WWUTT 567 Promoting Speculations?

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It's very common to hear Bible teachers today take an Old Testament text and twist it to mean something that the text doesn't actually mean.

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Paul instructs Timothy, don't do that, and don't let anyone else do that, when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When We Understand the Text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the

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Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty. Here's your teacher,

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, and greetings everyone. We continue with our study of 1 Timothy chapter 1, starting in verse 3, and as with yesterday,

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I'll read through verse 7. The Apostle Paul, writing to Timothy, says, As I urged you when

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I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus, so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations, rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.

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The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

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Certain persons by swerving from these have wandered away into vain discussion, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

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And we're going to hear examples of all of that today, of myths, of speculations, of desiring to be teachers but not knowing what it is that they're even talking about, not having a grasp or an understanding of the scriptures that they desire to teach.

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But before we get to that, let's kind of keep it in context here with what we were looking at yesterday.

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So, first, let's define our terms. What is doctrine? Doctrine is simply a teaching.

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And as it pertains to the church, this would also include creeds and confessions. A doctrine might be on a particular subject.

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So the examples that I gave yesterday would be like the doctrine of the Trinity, who God is, that he is one

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God, three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is an essential doctrine.

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And to say that God is anything else is to believe in a different God. You have the doctrine of the resurrection, that Jesus Christ died on the cross, was buried in a tomb, rose again on the third day.

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And when he rose again, it was not a spiritual resurrection. He bodily came out of his tomb.

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That's all part of learning the doctrine of the resurrection. And 1 Corinthians 15,

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I'm just about to start preaching on that this weekend. I'm going to be in 1 Corinthians 15, and that's a full apologetic on the doctrine of the resurrection.

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If you're going to start teaching on that doctrine, that's probably the chapter that you want to launch out of.

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So anyway, that's an example of doctrine. So Paul is telling Timothy not just to teach doctrine, but teach right doctrine.

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And as we had it defined out of chapter 6, verse 3, teach sound doctrine.

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What is sound doctrine? It is the teaching that flows out of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Whatever you're teaching on, whether it would be an essential issue or something secondary or even a tertiary matter, just how to handle your finances, being a good steward with that which

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God has given to you, all of that should still point back to the gospel. Why are we good stewards with these things?

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Because our very lives are in the hands of Christ. We are blood bought, bought with the blood of Christ.

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He paid a great price for us. And so we honor Christ with everything. We honor him with our bodies, presenting ourselves to Christ as living sacrifices, as is talked about in Romans 12, 1.

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So you are even living in purity in your body. You're giving your finances to Christ and not just, you know, tithing or giving an offering to the church, but even in the way that you spend your money, you do all things to the glory of God.

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You're not going to have your portion where this belongs to God and this is the little bit that I'm reserving for myself.

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All of it belongs to Christ. So doing all things to his glory. So you see how whatever we learn about, whatever the matter might be as it pertains to life and living and those kinds of things, it all comes back to the gospel.

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It's all in light of the gospel. All of this needs to point back to Christ who died for our sins, who resurrected us from death.

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We were dead in our sins and our trespasses. We've been made alive together with Christ so that in our lives, we would honor him in every single thing that we do.

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This all comes back to the gospel. And this is what Paul is telling Timothy to do, to teach the stewardship from God that is by faith, sound doctrine, and don't let anyone teach any different doctrine or devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.

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Certain persons have wandered away into vain discussion desiring to be teachers without understanding what they're saying or the things they make their confident assertions about.

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So now let's look at some examples of that. And in fact, I'm going to draw right away from an example that came up this past weekend.

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Beth Moore made a tweet that she posted on Twitter, because that's where you post tweets.

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Anyway, this is what it was that she said. She said, we've got this Noah instinct, this drive in us to build arcs and shut ourselves in with our own kind.

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Then we shut ourselves further in with our phones. Then we get claustrophobic, bored and wonder why.

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Open a window and watch for a dove with an olive twig. There's life out there.

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And for those of you who are not on Twitter, it's not 140 characters anymore. It's 280. So that's why that was so long.

