Real Talk with Big John Christmas with Rob Canipe

It says we're live, Rob. So I usually say welcome back to more real talk with Big John, but I feel like it's been so long since I've had a real talk that I shouldn't be able to say that.

And we're going to be discussing the Christmas season night, and I have a guest, Brother Rob Conight.

And if you've watched any of the Laborers podcast that we've had, you'll recognize him for sure.

And he's been kind enough to step on here and get involved with the crazy that comes with absolutely zero preparation.

Is that right, Rob? I mean, you got it. You got that right. So it's like any other time with real talk.

It's just supposed to be abstract thoughts or whatever that aren't necessarily fit for the pulpit.

But I'm going to slide over to Facebook to make it shareable. And I'm going to ask

Brother Rob to to share a little bit about who you are, what your ministry looks like and anything that's on your heart concerning concerning the ministries that are near and dear to you.

So, yeah, I'm one of three elders slash pastors, you know, whatever you want to call it, the name is interchangeable.

Pastor is what most people are familiar with. But of course, the term elder is also biblical, and a lot of people are going to that now.

But one of three elders slash pastors at First Baptist Church Newton. I'm two of the lay elders there, and we have one that's the that's what they would call the lead lead teaching elder teaching pastor in our.

In our understanding, we're we're. All equal, but but we do designate one that has the main teaching role every

Sunday, but we all have to meet the qualifications for pastor to to have that role as as elder.

So I'm one of three at First Baptist Church Newton about 20. Right before covid early 2020,

I started a podcast or we were trying to decide if it's a podcast. We don't know the name of it, but we think video and audio can be called podcast.

But I started in 2020 because I started seeing all this stuff on Facebook. You scroll through the different groups or you scroll through whatever and you see these people selling their wares on Facebook and they're doing it live.

And I'm like, you know, if they can get on these groups and sell their wares, their jewelry, their makeup, their clothes, whatever they're selling,

I'm like. I need to get this out, this that I have inside of me, I need to get it out.

And here's here's a platform. Here's today's marketplace. It's it's Facebook, it's social media. And why not get on here and try to get in these groups, at least on my my personal

Facebook page, and try to get out the gospel, get out God's word, preach Jesus, talk about Jesus.

And and that's how I started and start out slow with with just, you know, you're my laptop taking some time out here and there to do it.

And then the Lord has provided brothers in Christ. I know you and I met Big John because one of our brothers,

Brandon. Yes, right. He he put together a prayer time on Saturday morning. He and I got connected through social media, through the

Internet. From different denominations. But we met each other through social media, doing my thing.

He's doing his thing. And we met each other. I even had him on when I went to his church and had a prayer time.

At that time, I was going around to different churches and I was praying for those churches. And I came to his church, met him out there, his church with his daughter, prayed for his church and formed a relationship.

And he met me to his his special prayer time that he had on Saturday morning.

He gathered those that would come and we just we prayed together on Saturday mornings, and that's how

I met you. We got connected. And I was like, hey, brother, you want to hop on here and do this thing with me?

So and John, you started your podcast and we got together with other podcasters, other pastors.

And and we formed this network that we work together and do our own podcast together on Thursday nights called

The Labor Podcast. And sure enough, how did that develop a conference? We did our first one this year, last

April. And we plan to do another one next April, April 20, 24, the last weekend in April.

It's going to be a reformat of Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. And we would love to see each of you there.

You don't have to be Baptist. You don't have to be Church of God. You don't have to be Presbyterian. You can be whatever you want to be.

But we would love to come. I would love for you to come and fellowship with us and enjoy the preaching that's going to be there and the singing and just the good time we're going to have in the

Lord. It's not far from Pigeon Ford. It's not far from Gatlinburg.

And the big draw, it is not far from Bucky's where you can get that fantastic beef jerky that you.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. But that's where we are now. The Lord has brought some brothers together, and I look forward to the future and what the

Lord has in store for us and being a part of his kingdom and what he's doing with us.

It's good. It's going to be going to be great. It's going to be amazing. Agreed. Agreed. The there's a lot of ministries that Brother Rob's in and and we don't

I don't I don't get out to all the things, but you're a very busy man, and I appreciate you taking some of the time to come out here.

And when I when I said things that we talk about on here aren't necessarily pulpit appropriate,

I don't obviously I don't mean there's going to be inappropriate material, but there's some things that we discuss that really the pulpit's too special the place for.

Does that make sense? The the we need to have respect for that desk and we're behind the pulpit.

We need to make sure that we're discussing things that are just worthy of the desk.

I don't know how else to put it other than that. Some of the things that we've discussed on here or I've discussed on here are as silly as, you know, reckon what?

What would Clark can't be without Jonathan Kent? Right. You know, stuff like that, all the way to more serious things.

You know, like, why does why does bad things seem to happen regardless of whether you're a good person or not?

Right. And then there's the doctrinal debate that goes from there, obviously, that we're not good. There's there's this platform, too.

You can push things out a little bit more. That's true. That's true. And you have an opportunity to say things that aren't always welcomed inside your denomination, right?

I mean, we we walk in circles that we can't we don't always have the freedom to discuss what's really on our minds or what's really on our hearts and the capacity, because sometimes it might make people stumble and we can't do that.

We can't take our our freedom in Christ. Nor can we take the the drive to get down to the bottom of something and cause people to stumble.

