WWUTT 2420 Q&A Mustard Seeds and Leaven, Pastor Sabbaticals, Brandon Lake's Lyrics, Bryce Crawford's Evangelism

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June 6, 2025

Responding to questions from listeners about Jesus's parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, should churches give their pastors sabbaticals, what did Brandon Lake say about worship music, and who is Bryce Crawford? Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

00:00: When Jesus gave the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, does that have something to do with the end of the world?
00:07: Should we be singing Brandon Lake songs in church? And does the Bible say anything about sabbaticals?
00:13: The answers when we understand the text. This is
00:25: When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word, brought to you by Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona.
00:34: For more information about our ministry, visit our website at www .pastorgabe .com.
00:39: Once again, it's Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Let's start with a scripture here from Proverbs chapter 10, finishing up the chapter with verses 31 and 32.
00:49: Awesome. The mouth of the righteous bears wisdom, but the tongue of perversions will be cut out.
00:59: The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked, what is perverse.
01:05: So there's two Proverbs there, both having to do with the mouth. Mouth of the righteous bears wisdom.
01:12: The tongue of perversions will be cut out. In Revelation 21, it says the liars and those who speak falsely will not inherit the kingdom of God.
01:23: So those who speak words in such a way that would tear others down instead of exalt
01:30: Christ and speak truth ultimately will be cut out, thrown into the outer darkness.
01:38: I think of the illustration Jesus gives in Matthew 24, they will be cut into pieces and thrown out with the hypocrites.
01:45: Yeah, that's true. So the tongue, one of those pieces, that'll get cut out. Then the lips of the righteous know what is acceptable, but the mouth of the wicked, what is perverse.
01:58: So you have that word perverse that appears there again for both. The lips of the righteous know what is acceptable.
02:04: We speak things that are pleasing to God. Remember the warning that Jesus gives in Matthew 12.
02:13: Every person's going to have to give an account for every idle word they speak. The mouth of the wicked speaks those things that are perverse.
02:20: So also what Jesus says about out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. So what is coming out of a person's mouth, the righteous know what to say that is acceptable and pleasing before God.
02:32: The mouth of the wicked, what is perverse. If I can impress upon you any kind of exhortation,
02:39: Christian, stop swearing. Yeah. Come on. And be kinder in your car.
02:45: Be kinder. And in front of your laptops. Yeah. Even the stuff you type or swipe is registered in the heavenly registry as well.
02:57: So yeah, let's be careful with what it is that we say. With David say, God set a guard over the door of my lips.
03:06: So what we say will be pleasing unto the Lord. Oh, amen. Babe, how are you enjoying your summer so far?
03:12: Good. School's over. Yes. We're into the summertime. Yes. I'm just about done with getting everything turned over.
03:21: So just a little bit more for the next teacher. Oh, yeah.
03:26: I gotcha. Getting my stuff to the next teacher. And yeah, but so many things checked off my to -do list.
03:33: Awesome. I am so grateful. Great. It has been very productive this week. Thank you for making the sacrifice to you.
03:40: Yeah. For allowing me to do that. I get to go back to work at the church again. Yes. Instead of from home.
03:46: Yes. As soon as you're back at home. What was I going to mention?
03:52: Oh, the podcast. Yes. The delays that we've had. So for those of you who listen Monday through Friday, you'll notice
03:58: I skipped a bunch in there. I just got so behind, I couldn't get caught up. So I went ahead and took a week back and now
04:05: I'm a day ahead again. So instead of you getting the podcast uploaded like the night of the day that it's supposed to post.
04:13: Yes. Right. Instead of the night before. Depending upon your hour. Exactly. Right.
04:19: I'm back on time with everything again. And the Hear the Word of the Lord podcast is still going on.
04:25: It's still been kicking along even though I haven't gotten these episodes up in time. So if you want to catch just straight
04:33: Bible reading, there's no commentary, no music or anything else, then look for Hear the Word of the Lord, that podcast and whatever podcast app that you like to use.
04:42: Daily Bible readings, about three or four chapters a day. Yeah. And we'll get you through the whole Bible in a year.
04:49: So this is the end of the week broadcast when we take questions from the listeners and you can send those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
04:57: First question that we have here is from our friend Tyler. Oh, awesome. Tyler and Mackenzie, I married back in December.
05:06: Yeah. That wedding was in December, wasn't it? Yeah. Something like, man, that was, that seems like it wasn't that far ago, but it was.
05:14: About half a year ago now, yeah. That's crazy. Aw. So this has to do with one of the teachings that I did out of Luke 13.
05:22: And Tyler says, hi, Pastor Gabe, I hope you and your family are doing well. Part of the family's right here. Yes.
05:28: Yeah, there we go. We pray for you all as well as Providence Reformed Baptist Church. If you all have any specific prayer requests, we'd love to pray for you about those as well.
05:38: Got a specific request, babe? Just for the church building. Yeah. So things to go smoothly and...
05:44: We're still crammed into a tight space. Yeah. And our immediate need is to find a larger space to be able to meet.
05:51: Yeah. So be praying for that. Tyler knew that when he was here. Yep. So that... Still fighting that battle.
05:57: That need hasn't changed, yeah. I was listening to your Luke 13, 18 to 30 podcast episode, and you talked about the parable of the mustard seed and the leaven hidden in flour.
06:09: I'm part of a men's Bible study, and the idea that some believe those parables have an eschatological meaning did come up.
06:16: They're premillennial. And part of what one of the men said about it was that symbols in the
06:22: Bible mean the same thing wherever they're used. So birds of the air refer to Satan or evil or bad things in leaven, like when
06:30: Jesus warns against the leaven of the Pharisees is also a bad thing. And so those parables are actually about the church becoming corrupted, in a sense, opposed to the postmill interpretation of those verses.
06:42: I was wondering if you had ever heard this before and if you had any thoughts or if you'd consider answering it on one of your
06:49: Saturday episodes, if you don't have time to respond directly to me. Anyways, I hope all is well.
06:55: Mackenzie is 22 weeks pregnant with a girl. Oh, yay! Wonderful.
07:01: Congratulations, guys. Yeah. They got pregnant really fast then. So got married and...
07:06: Aw, what a blessing. There's no good way to follow up that or continue that sentence with what
07:13: I was going to say. So... Back up. Why are you looking at me like that? All right.
07:20: So back to this question again. Let me come back and read again those two parables in Luke 13.
07:28: This is verses 18 to 21. Okay. So I'll read the parables again. Okay. Sure. We'll get the recap and then understand what's being said here.
07:36: So Jesus said, what is the kingdom of God like and to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden and it grew and became a tree and the birds of the air made nests in his branches.
07:51: And again, he said, to what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until it was all leavened.
07:59: So one of the things that I mentioned teaching on this passage is that the post -millennials love this verse because they think that the leaven, as mentioned in verses 20 and 21, is about how the kingdom of God is going to spread over the entire earth.
08:14: Okay. Everybody's going to be a believer, or at least the gospel will have gone out to absolutely everybody and the majority of the world will be
08:22: Christian by the time that Jesus returns. And they think this parable points to that because verse 21 says the kingdom of God is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until it was all leavened.
08:36: So that's the whole world. The kingdom of God is going to be over the entire earth. Okay. Okay. I agree with that interpretation in a sense because when we enter into the eternal kingdom, yeah, it's going to be everything and everywhere.
08:52: Yes. So sure, if you want to take that interpretation, it's just not going to be that the majority of the world is going to be
08:57: Christianized. That's not the way to interpret that. Right. So how do we see these two things? And the interpretation that I gave when
09:06: I was teaching in this passage is that the grain of mustard seed is a reference to the kingdom of God external and the leaven hidden in flour is a reference to the kingdom of God internal.
