The Wrath of the Lamb

Greetings, welcome to the Dividing Line. Another week. This week, the plan is Monday, Friday, Monday, Friday.

I'm actually doing some traveling. It's only by car, because not doing the other way.

But remember back in June, July, back, you know, we're doing lots and lots and lots, lots of programs.

Well, part of the reason we could do that is because my normal time to be gone in July, up to Colorado, Utah, was, of course, called off because of everything going on and in our society right now.

And which I think is just going to stay this way and actually intensify between now and the end of the year.

Maybe we'll talk a little bit more about that. I tweeted something about that. Maybe we'll talk about that in a moment anyway.

Anyway, so I'm actually cramming everything into the next two weeks, not mentioning where I'm going just for obvious safety reasons.

Unfortunately, I wish I could, but we'll we'll post some things afterwards. But doing some absolutely insane things, if you want to pray, pray for my knees.

I remember a couple of years ago when I went to Colorado, I did 60, 65 ,000 feet of climbing over about two, three weeks.

That's a lot. But I'm looking at doing 30 ,000 feet over two, three days next week.

So that'll be great if this aging body can survive it.

And I have no reason to believe that I won't. I haven't had any problems with that at all, but you

I'm a realist, so I keep those things in mind. So anyway, Monday, Friday, this week,

I'm not sure what's going to be available. We not be it may not be able to do anything other than I do want to try to like post something.

Maybe something I record and make available that way. I'm not sure how to do that in the dividing line feed, but maybe we can figure something out.

I don't know. But so we'll see. That's just a little bit of a thought as to what's coming up.

You know, there's a text of scripture I've referred to a number of times before in the book of the

New Testament, for which we have the fewest manuscripts in history. And that should tell you that I am talking about the book of Revelation, the

Apocalypse. And in chapter six, remember chapters four and five, you have

John's vision of the worship of God in heaven.

And so before that, you have the letters of the churches. And then chapters four and five, you have what's really the same, you know,

I'm not going to blame whoever divided up chapters, but it's pretty much the same vision.

You could call it two different parts, I suppose. But you have the worship of God in chapter four, lots of hearkening back to Isaiah chapter six, and then chapter five, this amazing thing, the scroll with the seals, and no one's found worthy, and John weeps, and then he's told, stop weeping, and here is the lamb standing as a sling.

And by the end of the chapter, you have the entirety of the created order worshiping the lamb and he who sits upon the throne.

And so this is a revelation that must be understood to really get a solid grasp of New Testament as a whole and its view of God.

People think that there's like this new revelation of God in the New Testament. No, it's not some new revelation of God.

It is a deeper revelation of the one God who's already revealed himself in the

Tanakh, in the Hebrew scriptures. And there are prophetic indications of this reality to be found in Isaiah and the other prophets and all the way back to Genesis for that matter.

So you have that in chapters four and five, and then in chapter six, the scroll begins to be opened.

The seals are opened. Now, one thing that certainly impacted my development in my reading of scripture and my understanding of things is the recognition that a book first and foremost must be seen to have meaning at the time in which it was written.

To posit that most biblical books didn't mean anything to the people who first read them or could not, or the people who first read them could never have understood what in the world it was saying until some later period of time and further world developments and all the rest of this kind of stuff really opens up the door to a lot of abuse of scripture.

And for me, it was being forced to do consistent exegesis by dealing with cults and isms by, you know, a lot of my fellow

Bible college students were just, you know, they're just in the local

Southern Baptist church. They're not being challenged on hermeneutics and exegesis and original languages, and they're not encountering other ways of interpreting scripture.

I was facing that from the start and hence immediately recognized the absolute necessity of consistency because, you know,

I've got the Mormons I'm talking to over here and then very quickly after that, the Jehovah's Witnesses over there and not long after that, the

Roman Catholics are coming the other direction with a whole other set of presuppositions and denial of the sufficiency of scripture and things like that.

And along with that came church history, eventually, thankfully, and the recognition that Christians down through the ages, down through the church history anyways, have tended to try to turn scripture into a lens through which they are to read the headlines of the morning paper in our day or whatever the town crier was announcing in an earlier time period.

Every generation going back into the medieval period and before tried to take scripture and say, this is about us because there's a sense in which it's true.

It's always about us in the sense that there's always divine truths that are to be applied to every generation.

So there is that kind of sense, but especially in interpretation of apocalyptic literature or in application of prophetic things, certainly during the plagues of the 14th century, the time, the turning of the millennium, there were all sorts of folks who were going, okay, this is it.

This has got to be it. You know, this is how you've always understood this. This is how it's all going to shake down.

And so this must represent this and this represents over that. And we look back at that now and go, but I can still remember,

I've mentioned it over and over again. I still remember coming out of church at North Phoenix Baptist Church in 1983 -ish.