And that's something that we don't talk about an awful lot. And this is not at all meant to be discussed tonight. But on some of mine, you know, there's times that I'm afraid that in a discussion of a of a deep theological truth, there might be some among us in our church circles who who aren't prepared for that kind of depth.

And I think it scares them. Does that make sense to you? It does. And that's part of the motivation for me starting this and want to work together with you guys is is not to create some platform for ourselves, but to witness and experience so much biblical illiteracy, shallow teaching in my life that.

I wanted to be a part of the help to. Congregations to church members that needed some some.

Some good teaching. Yeah, that. And they oftentimes get on Facebook or they listen to podcasts.

And here's a place during the week where they can join in and get a little bit of extra teaching. Of course, you know, your local church is your number one.

That's where you serve. That's where you that's where your priority. But here, if you have a chance, social media,

Facebook podcast, you can get some additional teaching and go a little bit deeper and maybe learn some things, hopefully.

Sure. And ask questions in a way that you don't have to work. You know, you can ask

Rob a post -millennial question without worrying about being excommunicated from your dispensational church. Right. As I can't speak for your church, they might.

I just we love you anyway, Rob. So the the thing we want to discuss tonight is

Christmas. Right now, there is a host of things that we can talk about around the

Christmas season. But something that's been on my mind. I even put my coffee in this cup.

But at one time I was a subscription to the I had a subscription to the Daily Wire.

And there's a man on there who's very famous for debating liberal teenagers in colleges and things named

Ben Shapiro. He's a he's a Jewish. I try to think what the term you'd call about political activists, maybe a political news spokesman.

What would you call Ben Shapiro? Political talk show host.

OK, basically. Yeah. Yeah. But I think in some degrees, he's he's got the idea or the the thing about him is kind of like a scholar among certain things.

Like if you listen to the man, discuss things like. Financial responsibilities of conservativism versus the way people look at finances in a more liberal mindset, he he can give you piles and piles and piles of statistics and facts and and historical complications of liberalism and things like that.

And I think that he's a very, very intelligent man. He speaks too fast for me to understand everything that he says.

However, I was watching Ruslan. Do you ever watch Ruslan at all?

I wouldn't think so. He's charismatic, but he's he's.

Well, you just have to know you have to watch the show to kind of get a glimpse of it. But he talks about all different kinds of things.

But he's a charismatic post -millennialist. I thought you'd think that was interesting. I had to send you a link to one of his videos.

Charismatic post -millennialist. Yes, sir. Wow. Yeah. So anyway, he's he's a really interesting cat.

And he had a video and I had the guy's name, but I've done forgot his name now of a famous atheist that I've never heard of.

Real famous, right? But it might surprise you. We don't look up atheists very often on this show. This cat is on his show and are talking about how

God must exist from either a cosmological argument and these other kinds of arguments that you hear guys like William Lane Craig discuss all the time.

And obviously, with Ben Shapiro being a practicing Jewish, he practices

Jewish faith. He's a believer in God and an unbeliever in Jesus as being

God the son. And it brings up the idea in my mind is to how can so many scholarly

Jewish people not see. The clear evidences of who

Jesus Christ is as being God, the son given the Old Testament. Now, I'm going to ask you a question that I know the answer to, and I know you're going to give me an answer, but I want you to say it up front.

Did we discuss very much of this before we went on? And did we discuss very much of the question

I'm fixing to ask you? Oh, no, no, we didn't talk. What I'm saying is, no, is I'm fixing to ask you a question that I didn't tell you

I was going to ask you. Uh, we. I lost my train of thought.

How do you suppose I know there's there's clearly Old Testament examples of Christ being

God, the son. And there's clearly New Testament examples. But what

I was going to ask is, is Christ being God, the son only evidence in the New Testament?

And the answer to me is no, it's obviously is in the Old Testament. But I will give you an opportunity to say that. But I kind of train wreck that whole thing live.

So forgive me for that. But there's there's implications all throughout. And I want to pull up the scripture.

This is the one that we read all the time. Bear with me. No, not

Rob. It says remove, but I don't understand why it's not on the screen. Just did you do it?

Yeah, I did. I did it. Thank you. Yeah. OK. This is out of Isaiah chapter seven.

I'm reading the English Standard Version. I'm in verse 10. Again, the Lord spoke to Ahaz, ask a sign of the

Lord. God let it. Let's sign Lord, your God, let it be as deep as she or as high as heaven.

And Ahaz says, I will not. I will not ask and I will not put the Lord to the test. And he said here, the old house of David, is it a little is it too little for you to weary men?

That now you want to weary God also. Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son and you shall call his name

Emmanuel. He shall eat curds and honey when he when he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.

But before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread when this is talking about a prophecy he's talking about, but to focus back on the promise that God gives a has.

And if you want to go ahead and remove that from the screen, Rob, however you've done that, thank you very much. We see this as being a.

An extremely popular saying around this time of year, sons given, and the government will be on the shoulders, we can go into that later if you want to.

This this probably will not be as long as a labor's podcast whenever. What do you suppose a

Jewish man? Well, versed in his Old Testament studies does with that scripture in light of in light of us having the knowledge that we we'd have about Jesus Christ.

I've got to come up with a different term term than this. There's a lot of Christians. There's a lot of brothers that we that we respect.

There's brothers in our group that hold to the idea of a double fulfillment. And so a lot of these things where we read passages like this, a lot of them would say, well, well, this is a double fulfillment.

