Addressing Cultural Idols

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00:04

Brothers, what we do in life echoes in eternity. I mean, this is what's wrong with the

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Christian church today. We don't know who God is, and we don't know who we are. This is where we hold them.

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This is where we fight. Officer, you need to repent of your lawless conduct.

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You don't know the law, and yet you pretend to represent it. That's not law enforcement, sir.

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That's being a thug. We will not stop fighting and bothering you all until this monstrous, barbaric practice of legalized abortion ends.

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And we are teaching our children to do the same. God's word says that the shed blood of innocent humans cries out for justice, and mark my words, they will have their day in court.

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Nobody gets saved by being treated nicely. They get saved by hearing the gospel. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.

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If we don't open our mouths and commend Christ, we're not loving

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Him, no matter what we're doing with our hands. What's up, everybody?

01:25

It's another episode of Provoked. And I am here with my beautiful sissy. Hello. Sissy.

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I don't think I ever called you sissy. I know I called you sissy. You're not the only one.

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Let's not get into that. And we are here with one of the best people who ever lived.

01:45

Aww. I saw one criticism, one, I can't think of the word.

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Somebody said something nice about you. What is that called? Compliment. There you go. Yeah. And they said, this is the best man who ever existed at any point of history.

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Any time. Who said that? This guy. And I was like, that's true. Except for Jesus. Yeah. No, that's awesome.

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I didn't, it wasn't even my wife. My wife wouldn't say that. She knows me too well. I mean, talk about a fan.

02:14

Man, I'll have to send that guy a granola bar or something. That's like a mega fan. He is like our brother from another mother.

02:19

That's true. He is. That's true. He's a very special Viking. It sucks now with all the

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BLM stuff because I'm like purebred Viking. So I just keep quiet. But we're so super stoked that you are.

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I can't believe I just used that. And we're really excited you're on the show. Thanks, bro. Thanks, bro.

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No, in all seriousness, we would not be here without you. And all the days and weeks and months leading up to the show, you helped out so much.

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I think you came up with 3 ,000 names for the show. Yeah, they were all awesome too. Yeah, they were. Yeah, you had some awesome names.

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Desi was the one that didn't like any of them. She did, but it was Don. He just walked in. He's like, provoke.

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And we're like, okay. And that's the voice of the Lord right there. You don't tell Don no. It was during ReformCon when

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Pastor Jeff was preaching on Act 17. And that's when he's like, it's provoked. And we're like, perfect.

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Yep. So anyway, no, we appreciate you, dude, and all that you do. Thanks, man. I mean, glad to be here.

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Nothing would be able to happen without you. Aw. Love you. Love you, buddy. I love you. All right.

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So we're having a belly contest today, right? That's why we're here? A belly? Big belly type of contest?

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That's true. Big guys at a little table. I think Desi's got us beat first. Well, I've been practicing, preparing, but I don't know.

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It is a pretty tight table here, but it's intimate. Each episode of this, you're like further and further back.

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I know. Just don't breathe. Every time we breathe, our bellies are just going to push the stuff off the table.

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That's the story of my life right there. Yeah. Well, anyway, thank you guys for joining us today. I'm Desi. I'm here with my big brother,

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Zach, and my pastor, Luke. And we just want to thank you guys for joining us again. And I wanted to say thank you, too, for everybody that went on our platforms and gave us a rating and review.

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And that helps us kind of reach out of our little bubble. So if you can do that, if you have time, go ahead and do that.

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Go on Facebook, on Instagram, and then also make sure that you sign up for All Access, Apology at All Access.

04:26

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's the way we keep things going here. I mean, you go to Apology All Access and become an

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It's just a cool... It's dope. It's dope. You get the raddest. The dopest. Now, you get a pretty amazing education for yourself and your family.

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And then you support the work of Apologia. What does that mean? That just means the gospel goes out farther. Folks are saved from cults.

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Babies are saved from death at abortion clinics. So an investment in Apologia Studios and everything

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Apologia does is just... It's a good investment. I remember when I was thinking about coming to this church four years ago and listening to you guys,

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I'm like, should I invest my life? Because when you join a church or when God sends you to a certain local church, you should let your roots go down.

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You should pour all of your heart and all of your soul into that. You don't want to be like my pastor of old used to call it.

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He used to say a flying tree. People have kind of a semblance of maturity, but they don't really let their roots go down.

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So I was thinking, I want to let my roots go down into this church and invest all my heart and my mind in it.

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And four years later, I'm glad I did because it's a special place. God's doing a special thing here. So, yeah, become an

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All Access member. We need your help. We need your support. And if you're new to the show, we call the church, we call the show

05:45

Provoked. And that comes like Desi was saying out of Acts 17, 16 through 18. I'm going to read a couple of verses here.

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It says this. Now, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city of idols.

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So he was reasoning in the synagogues with the Jews and the God fearing Gentiles and in the marketplace every day with those who appear to be present or who happen to be present.

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And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, what would this idol babbler wish to say?

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And others says he seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities because he was preaching

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Jesus and the resurrection. So what did Paul do? He went into Athens and he was provoked in his spirit to confront a culture of idolatry with the gospel.

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And so that's what we want to do. We want to provoke the church. And maybe we should do, I was thinking about this Des, maybe we should be a little bit more provocative.

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Because when your kids are messing with one another, what do you say to them? Stop provoking them.

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What does the scripture say to us as dads? Don't provoke your sons and daughter to anger.

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So when you provoke something, you're stirring that to action. And I think that we do. I think we need to be a little bit more provocative because our three main goals are to provoke the church, to preach the gospel, rescue babies, and destroy cultural idols.

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I thought I already dressed pretty provocative. Well, you always do. Because, I mean, what do you think?

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Does the church need to be provoked? Are we dealing with the church that's active in preaching the gospel?

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Are we dealing with the church that's active and awake and rescuing babies? Right. We're not.

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Yeah. And that's just the case. I mean, you don't want to beat up on Jesus's bride. And we don't want to do that here.

