Ordination Critique for Louis Brown

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Well, tonight's a special night in the life of our church, the ordination critique of Lewis Brown.
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And it is a pleasure to serve alongside of you, Lewis, and your dear wife
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Dallas. Just to remind the church that there's really two segments of an ordination. One is a critique, does the man know what the
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Bible says? Is he well skilled in the word of God? And the other one is the charge, a charge to the man who's being ordained.
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So tonight will be the critique and then next Sunday morning will be the charge, the pastoral charge.
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And you're all invited to come to that worship service. I will be preaching to an audience of one in two different ways.
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Preaching for the Lord and for his glory and then preaching to Lewis. And so an entire sermon to one person preached and I think you'll be encouraged and exhorted as well as we do that.
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Listen to what Bannerman said about ordination. Quote, in short, ordination by the church was the ordinary and authorized method in the apostolic practice for the investiture with office of those found qualified by the previous call and special gifts conferred by Christ.
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Not that the ordination by the church conferred a right to the office of ministry. That right was previously conferred by Christ and ordination in itself was no more than the church's recognition of the right so conferred and the church's admission of the individual to discharge of the office to which he was thus called.
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And so we don't confer any special blessing to Lewis tonight or anything like that, but it is a recognition of God's special touch of a man and his ministry.
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And so what we'll do tonight, it'll be very basic. Congregation, please pray for Lewis as he answers these questions.
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There'll be five questioners, four of which would be the Bethlehem Bible Church elders.
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And then we have a special guest tonight, Dr. Lars Larsen. Stanley are here. Lars has a PhD, I believe, at Golden Gate Theological Seminary in Northern California.
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And Lars and Lewis have served together for a long time in Germany. And so I thought it would be a blessing for our congregation to have
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Lars ask questions. And thank you, Lars, for being here tonight.
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I have to just tell you a quick story before we begin. I had the privilege of worshiping with the saints in Munich at the
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International Church just several weeks ago. And Lewis was there years ago. Lars was there with his family years ago.
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And I didn't know what to expect, because as men move on, who knows what happens to the church? I was looking at the website.
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There's two churches, International Church and International Baptist Church. One said, we focus on the love of Christ, acceptance and social gatherings.
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And the other one said, we do expository preaching for 45 minutes. Guess which one I went to. And so for 45 minutes, it was
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Mark chapter 8, delivered without compromise. And I talked to the pastor and many of the people who know both Lars and Lewis.
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And I was just very thankful that God has continued to use that church to preach the word in a dying place.
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And so that is to the Lord's glory and also the Lord's glory through men who have served there for many years with labor and toil.
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So what we'll do is we'll have the men come and ask questions. Congregation, there'll be no questions by you tonight, but the elders will ask the questions and we'll ask questions about personal life, theology, doctrinal life, maybe some church history.
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Each man will be given 15 minutes to ask questions. I have told each of them that it is okay tonight to interrupt
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Lewis. Lewis, like all of us who teach the Bible, can just go on and on and on.
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And sometimes it's because we want to share what we know, and sometimes it's a filibuster. And so if you hear one of the questioners say,
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Lewis, excuse me, or interrupt, it's not because we're mean, but we have an agenda and that agenda is we have questions that we want to ask
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Lewis so he can explain to the congregation what he knows. And so there'll be short questions, long questions.
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And on a side note, if you hear a question asked, why don't you say to yourself, do I know the answer to this question?
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Some of you can never be elders, but it is a good thing to aspire to be godly like elders.
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Yes, it is a mark to shoot for, and a good prayer to say, Lord, I would love to be qualified to be an elder of the church or be godly like an elder or an elder's wife.
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And so what we'll do is we'll start off with Lewis coming up and giving a five -minute personal testimony, how the Lord saved him, and then a few minutes on how
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God called him into ministry, and then we'll begin with the questions. So if I could ask the questioners to come, doesn't matter where you sit, men, but let's just have
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Steve sit over there, and I'll sit on that far right, and we'll just work our way down, OK? So men, if you'll come and sit,
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Steve on that side. Lewis, why don't you come up to the front? Make sure we tape this, yes?
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Good. Yes, and as the men are coming, we should pray for our dear brother,
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Lewis, and ask God's assistance. Father, we exalt your name tonight, thinking how you would be so pleased to use men and women for your gospel ministry.
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And in this particular case, a man, a preacher, as the Old Testament would confer on a man who was a preacher, that he'd be called a man of God.
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We would just pray tonight for Lewis and the congregation, that we would, in fact, as we already have over the last several years, recognize your giftedness in this man,
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Lewis Brown, and we would just ask tonight that it would be a time of joy and of rejoicing, knowing that you've taken a sinner, saved him by grace, and then given him a desire for the word and for the people.
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So we ask for just a special remembrance tonight, that your spirit would help Lewis remember the questions, and we'd be encouraged, we'd be glad that we were here tonight, worshiping you as a church body.
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In Jesus' name, amen. All right, Lewis, we'll have a testimony, please, of salvation and then ministry.
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I feel my life has been extraordinarily blessed from birth, in that I was placed into a
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Christian family, and I had a mother and a father, both of whom were very concerned and took great pains to ensure that I knew my relationship to God, that God was a there, and that what he required of us and what he specifically required of me personally, and saw to it in great detail that this was impressed upon me at a very young age.
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My mother literally read the Bible to me in the cradle. She did that, you know, because the
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Bible says, you know, speak of the things of God to your infants, and so she did. And so that was the environment that I was in from the word go.
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I didn't know there was anything else, you know, I was somewhat older before I began to realize that every child didn't have that kind of upbringing.
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And so all of that to say that it is difficult to put a point or a time, this is very typical in Christian families, because at what time did
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I place my faith in Jesus Christ? Because at an early age,
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I mean, as I was growing up as a child, I was an obedient child, and I'm not bragging, it's just a fact, I was an obedient child,
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I wanted to please my mother and father, and I knew what the answers were. And so, you know, you ask me a question,
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I knew the right answer. But at some point, as I grew, there was a time where I was no longer merely pleasing my mother and father or the leaders of our church or what have you, because we were always involved in church life, but it became real to me that now
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I had actually applied these doctrines to my own life. And I understood that Jesus Christ had died not just for sins, he had died for my sins personally.
