PIRATE GANG: How NOT to Shipwreck Your Faith

Fighting for the Faith

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Welcome to another video edition of Fighting for the Faith. We're going to be doing something we haven't done in a while, and that is we're going to be having a pirate gang conversation.

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And I want you to think of it this way. We cover a lot of really strange and bizarre doctrine here at Fighting for the

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Faith, and there's a real dark side to this. As absurd as some of the things are that we cover, like the dream destiny thingy doctrine, or you know, some of the weird stuff that goes on with these false

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Gospels and false emphases, is that the dark side is that you can lose your faith, or you can shipwreck your faith.

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We've got to go with a pirate theme here. You can literally shipwreck your faith. And so I've invited

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Steve Kozar of the Messed Up Church blog, and Amy Spreeman of the Brilliant Examiner on to discuss the topic of, you know, literally how to avoid shipwrecking your faith with this false doctrine.

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So let me get them on here. Hi guys, good to see you. Hey Chris.

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All right, so we're all together here, and you know, sink or swim, we're gonna be talking about how to not shipwreck your faith.

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And to kind of frame the conversation, yesterday both of you published a blog post that I thought were really fantastic, you know, as ways of talking about this topic.

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Steve, your blog post, A Hyper Charismatic Guide to Losing Your Mind, I think would be a great topic to have.

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And then Amy, you, How Abandoning Sola Scriptura Shipwrecks Your Faith.

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These are really kind of intimately locked concepts, and so this will be framing our conversation.

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But let's start with you, Steve. Your Hyper Charismatic Guide to Losing Your Mind. By the way, you have the gift of writing really strange blog post headings.

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Yeah, sometimes I actually think of the title first, and I have a rough idea for an article, and I always want to give it a title that causes people to really want to read it.

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Which I know bothers some people, because I know that we need to be scholarly, we need to be accurate, we don't want to be sensationalistic just to get hits,

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I understand all that. But there's a part of me that says, yeah, but if nobody reads what I write, what's the point?

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I got a lot of other things I could be doing. So I'm always trying to phrase things in a clever way that makes people go, well,

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I wonder what that's about, with the hope that they'll read it, and it'll be really, really helpful. So let me,

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I had to preface that. So I do use silly or wacky titles, but there's a real strategy behind that.

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And this one, there's a bunch of stuff that's interesting about it, because honestly, the original

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Pentecostal movement did not have the dream destiny thingy as a core component. But we see different movements emerging, and different ideas are being overlapped with each other, so that it's really hard to say what kind of church is what anymore.

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And this idea that God primarily is interested in your earthly life and your earthly success and your earthly happiness has invaded all of the churches.

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And I think that maybe the most dangerous place is when it enters into this hyper charismatic world, where now you're seeking after a mystical connection with God, because you're gonna get something that you don't currently have.

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And the key component that starts my article, it starts this whole train wreck, is God wants you to have faith, and he wants you to show your faith, he wants you to exercise your faith.

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And how do you do that? You do something that doesn't make any sense, that's risky, something that only

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God can solve. So you basically create a problem for yourself in a way. You give away too much money, you go off and do something that you're not capable of doing, you begin a project you have no way of completing, and then the idea is, well that's when

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God's gonna just step right in and make it happen for you. And it doesn't work! That's not what

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God promises, that's not what Christianity is all about. But it really does ship with people's faith. You know, you're right.

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And what's funny is, is that not only is this idea of a dream destiny like a form of scratching itching ears, it's a false doctrine regarding Christian sanctification, but it puts people kind of into a very predictable bad spot.

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So the idea is, the hook generally is, come to our church, have you ever wondered what you were made for?

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Why are you even here on earth? And so the promise is that by coming to this church, and participating in worship, and making a decision for Jesus, and things like that, the next step after you've crossed the the finish line of faith, is kind of how they talk about it, is that you you need to learn how to hear the voice of God.

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And once you learn how to hear the voice of God, he's going to whisper into your ear the very specific purpose, or you know, or dream that he has for your life.

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And then it's and they always tell you, you can tell that it's really from God, if it's too big for you to do.

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You know, if you can do it on your own, you don't need God for it, and that's not really your purpose or whatever.

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And so risk -taking in fulfilling your specific purpose is a big aspect of this.

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But over and again, you know, the noticeable thing that happens is, is that then people get stuck. You know, on the road to fulfilling their purpose, you know, there they are, you know, trying to learn how to become the world's greatest opera singer, so that people will be brought, you know, revival will start when you're singing, you know,

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Ave Maria. But the idea then is, is that you experience, you know, things that get in your way, and then predictably the next thing is, is you hear over and again that God is releasing breakthroughs, and things like this.

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But you're going to note then that this all, you know, like Amy's article really points out, is an abandoning then of sola scriptura.

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How does sola scriptura then play into this debunking of this idea that you have a

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God -sized dream? Let's talk about that, Amy. Well, and you know, going back to what

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Steve said, I remember the first time I ever heard one of those inspiring sermons to dream big, we weren't talking about Scripture at all, or maybe a few plucked out of context.

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We were talking about, you know, what kind of things should you be doing for God? And if you're not doing them, then you're not living up to your end of the bargain.

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And at the time, my husband and I thought, well, we want to do big things for God. Of course we do, and there's nothing wrong with wanting to do things for God.

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However, what this kind of thinking leads to is taking risks, and you'll see it all over Steve's article, where you do end up losing your mind.

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And for my husband and I, we heard one of these in 2008, and we ended up both thinking that we heard

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God tell us to sell our house so that we'd have more money to sow into the kingdom. And I, looking back now, think that's probably not what we were supposed to do, because we sat on the market for two years, and ended up making some mistakes along the way.

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So how did we know that that's what we were supposed to do? Well, A, we heard it in a sermon, so it must be right, because that's how the

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Holy Spirit's going to convict us, right? And secondly, we put out a fleece, and I don't even want to tell you what we used for a fleece.

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You just don't want to know. It might cause someone to stumble. But then we had this real peace about it, and that peace that you have about this plan that you can't do, but God can, is supposed to be an affirmation that maybe this really is from God, because I feel so peaceful about it.

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I'm just going to let go and let God. So this has nothing to do with Scripture, but at the time we were going through this, the emphasis really wasn't on Scripture as our authority, and so once you lose that authority of Scripture, you really can go nilly -willy all over the place, which is exactly what we did.

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And thank heavens the Lord brought us back to His Word. Yeah. Okay, so yeah, by the way, just as a little bit of a reminder, nowhere in Scripture are we taught that God is going to whisper into your ear what your unique dream, destiny, or purpose is.

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I did a lecture this summer, both in Australia and here in the United States, that God did not create you for a purpose.

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You are created in Christ Jesus for good works, plural, and these were prepared for you to do before the foundation of the earth.

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And then the basic question then is, what is a good work? And what I find fascinating is that the emphasis of the dream, destiny thingy, or the purpose that you have, really ends up getting you to be quite worldly -minded rather than attuned to the needs of your neighbor.

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And as a kind of a bouncing point, if you would, is in Matthew 13,

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Jesus gives a parable of the different soils. And in the parable of the different soils,

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He talks about the different things that choke out the Word of God. And the riches of this world, the cares of this world, all of those things are the things that really make the

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Word unfruitful. And yet, it's these messages regarding the dream, destiny, God -sized dream thingy, that get you really worldly -minded, and really focusing a lot of times on prosperity, and influence, and affluence, but all for the purpose of extending the kingdom.

