Holiness, Part 2, What We Believe, Part 35

When you start talking about pursuing holiness and how you should live and conduct yourself, their response is, well, that's just legalism. You're just trying to be a legalist. And I'm like, no, no, no.

I'm just trying to be biblical because what you're describing as legalism isn't legalism. This isn't anything to do with adding to the Word of God in an attempt to secure salvation. This is what God says I should do.

I should be obedient. Welcome to The Wrap Report with your.

Host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to.

Strivingforeternity .org. Welcome to another edition of The Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, the Executive Director of the Christian podcast community and Striving for Eternity. We are glad to have you with us.

We are wrapping up our series on salvation, doctrine of salvation, in our continuing series, and this is the 35th part or episode in this series on what we believe. I'm joined by the brilliance, okay, half the brilliance of Matter of Theology.

I will let you guys go listen to Matter of Theology and figure out which one has the real brilliance, Chris Hough or my guest today, Drew Vonita. But Drew, welcome back. Thank you. Glad to be here and display what could possibly be brilliance or maybe just a facade of brilliance.

I guess we'll see what comes out, what I come up with. Essentially, if at the end of this, I look good, that means that it's really not Chris Hough who's brilliant, it's you making him look brilliant.

That's what we're saying, right? I have that gift, yeah, just to elevate the person that I'm with, you know? Well, we're glad to have you with us and Drew, as we've mentioned before, is a podcaster on Matter of Theology podcast, which like this podcast, is one of the members of the Christian podcast community.

You can go to Christian podcast community .org and check out all of our 50-plus vetted podcasts. And when we say vetted, we only accept about 30 to 40 of all the podcasts that apply. We are not easy on folks.

We reject very quickly. We want quality podcasts and so you're gonna get some good podcasts when you're listening there. So what I've been doing is switching up co-hosts here so that you guys get to hear different voices and this is the last week that we're gonna be having Drew Vonita joining us, but I hope that you'll enjoy what he has to share and I hope you'll check out Matter of Theology.

So with that, let's get to our topic today. We're talking about separation. So if you go to strivingforeternity .org, you are gonna see there under the About section a tab that says What We Believe, and that's what we're going through.

We're going through a doctrinal statement at Striving for Eternity. Get to that page, scroll down to where it says Salvation or Soteriology, that's the fancy name for it, and expand that. Go down to the bottom where it says Separation, that's the last section.

That's the section we are covering today, and as we cover that today, we'd encourage you to go back to last week's episode because last week we started this topic of separation. We talked about the separation of sin that we see in both Old and New Testament.

We talked about the motivation, and we're halfway through that, and we're gonna pick that up this week and finish up. So what I'm gonna do is ask my brother Drew if he would not mind reading the three paragraphs there in the section of separation.

On separation, separation from sin is clearly called for throughout the Old and New Testaments, and the Scriptures clearly indicate that in the last days apostasy and worldliness shall increase. Out of deep gratitude for the undeserved grace of God granted to us, and because our glorious God is so worthy of our total consecration, all believers should live in such a manner as to demonstrate their adoring love to God, and so as not to bring reproach upon our Lord and Savior.

Separation from all religious apostasy and worldly sinful practices is commanded of us by God. Believers should be separated unto the Lord Jesus Christ, and affirm that the Christian life is a life of obedient righteousness that reflects the teaching of the Beatitudes and a continual pursuit of holiness.

So we're talking about holiness, and holiness means to be separate. The word holiness is the idea of to be separated, and so in this sense, we're saying that to live a holy life, we are to be separated from sin.

Now we're going to talk in this episode what we're separated unto, but just as a recap, we talked in the last episode about the fact that separation is clearly taught both Old and New Testament, that we end up seeing that in the last days there's going to be an apostasy because the Church, instead of being separate from the world, will be basically increasing the worldliness by giving themselves over to the world with itching ears that they want to be tickled.

They want tickled, and so we talked about that. We talked about the motivation. What should motivate us to a holy living? Well, we talked about it. We should have a deep gratitude. That should be the attitude, the deep gratitude, because you and I as believers, those of us who are regenerate, have an undeserving grace.

We have been giving a grace we totally and utterly do not deserve, and because of that, it's been granted to us, but that motivation alone is not enough. The other motivating factor is the glorious God who did this, and so it's not just what He did for us in His giving us this grace, but it's who He is making Him totally worthy.