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And as this knowledge begins to develop in a child, you begin to understand that God does have a claim upon you and you respond to that positively.
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Now, you know, I was no holy child, let me tell you, as I grew up,
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I was just an ordinary kid. And there were times in my life when I was like any other kid and not particularly
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Christian, although we'd always did Christian things, you know, went to church camps and all that kind of stuff, memorized scripture, all of that.
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And I say this only to encourage you parents that you're wondering, you know, is my child children or children?
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And they come along and we shepherd them and we we prune them a little bit and we we kind of we sort of straighten them a little bit as they grow, but they grow and God is watching over them and leading them into places and through things.
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And literally, I can look back on my life and see where I could have so easily gone off the track.
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And yet I didn't. Because of the guiding hand of God and the things that he did in my life as I grew up,
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I can tell you that when I was looking for a wife, I was not looking for a great godly woman.
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I just wasn't. I got one. But see, again, that's
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God's hand in your life because he knows what he's going to be doing with you. And as life goes on,
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I was, as I grew up, exposed to the great Bible teachers of the time. We always had both in our homes and we were always going to one meeting or another.
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I joke about it, but it's a true story. When I was three years old, I was patted on the head by Harry Ironside, which is why
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I'm dispensational to this day. But, you know, we were going to one conference or another.
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And so I was exposed to the great Bible teachers of that era. And then it has always been our privilege to be placed in churches where the word was upheld and the
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Bible was taught. And so, you know, as we grow, as God develops us, at no time do we ever reach the point where we say,
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OK, we're here, because God always has something new to do to you. He always has some new development that he's going to bring into your life.
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He's going to bring you a new ministry that you may find yourself into.
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I was never I never felt called to the ministry as a vocation. But I definitely felt called to the ministry when it became obvious that I had certain skills that the
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Lord had given me and that I was in a position where those skills could be used. And this was as we the church in Munich.
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I also say that churches are planted by people that have no concept of what they're getting into, because if they did, they would never start.
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But this church was planted, you know, and there was a long period of time between our first pastor and Lars coming where we needed to fill the pulpit.
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And that was the first opportunity I had to begin preaching as a on a regular basis. And but before that,
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I had already developed public speaking skills. I was an instructor in military courses with the
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U .S. Army Reserve. And so I had the techniques and the skills down for just public speaking, how to stand up and how to convey information to someone, how to organize it and those kinds of things.
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And then I found, oh, God has given me those skills so I can be directed into this other use that he had for me.
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And then as after we came back to the United States, one of the big surprises in life because we thought we'd have no problem at all.
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We'll be back in the States. There'll be a church on every corner. We won't have any trouble finding a church, you know, wrong.
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The first place where we live, finding a church was a big problem. And then but eventually we were led here and we were placed here.
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I have no doubt about that, that we were placed here for a specific job.
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Because one of the things that they say by this time, one of the things that they that you if you read the requirements for an elder, the first one is he's got to want the job.
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You know, if a man desires the office, you know, he's got to he's got to want the job. And by this time, by the time that we had been placed here.
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I had come to the realization that, you know, this is what God has for you to do.
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And for at least this period of time, this is where he wants you to be doing it. And so here
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I am. And it is a privilege to serve you. Are you pausing?
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That's it for that. All right. Greetings.
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Thank you. Oh, you're really close. OK, I'll have to move the microphone stand a bit.
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Lewis, would you describe the Abrahamic Covenant and tell us where that is in the
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Old Testament? Abrahamic Covenant is found in Genesis, where God makes promises to Abraham at a time when
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Abraham was childless and quite old and his wife, Sarah, was also old.
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He promised him descendants that he would give him a child and that that child would become a great nation.
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He promised him land. He promised him a third thing, which escapes my memory right at the moment in the covenant.
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But those were the big ones. He promised him land. He promised him descendants. And also, well, he promised him that through his seed would all mankind be blessed.
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Those things. All right. During which king did
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Isaiah during which king's reign did Isaiah prophesy? King Hezekiah.
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Good. What is the key idea in the book of Joshua or the theme of Joshua?
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Do you know that? The theme of Joshua would be God's leading of the
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Israelites into the promised land and how he superintended that effort directly.
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Excellent. Would you take a minute or so or two minutes and compare the
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New Covenant with the Old Covenant? Now, the
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Old Covenant, you mean the Abrahamic Covenant or the the or the
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Old Testament versus the New Testament? Well, when in Jeremiah chapter 31,
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God says that he's going to bring about a new covenant and it's not going to be like the old one. And he talks about why it's not going to be like the old one.
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OK, you'll go ahead now, as I understand that the
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New Covenant is a covenant of grace. It is the covenant when
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Jesus Christ will come. Everything that's happened in the Old Testament is pointing forward.
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There are a number of covenants in the Old Testament, the Abrahamic Covenant and the
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Noahic Covenant. I'm not sure I'm answering your question like you want. But in the
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New Covenant, in the New Testament, there is a new covenant. It is the
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I would call it the covenant of completion. Jesus Christ has died on the cross. He has shed his blood. He called this the at the at the
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Lord's Supper. He called it the New Testament in my blood, that things are complete. Hebrews deals a great deal with how things are now finished and over.
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I'm not I'm not sure if I'm adequately answering your question. That's fine. Why should why should the church either accept or reject these new gospels?
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In other words, should the canon of scripture be open to include the gospel of Thomas or something of that nature?
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Why or why not? The canon of scripture, basically what we have, why we have 66 books, why these 66 and specifically speaking of the
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New Testament, every book that is in the New Testament canon was either a written by an apostle or by written by someone who had immediate contact with one of the apostles, someone like Luke or someone like Mark.
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And so but most of it and someone like Paul, who was directly taught by Jesus Christ after his conversion.
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And so these men who were the apostles, the founders of the church, that was their job was to I mean, of course,
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Christ found his church and build it. But these were the human instruments by which Christ built the church.
