Superficiality in the Church

This is Apologetics Live. To answer your questions, your host, from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

Well, hello there. No, it's not Andrew Rappaport. It's Drew. I'm back hosting for Andrew.

He could not be on tonight, so he asked me if I would fill in, and of course, how can

I just say no to that? And I'm not traveling this week, so I get to be here.

It's one of my favorite places to be. I am waiting for my co -host in all things podcasting,

Chris Hough. He will be joining us at some point tonight, and we're going to be talking about superficiality in the church.

That's what we're going to be getting into, and we're going to explain what we mean when Chris gets in here. But if you would like to be a part of the show, maybe talk about tonight's topic, you can go to apologeticslive .com.

You can click on the duck, make sure that your audio and video is working, and then come on in, and I would love to bring you on in.

Also, when you come in, make sure that your camera is on, because that's how I know you're ready to come in.

If your camera doesn't come on, I don't know if you're having some kind of technical difficulties. So make sure your camera's on.

I'll bring you in, and then we'll have a discussion about tonight's topic. But Andrew did want me to read a letter that was sent in to the ministry.

Now let me bring it up. It's rather long, so you will have to bear with me.

It says this. It says, Dear Brothers, I would covet your prayers and those of other brethren that you know.

In December, I had my stress test that's required by the DOT for me to drive a truck.

The Friday after New Year's, my cardiologist called and gave me an appointment to come in, because one doctor read it as negative and another as positive.

This past Tuesday, as a precaution, I was scheduled for a heart catheterization.

Fifteen minutes in, the doctor stopped, said he could see the problem.

In two areas, I have 20 % of my heart functioning. Lord willing, this

Tuesday, I'm having either a double or triple heart bypass. It may be a triple, because they may replace the stent

I already have. It's amazing how our Father answers our prayers.

I've been praying for him to draw me closer, and he definitely did that. But I don't want you to pray so much for me as for my family, my friends, doctors, nurses, and all that I come in contact with.

That they'd see the Lord and King through me, and would be brought to him for redemption or a closer walk.

I want him glorified. In the almost 70 years he has allowed me to live,

I definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, can say Jesus Christ is the

Messiah, the way, the truth, and the life. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I desire so much for others to know the truth.

Please pray for my family, especially my wife, because she had surgery the day after Christmas on her foot, and is down for a couple more months.

We've been through a lot of battles this past year, and starting off this year, but our

Heavenly Father is merciful, gracious, faithful, compassionate, and loving. There is no one like him.

We are in a spiritual battle, but our King has won. We must continue to pray and seek him, and fend off the evil one, the world, and the flesh.

I love each one of you, and praise God for you, and allowing our paths to cross here.

But I so look forward to the day that we'll be the bride of Christ, and we'll forever, and we'll never part, and we'll serve and worship our

Lord and King Jesus Christ throughout eternity. Hallelujah. What a Savior.

And this was a letter sent in from Grady Adams, and Grady Adams is a longtime supporter of striving for eternity.

So make sure you keep him, his family, the situation that he's going through, the operations, the doctors, nurses, everyone that he comes in contact with, in your prayers.

For those that are nonbelievers, that they may come to know the Lord through this situation.

And for those who are believers, whose hearts may have become fallow ground, that that ground would be broken up, that they would come to see

Christ ever more lovely and ever more beautiful, and then be drawn back to him.

So make sure that you keep him in your prayers. Now, before we get started, let's get into some in the news.

In the news is, of course, one of those things that we just have to do here.

And in case you missed it, or have been living under a rock, this is an election year.

This is an election year, and it seems to be a pretty important one, right? And we just had the

Iowa caucus. The Iowa caucus is usually a pretty big primary election or a primary poll that's taken, and it usually gives it kind of a good – at least in years past, it would give a good kind of test to see who was going to be the nominee for the general.

And this past caucus, well, Donald Trump, I think he got, what, like 52 % or something like that?

It was something like the highest anyone had ever gotten. Well, then you had, of course, Ron DeSantis, who is a true conservative, and then

Nikki Haley after that, and then Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been kind of a charismatic, firing -on -all -cylinders person in all of the debates.

Really going after a lot of the other nominees. And he dropped out of the race, received only 7%.

And then immediately after dropping out of the race, went to back Trump and endorsed

Trump. And I think it's very interesting because while he was running for president, it's almost like Trump and the

MAGA supporters forgot he was running for president. And so then they hated him.

And now that he's dropped out and supporting Trump, they love him again. But the thing that really kind of baffled me when we're talking about Vivek Ramaswamy is if you follow his

Twitter, he always posts things, one of them being,

God is real. And he does this, he would do this in his town hall meetings that he would go to.

He would say, God is real. He would talk about God. But the problem is, he's a

Hindu. When he says God, he does not mean the same God that we mean.

But yet, he gained this following of Christians that thought he was some kind of a

Christian. Because he would say things like, God is real. The problem is, especially once you start dealing in Hindu, is you start going, okay, which

God? Which God is real? Now, we know there's only one

God. Now, I think Vivek belongs to a sect of Hinduism that believes that there is only one

God. And I think they believe kind of where no matter what you call him, it's the same.

Whether you call him Allah, whether you call him Jesus, whatever name you give to him, they believe it's the same.

I believe that's his position. I'm not 100 % sure, but he speaks, God, singular, is real.

But he does not mean the God of the Bible that we mean. Because if he meant what we meant, he wouldn't just say,

God is real. He would say, Jesus is King, or Christ is Lord.

He would not just leave it open. So we need to be very careful when we, are you going to come into the shop?

I don't know what my wife is doing, but she's in the kitchen looking for something. And she's trying really hard not to get into the shop.

But you did see her hand when she was in this cupboard right here. But anyways, so we need to be very careful with the people that we're following who reference

God. And this is becoming a problem that I see with people who back

Trump. Because if it's one thing that we've said on here for certain, is that we know there's nothing that identifies

Trump as a Christian. Absolutely nothing. Nothing in his behavior, with how he acts, with how he walks, how he speaks to people, how he lives.

Nothing in Trump says that he is a believer. And yet he has gained this entire evangelical following, that if you so much as question

Trump, they act like non -believers and come after you. It's really amazing.

So we really need to be careful who we're backing, who we're endorsing. Personally, I'm a fan of Ron DeSantis.

I don't know who you're a fan of. Let me know in the comments if you have one particular person that you're following that you hope gets elected.

And one of the things I really don't like about Trump is, during his presidency, his first presidency, he was this president that was going to overturn

Roe. Can you stop that please? It's really loud. That was going to overturn Roe, and he was going to put an end to abortion.

And then Ron DeSantis, who brought bills in Florida – now, we would reject heartbeat bills.

We would say that heartbeat bills are – they don't stop abortion.

We would say they just regulate abortion. They tell you – they say you can't kill your baby after here, but you can kill your baby before this time.

Trump criticized that and said those bills were too harsh. I'm sorry.

They are not harsh enough. They don't go far enough. If you're allowing for a baby to be murdered at any time, it's not far enough.

And all this told me was that Trump is not the conservative that he claims to be. Trump is not as against abortion as he claimed at one time to be.

He is not concerned with saving the lives of babies.

My thought – now, this is just my opinion. This is my thought. Trump is just an opportunist.

He's looking for an opportunity just to get back into the office to do all the things that just he wants to do.

The people that follow him are following just a personality. He's not a conservative.

There's nothing really conservative about him. In fact, he very much acts the way the other side does.

That is why I look and I go, if you have a candidate like Ron DeSantis who is actually a conservative, we would say you need to get rid of the heartbeat bill, though, and you need to bring in an abolition bill.

If you have someone who is an actual conservative like Ron DeSantis, why would you not back him?

If you claim to be a conservative and have these conservative values, why would you go for someone who is definitely not conservative and meets nothing of the conservative criteria?

That baffles me. That baffles me. Let me go to the comments here. We see

Kathy. Kathy says she's for DeSantis. Yes. Dee says politics.

I'm right there with you. I'm right there with you, Dee. I don't really follow politics anymore, just what I see on Twitter when it comes through my feed.

So I don't really follow a whole lot of stuff. But there's some things that I go, when

I look at them and I see Christians backing certain people, I go, what about that person is

Christian or conservative or how can you have a good conscience in backing that person?

Doesn't make any sense to me. Dee also says heartbeat bills are a compromise.

Yes. Yes, they are. Absolutely. We want abolition bills that do not compromise that say abortion is murder, and it should be criminalized.