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But I think we want to provoke. We want to do everything we can to say, hey, it's time to wake up, church. We're asleep at the wheel.

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Right. We're derelict of our duty. We're AWOL in the battle that God has called us to.

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So many people see the Christian life as just kind of chill, make a lot of money, seek comfort until he raptures us out of here.

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But that's not the way we're supposed to. That's a lie. That's just a straight up lie. I'm just sorry.

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I'm distracted because I'm yelling at our, I'm texting yelling at our crew in there because their mics are on and we can hear their conversations.

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Don't mess with them right now. This is like what I tell. He's like, I'm like, dude, your mic's on. I'm like, no, it's not.

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I'm like, yeah, I can hear everything you're saying. It's like going through the drive -thru. Don't mess with the drive -thru people until after they've made your food.

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Oh, no. Zach does like. No, Isaac, I can't hear you now. You got it. Whatever you did. What do you say?

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You tell people you love them. Zach does all different voices. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My favorite was the one video.

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This is going to be like a train wreck, I think. That one video of the guy. They'd be like, you're the best.

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I love you. You're the best person who ever lived. You just start saying that to them. Or Lemme Get. Have you ever seen

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Lemme Get? Where you just sit there and you say, Lemme Get, and then you never actually tell them what you're going to get.

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And I say, okay, what would you like? Fries? Lemme Get. We've done that a few times at restaurants.

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The waitress would bring us. We're like, you're the best. I love you. You're great. We're just trying to be encouraging.

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He's done it our whole life, though. And I'm like, please. Sandy's the best, though. That gets me every time. It's fun.

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Not my kids. Sandy? You just walk up to somebody and you're like, Sandy? Oh, yeah. He did that when we were at the leadership retreat last year, and it was the funniest thing

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I've ever seen in my life. What were we talking about? We're talking about the fact that we need to provoke the church.

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We need to provoke. Well, I was going to say, sorry, Isaac just texted me and said, was

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I talking bad about you guys? Yeah, you were. I don't know what you were saying. I was going to say, to that point, though, there's a way to do it that is

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Christ -honoring, where you're not attacking the bride, because we have seen plenty of examples of that, where it's destructive, and you need to really provoke the church from within, graciously, by leading, not by condemning.

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Right. Dang. That's awesome. Yeah, that's exactly right. Sometimes it's a hard - Bear out. He's like,

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I'm done. Sandy's done. That's a fine line to walk, right? Yeah. That's kind of hard, because as you were saying that,

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Rusty Thomas was coming up in my head, and I was actually just listening to him preach, because he's so gracious and loving, right?

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But when you hear him preach - Even when he's yelling. Even when he's yelling. So he's got this firmness balanced with grace.

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And so, like John 1 .14, actually, I just posted about it this week, Jesus came full of grace and truth.

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And so, I think really genuine Christianity is going to be in this exhibition of a balance, right?

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You're exhibiting a balance where you're being gracious, but also uncompromisingly firm to those that you're talking to.

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So I think you're absolutely right. We can go - You can go about poking and provoking in a destructive way, in maybe a self -righteous way, but you can also humbly say, troops, there's a battle out here, and God's enemies are raging, and we have to get in this battle,

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I mean, for the souls of men and for the lives of babies. That's what we're all about. We've talked a lot about abortion.

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We've talked a lot about, especially the last couple episodes, evangelism, how to do that biblically. Haven't spent so much time in idols, but when we do our debates, just so you guys know, what we want to do is bring people on the show.

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We've had atheists. We've had pro -choicers. Hopefully, we'll have some Mormons come on, because we do want to dismantle that.

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That's a part of destroying idols. Like Paul said, he said, destroy every lofty thought and speculation that would raise itself against the knowledge of God.

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So debating really is for that purpose, bringing the gospel to the individuals, but also exposing the failure of that worldview as it conflicts with the scripture and a biblical worldview.

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But what are we going to do today? Today, we're going to talk about idolatry. We want to expose some common idols that God's people are prone to worship.

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What we want to do in this is we want to provoke people, maybe talk about, if we can get into it, some idols that we don't talk about.

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I mean, people don't understand. They think that once you're saved, you'll never worship an idol, as if that that's not a capability for the regenerate

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Christian. It is. I mean, being demon -possessed is not capable for a regenerate

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Christian. Of course, the spirit comes in, and he's the strong man. But God's people worship idols, and it's rampant, and it's something that people rarely talk about.

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But there's so many secret idols. There's so many idols that don't go spoken about or don't go revealed that are destroying the church.

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And like Pastor Sumter says, the culture is really the outflowing of the idolatrous worship in the church.

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Right. Look at the verse right here, Deuteronomy 12 .3. It says, You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations whom you possess serve their gods on the high mountains and on the hills and under every tree.

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You shall tear down the altars and smash their sacred pillars and burn their asherim with fire, and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods and obliterate the names from that place.

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So what you see all throughout the Old Testament and all throughout the scriptures there is that God has this absolute disdain for idolatry.

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He even calls Israel a whore, saying that he's jealous.

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Why do you think that? Why does God hate idolatry so much? Well, because it's false worship.

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It's the simple answer. Because you're worshiping anything but the creator.

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And as we know, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. So if you're enjoying anything above him, then you're not fulfilling your chief purpose.

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Yeah. That's right. You have any thoughts on that? Yeah. He stole what I was gonna say.

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That catechism. Yeah, because God is out for his glory and our good.

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And so when we take our eyes off of him and give glory to something else, it's doing what's contrary to what we are supposed to do in worship to him.

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So yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking about it too. Why is God, because it's just idolatry is all throughout it.

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You think about God, who he is in Trinity, the Godhead. He's just such a highly relational being.

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I mean, all throughout. When you talk about all throughout history, it doesn't really even apply to God because he never had a starting point.

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Right. He was never caused. He's always been. And that's just outside of our capability of even comprehending or even apprehending that about who he is in his nature.

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But you think about the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Who knows how, I mean, how long ago or how long even before creation they were an intimate relation with one another.

