Q&A Session

And then we'll ask you guys to come up, okay? Sound good? All right. A good S .O .S. Johnson story is a friend of mine told me that when he was at Dallas Seminary and the Ryrie Study Bible had just come out and he and Charles Ryrie were friends, but someone said, can we use the Ryrie Study Bible for our exam?

And he said, I do believe the Ryrie Study Bible would only confuse you. So I liked it when Byron Yawn, our friend went up to Dr. Johnson after the Signature of God message came out. Grant Jeffrey, I believe, wrote the Signature of God.

And if you look at the Bible upside down through a computer with 3D lenses, it tells you inside information. And so Byron went up to Dr. Johnson and said, well, what do you think of that? And he said, I think it's kind of okay.

And he and his wife were carrying their Hebrew interlinears. I was there. But anyway, you wanna listen to S .O .S. Johnson. You have a Proverbs 32 wife when she has a Hebrew interlinear. That's right.

Social Justice, Romans, and the Church’s Mission

Pat, we're gonna do some funny ones and some not so funny ones. I saw your Twitter feed and you had a picture of you surrounded by all kinds of bodyguards. It looked like you were rebuking Joe Osteen.

What happened with that? Tell me that when you went down and met him. When I met Joel, Joel and I go way back. Can't you tell? The funny thing was I went to the service. I was preaching at a church, Ken Ramey's church in Houston.

And he said, what are we gonna do tonight? We're gonna go hang out or whatever. You name what you wanna do. And I said, I don't care. What do you wanna do? Well, I've always wanted to go hear Joel Osteen, but I've never been, I've been afraid to go and I figured you'd wanna go.

So the Abendroth kind of reputation precedes us. So we went to go hear Joel. And after, or during the service, I gotta tell you, this is gonna, I'll cut to the chase. He said he'd meet anybody who wanted to meet him.

And of course, Ken, my friend went, you wanna meet him, don't you? I go, yeah, I wanna meet him. And so stood in line, bodyguards there kind of vetting you and asking you, you know, big, super intimidating kind of guy with like a purple shirt on.

So they're trying to give the soft touch. But anyway, we all talked ahead of time. There were three of us and decided he's been confronted for his erroneous kinds of views that he has. This is the place to do it.

But let's ask good questions. So we got up there, it was our turn. And I asked him where he learned his techniques. I tried to be respectful about it. He said, what do you mean? I said, you know how you get people to do things.

He said, like what? I said, you know, you can get people, you get all these people to do what you want them to do. And I just wondered how you learned how to do that. He said, oh, I don't know. And you know, he wanted to be, who's next?

That's a Steve Lawson. So then it was, I said, well, is there some book, somebody who's inspired you, some kind of biography? And he said, well, no, I guess maybe Billy Graham. The guy after me said, what book would I read to learn your theology?

And he said, I don't really read those kinds of books. And so my friend pushed him a little bit. And then he said, well, I guess maybe John Maxwell. If you don't know, John Maxwell's like a leadership guy.

He's not a theology guy. So anyway, the funny thing was during the service, and we could talk about the sadness of this kind of thing. But during the service, I posted a picture, sent it to a friend of mine.

And he said, you know, I'm jealous. I'd like to see that. So then afterward, I posted a picture on Twitter of me with Joel. And then my friend said Why do you keep pointing at me when you say Joel?

Because I'm talking to you. I posted the picture on Twitter and my friend just said, you win. So anyway, kind of a funny story. All right, Pat, a little bit more about social stuff and social gospel, social justice.

We'll mix some of these things in. I'm thinking about the book of Romans. Slavery in Romans, lust in Romans, immorality in Romans. And it's blatantly obvious that there's no social justice in Romans. And Paul could have given in this manifesto all this information about how to redeem culture.

And yet in 16 chapters, there's nothing. What's your take on that? Well, I agree with you. In chapter 12, you have, you'd be transformed as a Christian. Not you're gonna transform some external kind of entity, culture, society.

