Machen - Christianity And Liberalism [Chapter 2] (part 2)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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November 12, 2022

Machen - Christianity And Liberalism [Chapter 3]

00:01: Our Father, we thank you for this day, another opportunity to live and move, have our being by your grace, for your glory.
00:15: When we think about the Lord Jesus Christ, His willingness to come and rescue
00:25: His people, among whom we are numbered, Father, we can't help but rejoice. We thank you for the offer of forgiveness for our sins, which are many.
00:40: Father, we also would think about our family and friends who don't know you, and we would pray even this moment that you would save them, that you would open their eyes to the glories of Christ.
00:54: Father, we thank you for the imputed righteousness of Jesus, without whom we would have no hope.
01:02: And Lord, I pray that you would bless our time as we discuss the weighty things that Machen raises in this book.
01:11: In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well so, last time we were here, we left off, looks like we left off on number 10,
01:28: I think, is that where we left off? Okay. So we'll do that one, and then we'll march forward from there.
01:35: Number 10, true or false, Christians, one, believe on Christ, two, obey to the best of their ability, three, are justified.
01:49: I think we did that one, but we can review that. It is false, Paul said that a man first believes on Christ, then is justified before God, then immediately proceeds to keep
02:03: God's law. And we know that he doesn't proceed to keep it perfectly, but he wants to keep it, and certainly keeps it by faith, right?
02:14: We believe in the one who kept the law perfectly. Then it says the
02:20: Judaizers were the ones who believed on Christ, then keep the law, and then justified
02:27: Judaizers, adding the law to faith in Christ, thus adding to the gospel, thus negating the gospel.
02:34: That's the whole theme of the book of, thank you, just seeing if anybody was awake.
02:45: The difference would seem to modern practical
02:51: Christians to be highly subtle and in an intangible manner or matter, hardly worthy of consideration at all in view of the large measure of agreement in the practical realm.
03:00: In other words, why stress over small things like salvation by works? Yeah, who cares about it?
03:13: Was interesting last night, because we're going through some church history, and it's interesting to read
03:20: Polycarp, Ignatius, and these different men, and they're talking like late in the first century and throughout the second century, they're talking about salvation by faith apart from works.
03:36: You just go, okay. So is or was the
03:42: Reformation basically much ado about nothing? Was it kind of like from the
03:49: Roman Catholic perspective, an invention of some new religion, or was it just a proclamation of what the church always believed and had been distorted by Rome?
04:00: And the answer, obviously, is number three. Yeah. Machen says, what a splendid cleaning up of the
04:10: Gentile cities it would have been if the Judaizers had succeeded in extending to those cities the observance of the
04:16: Mosaic law, even including the unfortunate ceremonial observances. Surely Paul ought to have made common cause with teachers who were so nearly in agreement with him.
04:29: We don't want to major on the minors. It reminds me of, who was it who said that if Satan could have his way, all the churches would be full?
04:48: Yeah. Horton was probably quoting somebody else, and I don't remember who, because it's somebody who's no longer alive, but I just don't remember who it is.
05:03: Yeah. I think it's the guy who came before Beuys. I, you know, his, yeah, probably,
05:11: I think it was Barnes. I think that's right. And yeah, you know, where all the churches will be packed, etc.
05:19: But as long as Christ wasn't preached, that was the issue. And so, yeah, that's fine.
05:26: Tell people how to be, how to live better lives. You know, it's interesting. I was out, I'll confess,
05:33: I mean, I have a few confessions this morning. Confessions of Steve. I mean, that's what we should call the
05:38: Saturday morning class, Confessions of Steve. I was out, I don't know, man, maybe that,
05:45: Confessions of Steve. I was out Tuesday night holding signs during the election, and this woman who happened to be on my side, morning,
06:00: Bill. That's all right. Just do a couple laps. Yeah, you missed
06:09: Confessions of Steve. This woman, this woman who was on my side, you know, she was there for a little bit, it got too cold for her, but she said she walks every
06:18: Sunday morning, right by our church. And she goes, that place is packed.
06:27: You could stop in. Want to know what's going, what all the hubbub is about.
06:33: Maybe you could stop in. Yeah, I can tell you guys too about the other, the other conversation
06:43: I had. You know, there were all these, this is being recorded, but I'll say it anyway, all these
06:48: Democrats out there. And there were two Republicans, and there were probably about half a dozen
06:55: Democrats holding signs and all this stuff. And they quit at five o 'clock, it was like, you know, how many have you ever seen, almost all of you have seen the
07:03: Flintstones? It was like, you know, the prehistoric bird screamed and that was it, and they just knocked off at five o 'clock.
07:13: So now, and then the other Republican left, so now it's just some, one of the women who was like hanging out with the
07:20: Democrats, and she's holding this green sign, okay, like homemade sign, not all the other stuff.
07:28: And she was complaining about, did I tell you about this, Bill? The soccer fields in Holden.
07:35: Because that was question number five on our ballot, was whether the town should build or should borrow $5 million to build these soccer fields, which of course overwhelmingly passed.
07:50: Anyway, she, she, she holds up the sign and it says, you know, she's, she's against these toxic fields.
08:04: And so, so I started talking to her and, because I really didn't like the idea of borrowing all this money for this, but I said toxic, and she talked about some other field and in some other town, maybe it was in West Brookfield, it's out there somewhere, and, and she's just like talking about toxic waste and all this other stuff, and she goes,
08:28: I want them to have organic fields. And I thought, that should have been my first clue, right?
08:35: You know, organic, organic soccer fields. And, but I, I'm slow, yeah,
08:43: I'm, I'm slow on the uptake. So as I'm talking to her and, you know, things, I, I don't even remember how we got to this, but the, the next topic that came up was transsexual teaching in the schools.
08:56: And she's like, oh, you know, that's fine, because her kids have some friends who are transsexuals and everything, and I said, but don't you think that's kind of like a social media driven thing?
09:06: Oh, no, you know, it's, it's genuine, and, and I said, but you know, like hormone therapy and all that can't be reversed, and she's like, oh, yes, it can, and I'm going, okay, you know.
09:20: So then abortion came up. I don't remember how that came up either, but, you know, and I said, and, you know,
09:26: I thought, well, this is really stupid, you know, later on, I'm thinking to myself, this is really stupid, because I should just like give her the gospel and really scare her, but I said,
09:38: I just threw out, you know, random factoid, more black babies are aborted in New York City than are born, and she's like, why do you have to bring up a black thing?