My wife needs two forks from the – why do you need two forks? You're only one person.

Okay. KT says I don't consider DeSantis a conservative.

Okay. That's – KT, that's actually the – you're actually the first one that I've heard say that.

DeSantis is Catholic. Well, I didn't say he was a Christian. I said he was a – or did I say he was a

Christian? I don't know. One of you may have to rewind and check that out. I did say he was a conservative.

He was a conservative. And Kathy says I don't watch the news, just read

Daily Wire. Yep, I just catch whatever comes across my

Twitter feed. That's about it. Anyways, moving into the topic tonight, superficiality within the church.

And this is one – now, when I reached out – when Andrew told me he wasn't going to be here and asked me if I could post,

I reached out to Chris. And I said, hey, what's something you want to talk about tonight?

And if he ever gets here, he can join the conversation. But he said easy -believe -ism.

And I said, okay. Melissa just told me to drink some water or a fresca.

I am a little bit sick, going through some allergies at the moment, so you'll have to forgive me. But Chris said easy -believe -ism.

And I said, okay, that's good, easy -believe -ism. Why don't we just do superficiality throughout the whole church?

Because that will encompass easy -believe -ism. So when I speak about superficiality, when

I look out into the church, what I notice and what a lot of people notice –

I know Andrew would notice the same thing – is that there are a lot of people, pastors included, within the church that are not actually teaching their people theology.

They're not teaching them doctrine. They're not teaching them the deep, beautiful things of Christ so that they may worship and honor

Christ properly. In fact, what it is, and it starts with easy -believe -ism, it's the, as long as you say you're a

Christian, then you're good. Did you pray the sinner's prayer?

Okay, then you're good. You can come in. And then when you go into the church, they never speak about sin.

They never give the gospel. They never say anything that would be considered judgmental because they don't want to be viewed as judgmental.

They tiptoe around certain things in the Bible, and they never address the hard issues.

They never speak of sin. They never – and one of the things,

I just said it, that they never do is give the gospel. They will never call a sinner to repentance so that that person may be rid of their sin, come to Christ, and be saved, being reconciled to the

Father. They never do that. They keep everything on the surface.

They keep everything simple. And there's a lot of problems when you do that, when you keep everything simple in that way.

When you never address hard topics, when you never get into doctrine, when you never get into theology, when you never actually open the

Bible and teach it, you allow for people to come in your church and bring their bad teaching or bring their bad beliefs.

For example, if you never talk about the Trinity and dive into the triune nature of God or the hypostatic union of Christ, you may have someone that comes into your church that is from a holiness

Pentecostal or an apostolic Pentecostal or oneness Pentecostal background where they reject the

Trinity outright. They don't believe in it, and so they come in. You never talk about it.

They think they're correct in their position because they've never been challenged, and they've never been given good teaching.

What is bad about that? If that person dies, having that bad, wrong belief of who

God is, they go to hell. And that is something we want to avoid.

We don't want anyone to go to hell, especially if it should be the pastors, the leadership in the church that are teaching these things to the people where they can wash their hands and say,

I have led my people. I have done my due diligence. I've done my work. I have equipped my people.

If they reject it, then it's on them, but I have done the work.

I have led them. I have shown them the meat. I have given it to them to eat.

And if they do not repent of their false belief, then they will go to hell.

But if I'm a pastor, if I'm in leadership, my job is to give that to them.

My job is to lead them and teach the things of God. I mean, there's nothing else to be taught in the church except the things of God.

And so they keep everything on the surface. It's go along to get along. Well, that's your opinion.

You bring in a different opinion, that's your opinion. We're not going to challenge it. We're not going to dive into it.

That's your opinion. And then you get into relativism, right?

You start looking at the Bible as something that's just relative. Well, if you have your interpretation and you think your interpretation is true, and I have my interpretation and I think my interpretation is true, someone has to be wrong because we can't both be right.

Someone has to be wrong. But if relativism is true, and you just believe what you believe and that works for you, and I just believe what

I believe and that works for me, and we just have this false sense of unity, then we can't know anything is true.

If we believe relativism is true, because again, they can't both be true.

Two conflicting ideas can't be true, especially when we're talking about things of Scripture, about the things of God.

God has revealed Himself to us in His Word. God has revealed what we are to study in His Word.

And we are to study Him. Who He is, how

He operates, how He moves, the things that He does, how He works in our lives.

But we are also to study who we are. Who are we apart from God? Who are we when we are in our fallen sinful state?

We're enemies of God. Which leads us to then, we are to study how we are to know

God. Soteriology. So basically, in case you weren't paying attention,

I just ran through the three basic categories of systematic theology.

Theology, anthropology, soteriology. Who is God? Who is man in relation to God?

And how does man come to know God? So many people in the church do not know those things.

And here's a quick way you can find out. If your church still has Wednesday night study.

If you have a small group or something. Just ask the people, say, do you know more about your favorite sports team than you do the attributes of God?

Because if that's the case, you don't, I highly doubt you know God. One of the things that's the greatest study we can ever engage in is the study of God.

The attributes of God. When we study the attributes of God, it makes us realize how small we really are.

And how big he really is. And how much he is worthy of true worship.

Kathy's saying here, you forgot homardiology. I think that's how you spell it.

And what Kathy means is the study of sin. Yeah, well that would be included, I would include that in anthropology.

Because sin is what separates us from God. So when we study God and we study the holiness of God.

And then we move into anthropology, the study of man. We realize what separates us from God and that is sin, homardiology.

So because we have a sin problem, then we move to soteriology.

How do we come to know this holy God? And how can we be joined with him? So you're right, homardiology is in there, in systematic theology.

I would put it into the anthropology category. Because that is the distinguishing marker that separates us from God.

Let's see, let's see what Melissa says. We cannot truly worship God if we don't know who he is.

Exactly, exactly. And that's why one of the things, if you've listened to Chris and I for any number of years.

You know one of the things we talk about all the time is worship. And what true worship is. And what it means to worship

God. And of course the examples that we always give is we give Bethel. We give

Hillsong, those who follow Bethel in Hillsong. Basically anyone in the

NAR. Because they're not worshiping God of the

Bible. They're worshiping a God that they have created in their own mind.

Because if they knew, this is to Melissa's point. If they knew the God that they were to be worshiping.

They would not be singing those songs, they would not be worshiping in that way. There's no way you can.

Which is why once I realized that, I had to move away from singing those songs.

From playing those songs. I was cut to the core. And I know

Chris was too. Because when we see how holy God is.

And then we see the type of songs that are sung to him. Jesus is my boyfriend songs.

Songs that could actually be sung to my wife. They're shallow.

And this is another thing that has made the church very superficial. Very surface level teaching. Is worship.

Worship music. The type of songs that are sung. Because they're very shallow in their theology.

It's not like the hymns of old. Or even the psalms. Those of you who would sing the psalms during your worship.

Hymns actually present theology. They teach you through singing who

God is. Now I had a... Chris and I had a...

When we were starting podcasting. We had this interesting back and forth with someone who was very pro

Bethel. Very pro Bethel. And we were talking about moving to hymns.

Moving to singing old hymns. And this person said well... And they were a singer.

Basically the whole family was musically inclined. And did worship. And they said well we can't sing these songs.

Because they're just too hard to sing. And I said...

Well... They're... She said they're just too wordy. And I said yeah they're too wordy.

They are wordy. Because they're teaching more theology. Than whoa, whoa, whoa.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright. Worship songs today.

Are not worship songs. They're entertainment. And I'm not...

And I'm talking about the Bethels. The Hill songs. You guys know this. I'm talking about those who we would look at and we would say.

That's not worship. That's not worship of a holy God. That's something for entertainment.

So one way that. Shallow believing. Has made its way into the church.

Is through worship. Let's see what we have in some of these comments.

To see what some of y 'all have said. Obedience.

Mr. Tracy B. Obedience is worship. Abraham and Isaac. I would agree.

I would agree. Obedience is worship. In fact. Now when I say worship. I was referring to just the singing portion of say a service.

But worship is actually to be. The entire life of the Christian. It is to be one big life lived out in worship.

To the Lord. So how we throw obedience in there. Worship to God.

Because God has said. I am to live this way. Therefore.

I live this way. And me living that out. From a heart that has been changed.

That now desires to please my Lord. Rather than displease him.

That obedience. Is worship. It is considered worship.

So that's a very good point. Let's see what D says. A friend invited me to her.

