Rick Warren Lays Out The (False) Theology in the History Channel Miniseries, The Bible

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March 8, 2013

Chris Rosebrough of Fighting for the Faith analyses a sermon where Rick Warren, Mark Burnett and Roma Downey divulge and discuss the (false) theology in the History Channel's miniseries, The Bible

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00:54: Here we go. It's time for another edition of Fighting for the
01:15: Faith, Tuesday, March 5th, 2013. Pack your bags.
01:25: We're going to be heading to Southern California today to Saddleback Church. Details forthwith in just a second.
01:40: Just looked out the window. Man, it is snowing out there. Wow. Thank you for tuning in.
01:52: You're listening to Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ. And this is the program that dishes up a daily dose of biblical discernment.
01:59: The goal of which, help you to think biblically, help you to think critically, help you compare what people are saying in the name of God to the word of God.
02:06: There's no shortage of crazy things being said out there. And as a result of it, we're doing the, well, the politically incorrect work of comparing what
02:17: Christian leaders, pastors, authors, and well now, you know, movie producers are saying in the name of God to the word of God to see if that's what
02:27: God's word really teaches. Or if we've basically run into a season where the majority or a large portion of the major leaders being touted as Christian leaders are teaching false doctrine.
02:43: Now, yesterday on the program, in hour number one, I unpacked for you the theological problems with the
02:52: History Channel miniseries, The Bible. In fact, I found myself in the awkward position of having to compare the
02:59: Bible to the Bible. And that's the kind of thing that will make your head explode if you're an apologist.
03:05: Anyway, so I had to compare the Bible to the Bible. That means the written word of God to, well, this miniseries.
03:13: Now, I was tempted to say yesterday that the miniseries on the History Channel, the
03:19: Bible, is less accurate than the Book of Mormon. But then I realized, no, the Book of Mormon doesn't really have any truth in it at all.
03:25: So I can say with clarity now that theologically and historically, the miniseries, the
03:33: Bible, is more accurate than the Book of Mormon, but not by much.
03:38: So, in fact, what we're gonna be doing today, it's gonna feel like a light edition of Fighting for the
03:44: Faith, but it's not. We're gonna be devoted to a singular topic, though, and that's gonna be listening to Rick Warren and Mark Burnett and Roma Downing unpack, or Downey, unpack the theology of this particular miniseries.
04:01: Now, you learned yesterday that the theological advisors for this miniseries were Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, T .D.
04:08: Jakes, and others, but those were the three that came immediately to mind for Roma Downey and Mark Burnett.
04:16: Now, that being the case, it's also significant to note that this past Sunday, the day when this miniseries premiered on the
04:24: History Channel, that Roma Downey and Mark Burnett were at Saddleback Church to kick off a sermon series that started on this past Sunday at Saddleback Church entitled
04:38: History Makers, and the first sermon in the series was delivered by all three of them,
04:44: Rick Warren, Mark Burnett, and Roma Downey. Now, so to kind of give you an idea of what's going on here, you know,
04:54: Rick Warren's gonna actually preach from, not the scripture, preach from clips from the movie and give us the theology that he believes that these passages, these movie clips are teaching us.
05:11: And like I said yesterday, that what we're dealing with with the miniseries, the Bible, it is a purpose -driven rewrite of the
05:19: Bible. That's exactly what this is. It's designed to, you know, to basically instruct people and teach people in purpose -driven doctrine, which is different than sound biblical doctrine and far different than historic
05:34: Orthodox Christianity. In fact, you know, I don't even wanna make the claim, you know, as to what it is that you're gonna hear.
05:41: I wanna get to it. So let me set this up for you and then we'll actually do our sermon review music because this is a quote, a sermon that we're gonna be reviewing.
05:50: But I want you to kind of get an idea of what it is that the sermon series is all about. From the
05:55: Saddleback website, there's a promo for the sermon series that was posted days before the sermon series began.
06:07: And the name of, again, the name of the sermon series is History Makers, History Makers. And here's the little blurb on the
06:15: Saddleback website. It says, ordinary people, extraordinary faith. History Makers, living by faith is a new series based upon the epic 10 -part miniseries,
06:24: The Bible, created by the History Channel, Mark Burnett, producer of TV Survivor, and Roma Downey.
06:31: See history brought to life as you relive the dramatic stories of the scripture, learn how to leave an extraordinary legacy despite ordinary circumstances.
06:41: Now, along with that little blurb, there was a little promo video, kind of like a premiere for the sermon series itself.
06:50: And since it's all text -based, I'm not gonna play it for you because there's no words that you can hear, but I went ahead and make, you know, dictated out what it is that it says, and let me read it for you.
07:02: And this little promo video says, "'History isn't made by war, but those who fight them.
07:08: "'History isn't made by speeches, but those who give them. "'History isn't made by ideals, but those who live by them.
07:15: "'Real people making real choices "'that affect us here and now, "'ordinary men and women with extraordinary faith.'"
07:23: And that's the promo for History Makers. So let me give you just a little bit more of what it is that you're gonna hear in this sermon that we're gonna be reviewing that was preached just a couple of days ago at Saddleback, and that's this.
07:37: You're going to hear Rick Warren, Roma Downey, and Mark Burnett basically divulge how much of an impact, theologically,
07:47: Rick Warren had on this particular miniseries, and you're gonna find out that it's significant.
07:53: You're also gonna hear later in the sermon what Rick Warren hopes to use this miniseries for, okay?
08:00: He actually has plans for using this miniseries. You'll hear those plans, but also you're gonna hear what
08:07: I told you yesterday. And we did a sermon review from somebody who taught the same theology, but you're gonna hear the same theology that we heard in the sermon that we reviewed yesterday coming from Rick Warren.
08:18: In fact, you can almost make the claim that what we're, in fact, not even almost, you can clearly make the claim that what
08:24: Rick Warren does in this sermon is exactly the same thing that Stephen Furtick does in his sermon, that Perry Noble does in his sermons, and that is you're gonna hear full -blown narcissistic eisegesis, basically looking at the
08:38: Old Testament characters as if somehow the way they had lived their lives is a pattern from receiving the vision from God for to do something amazing to the problems that they had in seeing that vision fulfilled, that that's what those stories are there for.
08:56: And rather than hearing it from somebody who isn't Rick Warren, you're gonna actually hear it from Rick Warren himself with Mark Burnett and Roma Downey there at Saddleback.
09:06: So let's put it this way. This, what you're about to hear is the definitive theological explanation as to the theology that's ticking underneath the hood of the miniseries, the
09:19: Bible, because, well, the people who you're gonna be hearing from were the most instrumental in making that miniseries come to pass.
09:30: So with that being said, let's do our normal sermon review music so that we can cue this up and do it right.
09:39: Here we go. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
10:07: We review it all here at Fighting for the Faith. We're an equal opportunity sermon reviewing service. Today's sermon comes to us via Saddleback Church out there in Lake Forest, California.
10:17: And the name of the sermon is entitled History Makers. History Makers, learn how you can, with extraordinary faith, make an extraordinary impact in the world.
10:29: The sermon is delivered by none other than Rick Warren and co -taught, if you would, by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, who make appearances fairly early on in the sermon and help participate to unfold and unpack and discuss the
10:47: History Channel miniseries, the Bible, which is supposedly what this sermon is all about.
10:53: Now, you're gonna need your Bible. You're gonna need it open to two passages in particular. One, Hebrews 11.
11:00: The other one, Romans chapter three. And I'm gonna be working through Romans chapter three, chapter four, and chapter five in order to help you understand what's going wrong with the theology that you're about to hear in this sermon.
11:15: So let me kill the music here. And without any further ado, here is Rick Warren and week one of his sermon series entitled
11:23: History Makers. Well, if you'll take out your message notes, I wanna welcome you to our new series called
11:30: History Makers, Lessons on Living by Faith. In the next five weeks, we're gonna give a complete overview of the major characters of the
11:41: Bible. I wanna begin with this question, which is this. Why did God give us the Bible? And the answer is, one of the reasons, is for your encouragement.
11:53: The Bible says this, Romans 15, verse four. For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the scriptures, circle that, the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.
12:17: You gotta have hope to cope. You gotta have hope to live in life. And where do you get hope? You get it from encouragement.
12:23: And encouragement comes from the Bible. The more you get into this word, the more hope and the more encouragement you're gonna have.
12:30: Now, why do we need encouragement? Well, duh, life is hard. Everybody agrees with that?
12:36: Life is not easy, life is hard. This is not heaven, where everything works perfectly.
12:42: This is earth, where nothing works perfectly. So we all need encouragement.
12:48: The Bible tells us that this life on earth is the preparation stage for heaven, that this life is the character building stage, where God builds your character that you're gonna keep with you for eternity.
13:01: Okay, quick question. What Bible passage says that this life is the character building stage that prepares us for eternity?
13:13: I'm not familiar with that passage. Let me back this up so you can kind of hear what Rick Warren is doing, which comes to the major point, one of the major points that needs to be made as we listen to the sermon.
13:24: Rick Warren makes a ton of assertions. He asserts many things about God and the
13:33: Bible and doesn't substantiate them with any clear passages.
13:39: In other words, when he does that, he's not teaching biblical theology like Tony Jones last week.
13:47: Like we noted, what Rick Warren is doing is literally creating his own theology and claiming for it the status of biblical theology.
13:58: If you don't have a clear passage that says what the Bible says, then the
14:03: Bible doesn't say it and that's not biblical theology, that's your theology. Let me back this up.
14:09: Listen again to Rick Warren. So we all need encouragement. The Bible tells us that this life on earth is the preparation stage for heaven, that this life is the character building stage, where God builds your character that you're gonna keep with you for eternity.
14:25: Again, what passages teach this doctrine? I am not familiar with the passages that say this.
14:33: And how does God build your character? He does it through tests. One test after another.
14:39: Life is simply a series of tests. Big test, little test, long test, short test, major test, minor test.
14:47: So what biblical passage teaches that God is going, because this is the character building phase of our life, that God uses tests to build our character?
14:57: I mean, where is this really clearly laid out in an unambiguous way as a primary doctrine regarding Christian sanctification or why we're here?
15:10: Let's see. He's gonna actually make an appeal to a passage. Let's see if that's what this passage says. Right now, you're in one of three positions.
15:18: You either just came out of a major test or you are in a major test right now or you're getting ready to go in the next one.
15:27: Because you're always in some kind of test. Now, the good news is this.
15:34: Every problem has a purpose. Now, God doesn't have to plan your problems.
15:40: You plan enough of them yourself. You cause a lot of your own problems and the other people, problems that have caused your life are caused by other people.
15:46: God doesn't cause the problems in your life. But God has a purpose in every problem in your life and he will use it for good if you'll give it to him.
15:54: It is designed to help you grow. That's why the Bible says this about the tests you have in your life.
16:02: James chapter one, verse two to four. Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy.
16:15: Hello, joy, really? Let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, circle that word tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.
16:27: So let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character.
16:34: Note that, strong in character. Now, I'm gonna note something here that Rick Warren has taken two verses out of context.
16:41: The first one I'm not gonna quibble with, Romans 15, four. This one I'm gonna quibble with and here's the thing.
16:48: What he's done is he's switched translations. He started the Romans 15, four verse, he quoted from the
16:54: NIV. The James one, two through four, he quoted from the New Living Translation.