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And they wrote these books and these books were all accepted by and large by the early church fathers.
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There were one or two which had some discussion. The Book of James, for example, before it was formally included in the canon.
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But basically, the books that we have are the ones that were acknowledged universally, that they were, in fact, the proper books.
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They were the word of God. They were inspired. They were infallible in the original in the original autographs and so forth and so on.
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Anything after that is spurious. And as we learned the other the other morning in the adult
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Sunday school class, even when the church, the first century heresies were already growing up, the
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Gnostic heresy was already with us. In fact, a great deal of the New Testament was written to refute error that was already there.
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And so you have these books and one thing you can look at them and one thing or another.
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First of all, they they usually contradict what we know to be the inspired word of God.
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OK, I want to cut you off. Is that good? OK, what is meant or what is your understanding of the thousand years that's referred to in Revelation 20?
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My understanding of that is that after the period we know is the Great Tribulation, Jesus Christ will return bodily from heaven with his saints.
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He will rule literally from David's throne. He was coming back as the son of David and he will rule from David's throne for a thousand literal years in a period of time that we call the millennium.
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Let me give you a really fast one. Sure, false. Mary was sinless and why or why not?
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Biblically speaking, false. And I would go to the the passage in Matthew called
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Mary's Magnificat, where she acknowledges Jesus Christ as her savior. Would you describe yourself as a
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Protestant? Why or why not? I would describe myself as a Protestant because I hold essentially to to Protestant doctrines as opposed to the doctrines of the
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Roman Catholic Church. I just can't resist that one. Yes, whatever. All right.
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What is wrong? What is wrong? I protest. What is wrong with a highly, highly trained, highly skilled and knowledgeable woman preaching a sermon?
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Because the Bible specifically says don't do that. OK, that's a good answer.
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OK. What is the major flaw in Arminian theology?
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The major flaw in Arminian theology is that it is man focused. It ultimately puts whether or not an individual is saved in the hands of a man.
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And now a couple of personal application pastoral questions. Is there a part of shepherding that you find particularly rewarding?
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Rewarding or difficult, I would find the opportunity to to personally disciple men is the most rewarding.
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Nothing stands out as particularly difficult, although some of the questions are very difficult to deal with.
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OK, well, supposing that you give someone counsel and they don't follow it. Is that would that be an example of a that's a difficult situation?
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And yes. What counsel would you give a young Christian who is dating someone who is not a
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Christian? And why would you give that counsel? Don't do that. Quit it.
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Stop it. Stop it. On a serious note, we are we are specifically told in the scripture not to be unequally yoked.
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And there's no place where that applies more than in your choice of a life lifelong mate.
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And young men or young women do not date someone that you could not marry because you have no idea where that relationship is going to go and how it is going to to deepen as the two of you see each other over time.
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And so rather than then start something that you can't finish, as my father used to put it, you should at least have the possibility that if this relationship develops, then
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I can marry this person if this is the person that that that God has for me.
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What counsel would you give Christian parents who either don't want to spank their children or believe it's wrong to spank their children?
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I would probably go to Proverbs and to the passage, for example, that says, if you do not discipline your child, that is a form of hating your child, because the thing that sets a child apart from an adult is supposed to be the ability for self -control.
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And if you if you your parents, if you don't teach your child self -control, where are they going to learn it?
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They're not going to learn it by osmosis. It's not going to come in the middle of the night. And so you are really you are stacking the deck against your child if you do not teach them to control themselves, because that's what it means to be an adult.
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At some point, they're going to have to make their own decisions and take the consequence of those decisions.
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Could you give us just a few of the things that you have learned over the course of 40 years that have helped you to 40 years of marriage that have helped you to love your wife sacrificially, avoiding the urge to make some kind of a smart answer to that, which would be good.
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Yes. I would have to go to the sermon that we heard this morning.
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You know, learn to guard your tongue in the 40 years of marriage.
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There are things that I have said to Dallas that I would give anything if I could have it back.
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But once you've said something. There is no erase button on your mouth.
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You said it, it's there, and it's not to mean not to mean that your wife isn't going to forgive you, but you said it and you can't unsay it.
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So that would be number one. Watch your mouth. Learn to watch your mouth. And secondly, the essence of leadership is to put her first.
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Her needs. You are the leader in the family, young men. And that means you are to consciously take responsibility for the welfare of those you are leading.
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They come first before you. And finally, what sort of things do you do during the course of a day, whether you're at work or wherever you are, to keep yourself constantly focused on Christ?
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Sometimes that's difficult, but the main thing I would go with,
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Paul, pray without ceasing. Constantly remind yourself, particularly when you're faced with decision points.
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Even so -called just mundane business decision points to stop for just a second and think, you know, and little silent prayers about these things that helps you stay focused.
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But it is an issue you're at least for myself, it is an issue I find myself wondering.
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I'd like to affirm Lewis Brown before your congregation here.
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I've known Lewis and Dallas since the spring of early spring of 1994.
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We came into contact with Dallas originally through a list of churches seeking pastors that was given to me, sent to me by John MacArthur at my request.
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And we heard of the church in Munich, Germany, and we were able to make contact with Dallas.
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And as a result, they extended a call to us. And so we arrived in Munich in, I believe it was
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June of 1994, and I came into the church and served there four years following the preaching of Lewis Brown for quite a number of months, well over a year, close to two years, close to two years.
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And we found the church to be sound, teachable, informed, and the
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Lord blessed the pastoral preaching ministry of Lewis in that congregation. Rather than giving you a number of detailed questions,
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I thought I would limit mine to three broadly, respecting the nature of the ministry, generally speaking, and you can comment perhaps about, and the nature of the call to the ministry.
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Being called of God into the ministry requires not only an understanding of Scripture, but an understanding of other things as well.
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And one of the great problems, I think, in churches across America is that we have uncalled men in the pulpits.
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As the Lord spoke of prophets, false prophets, you know, they speak in my name, but I never sent them, and they have no authority to speak.
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And one aspect of the preaching ministry, as I understand it, is a divine ability that God gives to understand the group or the people to which you are bringing his word, being able to properly assess the condition and apply the right word to the right people in the right time.