09:49: And then she got super mad, and she goes, I'm just going to go sit in my car and park it somewhere where people can still see what
09:57: I'm, you know, her whole car now, when she drives by, I can see it's all with this whole organic, you know, football field and all this other stuff, and, but she left, well, a small
10:11: SUV, but an SUV, yeah, and, you know, she finally left, and I was like, okay, well, thank you,
10:17: Lord, so, oh, yeah, confessions, that's my first confession,
10:23: I have at least one more, okay, so, number 11, true or false,
10:31: Judaizers ultimately were not far off, that's a good question, that's a really bad question,
10:43: Judaizers, oh, okay, according to Machen, right, because we are the gospel according to Machen, Machen says,
10:51: Paul saw very clearly that the difference between the Judaizers and himself was the difference between two entirely distinct types of religions, so I think we're going to have to rule that false, sorry, sorry,
11:03: Brian, we went to the judges, the judges of Machen, and they,
11:11: I just gave them a they pronoun, it was the difference between a religion of merit and a religion of grace, true, right, just believe on the
11:21: Lord Jesus Christ and obey the law, so that's a different religion, and then, if Christ provides only a part of our salvation, leading us to provide the rest, then we will still be hopeless under the load of sin, for no matter how small the gap, which must be bridged before salvation can be attained, the awakened conscience sees clearly that our wretched attempt at goodness is insufficient even to bridge the gap, and, you know what,
11:48: I think that's a good reminder for us, because what do we do, you know, I have Pastor Bob's voice in my head right now, because we are works -y people, and what did he mean by that, he meant no matter how much we believe in salvation by faith alone, what do we want to do, measure ourselves by our works, right, we want to see how we're doing, we want to keep track of that, because the better we're doing, the less we're sinning, you know, all these kind of things, then the more, what, assurance we have, you know, the better we feel about ourselves, but how we feel, how we judge ourselves has nothing to do with the reality of our salvation, for which
12:36: I'm thankful, I mean, if it was up to me, you know, if there was some kind of actual gap between the reality of my salvation and my performance,
12:50: I'd be in big trouble, well, there is a difference between that, but there isn't a difference between the reality of my salvation and what
12:59: Christ has accomplished, right, so, Wes, yeah, well if you don't, if you're not willing to work, yeah, you shouldn't eat, that's a good, is our natural instinct for works the issue, is it a problem, are we just thinking wrongly, are we thinking sinfully, or is that based on the way, you know, our observations of the world and thinking, you know, like at work, you know, do you ever think to yourself,
13:29: I'm doing a better, I mean, Chuck doesn't, but do you ever think to yourself, you know, he doesn't because he's retired, therefore, right, yes, yes, yeah,
13:44: I mean, I think I've talked about, you know, and when I first started on the
13:49: Sheriff's Department, I, and you know, it became kind of a tradition, I would read my evaluation and throw up my locker for a couple days before I came back to it because, you know,
13:59: I'm just like, it was a devaluation, no, it didn't really matter what I was doing statistically or anything else, you know,
14:06: I'd read it and go, I don't know who they're writing about, but this is not me, right, and, you know, which would be discouraging for a day or two, and then
14:15: I'd, you know, just kind of get back into the thing, but, you know, do we do that, and is it wrong to do it, what do you think, you're really blessed you didn't grow up in my household, because I really had those kids, you know,
14:29: I give them, forget about annual evaluations, we had quarterly evaluations, you know, coming into my office and, you know, here's where you failed this, yeah,
14:39: I mean, if your kids were employees, how many times would you have fired them, you know, and, in fact,
14:46: I think, and, in fact, I used to, I think I used to say stuff like that to them, you know, like, you're fired, you know, and, you know, in addition to the, you back to the original question,
15:09: I do think that there are, you know, is it wrong for us to think to ourselves,
15:17: I want to improve in this area, and I want to, you know, and I think the answer is no,
15:23: I, but I think we have to get back to this fundamental understanding, which is no matter what my performance is, no matter how
15:32: I grade myself, no matter how I fall short, I am not the standard, I am not what,
15:38: I mean, praise the Lord, my performance does not determine my position, let's put it that way, right, because if it did, on judgment day,
15:48: I'm going to whirl the hurt, and on the other hand, you know, no matter how well we think we're doing, right, even if we think, you know, things are going pretty well,
15:59: I've gone, you know, 65 days, or, you know, like in my
16:05: Spanish thing, I've got a thousand and four days of, you know, reading the scriptures in a row, and of doing this, praying, you know, for half an hour a day in a row, and, you know, all these other things, well, great, so on judgment day, do
16:19: I want to stand up there, you know, based on my little awards that I've given myself? No, I'll take the perfect righteousness of Jesus, because nothing else is going to suffice.
16:37: Other thoughts or questions, comments? Yes, Brian? Well, you know, going with that, the foolishness of the message preached, do you think it's,
17:05: I mean, you know, it's moronic, you know, to the sophisticated people of the world, but it is interesting,
17:16: I think I might even mention this tomorrow in the message, but I'll change it a little bit from what
17:24: I'll say tomorrow, but I had, when I was up in Vermont, I was up there with my liberal friend
17:32: Eddie from California, who's not a Christian, and we had breakfast together, and, you know,
17:42: I just habitually, I wasn't like trying to make any points or anything with him, I just, the food came, and I was just,
17:49: I just bowed my head to pray, and he was like, go ahead, you know, so I prayed, and, you know, during the prayer,
17:57: I just thanked God for all the, you know, the blessings, the good things that we have in life, and family, and wives, and whatnot, and, you know,
18:07: I did mention other things, a little gospel too, but he said, you know, later he goes, you know, it really helped me, the prayer, and I thought, oh, good, you know, and thinking maybe he wants to hear more about Jesus, I mean, we did talk more about Jesus, but he said, he said, now
18:28: I want to wake up every morning and just think about the good things, you know, in life to kind of start my day off, and I'm like, so what, like Raisin Bran or something, you know,
18:39: I mean, just, it just seemed kind of weak, I, it was just like, oh, great, I really impacted your life, you want to have a more positive start to your day, yeah,
18:50: Folgers in your cup, yeah, so, you know, that was, but, you know, again, it's just, it, unless God, unless the
18:59: Holy Spirit convicts and regenerates, then nothing's going to change, so, yeah, maybe, yeah,
19:09: I, I don't think, well, because I think he just sees Joel Osteen as a fraud, I don't know why.
19:22: Okay, let's go on to number 12. True or false, if the
19:28: Pauline epistles are removed, Christian doctrine is unaffected. If we could just take those out of the
19:43: Bible, Christian doctrine would be unaffected.
19:51: Is it? Why, what doctrines would be missing? I don't know, somehow that feels like a, okay, okay, okay, so we still have
20:37: Acts, we still have the Gospels, yeah, we'd have a small, yeah, right, ultimately the answer is no,
20:51: I mean, do you ever get, I do, you guys probably do, too, if you follow me on Facebook, you ever get vexed by my uncle
20:59: John, you know, who basically accuses over and over again Paul of inventing kind of Christianity, right, and I'm like, that's just dumb,
21:13: I mean, I mean, he's a brilliant man, but he's dumb, because, you know, if you just think, well,
21:19: Scripture tells us that it was Jesus who was present at Paul's conversion, it was
21:25: Jesus who spent three years teaching Paul, and so the Pauline epistles were just things that he made up, like, you know, no,
21:34: I mean, that's just silly. Machen, if Paulinism, that's hard to say,
21:41: Paulinism, Paulinism, I guess, must be removed, they say, we can get along without it.