Calvary Chapel Church in SoCal. I wanted to leave. The music was so bad.

Was that the same. I wonder if that was the same. Calvary Chapel the Chuck Smith. Where.

Where Lonnie Frisbee came through. And they had the Jesus movement. The Jesus people movement.

Because that's actually where. Modern kind of. Contemporary Christian music was actually born.

Was through Calvary Chapel. Through Chuck Smith's church. When all the hippies came through there.

That's where actually where Vineyard. Vineyard music was was born as well.

Kathy also says. Wordy is good. Yes. Wordy is very good.

Let's see. You must have seen some of the worship.

Florida. I like what Kathy says here. She says I only listen to Gettys. And City of Light and old hymns.

I would throw in. Brian Sovey's psalms. Kind of what he's doing with the psalms.

I think. I think that's. Putting music to psalms. And kind of making it sing.

Because a lot of times when we would come. When you come to the psalms. And you think well how do I sing the psalms. They don't seem really singable.

And I think one of the things that he does. That's very good. Is he helps to make them singable. He puts them to music.

Probably in a way that none of us would ever think of. And makes them pretty singable. So I would throw in.

I would throw in Brian Sovey. Now. Dee says something here. I'm going to push back a little.

I'm going to push back a little bit. She says Sovereign Grace. Now I would.

I would agree. Sovereign Grace has done some good things.

But recently. No maybe it wasn't recently. Maybe it was a year ago. I don't remember. Someone sent me a podcast episode.

That Sovereign Grace did. And they were talking about the types of songs. That you should sing in church.

And basically their position. Bob Coughlin. Devin. I think his name is

Devin Coughlin. I think it's Bob Coughlin's son. If I remember correctly. Their position was basically.

If the song. If the song is biblically true.

And people worship to it. And it can glorify God. Then you can sing it.

And it doesn't matter. Who it came from. I think that's a bad position to take.

That's a very bad position to take. And let me tell you why I believe. That's a bad position to take.

Once we start saying. And we start compromising. On the songs that we sing. And let's say.

We throw out a Bethel song. And we say this is a really good song. It's biblically accurate.

Bethel does have some songs. That are biblically accurate. That's true. Hillsong has some songs.

That are biblically accurate. That's true. Once we start throwing those songs out.

For the people to sing. Here's where we get in trouble. When we put those words on the screen.

For people to follow along. We have to have. The name.

Of who's singing it. Where it came from. So the ministry or.

The group that put it out. And then the CCLI. The licensing number.

For that song. These songs aren't free. Now one of the things that you're doing.

When you put that song up there. And you put all that information up there. You're pointing your people.

To that bad ministry. Because they're going to think. Well if we sang this song in church.

Their ministry. Must be okay to follow. No. You don't want to point your people.

To the false ministry. Even if they have one or two good songs. That seem appropriate to sing in church.

Not only that. With that CCLI licensing number. I just said those songs aren't free.

You have to pay to use that. And that comes through different programs. That churches use.

So you're. Not only are you pointing your people. To that ministry. You're now helping to fund.

That ministry. So now you're giving them money. So. We need to be very careful.

That those are some things that I don't think. The guys from Sovereign Grace. Have considered.

When talking about that issue. But those are some things that we need to consider. We don't want to point people.

To false ministries that are going to teach bad. Theology. We don't want to give them money either.

Because we wanted to pay for the licensing. To sing their song. So Melissa says.

That's right Drew. Thank you sis. I always appreciate. I always appreciate your. Encouragement.

Kathy says that's why we should use hymn books. Like long ago. Hey I'm not against it. I'm all for it. I'm for hymn books.

Bring them back. I'm all for it. Let's see. I'm going to attempt to read this name.

It says. Petty fogging. Pharisee.

Okay. Says agree. A broken clock. The clock may be right twice a day. But it's still a broken clock.

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And Facebook user says. What is his name?

Again. You'll have to be more specific. Let me know what you're talking about.

In the comments. So that I can. So that I can speak into that. Melissa Owen says.

Most of the mega churches are creating zombies. When they sing these endless mantras.

That's very true. That's very true. And I believe Dr. MacArthur's talked about this. I think Justin Peters has talked about this.

That. They get into these. They sing these 7 -11 songs. Right.

Seven words. Eleven times. And they're just repeated over and over and over again. And it's put to music.

And. And what that does is that kind of gets the person out of their mind. And they're not thinking about what they're doing.

Or who they're singing to. And it kind of creates this. Zombie -like. Person.

Where they're kind of in this. Trance. And they're just getting into. The music.

They're getting into the melodies. They're getting into. Those. Those seven words that are just being sung.

And they think they're worshiping. When they're not. And that's another.

And that's another reason why I say. Part of what has brought surface level teaching into the church.

Is the music. Is the music. Now. Hold on. We have some. We have a comment here.

This guy. I'm pretty sure he's a heretic. By the name of Andrew Rappaport.

Let's see what he says. He's going to give us a hard time tonight. Even though he can't be here. He says. But the music makes me feel so good.

Well. I hate to burst your bubble. But it's not about you.

It's not about. And I know Andrew's just kind of. He's throwing things out there for us. People will say that.

They will say. But this music makes me feel good. It makes me feel a certain way. It makes me feel like I'm just.

I'm getting closer to God. OK. The worship service.

Is not about you. The worship service. And especially the singing portion.

Is about God. It's the point. Where we come together.

As a unified body. And we lift up our voices. To sing the praises.

To the Holy God. It's not about me. Look. This is. OK. Let's get into this now.

This is also why I believe. Now. I'm not really against. Bands.

Worship bands and stuff. But I think we should do away with them. Reason being. You have these songs.

And they're written in keys. That the only person. That can sing the song.

Is the person on stage. Singing it. No one else can sing the song. Because they can't match her key.

This is why hymns. And why I love. I think it was Kathy that said. Going back to hymn books.

This is why hymns. Are written in five parts. They're written in five parts.

So that everyone can sing. And everyone can lift up their voice to God.

And it sounds beautiful. When you do that. I will take. The congregation.

Singing from a hymnal. Lifting up their voices to God. In unison.

Over the big church band. And the girl. Singing at the top of her lungs.

In high C. Where no one else can reach. I will take the congregation. Singing from the hymn book.

Any day. Because I think that sounds. So much more beautiful.

When you have the actual people of God. Lifting up their voices. To the king.

And one of the things that that does. Because again. Our songs should teach theology.

Right? The songs we sing. Should teach about the beauties. And the holiness.

And the great things of God. When we sing that way.

To one another. We are ministering. To one another. So we should.

I'm a firm believer. We should get back to that. Here's what D says. D says. What about a choir?

I'm in the choir. Hey. I'm for the choir. Why? Because in the choir. You have five parts. So everyone.

And they can help lead the congregation. And everyone in finding their part. In the song.

So I'm all for choirs. Yes. Let's see what else we got. Kathy says.

It is worshiping God. Not man. Not me. You know. Andrew. I'm glad Andrew came in and commented.

Because it reminded me of something. That. That he told us. When. Probably my first time.

No. My second time. Actually meeting Andrew. Was in Indianapolis. We were doing a conference together.

And we were talking about worship. And he said. When he was a pastor. He had this.

This. Praisely. This. This worship leader. And I guess he was kind of a young guy. And he would.

He would put together these songs to sing. And Andrew would sit in the front row. And when they would sing the songs.

Andrew would. Point to himself. And he would point to the ceiling. He'd point to himself.

And he'd point to the ceiling. What he was saying. Is he was relaying a message.

To that worship leader. To say. Is this song about me? Or is this song about God?

Is it about me? Or is it about God? And most of the popular songs today. Are not about God.

They're about me. They're about what God does for me. I am the.

The name on the marquee. And God is just the footnote.

Worship is 100 % about God. Absolutely. And that's one of the things that.

Church has made. Let's get back into the superficiality of it. Church has.

The church has made. Itself. It's services. It's messages. All about the people.

And not about God. Now, how can I say that? Well, because I've sat in services.

Where. They have not talked about God. But they have.

Talked to the people in the congregation. Or in the audience. And they have said. Basically.

Behavior modification. You're doing this. You must do this.

Or last night. I got a word from the Holy Spirit. And he just spoke it to me. Plain as day.

You're going to do this. And then the message just becomes. All about the people. And what the people are going to do.

And it has nothing to do with God. I'm sorry. But that's not a message.

That was given by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. His job is not to elevate you.