09:19: So with regard to the mustard seed, a man took and sowed in his garden, it grew and became a tree and the birds of the air made nests in his branches.
09:28: Now one of the arguments that Tyler brought up is that somebody in his group had said whenever symbols appear in the
09:34: Bible, they always mean the same thing all the time. I disagree with that. So he mentioned that the birds of the air refer to Satan or evil or bad things, but that's not true because there are other places in the
09:48: Bible where birds are referenced. The birds nesting in branches is a reference to a good thing, right?
09:54: You know, when Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, Matthew chapter six, look at the birds.
10:00: They neither store in barns, yet your heavenly father cares for them and feeds them.
10:05: Yeah. How much more valuable are you than the birds? And there wasn't, wasn't there something about birds bringing the food as they're wandering or something like that?
10:14: Birds bringing the food as they're watering? No. As the people are wandering, then didn't the birds bring them food or something?
10:24: Well, there was the quail in the wilderness. Yeah. The quail were the food. Yeah. But wasn't there something?
10:30: Well, then there were the birds that brought Elijah food when he was. Okay. Is that what you were thinking of? Yes. That's the one
10:36: I was thinking. Gotcha. But I knew about the quail being the food. Yeah. But I was like, no, that's not it.
10:42: But then, yeah, it was Elijah. Well, then there's also this one in Psalm 84. How lovely are your dwelling places,
10:49: O Yahweh of hosts. My soul has longed and even fainted for the courts of Yahweh.
10:55: My heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Here's verse three. Even the bird has found a home and the swallow a nest for herself where she sets her young.
11:07: At your altars, O Yahweh of hosts, my King and my God. So this is a song from the
11:15: Sons of Korah. And the Sons of Korah cared for the temple. They would open the gates for when people came in to worship.
11:24: As I've heard it described of the Sons of Korah, they would clean the doormats. Yes. So they were like the janitors of the temple.
11:31: So they're in the temple serving all the time. And they see how on the top of the temple, birds would come and make nests.
11:38: And so how lovely is this place where God meets with us that even the birds up there find a home.
11:45: So they're taking a real natural observation and applying it to the goodness and care of God for his people and his creatures.
11:54: Right. Even the bird has found a home and the swallow a nest for herself where she sets her young.
12:00: At your altars, O Yahweh of hosts. The very altar where birds would be sacrificed. Right, exactly.
12:07: And yet God allows these birds to be there on top of his dwelling place and find residence.
12:13: So how much more does God care for us? Right. It's a good reference in that way. So yeah, birds. It cares for the sparrows.
12:21: Yes, right. And then there's also like something about being eagle's wings, like under his wing.
12:27: He will bear you up on eagle's wings. Yes. Yes. And something about being comforted by wings and stuff like that.
12:36: It's all over. Right. It's all over being a very positive thing. There are various references.
12:41: So you understand it according to the context. Right. And therefore the leaven, even though leaven is almost every time leaven comes up, it's almost always a reference to a bad thing.
12:55: Right. So true. But this is not the case here. Even in the previous chapter, in chapter 12,
13:01: Jesus said, beware the leaven of the Pharisees. He had warned the disciples about that. Right. So here you have a reference to leaven again.
13:08: Is that something that's supposed to be bad? Well, again, the context is what determines the usage, especially when it comes to a parable.
13:15: So it's not how this symbol has been used elsewhere in the Bible. That's still helpful. You're talking about a biblical context in that sense.
13:22: Right. But your immediate context is still what you most want to be focused on. You have to be careful about not letting a previous biblical context coming into what it is that you're reading and letting that be the deciding factor of how you interpret that particular passage.
13:39: Right. It's still the context in which it's given. What else is going on around that verse?
13:45: Before you start looking, you start doing your cross -referencing and finding where else this is appearing in the
13:51: Bible. Right. The immediate reference is still primary.
13:57: The passage. Exactly. Right. Yeah. It's just basic reading comprehension. When it comes down to it.
14:02: So I read mostly classical commentaries. And the only commentary that I could find that came up with an interpretation of the leaven being a bad thing in this parable was
14:14: John Gill's. And yet Gill only presented it as a possible interpretation.
14:20: He wasn't saying that this is the meaning of the leaven. It could be positive or it could be negative.
14:27: That's the way that Gill was presenting it. Okay. So he said that the woman taking the leaven represents Christ and his ministers, wisdom and her maidens, understanding it of the gospel.
14:39: So you take the leaven and you put it in the flower and the whole thing becomes leavened.
14:45: Just like how the message of the gospel gets into us and the whole of us becomes leavened.
14:53: Yeah. In that sense. We are now fit for the kingdom. Right. We're being sanctified.
14:58: We are justified and being sanctified. Exactly right. But then Gill goes on to say, but if the leaven of error is intended, that woman
15:08: Jezebel is meant who calls herself a prophetess and teaches and seduces the servants of God.
15:17: So as I said before, and Gill kind of goes along with what I said with regards to the parable of the leaven is a reference to something internal, the parable of the mustard seed external.
15:27: So it starts small. You're starting with the 12 disciples that Jesus sent out into Pentecost and those apostles preached the gospel for the first time in Acts 2.
15:37: It started that small and yet that seed grew into a great tree. Even in the book of Acts, you see the gospel going out to all the reaches of the
15:46: Roman empire and birds come and nest in the branches. A reference to people from all over the world that come to hear the gospel and come into the kingdom of God because that's what's in view in this parable.
16:00: And then the internal, of course, again, being the gospel gets in and all of us becomes transformed by that power of the gospel.
16:08: Amen. So there you go. Great question, Tyler. I appreciate that. But no, I disagree on the eschatological significance, whether somebody is trying to pull that into the post -meal camp or into the pre -meal camp.
16:20: Yeah. I don't think that's supposed to be the understanding there. But congratulations and we miss you guys. We miss you guys.
16:26: Absolutely. Still talk about you a lot and all good things. Of course. This next question comes from, hang on, let me skip down to Jody's question.
16:36: Hi, Pastor Gabe. Thank you for your online ministry. I really appreciate the exposition of scripture and your videos on YouTube are spot on.
16:45: Aw, that's kind. I spent many years of my Christian life in mainstream evangelical churches and about five years ago,
16:52: I woke up to many dysfunctional beliefs and overall apathy and what I was being taught. And now
16:57: I am at a wonderful reform church and I'm also so blessed to be surrounded by people who truly love the
17:05: Lord and his word. It's wonderful to hear. Amen. My church is an elder led congregation, which
17:11: I know is biblical, but this is very new to me and I have nothing to compare it with.
17:17: My church is unaffiliated. So non -denominational seems that way and has, or at least you would say it's completely autonomous.
17:28: Doesn't answer to any denominational head, but you're unaffiliated. So has had the same lead pastor for 19 years.
17:36: Recently, the elders decided to give our pastor a sabbatical and told us this two weeks before it would start and it's for six months.
17:45: Oh, wow. Can you please give me some insight on how elder led churches are to function? And what do you understand about sabbaticals?
17:52: The gospel partners slash members have no input into what happens at my church and feel like this and other concerns slash questions are not overly welcome.
18:03: I tried to talk about this with a friend at church who has been there longer than I, and it didn't go well.
18:09: Thank you. And I appreciate your question, Jodi. So we are, we're an elder led congregation.
18:16: We refer to it as elder led congregationalism. So there are some decisions that the congregation does have a responsibility to make.