It had a fulfillment here in in their vicinity as far as time goes.

But then there's going to be another fulfillment and it's a messianic. It's talking about Jesus. And we can we can see that, you know, looking back.

Um, what do they say is 2020? You can look back and see how

Jesus fulfilled all these hundreds of prophecies from the Old Testament. So how can a how can a

Jewish scholar, a Jewish individual read these things and not see

Jesus in it? Or what what is their answer? I don't have much experience speaking to a

Jewish individual and asking them these questions. But what experience that I do have, what

I got from them is, well, it's talking about this and they're talking about that first fulfillment.

And so it's talking about the Jewish nation, it's talking about the nation of Israel, it's talking about when this battle happened and and this took place.

So they have an answer and they have a fulfillment for that prophecy. Um, but it's pointing towards it's talking about Israel, it's talking about the nation of Israel or it's talking about this land.

You know, they have an explanation. And those of us who are believers who hold to a double fulfillment of prophecies, they're going to say, well, it also points to Messiah.

Can't you see that? Well, of course, they can't see that. They just see they're stuck on that first fulfillment.

So whenever they talk about a double fulfillment in this text, in what way could could there be a double fulfillment in this text?

It doesn't that doesn't point to Jesus Christ being the Messiah. Right.

I mean, the whole conversation God's having with Ahaz is that Ahaz is worried about something that's not going to amount to a hill of beans.

Right. These two smoking or smoldering firebrands, they'll be dead. No, you don't even worry about these people. Right. Then you've got this this first chapter nine.

If you want to put that back on the screen, I will. I'm queued up here. And again, everybody's pretty familiar with these, right?

For there'll be no oh, man, for there'll be no gloom for her who is in anguish in the former time he brought into the contempt land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali.

But the latter time made glorious the way to see the land beyond the Jordan. Oh, my goodness.

The people who walked in the darkness have seen a great light. I scooted a little bit too much. I think it's going to be

OK. See, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great line. Those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, their light has shown.

You have multiplied the nation. You have increased its joy. The rejoice they rejoice before you as with great harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spool for the yoke of the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor.

You have broken as on the day of Median for every boot of the of trampling warrior in a battle turmoil and every garment ridden with blood will be burned as fuel for fire.

For to us, a child is born to us, a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulder and he shall be called wonderful, wonderful counselor, mighty

God, everlasting father, prince of peace and of the increase of his government and of peace.

There'll be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this. And then how to get this back off if you want to go ahead.

Oh, yeah, I'm glad I got you on here. So, uh, how's there a double fulfillment in that?

So I may have to backtrack just, just a hair on what I said. Um, the conversation that I was referring to that I had mainly focused on Isaiah 53, and that's, that's a lot of the information that I got back from them was that there was a, there was a specific fulfillment of this, that it was speaking of somebody else.

Um, but also just think about that one verse that you just read, uh, verse six, where a child will be born to us.

A son will be given to us. Okay. So they do believe, um, in a

Messiah to come, right? So they just didn't believe that Jesus was him.

And so you say, how, how did they not say Jesus? Well, they see a Messiah, Jesus wasn't him for them.

Then I say, but so where's David's thrown at them?

Right. Where's, where's this? How does this make any sense?

If this is not Christ, right. If we're not, if we're not talking about Christ here, how can that, how has any logic at all fall in that?

Right. It doesn't it's like Isaiah 53. I've heard several arguments from Ben Shapiro about Isaiah 53 and other guys.

Ben Shapiro is not a biblical scholar. Right? I mean, he, he doesn't, you know, probably a bad example, but I've heard several, uh, several guys who are

Jewish try to defend Isaiah 53 as saying that somehow another Isaiah 53 is talking about Israel as a nation.

Right. Which is at, at, at best purely ignorant at worst is blasphemy.

Right. I mean, it doesn't make any sense to read yourself into the text. That's the same problem that, that I have with the, the maniacs who call themselves charismatic.

Right. We're going to talk about this on your podcast coming up a little bit here in a couple of couple more weeks.

No, it'd be one week. One. What's it? It'd be about a week from now. So the brass tax is when you get to Matthew and we're just going to kind of, we're just going to kind of take it easy here, but when you get to Matthew and we see that Christ is a fulfillment of prophecy and two chapters, we read about how everything that happens according to Moses or according to, uh, to Joseph and Mary is, uh, is to, so that it's done in accordance with prophecy.

Then you have these. Cal beans, we call them the three wise men or the magi, you know, however that, that history, you know, however many there was with them show up, having seen a sign in the stars and the

Jewish people are oblivious to this. Now I have an understanding of as to why the Jewish people are oblivious to this because they were forbidden in the law to observe, uh, astrology.

Right. Yeah. So I can see them not looking to the stars for any answers whatsoever.

Right. So this makes sense to me that the magi would, would know something that they didn't think in relationship, if it was something that was appearing in the heavens, but then what does

Herod do? But he consults the church leaders of the day, find the prophecies about the

Lord or about the Messiah is coming and then let's go kill him. Now, this is the craziest.

I mean, from, from the chute gate, this thing's crazy, right? It's, it's always bewildered me that the world comes seeking after the king and those that he were born into wanted to kill him from day one.