21:50: May it not turn out that in introducing a doctrinal evidence into the life of the church,
21:55: Paul was only perverting a primitive Christianity, which was an independent, was as independent of doctrine as even the modern liberal preacher could desire.
22:07: Could it turn out that way? I think the answer is no. He goes on to say, the
22:13: Pauline epistles attest a fundamental unity of principle between Paul and the original companions of Jesus, the apostles, and the whole early history of the church becomes unintelligible except on the basis of such unity.
22:29: Certainly, with regard to the fundamental doctrinal character of Christianity, Paul was no innovator, which is important.
22:37: If the whole idea, yeah, we're just reading 1 Timothy 2 -2 last night, which is, anybody summarize that?
22:49: 1 Timothy 2 -2? Okay. Paul says to Timothy, these things that you've heard in the presence of many witnesses, you know, hand, pass on to faithful men.
23:04: So here's the idea. Timothy, you were with me, and I taught you these things, right?
23:10: There were a lot of witnesses there. Here's what I want you to do. The things that I've learned from others, namely
23:16: Christ, I'm giving to you. Those things you hand on to. So there's the idea that it's a passing on of truth.
23:25: So when Machen says Paul is no innovator, that's exactly what he means. So in the Pauline epistles, we don't have new doctrine.
23:32: We have, as John was saying, rather clear and explicit explanations of doctrine that had already existed.
23:42: You know, justification by faith, other things are plainly laid out.
23:48: And we could get those things in other places, but we don't have to because we have the
23:53: Pauline epistles. He says, Machen does, the fact appears in the whole character of Paul's relationship to the
24:01: Jerusalem church as it is attested by the epistles, and it also appears with startling clearness in the precious passage of 1
24:09: Corinthians 15, 3 -7, where he summarizes the tradition he had received from the primitive church.
24:19: I mean, we use that often, and we're in, I mean, mostly verses 3 and 4, where, you know, these things are of primary importance, and then he just kind of summarizes what the gospel is.
24:33: From the beginning, the Christian gospel, Machen goes on to say, as indeed the name gospel or good news implies, consisted in an account of something that had already happened.
24:50: I mean, if you say, for example, we believe that all men may be saved by obedience to the principles and ordinances of the gospel, what does that mean?
25:06: All men may be saved by obedience to the principles and ordinances of the gospel.
25:12: Who would agree with that statement? Does anybody know where that phrase comes from?
25:34: All men may be saved by obedience to the principles and ordinances of the gospel.
25:42: It is Mormon. It comes from their articles of faith. All men may be saved by obedience to the principles and ordinances of the gospel.
25:54: Yes, it is. Yep, yep, yep. Well, that's the point, right? From the beginning, the
25:59: Christian gospel, as indeed the name gospel or good news implies, consisted in an account of something that had happened.
26:06: Not something that we do, but something that had happened. The gospel is all about Jesus and what he did, his person and his work.
26:17: Okay, number 13. Without which two truths does Machen insist
26:23: Christianity would not exist? Resurrection.
26:35: Okay, that's an answer. I'm just quoting
26:47: Machen, then we can deconstruct it after we get to what
26:52: Machen said. Without which two truths does
26:57: Machen insist Christianity would not exist? Okay, close.
27:08: Christ died. That's history, he says. And Christ died for our sins.
27:16: That is doctrine. Without these two elements joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no
27:24: Christianity. That's Machen. So, I agree with you.
27:30: Without the resurrection, we are of all men most miserable, but that's, you know, that's not what he was emphasizing here.
27:42: Okay, number 14. What transformed the disciples into world conquerors?
27:54: Oh, good question. Okay, the resurrection is a good answer.
28:09: Now, here's my second confession. My second confession is I didn't finish these notes and it's extraordinary to me.
28:17: I got in this morning and I thought, huh, I thought I'd already done all this. So, quoting from the book here, page 24.
28:27: I mean, I'm working on other things and I haven't done this. What transformed the disciples into world conquerors?
28:36: It's here, what had produced the astonishing change, what had transformed the weak and cowardly disciples into the spiritual conquerors of the world?
28:47: Then he goes on to say, the great weapon with which the disciples set out to conquer the world was not a mere comprehension of eternal principles.
28:55: It was an, I like that, an historical message, an account of something that had recently happened.
29:02: It was the message, he is risen. There was their great weapon.
29:13: And he goes on to say the primitive church, early church, was concerned not merely with what
29:18: Jesus had said. I mean, this is the problem with liberalism, right?
29:24: They want to just focus on the teachings of Jesus and then they sort of take the edge off of a bunch of them and just say,
29:31: Jesus is a good teacher. And just misses, misses the point.
29:42: Was not merely concerned with what Jesus had said, but also and primarily with what
29:47: Jesus had done. And finally, you know, here we go to,
29:55: I think this is the Apostles' Creed. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead and buried.
30:03: That is history. And then he loved me and gave himself for me. That is doctrine.
30:08: Such was Christianity, the Christianity of the primitive church. And number 20, or I'm sorry, number 16.
30:21: Is there a danger in saying all I need is Jesus? Who is
30:29: Jesus, right? But this is, yes, but he's driving at a deeper point, which is, you know, what is the,
30:41: I mean, the modern evangelical movement, and we're going to talk about that on Sunday morning during Sunday school, is basically this whole idea of, you know, all
30:52: I need is Jesus. Yes.
31:08: Oh, it's very much a laziness. Right.
31:22: But I mean, all people want, you know, and, you know, this is borne out in the Ligonier surveys.
31:28: You read some of these facts where people are just like, you know, I need to think of one of them, but I mean, some of these things are like 50 some odd percent when you ask them, okay, that, like, it was amazing to me,
31:46: I was looking at this last night, like 96 % of evangelical Christians say they believe in the
31:52: Trinity. And I'm like, 96 % is pretty good. But can you really be an evangelical and not believe in the
32:00: Trinity? And the answer is no. But here's the funny part about that to me.
32:08: One of the other questions was, you know, I believe that Jesus is God. Now, I would expect that to be what?
32:16: Like 96 % again. And instead, it was 56%.
32:22: Like, did you guys skip on the first?
32:28: I mean, how does those two don't even connect? How can you say, I believe in the Trinity, but Jesus isn't, you know?
32:37: Precisely. Yeah. And I just read that and I was like,
32:48: I mean, it really makes me wish that I had, well, I mean, they do this, they have some method of doing it where they're not interviewing the people.
