WWUTT 1174 Q&A Theological Liberalism, Imagine No Stupid Songs, What God Has Promised?

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What is theological liberalism? Which comes first, a liberal view of scripture or rejecting

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Genesis 1 -11 as literal history? And will the world ever realize Imagine is just the worst song ever?

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The answers to these questions when we understand the text. This is when we understand the text, a daily

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Bible study in the word of Christ, that we may grow in love for God and for one another. Tell your friends about our website at www .utt

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.com. You once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Something that I keep forgetting to mention every week is that we are now on Spotify.

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Yes, we are. This update was made a couple of months ago, but I keep forgetting to mention it. We got several requests.

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Yeah, hey. Some of you probably figured that out by now. Probably. We had several requests from folks saying, hey, could you get on Spotify?

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And it was one of those things where I just kind of kept putting off. Everything that we do is through Podbean.

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That's like the main host site we use for the podcast. If you're able to find us on iTunes or Spotify or any of those other places, it's because Podbean has put the podcast out there on those different podcast hosting places.

01:19

That's awesome. But I never thought about Spotify. I've never. I have rarely used. I think you use

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Spotify. Don't you? No. You haven't listened to like music playlists through Spotify? No.

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Okay. I could have sworn you did. No. Well, when you would listen to like those oldies channels on your phone sometimes.

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No, that was Pandora. Oh, Pandora. That's okay. And then later it became

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Amazon Music. So. I got it. I got it. Yeah. Yeah.

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Pandora. Pandora. I got confused with Spotify. Yeah. But like I said, I've never used it. It's not the same.

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If you couldn't tell. Anyway, it turns out that on Podbean, it's just like a little box

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I had to check. And then boom. Oh, neat. Now the podcast is on Spotify. Glad it was so easy.

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Yeah. So that's all it took. So much hard work. I know. Whew. Man. Thanks for being patient with me, guys.

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I don't know. I don't know how I get by. This is

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Friday. No, it's not. It's Thursday. I was going to say.

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And on Friday, we take questions from the listeners. No, this week, you're getting a bonus Q &A episode.

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We're going to do Q &A Thursday and Friday. It's your special quarantine, isolation, social distancing, twofer

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Q &A on Thursday and Friday. So you can send your questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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I don't know yet what our questions are going to be tomorrow unless there are some of these we don't get all the way through.

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Okay. Then they'll just carry over to tomorrow. But you can always fish us more questions for the

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Friday broadcast as well. whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com. Of course, some of these questions that I have in here are coronavirus related.

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Last week, we didn't get to any of these questions. Which hopefully soon will be dated. Hey, that rhymes.

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I know. They're coronavirus related, which hopefully soon will be dated. And we can get back to work and not be sedated.

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Yeah. I got nothing. Yeah. So and then we've got other questions about some other things here as well.

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We're starting here with this one from Joshua in New Braunfels, Texas. I think that's how you pronounce that.

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New Braunfels. New Braunfels. No idea. Anyway, I haven't been there. Thanks for your question, Joshua.

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Dear Gabe and Becky, I recently listened to James White on The Dividing Line do a critique of Hank Hanegraaff and his rejection of Sola Scriptura.

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What in the world happened to the Bible Answer Man? I used to listen to his show all the time.

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But once he converted to the unorthodox church, he has un in parentheses in front of Orthodox Church.

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Gotcha. Once he converted to the unorthodox church, my heart was broken and I could no longer listen to him as any kind of credible source for answers about the

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Bible. I still remember the episode you did explaining why he was no longer fit to be called the

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Bible Answer Man. When people ask me now, where can I go for good Bible questions and answers?

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I recommend your show. You're the new Bible Answer Man to me. Maybe not

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Becky because she's not a man. But sometimes she'll ask exactly the follow -up question

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I'm thinking. Yes. Which is why you guys make such a great team. I was just writing to tell you that.

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But I suppose if I wanted to dub you the Bible Answer Man, I should ask you a question. So here is one.

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If a fundamentally sound Christian falls into theological liberalism, which happened first?

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Did he reject a literal reading of Genesis 1 through 11 and thus became a theological liberal?

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Or did he become a theological liberal and then rejected a literal historical understanding of Genesis 1 through 11?

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I'd be curious to know your thoughts. God bless. Well, thank you so much for your email, Joshua. I am

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I'm flattered that you would think of me as the new Bible Answer Man. But I'm going to tell you that is a title that I absolutely don't want.

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Because I don't think you quite understand the burden that you place on somebody by calling them the

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Bible Answer Man. Now, I'm like you. I used to listen to Hank Hanegraaff quite a bit. Yeah. I also was heartbroken when he basically left orthodoxy and went to the

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Greek Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox. I don't know what branch of it that he's a part of. I can't remember anyway.

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But, yeah, I was as disappointed as you are that he left orthodoxy for the

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Orthodox Church. Yeah. As much of a paradox as that is. But even when

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I did listen to Hank Hanegraaff, even when I was pretty regular to his program, not just listening to it on bot.

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I think when I first started listening to it, it was when it was on bot radio. OK. And then when I figured out, hey, I can listen to this on my iPod.

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Then I just started listening to it there and I wasn't trying to catch it on a daily schedule. Yeah. That's one of the nice things about podcasts.

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You don't have to tune in at this time every day. And you miss the first five minutes. Yeah, that's right.

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I just get it all whenever I feel like it. And when the kids come in and interrupt, I can just pause. Right. Instead of trying to listen.

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Rewind. I missed it. Daddy's trying to listen to this. This is the third time. Yeah. But even when

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I did listen to Hank Hanegraaff and even when I did recommend him to other people, read a couple of his books,

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I still I was always troubled with that title Bible Answer Man. Yeah.

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In fact, I didn't start listening to him at first because I was like Bible Answer Man.

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How arrogant is that? He thinks he's the guy with all the Bible answers.