It's, it's, it's never ceased to amaze me. The old Testament has enough scripture in it that points to the coming of the

Messiah. I think I read a while ago, there were 70 something prophecies in the old Testament that point to Jesus Christ being the

Messiah and he fulfilled them all. That's an insane amount of prophecy to be fulfilled over the course of some,

I don't know, 4 ,000 years, roughly by, by, I'd say it'd be 26, 59, 49 books, 39 books.

Is that math? Right. My math might not be math. And as the kids say, enter 39 old

Testament, 27 new Testament make total 66. We should, we should know that.

Yeah. In any case, my point is, is there's so many, there's so many books. That spans such a large period of time.

That the fact that one person fulfills all these prophecies is absolutely crazy, unless he's

God, the standard is so, and so impossible to me. Yeah.

Go ahead. I didn't mean to step on it. It's so interesting that you take us to the new Testament because I think that's where we're going to find an answer.

We could, we could sit in the old Testament and try to rack our brain about how and why, and how do they, how they understand it, how do they interpret it, what does, you know, what does this look like to them?

And it'll be interesting for us to get, to get a Jewish individual to help us understand how they, how they see it, but once you move to the new

Testament, um, first you brought about, you brought Herod and want to kill him at the very beginning. Well, he would naturally want to kill him.

Go back to the same verse that I just read. Um, or that I quoted that you read where a child will be born to us.

Some will be given and what the government, the government will rest on his shoulders. So they, they knew their scriptures.

They knew that when he invested, when Herod investigated about this prophecy, about who they were looking for, we're looking for this

Messiah where the government is going to be on his shoulders, not yours, Herod, his shoulders.

So naturally he's going to come after the guy and try to get rid of him. He's a, Jesus is a threat, not a spiritual threat.

He's a political threat because the Jews were looking for a political leader and that's why most of them rejected him there at that time.

But you know, all in all, when you get to the end of all things, it, there's a missing element.

I mean, you talk about how obvious it is. Just looking at these old Testament scriptures, you go to the book of Matthew.

You, you start in the very beginning, the first several chapters, even, even

Matthew is trying to speak to his audience and say, and, and tell them this, this was done to fulfill this.

This was done. And he gives them specific prophets. He gives them the prophet's name, what book to go look up.

This was done to fulfill that. This was done to fulfill this. And so he, I mean, he is trying to explain this to them, but they're blinded as all get out.

And on top of that, before these books were written, you had Jesus, God himself walking on this earth, doing things that nobody else has ever done.

No, but nobody will ever do again. And things that they had never seen before.

Jesus was walking on water. He didn't just turn a little glass of water into wine.

He turned these whole big old bunch of jars into wine and from water in an instant.

Um, he, he created all these out of nut out of, um, out of five loaves and two fishes.

I mean, he created enough to feed thousands twice and had some leftover.

Um, and we can go on and on. I mean, he raised people from the dead. He, he, uh, calls

Peter's ear to go back home. That was over and over soldier's ear soldier's ear that Peter cut off.

Right. Um, raised me from that hill. People gave, gave sight to the blind, the lepers, the lame.

I mean, demoniacs, you know, cast out demons. Jesus did all these things that nobody else could do.

No magician could mimic. And yet they were still blinded. Yep. Still blind.

There's only one answer for that. Let's hear it. Missing element. And we're going to be discussing that in 2024 in April, the shameless power, the empowerment of the

Holy spirit. Yes, that was shameless. I knew he was going to do that.

I'm not even, I'm not even mad at you, but you're, but you're a hundred percent. Correct. The, uh, the fact of the matter is, is it takes

God to show us who God is. Mm hmm. God is so I'm going to use a term.

I think it don't even make sense in English language, but it's such an otherness to who God is. He's not like anything else.

There's nothing else like him. So there's nothing to compare him to. Right. Explain to try you and being apart from God.

I'll wait. Right. There's explain how some, how someone or something can exist entirely outside of time and yet still associate with things that are bound to time.

It's crazy. It's a crazy thing. There's nothing or no one else like God. So I suppose it is impossible for the thing that has been created to know the thing that made it unless the thing that made it lets him be known by him.

And I think this is what is so crucial about, we, we, we discussed this and I don't know if I ever, if I ever told you this or not.

We were talking about something one night out of the book of Matthew. I think it's Matthew chapter 16. Bear with me as I frantically ripped through this

Bible to find it. Well, while you're looking for that, yes, yes.

Matthew chapter 16, praise God. Go ahead. Well, I was just going to say, and you may, you may get this as well.

This is what I was thinking as we're getting to this before we point our finger too much at these people at that time.

Sure. Who, where would we be without the Holy spirit opening our eyes and showing us who we are and showing us who

Jesus Christ is, we would still be lost and undone. And, and without the

Holy spirit, like why, why am

I still doing tomorrow? The sin that I did yesterday when I've seen who I am and I've seen who

Jesus is and I've seen what he's done for me. Why, why do

I continue down that same path? Why do I still have the same thinking that I, that I did, even, even after I have seen the depths of my sinfulness and the gracious mercy of Christ, it's because I'm still in my flesh.

And that's, that's just how depraved we are that even after we've been born again and the

Holy spirit has revealed these things to us, our flesh is so depraved that it still wants to cause us to forget what we've seen.

Yeah. Um, you know, this is not a, something that a lot of Pentecostal people sit around and talk about, uh, because there's so much of the, uh, sanctification of the believer as a part of, of our teaching.

And I believe in the gradual sanctification that will continually be made more and more like Christ until we're glorified with him.