32:58: But it'd be interesting if you're actually going out on the streets and saying, you know, do you believe in the Trinity? And I think we get a lot of, yes, absolutely.
33:05: Okay, now would you define that for me? And my guess is, like I think Barrett says, you just get the kind of, you know, the blank stare because people have no idea.
33:19: Which, did you bring enough beer for everybody else? Okay. So, hey, you know, it's a reformed meeting, so you can never tell what's going to happen.
33:34: All I need is
33:40: Jesus. Yeah. Okay. So back on that, he says, it has already been admitted that if doctrine is to be abandoned,
33:51: Paul must be abandoned. Right? It may now be admitted that if doctrine is to be abandoned, even the primitive
34:00: Jerusalem church with the message of the resurrection must be abandoned. In other words, he's talking about Acts.
34:06: Let's just take that out of the Bible too. I mean, we're just, we're deconstructing this according to liberalism.
34:11: But possibly we can still find in Jesus himself, the simple non -doctrinal, and that's the key.
34:19: Let's strip aside, the liberals say, all the doctrine and just get back to the basics. The teaching of Jesus that helps everybody understand how to be a better person, a nicer person, a kinder person.
34:32: And that's what they want to deal with. He says, but possibly we can still find in Jesus himself, the simple non -doctrinal religion that we desire.
34:46: Such is the real meaning of the modern slogan, back to Christ. Forget all this about election.
34:55: Forget about total depravity. Let's forget about what the nature of the atonement, who cares about that stuff, right?
35:04: Here's what really matters. Jesus, just give me Jesus. And he says, yeah, yeah, it's really the golden rule, right?
35:22: And every religion, and this is where liberalism stays off the rails.
35:28: I want to say goes off the rails, but really stays off the rails because they say, essentially, every religion has its own variation on the golden rule.
35:37: Treat others like you want to be treated, right? So it's not like Jesus invented something.
35:43: This is a timeless principle. Okay, sure.
35:52: We are now asked to believe that the thing that has given Christianity its power and all through the centuries was a blunder.
35:59: In other words, doctrine. That the originators of the movement misunderstood radically the meaning of their master's life and work.
36:07: And that it has been left to us moderns to get the first inkling of that initial mistake.
36:19: I mean, just think, you know, yeah, those people were too zealous. They made too much out of this.
36:26: We need to peel back the layers and just get back to the essence of it. He says, it's very doubtful whether a name which through 19 centuries has been so firmly attached to one religion ought now to suddenly be applied to another.
36:42: In other words, why would we call this liberal empty thing
36:48: Christianity? And then he says, the better terminology would probably lead us to say that Jesus was not the founder of Christianity, but of a simple non -doctrinal religion, long forgotten, but now rediscovered by modern men.
37:07: Ugh, nasty. Okay. Okay.
37:30: Well, I mean, like the song, you know, all I have is Christ. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
37:41: I mean, if we take or ordinances and principles of the gospel to be those things that Jesus did for us,
37:49: I guess, you know, but because it doesn't say we have to, well, it does kind of say that, but, um,
37:56: I mean, it would be better actually there. Maybe I should suggest this to them. Their articles of faith would be better if it said, we believe that all mankind may be saved by their obedience to the, you know, rather than just by obedience, because that way it would be clear that they're a works religion.
38:15: Okay. Number 60 true or false.
38:21: Jesus taught that the kingdom was present in a sense, but wait, there's more free shipping and handling.
38:46: If any part of it is false, you know what? And I, I, I stopped.
38:52: Yes. I stopped answering. So let's decide whether this is true or false. He taught that the kingdom was present in a sense.
39:00: See, my inkling is that I use the word inkling. Yes. My, my tendency would be to say that that's true.
39:08: Let's see what Machen says. He says, clearly Jesus regarded the coming of the kingdom as an event or as a series of events.
39:15: No doubt. He also regarded the kingdom as a present reality in the souls of men. No doubt.
39:21: He represented the kingdom in one sense as already present. Sounds like Machen agrees with me.
39:30: Machen was one smart guy. Jesus proclaimed the event as coming.
39:40: The disciples proclaimed part of it, at least as already passed. But the important thing is that both
39:45: Jesus and the disciples did proclaim an event. Well, in what sense is the kingdom already here?
40:03: Okay. It's already true in the sense that we, we have faith. We have confidence.
40:09: We, we know that it's true. Other thoughts in what sense is the kingdom already present?
40:18: I'd like to suggest a more fundamental reality. Okay. The kingdom of God is here in the sense that the gospel is being spread.
40:35: Yes. Okay. We have Christ in us right now. What do you need for a kingdom?
40:44: Okay. Do we have a king? Okay. So I was like, I think that's a pretty, I mean, yes, there are subjects.
40:52: Yes, there, you know, there is the, I, I, I don't know what to say, you know, the, like the, the, the army, you know, the, the weaponry and the work being done better.
41:03: Thank you. But the fundamental thing is we have a king. So, I mean,
41:10: I, I don't agree with our post -millennial friends, you know, that our job is to establish the kingdom, but yeah.
41:32: Yes. I mean, I mean, one of the things, it's very difficult, for example, to understand the parables rightly without, you know, believing that the kingdom is present because he'll frequently say things like the kingdom of God is like, and then he'll present a parable.
41:52: So, yeah.
42:07: What do you think the kingdom of God is at hand means? Okay.
42:16: It could mean that. I think, I think, go ahead, John. Okay. Here.
42:28: Okay. Here. Just got here. Brian, was he implying when he said you're not far from the kingdom of God that he was about to encounter the kingdom of God or that he should walk a little further and he might find it within reach?
42:54: Okay. Okay. Right. Okay.
43:08: But, but we've also talked about it. I think that's right. I, but I think we've talked about, we've kind of tap -danced around this idea.
43:17: There is a kingdom, there is a king, and I'm going to throw in the word but.
43:36: Okay. You have to be part of the kingdom, but that's not where I'm going at all. Okay.
43:42: So, so close enough. Here's the idea. You know, it's, it's what the, it's what theologians say or what they call already and not yet.
43:53: Okay. Jesus is the king. Is he ruling and reigning? Yes, but not fully.
44:06: Is he? Hmm. I mean, is this, is this the, the best the kingdom gets,
44:18: I guess, is I could put it, you know. Okay.
44:59: They, they are, you know, it's interesting because, I, did you call them foreigners?
45:05: Is that what you said? Yeah. I mean, there are subjects of the kingdom, but they're, they're, they're basically rebel subjects, right?
45:16: They don't think they're subject to the king. And so they're disobedient, but they're going to get the other
45:28: P. They're going to get the punishment of, you know. Yeah. Yeah.