And here's this booklet, this pamphlet underneath the windshield wiper on my car.

And it's, well, maybe it was a little after that. Was that the 88 reasons?

It was either 88 or 84. It just, they hit the whole parking lot with this booklet about why the rapture was going to take place the next year.

And it all involved reading everything as if when the book of Revelation was written, everybody just looked at it and went, what on earth is that?

John, you feeling okay, man? Was the pork last night bad? What's going on?

That's just what it was all about. And I don't remember if that one had anything to do with Henry Kissinger or not, but everybody, you know, he's still alive.

That's an amazing thing to me. It does sort of make you wonder because I remember people identifying him with the

Antichrist and he's still kicking. It's like he can't die.

How old is he? 135 now? Something like that. That would start making you go,

I wonder if there's something about that, you know? So 1948 plus 40 years,

Israel, 1988, one generation, you know, the whole nine yards, yeah.

So when you actually become convinced that you need to find out what a book like Revelation meant when it was written, first and foremost, if you want to argue that what it meant to the early church is one thing, but then it totally changes meanings down the road or there's some type of cryptic hidden secret

Gnostic meaning or something, that's fine, whatever. But you have to start with what it meant at the time, you know, when

John sends this book off from the

Isle of Patmos, if that's where he was when he finished it up or whatever, and wants it to be read by his circle of disciples.

Does he want them to have any idea what it means? Does he want to just get notes back from everybody going, huh?

I do that a lot now. The older I get, I'll get text messages. And like Rich sent me a text message this morning and he threw a bunch of names out

And my response was, huh? Insufficient, I see is going to be my response to everybody now, insufficient context.

You got it. You got to give me a little more information as to, you know, exactly what is needed here.

I'm not getting it. Well, yeah. And unfortunately, I've been talking to a bunch of other people since then.

So that's all there is to it. So I used to do a lot of, huh? These days.

And is that what John wanted? Did he want everybody who read this to go, what are you talking about?

Or did he write it in such a way that they would go, oh, yeah, well, that's encouraging.

Yeah. You know, John's. That's right. Boy, we hadn't. That's that. How would this have been encouraging?

So this one particular text in the sixth chapter of the Book of Revelation, let me just read it to you.

And this doesn't have a whole lot to do with the fact that every morning for the past couple of mornings, as we have gotten up and I've tweeted a number of these pictures, the sun doesn't rise at sunrise, can't see it.

And then once it finally drives its way through the wall of smoke at high altitude that has covered

Arizona now forever, it's just this dull. Orange ball that you can look right at.

It's just that dull. It's just. Well, I've seen brighter. I've honestly seen brighter full moons than when the sun first first appeared on Saturday.

Saturday, I climbed South Mountain and I was at the top of the mountain when it came up and it's just like. Yeah, when that picture wild as an incredible, very, very strange stuff.

So that's not what made me think of this. Honestly, I'm not making a connection. Revelation 612.

I looked when he broke the sixth seal and there was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth made of hair and the whole moon became like blood and the stars.

The sky fell to the earth as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. The sky was split apart like a scroll when it was rolled up and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.

Now let me just stop for a second. And just point out the obvious that this is allegorical language.

Stars don't fall to the earth. Every star that I know of is considerably larger than the earth.

And every star that I know of would consume the earth were it to fall to the earth or if the earth were to fall into the star.

Our star is many, many, many times the size of the earth.

And so stars can't fall to the earth. And the sky was split apart like a scroll when it was rolled up.

These are obviously, this is language you'll find throughout the prophets talking about judgment.

God's judgment coming upon nations. God's judgment coming upon Israel.

There are different aspects that you'll find utilized. And what you have here is the creatureliness of creation.

Every mountain and island were moved out of their places. Well, mountains and islands, to us, those are things that never, ever, ever changed, never moved.

But they're all moved because everything that mankind thought was unmovable and firm and sure gets shaken.

Sort of like today. Sort of like in our own day, this is taking place.

And of course, the star is the sky. How do ships at sea, how did ships at sea, how did they navigate in the ancient world?

Now today we've got GPS. Well, until you know that the new form of warfare involves shooting down your enemies by satellites.

And so everything we have that's GPS could disappear before long.

So but you know, we think all that's certain, right? But how did they navigate in the past?

They navigated by the stars. Well, how could you navigate by the stars? Because they were always in the same place.

That's why. That's why planets stood out over against the stars.

The constellations were always the constellations. They always rose and set the exact same time, the same time of each year.

That's how you knew what the year was. But the planets from the Greek term plano, to wander, went their own way.

And sometimes they went this way and sometimes they went that way because of the orbit around the sun.

Sorry, for those of you flat earthers out there, they're a little confused, but can't help you out much anyway.

And so there was a firmness. So if they fall to the earth, then the entire created order has been shaken and has been is being changed.