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See, God doesn't mind if I'm prosperous, as long as I use my prosperity to bless others, so it's okay for me to pursue wealth and riches.

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But that is a guaranteed way that Jesus says we'll literally choke out the

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Word, and make the Word of God unfruitful in your life. You want to talk about that for a minute,

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Steve? Yeah, well, many of you know, maybe some of you don't,

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I'm a painter for a living. I'm a really, really good hyper -realist painter. Go to StephenKozar .com.

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I'm a really good painter. And in my field, in my narrow field, I'm one of the best in the world, in my particular thing.

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And honestly, I expect to die, and nothing really big to happen because of my art.

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Maybe a hundred years from now, somebody will start something that says, you know, Kozar wasn't recognized during his lifetime, he was a really good painter, whatever.

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I'll be dead, it doesn't matter. But when I was in my 20s, young man, young Christian, ambitious, a little bit arrogant, a little bit self -focused, like every single young man who's ever walked the face of the earth,

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I thought that God was going to use my ability to become successful as an artist to somehow build his kingdom.

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As if God doesn't know what to do until I become an artist, and become successful, and get this platform.

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And it's a whole series of theological ideas that kind of work together to create this this bad idea.

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Now, if some people do become successful, fine. It's not that you can never become successful, but it's this idea that you have to become successful, and prominent, and famous, oh and it also helps to be wealthy, so that you can then go out and have an impact, is really undermining the actual gospel message.

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The gospel message doesn't require anybody to be wealthy, or famous, or powerful, or any of those things.

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It's just something that we tell to our friends and neighbors. That's all we do, is we tell the gospel message, and God's Word, and the

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Holy Spirit works for God's Word to do all the work. So for me, I feel like I wasted a lot of time focusing on myself, and my career, and trying to have a big impact, when all

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I really needed to do to have a big impact was just be a member of my church, and explain the gospel message to anybody

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I had a chance to share it with, and to just live an ordinary life. And if God chose to make me really successful, fine.

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If not, that's fine. You know, I'm just making a living. I'm 54 now, and having looked back on my whole adult life,

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I wish I would have heard that simple message much more clearly spoken to me when I was younger, to say, you know what,

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Cozart, you think you're a big deal? You think you're gonna be a, you know, big hotshot?

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Maybe you will, but you know what, honestly, you probably won't. And it's by the grace of God that you won't become a big deal, because if you did become a big deal, it would go to your head, and you'd become a bigger jerk than you already are, which is the message

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I needed somebody to tell me, because that's exactly what the reality is. When we become famous, and successful, and influential, 99 times out of 100, it turns us into a little bit of a monster.

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Yeah. So I know I'm on a tangent here, but I think this idea of, it goes back to what we've talked about before, the

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Seven Mountain Mandate, which says that God can't really operate in the world unless we're really successful, and we enter into some sphere of influence, and we become, you know, really popular and famous.

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How many Christians have gone to Hollywood, or into the music industry, and have actually lost their faith as a result?

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They didn't change the music industry. The music industry changed them. It's happened a million times.

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Yeah. I think another thing that goes along with that is the whole purpose -driven movement, which really started long before Rick Warren got a hold of it, but really, how do you tell what your purpose is?

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How do I know what God's will is for my life? And I personally wish I would have heard scripture verses such as 1

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Thessalonians 4 11, for instance, telling us to work with our hands, live peacefully, quiet life, minding your own business.

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I never heard that, but one of the things that you hear is, well, possibly God gives you passions in your life, and that's what you're supposed to go and pursue and make it big, make it something that only

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God could do. And so, you know, I have a passion for writing. I do that now, but I was thinking that maybe

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I was supposed to be a famous author or something, and thank heavens I'm not. But, you know, a lot of it comes from the

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New Age, too. So long before I heard about the NAR, the New Apostolic Reformation, the

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New Age spiritual formation and all that was coming in, and the article that I wrote and posted yesterday about how we're shipwrecking our faith because we've abandoned

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Sola Scriptura. Actually, I spoke with Ken Silva a few years ago, 2012 now, about mysticism and what was happening with that, where it came from, and, you know, you get the authors like this.

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This came from my shelf of shame, Awakening Your Life's Purpose. We know who that guy is, the

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Oprah guy. I remember when that book was the featured book on Oprah. That's going back a few years, though.

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Yeah, and it's not even biblical Christianity, but a lot of professing believers grabbed onto that and said, oh yeah, we've got to find out our purpose.

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What does God want us to do, and how can we make it big? Of course, we'll give him the glory, but we'll keep the money kind of thing.

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And so, you know, it's such a contrast, though, the difference between the spiritual transformation that happens when the

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Holy Spirit actually does the work in us. You know, we're abiding in Christ, we're reading his word, and the

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Holy Spirit changes us and gives us a new heart. He sanctifies us, and the whole spiritual formation movement that swept through churches, you know, years ago, and is still unfortunately influencing churches, telling you that you need to, you know, the

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Bible's really nice and everything, but you need to make that relationship much more intimate with God. And so you need to do these ancient rituals and have these habits every day so that you can reach this higher level of consciousness, and that's how you connect with God and hear him speaking to you.

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And boy, this became so huge in the seeker movement that I can't tell you, it's changed a lot of people.

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And where are they now? Well, a lot of them have abandoned the faith, unfortunately. They've gone the way of the world.

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Henry Blackaby, Richard Foster, I think are probably the two biggest guys who have entered the mainstream of evangelicalism, and they've given the message of, it's not just about Jesus dying on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins so that you can go to heaven when you die.

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That's way off in the distance. That's not even a really important thing. What's important is that God wants you to go out into the world and make a difference, and he wants to have this intimate connection with you.

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All these things about our earthly life that have really gotten a lot of people off track. Yeah, and it's an off -trackness, if that's a word, based on the focus.

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So here's the idea, is that you're gonna know over and again that these alternative understandings of finding your purpose and stuff like that have you obsessed about you.

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You obsess about you. How far along am I in achieving this destiny?

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Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Whereas Scripture, when you read like the back ends of Paul's epistles, over and again we are admonished to good works.

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There's a funny thing that shows up in the list, and that is slaves. So the

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Scriptures have a lot to tell slaves as far as how they do their good works, and are you ready?

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Slaves do their good works by obeying their masters as if their master was Jesus Christ.

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Nowhere in Scripture do you see slaves told that you're gonna experience your breakthrough, and you're gonna break out of slavery, and you're gonna go and change the world.

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Instead, they are assured that the work that they're doing, even though they don't even own themselves, that the work that they are doing is pleasing to Christ, and that he is the one who accepts their good works in their vocation as slaves, as being done unto him.

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And so, you know, when you throw that into the mix, it's like, I don't think you can get any more demeaning than being a slave, and more ordinary and earthy than being a slave, because slaves don't do the sexy work.

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Slaves do the grunt work. Slaves do the the housecleaning, the the weed -pulling, the, you know, the hard labor, the rock -crushing, and nonsense like that.

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And all of that is accepted by Christ as good works, and we are told that those are good works that Christ has prepared before the foundation of the earth.