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Like John chapter one talks about the son's relationship with the father and of course the spirit being in there in the

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Godhead. And so you have this God who is so relational and so desiring to pour out his love and he does it on a people that were not worthy of it.

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Deuteronomy seven talks about Israel not even being worthy of his love. It's just because God is so loving. So he hates idolatry, this false worship because he sets his love on a people group expecting that they reciprocate that love especially in light of all that he does for his people on any given basis.

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And then also it talks about, and I can't remember, but as we worship idols we become like that which we worship.

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So it says you worship these things who don't have the ability to hear or see, don't have any sensory perception or capability, have no ability to relate with you and you become like them.

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You become dead like them. And it's just I think a big issue within the church that doesn't go as talked about maybe as it should.

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And I think what does it do? I think it renders so much of the church's output, outreach, impotent, non -effective because God distances himself from his people when they worship idols.

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So I know you've got an outline as we get into it Des and I'll just let you kind of move forward.

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But I think a good question to kind of maybe open up this discussion is, actually let me back up a little bit here and move forward.

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In terms of navigating through what we're going through right now with all the idiocy of this so -called quote -unquote pandemic, what are some of the idols you think that have been exposed in the church?

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And here's the good thing. It's always good to expose an idol, right? Because if you expose an idol, just like you would expose a cancerous cell in your body or a cancerous growth, then you know how to attack it.

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You know how to deal with it. So it's good that these things are being exposed. The church needs to sound off on these so we can say, no, no, no, no, this is not the way that we're supposed to operate as a church.

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What do you think are some of the idols that have come to the surface? I'm ready to go so I'll let you go ahead.

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Well, the one that came to mind that I want to talk about a lot today is the idol of comfort. Especially here in America, we're so comfortable.

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So that's the first one that comes to my mind. We're so used to our schedules. We're used to ease. We're used to health and not,

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I mean, obviously people still get sick, but nothing like this where people are really fearful for their health.

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And just, I mean, there's a whole plethora of comfort issues. So that would be the one

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I'd like to dig into deeper today. Yeah, well, I think that's probably the number one idol even in our culture in general.

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Right. And so a lot of things that we're dealing with, a lot of things you're dealing with on the show come back to that as the root.

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So abortion ultimately is the idol of comfort. Right. Right. I want to finish school.

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I like my job. I don't want an alien in my stomach, a parasite, whatever.

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It's all about comfort. And so that's the main cultural thing.

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And obviously it's leaked into the church because the church has failed to condemn that within the culture.

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But yeah, I mean, I think that's, I think everything, you brought up some things before we started the show. I think every one of those ultimately goes back to comfort.

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Right. So even the idol of the nanny state or the big government or whatever, that's because they bring us comfort.

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Yeah, that's right. Because they make sure I have my needs taken care of. Although they're showing that they're not really concerned about that right now.

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But the point is, I think you're absolutely right. It just comes down to comfort. And so anything they were dealing with kind of stems from that,

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I think. Right. Because what's the American dream? It's to pursue comfort. It's to get to a point where you can be as comfortable as you could possibly imagine.

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So when we back away from that and go, well, what does the Bible call us to do?

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What does God's word tell us to do? It's definitely not to be comfortable. There's nothing in the

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Bible that says, you know, as Christians, we're going to be comfortable in this life. But it's everywhere around us.

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That is the big push from the American culture is comfort and pleasure seeking.

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Yeah. I mean, that's kind of like kind of elucidating the definition of the American dream.

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Yeah. Which is kind of work as hard as you can. And that's not to say, of course, we live. The idea of America is pretty amazing.

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Yeah. Even though it's devolved into the state that it is right now. But the American dream is I want to work as hard as I can for as long as I can to make as much money as I can.

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And then for the last quarter of my life, I kind of sit around and enjoy myself.

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Is that is that compatible with Christianity, you think? Oh, absolutely not. Yeah. I don't think so.

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OK, so I think somebody would retort to that or somebody would say, well, OK, so you're saying I can never go on vacation. I can never feel comfortable.

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The Bible says rejoice in all things. So you're saying I just have to work constantly.

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Is that what that's saying? No, no. I mean, yeah, the Bible also says that God created all things for us to richly enjoy.

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That doesn't mean we have to be miserable all the time and we can't enjoy things.

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But our main purpose as Christians is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, not to enjoy our own comfort.

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So, you know, Jesus said, take up your cross. You know, like, don't take up your couch, which leads me to a post that you made, which

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I thought was pretty provocative. And I wanted you to explain it a little bit better. You said, when men take up the couch daily, rather than the cross, their posterity, their nation, and the most oppressed people groups will suffer for it.

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Right. So what's that saying? It's saying when men choose comfort over duty.

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And here's backing up a little bit. Of course, we need to rest. I mean, this guy needs some rest. He's about to go on a sabbatical for a couple weeks, which

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I'm glad. He's been working hard and he needs it. And so we need times of rest, downtime, time with our family, that's all.

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But not to the neglect of the clear duties of Scripture. Not to the neglect.

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So what it is, it's an out of balanceness. Yeah. Right. It's saying, OK, I'm going to choose comfort or I'm going to choose the couch, like I said in that post, to the neglect of all these other things that I need to be doing, to the discomfort of going and preaching the gospel, to the discomfort of going and standing in front of those hell hole, you know, child sacrifice centers.

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Right. I mean, that's what I'm saying. Of course, you need to rest. But if the whole pie chart of your life is just the pursuit of comfort, as a pie chart kind of determines how you spend your time and effort, then that's where it gets out of balance and people suffer for it.

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Because if the men of God were called to be God's agents of change, God's missionaries and co -missionaries on the earth, if they are

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AWOL, if they're just sitting on the couch, what's going to happen? Well, babies are going to continue to die.

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Our posterity is going to continue. We'll continue to suffer for our inactivity.

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That's what I'm talking about. So comfort is an extremely dangerous idol when it takes up all of your time and that's your pursuit.