And I believe that we should, some victories over sin while we're alive. We should see, we should see evidence in our lives of becoming gradually more like Christ in every area.

I believe if you're not seeing that you're not saved. I just, I just, I know that sounds hurtful, hurtful, and I'm not meaning for it to sound hurtful, but I mean for it to sound serious.

If, uh, if we, if we find ourselves continually hemmed up and tripped up by the same things, then

I think that that's sign of, of no generation. Now I'll give you a chance to rebuttal that. If you think that I'm being too hard, or if I'm speaking out of turn, you, you know, your freedom, say what you want to hear,

I think that's really close to, to how I would say it and, uh, you know, into it, and there's a lot of ways that you and I both, we believe that, that the

Holy spirit is great. And the Holy spirit is powerful. He's got, he is, if he is powerful enough to regenerate a wretched.

And if there was a worst term that I could use, I would use it. A wretched individual like me, who's an enemy of God, a

God hater. And he, he could cause me a dead man, a dead end of my trespasses, to come to life, change me into a new person.

Then he also is powerful enough to change me and sanctification made me more like Christ.

Amen. He is powerful. So there was something that we were talking about sometime, uh, sometime back on the labors and we were, we were discussing the power of the

Holy spirit. Now it's just, we're still talking about Christmas stuff. I don't want to, I don't want to just get lost in the weeds. The reason we're talking about, about who

Jesus Christ is and about the Holy spirit and about Jewish tradition is because all three of these things ought to be being discussed when we're talking about Christmas time, right?

Because God chose to reveal himself to these Jewish people before he did anyone else, he chose to be born at this time to these people and this way, this was all according to his divine plan.

So we need to understand that this is not like, it's about Holly trees and bad

Hallmark movies. It's about, it's about God revealing himself to us. And we were talking about, about, uh, the

Holy spirit and changing us. And one of, one of the podcasts is, uh, where we was talking about the power of the

Holy spirit and we were talking about Peter making a confession in chapter 16, verse 13, and he came into the district accessory of Philippi and he was asking the disciples, what do people say?

The son of man is. And they said, some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah still others, Jeremiah, one of the prophets.

Just full stop that goes to show you how biblically ignorant the people that are speaking at the time are showing me the old

Testament references that would give, that would give them the idea that that in any way lined up with the rest of the old

Testament scriptures, you can't find it. Can you. So that's a sidebar.

Uh, and he says then, but who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, you're the

Christ, the son of living God. And he said, blessed are you, Simon Bar -Jonah, because, uh, flesh and blood did not reveal this to you.

But my father who was in heaven, I will also say to you that you are Peter. And upon this rock, I'll build my church in the gates of, of Hades shall not overcome it or overpower it.

So, uh, whenever you, you see this portion of scripture here, I don't recall what was being used.

Somebody said it was like faith. Was this a rock or something like that? And I said, no, it was the revelation of who

Jesus Christ is, is the rock. That is the thing. And, and I said that and didn't even come to my mind until it come out of my mouth, which is a weird thing, but I have pondered on that and pondered on that since then, and that revealing of who

Jesus Christ is, is the most single solitary work and doctrine of the

Holy spirit. That's how the Holy spirit begins to work on people. And on Acts chapter two, what happens when Peter preaches the gospel to those people and he reveals who

Jesus Christ is to those people and what they've done in light of who Jesus Christ is. And then they're pricked in their hearts and has asked what must we do to be saved, right?

They knew everything Peter was saying was true, but it was when it was revealed to them of what they've actually done.

And whenever Peter makes this statement that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, Jesus testifies that this is something that can't be discerned merely in the flesh, but God has revealed this to Peter.

And it's that revealing of who God is that is so foundational to God's people that hell cannot overcome that because God will reveal himself to whom he wants to, and you can't stop that.

There's not a government on the world in the world that's ever been created that can overcome God's divine sovereignty when it comes to revealing who he is to his people, and there ain't a devil that can stop it.

So I believe that that revelation of Jesus Christ is the foundation of the church, that Jesus Christ is

God. Thoughts? Well, I think you just changed my mind. Not, not because I was, um, differing between two opinions, but it's because I was,

I was taught a convincing way and, and I had not heard or thought or pondered on what you just said.

And I think it just changed my mind. And I think what you just said is a more biblical approach and, and I'll be welcome for somebody to come out and come on here and, and challenging and question us and give us something else to think about, but I really.

I really think you changed my mind on this one, or, or you led me to a better interpretation because of your, um, yielding to the

Holy spirit on this, um, interpretation because look, this is what

I was always been taught. Not, not, not that it was faith, but it was the confession confession is, is what, um, is the foundation of the church.

Not, not the Pope. That's your argument. The Pope is the foundation or, and Peter's the first Pope.

No, it's the confession, but I think you're spot on because if it's the confession, it's just as manmade as the

Pope is. Okay. If, if it's the revelation, then it's

God is still the foundation because he's the one who revealed the confession. Well, that's the only way we can know who

Jesus is. If he reveals himself to us. Right. That's right. Uh, we're, we're just too, we're, we're just too finite.

We can't, we don't have the tools to unpack who God is. Right. But I mean, that's amazing.

That's good stuff. Praise God. Yeah. Uh, so when you think about the

Christ child in zero, zero AD in Bethlehem and a manger, he chose to reveal himself in this way and always, uh, there's a word and I'm going to botch this up so bad.

