F4F | David Hughes Botches Law and Gospel

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith here on YouTube. If you've ever been told by a pastor that you need to make decisions that are blessable and that the reason why particular people in the Bible are so noteworthy and iconic is because they made blessable decisions, yeah, go ahead and hit the subscribe button down below and don't forget to ring the bell.

Law and Gospel in the Sermon on Abraham

That pastor is not making a proper distinction between God's law and the gospel, which is an easy thing to do, by the way, and we'll kind of flesh that out in this episode. Now, case in point, we're gonna head over to Church by the Glades and we're gonna be listening to David Hughes from his Genius Sermon series, only as good as the guarantee is the name of this particular message, and we're gonna pay attention to the opening few minutes of it as he doesn't make a proper distinction between law and gospel and makes some errors that pastors should not be making because they should be able to rightly handle biblical text, and unfortunately David Hughes makes some pretty big blunders in this well-meaning sermon of his, and we'll kind of flesh that out and tease it out along the way.

As far as, like, on the discernment scale, you know, with Cuckoo Banana Town being, like, you just have to have 0 .1 discernment to know that's Cuckoo Banana Town, and something that's like, yeah, you got to have a little bit more training and a little bit better understanding of more than just context, context, context.

Yeah, this installment's over on the other side of Cuckoo Banana Town, so there's a spectrum of discernment, if you would. So with that, let's get to it as David Hughes begins to explain to us about the iconic life of Abraham.

Here we go.

We start, I think, what's gonna be a remarkable journey through the narrative of a man named Abraham. Abraham lived such an iconic life, made such brilliant.

And blessable decisions. Iconic life and blessable decisions. What does that mean? You know, I think about Abraham. If you know the story of Abraham, I mean, on two occasions this guy totally pretended like he wasn't married to his wife so that he wouldn't get killed, and in one instance it almost got her, you know, slept with.

Yeah, iconic, blessable decision guy. Right, yeah. We continue.

His legacy is impossible to fully understand or calculate. He's honored by Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. Billions of people, not millions, billions of people venerate his name. What he did in his generation was iconic.

Oh my God, I can't. Iconic, again. I don't think that word means what you think it.

Means. Wait for this multiple-week study. I hope you make a genius decision. Be here every week. And why are we gonna do this, this whole hug thing? Here's why. You turn to Genesis chapter 12. Genesis chapter 12.

If you have your Bible, if you don't have your Bible, I'll put the verses on the screen on every campus. Genesis chapter 12. In fact, let's shout that loudly together. Genesis chapter. Genesis chapter 12.

And while you're in Genesis 12, that's the first book of your Old Testament, in the New Testament, Hebrews 11, it says this about Abraham and why he was blessed.

And why he was blessed. Okay, now let's just do a little pre-work. We'll do a little pre-work, shall we? We're gonna take a look at Hebrews chapter 11 since he told us this is where we're going, and we'll look at it in the ESV.

And a little bit of a note, I know for a fact that the verse that will appear on the screen shortly is from the new NIV. Not the 1984 NIV, but the new version of the NIV, whenever that came out. So that will come into play here.

Now let me make my Greek just a little bit bigger. Now here's what it says, Hebrews 11. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. It is the conviction of things not seen. For by it, by faith, the people of old received their commendation.

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. Now faith, by the way, pistis, is trust. You know, it's, I have faith in you that you will do such and such a thing, you know, that you'll brush your teeth this morning.

Hopefully that's not a misplaced faith. But you know, faith is trust in somebody, so faith always has an object to which it's looking to. You just, you can't have faith in faith, that's called fideism, and that's really kind of what goes on in the Word of Faith heresy.

But faith is trust in God for the promises that He has given to us. Now, that being the case, we've got to be very careful when we pay attention to the promises that we truly do have. We do not have a promise of prosperity.

