Rick Warren Miffs It On The Crucifixion

Justin Peters

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Rick Warren posted this on X the other day. John 19 -18.

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They crucified Jesus with two others, one on each side and Jesus in the middle.

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The guys on both sides were thieves. If you're looking for the real Jesus, not a caricature disfigured by partisan motivations, you'll find him in the middle, not on either side.

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Even for Rick Warren standards, this is really really bad. Welcome to the program, ladies and gentlemen.

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My name is Justin Peters. I hope that this finds you and your family doing well today. I want to thank you so much for joining me.

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You undoubtedly are familiar with Rick Warren. He is the former pastor of Saddleback Church in Southern California and one of, if not the most influential evangelicals in the modern era, certainly.

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I say that because he has written two books, a number of books, but the two most notable,

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I would say, would be The Purpose -Driven Church and Purpose -Driven Life. Purpose -Driven

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Life is one of the top -selling books of all times. It has sold over 50 million copies, been translated in who knows how many languages, dozens of languages, but massively, massively influential.

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And I have a lot of concerns, a lot of concerns with Rick Warren. And I can't go into all of them here.

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I'm going to focus primarily on what he said in this tweet. And we're going to look at that and why that, or at post,

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I guess, why that's so very dangerous. But the best way I know how to describe

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Rick Warren is he is a theological chameleon. Rick Warren is whoever his audience is on that particular occasion.

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He changes his theological convictions with the regularity and ease with which you and you and I would change our socks.

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And just to give you a few examples of this, back in 2006, he was one of the keynote speakers at the

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Azusa Street Centennial Celebration. This was the 100 year celebration of the

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Azusa Street Revival, which launched the Pentecostal charismatic movement kind of into the mainstream.

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And he was speaking there. And he was sharing the platform with T .D. Jakes, who's not only a word of faith, charismatic heretic, but he's a modalist as well, denies a

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Trinity. Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, they were all speakers and there was

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Rick Warren. And so there at the Azusa Street Centennial Celebration, Rick Warren is a charismatic, if not full -blown word of faith.

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But then he was also interviewed by John Piper. And when he's being interviewed by John Piper, oh, he's got a high view of God's sovereignty and salvation.

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And he's reading the Puritans and, you know, sounds like a

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Calvinistic kind of a guy. But when he's being interviewed by EWTN, which is the

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Roman Catholic television station, he said that Pope Francis is doing everything right.

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He says, if you love Pope Francis, you'll love Jesus and said that Pope Francis is the perfect example of humility and even referred to Pope Francis as our new

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Pope. Well, and the main thing is love always reaches people. Authenticity, humility.

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Pope Francis is the perfect example of this. He is doing everything right.

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You see people will listen to what we say if they like what they see.

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And as our new Pope, he was very, very symbolic in, you know, his first mass with people of AIDS, his kissing of the disformed man, his loving the children, this authenticity, this humility, the caring for the poor.

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This is what the whole world expects us Christians to do. And when they go, oh, that's what a

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Christian does. In fact, there was a headline here in Orange County and I love the headline. I saved it. It said, if you love

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Pope Francis, you'll love Jesus. That was the headline. It was a headline.

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I saved it. I showed it to a group of priests. I was speaking to a while back. Our new

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Pope. Well, when you were with John Piper, you were reading the Puritans who had nothing good to say about the

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Pope or the Roman Catholic church. So, you know, he, he changes his theological convictions like we change our socks.

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He is whoever his audience is on that particular occasion. I remember watching him on the old

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Hannity and Combs show back before, you know, Alan Combs, the liberal died, obviously before he died.

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And Rick Warren was on there and Alan Combs was a Jew. And Alan asked

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Rick Warren, basically said, well, Rick, what about me? I don't, you know, I don't believe in Jesus. I'm a

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Jew. And Rick Warren's gospel presentation to Alan Combs, who he knew as a

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Jew, knew was very liberal and obviously not a Christian. He said to Alan Combs, try

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Jesus for 60 days. That was his gospel print. Try Jesus for 60 days.

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Like he's a weight loss program. You know, if he doesn't work, you get your money back. It's just a horrible, horrible gospel presentation to get

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Rick Warren to talk about Christ and the gospel. It's, it's just like pulling teeth.

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You just about can't get him to do it. And there was something else. This was in 2009.

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He was invited to be one of the keynote speakers at the Islamic Society of North America.

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They were having their annual convention. And Rick Warren was one of their keynote speakers.

