SBC... and Verse of the day.

Truth in Love Network

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🎵Outro

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Music Plays🎵 Good evening everyone, this is

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Truth and Love. I'm so glad that you were able to join me and thank you for listening, thank you for watching, thank you for supporting this ministry.

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I want to reach our community and I need your help and I want to lock arms with you as we do it.

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So I apologize for my camera, I apologize for all the technical difficulties that I have every now and then.

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Please comment, join in the conversation, ask questions, let me know that you're there, say hello.

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Love to hear from you, love for you to participate. If I can pray for you, let me know that I can do that,

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I would love to be able to pray for you. Again, this is Truth and Love and we get that from Ephesians chapter 4 verse 15.

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But speaking of truth and love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.

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So let's speak truth, let's speak it in love, so that we can grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even

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Christ. I've got a funny story to tell you real quick. I always like to make myself a cup of coffee when

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I do the video, so I've got my coffee here. And as I was making my coffee a few minutes ago, typical me,

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I spilled some coffee grains and some hit the floor. Never in my wildest dreams would

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I have guessed that a dog would like coffee grains.

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My dog began to lick coffee grains, so I quickly cleaned up the coffee grains and threw it away.

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And let me tell you, taking him out to do his business was a trip just a few minutes ago.

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It may have had something to do with the coffee that he just ate. Never in my wildest dreams.

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So let's get this thing started. We won't be on here long tonight, but I want to talk about with you concerning the

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Southern Baptist Convention that is going on right now. It is going on this week in Nashville, Tennessee.

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And again, I apologize for the camera. It's doing some crazy things. The Southern Baptist Convention is going on right now.

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Nashville, Tennessee, which is the denomination that I have been a part of my whole life.

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I've not seen yet a reason to depart and go to another denomination or no denomination.

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I say yet. That can always change because we want to make sure that we are aligning with scripture, aligning with God's word all the time.

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And so, but we want to we want to support and be in a place where we can encourage.

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We can be a part of God's work where he's working and be a part of what he's doing.

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And so that's what I've always done in the Southern Baptist Convention. But this week, like I said, the convention is going on.

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And this was the first one since covid. The Southern Baptist Convention missed one because of covid and the.

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The former president, which I think is the first time that has happened in history. He got an extended service because of covid and they did not have a convention where they could vote on a new president.

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But at the last convention, the previous convention, some things began to arise convention wide.

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There are folks who see things coming. There are those who send out warnings.

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There are those who begin to educate, who are able to be in certain circles and hear.

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Hear what's going on in the convention, what's going on at the seminaries, and they keep a temperature on what's going on in the convention.

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And they let folks know some of them let folks know some of them, like I said, begin to warn or to have conversations about what's going on.

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Theologically, culturally, different things that are going on in the life of the

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Southern Baptist. And what had happened was certain issues began to rise to the surface in the last convention that some folks have been talking about.

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And I think it was one of those issues where. Those folks that begin to talk about that issue and those issues, they see the necessity of speaking on those issues and warning folks and talking about those issues.

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Educating folks about terminology because new terminology is beginning to be or was beginning to be used or brought back up that was unfamiliar to many of us.

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So there was some education going on. This is what you're going to start hearing. This is what it means.

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This is what it really means. People twist things and create their own definitions.

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I know I watched a video about Buddy Baucom recently who was speaking on one of these issues.

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And he said that that folks will use their own terminology or their own definitions to try to explain some of these issues.

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But here is what the definition is. And this is how it lines up with scripture. So you have those folks who are giving those warnings and giving that education.

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But those things that began to rise to the top were things that we've been talking about.

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Our three panel discussions that we had hit on these issues.

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And I'm thankful for those guys that join me in those panel discussions. But this issue of WOC, the

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WOC movement, critical race theory, intersectionality, those things have been working their way into our convention.

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Working their way into our society. Working their way into our schools. And in our convention, last session, those issues rose to the top.

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Because behind the scenes you had folks who were warning that this was coming.

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And you had folks who were working behind the scenes to make this a reality in our convention.

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And those that made this a reality in our convention were those who were on the committees it seems.

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And they presented what they call resolutions. And from my understanding, what these resolutions are, are they're just statements that we as a convention vote on and say this is what we believe, this is what we get behind.

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It's not anything on level with scripture, of course. That's not what we believe.

