Ezekiel Part 27

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Ezekiel Part 28

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Okay, we are going to pray and then we'll get into our study. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word, we ask you,

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Holy Spirit, that you would help us to rightly understand what is revealed there so that we may properly believe, confess, and do accordingly.

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We ask in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so we had a random question come up in the chat and I'll answer the question.

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The random question is this. My uncle, who thinks he's a woman, is marrying a man who thinks the same. Yikes, big yikes.

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And I was wondering if it's okay to go to their wedding or if that's not a good idea. It is not a good idea. It's not okay to go to their wedding and here's the reason why.

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Is because at weddings, the presiding pastor, Pastrix, whoever the officiant, says something to this effect.

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If there is any reason why you believe these two should not marry, speak now or forever hold your peace.

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And have you ever heard anyone at a wedding say anything? I haven't experienced that. There's videos of it happening.

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It's rare, it's rare, okay? But here's the thing. If they're gonna invite you to your wedding, then you're supposed to stand up and go, those are two dudes.

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And one of them has gender dysphoria and shouldn't be getting married at all. They need psychiatric care, okay?

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If you're not going to do that, then don't go because your silence is construed as a affirmation that they should get married, okay?

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And so the issue is this, is how do we as Christians love those people in our family who are in sin?

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Now, here's where you have to take a different perspective and let me explain what

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I mean by this, okay? So my wife will tell you, very happily by the way, that the first two years of high school,

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I did not apply myself academically very well at all. I got

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A's and B's and I could have done better and I didn't care, okay? Just didn't care at all.

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And then finally through a little bit of help with some of my teachers who were mentors and things like this,

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I decided in my junior year I was gonna apply myself with all of the abilities that I have to academics.

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And guess what? I got straight A's. I got straight A's in junior year, got straight

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A's in my senior year and when I was at Concordia University, I got straight

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A's as I always got straight A's in all of my graduate work too. All that being said, here's the issue.

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When it came then to graduation day, okay? My wife got to do something

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I didn't get to do and you know what? It kind of bothered me, okay? And it kind of bothered me and she's still happy about it to this day, okay?

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And that is is that my wife in high school, she graduated with honors, okay?

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I missed it by one hundredth of a point, ouch. And they wouldn't give it to me, okay?

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And here's the deal, at that time I remember distinctly going, had

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I really been thinking about what would happen at the end of high school, I would have done things differently in high school.

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If I had thought about how this all plays out at the very end and that those things actually did matter to me,

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I would have done something different. Now let's fast forward, okay? Because right now we are in the midst of difficulty.

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We're living in a sinful world, we still have sinful bodies ourselves. Every time we gather here at Kongsvinger, I hear you say things like this.

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Forgive us our trespasses, right? Or that we confess that we are by nature sinful and unclean, right?

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We're all confessing our sins together. But now the question is how do we best help our family, our friends?

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You're gonna have to fast forward to the day of judgment. And answer the question with the day of judgment in mind.

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The last thing you want to hear from one of your relatives who Christ is going to march off into hell because of their impenitence and unbelief is to then look at you and go, why didn't you tell me the truth?

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How come you didn't love me enough to speak the truth to me? I want you to think about that.

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I think that has a lot to do with what God reveals in Ezekiel about those who are called to turn sinners to repentance.

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And that's the job of the church, collectively. So you have to keep the day of judgment in mind as far as defining then how we love those who are around us.

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Because the world's definition of love is this. You need to affirm somebody regardless of their choices.

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So if I decide that I'm gonna self -identify as a Froot Loop, you have to affirm me as a

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Froot Loop. That's not love. Okay, that's not even close to approaching love because love warns.

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If you're standing on the train tracks and the train is coming and you don't hear it and I see it, I'm going to tackle you and get you off the train tracks even if it means breaking your leg because I don't want you to die.

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That's what love is. And so we must keep in mind that this then has to come into questions of, do we attend weddings for people of the same sex or who are doing things that are weird like this, the answer is because there is, our silence is absolutely used as affirmation that they should be getting married, we can't do that.