There's nobody more worthy to be separated to than God, and so it's not just the fact that we've been regenerated, but it's also the fact of who He is that should motivate us to live a life as believers that demonstrates that love in everything we do.

Now, that means that what we do is we do things that are pleasing to God. That's the positive, but the negative is that we don't do things that would bring a reproach to the name of God. So both positive and negative that we saw last week, and so we talked about that in length, about the idea that we want to do things because we love God.

We want to be pleasing to Him, not to try to earn something from Him, but because we want to just make Him happy. We want to please Him in everything we do, and we don't want to tarnish His reputation.

No care for our own. This is not about us. Notice that we talked about last episode. We talked all about God. The focus is on God. That is also going to help us for holy living, because when we're living with that mindset where we're so focused on who God is, what God has done, and how worthy He is, how unworthy we are, suddenly we're not worried about our reputation.

We're not worried about how people think of us. Oh, but that person, he was slandering me. Okay, but if he's slandering you in the name of Christ, okay. As long as Christ's name wasn't slandered, can you handle your name being slandered as long as Christ's isn't?

That's the thing. So we don't want to bring a reproach upon the name of God, and so let's pick up there now. So this is, if you're in the section on separation, paragraph two in the second sentence. It says, separation from all religious apostasy.

Now let's just stop there. Someone's gonna say, Andrew, can you define religious apostasy? Joelstein? I think I can. Benny Hinn? I wonder if there's a good definition. You know, this is not one of those things like when a congressman was asked to define pornography, and he goes, I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it.

This is one we know it when we see it, and we can define it, okay. Religious apostasy is when you have people that are claiming to be religious, claiming to live for God, and yet they're living a lifestyle that is completely opposite of God, that is completely for self.

So you could look at any of the Word of Faith guys. They're all living a lavish lifestyle, and they're trying to live that lavish lifestyle while they tell you they serve God, and God would condemn their lifestyle.

Andrew, are you saying you can't have a lavish lifestyle? No, I'm not saying that at all. But what I am saying is, you can't have a lifestyle saying that I'm gonna take money from poor people so that I can live wealthy, and I'm gonna prey on them and manipulate them for their money, okay.

Now, this becomes a thing when we think about, it's the issue of how they want to get their money. I have a guy that I used to go to church with, love the guy dearly, and I'm obviously not gonna give his name because people would have differing views with this, but he's a professional poker player, or at least he was.

Now, it's interesting because when you look at the way he approaches poker, people go, oh, that's gambling, that's wrong. But see, he doesn't view it as gambling. He views it as no different than what someone playing stocks would do.

It's about numbers. He sits there and he evaluates the people he's gonna play. He's looking at their ratings, looking at his ratings. He's looking for bluffs. He's looking for different things, and he's playing hands.

He's playing statistics and running numbers, and he's got, like when he plays, he's got all these calculations he runs. To him, it's not what we think of where gambling or people are spending good money, their rent money or something, to try to get something in hopes of what this money could do for them, right?

He looks at it as more as this is his career. My kids, they know someone that used to be a professional poker player, and he actually won a million dollars in a poker game. He's very good at that, and he went to a table where he actually won a million dollar hand.

Now, what actually happened is he didn't win all million dollars because people invested in him to win. It gave him the seed money that he had to do, so he paid them back plus, you know, some interest.

And so you look at that and go, okay, is that gambling? Well, I couldn't say, I had to concede that when I looked at the definition of gambling, look what he did. I said, I can't say that what he's doing is gambling.

But here was the question I did ask, because I had to understand what he was doing. I said, in your game, in the way you're playing, are you purposely taking advantage of people who don't play as well?

And he ended up realizing, yeah, he was. You see, and then it's almost, see, that almost becomes what a Benny Hinn does, right? He preys on the wishes of people who want to get rich. Now, when you're professional poker players, I guess they're not all doing it to try to get rich, but there are some.

And those that are trying to get rich, those are the easy prey, right? And so he had to realize, okay, I got to stay away from the easy prey, because you don't want to be preying on them trying to steal your money.

That changed who he started to play. He's given it up since, but a lot for that reason. And so this becomes a thing that you have to understand that when we look at what is religious apostasy, this is people that are preying on the innocent, preying on the poor.

They're using religion for their ill-gotten gain, as the scripture would describe it. Yeah. I would also add something in there. Those who claim to be, we'll say discernment ministries, but actually go after and slander people of truth, like say a John MacArthur, right?