His job is not to point to you in any way. His job is to point you to Christ.

The Holy Spirit's job is to elevate Christ. To magnify

Christ. And then take you and point you to that Christ. That's the purpose and role of the

Holy Spirit. So that then when we come. To gather together in worship.

Or even on a Wednesday night. Whether it be a Sunday morning. A Sunday night. A Wednesday night.

Whatever you're meeting. The focus should be Christ. And Christ alone.

It should be coming to worship. The one who gave his life for us.

It should be coming to want to know. Okay, who is this God? And who is the

Christ whom he has sent. On our behalf. So that we can be reconciled to him.

It's not about us. But yet in our American idea.

We have turned church basically into a form of the American dream. It's basically become the business model.

Or it functions like a business model. This is all for you. You are the customer.

You are the consumer. So we need to do things for you. And of course enter what?

Pragmatism. Once we start making the wrong person. You. The consumer and the customer.

Of what we're offering. Now we've got to keep you there. Now we've got to get you to keep coming back.

You've got to keep coming back through the doors. So we develop different ways to keep you there.

Yeah, you want to. You don't want to come to the Bible meeting. Because we're just going to be talking. Going through scripture and talking about Christ.

And then having a prayer meeting. Where we're where we're praying for one another. And and the needs that we may have.

And and we and we're lifting. But in that we're lifting up Christ. And pointing people to him.

You don't want to do that. OK, well. What if we have a cookout? If we have a cookout, then will you come and listen to what we have to say?

OK, what if we bring a bouncy house? You like bouncy houses? If we bring a bouncy house, will you come? And bring your neighbor too?

We result. We resort to pragmatism. These distract really distractive ways in order to bring people in thinking that it's going to work.

But Dr. White has said this. And I think he's he's absolutely right.

He says what you save people with is what you save them to. If I'm using gimmicks.

To get people into the church so that they will listen to me. What happens when

I stop doing that? They're going to stop coming. At that point, we know they weren't there for God in the first place.

They weren't there because their heart was changed. They were there because they wanted to be fed.

Right. Think about when Jesus fed the 5000. What happened the next day? They followed him.

They wanted to be fed again. And he didn't feed them. And what did they do?

They went away. That's the that. Is that not the

American church today? Give me entertainment. Fill my belly.

Make me want to come back. If you're not coming for Christ.

Then you're not coming to Christ. And if you're not coming to Christ, there's no reason for us to consider you saved.

But those people who keep coming up with gimmick after gimmick after gimmick after gimmick in order to pretend that the goats are sheep and then keep them there.

Those are the people that they're never going to step on anyone's toes. They're never going to say homosexuality is sin.

They're never going to say quit living with your boyfriend and girlfriend. They're never going to say those things.

They're going to say, oh well, who am I to judge? Well, if you're in a position of leadership, you're in the position to say, thus says the

Lord, and you must. If you are a person, and you don't even have to be a person in leadership to do that.

If you are a mature believer, grab someone and say, hey, this is how you are living.

This is what scripture says. Repent and come to the Lord. Now, I saw some comments that I wanted to get.

Here's one. Bond Servant for Jesus. Melissa, she says, that reckless love doesn't know who

God is. That's absolutely true. And of course, Chris and I have done numerous episodes on Matter of Theology talking about this song,

Reckless Love. If you write a song that says God's love is reckless, you know nothing about God's love.

There is absolutely nothing reckless about God's love.

Nothing. Scripture doesn't teach it. Now, scripture teaches us, excuse me, had to get that fresca.

Scripture teaches us many things about God's love. Scripture teaches us that God's love is relentless.

It's always pursuing. Scripture teaches us that God's love is precious.

There's none like it. God's love is what we would call,

God being loving, is what we would call a communicable attribute. It's an attribute that God has, but it's one that he shares with us, so we understand what it means to love.

However, our love does not match the type of love that God has. God's love, when

God loves, he loves perfectly. When we love, we do not love perfectly.

A lot of times, our love is based on circumstances. It's based on feeling. It's something that happens, if someone does me wrong, it may affect the way

I love them, but not with God. We can see this in the gospel.

God loves us, and we can see that his love is unchanging for us, because even though we have repented of our sin, and we desire the things of God, we want to live righteously, we want to pursue the holiness that God has said we are to pursue, and we want to worship him accordingly.

When we sin, he still loves us the same, but he can only do that because of Christ.

So, God's love is not reckless, and Corey Asbury, the person who wrote that, does not know

God. He does not know God, he does not know God's love.

Let's see, Kathy says, Some churches in our area, churches look like movie theaters with big screens and recliner movie seats.

That would be part of that pragmatism movement, that would be trying to make the people feel comfortable.

Let's not make church feel like church. This ain't your grandma's church.

We don't have wooden pews. We've got recliners. So, come on in, grab your recliner, get your $10

Starbucks drink, have a good time. We're going to exegete some movies.

We don't want church to feel like church. Then you end up with a bunch of Andy Stanleys who say the

Bible is not the foundation of the Christian faith. That's what you end up with.

Let's see what else we got. Oh, Jason Cave is here. What's up, brother?

Jason. Now, I know Jason told me some news, but I'm not going to tell it to everyone.

But I want you to know, Jason's got some good things going on in his life. But I would ask you to continue to pray for my brother

Jason here, my fellow Georgia boy. He's got a lot of good things going on right now.

But pray for him, that the Lord would continue to bless him. Jason, I don't know if you want to put kind of good news type stuff in the comments.

I will read them because we would love to rejoice with you, even though I know you know I already have. We've talked on the phone.

But anyway, let's see what was lost but now am found.

I thought Joel Osteen was saying, who am I to judge?

Yeah, Joel Osteen was one of the ones who said that. When he went on Larry King, he was asked about,

I think this was when Mitt Romney was running for president.

And Mitt Romney, of course, is a Mormon, but he had a big evangelical following.

And Joel Osteen went on Larry King and Larry King was basically trying to ask

Joel, is he a Christian? Is he not a Christian? Is he going to go to heaven? Is he not going to go to heaven? Because he's a

Mormon. And Joel Osteen says, well, who am I to judge?

I mean, he believes in Jesus. I believe in Jesus. Just who am I to judge? You know,

I don't know. I don't know. Oh, and we got someone in the background that I'm going to leave there.

Let him stew for a minute. But when

Joel Osteen came to that position and said, who am I to judge? What's the one thing he's forgetting?

He's forgetting that God has already spoken on this. What he should have said was, the

Word of God says, if you deny Christ, you're going to hell.

And the Jesus of Mormonism is not the Jesus of the Bible. If it was, they would have no use for the

Book of Mormon. And of course, that was where, that was, that I don't know,

I don't know was where, of course, Steve Lawson took that to the

Shepherds Conference. And he dinged the pulpit in a big way saying, give us some men who know the truth.

And Chris has a funny story about that. But let's bring Chris in. What's up, man? Dude, hey, man.

Hey, look, dude, if you can't get here on time, I guess just get here when you can. Hey, man, you know, that's just, that's just what you do.

Oh, and we got Andrew here. Oh, what's up, Andrew? An hour into the show, now everyone wants to show up.

Well, I just literally walked in the door and kind of got unpacked. So I just figured

I'd pop in just because I was curious who the mystery guest was that was backstage. I was listening to you while I was.

It's just me. I'm not, it's not really a mystery. It's just Chris. I already said he was coming. Anyway, I was.

Yes. I was in Ohio this past week, so spoke at Providence, Providence Church, Providence Baptist Church.

I forget in Mansfield, Ohio, which was nice. Great congregation there, although it was cold.

A whopping five degrees. Hey, it was nine degrees here yesterday.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Justin Peters is talking to him. He's he's telling me how in Montana it was negative 30.

And he's always trying to tell me like I should move out to Idaho or Montana with him because it's the weather's the same as Pennsylvania.

I was like, dude, I left the house at 58 and you're telling me negative 30.

He goes, yeah, that's a 90 degree difference. Yeah. No, I'm not doing that. Thanks. I mean, it's yeah, it was nine degrees yesterday is what the lowest

I saw get to today. I saw it get down to 14, 12 or 14, something like that.

It was cold. And I don't like it. So we're in the show.

You've already had your premillennial drink there. Your Fresca. Oh, my

Fresca. I mean, I've got another one, too. Premillennial dispensational drink. I'm glad you had that. So I wanted to just you know,

I heard I was listening to what you're saying and I literally just got done. So I like bringing stuff in the house so I could jump in real quick and then kind of sit down and unpack and all.