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I mean, that's basically American retirement. I worked hard and so I deserve to sit on the couch or golf or just do whatever

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I want to do until I'm dead. It's just not, there's no compatibility with the mission that God has given each

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Christian and the Christian church with that framework of understanding. It doesn't work. Yeah, I think,

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I meant to mention one of my favorite quotes earlier and you kind of alluded to it, but one quote

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I use a lot is we become what we worship, right? And so if you're spending all your time pursuing comfort, then that ultimately, again, it becomes your idol.

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But to go back to the question you're asking, God built in Sabbath into creation, right?

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Right. So one day out of the week, out of seven, we're supposed to Sabbath. So we're supposed to rest.

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So to answer that question, no, we're supposed to rest, but it's one day out of seven.

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If you're Sabbathing six days out of seven and one day you're working, then there's a problem, you know what

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I mean? And it doesn't have to be like, you know, we're not talking necessarily like, you know, nine to five job where you're slaving, you know, like that's not even necessarily what we're talking about.

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Even go back to Genesis, to the garden, like the dominion mandate, God told us, you know, to take dominion over all of the earth and over all of creation, right?

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And so if we're not actively doing that, then I would say you're at fault. You're in sin.

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Like we should be doing that. And even if you're old, even if you worked 60 years and you're 80 years old, like, and you've earned a retirement, like good for you, that is the

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American dream and you've earned that, but that doesn't mean you take off the rest of life. That doesn't mean you, if you're a Christian, that you don't pursue

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God, you know, and glorifying him. And I think of my grandparents.

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My grandpa lived till he was 93. My grandma was 98. You know, their whole lives were about Christ and about mission.

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They were missionaries in Africa. Like till the day they died, even though they were retired, you know, for years, they still like constantly were all about mission and reaching people with Christ.

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Like Pastor Jeff can tell you, he met him once and we went to Bob Evans.

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Went to Bob Evans with him, had a meal with him. And even when my grandparents were super old, they still, every time

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I went out to eat with them, they would make sure they left a track with the waitress and talk to her and make sure she had the gospel before that.

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You know, but that's the sort of thing where it's like, that's what we're talking about here. Right. And so like, yes, you should

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Sabbath, but it shouldn't be, you shouldn't live a life of Sabbath. Right. Because Christ, Christ is our

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Sabbath rest. Right. But we shouldn't, that shouldn't be how we live our entire lives.

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Right. And it's like, you know, we look at work as a bad thing, but God gave us work before the fall.

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Right. And so work for us isn't a bad thing, but we've demonized it here where it's like, avoid work at all.

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Yeah. It's become a curse. Exactly. And so, like you're saying, when you're retired, that doesn't give you an excuse to not obey the commands of Christ, you know, so to be absolved of your duties as a

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Christian. And as you get, I mean, as you get older and your body ends to, you know, fade, which it does when you get older, of course your role changes.

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We're not saying... Yeah, that's a good way to put it. You know, elderly or in the retirement age, you need to do the same thing as 20 and 30 year olds.

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It's just not going to happen. Yeah. But it's just this understanding, no, I've worked hard and it's great to make great financial investments and build up a financial nest egg for you and have that time.

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But I think if only retirees would have a kingdom mindedness about them, they could be, and I was just talking to one...

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John Barrows. Yeah, John Barrows. I was just talking to a guy yesterday. He said, you know what? He wants to come down and spend time with us and learn.

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And I said, that's great. I think he's going to come out in the winter months. But he said, I'm retired. And I said, man, I'm so happy to hear this.

27:04

Because you think about retirees, they have time. They've got, because they made good financial decisions and vocational decisions, they've got, typically have resources.

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They can spend the time out there at the abortion clinics if they would adopt one and save babies. And so it's so great to see these people who are using their time well, for the glory of God and to just continue on obeying the commands of Christ.

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Because just because you get to a certain age where you feel as though you've accomplished so much vocationally, doesn't mean you're just like, okay,

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I've deserved to take the rest of my life off. Here's the thing, you live that sedentary lifestyle, that stationary lifestyle, you end up dying.

27:38

The body wasn't meant just to sit around doing nothing. Right. That's where all sorts of diseases come in. I remember I worked at a church in the early 2000s and there was a guy pushing, he wouldn't even use a motorized lawnmower, he would push this lawnmower in 110 degree weather.

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Across huge fields of grass. And he was 82 years old. And I went up to him and I said, what's the key to work?

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And he said, work, you idiot. He's an old grumpy old codger.

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He said, no, if I stop doing this, I'll be dead. Yeah. I'll be dead. And so that's the case. We were, I don't want to belabor this point, but you were, you were the one you said something, you were spot on, like Adam was tending the garden.

28:21

He was subduing the earth prior to the fall. So he was already working because that's how God has created us is to work.

28:27

It only started to suck when they decided to not obey God. Right. That's when there was thorns and thistles and it became hard.

28:34

But prior to that, like he was enjoying it and he worked and that's what we're supposed to do. I know, I talk to my nine year old about this all the time if he's complaining about his chores.

28:42

I'm like, hey bud, work is actually good for us. It's not a bad thing.

28:47

We can, we can pull weeds to the glory of God. God created us to, to, to do good works here.

28:54

And yeah, anyways. I actually, and I, I want, I know you want to move on another point, but I actually think

29:01

I've thought a lot about this. So you guys have been in my house. I have, for Arizona, I have a pretty big backyard with a lot of bushes and stuff like that.

29:09

And like I've made it a point to take dominion over my yard, which is really hard sometimes in Arizona, especially in the summer.

29:18

Yeah, it sucks. It's hard, but like my, the way I feel about it is like I, if you can't even take dominion over your own home and over your own yard, like you have no business trying to take dominion, oops, sorry,

29:31

I have no business trying to take dominion over the culture or anything else. That's right. Like it starts with your, your own self -discipline, your own self -government in your home.

29:39

And so like, You know, like if I, you know, if I'm talking to a guy that's, you know, especially a young guy that maybe is lazy, won't get off the couch, is like, you know, you can't do anything in life if you don't start in your own home.

29:50

That's right. So. That's good. I mean, because our primary ministry is our home. Yeah, exactly. The Bible says about qualifications for leadership is you have to manage your own home.