People who may write articles, fabricated articles about John MacArthur that are just completely slandering him. I would throw them in that category as well. Well, I was going to put that under the category that we're going to come up with soon, of sinful practices.

Okay, okay. Yeah. Because, see, I think that when we talk about the apostasy, you know, and some of it could fit. I mean, you could make a case, because religious apostasy is people who are damning people's souls for the sake of their gain, okay?

And so there I put in the category, the word of faith people, the people who are trying to make a living. They're trying to take people and lead them astray from the true biblical message, okay? And that's different than, as we say here, separation from all religious apostasy and worldly.

So the second part of it is the worldly practices. Now, what you end up seeing there is, when we speak of worldly, this is the things of the world. Can the world be alluring to us? Yes. Would it be nice to have nice things?

Yes. Now, I'm not against anyone that can afford those things. I have people that I know who have very nice things. They have jobs where they make a lot of money, and I'm not against them being able to have that, you know, look, we could sit here and say as religious people, okay, there's some people that say, well, no pastor should have a fancy car, or a fancy watch, or anything like that.

I would ask, how do you define fancy? Well, okay, an expensive, right? Expensive. Okay, so, and let's just name some names, right? You're referring to Julie Roys. We've dealt with her on Apologetics Live before.

She writes these articles about John MacArthur, and he's really word of faith because he has an expensive watch. Well, guess what? I have a watch that is more expensive than John MacArthur's, okay? It was a gift, right?

And chances are when my dad passes, I'll have a watch that's more expensive than my first house, okay? Not because I bought it, not because I mistreated people to get it, it's because it was a gift from my father, just like my other.

So, do I have a Rolex? Yes, it was a gift. Do I drive a Mercedes-Benz? Yes, it was a gift from my brother. Do I have an Armani suit? Yes, my dad outgrew it. So, you look at the name, do I have all those things?

Yes. So, am I criticizing Benny Hinn for having those things? No, I'm not criticizing for having them. How he got them, how he got them, right? Now, here's the difference. Am I seeking those things? Like, am I sitting there and trying to sacrifice things for my family so that I could get an expensive car or an expensive watch?

That's the worldliness now. You see, the apostasy is leading people astray. The worldliness, now what we're covering in this section is where we're dealing with the desire that people have for the things of the world.

Yeah. So, I told you in the first episode that we recorded, the one about Angie Stanley, I don't think I mentioned it in the episode, but just when we were talking back and forth, that I'm doing a career change.

I'm studying for my licensing to go into specific sales. And it's a sales that can be very lucrative. It can be very, very lucrative. And now you do have people who take advantage of people. And so, just for transparency, we'll say life insurance.

And there are people who will take advantage of people for life insurance. Now, me being a Christian... Well, before you go on, let me just, let's explain people can use guilt. Guilt? Yes. And things like that.

You wouldn't want something to happen to your wife. Your wife wouldn't be able to... You really should get this, even if you can't afford it. You wouldn't want to get term life. You really need the whole life, even though it's much more expensive.

That would be a way of doing it. Right, right. Now, mind you, the things that you could say are fine, right? Because it is true, whole life is going to be better in many ways than term life. And it is taking care of your family.

But if you have someone that can't afford it, and you're trying to talk them into it for your own gain. Right, right, right. And even then, in all the pre-licensing stuff I'm doing for the company that hired me, they said, if you do exactly the thing you just said, that is wrong.

It shows lack of integrity. And if we find out about it, you're gone. Right? Oh, I like this company already. So like, as a Christian, I'm going, okay, life insurance would be responsible in order to take care of your family.

But just got to make sure you're on the right plan. But the lucrative aspect that you can have in this industry, and you can tell me if this is wrong or not, I told my wife that it could be something, if I end up being good at it or something, it could be something that brings in a lot of money for us.

Now, I'm not a materialistic kind of person. I have lots of, well, I mean, except for one. Look, let's be honest. You want lots of good Christian books. I want lots of good Christian books. That's right.

That doesn't fit in category sin, I don't think. But I told my wife, I said, if we hit this dollar amount, I'm not going to tell you. And I'm not going to tell you because I don't want your mind to be on materialistic things.

Because if it hits this dollar amount, first, I want to put away for our kids. I want to make sure they're set. And I want to be able to give to other ministries. I want to be able to give freely to other ministries that I believe do good work.