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We believe scripture is God's word and that it's the highest authority. But these resolutions, just like any creeds or confessions or statements of faith that we use, they're just our explanations of what we believe

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God's word says. And so that's what I think these resolutions are that come out of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. And so this resolution was focused on, and I think there was other resolutions that people were concerned about then and now.

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But this resolution is called Resolution 9. It had to do with critical race theory and intersectionality all underneath, of course, the umbrella of the woke movement.

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And the resolution passed. Folks spoke up against it, wanted to add some amendments so that it was more clear that it made the resolution more unified.

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So that we could, to a degree, those who were against it to a degree could get behind it and have some unity within the convention.

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But that was turned down. And then I think those folks that were opposed to Resolution 9, opposed to critical race theory, opposed to the woke movement were amped up their warning, amped up their education.

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And I'm thankful for those folks who want to stand on the authority and inerrancy, inspiration, infallibility of God's word and want to educate folks.

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When they have their fingers on the pulse of what's going on in the convention, they are willing to stand up publicly and boldly and educate people on terms and words.

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Ideologies that we don't hear every day. But there are things that are going on behind the scenes in our church world, in our convention, in our seminaries.

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And what's going on is it infiltrates our seminaries.

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Those are the places where our pastors and our leaders are educated. And it infiltrates our seminaries and it gets taught and the students begin to get behind these ideologies.

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And then what happens when they graduate, of course, they go to the churches and they begin to work and then they preach these things from the pulpit to their congregations.

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And so it kind of spreads that way. And so I'm thankful for these folks who have their pulse on what's going on, are willing to be bold and be public and educate and use resources to, you know, use the social media that we have to help get this information out to help educate.

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And I think a lot of us thought that with this education, with what was going on, the attempt that was made to get the word out to the masses,

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I think many of us felt like it was working and that it worked.

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And to a degree, it did work. It helped educate me. It helped educate many other folks and open eyes and help us to understand the realities of what is going on in our culture, what's going on in our convention and in our churches and in our seminaries.

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And these folks should not feel discouraged for the work that they did. One guy that comes to mind is

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Tom Askle. I'm really thankful for him and his ministry, the

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Founders Ministry. He's a pastor and he's also president or the leader of the

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Founders Ministry, founders .org. And he's a Southern Baptist and he cares about the

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Southern Baptist Convention. He cares about the people. He loves the people and he loves God and scriptures and he wanted to educate.

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He did a fantastic job and he worked really hard to get that education out there, the information out there that we needed to know.

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And so he shouldn't feel discouraged on that part from my understanding, what my opinion is.

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He should not feel discouraged. He worked hard and those that support him and work with him, doing the social media and doing the filming, they worked really hard to get this information out there.

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And I was really encouraged to see the pictures and the videos that friends of mine were sending me and showing me of all the people.

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And it could be that this convention was held in maybe a smaller venue.

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I think the last convention that I saw it was in a stadium. So, of course, you can have the same amount of people, but it looks like more when you're in a smaller venue.

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So I don't know. But I do think that they estimated that the numbers were larger at this convention and the pictures look like there were a ton of people there.

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There were so many people there. It was shoulder to shoulder. People were sitting on the floor. And I was very encouraged by this, that people were representing their churches as messengers to the

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Southern Baptist Convention and going to vote, to hear what was going on, to participate and be a part of what is going on in the

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Southern Baptist Convention. So I was encouraged by that. I felt encouraged when

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I saw the pictures and I saw the numbers that what our brothers had been doing, getting the education information out about the woke movement, critical race theory, intersectionality, all those other things.

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I really felt like, and I'm sure there were others like me, that based on the education and based on the word being spread that this was going on in the convention, that people felt like they needed to come and stand up for the truth of God's word and stand up against what's going on in the convention.

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So I was encouraged when I saw those pictures and videos. And also another big thing that was going on today, not only was the resolution brought back up, hoping that it would be denounced, gotten rid of, that was,

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I think that was the great hope for today. One of the other big things, and I think there were a lot of other resolutions that were discussed today, the biggest thing besides the resolution 9 and the woke and critical race theory was the voting of the new president.

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I think there were three options that were given.