29:59

You have to have that in order. And then I think you'll be in the blessing of God. Maybe so many guys are not really operating in the favor and the blessing of God on their ministry, even though they, they might be proactive in getting out there preaching the gospel, whatever it may be, because their home is in disarray.

30:14

Right. That's a whole another subject we can talk about. Right. But, you know, we can move, if you want to, we can move to a different idol, you know, but even in talking in the idol of comfort, comfort is huge.

30:26

I mean, what we would challenge if you're listening to us, and as you listen to us, is to really look at your life, examine your life.

30:34

You know, why are you doing the things that you do? A good, good thing to do every so often is just because we're so, as the, as the hymn says, prone to wander or prone to default to really a flesh -based life is, you know, what is my days comprised of?

30:50

You know, am I really doing everything that I can to set myself up for comfort? Right. Right. Or am I really challenging myself and coming outside of, you know, my own, you know, fleshly disposition for self -preservation or for comfort and just simply obeying

31:05

God's commands? Am I preaching the gospel? Is that part of the, part of the overall pie chart of my life? Right.

31:10

Am I, am I seeking comfort or am I laying my life down and getting past my own, again, desire for comfort for the sake of the kingdom?

31:20

Right. For the sake of Christ? You know, that's what we'd have you do. Challenge yourself. See if that idol is there and it'd be a good day if you could, hey, it'd be a good time to smash that idol.

31:30

Yeah, that was going to be one of our, remember that was going to be Idol Smash. Idol Smash, the Teardown. I still love that one.

31:35

Yeah. You didn't like the Teardown because you said that it made you think that people were being mean to each other.

31:41

Yeah, tearing each other down. Yeah. My favorite one, I'm not even going to share because I don't want someone to steal it.

31:47

Oh, yeah. And it's a good one. I can't remember what it is. Well, good. I think there was 4 ,323. It was 4 ,320,

31:55

I think. Oh. It was the really good one. Okay. One thing, like one caveat to this was, you know, in the

32:03

Idol of Comfort, which I think is like super pervasive. There you go.

32:09

Yep. Thank you. Within our culture and also within the church is that, like the

32:16

Idol of Comfort in the area of being criticized versus being praised or not liked or being accused of being intolerant or unloving, you know.

32:28

And so I think that has really infiltrated the church. And I know, Zach, you touched on it a couple episodes ago with Bobby McCreery about, you know, just how that's entered into our church of like, hey, just invite people to church and, you know, be comfortable.

32:44

You really don't have to put yourself out there for the gospel. And so people are like, okay, I'm just going to sit back, have some popcorn, you know, be in an

32:53

AC pew. That sounds good. An AC pew would be nice. Just blowing right up from the pew right on.

32:59

Yeah, that'd be nice. And let my pastors, they're going to do the hard work. Nobody has to ever accuse me of being unloving or judgmental or arrogant, but it's really, you know, stepping outside of your comfort zone.

33:11

I don't know any woman, like I've never met a woman that really likes being unliked, you know,

33:17

I'm sure there are. But most women, I think, myself included, I hate when somebody's upset with me.

33:25

I don't like conflict. I don't care myself. It's funny that I just had a conversation with one of our guys literally an hour ago about this, that you're bringing this up.

33:34

Oh, really? Yeah. He said, you ever just have, you just know that somebody just disdains you, doesn't like you.

33:42

I'm like, actually, yeah, a lot of people don't like me. But we have to get to a place to where we die to that.

33:48

Right. I die to my fleshly need to be approved or accepted or loved from anybody.

33:55

Right. You know, of course, when it comes to our family, you know, I hope my wife loves me and my kids.

34:01

I mean, that's something that you would expect, that reciprocation of love there. But that said, we have to be able to die to this need for these things that kind of keep us in that comfort zone.

34:11

That place of comfort where we're neglecting the duties that God has given us, the clear commands that God has given us.

34:17

And you're right. I think, you know, the blame is on, is in the church because pastors are not modeling what it means to live obediently to the commands of Christ, especially in a seeker -sensitive type of church format or something like that.

34:34

Our number one one aim is just to get people in. And then we do the ACPUs and then we do everything that we can just to make them feel comfortable so that we can get a big church so we can say, look how big and great we are.

34:46

And that's the end result. And if that is the goal of the church, if that is where the shepherds are leading their people, it's, it's, it's not, it's two, it's two, it's two destinations.

34:58

Let us come and cater to you is not compatible with lay your life down even to the point of death if necessary for the cause of Christ and the expansion of the kingdom.

35:09

Those are not mutually compatible endeavors. And so the big, I think one of the big things that needs to happen within the church is it needs to be erected.

35:17

It needs to be built upon biblical standards and not worldly standards because this, go ahead. No, I was,

35:23

I think, yeah, you're absolutely right. There's, and just like everything we've been discussing, there's, there's a fine line in doing even that correctly.

35:32

So on one end you have the fear of comfort, the idol of comfort and, you know, and, and someone not liking you, someone blocking you on Facebook or whatever.

35:42

And then you have the other side of that spectrum is the idol of pride, right?

35:51

Which is another thing we can get into if we have time. But I definitely lean that way at times, you know, where I'm just like,

36:01

I don't really care what that person thinks, you know, to a fault where I'm like, you know what? I should actually care with that.

36:07

you know, I should like, we should do it in a way that is honoring Christ. So what, what should be offensive is the gospel, right?

36:16

Not our attitudes or not the way we're talking to somebody. So if someone's mad at me because I'm standing on principle because I'm preaching the gospel and I'm, you know,

36:26

I don't care if they're mad. I don't care if they don't like me. I don't care if they block me. I don't care if they, you know, throw a bottle of urine at me, like whatever.

36:33

I don't care, but I should care if they're mad at me because I'm being a jerk. Right. And that's,

36:38

I was going to say that too about us, like being provocative or provoking people. We're not doing it just to, for the sake of being a jerk.

