Super Bowl Ad says, "He Gets Us", but who do they say "He" is? | Ep. 4

The big takeaway is gospel preachers need to know what the gospel is. If you're going to spend $7 million on a gospel campaign and leave the entire gospel out, you're not an evangelist, but you're up to something, right?

And this clearly has an agenda and it's to undermine biblical morality.

It's to make everything gray as if there's no standard of right and wrong. And to say, hey, we're going to push that aside as if irrelevant.

You don't need to call people to repentance from homosexuality or baby murder or any of these things.

But you're going to preach the gospel as if there is no call to repentance.

Okay, welcome to Tearing Down High Places. My name is Average Joe. I've got

Pastor Tim on my right. I've got Pastor Jeff on my left. Welcome to our podcast.

And we're going to talk about the culture again. And actually, I had an error before.

I had said confronting Christian compromise, but on the website it's rebuking Christian compromise.

But the big part of it was, again, what? In love. In love. In love, right.

So we're going to keep that focused because we might be a little, somebody might think we're a little harsh today.

Oh, okay. Yeah. We don't even know what we're going to say yet, so. You might think that everybody would know. Well, it's true.

It's true. So we're going to talk today about a controversy. There was two controversies that we want to address and probably going to have time just for one today.

The one we're probably not going to get to is a bill in New Jersey that, before next week, if we talk about it next week, you probably want to watch the podcast,

I mean the sermon that you did. Sunday sermon. I brought it up at the beginning of the sermon. That was about the

Freedom to Read Act. The Freedom to Read Act. Quote, unquote, freedom to read. Really it's freedom to distribute obscene materials to minors.

Yeah. Yeah. And to have absolutely no standards whatsoever. Well, it would give immunity or exemption to librarians and teachers if they give out material that could otherwise be considered obscene.

If that was given out on the street, that person might get arrested. But in school, they're exempt from that.

So we're going to get into that. And we've invited some influential people in the culture to come out.

We don't know if they'll be able to next week, but the invitations are out there and we can tell you more about that. Well, we're in District 7 here for New Jersey, and this is a

New Jersey law. So we invited the people who are actually either pushing it as sponsors of the bill or likely to support it, and our people have been calling, asking them not to do that.

So we'd like to hear the other side. What does Proverbs 18, 17 say? One man seems right until another comes to examine him.

And we never want to be afraid of that cross -examination. We need to be able to stand for everything that we've taught.

And we believe debate is a good word. It is. But it should be sprinkled with grace, as they say in 1

Peter 3 .15, what's it say? Do this with gentleness and respect. That's the one

I get. I have so much trouble with that. You know, I was just reading Bondage of the

Will. By the way, Martin Luther's book, Bondage of the Will, is so good. It is worth any Christian getting and reading.

But one of the things he does in there is he takes Erasmus to task for using such vague language.

Really? Just like, yeah, like absolutely obfuscating points. Rather than just saying clearly what he means,

Erasmus would always find a way to, this could be read like this, or it could be taken like that.

And I think that's what we're going to see in the next point here. Not so much the freedom to read, or maybe that applies there too, but this next issue we're about to address.

Vagueness. Vagueness. Just intentionally using words that, plausible deniability.

Right. You know, Erasmus was the king of that. Isn't that the amazing thing about Jesus?

When he speaks, he speaks with clarity, but people still don't hear what he's saying.

Yeah, it's true. Alright, so the big issue that we're going to hit this week though, that was kind of a tease for next week, the big issue this week is the

He Gets Us campaign that came out this weekend at the Super Bowl. Right. And since you watch the

Super Bowl, what did you think of the He Gets Us campaign? I was not a fan of it.

I think behind it is kind of like big evangelicalism. I think it's

Steve Green of Hobby Lobby. And Museum of the Bible is a great resource for Christianity, although I'd be a little more suspicious now seeing what this was all about.

Ed Stetzer is big in the production of this He Gets Us. So you're going to see some of that.

He was part of the church growth movement and still is. Trying to do anything to make Christianity more palatable and appealing.

But, does that come with compromise? I think we'll see that it does. Gotcha. Tim, did you send any money to this $7 million campaign?

No, I wouldn't. No, I wouldn't support it either. Alright, just so everybody's clear where we stand.

I think we're pretty clear what we're going to talk about. But we're going to try to be fair and see where we can be generous, right?

Right. So why don't we watch it. Here we go.

Washing feet, washing feet. There it is, foot washing. And they could never tear us apart.

We could live for a thousand years.

I think one of the worst parts is I thought my speakers were broken at the end. Oh, with that...