But so, you know, when you were talking earlier, right, about the

Bethel and the music. So I wanted to bring up because and you and, you know, the three of us have discussed this plenty of times.

But there may be folks who are new and they haven't thought through this. You brought up the issue of,

OK, you're you know, if you're properly doing CCLI, you're going to be spending money there.

Right. Some will say, OK, but what if we don't? What if we print the words and not not do that?

Then we're not funding them. Is it OK then? What if and I know a church that does this.

They don't put the the author on there where it's from.

So you can't say, hey, you know, they're supporting Bethel or Hillsong because no one knows it.

So I want I want you, if you could engage with that. And then a second one to engage with that we hear a lot is.

But what about and, you know, it is well with my soul that was written by a guy who later in life, you know, walked away from the faith.

Is it the same thing? So I'll listen offline, but I just, you know,

I know we've discussed this a number of times and these are the pushbacks we get. And it'd be good just for new people listening to to listen to that.

And I'll say also just in case you didn't. Did you by the way, did you read Grady's letter?

Yeah, I read it at the beginning. Yeah. Oh, cool. Next week, Drew and I are going to tackle the

Remnant Radio's podcast. They did an episode responding to critiques from cessationists like us here.

We're going to take a look at what they say and see whether they were really fair with cessationist arguments.

We'll see. They try to just to kind of spoil it a little. They tried to argue the cessationist side on on the points that they're that they're bringing up.

But there's some things that they're not considering when they're trying to take on the cessationist side, when they're trying to come to our side and argue as us.

There's some things that they're not considering. Hey, before you answer the questions I asked, I'm going to bring someone in here just to because I see him.

Hasn't been here in a while. And I have to I can't I can't not I can't leave and not like I gave him grief

Sunday. I was at his church speaking and I'm like, hey, you know, we don't see you anymore.

So he's like, OK, I'll go. I listen, but offline. So I gave him a little bit grief. And look, here he is, the man, the myth, the legend himself,

Mr. Cole. Evening, fellas. Good to see you. Howdy, howdy. Nice that you're here.

It's been a while. Yeah. I like I like that. You know, you guys are talking about some of the music stuff, too.

I'm a fellow in that realm. So. Right, right. Yeah, absolutely.

So, OK, I'm going to I'm going to admit some before I before I go, I'll just say this. And Cole can can attest to this.

I saw something for the first time I've never seen in any church ever before while doing worship, the worship singing in the church.

I saw a baby at the piano. I'm talking like an infant, like a month old.

The woman in the church at his church that plays piano just gave birth.

She's in church with a baby straddled and she's still playing the keyboards. I was like,

OK, that's a first. And that's commitment, by the way. Like that's got to be hard with a little baby who could be who could just start crying at any time.

And she's playing away. That's awesome. Yep. I'm the only one that at the church that's not a part of that family that plays in the band.

Everybody else but me is related in some way, whether by legal status or by blood.

They're all it's a family band. It's great. Yeah. Well, I'm going to let you guys answer the question while I finish getting the house unpacked.

Thanks for doing the show, guys. And I'll see you guys next week. We'll have a fun discussion. Yeah. And I almost hit.

I always make the mistake of almost hitting end instead of just leaving. Yeah. Don't hit it.

Yeah. Don't do that, Andrew. Yeah. Sure. Let's make sure he gets out safe.

OK. Cole, did you want to stay on or do you want to go backstage? I don't mind if you don't mind if I opine.

OK. So I'll start off and then Chris, you can jump in.

Cool. Hold on. Let me remember what he said. He said printing off the words.

Right. But then he also said. Yeah. He was talking about not reporting CCLI. And then what about that?

And what if we do that? And then he. And then what if. What about like, it is well with my soul or something like that.

Right. Yeah. So. So here's the problem. Well, one, if you're not reporting CCLI, you're probably in sin.

Right. You're stealing. So that's an issue. But at the same time, even if you have the words printed out or you just have the words on screen, no author, people can still

Google where that's from. Oh, I like this song. Let me see who wrote it. Oh, great.

Yeah. So you've still done the same thing. Spotify, Apple, your phone. You can hold up your phone and say, hey, S -I -R -I.

I'm not going to say it because my devices will go crazy. But you can say that and the device will listen to the song, even if it's not the original artist.

It's just going off of the lyrics and it's easy to look them up. So yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That was the point I was going to make about that is people. So what? People can still Google. They can still look it up.

So it doesn't really matter. You haven't solved anything. Right. Now, when it gets to it is well with my soul.

And I've said this. I think you've taken a different position, but I've said it on our podcast.

I've said I would say don't sing that song. I would say if that's because I want to be consistent.

Okay. Don't sing it. Don't sing that one either. We're not limited by songs that we can sing.

Right. Right. We have a whole wealth of songs to sing. And people only pigeonhole themselves to a few songs that they sing anyway.

Why? We have hundreds, thousands of songs that we can sing.

Well, not to mention the Lord gave us a song book. We can sing the word.

So I would say there are a lot of other songs out there that communicate the same messages as well.

So here's another layer to that, though, as well, man. And you and I have talked about this before. Oh, gosh.

I can't remember the name of the writer of the song now. I think it's like Horatius Stafford.

That's what it is. So, I mean, yes, some theological convictions and things changed towards the end of his life.

Absolutely. But his goal in that wasn't to, that we know of, actively be involved in actively deceiving, actively twisting the scriptures for sordid gain, actively being a tool of the enemy right here and now, wrapping the sweet truths of scripture in dangerous damning poison that people like Bethel do, and Hillsong.

I would put Hillsong in that category. I would put Elevation in that category. So there's that.

And then to the point of, well, we just won't report it to CCLI, so we won't pay them.

We won't be contributing and funding false teaching and heresy and things that lead people astray.

Okay. Yeah, that's one route you could take. And I would say that at that point, why even play the songs if you're not going to do that, number one.

Number two, Ephesians five. If you know, if you've listened to MOT, if you've listened to Apologetics Live, when we talked about this, if you've heard

Justin Peters talk about it, if you've heard a whole host of others, Matt, Matt Papa, Matt Boswell, others talk about this.

And you know the truth and you know that these people are false teachers. And you know that they are maligning the very name of God, that they are taking his name in vain.

If you know those things, yet, you'd still choose to use the songs that they're putting out.

What you're doing is you're going against Ephesians five, 11 through 13. You're going against that.

Ephesians five, 11 through 13, it says, and do not participate in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead even expose them for it is disgraceful, even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret, but all things become visible when they are exposed by the light for everything that becomes visible is light.

So by you participating in and putting those songs before people, that's what you're doing.

You're giving, whether you realize it or not, whether you want to say that you are or you aren't, you're giving hearty approval to music and people that are holding themselves up, standing on a platform saying that this is truth.

And because they put a fantastic beat and some beautiful melody behind it, it's okay.

We can, it's okay. We can handle that. No, no, no, you can't.

And that's going against multiple commands in scripture. The Lord cares how he's worshiped.

That's one of the points of scripture is to sanctify us more and more into the image of the

Lord Jesus Christ. And it's so that we know how to live, so that we know how to live in this world, so that we know how to operate within the church.

We know how to operate within the home. We know how to operate within society in a way that reflects his holiness.

And so if you, and again, that's, that's, if you know the truth, if you've heard these things and take it a step further, if you're like, yes,

I agree. Chris drew Cole. I agree that Bethel, that Jen Johnson, Bill Johnson, their heretics.

I agree that they're false teachers and that they're wolves and that they need to be exposed and avoided. But then you still choose to dabble in that.

So going back to the financial piece though, too, bro, it's like, you have to remember you can't in today's world with the way that streaming services work, the way that YouTube works.

So here's my question. How has, how has a band as somebody, right? You and I have done this. I've done it for 15 years.

You've done it for probably just about the same amount of time. How is a band supposed to rehearse and practice these songs if they can't listen to them?

Because anywhere you go to listen to them, you have to pay for it. Even if you, even if you rip it illegally, again, that brings in a whole other layer.

So, so, so the, I mean, there's a simple solution, but it's a hard solution.

And I say it's a, it's a simple solution because the solution is don't listen to them.

Right. Don't use them in your churches, period, paragraph into discussion ish. The hard part is, you know, you may like the songs.

I do. There are, there are songs by Chris Tomlin, for example, right, bro.