36:46

Right. Anybody could do that. There's plenty of Christians like that. Yeah, there are. And we don't, we don't want to do that.

36:51

So we want to do it in love and humility, obviously, but we do, we are called to stir each other up and to exhort one another.

36:58

Yeah. Yeah. And you just do it with the balance of, again, grace and firmness. But I, just as a man, what motivates me to change, what's always motivated, and I think this is true about every man.

37:09

It's not limp -wristed effeminate beta males. Malakoi. Malakoi, quote -unquote men, that really motivate true men to true activity.

37:20

It's, for me, and I think Matt Trella does this well, and Rusty has done this well, and Pastor Jeff, and so many of these, the true men and the true spokesmen for Christ, it's when he looks you dead in your face and he says, like Nathan did to David, you're the man.

37:36

You need to turn from your sin. This is a duty that God has given you, and that's what gets me going.

37:43

It's somebody who, like you're saying, with firmness, not pridefully or not self -centeredly, but a man is actually going to look you in the face and say, this is what

37:53

God says to do. Do it. Yeah. That's what I want to hear. Right. Well, if you get around to it, and we got coffee in the back in the lobby.

38:02

Get some coffee before you preach. You know, just trying to cater to me or smooch on my rear.

38:07

That doesn't motivate true men to any type of ... Mind picture.

38:14

Sorry. Sorry about that little picture. I think that's applicable for women, too. I've been listening to Nancy Wilson's Fruit of Her Hands.

38:21

I love her. Oof. Talk about kicking the teeth sometimes, but in a good way. It's firm and loving, and she's so direct and exhorting women to lay down their lives for their family, because it's going to look different for everybody, like you said, for retiree and mom.

38:37

Not all of us are out on the street corner preaching the gospel, but some of us are laying our lives down at home to share the gospel with our kids and to raise them up and to serve our husbands and our household, but we can't let ...

38:50

The idol of comfort can still creep in that area, of course, too. I'm so tired right now just being pregnant, but can you imagine if I just was like, well,

39:00

I'm just going to sleep. My kids, they're not going to eat. We can make an excuse for any laziness or comfort -driven ...

39:12

Pursuit. Pursuit, yeah, but we still have our duties that we're called to every day.

39:18

We're called every day to lay our life down and die. I don't know. Another one that I think some of my friends are going to get mad at me for is introverts.

39:28

I've heard this a lot, like, hey, I'm an introvert, so I don't really share the gospel. Where's that in scripture?

39:37

It may look different. I'm not saying that you're going to be out there on the street corner, but you're still called to share the gospel.

39:46

Maybe it's with your kids. Maybe it's explaining it to your neighbor or whoever, but just because you're an introvert, that doesn't absolve you from your duties.

39:58

Go into all the world if you're an extrovert. Yeah. Right. Said Jesus never.

40:04

Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking about this kind of tying into what you're saying, is when you worship the one and true living

40:10

God, you're not an idolater, you worship him according to his word. Right.

40:15

That's how we worship, according to the dictates of his word, how he wants us to worship him, not how we want to worship him.

40:23

But when you have an idol in your life, like the idol of comfort, or whatever it may be, you live according to a new standard.

40:30

Right. That you adjust for yourself, and that's what you'll do in that. You'll say, if it's comfort, and you're an introvert, you say, well,

40:39

I have a new rule book that I'm living by, that I'm worshiping my idol of comfort by, and that excludes me -

40:47

Right. From going out and doing what God has called me to do. Hopefully that was clear in what I'm saying. You adjust or you distort scriptures in a way to accommodate your cowardice or your own desire for comfort.

40:58

Right. I mean, Paul makes it clear that we're all different parts of the body of Christ, right?

41:04

So we all have different functions. So not everyone is called to be an evangelist, like on the street corner.

41:10

Not everyone's called to go and preach at the abortion. We've seen people that were like, hey, you can't be out here.

41:18

But there's plenty of opportunity to go out there and hold the sign. You don't have to say anything. Hold the sign, because that saves babies, just holding the sign.

41:26

Right. Or go out there and pray. That's just an example. There's all kinds of things you can do without being that extrovert, standing on the street corner, preaching the gospel.

41:36

We have a lot of moms at our church that do an amazing job of reaching their neighbors and their neighborhood and they're constantly building relationships and they're not shy about the gospel.

41:50

Like Browntown, everybody in their neighborhood is Mormon. Yeah. And they know they're

41:55

Christians and they know that they're faithful. But the point is, that's one thing you can do if you're a mom talking about moms or introvert.

42:02

There's all kinds of stuff you can do that doesn't look like George Woodfield. Right, yeah.

42:08

Absolutely, that's good. Exactly right. You don't have to picture yourself up there, like I said, on the street corner, but God can use you.

42:14

God will use you and you just have to be faithful and trust him. But it's not gonna look the same for everybody.

42:20

But we don't get to just go, well, I'm an introvert. I'm out.

42:25

Peace out. And you guys know, I mean, especially in preaching the gospel or what we do on a weekly basis,

42:33

I mean, you have to die to self. Right. I mean, I am an introvert. I have a personality profile and everybody does.

42:41

It leans towards introvert, extrovert. I'm kind of more of an introvert and this guy's a total extrovert over here. But I wouldn't peg you as an introvert.

42:48

Yeah, maybe I'm halfsies, but I could just be at home all the time. I like my personal private time.

42:56

But even for me in going to the mill, when I first started out a couple, whatever, how long it was ago, it takes a dying to self, though.

43:05

Yeah. I have to kill this part of me that is preserving, self -preserving, or again, just wants to stay out of people's business and confrontational.

43:15

I have to be able to kill that. So what you would say to that introvert is, well, kill yourself.

43:21

I mean, kill that part of you that you feel as though you have to protect. Yeah. Because this role that God has given us as his missionaries on the earth, we have to die to self -preservation.

43:36

That's right. We could die anytime when we were standing out there today. All a guy has to do is roll up and pow us.

43:42

Ping pongity pow us. So what would you say to someone as pastors that come in for counsel and say, hey,

43:49

I'm struggling with the idol of comfort. Yeah. How can I kill it? That's why this guy is on the show today.