So I'm with you. I would chime right in and say, what about first Corinthians? And all the things that would have been going on in Corinth. And what does Paul say? I determined to know, I resolved to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

There are all those other needs, but he preached Christ to them. So that's what I would say. I think we're very confused. Maybe one more thing about that, Mike, is I'm wondering if we're feeling so guilty for not loving our neighbors, which is something we're supposed to do.

Okay, that's something we're supposed to do as individuals out of gratitude to God. We're supposed to love our neighbors. And so you can do that and I can do that. And we're feeling so guilty for not doing it.

Now we wanna harness the church to do what we're supposed to do so we don't feel so guilty. But what's the church called to do? The church is called to preach the gospel. I, as a member of the church, I'm called to preach the gospel, but I'm also called to love my neighbor.

And so we're getting the two confused. How about this? I read somebody recently and they said, well, there are all kinds of needs. Why doesn't the church have an ambulance service? Healthcare's overpriced and it's so expensive.

There are people who can't afford it. The church should have an ambulance service. Well, where does that end? There's so many good things to do and so many needs, but the church is called to be about one thing, preaching Christ.

So that's what we do. And we let those other things be done by others who can do them. And sometimes those others are us in a different kind of sphere, in a different kind of realm. You should love your neighbor.

Do you wanna start an ambulance service? Start one, but don't make the church start one. It's not what we're called to be or do. I listened to a sermon in Omaha last week or a couple of weeks ago, and they went on and on about this tragic sex trafficking of young girls, even in Omaha, Nebraska.

I felt bad. I felt emotional. I thought this is awful. Somebody should do something. And then the pastor calls the church to be all about this. This is like our new mission, our new ministry, our new thing that we're all about.

And I'm thinking, we're gonna now burn the church out on more good things that we're supposed to be doing as individuals. And that's not what the church is called to do. So anyway. Pat, I think the guys would be interested in how the Lord worked through all this.

I asked you on the radio today about this as well. The guy that preached the gospel to you the most in college ends up, he's out of ministry. Maybe he's apostate. What does that tell us about the power of the gospel?

And what does it tell us about if we're frail and weak in our delivery, and we're not the perfect evangelistic preachers, but still it's the sovereign spirit using the word of God in the life of a person.

It tells us what you just said. It's all about the sovereignty of God. See, I asked the question, this is really time for me to preach. That's right. I wanna talk. Can you give us more detail about the guy?

The guy who shared the gospel with me, I'm so thankful for the clarity. I'm so thankful for the persistency, the patience, all of those things. How about this guy? He had the audacity to question my faith.

I'm so thankful for that. Tragically, fast forward a lot of years, 25 years, he's no longer with his wife. Last I heard, he had a boyfriend, left the kids at home and just crashed and burned. I don't know if he's denied the faith or not.

God uses his word. His word is powerful and his spirit is powerful. And if God spoke through Balaam's ass, then he'll speak through somebody like that guy named John. And so I'm thankful. I'm so thankful that God's gospel is powerful and his spirit is powerful.

Sometime I wanna do a sermon called Discipled by Demas. How about that? Think about it. Think about people that Judas evangelized. Their hope is in Christ, not in Judas who evangelized them or Demas who evangelized them.

We have to remember that. That's why we don't preach ourselves, by the way. So thankful for grace. How about the power of prayer? We have loved ones that we want to see come to faith in Christ Jesus. And God lends his ear to our prayers and we have a great mediator.

Tell us the story about the man who you ran into at Omaha Bible Church that you saw last in high school, junior high. Guy's name is Kevin, Kevin Ullman. And he came to Omaha Bible Church for a baptism.

And I was baptizing people and I saw him out there. He looked a little older, but I thought my brain was racing. I thought, Kevin Ullman, he was a Christian. That's why he didn't laugh at my jokes in high school, you know, kind of thing.

And it was like time stopped and I'm like, it all makes sense now. So we got together for lunch and he said, I just have to tell you that my Baptist or whatever it was, youth pastor said, pray for somebody you think is unsavable.