Judgment is taking place as that's what you got going here. Then the kings of the earth.

So you've got the most powerful people there are. The kings of the earth and the great men, the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks and mountains.

So what's that? Well, that's all of society from top to bottom and everything in between.

So you've got the kings of the earth, the great men, the commanders, the rich, strong, even the slave and the free man, the entirety of society.

They hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks, the mountains. And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the presence of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb for the great day of their wrath has come.

And who is able to stand? So I've said many times,

I think one of the most striking images in all of scripture, honestly, is this image of the wrath of the lamb, the wrath of the lamb.

That is a phrase that only has meaning here in this context.

Once you understand who the lamb is, what the lamb has done, the nature of the lamb as the

God man, the resurrection, the place of intercession before the father, the power, the fact that he is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the first and last.

You put all that together and the wrath of the lamb is understandable. The time of his judgment has come.

All judgment has been entrusted to him and he is the perfect one to whom to entrust all judgment.

It makes perfect sense when you have the context. But still the wrath of the lamb.

Now let's say a copy of this got intercepted by a

Roman soldier 200 years after this, because that's about when the worst persecution would be taking place. It was still about 200 years down the road.

Seriously, this is, depending on how you date it, there are people who date it pre -70, there are people who date it late for a century, mid -90s.

No matter what, 200 years later, let's say the 260s or the 290s, either one, you're smack dab in the middle of the worst period of persecution that the church is going to experience, at least under the

Roman Empire at that time. So that type of persecution had not yet become empire -wide, but it would eventually.

It would eventually gain that kind of level of intensity. But it has started in the first century.

The persecution, it's reflected in some of the wording of the letters to the churches in the first chapters of the book.

And so here is this wrath of God being poured out. And how would that be encouraging to anyone?

If a Roman soldier found this and read this, how would he have any idea what it's talking about?

The wrath of the Lamb. He would think some crazy people on some type of pharmaceuticals had written this stuff.

He wouldn't have any idea. But the Christian has the context in which to place this to understand, oh yeah, the wrath of the

Lamb. And since these people would know all about the Old Testament, they would know that, for example, verse 16 here, verse 16 is coming from Hosea.

So in fact, again, this is one of the reasons I've highly suggested this. If you have a

Bible translation that places Old Testament citations in italics or bold block or whatever, it's really helpful.

But what would this have said to the people who first received this letter and indeed to all

Christians for the next 250 some odd years, nearly a quarter of a millennium?

What would it have meant to them? What would it have said to them? Put yourself amongst the

Christians who were slaughtered in Lyon around 180 -ish, probably when

Irenaeus loses his life. Some famous stories of the people being fed to the lions there.

Put yourself amongst the survivors of that, the ones who weren't taken, but they lost their loved ones.

Now read the book of Revelation. What's it saying to you? What's the encouragement? What does it mean to know that justice will be done?

What does it mean to know that Jesus will judge and he will judge all men, kings of the earth, great men, commanders, rich and strong, slave and free, will all tremble at the expression of his wrath?

There is also in this section the martyrs, the souls under the altar.

How long? How long, O Lord? All of these things would have direct meaning to the people at that time and it's primarily a message of hope, remain faithful in the midst of trial and difficulty, and the fact that when you look at the book of Revelation, there's all sorts of activities of mankind, but they're futile.

Kings and emperors and entire empires thrown down by God cannot even begin to stop the purposes of God.

And the very fact that they stand against those purposes of God brings about their destruction.

Brings about their destruction. When you want to hear that in that context, it says a lot to the pilgrim church, to the church that is facing an uncertain future.

Can you imagine what it was like to be in the first century church? You have no church history, you have the people of Israel, but you have no history of a people going out into all the world.

You don't have those shoulders of giants to stand on. And you have the largest, most powerful empire in the world arrayed against you, swearing your own destruction.

Doesn't look overly promising, does it? But think what has happened since then.

Think how many times our forefathers have been absolutely convinced this is it.

This has got to be it. This has got to be it. I mean, plague wipes out 50 to 75 % of everybody in Europe.

It's got to be it. This is, this is, if this isn't the, one of the horses of the apocalypse, it's all of them at the same time, right?

So many things have happened in church history that convinced good people at the time, this is it.

And yet here we are. Here we are. And I know the tendency for me is to look at the future and go, oh man, because I, I've got a healthy understanding of the depravity of man,

I know my own heart. And so I look at, I look at what's going on and I go, well, this could happen and that could happen.

And these people want to do this. And sadly, most of the time I'm right, but still it's so easy to go, well, this is it.

This is, time's up. And every generation has done it.

Every generation has done it. Has seen that this has got to be it, wrapping things up, can't get any worse.

It could get worse. So let's wrap it up now, that type of thing. And yet the message is, the message of the book of Revelation is

Jesus, there's a scroll. It's written. He's sovereign.