18:25: Right. For example, when it came to my being hired as an elder, the congregation did have input in that.
18:31: And if it ever comes down to somebody being disciplined and would have to be removed from the church, the congregation is going to have a say in that.
18:39: That goes into the church discipline steps that are given in Matthew 18 verses 15 to 17.
18:45: So the congregation has a say. At the same time, there are certain things that, frankly,
18:51: I don't think that the congregation needs to be in on. And we talked about this before, not that long ago, a few weeks back with regard to disciplining a certain member in our church.
19:01: And there were things that were personal and private that we just could not make public. Right. Because it would give credibility or it would give that not credibility.
19:12: It would give air. It would give air to statements that were slanderous. Right. We knew what those false witness statements were, but we were not going to tell it to the congregation.
19:23: And now the congregations wonder, well, was that true or what? No, it's nobody's business because this person's being disciplined for slander.
19:30: We're not going to let the slander continue to go out. So that was an occasion in which the elders knew what needed to be done, and the congregation just had to trust that we were doing the right thing.
19:43: And therefore, the discipline still being handled as a church, but done in such a way that we were protecting innocent parties.
19:50: Right. So that's an example of how the elder -led aspect of it won't always mean that everything that happens is going to be therefore known by the congregation.
20:03: Right. But when it comes to money and budget and stuff like that, we're very transparent with all of that. So the congregation knows all of how that's being handled.
20:11: We'll have budget meetings once a year. The entire congregation is present for that budget meeting. Ultimately, the decision rests with the elders, but we're still going to get input from the congregation and let them know how their money is being used and what needs are in the church and things of that nature.
20:25: And bring up any concerns. Exactly. Or anything missed. Yes. Things like that. That's still all a matter of transparency.
20:31: Now, I will say that I hold the view that I don't think the congregation should actually be the ones hiring elders or pastors, for that matter.
20:42: And it's because in Titus chapter one, Paul is sending Titus to the island of Crete and saying, appoint elders in those churches.
20:51: True. So it's not go into those churches and survey the congregations and find out which ones are qualified and who the congregation is going to vote for to be the pastor of the church.
21:03: We don't see that kind of pattern. And when Timothy is sent to Ephesus, he's being told not to let anyone teach any different doctrine.
21:11: Right. It's not given to the church, the congregation to silence or fire elders or anything like that.
21:19: Timothy is going to have that authority to be able to retain people or let them go. So I don't think that it's necessarily left up.
21:26: And that's not to say that it's wrong, therefore, for a congregation to decide who they want their pastor or their elder to be.
21:34: You got to start somewhere. Right. But hopefully you've got some other trained ministers that are involved in that process.
21:41: So it's not just left up to the congregation to hire somebody that the lay people see fit, find somebody who is mature to be able to test and examine whether that person is qualified for that position.
21:54: Right. Some other elders who can test elders. Right. Because that,
22:00: I mean, like coming from what you would think that a good boss would be versus another boss knows what a boss is, you know, what qualifications they need to have or be prepared for.
22:15: And so it's like the approach of it is different. Right. So. It's kind of a crude example, but it's good.
22:22: It's kind of, you know. The employees don't hire their boss. Right. It's a loose example.
22:28: Loose example. But, yeah, it makes sense. Kind of a more like general revelation sort of an example. Yeah. So with regard to sabbaticals,
22:36: I'm very indifferent to sabbaticals. I can't foresee a scenario or a situation which
22:42: I would want to take one. Six months is not unusual. I've heard of that before. Oh, yeah, that's pretty common.
22:48: Yeah. I've heard of sabbaticals lasting a year. Yeah. So it could be that the pastor wants to take that time to write.
22:56: Maybe he's working on a book. Maybe he's going to do some missionary work. So he's going to travel, go back to school, finish some classes.
23:04: Could be some things like that. So it's not like taking care of parents. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. We've heard that before, too.
23:10: So it's not like the sabbatical becomes a lazy time. Right. It's not like vacation. Right. The pastor is generally going to fill that up with something.
23:18: A friend of mine took a six week sabbatical one time. And the way that the I can't remember what you would call it.
23:26: The it's not their statement of faith. It's kind of their bylaws. But like the hiring manual or whatever it would be for the pastors of the church.
23:34: There was something that was written in there with regards to the pastor being able to take a sabbatical every so many number of years.
23:41: So I think he had to be there a certain number of years first. Then he could take a six week sabbatical. So the sabbatical is typically paid.
23:47: He's still getting full time wages. Right. During that period of time. But he's using that time for something other than specific ministry in the church or even preaching.
23:58: Again, he might be traveling. It's not just vacation. Right. He's using that time for something else.
24:05: Now, it could be a vacation. Again, it just kind of depends on how your church has set that up. What's been the arrangements or the agreements?
24:13: Maybe he just needs to take the time off. Yeah. I'm not sure. I mean, even a vacation is like recentering.
24:21: Exactly. Yeah. Refreshing. Right. Right. Just making sure the relationships in your household are strong.
24:31: Yeah. So just reconnecting type of thing. Yeah. Even that. Even if you get into a busy season and you're go, go, go, go, go, go, go.
24:39: And it's like, okay, now what? So then everything at home is kind of disarray.
24:47: And how do you get that under control while you're still go, go, go, go, going? And so sometimes it's good to take a step back and just recenter, basically.
24:59: Refocus. Yeah. And even that's sanctifying. Amen. So taking some time to refresh.
25:05: And knowing that you need that is also huge. Yeah.
25:10: Being willing to take that time apart, set it with the Lord. Maybe he's going to go on some sort of prayer sabbatical.
25:16: Oh, yeah, for sure. Where he could spend some time away from civilization, away from technology and smartphones.
25:23: What? I'm starting to talk myself into this now, I think. Anyway. Yeah.
25:31: So again, that's not to say that I can be somewhat critical of them, but at the same time,
25:37: I can see their value. Exactly. If a friend of mine says, hey,
25:42: I'm going to be taking a sabbatical for six months, I'm not going to be going, why? Why would you? But what concerns me is that it's a two -week notice.
25:50: Yeah, that does seem a little out of the blue. Is that just the congregation had the two -week notice or everybody had the two -week notice?
25:58: Yeah. You know what I mean? Typically for a sabbatical, there's a lot more planning to it. Oh, yeah. Because the church especially wants to be prepared for who's going to be filling in the pulpit at that amount of time.
26:09: Is it the other elders? Are we going to bring somebody else in? And so, yeah, there needs to be enough prep time,
26:16: I would expect. I would think anyway. So like I was saying, if the elders knew ahead of time, but the congregation wasn't in on it, then that's different.
26:26: But if it was everybody didn't know until two weeks out, then that's a little concerning.
26:33: There does need to be some transparency. Even if you have an elder -ruled congregation. Right. It's still right for the elders to let the congregation in on what's going on.
26:44: Right. Yeah. You're not just coming in here as patrons and then just, you know.
26:50: Right. Donating to our Patreon. I mean, if you miss two
26:56: Sundays and then you come back and your pastor's gone, you're like, what's going on? I know. Right. I know. That would be a little confusing.
27:01: Yeah. So even, yeah, like I said, even in an elder -led congregation, there needs to be a little bit more openness, a little bit more transparency.
27:12: Like when you look at the Jerusalem Council in Acts chapter 15, this was a decision that was decided among the apostles, but the congregation was present.
27:21: Right. They're right there as these things are being debated and talked about. And what are we going to say to the Gentiles?
27:26: Sure. And the congregation's there. The church is there to observe this conversation that they're having within this council.