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And what that ends up doing is making it so that the slave, rather than focusing in on the slave, oh, it's so terrible,

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I'm a slave, I don't want to be a slave anymore, I want to change the world. No, the slave sits there and goes, all right,

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I'm gonna focus on the needs of my master, and note that Scripture says that by doing that,

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I'm serving Christ. So now he's got an outward focus. Whereas all this purpose stuff, all this dream destiny stuff, it's all about me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.

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And what I find fascinating, the other piece of all of this, is that people who focus in on this, they literally end up despising the job that they're in.

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They despise the job of parent, and see kids as kind of getting in the way of their purpose.

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And they are literally told that people who are not supportive in their pursuit of their purpose or their destiny, they've got to take those haters and shove them out of their life and stop listening to their voices and not allowing them to speak to them.

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Which, this is crazy talk. Yeah, and that's a big Joel Osteen thing.

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He's always telling people about, God's got this thing for you to do, and it's right around the corner, and you're gonna have some negative people in your life who don't support you in your dream, so you got to get rid of them.

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You know, how many times has, I mean, we'll never know, but how many times have people heard that message, and they had some really loving people in their lives who were trying to talk some sense into them, and because of Joel Osteen, or somebody like that, they said,

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I'm not gonna listen to my mom anymore. She's a negative Nancy. She doesn't think I can be this thing that I'm pretending

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I can be, when in fact, maybe you really can't be that thing. This is like the

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Disneyfication of the church. You know, Disney always sells you on the idea that you're gonna be a princess, you're gonna have your dreams come true.

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I'm not gonna be a princess, no way. Yeah, no, you're not even gonna be a prince. I mean, here's a really, you know, here's a cynical, but I dare anybody to tell me

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I'm wrong. If you look at the church system of the professional speakers, they are not really ministers.

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They're professional speakers, they sell books, they sell tickets, they tell you stuff that makes you feel good about yourself, that something is coming around the corner.

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You're not being pointed back to Christ and what He's already done for you, you're being told something's really big and it involves you.

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It doesn't just involve people in general, it involves you. And so you're getting all pumped up and you never really get the thing that they tell you you're going to get, but you do believe that you're going to get it and you have to hear the guy again.

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You got to buy his next book, you got to come see him when he's in town the next time he visits for some stupid convention. It's almost here, man, it's almost here.

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It's almost here and it's been going on for decades, you know, and my hope is that somebody who reads my article or watches this little thing we're doing now, they're like, yeah, you know what?

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I have been chasing something, this thing that I never really even believed in to begin with.

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Somebody told me I was supposed to believe in it. You know, somebody pumped me up and told me that I've got this dream and I didn't know what it was and they said, well, it has to do with your desires and then

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I'm telling, oh yeah, I used to want to be a race car driver when I was a teenager, maybe that's what my dream is.

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Yes, that's what God is telling you. So you just conjure up all this stuff that is, in many cases, not connected with reality and it doesn't do any good, it doesn't build the kingdom of God, it confuses you, it throws you off course.

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Yeah, it's really frustrating for us, you know, because we've seen this, we've heard stories, we've lived it ourselves and it's coming from a lot of different angles.

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It's not just in one church or the other, it's actually a big element of church growth is incorporating all these positive thinking, motivational speech type ideas that have nothing to do with Christianity and they've entered into the church and it actually looks like it's working for a while because you can tickle people's ears and you can get them to show up because they're all pumped up and they think they're gonna get their dream destiny thingy, but those people wind up whimpering away, they eventually leave these churches and they're confused by the whole experience.

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Yeah. And we're trying to reach those people. Yeah, and so the idea is this, if you're watching this video or you're listening to this on a podcast and you're thinking, you know, my breakthrough never keeps showing up,

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I keep being told it's just around the corner and that the season of breakthrough is upon us and stuff like that and I'm still not a world changing ballerina or princess, here's the thing, you actually haven't been taught

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Christianity. You actually know nothing about what it means to actually be a disciple of the crucified and risen

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Jesus Christ and what you're being taught is nonsense and it's purposely designed to play on your own vanity and your own greed and your own narcissism and that's the problem, you know, and I'll be blunt, you need to repent because you're the problem and you're a sinner and you've literally tried to turn

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Jesus into an idol who exists to make you, well, glorious, but that's not why

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Christ came. He's called you to take up your cross and to follow him, which is to admit that you have a death sentence, just like he did.

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And so Christianity isn't about you finding some dream destiny to take dominion over one of the seven mountains to change the world, no, it's about you repenting of your idolatry and your selfishness and confessing your need of a

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Savior and receiving and believing that Christ has bled and died for your sins and now in bearing fruit and keeping with repentance, you do good works for your neighbor for your neighbor's sake.

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And he said, well, what's a good work? Are you a mom? Yes. Well, doing a good work is changing diapers and helping your kids with homework and preparing meals and doing the laundry.

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Are you a dad? Yes. Doing a good work is getting in your car and commuting to work and working in the labyrinth at the cubicle maze at the local corporate headquarters where you work and doing a good job and putting food on the table for your kids and helping them with sports and helping them with their homework and tucking them in at night and teaching them the

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Christian faith and the scriptures and praying with them. Those are all the good works that we're called to do, and it's humble and it's ordinary and it's not about changing the world.

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Jesus will change the world when he returns in glory to judge the living and the dead. We are to live our lives as sacrifices for the sake of our neighbors, which includes our spouses, our children, and our neighbors around us, and meeting their needs simply because they have a need.

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It's kind of that simple. Yeah. You know, and I have never been so unsatisfied with my faith as when

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I've, ten years ago, lost sight of that, what you just said, Chris, about what the gospel is, who

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I am. Unfortunately, I got into the swirling narcissism that was all about me, me, me, and it led to just a dreadful sickness in me that I've had to repent of, but I can see it now and I can

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I can see others in it and help them, and that's what I think that I can most do in serving in this way.

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But I tell you, I remember very vividly another aspect we haven't talked about yet, and that is the psychological aspect.

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When we bring in human psychology into the church and to our understanding of who we are and how we operate our psyches, that self -examination continually is just so harmful.

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You know, we're constantly asking God to show us something to, you know, and we're using

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Him. We're leveraging God for our own gain, and it's awful, and I feel so bad that that happened, but you know, the

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Lord can forgive, and He has, and so now we step forward and we've got a new mission field of people who are still stuck in that.

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I remember one New Year's, you know, New Year's seems to be the time when everybody does their vision casting, and I remember the whole congregation received these little rocks, these stones, smooth stones, and a pen.

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They passed out pens to 2 ,000 people, and you were supposed to write down what big thing you sensed that God wanted you to do this year, and then they collected the stones up on the altar and they were going to build something with them, but I can't tell you how many, how miserably

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I failed at accomplishing my stone, but that was the topic of conversation rather than Christ Jesus our

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Lord. We get to tell what did you write on your stone rather than who died for you, you know, so we really have to be careful when we look at these things.

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Well, and one of the ways that that gets, it gets misconstrued is you say, well, we're talking about Jesus dying for us, but if we really believe

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He died for us, what are we going to do in return for Him? That's the part of the equation that makes people go, oh yeah, that's true,

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I didn't do anything for Jesus, He gave me this gift of salvation, now I got to spend the rest of my life paying

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Him back. And that's how you can manipulate people, that's how churches can grow and appear to be doing something really good for a time.