We do not have a promise of perfect health, and wealth, and influence, and affluence, and a dream destiny thingy, and all this kind of...no, we don't have those kinds of promises. What we do have, through Jesus Christ and His death on the cross, is the promise of the forgiveness of sins, a reconciled relationship with God, adoption into the family of God so that we can call God Father, we are His children, we have been made holy by Christ, it's salvation, eternal life as a free gift.

These are the things that we are promised. So, you know, keep that in mind. So if we're going to trust God, we're trusting God for particular things. So by faith, then, we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God so that what is seen was not made out of the things that are visible.

By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts, and through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

So you'll note, then, that this text tells us why Abel was commended, whereas Cain was not. Cain was not rejected because he gave God a salad offering. You learn in the Torah that, you know, you can bring a grain offering to God, that's perfectly acceptable.

The issue was, Cain had no faith. Abel did. That's the thing that distinguished, you know, Cain from Abel, is that Cain was faithless. He didn't trust God. Abel did. By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found because God had taken him.

Now before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God, and this is kind of an important governing verse. Without faith, it is impossible to please God, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists, and he rewards those who seek him.

So you think of the idea of salvation by grace through faith alone, and you know, without faith it's impossible to please God. Yeah, that's right, there is no salvation apart from faith. So by faith, Noah then being warned by God concerning the events as yet unseen, and Reverend Fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household, and by this he condemned the world and became the heir of righteousness that comes by faith.

By faith, Abraham...now we're to the Abraham portion. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out. So you know, it's not just that Abraham obeyed. By faith, Abraham obeyed. He believed, he trusted.

Romans 4, quoting Genesis 15, says that Abram believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. So by faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.

And he went out, not knowing where he was going, and by faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.

Talking about the New Jerusalem, you know, that's revealed in the end of the book, in the book of Revelation. By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age. She considered him faithful who had promised.

Therefore from one man and him as good as dead were born descendants, as many as the stars of heaven, and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore. All these died in faith, not having received the things promised.

Right? Yeah, that's right, they didn't receive them. So, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth, for people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

If they had been thinking of the land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

And now here comes the portion that David Hughes will be quoting. By faith Abraham, when he was tested, and so you know he did this by faith, when he was tested he offered up Isaac, and he who had received, anodechomai, anodechomai is the the Greek word, and you know, you can accept or receive, that's kind of the concept, so the one who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his son, of whom it was said, through Isaac shall your offspring be named, and he considered that God was able to raise him from the dead, from which he figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

By the way, this tells us that that story of Abraham sacrificing, or you know, going to sacrifice Isaac on Mount Moriah, it's a type and shadow. It's a type and shadow of Christ and his crucifixion, and his sacrifice.

So by faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau, and by faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. So you're gonna, over again, by faith, by trusting God, by trust, by trust, by faith.

Faith and trust are synonymous concepts here. That's how this happened. And now let's take a look at what David Hughes does here, because like I said, on the discernment scale this one's a little.

Out there, but let's continue. So we're gonna study the power of the promises of God. The promises of God. Your Bible is full of God self-obliging himself to promise things to you, and God always keeps his promises.

But look at Abraham's attitude when it came to God's promises. Verse 17, Hebrews 11, it's on the screen at every campus. By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. Get ready.

He, Abraham, he who had embraced the promises. Yeah, I got to take.

Issue with the brand-new NIV here. I really do. Now if you don't know Greek, if you don't know Greek, let me show you a way in which you can begin to, you know, kind of figure things out. So if you're a pastor and your job is to, you know, preach sermons and stuff like that, and you haven't been to seminary, and you've never taken a Greek class, I would say you are at a disadvantage.

But let me show you how to overcome that disadvantage. So we're gonna be at BibleGateway .com, BibleGateway .com, and what we're gonna do is we're gonna look up Hebrews 11 17, and this is the new international version.