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And I thought of the sons of Issachar, understanding the times. They knew what Israel was to do.
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And God has called us at this time, at the beginning of the 21st century, in this world in which we find ourselves.
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And the preacher of the word of God needs to have an understanding of the times. And so, just out of, you know, just a knee -jerk response, maybe you could identify a few things that are characteristic of this world system, this culture that we find ourselves in, and what they need to hear from God.
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There are a number of things that throughout history have, you know, cycled through.
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I mean, there's nothing new under the sun in a certain sense. But our society today is extremely self -centered, perhaps more so than in a few past years.
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And we have various names that it goes by, and I won't use any of them this time.
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But everything is about me, my needs, my rights, my wants, my desires.
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And we have become such a materialistic society because we are such a wealthy, incredibly wealthy society.
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The poorest of us in the United States are vastly wealthy compared to the majority of the people on the face of the earth.
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And so, we have become so self -absorbed that we forget what's around us.
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And so, the first thing I would go back and I would, with Francis Schaeffer, I would say, the first thing you need to know is you need to know who you are, and you are the expressed creation of a creator
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God. You did not evolve. You are not the chance product of time and chance and collisions and what have you.
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A creator God made you. And not only did he make you, he made you in his image, which means that you are different from the rest of the animal world, and you are responsible to this creator
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God that made you. And it should be your objective to know him and to find out what he is like and what does he require of you.
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That's where I would go with modern, with a lot of modern individuals that I run across because they're so concerned with acquiring things and, you know, getting more and, you know, how do
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I get ahead and whatever that is. They need to be brought back, brought back to this central point that there is a
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God. He is there. And you saying that you don't believe in him is frankly irrelevant.
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It doesn't change the fact that he's there. As Blanchard puts it in his book title, it's more important as God believe in you, you know.
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But that's where I would go there and look at that. You know, I think that's the message we need to preach.
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Similarly, we're called to minister to God's people. And of course, we're called to a church, a specific church.
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But really, you know, we're called to minister to the people of God. And in a similar way, there are different characteristics of the people of God at different times in history.
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And it would seem like the Lord raises up men to give his word that addresses a particular weakness within Christendom and in our case, evangelicalism.
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Arthur Pink mentioned that God raised up the reformers because the great need of the hours to preach justification by God, by his grace through faith alone.
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But for 100 years thereafter, there was a real problem with antinomianism license to sin in Europe.
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So God raised up the Puritans who brought an emphasis of sanctification to the church and brought things back to an even balance of biblical
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Christianity. And so not only do we need to understand and address our culture in the world, but we need to understand where evangelicalism is and and its strengths and weaknesses.
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And so could you comment on perhaps that evangelicalism in America? I would say the the biggest problem facing evangelicalism in America, broadly speaking, is that it has become man centered.
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Too much of what we preach is concerning. You know, whether you call it felt needs or, you know, seeker friendly or whatever it is, the problem with all of those things is that they are man centered.
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And we have gotten away from the idea that there is a holy God and that we have offended him, and what are we going to do about that?
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The last time I can't remember the last time other than here where I heard a message, you know, the message is preached, come to Jesus and come to Jesus because it'll make your life better or come to Jesus because you need a savior.
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And you do need a savior. But it's it's all about what what's going to do for you.
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You know, you need to have your sins forgiven. Well, you do. But when was the last time you heard a sermon that preached come to Jesus because it glorifies
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God, because God sent his son? You know, if if the salvation of the world depended upon my son, the world's got a problem because I'm not going to send him.
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But God sent his own son. And it's all about God, it's not about man, but that's what we've done, that's what the evangelical church has done by and large is it is we've turned everything around where now it's all about man.
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And it's not all about man, it's about God. And maybe after this third issue, maybe these men, if they have anything they would like to follow up on what we were asking in the categories, we'd welcome that.
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Jeremiah and Isaiah were called to minister in difficult times, you know, Isaiah was called to preach the word and Isaiah, you know, ask
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God, well, how long? Well, to the cities are laid waste. He didn't have a bright prospect for a fruitful ministry as far as the throngs responding favorably to his message.
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And then Jeremiah, too, is called in difficult times and he saw the disintegration of the people of God about him.
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And certainly we could conclude that the that the preacher is called to be faithful to God and faithful to his word.
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And Jeremiah became quite discouraged at one point, and he said,
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I'm not going to preach anymore in his name. And yet he commented that the word was in him like fire in his bones and he just couldn't contain it.
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And he had to preach and he he preached a faithful message, knowing intuitively the kind of reaction and rejection that would come to him.
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Can you affirm to these people that it's your resolve and commitment to be faithful to God and God's word, regardless of the response perceived or given to you?
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And can you affirm that in your own words? Yes, I can. I will say, first of all,
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I enjoy preaching. I mean, I enjoy getting up here and preaching, as you could probably tell.
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However, if there ever comes a time when I approach this pulpit without feeling a certain amount of timidness, then that's a that'll be a warning sign, because if you're going to stand in the pulpit and say, thus saith the
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Lord. You had best know what the Lord saith before you start speaking his message, and.
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I will, I affirm that that I will, to the best of my ability. Preach what the
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Bible says and preach the whole counsel of God, because there are parts of it that humanly speaking, you would just as soon skate by.
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Because the message is uncomfortable. And like God told
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Jeremiah, he says, I'm sending you to preach, you know, by the way, nobody's going to listen, but go preach anyway.
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And again, with as the Lord gives me the ability to do that.
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I want that to be my attitude, I'm going to go preach because the Lord says go preach, not because.
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The response is going to be overwhelming or favorable or or make me feel good or whatever it is, just a quick follow up on that last question,
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Lewis, have you in your in the preaching that you have done thus far run across such circumstances of adverse here is not not too much.
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There have been on a couple of occasions where someone took great umbrage at something that I preached.
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And in some cases we were able to some sometimes it was simply a misunderstanding.
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Other times it was basically a rejection of the message. And so it has happened. It has not happened a lot, probably because of the places where I have been able to preach.