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And in some churches there's a blending of a good gospel message and some of that stuff, so you know, we're painting with a broad brush here, but a lot of people are in a church where they're getting a mixture of these things, and it's hard for them to figure out which is which.

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Yeah, and see, here's the thing, it's a false dichotomy. And I mean, even the Scriptures say, you know, the

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Apostle Paul says, if we are, if this is all about this life and we're focusing on this, then we're to be pitied.

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But Christ has bled and died, and we are looking forward to the hope of the new world, the resurrection, new heavens, new earth.

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And in this life, we are called to suffer, we are called to endure persecution, and we're all heading to our graves in this life.

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If Christ doesn't return, you know, in the next, you know, few decades, I'm gonna be, you know, put in the ground like everybody else, you know, we all are.

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And so the idea, then, is that in this kind of this false dichotomy, as if somehow focusing in on the gospel makes it so that you have no, you are so heavenly -minded that you're not worth a good, that's ridiculous.

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The reality is that when you're truly heavenly -minded, you are of eternally earthly good for your neighbor, for your neighbor's sake.

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And so biblical Christianity does teach us that we do our good works for our neighbor's sake because we are saved.

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There's no such thing as a Christian who doesn't do good works. I mean, that beast doesn't exist.

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I mean, you know, I might as well believe in a jackalope or a gruffalo or something like that, you know, these are mythical creatures.

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You know, just like the, you know, the Christian who doesn't do good works. The problem is, is that all of their emphasis on changing the world, and somehow having that be the focus, is the wrong emphasis.

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We are to do our good works for our neighbor's sake, and then the idea is that as we are going, we proclaim

30:27

Christ and Him crucified for our sins, and people are brought to penitent faith in Christ. The gospel is something that every

30:33

Christian can share, and it's through the gospel, you know, faith comes by hearing, hearing by the

30:38

Word of Christ, that God raises people from the dead, brings them to penitent faith in Christ, and sets them on the course of doing good works for the sake of neighbor.

30:47

And as the gospel spreads, it has a collective impact, you know, as Christians grow as an overall number in the population, they have a collective impact on the warp and woof of a society or a culture.

31:02

And one of the reasons why the United States and Western civilization is getting darker and worse is because people aren't preaching the gospel.

31:13

They've lost all confidence in the Word of God, and it's all this nonsense, this chasing of our tails to find our purpose, that's actually getting in the way and also aggravating the situation.

31:25

I think you can literally make an argument that all of this emphasis on growing the Church by telling people what they want to hear, which is what the purpose -driven

31:34

Church is about, the whole church growth movement is about, has accelerated the growth of rank sin in our society, as Christianity has had a less and less impact because people are hearing what they want to hear, rather than being confronted with their sins and having

31:52

Christ placarded. Okay, let me take off on that, because especially the generation that's in their 20s and 30s, they grew up on nothing but marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing.

32:06

They've heard nothing but catchphrases and seen logos and been told what to buy and what to believe and all this stuff, and when the

32:12

Church does the same exact thing, it's an embarrassment. The Church is embarrassing itself by pandering to people and promising things to people that the

32:21

Church never had the authority to give them, and it's neglecting its true purpose. And I think that the

32:27

Church that just says, hey, you know, we're old, we believe things that have been around for a long time, and we're not going to change them to pander to you, because honestly, that wouldn't actually help you.

32:38

That would be just a pathetic advertising campaign. I think the Church needs to get honest with people if we expect them to show up on Sunday morning and to take us seriously.

32:50

And in many of these churches, we've adopted this lowest common denominator mentality.

32:55

We're going to get the people who are thinking the least about anything, we're going to get those people in the door by telling them what they want to hear, and then we're going to be shocked when it turns out that these people are really shallow and aren't really contributing to Church and aren't taking their faith seriously.

33:10

Well, of course they're not! You didn't take your faith seriously to begin with in the way that you, you know, preached to them.

33:16

It wasn't even preaching, you were pandering to people. And so, you know, like, as a guy who's been evangelical since I was a teenager,

33:26

I'm seeing my kid's generation abandoning their faith to a very large extent, and I, on one hand, want to say

33:36

I don't blame you. I honestly don't blame you for abandoning this modern catchphrase -based pandering version of Christianity.

33:44

I've abandoned it too, but I haven't abandoned my actual Christian faith. I've just dug deeper into what does the

33:51

Bible really teach so that I can have a faith that's based on God's Word, not based on what some guy just told me who just started a new church in a storefront three weeks ago.

34:00

Yeah, I think one of the worst, but unfortunately most influential people, books, if you will, in recent years has been one,

34:10

Chris, that you've reviewed, and that is Stephen Furtick's Sun Stands Still. A lot of churches did that as small group studies, and if you don't mind, can

34:20

I read just a paragraph that he wrote about the purpose for his book? Could I just go ahead? Yeah, I need to go get my,

34:26

I have a vomit bucket in the other room, I might want to bring that in here. Keep that handy, because here we go.

34:32

He writes this, he says, with God's help, I intend to incite a riot in your mind, trip your breakers, and turn out the lights in your favorite hiding places, insecurity and fear.

34:44

Then flip the switch back on so that God's truth can illuminate the divine destiny that may have been lying dormant inside you for years.

34:54

In short, I am out to activate your audacious faith, to inspire you to ask

34:59

God for the impossible, and in the process to reconnect you with your God -sized purpose and potential.

35:07

You could think of this book as a one -volume theology of audacity. You probably don't have one of those yet, but it's essential.

35:15

In fact, if you ever encounter a theology that doesn't directly connect the greatness of God with your potential to do great things on his behalf, it is not biblical theology.

35:26

File it under heresy. And then one more sentence, he says, I'll take that further. If you're not daring to believe

35:34

God for the impossible, you're sleeping through some of the best parts of your Christian life, and further still, if the size of your dream for your life isn't intimidating to you, there's a good chance it's insulting to God.

35:50

Yeah, so I'm insulting God because I don't have a impossible, God -sized, audacious.

35:58

One of the synonyms for audacious is foolish, by the way. Look it up in the thesaurus.

36:04

But yeah, wow. So that's absurd. And notice the heavy burden that is then put on people.

36:12

And here's the interesting thing. It's not a heavy burden of, I'm a sinner in need of a

36:18

Savior, which would mean the only thing I have then is Christ and him crucified.

36:24

Instead, this is a heavy burden now because now, oh no, oh I'm not thinking, I'm not dreaming a big enough dream.

36:31

And now I'm insulting God. And by the way, the idea of insulting God has as its ramifications, oh good night,

36:39

I'm gonna go to hell. Okay? Because, you know, could you imagine standing before God and him going,

36:45

I'm insulted by you. I gave you a dream. Right.

36:50

Remember that dream I planted in your heart? It was light and dormant. You didn't follow through with it. Yeah. And so, you know, immediately the question comes up, are people going to go to hell on the

37:00

Day of Judgment because they didn't dream a big enough dream and they're gonna stand before Jesus and he's gonna cross his arms and just say, get out of my presence.

37:09

I never knew you. Your audacious dream was doo -doo. It wasn't big enough and I'm insulted by it.

37:16

You know, I don't want to meet that Jesus, man. But that's not the

37:21

Jesus of Scripture. It's a totally different thing. And so I'm now, now imagine the the sheer anxiety that somebody's going through.