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Yeah. And even when he was not part of the Orthodox Church, you know, it was kind of give and take on some of the answers that he would give.

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There were most of the stuff that he would say I would agree with. But then there were some answers he would give that I didn't agree with at all.

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And then some of you, especially you, Joshua, a regular listener to James White, you know the history that he's had with the

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Christian Research Institute, CRI. And then there kind of became that dividing line, no pun intended, where the

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Bible Answer Man program was just no longer going to be apologetic on the side of Calvinism or Reformed theology.

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They were going to be shuffling all of that off the table and calling that. I can't remember the term that Hank Hanegraaff used for it.

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I heard him talking about it one time. It was untenable, I think. It's untenable with biblical orthodoxy to be a

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Calvinist, I believe was what he said. But anyway. Yeah. But though I appreciate it,

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Joshua, I just I don't want to be the Bible Answer Man. You can be the what guy. Just the what guy.

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Yeah. I'm good enough with that. What guy? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. The what guy. We'll stick with that.

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So then this next paragraph here, I was writing to tell you that.

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But I suppose if I want to dub you the Bible Answer Man, I should ask a question. So you understand theological liberalism?

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Nope. See, this is why Joshua said we make such a great team. Because had

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I not asked you that question, I might have just moved on. And somebody probably needs an explanation of theological liberalism.

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Well, you know, it helps. Yeah. I'm turning to an article here from Kevin DeYoung. And he's even referencing seven.

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Let's see what it says. Seven characteristics of liberal theology that were summarized by Gary Dorian.

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So DeYoung says this about theological liberalism. Liberalism is both a tradition coming out of the late 18th century

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Protestant attempt to reconfigure traditional Christian teaching in the light of modern knowledge and values and a diverse but recognizable approach to theology.

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That probably didn't help you out at all, did it? Nope. That's kind of what I was thinking. You're answering my question with bigger questions.

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I mean, bigger words. This is not breaking it down for me. Come on. Throw me a bone.

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Okay. So here we go. This is kind of like the main tenet of liberal theology. Okay. That religion is not based on any external authority.

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Now, what would be our external authority? Like government. Well, no. You and I.

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What's our external authority? God. Yeah. I feel like I'm wrong in answering this.

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Well, I know. You're thinking I was being very general when

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I was trying to be. So what is our authority? Very specifically, it's everyone's authority.

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What is our authority? God. God's word. Right. Specifically the Bible. Okay. Yeah. Yes. God.

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But right. I was going for scripture here. Okay. Okay. The theological liberal.

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Okay. Would say there is no external authority. Oh. So God's word is not authoritative. Okay. And therefore.

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I've heard that. Yeah. So therefore, since it's not authoritative, they'll throw out inerrancy, sufficiency, even that this has to be historically accurate.

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Right. The theological liberal is going to say, well, there's things here may not be true. But, you know,

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I choose to believe it or I read it as poetry or allegory or something to that effect.

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Now, incidentally, the atheist agnostics and skeptics have all caught on to this.

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And I just had a conversation with somebody about a week ago who was a skeptic and said to me something to the effect of, you know, anything that I show you where the

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Bible is not true, you're just going to blow it off as well. It's allegory. And I laughed when he said that because it's like that's see, that's the response you've heard because you've been talking to mostly theologically liberal people.

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You've really never had a real interaction or a conversation about the Bible with somebody who's an inerrant test who would say that this is the perfect revealed word of God.

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Right. So that's kind of a totally different conversation. Right. The emergent church movement was this way.

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I mean, they're theological liberals. And it's one of the things that kind of diminished the emergency or emergency church, the emergent church movement into oblivion.

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It's still out there. It just doesn't have the prominence that it did back in the late 90s, early 2000s period.

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So another tenant of theological liberalism is that Christianity is basically social reconstruction.

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And we've seen that with the woke movement. Okay. Social justice stuff, intersectionality, critical race theory.

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Those who we otherwise thought were Orthodox. It's like the Young Restless Reform kind of group of people are those that started to seize hold of the woke movement.

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When they went down that path, they're going the way of theological liberalism. It's like they're teaming up with theological liberals and making

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Christianity into this thing that becomes a project of social reconstruction.

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Like we can improve everybody's lives. And it's the job of the Christian to do that.

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Right. We need to make society better. We need to make everybody's jobs better. Okay. Everybody's lives better. But as Martin Lloyd -Jones has said, the terrible tragic fallacy of the last hundred years has been to think that all man's troubles are due to his environment.

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And that to change the man, you have nothing to do but to change his environment. And that's a tragic fallacy.

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I was going to say, that's not going to help him. It overlooks the fact that it was in paradise that man fell.

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Right. When everything was perfect. Well, they don't believe that the Bible is fully true then. Well, yeah.

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And that goes back to Joshua's question here because he's saying, I mean, the theological liberal rejects

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Genesis 1 through 11 anyway. Right. So, of course, they can believe that the Christian's job is supposed to make society better when they're not even going to consider that the world was perfect at the time that Adam and Eve had disobeyed

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God. Right. And then the curse came into creation. And that's the way, that's the reason why things are what they are right now.

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It's the reason why we're fearing the coronavirus. Right. It's because all of creation's been subjected to futility.

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Okay. A third aspect of theological liberalism, Christianity must be credible and relevant.

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You know, you hear those pastors that are trying to make Christianity relevant and they end up watering down the gospel so much that there's...

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It doesn't mean anything. Yeah. There's nothing to it that really is any different than what I'm getting in the world. You're just listening to a pastor that's basically a motivational speaker with a few

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Jesus verses thrown in. Right. But just because you see a pastor that is trying to make everything relevant, that doesn't necessarily mean he is a theological liberal.

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It does mean, though, that he's flirting with it. Yeah. And that he likes that aspect of theological liberalism, that he starts pulling it in and thinking, hey,

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I need to make the gospel relevant to people. The gospel's already relevant. Yes. You need to tell people...