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I do remember one particular comment I made, and it was not even part of a sermon. I just happened to comment in the service one night that that God was not impressed with what we think about anything.
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God is only impressed with what he thinks. And one of the ladies and older ladies in the congregation took considerable exception to that statement.
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But except for a few things like that, I haven't, you know, felt hostility from the from the congregation.
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Let's put it that way. I have four categories.
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There was a little couple of questions from each will go through theology, your personal life and your devotional life.
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And finally, with ministry. So firstly, with theology, when you look at creation,
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Genesis one, Genesis two, right? What gives you can you please tell us how you interpret
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Genesis one and two and specifically how you would respond to Christians who take science and try to interpret scriptures in light of science?
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Well, first of all, I take Genesis one and two literally that God created the heavens and the earth.
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He formed the biosphere here on earth where we live in six literal words.
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Literal 24 hour days for the specific purpose of planning man here to carry out his redemptive program.
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And we can branch off into other things. Why do I not think that there are aliens floating around somewhere?
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Well, I think God's created man for a specific purpose. We didn't evolve.
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He created us and he had a specific purpose for doing that. And so I do I take the the
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Genesis account as being a literal account of what happened. The depending upon the circumstances you do, you run across Christians and I believe regenerate
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Christians, but they are perhaps intimidated, you know, by by what science thinks, you know, after all, we say scientists say, you know, and yada yada.
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And if we want to really impress them by a leading scientist, say, I mean, who's going to argue with that? But if you go back through the history of science, science is a continuous process of individuals coming along and challenging the the current scientific thought and then later on be proved to be proved correct.
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That's what the scientific process does. It it examines. But I would first of all,
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I would point out that the entire scientific process rests on the the underpinning of all of that is the fact that there is a creator,
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God, who is reasonable, who created the world according to certain laws that he created.
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And we can depend on those things because that's the nature of God. And so if we discover a a scientific law today, it will be a law next week and next year and a thousand years from now because it rests on God.
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So it starts there. But I would try to turn them back to emphasizing what
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God says. And trying to prove the creation story,
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I don't think you can really do that to someone that does not essentially believe the
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Bible already. But I would emphasize that the Bible is the word of God, that it is reliable, that it is sufficient.
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And this is what the Bible says. And. You have no reason to not believe it.
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Moving on to the end of time to eschatology. So from Daniel to with Nebuchadnezzar's dream and relating that to the return of Christ and the fulfillment of history in Revelation 21.
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Can you briefly outline Nebuchadnezzar's dream and how that relates to the end of the story?
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I'm not sure we can do that briefly. No. Nebuchadnezzar's his dream with the with the vast image, if you recall the image ahead of gold, chest of silver, then bronze, then iron.
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He basically laid out the four great empires that would occur throughout history of that time, starting with himself, with Nebuchadnezzar.
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And then you would have the Greeks and the Medo -Persians and then the Greeks and then the Romans after that.
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And then you got down to the feet and eventually you have a there would be a reconstitution of the
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Roman Empire, because the Roman Empire, of course, as we all know, collapsed. And here we are today, but the
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Roman Empire will be revived. And there's. At the at the risk of of getting too far afield there, there it's dangerous if we start looking at at current events, reading with the
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Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, because we see things coming which could indicate certain things, but there's no you can't be sure of those things and you can get yourself into trouble doing that.
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The thing that the Bible does teach us, though, is that everything that there are certain principles we can apply, things are going to get worse and worse as we go on.
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There will be some kind of world government that will come on towards the end of towards the end of this era or towards the end of the times of the
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Gentiles. And we have described a worldwide ruler, which is called the
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Antichrist. And then all of this will culminate in a great battle where Jesus Christ is going to return.
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He is going to destroy his enemies. He is going to set up his kingdom. And and rule again, because certain things were promised to Abraham, which have never been fulfilled.
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And so and it was promised again to David and it was promised again to Solomon. And and when the angel
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Gabriel came to announce to Mary that Jesus Christ was going to be born, what did he say?
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He said he will be great and will be called the son of the highest and the Lord God will give unto him the throne of his father,
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David. And I personally hold the view that that means literally the throne of his father, the political throne of his father,
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David. And, you know, because, again, I am pre -trib and pre -mill, so and not everyone is and not everyone who's a genuine
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Christian is. So I'll say that a couple of really quick questions now on theology.
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One is, can you comment in a minute or less on what Philippians 2, 7 talks about kenosis?
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This I sort of put this into one of the mysteries of God. But what we are told is that when
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Jesus Christ came to earth, he took on he became a man.
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He became the God man. In which he still retained all of his attributes as God.
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He did not lay aside any of those attributes. He did voluntarily lay aside the independent exercise of some of those divine prerogatives that he held.
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And he placed himself, he said, I do what the father tells me. He came and said,
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I'm going to do exactly what the father tells me. He relied heavily on the Holy Spirit. But in his humanness, he became a man and he remains a man to this day.
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And in his humanness here on earth, he did what men do.
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He got hungry. He got tired. He walked a long way and I'm sure his feet hurt when he was when he was done.
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And the to me, the absolutely stunning thing about this is that there is now a man seated at the right hand of the father, because when his work was done, he went and sat down next to the father.
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And there's a man sitting there. And I can't quite get my mind around this because it's too big a concept.
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But I do believe that if you could if you could somehow see into the throne room of God, there's there's a man, someone recognizably human seated next to the father.
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And there he is, you know, and being our advocate. And one last question on theology in Ecclesiastes, Solomon constantly refers to under the sun.
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Right. Can you give a one sentence expression of what that is here on earth? Why does he use that term in that book?
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He's using that the two messages of Solomon. Well, you throw me an easy question here that the two the two things of Ecclesiastes are without God, nothing has any meaning.
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And with God, everything has meaning. And so if you are under the sun are the things that happen here on earth, you know, the sun rises, the sun sets, we do things.
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It's all under the sun. And speaking from his his humanness side, if you want to call it that way, what he's saying is that nothing that we do has any meaning.
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It's all vapor. Everything is just a vapor. But if we look at things properly, then everything becomes a gift from God's hand.
