

You can't defend yourself? That's crazy. Okay. Chris, I found out today calling your wife

Ms. Fix -It doesn't end well. I'll pray for you, Eric. I can't imagine why that happened, so you get the idea.

All right, let me see. Sheldon, I see your hand,

I'm going to unmute you now, and you can ask your question. Yeah, so this pastor in Barbados basically doesn't see any need to study, he hears directly from God, I take it?

You know, you make a great point, Sheldon, and just to kind of rephrase what you said, is that when it comes to electricians, we want our electricians to have actually studied and know how to wire a house properly.

I would never hire a electrician who has not gone through all the proper certifications and training to be an electrician, because to hire a fellow like that to have him do the job,

I risk having my house burned down. All right? In the same way, you don't go to doctors who haven't been to medical school and haven't been certified by the medical board.

Why? Because quack doctors have this really strange thing that they do with frequency, and that is they kill people.

Okay? And so it's fascinating to me that these people who claim that pastors can receive a direct call from God and they don't need to study and show themselves approved and all this kind of stuff, and they don't...they

refuse to even acknowledge that there's a biblical standard to being in the pastoral office, these are people who, when they go to the doctor, they expect their doctor to be board certified, they expect their electricians and plumbers to have the proper guild certifications or craftsman certifications for doing that.

And I would note that a doctor, the worst thing your doctor can do to you is kill you.

The worst thing your pastor can do to you is send you to hell. So if Christians were consistent in their thinking, then they would keep their pastors at as high a standard as their plumbers, electricians, and doctors.

But it's a strange thing that happens nowadays. It's supposed to be pious and holy to allow the

Holy Spirit to lead a man who has never been trained to handle God's Word, and it doesn't matter if he doesn't handle it properly or not, we felt the

Holy Spirit move in our church today. And that wasn't a Holy Spirit, that was weird stuff. So yeah, it's kind of...so

I appreciate the point that you brought up, Sheldon. Now there is a question here, Pastor Chris, how would you address hyper -preterism?

So preterism is an approach to the Scriptures, especially regarding like the

Book of Revelation and the Olivet Discourse, which basically says that all of those things have already been fulfilled, and therefore you can't look to the

Book of Revelation or even Matthew 24 as any kind of guide or indicator as to what's going to happen in the future.

Preterism is a weird eschatology, and it fails on the level of exegesis, and I'll show you this so that we can kind of break this out.

So what'll end up happening with the preterists when they read the Olivet Discourse in Matthew 24, they will see in it the prophecies regarding the destruction of the

Temple, and they'll say, well, since the Temple has already been destroyed in 70

AD, everything that Jesus says in the Olivet Discourse is in relation to that, and not anything else.

And this exegetically misses an important indicator within the text itself. And it also ignores one of the interesting things that happens within prophecy in Scripture, and that is that Scripture...prophecies

in Scripture oftentimes can be what are called proleptic. I'll explain what

I mean by that in a second here. So when we look at Matthew 24, Jesus left the Temple and was going away when

His disciples came to point out to Him the buildings of the Temple. He answered them,

You see these, do you not? Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.

So, I mean, this is a huge thing, okay? The destruction of the Temple. Watch how the disciples interpret what

Jesus says. So as He sat on the Mount of Olives, so He's opposite...He's on the opposite side of the

Kidron Valley, He's on the Mount of Olives, looking at the Temple Mount from there. His disciples come to Him privately, and they say,

Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming, your parousia, and of, watch this, the end of the age.

So the disciples, they hear Jesus talk about the destruction of the

Temple, and so, let me read it from the

Greek, this is the important bit that Preterists seem to somehow downplay, kai sun teleos tu aionos, the completion.

So teleos is the end, you know, when, and regarding the completion, the end of tu aionos, which is the end of the age, all right?

So when is the end of the age coming, and your coming, your parousia? So they think the destruction of the

Temple is linked to Jesus' return and the end of the age.

And Jesus, rather than correct the disciples and say, No dudes, this is all

Preterism, okay? This is something different, you know, I'm only going to prophesy regarding the destruction of the

Temple, what Jesus does is He employs a prophetic technique used by the prophets of old, which

God had them employ, and that is that He takes the destruction of the Temple, which is going to be the near fulfillment of this prophecy in Matthew 24, and He's going to use it as a picture and a type and shadow of a farther fulfillment, which is wrapped up in the same prophecy, the farther fulfillment of His return in glory.

And so the idea here is that He kind of braids it together, He takes two completely different events and braids them together into one piece, but you can still see how the braid is put together.

So it's one prophecy with a couple of different streams through it. So He says,

See that no one leads you astray. So first thing out of His mouth regarding this prophecy regarding the end of the age is,

See that no one leads you astray. Now note here, Many will come in my name, saying, I am the

Christ, they will lead many astray. Now, you would then take into consideration in this regard, is this consistent then with what both

Paul and Peter prophesied regarding the return of Christ? Paul in 2

Thessalonians, talking about the rise of the Antichrist, talks about false prophets, he talks about the the rebellion that will take place, the apostasy within the body of Christ, and that's clearly pointing to the return of Jesus.