Let's make this just a little bit bigger. Wow, that's small. Where's the make it bigger button? Anyway, maybe if I try this, let's see if that works. Yeah, that kind of works. Okay, so by faith, Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice, he who had, and here it says embraced.

And now this is the new NIV. Now let me show you the older NIV, the NIV 84, which was, you know, like my first Bible after the King James. And Hebrews 11 17 in the 84 says this, by faith, Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice, he who had received, anedechomai, the promises.

So you're gonna note that the original NIV says received. The current NIV says embraced. Now that's not a good translation of anedechomai. It really isn't. It makes me go, who came up with that idea? Okay, so you're gonna note that David Hughes is making a lot of hay on this.

Now, how then would you go about, you know, figuring this out? So what you do then in a situation like this, and you would go to...so you look at it in the current NIV. Let's go ahead and look at the New King James Version, and he who had received the promises.

So you notice it says received in the King James. And the idea here is compare notable good English translations and see if...play that game from Sesame Street. You know, one of these things is not like the other.

Here's the original King James, by faith, Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac, and he that had received. There it is again, received. So the King James says received. The New King James says received.

The ESV, which we've already noted, says received. You know, so the idea here is by comparing different good translations. And I mean, don't...yeah, you're not...just avoid the passion translation, that's not a translation.

Avoid the voice, the message, the living Bible. These are all paraphrases at best, and heretical at worst, in some cases. But, you know, so like, check the NIV, check the ESV, check the New King James, check the original King James.

And then the New American Standard...so the New American...let me find that, where is that? Okay, New American Standard, here we go. The NASB. This is a very faithful translation to the Greek. Not so easy to read in English, but that serves as a really good tool.

So again, Hebrews 11 17, by faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and when he who had received. So you'll note that the current NIV is out of alignment. You know, it's got the word embraced, and if you know Greek, you're sitting there going, why did he put the word embrace there for onedechomy?

That doesn't make any sense. But in your preparation for your sermons, you need to be able to make these distinctions. So if you don't know Greek, then you check multiple faithful English translations, and note where there are variants, and then do your research to find out why that's the case.

So, you know, now all that's a little practical help here, but coming back then to David Hughes, I'm gonna back this up just a smidge, because he's gonna make a lot of hay about the word embrace, and that's not a good translation.

Isaac, as a sacrifice,.

He, Abraham, he who had embraced the promises. See, a lot of people wonder why.

I don't see the power of God in my life. Yeah, again, the better translations say received. Received. You know, he who had received, onedechomy. And if we take a look in the BDAG, I need to make that a little bit bigger, to experience something by being accepting.

Accept, or to receive. To extend hospitality, to receive, to welcome. Yeah, see, embraced is not even really in the semantic domain of onedechomy. So we got a problem here, and because his main point is spurious, and not really faithful to what the Greek says, or even how the best English translations work with onedechomy.

I church some, I pray some, I actually read my.

Bible occasionally. Abraham was not blessed because he was acquainted with the Bible. He was aware of the promises. He sometime had spiritualism. No, no, he.

Didn't fist bump the promises of God. He trusted them. He trusted God. Abram believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness. Now, a little bit of a note here. Now, this is where we probably should do a little bit of work on the proper distinction between law and gospel, and even take a quick look at what is said about Abraham in Romans chapter 4.

So in properly understanding the law and the gospel, we have to recognize this kind of weird fact, is that we have two words from God that seem to be contradictory. So the law says, do this and you will live.

The gospel says, believe and you will live. And so which is it? Well, you have to understand their purposes. So both of them are words from God, but they each have a different purpose for which God sent them out.

The purpose of the law is to condemn us. If you could keep God's law perfectly from the moment you're conceived till the moment you draw your last breath, well then you could be saved by the law, but you've got a problem, and that is that you're born dead in trespasses and sins, see Ephesians 2.

So then what's the purpose of the law? We'll see that here in Romans 3, and then note how the gospel comes in and says something very different, you know, and in order to be prepared for the gospel, you have to hear the law.