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Moving to the next section on personal life. So when you wake up in the morning or you come back from work, what would be one source of great joy in your life?
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What you look forward to waking up or coming back home to a source of great joy. Well, I look forward to coming back to my wife.
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And one more question on your work, I know that you your work has you've had some very challenging tasks and responsibilities as a
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Christian in a very demanding work environment. How do you see yourself living out the life of a
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Christian? In the environment that you currently are in now, the central thing is to do the absolute best job that you can for your employer.
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To do anything less is to cheat your employer. And we are told we are told to obey our employers, to do them a good job, to not slack.
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And first and foremost, you have to do that. If you don't do that, your employer is not paying you to run around evangelizing on company time.
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You know, you can look at lunchtime or break time or that's one thing. But, you know, basically you have a job to do and you're paid to do that job and not run around and stop not only not doing your work, but stopping some other employee from doing their work.
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And so you and a Christian, I believe, should be the very best employee that the company has.
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Moving on to your devotional life, this is actually a two minute question.
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You have a reputation in BBC of being an Insta preacher. We've had more than one experience where you've had to be on the spot to preach and you've always been able to bring the word of God to this body.
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Could you comment on what it is that as a spiritual discipline and as part of your
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Christian maturity that enables you to bring the word in season and out of season at a moment's notice?
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Well, part of it is simply the passage of time and the constant and the study of the word.
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And there's nothing particularly remarkable about that. You get the same effect in all of our careers where if I ask you about your business, you would be able to immediately start talking to me about that.
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So some of it is just that. It's just experience and the built up the built up experiences and knowledge that we have that we've been given over time.
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To be able to preach in season and out of season, though, there's a couple of things. First of all, I do make it a policy to carry a set of sermon notes in my
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Bible all the time. And also, as most of you know, if you've seen my Bible up close, I write in the margins.
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And so I can generally preach off the notes that I put in the side.
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You do need to be able to organize your thoughts and look at a look at a passage of scripture and organize your thoughts.
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And given the amount of time and the circumstances that you have to preach either for a longer time or a shorter time, depending on what that is.
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And in a one sentence response, how would you say you experience God's love today?
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Besides the response of the congregation? Well, first of all, there are a great number of people this morning in particular who took the time to say, we can't be here tonight, but, you know, we're praying for you.
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We're thinking of you. Otherwise, you know, God is the fact that we wake up, the fact that we're continuing to breathe.
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Everything that happens is an example of God's mercy upon us and God's provision for us.
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I've had a from a physical standpoint, I've had kind of a bad couple of weeks where I lost my voice on several occasions.
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Tonight, I have it. So there it is. One last question.
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One of the things that is very obvious when people see you in this church is your love for the little ones.
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And I know the little ones here are probably looking eagerly to your answers. But your love for the flock as a whole is also very evident in the way that you ministered to us.
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So if you had to give a one charge to this specific flock here at BBC, what would that be?
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I would say love one another, love one another. And by that,
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I don't primarily mean have warm, fuzzy feelings for each other, although you will have.
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But it's biblical love that is placing your fellow church members ahead of yourself, you know, or at least on the same level with yourself.
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When it comes to being in a Christian, brother, and knowing, well, knowing
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Christ, but Christ knowing us, the more we get to know the Lord, the more we love him and cannot believe how marvelous it is that God would get a hold of us and keep us.
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And in relationship, when it comes, and I'm making this, this is not a question, so don't worry about it. I'm just making a statement as far as part of this is to confirm and affirm you as a man of God, as a
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Christian. I've been married to my wife for many, many years, and it's been a tremendous relationship and opportunity to get to know somebody.
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And the more I know her, the more, the more I love her and she's endearing to me. And just for just my observation over the years, the more that I've gotten to know you and I believe
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I could, I could speak in a great measure for the church, the more that we get to observe you and the more that we get to know you, the more that we see your passions and your desires has already been articulated in these answers, the more we love you and the more we appreciate you.
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And as a man of God, as I mean, I, I meant what I said a few weeks back when you were preaching on the day with your, with your army medals and, and all just, you're just the whole package.
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And I just appreciate you. And I know the church does. And I just wanted to, in case there's anybody sitting in the congregation that would like to say we love
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Lewis Brown, I just wanted to say it for him. Thank you. Could you please choose an attribute of God that has made a lasting impression upon you?
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Define that attribute and tell us how it has practically affected your life. I would say the the first attribute that I would look at is holiness.
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That that there is a God who is just and righteous.
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And he is holy. And he requires of me that I worship him.
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Even though I'm not capable of doing that, he still requires of me that I do that.
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And then from there, that he acknowledging that I cannot do what he requires of me, he has taken actions to make it possible.
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I find that to stay a staggering thought. So in your personal life, it's like humility or just dependence and.
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Dependence, humility. All of those things. Yeah. OK. Second question deals with the church of Jesus Christ.
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How do we know in the scriptures that it is important to our savior, Jesus Christ? And knowing how important, how precious, how valuable it is to him and how is it valued, precious or important to you?
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And maybe if you could comment on the day in which we live and I'm kind of following up on one of Lars, Pastor Lars's questions is why is it held in so low regard today in Christian circles?
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And it's manifested by an unwillingness to serve. Or it might be just a ho -hum apathy.
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It's neglecting the duties of the church. If you could just comment on that. And particularly, I'm just looking for your heart for the church.
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Well, Jesus, of course, said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
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And he talks about how the good shepherd gives himself for the flock and and he's going to build the church and build up the church.
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And it's this new thing that he has started with the New Testament age.
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And that was something of a mystery before. And the second part of your question, part of what plagues us today,
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I think, is that the church has has abrogated its mission. Our job, first and foremost, is to preach the word and build up the saints for the work of the ministry.
01:00:10
And we are to we're supposed to be the ones that establish the standards within and I'm speaking within society now.
01:00:20
Churches used to stand for something in society. And starting,
01:00:28
I guess, around the turn of the 20th century, that began to decline. And they accelerated after the 1950s, we got into the 1960s and church influence began to decline, to decline, to decline because we didn't call our people to anything.