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And in his, in his address, I've watched it. In fact, I just watched it again tonight to kind of refresh my memory.

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He talked about the five big problems that the world is facing. One of which is conflict.

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And he said, when it comes to a conflict, we must have a, he said, there's, the reason we have conflict is there is an unwillingness to reconcile with God and to reconcile with each other.

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Number one is this problem of conflict, war, confrontation, hostility, terrorism, refugee camps, all of the hostility between generations, hostility between races, hostility between nations, hostility between ethnic groups and economic groups.

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And it's just an evidence of our unwillingness to reconcile with God and to reconcile with each other.

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And I'm like, what? Wait a minute. You're, you're telling a bunch of Muslims that one of the world's biggest problems with which we as Christians can work with Muslims together on, and that's the whole theme of his address was how we can work together of different faiths, is the issue of conflict.

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And we need to be reconciled to God. People are unwilling to be reconciled to God.

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And you're telling this to Muslims? Like we can work together on that? Muslims are not reconciled to God.

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By definition, they are lost. They are outside of the

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Christian camp. They need to be reconciled with God. And yet he's wanting to employ the help of Muslims so that people can be reconciled to God.

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It is, it is just absolutely absurd. And the very fact that Rick Warren was invited by a bunch of Muslims to speak at their convention tells you so much.

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It tells you how Rick Warren is viewed because Rick Warren has never been known for his bold, clear exposition of the scriptures.

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He's never been known for being clear about the gospel. And the very fact that he was their invited guest shows you that, proves that.

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Do you really think a bunch of Muslims, thousands of Muslims would invite Rick Warren to come and preach if Rick Warren had a reputation of championing the gospel of Jesus Christ, that there is one name given among men under heaven by which we must be saved, that Jesus is the way, the truth, the life, that no man comes to the father but by him?

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No. The Muslims are very comfortable with having Rick Warren come and be their keynote speaker because they knew that Rick Warren would not present the gospel.

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And of course he didn't. He didn't. Now just imagine this.

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Do you think a bunch of Muslims would ever invite, oh, I don't know, let's say John MacArthur come and be their keynote speaker?

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Not in a million years because Muslims know who John MacArthur is and they know if they were to invite him to come and speak that he would present the gospel.

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And so they're not, they didn't invite him. They didn't invite any true gospel preacher.

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No, they invited Rick Warren. They were very comfortable with him because they knew he was not going to present the gospel and he did it.

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So, you know, and what better opportunity than to present the gospel in front of a bunch of Muslims, thousands of them.

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You know, if I had been given an invitation to speak at that, which would obviously never happen, but let's just say by some weird thing, they had some mix up in their relations department and I got an invitation by some accident.

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Would I go? Absolutely. I'd go and I'd speak in front of all those Muslims. Absolutely. And I would give them the gospel because, well,

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Romans 1 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes for the

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Jew first and also to the Greek, what better opportunity to present the gospel than in front of a bunch of Muslims.

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And if you really believe Romans 1 16, if you really believe that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, why not present it to thousands of people who are in desperate need of it?

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And if they die in their Islamic faith, we'll go straight to hell. But Rick Warren did not do that.

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He did not give the gospel because he is ashamed of the gospel. Rick Warren has notoriously horrible hermeneutics.

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His Bible interpretation is just notoriously bad.

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A number of years ago, he came up with the Daniel plan. The Daniel diet. And he takes

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Daniel chapter one as a diet plan. I'll read this for you beginning in verse 12.

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You'll remember this story. This is Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. And Daniel says, please test your servants for 10 days.

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Let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance be observed before you in the appearance of the youths who are eating the

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King's choice food and deal with your servants according to what you see. So we listened to them in this matter and tested them for 10 days.

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At the end of 10 days, it was seen that their appearance was better and that they were fatter than all the youths who had been eating the

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King's choice food. So the overseer continued to withhold their choice food and the wine they were to drink and kept giving them vegetables.

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So basically Daniel and his friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah had been kidnapped, basically summarizing here, kidnapped from Judah, along with some other friends of Judah too, other of their peers.

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And they were taken into the Babylonian kingdom and offered the

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King's choice food and the wine, which he drank and all the other youths went along with it. They ate the

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King's choice food and they drank his wine. But Daniel and his friends said, no, we're not going to do that. Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.

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So that's the story. And it says their appearance at the end of 10 days, they seem better and fatter and healthier than the other youths who were eating all of the good food, the sirloin and ribeye and baked potato and all that.