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I just know that's just not how this works. But what do you say to those people who, what am

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I gonna do? I'm gonna get disinvited from all of the family events. I'm not gonna be allowed to have Christmas dinner. I'm gonna be ostracized.

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Okay, so the question is what do you say then to the person who says, but if I don't go, I'm not gonna be invited to Christmas, there's gonna be ostracization and things like this.

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Answer, Christ has already addressed this. In fact, he's addressed this head on, okay.

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He says that he has come not to bring peace but a sword and to bring division within a family, a father against a mother, a father -in -law against a son -in -law, daughter against mother -in -law, all these things.

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And Christ's punchline on that is that if you love your family more than you love me, you're not worthy of me.

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And the idea then is that what he's getting at is the tendency to make our family into idols.

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And so you'll note in the world that we live in, it's a pretty hostile place. And having people that you can kinda let your hair down around and be yourself, that's an important thing.

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But you'll note that sometimes the people that you let your hair down around, they are doing things that you can't affirm and you are compelled by God's word to rebuke or to correct.

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And the cost of doing that nowadays is you're gonna get canceled within your own family. And so the question is this, do you make

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God your God, Christ your God, or are you gonna make your family your deity?

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And that's really kinda what it boils down to. So I would look for ways to show love to your family members that makes it very clear that you love them and you have deep concern for them, but because you cannot affirm them in their sin, you're gonna have to communicate that.

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That's where I would go with it. Then it says, so we can't revile them or affirm them as Christians.

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Reviling, by the way, is a sin. It's just straight up. When the Jews in our gospel text today said, are we not right in saying that you're a

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Samaritan and you have a demon? That's reviling. That's not just merely breaking of the Eighth Commandment. That actually rises to the level, breaking the

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Eighth Commandment to the point of really reviling a person, causing them to be hated falsely, things like this.

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So that answers the question. But I would note this. None of us have the power to bring somebody to repentance.

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I don't have that power. You don't have that power. As I was sitting here watching you all enjoying each other's company and the wonderful goodies that we were having for St.

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Patty's Day, thank God for green cookies. I mean, they look like moldy things, but they tasted great.

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But all of that being said, I was looking at this and just going, God, look at what you have done, okay?

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And I think a lot of pastors are tempted to fall into the trap of going, wow, look what my preaching has done.

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Look what I did. The reality is that I didn't do any of this. I did not make

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Kongsvinger what Kongsvinger is. God did. He did it through his word. As Paul says, the one who plants and the one who waters, they're nothing.

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It's God who gives the increase. So let us rejoice over the thing that God has done here.

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And know then that when it comes to repentance, similarly then, you don't have the power to bring somebody to repentance.

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God does that through his word. So ask God to give you his words and help you remember them and to speak them in a way that the

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Holy Spirit can be used to bring them to repentance. That's the idea. Yes, David Fagerlund.

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To go to a drag race, you can't afford it.

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And we're not talking about drag racing. No, no. Okay. All right. Right.

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And I have, but now it's, I just, we've agreed to disagree and if they come over, we won't talk about it.

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All right. Yeah. But we have had that understanding. All right. Now, I was tempted to go to this drag show and do the,

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Protest. And I wanted to call Josh up to go. Yes.

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Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. My question to you is,

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I would have ended up in jail, I know I would have, they would have put it as a hate speech, but I wouldn't have used hate speech, so my best thing was to do what

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I felt at the time was to stay home. Right. I had other reasons. Right.

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So, I would note... That's wrong. That's the part of, it's an entry into normalizing this type of behavior.

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Yeah. So I would note, I don't think it was sinful for you to not go and protest. I don't think that at all.

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And I would come back to Christ's advice. We need to be shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

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And one of the things I've noticed is that Christians sometimes don't pick their battles very well, or they picked the wrong turf to fight them on, okay?

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And as a result of that, I'm just going to tell you what would have happened had you gone and protested.