45:37: I mean, that's, what's coming to us, you know, on earth, but somebody sent me something yesterday and I don't know if it's reality or not, but they're talking about in Maine, they're looking to pass a law that if you don't acknowledge and accept your child, your child's transsexual identity, you know, they're, they're going to be legal consequences for you.
46:00: And I'm like, well, I mean, they're already, you know, they're already doing that sort of thing in Canada.
46:07: And I'm like coming to a neighborhood near you. I mean, I, I definitely would not want to be a parent with all due deference to you parents.
46:20: I guess I am a parent, but you know, my kids are no longer my responsibility.
46:27: So, um, okay. Okay. Number 17.
46:41: Even if Paul, Acts, and John were eliminated from the Bible, the message of the gospel would still be clear.
46:56: Trouble with the word clear. Okay. So let's just eliminate that would still be yes.
47:09: It's not an option. Wes, I'm sorry. Okay. True. Yeah.
47:40: You know, yes, I, all that's true. I just, I, I was just with Dave said that, you know, they had
47:48: Bible studies with Jesus. I just thought, can you just imagine? Because, you know, we, we know the story about the disciples of the road of Emmaus road to Emmaus, and he comes alongside and opens up the scriptures and teaches them about himself.
48:01: And I just thought, can you imagine, you know, after the resurrection, uh, you know, even like, because there are things for us that are not recorded, right.
48:11: That happened or that are said and not recorded. Can you imagine some of those studies where, you know, they're just like, but you know, what about this or that or the other thing?
48:23: And it's like, okay, guys, you know, here it is, you know, let me lay it out for you from the old
48:30: Testament again, so that you'll understand this, Wes. All right.
48:37: I, I love the, the Saturday morning of self tradition of self -obliteration.
48:43: Release the cannon. Um, but yeah, let's, let's just back up for a second.
48:50: Cause I think, I think what, what John said is right in the sense that, um, you know, it's far easier to argue a doctrine using
49:03: Romans and all these kinds of things. But again, that's not where Machen is ultimately going.
49:09: He's saying, this is what the liberals say. If we just kind of, if we presume that, um, maybe the gospel of John, which they would certainly argue is not written at least entirely by John.
49:25: There's someone else adding to it or writing it, or maybe a disciple of John's who knew
49:31: John and then just sort of added on to what John taught, you know, that kind of thing.
49:37: And then Paul, you know, was delirious and made stuff up, whatever, whatever they want to teach.
49:43: You know, that the, the exacts are not important. What's important is the teaching of Jesus. But here, here's what
49:50: Machen said. He said, even if the fourth gospel, he's already assuming that, you know,
49:56: Pauline epistles acts are rejected. Then he says, even if the fourth gospel be rejected, and even if the most radical criticism be applied to the other three.
50:08: So he's anticipating something like the Jesus seminar where he didn't write this, he didn't write that, or he didn't,
50:15: Jesus didn't say this, he didn't say that. He says, it will still be impossible to get rid of this element in Jesus' teaching.
50:22: The significant words attributed to Jesus at the last supper with regard to his approaching death and the utterance of Jesus in Mark, it's so hard with these, yeah, 1045, the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.
50:43: Well, just there, you know, how can he be a ransom for many? So you have to kind of go back and go, okay, now we're talking about the virgin birth.
50:52: We're talking about God assuming human flesh where, you know, and that's the only way it could be.
50:59: He could be, his life could be a ransom for many, you know, and you have to walk through the whole thing.
51:04: Sinless spotless, you know, et cetera. And then, okay, what we are now concerned to observe is that Jesus certainly did not content himself with the enunciation of permanent moral principles, which is, you know, they claim that Jesus is just repeating these universal truths that show up in all these different religions and they're somehow eternal.
51:42: And I dare say if you look at the history of man and try to apply the golden rule, you're going to have some real problems.
51:49: Even today, you know, how is it there? There are cultures where it's okay to eat your neighbor, you know, or sell your kids into slavery.
52:00: And there are places in the world where that's just fine. What's that?
52:14: He certainly did announce an approaching event and he certainly did not announce the event without giving some account of its meaning.
52:23: And here's the killer. But when he gave an account of the meaning of the event, no matter how brief that account may have been, he was overstepping the line that separates an undogmatic religion or even a dogmatic religion that teaches only eternal principles from one that is rooted in the significance of definite historical facts.
52:45: He was placing a great gulf between himself and the philosophic modern liberalism, which today incorrectly bears his name.
52:56: In other words, even if we just take the synoptic gospels, there's still this gulf that exists between liberalism and Christianity.
53:05: Yeah, I mean, when Machen even goes through the Sermon on the Mount, you know, rather than just thinking, oh, these are such sweet teachings, they wind up leaving you just going,
53:17: I got no shot. You know, like you said, I mean, ultimately, they should leave the reader thinking,
53:25: I'm undone. You know, I have no hope. There's no way I get to heaven because I'm never going to be good enough.
53:32: Well, I mean, I don't know if he goes that far, but he's certainly on there. You know, is it impossible to edit the
53:40: Bible in such a way where it's, you know, inoffensive? And I, I mean, if you cut it,
53:48: I mean, for example, you know, you could go to something like The Message and you could, you know, you could probably get there because what does
53:55: Eugene Peterson, what did he do? Essentially gut the Bible, you know, so you can do that if you really have that bent.
54:06: I don't know. I've not read enough of the, I don't know.
54:17: I don't know. I mean, I sometimes, you know, I mean, the most I've ever read of The Message is when Mike and I are doing the radio show and he'll have a message moment.
54:27: And sometimes I, you know, well, I mean, now you don't know this, but Mike's got a new soundboard and, you know,
54:36: I'm like, I'll probably never be on the show again because he doesn't need anybody. Cause he, you know, it's got little sound effects and he can make fake voices.
54:44: And I'm going, he's, he's, he's going to sound like a 12 year old. Well, then
54:50: I'm done compromise radio, you know? And I'm just like, this is not going to be good.
54:55: Yeah. You know? But assuming he, you know, weans himself off of that and realizes, you know, that's not the way to go.
55:01: I'm just like, cause he goes, we can put it in whatever like sounds we want. And I'm going, I think somebody really needs to record, you know, like you, you, you probably know this song, this magic moment.
55:15: And so I think, you know, we need to, we need to have somebody sing this message moment, this message.
55:27: Yeah. And all that, you know, it's got the little, you know, sound effects and all that stuff and and I'm like, this is, yeah.
55:35: Well, and it has one that kind of makes you sound like an alien anyway. So I, so I went into my alien voice and then it sounds really bad.
55:43: You know, I've never done this, but you know, it's like earth creature, you know?
55:49: And so, you know, it really gives you a really nice thing. Yeah. I could have been doing voiceover work.