43:56

Before I answer that, because it's making me laugh, it sounded like you said somebody's name, Diane Kiltaself.

44:04

Like, hey, do you know Diane Kiltaself? No, I don't. Yeah, you should meet her. Kiltaself. That sounds like a beer, a

44:10

German beer. It's actually a funny joke now that I'm thinking about it. Like, you should introduce yourself to her.

44:17

You need her. Anyways, this is good. He's one of the best

44:22

Bible counselors ever. I think he's probably the best. Because God has given him a gift to see things.

44:29

Because when you counsel people, the basis of all our counsel is idolatry, right?

44:35

Yeah. It's basically false worship that has to be exposed and has to be killed.

44:41

It has to be repentant of. That's all that we do. And we do it often. I'm going to go with God with glory.

44:49

But God's blessed him so much because he can see through. Because what we do is we want to put up smoke screens.

44:56

Let me not clearly tell you what's happening. I'm going to put up a smoke screen.

45:02

And it's really kind of so you can protect that idol that you love to worship, that you think is going to give you the pleasure and the satisfaction that all idolatry leads to.

45:12

But basically, biblical counseling is exposing that to kill it. And he does it so well because he sees straight through that smoke screen and lets you know what you need to hear.

45:21

That's right. And that's the only way that leads to lasting hope and change for people who are enslaved to whatever it may be.

45:27

No, I appreciate that, man. And we've actually been having this conversation a lot because Wade, who's in the other room, he's a man we're raising up right now and spend a lot of time with.

45:35

And so he's been kind of sitting in with us on counseling meetings and stuff. And it's the same.

45:41

Zach knows. It's the same maybe half a dozen sins and idols in everyone.

45:49

It's just disguised differently. And so he knows. The first time you meet with someone or with a couple, you spend an hour just letting them talk.

45:57

You literally just ask them questions and let them talk. And then you can usually pretty quickly diagnose what's really going on.

46:06

So yeah, it's the same things. And a lot of it, it's pride. It's comfort.

46:13

I mean, those are the two super big ones. So I'm trying to remember what your question was. So if somebody, for the listener that's listening, and they're like,

46:20

I'm struggling with comfort, with the idol of comfort, what are some practical ways that I could put that to death?

46:27

Well, if someone actually came and said that to me, that would be a first. Usually I'm the one going, you're struggling with comfort.

46:36

Well, I think that's a good question. I think a lot, I think I would ask more questions.

46:43

Because I would want to know specifically what that looks like. Because we even just now we've mentioned several different ways comfort can manifest itself as sin in the life of a believer.

46:56

So I would ask more questions and figure out what specific comfort you're struggling with.

47:04

Because again, it might be pride. That's going to be a big one. It might be laziness. It might be cowardice, which we've been talking a lot about.

47:14

That's a big one. Yeah, so I don't know if that answers your question.

47:19

It does. Yeah, it does. I would just, yeah, it made me think about what are we treasuring the most?

47:25

That's a good way to put it. Is Jesus our treasure? Or is something else our treasure? Is our own comfort our treasure?

47:32

Yeah, it's really, I mean, what we do is you kind of, like I was talking about before, you say, well, just kind of break down your weak.

47:38

Are you pursuing comfort? Or where are you pursuing comfort? I think what you're doing in comfort is you're, the pursuit of comfort or the idolatry of comfort is most seen in you're not doing uncomfortable things, as simply as I can put it.

47:56

It's like the guy growing the grass. Work, idiot. Don't be comfortable, idiot.

48:03

That's exactly right. Look at your life. If you are only doing things to accommodate your own desire for comfort, well, then that's what needs to change.

48:11

I always talk about the pie chart. If comfort seeking is, if you look at your life and it's mainly blue, and blue is the indicator of comfort seeking, you've got to have different colors in there.

48:23

I like that. It's not comfortable to stay after church and help clean up.

48:30

It's not. It's not comfortable to go to church prior to church. Help, please. We've got a warm church here in Phoenix, too, so that kind of exacerbates that difficulty.

48:37

You see what I mean? Are you doing things in compliance with God's law, in compliance with God's commands for you?

48:46

Can you see that in your life? Yeah. If you can't, it's time to change the schedule, readjust your life to introduce these duties to these commands that are not necessarily comfort.

48:58

So it's a balance. It's not just saying, hey, everybody, you can't, you know, woe is me. You can never rest.

49:04

Again, we've already touched on this. All you've got to do is be uncomfortable your entire life. That's not balance at all.

49:10

All I'm saying is what we would say to that person is you've got to die. You've got to destroy this idol, die to your desire for self -comfort, and introduce things into your life that are in compliance with God's commands.

49:21

Yeah, and I was going to say, I think comfort can be kind of an umbrella idol.

49:27

Yeah, definitely. And then there's specific ones. And I think, honestly, I'm just thinking, I think one thing that we deal with a lot,

49:36

I mean, probably on a weekly basis, is if you saw our bookshelf, we have about 25 copies of Pleasures of God.

49:45

It's a lack of joy and contentment in Christ. And so a lot of times people are just, they're having a rough time.

49:52

They're going through a tough spot. Maybe they have bad health or whatever.

49:58

The problem is they don't have joy and contentment in Christ. And so we've mentioned Rusty a lot.

50:04

Goodness gracious. I don't know how that man keeps going. It's because there's joy and contentment in Christ.

50:11

Exactly. No matter how many family members God takes from you, if your joy and contentment is

50:20

Christ, you're still gonna be joyous. You're still gonna carry on. So people just, they're going through these rough spots.

50:28

And it's like, well, if you actually had joy in Christ and not, and again, it's comfort. If you're having a good day, then you're joyful and you're content.

50:36

But if you're having a bad day, then you're not. It's because that's idolatry. And your comfort and your contentment is not in Christ.

50:45

It's in your circumstances or it's in others or you name it. But yeah, I was just thinking that as we're talking.

50:51

Yeah, I totally agree. I was thinking about some friends of ours that went to our church.