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There would have been photographers sent from the Grand Forks Herald, you would have made the front page, and there would be op -ed pieces written about how hateful you are, and you would be held up as an example of everything that's wrong with the patriarchy and why we need to protect drag shows, okay?

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That's how this would have gotten spun. And so, despite the good that you were attempting to do, all of your good would have been turned to basically reinforce evil.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I've never been tempted to go to a drag show, ever.

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I just... Wow. I just... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. David, you're causing unsanctified thoughts to enter my mind, and they're very intrusive.

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Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.

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Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

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And I would note here, there's a difference between running into a fight kind of foolishly and waiting for the fight to come to you.

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The fight's gonna come to us eventually. So I am not a prophet, nor am I the son of a prophet.

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It's very clear the direction that we're heading as a nation. And we're out in the middle of nowhere right now, which is kind of helpful for us.

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But I'm gonna tell you this, that there's a day coming when the month of June arrives, which is

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Pride Month or whatever, and Pride comes before a fall. What's going to end up happening is that every church that doesn't fly the rainbow flag starting in the beginning of June will be targeted.

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And because refusal to fly the flag will then be considered as an act of hostility.

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That's not quite here yet, but it's coming. So what's gonna happen is that when that day comes, and Kongsvinger, whoever the pastor is at that time, is told, you will either fly this flag or we're going to burn your church to the ground.

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We're not gonna fly the flag. So that's an example of we're not gonna bow to your idols.

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So you're gonna note, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn't show up at the temples of the pagans that they were staying in exile with.

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But when they were forced to make a decision to either worship God and obey his commands or worship the idol that Nebuchadnezzar set up, they said, nope, we're not going to obey.

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And it nearly cost them their lives. It should have, but Jesus showed up, right?

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So you get the idea here. So we gotta pick our fights carefully. And then that being the case, the person who is giving you the invites, you might want to just pull up a couple passages.

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There is a passage that talks about the fact that if a man dresses in women's clothing that that's an abomination to God.

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And, I mean, we're not talking about Shakespearean theater here. We're talking about something weird.

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Something that goes against the fact that God created us male and female. Yeah. Okay. We're talking about a denial of creation itself.

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And note that mankind's rebellion against God runs so deep that humanity hates all truth, including the truth that God created us male and female.

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And that's part of the problem that we're facing right now, is you have all these people basically saying weird things like this.

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The true me is locked up in this body and the true me has been misgendered.

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You know? Yeah. You're noticing inconsistencies and hypocrisies.

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Okay. Now, so here's... Who did I hear this distinction from?

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I think it was Matt Richard. Pastor Matt Richard over in Minot. And great, great fellow.

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He's a good friend. And he was here at my installation. And Pastor Matt Richard actually makes a very important case.

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And good distinctions. And the distinction goes something like this. People today talk about science as if it is a closed system.

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But science isn't. Okay? It is not a closed system because how does science work?

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Okay? So you have a hypothesis. You then write your hypothesis down and you get into the lab and you do experimentation.

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And then you have to analyze the results of your experiments and then either adjust your hypothesis or not.

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And then when new data comes in, you have to completely rework your hypothesis because now you have new data.

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So science has always been an open system. And it has to be peer -reviewed. It has always been an open system.

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And so when people appeal to science, they're appealing to a moving target that is only based upon observation and data and summary and can be updated when new data comes in.

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But then they go to theology. And with theology, they think theology is an open system.

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But in reality, because the scriptures are complete, theology is closed. There was a quote that I saw that said,

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I only believe in science that I can question and science in where I can sue the liars.

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That's a good point. So the reason why we're able to say that somebody is a heretic or that they're teaching false doctrine is because doctrine itself, theology, is a closed system and it's bound to one book.

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So when somebody deviates from it, we can say, no, that's error because theology is closed.

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But in science, there can't actually be heresy. If somebody has new data, so for instance, right now, science is experiencing a wonderful crisis and I'm enjoying watching it.