27:33: So even when elders are making decisions like this on a smaller scale with their own congregations,
27:38: I would hope that the church has a little bit more awareness of these kinds of meetings and how this is going on.
27:46: Yeah. It's one of the reasons why we make our budget meetings. The whole church is going to be there. Right. Even if the elders have the final say, we're going to have that conversation in front of the church so that they know how their money is being used.
27:58: They can ask questions. And if they disagree with something that us as elders need to rethink on that, like, okay, yeah, that's right.
28:06: We might have to rethink some things. Then, okay, we'll go back to the drawing board and bring up this budget a different way.
28:14: Yeah. But ultimately, yeah, we have the final vote, but we want to know what the congregation thinks.
28:22: It's just good. It's courteous. It's the way that the church, as brothers and sisters in the Lord are working together and seeing that the ministry is being accomplished for the advancement of the gospel, the proclamation of the gospel, whether that's in a
28:34: Sunday service or even in the evangelism that you'll be doing in the community that you live in. Right.
28:39: So I hope that's helpful to you, Jodi, and we appreciate you listening and asking. Babe, are you familiar with who
28:45: Brandon Lake is? Sounds familiar. Very popular, well -known
28:50: Christian artist. If you listen to a lot of Christian radio, you've probably heard his songs. Probably. Like when we play the
28:56: Amazon music around our house or something, just didn't realize that it was Brandon Lake. He said something controversial recently, and we got a question about that.
29:06: Okay. And that's what I'm going to be responding to in the second half of the broadcast. So if you listen on the radio, this is as much as you're getting, but if you listen on the podcast, there's a half an hour yet to go.
29:19: Yeah. So you got to subscribe by looking up WWUTT on whatever podcasting app you like to use.
29:24: Thank you for joining me, babe. You're welcome. God bless you guys. Believe in yourself is the most common moral to just about every kids movie and TV show out there.
29:50: And it's not just for kids. This mantra is for adults too. Believing in yourself often means,
29:56: If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. But that's not true. There are plenty of things you can't do, nor will ever be.
30:03: Many people have reached for dreams they never got, though they gave it everything they had. Sometimes in order to get what you want, you have to sacrifice something way more important than your dream, like your faith or morality or family or someone's life.
30:17: I wouldn't have been able to do this without employing a woman's right to choose.
30:25: Proverbs 28, 26 says, whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool. Jeremiah 17, 5 says,
30:37: Jesus never said, believe in yourself. He said, die to yourself. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.
30:48: For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
30:54: For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits himself? He said, whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.
31:04: When we understand the text. This question comes from Paul. He says, dear, what?
31:09: Thank you for your videos in your podcast. I know you've been busy, but I'd love to see more videos and some longer videos if you're up to them, kind of like the one you did on the
31:18: Enneagram a couple of years ago. Yeah, I think that was exactly two years ago now. I think it was April of 2023 that I did that one, if memory serves.
31:27: That was a 10 and a half minute video. And I did intend to do more videos like that. But then we moved and I haven't had the time to work on longer videos.
31:37: So we'll get there. I appreciate your input, Paul. He goes on to say, did you see this story about about Brandon Lake?
31:45: Almost called him Blandon Rake. That's seriously what was coming out of my mouth.
31:51: Brandon Lake, who said that we shouldn't sing holy, holy, holy in church. He was talking to a guy named
31:57: Bryce Crawford, which appears to be a popular podcast. Do you know anything about him? I know you've done reviews of popular praise and worship songs before.
32:06: Should we be singing Brandon Lake's songs in church? Thanks in advance for your response.
32:13: So Brandon Lake just recently won the K Love fan awards. This was just a week ago now.
32:20: So it was Friday last week. He won first place. I say it like it was a competition.
32:26: He won the fan award. That's the better way to say it. For best song of the year, which was his song,
32:35: Hard Fought Hallelujah. I'll read the lyrics to that one in a moment. And he also won artist of the year, if memory serves.
32:42: So the K Love fans, K Love, if you don't know, is it's the biggest
32:48: Christian station in the country. K Love fans voted Brandon Lake their favorite artist. So he won the artist of the year.
32:54: In case you don't know, he came from Bethel Church. So this is a church that I've warned all kinds of people about.
33:02: The Bethel Church in Redding, California, under the teaching of Bill Johnson. It's a heretical congregation.
33:09: The things they believe about the Holy Spirit are, it's like they have a version of the Holy Spirit that isn't the
33:15: Holy Spirit, according to the Bible. As I've said, with regards to Bethel Church, they believe about the
33:21: Holy Spirit, what the Roman Catholic Church believes about Mary. Or what the Jehovah's Witnesses and the
33:27: Mormons believe about Jesus. Like it's a completely made up Jesus that's not the Jesus of the
33:32: Bible. And so it is with the Holy Spirit in Bethel Church. So he came from Bethel.
33:38: He's done a lot of recording with Elevation Church. That's Stephen Furtick's church,
33:44: Charlotte, North Carolina. And also Maverick City, which has come out of Elevation. He's done a number of songs with them.
33:50: So he runs like the gamut of the big three praise and worship churches that nobody should have anything to do with.
33:58: Bethel Church, Elevation Church, the other being Hillsong out of Sydney, Australia. Brandon Lake has done stuff with them as well.
34:06: In our congregation, in our church, we don't sing churches by, or sorry, we don't sing songs by those particular churches.
34:14: Of course, the stuff that Brandon Lake releases, it's very cookie cutter. It's going to be that stuff that is pleasing to exactly that genre that is popular on K -Love.
34:24: Positive, encouraging K -Love. You're just going to get songs that are going to check certain boxes that people are going to like, and it's going to generate the most number of positives.
34:34: It's not going to say anything negative that's going to make people think, oh, I'm tired of this and turn the radio to something else.
34:40: So everything has to be very formulaic. It fits a certain pattern and it has to please a particular demographic.
34:47: That's everything that ends up on K -Love. So Brandon Lake was recently on a podcast, as Paul had mentioned, a guy by the name of Bryce Crawford, and they were talking about worship songs.
34:59: Here's what Brandon Lake had to say. I'd love to see more worship sets, more churches, like kind of keep
35:09: Bubba in mind. Yeah. Like we call him Bubba, the guy who's like in the back of the room and he's like, he got dragged there by his wife.
35:16: Yeah, yep. And I just don't know if like, when you're opening song or the most of your songs have so much
35:22: Christianese language, I think he has a hard time going like, can
35:29: I sing that? Like, I'm not there yet. Right. I think he hears a hard fight and I'm not saying hard fight is the answer, but like,
35:36: I love like when your first song is like, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty.
35:41: I think he's going like, what does holy mean? Holy crap. Like what? Like, I don't, you know, like,
35:47: I don't know. Obviously that's where we want to get to in a worship set is where it's just every eye is fixated on him.
35:54: Right. And it's just like everyone, it's like vertical. Yeah. But like give Bubba some language.
36:00: He can be like, all right, I find myself in that song. I feel like that, you know?
36:06: And hopefully that's what some of my music can continue to do. Now notice what he said there with regards to the song, sing some lyrics that Bubba can find himself in, not praise
36:20: God, find himself in. Like, I want to hear myself in that song. So of course he hates the lyrics to holy, holy, holy, because that song is entirely
36:30: God exalting. Holy, holy, holy Lord God almighty.
36:37: Early in the morning, our song shall rise to thee, not me to God.
36:44: Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty God in three persons. Blessed Trinity. Because this is what music is supposed to be about.