And when the one who is faithful and true rides out upon his horse to finally wrap everything up, nobody can stop him.

But you see, it was all written from the, from the first. There's a purpose from the beginning. Once you understand the sovereignty of God, it changes everything, absolutely changes everything.

One of the things I'm certainly thinking of these days as the world around us just seems to get crazier and crazier and crazier and crazier.

Let me just, thank you.

You didn't see me do that, did you? I did that so fast. Actually, I think I'm getting arthritis in my right thumb.

I can't type as fast as I used to. Getting old. I'm getting old.

I was, what was the context? Oh yeah,

I was preaching and I kept talking about people that I've interacted with and refuted and then

I realized, he's dead. Oh, that guy's dead. Well, think about it.

I was preaching on the big three in John 3, 16, Sunday night, last night at Apologia.

And so I'm talking about Dave Hunt and Norm Geisler who are no longer with us, you know?

And not that far. I know you'd like to think that, but, and then I thought of somebody else and they were gone too.

And it was like, okay, yeah, well, there's, we've been at this a while.

So, anyway, I ran across this,

I think my daughter linked to it at some point. Someone named

Kaylee Mae Carroll, four days ago, maybe five days ago now. One of our dear brothers,

Zach Conover, who is pastoring and really missionarying in Kauai.

Just such an incredibly hard area. Just wow. You might say, oh yeah, sure.

No, no, it is incredibly difficult to proclaim the gospel in that place.

There's a huge amount of false teaching, huge amount of false religion, and just such an animosity toward the gospel.

It's astonishing. But we had dinner last night at Summer's house.

And so he was able to confirm a lot of this stuff. But here is a woman in Oahu, in Hawaii.

Hawaii's lockdown, see, people who live in Hawaii already have, and I noticed this when

I visited a few times that I have, already have a bit of a we're stranded out here mentality as it is.

And so you then lock everybody in their houses and it only makes it a whole lot worse.

Hawaii's economy is, for all intents and purposes, dead. Because there's no tourism.

And everybody worked in the tourism industry and it's pretty much dead. It's been killed by, purposefully killed, by the leftist leaders in the state.

And the lockdowns they're doing are just as draconian as what you're seeing in Melbourne, Australia, and places like that.

So, here's what she posts, I'm just going to reiterate because you can't make this stuff up. I just called our

Oahu COVID hotline for clarification on the new orders. Isn't this great? What are our orders?

Because, this is long, bear with me. Here is my conversation with the man who answered my call as follows, me,

I just wanted to clarify under the new orders, my husband, whom I am legally married to and have created child with, cannot be on the beach with me, correct?

Guy. That is correct. From what I've been told, you need to be far enough away to avoid interaction.

Me, can you define interaction? Guy. The example given to me was, if you were to be near someone who is smoking, far enough away you wouldn't be able to distinguish the smell of smoke.

Now let me stop right there. Say, I've got a neighbor who smokes. That is a long ways away in the morning when there's a slight easterly breeze.

That thing will carry forever. Okay, I continue. Me. Okay, thanks.

To clarify, the new order is not about COVID, but about helping enforcement, correct? Guy. From my understanding, it's a bit of both, but yes, to mainly help with enforcement.

If groups or families were allowed to gather, it's much harder to distinguish family from friends. Me. Gotcha.

So if my husband was at the beach with me and the police cited us, but we showed government issued

IDs showing the same last name and residence, would that hold up in court? Guy. Uh, no.

Legally, they can still give you a citation. Me. Okay. Thanks. Next question. I have a 12 month old son and struggle with PPD and PPA.

The beach is a free therapeutic tool for my mental health. What am I supposed to do with my baby? I can't leave him in a hot car or at home unassisted.

So am I just SOL? So out of luck, I hope. Guy. Yeah, that's a tough predicament.

You wouldn't be able to sit on the beach with him, but if you had kids, you could be on the beach while your kids are in the water.

Or if infants, the rule doesn't really apply. You could be in the shallow water, like just a foot or so deep.

Me. Wait, at what age does it apply or not apply? Guy. Well, the orders don't provide an age.

So legally speaking, if you were on the beach with your son, you could get a citation. Me. Okay.

My son is exclusively breastfed on demand. If I need to sit down to feed him because he weighs 25 pounds, can

I sit on the beach to feed him or do I have to be in the water? Guy. Legally, you cannot feed him on the beach.

It would have to be done in the car beforehand or like you said, in the water. Me. Jaw drops.

Okay. Thanks for clarifying. Two more questions. We can now hike legally, but only alone, correct?

Isn't it not recommended to hike alone due to safety concerns, especially as an alone woman? Do I have no options to hike then?

Guy. Yes, you can hike alone if the hiker's response, it's the hiker's responsibility to determine safety risks and benefits of hiking.