It's, I don't know how to, there's a word. If you know what, say it, uh, that, that Jesus, that the

King of Kings would reveal himself to carpenters and shepherds and people in other countries who are looking for him and not reveal himself to the highest authority in the land that he was born into.

This, this thought that, that God sought out the poorest better ones or the poorest people, which would have been the better ones and, and discussed with them who he is, right, think about that for a second.

Go for it. Oh, I was, I was, I was giving a holler to Johnny. What up,

Johnny? Glad you glad you're listening.

Uh, but you know, think about it. He did not have to, he did not have to, to reveal himself to anybody.

Right. But you would think that, uh, if, if we were going to have the most important person in the world show up on the scene, we'd want to make sure the president knew about it.

We'd throw a, we'd throw some kind of parade down the street. We'd have a, I don't know.

Uh, I got some reason in my mind. I just got childish as everything. I was thinking about the movie of Latin where he was coming into Arabia or whatever, and a genie had all the elephants and the camels and stuff like that with the parade to show everybody that the

King's coming wouldn't we. And instead the angels open, open up with a massive hymn in the middle of the night sky.

And it had to have been powerful because these men that were. Sheep herders left their livestock.

The most important thing they have to go find this King. Right. The thought that God sought out the lowest and the, and the poorest and the weakest is always give me hope

Rob, right. The call it emotionalism called charismatic ism, whatever you want to call it.

But, you know, I wasn't, you know, God come after me. I didn't ever come after him.

And he, he could have, and probably should have picked more wealthy and smarter, better looking or, or, or more articulate folk to share his gospel.

But for some reason or another, he's given me an opportunity to do that. And I'm, I, I'm not worth worthy of that.

And the fact that this is the King that I serve, that he seeks after the weakest and the, and it's not nothing new in the,

I think it's Deuteronomy chapter seven, uh, round, I think it's Deuteronomy seven, seven. I think if I'm wrong, correct me, but he says something to Israel.

He said, I didn't choose you because you were the strongest and the weakest, but I chose you because you were the, the, the, the poorest and the most to be pitied or something like that.

He seeks after the, the weakest among us to be shown glorified in, in our weakness, his strength is made perfect in that way.

And, and I love that. I love that about our King that he, that, that he, he could have used anyone.

He says, you know what? I'm going to show myself mighty. And those that are the smallest and the dumbest and the poorest and the most dirty, those that are racked with guilt of their sin, and I'm going to forgive them of their sin, and I'm going to,

I'm going to pick them up and, and patch them together with love. And they're going to love me and I'm going to love them.

And I'm going to show the world what I can do with someone else to surrender.

Yeah. I think you're really hitting on something there. God's God's going to show, um,

God's going to show what he could do. He's going to show himself mighty. Um, just looking over how

God communicates to us, you know, God, God does not only communicate and has not only communicate to us by the written word on a page through oral, um, transmission, that's not been his only means of, of communication to us.

And even those things that are written down or passed down to us orally, um, God uses signs and symbols.

Um, he, he uses prophecies, all kinds of means and methods to reveal himself to us.

Um, and, and I think he's because God can save a rich man,

God can save a president. So it's not that God could only save poor people.

God was doing something else. God was showing, God was showing us something about who he is.

And if, if, if God would have been born in a palace, God would went, if he would initially have went to the, the rich, the powerful, the, the mighty themselves, we could have given credit to that, to the money, to the power, to the fame.

We could have gave credit to that, but he, he comes to the lowest of the low. He was born in the lowest of the low.

So he could, like you said, show himself mighty. Mighty said that it's all about him. No money's involved.

No power's involved. Yeah, he is the power. He is the strength. He is the salvation.

Not all these other things. That's good. And he's, he paved the way of his advent with layers of prophecy, with layers of prophecy that he would go about and fulfill.

And, and he shows up on the scene as a baby sleeping in a feeding trough whenever the wisest men seek after him and the poorest people are announced his coming.

I think that, you know, there's a lot that, that you and I, we, we, we banner back and forth on the podcast sometimes about the, the whole, uh,

Calvinism. And, you know, I'm not a Calvinist and you are, and then, then there's the election and I'm not, my thoughts are that there's something that I don't understand about it and I'm not putting,

I'm not trying to, to put a name to it or to define it to the point where I can then quantify. I don't know what

God's election looks like. Scripture says that there is, right.

But I also see that there's in this, in this picture, I see where God announces himself to people who aren't looking for him.

And then I see where people who are looking for him, find him. Right.

And, and in that, I see this, I don't know, you make up what you want to. I don't want to over,

I don't want to dig into it too deep and make something that it's not, but those who seek after the Lord, find me, he doesn't turn any of them away and I know that he, he can only be revealed, uh, by himself.

He's, he has to reveal himself to us. I know that's true. And he had revealed himself to the

Magi in some kind of way for them to look for him and to know where to find him. Right. But it looked different than the way that he revealed himself to the shepherds, which was a very in your face.

Hey, the whole of heaven has host to singing glory to God in the highest and on earth people are a goodwill toward men.

You know, uh, if you ever watched Charlie Brown, you know, the, you know, it better than I do in any way, kind of got kind of got a little sidetracked with some of it, but the concept is simple.

We're celebrating the advent of our Lord. We're celebrating the coming of Jesus Christ and how he chose to reveal himself and to, and to make sure that people understand that he's still revealing himself today in his

Holy spirit, in his word, you can read every letter of this word and it will just be letters on a page unless God reveals himself to you in it.