So what then? Are we Jews any better off, Paul asks? Well, not at all, for we've all already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written. None is righteous, no not one, no one understands, no one seeks for God, all have turned aside, together they become worthless, no one does good.

That's all of us, by the way. No one does good, not even one. Yeah, that's all of us. Their throat is an open grave, they use their tongues to deceive, the venom of asps is under their lips, their mouth is full of curses and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, and in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now, we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

So you'll note then, the law then causes us to be quiet. It shuts your mouth. You're not innocent, you're not going to be justified by the law. The law accuses you and finds you guilty, and rightly so, so zip it, is what the purpose of the law is, so that you can be held accountable to God.

And then verse 24, by works of the law, no human being will be justified. Dikaiao means to be declared righteous. No human being will be declared righteous in God's sight by works of the law, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

That's its primary purpose. It's not its only purpose, but it's its primary purpose to show you and give you knowledge of your sin and how you have fallen short. Now, another purpose of God's law is to show you and to, you know, clearly help you understand what are good works, you know, what are good works that are pleasing in God's sight.

But that's a use that's only for Christians. But the primary use, then, of the law is to cause you to be quiet, and to hold you accountable to God, and to give you a knowledge of your sin, which is necessary if you're going to understand the gospel.

And now here comes the gospel portion of Romans 3, but now the righteousness of God. This is God's righteousness, Christ's, if you would. It has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets, they bear witness to it.

This is the righteousness of God that comes through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as what?

As a gift. Salvation is a gift. It's received and believed and apprehended and held on to by faith. So, we are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation.

Here you can take Helesterion, and you can say this is an atoning sacrifice by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over the former things.

So it was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. So what becomes of our boasting? If you're saved by grace through faith, and it's totally a gift of God, is there any room for boasting?

No! I got this really great gift, if I'm going to boast, I'm going to boast in the gift-giver and his grace and his mercy, right? By what kind of law? By a law of works. You know, boasting is excluded, right?

By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified. Again, dikaiao, declared righteous before God by faith apart from works of the law. Now, this doesn't mean that Christians don't do good works, that's a false understanding.

There's no such thing as a Christian who doesn't do good works. You're not saved by them, though, okay? So we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of the Jews only?

Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Well, yes, of the Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith?

No, by no means. On the contrary, we uphold it. And now here comes the teaching on Abraham. So what shall we say then was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was counted or credited to him as righteousness. Abraham believed. There's that faith. And it's fascinating here, the Greek verb for believe is pistouo, which, you know, its noun form is pistis.

So when we were in the book of Hebrews, by faith, by pistis, by faith, Abraham did this. And then we hear Abraham believed, the verb pistouo, he believed, he pistouoed God, and this was credited to him as righteousness.

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as is due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. So you'll note, salvation, it's saying, I refuse to work for my salvation.

I totally believe that it's what Scripture says, that it's a gift to be received by grace through faith, I believe that and I refuse to work for it, right? That person's faith is counted as righteousness, that's what it says there.

And it's in the context of sorting out and exemplifying Abraham as the man of faith. So now coming back to David Hughes, I told you, on the discernment scale, this is kind of out there, you have to get some...you got to get a few biblical categories in place.

So the law cannot save you, it condemns you, and it shows you what a good work is. The gospel comes and tells you what Christ has done for you, calls you to repent and to believe, and that faith and trust and confidence in God that he has forgiven you for the sake of Christ, that's counted as righteousness.

Righteousness that saves. So let's back this up just a little bit and listen again.

Because he was acquainted with the Bible, he was aware of the promises, he sometime had spiritualism...no, no, he didn't fist bump the promises of God, he embraced the promises of God. When it comes to the promises of God, Joe, you come in for a long, awkward hug, and that's when God blesses you.