17:00: So he's up to his old tricks of basically picking and choosing whichever translation he wants in order to find the words that he's looking for because he's claiming here that we live in, the purpose of right now is for God to constantly test us.
17:18: You're either in a test, coming out a test or getting ready to go into a test. And this is the testing phase of our lives because God is building character through all these tests.
17:28: Although this is not a biblical teaching. And to create the impression that this is what the
17:34: Bible says, he's quoted James one, two through four from the NLT.
17:40: Well, let's take a look at it in context using the ESV and let's just see if this is what this passage is saying.
17:49: James chapter one, James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, greetings.
17:57: Count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing.
18:10: If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given to him.
18:17: But let him ask in faith with no doubting for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind for that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the
18:27: Lord. He is a double -minded man unstable in all of his ways. Okay, so what have we got here?
18:35: We have the opening greeting to a letter written by James. Okay, and he says to count it joy when you meet trials of various kinds.
18:46: Now, what kind of trials is he talking about here? Is this teaching that what is
18:51: James here saying? Oh, well, these are the trials that God's building your character because this is the thing that you're gonna take with you into heaven.
18:58: Is that what he's teaching? Well, it doesn't say that. And in order for us to have that as a
19:05: Christian doctrine, we would need a clear biblical passage that says this phase of here on earth right now,
19:11: God is gonna throw all these tests at you in order to build your character in preparation for heaven.
19:19: I don't know of any passages that say that and James chapter one, two through four isn't actually saying that either.
19:27: But it is saying that the testing of our faith which can come through trials and persecution and things of that nature, that those help produce steadfastness in us.
19:40: And then that steadfastness is helping to make our faith complete if you would.
19:46: So, but what James is saying here is not what Rick Warren just said.
19:53: So this verse actually doesn't support the assertions that Rick Warren has just made.
20:00: In fact, you're gonna notice something here. And that is that Rick Warren didn't start off by exegeting a passage that says the things that he's asserting.
20:11: He began with his assertions and then went and found verses that use similar words from different translation.
20:19: He's used the NIV and now the NLT, different translations in order to make the
20:25: Bible look like it's supporting the assertions he's making. But the job of a pastor is to be an exegete.
20:31: He's supposed to read God's word and then show us what this passage means. But he's not doing that.
20:37: We continue. And ready for anything. God says, I use the tests that come in your life to build character in your life.
20:47: Now here's the other good news about all the tests you're gonna go through. God wants you to pass them. You probably had, like I did in school, some teachers who
20:56: I am certain wanted me to fail their tests. They did not make it easy.
21:02: They made it hard to pass their test. What my favorite tests were were open book tests, particularly when the answers were at the back of the book.
21:11: I like those kind of tests. The good news about God's test in your life, God wants you to pass the test.
21:18: So he gives you the answers in advance. They're all in this book.
21:25: And the more you read this book, the Bible, the more you're gonna understand how
21:30: God has tested because he has given us example after example after example in the Bible of how he tests our faith.
21:38: So it's not a surprise. Okay, now that's key, what you just heard. Let me back this up. Listen again. This shows you the main theology behind how
21:46: Rick Warren views the scripture. Listen again. The more you're gonna understand how God has tested because he has given us example after example after example in the
21:55: Bible of how he tests our faith. So it's not a surprise. In other words, you go back into the stories of Noah, of Abraham, of Moses.
22:07: See, those were people who God tested. See, he's gonna test you the same way he tested them. And so you can, you have an open book test.
22:14: You can go back and look at how they pass their tests and then do the same thing so that you can pass your tests.
22:21: Okay? The only thing that is a surprise is the timing. You're not gonna know when these tests come in your life.
22:27: But the kind of tests, I can tell you right now the tests you're gonna have in life. I can tell you right now, every one of them because they're all here in the
22:34: Bible. I can't tell you when they're gonna happen. What we're gonna do today is look at six of the major tests that you're gonna have in your life.
22:43: You may be in them right now. You may have had already some of them. You could certainly have them in the future. And we're gonna look at these six tests in the lives of three individuals.
22:52: Noah, Abraham, and Moses. Now in each of these men, we see a pattern.
23:02: We see that God always starts by giving people an opportunity. Then there is an obstacle or opposition.
23:11: And then there is an ordeal. And if you, okay, so what he's doing is coming up with his own theological interpretation.
23:21: Did I emphasize that it's his own theological interpretation without any epistle texts that say this.
23:27: Without any other texts that say this is what's going on here. Rick Warren has gone and he's examined these stories and he's found that the thing they all have in common is that it starts with an opportunity.
23:39: Then they face an obstacle or opponent. And then there's an ordeal. These are all part of the way the testing takes place.
23:46: So, and by the way, I happen to have the saddleback notes from this particular sermon in the heading for this is
23:54: God always tests those he intends to use. So in each person in the
23:59: Bible, we see an opportunity, an obstacle, an ordeal. We continue. Resist the opposition and you pass the ordeal, you get the opportunity.
24:11: Wait a second here, backing this up. Then there is an obstacle or an opposition and then there is an ordeal.
24:21: And if you resist the opposition and you pass the ordeal, you get the opportunity.
24:29: Okay, so there is, so God comes and he gives you a promise.
24:35: That's the opportunity. And then you're gonna face an obstacle or an opponent. As soon as you, and you need to resist and overcome the obstacle or opponent, get through the ordeal.
24:46: And once you do that, then God will give you what he promised you. The quote, opportunity.
24:53: Hmm, what Bible passages flesh this theology out for us?
24:59: Answer not one. This is Rick Warren's own spin on the biblical texts.
25:05: This is the way God always works in your life. In the case of Noah, the opportunity
25:11: God said is, I'm gonna use you to save the entire world. Big opportunity. In the case of Abraham, he said,
25:18: I'm gonna use you to found a great new nation, the nation of Israel. Big opportunity.
25:24: For Moses, the opportunity was, you're gonna be used by God to set people free from 400 years of slavery.
25:32: So those three, those are the different opportunities that they all had. Noah to save the world,
25:38: Abraham to start a new nation, and Moses, the opportunity to set the children of Israel free from slavery.
25:45: That was the opportunity. God always starts with the promise in your life. But then after the promise comes the predicament.
25:52: Notice what he just said there. In your life, in your life. See, we're looking at all these Old Testament stories, and this is vision casting, and then all that kind of stuff.
26:02: You receive the promise. So God's apparently gonna show up in your life, and he's gonna say,
26:07: I want to use you to do X, Y, or Z, right? And you'll go, really me?
26:13: Wow. And then what you'll, and then what'll happen is as soon as that promise is made, we see
26:18: God's not gonna give you the promise immediately. Then immediately you're gonna face an obstacle or an opponent.
26:25: Somebody's gonna come along and say, oh, you didn't receive that vision from God. You're drunk or something like that.
26:31: And then you'll say to them, you're a hater. And see, when God sees you opposing and refuting the opponent that comes, then he's gonna send an ordeal in your life like he did with Noah and then
26:44: Abraham and then Moses. And once you overcome the ordeal, then
26:49: God will give you the thing that he promised. Okay. This is not
26:55: Christian doctrine, by the way. This is Rick Warren's personal theology basically overlaid over scripture.
27:04: There isn't a single passage in the New Testament that teaches this theology either. After the opportunity comes the obstacle or the opposition.
27:13: Now the obstacle in Noah's life is nobody believed him. When God said, I'm gonna use you to build an ark,
27:20: Noah says, what's an ark? Because nobody had ever seen one. He said, well, it's got a flood.
27:26: Noah goes, says, what's a flood? Because nobody had ever seen one. Notice he's not actually reading the flood narratives from Genesis.
27:37: He's just telling the Noah story his own way. God said, because it's gonna rain.
27:43: God says, what's rain? Moses says, what's rain? Noah says, what's rain? Because nobody had ever seen one.
27:49: See, the Bible says that up to this time of the flood, it had never rained on earth. That God watered the plants of the earth through, it says a mist came up from the ground, kind of like dew, condensation in the morning.
28:02: When you go out and your lawn is all wet, but it hadn't rained, it's the condensation. And the Bible tells us that actually the atmosphere changed after the global flood.
28:13: Why aren't you actually reading the flood narrative? There's a reason why.
28:20: Because he can't make this theology verbal up from the text because it's not there. So he's controlling the narrative so that he can control the theology.
28:30: Because, and that's why we know that people lived much, much longer, hundreds and hundreds of years before the flood, and after the flood, they lived a normal lifespan like we do today.
28:41: So Noah didn't know what a flood was because he didn't know what rain was. He didn't know what an ark was. And a lot of people said, we think you're woo, woo, woo.
28:49: You know, you're cuckoo. When it came to Abraham, God had said to Abraham, you're gonna be the father of a great nation.
28:56: The problem was at age 99, Abraham still had no children. And his wife was 90.
29:04: That's a problem, folks. That's a major obstacle if you're waiting to get pregnant. All right?
29:11: Big problem there. And then in Moses, Moses had an obstacle, an opposition.
29:17: He had to fight the most powerful man in the world who was Pharaoh. The ruler of Egypt, Egypt was the largest empire, dominated the world in its day, and Moses was going up against the most powerful man in the world.
29:30: Was it really Moses or was it God who was going up against the most powerful man in the world to release the
29:38: Hebrew slaves? So all three of them have an opposition. And then the third stage was an ordeal.
29:44: And an ordeal happens in your life when there's a delay between what God tells you what he's gonna do and him actually doing it in your life.
29:53: There's always a waiting period. There's always a delay. When God tells you what he's gonna do, he gives you a dream, there's always a delay.
30:00: When God gives you a dream, there's always a delay. Huh, weird.
30:07: Where in the Bible does it say that I'm promised that God's gonna give me a dream?
30:15: I'm not familiar with any passage that says anything of the sort. This is an alien theology that has its origin in the mind of Rick Warren, not
30:24: Scripture. Backing it up just a little bit, we continue. There's always a waiting period. There's always a delay.
30:31: When God tells you what he's gonna do, he gives you a dream, there's always a delay. And so, for instance, in Noah's life, the delay took 120 years.
30:42: Between the time God said, I want you to build an ark, it took him 120 years to build it. That's a long delay.
30:48: How would you like to be Noah's children? Explaining to your best friends why your dad is building a giant ship in the front yard, hundreds if not thousands of miles from the nearest ocean.
31:02: Now, something to keep in mind is that there is a huge lack of biblical information regarding the opposition and the type of opposition that Noah faced.
31:20: We do know from Scripture that he was a preacher of righteousness, and so he obviously was preaching the word, and nobody did believe him because only his family was saved.
31:31: But we don't hear about those who were out there mocking him, talking about the fact that he lacked the building permits to build an ark in his front yard and how it was ruining his neighborhood and things of that nature.
31:44: We don't know where Noah built the ark. We don't know if he ended up moving, if he ended up building the ark in a secluded area.
31:56: We don't know what he did. Just don't know. So, although this makes for an entertaining sermon,
32:04: I think it's best that a pastor actually stick to preaching the word, don't you? He's building an ark, right.
32:12: Dad, can't you get a real job? Can you imagine the shame, the ridicule that Noah's family had to put up with all that time?
32:20: Can you imagine? You're not supposed to preach what's in your imagination. Time. So, there was a delay in Noah, and there was a delay in Abraham.
32:31: God tells Abraham at age 75, I'm gonna make you a great nation. But 25 years later, he still doesn't have a son.