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And so Rick Warren makes a diet out of this, thinks that this is how

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God wants us to eat. That completely misses the point of the text, misses it entirely.

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Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah did not prosper because of the food.

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They prospered in spite of the food. That was the point of the text.

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They prospered in spite of the food, not because of it. So it's just utterly laughable and comical how wrong he gets scripture.

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And in his books, you might, if you've read them, you might notice that he uses a lot of different translations in the purpose driven life.

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I want to say, if memory serves right, somewhere around 20, maybe it was 22 different translations that he uses.

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And if you're using, if you're citing over 20 different translations when you do cite scripture, you're reaching.

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In other words, you're you're hunting for the translation that best suits what you're trying to say, the point that you want to make.

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Rather than leading, letting scripture speak for itself. And his translation of choice seems to be the message by Eugene Peterson, which is in and of itself heretical.

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If you have a copy of the message, throw it away. I want to do a video on that, Lord willing, in the relatively near future.

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So Rick Warren is a he's a terrible preacher.

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He's got no theological core. He may well be a nice man.

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That's not the issue. But as far as a theologian, he's a terrible theologian. He has no center.

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He changes his convictions depending upon the audience that he is in front of on that particular occasion.

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And so now this all of that to give you a little bit of background to this.

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So he says that Jesus being crucified between two thieves.

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Jesus was right in the middle. This is a the real meaning of that, according to Rick Warren, is that Jesus is not he's not partisan.

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Jesus is not a political partisan because he's not right and he's not left.

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He was crucified in the middle. And so if you're looking for Jesus, that's where you'll find him. Right in the middle difference.

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That is that is absurd. That is not the meaning of the text.

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This is not exegesis. This is eisegesis. Now, exegesis, if you're not familiar, this is refers to getting extracting the meaning

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X out of the text. In other words, you look at the text and you get the meaning and you extract it out of the text and you proclaim it to the people.

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Every verse in the Bible has but one meaning. Every verse in the

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Bible has but one meaning. Now, many verses may have multiple possible applications, but it's only got one meaning.

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And so as as exegetes of scripture, our job is to get to the meaning of the text.

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We are looking for authorial intent. In other words, what was the intent of the author who wrote the portion of scripture that we're looking at?

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And so if we come up with a meaning that would not have made sense to the original recipients was not the intent of the author of that text, then we've got the wrong meaning.

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OK, we've got the wrong meaning. And so here he's quoting John 19. Do you really think that the apostle

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John had in his mind in recording this? You know, the real meaning that Jesus was crucified between two other thieves because he wasn't a political partisan.

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He wasn't a Democrat or Republican. Undoubtedly, that's what John had in mind, right?

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Obviously not. How absurd. So this is not exegesis, what Rick Warren does.

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He hardly ever does exegesis. What he does is eisegesis. He takes his preconceived theology, his his philosophy, his approach to life and church.

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And he he reads his his own meaning into the text.

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That's what he does almost without fail. He reads a meaning into the text, eisegesis.

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In fact, I like what my pastor friend Mike Stone said of this. He says there's eisegesis and then there's

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I can't believe my eyes. Eisegesis, well said.

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So difference, this is just absolutely unreal. This is taking eisegesis, reading a meaning into the text to a whole whole nother level.

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This is just absolutely unbelievable. So Rick Warren's point seems to be that Jesus is not

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Democrat. He's not Republican. He's not liberal. He's not conservative. No, he's just somewhere in the middle.

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Well, dear friends, I am not saying that Jesus is a registered Republican. But let me tell you something.

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Jesus is not in the middle when it comes to the social and moral issues of our day.

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Jesus is not in the middle when it comes to the slaughter of unborn children.

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He is decidedly pro -life. And does Jesus support the

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Democratic Party in any way? Absolutely not. The Democratic platform, if you want to know about the

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Democratic Party, the Democratic Party is so wicked that it is literally enshrined the sins listed in Romans chapter one into its party platform.

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So Jesus is not in the middle when it comes to abortion, the murder of innocent children.

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Jesus is not in the middle when it comes to the mutilation, the sexual mutilation of children who do happen to make it out of the womb.

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And the Democratic Party supports the full unrestricted access or ability for children to, for whatever reason, they decide that they're they're the wrong sex and they want to be the other one for a boy who might decide for some reason he wants to be a girl or vice versa for that child to be able to have their just going to be graphic here because it's a reality to have their genitals mutilated permanently by, quote unquote, sex change operations and do irreparable, irreversible harm to themselves and do that without even the parents being notified of it.