56:03: Yeah. Hey, that's, I think that's a Martian, Marvin the Martian. And then there's
56:12: Pete, Pete, Pete Puma. Okay. But we're really, yeah, we're really going out there. Okay.
56:18: So anyway, as I was saying, number 18, true or false,
56:25: Jesus taught that he would preside over a worldwide calamity. And it's not going to be this magic moment.
56:36: True. The strange fact is that this supreme revealer of eternal truth,
56:41: Jesus supposed that he was to be the chief actor in a world catastrophe and was to sit in judgment upon the whole earth.
56:51: Such is the stupendous. Yes. Stupendous is back for in which
56:58: Jesus applied to himself the category of Messiah ship.
57:08: I mean, you know, that kind of thing for the liberals is just abhorrent.
57:15: What do you do with a good teacher who teaches? Yes. The world's going to be destroyed and I'm going to be the cause of it.
57:21: And I'm going to be the judge favorite scriptures. It is fun, isn't it?
57:30: Yeah. It's like he really knew the Bible or something. He complains about wells a lot.
57:42: Of course, my experience at Wells is simply were the worlds. Yeah.
57:48: And if I could stick it for HG Wells for a moment, most people don't know this, but he's the inventor of the first modern war game.
57:55: So I want to give him kudos for that. Go ahead. Well, you have to think about the time that this is written to.
58:04: Yeah. HG Wells was a major thinker, writer, you know, of that time.
58:12: I think he would be like, maybe that. What's that? Yeah. But even more than that, because he was sort of a philosopher.
58:21: So I would say he's akin to, you know, who are the great atheists of today? Yeah. So, you know, so that's sort of, you know, and I mean, we have to, you know, it's hard for us to imagine a day with no
58:36: Internet, no TV, you know, et cetera, barely radio.
58:41: Right. And so that's the world we're talking about where, you know, just like newspapers are still a thing.
58:47: Shocking. And, you know, you read newspapers and columns and stuff like that. So I think
58:53: HG Wells probably had a pretty good footprint in those days. So he's, he's going after him for that.
59:03: It is interesting to know, to observe how modern men have dealt with the messianic consciousness of Jesus.
59:09: Some like Mr. HG Wells have practically ignored it. And, you know,
59:16: I've not read Wells talking about Jesus, but I'm sure, you know, he was towing the liberal line.
59:25: Meaning, you know, Jesus is this wonderful teacher because even back then, well, as opposed to now, now it's
59:31: OK to insult Jesus back then. Not so much. I mean, who some of you are old enough to remember when
59:38: John Lennon said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus and, you know, the world went crazy because that still mattered.
59:46: Right. How could you say such a thing? And we're going to burn your records and stuff like that. Well, today it'd be like ho -hum.
59:55: He says Mr. Wells may find it edifying to associate Jesus with Confucius. So there you go.
01:00:01: In a brotherhood of beneficent vagueness. But what ought to be clearly understood is that such
01:00:09: Jesus has nothing to do with history. He is a purely imaginary figure, a symbol and not a fact, you know, maybe suitable for a trading card, but not, you know, connected to any sort of fact there.
01:00:28: HG Wells takes it. Boof. OK. He wrote some good stories.
01:00:36: War of the Worlds. Yeah. Yeah.
01:00:51: Do you belong to? All right.
01:01:02: Number 18. 19. 19. True or false, the Sermon on the
01:01:08: Mount contains only the heart of the ethical teaching of Jesus. Yeah, I already mentioned that the
01:01:15: Sermon on the Mount is a striking example. It is the fashion now to place the Sermon on the Mount in contrast with the rest of the
01:01:22: New Testament. We will have nothing to do with theology, men say, in effect.
01:01:29: We will have nothing to do with miracles, with atonement or with heaven or with hell.
01:01:36: For us, the golden rule is a sufficient guide of life in the simple principles of the
01:01:43: Sermon on the Mount. We discover a solution of all the problems of society.
01:01:51: I mean, this is like. You know, meshing together of Christianity and like John Lennon's Imagine song.
01:02:00: You know, if we if we could just get everybody to agree that all we need to do is just treat each other like this is all there is and be kind to one another and not worry about possessions, heaven or hell or anything else.
01:02:13: Perfect solution. Wrong. Mention says about the
01:02:19: Sermon on the Mount in particular, it contains the loftiest possible presentation of Jesus own person.
01:02:26: That presentation appears in the strange note of authority which pervades the whole discourse.
01:02:31: It appears in the recurrent words, but I say to you, you've heard it said, but I say unto you, in other words, what you've heard said,
01:02:40: I'm going to clarify. I'm going to. Actually, in some cases.
01:02:48: Refute. I mean, was there anything wrong with you have heard it said you shall not commit adultery?
01:02:58: No. But they also knew what the Pharisees taught about that, and it was a whole different.
01:03:05: It came with a whole, you know, string of exceptions and whatnot. But Jesus said, you know, but I say to you.
01:03:14: If you can look in a room with less than your heart. Yes. Jesus plainly puts his own words on an equality with what he certainly regarded as the divine words of Scripture.
01:03:28: In other words, here are the Ten Commandments, and I'm going to refine them for you. And I have my words have equal value with the
01:03:35: Ten Commandments, which again should shock or would have shocked the original hearers and should shock the liberals out of their coma.
01:03:45: He claimed the right to legislate for the kingdom of God. And I like this, let it not be objected that this note of authority involves merely a prophetic consciousness in Jesus, a mere right to speak in God's name as God's spirit might lead for what prophet ever spoke in this way.
01:04:06: The prophet said, what? Thus saith the Lord. But Jesus said, I say.
01:04:13: So I think that's a awesome point. The same thing appears in Matthew seven verses 21 and 23.
01:04:23: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven.
01:04:29: I mean, imagine that just even saying that what? That Jesus is like figuratively at the gate of heaven.
01:04:37: And you show up and you say, Lord, Lord, did I not do this? In other words, who's the decision maker on whether we get in?
01:04:45: Yes. And I'm just like, there's this is not just somebody who taught nice things.
01:04:50: Um, okay.
01:04:57: Number 20, true or false.
01:05:04: The golden rule is addressed to every human being. Man, that's kind of a tricky question, isn't it?
01:05:14: Please explain. I can't. So I'm going to let Machen explain. The error consists in supposing the golden rule with the rest of the
01:05:22: Sermon on the Mount is addressed to the whole world. As a matter of fact, the whole discourse is expressly addressed to Jesus disciples.
01:05:33: And from them, the great world outside is distinguished in the plainest possible way.
01:05:39: I mentioned this last night because it's also talked about in something called the Didache. How many of you are familiar with the
01:05:46: Didache? See, you should be in my Friday night study, then you'd know these things. It's a summary of the apostles teaching that was written in the second century.
01:06:00: And one of the things that the Didache does is it essentially divides the world into two groups.