37:31

Oh, so the thing that Jesus really wants for me is a big, big dream and I gotta go. And so now they're constantly measuring, have

37:38

I become famous enough? Have I become rich enough? Have I become sexy enough?

37:43

You know, you know, which we get. And Stephen Furtick, of course, is the guy who has to himself demonstrate through his own life and his own success and even his own steroid -induced muscles that he is, he's, he's the quintessential apex of what it means to be the guy who has the influence, the power, the beauty, the wealth to, you know, and, and it's all a sham because everybody there is there, they want to be the next

38:13

Stephen Furtick. And they can't be the next Stephen Furtick. That's the thing. There's only one guy at the top of that pyramid scheme and it's the guy telling you that you're gonna get all the things that he has and you won't.

38:25

None of these people who read that book had anything happen except that they got all excited for a while and it kept them in the thing.

38:34

And this is exactly what Amway does with the motivational stuff. You're told about this thing that's coming and you're getting all pumped up about it and it requires an egomaniac who's got really great communication skills, who's a great manipulator to make this whole thing work.

38:49

And that's what we have in these megachurch pastors. They're great manipulators. They, they are constantly pulling strings like a puppet master.

38:55

Every time they go on stage, they're thinking, how can I get people to do what I want them to do? And if, and if you're, if you're under somebody like that,

39:03

I tell you, dear listener, it's, it's your fault eventually because we're telling you about it and it's really clear from Scripture that these are not men of God.

39:12

These are people who are manipulating you, they're getting rich off of you, they're building an earthly kingdom, they're telling you things that aren't true, and you like them.

39:20

And, and you've got to stop liking them. You've got to return to the true Jesus. Like a guy like Stephen Furtick and all the people in that category, they all say it's all about Jesus.

39:30

And then they talk about themselves and their own church and all the stuff that they've done and what they're about to do.

39:36

They don't actually talk about Jesus. They just say they do and that's enough. It's like a cover story. It's all about Jesus, folks.

39:43

And then you got to have this manipulative music play for half an hour to put you in that kind of semi -hypnotic state, so now you're willing to accept whatever the guy says.

39:52

Oh man, I'm getting worked up. Can we take a veer in this? Go ahead, Amy. I was just gonna say,

39:58

Steve, you know, you're absolutely right, and I'm sorry I got y 'all worked up with that intro to Stephen's book, but you know,

40:05

I got to thinking, you know, how did this book and how did this idea impact people who went through these in small group studies or hearing the messages from the pulpit?

40:15

And so I went on social media yesterday and just posted that question. You know, I'm doing some research for Fighting for the

40:22

Faith and just wondering if any of you were ever told you had to do something big and have this audacious thing that only

40:29

God could accomplish. And since last night, I got dozens and dozens and dozens of responses.

40:36

A couple of them said, you know, it made me feel awful about myself, that my faith obviously wasn't great enough for God to move after taking a step of faith with something specific, and I spent 15 years of my walk with Christ like this.

40:49

Just horrible stories. Here's a woman who said, it hindered me greatly because I felt I wasn't able to live for Christ if I did anything less than to live out his prophecy.

41:00

She said, I remember one time we had to create an art piece where we put the phrase, here

41:06

I am Lord, send me, I'll go. Of course it was a reference to how we were supposed to be just like the people in the

41:13

Bible, and of course the thing never happened. And so, you know, one lady said, my dream destiny to become a successful and influential person in my field of choice never materialized.

41:25

And these people are sad. They, you know, they became depressed about this.

41:30

What do you do with that? What do you do with that? That is one of the most heartbreaking things about this topic, because, you know, it's one thing for you to, you know, do one of those, what is that,

41:45

Publishers Clearinghouse thing where you send in the mail? I did that when I was young. Yeah. And then as soon as you send in one, they send ten more, and they keep sending you more until you just, you know, drop it and you eventually get off that mail.

41:57

But, you know, you don't really expect to win one of those. You think it'd be kind of cool to win some money, but you don't really think about it much.

42:05

Now, what's happening to these people is the polar opposite. They're putting everything they have into this idea that God is promising them something that he's not promising.

42:15

God is promising them the forgiveness of their sins, and what they're being told is God is promising them that they're going to have these great dreams come true in their life, and that is incredibly damaging to a person's emotional state.

42:27

That's why when I wrote that article, The Charismatic Guide to Losing Your Mind, I think it really is true.

42:32

It's a form of losing your mind. You become disconnected from reality, and that's a thing that people do when they have great trauma.

42:40

They can't deal with reality because it's so painful to consider what's actually taking place, so they just, they become even more delusional and more mentally unstable as a result.

42:50

It's real, and it's happening. And what's really sad is how they twist

42:56

Scripture in this sense. I mean, the quintessential passage that they come up with regarding this, you have to have a big ginormous dream, is they take

43:07

Hebrews 11, 6 out of context that says, without faith, it's impossible to please God.

43:13

And they interpret that as, see, you got to have faith for a big thing, because if it doesn't require faith, then it's not from God, and it's not pleasing to God.

43:24

Which, by the way, just go back and read Hebrews 11 in context, and you can see that the referent is saving faith, number one, and faith in the

43:32

Word of God when God's Word came to these people and had them do different exploits.

43:38

But as you read through Hebrews 11, you're going to know the whole thing changes from talking about the patriarchs, you know, by faith

43:47

Abraham did these things, by faith Moses, by faith Samson, and then it gets to the

43:52

Christian martyrs. By faith, these people refused to, you know, accept release and were torn apart by wild beasts and animals and were martyred for the

44:03

Christian faith. And so the idea then is that faith is a very important thing in Scripture, but faith is like eyesight.

44:11

It has a focus. Faith always is looking to something for something. So, you know,

44:17

I have faith that my chair is going to hold my ever -expanding butt up when

44:22

I sit down on it, right? So, you know, I have faith in my chair. But Scripture tells us to have faith, but it's faith in Jesus Christ, not for a big dream destiny, but for reconciliation with the

44:38

Father, forgiveness of our sins. That faith that through the working of the

44:44

Word that the Holy Spirit is going to continue to sanctify us, that the Holy Spirit is going to bear fruit in our life, and that fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self -control, and faith that the good works that we're doing in the ordinary that we find ourselves in as husband, wife, father, mother, child, employer, employee, that these good works are pleasing to God because God's Word says so.

45:14

So, faith that God's Word is true, faith in the real promises that we are given, and these other promises that God has not given, he's not required to grant or to, you know, basically, you know, answer.

45:29

And the reason why people are experiencing the shipwreck is because they've been sold a pill of goods.

45:34

God has not promised you a dream destiny, promised to you if you dream big, he's going to come in and swoop in and make you influential and powerful and, you know, prosperous and all this kind of nonsense, and when that doesn't happen to you, you think

45:47

Christianity isn't true. The reality is you haven't been taught Christianity. You've been sold a bill of goods.

45:54

Somebody sold you some magic beans, and it turns out that those weren't even magic. They weren't even magic at all.

46:00

You plant them in the ground, you know, you're going to get a beans, you know. That's sad, but that's the truth.

46:08

And so, this is the real dark side, then, of this false doctrine. It creates expectation, but it also creates this heavy burden that people have, you know, they've got to go and do these amazing things for God, and few, if any, actually accomplish them.