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Jesus is not in the middle when it comes to that. Jesus is not in the middle when it comes to exposing children to pornography, to pornographic books like the

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Democratic Party wants to for children to have access to in the libraries, in the schools.

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He's not in the middle of that. Jesus is not in the middle when it comes to these drag queen story hours for for little kids in public libraries.

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Jesus is not in the middle on that. And by the way, just while I'm thinking about it, you ever wondered why it is that these drag queens, these men with twisted minds who want to dress up in this garish makeup and dress like hookers and this just this awful just you've seen it.

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Why is it that these men don't ever go and read books to patients in the hospital or elderly people in nursing homes?

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They don't ever do that, do they? No, they always want to be around children.

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It is sick and it is twisted. Jesus is not in the middle on that.

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Democratic Party is perfectly fine with it. They're great with it. Jesus is not.

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And there's more issues that we could talk about. But when it comes to the slaughter, the murder of unborn children that Democrats want full and free access to with no restrictions whatsoever,

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Jesus is not in the middle. When it comes to the sexual mutilation and exploitation of children,

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Jesus is not in the middle. And to take that or this, this his belief that Jesus is just somewhere in the middle when it comes to politics.

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No, that is not the meaning of the text. I want us to look at the meaning of the text.

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All of the Gospels record that Jesus was crucified between two thieves.

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Rick Warren is right on that. But was this a sign of Jesus being nonpartisan?

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No, dear friends. First and foremost, Jesus being crucified between two thieves was a fulfillment of Messianic prophecy.

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Let's look at this. Isaiah chapter 53, beginning of verse 10. But Yahweh was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief.

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If you would place his soul as a guilt offering, he will see his seed. He will prolong his days and the good pleasure of Yahweh will succeed in his hand as a result of the anguish of his soul.

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He will see it and be satisfied by his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant.

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This is foreshadowing Christ will justify the many as he will bear their iniquities.

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Therefore, I will divide for him a portion with the many and he will divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors.

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There it is. He was numbered with the transgressors.

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A thief on one side and a thief on the other. Yet he himself bore the sin of many and he interceded for the transgressors.

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Jesus intercedes for sinners. He offered himself, this perfect person, offered himself as a perfect sacrifice to perfectly satisfy the perfect wrath of God that burns against sin.

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And so he intercedes for transgressors. And that is why Jesus was crucified in the middle of two thieves.

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He was numbered with the transgressors. And he intercedes for transgressors, sinners.

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Now, most of you probably have noticed that there seems to be a little bit of a discrepancy in the reaction of the thieves to Jesus.

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Now, let me show you this. Matthew's gospel, Matthew chapter 27. Let's read this together.

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Beginning of verse 38. At that time, two robbers were crucified with him. One on the right and one on the left.

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And those passing by were blaspheming him, shaking their heads and saying, you who are going to destroy the sanctuary and rebuild it in three days, save yourself.

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If you are the son of God, come down from the cross. In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking him and saying he saved others.

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He cannot save himself. He is the king of Israel. Let him now come down from the cross and we will believe in him.

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He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he delights in him. For he said,

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I am the son of God. And the robbers who had been crucified with him were also insulting him with the same words.

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So in Matthew's account, it appears as though both of the robbers were hurling insults at Jesus, as were the people passing by and seeing them on the cross.

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Hurling insults, of course, at Christ, not at the robbers. But Luke's gospel is different.

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I want to show you this. Luke chapter 23, beginning verse 39. And one of the criminals hanging there was blaspheming him, saying,

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Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us. But the other answered and rebuking him said,

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Do you not even fear God since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

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And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for what we have done.

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But this man has done nothing wrong. And he was saying, Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.

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And he, Jesus said to him, truly, I say to you today, you shall be with me in paradise.

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So in Luke's account, only one of the robbers was hurling insults at Christ.

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The other one asked Jesus to save him.

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The other robber actually rebuked the other thief and said,

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Do you not fear God? We are receiving what we deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.

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And he said to Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus said, truly,

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I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. So what gifts? Matthew's gospel indicates that both thieves were hurling insults at Christ, whereas Luke's gospel says only one was doing that.

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And the other one pleaded with Christ to remember him and defended

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Jesus. Scripture always interprets scripture.

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And dear friends, the way you reconcile this is that this is actually a beautiful representation of God's sovereign grace.

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According to Matthew's gospel, both of the thieves initially were hurling insults at Jesus.