We leave that up to your discretion. Me. So if something happens to me, say I get assaulted while hiking alone,

I assume the government has no liability then. Does this mandate not discriminate against families of small children and women and favor those who are single males and have the luxury to do things alone with a sense of safety?

Guy. Uh, yes, we would have no liability as it's the hiker's responsibility.

I can't personally say if it's discriminatory. My job is only to clarify the rules. You do make many valid points and I hear you.

And then she says, we ended the call by him saying he hears me on how hard isolation can be and gave me a website for mental health resources.

Take this conversation for whatever it's worth, but this is what it's like to be a new mom living in Hawaii right now, alone, separated from family and friends.

Life feels pretty bleak and my heart goes out to all the moms who just gave birth and will have to deal with the throes of postpartum and the responsibility of a completely dependent human on top of this insanity.

So did you catch John MacArthur's sermon yesterday? I didn't catch all of it. I only caught the very end.

I caught, I caught the part, no, I caught the beginning, the very, very beginning where everybody applauds when he shows up, he's showing up to church, like he said he would.

And then I caught like the last seven minutes, I didn't catch anything in between.

And what was really funny was in that last seven minutes, there was a point at which he quoted from the scriptures and said, for a leader to be blessed by God, he must worship the one true

God of scripture. And I wasn't the only one immediately running off to Twitter or Facebook and everything else going, did you hear that?

Yeah, I, yes, I heard that. It was great. It was wonderful. But it was like, hmm, who says that?

But at the beginning, as part of his apologetic for defying another judge's orders, he went through what the

County of Los Angeles has demanded of Grace Community Church. If they were to meet, did you say, do you hear this?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was absolute insanity.

I mean, you're talking stuff like people should use the restrooms and of course you have to be six feet away from anyone in a restroom, but people should use the restrooms during the sermon rather than rushing in before or after it should be done during the sermon and no hymnals, no

Bibles, no passing of plates, no singing. Once you put it all together, it was painfully obvious what was, oh, and every other parking space empty.

Now they just canceled their how long 50 year contract they had had with the, with the, with the

County for their parking place anyways. And so you can't park and you, what?

Yes. Yeah. I'd have restroom monitors. Yes. I, I, the only restroom, yeah, the only restroom monitors that I, I, I know of are the guys in like the

Atlanta airport that wants you to give them a buck every time you walk out or something, I guess. I don't know. Um, but yeah.

Hey, you, you, you move over a little bit. So any sane person knows that, uh, the, the, the

County is saying, no, you, you cannot meet, period. End of discussion. It's just, it's just, and that, that reminded me, um, where, oh, did

I not save that? Oh, there it is. There it is. There it is. Let me, let me, let me, let me,

I'm sorry. I have to do this. I, I just, I can't, I can't avoid this.

Uh, here is a, um, from the CDC. Here is a tweet. It looks like a tweet from the

CDC or it's on their website. I don't know. Cloth masks that are used to slow the spread of COVID -19 offer little protection against wild wildfire smoke.

They do not catch small particles found in wild wildfire smoke that can harm your health. Limit your time outside when it's smoky.

Learn how you can protect yourself from wildfire smoke followed by a link coronavirus disease 2019

COVID -19. Now when I saw this,

I just, I did what I just did now, um, because we've just, we've just been faced with so much insanity for so long now that eventually you just have to decide you're going to laugh or cry or just exit the world violently.

Um, the, uh, the particles found in wildfire smoke are at least 10 times bigger than any virus.

Okay. So the mask can't protect you from the particles of smoke, but they can protect you from COVID -19.

Right. So here's, don't, don't, don't, don't jump on me too quick.

I know what the argument is. I've been reading about this stuff for a long time now. And the more I read, the more convinced

I am that we have been absolutely lied to through the proverbial teeth constantly.

And it's going, it's going to keep, and it's going to keep going on. It's not going to stop. It's not going to stop because it's willful.

It's a, it's a willful act. The argument is, well, yes, we're not saying that these cotton masks can actually stop

COVID -19 because they can't stop dust fire particles either. But what they can stop are the suspended droplets of moisture that contain

COVID -19, see, which are much larger, see. And where do these droplets come from?

Well, they come from sneezing and coughing, sneezing and coughing. Very violent.

I mean, do you remember when you were a kid and you had one of those really bad colds and you, you just sneezed and nailed the wall across the room?

Gross as that is? You remember? Don't, don't lie to me. You remember?

Sneezing is incredibly violent. So is coughing. Not as violent, but, but you remember when you've had the, that, that, that type of respiratory cough that just lasts for weeks and eventually you're, every time you cough, it's like, oh, oh, cause it just, your, your, your diaphragm is just shot.