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But anyway, there's all kinds of problems with that. And that was pointed out to Beth Moore to the point that she deleted it, which

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I'll get to here in just a moment. But anyway, she begins by saying, we've got this Noah instinct, this drive in us to build arcs and shut ourselves in with our own kind.

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So what the point that Beth is making is that we have a tendency to kind of build our own world and shut ourself into it away from everybody else and from everything that is dark and dangerous in the world.

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We don't want to see any of that. So let's just keep to ourselves and keep to our own. So that way we don't have to deal with any of this other stuff.

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That's the point that she was making. But she was tying it in with a Noah instinct to build an ark.

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Noah was obeying God. God told him to build the ark. Noah went into the ark because God told him to.

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God is the one who shut the door of the ark. So, I mean, all of this was in obedience to the

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Lord. If there is a Noah instinct, it would be righteousness because Noah is described as a righteous man of God.

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So she's taking something Old Testament in Genesis, twisting it into something that the story does not even indicate or suggest.

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There is no such thing as a Noah instinct. Right. So this is a very common way to teach in my denomination in particular.

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And Beth Moore is Southern Baptist. She does this a lot. I've got another example from her coming up here in just a moment.

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But to take a text, and it's usually from the Old Testament, and twist it into something that's irreverent and silly.

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It's a myth. It's not at all what the story of Noah is about. And she's twisting it, doing these hermeneutical gymnastics.

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And the point that she was making, she didn't need to use this Noah instinct concept in order to make that point.

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Yes, sometimes we get kind of closed up in our world and even especially with our phones, staring at our phones all the time instead of realizing, hey, there's another world out there that we've been called to go to.

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Matthew 28. Why didn't she reference that? Jesus saying to his disciples, go therefore to all nations, baptizing in the name of the

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Son, the Father and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. She could have used that passage, not tried to twist the story of Noah into something that was irreverent and silly.

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So that's teaching a different doctrine. Now, now, as I use that as an example, if somebody is real familiar with that tweet that she made and kind of the whole saga that unfolded after that over the course of the weekend, you'll know that she deleted it and she apologized for it.

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Well, sort of. This was the apology that she made. Brothers and sisters, I deleted it because it was dumb.

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And the point that I was making was unclear and wrongly contextualize. That happens when we talk a lot to all of us.

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Let's all have a little humility and try to do better. Why? Why do

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I have a problem with that apology? Because she really takes the onus of responsibility off of herself and puts it on everyone.

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This happens when we talk a lot to all of us. Let's all have a little humility and try to do better.

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Well, that's not humble. That's not saying, hey, I did the wrong here. It's like, you know, we all do this, not humbling herself and coming before everyone and saying, look, guys,

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I was wrong. This is not the way the text is supposed to be handled. I was careless.

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I deleted the tweet. I'll try to do better. Please forgive me. I would have respected that response a lot more.

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No pun intended. Beth Moore, a lot more anyway. I would have respected that response rather than the one that she gave.

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Another reason why I bring this up, even though she attempted to apologize, is because this isn't an isolated incident.

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She does this all the time. This this is a constant problem with Beth Moore in the way that she twists the text.

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And I found other examples very easily. I clicked on probably three or four other

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YouTube videos, all of which she misapplied an Old Testament text on all four videos that I clicked on.

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But I had to find one that had a short enough example so I could fit it in this podcast. So this is

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Beth Moore teaching out of Second Kings chapter four about the Shunamite woman whose son died and Elisha raised him from the dead.

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We looked at that in our study of Second Kings just a few weeks back. So she's got this dummy on stage.

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It's like a stuffed mannequin that's laying on the stage like a dead corpse.

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And she's kneeling over it and it represents like the Shunamite woman's dead son.

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But but listen to what she says that it represents here. Now, here's where I want to talk about this guy right here for a moment, because what we're going to do in this place in this series is that this guy right here is going to represent something very sacred to us.

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And so that we can enter in to what the narrative is saying. I want you to just go here with me, that what this is going to represent to us is something that God gave us, something only

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God could give us regarding the Shunamite woman. This child that she embraced in the course of a year could not have been given to her by anything human.