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They are all sinners. Right. And it is by faith in Jesus Christ we are forgiven our sins and we have eternal life.

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You need to tell people that the point of being saved, when you call yourself saved, when you call

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Jesus Christ a savior, they need to understand what they're being saved from. Their sin, death as the wages of their sin, and the wrath of God that is coming upon them because of their sin.

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Jesus has saved us from that. By faith in him, we will not perish under the wrath of God, but we will live forever with him in glory.

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Amen. A kingdom that awaits us where everything is perfect. And this is by the mercy and grace of God that we have received this as a reward.

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And if we don't understand our own sinfulness and what we really deserve, then it isn't grace.

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Right. It's something that we deserve. God's just going to give it to you. I earned it. Yeah. Yes. And that's really...

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Because I can do it. That's right. That's really the position of the theological liberal. If they even have anything close to a biblical understanding of heaven, then they're most likely universalists anyway.

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Everybody's just going to go to heaven. Right. Or if you go to hell, it's whatever you make hell to be.

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But ultimately, love wins. Right. Well, of course. Yeah. The whole Rob Bell thing. So a fourth characteristic of theological liberalism, truth can be known only through changing symbols and forms.

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So in other words, the analogy is how we understand truth.

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Oh. Okay. So the truth is not just a statement that exists on a page coming from the mouth of Christ, written down by his apostles, which we have in scripture.

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Right. The statement itself, as we would have it in the Bible, wouldn't be enough. You have to frame it in some sort of a modern analogy to make sense of it for me.

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Well, that goes back to relevant, being relevant. Being relevant. Right. They're kind of interconnected. Yeah. Okay.

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But all of this is interconnected, again, with dismissing that scripture is inerrant. Right.

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Insufficient. Yeah. Once you kind of throw that out the window, then it's... Then anything goes. Right. A fifth characteristic of liberal theology, theological controversy is about language, not truth.

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So you've heard this before. It's like the whole... A very common argument that you hear that goes with 1

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Timothy 2, 11 and 12, where Paul says, I do not permit a woman to have authority over a man.

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Oh, okay. Yeah. Rather, she is to remain quiet. So a common excuse to that passage is, well,

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Paul was just explaining the world as it existed in his time, where men were dominant.

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But now women have freedom. Right. And yeah. So therefore, we don't need to follow the 1 Timothy 2, 11 and 12 instruction.

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Right. Because that was for that time period, and it's different for us. Or you'll hear this explanation. Well, Paul was confronting an actual problem that was going on in that church, where women were just kind of trying to dominate everything.

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Okay. And that's not... Like our world right now. Yeah. See, that's not the problem in our church. It's not that women are trying to dominate everything.

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We're just supposed to see each other as equals. So men are supposed to be putting women in those positions, like pastoral positions.

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So that way women don't... I see very angry women all over the news. Oh, yeah. All over my feeds of social media.

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And they're just so angry and all over the place. Yeah. There are so many. Can't tell me that women aren't trying to dominate.

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Yeah. So if you're saying that that was the problem during Paul's age, we're like times 10 on that now. Oh, no, Joe. That's shooting themselves in the foot when they use that argument.

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Yes, definitely. Well, that's kind of our problem now. So I see the...

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Do you not recognize this history repeating itself? And then a sixth characteristic, the historical accuracies of biblical facts and events are not crucial so long as we meet

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Jesus in the pages of Scripture. So once again, historical accuracies of biblical facts and events are not essential to understand so long as we meet

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Jesus, quote unquote, in the pages of Scripture. It's just all about Jesus. I don't understand how you can get that without the other, but...

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Yeah. Well, yeah, you're exactly right. You know. So you can't actually know Jesus if you're not knowing him according to his word.

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Right. It's just... It astounds me that they try to separate everything. This is just dismissing any need that we have to study theology.

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Yeah. And there are people who practice this in a practical way, even though they probably wouldn't be categorized as a theological liberal.

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Okay. They don't want to study the theology. I don't want to learn the terms. I don't want to hear the words. I just want

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Jesus, you know. Yeah. But it's in studying theology, studying

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Scripture, combing the words, rightly dividing the word of truth, as Paul instructed

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Timothy to do, it's in doing that that we see God all the more clearly. Yeah. And so there is much value in theological study.

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It's why when you go to a church, you probably want a pastor that's been to seminary. Yeah. And you might say of yourself, well,

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I don't want to study this stuff, but you're not going to go to a church where the pastor has not shown himself a worker approved by putting a lot of years of study and understanding in the pages of Scripture.

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Would you hire a pastor who said, well, I've not actually read the entire Bible? No. Even a theological liberal wouldn't admit that.

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Yeah, no joke. But that's really where they come from. And it's like, I've read it, I threw it away, and then

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I went and did my own thing. And I blacked out those parts I didn't like on the way, or that weren't relevant to me.

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Words I didn't want to have to study. You know. Yeah. Or say. Yeah. Yeah.

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There was a high school ministry that our church hosted for a lot of years. I think over 20 years before the high school eventually closed lunches.

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And so they couldn't come over to the church anymore to get lunch and hear the gospel. But, you know, we were feeding something like,

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I can't remember what it was, two to three thousand students a school year. Yeah. With food.

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They got free lunch, free lunch for them. They didn't have to pay for it. Right. And we gave them the word of God.

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So sometimes we would attack some topical things, but most of the time we just tried to put the gospel in whatever we could.

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So we might use a current event. You guys might be asking questions about this. Could be something that happened locally. Could be something that was going on nationally.

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And then we would point the teens to Christ. And a lot of the teens would stick around. They would ask us questions afterward.

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Anyway, so this was a ministry that we did for a lot of years at our church. I ran it for about 10 years. So about half the time that it was with our church,

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I was involved in it. It was a pastor like two or three pastors before me. Yeah. That started it.

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Right. But there was one time we did invite other youth groups in town to be a part of it.

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There were some youth groups we excluded because of what was taught at their church. They weren't going to allow to be involved in that.