I'm going to show you how to hug the promises of God, to dig deep into God's Word, to press into God's promises. I want God to release his power for you. What am I tripping on there? I got some tripping on here.

At the start of 2019, amen? Let's study the promises of God, going to be so much fun. The series is entitled Genius. Let me define the term genius for the sake of our multi-week conversation. When I refer to Jesus, I'm not referring to mere intelligence.

If you have a high IQ, that's awesome. I think it's more than that. Now when you think of a genius in history, you think of those famed geniuses like Sir Isaac Newton, English physicist. You think, and by the way, Heather with the wig, that was awesome, right?

You think of Sir Isaac Newton, you think of a famed Greek philosopher, maybe Aristotle or Plato or Socrates. You think about Italian painter-inventor Leonardo da Vinci, one of the greatest geniuses of all time.

You might be a music fan, Wolfgang Arbideas. Mozart was a genius composer for sure. I'd be remiss here in this study not to.

Mention Michaelangelo. Yeah, it just bums me out that David Hughes doesn't spend as much time working on sound exegesis as he does set design there at Church by.

The Glades. Hey, we got Michael up there. What's up, Michael? Michaelangelo's up there. He's working on the Sistine Chapel right now. Beautiful. I love that. Let's see, how about more contemporary geniuses?

Albert Einstein, Austrian-American physicist. Stephen Hawking passed away last year. Genius mind, incredible intellect. Rick Rosner, Rick Rosner, famed genius. Like, wait a minute, who's that last one, Rick Rosner?

No, actually, Rick Rosner has scored the highest ever on 20 different IQ tests. You didn't know his name, did you? What's he do for a living? Is he a scientist, a musician, a painter? He's worked as a stripper.

Security guard, nothing wrong. Well, stripper, yes, wrong with that. But security guard, nothing wrong with that. He's a really smart guy. So, as I define for this thing, no disrespect if Rick is in church, you're really smart.

But for the sake of this conversation in genius, I want the idea to be applied intelligence. Intelligence with a work ethic. Intelligence with focus, sweat, that results in accomplishment, advancement, and progress.

Now, you take that idea, you know, hard-working intelligence that results in advancement and progress, and you sanctify that idea, you get the biblical idea of wisdom. Wisdom, and that's a huge concept in the Bible.

When I say three, all campuses, please shout the word, wisdom. Ready? One, two, three.

Wisdom. Come on, louder. One, two. Yeah, a little bit of a note. Proverbs, the book of Proverbs. It's all about the wisdom of God. And Proverbs is full of law, not gospel. Law. It's the applied law of God in your own life.

And so the book of Proverbs, yeah, one of the wisdom books, it's law, not gospel.

And God wants you in 2019 to walk in his wisdom. Now, there's somebody going,.

Hey, not just 2019. God would like me to bear fruit in keeping with repentance by obeying his commands every day, regardless of the year. That sounds great. But it doesn't save me.

But David, truth be told, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. I didn't make great grades. I take an IQ test. I didn't score very high. So I guess I'm out for this conversation. Well, here's the crazy thing.

I don't think this biblical idea of wisdom has a lot to do with our intelligence. I don't think you have to have superlative intelligence to walk in God's wisdom. See, God's wisdom is not about my smarts.

It's about his smarts. It's about the cosmic genius who made the cosmos, letting you borrow his brain. And God is so generous. God, if you don't know God, you're here kind of just trying to figure out who God is.

Is this God mean?

Is he stingy? No, he's... So why do I feel like he's trying to like repackage and sell God's law to us? Oh, you're just borrowing God's brain and he's such a genius and he wants you to be like Michelangelo and geniuses like that and Albert Einstein and stuff.

Yeah, that's not really what's going on in the law, but okay.

So open handed. This God is so gracious. He's so generous. He wants you to have all the best things in life, including wisdom. And I love this promise. We're going to study the promises of God.

God wants me to have the best things in life. In this life? Not in the new, the one to come?