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And this was actually prophesied, not prophetically but as a word from God, by one of my old mentors,

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Dr. A .E. Wilder -Smith, who did a stint as a resident lecturer at Concordia University when

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I was there. And he taught me how to argue against evolutionists. And he's a scientist. He was a scientist with multiple

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PhDs. And he prophesied that a day would come when science would run into a problem and that is that the data would build up to a point where evolution couldn't stand anymore.

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And that when that happened, he prophesied, again, not by God but just by kind of looking how this all works, that science would then turn into a religion in order to protect it and break its own rules.

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And that's what's happening. So with the study of DNA, scientists who are actually doing the hard work in the study of DNA know full well that DNA is a code.

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And it's too complex and too ginormous and voluminous in information to have occurred naturally using the processes of evolution.

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It's impossible for it to have been made. And so as a result of that, there's a burgeoning number of geneticists who are now affirming creation, that there had to be a thinker behind the creation, that there's design here all the way down on the data level in DNA.

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And that's running up against the ideologues who believe in evolution because that true science going over there with new data based upon the study of DNA is now calling into question everything regarding evolutionary theory as it should be.

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And as a result of it, you're having, within science, people anathematizing other scientists who are not going with the old guard understanding of evolution based upon the new data.

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But science isn't supposed to have a religious aspect to it. It's all supposed to be based on observational fact and conclusions drawn from research and experimentation.

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And no one has ever been able to reproduce evolution in the lab.

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And the lab is pointing over and over again to the fact that there is an intelligent designer behind our creation because on the

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DNA level, if you have a code, you have a coder. Yeah, that's right.

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That's all the way down on the DNA level too, by the way. And where there are mutations that would create differences, we recognize that that is a breakdown of the

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DNA. And that's brought on by not a solution, a problem.

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Now, Marilyn, you had a point. Right. So Marilyn's point is that people, when we point out genetically there is only male and female and people say,

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I don't feel that way. Here's where, I learned this statement a while back, and I use it quite often in my pastoral counseling.

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Feelings are real, but they don't tell us the truth. Feelings are real.

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And here's the issue is that because we put such a high value on our feelings, we oftentimes make destructive, and I mean destructive decisions.

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Most notably, one that we can all recognize because we know people who've made these decisions.

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So there's a person in a marriage and they're not happy in their marriage, and it may be that their spouse isn't showing them any attention.

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And as they should be, they're not loving them the way they should be, or maybe they're worse, they're being abusive. And along comes somebody who is kind and somebody who is loving and treats them well.

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And next thing you know, your body's biochemistry kicks in and you start having feelings.

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Right. But here's the issue. The scripture says, thou shalt not commit adultery.

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This is what it says. And your body says, but we have feelings. Right. I have feelings for this person.

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Am I to just abandon my spouse and commit adultery because I have feelings? Is God going to sit there and go, well, normally

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I would consider this to be adultery. But under the circumstances, because you had feelings,

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I'll let this go and go. No, that's not how this works. So you'll note that because of our fall into sin, our feelings oftentimes are the things that are used to tempt us greatly.

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So if somebody were to come to me and say, I have feelings for somebody who isn't my spouse, you know what

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I would tell them? Knock that off. Right. That's not your spouse.

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God commands you to love your spouse. Yeah. And Satan plays our feelings like a

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Stradivarius. Right. So when somebody comes to me and says, well, I don't feel like a boy, even though I was gendered as a boy when

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I was born. Knock it off. Buck up, buttercup. You're a boy.

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You know, you need to embrace what God has made you. But I don't feel that way. Your feelings are deceiving you.

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They're lying to you. And so what you're going to note then is that going all the way back to the

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Garden of Eden, this is where we went off the rails. Rather than listening to the objective voice of God that comes from outside of us.

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God said, you shall not eat of that tree in the midst of the garden. The day you eat of it, you will surely die.

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Eve is tempted by Satan and she looks at the tree and she goes, well, it is beautiful. It is desirous to make one wise.

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Right. And what are those? Those feelings. What she should have said is, yeah, forget my feelings here.

