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Among misfits. A misfit in the trailer park at night. A misprint with a sixth sense. Been sick ever since my brother died of an O .D. My true sense never made sense, either to me or anyone else inside of the sheep pens.
My ninth sniff on my right side. Tell me what's the bottom line. The bottom line is I'm not right. I'm not left but this elephant won't fight. Then the deep end and I can't find my assigned seat to sit in.
My theology don't fit in. Black sheep of the reformation sheep pen. I'm just another Baptist baptized again. The best child of Anabaptist bars, bourbons, and beer cans. Hey, what's up ladies and gentlemen?
Welcome to Open Air Theology. I am one of the co-hosts of this fantastic YouTube show and my name is Jeff. I'm also one of the pastor elders of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church in Tallahoma, Tennessee.
If you're ever in this area, come check us out. I'm going to pass it over to my homeboy, Brayden.
Yep, Brayden Patterson, pastor of Valley Baptist Church currently in southern Idaho. Come check out the church if you live in the area and also going to be the pastor of Grace Bible Church here soon, coming December.
I've been called there to pastor the Grace Bible Church in Moore Park. If you live in that area, it'd be a great blessing to see you. Yeah, co-host of Open Air Theology. Great blessing to be able to be on a show with this brother as well as Tom.
We'll talk.
About him. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We got rid of that. He got on. We don't play. We don't play. You know what I'm saying? All that gray, he was cramping our style. He was making us feel old.
So, we just was like, nah, bro. I have a YouTube channel called Reformed Ex-Mormon, but I won't pass it to Tom because Tom's not here tonight.
Yeah. Well, he might be here in about 30 minutes. He might be. He better be. He's old. He's decrepit and he's brittle. So, it is what it is. He was out hanging out with his besties. We are the resties, okay?
We're not his besties, okay? We're just the other guys, okay? The other guys. So, you know, chopped liver is, yeah.
It's chopped liver.
Chopped liver. So, how was your Lord's Day?
Oh, it was a blessing. It was a good day today. I was able to preach on Galatians chapter three verses 24 to 29. It was a real great blessing just to see what was one of the main purposes of the Mosaic law, which a lot of people overlook, and that was to bring about the Christ.
And so, you have Judaizers twisting that to say, this is how you obtain salvation, or this is how you become a Christian. And Paul's saying, no, you're extending the law beyond its time period and you're ruining the whole purpose of what the law was for, which was to bring about the Christ.
And so, it was a real great blessing to do that. Matt Slick and a friend of mine was able to come and worship with us today here at Valley Baptist Church. That was really, really nice. And we were able to go and get some late lunch, early dinner after, and just hang out and fellowship with one another.
So, it was good. How about yours? How was your Lord's Day?
Man, it was fantastic. We had a baptism today, and those are always good Lord's Days, because we usually have extra people coming to witness this wonderful picture of the gospel. And so, it was just fantastic, man.
And then we had some other unexpected visitors. It was just an emotional day in a good sense, right? So, we had our biannual business meeting, so we have two a year, and then we had a lot of stuff to go over.
And man, it was just, everyone is just in one accord, and it's just really good to see that, because, I mean, you probably witnessed business meetings going wrong, right? Because this is how you have Second Baptist, Third Baptist, and all these other church splits, is on kind of business meetings.
But seeing everybody on the same page, and just, I don't know, man, it was fantastic. It was a really good Lord's Day. I felt like the message went well. It was received well. I kept, you know, people kept coming up to me, talking about how the message blessed them, which, that's always a blessing to me, man.
There's nothing, I mean, like, listen, if your pastor's message touches you, tell him. Tell him, because he's labored all week over that message. And there's nothing, I mean, there's nothing like receiving those words, and then giving them to God, because God has spoken through you, right?
And so, you might not want to blow up his head, but listen, he is laboring over your soul. He's working hard to articulate well, the message of scripture. And if that message touches you, let him know.
But a question. So, at our church, we have about 40 ,000 people. It's all taped off, so people can't come talk to me. How are they to come to me if I'm super famous?
Well, you know, that's because you're a superstar.
I don't have to talk to people at my church. If you have so many people, or you have a taped off section where people can't come talk to you, right? They want to come talk with the pastor. What if they can't even come talk to you?
And what does that look like? What kind of pastors are those?
You know, there's several kinds, like I've experienced several kinds of pastors, right? You know, like you see the pastors that sit on thrones, right? Like literally thrones on the stage. So, I want to talk about pastors that don't sit among the congregation first.
So, you have the throne that's on the stage right over by the pulpit that the pastor sits, and awkwardly, the congregation and the pastor are looking at each other during the worship. Then you have, you know, the kind to where you got like this black backdrop on the stage, and then when it's time for the preaching, the pastor comes out from behind the backdrop, right?
Or, you know, like...
I've seen them where they like fly in with like a cane.
Yeah. Yeah, that's my next thing.
It's pretty cool. Like they pull Spider-Man, you know what I mean? Just on the stage.
Yeah, like if I could get the...
That's what I'm saying, dude.
Yeah, I mean, we got to figure that out. Can you do something about that? Whoever's listening to me on my phone, right? Can we get some literal web coming out of my wrist so I can fly in? I want to out celebrity.
The celebrities, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah. So, today's topic that we're talking about is celebrity pastors. And so, Jeff, Tom, and I, we've been just talking about some things that we... We think there's a pretty big issue within Christianity today, and that's the idolization of pastors.
And every denomination, every group of Christians have this issue, I think, going on within their camp. Every denomination, every camp has these kind of issues. And that is pastors that are elevated above that place that your local pastor is at.
Jeff, I'll turn it off to you. What if somebody in your church says, my favorite pastor is John MacArthur?
I've had this happen before.
Yeah.
Is John MacArthur going to have to give an account over your soul when he dies?
How about instead of looking to a pastor that's not going to have to give an account over your soul, look to the pastor that's going to have to give an account over your soul?
Amen.
How about giving that guy a chance?
How about giving the one that labors over you in word and prayer a chance? Am I out of bounds? Now, is there anything wrong with listening to MacArthur or, you know, name it, right? We can go through Paul Washerism and a pastor, but he is highly idolized, right?
And Paul Washer will tell you himself, don't do that. I think Paul Washer out of all of them, in my opinion, would probably be the one that said,.
Stop it.
What did he tell Michael Schultz? Just me or just flesh.
Yep.
Remember the first conference. Michael Schultz says, hey, he said something about the main guys here or something like that. Speaking of Paul Washer and Paul Washer just looks at him and says, just flesh.
Just a humble dude.
And I would say most of these guys, hopefully, would kind of echo that same thing, right? We're not to put one another on pedestals, right? You're not to be out of reach, especially in your own church.
Absolutely.
And I definitely have a problem with, you know, people in my congregation, they're listening. Again, there's nothing wrong with people in my congregation listening to other church leaders, pastors, so on and so forth.
But they might, just might want to put the pastor who's having, who's laboring over their soul and would have to one day give an account of them above those who they're listening to.
And there's different, there's absolutely, there's different. So John MacArthur, when he prepares a sermon, he's not thinking of you, Jeff, and he's not thinking of me.
He's thinking, hey, no, he's not.
You're idolizing right now, Jeff.
I made a Bible for him.
You did make a Bible for him.
He might think of you when he looks at the Bible.
Hey, listen, I was walking, I was at the last G3 and I was walking out of the, so I hadn't met him in person and stuff like that and was in his office. And I was walking out of the elevator and John MacArthur, Josh Bice, and one of the guys from Ligonier were getting into the elevator.
And John MacArthur said, hey, ain't that the Bible guy?
Real recognizes real.
That's right.
You and the dispy.
No, but seriously, John MacArthur is not thinking of you, Jeff. He's not thinking of me. He's thinking about his church that he's tending and feeding through the preaching of the word, right? He's there being a pastor for the people there.
When I am writing a sermon, when I am delivering a text, when I am praying on behalf of preaching God's word and preparing messages, I'm thinking of the people I'm going to be presenting it to, the people that I care for, the people that I'm tending over, not the person I might see it on YouTube, not the person I might hear it on Facebook.
I'm thinking of the church that's before me. And so there's two different categories, I think, of celebrity pastors. There is idolization that takes place in every group, in every camp. Whether you are charismatic, whether you're a cessationist, whether you are all millennial, premillennial, you're going to have different celebrity or idolizations of people, of especially pastors in those areas.
But also, one thing that we have made fun of, that I would not group John MacArthur and Paul Washer and other big names, Votie Bauckham, other big names like that. I would not group them into some of the celebrity pastors that are doing the things like spider-manning down to the stage, holding onto a rope.
That's two separate types of things going on.
For sure, for sure, for sure. Yeah, yeah.
What's taking place in the reform camp versus the evangelic fish? Two different things.
Two different things. Two different things.
You're talking leveling up, 10 knots is right. The way that they treat their pastors and stuff like that. Again, I was a part of, mostly you all might not know this, but I was originally ordained in the context of the assemblies of God, churches of God, so on and so forth.
And there was a time where I could have saw a future in that. In that, right? Like there was a time whenever I was involved with planting a church. And we were talking about me having to speak multiple times a day, going to different locations.
And I was game for it 12 years ago. I was like, okay, sign me up. I'll do it. Whatever the Lord wants me to do. And that's not what the Lord wants anybody to do, right? If your church is getting so big to where you have to have multiple services, how about plant a church?
How about?
Plant more churches. That's what we see in the book of Acts.
Instead of planting churches in different locations and you going to each different location, or you had been put up on some kind of a video stream, to be filtered through, so on and so forth. How about planting a church and raising up other men, teaching them how to preach, sending them off to feed the sheep?
Because it's not about one man.
What would be the pros of doing something like that, Jeff? What would be the pros of having fellowships instead of thousands in numbers, of having fellowships of two to 300 people? Maybe even smaller, maybe a little bit bigger, but smaller fellowships versus bigger, larger ones.
The first thing that jumps off of me is intimacy with your congregation, like knowing who it is that you're talking to, right? Imagine knowing someone so well, you don't have, if something's wrong, you don't have to say, hey, how are you doing?
Like you can see it on them, or you know their lives so well where you've been, maybe like with our church, we have a group, like it's like a group chat through Discord, where we have prayer requests, we have praises, we have different announcements, we have a man's group, women's group, we have different things to where we're actively in each other's life every day, even if it's just by messages, right?
So if somebody goes to a store or whatever and ends up witnessing to someone, they text us the name of that person, Red does this quite often, he's on here, and he texts the group and lets us know what's going on, when we see him, we can ask about that encounter, right?
Because we are, even if sometimes we're having to do life on social media, we're still doing life and whenever we connect in real life, we're able to have these conversations. So I would say the most important thing about it is knowing one another.
There's no way to know who, like earlier you were talking about when John McArthur prepares his message, he's thinking about his congregation. I would say yes and no.
Yes and no, I agree.
Because he's unable to fully know everyone in his congregation because his church is so big. And I'm not trying to rain down on J-Mac, right? But in one sense, it's true. There's no way that he can fully know everyone the way that I know the people in my congregation.
Right.
The way I would look at it too, is if you look at the early church in Paul's exhortation to Timothy, or even in the churches in general, there's a certain level of intimacy that was expected amongst the fellowship there, because they were smaller.