God self-obliges himself. So I love this promise. This is a new testament. You stay in Genesis chapter 12. You stay in chapter 12. I promise I'm going to get there. But in James chapter one, verse five on the screen, right now at every campus, read the one little bitty highlighted word.

But if, but if any, any man, woman, boy, girl, smart person, not smart person, educated, but if any of you lacks wisdom, look at this promise. Let him ask of God who gives generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

I mean, I, overall it's a very intelligent church. I got lots of smart people here. Maybe not a religious background, but smart people, even spiritually discerning people. But it's not about your smarts.

God has promised to give you his wisdom. Doesn't matter what you scored on your SAT. Don't matter if you can spell SAT. So here's the big idea. Again, it just feels like a sales pitch. God is offering himself as your personal life consultant.

No, no, God is not a life coach.

God is not a life consultant. God is God. The word deplorable seems to come to mind here.

Through Holy Scripture and the Holy Spirit, he will loan you his genius. Listen, and when you make wise decisions, wise decisions are blessable. Stay with me.

Wisdom, Blessing, and the Promises of God

Another text of Scripture. Galatians chapter 3. And this entire epistle, this book of the Bible, Galatians, is written against the Judaizing heresy, which taught salvation by works plus grace. And so Paul just obliterates the people who are purveyors of the Galatian heresy and say, the ones who said, oh, if you're not circumcised, you're not saved.

Paul just basically says that's a different gospel and your anathema. He says you're damned. But watch what he says then to the churches in Galatia. He says, you foolish Galatians, who's bewitched you?

It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. So let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? By the way, the answer is by hearing with faith.

Let me kind of rephrase it using David Hughes's weird manipulation of the concepts here. Did you receive the spirit by making genius decisions and letting God be your life coach? No. Are you so foolish, Paul, that as having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Did you suffer so many things in vain if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? It's the second one.

Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. So you'll note two passages, Romans 4 and Galatians 3, are holding Abraham up as not a guy who made decisions that could be blessable, but a man who is counted righteous by grace through faith.

So David Hughes is not making a proper distinction between the law and the gospel.

Now God will bless individual wise decisions, unique wise decisions, but making a series of wise decisions, when you get in the holy habit of having wise decisions, oh my gosh, your life takes on a sense of divine momentum.

Your life becomes blessable. See, God, God, blessing. Blessing is a big idea. I'll explain that in a moment, but God loves to bless wise decisions. So wisdom is huge. Say the word wisdom. One, two, three.

Wisdom. Now one more.

Yeah, I think you get the point, and this is just really a mess. Not because he doesn't, how do I put this? He does rightly understand that obedience is something that God does bless, and God does reward, but the problem here is that he's confusing the law and the gospel and its functions and its purposes, and he hasn't front-loaded everything properly the way you should with faith being the, you know, the operative thing, and then we, because we are forgiven, because we have faith in the promises of the forgiveness of sins, we bear fruit in keeping with repentance by growing in our sanctification, by mortifying our sinful flesh, taking off the old self and its foolish and unwise decisions, putting on the new, and that new is made to look like Christ, and the decisions it makes looks a lot like Proverbs.

You see what I'm saying? There's a big difference here, and unfortunately there's just too much going on in evangelicalism where people make it appear that, you know, that we're blessed via works righteousness, or we're saved via works righteousness, and they confuse the law and the gospel and their purposes.

Now hopefully this wasn't like you're sitting there going, man, my brain hurts after this. I get it, I get it, you know, I told you that this one would be a little bit more difficult, but you get the idea.

Closing Remarks and Support for the Ministry

So if you found this helpful, please share this video down below, all the information on how to share it, as well as how to support the Ministry of Fighting for the Faith and Pirate Christian Radio, that's all down in the information at the bottom in the description of this video.

And there's also a link there for Accordance, which is the Bible software that I use in these episodes of Fighting for the Faith online. So until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.

Amen.