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God said, no, sorry. Goodbye, Satan. That would have changed everything. Right. So, you know, that still carries down to this day.

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When somebody says they have feelings, I'd never deny that they have feelings. Oh, yeah. You have feelings.

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All right. Those feelings are real. I affirm that you're having feelings, but they're lying to you.

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They're not telling you the truth. Isn't it also a form of coveting?

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Yes, it is a form of coveting. And then behind all of that, especially when it comes to the gender thing, is a form of Gnosticism.

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It's a denial of the material world. If you ever hear anyone say that matter is evil, they're looking forward to having a completely spiritual experience in life apart from the flesh.

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I got bad news for you. We're all going to be raised bodily from the grave. Right. And, in fact, that is the argument that I, in part, the argument

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I use against feminists. If you've ever argued with a feminist who thinks it's okay to address

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God as a female deity, they'll play to God the father, God the mother, God the whatever, and I tell them you can't do that.

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And they'll say, how dare you tell me that I can't. You can't prove to me that God is male. Well, let's play your game.

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You say that whatever somebody's pronouns are, you have to respect them. Well, God throughout the entire scriptures only uses masculine pronouns for himself.

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So what do you think of that? Right. But here's the other argument. Jesus was circumcised, and he's

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God in human flesh. And boy, do they lose their minds when you point that out.

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And then when I say, and when he was resurrected from the grave, he didn't come back as a Ken doll. Speaking of resurrections, the people who are destroying their own bodies through unnatural means will be raised in the body that God created them in.

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Oh, that's, oh man, in judgment, that's a terrible thing. Think about this. So the person who mutilates their body, they're born male and they transition to a female, right?

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And you'll note that they have a high, high rate of suicide. Okay? So they then are resurrected on the day of judgment in their original gender.

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And they spend hell and eternity in that body. Let that one sink in.

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Okay. Yes. Yes. Is there a difference between a heretic and a false teacher?

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Absolutely. Okay. So when we, when we confessional Lutherans use the term heretic, we are legitimately saying that person is not a

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Christian. Okay? So, and the biblical criteria for heresy are false

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Jesus, false gospel, false spirit. We learned this from the apostle Paul in second

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Corinthians. Okay? So if you teach a different Jesus, a different spirit, a different gospel, you're an anathema. Okay?

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That's, you're gone. And so that's where all the action is. So when somebody comes along and says you're saved by grace through faith only after everything that you can do, which is what

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Mormonism says, we say that's a false gospel. Mormonism is a heresy. Okay?

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When someone comes along and says, don't baptize your infants, we'll say that's, that's false teaching.

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Okay? So you'll note then I, I obviously do public work with men like Justin Peters and others who are

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Calvinists. I'm really good friends with Phil Johnson. In fact, we had Phil Johnson here a few years back as one of our speakers for a

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PCR conference. You know, and so what's really fun is, is that I recognize he's a brother, he's not a heretic, but I do consider him when it comes to baptism in the

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Lord's Supper to be a false teacher. And I have no problem telling that to his face. Okay?

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Of course he, he, he responds in kind, but that's okay. I assure him that once he gets to heaven, he'll be a

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Lutheran. So, you know, this is how this goes.

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But, but so, so you get the idea. So, so the idea of false teacher is somebody who's truly a Christian.

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And, and here's how we'll make the distinction is that it, when it comes, this is where the concept of primary, secondary, and tertiary doctrines come into play.

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A primary doctrine cannot be denied or taught differently without it impacting your salvation.

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Okay? You're absolutely going to hell if you teach a different Jesus, different spirit, different gospel. This is just how this works.

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Okay? A tertiary doctrine, secondary doctrine, is one that is, is you can have, you can be wrong on, but it's not that it, it, that doesn't mean that it's not dangerous for you to believe wrongly.

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Okay? It's just that we're not going to say you're going to hell because we can't anathematize you for a secondary or a tertiary doctrine.

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And oftentimes what happens is, is that people will sit there and say, then why do you Lutherans separate from other denominations based on secondary doctrines?