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Yeah. But even those youth groups that we did permit to be involved, I said to those youth leaders, if you start softening sin, if you start describing sin as brokenness or describing it as messed up.

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I was going to say messy. Yeah. Messy or something like that, then you're not going to speak. I'm not going to give you a platform to stand in front of these students and speak.

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You have to talk about sin. You have to talk about judgment. You have to talk about salvation is in Christ alone.

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That is essential to what it is that we're doing. So their statements of faith, their church statements of faith had to line up with ours.

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Close. Close. They had to certainly agree on all the mains. Right. But then if I caught one of these guys, and I did this one time,

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I actually had to confront a youth pastor doing this. He was quoting Romans 5 .8. God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were yet sinners,

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Christ died for us. Well, he said, and he's speaking to like 100 youth in this room. And he said,

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Romans 5 .8, while we were messed up, Christ died for us.

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And I had to confront him afterward. And I said, explain to me messed up. What do you mean by that? And he said, well, you know, the word that's there is sin.

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And I said, right. That's why I'm asking you this question. Why did you substitute sin with messed up?

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Well, the teens don't understand sin. They don't know that word. That's not just a word that we commonly use.

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They're not walking around talking with their friends using the word sin. So they don't understand it.

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So I'm going to use a term that they do understand. And I said, well, you're softening sin.

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Not in today's society. Messed up is like, oh, I'm just going to go sweet talk my way and fix things, and it'll be all better by the end of the day.

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Yeah. Messed up can be my sports team never wins the championship. Yeah. That could be messed up. This is like petty stuff.

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Yes. Very, very petty stuff. It's not confronting the wrongs you do and the evil that's in your heart.

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Messed up is somebody else's fault. Or you just, you know, somebody else pointed out your fault.

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Yeah. And they're the ones that are making me feel bad. Yeah. Well, yes. Exactly.

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Yeah. So I said to him, you're a teacher. You're a youth leader.

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So as a teacher, you need to read the scripture the way it reads.

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And then you need to explain to them what it means. So you say,

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God showed his love for us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

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And then follow that up. Well, what does that mean? What is a sinner anyway? Anybody know what a sinner is?

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You can ask him that question. See what kind of answers you get. But then you explain to them what a sinner is and why it's so serious to know that we have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

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Why do we need Jesus? Because we're under the judgment of God. Christ died for our sins by faith in him.

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Our sins are atoned for and we stand before God righteous. But you have to grieve over your sin before God.

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You have to know that you have rebelled against the creator of the universe who sits enthroned over all things.

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What do you think God is going to say to you when you betray the king? When you go against what the king says, what happens to you?

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Off with your head. This is how serious sin is. But God demonstrates his love for us and that though we had sinned against him and though we deserve judgment, he sent his son to die for us.

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So whoever believes in him, their sins are atoned for. They're paid for in Christ.

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And now we are received by God as righteous instead of judged by God as unrighteous, filthy, unrighteous, filthy sinners.

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So this is, again, it's the way of theological liberalism. And a person who does such a thing may not be categorized as a theological liberal.

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But they're borrowing from liberalism when they do things like that.

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Dangerous territory. Yeah. And so then the final characteristic of liberalism, number seven, the true religion is the way of Christ, not any particular doctrines about Christ.

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So it just comes back to this thing again of separating everything. Yeah, I just believe in Jesus. I don't need to believe in these other things.

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We played a clip on this. I can't remember how long ago this was. A couple of months ago.

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But it was when Max Licato was on with Jen Hatmaker. Okay. Do you remember going through that? Yep. Okay, so Max Licato had been talking about how we just need to, what are the basics?

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Like what are the basic things about the gospel that we all just need to believe? We all just need to agree on this and then we know we're

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Christians. We can receive one another and not have to argue about all the other kinds of things. We don't have to worry about our differences.

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Yeah. And he whittled it down to what was stated in 1 Corinthians 15, starting in verse three, where the apostle

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Paul says, For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

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And that's it. Yep. So as long as we agree Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and he was buried and he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, that's all we need to agree on and now we're fellow

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Christians. Oh boy. But notice there that it says in accordance with the scriptures. That's what

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I was going to point out. That's what we did. That's what we talked about that last time too. Yep. And the scriptures have a whole lot more to say about that.

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Yes, they do. And here we've not said anything about walking in holiness. We've not talked anything about the

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Trinity of God. Right. Or the holiness of God. Any of these essential doctrines to the

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Christian faith are not even summarized there. So that's... That's crazy. Yeah. When you just whittle it down to, well,

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I just need to believe in Jesus. And then who cares about all these other doctrines? And you had this back in the 70s.

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One of the big controversies was you don't have to believe in the virgin birth. Oh, okay.

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So virgin birth, you can take it or you can leave it. It doesn't matter. Well, if Jesus wasn't virgin born, then he wasn't the pure spotless lamb.

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Right. Who could die on the cross as an atoning sacrifice. Because he would be filled with sin. That's right. Only Christ was the perfect sacrifice because he was virgin born.

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Which is why the Bible makes sense. Yeah, that's right. This is why his impeccability matters.

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We know that Jesus is perfect. And what is understood about his perfection is bound up in the fact that he was virgin born.

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Yeah. That he was not born with Adam as his federal head, but conceived of the Holy Spirit.

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Christ is the second Adam. And all who are in Christ are under his federal headship and not Adam's. Right.

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That's why that's important. Anyway, jumping into some more theological topics there.

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In answering Joshua's question here, which I thought was going to go a little bit faster than that.

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There is your basic understanding of theological liberalism. So once again. So now continuing his question.

29:27

Yeah, continuing his question. But let me summarize this again. We've kind of been everywhere with these seven points. Sure, of course.

29:32

Number one, true religion is not based on external authority. So it's not based in scripture. Number two,

29:39

Christianity is a movement of social reconstruction. We're supposed to be making society better.