46:28

You know, the outliers somehow get exalted. They become the next seeker -driven leaders and, you know, and stuff like that, whereas, you know, for every one person that something amazing happened and they were able to go and influence a bazillion people, you got literally tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands who, you know, they're pursuing their dream destiny and nothing happened in it except for they continue to live in Poughkeepsie and, you know, and their roof is leaking, you know.

46:56

You get the idea. Yeah, you know, and back to Steve's article about losing your mind.

47:02

It really is a progression, and Steve, you take us through that progression, but one of the points of your article is that eventually we start to get this feeling that maybe we are engaged in some cult -like behavior, but there's this need to cling on to that, isn't there?

47:17

I mean, you know, you just are in this state of denial. Yeah, and I referenced another article at the bottom of that article about confirmation bias, and I think it's really helpful when

47:29

Christians understand that this idea of confirmation bias is a very real part of our sinful human existence, where it basically means that whatever we currently believe, we will take in information that goes along with our currently held beliefs, and we will reject any information that conflicts with our currently held beliefs.

47:49

So in politics, you only listen to that one channel that already agrees with you. You know, in Christianity, if you're a hyper charismatic, you listen to the people in that field, and you will reject anybody who says anything else.

48:04

And we all do it, and it's something that we all struggle with, but in this world of having this dream destiny thingy implanted in you, confirmation bias plays a really vital role.

48:19

And the people that you're listening to are propping up constantly the idea that, no, no, no, don't give up on your dream.

48:26

It's almost here. That's Satan telling you that you should give up on your dream.

48:31

You don't want to give in to Satan, do you? Oh, you just got to hang in just a little bit longer.

48:37

And by the way, here's my latest book. And by the way, you know, come see me at the next conference and buy tickets. They're always selling you crap.

48:43

That's what they're doing, people. They're just selling you crap. That's all it is. And they're shipwrecking your faith in the process, and they don't care.

48:50

They don't care about you. These are not godly men and women who teach this kind of stuff. So, yeah, get rid of this confirmation bias and just ask yourself a real gut -wrenching, honest series of questions.

49:00

You know, does the Bible really teach this? If it's true, as your article talks about and mine talks about, this idea that kind of the core of our faith is that we need to find the dream that God has planted in our heart so that we can live out that dream to experience our destiny.

49:19

If that's true, don't you think it would be mentioned a few times in the Bible? I mean, really mentioned a few times.

49:25

Yeah, and fleshed out as a doctrine. Yes, yes, as a doctrine, because they're teaching it like it's a doctrine.

49:32

But, like, example, when Paul was writing to Timothy or to Titus, don't you think when he was giving them his pastoral epistles and he was explaining them, here's the things you need to do as a pastor, he would have said, now remember,

49:44

Timothy, my dear son, make sure that everybody believes in their own personal dream destinies, because that's how

49:51

God accomplishes his will in the earth. He never said anything like that. Jesus never said anything like that. This is so obvious, but it's this confirmation bias and the fact that you keep going back to the same teachers, you keep going.

50:03

It's like that thing about the dog returning to its vomit. It's not a very nice thing to say, but that's kind of what people become when you're in this world.

50:11

Yeah. And you think about, I mean, it's so crazy that they keep trying the same things over and over and over again in order to get

50:21

God to supercharge and give them a breakthrough so they can finally experience their purpose, which kind of begs the question,

50:29

I mean, if really God created you for a purpose, why is it that it's so beholden to you to make sure that you make yourself worthy to do the purpose thing, and why is

50:42

God so slow in actually putting you to work at the thing he created you to do?

50:48

And why do I need to buy these guys' books and listen to their seminars and go to their conferences in order to finally, once and for all, be able to do what

50:57

God created me to do? And then, of course, that begs the question, how were people fulfilling their purpose for the last 2 ,000 years before these guys came along?

51:06

Good question. You know, part of it is this idea that we need to be successful because it's up to us to make it happen.

51:14

You know, you only get this one life, so you kind of lose sight of your life is no longer yours, it's been bought with a price, but again, you only get this one life, and you have to be an achiever, or if you've been messed up in your life somehow before, you have to be an overcomer.

51:31

And this idea that that's why you're here, to be an overcomer, which, by the way, we do need to repent of our sins and overcome through Christ, but what happens when you fall off the wagon?

51:44

You know, whose fault is that? Is that God's fault? So you really get kind of mixed up about that. Yeah, and there's no talk of real holiness.

51:54

There's no real conviction of real sins. You know, so now we've got this weird nebulous command of God to fulfill my purpose, while the real commandments, the 10 of them, totally ignored, and never really explicated or talked about in any meaningful way, and so there's no concept of real sanctification, of what really truly is a sin.

52:18

But the only sin that exists now is purposelessness. Yeah.

52:24

How does humility fit into that whole equation? I don't even know how it's possible for you to be humble if you think that the

52:33

Christian life is centered around you achieving some great thing. I mean, it's that you are just completely opposed to one another.

52:40

Well, you would think so, Steve, but you see a lot of people who get praised for being humble and nice, but yet they're shoveling this bad theology down the throats of sheep, and you know, but the sheep say, well, he's humble, right?

52:57

Yeah, he told me he's humble. That's why he must be humble. He acts all nice. So you have to watch out for that as well, because remember, even the atheists can be humble and nice -sounding at times, but they're still not right with God.

53:11

May I propose a humble test for seeker -driven pastors? Just a simple one, and it's real simple.

53:20

Listen to their sermon and ask yourself, who are they preaching about? And like, tally up the time.

53:27

You know, if it's a 40 -minute sermon, okay, how many minutes of the sermon do they talk about things in their own life in themselves, and how much of it do they talk about Jesus and actually read out a biblical text pointing us to Christ?

53:40

Now, I understand as a pastor, you can use a personal life anecdote as an illustration to help somebody understand a biblical text, but if at the end of the day, the score is

53:51

Jesus won seeker -driven pastor 99, there's a problem here, and they would fail the humble test, you know?

54:02

Yeah. I was just thinking about how I wrote this article about the hyper -charismatic movement, and it also—many of these things are applicable to the seeker -friendly movement, and I just was thinking, it seems to me that the seeker -friendly kind of big -box non -denominational churches are becoming more closely aligned with New Apostolic Reformation theology.

54:26

And I'm thinking that part of that reason might be, because they both start with this false dream destiny stuff, if you are not getting your breakthrough, well, maybe we need to do some more of this kind of hocus -pocus, like what

54:43

Acosta Hinn's new book talks about, the mystical miracle movement. So we're seeking the

54:49

Holy Spirit now, so that we can get things from God that we're not getting in the kind of ordinary ways that churches used to function.

54:57

So now we need to have a special service where we really seek after God, and we really want to burn for God, and we want to really get the breakthrough.

55:04

In that article, I posted a bunch of photos of conventions and books and memes from all these breakthrough things, and if you just type in Breakthrough Conference, there's just an endless stream of conference advertisements.

55:21

So there's this built -in thing within the hyper -charismatic movement, which is kind of blending into a lot of big -box churches that says, we all need a breakthrough.

55:33

Well, actually, the breakthrough, if there ever was one, was that our sins were forgiven.

55:40

That already took place when Jesus died on the cross for our sins. So I don't know what breakthrough you're talking about. Oh, I know what it is.

55:46

It's the breakthrough that we got to get our dreams to come true. That phony dream thing that you're responsible for telling us about this phony dream thing that we're not getting, and now you're spending the rest of your time trying to convince us that our breakthrough is right around the corner.