50:57

They just had a horrible accident and two had lost two of their children. And it's just completely like worst nightmare situation.

51:05

But they're praising God and praising God for his goodness and trusting in him.

51:11

And it just made me think of how dangerous it is when comfort is preached from the pulpit.

51:18

And you're not preparing the sheep for tragedies. What a good point. That's so important. Luckily, or not luckily, thankfully, these

51:26

Christians are rooted and strong. And obviously it's still completely tragic and utterly painful.

51:35

But their root is in the Lord. And so I just can only imagine if people go through that and they're not ready.

51:43

They're not ready for tragedy. They're not ready for suffering. They're only being told to be comfortable.

51:49

What that does to people just would ruin them. That flows out of the pulpit.

51:57

It does. And it flows out of the way that men, pastors, view their sheep and view their duty.

52:03

But again, if they're not teaching self -denial, no, comfort or true joy is not found in just self -gratification.

52:15

If they're not teaching, they're not leading that by example. Then again, you lead your sheep into a place of not being able to deal with tragedy because it's in that place that you have to find comfort in Christ and him alone because you've been robbed.

52:28

Think about that crash. The eldest boy and the eldest girl. I don't even know.

52:35

It's got to be, you have to train your people to fix their heart and their mind and worship God alone.

52:40

I think I'm in my talking low time right now. I've got to speak up a little bit. No, that's such a valid point.

52:46

That's when you get real pastoral. Hey, a little melodramatic. I don't want to derail you, but I always love,

52:54

I always give him a hard time, but I love it at the end of his sermons. You can always tell when he's wrapping up and he wants to get real pastoral.

53:00

He always kind of does this. Hey, guys. Let's summarize.

53:06

I love it every time. That's how you know he loves you. No, it's good.

53:12

It's so much. Again, it seems like we're always talking about pastors and the pulpit, but it just goes to show you how important the pulpit is in our nation, in any nation.

53:21

It starts in the pulpit. It starts there. That is really the root of so much of what's going on.

53:27

The pastor that's not killing himself in the sense of getting outside of his comfort zone and leading his sheep into the ...

53:37

Isaac's going to kill you. It's always the worst when it's the host. Sorry about that, guys. Leading his sheep into the field, right?

53:44

He's not modeling it. The sheep are not going to follow him to a place of self -denial. Right. In choosing discomfort for the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of the dissemination of the gospel and saving babies.

53:57

It has to be the spiritual leaders are modeling this for the sheep so that they can do it. This idol of comfort, as we maybe wrap up this little section on comfort, has to be defeated in the church by the spiritual leaders first, destroying those idols in their own lives.

54:12

It's never going to play out in the sheep, the fold, unless the shepherds are doing it themselves. I would agree.

54:18

And for us parents in the home, preparing our children. Because another thing our culture wants to tell us to do is don't show your kids anything.

54:26

Don't talk to them about suffering. Jesus said, you will suffer. So what are we doing?

54:33

What service are we giving our children if we shield them from everything? Of course, we want our kids to have happy childhoods and we want to give them good gifts and all of that.

54:44

But really, we're preparing them to go out into the world. And look at the way things are going right now.

54:50

We don't even know what they're going to be stepping into. And so we need to prepare our children to suffer.

54:58

So there's, I know, this is probably a good point to end this first show on. But speaking of Rusty, I stole a quote from him that I'm going to use tomorrow night for the

55:09

OSA thing. And he was talking about make America great again. And he said, if we want to make

55:16

America great again, then we have to make the churches good again. And then I said, in order to make the churches good again, the pastors have to lead again.

55:26

They have to guide again. And there's another saying, as goes the church, so goes the nation.

55:36

There's a number of ways you can word that. But I think, right now, pastors have to focus even smaller.

55:43

As goes the church, so goes your community. Or even your own, as goes the church, so goes your own life.

55:51

You have to start there. And one more quote, and then I'll stop. I'm going to use this tomorrow as well.

55:57

I stole this from Lauen Schlager. But he was talking about the Puritans who came over and founded our nation.

56:04

And he said, basically, these guys were willing to lay face down in the mud so that generations after them could walk across their backs in freedom.

56:16

And just to play off what you were just saying, we don't think that way. And we should be thinking that way for our children and our grandchildren and our great -grandchildren.

56:24

We should be willing to suffer and sacrifice and work hard so that they can do so, so they can live freely later on.

56:34

That's exactly right. That's exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

56:40

I can't believe that just came out of my mouth. I believe it. That's like exactly with my name.

56:47

Okay, forget it. Poor Zach. No, that's good, man. I mean, I think you're hitting the hammer right on the nail.

56:55

Get old, die young. Kill the self. This is our last podcast.

57:01

It's our final show here, guys. I hope you liked it. And we're wrapping it up. No, a lot of good stuff today. I think you guys are hitting a lot of just absolutely important issues.

57:10

This idol of comfort has to be demolished. It's like, man, people are going to listen to this, and it's like we inoculate ourselves from any type of criticism, and that's just what the flesh does.

57:21

You're always talking about the pulpit. You're always talking about the church, but this is the way things go. You just gave a great example of so goes, and as goes the church, so goes the nation, the community, the city, your home.

57:34

It's not something that we can change. This is how God caused his world to operate, the influential power of the church, the operation of the church and its outflow into determining what a culture is.

57:48

It's not something that we can change. So we can take correction or criticism or provoking as a personal attack.

57:55

We can do that and say, you know what? They're just meanies. I'm going to just kind of keep on doing what I'm going to do, and there's going to be other person that says no.

58:02

This is what God's word, as it aligns with God's word, as it aligns with biblical principles.

58:07

Now I'm going to change. I do. I want to tear these idols down. I don't want anything in my life to be my object of worship other than the one true and living

58:15

God. I want him to be it, and I want to be making sure that I worship him as he wants me to and not confined and constrained and held down by these idolatrous practices.

58:27

That's what we want to do. We want to help the church to be free because all sin leads to slavery, and idolatry is a pretty massive sin.