32:38: That's a delay. That's an ordeal. God says to Moses, I'm gonna use you to set the people free.
32:46: But then Moses spends 40 years in the wilderness, tending sheep after being kicked out of Pharaoh's court, and then he spends another 40 years taking the children of Israel across the desert to the promised land of Israel.
33:01: Now, to walk from Egypt to Israel, shouldn't take you more than maybe 10 or so days, couple weeks, maybe, max.
33:09: It took the children of Israel 40 years. Now, you are aware that Moses never entered the promised land.
33:18: He was, he died just before the children of Israel entered the promised land.
33:27: So, I mean, his delay, I mean, lasted his entire life. Never actually came to fruition, huh?
33:34: Why? Why'd it take so long? Because seven times in the desert, God tested the children of Israel.
33:42: He gave them seven different tests. Every time they'd fail the test, he'd go, well, okay, one more lap around the desert.
33:49: Okay, now, there's a biblical passage that flat out contradicts this, okay? We're gonna take a look at it.
33:54: It's found in the Epistle of Jude, in the Epistle of Jude. Now, Rick Warren just told us that the reason why what happened to the children of Israel in the wilderness was because they didn't pass their tests.
34:12: Well, let's take a look at what Jude writes about this. Jude, verse five. Now, I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
34:28: They did not believe. What was going on there? It wasn't that they just failed their tests.
34:35: We're dealing with flat out unbelief, and that's why there was the problems in the wilderness.
34:42: Jude, verse five, makes that very clear. And they did that for 40 years.
34:49: Now, to help me unpack the lessons of these three great men, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, we have the creators, the co -creators of the
35:01: Bible series for the History Channel, Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. I want you to stand and give a rousing, saddleback welcome to Mark Burnett and Roma Downey.
35:11: Would you give them a clap? Great. We're so glad to have them here today.
35:39: All right, let's begin with the first guy, Noah. Now, Noah is early on in the
35:47: Bible. God had created the world with Adam and Eve, and it was a perfect place, but then
35:52: Adam and Eve sinned, and everything started falling apart. It's called the fall of man.
35:57: Everything got broken, the weather, the economy, our bodies, our relationships, and everything went from bad to worse.
36:04: And over a period of generations, the world got so bad, so evil, and so wicked that God really regretted that he had done this.
36:13: And he said, I think I'm gonna start over. He looked down on the planet, and he could...
36:18: Now, I wanna point something out here. It's actually the text from Genesis in the flood narrative that we learn about what's called the doctrine of original sin.
36:34: It's not just that wickedness got so bad. Yes, it did increase, but the reason it increased is because humans, by nature, were now born dead in trespasses and sins and were sinners.
36:48: Let me read to you Genesis 6, verse five. Here's what it says. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
37:04: Let me read that again. Every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
37:11: It's not just wicked deeds. Those wicked deeds were springing forth from wicked and corrupt sinful natures that every single human was born with.
37:25: There's this sad, sad passage in Genesis just before this where it talks about how
37:33: God had made humans originally, made them in his likeness.
37:40: In fact, let me read this, Genesis chapter five. This is the book of the generations of Adam, verse one. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.
37:48: Male and female, he created them and blessed them and named them man when they were created. When Adam lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image and named him
38:02: Seth. It's not just that there was an increase in wickedness. It's, as we learned in Genesis 6, that every intention of the thoughts of man was only evil all the time.
38:18: That's the problem. We're dealing with corrupt, sinful human nature.
38:25: But don't let Rick Warren teach on something like that. It might cause attendance to fall.
38:31: We continue. Find only one righteous man, only one guy who had faith in God in the entire planet.
38:39: And that guy's name was Moses, I mean, Noah. I've been going through, what service are we in now?
38:49: Was Noah. Now you ought to thank God for Noah because if Noah hadn't been a good, godly, faithful man, you wouldn't be breathing right now.
39:00: Because we're all, you want to trace your family tree? We all go back to Noah. We all go back to him.
39:06: So we're all. Now I'm going to take issue with that. Let me back this up because I want to point something out here. Let me go back to what he just said.
39:13: It's an important theological point. Listen. Was Noah. Now you ought to thank God for Noah because if Noah hadn't been a good, godly, faithful man, you wouldn't be breathing right now.
39:26: Now I'm going to disagree. And here's the reason why. Is because when we go back to Genesis chapter three, we find something very important.
39:36: That when Adam and Eve sinned, that there was also a promise. There was a promise given to Adam and Eve regarding the seed of the woman.
39:48: Listen to this. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this. This is chapter three, verse 14.
39:53: Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and above all the beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
40:02: I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.
40:07: Singular, this is talking about Jesus. And he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.
40:16: Okay? So here's the theological problem. Is that Rick Warren is basically saying if it wasn't for Noah being righteous, none of us would have been here.
40:28: God does not lie. He does not lie.
40:34: In other words, what we learn from scripture is that before the foundations of the earth were even laid, that God already had determined that Christ was going to go to the cross and suffer and die.
40:45: And so when we get to Genesis chapter three, we have a clear promise from God that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.
40:54: God can't lie and go back on his word. That's absolutely contrary to what God has revealed regarding his own nature in scripture.
41:01: In fact, scripture says God cannot lie. Therefore, this is not true.
41:07: It's our being here and our salvation. Noah, yes,
41:14: Noah was the means by which God helped bring this about for this time period and brought us all here.
41:21: But Noah was just the means. God is the one who brought this about and he promised that he would.
41:28: The promises belong to God and the faithfulness really truly belongs to God. Abraham and Noah and Moses, they were all men of faith.
41:37: They trusted God. And as you're going to see from Romans chapter three, four and five, there is a direct parallel between our faith and trust in Christ for the forgiveness of our sins and these
41:51: Old Testament patriarchs. But it's not the same thing that we're trusting for as Christians that Rick Warren is putting forward in the sermon.
42:00: We continue. Because we're all, you wanna trace your family tree? We all go back to Noah.
42:07: We all go back to him. So we're all from the same family tree, just a few generations. So you're my brother from another mother, all right?
42:16: Now, God looks and says, Noah, you're the only guy who trusts me. You're the only guy who loves me on the planet
42:21: Earth. I'm gonna have you build an ark and I'm gonna have you, I'm gonna gather,
42:27: I will gather, God says, all the animals from around the world and we're gonna preserve and we're gonna start over. And the
42:34: Bible series that we're gonna be watching for the next five weeks begins with this scene in which
42:39: Noah tells the family on board the ark the story of creation.
42:45: Watch this. Okay, I'm gonna fast forward through this so we don't have to listen to this from the television series.
42:52: If you're not familiar with this scene, then watch it on the History Channel and you can familiarize yourself with it.
42:59: I'm not gonna play it now. In fact, I'm gonna try to skip the sound bites that cover the movie itself with one exception.
43:07: I'm gonna catch the tail end of Abraham being tested because there's some theology in there
43:13: I wanna point out. So let me fast forward. Here's them coming out of watching this opening sequence from the mini series,
43:21: The Bible. You can see that this movie is no
43:27: Sunday school pageant with bathrobes. This is like a multi, multi -million dollar extravaganza.
43:35: And it's gonna really, I predict that this will be the most important talked about mini series since Roots.
43:44: Do you remember Roots? Decades ago, the next morning, Monday morning when everybody went back to work after watching every
43:50: Sunday night, everybody was talking about Roots. And that's gonna be happening here. In fact, I wanna encourage you,
43:57: I'm giving you permission to pull out your cell phone and tweet during this service. Just use the hashtag, the
44:03: Bible. I was on backstage recently before we started here and noticed that there was a tweet coming in every two seconds about the
44:11: Bible across America right now. So this is a big wave that's gonna take place here.
44:17: And it was also a big major article in LA Times today.
44:26: And of course, everybody's covering it. So you need to tell your friends about this. Now, Mark and Roma, I wanna start with a couple of questions.
44:33: First, where'd you come up with this brilliant idea of having Noah tell the story of creation?
44:38: And I think that's a great way to start it. And the second thing I wanna ask is, this is a major task, but could be pretty daunting to you of how do you film the entire
44:49: Bible? And I wanna, so talk to me about these questions. Well, on the
44:55: Noah's Ark opening, we knew that it was such a privilege to get primetime
45:01: American television to allow us to put the Bible on. Five weeks starting tonight, eight o 'clock.
45:08: So we've got primetime American TV all about the Bible. And we knew we had to start with the opening scenes in an epic way so that teenagers would think it's cool.
45:17: Everybody would think it's cool. And it was great to say faithful to scripture, but told through, as you said,
45:23: Noah trying to calm his family down. Imagine, even on a rough day, going to Catalina Island by boat, it's rough.
45:30: You imagine being on a boat when there's only water, there's no land, God has flooded the entire planet.
45:36: How scared they would have been. And Noah, keeping his faith, was telling the story of creation to keep them calm.
45:43: And that was our entry point. And thank you for liking it so much. Thank you. Yeah, it's great. Thank you.
45:49: We began this journey about four years ago. And here we are, you know, for ages, we've been saying 3, 3, 13 is when we come on the air.
46:00: And that's today. And we are so excited. And I just want to say here in front of all of you, you're so fortunate to have
46:10: Rick Warren as your pastor. He's been a source.
46:20: He's been such a source of inspiration to us on this project. Encourager, his wisdom, his prayers, his love and support.
46:30: We filmed this entirely in Morocco. Using sets of gladiators.
46:36: Some of the sets. Some of gladiator and kingdom of heaven. Kingdom of heaven, yeah. It gave us these great landscapes.
46:42: There were studios there, experienced crew and extras. It took months and months while we were down there, but we would often reach out through email and to you and we're so grateful to you.
46:58: Thank you. We were emailing each other almost daily during this all day. By the way, I've just been touched by.
47:03: Okay, listen again to what Rick Warren said. Thank you. We were emailing each other almost daily during this all day.
47:11: By the way, I've just been. So Rick Warren was emailing them almost daily while they were filming the mini series,
47:20: The Bible. That explains why the theology is what it is in this production.
47:28: We continue. I've been touched by an angel. All right, so what do we learn from Noah and the story of the ark?
47:41: The first test, you're gonna be tested this way. Not the way he was, but in this. Notice what we're not learning about Noah is about salvation, which is that that is about.
47:53: We're not learning about God's judgment, which is what this is really about. We're not learning about Christ because Christ is really what
48:01: Noah is all about. No, we're not learning about that. We're learning about a pattern that we can follow or we should expect in our own lives.
48:09: You're gonna be like Noah. This is, by the way, narcissistic eisegesis, otherwise what we call here at Fighting for the
48:15: Faith, narcegesis, okay? We're gonna just avoid all of the theology of what's going on in this passage and we're gonna make it about ourselves.
48:24: All right, so what do we learn from Noah and the story of the ark? The first test, you're gonna be tested this way.
48:32: Not the way he was, but in this test. And the first test of life is an impossible task.
48:39: You might write that down, an impossible task. God's gonna give you a job to do that is so big, like make a movie of the whole
48:48: Bible. And you'll go, really, me? Who, me?
48:53: I'm the one who's supposed to do this? God will give you a job that you're gonna ask the who, me question.
48:59: I'm supposed to do this? Me, moi? And God will say, yeah, yeah, you. And the
49:05: Bible says, so apparently, I mean, because Noah got this thing, you know, you should expect the same task, a type of task to show up in your life.
49:14: Well, the impossible task. The Bible says that Noah had not any understanding of what he was about to do.