01:00:49
It was it went along with just generally easy believism, you know, oh, yes, you can come you can come to Jesus.
01:00:57
It's not going to change your life. It's not going to cost you anything. It's sort of a fire policy, fire escape policy here.
01:01:04
Sign here. And we stopped challenging people. We stopped telling them that, look,
01:01:12
God has certain things that he requires of you. And here they are. And as since we don't call people to anything.
01:01:22
The church or churches, the organizations have become less and less relevant.
01:01:29
We preach about relevance, you know, and I don't mean that we have to be we're not trying to be like society is, but we stop doing our job,
01:01:40
I guess, is what I'm trying to say. And churches like this, you know, we keep.
01:01:47
We keep trying to do the job and we do this by preaching the whole counsel of God. That's all you can do. We're not fundamentally here about programs.
01:01:56
We're not fundamentally here to make anybody's life easier or any of those things. We're here to build up saints.
01:02:03
And we do that by preaching the word. And if you don't do that, then what have you got? Okay. Thank you, brother.
01:02:09
In our area of New England, as in many states in the country, Satan has blinded the minds and the hearts of many with false religions in this area, particularly
01:02:19
Roman Catholicism. Could you tell me, give me at least one of their main doctrines, name it and tell me the scripture you'd use to refute that error?
01:02:29
Oh, boy. Well, justification.
01:02:40
Justification by by works. And I would go that a man should live by faith.
01:02:48
You can find that statement verbatim in both the Old and New Testaments that it's not by a system of works or assisted works or anything like that, but that first and its faith alone.
01:03:04
And so that's that's just one that, you know, we place our faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ and not not saints, not anything else that we do, not confessionals, not any of that.
01:03:18
OK, there are just a whole host of scriptures in the
01:03:24
New Testament that deal with the responsibility, the duties of a shepherd, of a pastor. Acts 20,
01:03:31
I think of to be careful to feed the flock, which have been made an overseer and first Peter five, not to lord over the flock, but to, you know, to guide, to watch, to pastor, to shepherd.
01:03:44
Hebrews 13, where it talks about the watch for their souls. How how do you and I'm going to make maybe make up a word here, but how do you intentionalize that?
01:03:53
How do you in your life, day to day, week to week at church services, when you're in ministry, how do you intentionally obey and bring put feet to those scriptures?
01:04:06
You have the opportunity as you're leading in a church, you become aware of things.
01:04:13
People talk to you. They say people talk to me and men in particular, they say, you know,
01:04:22
I have this area in that area. Then rather than just saying, be warm, be filled, sometimes you can give you can give specific encouragement in whatever that area is.
01:04:38
Then you go back periodically and you check and see how's it going, you know, what's happening, how are you doing, how did it go this week, those kinds of things showing concern for the individuals that that the
01:04:54
Lord has placed us over that sort of thing. Can you affirm with the men at this table that one day because of our ministry and all that we did, that we will stand before the
01:05:08
Lord and be accountable for the souls that we've watched over? Can you affirm that? Is that a solemn part of your life in ministry?
01:05:14
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. And that's why I would say that anyone who takes on the role of an elder without understanding that has no idea what you're getting into.
01:05:30
And on the other, I would turn it around on the other way, too. If you were ever, I'd say, turned down for being an elder and you don't feel at least a little bit of relief, you didn't understand what the job involved.
01:05:45
And so, yeah, no, I could absolutely affirm that that someday we are going to have to give account for the sheep that the
01:05:52
Lord placed us over. Great. Very briefly, Lewis, what does the Bible teach about baptism and who should receive it?
01:05:59
I'm talking about water baptism. Water baptism should be is to be received by everyone who has placed their faith in Jesus Christ.
01:06:12
It is best done, I now believe, as an adult. And if I can divert for just a moment,
01:06:22
I was baptized fairly late simply because the churches that I was in as a child and as a teenager on up to the teen years simply didn't emphasize water baptism.
01:06:35
It's not that they rejected it or anything like that. They just didn't do it. And so I was around 30,
01:06:43
I guess, when I was baptized. I will say that, you know, this was way too late.
01:06:50
On the other hand, water baptism is for those who have genuinely placed their faith in Jesus Christ.
01:06:57
It is an outward symbol of what has been done in their lives internally. It is certainly for for any adult believer to take care of.
01:07:10
Children is an issue to be discussed because the one thing that you want to you want to be sure of is that when you baptize someone, that they are genuinely regenerate.
01:07:24
And with a with a child, especially a small child, and I use my own experience with this, it's, you know, how do you tell are we are we pleasing mom and dad or is this a genuine thing?
01:07:38
And so I would I would tend to stay away from it. That's not a hard and fast rule by any means. OK, brother, in some circles in Christendom, they teach that there's got to be something more, a second blessing, they might call it something after the regeneration, after the forgiveness, after the indwelling of the
01:07:58
Holy Spirit. What's the problem with that? And what would you say to a person who holds to that?
01:08:04
The problem with that, first of all, is that the Bible, the Bible simply does not support that, that there's a completed work that Jesus Christ has done.
01:08:15
When we place our faith in him, that that is a completed thing.
01:08:22
Now, not to say that we that sanctification is not going to go on and there is a progressive sanctification as we are find our practice adjusted more to our position in Christ.
01:08:32
But. The the constant search for something else, we have we have the word of God which states unequivocally.
01:08:46
That, you know, you place your faith in Jesus Christ, you are saved.
01:08:53
And to be looking for some other indication that we're saved is a it's a mark of immaturity.
01:09:02
Number one, it is also a mark, I think, sometimes of pride, because, you know,
01:09:12
I've had some kind of an experience and you haven't. So I'm obviously more spiritual than you are. Those kinds of dangers.
01:09:18
But basically, we are to we are to rely upon the word of God and the witness of the
01:09:25
Holy Spirit in our lives, which is why I go back again in my own life. I find it an advantage to not have a date.
01:09:32
You know, when were you saved? I haven't got a date. Because.
01:09:37
Do I have confidence that I'm saved? Yes, I do. Why? Because the
01:09:42
Holy Spirit is working in my life now. It's not some thing that I look back 30, 40 years ago and say, well, on this date,
01:09:52
X, Y, Z happened. And so the Holy Spirit does bear witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.