That dude was somebody I looked up to for the longest time. I had the opportunity to serve within the passion city church for the first couple of years of passion city was up and going here in Atlanta.

Got to know him, got to know his family, got to know his band. Love that guy. Okay. But it's,

I don't, I don't listen to his music. I don't even the older stuff, the stuff that's, that's a lot more feel centric,

Christo centric still, because why? Unfortunately it contributes to him financially and he's partnering with false teachers.

Like it's, and it's not something we do and we stand on and we go, look at me.

I am, I am holier than thou. And I'm looking down my nose at you. And because I'm doing this and you're not, and you're still listening to the songs, but he's not a heretic.

And, but he's not the goal. The goal of the instruction is love. And the goal of the instruction is going, God wants to be honored as Holy.

And he's told us how he wants to be worshiped and singing songs, singing songs on the

Lord's day, when it's supposed to be set apart for him written by false teachers is not how he wants to be worshiped.

Right. Right. You're muted, Cole. Oh, it was on my, it was on my soundboard.

My bad. But on that financial note with these old songs, like the one that Horatio wrote, nobody's benefiting from that unless you're streaming their version of it.

That's a good point. So, and, and that goes, it kind of goes towards, you know, a lot of the old theologians, a lot of those guys, we, there are whole sections of their stuff in the theology, theology, if I can get it out of my face, that we've said, no, we don't like that portion.

That doesn't fit scripture anymore because semper reformata as, as Sproul would say, you know, we're always reforming.

Always be reformed. Right. Once reformed, always reformed. And the old dead guys aren't here to benefit and they're not here to argue.

Right. So we can use that old, we can use the old songs. And I'm sure someday down the road,

I think I saw it in a chat somewhere. At one point, somebody said there was, you know, these songs that these ministries, if it gets to a point where we know we no longer have the kind of, you know, like Disney, they just had, you know, steamboat

Willie is now public commons. If you haven't seen the names and things and all that. Oh man, it's awful.

But it's, it's just, I'm just to make the point, right. When these songs go public commons and nobody's benefiting from them anymore, there's a conscience issue there now, instead of a hard, like, look, you're supporting a false type of ministry of sorts.

Right. Well, and I think, man, you know, what, what, one of the books I hear is one of the books I'm reading this month.

This is my third time through it. The gospel according to Jesus by John MacArthur. And. I would argue that, and Drew, you and I have talked about this a ton, man.

I would argue that a lot of these issues like this, that we're seeing with the church are, are, are, are the product of, of easy believism gracious as Daryl Harrison calls them, where it's all about accept the

Lord into your heart, invite him in. There's no talk of repentance. There's no talk of depravity.

There's no talk of the holiness of God. There's no talk of you know, a need for your need, your absolute need for Christ to, to regenerate your heart.

There's no, there's no begging. There's no pleading on, on the Lord's day from, from a lot of these churches in our country and all over the world that, that aren't that you're saying you,

I beg you, please. Like, don't wait another minute. Don't wait another second. The whole today is the day of salvation.

You need this. And why? And so we have churches that are, that are filled with professing believers in the

Lord, Jesus Christ, who don't possess faith or they haven't been granted that. And one of the ways that we know that is the fruit, you know,

I drew when I popped on and you had that Joel Osteen, you know, the whole judging thing. And I mean, how many times have, have you and I heard it?

How many times have, have people listened to this or are watching this right now? Have you heard?

Don't judge, don't judge, don't judge. Well, it's like Matthew seven, one, don't judge. Well, read the rest of Matthew seven.

Yeah. Tree and its fruit. Read the rest of Matthew seven, right? Lord, Lord.

Those people who were calling his name knew who he was, knew what he was about, knew what was required of them.

And yet what does he say to them? Did it, what did they say to him? Did we not prophesy in your name?

Did we not heal? Did we not fill in the blank?

Did we not hold worship services? Did we not lead worship on the Lord's day? Were we not pastors? Did we not do this?

Were we not that? And he will say away from me. I never knew you. And so why? Yes.

We don't judge in a con in a condemning way. We have to be fruit inspectors and we have to, we have to have the boldness, the courage and the love to point that out and to say, no, this is not the fruit of one of, of, of one showing absolute faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ. Why did Christ come? What was his message? Was his message just, you know, come as you are.

His message of just, just, just come and you can, you can, it's okay. It's okay. There's grace there.

So, you know, you can, you can sing these songs or you can live this lifestyle or you can, you know, you can be a carnal

Christian or no repent. The kingdom of God is at hand.

That's why he came. And so we have all over this country and all, and the minute you bring it up, don't judge, don't judge.

Well, it's like, no, I'm not judging like you're meaning it with being a fruit inspector. It's called discernment and fear for your soul because you know, don't get me started.

Well, that's, you know, I saw a meme that's been going around that is this guy and girl talking and the girl says only

God can only God can judge me. And the guy says, you realize that's worse, right? That's terrifying.

But I've had, I've had people say, well, I can't, I can't talk to them about this because, because who am

I to judge? Right. Well, this is who you are to judge. Do you love this person?

Right. Do you want them to go? What's the goal? What's the goal? Paul said, Timothy is the goal of your instruction love.

Then it's not judgment, right? That's not, you know, we, we, we, we, we've got to get away from that, bro.

And I love what you entitled this episode, superficiality in the church because it isn't just the man, it's through and through.

Like I started thinking about that when we were texting yesterday, like in it's stop and ask you if you're listening to this, stop and ask yourself this question.

And this is an honest question that you got to ask yourself. When was the last time you confessed your sin to a fellow believer?

When was the last time men you called a brother and said, man, I'm really struggling with X, Y, and Z.

I'm really wrestling. It doesn't matter what it is. When, when was the last time you, you, you sincerely talk to a sister in Christ and said,

I'm really struggling with comparison or body image issues or, or being a mom or being a wife or whatever it is.

When was the last time you got real with your brothers and sisters?

Or, or is it just a superficial surface level? Hey, I'm checking this off a list. I'm on the roll sheet of a church, so I'm good.

I'm a part of a local church, so I'm good. If I don't show up, I get a phone call.

Right. When I have issues, I make a phone call. Yep. I have a neighbor of mine whose kids desperately need the community.

Like I've got their Providence where Andrew came down and preached. That is the biggest thing.

That has been the biggest change, even in the churches where there was a lot of people and I was involved with the worship bands and the stuff and turning the knobs and the tech and all the people that would bright, shiny people show up.

Yep. Yep. Yep. I, I just, I, I went seven years at one point without hearing from the pastor of a church that I walked out of.

He never called me the night he never, never anything. And then he was like, Oh, Hey, can you want to come fix our stuff? That's another story

I did, but it's a, it's a good story. There was part of, it was part of another good thing that God did in my life.

But however, I'm just trying to make the point is where I'm at now compared to like, there's a church downtown, my neighbor, or she's got two kids, two dads, her kit or one kid just accepted

Christ while he was in lockup, which was great. And I invited him to come down to church. It's right here in our neighborhood.

It's literally around the corner from our house. And she would rather go downtown to the place with a fancy coffee shop in the front and sit in the dark and hide.

Right. She told me that here at my kitchen table, she would rather sit and go in and do her own thing with Jesus and leave.

And it's like, that's not church. That community of believers where you can be, you know, you as a tree can be pruned of all the bad stuff and you can, that way you can start producing good fruit in your life.

Yeah. Cole, you just, you just said a thing that a lot of people say, right. I just kind of do it my own way.

Right. It's like, I do, I do my own way. God understands. No, he doesn't. What he understands is what he has told you to do.

And what, and what he has told you to do is what he expects you to do. Right. I mean, and then even going back to this, this whole idea of not judging.

Well, you know, well, who am I to judge? I can't, I can't talk to this person about this because you know,

I don't want to be seen as judging. Okay. People will literally let their children be on the path to hell, say nothing to them about it.

As long as they are not viewed as judgmental. Right. Well, are you going to wrestle with the devil and say, not my child?

Right. And, and risk being viewed as judgmental, or are you going to show the greatest form of hate you can by S by saying,

Oh, well, I don't want to be judgmental. You know, I'll just, I'll pray for you. Yeah, man.

It just, that's, that's, you know, and, and, you know, none of us are ever going to fully attain that.

Right. Like, I mean, but man, you just, the superficiality is also a product of that easy believism, you know?

I don't want to be seen. It's okay. It's okay. I can do, you know, just, just the bare minimum.