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It had to have been a gift of God. And I want you to think about something that God has given to you, perhaps birth through you a promise and delivered you that seems to be dying or dead.

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Can I see anybody's hand that you're wondering where something went that you thought God gave you?

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I need to see somebody's hand. If anybody can relate to that, just where did it go? Let me see if I can press this further so that we can apply wider and wider, something that we feel like got lost or that we just lost vision for it, something that got hijacked somewhere, something that got smothered to death.

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Anybody forfeited, sick, paralyzed, killed, murdered or misused or maybe sometimes when something has been in our hands that we feel like God entrusted to us, whether it was part of your calling or an area of ministry

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God had given you. And by that, I mean, I'm not talking about that. It's a place that we go to work. I'm talking about something that he's called us to do.

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That is a God thing. We thought we had so much vision for it and now we don't know where it went.

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And we think, I guess, I mean, what can we assume? But I must have messed it up or somebody else killed it.

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If they didn't kill it, I must have killed it. What things might have been going through this mother's mind?

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I should have been out there in the field. I should never have let him go play out there. I must have neglected somehow the gift of God because I don't know where it is.

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Can anybody relate to what I'm saying? OK, so Beth Moore is taking the

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Shunammite woman's dead son and making it some sort of thing in your life that you've failed at.

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And where she's going to end up going in the message is looking to Jesus, who is the only one who can revive that thing for you in your life.

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And I can appreciate that. The problem is and this is the way she teaches all the time.

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The problem is it doesn't go far enough. It never actually gets to the gospel.

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I think it's great that she can direct her hearers toward trust in Jesus. But it's never about trusting in Jesus to forgive your sin and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness and to make you holy and to direct your step, your steps for his namesake.

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This Christ who has raised you to life and is guaranteed your inheritance in heaven so that even when your body dies, he has the power to resurrect you because he's done it before.

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He did it with the Shunammite woman's son. He raised his own son from the dead, which is what the story of the

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Shunammite woman's son being raised to life is ultimately pointing to that God would raise his own son from the dead.

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So Beth Moore just doesn't take the story far enough. She gets in the small little limited zone and it's really very self -serving.

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This is how God is going to help you with this thing that you have lost. But the story is about how you were dead in your sins and your trespasses, and you've been made alive together with Christ and he will even resurrect your dead body on the day of glory for all those who are in Christ Jesus.

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So see how it just doesn't get there. It doesn't get to the truth of the gospel.

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And we cannot assume that the gospel is believed upon and is clung to by everybody to whom we are speaking.

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As a matter of fact, we need constant reminders of the gospel, the stewardship from God that is by faith.

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Why? Well, Paul mentions verse five. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

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We teach sound doctrine because we love those who need sound doctrine.

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Here is now a clip from Matt Chandler. So take what Beth Moore has just said and contrast it with what

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Chandler is about to say about why we need constant reminders of the gospel.

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I have to, after all of these years of trying to faithfully serve the Lord by the power of the Spirit sealed inside of me by the grace of God, I still have to preach the gospel to myself.

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Just a few months ago, I was down preaching near my hometown and had a little bit of a break.

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And so I thought it would be a good idea to kind of go see some of the houses that I got saved right before my 18th birthday. So I went down there to kind of take some pictures of some of the old houses

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I lived in and show them to my kids when I got home. And so I went down there and I drove into town and I saw this field that I got in a fight with with this kid named

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Sean in front of a whole bunch of people. And I mean, I'm not a fair fight kind of guy. I mean, you're looking at me. I don't have that kind of physique.

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I mean, I've got to take a cheap shot and keep wailing until somebody breaks it up. And so some bad, dark things that happened in that field to the point where wherever Sean is to this day, if God hadn't saved him, if you mentioned my name to him, he would flush.

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And then I drove by one of the houses that we lived in and took a picture and just immediately began to be filled with some of these memories of some of the things that occurred in that house.

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You know, I felt shame. And then I drove by a Jimmy Herford's house and remembered his 16th birthday party and was immediately just filled with shame.