Yeah. I've got to fix my speakers. That was edgy though. It was edgy, it was edgy.

What's your initial thoughts, guys? I think we have a classic gentle Jesus, meek and mild situation where we look at Jesus as this non -judgmental person and as if he wasn't the

Son of God who's going to come back and judge the world one day. You know, Jesus, he cleansed the temple and pulled out a cord and a whip and whipped people.

I think in John chapter 2 it says, Now when he was in Jerusalem at the

Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and indeed no one to bear witness about man for he himself knew what was in man.

So Jesus knew what was in man and he knows that there's sin in man and I think this commercial is like as if Jesus or people are going to wash feet and Jesus is going to go conform to how they think and how they believe but when

Jesus was living he didn't conform to what they believed. He called people to repent and we should change.

We should be the ones changing and conforming to how Jesus is not Jesus conforming to how we are.

I saw Samuel Say who's a great author, slow to write. He posted on Facebook or something that it looks like the message here is that Jesus worships man rather than man worships

Jesus. Yeah, that might be true. And I'm glad you guys brought up,

I'm glad you brought up John 2 because I've gotten pushback from people when I've said to them that the very first thing that Jesus does in the

Gospels to announce his presence is cleanse the temple, right? In the wedding of Cana right here at the beginning of chapter 2 he's like, hey, it's not my time yet, just relax.

Mom, come on, I know you want me to just relax, it'll happen. And then he goes and the next thing he does, boom, cleanses the temple.

Now other people say, well, no, he did other miracles before that because they're looking at the Synoptic Gospels but I'm like, that's first.

Because the sequence is important, right? Well, he could have done it twice as well. What do you mean? Like he could have cleansed the temple two different times, right?

He didn't cleanse it right now. No, he already did cleanse it twice. I think it was beginning and end of his ministry.

Seven million dollars, you said? Seven million dollars, right? They'll probably still take a donation if you want.

Here's my first biggest thought when I watched that, right? Seven million dollars, Super Bowl, largest audience in the world and your goal is to preach the

Gospel and they missed every element of the content of the Gospel.

Who is Christ? The person of Christ, his deity, who he is, that he's the

Messiah, son of God, none of that was said, the person of Christ. The work of Christ, that he died on a cross, was buried and rose on the third day.

1 Corinthians 15, 3. I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died.

Where is the message of the cross? For our sins, in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day.

What about the resurrection? Could we have talked about that? In accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared.

On and on. Forgiveness of sin, eternal life, and then I think what's so glaringly missing because it seems kind of opposite to what they're trying to say, is the element of repentance.

That someone has to put their faith in Christ, which is to repent of sin, in order to be forgiven and to gain eternal life.

These elements of the Gospel are completely missing. That was my first thought, just, where was the

Gospel? If you just spent 7 million dollars and tried to present Christ and you missed all of the

Gospel. Yeah, the biggest need is the Gospel, the biggest need isn't to wash people's feet. So maybe if we focus on, maybe we should take a look at these photos that came from the video and see, do we see repentance or forgiveness?

I think there's probably, I mean, if we're charitable, there's probably forgiveness, there's just no repentance.

I don't know. What about this first slide here? It looks like maybe a family, right?

Maybe it's a son? Maybe a son had been rebellious and now instead he's going to be loving toward his dad?

This one might be the best one out of all of them. In charity, the son may have just repented, we just don't see it, right?

That's possible. Let's go to the second one. Now this is a little more suspect.

We've got a police officer What are you talking about? It's plausible deniability.

There's nothing suspicious or nothing to see here, Joe. Well, I just look at the alley. I mean, what's the cop doing in the alley?

What's he doing? The cop has his own shoes off, too. So maybe the cop got his feet washed.

So they're washing each other's feet. But there's an issue here, right? The role of a cop in uniform is to not bear the sword in vain.

Romans 13 You had to bring up Romans 13. Isn't that his role? What's he doing down there washing the guy's feet?

I don't know. He should lose his pension or something. I don't know. He's got a mod haircut, too.

Maybe he likes the alleys. I don't know. How about this one?

We've got... Look at a high school or something. They've got the sports stuff in the back.

You've got the popular girl probably washing the feet. Oh, thank you,

Jim. I needed you for that. I didn't get this. Maybe a possible LGBTQ supporter or outcast of a high school.

Are you seeing some of that oppressor oppressed? That's what I'm seeing in the last couple. The policeman washing maybe the gang member's feet.

I don't know. A little cultural Marxism. Cultural Marxism.