So already we're seeing the same themes working out, and it's consistent with what

Paul and Peter actually prophesied regarding the end. You'll hear of wars and rumors of wars,

See that you are not alarmed, this must take place, the end is not yet. And here we got,

Tell us, the end, the completion. For nation will rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom, there will be famines, earthquakes, various places, but these things are the beginning of birth pains.

And this idea of birth pains is also a similar theme used by both,

I think, well, mostly used by Paul, I don't know if Peter does, but used by Paul in talking about the end of the age.

So they will deliver you up to tribulation, put you to death, you'll be hated by all nations for my name's sake, many will fall away, betray one another, hate one another, many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.

Okay? So you'll note he's prophesying regarding the end, and then into this, then, he will put also details regarding the destruction of the

Temple in 70 AD. Now if you want to see kind of an idea of what a proleptic prophecy looks like, let me see if I can find this,

I think it's Isaiah 7. Um, yeah, here we go, let's see.

Now watch how this one works, and you can kind of see it. There's a near fulfillment and then a farther fulfillment.

Yahweh said to Isaiah, go out and meet Ahaz, you and Shir Jashub, your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the washer's field.

Say to him, be careful, be quiet, do not fear, do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands at the fierce anger of Rezzan and Syria and the son of Ramaliah.

Basically there's been an alliance by these kingdoms, Syria and Rezzan and Ramaliah, to attack

Israel, and Ahaz has lost his mind over it. And so God is saying through Isaiah, because Syria with Ephraim and the sons of Ramaliah have devised evil against you, saying, let us go up against Judah and terrify it, let us conquer it for ourselves, and let us and set up the son of Tabe 'el as king in the midst of it, thus says

Yahweh, it shall not stand, it shall not come to pass. God is basically saying, what you're afraid of isn't even going to take place.

For the head of Syria is Damascus, the head of Damascus is Rezzan, and within 65 years Ephraim will be shattered from being a people, and the head of Ephraim is

Samaria, the head of Samaria is the son of Ramaliah. If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all.

So this is a prophecy then given by God assuring Ahaz that this is not going to happen, and then

God tells Ahaz, ask me for a sign so that you may know that what

I've told you is going to happen is going to happen. So Yahweh spoke to Ahaz, ask a sign of Yahweh your

God, let it be as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven. But Ahaz just feigns piety here, he says,

I will not ask, I will not put Yahweh to the test. So now God gives him a prophecy.

He says, hear then, O house of David, is it too little for you to weary men that you now weary my God also?

Therefore Yahweh, actually Adonai, the Lord will give you a sign, behold, the virgin shall conceive.

And here, the Hebrew word is Alma, which a lot of scholars just bristle at because it's not exactly the word that you would use for somebody who's sexually a virgin.

It can mean that, it doesn't necessarily mean that. Behold, the virgin shall conceive, or the young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name

Immanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he knows how to refuse evil and choose the good.

And so the idea here is that in this prophecy, we see a prophecy regarding Christ, but there is a near -fulfillment of this prophecy in Ahaz's lifetime that then, which was then used for the purpose of confirming the word that God had said that Syria would not attack him.

And so the idea there was a near -fulfillment of it, as well as the far -fulfillment of it, and the far -fulfillment of it is the birth of Jesus Christ from the virgin.

So you get the idea here. And so the Lord will bring upon you and upon your people, upon your father's house, days as not have come since the days of Ephraim departed from Judah, the king of Assyria.

So now God is kind of turning things on his head, so you get the idea. So what the preterist refuses to do is to recognize the proleptic nature of certain prophecies, and they're failing to recognize that Christ himself has made it clear that, you know, the text itself makes it clear that this is a prophecy not merely regarding the destruction of the

Temple, but wrapped up in it are details regarding the end of the age. And so that's how I would go after the preterists.

I do not agree with their exegesis because they ignore particular exegetical markers within the biblical text in order to establish this idea that all of the prophecies of Matthew 24 have been fulfilled.

They haven't. Many of them are being fulfilled in our lifetime, and the cross -references make it clear. And the

Book of Revelation also is clearly discussing the end of the world, because the world ends like five, seven times in the

Book of Revelation. Everything comes to that point. So the preterists, they are they're just way off, just way off, and I reject their exegesis, you know, from beginning to end.

All right. K. Rachel says, sadly such educated pastors rightly teaching the

Word are challenging to find nowadays. I know, I know. This is not a good thing, which is why

I'm here in New Jersey watching you online. Thank you so much for your biblical teaching. It's my honor to be your servant and pray that the

Lord of the Harvest sends more men into the harvest field, because it is becoming more and more difficult to find good pastors.

Okay, this was hopefully a beneficial study for y 'all, hopefully, and we are going to wrap up there, and so here in,

I should let everybody know, here in Minnesota, the governor of Minnesota has continued to keep

Minnesota under lockdown at least through the 16th of May. And I gotta tell you that so many people here and around the country are getting really antsy.

What was supposed to be two weeks has turned into four, is turning into six and longer, and so I can say that based on the rules and regulations set up that we should continue to be online for at least the next couple of Sundays.

But you know, I think Kongsvinger is even considering trying to continue to make our services available live after this, but it's going to take some infrastructure changes over at the building, so I will keep you all posted.