They were smaller in numbers rather than larger and disconnected from one another. They were involved with each other's lives. And unfortunately, you don't see that that often in big churches, right? How can a pastor give an account for somebody's soul that he never talks to on a regular basis?
Yeah, yeah. And let's say, I'm gonna give you a question. So let's say you've passed away. You're standing before God and God mentions a name that you have to give an account for and you say,.
I hope when I say who,.
That person wasn't in my church, because that would be bad. Another good example too, is let's say somebody's in our church and they pass away and they never talked to me. Am I able to give a message of assurance to the family that this person was actually saved when I've never even talked to them about the gospel and seeing if they actually had faith in what was being preached from the pulpit?
There's a lot of unfortunate... I think this, I don't know, because I don't want to be super like with just John MacArthur. I was trying to say Johnny MacArthur.
Well, he is the most known, so we're not really raining down on John MacArthur.
No, no.
He is the most known and probably just like you, I've listened to a lot of Johnny MacArthur.
Greatly bless me.
But how can you give an account for somebody's soul? I'm thinking back when I was first saved. Don't hold this against me, audience. When I first was saved, I was attending a Calvary Chapel. I know, ah, ooh, it hurts still today.
I don't think I was really saved right then. I was. But I remember going and listening to this guy. I will rain down on this guy. This guy, his name was Pastor Bob. I think it was Bob Caldwell if I remember right.
Pastor Bob, I remember after one message, it was one of the earliest Sundays and I was going through a lot with LDS stuff and I wanted to talk with him after the service because I noticed that in the past that they would do a prayer time after the service for anybody needing prayer to come up and talk to him.
And I really liked that. And I would do that at our own church too. Hey, if you need prayer, come talk to me right now, right? I remember sitting there with my, at the time, girlfriend, Emily,.
But now my wife, Emily.
We were sitting there and I wanted to go talk to him. We sat there for like 30 minutes and there was still a line of people and we just had to leave. It was just, I can't even get prayer from the pastor, the guy that just preached the message because of how many people are going to him for prayer.
That was kind of obnoxious. And I even remember speaking of celebrity pastors, this gentleman, the last time I ever turned to, attended his church was the last day he preached at the church. And that was because he got up on an Easter Sunday and gave a rundown of all the stuff he had done in ministry and didn't mention the resurrection of Christ one time.
Didn't even talk about it on Easter Sunday. And I just was like, this is wrong. And I remember leaving there so disappointed and upset with it. I stopped going to Calvary chapels after that because of how frustrated it was, how frustrating that was, that experience was.
Yeah, I stopped attending the Assemblies of God churches whenever I was in a service. And I said, man, I feel like I should have received it. Like, no, what'd I say? I said, I feel like I should have paid a cover charge to get in here.
And then about 10 minutes later, they passed the plate. And I was like, oh, here it is.
There it is.
But I've literally been in there where they said, lock the doors. Y 'all didn't give enough.
Holding you hostage.
I love it.
Yeah, they didn't play, son. They bucked down on your money. It was all good. But something else that, you know, like, how could, is it possible to stop the train? So that's a question I want to ask. Is it possible to stop this train, this train of celebrity pastors?
Like, is it possible to put an end to it? What do you think?
I think it starts at the individual level first, not even just the celebrity pastor individual, but you as a person that's watching or attending it. The reason I say that is I won't say the person's name online, but I remember being at a certain place, seeing this very well-known person sit in a room and was extremely rude to everyone in that room.
Yet everybody was still fanboying over him and loving everything that he had to do, even though the guy was being a jerk. And instead of just saying, this guy's being a jerk, I'm walking out of here. It was, this guy's the hero that I want to be around.
So I'm going to go be around and being a jerk no matter what. It was just an idolization that was coming from the core of them. And it was sinful what that guy was doing, but it was also sinful for that person to continue to participate and still idolize this guy, put him on a whole different pedestal that no one should be elevated to, in my opinion.
And so I would say that the first thing is, is that people have to recognize that they are fanboying over someone. This man is still a man.
Stop.
Stop placing an over amount of,.
Is it called faith?
Is it called expectation? I don't know, but stop holding this guy in this glorious, onerous position that you just have to be around him no matter what. That's an idolization on your part.
So stop it.
And I would say like the, how do I say this without pissing everybody off? Well, this is open air theology, right? It's our fault. These guys are in the position that they are now because of us. Like, right.
So we leave our secular lives and become Christians, right? So in our secular lives, those that we idolize would be movie stars, raps, you know, rap stars. Listen, you're saying this to someone who loves a good freestyle, right?
You know, and so we take that general idolization. Can we say that? Y 'all know what I mean?
And we apply it into the Christian circle, right? And so it's constantly like we're trying to make goading cows to dance around.
And so it's our fault. We're constantly looking for someone to look up to. And my dear friends, how about those in your church? How about finding someone in your church to mentor you? How about looking to your pastor, right?
Someone, hopefully you go to a church where you don't have to, that you can walk up to your pastor, shake his hand, hug his neck and have a real conversation.
I was going to say that. So like, it's almost, so imagine that, that idolization of a music star, whatever that,.
You said rap.
So I'm just thinking of Eminem off the top of my head. Could you ever imagine sitting down with Eminem and smoking a cigar or going and hanging out and just chilling? I can't, like, there's like that, that burden of this guy is just in social interactions.
He's just not going to be able to hang around with me, right? That should not exist with your pastor. Your pastor, let me say this very clearly. If you want to go and hang out with men's group, you should be able to go and smoke a cigar with your pastor.
You should be able to go give him a handshake. You should be able to hug him. You should be able to ask him how his family's doing. There shouldn't be this expectation of, oh man, he's, he is hit the peak of the Christian epicenter of socializing.
And I just can't go and talk with him.
For sure. For sure.
Like, I feel like, like for me, like, I don't idolize any man. So, so like a big star right now in the area that I grew up in is, is Jelly Roe. I'm sure you've heard of him. So me and Jelly Roe, we kind of grew up in the same circles.
And actually when I stopped rapping, like, you know, Brad knows Jelly Roe personally also. So when I stopped rapping Jelly Roe, that's when Jelly Roe started. That's when he got out of jail and started rapping.
So I had to stop rapping. I wasn't getting anywhere and, and focus on a career in roofing. And, and so like, there's a good chance because we live in the same areas that I'll bump into Jelly.
And I, you know, I could, I could bump into Jelly, sit down and have a cigar with him and would not fanboy out. Like I'm not the type that fanboys over people. You know, because I like, that's never been who I am, who I was or whatever.
And so, so I feel like, like, that's something that I can do, but I don't. Again, so Martin Luther, like, if we want to be honest, Martin Luther is, is the fanboy of the reformers. I mean, it is the goat and cow of the reformation, excuse me, is the goat and cow of the reformation.
Like, let's face it, right.
All the reformers dance around this guy.
And, and, and, and I think even that's wrong. Like, I think, you know, I love my Lutheran brothers, but out of all the people in the, that came out of the reformation, like those guys again, but I love them.
And that's not to say like, you can't show gratitude and thanksgiving. That's, that's blessing you. It's just that if you put them above that of being a man,.
Yes.
That's wrong.
Like, I think, I think of Sam Waldron, right? Sam Waldron is my hero in the faith. That's a guy that I enjoy listening just so thoroughly to. And Jeff and I, we were just talking about just the, this last conference with Open Air Theology.
Just what a blessing it was to be able to meet this guy. And then just the humility that he had and the safeguards that were in place. And just the way that he was conducting himself was.
The way he conducted himself.
I mean, it's something to actually learn from.
That's right. That's absolutely right.
I, I, I love listening to him, but Sam Waldron is still a man. Like you can't put him in this, this position of more glorious than any other man. It's still, he's a man. He's still a sinner. He's still been saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
Um, yeah.
Hey, Brian, I was wondering what you think about this question right here. I have an answer, but.
Uh, in the sense of elders preaching or like what, what, I guess, maybe do you think?
So from what I'm taking and please elaborate, but what I'm getting from this, you're saying should, uh, should there be a different, should the elders take turns in the pulpit biweekly? And so that's how I'm interpreting what he is saying.
Bi-weekly. Like different men that like.
Yeah. Yeah.
So the different, so if you have three elders, it are, let's just even it out for elders. Each one speaks once a month, so on and so forth.
I, I, I don't think there's necessarily an issue with that. I think there's one that ends up messing with that because then you're hearing four different voices from the pulpit every Sunday. And it, it, it really affects the teaching because if one person, I'm telling you, if you go to one elder to another elder, even within the same church, the, some of the minute conclusions that they will have while exegeting a text will be different from one another.
To another.
And the way that they're applying it might be a little bit different to another. Um, I, and I, I'm just saying that in general, if you have ever tried to preach alongside somebody where you preach this chapter, then you, I preached this chapter, you guys are going to have conflicting understandings, or at least the presentation's going to be slightly different.
So I would say no, but that doesn't exclude the plurality of elders and having an elder teach from time to time. I don't think there's, but I do think one main lead pastor or lead teaching elder is.
The way to go.
Yeah, that's my opinion. The sheep need to be led by a constant, a constant one voice when it comes to the preaching and teaching. However, other elders or gifted man should, could and should preach from the pulpit.
And I would also say, I don't think it should be from the exposition. So if your pastor is like, I'm preaching through John right now. Um, if, if, if, if Pastor Cal wants to speak, he's not going to speak from John.
He's going to bring a text that he's been mowing over so on and so forth.
Because my brain, like I have been saturating myself in John. Pastor Cal does not have the time to saturate himself in John the way that I have in order to come up with the same interpretation. And so it would be much easier for him to, to, to, to find something that he's been maybe in his study that he's been, that he's been studying over the last six months or something like that to bring forth.
That's good.
And I mean, situations depend right on different things. Like right now at the Valley Baptist, I'm, I'm getting ready to go to grace Bible church. And so my elder and I, we have said that we're going to, uh, we're going to slowly transition to him taking over preaching through the book of Galatians.
So right now I'm in Galatians three, just finished chapter three. And so in this transitionary period for a month and a half, we're going to start preaching every other Sunday through that same book. But I'm sure we're going to run into what you're talking about, Jeff, is that there, there is if a pastor, even if it's a Bible study, if you're, if you're having somebody teach a Bible study, it's, it's difficult to get on that exact same page that that was talked about the week prior or where the person, the week prior was leading towards.
So, yeah.
Is there any other questions we can talk about right now or back to celebrity pastors?
Let's get back to the celebrities.
Well, so I think there's also a danger to, and this is something that I think we, we want to discuss and something that maybe we'll discuss in greater length, undoubtedly in a future show. Is there a danger, Jeff, to pastors becoming circuit preachers?
Elaborate a little bit.
Is it wrong for a pastor that is the pastor of a local body to spend more time outside of his church preaching at other churches than being in his own pulpit with his own.
People?
No, never. There's never a, there's never a time for anything like that.
Like, yeah.
So you're saying no, that's not a good thing.
No, it's not a good thing because a pastor, pastor is just Latin for shepherd, right? And so a shepherd is to tend his flock and there was times when a shepherd would be out in the field that he would bring his, his, his sheep back to, to a main sheep pen, like kind of what you see taking place in John chapter 10.
And then he would, and for the most part, there would either be a hired hand there or the pastor or the shepherd himself would, would hire someone to watch over his sheep or it could be to where he's, he's passing on the secret trade of being a shepherd to someone else.