They've got everything in here. This one's interesting. The Indians. American Indian. I think you hit the nail on the head there,

Tim. It's the oppressor construct. What's he got around his neck?

That just lets us know he's an Indian. He's got the beads and stuff. I guess he is.

They could both be Indians, though. He's out there with the tumbleweed and the stereotypical place of a reservation.

He's got cowboy boots. They both have cowboy boots. Here's the one that really sets the teeth on edge.

It does something. The father eats sour grapes. The children's teeth are set on edge. Which means they kill babies in there.

Just being clear. They kill babies. It's not a coincidence that it's a young lady. Oh, yeah.

A younger lady wearing some overalls. Maybe she's pregnant.

Covered up some weight. Over here we've got some protestors with some signs.

What do they say? Save the unborn. Save the...

I can't really read that. Choose life. I can't see it.

I like that group over there. That's a nice group. Rusty Thomas just got arrested this week.

Or last week. For standing in front of abortion clinics preaching the gospel. He's in jail in this country because they say he blocked the access point.

Oh, yeah. He's been out there preaching the gospel. He and others who stand in front of abortion clinics and preach the gospel are doing a loving thing.

They're pleading with people so that they don't do something atrocious.

They're begging people not to murder their baby. And they're preaching the good news of Jesus Christ.

Forgiveness of sin. Eternal life. Jeff, you've been to abortion clinics. When you go there, where is the hate coming from?

I've never seen Christians at an abortion clinic being hateful toward anybody.

I've never seen it. I've been out there dozens and dozens of times. I've never seen it.

You've probably seen that people are hating the Christians that are out there. Oh, yeah. Juan Riesco in Chicago does

Love Life. He was just assaulted last week. Like I said, Rusty Thomas was arrested. They'll get spat on, punched, hit, accosted weekly.

It's a normal occurrence. They don't do anything but love. They're offering to help

Love Life loves to say, what do you need? We're going to help you with it. All these pictures our lens has been tainted by the phrase at the end that says

Jesus didn't teach hate because they're implying that a lot of us

Christians are preaching hate. Let's go back to being charitable about this photo.

How could this possibly be a good photo? It wouldn't be... Jesus washed the feet of his disciples who were clearly believing and he washed the feet of Judas before Judas went off to betray him.

He's offering salvation to anyone. Charitably, you could say, this lady, she's trying to be loving and maybe it's implied

Jesus didn't preach hate. That group over there, they're probably haters in this scenario.

But, hey, we're going to be loving. If I didn't see the hate thing, I could say, maybe she said, come get your feet washed and we'll talk about saving your baby.

That could be going on. It could be. Let's go to the next one.

This is interesting. This one's interesting. Now we've got somebody who's struggling in a kitchen if it's their kitchen it's probably their booze bottles that are all empty and look like they're freshly empty.

Everything's a mess and it's kind of like disorder. But there's not judgment there.

It seems like the lady on the right is kind of responsible for this mess.

So isn't hate the judgment the thing that the gray or blue church would misunderstand and they would conflate these ideas of hate and judgment as being the same but they're very different.

We use judgment to help people out of their mess. The loving thing is not to say to this person, it's fine to sit in this mess.

This picture's a mess. Stop judging by mere appearances and make a right judgment.

Jesus says to judge but there's a difference between being judgmental which is some kind of hypocritical false standard and also where the person himself is masking what's really going on on the inside versus a right judgment where to make right judgments.

What's going on in this picture? You have the lady who's struggling and it looks like a younger lady

Is there not maybe a daughter or something not to beat her down but to try to lift her up try to wash her feet?

Yeah. Let's check out the next one. Alright, here we go.

We've got a bus and a woman with a baby

I don't know what this is. It looks like this lady could be possibly an illegal immigrant with her trash bags or a homeless person.

Maybe. Possibly. Her clothes are a little dirty and tarnished. The other woman to the right who's doing the washing is very clean.

I'm just looking at them getting on the bus why do they have all their stuff as if they're moving.

Bottles of water. Yeah. If Tim's right about the oppressor oppressed thing going on the immigrant is one of the victim classes.

You've already seen the Native American. Victim. Victimology.

Here we go. What they were doing in front of the bus though I have no idea. Trying to stop the bus or I don't know.

It was stopping the deportation maybe of getting on the bus. In front of the bus making sure it doesn't move.

That's my guess. I guess the push back is you know we love our neighbors but we're not through hate.

If they weren't saying Jesus doesn't hate because honestly Jesus does hate.