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Because there's false teachers. Okay? Because scriptures tell us when somebody teach contrary doctrine, it doesn't say if they teach contrary doctrines that are heresies.

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It just says if they teach contrary doctrines, you have to mark and avoid them. So whether or not somebody is teaching falsely on first, second, or third type of doctrines, they have to be marked and avoided, period.

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Which is why we don't have fellowship with the Reformed Baptists. We recognize the Reformed Baptists. There are Christians there.

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And oddly enough, we recognize that there are Christians inside of the Roman Catholic Church as well.

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Okay? But that's, we call, chalk that up to what's called the felicitous inconsistency. They are saved despite what

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Rome teaches, is the best way to put it. So the idea then is that we are not in fellowship with Rome.

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We recognize there are Christians in Rome. We're not in fellowship with the Presbyterians. We recognize that there are great

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Christians within the Presbyterian Church. And, you know, throughout its history. So we don't anathematize them.

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But because scripture says that when somebody teaches doctrines that are contrary, you have to mark and avoid them, it doesn't make the distinction between primary, secondary, or tertiary.

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That's why we don't have fellowship with people of other denominations while still acknowledging that they're Christians. Does that make sense?

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Because the last thing we want to have happen here at Kongsvinger is somebody to get up and preach false teaching.

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Okay? So, and we have a very narrow way in which we define what true, sound teaching is.

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Okay? Marilyn, you have your hand up? Right.

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Right. I'm glad you brought that up. So how are we defining fellowship? Because, you'll know, anybody's welcome at Kongsvinger.

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Anybody is welcome to actually come and hear the Word. I don't care what denomination they're in.

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They're welcome to come to the Word. But not everybody's welcome at the Lord's Table, because that's a visible sign of our unity together.

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But at the same time, it's like, you know, I have great fellowship with some people who are, like, not

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Lutheran at all. And it's wonderful. And they're welcome to come around. So it's not that we can't come together and enjoy each other's company, even benefit from each other.

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I've learned a lot from Calvinists. I mean, I'll be blunt. Calvinists are really strong in some areas that Lutherans are weak.

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And I find some of the books that they've written, especially as it relates to hermeneutics, to be so much better than the current offering by Confessional Lutherans that I oftentimes, when

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I'm asked about, you know, where do I learn hermeneutics, I'll point them to the Calvinists before I point them to the

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Lutherans, because there's a goofy book written out there right now that I had to read in seminary that seems to be the one that's all the rage.

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And I refuse to promote it, because it's way too postmodern. It's just nonsense.

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But yeah, so we recognize even their contributions to the body of Christ. And so, you know, the idea then is that what we can't do is give you our pulpit and let you preside over the

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Lord's Supper and things like that. And we don't let you teach in our seminaries and stuff like that.

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But we still recognize that, you know, that you're Christians. And we can have some brotherly conversations, which should always include a little good ribbing as to why you're believing falsely on certain things.

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I remember when a few years back I was in Montana. I was speaking at a conference in Montana, and there was notable

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Reformed guys there. Notable Reformed guys there. Dr.

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James White of Alpha and Omega Ministry was there. And J .D.

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Hall was there. Phil Johnson was there. And I'm the token Lutheran among these Calvinists, right?

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And they invited us to go to Applebee's after the conference to have a lunch together before we dismissed and went our ways.

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And Barb was there. And so we're sitting at the table, and James White is sitting right in front of me. He's right across from me.

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And J .D. Hall's over here, and Phil Johnson's right there. And of course, what do the

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Calvinists want to do? They want to talk about baptism. And so I look at James White, who debates everybody.

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I mean, have you noticed the guy debates everybody? And I look at James, and I said, James, I have an idea for you, since the topic of baptism is being brought up.

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I said, let's do this. Let's you and I have a debate on the topic of baptism, but I want to modify the debate.

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Rather than it being a traditional debate where one person takes an affirmative stance and another person takes the opposing stance, instead, we both have to put forward affirmative positions, put forward to the people our affirmative beliefs regarding baptism.