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And then at some point while hanging there on the cross, in their life ebbing away from them,

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God extended to one of the thieves faith and repentance.

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The thief didn't gin it up on his own. Both faith and repentance are gifts granted by God.

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And at some point shortly before their deaths, God granted to one of the thieves true faith and true repentance.

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God changed his heart. God took out his heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh.

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And that thief was sovereignly saved by God and by Christ.

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This is a beautiful, beautiful picture of God's sovereignty in salvation.

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So dear friends, this is just the latest example of Rick Warren doing eisegesis, reading a meaning into the text that is not there.

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As students of the Bible, as Christians who read and study the Bible, it is our job to get to the intent of the author.

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What did the author intend for his readers to understand? Authorial intent.

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And if you come up with a meaning that would not have made sense to the author and was not in his mind, it would not have made sense to the original recipients of the particular letter being written.

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Then you've got the wrong meaning. You need to you need to look at it again because you've got it wrong. And it's so ironic that this man, who has been a pastor for decades and has even written a book, sadly, on how to study the

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Bible. I think it's called Rick Warren's Bible study methods or something like that.

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That is just it's inexcusable. It's inexcusable as a pastor. So do

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I believe that Rick Warren is a false teacher? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. He's not qualified to be behind the pulpit at all.

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And this is not to say whether or not I'm not making a comment in one way or the other about his sincerity.

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Sincerity is not the issue. Truth is the issue. And we've got to stand on the truth of God's word.

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And the truth of the gospel is this, is that you are a sinner. You have broken the laws of God.

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You are a liar because you've told lies. You're probably a thief because you've probably taken something that does not belong to you.

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You are a blasphemer because you've taken God's name in vain, in word and in deed.

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And you are an adulterer at heart, at least, because if you look at another person with lust, you have committed adultery already in your heart.

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So just like when you break laws on Earth, there's a penalty to be paid. How much more so when we break the laws of God?

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But because we have sinned against God who is eternal, the punishment of that sin is also eternal.

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And if you die in your sin, you'll very rightly and very justly go to a very real place the

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Bible calls hell. The worm will not die. The fire will not be quenched.

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There will be wailing, weeping, gnashing of teeth, and the full undiluted fury of God's wrath will be poured out for all of eternity, and it will never end.

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That's the bad news. That's what your sins have earned you. And there is nothing you can do to earn

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God's favor. Your works are as filthy rags before our thrice holy

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God. Isaiah chapter 64, verse six, you cannot work your way into heaven. Your works are meaningless.

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You stand condemned. But there is good news. And the good news of the gospel is this, is that God has made a way for you to escape his wrath.

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God sent his son, Jesus Christ, to this Earth. Jesus was the perfect person.

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He was one man with two distinct natures. He was truly God and truly man.

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And as the God man, Jesus lived a perfect life to the perfect pleasure and satisfaction of God.

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Never broke any of God's laws. And then Jesus willingly gave his life on the cross.

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His life was not taken. He gave it. And on the cross, this perfect person offered his perfect life as a perfect sacrifice to perfectly satisfy the perfect wrath of God.

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Died on the cross. Three days later, on the third day, bodily raised from the dead, proving himself to be who he said he was,

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God in human flesh. And the only way to be saved is to repent of your sin.

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Turn from sin. Place your trust in Christ, in his completed work on the cross.

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Do not trust yourself. Do not trust your works. Lay your works down. They will profit you nothing.

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But trust in what Christ did in him being the sacrifice, the perfect sacrifice for the penalty of sin.

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Place your trust in him. Submit to him. Don't try Jesus for 60 days.

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That's not the gospel. Bend your knee to Christ. And if you will come to Christ empty handed, trusting him and him alone for your salvation, if you will come to Christ seeking not only a savior from hell, but a savior from your sin, he will save you.

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You will pass from death to life, just as the thief on the cross had his heart of stone taken out and replaced with a heart of flesh.

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Christ will do that for you. He will take out your heart of stone, give you a heart of flesh, a new heart with new desires, new affections.

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You'll begin to love what God loves. You'll begin to hate what God hates. You'll desire to grow in the grace and knowledge of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. You will turn from sin. You'll have a godly sorrow over sin.

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These are all fruits in keeping with repentance. So come to Christ. And if you come to Christ empty handed, he will save you.

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Jesus says, the one who comes to me, I will in no wise cast out. Thank you very much for watching, dear ones.

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Until our next time together, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of his