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And so I get back in my car and I'm driving back up to preach and the entire drive there,

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I'm being accused and not by the Holy Spirit, because when the Holy Spirit accuses, it's sweet, isn't it? When the

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Holy Spirit convicts, there's a sweetness to it. Not so when it's the lies of the enemy. And so,

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I mean, I'm driving and here's, I'm fighting with myself because I'm in my heart having these thoughts. Oh, you're going to, you know, talk to them about what a man of God, you know, you are and what a man of God they're supposed to be?

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That's what you're going to say? You're going to point guys towards the Gospel? What do you think Sean thinks about your Gospel? What do you think

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Holly thinks about your Gospel? What do you think most of your friends in high school think about that Gospel?

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What do you think? And I'm, I mean, I'm literally going, man, how am I supposed to do? I'm going to preach on believing the

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Gospel and I'm having to wrestle with myself to believe it myself. And it was somewhere in the middle of that, that the promise of the covenant and the blood of Jesus Christ and the knowledge of Scripture really defeated what was the work of the enemy.

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Because I got to say, no, that man Chandler's dead. He was, he was at peace, man. He should never say anything about Jesus Christ.

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Good thing Christ killed him on the cross. Good thing that the new Matt Chandler is holy and righteous and not because he is, but because it was granted to him.

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And now all of a sudden I get to walk in Gospel power. Now I get to walk in Gospel power.

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Do not, please, do not assume the Gospel.

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Don't assume it. It has to be explicit and it has to constantly be explicit.

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If you assume it, so Dr. Moeller in his intro talked to this whole thing, reference

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Christian Smith, moralistic therapeutic deism. You assume the Gospel, that's all they'll hear.

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Do this, don't do that. Go here, don't go there. They will not understand that their righteousness is blood bought.

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Don't assume it. We baptize tons of 20 year olds who will say to us in our baptism class, grew up in church, never heard the

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Gospel. Now we always want to press on that because sometimes you just don't have ears to hear. And so I always go, did you take any notes when you were in youth group?

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Yeah, yeah I did. Go back and look at your notes and tell me that you didn't hear the Gospel. And a lot of them come back and go, no,

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I just heard the Gospel. I just didn't, I mean, I guess I didn't have ears to hear. But there's an amazing amount of young men and young women who were told, don't drink beer, don't have sex, don't listen to secular music.

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Now, should we call young people to holiness? Absolutely. Is holiness possible outside of the working of the

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Holy Spirit to regenerate us in Christ? No. And listen, even if they didn't have sex, didn't touch beer and didn't listen to anything but Sandy Patty, does that in the end redeem them?

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No, they're just nerdy lost kids. Make the

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Gospel explicit. Preach it weekend and weekend. Well, people will get tired of hearing it. Okay, well,

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I've been doing it for nine years. They don't get tired of hearing it. So contrast that approach with what Beth Moore was doing.

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Trust Jesus and He will help you resurrect your stuff as opposed to you are dead in your sins and your trespasses and only

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Christ can resurrect you. You are going to die one day. Your body will go into the ground.

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Only Christ can raise it back to life. So trust Jesus. And then when you trust

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Jesus with your salvation, then all the other areas of your life fall into submission into Christ.

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But it has to start with the Gospel message and everything points back to the

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Gospel. This is the stewardship from God that is by faith.

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This is our sincere faith. And there are certain persons, certain teachers that swerve from it and wander away into vain discussion desiring to be teachers when they don't even understand the text that they're supposed to be teaching.

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I've got more examples to go along with that. We'll look at some of those tomorrow. Let's conclude with prayer.

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Our great God and King, we thank you for the salvation that has been given to us in Christ our

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Lord. And I pray that in light of the forgiveness of sins that we have received and the promise of resurrection that we have been given, that we would live our whole lives in full submission to the

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Christ who paid for our sin debt. Because we have this new life that is in Christ Jesus, may we know what it means to live in Christ Jesus, which is not something that we have the power to do.

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We didn't have the power to save ourselves. We don't have the power to even walk in obedience. So give us your spirit and teach us how to do these things according to your word and to your glory.

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To God be the glory for great things he has done. Teach us these things as we go in faith.

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In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.