See, he didn't have to finish the story either. I'm like, I know. And he just pointed at me, you're the unsavable guy. So I love to tell the story, not because it's about me, but because every one of us are unsavable apart from God's sovereign grace, apart from God's intervening, breaking in.

So pray for people, pray for your kids, pray for your wife. If she's not a believer for your parents, grandparents. Pat and I were rejoicing today together about how God saved us. Mom saved, Pat saved, I'm saved.

And we were just in the Lutheran family. You were saved if you got water put on your head, right? Baptismal regeneration. And we knew about God. We wouldn't deny Jesus or anything like that. He was the son of God.

And just thinking what God does in the life of a family in his sovereign purposes. We had some neighbors and they were Baptist and they were really weird. They went to church on Sunday night and we knew they were super serious.

And sometimes we would be over to their house on Sunday night and they would eat cereal at 5 p .m. and then go to church. And then we were laughing because it's Sunday night now at my house. It's just eat cereal, whatever, we'll see you at church.

And we remember going to Mark Paulson. He was my age. He lived right over the fence and he got cancer. He was supposed to die. And I was impressed with his Baptist family because they actually went around Mark's bed, had their hands on him and prayed for him to be healed.

And he was healed. He went from about 50 pounds as a teenager and now the wildest thing is Mark Paulson is a congregant at Omaha Bible Church. And so just to see God work. And so we don't always see the effects but we know God blesses his word and we know our responsibility is to faithfully proclaim the truth.

And I was just encouraged today as I rehearsed our Savior and his work in our life. All right, let's talk about the courtroom model that's dominating evangelicalism. Instead of judicial, forensic, declared righteous, we have this relational model, a family model, a sharing model.

What explains this, do you think? Maybe, good question. I don't know the answer. What explains it? Maybe because we wanna preach ourselves in light of what I was saying tonight. Think about it with me if you would, guys.

We're moving from proclaiming truths about Christ's work on our behalf and justification by faith alone to following, to experiencing father only, don't talk about the judge. I suppose it's an overreaction.

We overreact to one thing and then we swing the pendulum the other way. And Mike and I were talking about it earlier. It's important that we remember that it's a false choice. Is God judge or is God father?

You need to redefine the terms of the question. That's right, it's a false choice. He's both and the Bible emphasizes both. And if we lose sight of one or the other, then we're out of balance. And so, but when I wanna talk about me and my experience and let me tell you all about what I've gone through, it's not helpful.

No wonder people are denying justification by faith alone. They've never heard of it before. Think feminism has anything to do with the relational model versus the stark judicial courtroom scene? Certainly could play into it.

You know, what starts first? What feeds what? We don't wanna preach. We don't wanna be bold. We don't wanna be courageous. Men don't act like men. So we're not strong and with our convictions and that sort of thing.

Sin, Idolatry, and Cultural Diagnosis

All right, let me just do a couple more and then we'll have the guys ask questions if they have them. Pat, I don't like all this. Tell me how you really feel. These days, instead of the essence of sin being unbelief, which leads to lawlessness, which manifests in immorality, everybody's talking about sin now.

The root of it is idolatry. In other words, making something good ultimate. That's the new talk. And it's from Kierkegaard. It's not from the Bible. Of course, idolatry is sin. Do you know what is explaining this idolatry talk where idolatry is the root of all sin instead of one of the fruits of it?

You got something good and just, if you make it ultimate, then you're robbing yourself. God really wants you to enjoy your life. And if you take sex, which is good and make it ultimate, and that becomes the idol, then you lose out on God.

That's the way people talk now to postmoderns. Just important, I think, I'm with you. And it's important that we think in terms of what does scripture say about sin? So let's start there. Idolatry is sin, but is that somehow the new paradigm for everything?

Well, the Bible also says that sin is lawlessness. Unbelief, and all of these categories, and we want to do our very best to put the data together and then come up with a conclusion about here's what we believe about sin.