56:00

The whole thing is their fault. The false teaching is all coming from them, but as long as you stay within it, you'll never get out of it.

56:07

You'll constantly be buying more books, you'll be going to more conventions, and you'll be hearing the same crap over and over again, and you just got to remove yourself from it.

56:15

It's so much like the Amway business that I was in back in the 90s. It's really weird how closely similar it is, because you were always told in Amway that you're going to get this dream.

56:26

You have to believe in a dream. You've got to believe you have a dream, and the money is not an important thing.

56:33

The money is just a means to get your dream. So when you build your business and you get really big, you're going to help people, and you're going to change the world, and oh, by the way, you're going to have a really fancy house with a swimming pool, and it's not really the purpose.

56:45

The purpose is that you're going to make a difference in the world. It's the same thing, and no one ever did. I was in it for four years, and I wasted all this time and energy, but I was in this closed system of ideas.

56:59

It's a cluster of ideas, and they all depend on each other, and that's what we're seeing with this dream destiny thing, and it's worse in the charismatic movement, because it's been linked up with the worst aspects of Pentecostal doctrine, and they've ignored the crucified

57:12

Lord, because if you look at some of the early Pentecostals, I think they had some errors for sure, but they didn't have the crucifixion wrong.

57:19

They still believe that Jesus died for our sins, but that's been thrown out the window in most cases now. Jesus died on the cross so that you can have your dreams is what they're teaching.

57:28

It's bizarre. Yeah, and the problem with some of that is when the breakthroughs don't happen, they're starting to manufacture these miracles, so now you're expectant of God to provide miracles to kind of keep you in this movement, in this expectation that your breakthrough will come, and so how can you prepare your heart for a miracle, and what's going to happen?

57:54

And you're seeing all these people waiting for this anointing to happen, waiting for something to overcome them.

58:02

Usually it's based in emotionalism, and if it doesn't happen for you, and it's happening for everyone else, you're thinking, why isn't this happening for me?

58:11

Why am I not getting the liver shivers? Aren't I good enough, God? Maybe I'm not really a

58:16

Christian. So there's all sorts of manipulation that happens that is just dreadfully harmful to the people who are true believers in Christ.

58:26

Yeah, and I was the guy who went to the hyper charismatic services, and I'm like,

58:33

I'm just being honest here folks, but I don't feel anything, and frankly you're all acting kind of weird, because I mean,

58:41

I remember I was the worship guy up on the stage, I'll never forget this one Sunday, and I was playing drums, so you're behind that little plexiglass cage for the sound man, so it doesn't leak out into the audience, and at the end of the service we would always do some songs for all the really serious

58:57

Christians who wanted to come up to the front and receive whatever, they wanted to receive something, and there was this one lady, what was she doing with her hands?

59:07

She was doing this, like she was trying to stir up the Holy Spirit with her hands, like I'm trying to remember what it was, it wasn't pushing it, it was like I was sitting there playing the drums, and I was watching this lady, and I'm like, this whole thing is just so stupid, this is ridiculous, at best this is a bunch of deluded people, but at worst this is the literal conjuring up of spirits, because that's what it looked like to me, she was doing this thing where she was trying to get something, and I've seen it in a lot of videos since then at other events.

59:41

Now we're starting to experience network connection issues here on our Skype call, and Amy's actually, her video's frozen on my end, but at least she's not frozen with her mouse like in a twisted position or something.

59:54

Yeah, she totally disappeared, so let's see if I can get her back online, and we'll see if we can sort this out here.

01:00:06

Let me just kind of reset then here, now that we have Amy back, and the idea then is that all of these bizarre things that you're talking about is that one of the major themes of the false teachers then in this regard is that they now focus the devil's attention to stopping you from achieving your dream destiny, which funny enough then leads to bizarre doctrines like the sneaky squid spirit.

01:00:33

You know, as bizarre as the sneaky squid is, it actually serves a function in the mythology of this false doctrine, because the demonic forces are now being marshaled against you to keep you from fulfilling your dream or having your breakthrough, and so they of course are the ones who have the counter curses that you can invoke against the sneaky squids, and the

01:01:00

Jezebel spirit, and the python spirit, and all of this new demonic zoology that they come up with.

01:01:10

And they wonder, how come our church isn't growing as much as we want it to?

01:01:16

Or I imagine like somebody in our age group who has adult children who aren't going to church anymore, and I'm like, look at your service.

01:01:24

Look at the weird stuff you people are talking about. It has nothing to do with Orthodox Christianity anymore. You're talking about demons, and magic spells, and potions, and all this weird anointing, and mantles.

01:01:37

It's creepy, and it is not working, and you've been talking this way for decades perhaps, and should you really be surprised that you're losing friends and family, and they're dropping out?

01:01:49

Yeah, I mean, and what's weird is that then in that kind of society, you call it a culture or something, the more outlandish you are, the more popular you become.

01:02:03

I mean, it was fascinating to me that Steve Schultz of the

01:02:08

Elijah List, early in the year, he interviewed Kat Kerr, and literally has taken this woman seriously.

01:02:17

This is the woman who could not force Hurricane Irma to turn around, you know, and we have clear video footage of her, you know, decreeing, and declaring, and talking to this hurricane.

01:02:29

Yeah, he's a nut job. And still, you know, her and her purple hair, and you know, he's talking to her, and you know, saying, you know,

01:02:36

I've never been to heaven, but you know, she says, oh, I go there all the time, you know, I'm just, the Lord just takes me up whenever he wants, and it happens on a daily basis, no big deal, and then

01:02:46

God has revealed to me who the next five presidents are going to be, and of course she doesn't name any of them, you know, it's like, well prove it, you know, prove it lady.

01:02:54

He just takes her at face value, and this, it's just utter nonsense, but of course, that's kind of where this all goes to.

01:03:01

There seems to, you know, biblical Christianity, as soon as you get rid of it, and you chase after this nonsense, you end up as a real possible destination, you know, the

01:03:13

Looney Tunes, really bizarre NAR, Weather Warrior, Lance Wallnau, Kat Kerr, and Jennifer LeClair, Sneaky Squid stuff, but it's, that all is actually, that all plays into this, you've got to change the world and have a dream destiny thing.

01:03:32

It actually fits with that theology. Yeah, part of the problem too,

01:03:38

I think when you get these younger converts, at least it happened this way for me, you're just on fire, and you want to please the

01:03:45

Lord, where do you go? Well, besides church, where you're learning, you know, hopefully, scripture, you take yourself and your family down to that Christian bookstore, and you, you know,

01:03:56

I'm a Christian now, this is, I need to find out more, and what do you see? You see

01:04:01

Joyce Meyer, you see Beth Moore, you see all sorts of people right front and center with their big posters, their new movies that have come out, you know, the

01:04:12

Bible miniseries is there, and you start buying all this stuff because you just want, you just want God, you don't know any better, and you start consuming this stuff, and pretty soon you start going to these concerts, these revival stadium things, and you're caught, you're caught in this net, and unless there's somebody there discerning enough to come alongside and, using that word, but come along and disciple you properly, you're never going to get out of it because you're not going to know.

01:04:41

Yeah, you're so right, Amy, about the bookstore thing, I never go to those stores, and a lot of them are closing, thankfully.