He hates sin. He does want us to stop sinning and to repent

Not that any of us expect perfection or that we're going to sin less. John 14 6

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you believe that that means

Jesus is the only way. Now in this picture this might be another relativism thing where I think in our culture that's a

Muslim lady sitting on the Of course. So I think washing the feet of a Muslim lady

I think all this is So over against hate Islamophobia is what's being

Exactly I have a friend who evangelizes with and did evangelize with David Wood and Nabeel Qureshi before Nabeel died

They would go to Dearborn, Michigan and they'd preach the gospel There was this

Muslim stand where they debated When the

Muslims didn't like how it was going they picked the pastor up carried him and physically threw him over a wall

Wow And then David Wood and Nabeel got arrested for preaching the gospel, no other reason The hate in this culture is not from Christians toward Muslim people because all we're offering is the gospel of Jesus Christ and the doctrine and the difference between Jesus and Muhammad is light versus darkness

It's love versus They brought a whole surah about Jesus and a surah about Mary It's just not the

Jesus of the Bible Again, this is not the Jesus of the Bible either And also looking at Jesus as if he's only a good teacher

That's how Muslims view him He was a teacher and a prophet Not believing that Jesus is the son of God and he died on the cross and rose from the dead rose from the dead bodily

That's going to keep you out of heaven So they're missing the gospel And in surah 4, I think it's 157

They say, it is supposed that Jesus was crucified, but really they crucified him not So what do they say about Jesus?

He wasn't crucified And they say, don't say Trinity, desist It will go better for you if you don't say

Trinity So the point of that surah 4 is a denial of the message of Jesus Christ What does this lady need?

Jesus And the message of the cross Not her feet washed Who in a western society wants to stop on somebody's lawn and get their feet washed?

That would be weird and awkward It's nothing It's not gospel, there's no good news here

The big deal in the old society in the agrarian society in ancient

Israel was the fact that the roads were full of dust Coming into the house the servant would wash his feet

You'd sit and recline at table It wouldn't be like your feet under a table You'd be sitting with your feet forward towards one another

The washing of feet was culturally relevant there Obviously it's a picture then of serving and we're to serve one another

But there's no service here without gospel And I think of the story of the paralytic man that he came through the roof

His four friends brought him through the roof When Jesus met him everyone was expecting that he would heal his legs

But Jesus healed his deepest need He needed his sins forgiven These people need to repent and have their sins forgiven

They don't need their feet washed I need my sins forgiven I don't need my feet washed How about this picture?

We've got some protesters Look at this one

This binds up our show next week Ban censorship Stop censorship

Freedom to read! Shut them up! That's what it says And they're yelling down at each other

And in the middle of that We've got two people One's washing the other's foot

And she had said Silence hate Because that's her sign What was our verse?

The righteous know their God Stand firm and take action Joe, did you work on it?

I even know that it talks about covenant in the first part But I would say The people who know their

God will stand firm and take action This is kind of saying

Don't stand firm for anything Don't take any action Don't stand firm We're putting the cart before the horse

That's the whole idea here And then too I took this quote out of their website

It's very hard to find anything substantial in the website about what they meant when they said the hate

Just like Erasmus You don't quite know what he's saying Intentionally so And it is intentional

His teachings suggest that he wanted us to consider our intentions and do the work to act from a place of empathy

Was Jesus' primary goal here to be empathetic? Didn't Tim just read that Jesus knew what was in a man and he did not entrust himself to them?

Empathy is the opposite of that He understood what was in them and so did not entrust

Rather than putting himself in their shoes and feeling and acting as if he were responsible for sin

He sees their sin and he recognizes it for what it is It's the opposite of empathy

And isn't that the summary of these arguments that they're making that they're just arbitrary

They're not based on any kind of fact Completely just pulled out of the sky And inconsistent

Even this picture is inconsistent I think they're both on the same side

These two Those two are I don't see any difference in the signs

That's what it looks like They're tired of all the shouting Angry side vs. angry side

Both sides are just yelling at each other but they've chosen a different way These two guys look like they're on the same side

I think that's what they're communicating This is a racial thing which is good

People coming together but I thought that was already resolved This one's got some cultural significance

Let's call it We've got a priest Again, the priest has his shoes off There's some joint foot wash

There's some expectation of I'm getting mine after you get yours First of all you call him a priest and if you look under his beard you can see the collar

Again, he gets us funded by supposed Ed Stetzer evangelicals don't understand the difference between the

Roman Catholic sacramental non -gospel and the Evangelion the gospel of Jesus Christ which is by grace alone through faith alone

What this man offers if he wears that collar is the teachings of Rome which is a different gospel