And that's all. And I know that that sounds silly, but you can read it and not knowing, but buddy, you better believe you can read this book and still not know who the

Lord is unless he reveals himself to you by, by his own power. And he does that to, to the third person with Trinity who we refer to as the

Holy Ghost. And it's with things like that, that I was going to yield to the trailer of, uh, the following Robert Sullivan, Jesus is

King. Yes, he is. Thank you for watching Mr. Sullivan. Uh, Robert, I'm going to let you pull whichever one of the trailers you want to pull up for, for the coming, uh, conference.

And to advertise what you're going to be discussing next Thursday, as we continue on into the

Christmas season, unless you don't want to announce it, I just used one to be a surprise. It's up to you entirely.

Oh, I'll be glad to. I wish I had these, uh, these verses pulled up, um, you in your last little, um, message there, you brought up so many things that I, that I wanted to dive into, but I think you're ready to close.

Aren't you? Well, it's, it's a 50 minute mark coming up. Uh, we're talking about Jesus.

I mess around here all night. Well, I'll just say this one thing you were talking about how, uh, how beautiful it is when you, when the

Holy spirit reveals how God has been working all things out, how God is the one who draws people and reveals himself to people and, and how he, he does that over periods of time.

And we looked at the prophecies, thought of prophecies and how Jesus fulfilled those prophecies. One thing that I learned that I found so fascinating and beautiful when, when

Dan and I on the truth love podcast, we were going through the book of Daniel, and I don't know if I've, I've mentioned this in front of you or not, but you brought up the

Magi Magi come from the East. Where was Daniel? And Daniel was

Daniel was, uh, with the Jews had been exiled. They were in Babylon. Now Jerusalem directionally is

East from, or, or they came from the

East. If they were in Babylon, they came from the East to Jerusalem.

Now in the book of Daniel, and I can't find those verses right off the bat, but in Daniel, it speaks of him and the

Magi. Yeah, now this was, this was years and years before, but what has

God given Daniel, God has given Daniel prophecy. Absolutely. And Daniel is in communication with these

Magi. How did the Magi in Babylon, Daniel probably taught them and it was passed down from generation to generation to be looking for this

Messiah to come. And these descendants of the Magi who were friends with Daniel, we're looking for the

Messiah generation after generation. I mean, it doesn't explicitly say that, but you can't help but think how beautifully

God works throughout. This again, folks are looking for him. Yeah.

He did not disappoint. Did he? That's right. He didn't. It's such a beautiful connection.

Merry Christmas to you. Yeah, brother McMath. Yes, sir.

I hope you're doing well. So you, you want to meet, you want to meet to talk about what's coming up?

Yes. I want you to go ahead and advertise the the Knoxville event that's coming up at Reformed and also want you to advertise some of the things that you have going on in your own personal ministry and podcast.

If you wanted to share anything, I wanted to make that, give you the time to do that. Right. I think that I really appreciate it.

I appreciate you. Merry Christmas, John. Johnny. Um, okay.

So Dan self and I, we do the truth love podcast coming up in December.

Uh, we've already done two. We've done an intro on pastoral ordination. Um, you, you see the gentleman who's up there giving his message.

How did he get up there? What process did he go through to be able to get up there and, and, and pastor, get that job, present the message before you all it's different in different denominations.

And we wanted to explore that. So we did the intro. The first one we did was, uh, how's the process?

What does it look like in the Southern Baptist church? The next one we're going to do is Presbyterian. And then the week after that, on the 18th, we're going to have brother big

John, big John Jones. He's going to talk about the process of ordination in the church of God.

So I'm looking forward to that conversation with him coming up. December 18th, next week, we're going to continue this

Christmas conversation, but we're going to be talking about, we may get controversial because it gets controversial every year.

We're going to bring up Santa Claus. We're going to talk about Santa Claus and our, our traditions that we, we talk about that's going to be next week,

December 14th on the laborers podcast. Um, and you want to meet to find a promo for the conference that we mentioned already, we're going to be talking about the

Holy spirit, um, next April, 20, 24 reprimand about church

Knoxville, Tennessee. Like I said, it's near Gatlinburg. It's near business forge. It's near Bucky's in Tennessee.

Um, if you want to plan out a trip where you can go visit some of those other places, we're going to be at reprimand

Baptist church, Knoxville, Tennessee. We're going to be talking about the Holy spirit and how he empowers us in life, in the church and the family and all other aspects of life.

Um, I can play the video that you made or I can play the one that I had motorcycle helmet hair in that video.

I made you, you might want to pick somebody who's looked a little bit more formal than mine. I just spent, I just spent four hours on a motorcycle head across the mountain and rain.

You know what? I'm not sure that, uh, go ahead and play mine.

If you, if you, if you don't have one pulled up, I think mine's on there. So there's

Daniel chapter two, verse two. Okay. Uh, I'm, I'm flipping with my fingers, trying not to rip my thin little delicate pages.

That is the one thing I've got sport on with the tablet is I don't have to worry about ripping the pages. Uh, now in the second year, maybe measured, uh, maybe measure had a dream and the spirit was troubling.

They slept. Then the King ordered to call the magicians and the conquerors and sorcerers and the Caldeans to tell them the source of his dream.