49:23: Hebrews 11, verse seven says this. It was by faith that Noah built an ark to save his family from the flood.
49:33: He obeyed God, who warned him about something that had never happened before.
49:40: So Noah has no model, has no experience, has no frame of reference to understand what's about to happen, because it's never been done.
49:49: And you should expect God to call you to do the same type of thing, something that has never been done.
49:57: Is that what the Bible teaches? And more importantly, is this what Hebrews 11 is all about?
50:04: Now, before we got started, I asked you to have your Bible handy and be prepared with Hebrews 11.
50:13: Now, we're gonna apply our three sound rules for sound biblical exegesis here. And those three rules are context, context, context.
50:22: So when we go to Hebrews 11, verse one, here's what it says. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
50:30: For by it, the people of old receive their commendation. By faith, we understand the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible, okay?
50:42: Now, you'll notice something here. We're in chapter 11. What kind of faith is this referring to?
50:49: And what I mean by that is what is the object of this faith that's being described here in Hebrews chapter 11?
50:58: This is very critical, okay? Is it faith, is the author here arguing for us to believe
51:07: God when we receive a direct revelation from him regarding some huge, impossible task that he's going to call us to do?
51:17: Is that what's going on here? Or is this talking about something else?
51:22: Keep in mind that faith, I like to refer to it, actually, this is something I learned from Norman Nagel, is that faith is like eyesight, okay?
51:34: Faith is like eyesight. It always has something to which it is transfixed, that it is focused on.
51:41: So you don't, faith in and of itself is not, you're not talking about anything. The question is, in what or in whom do you have faith?
51:50: And in that person, what are you trusting them for?
51:56: Now, let me back up a little bit. I'm gonna hopscotch a little bit through the immediate context of Hebrews chapter 11 by going back to chapter nine.
52:06: And in Hebrews chapter nine, we got the tail end of an argument that the author of Hebrews is making, pointing us to Jesus's death on the cross and what it accomplished, and how what
52:20: Jesus did is the fulfillment and the real thing, as opposed to what was given in the
52:26: Mosaic law. We read Hebrews 9, one. Now, even the first covenant had regulations for worship in an earthly place of holiness, for a tent was prepared.
52:36: The first section in which there was a lamp stand and the table and the bread of the presence, it is called the holy place.
52:42: Behind the second curtain was a second section called the most holy place, having the golden altar of incense, the
52:48: Ark of the Covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna and Aaron's staff that had budded and the tablets of the covenant.
52:57: Above it were the cherubim of glory, overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things, we cannot now speak in detail.
53:04: These preparations having thus been made, the priests go regularly into the first section, performing their ritual duties, but in the second, only the high priest goes, but he once a year and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.
53:22: By this, the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet open, as long as the first section is still standing, which is symbolic for the present age.
53:31: According to this arrangements, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.
53:47: But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is not of this creation, he entered once and for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.
54:07: For if the blood and goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our consciences from dead works to serve the living
54:26: God. Therefore, he, Jesus, is the mediator of a new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.
54:33: Now, this is the important part right here. I wanna focus in on verse 15. Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance.
54:47: So the faith that we're talking about here is a faith in God for the forgiveness of sins, one by Christ, and a promise of the eternal inheritance.
54:57: This would be eternal life. Since death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant, for where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.
55:09: For a will takes effect only at death since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.
55:18: For when every covenant of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats and water and scarlet wool and hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and all of the people saying, this is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.
55:33: And in the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood.
55:41: And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. Thus, it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
55:55: For Christ has entered not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.
56:05: Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood, not his own, for then he would have to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world.
56:16: But as it is, he has appeared once and for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
56:23: And just as it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who eagerly await him.
56:38: For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never buy the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.
56:52: Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered since the worshipers have once been cleansed would no longer have any consciousness of sin.
57:01: But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of the sins every year, for it is impossible for the blood of goats and bulls to take away sins.
57:10: Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me in burnt offerings and sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure.
57:21: Then I said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.
57:27: When he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings.
57:34: These are offered according to the law. Then he added, behold, I have come to do your will. He does away with the first in order to establish the second.
57:42: And by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.
57:51: Now, that's to kind of give you just a real quick thumbnail sketch of what's going on in the preceding chapters before we get to chapter 11.
58:02: Over and again, the author here is pointing us to the sacrifice of Christ for the forgiveness of sins, that his was the sacrifice that truly does cleanse us and that the
58:13: Old Testament mosaic and Levitical system was all shadow and type, and that the reality is
58:21: Christ and what he's done on the cross. Those things in the Old Testament point to their fulfillment, which was in Christ, and his death propitiates the wrath of God, is an offering once for all for the forgiveness of sins.
58:36: This is straightforward stuff. So when we get to Hebrews 11, verse one, we understand the context of what is being called for the readers of Hebrews to trust in, to have faith in, to have faith in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.
58:53: And then he goes back into the Old Testament and shows that the Old Testament patriarchs all trusted and believed
59:01: God, right? And they were commended for their faith.
59:07: That being the case, now when we get to Hebrews 11, one here, it says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
59:14: Okay, so what is the assurance of things that are hoped for? What are we as Christians hoping for? The eternal inheritance, okay?
59:24: And faith is the conviction of things not seen. Have you been able to ascend into heaven and hear
59:31: God's pronouncement that you are innocent, that you have been declared righteous in Christ? No, you haven't.
59:38: You hang onto those promises by faith. So the idea here is that this is driving the listeners, the readers of Hebrews to trust in the sure promises of the forgiveness of sins and the eternal inheritance that Christ is gonna bring back with him when he comes in glory to judge the living and the dead.
01:00:00: So that's what we're talking about here. Hebrews 11, one is not talking about us trusting in God when
01:00:06: God comes and gives us a big purpose to fulfill, a big opportunity to do something the world has never seen before or ever done before or anything of the sort.
01:00:18: No, instead, we're to trust in Christ that he can save and forgive a sinner, even as wretched as me or as wretched as you.
01:00:30: That's what's going on here. But that's not what Rick is pointing people to. Instead, he's making the claim that the story of Noah, we should expect, just like Noah did, that God's gonna give us some big, hairy, audacious goal to accomplish, a beehag, if you would.
01:00:49: But no passage in the scriptures says that God's gonna give you a big, hairy, audacious purpose to fulfill.
01:00:58: This is nonsense. Let me back this up just a little bit so you can again hear it. That Noah built an ark to save his family from the flood.
01:01:06: He obeyed God, who warned him about something that had never happened before.
01:01:13: So Noah has no model, has no experience, has no frame of reference to understand what's about to happen, because it's never been done.
01:01:23: Because it's never been done, God says, you're gonna have to do this on faith. Now, here's the first lesson of faith.
01:01:30: Write this down. Faith is believing when I don't see it.
01:01:36: Now, this is an accurate definition of faith. And the subtlety here, you need to pay close attention because it's easy to miss the point.
01:01:46: This is a correct definition of faith. But the object of the faith that he's describing here is the wrong object.
01:01:55: It's not Christ for the forgiveness of sins and the eternal life. It's faith in God that he's going to give you an opportunity to do something big in life.
01:02:06: Faith is believing when I don't see it. Some people say, well, you know what?
01:02:13: I'll believe it when I see it. That's not faith. Faith is
01:02:19: I'll believe it, then I'll see it. Some things have to be believed before they can be seen.
01:02:25: Every piece of architecture has to be believed that the building can exist before it actually exists.
01:02:33: Every piece of art, every score of music, every movie, everything created, you have to believe it's possible before it can be created and you can actually see it.
01:02:44: You must believe before you see. If you have to see before you believe, you're not living by faith.
01:02:50: The Bible says this, Hebrews chapter 11, verse one. Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
01:03:02: That is correct. And the thing that Christians are to hope for and believe and they will not see in this lifetime is that they have forgiveness of sins, one by Christ.
01:03:16: Because without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. That they are reconciled to God. And despite the fact that their bodies are dying and they're still suffering the effects of sin in their life, that God is favorably disposed toward them because scripture says,
01:03:35: God's word says, they are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And as a result of it,
01:03:40: Christians are to believe and hope and trust in the promises regarding the forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
01:03:48: That's what's being talked about here in the book of Hebrews. Not believing God for some big, hairy, audacious purpose that you're supposed to receive from him.
01:03:59: That's faith. So from Noah, we learn the example that God will often test me through a major or an impossible task.
01:04:13: And if I'm gonna live by faith, I've gotta believe it even before I see it.
01:04:18: Now we come to the second guy that we're gonna look at this evening in this first series on the
01:04:24: Bible, and that's Abraham. Now Abraham was a wealthy man who lived in a metropolis, a city called
01:04:31: Ur of the Chaldeans. How'd you like to be, Abraham? Where do you live? Ur. It sounds like you got gas, you know, indigestion.
01:04:39: Where do you live? Ur. Sorry, no, no, that's my city, Ur. Ur. And it was a metropolis in the south of Iraq.
01:04:49: And one day, God comes to Abraham and says, Abraham, I'm gonna choose you to be the father of a great nation because I see in you faith.
01:04:58: And I'm gonna give you a great family, and your multiple generations will actually become an entire nation.
01:05:06: Your family will become a nation called the Jews later on. Now Abraham has three problems with this.
01:05:13: First, when God comes and says, I'm gonna do this, he's 75 years old, 75 years old.
01:05:21: Not too many people at 75 years of age are ready to start on the greatest adventure of life. When other people are thinking social security,
01:05:30: God's saying, think social insecurity. When Abraham is thinking about retiring,
01:05:37: God is saying, no, you start thinking about aspiring. When Abraham is thinking about, these texts don't teach this, about hanging it up and sitting down and settling down,
01:05:48: God says, no, take it down, dust it off, and get ready for the adventure of your life. So he's 75 years of age, and you can't sit back and take it easy.
01:05:59: You may be 75 years of age, and God may be about to give you your greatest adventure in life.
01:06:05: Second thing with Abraham, when God says, I'm gonna take you to a whole new country and give you a whole new nation,
01:06:12: Abraham was a wealthy man. He had a lot to move. If you're a single, broke college student, and God tells you to move to Paris, it's no big deal.
01:06:22: You can do that pretty quickly. But if you have servants and cattle and sheep and relatives, you gotta move the whole clan with you.
01:06:33: And this is a major, major move at 75 years of age. That's not gonna be easy.
01:06:39: But the real problem with this new challenge was that Abraham was not told by God where he was going.
01:06:48: God just said, I want you to get up and start moving that way. That way?
01:06:56: Yeah, just move that way. I'm gonna give you a new country. And so imagine the questions of Abraham.
01:07:03: Lord, when are we gonna get there? I'll let you know. How long will it take?
01:07:09: Trust me. Where is this place? Trust me. Would you get up and move at 75 years of age when
01:07:16: God just said, start heading that direction? Because he didn't know where he was going. This is the second test of life.
01:07:24: Write this down, a major change. You're gonna have this many, many times in your life, a major change in your life, just like Abraham, where God says,
01:07:33: I want you to move there. This is what I call the where test. Where, Lord, where?
01:07:40: Now, that was the important phrase. This is what Rick Warren calls the where test.
01:07:48: The Bible nowhere mentions the where test. This is something that Rick Warren has figured out.
01:07:55: Apparently, there's a pattern here. So we can expect the same pattern in our life.