29:45

This is all according to the theological liberal. Number three, Christianity must be credible and relevant.

29:50

Because this book apparently isn't modernized enough for our present day. So we need to help it out a little bit.

29:56

Number four, truth can only be known through changing symbols and forms. The analogy is what's important, not actually the words on the page.

30:05

Number five, theological controversy is about language and not truth.

30:10

Number six, the historical accuracies of biblical facts and events are not crucial.

30:16

So long as we meet Jesus in the pages of scripture. And that leads to number seven, the true religion is the way of Christ, not any particular doctrines about Christ.

30:25

So given that that's our understanding of theological liberalism, Joshua's question now is if a fundamentally sound

30:31

Christian falls into theological liberalism. So there was once upon a time when their profession of Christianity, we would have said is true.

30:41

It's solid. They're a Christian who is in love with sound doctrine. That's what we would have said about them at one point.

30:48

But then they scooted off into theological liberalism. They dismissed that the

30:53

Bible was the inerrant word of God. They just started saying things like, well, I just believe in Jesus. And that's all

30:59

I need. I would say they would be coveting that in their heart first. And then just follow. The Lord would just let his hand off of them and let them have that.

31:08

Right. I think the two of them kind of go hand in hand. Yeah. So, again, a fundamentally sound

31:14

Christian falls into theological liberalism, which happened first. Did he reject a literal reading of Genesis 1 through 11 and thus became a theological liberal?

31:22

Or did he become a theological liberal and then rejected a historical understanding of Genesis 1 through 11?

31:28

And it's kind of which came first, the chicken or the egg. But, of course, we know the chicken came first.

31:34

I think they go hand in hand. So, yeah, like Becky was saying, it's just kind of exposing the fact that their heart is not devoted to the word of God anymore anyway.

31:42

I mean, they might have professed it with their mouth, but their head. Yeah. I can't make sense of Genesis 1 through 11.

31:49

Yeah. But I just choose to believe. You believe what you want to believe. Right.

31:54

Or I know what you want to hear. So I'm going to tell you what you want to hear. Something like that. Kind of the beginning of the end when those start to become your answers to things like that.

32:03

Yeah. You had the recent controversy that came up, I think, about a month ago with Rhett and Link.

32:11

Oh, uh -huh. Good Mythical Morning. Right. So these two guys who, by the way, the first time

32:16

I ever was introduced to Rhett and Link was when they were the fabulous Bentley brothers on What's in the

32:21

Bible. So they sang those songs on the What's in the Bible DVDs. I didn't realize they had a show.

32:27

And somebody said to me, hey, have you seen these guys? Yeah, they're fabulous Bentley brothers. No, it's Rhett and Link, and they have this podcast called

32:34

Good Mythical Morning. Right. So Becky and I started watching it quite a bit. They were pretty short.

32:39

I think, what, like 10 to 20 minutes or something like that. Yeah, something like that. So we just went through a bunch of episodes on YouTube and thought they were really funny.

32:47

Kind of stopped watching them after a while. One of the things we noticed is that the more current episodes that we started finding, they were becoming more and more crass.

32:57

Yes. And they were even welcoming guests onto their show and stuff like that, where we were like, well, we don't want our kids to see this.

33:03

Yeah. And so we stopped watching. So it wasn't any surprise to us when we saw that that was kind of their trajectory.

33:10

We weren't surprised to find that story that had popped up. Yeah. About a month ago that these two guys who had at one point been youth leaders.

33:18

That's most likely how they got connected with Phil Fisher. Okay. And then we're doing.

33:24

Is that him? Is that the guy? Yeah. Yeah. Phil Fisher, who did Veggie Tales and What's in the

33:29

Bible. Anyway. I know a name. Hey. That's how they got connected with him and did the songs for the

33:35

What's in the Bible DVD. I guess there was at one point even a video. Somebody had asked me if I had watched this, but when

33:41

I went to find it, I couldn't find it anywhere. But I guess Rhett and Link are playing chess against Albert Moeller. Oh, okay.

33:47

It was a YouTube video at one point, but must have been deleted by the time somebody told me about it because I never could find it anywhere.

33:54

Supposedly, there is this video of Rhett and Link playing chess with Albert Moeller. Okay. And it takes two

33:59

Rhett and Link, two guys. Two Rhett and Links. Two Rhett and Links against Albert Moeller and they still lost.

34:06

I don't know. I have to see the video, but I never did see it. That got deleted.

34:12

Anyway. So, yeah. Like I said, it was not a surprise to us when we had heard that these two guys are now coming out as sharing their deconstruction story.

34:22

Well, they used to be Christians, but now we're not anymore. We don't even believe in God. And here's how that went.

34:28

It wasn't surprising to me to hear that story because we saw that. Yeah. We saw the trajectory, the direction that they were going.

34:35

The more popular they got with Good Mythical Morning, the more they started compromising some even ethical things.

34:42

Yeah. And it's like, see, these guys where they are now would not have been hired to be singing as the fabulous

34:48

Bentley Brothers on. Oh, definitely not. And this was three or four years ago. Yeah. This was even 2015 or 2016 when we were watching that and seeing that kind of turn going from being family friendly to.

35:01

That was five or six years ago. Was it really? No. What you were saying. We started watching it in 2014.

35:08

I was doing the math and it's not three to four years. You said four to five years. Well, I know, but we started watching in 2014.

35:14

OK. And I think we were still watching it in 2016. And it was somewhere in there that we were going. Yeah. Yeah.

35:22

I agree. Yeah. Hey, my math is still better than MSNBC. True. Give me some credit there.

35:29

Very true. Well, that was a long way around answering that question, Joshua. But. We hope you enjoyed your trip.

35:36

We had to explain theological liberalism there. Going on to this next question. Please wait until the ride comes to a complete stop before getting out.

35:44

That's right. Keep your. Keep your arms and hands inside the car at all times.