36:52: When we sing corporate songs in church, we are singing to God. It's not about us.
36:58: It's about us worshiping God. It's about giving him glory and giving him praise.
37:03: And if Bubba, I'm going to mention that here in a moment. But if this unsaved guy comes into church, and he hears these songs that are
37:11: Christ exalting, and they sound over his head and make him feel uncomfortable and awkward, good.
37:19: That's exactly the way that it should be. Because he's not saved.
37:25: He doesn't know God. He doesn't know how to give worship to God. So of course, this is going to be awkward for him.
37:32: You then get ahold of him after church and explain the gospel to him. So hopefully he will be convicted of his sin.
37:40: He will see God in the gospel. And then he will see God in the lyrics of those songs. And he likewise will have a heart that is ready to praise and lift up God in worship.
37:50: Church is about praising God. It's about worship unto God. The focus is on Christ.
37:57: His word. What he has done for us. The gospel. It's not about what is this going to say to me today?
38:05: How is this going to speak to my heart? Unless what it is that you come there looking for is more
38:10: Christ. Then yes, of course, Christ is going to speak to your heart. But it's not going to be about you.
38:15: It's not about looking for yourself in the music or in the lyrics or especially not in the Lord's table.
38:21: It is exalting Christ and getting Jesus today. And we as the people of God coming together to do this together, praising our
38:32: God for saving us, for calling us to himself through the hearing of his word.
38:38: Titus 2 14. He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all lawlessness and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good works.
38:50: That's the church. And though Bubba might be there present listening to it, he's not part of it.
38:57: Because he doesn't know Christ. Church, the gathering of the body of believers, is that's not evangelism.
39:05: Evangelism may happen there. The pastor may preach something that could be totally evangelistic, but that's not what church is about.
39:13: Evangelism happens outside the church. Church is for the believers worshiping
39:18: God. It's not for unbelievers. And it should not ever, ever, ever be planned for unbelievers.
39:27: We need to do something that's going to make unbelievers happy and make them want to stay here and find themselves in the lyrics of the songs that we sing or whatever.
39:36: That's not what church is for. The gathering is going to feed the sheep. Bubba's coming in there, not as a believer.
39:43: So, of course, he's not going to be fed. Now, OK, so coming into this reference to Bubba, I hate even continuing to use that name, but that's what that's what
39:51: Brandon Lake said. And just so nobody thinks that I have anything against Bubba's, my three year old, we call him
39:56: Bubba. So we have a Bubba in our family. We also have a Becky in our family.
40:02: Becky was just with me on the first half of the broadcast, obviously my wife. So the way that Christian radio stations program, especially in the 2000s, from 2000 to 2010 and a little bit beyond that as well,
40:16: Christian radio stations were programming for a certain demographic. They were calling Becky. And when
40:21: I was in Christian radio during that period of time, we called this Becky programming. And again, as I mentioned before, even with Caleb, Caleb pioneered this.
40:30: So the reason why Caleb is so successful is because of their contextualization. They're programming for a certain particular demographic.
40:37: And this person doesn't know the Bible very well, just wants just want some Christian language in the song, something that will make me feel good, uplift my soul.
40:46: It's going to praise Jesus a little bit, but is also not going to remind me of my sin. It's not going to make me feel bad about anything or stuff like that.
40:54: We can't have anything too negative, nothing about the wrath of God or judgment that is coming against sinners or anything like that.
40:59: No, these have to be positive and encouraging because that's Caleb's slogan.
41:05: So they have this woman in mind who's between the ages of about 25 and 45. She's got three kids.
41:11: She lives in suburban America. She is a white woman. They'll even think of her in terms of that ethnic group, probably drives a minivan.
41:22: Her husband is working a job in which they make this much money per year. Maybe she even has something part time that she does.
41:30: So this is that woman that they're programming for, and they call her Becky. And now here is
41:35: Brandon Lake talking about that. We need to program the church a certain way, and we need to program it for this guy that he names
41:42: Bubba. So we even have like Bubba programming that's going on in most evangelical churches.
41:49: It's just utterly absurd. You notice that Lake also said in there, I'm not saying that Hard Fought Hallelujah is the solution, but maybe that's the song that you sing.
41:58: Hard Fought Hallelujah is not a corporate worship song. It's not. It really should not be sung in any church.
42:04: It shouldn't be sung in any church because Brandon Lake is a heretic being from Bethel Church and from Elevation Church.
42:12: So you're not even singing songs from a guy who truly understands even who God is, truly understands even what the gospel is.
42:20: You should have been able to pick that up from the conversation that he had there with Bryce Crawford. So here's the lyrics to Hard Fought Hallelujah.
42:26: Yeah, I don't always feel it. Yeah, but that's when I need it the most. So I'm a keep on singing till my soul catches up with my song.
42:34: There's times when my hands go up freely and times that it costs. Oh, there's days when a praise comes out easy days when it takes all the strength
42:43: I got. I'll bring my hard fought, heartfelt been through hell. Hallelujah. Oh, and I'll bring my storm tossed, torn sail story to tell.
42:53: Hallelujah. Oh, because God, you've been patient. God, you've been gracious, faithful, whatever
42:59: I'm feeling or facing. So I'll bring my hard fought, heartfelt. It is well.
43:04: Hallelujah. Whoa. Oh, hallelujah. Oh, oh, hallelujah. OK, so that's a song that you could listen.
43:10: You could listen to in your car and you could probably sing along with it in your car because that's really how
43:18: Caleb is programming these songs that you're listening to. You're listening to it in your car or it's background music at the office or something like that.
43:25: That's how they're programming. It doesn't work in corporate worship. This is not a corporate worship song.
43:31: It's not easy to sing. So it doesn't even hit the right rhythm or register or whatever for everybody in the congregation to be able to sing this.
43:41: So here is Brandon Lake talking about writing songs in such a way that's going to appeal to a guy who is unsaved, comes in with his wife, who's a
43:49: Christian, but he himself is not a Christian, and he's going to be able to sing along with this. Even the musical pattern of this song is not written in a way that fits a corporate worship setting.
44:04: The whole congregation can't sing this. And a lot of these Christian artists are singing in a register that nobody can reach anyway.
44:10: Todd Freel on Wretched is often joking about how high Chris Tomlin sings, so you can't even reach the notes in the keys that he's singing.
44:21: Bring it down a little bit, guys. So oftentimes, if you're singing a Chris Tomlin song in your church, it has been brought down.
44:28: You're not singing it in the same key that Chris Tomlin sings it in. You've probably noticed that when you've tried to sing along with Chris Tomlin on the radio.
44:35: So this song doesn't even fit the corporate worship setting. So Lake is not even offering something that appeals to this guy that he thinks that church needs to be catered to.
44:49: Here's another song from Brandon Lake, and this is a song that he does with Maverick City, who again comes out of Elevation Church.
44:57: So the lyrics go like this. The song is called Rest on Us. As the spirit was moving over the waters, spirit come move over us.
45:05: Come rest on us. Come rest on us. As the spirit was moving over the waters, spirit come move over us.
45:12: Come rest on us. Come rest on us. So come down. Spirit, when you move, you make my heart pound.
45:19: When you fill the room, you're here and I know you are moving. I'm here and I know you will fill me.
45:25: Come down. Spirit, when you move, you make my heart pound. When you fill the room, you're here and I know you are moving.
45:33: I'm here and I know you will fill me. Like, this is not even a good pneumatology.