01:06:08: Does the Bible ever do that all the time? You know, and so there's one of the problems when somebody says something like, well, we're all
01:06:17: God's children. Well, I mean, it's true in the most general sense, right?
01:06:26: In the most general sense in which we're all created by God, we're all preserved here by God.
01:06:35: And in that sense, is God the father of all living things?
01:06:40: Well, only nominally. I mean, I think the best argument would be, well, he's the
01:06:48: God of all living things, right, Brian? Right.
01:06:59: Right. Right. Not necessarily a child of God. I mean, oh, I have to tell you guys this.
01:07:04: I mentioned Eddie a few minutes ago. I don't know how many of you saw this, but there was just a case in Texas where a woman and she planned this out for 10 months.
01:07:18: I mean, talk about psycho. She wanted this one particular guy to, you know, really care about her.
01:07:26: Well, he got some other girl pregnant. I think the story goes, but here's what she did. She waited until the woman was almost going to deliver.
01:07:35: And she went and saw this woman, crushed her skull, stabbed her a hundred times, and then took the living baby out of her.
01:07:45: The baby was 35 weeks. Okay. She took the baby because she wanted to, she was, she kept lying about being pregnant herself.
01:07:54: She wanted to make this guy think that she was having her baby. So she takes this baby and she's going to present it as her own.
01:08:01: And then the baby dies. You know, which is not all that shocking given everything that she put the mother through.
01:08:11: So she was convicted and sentenced to death in Texas. Yeah. So I sent that case to Eddie.
01:08:24: I go, you know, cause he doesn't like the death penalty. And I'm like, don't you think this woman deserve the death penalty?
01:08:31: And he said, the state should not murder. And I'm going, it's not murder.
01:08:40: Go ahead. Right. You don't know why?
01:08:52: Because our judicial system. Yep. And, and they just, they drag these things out and they, you know, you get multiple appeals, you know,
01:09:00: I mean, a case like this where there's no doubt about the guilt or anything else,
01:09:05: I'd be like, here, we need a law that says, you know, convicted, you know, have your, your trial on Friday, you know,
01:09:14: Saturday you're hanging and Sunday you're burial. I mean, it just needs to go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah.
01:09:25: I mean, 17, 18 years. And you know, how is, cause he says, well, how do we know that they might not redeem themselves during the course of, and I'm like, nobody can redeem themselves.
01:09:37: A, B you could have eternity in prison and you can't, you can't make up for a life that you've taken.
01:09:47: Yeah. No, you can't.
01:10:17: Yeah. There's no, yeah. They want, they want to create, you know, fewer prisoners.
01:10:27: So I got a way to do that. It's so simple.
01:10:33: Okay. Let's see. So really mine contains only the ethical teaching.
01:10:40: Do we read that array? The new law, the sermon of the
01:10:47: Mount in itself can only produce despair reality. The requirements for entrance to the kingdom of God are what
01:10:54: Jesus declares them to be. If they are what Jesus declares them to be, we are all undone before this higher law of Jesus who shall stand without being condemned.
01:11:07: The answer is no one. Okay. Number 21, true or false.
01:11:15: It is enough to have the simplest trust or the simple trust that disciples had. We don't need a bunch of complicated jargon to muddle things.
01:11:40: Okay. So let's get over the first part.
01:11:47: It is enough to have the simple trust of the disciples. We'll grant that. Then we don't need a bunch of complicated jargon to muddle things.
01:11:58: Yeah. I'm going to have to go with false. Yeah. And he says, may we not now return?
01:12:06: This is the liberal argument to that simple trust of the disciples. May we not cease to ask how
01:12:12: Jesus, how Jesus saves, may we not simply leave the way to him. In other words, why are we going to get down to the weeds?
01:12:20: Right. Can we just go and just hear Jesus saves and loves and just be done with it?
01:12:28: What need is there then of defining effectual calling? What need of enumerating justification, adoption and sanctification and the several benefits, which in this life do either accompany or flow from them should not our trust be in a person rather than in a message in Jesus rather than in what
01:12:47: Jesus did in Jesus character rather than in Jesus death. Yeah.
01:12:57: What does the survey say? Well, the answer, the answer obviously is no, but this is, this is the argument of liberalism.
01:13:06: He says, some persons would bridge the gulf by the mere use of historical imagination. Jesus is not dead.
01:13:12: We are told, but live, but lives on through his recorded words and deeds.
01:13:19: We do not even need to believe it at all. Even if even a part is sufficient, the wonderful personality of Jesus shines out clear in the gospel story.
01:13:29: Jesus, in other words, may still be known. Let us simply without theology, without controversy, without inquiry about miracles, abandon ourselves to his spell and he, and he will heal us.
01:13:43: No, it's not Christianity. He goes on to say, certainly the Jesus of the gospels is a real, a living person, but that is not the only question.
01:14:00: Yeah. He says, we sit silent in the playhouse, watch the observing gospel drama, forgiveness and healing, 11 courage and high endeavor in rapt attention.
01:14:11: We follow the fortunes of those who come to Jesus, laboring and heavy, and have found rest for a time.
01:14:18: Our own troubles are forgotten, but suddenly the curtain falls with the closing of the book. And out we go again into the cold humdrum of our own lives, gone are the warmth and gladness of an ideal world.
01:14:29: And in their stead, a sense of real things comes doubly strong. We are no longer living over again in the lives of the lives of Peter and James and John.
01:14:40: Alas, we are living our own lives once more in our own problems, in our own misery, in our own sin. And we are still seeking our own savior.
01:14:49: A Jewish teacher of the first century can never satisfy the longing of our souls clothing with all the art of modern research through upon him, the warm, deceptive calcium light of modern sentimentality.
01:15:02: And despite it all common sense will come to its own rights again for our brief hour of self -deception, as though we had been with Jesus will wreck upon us the revenge of hopeless disillusionment.
01:15:16: There's no hope. And they're miserable. I mean, they are ultimately miserable.
01:15:22: I mean, not to get too political, but I don't know anybody who's a liberal who's happy. I don't know one single person.
01:15:30: I mean, they might exist, but I haven't met him yet. And because of your hope is in this world, sad times.
01:15:37: Yeah, I love 22, not just because I wrote it. True or false, all the disciples had to spur them on was their wonderful memories of Jesus.
01:15:48: And that's all they needed. Oh, Jesus, he was so wonderful.
01:15:59: I mean, can you just imagine? I mean, here are the guys who were scattered, you know, and John, the disciple watching
01:16:05: Jesus get crucified and all they needed to motivate him was the wonderful memories of Jesus.
01:16:13: Approximate answer? Zero. And salvation by Marvel movie.
01:16:26: You know, it's funny that you say that salvation by Marvel Marvel movie, because I can remember, you know, being a teenager and some of the best times
01:16:34: I had were reading comic books. And, you know, I can still remember some of them quite. Although the one
01:16:40: I mostly remember was a DC comic, but that's neither here nor there. Yeah. Yeah.