And he would have this person to watch over his sheep while he went and spent time. Um, maybe resting or something like that, because, but for the most part that, that shepherd spent most of the time with the sheep, it was a lonely life in one sense, hard life rewarding, but it was a tough life.
So what, what would be some of the dangers that could befall a pastor. That, which again, I don't think it's a good idea to call them a pastor because if you're not pastoring sheep and you're just going and speaking at other churches, you kind of validate the.
Title.
What are some of the dangers that could happen with a pastor that, that has seen to go do.
Certain preaching? For one, the sheep won't know his voice, right? I mean, that's just clear application from the text. The sheep won't know his voice.
Danine just made an absolute great point that I just want to read it. You might want to put this one on the screen.
Danine, uh, this one.
When did he lack accountability? If he wanders outside of his own church, the pastor needs to be accountable to his church. And if the pastor has gone three out of the four weeks of every month, man.
But that's kind of hitting on what I was saying. Like they won't recognize his voice.
It is.
If you don't know your pastor, how can you keep them accountable?
But my, my life, you know, like this might sound weird to a lot of people, but I have guards set up in my life to keep me accountable because the biggest screw up I know is not Brayden.
It's just, ah, now I'm the chief of sinners and mess ups.
And so I have to put, I have to put guards in my life, right? Like, so the reason why that I do evangelism in my neighborhood, it's so that I don't drive around my neighborhood and flip off everyone that cuts me off.
Let me just be honest, right? Because I'm like, I'm not, yeah, I'm known to get out the car and Jack, Jack somebody up.
I'm a Christian now.
I'm a Christian.
I can't be that guy anymore. I mean, I can't, I can't do that guy anymore.
But you're now known as the guy that goes stands on eighth street, preaching the gospel or whatever street you're on. And so if you go and flip people off in your own town, they're going to say, Hey, that's the guy that preaches on eighth street.
Yeah, that's that street preacher out flipping me off.
Don't make no sense.
And so, and so I, I street, I do all my ministry is done in my own, listen, literally my own neighborhood.
Why?
Because it keeps me accountable. So when I'm out in public, it keeps me from doing something stupid. I don't want to ruin my witness. I can't have a bad moment, right? When it comes to my, my, my, my, my wife, like if my wife wants to see my phone, I give her my phone.
I'm not keeping anything from her. If my elder wants to see my phone, I'll give him my phone. I read the Bible. I have creeds and confessions. Like I'm constantly surrounding myself with things that keeps me from falling into error.
That's right. What about, what about, and I'll speak, oh man, there is something to be said. I work as a firefighter. There's times where I'll be spending two, three, four nights away from my family in a row,.
Back to back to back.
And that is not good for any man, any woman to be away from their family for that many days in a row. What about the issues that can arise with being away? Not even just accountability within your church.
What about accountability within your family? How, how can a husband properly love his wife if he's gone for a week at a time, weeks at a time? How can a pastor or a father adequately take care of his children when they're, he's not there at the house with his children?
I don't, I don't think you can.
I think there is circumstances, right? Because some jobs do, like, like your job, your job requires a long time away, right? But these long times away that, like your job, you're doing what it takes to provide for your family.
I'm talking about the pastor, the pastor that goes away from his family.
So that's where I'm going to, yeah, so that's where I'm going to, because I want to, I want to disconnect it from people that have, you know, like a firefighter's job, truck driver, so on and so forth.
So you got people who are having to work these jobs to get away.
All right.
So a pastor, his stable job is the pastor, the church.
So, so if your vocation is to a local church, your vocation isn't to go speak at 50 conferences a year.
And so that's not what's doing it for you. Hold on one second. What's up? I cannot deal with it right now. I'm podcasting.
Is there a spider? Is that what I heard?
Go be a dad. Go take care of that.
I'm going to let that thing get going. I don't mess with spiders. I don't mess with snakes and I don't mess with spiders.
Okay.
Father's being good and not scaredy cats.
Well, if I go after, I'm either bringing this or I'm bringing my shotgun. I keep right here. Right now, I don't, all I got is slugs and not, no, but I got, I got plenty of bucks.
I'm blowing something up. We're going to have a roof leak. Kill it. Oh, that thing's going to jump on me.
Why don't you mess with it?
I'm not, I'm not ever going in that bathroom again. Keep them company.
Go deal with it. I'll do, I'll keep it, I'll keep them company.
Oh, that's awesome.
Go get it.
Yeah, I, I, there's something to be said when you're in the military or you're a fireman or you're a police officer or whatever the example is. My wife just said, I should tell everybody how I killed a spider the other day.
I, uh, there was a black widow and I got afraid as one normally should since the fall, right? Those things are not something to mess around with. And so I got a bug spray out thinking that this might kill it.
It was behind this like box. I couldn't get to it. So I just sprayed it and sprayed it and sprayed it and sprayed it and sprayed it more and more and the bug spray did not kill it, but it anointed enough to have it come out to then where I went and grabbed a flame torch and I torched the thing to death.
It was awesome.
Dude, that's cool, man.
Can you say that?
You freaking just zapped it to death?
He looks so happy.
I'm a man.
Where's Tom at when we meet him?
Oh man.
Anyway, I was going on with, uh, there's a difference between being in the military, being in the police officer, being a firefighter, being an EMS, being a, uh, whatever the example is where you're providing for your family, right?
There's a, there's a, there's a need to provide for your family. You're willing to make that sacrament sacrifice, but those things are still challenging when you're away from your family.
Right?
And so if a pastor is, is choosing to go and, and choosing to be away from his family, choosing to be away from the flock, and this isn't a rare occasion. This is a continual basis. Every single month he's going out every single month.
He's gone away from the pulpit. There's probably some issues there. There's some issues where this person's probably wanting to pet their own ego. They're probably driven by pride. They want people to hear their voice and they might be qualifying for what Jeff and I are talking about tonight.
And that is celebrity pastors. And where I'm going with all this is that recently, and this is going to be a conversation that we have in the near future, uh, when more information comes to light, but somebody like Steve Lawson.
Um, I think that that's what you see in this situation is unfortunately, uh, Steve Lawson, Micah Wilder is an LDS person. That's pretty well known that that has been in drench and it just terrible sexual immorality.
And he was not a part of a local body. Steve Lawson was a pastor of a church. But if you look at his history of being there, he's gone a lot. He's gone a lot. So there's a lack of accountability there.
So if I can go back and touch on, hold on, before I do that, how cool was that?
You don't get that on any other podcast. We're still in the spot. We've been executing them.
All right. Back to the thing. Um, yeah, kind of what court was talking about earlier, talking about having different pastors within the pulpit and that's how it was at Steve's Lawson's church. So he would preach there maybe once a month.
And so you're talking because I listened to, uh, I listened to Trinity church, that church. And so they have a different person within the pulpit. Sometimes it's, it's really hard to see the same person twice within a short amount of time.
But, you know, once a month, Steve Lawson would be at the local congregation and would speak. And I can remember one time he was like, I'm not mistaken. He said, he spoke 15 places in one week, like, like, what is that?
That's crazy.
It's crazy.
And I'm going to tell you that doesn't sound right.
That doesn't sound right.
It doesn't sound right. And I can tell you this one. So I've preached once today and I gave it everything that was in me and listen, I had to take a caffeine pill in order to do this in order to barely just go kill that spider.
And I went bowling yesterday and let me tell you something. My hips are killing me. Good Lord. That's a young man's sport. Sitting down just a second ago. I wanted to scream. I didn't want y 'all to think I was a sissy.
Listen, Jeff went bowling, preached and a business meeting. And he's still on here to talk to you guys.
Where's Tom at?
Taking a nap.
Where's Tom at? Taking a nap. Oh, I was hanging out with my besties. Jack Lang.
My wife, my wife answered a question from Sam.
So my kiddos and my wife missed the last two conferences in February and hopefully here in this, hopefully soon they'll be able to start coming to, this is a good plug right.
Here, right now.
If you haven't already get your tickets to the open air theology conference this coming year, 2025, total home in Tennessee. It's going down. Sanctification, baby.
Sanctification.
That is what the topic is. We've titled it war because we should be making war with our flesh, war against our flesh that we want to become more and more like Christ and, and more and more mortified the sin that's within us.
So if you haven't bought those tickets yet, go and buy them. Open air theology conference .org.
Go get the tickets.
Don't miss out. And I'm only talking about how, how is it that God takes us from A to B, from, from Adam, the man of dust to Christ, the man of heaven.
Well, how does he do that, Jeff?
Well, you have to come see.
Gotta come. You gotta come.
And then, um, I'm going to be talking on, uh, this, uh, sanctification and sovereignty. So talking about how God is our Potter shaping us his vessels and why it's such a glorious thing to be shaped into the image of Christ is what my topics are.
If you want to know more 2025, total home in Tennessee, go get your tickets right now.
We also have a lot of other talent.
Yeah, that's right.
And guess what? Listen to this. I hope you come to that because that conference is not a celebrity pastor conference. That's a conference that we expect the speakers to go and shake your hand, hug your neck and go and smoke cigars afterwards.
If they would like to smoke cigars, they don't have to smoke a cigar, but they'd be a lot.
Of smoke a cigar. They're a sissy.
Let's just be honest. If you don't smoke a cigar, I don't know if you're getting invited.
Yeah, and like, like Brad just pointed out, it is, it's a really good conference. I mean, I mean, it's, you know, like one of the main guys running it is, is a trailer is from the trailer park. So, you know, it's not fancy.
If you're in a group of people there at that conference and you're talking with one another and one of the speakers isn't in your group, they're about to be, that's, we want it to be intimate where there's fellowship and encouragement in the Lord.
And that's what you should be expecting when you come to the Open Air Theology Conference. And this year, again, is on the topic of war. I'm going to screen share real fast so we can present that real fast.
And the, listen, the funniness that you, you see here on this is only amplified there at the conference. So please come join us. So this is just me zooming in on this. We got Greg Moore being the host, introducing everybody.
He was going to be our token Presbyterian, but then we got another Presby.
Yeah, we got Ryan Denton. I guess he's not the only Presby anymore. Now we got Jeremiah doing the debate. Good old brother, the apologetic dog. We got Michael Schultz. We would have added all his titles on here, but there's not enough.
There's not enough room to say all the titles of Michael Schultz. We got our resident Dispy. Everybody loves Andrew.
It's kind of like that. What is it?
Raymond, Raymond.
Sure.
I was going to say, it's kind of like the, like the kid that got picked on in school, how you kind of have empathy towards him.
That's Andrew.
Austin Keeler.
He's the holy nope. One of the funniest guys. One of the most funny satire things I've seen online. Keith Foskey. Again, a great brother in Christ. It's so much to love about him. Marlon Wilson. Oh, hey, by the way, I'm doing a debate on Marlon Wilson's YouTube channel this Saturday.
One subject at a time.
Listen, all right, I'll get done talking about this and I'll come back to that. Marlon has a great YouTube channel with debates. Ryan Denton at Presbyterian. Sam Waldron. Again, a great humble man.
You didn't mention Kofi.
Oh, I skipped Kofi.
I'm sorry, Kofi.
It's because I can't pronounce your last name.
I was avoiding it.
Kofi's a good brother in Christ.
I apologize to you.
I love you, brother.
I love you, yes.