01:08:01: The where test is gonna show up in your life. So he calls it the where test. What does the Apostle Peter call it?
01:08:06: The Apostle Peter never identified it. What does the Apostle Paul call it? The Apostle Paul never identified the where test, not even descriptively.
01:08:15: How about Jude? No, he never talks about the where test. How about Jesus? Nope, never talks about the where test.
01:08:22: Any of the Old Testament prophets? Nope, none of them talk about the where test either. This is a theology created in the head of Rick Warren.
01:08:30: Let me back it up. Here we go. You're gonna have this many, many times in your life, a major change in your life, just like Abraham, where God says,
01:08:38: I want you to move there. This is what I call the where test. Where, Lord, where?
01:08:45: Where do you want me to go? Where do you want me to be? Where do you want me to live? Where do you want me to serve? Where do you want me to work?
01:08:51: The where question of life is the question of place. And in Hebrews chapter 11, verses nine and 10, it says this.
01:09:01: It was by faith that Abraham obeyed when God called him, just like he called
01:09:07: Noah, when God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as inheritance.
01:09:16: He went without knowing where he was going. Would you do that? The last six weeks, we've been in a series on God's calling for your life.
01:09:25: We talked about how this year Saddleback's starting. Saddleback Moscow, Saddleback Berlin, Saddleback London.
01:09:31: Ah, so this is the reason why he's put this in here. You know, the where test.
01:09:37: Because they're looking for volunteers from Saddleback to go man the
01:09:44: Saddleback satellites in Moscow and Paris. Wow, and where are all these little
01:09:49: Saddlebacks showing up again? Talk about international multi -sites. Listen again. The last six weeks, we've been in a series on God's calling for your life.
01:09:57: We talked about how this year Saddleback's starting. Saddleback Moscow, Saddleback Berlin, Saddleback London, Amman, Saddleback Buenos Aires, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Manila, Bangalore, Mexico City.
01:10:11: 12 major cities around the world. God is gonna call some of you, maybe at 75, to pick up and move.
01:10:20: Why would God call anybody to move to be a part of a Saddleback satellite campus when
01:10:27: Rick Warren doesn't correctly teach the Bible? We've already had over 120 people in our church already agree to move permanently to one of these cities.
01:10:39: We've had several thousand already agree to going short term, from two weeks to two months to two years.
01:10:46: That's the faith of Abraham. And you're gonna have this faith test in your life.
01:10:52: Will you say yes to a major change that God wants you to do? Like go to Saddleback Moscow.
01:10:59: Now, once Abraham gets to Canaan, it was later changed to the name of Israel, but he gets to the promised land.
01:11:06: When he gets there, he doesn't get to settle down. In fact, the entire rest of his life, he spends living in tents.
01:11:14: You don't get more temporary than living in a tent. And not only did he live in a tent, his son,
01:11:19: Isaac, lived his entire life in tents. And Isaac's son, Abraham's grandson,
01:11:25: Jacob, lived his entire life in tents. Now, let's go back to Hebrews chapter 11. And let's finish reading this chapter.
01:11:33: Now that we know, I've reviewed for you the context. We're talking about faith in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins by his shed blood on the cross.
01:11:41: And in the internal inheritance that comes as a result of his death. This is what Hebrews, the chapters immediately preceding 11 are talking about.
01:11:50: Now, let's take a look at the full chapter here to see if what Hebrews chapter 11 is trying to do is tell us about the where test and the who, what test or whatever these tests that Rick Warren is seeing in his
01:12:04: Old Testament stories apparently. Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
01:12:10: For by faith, the people of old receive their commendation. By faith, we understand that the universe was created by the word of God so that what is seen is not made out of the things that are visible.
01:12:20: By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous,
01:12:26: God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, he died. Though he died, he still speaks.
01:12:34: Now notice this pattern doesn't fit with Abel. He was killed. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.
01:12:42: By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death and he was not found because God had taken him.
01:12:47: Now, before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God. And without faith, it is impossible to please
01:12:53: God. Now, what kind of faith is it talking about here? The faith in the promises that we truly have received, not the promise of some big, hairy, audacious purpose, the promise of the forgiveness of sins and justification through the shed blood of Christ, that God's wrath has been propitiated by Christ's death on the cross and through his blood, right?
01:13:14: And without faith, it is impossible to believe him. For whoever who would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
01:13:21: By faith, Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household.
01:13:30: By this, he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
01:13:36: Notice it says here, the rest of the verse regarding Noah, that Noah became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.
01:13:48: Now, that's critical because we are promised this exact same righteousness. And you're gonna see this in Romans 3, 4, and 5 when
01:13:56: I get there momentarily. But I just wanna put this down here so that you'll remember it, that I'm talking about here, the righteousness that comes by faith, because this is what
01:14:07: Hebrews 11 is really talking about. By faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out of a place that he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.
01:14:16: By faith, he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.
01:14:24: For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations whose designer and builder is God. By faith,
01:14:30: Sarah herself received power to conceive even when she was past the age since she considered him faithful who had promised.
01:14:38: Therefore, from one man and him as good as dead were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as innumerable grains of the sand of the seashore.
01:14:48: These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
01:15:01: For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had the opportunity to return, but as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one.
01:15:16: Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God for he has prepared for them a city. Now this section here in Hebrews 11 verses 13 through 16 tells us here that the faith that we're to be looking to is the same faith that they had not for earthly things, but for the heavenly city.
01:15:37: This is what's being recalled to mind here. Chapter 11 verse 17, by faith
01:15:43: Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son of whom it was said, though Isaac shall be your offspring, through your offspring shall be named.
01:15:55: He considered that God was even able to raise him from the dead from which figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.
01:16:02: By faith, Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau. By faith,
01:16:07: Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff.
01:16:13: By faith, Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones.
01:16:21: By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw that the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the
01:16:28: King Zedek. By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.
01:16:39: He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.
01:16:46: Okay, notice again, he was looking to the reward. By faith, he left
01:16:52: Egypt, not being afraid of the anger of the King for he endured as seeing him who is invisible.
01:16:57: By faith, he kept the Passover and sprinkled the blood so the destroyer, the firstborn, might not touch them.
01:17:04: By faith, the people crossed the Red Sea as on dry land, but the Egyptians, when they attempted to do the same, were drowned.
01:17:11: By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. By faith,
01:17:16: Rahab, the prostitute, did not perish with those who were disobedient because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.
01:17:23: And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell you of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.
01:17:42: Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life.
01:17:50: Notice again here the constant reference to the eternal reward that they were looking to.
01:17:57: Others suffered mocking, flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two.
01:18:03: They were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy, wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth.
01:18:18: And all of these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect.
01:18:30: We're all gonna get this together, right? Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, chapter 12, let us also lay aside every weight and sin, which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
01:19:00: Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint -hearted.
01:19:08: In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
01:19:18: My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the
01:19:23: Lord disciplines the ones he loves and chastises every son whom he receives.
01:19:30: It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.
01:19:36: For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children, and you are not sons.
01:19:47: Okay? So, is this telling us here that we need to look to Abraham who received the same kind of tests that we're gonna receive?
01:19:59: You know, God gave him an opportunity, he experienced obstacles and then an ordeal, and because he overcame, then he received the opportunity as promised.
01:20:09: No, as you read through Hebrews 11, it's clear that all of the things that were promised that they were looking to were not in this earth.
01:20:18: They were looking to an eternal reward, to a heavenly city whose builder is
01:20:23: God. That's what this passage is talking about. This is not talking about you and I receiving a direct revelation from God for some big, hairy, audacious purpose.
01:20:37: Far, far, far from it. Rick Warren is twisting God's word here and actually doing an artful job at it, to be honest with you.
01:20:47: So, he's given this land, and yet he doesn't get to settle down. This is test number three, a delayed promise.
01:20:56: God is going to give you promises in your life, but he's not promised to give them to you immediately.
01:21:02: They come on his timing, he's never late, he's never early, he's always right on time. And this is the twin test of life.
01:21:09: When, Lord, when? When are you gonna answer my prayers? When am I gonna get married?
01:21:14: When are we gonna have a baby? When am I gonna get a job? When am I gonna finally finish school?
01:21:19: When am I gonna get well from this illness? Okay, those, I think, would be the litany of the so -called promises that you're gonna receive from God.
01:21:27: Let me back this up so you can hear that litany again. They come on his timing, he's never late, he's never early, he's always right on time.
01:21:35: And this is the twin test of life. When, Lord, when? When are you gonna answer my prayers?
01:21:40: When am I gonna get married? Okay, so God's gonna promise you that you can get married, and then when are you gonna get married?
01:21:47: When are we gonna have a baby? God's gonna promise you a baby, and when are you gonna get that? When am
01:21:52: I gonna get a job? So God's gonna promise you a job. When am I gonna finally finish school? When am I gonna finish school?
01:21:59: When am I gonna get well from this illness? Hmm, weird, huh? The wind test is a delayed promise.
01:22:09: Hebrews 11, verse eight to 10 explains this next test in Abraham's life. And even when he,
01:22:15: Abraham, reached the land that God had promised him, he lived there by faith, for he was like a foreigner living in a tent.
01:22:24: And so did Isaac and Jacob, to whom God gave the same promise. Abraham did this because he was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God.
01:22:40: He's talking about heaven there. Now, there's a word used twice in that passage. I want you to circle it, the word promise.
01:22:46: It says God promised the land to Abraham, and then he says he promised it again to both Isaac and Jacob.
01:22:53: This is a delayed promise. I'm gonna give you the land, but once you get there,
01:23:00: God still said there's a delay in the transfer of ownership. He didn't get it immediately.
01:23:07: Now, God wants us to build our lives on great promises, not petty rules.
01:23:13: Now, I would agree. Let me back this up, and I want you to hear this statement again. Now, God wants us to build our lives on great promises, not petty rules.
01:23:23: Correct, and what would those promises be? Some promise that's supposed to appear.
01:23:30: Apparently, God lay something on my heart. I feel like God's talking to me. Is that what we're talking about?
01:23:36: No. The great promises that Christians believe is that they are forgiven and justified before God as a result of what
01:23:47: Christ Jesus has done on the cross. Let's take a look now at Romans 3, 4, and 5.
01:23:54: Romans 3, 4, and 5, and the reason why I wanna take you here is because this is where the tight parallel is drawn between us and Abraham.
01:24:09: There's an actual parallel here regarding the faith that we have and the faith that Abraham has, and it's drawn out for us clearly in Scripture.
01:24:18: Not that God's gonna give you a big, hairy, audacious purpose. That's not the promise that we're called to look at.
01:24:26: We'll start at Romans 3, we'll start at verse 9. This is the tail end of Paul's great buildup sharing with us what the major problem that we all face in life is, and it's this.
01:24:39: He says, what then? Are we Jews any better off? Well, no, not at all. We've already charged that all, both
01:24:45: Jews and Greeks, are under sin. As it is written, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God.
01:24:52: All have turned aside, together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Their throat is an open grave.
01:24:57: They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.
01:25:04: Their feet are swift to shed blood, and their path are ruin and misery. The way of peace they have not known.
01:25:09: There is no fear of God before their eyes. This is the fate of all, all of us are in this.
01:25:16: None of us are righteous, not any of us. Not one of us. Who's gonna save us?
01:25:22: Well, this goes on then. So we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law.
01:25:28: So that every mouth may be stopped, and that the whole world may be held accountable to God.
01:25:34: For by works of the law, no human being will be justified. That means to be declared righteous.