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And then we can cross -examine each other afterwards and leave it up to the audience to say who is really properly exegeting these texts.

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And I said, tell you what, I'll even make it easier for you. I'll give you my opening argument. So from memory, I just walk through the biblical text, where Peter says, repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, for the promises for you and for your children, and for all who are far off and all who the

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Lord will lead to himself. And I said, I will argue from this text that baptism is for the forgiveness of sins and the receiving of the

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Holy Spirit, and it's also for children, which includes infants. And you know the Greek word there, and I do as well. And then

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I went to Romans 6, and I went to Titus 3, and just walked through it real quick. And all of these guys, all the

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Calvinists, were looking at me like, like this. And it only took me like five minutes to kind of work through all of this.

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And they didn't say a word. And then I said, there's my opening argument, and here's how I'm gonna use the text.

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I said, so how about it? Why don't we have this debate? We'll do this publicly. And he goes, I don't debate

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Lutherans. It was awesome, it was awesome.

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You know, so, you know, it was absolutely fascinating.

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Too many notes. So yeah, I think he knew that he was in trouble because all the texts say the exact same.

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I'm saying the same thing as all the texts. And of course, he would have to take the position that they don't mean that. We call that the dehydrated hermeneutic.

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You know, but all those kind of things. So, we're doing Bible Answer Man again today, aren't we?

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Yes, James. Back on the scientist note, you can just say for the sake of argument, evolutionary argument, saying, oh, this is the situations where your life must have evolved.

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That would prove it. An intelligent life source just used controlled conditions to produce life.

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Yep. So, they would just have to sit there and observe some, like, random spot and wait for life to just instantaneously create itself.

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That's correct. I like the point that you made, James, and that is that even if scientists were able to create life in a lab, it's still an intelligent creating a life using the building blocks that are in the creation.

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So, that's a good point. But an unborn human child is not life. No, of course. An unborn human fetus is not a human being.

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Right, whatever. Microbes on Mars equals life. Okay. All right, let's see here.

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There's more questions. Holy smokes. Come on, Bible Answer Man. What's wrong with you people?

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You act like this Bible study is interactive. What's going on here? Article 35. Lily, she had a good point.

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Lily says, we must remember that in a world that calls evil good and good evil, they make their own rules and they judge through those lenses.

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That's true. And so, you'll note that when the time comes and when we're told that we have to interpret

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Scripture through their lens, we have to just say, that's cute, but no.

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And be willing to suffer the consequences accordingly. That's how this goes. Bend the knee to Caesar or else.

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Well, Caesar would be damned. I'm not bending the knee to him. He's not a deity. Louis says, if you pull up biblical passages when speaking with someone, they flat out dismiss it because they don't believe the

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Bible at all. How would you handle it? Well, I would note then, do you ever send a soldier into battle without a rifle?

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No. Only if you're Chinese. Only if you're Chinese. Yeah, then you send them with rakes.

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Okay. So, you don't send soldiers into battle without a rifle. You are a soldier in the army of Christ and we are told to kit up.

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And the only offensive weapon we have is the Scripture. So, showing up without the

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Scriptures and not quoting the Scriptures is like showing up in a battle without a sword or without a rifle.

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You don't have an offensive weapon. If they're offended when you open the Bible, then don't open it.

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Quote it from memory. But note this, it is the

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Word of God that has the power, not you. And going back to what I said here,

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I am not responsible for what's happening here at Kongsvinger. The Word of God is. Y 'all are not here to hear me.

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Y 'all are here to hear the Word of God. So, if the Word of God were not preached here, would you even pay any attention to this place?

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No, there'd be no reason to. Right? So, keep that in mind. You cannot show up without your

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Bible and if that requires you to memorize the text, yes, you can still do it.

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I've seen people do that even in their older years. Memorize the text and then bring those texts to bear from memory.

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The Word of God should be in your heart and in your mind. And one of the things you'll note that how many of you have certain biblical passages memorized now because the liturgy has drilled it into you so much that it's right there whenever you need it.