And then we got Claude Ramsey, the passion preacher of the modern century. Hensworth Jonas is really excited to hear him preach in person. And then we have Grandpa Tom Shepard, gangster Jeff Rice, and the ex-Mormon Brayton.
And on that, I'll hit stop sharing. Also, but seriously, debate.
Go watch The Godfather.
Do our infants born with a sin nature? I'm taking the positive.
Well, if they're born with Adam as their federal head, then yes.
They are born sinners.
If an infant can die.
Don't give away.
Sorry.
What are you doing? I'm just going to go ahead.
If the wages of sin is death and a baby can die, then therefore the babies are born with a sin nature.
Has to be. How else do you get around that?
If they're not born with a sin nature, then infants don't die.
Every culture you go to, doesn't matter if you're in America, Africa, or Asia, you have a watch on that kid's going to try to grab it and take it off your wrist.
Because they're sinners from birth. Vipers in a diaper. They need to be born again. All right, that's my plug.
So who's your debate with?
Uh, it's with a gentleman, uh, named, uh, Joshua Rodriguez. He's a church of Christ member. So we pray in for him, um, and just be praying that I would perform to God's glory and accurately represent the text.
So they're actually baiting something. That's not about baptism.
Apparently I was watching a little bit.
I don't want to go into it too much. I'm still trying to feed it all, play it all out.
So please, please listen.
Root for your boy. Are you going to watch it?
I'm going to watch.
Better watch as you come to handle somebody. I got you, dawg.
Thanks, dude. Appreciate you.
I got my scissors. They're kind of big for my hands.
Everywhere in my house. I got weapons everywhere, man.
So, so the difference, can people, I've never been to some of these big conferences that you've been to Jeff. Are people able to go and talk to all their speakers at these big conferences?
So, so like, if you remember James White, do they, so James White is always, always makes himself available.
And so that's something unique about Dr. White and, and I'll give him credit for that. And he's never, never not once. He's never once made me feel less than, you know what I'm saying? And so I want to give credit to that.
Now, he might've made someone else feel that way, but he didn't make me feel that way. So yeah, so Dr. White usually always has a booth where people can come by and meet them and talk with them. And there's others that, that does so too.
Bodie Bauckham usually has a couple of guys there with booths and he'll go there and stand. But the deal is, is that the line, like the line to get to him, listen, I'm not waiting in the line. I'm just, I'm personally, that's, that's just me.
Like I'm not forcing.
That's because you cut the line. You're a celebrity pastor, so you just cut the line. Is that what you're saying?
Well, I do with Dr. White because they recognize real, real recognize real.
But, but, but like Dr. White was pointing out, Steve Lawson stayed in the green room and listen, I'm not trying to dog on Steve Lawson, but, but we're just, we're just telling the truth here. And you know, like if here, let me say something good about Lawson before I say, before I carry on with that.
You don't got to do that.
Just go ahead.
I'm just saying like the man, his ability to teach people how to preach a second to none. So if, if, if you, if you want to be a good preacher, he had good material. I don't know if they're going to take it down, but Steve Lawson would hang out in what's called a green room, like a, but not really a green room, but just like a place for speakers and stuff like that.
So he never went out and fellowship with anyone that was there. Now, maybe he did when it was much smaller, but the last conference that they had, I believe it was like 10 ,000 plus people. And I did a lot of handshaking, hugging necks, taking pictures.
And I'm not, you know, I'm just, I was just the Bible guy, you know, somebody that was making Bibles for people and every once in a while I'll get into a debate with a Presbyterian, but that's just how I wrote.
So win every debate.
I know what you mean.
Well, what else do you want to chat about?
I don't know. Hey, I want to ask a question. So last week we did a, we did a question and answer time. And so, and then a guy from church today mentioned that we should do more of those. And so I want to hear from everyone else.
Do y 'all think we should do more question and answer shows, or should we stick with topics? Not saying we're not going to do topics, but should we periodically throw out more question and answers? I know it takes about three, four, five, six seconds for y 'all to hear me talk.
Michelle said, sure.
Sure. Sure.
That's what we get.
Sure is enough, Michelle. Don't take, don't take just crap. What's another, what's another question that we have a question in here at all?
I don't see it.
I'm not seeing any other stuff in my head.
Just mix it up.
I hear it.
Thank you. Thank you.
Was that so hard?
Was that so hard? Love it.
The answer, Chris Johnson's question. So I'm going to be moving, my family and I were going to be moving early December. Don't have an exact date set yet, but early December, first one to two weeks in December.
We'd like to get there earlier, sooner than later, of course. And so that's the plan. Hopefully on the 2nd of December, we're in California. Don't know if that's going to happen, but hopefully. So, dude, the church, man, if, again, I got to just say, if you live in Southern California, you need to come check out this church, Grace Bible Church.
They are beyond just such a blessing to my family so far. I'm so excited to go and fellowship with them and just to get to know them and love on them and really tend the sheep there at Grace Bible Church and Moore Park.
So if you live in that area, go check it out and welcome myself and my family. When we show up there in December, plant yourself today. But if not, plant yourself in December. We'd love to see you.
So I haven't reported about the church building, have I?
Have I reported about the church building?
No, you haven't. Let's hear it.
Go send it.
What's up with the church building?
So I went and had a meeting with the guy about the church building that we're trying to get. They did receive the deed and they're trying to get, like they've had two people so far go over and try to get an appraisal, and they were unable to figure it out because something with the church or it's hard to appraise churches or stuff like whatever.
So they're trying to get one more person to go over and give an appraisal because the main thing is that they're trying to use it for a tax write-off, I guess. And but he told me that no matter what comes back, the price of the appraisal, they're not going to look at the price to give us a price on the church.
And so when it started out, I was like 95 sure we was going to get it. And then we heard some bad news and I went down to zero percent, but then it went up to like 99%. And now I'm like, I'm like at 100 sure we're going to get it.
It's just when?
And if you know me, I'm a shaker and a mover. Patience is not something that I have. And I like, I want it now. Give it to me.
Come on.
I got that. That's just how I wrote. And so the Lord is making me be patient right now. And so, but it looks like 100 sure we are going to get it. It's just it's just it could be a month. It could be two months.
Hopefully it's early. Hopefully it's we get it in time that we can have it ready for the conference. If not, we're going to find a we're going to go to a different church to have it at how to have the conference at.
But it would be really cool to be able to have it at our new church building and. And share that with everybody.
That's going to be cool if you get the building,.
Because you say that you're a shaker and a mover, I'm just I'm.
We need to get a video of you using a shake weight.
Just sitting there with a shake weight.
That's all I can imagine when you say I'm a shaker and a mover. I was like, I bet you've got a shake weight somewhere.
We did have a guy named Clint say that we didn't answer his question from last time.
Ask it again. I don't remember.
I don't remember what was that.
Yeah, send us send us the question and we'll try to answer it.
Also, Laura Claus.
I think I saw Laura Williamson earlier is what she said. But Laura said that she would like to see more Q &A's. Tom said the guy with the beard talks too much. I think he's talking about you, Jeff, because you can't grow one.
You can't shut up. Well, you know, it is what it is. We all have our problems.
You're a shaker.
Why isn't Tom on here again?
Can you hang out with his besties?
We're looking for a replacement.
Yeah, if you would like to join Open Air Theology, we're looking for a new friend.
Send us your resume.
Where's that question at, Clint?
Yeah, we're waiting.
Send us if you guys have any questions.
Send us some.
Send us some questions.
The Humble Baptist Podcast. That doesn't sound too humble.
No ditty.
No ditty. Yeah, you're right. No ditty. We don't be dittying up in here. We ain't dittying out anything.
Tom is being a little P-ditty.
Tom's almost home.
Thanks, Debbie.
That sounds like a country song.
Hey, you want to talk a little bit about Baptist Covenant Theology,.
From the stuff we talked about earlier?
Oh, yeah, that'd be good.
Yeah, let's do that. All right, everybody, open up to Galatians chapter 3 to start with. And I'll give you a quick rundown of my message today. And I promise it'll be quick. Go to Galatians chapter 3.
Just so happened to have it up right here.
And I wish I knew if I used to get a nice Bible, like the nicest Bible in the world, like this.
You can't do another plug like that.
Too many plugs to show.
Joking, yeah, these are the nicest Bibles ever.
Look at that.
That's just gorgeous, man.
Red, you didn't whip nobody. You didn't whip nobody with your eight pound ball.
Big old head.
So the text that I was reading from today was 24 to 29 in Galatians chapter 3. But the main part that we're discussing right now, which plays out more in the text. But it says in verse 17, it says this.
This is what I mean. The law which came forward in 30 years afterward does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. First, the inheritance comes by the law. It no longer comes by promise.
But God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why the law then? So this is the question. So I just want to pause and give a little bit of context. The law here is being discussed about the Mosaic law, ceremonials and judicials law that were given to Moses that no one other than Moses and the children of Israel had to obey.
People in Asia were not punished because they did not keep the Mosaic law because they weren't given the Mosaic law. People today are not punished for breaking the Mosaic law because they weren't given the Mosaic law.
So this is talking specifically about Moses and Israel. And it's talking about the law that came 430 years later after Abraham. It says this in verse 19. Why then the law? Mosaic and judicial law. Why then the law?
It was added because of transgressions.
Pause there.
This means transgressions and this within the Greek means sins. So how do sins take place? Breaking of God's law. Breaking of God's commandments. So meaning that this law that was given was given because somebody, they were already breaking the law of God, breaking the commandments, violating commandments, meaning that there's commandments that are transcendent that were not needing to be given to them because it already existed.
It says until. So let me read it again. It was added because of transgressions until.
Until. Wait.
Not past. Not before.
Until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made and it was in place and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary or by the hands of a mediator. In this whole chapter, it calls, first of all, it says that it was until Christ.
In chapter 3, verse 24, it calls it our guardian. In verse 25, or was it 25? Or is it verse 26? It calls it, I can't, I don't see it right now just looking at it, but it's, it calls it a tutor, a guardian, a steward, and it equates it to the jail.
A jail, something that's being locked up. The law of God, that Mosaic law, was given because of transgressions. The people of Israel were being influenced by pagan religion, by outsiders. They were sinful within.
They were a dying, diseased nation that God had to protect because why? That was the line that Christ was to come. And so the Mosaic law, according to Hebrews chapter 8, right, the Mosaic covenant ceases because it was made obsolete because the covenant that Christ enacted, a better covenant and enacted on better promises.
But thinking on this, Matthew chapter 5, is there anything that you want to say on Galatians chapter 3 before we go to Matthew 5, Jeff?
No, I'm just, I'm learning. I talk too much. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna.
You're being like a Baptist podcast.
You're being humble right now.
I'm being humble. Like being a Baptist podcast, we're proud of our humility, okay? We're proud of our humility.
Be showered by my, my, my teaching, Jeff. All right. Yeah, so good question, Jeff. Is the Mosaic law tied to circumcision? Yes and no. So the circumcision came about through the Abrahamic covenant. However, the Judaizers, according to Acts chapter 15, it was saying that they were trying to place upon the people's necks, a yoke of slavery that no one could bear.
Go ahead.
Trying to be humble. The Abrahamic covenant produced a nation. The Mosaic covenant protected a nation, kept a nation, helped the nation enter the land. And so those, that circumcision still existed within it.
It was just this added additional law that was given to it that didn't invalidate the promise.
Go ahead, Jeff.