01:25:40: By works of the law, not one human being will be justified in God's sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
01:25:48: But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it.
01:25:57: Notice that the righteousness of God. Yeah, this is what was referred to in Hebrews 11 regarding Noah, that he became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith, right?
01:26:07: The law and the prophets bear witness to it. The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
01:26:13: For there is no distinction. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified, declared righteous by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
01:26:24: God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.
01:26:30: This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over the former sins.
01:26:36: It was to show his righteousness at the present time so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
01:26:43: So then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law?
01:26:49: By law of works? No, by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
01:26:58: Or is God the God of the Jews only? Is he not the God of the Gentiles also? Yes, of the
01:27:03: Gentiles also, since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.
01:27:12: We do not then overthrow the law by this faith by no means, on the contrary, we uphold the law.
01:27:19: So what then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?
01:27:25: For if Abraham was justified, that means to be declared righteous, declared righteous by works of the law, he had something to boast about, but not before God.
01:27:34: For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.
01:27:41: Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies, that means to declare righteous the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
01:27:54: Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteous apart from works.
01:28:01: Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
01:28:07: Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised?
01:28:17: For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteous. Well, how then was it counted to him?
01:28:23: Was it before or after he had been circumcised? Well, it was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still circumcised.
01:28:34: The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised so that righteousness would be counted to them as well.
01:28:43: And to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised, but who walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father
01:28:51: Abraham had before he was circumcised. The promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be the heir of the world did not come through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
01:29:04: For if it is the adherence of the law who are to be heirs, faith is null and the promise is void.
01:29:10: For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law, there is no transgressions. That is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all of his offspring, not only to the adherence of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
01:29:29: I'm gonna pause there for a second and point something out. The type of faith that Rick Warren is trying to tease out that we're supposed to emulate in Abraham is not the same faith that Paul here, writing under the inspiration of the
01:29:44: Holy Spirit, is teasing out regarding Abraham. Abraham is the father of us all because we all have the same faith that he had.
01:29:52: He trusted in God and it was credited to him as righteousness. He was justified as a result of his faith, right?
01:30:03: What we're hearing from Rick Warren is we're supposed to have the same faith as Abraham.
01:30:09: And what he means by that is, oh, Abraham received a big, hairy, audacious goal from God. You're gonna receive a big, hairy, audacious goal from God.
01:30:18: And you need to follow the pattern of Abraham and trust God, even though the promise that you receive from God delays.
01:30:26: That's not what Paul is talking about here. We all have the same faith as Abraham when we trust in Christ for the forgiveness of our sins.
01:30:37: That's the point that Paul is making. So let me read verse 16 again. That is why it depends on faith in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all of his,
01:30:46: Abraham's offspring, not only to the adherents of the law, but also to the one who shares the same faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.
01:30:54: As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
01:31:05: In hope, he, Abraham, believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations. As he had been told, so shall your offspring be.
01:31:15: He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old.
01:31:22: And when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb, no unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised.
01:31:37: That is why his faith was counted to him as righteous. But the words, it was counted to him, were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also.
01:31:48: It will be counted to us who believe in him, who raised from the dead
01:31:54: Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
01:32:01: Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
01:32:07: Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
01:32:17: Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that sufferings produces endurance. Endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the
01:32:29: Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time
01:32:34: Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die.
01:32:42: But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for our sins.
01:32:48: Since therefore we have now been justified, declared righteous by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
01:32:56: For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life.
01:33:04: More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
01:33:12: So you see what's going on here? That the parallel that Rick Warren is drawing that we're supposed to be emulating regarding the faith of Abraham is not even close in the details regarding the emulation of Abraham's faith and the example that it holds for us that's given in Romans chapter four.
01:33:36: Abraham is the man of faith and it was credited to him as righteousness. Abraham was declared righteous because he believed the promises of God and we have the same faith as Abraham and we are called to trust in the sure and certain promises that while we were still sinners,
01:33:55: Christ died for our sins, that we are declared righteous by faith in Christ for the forgiveness of our sins.
01:34:06: These are the promises that we are to cling to, not some promise that God's gonna come and give you a big, hairy, audacious purpose.
01:34:14: There's no passages that say that. Rick Warren is literally using the miniseries, the
01:34:23: Bible, rewriting the faith of Abraham that we're supposed to be emulating.
01:34:29: But trust me when I tell you this, you shouldn't be listening to Rick Warren's definitions. You need to pay close attention to the biblical ones that are laid out for us in Romans chapter four, especially as it pertains to the faith of Abraham.
01:34:43: We continue. On great promises, not petty explanations.
01:34:49: So Abraham gets to this promised land and there's a delay. He doesn't get to settle down. And he's saying, when,
01:34:56: Lord, when? And he lives in tents for three generations. That's a long time. He's a stranger in his own country.
01:35:04: Some of you are going through this test right now and you're going through a difficult time and you go, man, when am
01:35:09: I gonna get out of this? I've been in this valley a long time. I've been in this trial, this test.
01:35:15: I've been being tempted by this for a long, long time. When am I gonna get out of this? You're in the wind test, in the wind test of life.
01:35:23: Now there's a fourth test that we see in Abraham's life and it is this, an unsolvable problem, an unsolvable problem.
01:35:32: You're gonna have this test in life too. You will have problems in your life that are so difficult, there's no way they're gonna be solved except you go to your knees in prayer and ask
01:35:42: God for help. You're not gonna be able to solve them on your own. This is quite common in God's testing.
01:35:48: This is the how test of life. How, Lord, are you gonna do this? How are you gonna get me out of this unsolvable problem?
01:35:54: How are you gonna do a miracle? In Abraham's case, what the problem was was that Abraham had been promised to be the father of a great nation.
01:36:04: In fact, God changed his name from Abram to Abraham, which means father of a great nation.
01:36:12: And yet at 99, he still had no kids. Now this is quite embarrassing going to parties.
01:36:18: What's your name? Father of a great nation. Oh wow, how many kids you got? None. How old are you?
01:36:24: 99. How old's your wife? 90. I mean, it would make you wanna stay home from parties, really.
01:36:32: What's your name? Nevermind, what's yours? He's not only has to wait, he has to carry the indignity of being called the father of a great nation with no kids.
01:36:44: All right, this is a problem. This is an unsolvable problem in his life. And finally, they get to an age where it is physically impossible.
01:36:52: The Bible tells us in the book of Romans that Abraham looked at his body and said, no way, Jose, that's the actual
01:36:57: Greek, okay? No way, Jose, this ain't gonna happen, all right? Not even with a little blue pill, it's not gonna happen, okay?
01:37:08: Now, I just told you that because I like this service the best. Now, we know that when
01:37:15: God sent a special messengers to Sarah, angelic messengers to tell
01:37:21: Sarah that at 90 years of age, she was finally pregnant. We know that Sarah did not believe it because the
01:37:29: Bible says she laughed. Now, we know that means she didn't believe it because any woman who's 90 years old find out she's pregnant, she would cry, not laugh.
01:37:43: So, Sarah laughs, Abraham laughs, but God has the last laugh. In fact, when the baby is born, they name him
01:37:49: Isaac, which in Hebrew means laughter. So, every time they look at it, this kid's a joke.
01:37:58: You were 90, I'm 99, this kid's a joke. God's laughing, laughing with them.
01:38:05: Now, the Bible says this in Hebrews 11, verses 11 and 12. It was by faith that Sarah, together with Abraham, was able to have a child, even though they were too old and Sarah was barren.
01:38:20: Abraham believed that God would keep his promise. There's that word again. So, as a whole nation, and as a whole nation came from this one man,
01:38:28: Abraham, who was too old to have any children, a nation came from him with so many people that like the stars of the sky and the sands of the seashore, there is no way to count them.
01:38:40: That is God coming through in an unsolvable problem in your life. Now, there's one more test, and we're gonna look at this one in just a minute on the screen, and it is what
01:38:50: I call a senseless tragedy. This is what he calls it. And friends, this is the most difficult test in life, a senseless tragedy, a sacrifice that makes no sense, a death of a loved one that breaks your heart, a senseless tragedy.
01:39:13: Now, remember that he calls it a senseless tragedy, because what he's really referring to right now in the story of Abraham is the offering of Isaac.
01:39:25: Was that a senseless tragedy? Genesis chapter 22 is one of the clearest passages that points us to Jesus Christ and what he did on the cross.
01:39:36: It is the prophetic foreshadowing, if you would, of Jesus's very passion on Mount Moriah for the forgiveness of our sins.
01:39:47: That's what we're talking about here. Was that a senseless tragedy?
01:39:54: But that's what Rick Warren calls it, because, again, he's trying to divine a pattern that we're all supposed to be following, because God's gonna give us a big, hairy, audacious purpose like he did
01:40:04: Moses and Noah and Abraham. You will be tested in life with a senseless tragedy and an unexpected death, and this is the why question of life.
01:40:16: Why, Lord, why? Why did you let this happen? Why did you let it all fall apart?
01:40:21: Why did they have to leave me now? Why did that person die today? Why, Lord, why?
01:40:30: Now, this is the ultimate test in Abraham's life, and it will be in yours, the why questions of life, because a lot in our world just, it doesn't make sense.
01:40:39: It just doesn't make sense. God does not owe you an explanation for why he does everything he does in your life.
01:40:47: One day, when you get to heaven, you're gonna understand why everything happened, but you're not gonna understand it here, and you don't honestly need an explanation here, because when you're grieving over a loss, an explanation doesn't help.
01:41:01: If my wife were to die tonight, somebody might explain to me the reason she died. I would still be grieving, and it wouldn't make me feel any better.
01:41:08: Explanations don't make you feel better. The comfort of God is what you need in that moment.
01:41:15: Now, in this story, God asks Abraham to sacrifice the very son that he gave him.
01:41:25: Now, this is a parallel of God sacrificing his son, Jesus, for our benefit. So he's aware of that.
01:41:32: He knows that what we're looking at in Genesis 22 is a parallel that takes us right to Jesus' own cross.
01:41:38: He's aware of that, but he's not gonna tell us about that. He's just gonna make mention of it and move on.
01:41:45: And God says to Abraham, I want you to take the miracle boy, the boy you've waited for all your life, the boy that all your hopes and dreams are fulfilled in, the boy who is the legacy that will create the nation of Israel, I want you to now sacrifice him.
01:42:02: Do you trust me? This made no sense at all. Why would
01:42:07: God give me a miracle child and then take him away? It makes no sense at all.
01:42:14: Now, of course, God knew what Abraham didn't know. God knows the future and you don't. So the question is, will you trust
01:42:21: God with your future because he knows it even though you don't? Now, let me back that up.
01:42:26: Did you just hear what he did? It's apparently, again, we're just following some pattern here.
01:42:32: So are you gonna trust God with your future because God knew the future of Abraham? Now, of course,
01:42:37: God knew what Abraham didn't know. God knows the future and you don't. So the question is, will you trust
01:42:43: God with your future because he knows it even though you don't? That's the test of faith.
01:42:51: And when God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, our response is, are you kidding me? That is so unfair.
01:42:58: That is so unloving. That's mean. That's unjust. How in the world could God even do that?
01:43:04: But God knew what he was doing. He had already prepared a substitute, a sacrificial lamb would be there on that mountain that Abraham couldn't see.
01:43:14: Right, God did prepare a substitute. And that ram that was caught in the thicket, that really wasn't the substitute that it's pointing to.