01:16:47: Yeah. But, you know, but, you know, now that he has the
01:17:14: Disney channel, he can watch them like on a daily basis, you know, and he's like,
01:17:20: I don't need the Bible. I get Disney Plus. He's all set.
01:17:28: Okay. Okay.
01:17:36: Yeah. The wonderful memories of Jesus. And Mason says, but the modern preacher, but says the modern preacher, where are we not in being satisfied with the historical
01:17:48: Jesus, the great teacher who proclaimed the kingdom of God, merely restoring the simplicity of the primitive gospel?
01:17:54: No answer. You are not. But temporarily, at least you are not so very far wrong.
01:18:02: You are really returning to a very primitive stage in the life of the church. Only that stage is not the
01:18:07: Galilean springtime. Springtime. Okay. For in Galilee, men had a living savior.
01:18:17: There was one time and one time only when the disciples lived like you merely on the memory of Jesus.
01:18:23: When was it? It was a gloomy, desperate time. It was the three sad days after the crucifixion.
01:18:30: Then and only then did Jesus' disciples regard him merely as a blessed memory. We trusted, they said, that it had been he which should have redeemed
01:18:43: Israel. We trusted. But now our trust is gone. Shall we remain with our modern liberalism forever in the gloom of those sad, those three days?
01:18:54: Or shall we pass out from it to the warmth and joy of Pentecost? In other words, to the resurrection and then to the ascension?
01:19:01: Yes. What was it in those few days that transformed a band of mourners into the spiritual conquerors of the world?
01:19:10: It was not the memory of Jesus' life. It was not the inspiration which came from past contact with him, but it was the message, he is risen.
01:19:22: We shall never have vital contact with Jesus if we attend to his person and neglect the message, for it is the message which makes him ours.
01:19:33: Okay, next question, 23. It is enough to know that Jesus lives and that he lives in my heart because he, yes, and one of the one of those ones that I really don't like very much, but often gets sung at funerals.
01:19:54: He lives in my heart or, you know, I mean, like, I mean, there are a few, you know, the most,
01:19:59: I probably told you guys this, but one of the reasons I was most excited to change hymnals is because it doesn't have in the garden in it, the new one does not, most abominable hymn ever written.
01:20:12: And he walks with me. No, it doesn't. And he talks with me. No, it isn't. You know, I mean, it's just like, we used to sing that and I just go.
01:20:21: And sometimes, you know, even now, somebody in their eighties will die and they're like, oh, let's sing that. And I'm like, okay.
01:20:32: Okay. But the Christian message contains more than the fact of the resurrection. It is not enough to know that Jesus is alive.
01:20:41: It is not enough to know that the wonderful person in the first century of the
01:20:48: Christian era, and that person still lives somewhere and somehow today, Jesus lives in that as well.
01:20:54: But what good is it to us? How shall we come into his presence? How shall contact be established between us and him?
01:21:02: Surely we need guidance. If we are to find our savior contact with Jesus, according to the new Testament is established by what
01:21:08: Jesus does not for others, but for us. It is not enough to know that Jesus is a person worthy of trust.
01:21:17: It is also necessary that to know that he is willing to have us trust him.
01:21:22: It is not enough to know that he saved others. We need to know that he also has saved us. That knowledge is given to us in the story of the cross for us.
01:21:32: Jesus does not merely place his fingers in, in the ears and say, be opened for us. He does not merely say arise and walk for us.
01:21:40: He has done a greater thing for us. He died our dreadful guilt, the condemnation of God's law.
01:21:47: It was wiped out by an act of grace. This is the message which brings Jesus near to us and makes him not merely the savior by of the men of Galilee long ago, but the savior of you and me.
01:22:03: Okay. Number 24, the an unnecessarily complicated labyrinth.
01:22:15: Yeah. False. The attack upon doctrine is not nearly so innocent a matter as our simple church goer supposes for the things objected to in the theology of the church are also at the very heart of the new
01:22:28: Testament. Ultimately, the attack is not against the 17th century, meaning the reformation, but against the
01:22:34: Bible and against Jesus himself. If the church were led to wipe out of existence, all products of the thinking of 19
01:22:42: Christian centuries, 20 now and start fresh, the loss, even if the Bible were retained would be immense.
01:22:50: And that's what, but that's what people do. We have a word for that. What's the word?
01:22:59: Biblicism, biblicism. You know, it's when people say they think they're being holy and pious when they say
01:23:05: Bible alone, but what they really mean is, you know, we have to rediscover all the truths of scripture by ourselves.
01:23:25: Yes, we do. Um, I mean, I have several quotes here that are just like, I just underlined, underlined.
01:23:32: How about this one? Liberalism is altogether in the imperative mood. What does he mean?
01:23:41: Do, do, do while Christianity begins with a triumphant indicative liberalism appears to man appeals to man's will while Christianity announces first a gracious act of God.
01:23:54: And let's see if we can super fast finish this 25 true or false liberalism is the indicative mood.
01:24:01: Yes, true. 26 true or false Christianity changes lives by telling a story.
01:24:15: Uh, no. Oh yes. You're right. You're right. Yeah. It's false.
01:24:21: Yeah, that's exactly false. Christian changes lives by telling a story. Here's what he says.
01:24:28: It transformed the lives of men, not by appealing to the human will, but by telling a story, not by exhortation, but by the narration of an event.
01:24:37: Okay. Uh, 27 true or false. Machen says fellowship with Arminians is difficult, nearly impossible, and it's false.
01:24:50: In fact, he says, yeah, sure. We can do that. Hold, hold our noses.
01:24:56: He doesn't even say that. He says, uh, Calvinists is constrained to regard the Arminian theology as a serious impoverishment of the scripture doctrine of divine grace and equally serious is the view which the
01:25:09: Arminian must hold to the doctrine of the yet here again, truly evangelical fellowship is possible.
01:25:15: And number 28, the chief rival of Christianity is atheism. The chief modern rival of Christianity is liberalism.
01:25:28: Okay. So let's pray father. Thank you for this morning. Thank you for the wise words of Machen, how he drives us again and again to the scripture.
01:25:35: And even as we think about the idea of getting rid of the Pauline epistles, acts peeling back,
01:25:42: John, you know, even ignoring, uh, parts of the synoptic gospels,
01:25:49: Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we're just reminded again and again, that there's really no way to just strip the reality of who
01:25:58: Jesus is and what Jesus did out of scripture without utterly abandoning it.
01:26:07: Father, we would pray that we would remind ourselves of these truths again and again, because scripture is living in the sense that it brings to us living truth.
01:26:19: The reality is that we need to focus on not only for ourselves, for our own encouragement that we, but that we might teach others the way of life.