All their muscles are strained and pulled. Okay. We all remember that? That happened all before COVID, thankfully

COVID has wiped all that out. Nobody gets sick of anything anymore other than COVID. We all know that.

But so that's true. And so you can expel droplets for a long ways when you sneeze and you cough.

If you're sneezing and coughing, what does that make you? Symptomatic. You have symptoms.

So what good is the mask on an asymptomatic person?

Cause that's the whole thing is we all have to mask up because of asymptomatic transmission.

But the CDC says it can't even stop smoke particles. And if I'm not coughing or sneezing, then it's not going to stop coronavirus, coronavirus cells, well, viri.

So why are we making, what would that be? 95 % by the

CDC's own admission is irrelevant, isn't it? Has no meaning. None.

Yep. That's right. That's right. And when

I talk to folks, look, I know what the answers are. And it's, it all ends up in this giant circle that ends up with, well, just, just love your neighbor.

Yeah. That's, that's why we have storm troopers in Melbourne arresting people and forcibly masking them.

Cause they're stopping coronavirus, right? You believe that.

Okay. All right. What can I say? What can I say? Okay. Thankfully, I would like to thank the folks who responded to this because I, I don't,

I didn't understand the language yesterday. Okay. Jamar Tisby.

Now, some of you don't know who Jamar Tisby is, Dr. Tisby used to, he founded what was called

RAN, R -A -N, the Reformed African -American Network, which has now become The Witness.

But it was once about African -Americans and reformed theology and stuff like that.

And years ago, there was a wonderful, beautiful connection between the reformed community and all sorts of African -American men and women.

And there was, there was fellowship and brotherhood and sisterhood and reformed theology was being rapped about and Puritans were being read and yes,

Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield were being read and appreciated as brothers in Christ and reading

Edwards' resolutions, which if anyone has, you're so deeply challenged by what they say and by how far short of the vast majority of them we all fall and, and just the maturity of a young man at that point in time.

And my how things have changed between 2010 and 2020, over the past 10 years, just go back and look at what

Jamar Tisby was saying and doing 10 years ago and listen to him now. Listen to the many people who are consigning

Jonathan Edwards to the flames of hell today. No longer a

Christian, same with Whitfield, tear down their statues, stop talking about them, all because of the rise of woke

Christianity. And so evidently

Pat Robertson and a lot of people go, he's still alive. Yep.

Yep. Pat Robertson is still alive. Evidently Pat Robertson said something about Black Lives Matter and said that Black Lives Matter is seeking to destroy the country and destroy

Christianity. Now Pat Robertson says a lot of things that I just shake my head at and go, what?

But I would agree with him 1000 % that that is the ultimate intention of the

Black Lives Matter movement. It's, it's a Marxist movement. Marxism is always opposed to the Christian faith. It will use gullible

Christians in its initial stages, but will purge them eventually.

Just read history, just, just, in fact, I checked it out and it's not 1000 % verifiable, but it is in a number of different sources that, who coauthored the

Communist Manifesto? Engels. Engels was much more of a stable person than Marx was.

Marx was just a complete freeloader. I mean, complete freeloader. I mean, this guy had an aversion to working that is astonishing and Engels kept him going many times, along with Marx's family.

Anyway, the story is told, and I saw, I found a couple different sources, doesn't necessarily mean that it's the case, but there's no reason to actually question it.

The story is told that while playing a parlor game that would ask you questions,

Engels was asked, who in this world do you hate the most?

And his answer was one word and quick, Spurgeon. Spurgeon.

Because remember, Marx and Engels are in London at the same time Spurgeon is. And Marx and Engels are trying to foment a, what we would call a communist

Marxist revolution. At the same time, the most popular preacher in London is

Charles Haddon Spurgeon. And Spurgeon, I did not know this until recently,

Spurgeon took on socialism in his preaching. Yes, Spurgeon actually addressed political issues from the pulpit and identified the anti -Christian presuppositions in the kind of Marxist, rebellious, discontentment, violence, destruction, everything we're seeing going on right now under the name of BLM and Antifa.

Spurgeon preached against in London, so much so that that was the answer given.

Who do you hate the most? Spurgeon. Because it was clearly recognized that if the populace embraced the worldview that Spurgeon was presenting, they would never embrace the worldview being presented by Marx and Engels.

They would never do it. It's the antithesis. And it is. And it is today.

So, in this statement from Black Lives Matter, which Jamar Tisby is promoting to people, he's sending this out to people, see, here's what

Black Lives Matter says. We, Black Lives Matter even demands an apology from Pat Robertson.

Pat Robertson, sir, don't you dare. Don't you dare.

But here is the quote from the article that Jamar Tisby quoted.

To insinuate that our movement is trying to destroy Christianity is disgraceful and outright offends our

Christian siblings who are a part of our movement against racial injustice, end quote.