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Someone says, I haven't sinned in the last five weeks. What's your answer to that?

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If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Right? That's straight out of Scripture.

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That's right in the liturgy. Yeah? They don't think at all.

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Yeah. What do you do with that? I don't believe them. I know.

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No, listen to what I'm saying. That's what you need to say. Yeah. So here's the thing.

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If somebody says they don't believe the Bible, don't believe them. Right. We all have the law of God written on our hearts.

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The person who says I don't believe the Bible is lying to you. They're lying to themselves.

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And they're lying to themselves. So you just quote the Scriptures, period. And you say

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God said, the end. Well, God didn't really say that. Yes, he did. And you know he did. In fact, call them on it.

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Do you believe what the Scripture says about those who suppress the truth and unrighteousness or not? Read again the opening portion of Romans 1.

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People suppress the truth and unrighteousness. They know what the truth is and they suppress it. So when you quote the

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Bible, they say, I don't believe that. And then you sit there and go, well, but you know it's true.

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Okay? And atheists will ask you, like, oh, there's a thousand. Yeah. That's right.

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Where do I, you know, you go to the Bible, and the Bible is a huge resource.

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And I have listened and heard probably more inside the

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Bible. The question I have for you, is there a reference? Because we have the internet and everything else that a person can go to that can hone in on the topic that you're talking about.

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Is there a Bible reference? Right. So tools to use to kind of reference the

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Bible. So you'll note that all of us have that to one degree or another where we can, we have a text, like it's on the tip of our tongue, but we don't know where it's at.

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Okay? And the question is, how do you get at it? One of the things that I recommend for people, oddly enough, one of the greatest tools for looking for verses in the

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Bible is Google. Yes. So I'll start the search string with Bible.

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I'll just put the word Bible. And then I will try to remember the words that are in the verse that I'm messing up.

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And oddly enough, Google can kind of backwards engineer and tell me where that passage is. So, and it's free.

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Yeah. Yeah, and Bible Gateway also works as well. Yeah. And the reason why

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Bible Gateway works well is because it has a bunch of translations. And as a, so have you ever went to look for a

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Bible verse and the reason why you couldn't find it is because you memorized it in the King James? Oh, man, that's annoying.

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Google's like, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, the Google result comes back, I do not knoweth what you are saying.

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You know, but. Searcheth again. Yeah, searcheth again, right. So, and that's the thing is that when you've studied, when you've heard

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God's word over the course of a lifetime, you'll note that when you first started reading the Bible, the

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King James was popular. And then the NIV came out and it was all the rage, right?

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And everybody did the NIV and then they came out with updates to the NIV because everyone was mad at the RSV. And then the

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RSV got bought by the people who put the ESV together and then the ESV came out and then the NIV fell by the wayside because they wanted to have gender -inclusive language and stuff like that in it.

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And as a result of it, you've got in your head, memorized passages of the scripture from at least three to five different translations.

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And it's annoying, you know. And so when you remember it one way and you look in your Bible and you can't find it, it's like, where is this text?

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You know, that, so Bible Gateway will help you with that. Mm -hmm.

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Yeah, and sometimes I do fight it because the problem isn't the computer, it's my brain.

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The gray hair is the indicator that things are starting to slide. Yep. All right, let's see here.

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So Karen says, scientists said, we have decided we no longer need you as we can create anything in the laboratory just as easy as you can create something.

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God said, okay, let's see who can create a human from dirt. Scientists reached down and gathered up some dirt and God said, get your own dirt.

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Laughter That's awesome, yeah. Okay, I have to go.

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So I didn't expect to play Bible Answer Man today, but we did. Okay, it was fun. So next week is

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Passion Sunday. It's going to be a really long service. The Gospel text itself will take me about 15 minutes to read.

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I want to give you guys kind of a heads up. So, you know, it might impact how we do

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Sunday school, just saying. So it's a long, long service next week. All right, peace to you brothers and sisters.