35:51

This next question is from Elizabeth in Columbia. I didn't get which Columbia, though. Columbia, Missouri, Columbia, South Carolina, which is where I was born.

36:00

Columbia, the country. Columbia, Ohio. Is there a Columbia, Ohio? I don't know.

36:05

Oh, that's when I. When Becky ever asked me where anything is and it's like an obvious city that she should know where it's located.

36:11

It's Ohio. I say Ohio. Every time. Where's Pittsburgh? Ohio. This is spelled

36:17

C -O -L -U -M -B -I -A. So it's not the country that Elizabeth is from.

36:23

Columbia. Anyway. Yes. Hey, Pastor Gabe. No doubt. You've probably seen the montage of celebrities singing the song

36:29

Imagine by John Lennon. OK, now we're going to play the song. Are you ready? No.

36:34

I'm just kidding. No. Nobody shut us off. I'm not playing that song. Some friends of mine who say that they are

36:43

Christians were sharing it and they thought it was a real touching gesture by these celebrities doing.

36:52

OK. Imagine. I told them I told my Christian friends, I guess, that they shouldn't be sharing this song because of how blasphemous it is.

37:00

But they said that I was being too uptight. One told me it was a Romans 14 thing.

37:06

Maybe I think it's wrong, but I should keep my own convictions to myself. Another said that I sound like one of those old ladies at church who think the kids are listening to the devil's music.

37:16

Oh, my goodness. Well, you're right. If you think that, Elizabeth, if you're one of the old ladies at church who thinks that they're listening to the devil's music, you're right.

37:22

Yeah. That is that song is of the devil. Most definitely.

37:27

What's a good response that I can give to help people see that this song does not please the

37:34

Lord and therefore a Christian should not be enjoying it? OK. So in case there's anybody out there who's clueless on this whole thing, ever since the whole, like, self -isolation thing came down because of the coronavirus scare, there was a video that came out.

37:51

In America. Yeah, primarily in America. There was a video that came out a week ago that featured all of these celebrities that were singing different lines of the song

38:02

Imagine by John Lennon. This is the song that begins. Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. Will Ferrell was in there.

38:09

Jimmy Fallon, Amy Adams, Redhead. You've watched a couple of movies with her.

38:16

Sia. You probably don't know who Sia is. Nope. I am titanium. Nope.

38:22

I know you've heard that song. That was absolutely everywhere. OK. I probably tried to ignore it then.

38:28

OK. Believe it or not, she is Peter Furler's cousin.

38:34

Peter Furler is the former lead singer of the Newsboys. Oh, OK. Founding member of the Newsboys. OK. That's his cousin.

38:40

Interesting. Yeah. Anyway, she was one of the vocalists in the, you know, the little Imagine mashup.

38:48

Keep going. OK. Nora Jones. I don't know any of these people. Wonder Woman. You know who

38:54

Wonder Woman is. OK, yeah. I'll just start mentioning the actors' characters. Maybe I'll have a better clue.

39:03

Princess Amidala from Star Wars. Oh, yeah. You didn't see the prequels. No, I didn't. So, yeah. Becky doesn't even know who

39:09

Princess Amidala is. Nope. I tell her, don't bother. Don't even mess with them. The Incredible Hulk. OK.

39:15

From the Avengers movies. OK. OK. He was in it. Sorry. Bruce.

39:20

No, I'm just kidding. Exactly. Bruce Banner. He was one of the singers. I'm just kidding.

39:26

So, anyway, what would be the best response to a person to help them understand this is not a

39:32

Christian song and Christians shouldn't be sharing it as some sort of hopeful melody? Honestly, Elizabeth, I'd tell you, just take them through the song.

39:41

Yeah. Let's look at some of these lyrics here. Oh, goodness. OK. Here we go. Imagine there's no heaven.

39:46

Buckle up again. That's right. Keep your arms and your hands inside the car.

39:53

Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. So, right away, this is just so funny.

40:00

I have referred to this as one of the most idiotic songs ever written.

40:06

OK. It's certainly one of the most hypocritical. OK. The problems start right at the very beginning.

40:12

Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. No. This is inception.

40:18

Yeah. You've planted the thought in the head now. It's like, don't think about a pink elephant. Yeah.

40:24

Now you're thinking about a pink elephant, right? Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try.

40:29

Not if you're going to start your song with it. And so, yeah, this is why this is such a ridiculous song.

40:38

It's just dumb. Yeah. It's not even that the message in it is so bad, which it is.

40:43

It's just a dumb song. I just don't understand it. It might be a favorite of a lot of people.

40:50

Oh, it is. It's a favorite of a lot of people, which is why these celebrities dug it up and think that we needed to hear it to get a little bit of hopeful encouragement in the midst of coronavirus.

41:00

I don't understand why that was just so touching. It's not at all. It's not an emotionally touching song in any way, shape, or form.

41:06

You have to shut your brain off in order for this song to even make sense.

41:13

Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try. So as a Christian, we don't want that at all. No. We don't want anybody to not imagine heaven or hell, which is the next line, no hell below us, above us only sky.

41:28

And that's really the selling point of the song. Imagine there's no hell. Imagine there are no eternal consequences for your actions and you can just do whatever you want.

41:39

That's really the basis of the song. That was the worldview of John Lennon. Now, he believed all kinds of religious mumbo jumbo.

41:48

It was just a hodgepodge of all kinds of spiritualness. He grabbed all kinds of things and kind of made it his religion.

41:57

So this is not an irreligious song. This is coming from a heavily religious guy, but he's picking and choosing the parts of the different religions that he liked in order to make his own religion.

42:09

Permanent marker out the rest of it. Yeah. So you will find occasions in which he said of himself that he was a

42:16

Christian or that he loves Jesus. Nobody send me those emails, by the way. I know he said that before.

42:22

Yeah, but it's because he's grabbing the parts of Christianity that he liked. He didn't like the doctrine of hell and he didn't truly like Jesus.