Well, I looked up the article and I started reading through it and I got just a tad bit confused, to be honest with you.

And I started looking around for a definition.

And thankfully, Samuel Say and some others were kind enough to help me with this.

But here's the section.

We believe those of all religious views and backgrounds or disbelief, all genders are equal.

Black lives, notice all genders, not the genders, male, female, but all genders, whatever those would include.

All genders are equal. Black lives not being eradicated using guns and knees in our necks.

Now, of course, I would just stop and point out, I think the death toll was 11.

Was it 11 this weekend in Chicago? And I forgot what the numbers were, 60, 70 shot, 11 fatalities, all black, almost all gang violence.

I think it was all gang violence. BLM isn't in Chicago, isn't patrolling the streets.

They're in other cities burning buildings down because they're Marxists.

The irony of Marxism is people don't remember what was the name of the primary organ of propaganda of the

Russian communist government? Pravda. Pravda means truth in Russian.

And so Pravda was known as being the least Pravda thing that there was.

And everybody knew it. If Pravda printed it, you knew it was a lie. Everybody knew it.

Everybody in Russia knew it. Everybody working at Pravda knew it. And so what everybody needs to know is

Black Lives Matter does not care about black lives. They will sacrifice them all they want because they are

Marxists. They are seeking the destruction of a capitalist system, which they consider to be the greatest evil that there is.

They want to bring in the communist utopia. And there is no such thing as a communist utopia.

So it always ends up in the same thing. Soul destroying totalitarianism and tyranny. And that's what they're doing.

So when I say using guns, the black community kills more of its own with guns every weekend in one city than are killed by cops in six months.

Easily. Do they care? Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope.

The elimination of the constant betrayal of our poor and oppressed communities, and certainly continuing to foster a united country that works for everyone despite their actual or perceived sexual identity.

I'm just reading it. For everyone, despite their actual or perceived sexual identity.

Gender identity. Gender expression. Economic status.

Disability. Immigration status. Or intergenerational way of life.

And so I was like, what is intergenerational way of life?

This is scary to me in light of what's going on with Netflix. Okay? Yeah, what's that?

And so Samuel explained to me what it actually is.

And it's not that. At least not at the moment, it's not that. That it's...

Let me see here. I hate when it scrolls down and does stuff like this.

But basically it is like in the African community, the grandparents and grandchildren and all the rest are all together as one.

I don't know how any of that works, actually, in light of the fact that fathers are being removed from the context of families and everything else.

So I don't know how any of that works. But at least for the moment, it's not what you could have imagined it actually to refer to.

Because there is a use of that term, intergenerational love, that is about pedophilia.

Which is obviously... You'd have to be living under a rock to have not heard...

Well, I'll take that back. Erase that. If you haven't heard, it's because the media doesn't want to talk about it.

But there have been an amazing number of rescues of exploited children over the past number of weeks.

And you're talking 30, 40, 50 at a time in one place. All happening right after that chick gets arrested.

Isn't that interesting? Yeah, there's something going on there.

But don't ask any of the major media to even touch with a 10 -foot pole, because they're scared to death to do it.

So you only find out about it through secondary means. But anyway, just even what

I read there, the terminology. So actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economics...

Can you have anything more destructive to humanity than this cocktail of critical theory, intersectionality, looniness?

And this is being tweeted by Jamar Tisby, who never would have even thought about doing this 10 years ago.

But now it's happening. Now this is where these folks are going.

And there doesn't seem to be any stopping place. There does not seem to be any get -off -here type...

You can get off the crazy train here, the crazy train just keeps on going. And it keeps on going to the left.

And it's a sad, sad, sad thing to see. But anyway,

I just found that an amazing thing to observe, given how many people

I can look back upon only 10 years ago. Totally different perspective than they present now.

Totally different perspective. And the speed at which things are changing is amazing.

Anyway, yes? Oh, I thought you did put your hand up and something like that.

One last thing as we're wrapping up the program here. There had been some discussion of changing the announced debate that is supposed to be

October 2nd and 3rd, Friday night, Saturday morning, between myself and Dr.

Riddle. On the long writing of Mark and Ephesians 3 .9 in light of the claims of modern text criticism and the

TR -only position. There had been some discussion of actually doing a live debate here in Phoenix.

I have said no to that as of this weekend, simply because I discovered that to be fair in this situation was to...

One particular individual, Samuel, who you will recall moderated the discussion

Stephen Boyce and I had on the TR, and also moderated the apologetics thing.

He's the one that's been doing all the work, and he is a seminary student. I think at Southwestern.

I'm surprised he's survived having me on the program as many times as he has now.

My concern had been, it was actually being discussed, local church, fly

Dr. Riddle out and Samuel out, so on and so forth. My concern arose when there were financial issues and time issues.

Samuel's a student. He's in seminary. I remember being in seminary. It was very challenging.