01:43:25: The real substitute was Christ who would die later, thousands of years later on the slopes of Mount Moriah, just outside of the city wall of Jerusalem when he was crucified for our sins.
01:43:36: It was on Mount Moriah that God did provide the lamb for the sacrifice.
01:43:43: And that was Jesus Christ, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Just as Jesus is a sacrificial lamb for us,
01:43:50: God knew what he was gonna do. He's testing Abraham's faith in the shock.
01:43:56: Hebrews 11, verses 17 and 18 says this. It was by faith that Abraham offered
01:44:04: Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Circle the word testing, when
01:44:10: God was testing him. Abraham who had received God's promises was ready to sacrifice his only son, sounds like Jesus, his only son
01:44:21: Isaac. Yes, it does. Why don't you tell me about Jesus? Because that's really what this story is about or who this story is about.
01:44:29: Isaac, even though God had promised him, Isaac is the son to whom your descendants will be counted.
01:44:38: This is the fifth test of faith, a senseless tragedy. Watch this.
01:44:45: Okay, now he's going to have us, have the people in Saddleback watch this clip from the movie or the miniseries, the
01:44:54: Bible. I'm not gonna play it except for I'm gonna play the very tail end of it so that you can catch the theology that's in play here.
01:45:04: Because remember, Rick Warren was emailing them almost daily while they were filming this in Morocco.
01:45:11: Listen in. Abraham has passed the ultimate test. He will become the father of God's nation.
01:45:21: In other words, Abraham becomes the father of God's nation because he passed the test. Now it's up to Isaac.
01:45:32: He will have a son called Jacob. God will rename him Israel.
01:45:39: The promise of descendants as numerous as the stars is coming true.
01:45:48: Wow. As a parent,
01:45:58: I cannot think of a more gut -wrenching test than that one. Mark and Roma, the first time
01:46:04: I saw that scene, it was up at their house and my son Joshua was with me and Joshua has a young boy named
01:46:11: Cole. And we sat there looking at that and looked at each other with tears streaming down our face thinking, what kind of test would that be?
01:46:25: Roma, what was it like on the set? What did the actors and everybody feel in that moment when they were acting out that scene?
01:46:33: It was very, very intense. Most of the actors and the crew, parents also bring your own parents' heart to that.
01:46:44: As many times as we've read that scripture, to see it acted out, to see a father grab his son like that to put him on the altar, it was very, very intense.
01:46:57: And we had spent a lot of time, you'll see in the scenes leading up to this, that we had really established how much they longed for this boy and how joyful they were when he was born.
01:47:10: They called him laughter. He had brought such light and life to their hearts so that this moment was even all the more dramatic.
01:47:22: You may not know that the very site, that mountain where God asked
01:47:28: Abraham, are you willing to give your son for me? That mountain is actually the site in Jerusalem of the temple and actually the dome of the rock.
01:47:39: The Muslim mosque sits on the very spot of Mount Moriah where Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son.
01:47:50: Now, you're not gonna be asked to sacrifice your son, but I'm, because obviously this was a test that created an entire nation.
01:47:57: Well, how do you know? I mean, you're saying that God's gonna give us some big, hairy, audacious purpose. How do you know
01:48:03: God's not gonna ask us to do that? I mean, this isn't biblical theology anyway.
01:48:08: You're just making it up. How do you know he's not gonna? And that massive test. But you are gonna be asked in some ways to handle a test where are you, were you willing to make a sacrifice that other people do not understand?
01:48:26: I don't know if you realize what a sacrifice it is for a Hollywood couple to be so blatant about their faith.
01:48:36: That's an enormous sacrifice. Yeah. And people who don't know
01:48:50: God just don't get it. They don't get it. And so they're gonna not understand why you do what you do.
01:48:59: Now, what was it that gave Abraham the faith in order to make this ultimate sacrifice?
01:49:06: Well, the Bible tells us. It tells us that Abraham. It was God, right? Because scripture makes it clear that faith is a gift given by God.
01:49:14: Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10. For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not of yourself.
01:49:19: That would be faith and salvation. But it's the gift of God so that no one may boast.
01:49:26: That's where he got the faith, right? Abraham thought God is a good
01:49:31: God. God is a loving God. God gave me this son. And if God takes him away, he can bring him back to life.
01:49:41: Abraham actually expected God to resurrect Isaac. That was what he thought.
01:49:47: He said, I don't care if it goes, what happens? God can bring him back to life.
01:49:53: Here's what the Bible says. Hebrews 11, 19.
01:49:59: Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead. And figuratively speaking, he did.
01:50:06: He did receive Isaac back from death because in Abraham's heart, that was a death sentence right there.
01:50:14: He trusted God even though he didn't know why. Now here's the second meaning of faith. Faith is believing when
01:50:20: I don't see it. That's Noah. Faith is obeying when I don't understand it.
01:50:27: That's Abraham. Faith is obeying when, again, remember the antecedent here is not what the scriptures promise, but some vision that God's gonna lay on your heart to do something impossible in the world.
01:50:42: When I don't understand it, it makes no sense at all. But I'm gonna trust
01:50:47: God in this moment. Believing when I don't see it. Obeying when
01:50:54: I don't understand it. Now let's look at the third character we're gonna look at in the Bible series this evening.
01:51:01: And that is Moses. Now Moses is very well known to everybody. We looked at Moses a few weeks ago, his life in detail.
01:51:10: So we don't have to go into all of that. Moses went through many, many, many, many tests. This weekend, I wanna just give you one of his tests.
01:51:17: And the sixth test is this. God may test your faith through prolonged pain.
01:51:27: God may test your faith through prolonged pain. That's extended suffering. And again, it's faith in God regarding a big, hairy, audacious purpose that you're supposed to receive in your heart.
01:51:42: Seem to go away. It's there and it just keeps on going and going and going and going and going. And it doesn't look like there's gonna be any end.
01:51:48: And you may have to live with chronic pain for the rest of your life. It may be physical pain.
01:51:55: It could be emotional pain. It could be relational pain. You're in a relationship. It's just not gonna change and you gotta put up with that pain.
01:52:03: Financial pain, psychic or intellectual pain, mental pain, a mental disorder.
01:52:12: There could be some kind of pain in your life that you're actually gonna have to live with the rest of your life. In Moses' case, the pain was multiple in that he chose to leave the pleasure and protection and comfort of the palace of Egypt to go live with a bunch of slaves at their worst point in history.
01:52:32: He experienced pain the rest of his life and that was his choice. Now the Bible tells us that Moses was born
01:52:40: Hebrew but raised Egyptian. You know the story. We covered that a couple weeks ago. So he grows up as the grandson of Pharaoh.
01:52:49: That means in the palace, he's got everything he wants. He's got the easiest life on the planet. He's the grandson of the most powerful man in the world.
01:52:57: So he has ultimate pleasure, ultimate power, ultimate prestige, ultimate position, ultimate comfort.
01:53:06: He's got fame and fortune. He's got what everybody in the world wants to get. What Americans spend their life trying to get.
01:53:13: Sex, salary, status, possessions, position, pleasure, passions, popularity.
01:53:20: Moses has got it all. Really, Moses had sex in Pharaoh's palace.
01:53:25: Where does the scriptures tell us this? And he walks out the door to go live with a bunch of slaves and spend the rest of his life leading them across the desert.
01:53:35: That's called extended pain. But it was the right thing to do.
01:53:42: Now, this is the how long question. The how long, how long is this gonna last,
01:53:47: Lord? How long am I gonna have this pain in my life? You have asked this question of God many times. How long is this gonna last,
01:53:54: Lord? Now, our culture teaches to base all your decisions on your feelings.
01:53:59: If it feels good, do it. If it doesn't feel good, don't do it. Well, you're telling these people to base all of this on a feeling that they've received a vision from God.
01:54:11: I don't see any qualitative difference. As a result of that, you are manipulated by your moods and you often do the wrong thing because what
01:54:20: I feel like doing is often not the right thing. Do you agree with that? Do you often feel like doing the wrong thing?
01:54:27: Yeah. If somebody comes up and they're rude to me, I feel like punching them in the nose. I feel like it, but it doesn't mean
01:54:35: I should do it. So just because I feel something, it feels so natural. Not everything that feels natural is good for me.
01:54:44: There are a lot of things I can do that feel natural that aren't good for me. And so doing the right thing means
01:54:51: I persist in spite of pain. Now, it's time for a little confession.
01:54:57: It's good for the soul. So I wanna tell you this. As your pastor, I don't always feel like praying for you.
01:55:06: Cat's out of the bag, I'm sorry. Sometimes I just wanna watch, you know,
01:55:12: Duck Dynasty. I don't feel like praying for you, but it's the right thing.
01:55:22: Here's the worst one, a more embarrassing. Sometimes I don't feel like reading my Bible. You gotta be kidding me, you're a pastor.
01:55:31: No, sometimes I don't feel like reading my Bible. Sometimes I don't feel like praying. You know what I've discovered? If I only pray and read the
01:55:37: Bible when I feel like it, the devil makes sure I never feel like it. In fact, when
01:55:43: I don't feel like praying, when I don't feel like reading the Bible, that's when I need it the most. And so I have to learn to grow up which means
01:55:52: I base my life on my decisions and on my commitments, not on my feelings. This one will really shock you.
01:55:59: I don't always feel like being nice to my wife. I'm sure you always feel like, right guys?
01:56:14: You always feel like being nice to your wife, right? No, okay, sometimes I just wanna think about me, me, me, me, me, you get the phone and you do that and you clean up, you know, let's just move on.
01:56:34: Maturity is when you stop building your life on what you feel like doing and you do the right thing. Moses knew the right thing to do was to go set people free even though it meant prolonged pain for the rest of his life.
01:56:45: Faith is being persistent. Faith is doing the right thing even when you don't feel like doing it. And Moses was a man of incredible persistence.
01:56:53: Here's what the Bible says, Hebrews 11, 24 to 26. By faith,
01:56:59: Moses, when he'd grown up, notice it's a mark of maturity. You stop being a baby when you live by your feelings.
01:57:07: He refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He chose to be mistreated, that's long -term pain, along with the people of God who were slaves at that time, rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time in the palace of Egypt.
01:57:23: He regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as greater value than the treasure of Egypt. He made a value judgment, said, long -term gain, short -term pain.
01:57:33: Yeah, that's a good trade -off. As a greater value than the treasure of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward.
01:57:40: This is the key. The way you get through pain is by looking ahead to the reward. No pain, no gain.
01:57:47: You look past the pain. The Bible tells us that Jesus. Yeah, and the reward was the internal inheritance, not the promised land for Moses.
01:57:58: Endured the cross for the joy that was set before him. He looked beyond the cross to see what would result, the salvation of all of us and the glorification of God.
01:58:11: So Moses endured pain for the next 80 years of his life as a slave, as a outcast, and as a beaten up leader, leading a bunch of complaining spiritual babies across a desert.
01:58:26: And yet he put up with all of that misunderstanding. Why? Because God had called him to do it.
01:58:33: Watch this scene of the call of Moses from the Bible. All right, once again,
01:58:39: I'm gonna fast forward through the scene and let's go right to the end when everyone's done watching it there because Rick Warren's teaching from the miniseries, the
01:58:49: Bible, that's really what's going on here. Yeah. Now, God's call on your life will not be as dramatic, likely as a burning bush.