42:30

Going back to the theological liberalism question that we responded to. Because he separated the two.

42:36

Yeah. He liked that hippie version of Jesus that he came up with. Right. The frolicking through the daisies guy.

42:43

This is all the first line here. No hell below us, above us only sky. Imagine all the people living for today.

42:52

That's another one of those ridiculous, like, just follow your heart sorts of things. Rapists, terrorists and pederasts are living for today.

43:02

Yes, they follow their tyrants follow their heart. Okay. Yep. So there's nothing about that line.

43:09

That's all that. But I'm a good person. You are, babe. You're a good person.

43:18

Imagine there's no countries. It isn't hard to do. Yeah, it is.

43:23

It's really hard to imagine no countries. Who is making our laws?

43:30

Like, what laws are we living by? What is right and wrong? What is good for us as a society?

43:36

And what's bad for us as a society? Here's another good question for you. Who's taking care of all of our sewage?

43:43

Ew. Who's got that job to make sure our streets are clean? And we're not living in a cesspool of our own muck.

43:51

See, these are questions that countries answer. That governments take care of.

43:57

So it's absurd to say, imagine there's no countries. And everybody wanted this open borders thing until coronavirus happened.

44:06

Right. And now everybody wants to shut their borders down. Yep. Even the countries that were totally open border became suddenly closed border.

44:13

And state to state, some of them. Yep. Yeah. The state of California is closed right now. Yes. You can't go there.

44:20

Yep. Wasn't there another one just recently? I thought so, but I don't remember which one. I can't remember the other one either. Ohio. Ohio.

44:27

Just kidding. There you go. Sorry, folks in Ohio. Let's see. Imagine there's no countries.

44:33

It isn't hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion too. Which is, again, we started by talking about heaven and hell.

44:44

And how do you not think about those things when it was the very beginning of the song.

44:51

So this is already a religious song. Yeah. We're telling you to have religious beliefs at the beginning of the song.

44:58

Believe in no heaven. Believe in no hell. And imagine no religion. Well, you can't.

45:03

You cannot imagine no religion because this is a religious song. Right. We started thinking about religious things.

45:09

And again, John Lennon, the hypocrite that he was, was a syncretist. I mean, he had a hodgepodge of all sorts of religion and spirituality.

45:18

He was into the occult. Hmm. Yoko Ono went down to South America, sacrificed a goat.

45:25

Okay. On behalf of her and her husband to make a pact with Satan. All right. Anyway, this guy was mixed up in all kinds of paganism.

45:36

So it's totally hypocritical of him to say, imagine no religion. Well, he can't. Imagine all the people living life in peace.

45:47

John Lennon was a woman and a child abuser. And he wants you to live life in peace, but don't expect that kind of rule to apply to him.

45:57

And then here's the chorus. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.

46:02

I would say you're totally nutty, is what I would say. I hope someday you'll join us and the world will be as one.

46:09

Be as one what? One country. You don't have any countries.

46:16

That's right. One country. So you're living as one big body of people. And one religion that's made up of all kinds of religions.

46:24

Right. Of course. That's no religion. Yeah. Call it no religion.

46:29

Okay. And now this one cracks me up. And this is what most people who saw this celebrity hodgepodge of Imagine recognized immediately the hypocrisy when you get to imagine no possessions.

46:44

Yeah. Okay. So funny story. I was attempting to watch this just because I didn't care for the song so much.

46:52

Don't hate me. But I was actually trying to see how many faces

46:58

I could put names to. Right. And I've recognized a lot of faces, not all of them, but a lot.

47:07

But I couldn't put any names to them. I was doing awful. Okay. So at this point of the song,

47:13

I'm really frustrated because I have not named, but maybe one person. So I'm really bad at names, and this is why

47:20

I was working on it. But anyway. Well, we established that when we started this question. I'm reiterating that because I'm working on it.

47:29

So we got to this point, and I just laughed so hard that I missed the next two or three people singing, and I just shut it off.

47:38

I was like, yep, that was done. I don't know who these people are. No, the imagine no possessions.

47:45

Oh, imagine no possessions, yeah. Yeah, that was the line, and I was like, I'm done. Can't do it. I can't do it.

47:51

Take a wild guess. My eyes were watering so bad from laughing. Take a wild guess.

47:56

The accumulated value of what all of these superstars in this video are worth.

48:02

Oh, I bet somebody did. Take a guess. Yeah. That they're worth or that they have.

48:09

What they're worth. So if you went to Google and you looked up, what is Will Ferrell worth? Like, what's his net worth?

48:14

The accumulated value of these celebrities. How many were there? Oh, I don't know.

48:19

Well, that's not helpful. 20. Okay. Put a number on 20. Okay. They've at least got to be millionaires.

48:29

Oh, yeah. All of them were. Right. Okay. So I'm guessing, I don't know.

48:36

Is 40 out of the? No, the 40 is low. So 40 million. Hold on, hold on.

48:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's too low. I'm still working this out. Okay, all right. You're actually putting some real thought into this.

48:47

I am. I'm trying. Okay. So I'm just, okay. Forget it. 80 million. Let's just do 80.

48:53

Over 500 million. What? Yep. What? The accumulated net worth of all of these stars.

49:01

I'm not anywhere close. I'm MSNBC or whatever, whoever they were.

49:08

MSNBC. No, you're still closer in your math than MSNBC was. That's terrible. Imagine no possessions.

49:15

Well, let's start with all these celebrities. Okay. Show us. Put your money where your mouth is.

49:21

Imagine no possessions. Distribute these millions that you've got to everybody who's suffering with coronavirus. Let's see it.

49:26

Everybody would have a million dollars then. According to MSNBC math. Yeah. Sorry. Everybody in America would have a million dollars.

49:33

That was terrible. The accumulated wealth of all of those celebrities still isn't what Mike Bloomberg is worth.

49:40

Oh my goodness. Anyway, going on. Imagine no possessions.