If you're in the middle of the semester, you're already working on stuff, missing classes and missing time.

Just to come out here, and then at a very small location, still the vast majority of people just have to wait for the upload anyways.

It just does not make any sense to me whatsoever to impose upon Samuel specifically in the way that was being suggested.

What would be the benefit? If there is ever a change in, let's just say after the new year.

Wouldn't it be nice if after the new year we had some idea what the future was going to look like?

Isn't it sad that that's where we are? Honestly, I do not think that November 4th is going to bring clarity.

I don't believe it for a second. It's going to be far crazier on November 4th than it will be on November 2nd.

I think most people agree with me on that. I don't know how long that's going to take to work through or what it's going to look like when it is worked through.

I don't know if there's going to be one nation when that is worked through. So could we put it off?

We're still going to do the thing online, 2nd and 3rd. But if the nation survives, if travel becomes something other than the masked zombie exodus that it is now, then

I'm all for doing a full -on debate. I do not believe the

TR -only position can survive cross -examination. I think that will come out in the 2nd and the 3rd.

And I'll tell you right now, I'm going to tell everybody right now, here's the argument. The arguments Dr. Riddle will use for Mark 16 -9 -20 will contradict the arguments that he will use for Ephesians 3 -9.

They can't be the same arguments. Now, the only way for him to avoid utilizing conflicting standards is to say, the reason

I accept the long writing of Mark is because it's in the TR. Don't discuss early church fathers.

Don't discuss manuscripts, because that's irrelevant to your position. It doesn't matter. Because once you get to Ephesians 3 -9, you can't discuss early church fathers, you can't discuss manuscripts in the first thousand years, more than a thousand years of the existence of that text.

So, the only consistent way is to have a two -minute opening statement.

I believe the long writing of Mark is canonical and inspired because it's in the

TR. I believe the reading of the TR of Ephesians 3 -9 is correct because it's in the

TR. That's it. Because when you boil it all down and blow away all the smoke, that's what's being said.

That's what the assertion is. So, if there is any discussion about the fact that only a small minority of texts do not contain an ending to Mark, need to be clear about that, that's irrelevant to the

TR -only position. Because if the reverse was true, and there were only two manuscripts that contained it, but those two were used by Erasmus, and hence it's in the

TR, he'd still accept it. There is no consistent standard. The position is indefensible on that level.

And if the time comes when travel can be done, and one of the issues that came up was, would there have to be quote -unquote social distancing even at the debate?

I'm like, ain't happening. Not, no. We're either going to have a debate or we're not going to have a debate.

If that stuff ends, and I don't know that it will, but if it did, then great, let's do it.

Let's do it. Let's have a thousand people. Let's do three hours and have an hour's worth of Q &A.

I don't care. That's wonderful. That's fine. I am absolutely confident that I have identified a fundamental fatal flaw in the position.

And everything I hear, no matter who else it is, no matter how ironic the conversation, it's the same thing.

It's the same thing. You have to use completely different sets of argumentation for each and every reading.

That is not defensible. Period. End of discussion.

That's just all there is to it. So, you'll hear that again come the second and the third, but it will be online.

It will not be in person this time around. I really, really hope that the

Lord will grant mercy. But we have to be prepared for whatever.

For whatever the situation might be. So, there you go. There you go.

All right. So, that's coming up the second and the third of October. So, mark those on your calendars, and I'm sure you will find that to be extremely useful, the interaction.

I'm sure it will be respectful, but I'm sure it's also going to spin around itself a lot. It has to.

It's the nature of the situation. So, and one last program note.

Our plan right now is Friday to do another program. I don't know.

Do you think anything will happen in the world between now and Friday? I mean, I'm not sure. You think we've got it covered? We may have it covered for a couple of weeks.

No, there's nothing left to cover. I think you're probably right. I mean, there's not going to be any tweet wars. There's not going to be anything like that.

I mean, just because I'm going to walk outside and everything's orange, I think what's going to happen is there's going to be a lawsuit after.

Let's say Trump wins. There's going to be a lawsuit because orange man bad, sun was orange.

Therefore, there you go. Why not? It's 2020. It's just the way it is.

So, did you – I have to interject this real quick. Did you see the meme on Facebook about daylight savings time?

You didn't see that, did you? Something about – what's it supposed to be, like November 1st or something this year? November 1st.

And the person who made the meme is spot on in that I refuse to set my clocks back because 2020 –

We don't need another hour of 2020. We do not need another hour of 2020. Not happening. That's true.

Yep, I saw it. I did see that. And I thought, yep, that guy's right. We do not need even one extra hour of 2020.

And unfortunately, I think a lot of folks are sitting there going, because 2021 is going to be so much better. Yeah, well, we'll see about that.

Hey, thanks for watching the program today. Lord willing, we will see you on Friday.