Instead of just having it be one of those things, it's not gonna be helpful. Plus, you're hitting the nail on the head, Mike, when you say, historically, when have people talked like this? Maybe there are good guys in history who talk like this.

Maybe there are bad guys in history who talk like this. Kierkegaard isn't a good guy. So he plays for the other team. He made some right statements, but he tends to play for the other team, not for the evangelical team.

And so when people are talking like Kierkegaard, beware, be careful. We've heard this before, kind of thing. It's a little bit different issue, but when Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis thing came out, it was just anti-machan all over again with new style.

So when we hear all about everything, idolatry, idolatry, idolatry, there's some truth to it, but where's that coming from? And have we seen that historically before? And maybe we need to be careful. You took a lot of flack for your article on Velvet Elvis, and in typical Abendrothian form, it was very nuanced and subtle as you wrote it.

I think it was entitled, Why Rob Bell Makes Me Mad. I've been in counseling about it ever since. I'm gonna just give you some names. This is the last little segment here, and we'll have the guys ask. I'm gonna give you some names, and then you can just tell me what you think of the names.

You can respond with one word, a sentence, a paragraph, or I'm just gonna give some names, okay? N .T. Wright. Bad. Just one word answers? No, that's fine, that's fine. When N .T. Wright says the sinlessness of Jesus is overrated, I'm pretty much done.

Denies imputation of Christ's righteousness, so he denies the foundation for justification by faith alone. He's really cool. I don't know when a purple robe and a backward collar became cool. What's it, priestly colors and stuff, and they have to go get those little shells out of the ocean to make the purple back in the old days.

But somehow he's really cool, but you better be careful. One guy in Omaha, a pastor there, I said, why are you promoting N .T. Wright? What's the deal? He's got the hip, cool, happening church. I said, why are you promoting N .T. Wright?

He said, well, N .T. Wright, you have to see, is wrong on justification, but he's an ally when it comes to the gospel. That's when I do a Scooby-Doo, and I go, I don't get it. And then he said, well, you won't understand this because you haven't been trained in tri-perspectivalism like I have.

He said that to you? Yeah. So I thought, you know, that's kind of how I think about that. If you're wrong on justification, you're wrong on the gospel. And what he meant was N .T. Wright promoted a conservative view on the resurrection.

Yeah, conservative within liberal Anglicanism. And so you just have to be careful. I mean, if you get the justification thing wrong, how about, D .A. Carson said it well in the Hebrews class we had with him.

He said, and if he were sitting in this chair in a British Canadian accent, he would use the word as he did with us, slippery. And he keeps changing his argument. Carson said, we keep critiquing him and challenging his views in one writing, and then he changes it and basically says, I don't believe that.

And he says something else somewhere else. There's a reason why we don't sell one N .T. Wright book in this church. We don't want our people to read it. Yeah, yeah. Watch out, he's hip and cool and unorthodox.

I think the women swooned over Whitfield when he pronounced Mesopotamia. I don't swoon when D .A. Carson pronounces genre, genre, but pretty close. Okay. Only Steve Cooley knows what I'm talking about.

Okay, a couple other names here. Mark Driscoll. Who? Tim Keller. I haven't heard much about him lately. Yeah, kind of off the map. Tim Keller. That's why these guys pay the big bucks to come to the conference.

They can't see this on the audio. Tim Keller says some good things. I don't like when he's not clear about things, when he's asked questions about things that the Bible is black and white about. And then he gives a nuanced answer that's so nuanced you're not really sure where he is.

Some helpful things to think differently as far as communicating with people, but I don't want it to be so different that it's actually communicating something that you don't want it to communicate. Why did N .T. Wright speak at Redeemer?

I'd like to know. Just my exhortation to the guys would be be careful with hero worship, whether it's the guy preaching here or somewhere else. When everybody thinks it's the greatest thing that you can do is eat lettuce and slice bread.

Be careful. Let's just not be those kinds of guys. Let's be discerning and read broad enough to realize that not everybody is right in everything they say. Engaging Keller is the book that you should read.