45:39: Pneumatology, by the way, is the study of the Holy Spirit, and this doesn't even follow a good understanding of the
45:45: Holy Spirit. There's actually nowhere in the New Testament, or even in the Old Testament, where there is a prayer to the
45:52: Holy Spirit. That's not to say that we can't pray to the Holy Spirit, but it's just odd writing songs to Him when there is not an example of this in the
46:03: Bible anywhere. Plus, we don't pray for the Holy Spirit to come into the room and fill us.
46:10: If you're there as a Christian, the Holy Spirit has already filled you.
46:16: You cannot be more filled with the Holy Spirit than you already are. And so, asking that the
46:23: Holy Spirit would come in and fill you up, you could probably be praying and asking
46:29: God that more of me be taken out of the way. That's certainly something that we could be praying for, less of me and more of you.
46:38: But there's not more Spirit put into you than you had when you walked into church.
46:45: If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you have the Holy Spirit. That's it. You have the
46:51: Spirit. You have as much of the Spirit as you're ever going to have. And your ability to be sanctified, to grow in holiness and godliness, is the work of the
47:01: Spirit in you to make you more Christ -like. As we read about in Philippians chapter 2, this is verse 12 and 13.
47:11: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
47:19: How is God working in you? Through the Holy Spirit that is in you. This is a common charismatic trope, praying that the
47:27: Holy Spirit would come in the room and fill this place and fill us up, make my heart pound. I know you are moving.
47:34: I know you will fill me. And I'm standing there listening to this going, the Holy Spirit's already filled me.
47:40: What are you guys asking for? So again, a wrong pneumatology.
47:46: And it goes on to say, hey, come fill us up, come fill us up, come fill us up. Come rest on us, come rest on us, come rest on us.
47:54: Yeah. Hang on, there's another repetitive part. You're all we want, you're all we want. Come rest on us, you're all we want, you're all we want.
48:01: Come rest on us. This is nonsensical. And a lot of these songs turn out to be that way.
48:07: They don't actually even make any sense. When you stop and listen to the lyrics that you're singing, does this actually make sense?
48:16: And much of the songs that come out of Bethel and Elevation, including Maverick City, don't make a whole lot of sense.
48:22: I'll give it to Hillsong. Hillsong can write some tunes that make a lot more sense. And I've heard
48:29: Hillsong tunes I really, really like. I really like them. But the only reason I don't bring them into corporate worship is because of who
48:36: Hillsong is. And I'm just not going to, I'm not going to give them any air. There's plenty of other songs. There's a great library of songs that you can go back that are centuries old.
48:45: Holy, holy, holy is a much better song that you should be singing in your church than any Brandon Lake song.
48:50: And that should go without saying. Here's another one from Brandon Lake. I didn't even catch the title of this one.
48:57: I just copied these lyrics down. Isn't it just like heaven when you walk into the room?
49:02: There's not a thing that's hidden when every eye is on you. Can't get enough of your presence.
49:08: It's the perfect point of view. Isn't it just like, just like, just like heaven? Hmm. Hmm.
49:14: Come a little closer. Stay a little longer. Hmm. I can't get enough of you. Hmm. Come a little closer.
49:19: Stay a little longer. Hmm. I can't get enough of you. That's a Brandon Lake song. That makes no sense.
49:27: You're singing to heaven. Heaven's a place. Heaven's not a person when you come into the room.
49:33: There's not a thing that's hidden when every eye is on you, on you, on you. Like the person who walked into the room or on heaven that came into the room.
49:42: I don't even know. I can't even make sense of this. I don't even know what this is supposed to mean.
49:47: Can't get enough of your presence, of heaven's presence. Heaven's where we go when we die.
49:53: Heaven is where God dwells. We don't sing worship songs to heaven. So this, it's just a stupid song.
50:01: I'm just going to say that. It's stupid. Oh, merciful heavens. Uh, anyway, so the other question that Paul asked is who is
50:09: Bryce Crawford? Well, Bryce Crawford is a, um, he's a popular evangelist on YouTube.
50:18: And that's really how he got popular is he goes into some tough places to share the gospel.
50:23: You can find videos of him preaching outside of, uh, of a gay bar. He preaches at, uh, outside a church of Scientology.
50:32: So he's done some pretty, you know, he's covered some pretty significant ground. And this is what got him really popular.
50:39: He's got two YouTube channels between those two channels has over a half a million followers on Instagram alone over,
50:46: I think it was 1 .6 million followers. So nothing to sneeze at Bryce Crawford has definitely generated a following for himself.
50:54: And I think he's got a passion for what he's doing, but he very desperately needs some mentorship and he hasn't had, it's very clear that he hasn't had some good solid
51:06: Bible teachers to teach him the Bible and how to do some real evangelism. So he was just recently in my own backyard in Phoenix and was at Arizona State University with Cliff Connectly.
51:21: How do you pronounce his name? I've done this before and I get some, uh, I'll get some corrections. Please tell me if you could send me an email and tell me how to pronounce his last name because I've never caught it.
51:33: Even when I watch interviews with him, they never say his last name. I'm like, come on, that's the help that we need.
51:38: We need to know how to say his last name. But anyway, and this is Cliff Connectly, however you say it, along with Bryce Crawford.
51:48: You're going to hear Cliff set him up and then Bryce is going to respond to the question. This is not very long.
51:55: It's about a two minute clip. It's a half an hour altogether, but we're not going to go through this whole thing. So you hear a little bit of Bryce Crawford and we'll kind of break down the explanation or the answer that he gives to the question that's asked.
52:07: So here we go. All right, so you're going to ask questions and Bryce is going to answer the next one. Yes, sir. Does God hate?
52:13: Does God hate, Bryce? I don't think God hates people. I think he hates evil. All right, let me stop right there.
52:19: So did you catch? I know that went kind of fast. They've spliced the video together to go a lot more quickly. But the question that was asked was, does
52:28: God hate? And Bryce pops in and he says, I don't think God hates people.
52:34: I think he hates evil. Is that correct? Psalm five, five, the boastful shall not stand before your eyes.
52:43: You hate all evil doers. So does God hate people?
52:49: Yes, he does. Psalm 11, five, his soul hates the wicked, not just people who are not just the wickedness that they do, but the wicked themselves.
53:02: God is going to throw into hell people he hates, not people he loves. As we hear in John 3, 36, whoever has the son has life.
53:11: Whoever does not obey the son shall not see life. But the wrath of God remains on him. Now, does
53:17: God love us before we come to salvation? Certainly he does. Romans five talks about this.
53:22: Verse eight, God demonstrates his love for us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. In Romans chapter two, it talks about God's kindness toward us, his patience toward us so that we would reach repentance.
53:34: But those who are going to come to faith are his sheep. Jesus talks about that in John 10, my sheep know my voice and they follow me.
53:41: And as we read in John six, all that the father gives me will come to me.
53:47: And back to John 10, Jesus saying, I give my life, I lay my life down for the sheep.
53:53: It's not the goats who follow Jesus. It's not the wolves who follow Jesus. It's his sheep. And this is who
53:58: Jesus has given his life for. So yes, there are people that God hates.
54:04: Now it's not up to us to discriminate. We don't get the right to be able to say, well,
54:10: God hates you, but he loves you. We can say to a sinner who is unrepentant, we can say to them, you're still under God's wrath and you must repent.
54:20: The only way that you can have the wrath of God satisfied, that you will not perish in judgment is to turn from your sin to the
54:28: Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. I have made criticisms of Cliff's evangelism before and have even received pushback from listeners to this podcast when
54:42: I've criticized Cliff's evangelism every time. I'm going to say this, I think it's been without fault.
54:49: Every time I have brought up one of Cliff's evangelism videos, there is some theological error in the video.