01:04:49

Yeah, like Mark, Mark Batterson, when I was looking up images for my article, he had all these quotes about, you know,

01:04:56

God wants you to do some outrageous thing, and if your, if your dreams don't scare you, they're, they're all saying the same things, they're all, you can just imagine these pastors who are not studying their

01:05:05

Bibles at all, they're sitting in their office for hours just saying, how can I rephrase that thing that Stephen Furtick made famous, but how can

01:05:12

I rephrase it so I can use it for the sermon series that I'm about to do? Yeah. You know, and they're all the same cliches, they're just repackaged slightly.

01:05:21

And the bookstores may be closing, though, but all those books are ending up somewhere. Well, where are they?

01:05:26

They're at Barnes & Noble, but they're also at places like Hobby Lobby. Maybe I'll post these. I went last week,

01:05:32

I had some things I had to do, and I went to Hobby Lobby, and there were four bookshelves full of the worst theological error you could ever imagine.

01:05:42

Walmart. I ended up, yeah, I ended up taking pictures of these things. They probably thought I was casing the joint, but yeah, it's, there was nothing good, nothing edifying, nothing that points you to the pure loveliness of Scripture.

01:05:57

So that, that's where it is. Yeah, that's a good point, too. I took a picture when I was at a

01:06:03

Walmart about a year ago in Tennessee, and it's this same stuff they're selling here, I think. And I posted it on the

01:06:10

Fighting for the Faith crew Facebook page. And it was, it was one heretical book after another, and that was the

01:06:16

Christian section at a Walmart. And Walmart's the biggest distributor of stuff in the entire world. So yeah, now you're getting me depressed,

01:06:26

Amy. Thanks so much for bringing up another aspect of this. Have some more coffee. You know, I used to go and turn the titles around just because there were only one or two, but now it would just be exhausting, and it would be a non -stop job, so yeah.

01:06:40

It's my little... And ultimately, all of this stuff, all of this false doctrine, you chasing after your dream destiny, your purpose, you decreeing, you declaring, you fighting the demons who are trying to keep you from having your destiny, and you waiting for your breakthrough that's just around the corner.

01:06:57

I promise, I just heard from God, and he said, it's almost here. That all of this is a, it's a sham.

01:07:05

It's a demonic sham to take your eyes off of the real Jesus. And the reality is, is that the people who are believing this, they don't know who

01:07:12

Jesus is. They don't know what he's done for them, and they know nothing about their Bible. They're not only biblically illiterate, they have practically only barely opened the book just a little.

01:07:23

They know nothing about what Scripture actually teaches, and that's the scary thing. While at the same time, they will confidently say,

01:07:31

I go to a Bible -believing church. No, you don't. Yeah, it's a catchphrase.

01:07:36

It's not a Bible -believing church, it's just a catchphrase. Yeah, a Bible -believing church would be a church that actually opens up the

01:07:42

Bible and preaches what Scripture says in context, and points you to Christ. And even if people go to buy a

01:07:48

Bible at Hobby Lobby or Walmart, a lot of times what they're going to find is the Joyce Meyer study Bible, or the

01:07:54

Jesus Calling Bible. I mean, I don't know how more absurd it could get.

01:08:01

Yeah, if Jesus is calling, don't answer the phone on that one. So it's a different Jesus.

01:08:09

It is. Yeah, you want to block that call. But you know, and the good news is, is that if you have gone through these steps and you have lost your mind, you can get it back again.

01:08:22

Repent, learn who Jesus really is, and just be in Scripture. You know, adopt that sola scriptura, that that is your sole authority for who

01:08:32

God is, is what you'll read, what He left for us in the Bible. Yep, and on the Fighting for the Faith podcast, one of the things we make a point of is we don't just tear down, we want to build up as well.

01:08:44

And so, you know, a significant portion of our broadcast week is dedicated to good biblical teaching and good biblical sermons, you know, from a plethora of guys who are faithful and rightly handling

01:08:56

God's Word, and placarding Christ, and pointing people to Jesus. And we try to pull those guys from across the spectrum within the

01:09:06

Protestant Reformation so that they can recognize this isn't about waving one flag or another when it comes to a particular denomination, but it'll help them understand that this is available out there.

01:09:19

It's tougher to find, but this is what you're looking for. And so, you know, the person who feels like they've lost their faith after being in the

01:09:28

Dream Destiny thingy branch of Christianity, and you have to put that in your quote, that's good that you've lost your faith, but you actually haven't lost the

01:09:35

Christian faith. It's time for you to actually come to grips with the fact that the

01:09:41

Christian faith is different than what you were taught. Right. And that's a difficult thing for people, you know, it's a radical change, but I can tell you, having gone through it myself, that the sense of peace that I have now is infinitely greater than any conjured up emotionalism that I was feeling from the various churches

01:10:04

I went through. And the ordinary Christian life is very good.

01:10:09

It's this extraordinary Christian life that is actually a burden, and it doesn't actually do anything except cause you to become confused, and it actually hurts whatever relationship with God you may have actually had.

01:10:22

And if you're getting out of this thing, I encourage people, just like you said Chris, get into God's Word, get into a good church that actually teaches the

01:10:30

Bible in context, and things will get better. They may seem bad now because you're having to kind of tear out all this stuff that's been built up in your system for a while.

01:10:41

You've got to peel off all these layers, but underneath that, it's worth it. And it takes time, and you know, one of the things that, you know,

01:10:49

I've gone through it, you've gone through it Steve, and that is that it actually takes a long period of time to unlearn the bad theology and the nonsense that you've been taught.

01:11:02

And the best place to do that is in a church where the pastor is placarding Christ, is working through biblical texts, and actually preaching the

01:11:11

Word, and distinguishing between law and gospel, proclaiming repentance and the forgiveness of sins, and then exalting us, or you know,

01:11:22

Christians, and rightly defines what those good works are. That's a good place to unpack all this stuff, and you got to give yourself time, because you'll find that even when you start the process, it might be several years down the road that since you've, you know, made the switch, and you sit there and go, oh

01:11:39

I can't believe I was hanging on to that thing still, you know. And it's funny how that works, but good conversation guys, good conversation, and we will pray that it'll be helpful for some as they are wrestling with these very topics and issues themselves, and we will pray that they recognize that they haven't been taught the

01:12:00

Christian faith that they're chasing after their dream destiny purpose thingy, but instead that this is the stuff that will literally leave them in the lurch, and you know, and that's not a bad place to be, because then at that point you realize none of what you were taught is actually true.

01:12:17

It's quite the opposite. So thank you for your time guys, and look forward to doing this again in a future installment.

01:12:28

Yeah, thank you guys. Talk again soon. So if this is you, and you realize that, oh my goodness, now

01:12:35

I understand why I'm so frustrated, why I feel like my faith, you know, was going nowhere, it's because I have been shipwrecked by false doctrine, then, you know, go ahead and hit the subscribe button below, and if you'd like to see more programming like this on YouTube, then consider supporting us financially.

01:12:53

All the information on how to support us financially is listed below, and if you go to the

01:12:59

Fighting for the Faith website and search for the podcast for this episode, the compendium, there will also be further resources and links that you can go to to begin the journey of working your way out of this so that your faith is no longer shipwrecked, but that you have a solid faith built on the foundation and can sail the seas of Christ with a real rudder, you know, one that doesn't take you one way or another.

01:13:24

So thank you for watching, and until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.