It's Evangelical Press. It's called Engaging Keller. Has anybody read it? And it talks about Keller's view of chapter one of Genesis, how he thinks it's poetry, how he would define hell as C .S. Lewis would.

Hell's gates are locked from the inside instead of God throwing people into hell in addition. And it talks about his divine dance, describing the Trinity. You ought to read that book if you have any questions about Tim Keller, written by a bunch of Presbyterians.

Correcting Error and Helping Others Grow

All right. Questions for Pat. Hard ones for Pat. If you want to know the inside scoop about Pat, then I might be able to answer that. Okay, does anybody have a question? See, this is an intimidating thing, to walk up there and ask the question.

I see that hand. We need some music. You know what, should we put it in the back so guys aren't as afraid? One more stanza of just as I am and we'll have it there.

So Pat, Mike, if you have, if I have friends or someone has friends that where they have those gospel missteps, you think they're a believer, they're a faithful people, but in their churches, the way they lead their churches, whether they're elders, pastors, what's a practical way that I can encourage them towards the right view of the gospel, other than just kind of talking about it in general?

I mean, like how can I lovingly correct them if need be, or just how do I approach that?

Awesome question. I mean, one thing would be, be willing to talk to them, don't blast them with an email. It's amazing how a real conversation could be helpful. We are called to admonish one another and to encourage one another.

The books, I like helpful articles, helpful books. Pray for wisdom about tact, because again, I love to send a blasting email as much as anybody else does, because it's so easy and it's not very helpful.

So here's an article, can we have lunch? Would you talk about this? The old fashioned way maybe is good. Maybe if there's somebody they respect and you can find at a writing that they've written. So choose who's gonna provide the critique.

You know what I'm saying? We're talking about N .T. Wright and maybe I can find somebody that my friend likes to read and respects and they offer a critique of N .T. Wright. If they don't like John MacArthur, don't give them a John MacArthur article.

Give them a D .A. Carson article. If they don't like Baptists, give them a Presbyterian or vice versa. Just trying to be wise is what I try to do. Send them, direct them to audio links. There's so many good resources.

I'm thankful for progressive sanctification, aren't you guys? I mean, I was just thinking as I was sitting here in the front row, I don't teach it this way anymore because the Lord has shown me not to, but when I preached Mark here at the church in the building, I was in Mark chapter one, the temptation, and I look back at my notes and when you're tempted, what are you supposed to do?

Well, make sure you know the Old Testament because Jesus quotes Deuteronomy three times. Know that God won't give you more than you can handle and I cross-referenced another thing and I thought, I have completely blown this.

I used to get mad at the sound guys. Why don't you post the sermons that I preach? I spend 30 hours working on a sermon and you don't post them and now they lost a bunch of these old sermons of mine and I think, praise God, they lost the sermons.

It's a bunch of moralistic things. Adam, tempted, failed. Israel, tempted, failed. I'm tempted, I fail. Jesus, tempted, he didn't fail. And so part of it is, Jonathan, sometimes we just wait because 1 Thessalonians 2 .13 is right.

The word of God performs its work in those who believe. And so when they sit underneath good Bible preaching week in, by week out, people change. If somebody asked me, how do I make a charismatic a cessationist?

Not that anybody ever asked me that question but the answer for me is I wouldn't just say, here's charismatic chaos and here's a round trip ticket to see strange fire coming up in two weeks. If they sit underneath the word long enough, verse by verse, Christ-centered, I think eventually they start saying, wait a second, is Christ's word sufficient or is it deficient?

What is revelation? Is it ongoing? And the word just starts transforming them. Then you're probably the guy. And so you have to wisely figure out, how do I help these people? Because it is a tragic mistake to say, I am the gospel.

Pat loves signs of churches. I don't know why. We were in Omaha a while ago and there was a church and we were driving by it and it said, loving, what's it say? Loving yourself. Loving yourself. And so we had to stop.