01:59:05: But Moses did have a special case because he was gonna do like, write the first five books of the
01:59:11: Bible. Yeah, God's not gonna be really dramatic when he lays this vision on your heart to do the impossible, but that's because Moses was a special case.
01:59:19: But don't worry, you're gonna get a vision just like him. You're gonna have a burning bush experience just like he did. The Bible does not say this.
01:59:27: Get the 10 commandments and establish a nation. But God's call on your life will be just as clear.
01:59:34: And part of that calling is gonna involve, really, where does the Bible say this? That God's calling for me, some big, hairy, audacious purpose is gonna be just as clear as the burning bush.
01:59:45: What are you talking about? But God's call on your life will be just as clear.
01:59:51: And part of that calling is gonna involve doing some things that are difficult. The call of God is not easy, and you must be persistent even when it is painful.
02:00:05: Mark and Roma, God called you to make this movie. And I'm sure there were probably times that you felt like giving up on it over the last four years, all of the dead ends and the difficulties, delays.
02:00:17: How did you sense God's call? What changes did you see in your own life in making this movie, in your own faith?
02:00:25: And were there times that you felt like giving up? So apparently God called Mark Burnett and Roma Downey to make this movie.
02:00:37: Why would God call them to make a movie that's chock full of theological error?
02:00:46: Okay, so three questions there. So the call, we're all
02:00:54: Christians. There are 2 .2 billion of us. Now, come on, Mark. You're supposed to say something like the effect of, yeah,
02:01:01: I was driving down Pacific Coast Highway out there in Malibu in my expensive car while on the cell phone with a big producer in Hollywood when all of a sudden there was a burning bush that appeared in my life and it was a clear call just like Moses's because that's the point that Warren made, right?
02:01:26: The call is gonna be just as clear. It's not gonna be as big, as dramatic as a burning bush because Moses is a special case and you're not.
02:01:37: But so tell us, Mark, how clear was this call again? Okay, so three questions there.
02:01:45: So the call, we're all
02:01:50: Christians. There are 2 .2 billion of us on the planet. We know that voice inside of us is
02:01:56: God. Some people who are not believers call it instinct or something else. We know it's God. So we know the voice inside of us is
02:02:04: God, really? So we have, we are, as Christians, we hear voices.
02:02:17: Where does the Bible teach this? Answer, it doesn't. And we heard that call.
02:02:23: The big question is just making sure you get off the couch and follow the call and do it.
02:02:29: And of course, I have to say to you, honestly, since the day we hugged on this and prayed on this in 2009, we have never, ever wavered on this.
02:02:40: But because of faith and prayer, like it reminds me of like Romans 5, suffering creates perseverance.
02:02:49: Perseverance, character, and character, hope. And so the suffering leads to hope.
02:02:57: And this is a hopeful project. The change on this, Rick, has been growing up in Europe.
02:03:06: The Bible seemed to be like a threatening rule book. And the change in me personally in the last four years,
02:03:16: I now see it from making this, it's a love story. It's God's love for all of us.
02:03:23: You know, there's only one perfect figure in the entire Bible, it's Jesus Christ. Everybody else, all the heroes,
02:03:29: Moses, the Kings, David, are all flawed characters, like all of us. But God never gave up on any of them and won't give up on any of us.
02:03:40: And that's how I feel. That's great. Thank you. So thanks for sharing your feelings,
02:03:52: Mark. If God's not gonna give up on you, you can't give up. You don't have permission to give up because he's not gonna give up on you.
02:04:01: Roma? Well, we began this project with a prayer and a hope in our hearts that we could create something that would glorify
02:04:11: God. That was the intention. And every step of the way, when we ran into those challenges and believe me, getting a crew of people up to the top of these mountains to film these scenes was logistically challenging.
02:04:27: It was difficult. The climate was difficult. You know, just approaching the whole project because the scale of it was so ambitious.
02:04:35: You even had snakes on the property. It had to be cleared every day. We did. In Morocco. We had a snake man.
02:04:41: There were so many snakes. Joe the snake man. We had a guy whose job it was to go in and clear the snakes off the sets.
02:04:50: Every day. Every day. And there were maybe one or two every day. But do you know when we filmed the crucifixion sequence, he cleared 48 snakes from the foot of that cross.
02:05:02: Well, there's a lesson. Well, that proves that this is from God. Cause uh -huh.
02:05:08: He cleared 48 snakes from the foot of that cross. Well, there's a lesson there.
02:05:16: The cross clears out the snakes. Well, we prayed our way through it.
02:05:23: We reached out to Rick and your community here for prayer.
02:05:29: And that was really the most sustaining thing of all. And we would like, Rick, a surprise to you right now, but we would like to give you a
02:05:40: Bible from 1703. Oh, wow. He won't read that one in context either, you guys.
02:05:58: We wanted to give it to you to commemorate this day. And with gratitude to you and to Kay, it's that there's a family that has written in there in 1704, gone, traced back to Lincoln Castle.
02:06:15: Now it's going to live in Saddleback. And maybe you and your family would inscribe in there as well.
02:06:22: Pass it on to generations. Pass it on. I love that this book, you know, and it says in the beginning of the
02:06:28: Old Testament, authorized to be read in churches. Do you remember before this? It was only the pastors and the priests were allowed to even have
02:06:36: Bibles. And it was finally when people were allowed to have Bibles and read themselves in English, that the word really spread.
02:06:44: And this Bible has been written in and kept in a family. It's now belonging to the Warren family. You should write in it.
02:06:49: And it's now moved to California. All right. Thank you guys.
02:06:59: Well, this is a real surprise. This Bible series, the 10 hours of it, is going to be an enormous tool, not just as America watches it over the next five
02:07:12: Sunday evenings. Listen to this next part. This tells you what Rick Warren intends to use the mini series, the
02:07:20: Bible for. But also to be used in churches all around the world and in so many different ways that we've been thinking of.
02:07:28: You know, half of the world is functionally illiterate. Half of the world cannot functionally read or write.
02:07:36: And so if you gave them a Bible in their language, they still couldn't read it. So visualizing the
02:07:42: Bible has created an enormous tool for getting the truth out and pastors all over the world for the next generations will be able to use these clips like I'm doing today.
02:07:56: So let's thank Mark and Roma again for an amazing thing. So churches all over the world will be able to use these clips to teach illiterate people the
02:08:10: Bible, but they're not gonna be taught the Bible, are they? So this is supposed to stand in for the word of God, the written word.
02:08:20: We continue. That's an amazing, amazing thing. God bless you guys.
02:08:50: Be seated. Let me give you the last step of faith and we'll close.
02:08:57: From Moses, we learned this. Faith is not just believing when I see it, when
02:09:03: I don't see it, that's Noah. Faith is not just obeying when I don't understand it, that's
02:09:08: Abraham. Faith is persisting when I don't feel like it. That's faith.
02:09:15: Faith is persisting when I don't feel like it.
02:09:21: The Bible says in Hebrews 11, 27, the last verse on your outline, by faith he left
02:09:27: Egypt, not fearing the king's anger. He persevered, he persisted, he was diligent, he was determined, he would not give up.
02:09:36: He persevered because he saw him who is invisible. That's God.
02:09:41: You could only do the impossible if you see him who is invisible. Now let me close with this.
02:09:46: Which of these tests are you going through right now? I guarantee you, you're going through one of them.
02:09:54: Has God given you the test of an impossible task? And you think, there's no way
02:10:00: I can get this done. It's just too much. I can't get it done. And you're saying, who, me, Lord?
02:10:05: I can't do that. Has God given you, are you considering a major challenge or a major change?
02:10:13: And you're going, where, Lord, where? Where do I work? Where do I live? What am I supposed to do with my life?
02:10:19: A major change. Are you waiting on a delayed promise? That's the when question.
02:10:25: When, Lord, when? When are we gonna get a baby? When am I gonna get a job?
02:10:32: When am I gonna get married? When, Lord, when? A delayed promise. Are you stumped by an unsolvable problem and it just looks like it's impossible?
02:10:43: You're never gonna get it done in your own life. And you're saying, how? How, Lord, how?
02:10:48: How is this gonna happen? Some of you, no doubt, in a church this size are grieving over a senseless tragedy, a death, a sacrifice, and it doesn't make sense.
02:11:02: And you're asking the why question. Why, why, Lord? Why? Why is this happening?
02:11:08: Why now? Why me? Why this? Why did they have to die? Why did they have to leave me?
02:11:16: And some of you are struggling with prolonged pain, chronic pain, emotional, mental pain, physical pain.
02:11:25: And you're saying, how long, Lord? How long? Now, let me summarize to you what it means to live by faith from these three men.
02:11:36: You're not gonna wanna miss this series, you guys, because it's so rich with truth. Faith is following God's leading without knowing where.
02:11:48: Faith is waiting for God's timing without knowing when.
02:11:54: Faith is expecting a miracle without knowing how.
02:11:59: How? Faith is trusting God has a purpose in all that's happening in my life without knowing why.
02:12:10: And faith is continuing to persist without knowing how long it's gonna last.
02:12:18: Some of you are in the middle of the why test right now. Why did I get fired? Why did my child die?
02:12:24: Why did my spouse leave me, have an affair? And I wanna tell you, as your pastor, who loves you very deeply, it's okay to ask the questions of life.
02:12:35: Why, how, when, where, how long? Those are okay.
02:12:42: But the test of your faith is really, what do you do when
02:12:49: God doesn't answer? Will you still trust him?
02:12:58: The truth is, if you have to have an explanation for everything in your life, you are not living by faith.
02:13:05: Faith works beyond the realm of explanation. I'm just gonna do it, because God told me to do it.
02:13:15: I told you that life is all about tests. With human tests, the secret of acing a human test is you just gotta know the answers.
02:13:26: But not with God's tests. In the test of faith, which are far more important than human tests, in the test of faith, the secret of acing the test of faith is trusting that God knows the answers, even though I don't.
02:13:46: Let's bow our heads for prayer. Done. So there you go.
02:13:53: That is what I would consider to be the definitive explanation, theologically, of what's going on in the
02:14:02: History Channel miniseries, the Bible. It's a complete, seeker -driven, purpose -driven rewrite of the
02:14:11: Bible. That's exactly what it is. Nothing less, nothing more.
02:14:17: And as a result of it, we're not getting the truth from the miniseries, the
02:14:22: Bible, in fact, far from it. And it's just absolute narcissistic eisegesis.
02:14:29: Rather than pointing you to the true faith of Abraham and the true faith of Noah and Moses, well, we've now got faith in a vision that God's gonna lay on your heart to somehow make you do the impossible or whatever.
02:14:46: You gotta stay true to it. You gotta keep obeying, even if you're in the middle of the wilderness and it's taking
02:14:51: God a long time to fulfill his promises and stuff like that. And then you gotta overcome those obstacles and things.
02:14:59: That's what this whole series is about. A narcissistic, eisegetical rehash, purpose -driven rehash and rewrite of Scripture.
02:15:12: It's not the truth. It's just chock full of false theology and not even historical history.
02:15:22: It's completely rewritten. It's not worth your time. And you don't wanna be getting your theology from it.
02:15:30: So what'd you think? Love to get your feedback. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the
02:15:36: Faith, you could do so. My email address is talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com or you can subscribe on Facebook, facebook .com
02:15:42: forward slash pirate Christian or follow me on Twitter. Name there at pirate Christian. Till tomorrow, may God richly bless you.