So the magicians is long for magi. All right. And they were

Caldeans were the wise men who were surrounding maybe

Kinezra and he was trying to get them to explain his dream. Now think about it. Uh, which

I didn't know this until you pointed this out just a second ago, but it makes total sense that Daniel schooling, all these people by the power of the

Holy spirit being on him and in his ministry, it would have been apparent to me that they would have most likely have become students of someone who taught them how, how to,

I mean, he worked there in their craft better than they could. Just like Moses was able to whip all them, uh, magicians and Pharaoh's court.

Right. With, with a stick, obviously is a little bit more than that.

They, they were sorely outgunned. They didn't have any idea they were going against God himself. Did they praise the

Lord? Brother McMahon, if you want to come to Knoxville, I see the comment. If you want to come to Knoxville, I'll take you for a round motorcycle.

Maybe two big guys. Oh man.

Do you want me to play the minute and 23 or the 32 second? The minute 23 has the message clips from this year's conference.

That's that's up to you entirely. It's up to you. Here we go. Here's the promo for next year's conference.

My sincerest apologies. That was not mine. That was Tyler's. Tyler made that one. Yeah, that's a good one.

That's real smooth. That's right. I'll have to get mine up there. I have to find that one.

I can, I compiled a little clips of everybody's message from this year's conference and put it together to make a promo for next year's conference.

I saw that it's pretty neat. That's a lot of computer gymnastics. I'm not, I don't think it's fun, but, uh, brother,

Robert, I want to thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for, for a couple of things. Uh, one for coming on tonight and putting up with absolutely zero preparation with, uh, the flying completely by the seat of our pants mentality that we have here.

Uh, also just so that I can say that I've done it publicly. There's a, there's a lot of things that you do that is behind the scenes.

It's understated and, uh, you, you allow, you allow me to be a part of the truth and love network, and I appreciate that, uh, as well as all the, all the things that you're doing for, for the unborn that, uh, that I'm sure the

Lord recognizes, and I know that those whose lives have been changed and saved by it are very thankful for it. The, uh, there's a lot of ministry that gets done amongst the guys in a group that there's almost zero recognition for, and I know that y 'all don't want the recognition for it, but I'm thankful to partner with, with fellows like y 'all and, uh, and yours especially and the work that you've done and how you've, you've helped me become a better student of God's word, and I'm eternally grateful for that.

And, uh, I know that you wouldn't have allowed me to say that if I'd told you I was going to do it, but I want to make sure that I could do it uninterrupted.

And, uh, and I appreciate your friendship and I appreciate your brotherhood. Well, the feeling is equally and absolutely mutual and it's just all about the

Lord, like you've already stated. We could do nothing apart from Christ. We could do nothing. Amen.

Amen. God is good all the time. You want to share the gospel and then we'll go ahead and, uh, let everybody have a

Merry Christmas and we'll come back next Thursday. Absolutely. Take it away. I mean, we, we've stated already, uh, the simple fact of what scripture,

God teaches us through scripture, uh, that, that we've learned that the Holy Spirit has revealed to us that, that we have missed his mark.

If the standard that there is to be right with God, to, to know him, we've completely blown it and there's no making up for it there because we have sinned because we missed that mark.

And I always reflect on James chapter two, verse 10. Anytime that I, I feel like I might have some kind of something in me.

I remember James chapter two, verse 10. You can keep the whole law and yet stumble at one point.

You're guilty of it all. And I'm thrown back down to the dirt where I belong. And I, I belong worse than thrown on the dirt because God is eternally holy.

It's right and just for the punishment to be eternal. And all that he has made it because of who he is and what we've done, our disobedience against him.

That is terribly bad news for us. And the Holy we're praying that the

Holy spirit will reveal that to you and open your eyes to see how depraved and how sinful and how wretched that we, we really are.

And the reason, and that's almost like giving credit to us that, um, look at our simpleness.

The only reason that our simpleness exceeds anything that's any evil that you could ever imagine is because God is so holy.

It all goes back to him. That's why our sin is so simple is because God is so holy and we deserve his wrath.

That's the position that we're in. We've broken all of his commandments. You go through every single one of them.

We've, we've broken them all numerous times. All of us are guilty before Holy God.

The John wanted me to share the gospel. He wanted me to share the good news. And that's what we get to lead into.

That's what we get to celebrate the good news of God that he would love us so much that he would send his one only son that everyone believing in him would not perish, but have everlasting life.

So the call and command and admonition and pleading is for you to believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ, to trust in him and the salvation that he offers and brings to us, repent of your sins, turn from them and believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says that you will be saved. You'll be brought out of darkness into light.

You'll be made a new creature and you will be able to have the freedom then to live for him, not the freedom to live however you want to live, but the freedom to live in obedience to the ways that he has also given us.

And we're so fortunate because of him to be able to share it with you. That's the good news of Jesus Christ.

Amen. Let's pray. Father, we're so thankful. We're thankful for all that you've done and all that you're going to do.

Lord, I thank you for your gospel. I thank you for this time of year that we we spend or should spend more time of it focusing on you and your desire to come after us, your desire to save us and to make us like you.

Lord, I thank you. I praise your holy name. I pray that if there'd be anyone who listened that don't know you, that they'd come to know you today,

Lord, and those that do know you, I pray that you would become even more real to their life and even more strong in their heart,

Lord, and make them more like you. And it's in Jesus' mighty name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Thank y 'all for sticking around. Brother Rob, it's been real talk, ain't it? That's right. I'm Big John and we'll see you next time.