And so Pat got out of the car and I took a picture and Pat was doing the self hug right by the thing. Loving ourselves. You don't need to waste a Sunday morning on that. Aren't there better things to do on a Sunday morning?

These things don't need to be preached. And so I like progressive sanctification and I think there's enough access to internet articles like Pat was saying now that you can figure out some way to try to help them.

And it helps if you don't act like I did 20 years ago and maybe not that long ago, where I'm just the guy who's right about all the stuff. And I'm corrector and I correct everybody because I know yet I say to myself, but I should be loving my wife I should be kinder.

I should be doing these other things versus I just have chapter and verse for everything. Okay, good question. Next. Would you please give us the question first in an unknown tongue to most of us and then you can do it in English after that.

Can I speak in Afrikaans?

The question is more around, I know you did a no compromise talk about family worship. And so as we are giving the gospel to our kids knowing that they are not believers, what advice can you give us? I mean, you've given us some good advice in the show Mike by saying, how do you sit at a dinner table and how do you just do worship and teach them through the Bible.

But is there any other things in terms when you give them the gospel and they kind of come back to you and they say, I believe, but you know, it's not a profession of true faith. What kind of guidance can you give us as dads?

Okay, I'm gonna start and then I'll let you go.

Good question, Ferdie. What I think we do is we always wanna encourage a positive response to the gospel. We don't know what's happening on the inside of the kid's hearts. I don't know how early kids can be saved.

I know how early they're in Adam, but I don't know how early they can get saved. So I'm just optimistic. And so when one of my kids says, daddy, I love Jesus. What's our response? No, you don't. You're not old enough.

Time will tell, time and trials. Puritans always say. No, I say, you know what? That's great. Keep believing. That's what I usually say. That's wonderful, keep believing. Luke's here. It's not a Sunday sermon, so I'm not gonna lose a dollar.

I have to pay him a dollar if I talk about him on a Sunday. Luke's here. And we used to have family worship and get around the table. And it was a rivalry between his older sister and himself. And so what do we wanna talk about tonight?

Who do we wanna read from? Genesis or Matthew? And Haley said, Jesus. Luke said, Moses. Jesus, Moses. Finally, Luke said, I hate Jesus. Meaning I want to talk from the Torah. And so you guys know the story if you've been around BBC.

It was a cold winter night in New England and we had a fire. And so Luke was little enough. I couldn't do this now. If I could, I'd have big delts. But I took Luke and I held him by the ankle. And I walked him over to the fire.

Now, I want you to know the Greek language is very precise. And so the Bible, you know, the Old Testament Hebrew word pictures, but God had Alexander the Great come across because the most important specific, precise theological language was Greek.

And so prepositions are important. I did not place Luke over the fire. I placed him by the fire. And then I gave a little Jonathan Edwards talk about sinners in the hands of an angry God. And fire is the place where people go who hate Jesus.

Luke is hanging upside down. Again, he's only by the fire. He's not over the fire. You want to make sure I get that straight statue of limitations. We had somebody come to the house the other day. There's a big oar in our bathroom that's painted.

It's five foot tall and it's decorative. And Kim has it in the bathroom. It's painted. And one of the little kids came out, that's a big rod. And I thought, that dad's spanking those kids. That's excellent.

So Luke starts saying, Daddy, I love Jesus. Daddy, I love Jesus. And so you want to always encourage faith. Good job, buddy. Way to go. That's important. And so we keep preaching. The story is, I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, but Lloyd-Jones was preaching Sunday night and it was always evangelistic at Westminster Chapel in London.

And a person came for the first time, didn't know anything about the gospel and they heard him preach and they said, I want to be forgiven and I want to be saved. And the story goes, whether it's true or not, he made a good point.

He said, what would you say? He said, keep coming. You need to learn more about the Savior. You need to learn more about the object of your faith. So we just keep teaching. We just keep hoping. We keep praying and we encourage any kind of profession of faith.