And so one of the, I don't play the lottery, but one of the jokes I always make when they get to like a billion dollars or something is, if I were to win, I have these ministries I would give this money to.

And I run down the list of all the ministries that I know. And I think striving for eternity is on there, you know? I hope so. But the thing is, is like, money can lead to all these sinful practices. And it leads to this, what you're talking about, this worldliness, especially in ministry, this religious apostasy.

And now when we're talking about John MacArthur and this watch, this was a gift from his congregation. I mean, the man has to be forced to take a sabbatical because the most important thing to him is preaching to his congregation the word of God on the Lord's day.

And so this congregation, I mean, I think they're the fourth and fifth generation sitting under his preaching. They appreciate him so much, they took up a separate offering and took all that to buy this watch for him to show their appreciation for him.

Now, notice the difference there. He didn't ask for it. They offered it. So that's the thing. Now, he's not looking, and that's the thing we're talking about. So we're putting this in two categories. We're to be separate from all religious apostasy.

So we should not be leading people astray for our own personal gain. The other thing is that we should be separate from all worldly and then sinful practices. So this is describing the practices we do.

One part's worldly, the other part's sinful. The worldliness is the desire to have the things of the world, but the sinful, this is the thing you talked about, the discernment ministries. So I don't think that discernment ministries are necessarily trying to lead people astray, but what they are trying to do is cause division within the body of Christ for their own either, it's several things, some it's money because they have their ad revenues, other it's popularity.

They either want the money, they want the popularity, or it's just the power they get. Just having everyone know who they are and being able to say, you know, if I write an article about you, I have received emails at the ministry that if I don't kowtow to certain people, they are going to expose me.

And my response has been, go ahead. Expose me. Because the reality is whatever you write, the truth, even though you may write something that's a lie, the truth is much worse. Yeah. Okay. So the reality is that you do have people that they get off on a power kick, that they're going to be able to have control over you.

So it's these several different things that you end up having, the sinful practices. Now this also can include, like you were just mentioning with your job, you're talking about for worldliness, but see that it's really the behavior, it may not be worldliness, maybe it's just you want to get more money to take care of your family, but you're going to walk someone into something to manipulate somebody to spend money that you know they shouldn't spend.

That would be a sinful practice. So that's why it's worldly and sinful is two ways of describing these practices. So the idea that we have as a separation here is we're saying that you and I as believers, every one of us need to be separate from all, not some, all activities that would be seen as religiously leading people astray or be worldly and sinful in nature.

Why? Because it's commanded to us by God. And you can go through the scriptures time and time again and see that God commands this, that we are to be separate from the world. So this is not something that we're saying is up for discussion, like, okay, can we kind of be worldly, a little world?

No. As long as we don't get caught, is it okay? No. If I haven't hurt enough people yet and stepped on enough toes, do you obey that speed limit when you drive to work? That is a sinful practice to violate that law.

Romans 13 says, obey the law. What is it that makes us just, we want to go over it? And, you know, it's amazing because so many people will go 10 miles over it because they think that's acceptable, right?

Because if I go 10 miles over, I won't get a ticket. In other words, as long as I don't get a ticket, I don't get caught, as long as they let me do it, it's okay. No, actually, it's not. It's not. It was funny.

We were driving to church when we were in Florida. Dr. Anthony Svestro and I were driving. He was supposed to be teaching, and we made a turn. I make this turn. It was 45 miles an hour, but once you make the turn, it's 30.

Sunday morning, we're driving to church. We're on our way, and we're having a discussion. We were discussing this woman who we were evangelizing the night before, and she prayed to receive Christ, and we were just having a great conversation, and I see a police officer walk out in the middle of the road and point for me to turn.

Okay. I'm like, I just figured it was a spot check for IDs or something. It's way too early for, you know, it's nine in the morning. You're not checking for, you know, drunks or something. Well, it was a speed trap.

I was going 45. Actually, I think I was doing 47, they said, but in what I thought was a 45, but it was actually a 30, right? And when the officer told me that, I was like, I mean, I think she realized, A, I'm from out of town, but I was like, I really thought I was in a 45, and I was apologetic.

I said, well, I should not have been doing that, and I asked forgiveness of the officer and immediately realized what I was doing, because here we are, look, we're dressed in suits. She's like, where are you going?

And I'm like, church. He's going to be preaching, right? He's going to be speaking, and so all of a sudden, I am now bringing a, as we talked about last episode, I'm bringing a reproach on the name of Christ, and we didn't get a ticket, and part of it, I think because she realized, I was more worried about the name of Christ.