01:10:01
And we also have the witness of the written word. And we frankly shouldn't want anything outside of that.
01:10:08
I have two more questions. The second last one is more personal for you. What is your favorite book in the scriptures and why?
01:10:14
Does it have a theme to it that that really just has excited your heart and blessed you over the years?
01:10:23
My favorite book, if I have to pick one, is Isaiah. Simply because.
01:10:30
Particularly the chapters where God is talking about his sovereignty over everything.
01:10:37
You know, I love to if I start to start to feel down a little bit, I go to Isaiah anywhere from chapter 40 between chapter 40 and 50 and just start reading.
01:10:49
So does that mean on a Sunday morning, if you're reading out of Isaiah, you're encouraged and you need to be there.
01:10:56
Last question, brother. By the grace of God, and we don't know if this would ever happen to any
01:11:02
Christian, but by God's grace and enabling what what are you willing to die for if it came down to the question of would would
01:11:16
I die for for the word of God? I would say yes. I would lay my life down for that.
01:11:24
Thank you, brother. All right, Lewis. Before I start,
01:11:30
I just want to affirm my thankfulness for you and your wife, Dallas, here at the church. When you came years ago, there was quite an upheaval at the church.
01:11:37
You said, I think the Lord brought me here to be your friend, Mike, and I thank you for that friendship.
01:11:46
In light of that, Lewis, even though we're different on the elder board, you and I are different backgrounds and personality.
01:11:53
I don't know if we've hardly ever disagreed. Would that make you a yes man?
01:12:00
No, I would say that that is an indication and you can apply that to the entire elder board.
01:12:09
And that is an indication, I think, of the of the type of men that are on the board.
01:12:16
And it is an indication of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives, because when we do find ourselves disagreeing about something, we inevitably go back and say, let's pull back and let's let's seek the face of the
01:12:30
Lord and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And and we'll come together because there's only one spirit.
01:12:38
And so there's a unanimity among the elder board in this church.
01:12:46
All right, I'll ask you a few questions, Lewis, one minute or less, please. OK, and I'm going to make a statement and then
01:12:53
I'd like you to define it and then say why it's important. Define it, why why you believe it or don't believe it.
01:12:59
And then if it's important, monergism. Monergism is the idea that salvation is 100 percent of God.
01:13:08
It is not a synergistic thing. We don't he doesn't do his part and we do our part.
01:13:14
It's of God. All right, good. The act of obedience of Christ. The act of obedience,
01:13:21
I'm not sure of a formal definition of that, but that he he came he came to earth and did his father's will.
01:13:29
He came to to carry out the program that the father had designed and to do it 100 percent exactly as the father had designed it.
01:13:40
And he lived his life in in compliance with the father's will.
01:13:46
And when we are saved, not only do we as our sins taken away, but the benefit of his life comes to us.
01:13:55
OK, good. Lordship, salvation, lordship, salvation is a term used to mean that when we are saved, we must accept
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Jesus Christ. When it says we accept Jesus Christ, which is not a good term anyway, that we place our faith in him for our salvation and he becomes lord of our lives.
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Those two things are are inseparable. You can't it's a package deal, you if you're going to take the salvation part of it, there are costs.
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And he says not that we pay for our salvation in any way, shape or form. But if we come to him, that's going to have impact on our life.
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And it's not possible, for example, to have the indwelling Holy Spirit in your life and not have it affect you.
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It can't possibly happen. Good decisional regeneration, making a decision for Christ.
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This is I may be wrong here with what what a defined term is, because.
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Regenerate, Jesus said we must be born again, we have to be regenerated with a new nature before we can come to Jesus Christ and place our faith in him.
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Is that what you're driving at as a baptismal regeneration? Oh, that the decision that the decision itself in and of itself has no merit.
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OK. Faith, is it a cause or the result of salvation? Faith is defined as the gift of God and the faith is the gift.
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And we place our faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith is also a gift from him.
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OK, good. Lewis, have you ever struggled with your salvation assurance? Not really.
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I don't at least not from teen years on. OK, what were the last few theological books that you've read?
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Well, I'm just about to complete Famine in the Land. And the last really.
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The. The heavy ones that I have read. I'm trying to think of the title.
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The book by Charles Bridges. On preaching. I can't think of the ministry,
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Christian ministry. Those two are the most of the most recent that sprang to mind.
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And I have also done considerable reading recently, though, in in Culver's theological systematic theology, also
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Grudem. And frankly, I still use good old Matthew, Matthew Henry a great deal of the time.
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Abridged or non -abridged? Non -abridged. All right. Should you ever read an abridged book?
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I guess not. Why would you? OK, I have all these questions that across them all off as these men have asked them.
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So just a few more. I think we we know your heart, Lewis. Yeah. Tell me what you can do better in your life because of Dallas's help.
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What I can do better in my life because of Dallas's help. I can depend upon Dallas to come.
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And. Nudge me into into action when
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I need to be moving and I'm sitting still, let me put it that way. It's been said gently, godly, godly, godly way.
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That's a new ministry. That's the nudging, the nudging ministry. That's right. It's been said,
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I think, by a preacher that preachers should not only love preaching, but they should love those to whom they preach to.
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Exactly. You love the church and. Yes, I do. All right, let's see, what else do
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I have? Why is Leviticus important? Why is what? Leviticus important. Leviticus.
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How is it expressed that? Exodus is getting the
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Exodus is getting the Israelites out of Egypt and Leviticus is getting Egypt out of the
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Israelites. Is that the term? I have to be listening to my son. Yeah, I was listening in Sunday school.
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What's the difference between evidential apologetics and presuppositional apologetics? Just briefly, generally,
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I don't have a definition for that. I could come up with one probably. OK.
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All right. Last question, I think. Is it ever right to preach a sermon?
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Dare to be a Daniel. Is this a trick question?
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It is. All I can say is I have had sermons preached to me with that title there to be a
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Daniel. I can't remember the content of any of them, so I'm supposing they didn't make that big an impression.