Yeah, I would just say before the Mosaic law, you could separate it. But once the Mosaic law came, you can no longer separate it because each of the covenant of works are an administration of the one covenant of works, speaking of the endemic.
So once the covenants of works started to be in play, you can no longer separate. Like once the Davidic covenant came, you can't separate any of the previous covenants from the Davidic covenant in the same way dealing with circumcision.
Yep, boom.
And so the Judaizers, so one of the things that the Judaizers were doing is they were saying, you see this law. So according to Paul's argument, they're undermining the teachings of the apostles. So whatever they're doing is undermining the teaching of the apostles.
And what they were saying is that you have to be circumcised in order to be a Christian and you have to obey the law of Moses. And according to Paul in that text is that they are not only utilizing the law outside of its intended purpose, which was never to make someone saved, right?
It never was to make them righteous before God because we can't be righteous before God on our own behalf, on our own doing. And so they were changing the purpose of what it was meant for. And then they were also extending it beyond its time limit that it was meant to be in.
And that was until Christ. They were pulling something that was, they were taking the time that it was allotted for and they were stretching it out to a people that it was never designed for. And that was the churches of Galatia, this mostly Gentile people.
Read or how can, okay, Clint said this, how can you not separate it? Aren't those covenants contrasted in Galatians? Jeff, I think that's a question towards you.
I don't, I'm not understanding the question. I'm over here trying to, can you, I don't understand the question.
I think separating it, can you not separate it? I think he's saying, correct me if I'm wrong. I think he's saying that there's two covenants that are talked about in the book of Galatians here in chapter three, it's the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant.
And it's almost like there's two different covenants.
Okay, so it's the idea before Moses, before the Mosaic covenant came, all you had, so the main covenant to the Hebrews was the Abrahamic covenant. The text tells us that the law, which is Moses, was added to the Abrahamic.
And once the Abraham, the Moses is added to the Abrahamic, you cannot separate it, right? So, but if you read it, it speaks about that, but it doesn't nullify the promise. The promise is that promise of a future covenant of grace, which is the new covenant, right?
The seed that would bless the nations.
The seed that would bless the nations, yeah. But as far as it being a covenant, once another covenant is, once another covenant of works is linked to another, you can't separate the two.
Right, you couldn't be in, so after the days of Moses, when Moses enacted a new, that covenant, it wasn't like you could just be in the Abrahamic covenant and not in the Mosaic covenant.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're now in the Mosaic covenant.
A hundred percent, a hundred percent.
Yep, yeah, I think that, but were they different distinct covenants? Yes, because the Mosaic covenant didn't start in Genesis 15.
It started later on.
Yes, if you look at it like this, so, so.
In Exodus 19.
Yeah, so in Genesis 3 15, a promise is given of a seed that would come. All right, we see that, we see that seed passing through Abraham. So through Abraham, the seed is given a nation.
Through Moses, it's given a law. Through David, it's given a king.
And then once these covenants of conditional covenants, let's say, so a covenant of works is a covenant that's conditional. You do this, I'll do that. It's a conditional covenant. And so once a conditional covenant is added to a previous covenant, you cannot separate the previous covenant from that addition.
And that's what we're trying to say.
Yeah, I don't know exactly what, so Clinton said this. So it's not the actual covenants or Clint, sorry. So it's not the actual covenants being contrasted, but just using the Abrahamic to point to the promise, just the language promising to bless the nations through Christ or until Christ is what he said until the promise.
One thing that is important to note that as a 1689 Federalist is that we're saying that anybody that that was saved in the Old Testament.
Was saved through that promise.
They were looking towards Christ. That's what Galatians 3 even says. It says that he would, he preached the gospel beforehand.
He believed that.
I would argue, I would argue in order for anyone to be saved past, present, future, they were saved by the work of Jesus Christ.
By faith and what he would do in order for Abraham to be saved. He had to believe in the seed that was to come that would keep the covenant, inherit the land and bless the nations.
So, so Galatians 3, verse 6 and on, it says, just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, know that that it is those who are of the faith who are the sons of Abraham in the scripture for seeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith.
Preach the gospel.
The gospel is what it says.
The gospel.
The good news that Paul is also saying in Galatians 1 is the singular gospel that there's not a plurality of gospels. The singular gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham saying in you shall all the nations be blessed.
So then those who are of the faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. If you go to Galatians, not Galatians, Genesis chapter 15, where that is talking about Abraham being credited with righteousness.
It says there, let's see here, where does it say it in verse 6? And he believed the Lord and it was counted to him as righteousness earlier and later on in this, this time of the covenant. So Abraham was not saved by obeying that covenant.
He was not saved by, because there's a, there's a, there's a stipulation to this covenant that says walk and be blameless, walk and be blameless. Now go circumcise yourself, do all these different acts in order to maintain and go into the land, all these kinds of things that are given to Abraham, right?
Abraham was not saved through his righteousness. He was credited with righteousness. So that covenant that was required works did not produce in him life. It was the grace of God that granted him life.
It was grace of God that gave him salvation. And so the old Testament, what was that covenant then needed for? Well, it also produced an ethnic people from him. And one of those ethnic people from him was going to be the one that was crediting him with the righteousness there.
So it was needed in that sense to bring about the Christ. It was until Christ. Tell Tom to get on, Debbie. Anyway, back to Matthew chapter 5, Jeff, before we get too taken down with everything. So talking about the law being until Christ, the law until Christ.
Now, so let me phrase this for people because they've probably never heard anything like this.
We're looking at this from a Baptist covenant idealist view.
So this interpretation that you're about to get, we would say is the correct interpretation because it's actually what Galatians is touching on pointing back to. So we're using what Paul is clearly teaching in Galatians to help us understand what Jesus is saying here.
Not saying that Jesus is teaching wasn't good enough for us to understand, but we're using scripture to compare scripture. And they're actually touching on something that I think will illuminate the mind.
That's right. So I'm just going to read the text and then we're going to talk about the opposition, the clear contradiction if we take a certain position in this text, but there can't be any contradiction.
Paul very clearly says that the law was until Christ. Let's see what Jesus says in Matthew 5, 17 to 20. He says this, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.
For truly I say to you until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Now you might want to ask yourself, what law is this talking about? It's the law that the Pharisees and Sadducees were under, that they were trying to claim that they were righteous over others with, which was the Mosaic law.
So Christ says that the law that will not go away until heaven and earth pass away. So the first objection that would be made is that this is talking about the second coming of Christ. All right, let's pause there and just think about that.
First of all, that makes Paul wrong in what he says in Galatians, that the law was until Christ.
Second of all, oh gosh, get them off.
Get them off.
Tom, get out of here.
I just want to tell you guys, hey, everybody, I'm here.
If you would have fell back in that seat, that would have been priceless.
You guys miss me, huh? I heard you guys were about ready to call Habs back.
So I wanted to hurry before you get here. Oh, Habs just clicked on.
Oh, I got to say hi to my wife.
Go kiss your wife.
She's going to be a terrible husband.
All right, let's get back to this. You just grabbed the computer, run out of the house.
Hey, wait, hold on a sec. Hold on.
I got a little hurt with my besties, you know?
No, you're hanging out with your bestie.
You have to kiss the wife before hanging out with us.
That's messed up, dude.
Oh, he's running away.
He's probably got to go pee.
Pees every like five minutes, that old man. All right, back to this. So, okay. So if Matthew 5 says that the law is until heaven and earth pass away, and heaven and earth means the second coming of Christ when he makes the new heaven and the new earth come.
If that's the understanding of this text, then Paul is in contradiction to scripture because Paul says that same law that Jesus is talking about here was until Christ, that it went away at Christ. The guardians and stewards are no longer needed according to Galatians chapter four in that chapter.
If that's the case, there's a clear contradiction. So first of all, it cannot be talking about that or Paul is wrong. Second of all, the post-millennialists that wants to argue, not necessarily the post-millennialists, excuse me.
Post-millennialists are inconsistent with this because they would read some other chapters of the text and say that heaven and earth talk about the temple. Well, most post-millennialists want to say that the law still exists today.
The Mosaic law exists today.
So let's just make it clear. Maybe not all post-millennialists will have this interpretation, but a theonomic post-millennial would definitely have that interpretation.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I know that because I used to be one.
You used to be one.
But the law delivered me.
So he used to be a lot of things.
Did he?
No, did he?
I don't know about that right now.
So, so the post-millennialist is being inconsistent when they, when they say heaven and earth means the temple over here, but not in this text because the law still exists today. A theonomic post-millennialist.
Thank you for correcting me on that. So let's just say, let's just assume that heaven and earth is talking about the common Jewish tradition of that day. Listen, if, if we are in our, in, in our context today, and I said, Hey, I'm going to the market to get something, or I'm going to the grocery store to get something, or I'm going to the Swenson's down the street to get something.
I said that three different ways. And yet every time I said it, you knew exactly what I was talking about.
I've never heard of a Swenson's. What's a Swenson's?
Local grocery store around here.
So there's different ways. There's different means to say the same word. That means the same exact thing based on the context that we're talking about.
And so a lot of people would say that heaven and earth in that day, rightly. So the Jews understood that was where heaven met earth was the temple. You had the holies of holies. You had the first part of the temple and that was heaven and earth is where the holies, where, where God met earth, where heaven met earth, right?
Heaven and earth.
And so they would say heaven and earth is 70 AD is the destruction of the temple. The issue with that though, is that the law was not until 70 AD.
Paul is writing.
Paul's writing the book of Galatians in. I want to say, correct me if I'm wrong. I think it's the year 52 B 80. I think I would have to go and look at it. It's before 70 AD, right?
For sure.
So Paul says it's until Christ. So what is Christ then mean? What's the only interpretation left here in this text? And I want to predicate this on two things real quick. First text in the gospel of John.
It says that Jesus says, I think it's John. Jesus says, you will see angels ascending and descending upon the son of man.
So it's John chapter one. He's speaking to Nathanael. And I would argue that it's going back to Jacob's dream about the ladder or the stair. And how it was a ladder that was touching the earth that reached to heaven.
Angels are able to ascend and descend.
Jesus is saying, I am that ladder. I am that staircase.
There's the whiff.
The whiff.
Hi, we're the second besties.
Good to see you, whiff.
So we're the chop liver besties.
Thousand percent that it's talking about Jacob's ladder, right? However, in that day, have you ever seen an angel climb up the ladder at the same time or a human being climb up a ladder while someone's going down?
It doesn't work.
Another translation there in Jacob's ladder is a staircase. Most likely what Jacob was seeing was something that was called a ziggurat, a temple in those days in the ancient Near East times. Have you ever seen somebody go up and down staircases at the same time?
So what is Jesus saying when you'll see the angels ascending and descending upon the son of man? He's saying, I'm the temple. I'm the tabernacle, right? He's using different language that still means the exact same thing to you and I.
Also, John 1, 14 already tells us that he tabernacled amongst men. He's the temple, the tent, the tabernacle. Jesus says, destroy this temple and I will raise it up on.
He makes himself out to be the temple.
Yep, that's right. So if heaven and earth is a saying for temple, he calls himself temple using different language all the time. Let's now think about that when we read this text. Do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets.
Something I missed to point out today is, is there still the office of prophets?
When did prophets end, Jeff?
John the Baptist.
Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist was the final prophet. An Old Testament prophet had two things that they did. One was they prophesied a coming judgment if Israel did not repent. Two, they prophesied the coming of the Messiah.