I was like, look, officer, I'm not trying to get out of a ticket. You give me a ticket, you give me a ticket, right? But we're on our way to church. I was not paying attention to the fact that the speed changed.

I thought it was a 45. I didn't know it changed. It'll never happen again, because I'm concerned with Christ's reputation at that point, right? That becomes the thing. I'm concerned because I just said Anthony is going to be speaking.

This is the thing. Now, if I'm driving that way, now granted, that's a good case. Let me give the negative. When I do a long distance drive, 10 miles over a speed limit makes up a long time. A lot of time, yeah.

Five hours. I hate doing long drives. Can I say that I do that? Well, that's a sinful practice. Well, some people use this as an excuse, and I don't know if it's the same in other places, but where I live in Georgia, in Atlanta, there's some roads where they allow five miles over, and then there's some roads where they allow 10 miles over, and so people will hit that 10 miles over, right, and they'll say, oh, well, it's allowed because they allow five miles over.

Now, that's coming from police officers that I've known that say, on this road, it's 45, but we allow 50, so if you're going 50, you're okay. But the thing is, this is the whole thing of it, right? That's what I'm saying.

People will keep it right to that level because they know they're allowed to get away with it, but they're still breaking the law. Still breaking the law. I mean, I admit, this is my struggle when I do long drives, is I struggle to, like, I know that I could keep it at 10 over that speed limit the whole way.

Right. Because it makes up that time, and yet I know it's wrong, and so there's times where I just, I end up fluctuating because I'm, I just, it's a struggle for me, but what are we saying here? Well, if I'm knowingly violating my conscience and breaking that speed limit, that's a sinful practice, and God commands me to separate from that, and that's what I have to do.

Is it easy? No. I'd love to say that I always drive the speed limit. I do it around town locally. I know I struggle with it on long rides. The other thing, though, Drew, that some people struggle with, some people struggle with a good night of sleep, and if you're struggling with a good night of sleep, what you need to do is get yourself a good MyPillow.

MyPillow is an American-made products. They're great products. You can get a great night's sleep. I absolutely love not just the MyPillow, but also the MyPillow mattress topper. I have the three-inch mattress topper.

It has changed my sleep. I gave my kids for Christmas the MyPillow towels because they are super absorbent, and yet they're not really as heavy as the real absorbent towels. A lot of towels that are absorbent are very heavy.

Theirs are not. If you want to check out the products, go to MyPillow .com, and if you want to get the discounts that they have, use the discount code SFE. It stands for striving for eternity. SFE, use that promo code so that you could get yourself not only a discount, but let them know you heard about them from us here at the Wrap Report podcast so that they will keep sponsoring this show.

We thank MyPillow for their sponsorship. It'll help you get a good night's sleep so that you don't struggle, at least with that area of your life. I love MyPillow. Well, currently when people are listening to this, I am in Israel without my MyPillow, so I'm not sleeping well because I'm limited how much weight we can take.

And so I think that's one of the things I might have to leave. I may leave some clothes behind and take my pillow just to see. We'll see. We'll see. Well, you know, I told you a while ago, my wife always stole my MyPillow.

My MyPillow that was a gift from you. She kept stealing my MyPillow. And I was like, okay, well, I ended up getting her one and I used the code SFE. So I got her one. And guess what? The one I got her, she didn't want to use because mine was already broken in.

So I was like, all right. You know, I'll tell you one thing with it. Mine is, I think, I want to say over 10 years old, maybe 12 years old. And it is just as firm as the first day. Like we actually got a new one that we put for the guest bedroom and I tried it out and mine is just as firm as, as that one.

I was like, wow. After, after so many years, we just throw it in the, in the, the wash, throw it in the dryer and it's, it's good to go. Yeah. We throw it in the dryer, fluff it out and oh, it's really good.

Get a nice warm pillow. Yeah. Yeah. So let's discuss this now. The last paragraph here that we have, and that is, we're now going to talk about what we should be separated to. So we talk about the fact that we should be separated from, so we're separated from is we're separated from the things that are sinful.

And we listed a whole lot of those. Now, what we want to talk about is the thing that we're separated to. Believers should be separated unto the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we talked about that a lot last episode, the why we should be, but this is what we're separated to.

So we don't just walk away from the world and sin. We turn from those and turn to Christ. That's what repentance means. And so we're separated from those things and separated unto Jesus and affirm that the Christian life is a life of obedient righteousness.