I had a friend in seminary, he said, kids don't worship God as unbelievers, they blaspheme God. Kids don't pray, they blaspheme. Don't let your kid pray. Don't let them sing worship songs. Don't let, I'm like, so that's not my philosophy.

We want to encourage the kid's faith. Pat. Only thing I would add is when we, I like Mike's balance. Too many parents are sure their kids are Christians. Later on, especially when there's no sign that they are.

Or the other extreme, they're sure that they aren't and they can't be because they sinned once. I mean, that kind of thing. Pray for wisdom. Pray for balance. The amazing thing is, there's no recipe. Somebody once said to me, you will pray.

Meaning, it's not a recipe. It's gonna force you to pray and say, God help me. I'm desperate. I'm blowing it. I need insight. So I think that is super helpful in remembering that. Remember too, we're not going for decisionalism kind of stuff.

Trying to keep telling them the big story, the big drama, the big story of redemption. And if you have a good children's Bible or your kids are older and you're more skilled at doing this, in one way or another, that whole big drama, Genesis to Revelation is about God's drama of redemption.

And so you're reiterating, re-emphasizing. Little kids, there's some great little kids' Bibles. I buy them for adults sometimes. Big picture story Bible. I want adults to know how to read the Bible the right way.

Jesus storybook Bible. I want adults to know how to read the Bible the right way. And there are other ones too. It's not just a book of morals. I think my favorite family worship times, certainly singing songs, talking to them about who the Lord Jesus is and he touches the leper.

But they're not found in, the worship times are not found at home or on the dinner table, but they're found in the funeral home. I don't know how many parents, I don't know why. It's a different generation maybe or something.

We have to get babysitters so we can go to the calling hours because there'll be an open casket. Really? Just be your friend for a minute. What are you thinking when you don't bring your kids to go see a dead body?

Of course it's not good to see. It's not fun to see in terms of good feelings. But when I take my kids to the funeral home, I say, listen, when somebody dies and we don't know what to say to the family, you just go to them and say, I'm sorry.

I love you. Give them a hug. It's all you have to do. And you have to go look at the dead body. This is an Avendraw thing. You probably do it too. You have to go look at the dead body. And I want you to just remember a few quick facts.

One, you're gonna be in that casket one day. Two, the real person's soul isn't in that casket anymore. And it's either in hell waiting for the lake of fire or in the presence of God. And three, only one person can walk up to that dead body that's cold and hard and say, get up.

Lazarus, arise. Jesus raises people from the dead. And so those kinds of lessons, kids never forget them. And so where are the parents to take their kids to the worship times like funerals and weddings?

When mom died, we were sitting there around the casket. And last thing before we close the casket, all the little grandkids come around, her grandkids, our kids, and we just sat there and we sang, Jesus loved Grandma Carla.

And all the kids were just hanging around. I said, you can touch her if you want. They'll never forget it. Okay. This is kind of like a cry moment where Mike and Pat can cry. I feel so broken and wounded.

I don't know how to act. Okay, next question. Bob, make this good, you know, that you're the conference coordinator and stuff. Can I do word association? Big hand for Robert, his wife, getting everything planned.

Now, you know, you get the inside stuff. So when Carl Truman was here, now you email Carl and he knows who you are and he hasn't spam blocked you and stuff. But stop emailing my brother, okay? He just forwards them to me.

Will do. Can I do word association? Sure. Okay, first one. Family integrated church. Texas. Texas. That's where it comes from, right? Isn't that where the guy is? I think he pastors a church in Texas.

I think there's probably a lot of good motives, but my first reaction when I think of family integrated, it's theologically immature.

That's what I think. So what is a parent's responsibility with their children, integrating them into worship, into church?

Well, I will give you a couple of simple things. In our family, you go to the worship service because on Sunday, God calls people to come and worship the son. And so you worship him by giving, by singing, by preaching, if you're the pastor or elders.

And when you have a hymnal in your hand, you stand and you sing. I'm absolutely appalled to think, I sit in the front row so I don't have to pick on people all the time, but I sit in the front row, but I hear about it.