Galatians 1, 6 -9 More ecumenicalism And we haven't even got to the eye -popping

I hope this isn't too much of a judgment but I think most people would look at the other man with the orange hat as homosexual or some sort of effeminate

He's got his The shorts are ridiculous He's wearing weird overall He's going for that That's clearly the intention of that We're not blind

So there were worse photos though? You're saying? I think that was it

To me the abortion one was such a slander of those who preach the gospel and the contrast that they set up at the end

Jesus didn't preach hate Jesus washed feet They're clearly attacking those who preach the gospel and try to rescue babies and overtly labeling us as haters for doing that So they spent their 7 million dollars to attack gospel preachers and included zero of the actual gospel

I don't know if you've noticed this but on social media Are you on social media much?

So I noticed on social media they have people who would be on the left criticizing

Christians The Christians who funded this How dare you spend 7 dollars

I mean 7 million dollars when you could have been feeding the poor with that money So how many times do you try to pander because they're

Marxists But even the great church would pander to the left and try to appease them but they never get the feedback that they're looking for or the accolades that they desire

Yeah, because it's a bottomless pit There's no forgiveness in the social justice movement

It's only activism Activism is core The anti -racist movement is always pushing

If it's a Hegelian dialectic Thesis, antithesis, synthesis

You move it left What do you do once you get here? That becomes your new thesis

You create the antithesis of anti -racism You try to move the needle for the new synthesis

There is no end until you reach the complete overthrow of western civilization

They're never going to be happy Once they get you to capitulate on something That's just the starting point for the next movement left

I think that points to our show next week and I encourage everybody to read the bill

In that bill they keep pointing to the libraries and the schools needing to have diverse materials that will satisfy everyone in the culture

But you pointed out the Hegelian dialectic Who knows what diverse is going to mean 50 years from now

It's so vague Again, now this vagueness because we don't believe in any kind of objective truth

We have vagueness everywhere What does that do to our freedom? What does that do to our safety? A lot of times we look at freedom and safety as being two opposite sides of the coin

But it's both now Both are destroyed with vagueness Just the idea of diversity as a value itself

That makes no sense Diversity just means lots of different But what's the value of the thing?

Truth is a value Love is a value There's some substance there Diversity means different Hitler was different from Stalin Do we want diversity?

So we need both We need both Hitler and Stalin It makes no sense Diversity can't be

Neither can inclusion So diversity, equity, inclusion Is inclusion itself a good value?

Do you want to include pedophilia? Do you want to include polygamy? No No Diversity in skill sets

Within an organization Can have value But diversity in skill sets

In pilots That fly airplanes I want to know which one is the good pilot

Or a heart surgeon I don't want diversity there Just need some clarity

I'm looking forward to next week This is We mentioned at the beginning

We invited some folks I don't know if they're going to show up The odds are You never know

If the Lord wills it Any other closing thoughts?

We'll close out this What's the big takeaway? Gospel preachers need to know

What the gospel is If you're going to spend $7 million on a gospel campaign And leave the entire gospel out

You're not an evangelist But you're up to something And this clearly has an agenda

And it's to undermine Biblical morality It's to make everything grey

As if there's no standard of right and wrong And to say We're going to push that aside as if irrelevant

You don't need to call people To repentance from homosexuality Or baby murder

Or any of these things But you're going to preach the gospel As if there is no call to repentance

And that is a complete capitulation It's a surrender Paul in Galatians 1, 6 -9

Would anathematize That he gets us campaigned Paul also talks about I think it's

Philippians Where he's happy Some people preach the gospel On a selfish gain

But he's happy that it's being preached We can't even be happy that it's being preached Because it's not being preached There's no gospel

Those in Philippians Were doing it from wrong motive They were still preaching Christ, him crucified and risen

But they were doing it To stir up more trouble for Paul While he's in jail Maybe to get him executed

By raising the temperature in Rome And here there just is no gospel

There's a Roman Catholic Washing feet Without any message of the death, burial

And resurrection of Jesus So that's how I'd sum it up The gray church If you're listening to this

And you don't know exactly what we're talking about When we're saying gray church, red church, blue church Read Blood Red Church Pastor Jeff wrote

Get it on Amazon And it defines Three sections of the culture

Within Christendom Within the church There are red churches There are blue churches And this gray church in the middle

That was a perfect example Of a gray church Attempt to preach the gospel

And we love the gray church people They love Jesus That's why we're doing this We want to disciple toward the truth

The blood of Christ And we want them to be bold with the truth Don't hide the truth

Until next time Here we go If you see a brother down Lift him up If you see a brother down Lift him up If you see a high place