So this is now talking about how we're going to live our life. This is what Paul says in Titus about having a conduct that is fitting in a right manner as a believer. So we should be living a life that's obedient and obedient righteousness that reflects the teachings.

Well, teachings of Christ, of God, but we're saying of the Beatitudes, because that encompasses quite a bit, and a continual pursuit of holiness. So let's first start with the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes is seen—the reason to include that is because the Beatitudes is really seen as a high standard.

It kind of is all-encompassing, where what you see there is the rabbis who would say they'd have certain rules and they'd say, okay, this is the rule. And really what they're trying to do is say, okay, we don't want to go too far.

And Jesus would say, okay, you heard it said of old. Okay, now I'm going to say unto you. And he would keep doing that because what he was saying was he was forcing upon them to say, you have a very low standard in your man-made standard that they had come up with.

He says, I'm going to raise that up. So you say adultery is wrong? Well, Jesus is going to go, God's going to judge your heart, and even looking with lust, he's going to consider that adultery. Oh, you think murder is wrong?

Well, God's going to look and say, every time you're angry, that's murdering within your heart. He's going to judge your motives, not just what you do. And so all of a sudden that standard is raised. That's really what we end up seeing in the Beatitudes.

That's right. A lot of people today, when you start talking about pursuing holiness and how you should live and conduct yourself, their response is, well, that's just legalism. You're just trying to be a legalist.

And I'm like, no, no, no. I'm just trying to be biblical because what you're describing as legalism isn't legalism. This isn't anything to do with adding to the Word of God in an attempt to secure salvation.

This is what God says I should do. I should be obedient. And so if I'm to be obedient, that means there is a certain way I am to live. That's not legalism. That's saying, I love my Lord, therefore I follow Him and I do what He says.

And that's the whole idea that we're trying to emphasize here in this. And look, you said this before. I can't remember if it was earlier in this episode or last week, but I remember hearing you say, the fact that we're addressing this issue, most doctrinal statements aren't going to address the issue of holiness.

I mean, let's be honest, most churches don't want to address the issue of holiness because it's uncomfortable. People don't like to hear it. And yet it's an essential part of the Christian life. Why should we include a section on holy living?

Because brothers and sisters, we need it. And so it needs to be here. And so we put this in here because we want to define what it means to live a holy life. And so it's not just the beatitudes though.

We have to be in a continual pursuit for holiness. We should be living a life, not saying avoid, avoid, avoid, avoid, but put on, put on, put on. If you think about through the scriptures where you have, put these things off, put this thing on, avoid this, do this.

You have that throughout the scriptures because that is what we need. Here's a little thing that I remember someone explained to me. When I took a class in seminary, a spiritual formation, the professor said, when you're counseling somebody, you cannot tell someone to not do, not do, not do, not do.

And he said, let's use the example of smoking a cigarette. You can't counsel someone, don't smoke, don't smoke, don't smoke, don't smoke. He says, this is the reason that AA, you know, never really works well because what you're doing is going in going, don't drink, don't drink, don't drink, don't drink.

What are you thinking about all the time? Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink or this cigarette, cigarette, cigarette, cigarette, right? So the experiment I would do with people, I'd say, I'd say, okay, do me a favor for 30 seconds.

I want you to think of the number 27. Okay. All right. After we're 30 seconds done, what were you thinking about? 27. Okay. For two minutes, I don't want you to think 27. So as I'm watching the clock, don't think 27, not 27.

Nope, no 27, not 27. What were you thinking about? One or two answers. They either say, sound like five, 11, 12 pigs, you know, you know, they thought we're thinking of something else where they go, I kept trying to not think of 27.

So what were you thinking about? 27. You can't just put off without putting on. So most of what we covered last week is the, and part of this episode is the put off. You put off all this sinful practices, but you put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Yes. It's not one or the other. It's both. You have to do both, but off the sinful practices, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, why include this in a doctrinal statement? Because quite frankly, this is putting a dividing line for us.

We're saying this is the way a Christian should live. We're marking that. Mm-hmm. That also means folks that you hold us to that standard now. Yep. That's what people don't want, to be held accountable to that standard.

Well, that's why I think so many people don't want to talk about holiness. And the reason we put this in here is to say, this is the standard for all of us. And not only would I expect to hold you to a standard, I expect you to hold me to the standard.