54:57: Every time. And sometimes it's a serious theological error. Sometimes it's really bad.
55:03: I think that Cliff, I think Cliff loves the Lord. I really think he does. I think that he loves people and he wants them to follow
55:10: Jesus. I do believe that. I've not seen anything that's led me to believe that Cliff doesn't believe in hell.
55:16: I think that he'll avoid talking about it. And I think that he will soft pedal the gospel, as you hear
55:22: Bryce doing right here in refusing to answer the question by saying that God hates people. Bryce may be unaware, like he doesn't even know that.
55:30: He doesn't know that the Bible explicitly says that God hates people. Or maybe he's got some sort of softball explanation for why the
55:38: Bible says that. But again, already we have a problem here in how Bryce is answering this question. He is saying something that is contrary to what the
55:45: Bible says about God. Let's keep going. Okay. So you have to understand in the garden, God intended to create man to worship him, but he loves us enough to give us free will.
55:54: So that means that in your inherent mind, you get to choose if you want to go to McDonald's this morning for breakfast or Chick -fil -A for breakfast.
56:00: And so I think God is loving enough to say, I love my creation to choose me, to choose to worship me, to choose to follow me, but we have the choice to choose evil or not.
56:07: And evil is in direct contradiction to the character of God. So I think when we acknowledge that, when we come to our senses, if you look at the story of the prodigal son and he goes,
56:15: I need my father, it says he came to himself. So when it comes to Jesus, we say my character, my actions are in total opposition to what
56:20: God has intended as my original design. God, I repent. Thank you for forgiveness. And I turn away from it. And God hates evil enough to become evil on a cross and take it on to pay the punishment.
56:30: So because of evil and because of sin, it separates us from God, has to be a payment. But what Jesus is blood, dies on the cross, resurrects, puts the blood on the mercy seat, paying for it.
56:38: See what I'm saying? So we know that human beings are valuable because they're made in the image of God. And he doesn't hate human beings.
56:43: Okay. Let me stop there because you're about to get into something else that I don't want to get too far. This is a very theological word salad.
56:51: Like this is all over the place. And what's really funny is we just went from a clip of Bryce and Brandon Lake talking where Brandon Lake is saying that we've got to be careful about our language being too much like Christianese that people won't even understand it.
57:05: And that's exactly what Bryce is doing here. Like Bryce is going to places where when I do evangelism,
57:11: I don't talk about the prodigal son unless I'm talking with somebody and I say, do you know the parable of the prodigal son?
57:18: Like I might ask him that and then I'm going to give him the whole parable. But Bryce is very clearly talking from a standpoint of assumption.
57:26: Like you all know the story of the prodigal son. And by the way, you can't see this on the video, but there's about 200 students that are listening to what
57:34: Bryce is saying that are listening to the thing he's saying. So he's he's just assuming that everybody understands and knows the
57:43: Garden of Eden, what happened there and the story of the prodigal son. He's not stopping to explain any of this and talking about like Jesus dying on the cross for our sins.
57:52: Really good. But then Jesus places blood on the altar. What in the world are you talking about? Somebody who's an unbeliever is going to have no idea what he's talking about there.
58:02: And no context has been given or set up to any of this. It's just this guy's asked a question, does
58:09: God hate? And this is the explanation that Bryce is giving. And like I said, although he goes into some tough places and I believe he loves people and he shares the gospel with them, desperately needs a biblically solid mentor to guide him through an understanding of what the
58:24: Bible says, sharing the gospel the way the apostles did, the way Paul did, the way
58:29: Jesus did. And this is not a reflection of anything that we have in scripture with regards to how one might communicate the gospel with somebody else.
58:38: So this next part that he is going to, the next illustration that he's going to give is something
58:44: I've heard Todd White say, who's a heretic as well. So continuing on. Also, when
58:50: I look at value, I think value is determined by what people put the price on it. So if you go to TJ Maxx, you're going to get a t -shirt for $19 .99.
58:57: You could have got an Macy's for a hundred bucks. Okay. And the reason it went to TJ Maxx was because someone didn't think it was valuable enough to put a hundred dollars for it.
59:04: That's why it got in the retail store. And so when you look at our lives and you say, does God hate me? No, he hates sin. Then how does
59:09: God view me? And you say, okay, what is the price that God puts on me if God hates sin and not me, his own life?
59:15: Okay. So I think it's important for us to understand he doesn't hate, he does hate us. He hates evil and he calls us out of that lifestyle by literally becoming a human, living a perfect life, paying the penalty that we owe with our life and resurrecting so that we can be united with him.
59:27: Now that was better there toward the end of what he said there, but it was still, again, it's still no context, no explanation is given.
59:36: It's almost like he's just giving an answer where he's trying to rattle off certain points. I'm going to make sure I get all my points in there, but not that you understand them.
59:44: So he's not helping a person understand their own sin and need for a savior. Does God hate sin?
59:51: Sure he does. He hates that you sin, his wrath is on you because you're a sinner deserving of the judgment of God.
59:58: There's nothing like that in his answer. It's just that God hates sin. So Jesus comes and dies for sin.
01:00:06: He dies for people. But so Bryce said there about how the value of something is determined by the price that's put on it, which is not the right illustration, not the right illustration.
01:00:21: And like I said, I've heard Todd White do that. I did a video on that responding to something almost exactly like that, that Todd White said.
01:00:30: Todd was talking about how God sent his best, heaven sent its best,
01:00:38: Jesus, the son of God, to come and die on the cross for our sins. That's how valuable I am because the son of God gave himself for me.
01:00:46: That's as if to say that you're of equal value to the son of God. That's blasphemous.
01:00:52: And it's not at all what the Bible says. This is not how you read the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that was made for us.
01:01:00: That's not how you read it at all. Well, God gave his son, so I'm as valuable as the son of God. No. What is
01:01:08: Roman 623? The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
01:01:14: Lord. What did you deserve? Death. What did you deserve? Judgment. Judgment. Did you deserve the son of God? No. So if the value of you is worth the son of God, then
01:01:26: God was obligated to send his son to die for you because that's what you were worth. And again, that's not what scripture says.
01:01:34: Scripture actually says we are worth less. Look at Romans 310.
01:01:40: There is none righteous, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seek for God.
01:01:46: All have turned aside, together they have become worthless. There is none who does good.
01:01:54: There is not even one. Yes, we've been made in the image of God. And when God created us, according to Genesis 1, when he created man in his image, he looked at his creation and he said, it is very good.
01:02:06: But then what happened after that? Man sinned. We took that which was made in God's image.
01:02:15: God made to give glory to him. And we took that image and desecrated it.
01:02:20: The image of God in which we were made, we desecrated his image, dragging it through mud and filth, glorifying and exalting ourselves, going after those things that are contrary to God.
01:02:32: And if we're made in the image of God and we take that image and we subject it to things that are contrary to the character of God, things that are unholy and godless, that's blasphemous.
01:02:43: Every sin is a blasphemous offense to the creator of the universe, to the one who made us in his image.
01:02:51: We make ourselves worthless. What are we deserving of?
01:02:56: What are we worthy of? The judgment of God and only that. We are not worthy of God sending his son and dying for us.
01:03:04: That's not our worth. That's not our value. Our value is to be destroyed.
01:03:11: That's absolutely 100 % what we deserve, which is what makes God's love and his grace and his mercy toward us amazing when you know that what you deserve is judgment.
01:03:24: And instead, what does he give us? His son. His son to live the perfect life on our behalf, to die on the cross for us.