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One of the options was a former president, if I'm not mistaken, he's a president now and has been for a while, of one of the

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Southern Baptist seminaries. And he was one of the leaders who in the past helped bring the

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Southern Baptist convention out from underneath the move toward liberalism and back toward conservatism, back toward standing on the word of God.

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And it's inerrancy, it's fallibility, it's inspiration, it's sufficiency.

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He was one of the leaders who helped bring us out from underneath that movement back into the more conservative movement.

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And there's so many that appreciate what he did and what he has done and what he's doing now.

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And I would have hoped that if he would have become president, that he would have done the same thing that he has done in the past.

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That he would do the same thing that he did in the past was keep us and pull us away from a liberal movement and keep us grounded and move us toward the conservative side of things.

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There was another option as president, and I don't know too much about these gentlemen.

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You never can know. It's only based on what you hear from articles or seeing articles and hear from folks.

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And so I'm not going to go deep into these individuals so that I don't accidentally slander or misrepresent because I don't know enough information.

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But you had another gentleman that leaned conservative, and he wanted to, and I believe if I'm correct, he was vocal about wanting to stand against the

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Resolution 9, stand against critical race theory, stand against intersectionality and the woke movement.

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All those things he wanted to stand against and reject as a convention.

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And so I think that was, he was a hope for many conservatives.

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And then the third option, from my understanding, he's also a pastor, and I don't know the details, but it seemed like he,

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I'll just say this, I may speak more about it when I learn more details, but he leaned more liberal than the other two and more than many that I know are comfortable with liberal leaning away from what we would believe to be a good stance on, good firm stance on scripture.

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He would have been, he would not have been our choice. So what happened today in the

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Southern Baptist Convention? Again, I don't know all the details. I'm just hearing small reports of what happened, what went on.

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But from my understanding, with all the resolutions and the way they could have gone, they did not go the way that we as conservatives, that we as those who stand on the infallibility, inspiration, sufficiency, inerrancy of God's word, it did not go the way that we hoped it would have gone.

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The numbers didn't, I guess, did not indicate what we thought it indicated or what

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I thought it indicated. There was, it seems to be an embrace and a friend that I'm part of a group message, and some folks in that group are at the convention and giving me updates, and I won't mention any of their names.

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But one of them made a comment that was, to me,

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I would agree with wholeheartedly that the Southern Baptist Convention has had a bad habit of approaching scripture, approaching evangelism, approaching missions.

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Just having an approach on everything in a pragmatic way, and what do

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I mean by pragmatic? I mean, pragmatism simply means the ends justify the means.

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So we have a certain end that we want to see. We have a goal. There are certain things that we want to see happen.

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This is what we want to see at the end when we're finished with our work. So what does the work look like?

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Well, whatever it takes to eventually get to that goal for us to see those means happen or to see those ends happen.

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And that seems like it's been a pattern that the

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Southern Baptist Convention and Southern Baptist churches have had for so long is that we've taken pragmatic approaches with our churches, with our services, with our youth groups, with our children's ministries, with our evangelism, with our missions.

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Everything that we do takes a pragmatic approach, and we ride the waves of society.

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So what's going on in the world of popular music?

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That's what we want to have in our churches to reach the youth. What kind of games are people playing in society?

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What movies are they playing in society? That's the kind of thing that we want to be doing inside our church so that we can be reaching the youth.

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That's kind of an example of pragmatism in the church. Whatever's going on in society, that's what we want to embrace so that we don't offend anyone and so that we can reach as many people as possible using the world's mentality.

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And I've always thought that that is a horrible approach. We have

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God's word, and we need to stand on God's word and do things His way according to His word.

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And that should be our approach always. Never pragmatism. Always based on God's word and how

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He informs us to do things. And so there's many of us that believe that this is just more evidence of pragmatism in the

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Southern Baptist Convention, that you have this wave in our society of the woke movement, critical race theory, intersectionality.

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You have this wave. So we want to embrace that and ride that wave in our convention so that we don't offend anyone and so that we can grow in our numbers.

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And that means that we get more money. It's such a pragmatic approach.

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And it's sad that we take that approach. To me, it's a sad day for the

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Southern Baptist Convention. There's still hope. Jesus won the victory.

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God has always been in control, and His kingdom is still growing. It's still moving.

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It is just difficult to swallow when we see people, see our congregations, our conventions, whatever you want to call it, leave the sufficiency of God's word, leave the trusting in God's word and go with the waves and the whims of society and embrace those.