And it's like, no, like count the costs, take up your cross daily, you know?

I mean, are, are you doing that? Are you, are you putting, are you putting the group before the individual?

Or is it all about your needs and your wants and your desires and your sin and your pride and your insecurity, which is the flip side of pride, still pride.

You know, or, or is it, you know, no, I, I, I care about the Lord and I'm putting what he wants in the group before the individual.

Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So let's get to some of these, some comments here.

Chris, I saw you reading one. I think we answered both of Andrew's questions. I think we did too. Andrew, come with something harder next time.

You know, by the way, I meant to say it at the beginning, but I'll say it now. I told

Chris an idea we should do for this episode, since Andrew wasn't going to be here, was John Nelson Darby's invention of dispensational premillennialism.

So I didn't acknowledge that. I'm here for it. I'm here for it.

I'll come back. But I have been, I've been, I was texting with him yesterday a little bit about it.

So we had some back and forth, which he never replied to when I answered his other question, but you know, that's neither here nor there.

Let's see what this is all about. Facebook user. I don't know who Facebook user is. This doesn't seem like something

Haps would say or definitely not Darren, but I don't know. No, that's not

Darren's did. The church is superficial because the church age is over.

The Holy spirit is not in any church. I would disagree. God caused his elect people to get out before May 21st, 2011 when the day of judgment began.

You guys know what that reference is? Cause I don't, I don't, I don't either. Oh, it's on family radio.

False prediction of the Christian apocalypse. I think this guy's trolling a little bit.

I think he's trolling a little bit. Okay. Cause this is his first thing that comes up is

Wikipedia, which I wouldn't hold up. He probably couldn't hold a candle. They couldn't hold a candle to truth most of the time, but you know, generally when it's something that's in their favor to bash on.

All right. That was an interesting comment. Let's see what

Moses says here. He says, I'm confessing my sin. I used to copy music on cassette tapes that I got from the library.

I used to record the radio when I was a kid. Oh yeah. I did the same thing. Yeah. I had,

I had a boom box that sat on my desk and then I put cassette tapes in it and then record off the radio, the cassette tapes and then listen in my

Walkman because I did have, I had a Walkman, but then I also had the

CD player Walkman too, but I couldn't get the music from the radio onto the

CD. So I still carried around. The CD player Walkman would always skip. The Discman, yeah.

Even the anti -skip one would always skip too. Yep. It sure did. That's because you weren't wearing JNCOs.

You had to have enough. Oh bro, I was wearing JNCOs. I never wore JNCOs. You had to have enough distance between your leg and the

Discman before it would, so you didn't smack. But all it would do is smack then, wouldn't it? It would smack your leg between back?

No. No. Let's see what Kathy's, some people have a lot of guilt and shame and are afraid of how people will treat them in a church they would rather hide.

Yeah, see that goes to, let me, let me jump on that for a second, Kathy. And that's a good point. That's a very good point.

Church hurt is a very real thing. Yes. And some people do have a lot of guilt and shame and are afraid of how people will treat them in a church.

Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the things you can expect sinners to do is sin. And people will let you down.

Guaranteed. Guaranteed. So that brings up a couple of good points.

Number one, they're still family. Number two, there's still an imperative and command of the

Lord. And it's for our good, his glory and our good. And then number three is that that is also an admonition to make sure that you are the kind, not just the kind of person where you are confessing your sin, you're, you're, you know, two to one another because you need it.

But when others come and do that as well, that you are not reacting, but responding in a way that glorifies the

Lord and is according to the scriptures that you, if it's, if it's sin that's, that's repentant, repented of, it's like,

I need to confess this to you. And this was sin in my life and this is what was going on. Like there's a, there's a responsibility now of you to Galatians six, to come up underneath that person as that, as the

Lord will show grace. And you need to need to help them, help them shoulder that, help them carry that, but watch yourself that you yourself are not, not, you don't, you don't fall into sin.

But you need to be that kind of person that you would want to be there for you and, and, and be a physical picture.

I'll, I'll be a, you know, still in the flesh of what Christ would be to that person. So that's, that's a good point.

Yep. Did you want to add anything Cole? Yeah. I mean, I just, I'm kind of one of those people that had a lot of the church or one of my, uh, my, you know, a streamer yard allows you to put your name and then like a title or something.

At one point mine said, uh, post charismatic survivor. So, you know,

I've been through the ringer. Yeah, I get it. Hey, me and Chris could tell you some stories just from the past five years, six years, some of that.

Five. Yeah. And let's just say we still haven't had a pastor reach out to us.

The, the old pastor of that church that I took, I took seven years off of being in around church and it was pretty dark.

It was pretty horrible. But, um, I still get his email blast out where he does this little blurb about stuff and this little blog thing.

And I read it every once in a while and it takes me everything I have to not just hit reply.

All like I, I exercise a lot of restraint on that one because it's just, it's bad.

It's so bad. Well, there was one time I did not exercise restraint.

I sent a letter to all of the elders of a church.

It was a good letter to you. It was, it was pretty long. It was detailed. And it was multiple revisions and drafts.

Yes. And I had, I think three, I know at least two, but maybe three people read it over again, over and over again.

Before I sent it, Chris was one of those people and it was chock full.

Okay. Full of scripture. Scripture came with receipts to everywhere.

It was, I mean, it was just full of scripture. You could have said, if this was, if this was a college paper, you're going to said,

I just plagiarized scripture pretty much. Okay. It was just full of scripture, not one reply, not one reply from any of them.

And I, and it was detailed specific events, very specifics, not one reply, which was very concerning because of, of everyone who, who had already known everything that was in the letter, right.

It wasn't, nothing was secret or surprise. They would have all known all of this stuff. But the fact that none of them replied and these were serious issues, basically said all

I needed to know. I think the big goal is to, when you find, come across people that are, that have been through that, it's like, you know, where they've been through, right.

Just think about where you were through, where you went, right. And then be there for them.

I'm in a, I have premium access to a discord server that is of a fairly popular journalist.

That's not Christian at all. However, there's a lot of Christians in his server and a lot of these guys don't go to church and some of them are truckers.

So it's kind of rough, but nonetheless, they do Bible studies in a non -Christian server. And there's a lot of mix of people in there.

And I've learned a lot talking with these guys and, and trying to encourage people to go back to church.

And it's like about four or five of us band together. And it's funny. Sometimes I'll find myself getting into a cone of these conversations with somebody and a brother will show up.

He's like, I saw you in there. I thought I'd stop by. I was like, you are just in time. And I hand off, you know, the, the witnessing, you know, and it's like being on a digital street corner sometimes.

And, uh, there's a lot of hurt. There's a lot of church hurt in these servers and the internet I've been in.

I've been here. I've been here. I've got receipts all the way back to the nineties of being on the internet, you know, from being in seventh grade and whatnot.

And it's, it's a wild place. You know, there's a lot of people that this is a refuge.

And the only place they find, you know, connections with people are here and you got to encourage them to go touch grass, you know, read the

Bible. So like I get, I won't both. So, so I'm like, you know, like what's the, the one guy that does the game or Pete that does, uh, yeah,

I think that's his name. Yeah. He's been on here. He's got that, uh, his, um, whole ministry is based around that, which is cool.

But yeah, the just connecting with people, asking them where they at, where they've been. And, you know, being a part of their lives and eventually they want to hang out with you.

And it's like, well, if you want to hang out with me, you see me on Sunday morning, right. You know, cause that's my life.

I don't do the bar scene anymore in the bands and stuff. It's, it's fam. It's, it's, it's here and it's on, you know, at church for the most part, you know, that's right.

That's right. Yeah. You know, we should do an episode on church hurt. I don't think Andrew has done an episode on church hurt yet.

That might be something that we should say, Hey, we should do an episode on that because we've, we've done one,

I know, but it was 2019. I think we did it. Yeah. But you see, you know, that can, that leads to a lot of superficiality as well, right?

Because a lot of these churches pop up because people have been church hurt. And so when they pop up, what are they, what are they not going to do?

They're not going to do anything to step on anyone's toes because they don't want to run the people off because they've been hurt.

And so, so that pendulum, right? It swings all the way back to the, to the far extreme side on, on the grace portion.

And then, then you end up with the maroon five of Christianity. Take the girl with the broken smile and ask her to stay a while, you know, that they take advantage of them, right?

That's, that's, that's the worst I've seen. And then it's, it's a church hurt all over again when they figure it out.

And lots of these guys and gals here, they don't want to, they're like, no, I just want Jesus.