01:03:33: Bryce made the reference there to 2 Corinthians 5 .21. He didn't give the reference or quote the verse exactly, but he became sin who knew no sin for our sake so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.
01:03:45: So Jesus taking our sin upon himself, meaning that he took the wrath of God upon himself.
01:03:51: A lot of times these guys are very opposed to that very doctrine, penal substitutionary atonement, that Jesus died in our place and took the wrath of God upon himself.
01:04:01: I've not heard Cliff or Bryce speak against that, but given the way that they share the gospel, I wonder if they would be opposed to it.
01:04:08: If they're there, they don't think that the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement is biblical.
01:04:14: Of course, what they're saying is is not very biblical anyway. So this is what makes God's grace grace in that what we deserve is destruction.
01:04:23: And what he gives us is life through his son who live the perfect life on our behalf, didn't just die for us.
01:04:30: He lived for us, died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. He rose again from the dead for our justification, as said in Romans 4, 25, so that whoever believes in him will not perish under the judgment of God, but our sins will be forgiven.
01:04:46: We have fellowship with God and we have the promise of everlasting life through Christ who rose again from the dead.
01:04:52: We also will rise again with him. And that's not the gospel that Cliff shares or that Bryce shares.
01:04:58: You're going to get a very free will. It seems like they're apologetic almost always when
01:05:04: I've when I've listened to Cliff, when I listen to Bryce or any of these other guys kind of from that same evangelical circle, it sounds like their greatest value is on the free will of man.
01:05:14: And you will hear a lot more about you having free will than God being angry at you because you've taken that that will and have gone after sin instead of Christ and what is honoring of God.
01:05:27: And again, this is the guy that interviewed Brandon Lake. Brandon Lake has this exact same theology.
01:05:33: This this is the American evangelicalism. This is what it is. This is the common presentation of the gospel amidst
01:05:41: American evangelicalism. If you ever hear a presentation of the gospel, it's this watered down softball kind of bits and pieces of things, a theological word salad, but never really putting it on the person to recognize their sin, that God is going to destroy you if you don't repent and turn to Jesus Christ.
01:06:01: It's just maybe we can give you enough flowery language that will make Christianity look interesting to you and you will come and join one of our churches or listen to our songs or whatever else.
01:06:12: But it's not really putting an emphasis on the need to be saved. Like you're going to hell, you need a savior.
01:06:20: And Christ is that savior. Like I said about Caleb, they're never going to put anything out there like that.
01:06:26: That's going to offend anybody and cause them to turn the radio dial to something else. They think that they're being godly enough just by providing something that is positive and encouraging.
01:06:36: So let us be versed in the scriptures, know what it is that the scriptures have to say. Especially Roman.
01:06:43: You know, the most common way that I share the gospel actually isn't the way that Ray Comfort and Todd Freel do it, which is the way of the master method.
01:06:52: I've used that occasionally. That's not my most common way of sharing the gospel. I'm usually doing something that's more like the
01:06:58: Romans road, which is taking verses from Romans and putting together a gospel presentation.
01:07:05: So even understanding from the very beginning of Romans 1 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.
01:07:13: Now let me tell you what that means. Romans 1 18, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
01:07:24: And if I'm going to bring a person to an awareness of their sin, according to the way of the master method, which is asking them about the 10 commandments, if they've broken the 10 commandments, you've heard that before.
01:07:34: I've done it on this broadcast. I'm just kind of assuming you've heard that, especially if you've listened to Ray Comfort or anybody else.
01:07:40: So I'm probably going to fit it there and understanding that you have, you have sinned against a holy
01:07:46: God. What do you deserve for that? You deserve judgment. Romans 3, there is none righteous, not even one.
01:07:52: We've all become worthless. There is no one who does good. Romans 3 23, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus to be received by faith.
01:08:07: I'll explain what justification means. I'll explain what it means to have faith.
01:08:13: Romans 6 23, something that I quoted already, that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our
01:08:21: Lord. Romans 5 8 that I quoted a moment ago, I skipped over. God shows his love for us and that while we were yet sinners,
01:08:28: Christ died for us. So using that, going through Romans, grabbing those verses to give a gospel presentation in that way.
01:08:37: But you have to share the gospel according to what the Bible says, not according to what you feel, what
01:08:43: Christianity makes you feel. And then I'm sharing the gospel according to that. Let our minds and our hearts be shaped by the word of Christ, because as said in Romans 10 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
01:09:00: We actually do have to know his word and share it to bring a person to saving faith in Jesus.
01:09:06: Well, I thank you for your question, Paul, and I appreciate everybody for listening again.
01:09:12: If you want to submit a question to us, send it to when we understand the text at gmail .com and I would love to hear from you.
01:09:19: I've got other questions on this list I didn't get to. I apologize if you've sent a question in the last few weeks and you haven't heard it.
01:09:25: I still probably have it on the list and we'll get to it eventually, but would still like to hear from you in the meantime.
01:09:30: And don't forget sending us a voicemail. Go to www .utt .com and click on the voicemail tab and record a voicemail right from your phone or your computer.
01:09:40: Let me close out with prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this time that we have together this time in your word that we may be reminded of who we are and our need for a savior and that Christ is that savior and teach us how we may share the gospel with others, because there are people who are under God's judgment.
01:09:58: They are headed for hell. And if we love those people and we don't want to see them destroyed, but to come into the kingdom with us and dwell in eternity forever with God, then teach us how we might share the good news of the gospel with somebody else.
01:10:14: Give us those opportunities to do so and help us not shy away from that chance to share with somebody one -on -one or share with a crowd of people or whatever it might happen to be.
01:10:23: Whatever calling you've given to us, an opportunity or door that you've opened. May we follow the
01:10:30: Spirit's lead. We listen to the word that has been spoken to us in the Bible and we share the gospel according to that word.
01:10:40: God, I pray that there would be revival that would sweep across churches in this nation.
01:10:45: One of the reasons why America is in the condition that it's in is because the church has not done well with knowing your word and sharing it with others.
01:10:55: May the fear of God be put in the hearts of this people and that they would repent. They would turn from their sin to Christ and be saved.
01:11:03: But if we're ever going to see that kind of revival happen, it's going to happen because the gospel was being preached and it was preached in a way that people would understand it and the
01:11:12: Holy Spirit would turn their hearts from their sin to Christ so that they would live. Thank you for the mercy and grace you've shown to us and the patience that you've had with us.
01:11:23: Lead us in holiness and paths of righteousness for your name's sake.
01:11:28: It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Okay. You got your script thingy?
01:11:40: Yeah. All right. Okay. Go ahead. This is when we understand the text, a daily
01:11:48: Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the word. I didn't even bring up my scripture.
01:11:53: Hang on. You're supposed to do that.
01:12:00: You want some tea? Ugh. Like three or four hours ago, yeah, sure.
01:12:07: This is when we understand the text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the word. Brought to you by Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona.
01:12:17: For more information about our ministry, visit our website at www .utt .com.
01:12:22: Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Yeah, nevermind.
01:12:29: That's all I got. That's all I was able to get out of my mouth. It's like you were fine until you looked at me.
01:12:36: I was just so overwhelmed. So overcome with your beauty. We'll go with that.
01:12:46: Oh, man. You still take my breath away, babe. Aw. That was good.
01:12:52: Yes. That was good. There you go. And make me trip over my lips apparently. All right.
01:12:57: All right. Give that a go again. Third time's the charm. Yep. All righty.
01:13:04: Yeah, third yawn's a charm too. Third yawn's a charm. Get all those out. Fortunately, it's not making me yawn.