Boom.
Celebration going on right there. I can't do it. Anyway, so Jesus already says in Luke 16, 16, I believe it is, that the time of the prophets were until John, John, John, John the Baptist, right? Wait a second.
So the prophets have ended off.
So do not think that I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them, whichever. And when he says fulfill them, he's always.
So how did he fulfill the Old Testament prophets?
He died, rose again.
By being the Messiah whom the prophets spoke would come. So he fulfills it by, by being who he is, the position.
So he didn't abolish the prophets. He fulfilled the prophets, right?
So for truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. All is accomplished is, is the language that Christ uses often to talk about fulfillment of scripture.
What is the heaven and earth passing away in this text? It's the way that you and I have righteousness that exceeds the Pharisees and the Sadducees, which is when Christ Jesus lives a perfect life and passes away, dies and rises as our.
Sacrifice, substitutionary atonement.
So when did the law and when was it until Jesus Christ?
If you're a theonomist and that's trying to say that the law exists today, you have to say the office of prophet is still exists and you have to contradict 90 other Bible verses.
So what, so, so, so let's address this real quick. So, so this is what you call speaking two different languages. Cause that's because Jesus is not an Old Testament prophet. Jesus is pointing out that John is the very last Old Testament prophet.
Here's why, because John prophesied a coming judgment. The ax is laid to the root of the tree. Matthew chapter three, verse 10, right? Any tree does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
That fire being hell. Skip down to verse 12. The will and fork is in his hand. He would thirdly cleanse the threshing floor, gather his wheat to the barn, but the chaff he will burn with the unquenchable fire.
So that's that judgment coming. But if you look at verse 11, he speaks about one coming whose sandals is unworthy to carry, and he will baptize with the Holy spirit and fire. So right there is the prophecy of the Messiah.
So John the Baptist fulfills the Old Testament requirement of the prophet because he did.
Both.
So he did those two things that all the Old Testament prophets did prophesy to come in judgment if there was no repentance and prophesied the future coming of the Messiah. But unlike them, he was able to see this, the future coming Messiah.
When he saw him, he says, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Now, is Jesus a prophet? But he's not an Old Testament prophet. It's not what's being addressed here.
Jesus is not a Levitical priest either.
He's the priest after the order of Melchizedek.
This text right here.
So going back to a theonomist, if you're a theonomist, who's trying to say that heaven.
And earth have not passed away. It should be the same.
Yeah. Yep. Yep.
If you are saying that the heaven and earth have not passed away, therefore, the law still exists today. And you're trying to say mosaic, judicial and ceremonial law, not the moral transcendent law, not the law that holds everybody accountable.
And that scripture has shut up everybody under sin with. But if you're trying to take those specific laws given to Moses and the nation of Israel, you need the office of prophets today to stop being inconsistent.
Everybody says that the office of prophets for the most part has ended. You also need to be saying that the law has ended. And guess what? The same argument is they both pointed and they both were until Christ.
That's scripture.
1689 federalism, baby.
You want to get the Bible right?
You guys got it all going on.
You can leave, Tom.
I have people here that I love.
Me?
Oh, you're talking about Debbie?
We were cheated on. Like he went and hung out with Brandon Scout.
You know what?
We had a good time over there. We have some people that watch us here, don't we?
I want you real quick.
Tell us how, how, how did it go?
How did it go?
So I thought, I thought it went really well. We went out there and Friday we made a case of who was, who was to go out and do evangelism. And we walked people through Acts chapter one, all the way through eight, kind of fast forwarded to chapter eight, looked at characteristics of an evangelist.
People were encouraged that, that if you're a born again believer in Christ, that you are, you are to carry the gospel forward, that you are to go proclaim it. That the early church believed that it was their duty, that they were obligated to share the gospel.
And so that, why should we be any different? And so we went through that. That was about an hour. Broke for pizza. Then Bobby Trejo got up and basically gave the tenets of the gospel. What needs to be communicated when we're sharing the gospel.
And it was a walkthrough that, that God is the creator. We are created. God is sovereign. We are dependent. God is holy. We're wicked, holy, unholy, you know, et cetera. And we need a substitute. And so it was all about communicating the gospel.
And then we took the crew, Tammy and Laura and her husband came out. And there were some other people. Brandon went out there and we went through preaching at the state fair in Tulsa. And it was a blessing for about three hours.
But it was also encouraging. And so then we went to his church this morning. And man, he made a case for office of evangelists from the scriptures. And not on top of profit. Matter of fact, what you guys are talking about here today.
It was really good. It was really good. It was a blessing. It was wonderful. But I did wish you guys somewhat.
Nah, it's all good.
You would have answered our phone call if you missed us.
I did. I even tried to call before we went on evangelism.
I'm just kidding.
In the beginning of the show, Brandon and Jeff were calling me an old man.
What?
Debbie, you're not supposed to do that.
Old man.
This is wisdom here.
Do you have to go pee again, Tom?
You know, that's why I tell you all that.
Preparation age.
Let me tell you something. That's what took me so long to get back from Tulsa. It's supposed to be a five hour drive, but it took me 10 for pit stops.
Oh, all right.
Old men have to pee a lot.
You and Joe Biden have a lot in common.
Where's the kid's hair?
I can sniff.
I don't have to take this abuse. You guys listen. What'd you guys make? Did you make me Yoda again on the graphic?
Did they know?
No, he's saying the graphic. You can't do Yoda twice.
Red's got Joe Biden and laughing. Man. So Brian was there. So Brian is married to Laura, and so they help church.
I hadn't got to meet Brian in person as far as I remember.
You're coming to the conference.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I look forward to hanging out with them.
No, they aren't hanging around with you.
No, yes, they are.
They told me.
Listen, they like my wrapping. OK, and I'm not talking about gifts.
OK, they might. They don't like Braden at all. They told me. I don't like me either. And you have small hands. Yes. Is your wife coming, Samuel?
She better be. Put that on, Jeff.
Yeah, put what on?
I put it on.
What am I putting on?
I put, I got it.
I got it cute there for you.
I don't know what you.
I don't understand.
I'm screen sharing. I'm screen sharing.
Oh, oh, well, you got to say that.
I said put it on.
This was the decal for the show right here.
We got.
Look, Billy Graham's grandson right here.
Ravi Zacharias. Some other guys. Some other guys.
Steve Lawson's reaching out to touch you, Tom.
Yeah, it looks a little inappropriate.
I'm a sidekick.
Are you somebody's sidekick?
Have you been didded?
Have you been Lawsoned?
No, I'll tell you what, though. I think Ravi Zacharias popped some seals, though.
Ravi Zacharias did some bad things. I'm telling you that.
Popped some seals.
Oh, man.
Who are we talking about? I mean, are we talking about some of these fellers?
You missed it.
You should have been on.
Yeah, yeah, I missed it, man. OK. Right now, we're just messing with the, we're just chatting back and forth to the audience.
Just cutting it up.
Yeah, they was going over.
We were trying to, like, lessen a little bit, but then they started calling you Grandpa Tom, Grandpa Shepard. It was a little weird.
I am Kevin Hayes' dad.
I think it's Kevin Hayes' great grandfather is who you are.
No, we're just talking about the law.
Just something I was running by Jeff earlier. Something that Jeff's talked about in the past.
He was telling me something. He's like, oh, I got something new. I got something new. And I was like, you know, I jumped to this Cameron.
The heaven and earth thing is something new.
You didn't come up with that one.
Dude, I was talking about this two years ago.
You're such a liar, Jeff. Don't lie on camera. This looks bad for you.
Oh my Lord.
This looks bad.
No, we were just talking about Matthew 5, 17 through 20. That your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees because the righteous life that Christ lived when he imputed his righteousness into your account, your sin was imputed upon him when he died.
So his righteousness is imputed to you when you believe, excuse me, before I get nitpicked on my inappropriate language.
Yeah, I mean, like I'm pretty like I would call up perhaps Addison or happy, gay, whatever you want to call him. And maybe he would, it would tell the truth, but I'm afraid he probably wouldn't, right?
So this was back whenever I was looking into Jeff Durbin. His, his view, because in Matthew chapter 24, he mentioned that heaven and earth was the temple, right? And so, but when I go to chapter five and I listened to his conversation on chapter five, verse 17, he did not make that connection.
And I was upset because he wasn't being consistent. And so I, you know, like if someone's going to hold us something and if it's different from what I host, okay, fine. But are you consistent with it?
And in that one area, I didn't, I was a little upset because I didn't find him being consistent with it. And then we was having this conversation years ago, but I guess he just blew me off. Like, like, like, like, you know,.
It's back in your theonomic weird stage.
So I had come out of theonomy when I preached through Galatians. So I've been, I haven't been a theonomist over four years.
Who helped you come out of theonomy?
I preached through Galatians.
Okay. Well, who helped you come out of post-millennialism?
Yeah. You had, you had a hand.
You're welcome. You're welcome.
However, I turned that into a roundabout compliment.
I'm just saying you got it wrong at first. You said theonomy, you didn't do that. Galatians got me out of theonomy.
My fault.
But how much of theology have I helped your butt out with?
Maybe one or two things.
Maybe. Maybe.
Mormonism.
Hey, we help everybody out here. All right.
Yeah. I mean, that's what we're doing. It's iron sharpening iron. And listen, let me say this. If you hold to the same theology, I mean, like just everything that you did 20 years ago, you might want to dig a little deeper.
Can you stop reading the same study Bible?
And when you do get rid of that Bible and get a new one, get a rebound by Post-Tenebrous Lux Bible rebinding.
Yeah, I'll tell you what the lion and lamb.
Oh, we don't promote guys over here.
Wow. I don't care. Look, listen, I have all the buyers in the world.
They're stowed my style of rebinding. They come up with their own style. They came up with their stowed my style. I need some royalties.
That's like saying Voldemort and Hogwarts, dude.
Did you mail my wife's Bible yet?
No, you didn't give me the address in time.
You didn't answer your phone, Tom.
You've had my address. You've sent me Bibles before.
Yeah, but the last Bible I sent you, you said, don't send it. And I was trying to make sure, but which way you want me to send it?
You know what? You tell her. She just asked the question.
I'm mailing it tomorrow.
Oh, see, we're going to the conference. It's not going to be here at home.
It'll be there by Wednesday, more likely. Wednesday or Thursday.
You should get there.
What conference are you going to on Saturday next week?
The neo-secessionist one?
We were just talking about people that go to too many.
Conferences throughout the year, Tom.
You're on the hit list now.
Yeah, you are a celebrity pastor.
No, I'm a celebrity pastor lover. I'm going to go stand in line.
I'm going to shake some hands.
I'm going to go. Yeah, I'm going to go.
You're the problem. You're the problem.
I'm going to shake Walker's hand.
You're the problem.
I'm going to stand in line for Conrad and Babeway. Yeah, I think he's going there, isn't he?
Okay, yes, that'll be good.
We did have some questions that I think would be a good thing to go through here. Two things that I've seen, and if I missed somebody else's comment, I apologize. Michelle asked a question regarding Romans 11 about the all of Israel, which I want to be the one to answer that.
And then also the humble Baptist podcast asked Abraham's bosom question mark. Which one? I want to talk about Romans 11. Can I talk about Romans 11 real quick?
For sure. But we might have something to say today.