And it's like, that's a whole other rabbit hole to go down of argumentation. But yeah, I'm here for it. If you guys do a church hurt one,

I'll go pull up some of my notes on how I handled get leaving that church ultimately and whatnot.

So yeah, probably good stuff for the cessationism conference. If I'm, I'm excited for that one.

I want to hear more about that. Where is that one? I forget Andrew was talking about it on Sunday.

You have to hit him up for that deets on that one. Do you know where the cessationist conference is?

I thought it was. Yeah, it was, it was, it was supposed to be. And then now it's not,

I don't know why. I don't know why it's not. Okay.

Interesting. We'll have to find out the information on that, but yeah, an episode on church hurt would be, would be really beneficial.

Because I mean, and even there's so many people in churches that have been church hurt, right?

And they don't ever talk about it. And then what happens when they don't talk about it? No one knows that they're a person that they can go to when they have been church hurt and say, okay, help me, help me.

How did you get past it? There's that too. Yeah. Or you don't know you stepped on their toes.

And next day, next thing you know, they're gone. Yeah. Right. Because no one, no one said anything.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Let's see. Let's see. Let's see if we can get some comments here.

Melissa says, I'm still struggling with fitting in at my new church. It's been really hard and sometimes

I don't feel like I fit in. I'm wondering what, why, why don't you think you fit in, in your church?

That would be the first question I would ask. What, what makes you think that? Do they have bad teaching?

Do you go to a latent flowers type church? What's up with that? Huh? Why, why don't you think you fit in?

Let us help you. Let us help you. Let's see what else we have.

If y 'all see a comment you want me to bring up, let me know about it. Humble Clay says it's definitely hard nowadays when words equal violence.

Oh yeah, it is. Yep. Humble Clay, definitely hard nowadays when words equal violence.

Oh my goodness, man. Do we not see this all the time? Right. Well, it was just, when was it?

Someone, I can't remember if it was Andrew. Yeah, it was Andrew on the episode that I had to leave early a couple of weeks ago.

I think he was, he was going to talk about something in the news that was someone said that they raped me with their words or something like that.

So you don't, you say something someone doesn't like, all of a sudden now they can say they raped me with their words.

Yeah. See where words can, can hurt, but not just because you don't like what someone said.

You know, like if it's a malicious, vicious, like if you're, if you know someone's deepest, darkest secrets and use them against them as a weapon, yeah, that hurts.

But just because you don't like what someone says. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

We, we see that, we see that a lot in the Twitter, Twitter sphere. Someone doesn't like what you said, which by the way, interesting.

This is completely off topic, completely off topic. I was having a back and forth with someone on Twitter the other day and it was about abortion.

And this person said, more women and children, women and infants are dying in states that have restricted abortion.

Then states that have, I said, I said, hold on, hold on, hold on. So every 100 % of the time a baby dies in an abortion, right?

100 % of the time. So you're going to tell me that a state that restricts babies dying, that leads to more infant deaths.

Make that make sense to me. That sounds like they're massaging the statistics a little bit.

Just a little. But it was very interesting conversation because she brought up someone that had apparently got arrested for having a miscarriage.

And she kept saying, and this was in Ohio, and she kept saying such and such, they were charged with having miscarriage.

And I brought up the news articles and I said, no, they weren't charged with having a miscarriage.

They were charged because of what they did to the body after they miscarried. You're misrepresenting what happened.

And she didn't want to listen to that. But apparently, I guess

I portrayed myself as a victim or something and made everything all about me. I don't know. It's very interesting, but whatever.

So let's see. Melissa responded. She said, It is a Reformed Baptist church.

My family had been attending for an entire year before anyone welcomed us.

Very interesting. It has been difficult getting to know fellow believers and sisters there.

Well, that's very sad to hear. Well, Reformed Baptists, you know, they've got good teaching.

It seems like they don't have good manners. Maybe they don't do potluck enough. Yeah. They're not

Baptist enough. They're not Baptist enough. You know what, Melissa? That's what you need to do.

You need to do a potluck. What you do is you go on to Google's and you flip the

P for a B and you spell it Baptist. And then you'll be good. You'll find one. Jokes aside, no, that's a rough spot to be when you've been there.

That long and you don't feel like the body is a body. You're just kind of hanging out with other limbs in the bin.

That's a good analogy. Yeah, I'd want to know if you, Melissa, if you bubbled that up to anybody in leadership.

That would be a, yeah. Yeah. Because you could be the one to bring the church together or it'd be the one to be used to do that.

And say, look, we need to do something to loosen people up amongst each other and tighten this community up because I've been here this long and here's how

I feel. It may not be accurate. And maybe it's just me, but reach out to people.

What does scripture teach about the coming together, right? Forsake not. Forsake not.

And we should be coming together and it should be a joyous time. It should be a time of communing with one another.

It should be fellowship. Those are all things that should be taking place.

It's not just come, be stoic or anything like that and learn good theology.

And this is where it kind of gets a little hard because you're in a place that you know is going to teach good theology.

But the relational aspect isn't there. But it should be because that's a biblical aspect of the church.

Relational. So we have to have that. But she says, I'm bringing the bacon.

Bringing the bacon. I mean, I don't know anyone that turns down bacon. And she says,

I think my husband and I need to meet with the pastor. Yeah, that would be good. That would be good to say, hey look, pastor, we've been coming here a year.

No one on leadership or really in the church has hardly even talked to us, welcomed us. We need to start abiding by what

Scripture says about relationships within the church. We need to start having this aspect.

Are we brothers and sisters or are we strangers that come to hear good preaching and learn good theology?

What are we? So that would probably be a good thing to do. Yeah. Yeah, that's something that shouldn't happen.

The church should be setting the tone for community, family.

The church should be setting the tone for... Drew knows these guys, but I've gotten to know a couple of guys who were seals, right?

And that whole thing about seals and the brotherhood. And recently, I don't know if you guys heard this past Thursday, off the coast of Somalia, these seals were conducting what's called a

BBSS meeting. I don't know what's going on out here. Pause.

We'll put a pin in that one and we will come back to that. But Humble Clay does make a good point.

He says to Melissa, he says, invite the pastor to supper. Yeah, that's a great thing too.

Invite your pastor, his family, invite them over, have a meal, fellowship with them, talk to them about what's going on and things like that.

That could be something that also, when he hears that and sees that, something that could kind of break down that dividing wall that you have there.

So that's good. And he's back. Yeah, so he's back. Yeah, I'm going to have to go here in just a second.

We only got 15 minutes left. I know, I know, but little ones having a meltdown.

So the thing is, this past week, these two seals were off the coast of Somalia performing a mission at night in the ocean, trying to climb up a wire ladder on a boat in high seas and a wave came and knocked one of the seals off and his swim buddy jumped in after him.

Didn't even think about it. Just jumped in after him. They're missing. I haven't heard whether or not they've been found. At last report, they were missing, but it's like, where is that kind of mentality in the church?

Where is that kind of mentality of, you can't get rid of me.

And regardless of what happens to you, I'm there. I'm there. Regardless of what you need,

I'm there. Now, obviously, it gets to the point to where, unrepentant sin and the whole church discipline.

Yes, I understand all that, but where's that mentality of, I'm not going to give up on you. I'm never giving up on you because you're my brother or you're my sister.

And according to scripture, we're going to do whatever we have to do, whatever it takes. It takes what it takes. All right,

I got you. I do think this is a good place. Maybe we can wrap it up a little bit early.

We don't always have to go the two hours, because we covered a lot of things tonight, covered a lot of ground with a lot of topics as it pertains to the church and its superficial state.

So I want to thank Chris for coming in, even though he was late. You need to tell those

West Coast people to get with us. Seriously, they can talk to you. If you're not on East Coast time, you're wrong, is basically how it is.

See, there you go. Exactly. And we want to thank Cole for coming back in. It's been a long time. No problem.

It's good for you to be here. Hopefully, you'll be able to come on more and interact with us as well, like the days of old when you used to, when you were pretty much a regular.

Life happens sometimes, but I'm here. It does. Hey, I get it. I totally get it. But we want to thank you for tuning in to Apologetics Live.

Go grab your MyPillow. Go get your Logos Bible software and continue to make every day an eternal day for the glory of God.

We will catch you next week talking about Remnant Radio, apparently, and how they tried to argue from the point of a cessationist while not being one.

So that will be interesting. We'll see you next time. Good night. Ended.