49:46

I wonder if you can. I know it's kind of hard when I'm looking at you guys and you can't imagine no possessions.

49:52

So, yeah. I can't. I can't imagine that. I can't. And imagine that this is coming from John Lennon who himself was -

50:00

Yeah. Didn't he have like an - I think he alone was worth 500 million when he died. And that was a long time ago.

50:06

Yeah. That was 1980. Can't remember when he died. I don't know. But I saw online that he had a temperature garage to keep the temperature at a certain level.

50:19

You know, real decked out for his cars. And what else was there? There was something like -

50:25

Well, the man owned his own island. Yeah. He owned an island off the coast of Ireland that he never even visited.

50:31

What? Yeah. Never even been there. What? And it was after he died, Yoko Ono sold it. And it's referred to now as Beetle Island.

50:38

I don't think anybody owns it now. Huh. But it's a tourist attraction now. Well, of course. There's Beetle Island.

50:44

That he didn't even set foot on. Nope. John Lennon owned it at one point, but anyway.

50:51

So, no need for greed or hunger. That's a funny line. Oh, yeah. So, imagine no possessions.

50:56

I wonder if you can. No need for greed or hunger. Who was needing greed or hunger? Well, he's trying to have everybody live at peace.

51:08

A brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people sharing all the world. Again, the celebrities aren't doing that.

51:17

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us and the world will be as one.

51:23

But we've still not established one what? Somebody addicted to sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

51:28

Phil Johnson said this. I don't get what people find inspiring about John Lennon's nihilist anthem.

51:37

But every time there's a calamity or widespread affliction, it gets dredged up from the sump of hell. The equivalent of being rickrolled by the devil's minions.

51:45

As if the virus weren't already bad enough. Gotta love Phil Johnson's way with words.

51:52

We read the following in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, starting in verse 6. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom.

52:00

Although it is not a wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away.

52:09

But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.

52:17

None of the rulers of this age understood this. For if they had, they would not have crucified the

52:24

Lord of glory. But as it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what

52:34

God has prepared for those who love Him. These things God has revealed to us through the

52:39

Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him?

52:49

So also, no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the

52:56

Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God. That we might understand the things freely given us by God.

53:04

And we impart this in words, not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the

53:10

Spirit. Interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the

53:18

Spirit of God. For they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

53:25

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the

53:32

Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ. 1

53:38

Corinthians 2, 6 -16. So rest in that hope that we have here in 1

53:44

Corinthians 2, 9 once again. As it is written, what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what

53:52

God has prepared for those who love him. If you love God, this world is not our hope.

54:00

It's not a hope for a brotherhood of man, or no countries, or no religion too.

54:05

And there won't be peace. There can be artificial peace in places. Right.

54:11

But true peace is peace with God. Right. We have sinned against God. We deserve the wrath of God.

54:17

Peace is made with God through Jesus Christ. And because we can't ever have peace.

54:24

I mean, we can't have peace because it's a fallen world. So even though you might be like not at war with one another, things might be going well.

54:34

But I mean, it's still going to be work because it is a fallen world.

54:40

It's still going to be hard. Yes. There's still going to be conflict. Yes. There's never going to be a rest in your own spirit.

54:46

Right. Because of the way that, unless you're in Christ. Well, of course.

54:52

Becky's talking in the sense that you can't even really have peace in your own spirit unless you know

54:57

Jesus. But I do believe that those who are in Christ, they will experience a peace.

55:02

A peace that surpasses all understanding. Yes. As Paul puts it in Philippians 4. I was thinking more situational.

55:09

Like there's always going to be some sort of conflict. Little big. Right. So you're saying. You're going to be uncomfortable no matter.

55:16

Yeah. You know. Things seem good now. Well, just wait. There's going to be another pandemic that's going to come along. Right. That's what

55:21

I'm saying. Something like that. But yes, the peace of God. Yeah. But I didn't figure

55:27

John Lennon was talking about that peace. Definitely not. Yeah. So. It's the whole no war.

55:33

Right. Sort of peace that everybody was harping on back in the late 70s, early 80s.

55:38

Yeah. Well, let's conclude with prayer. Yes, let's. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this peace that surpasses all understanding that we have in Christ.

55:47

And I pray that we would be anxious for nothing, but we would trust Christ in all things. Even this pandemic that's going on is for your glory.

55:57

That we might glorify you. That we might be reminded of how this world is coming to pass.

56:04

That it will come to destruction eventually. And that we put our hope in that which is eternal and imperishable in Christ.

56:12

And the glory that is laid up for us if we endure to the end. So help us to have strong hearts in this time.

56:18

And help us to encourage others with the hope that can only be found in Christ. So that they would know true peace.

56:24

And that is peace with God through our Lord Jesus. Be with us this day. And as we go through the rest of our week and into the weekend.

56:31

In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Be back tomorrow. Yes. With part 2.

56:37

Part 2. Of our Q &A. Anyway.

57:47

Yeah. We do computers different. I have like 50 windows up.

57:54

50 computers that you don't know you have. You're so mean.

58:05

Maybe. Here's the one I bought, Becky, in 2012. It's under our bread box.

58:12

Yes. Well, you know. It happens. This one I bought in the middle portion of 2013. You didn't buy them that close back to back.

58:22

I'm just kidding. Yours was. You bought yours about that far. Every three years. Yep. Except this one.

58:28

This one has lasted. Shh. Stop. See, I should have bought a new one this past August.

58:34

It's doing good. Yeah. Because, you know. Well, every one that I had to replace had a major cosmetic defect.

58:44

Because the last one, this was broken. Oh, yeah. So you'd open it up and the screen's coming off. Yeah. And then don't forget about the one that you lost everything.

58:55

Yeah. When was that? We were in the parsonage. You were very angry.

59:01

Because you lost everything. There was no way to get any of that.

59:08

I don't quite remember that. You don't? No. I mean, I remember one.

59:15

You don't get angry very often. No. And that was. You were. That was it.