No, I'll just talk. Be in detail.
Romans 11.
Everybody turn to Romans 11.
Everybody turn to Romans 11. Romans 11 is talking about Israel.
Is that before or after Revelations?
Y 'all are making me mad. I'm about to get off this.
Romans 11 is talking about.
Romans 11 is talking about Israel being the olive tree and that we have been engrafted into that olive tree. What is olive tree called in the Old Testament? Israel, first of all. Second of all, look at verse.
I think it's verse five.
Let me look here.
In this way then, in this way then.
Where is that at?
Where does it say that?
Verse five.
What translation are you reading out of, Tom?
LSB.
Oh my goodness.
Why are you using the ESV, dude?
You backslider.
Tom, you went and hung out with your besties.
And now you aren't even using the Bible that Jeff rebounded for you?
I have it packed in the car.
Oh, he's got it on his phone.
It's here, you see.
Okay. ESV, so true. At the present time, there is a remnant chosen by grace. I don't like you guys.
And why'd you rush home to get on here?
He didn't rush.
You peed every time, every second he got.
Will someone give me some of the pen? I'm just going to go right in the truck.
That reminds me of a gross joke.
I'll tell you guys after the show.
Romans 11, verse five, the Greek word there. So to, or in this way then, depending on your translation is I believe it's for your toes. I would have to look at the Greek, but I'm just saying, that's what it is.
You then go down to verse 26 and it says, and in this way. So that's the same way earlier. It says so too. I like the ESV, man. I just realized this in this way.
That's great.
It translates it correctly in this way.
I imagine that.
Tom, how dare you have an LSB out in the presence.
Of the greatness of Paul's translation?
The elect standard version.
He also had a BTL Bible too.
Yes, he did.
Abraham was credited with righteousness. Paul was credited with the post. All right.
We're going to keep on going.
Okay. Go to the present time. There is a remnant chosen by grace. That's in verse five.
Let's go to 25. Lest you be wise in your own side. I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers. A partial hardening has come upon Israel until the fullness of Gentiles has come in. And in this way, all Israel will be saved.
I didn't know the ESV translated like that.
That's so perfect.
That's the way the Greek reads right there.
I'm sorry.
I'm just kind of blown away right now. And in this way, all of Israel will be saved. A lot of translations says, and, or what does a lot of the other translations? You just have the LSV open.
I did. And I was crucified for it.
So every other translation, a lot of other translations will say, and so all Israel will be saved. Meaning that it's a separate event from the fullness of the Gentiles coming in. However, the Greek should be read at the point of the fullness of the Gentiles coming in, which is speaking of all the elect Gentiles.
And the verse also talks about those that haven't been hardened in Israel, meaning that they're having faith in Christ. When the fullness of all the elect of Gentiles and the fullness of all the elect of Jews come in.
All of Israel, the singular, guess what the whole text is arguing about. The singular olive tree. If you're in the olive tree, you're Israel. And it's when the fullness of that tree comes in, all of Israel has been saved.
The reason I say this is look at the very next verse. It says, deliver, the deliverer will come from Zion and he will banish ungodliness from Jacob. And this will be the covenant. This is the important one, verse 27.
And this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins. What verse is that quoting from? It's quoting from Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34. And that's quoted for us in Hebrews chapter eight, as the text that the church has been made, that Christ has made a covenant for all the elect, including Gentiles.
So Jews and Gentiles are saved in the covenant of grace. Romans 11 quotes from the covenant of grace.
Right after the verse that says,.
When Gentiles and Jews come to know Christ, all of Israel has been saved. It's just talking about the church.
All of Israel will be saved.
And again, I kind of pointed this out a few weeks ago. If you want to know who the olive tree is, right? And so Zachariah, yeah. What was Zachariah? We're clearly told that the olive tree is Israel.
All right. However, when you get to revelation chapter 11, and it speaks about the two witnesses, the two, the two prophets to it.
The two prophets are two olive trees and two lampstands. All right. So in Romans 11, it talks about the Gentiles are a wild olive branch. That's grafted in to the cultivating all of tree and the natural branches are broken off.
And so you have the spiritual descendants of Abraham, both physical descendants and spiritual descendants. And so when you go to revelation chapter 11, it mentions the two prophets are two olive trees and two lampstands.
And in chapter one of revelation, it tells you that the lampstands is the church. So who is Israel? It's the church.
And also in Romans chapter nine, I just shut the text. So I can't read it verbatim. It says not all of Israel is Israel. So Paul, in the same exact verse, uses Israel, the same word Israel, Israel used in two different ways for two different groups of people.
So just because it says all of Israel will be saved, you have to ask yourself, is he talking about those that have faith in Christ or those that have faith in works? And if you think that it's the faith and works group that will all of Israel will be saved, I'm sorry, my friend, you have misinterpreted the text.
Right. All Israel are those who are in Christ.
The root. The root.
The physical descendants of Abraham, spiritual descendants of Abraham. The only way anyone is in that olive tree right now is if they had faith in Jesus Christ, both Old Testament and however long the Lord carries.
And Chris Johnson just correctly said, Revelation 20 says that Jerusalem is the bride of Christ,.
Which what is the church called often?
The bride of Christ. That's right.
It's, it's, it's there.
So one of the same, I am Israel.
I am a Jew.
Romans 2, 29.
A hundred percent.
You don't, if, if you don't, it doesn't even say true Jew. It just says, I am a Jew.
It says, I say that I am a true Jew because those that have faith in Jesus Christ, we receive our Messiah.
If, if you're, if you're a Gentile and you feel awkward in saying, I am a Jew, just go read what Paul says. And just admit it.
You're a true Jew. You're a Jew.
If you've been born again.
So the real, yeah.
So Georgia.
That means all of us. We are all called Israel. The church is called Israel several times.
Galatians six, wait, wait, wait.
I would say, I would actually say that, that Christ is the true Israel and we are in Christ.
Therefore, right.
Well, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. So Christ's body, Christ has a body. Christ had a body on earth, right? He was written, suffered, died, rose from the grave.
The church is right. It's also his body.
So he's also the true church in that sense.
So it's, it's interchangeable.
Of Christ and everything. When you talk about the marriage and everything are, we are not our own, right. We belong. We are not our own. We belong.
That's the illustration of marriage.
And I would also point people to Ephesians chapter two, beginning in verse 11, all the way to chapter three, deep into three, Paul makes the point that there is no distinction between the physical descendants of Abraham who are in Christ and the spiritual descendants of Abraham of Christ, who are the Gentiles.
You'd also see in, in, in Galatians, it says that there wasn't seeds plural, but seed singular, they're speaking of. The root is Christ.
Yep. Yeah.
The root is Christ.
But so the seed is, is Christ in, in, in Genesis 15, the seed is Christ. But then in verse 29 of Galatians, it says that if you have faith in Christ, you are heirs of Abraham children of the promise. So Christ is the true heir, but because we're in his body, we are also heirs.
So a dispensationalist would say that the root is Abraham.
Yes. They will say the root is Abraham. The root.
The yellow heresy flag.
That's not talking. I'm not saying classic dispensation. I'm saying progressive dispensationalist. The John MacArthur eyes would say that the root is Abraham.
If Abraham's your root, you have no hope in this world.
We have our only hope is what? Christ. It's not an Abraham. It's in Christ.
If you believe the root is Abraham, your savior is still sitting in a tomb.
Because we have to.
I mean, he's our covenant head. It's he was looking to the promise seed. He was looking to the promise seed.
That's so frustrating.
And he was talking to the word of Yahweh. He was looking at pre-incarnate Christ.
Yes. Yeah.
Hearing Christ himself say, one of your seeds will bless the nation.
I know some people have probably already heard this. But a year or so ago, I played a joke on Brayden.
It was not funny.
Did you give him extra large gloves?
Tom, that's not even close to how funny this was.
It was messed up.
He was arguing something like this. And then I went this beyond him. And I was like, we are not Israel. That's replacement theology.
He took it too far.
I literally, I remember when it happened and where. It was, listen, it was about 2 .12 PM, a nice Saturday evening. And I'm driving with my wife and family. We're out on a Costco. No, I'm driving into Costco.
My wife can validate the story. I'm driving into Costco. I've got, I'm driving illegally because I'm talking to my friend, Jeff, arguing with him about Israel. We're pulling into Costco and he drops this garbage on me.
We didn't go into Costco that day because of how mad I was. We didn't go in. I was so mad. I was like, how can Jeff say he's a reformed Baptist and be a freaking dispy? But I was so mad.
How many actually make that claim though?
But this hit differently, Tom. This was a friend that I was writing a book with that I was really worried about. I thought, I thought he lost his salvation there for a moment.
I waited till the next day and said, I was just playing it. Why are you so mad, boy?
You waited two days, didn't you? It was too freaking long.
It was what it was.
It was glorious.
Dude, I was so mad.
I was fuming.
He had a Star of David on his next Bible that he's making.
Israel's flag. I'm telling you what, you would get some cells if you did that, dude. You got an Israel flag.
I wouldn't be struggling paying my rent right now.
Do we want to talk about the rich man, Lazarus?
Yeah, Abraham's bosom.
Yeah, I mean, we got a few minutes. Yeah, so we would take the position that Abraham's bosom is actually what some people would... It's paradise, right? But we would say that it is the inner courts of the tabernacle.
So the visual would be the inner courts of the tabernacle. And then you have the outer courts. So you have that little gate on the outer courts. And that would be where the place of the dead is. And so when Moses was instructed to build a tabernacle, the book of Hebrews tells us that he saw the heavenly picture of the tabernacle.
And so...
It was a copy in the shadow.
It was a copy in the shadow. And so the rich man and Lazarus... So the rich man is in the place of the dead, torment. And then you had Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham. This doesn't mean that his head was...
I can't...
I'm trying to hug my own chest, right? His head was in the bosom of Abraham, right? It means that he was...
Come on over here.
Come over here.
No, other side.
Other side.
Go the other way.
I'm trying to lay on your head, dude.
Here, lay on my chest.
No, I ain't doing that.
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so the chasm was the gate, right? And there's only one way to enter into that gate. And we find out through scripture that Jesus is the door. He is the gate into this area, right?
There's only one way to the father and it's through Jesus Christ. And when it says that Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham, it's speaking that he was in the inner courts of this tabernacle, right? And so...
And the place of the day will be on the outside. So they're able... Because it says that they're able to see one another, but they could... One could not exit and one could not enter. And so we believe that whenever...
At the last day, this visual, this literal tabernacle that's in heaven, that the tabernacle of Moses has patterned from, that's what's coming to earth as the new heavens and a new earth. And the place of the dead that's on the outer courts, that is gonna be tossed into the lake of fire.
I know it's a lot, but I just gave you a 10 ,000 foot bead.
So believers will still be within the presence of God, but they will be able to be physically there like Christ. So their enjoyment, their glorification, their worship to God will be only magnified by physical resurrection.
Whereas the wicked, those that are being judged currently, they will also be having a magnified state of punishment and eternal condemnation in their flesh once resurrected.
What does the humble Baptist say here?
So when you say that this was paradise before Christ's sacrifice, a pre-heaven paradise. So what he's getting at is that...
It's not a dumb thing.
So the view that...
Yes, it didn't change. That's the point. So what he's alluding to is the teaching that Christ descended to Hades and brought people out into heaven. And that part of Hades was called paradise. And that's not what we're saying.