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I think that's how we need to do our convention, how we need to do our church. It's such a sad day when all those things that we talked about with the woke movement, intersectionality, critical race theory, they're all anti -biblical, all anti -Christian, from their origins to what they mean now.

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Every aspect of it is anti -biblical, anti -Christian. We don't even need it as what they call it.

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This is the terminology that they use in the convention as an analytical tool, basically a tool that we can use to help understand what's going on in our society.

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We don't need that, number one, because it's anti -biblical, anti -Christian. Number two,

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God has already addressed everything that we need to know concerning those issues. God has a plan.

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God has a word on those issues, and it's not the woke movement. It's not intersectionality.

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It's not critical race theory. God has already spoken, and we've covered all those things in a previous video.

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We appreciate the reports, hearing the reports that time was taken for prayer before meetings started, before decisions were made.

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I appreciate that they did that. It's difficult for me, and I'm sure it's difficult for many out there, that after you can be on your knees, be on your face, praying and crying out to God for help, for direction, for wisdom, that you make such decisions that are in opposition to God's word.

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It's discouraging how that can happen, but personally,

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I have to realize and be self -aware that I'm no different, that I pray, and I repent, and I seek

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God's wisdom. I seek his direction, but yet I still fall, and I still stumble, and I still choose my own path, and I don't want to.

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So I'm just as guilty in my own personal life as the convention is as a whole,

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I would say, or as a convention in these decisions, not as a whole, but in these decisions at the convention.

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I'm just as guilty, and I'm just as disappointed in myself for when I do those things, and it happens too often for me personally.

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So that's all that I know at this time. Maybe we can have some folks on that were there that will talk about it with us.

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That would be great. If anybody sees this video and is willing to come on with me to give a report, talk about what happened at the convention,

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I'd love to hear from you. And Roger says, Roger, I want to put you up on the screen here.

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Roger says, Israel moved away from God's word and conformed to the society around them, and it didn't end well for them.

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Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, we're told that in the

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New Testament. What is the reference, Roger, to the verse that I'm thinking about where the author of this particular book says, these things that happened to Israel or these things that Israel did, they're recorded and written down for you to warn you.

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I can't remember the reference. Maybe somebody can help me out there, but it's speaking to that, what you're talking about,

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Roger, that it didn't end well for them, and that's a warning for us, and that's why that author said those things were written down as a warning for them, as a warning for Christians moving forward.

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And that kind of leads us into the verse of the day, and I want to go ahead and go to the verse of the day so that we can wrap things up.

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If you have any questions, you want to have a conversation about anything that I've talked about, I'd love to hear from you.

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Let me pull up here the verse of the day from the

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YouVersion Bible app. That's not the verse of the day.

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Wow. Okay. That's not the verse of the day that I saw earlier.

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I know it's not past midnight. Hmm. Oh, well.

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Anyway, the verse of the day on the

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YouVersion Bible app is Joshua 1 .8, and I don't know where this comes from that I saw.

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It says verse of the day. Maybe there's an Old Testament. Maybe there's a New Testament.

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I don't know. Sometimes technology is strange.

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I looked on my app on my phone, and the verse of the day was Joshua 1 .8. I looked on the computer and go to the actual website, and the verse of the day is

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Romans 8 .26, it says. But let me look at Joshua 1 .8 because that's the one

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I looked at and saw earlier. Roger says in several places, but it's in 2

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Chronicles. So Joshua 1 .8. And let me read verse 7, and then

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I'll read verse 8. Only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to do according to all the law which

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Moses, my servant, commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left so that you may have success wherever you go.

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Verse 8. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, and so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.

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For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.

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If you look at the context, and it's easy. You're in the first chapter of the book.

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Go to the first verse, and you see what's going on here. Moses has died, and now Joshua, it says

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Moses' minister, Joshua, is now the leader. God is speaking to Joshua.

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He's going to be leading the nation, and he's saying, take them over the Jordan. Take them into the land that I have promised you.

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And then he says to do this, this book of the law. It shall not depart from your mouth.

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So God is giving Joshua instructions for him and for the nation as they go into this land that God had promised them.

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He is allowing them to now enter the land, and this is the instruction that God is giving him.

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And I find this verse interesting as we look at it just for a moment.