Yeah, that's not. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no.
So in Hebrews in chapter six, I believe it says that the priest would enter into the temple, into the second part of the temple, speaking of the holies of holies, once a year. And it says that the Holy Spirit was indicating this to us that we needed Christ to go beyond the veil for us.
So when did Christ do that?
Yeah, that was in his burial.
So before that, they didn't have access.
So should we paint that out, what that looks like? Christ died. He's on the cross. He dies.
He's waiting to be resurrected.
Let's give a picture of what he was doing.
So they didn't have a way of the father before that because there had been no bloodshed yet.
So imagine Abraham being in heaven and he's saying, where is the seed at? You imagine Noah being in heaven saying, where is the ark at? You imagine Isaac standing there saying, where is the sacrifice in my stead at?
And they're all there enjoying God because Christ is there, but they're not able to make it to the father because they don't have blood yet shed for them. And then here is Christ who says, hold on one moment.
I'll be back.
And there he goes. The thing that angels long to look to, long to see take place.
Jesus dies.
And what does he do in his burial? He comes and he sprinkles his blood there in heaven.
That's what Hebrews teaches.
It says that he would be on the veil to sprinkle.
Also, also Isaiah 53 verse 10.
Speaks about when whenever God, speaking of God, the father sees the sacrifice, the offering, he will prolong his day. Speaking of the resurrection of Jesus. So Jesus goes into the holy of holies. He sprinkles the blood.
God sees the sacrifice. He sees the offering. Therefore, Christ raises from the dead. So, so, so in his, in his burial.
So that's when it was made. The time, the little, almost as if in a point of time.
So Jesus does two things, right? So he's not only the sacrifice, he's the priest. So on the cross, when he says to tell us, die, it is finished. He's speaking as the sacrifice.
But in his, but it wasn't like everything wasn't done because he has to, yeah. As a priest, he has to enter into the holy of holies and sprinkled the blood. And it was his blood that he, his blood that he's the sacrifice.
So, so, so he's not only the one who offers the sacrifice. He is the sacrifice. And as the sacrifice on the cross, he says to tell us die, it is finished. And as the priest in burial, he goes behind the veil, sprinkles the blood.
The father sees the offering and he prolongs his day.
Speaking of the resurrection, you can almost imagine they're in heaven since they can't go into the second place, which again, Hebrews eight was a copy and a shadow. The people were not allowed into the holies of holies.
Only once a year, someone could go in. And that indicated to us, according to that text, again, chapter six, that that Christ was going to be the priest that would make a sacrifice once for all. And so here is Christ.
He comes back in the burial after the burial takes place. And you could almost imagine on Abraham, Noah, and Isaac's eyes, there's the seed, there's the ark, there's the propitiation.
Entering in as a land sacrifice.
And he goes in and he walks out.
I think I, if I remember right, James White tied this to revelation five, six, where he says, then I saw in the midst of the throne, the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, listen to this, a lamb standing as if slain.
I don't know if James ever said that.
I definitely said that though. It was me.
It was me at the open air theology conference.
He had a great beard. He was an old man. This was wisdom.
Nah, that sounds like mustache wisdom right there.
That sounds like a mustache with a soul patch wisdom.
It does.
Think about the lamb standing, standing. I mean, when you think about a slain, this lamb is alive.
This is alive.
Yeah, man. He is standing as if he was slain. You guys, this is, this is...
It's deep.
And then think about what they're crying out before that.
Who is worthy? Who is worthy?
So you can almost imagine up in heaven and Abraham's bosom.
Why is it called Abraham's bosom?
Because you can see Abraham as a man that was credited with righteousness. So of course you would call it that place, the place that the man Abraham went to, right?
The place of the promise.
And what is a bosom? What is a bosom? It's something that's inside Abraham. What was the promise given to Abraham? A seed inside of you. A seed inside of you.
So what is this called?
The place of Christ is a better way of saying it. The place of the seed.
The place where the Christ is.
Yeah, that's right. And so there they are.
They can't gain entrance into the father's place because they still have yet have that sacrifice.
Who is worthy? Who's the seed?
Who is the ark? And here comes Christ. So that gives credence. Listen to this. In Paul's exhortation of what the gospel is to the church of Corinth there in chapter 15. He says it's the death of Christ, the burial and the resurrection.
What took place in his burial is important, brothers and sisters. It cannot be ignored. What did Christ do on our behalf there in heaven? For us, when he saw the thief that was hanging next to him there in paradise, when he saw Lazarus there in Abraham's bosom, he was still continuing to do an immediate or a mediatory work for you.
And I think about this. I think sometimes we try to lessen the importance of the of the burial.
All right. So so on the cross, he was the lamb.
Mm-hmm.
And his death burial was the priest.
Ooh, I like where you're going, Jeff.
Keep coming. And then his resurrection, he sits on the throne.
Victory. Amen.
Hey, that will preach, dude.
Oh, and by the way, he's seated on his throne.
It's finished.
Which that's where I think that there's a little bit of a distinguishing thing going on with there from Revelation chapter five, because it's yeah, Christ is the lamb is not sitting in that text. It's standing, opening something that no one else has been able to open, which is the seven seals.
Again, I think that this is talking about in his burial, in my opinion.
Honest thing of vision.
All three are a part of his death. Well, look, what's that? Life, you know, life, death, burial, resurrection. Don't take away any of that right now. And also add his ascension.
That's right. It's great stuff.
How can we get balloons? It's because he's got gay hands.
Look at those gang signs right there.
Almost looks like he needs a shake weight in them.
I got a rabbit. How do you be a rabbit?
Oh, I used to.
I didn't break it down, but I used to start. I used to be that guy.
So again, one other thing that I think is really important to note, though, is that when it says that the man goes down to Hades, how does it describe Hades? It says that the last 10 Lazarus with his finger with a dip of water and put it on my tongue to relieve the pain of this flame.
It's a place of torment. It's a place of flame is the way he describes it. And he's seeking relief from those that he saw as destitute in his life. And he says to the people, he says, tell them that that that this exists.
And they say no. And he says, send back Lazarus, somebody from the dead. And Abraham says they will. They have the law and the prophets. They won't even believe if somebody comes back from the dead, which is about to end.
Why is Christ saying that?
Because the law and the prophets were until Christ. And Christ is about to rise from the dead over and over and over again.
That's beautiful.
Gospel is a beautiful message.
It's just amazing how something to me that's so beautiful to see redemption. I have to call some of my of my sin. And to experience an act of witnessing to someone. How that beautiful message becomes foolishness and causes them to be angry and want to fight you.
I get.
We saw some of that this past weekend. Matter of fact, it was Laura. And what was interesting was Laura was communicating. You know, the you know, sometimes we have to overcome fears and stuff like that.
And, you know, we said, you know, just go out there and, you know, we just we just need to know that, you know, people will look what they did with Stephen. They gnashed their teeth at him and they rushed him and they and they stoned him.
And this guy went up to Laura just just this past weekend. She had gone to the gate of the of the fair and was hamming a track there. And this guy came out, older man. I mean, crotch to be old man, older than me even.
And was point. And I mean, literally, he was old, a couple of years older and and was pointed as he's. And he was just faces you and just wanted to. It was horrible. It was horrible. And it was like just anger that somebody has.
It's like, you know what? And that's what it is. They love their sin that much. They love their sin that much. They are not going to submit their knee. But at the same time, Christ will even forgive that if they would only repent and turn away.
Even if we shake our fist, His mercy is more. Yeah, he was so angry. Yeah, man, it was never safe. Right, guys.
I only do it when it's safe. I'm just joking.
Yeah, well, yeah, we did. Any other questions? I got questions.
What's your question?
I don't know.
You got some ditty questions.
Oh, well, do I got questions? So so when Zachariah was made mute.
Oh, my gosh.
Let's end it.
Ain't nobody got time for this.
They was making signs. They was making signs. Just saying.
Yes, they were making signs. They were drawing. They made a sign.
Still no pain. It's been.
Yeah, so Jay is a guy that goes to our church.
Oh, yeah, we'll be praying.
Most definitely.
Yeah, good brother. Reform like truly reform 16. I'm Baptist. Yeah, his wife was able to be there today.
Good.
They're really good people.
All right, guys.
It's been two hours.
Tom, it's been 10 minutes.
It's been 10 minutes for you.
Yeah, last words.
Go ahead, Tom.
I got something really good. So don't click off people.
One, go to the conference. If you haven't bought your tickets, get online and purchase tickets for the Open Air Theology Conference. You guys, it's not going to be a conference like any other thing. It's better than G3.
The fellowship is better than, you know, no celebrity pastors, except Braden might be celebrity by then. You might have to stand in line to shake his hand or get his autograph. I might.
You don't get to shake my hands. The amount of jokes you've made about my hands, you don't get to touch them.
Look at them. Keep your hand right there.
They're glorious.
Look how average size they are.
Look, they're so big.
Hey, Braden, look at my hands. They're so glorious.
So Laura, that was one thing. The other thing. So when that guy was mocking, he was basically just angry. And we just leave that type of attitude. And the people who mock God just say, listen, man, God will not be mocked.
You know, and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And you have a chance right now by the grace of God to bow your knee right now and submit to Him. But you love your sin more.
And if you do, if you love your sin more, then you're going to face the consequences of that sin. We just got through hearing what hell would be like. And it's something like, I mean, we would never be able to comprehend anything like it.
A darkness separated from His mercy and His grace for eternal life. So here's my last thing. I'm going to say, wear the gospel on your lips. Keep it on your tongue. Go out and tell someone. Make it a point.
And I hope you guys did this last week. I said you go out, find someone, go communicate the gospel to them. Tell them to repent and believe. And leave that pebble in their shoe, man. Leave that pebble in their shoe, knowing that they're going to walk away from the conversation thinking about what you told them.
Make it bother them. Make them feel uncomfortable. Let them walk away with a pebble on their shoe. Go share the gospel.
Last words, Brayden.
I got a debate coming up this Saturday.
October 5th, the gospel.
This Saturday?
This Saturday.
The gospel truth.
I'm getting there.
8 p .m. Eastern Standard Time. So check your time zone.
Be there.
Please be rooting for me. I would appreciate that. Please be praying for me. And that I would just be able to proclaim God's truth.
What's it on?
Are babies born with a sinful nature? And I'm taking the affirmative, the positive position on that. That I do believe babies are born with a sin nature because all are dead in Adam. All are fallen in Adam.
All have a corrupt, sinful nature because of Adam. So please be praying for me.
Be ready for that.
If you live in the Southern California area in the Ventura County area, Grace Bible Church, Moore Park. Love to be able to see you there early December. That would be a really great blessing. Even if you don't live there and you have family or friends that live in that area.
Acquaintances.
Maybe some stranger that you know that lives in that area. Please tell them to know who Jesus Christ is and tell them about a wonderful church there. It'd be a great blessing to see them. Also, Reformed Ex-Mormon is my YouTube channel.
Love you guys.
It's been a blessing to talk through these things. The law was until Christ. The prophets were until Christ. Everything's about Christ. Make your life about Christ.
Well, you're going to let me say bye? I'm trying.
Don't be an old man and just relax. All right. Well, again, if you're ever in Tullahoma, Tennessee, come check us out. And when I snap my fingers, these two guys are going to forget they were gay.
Hallelujah.
Whoa, that's messed up.