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It says this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth. So God is saying that the book of the law, my word, the law that I gave to Moses, it shall not depart from your mouth.

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In other words, this is what you shall be speaking of. You will be speaking of my law.

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This is what should be coming out of your mouth. But you shall meditate on it day and night.

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So where do you meditate? Where does that take place? It takes place here, and it takes place in your heart.

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It takes place on the inside. So you've got two places that God's law is finding its place in your life.

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In your mouth, it's what you speak. God's word is what you speak. It's what you communicate.

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It's the conversations that you have. And then God's law, his word, is what you meditate on day and night.

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So where do you meditate? In your mind and in your heart. And when is he saying that you do this,

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Joshua? Both day and night. All the time. So God's word is to be coming out.

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God's word is to be going in and to be digested and thought of and pondered day and night.

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All the time. And then he says, so that you may be careful to do according to what is written in it.

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So his word is in our mouths, or Joshua's mouth. His word is supposed to be coming from his mouth is what he speaks.

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His word is supposed to be in his mind and in his heart day and night. So that the repercussions from that are that he will be careful to listen and observe and obey what he's been speaking.

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He doesn't want to be a hypocrite, but he wants to do what he has been speaking. And he wants to ponder and think and meditate on God's word both day and night.

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So that he can carefully observe and obey God's word. So what

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I see in this passage is that God is not leaving any room in Joshua's life for Joshua.

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It's not about Joshua. It's about the Lord and it's about him speaking

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God's word. It's about him receiving and meditating and learning and pondering on God's word.

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And then it's about Joshua taking all that he has learned and all that he is teaching and living it and observing it and obeying

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God's word. That leaves no room for Joshua. And then there's a promise there at the end.

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As a result of this life that you are living, you will make your way prosperous and then you will have success.

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So God is promising good things for Joshua, who was speaking

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God's word, meditating on God's word and living God's word. So how does this translate for us who are believers in Christ, who are in the new covenant, who are outside of the old covenant?

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How does that translate for us? Well, God was sending them to the promised land. He told

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Joshua, take them across the Jordan and take them to this land that I promised you. And this ought to be how you think, how you speak and how you live.

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And it will go well for you because of that in this new land that I promised you.

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So for us in the New Testament, what happens? God has given us a savior and his name is

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Jesus Christ. God has given us Jesus. And everything in the Old Testament points to Jesus.

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As an example, the land that God had promised Israel represented

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Jesus himself. Jesus is our land of rest.

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Jesus is our possession. Jesus is our prosperity.

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Jesus is our provision. Jesus is our protection. Everything that the land offered to Israel, Jesus fulfills that and offers that to us.

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Jesus is our land and we can rest in him because he is our provision. He is our hope.

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He is our protection. He is all those things that the land was for Israel.

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And God has given us that savior, Jesus Christ. And just as for Joshua, God's word is what he was to be speaking, to be meditating on day and night, and then to be obeying.

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The same is true for us. Jesus says, I know we quote this all the time, but Jesus says in Matthew 28,

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All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

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Therefore, go make disciples, preach the gospel to all nations, teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you.

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And so we should be speaking God's word, speaking

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Christ, speaking the gospel, speaking those things that Christ has commanded us.

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We should be receiving and meditating on those things that Christ has given us.

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And we should be living all those things that Christ has taught us and living it out and not being a hypocrite, but living it out for him because of him and through him.

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So that's what I see in Joshua 1 .8. I hope that that was encouraging to you.

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I hope it was helpful. If you are so inclined, I'd love for you to share the videos, partner with me, lock arms as we reach our community for Christ.

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And if I can pray for you, all you have to do is let me know. Love to be able to do that. Let me go ahead and pray as we close.

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Father, thank you for the time that you've given us. We pray for all the leaders that are leading our country, leading our conventions.

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We are in a place of discouragement by decisions that our leaders are currently making, both in our world and also in our convention.

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Father, we know that you're in control. We know that you're sovereign and we trust in your ways.

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Help us to be faithful and to stand on your word and stand on your truth despite the world around us.

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Help us to love one another. Help us to speak truth and love. Father, help us to point to Christ always.

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And in his name we pray. Amen. All right. Thank you guys for watching. Hope you have a good evening.

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Remember that Jesus is king. Go live in that victory and continue to go out there with me and proclaim the gospel.