The Word For The World - Apologetics Conference - Day 2 Evening

Live Streaming and Opening Prayer for the Conference

Listen careful, put questions, and then we will spend as much time as needed for the Q &A's. Is there any other announcements? Oh yeah, live streaming. Just type the church, this local church, the Agape Moldavian Baptist Church, type the name of this church and it will pop up a YouTube channel where it's a Facebook page.

And what has been streamed last night and this morning, you can send it to your friends, your family members, you can review it in another time. Victor, are we good with live streaming right now? Yes, praise the Lord for that.

So shall we begin, right? All right, let's stand up and I think we will start with a song. How about that?

Let's sing a song. Thank you for this evening and for the opportunity to learn more about your word,.

Your will, and about the truth. Thank you Lord for this opportunity and for the event and I thank you for our brothers who are willing and they were open to participate and to speak to us. Help them through the power and the wisdom of your Holy Spirit to use the words that we will understand and every single statement and every single answer we would like to set deep in our hearts.

Help each of us and bless those who are gonna watch live. We would like to understand that in this culture where everything it's kind of like gray and people, they're losing the truth. They are not paying attention anymore to the Holy Scriptures.

We would like that our faith to be strengthened and our testimony to be bold in a society in this region, in our towns, in our places where we are working, we're studying. We're asking all of these in Jesus name and we thank you.

Amen. Amen. You may be seated and I will do a quick introduction of the first speaker and then we will sing another song and after that Pastor Mike Grant, he's gonna speak during the first session. I remember back in a couple years ago when we decided to start the evening service.

We were looking for somebody who's gonna preach a clean biblical doctrines, something that we will understand, something that our hearts needed and especially for the young generation because our concern, my concern, and many of us were thinking about the next generation who's gonna carry on the same task.

As we spoke last night, the Bible is not just a set of laws like a constitution, like a book that the lawyers will use even though there is plenty of law on it. The Bible, yes, it contains a lot of historical facts.

Still, the Bible is not just a history book. It talks and it points to a lot of geographical things but it's not a book to study geography. Actually, the Bible is a book where God opens up his heart and explains to us his mission and his plan for this universe and what our role is.

So one of the pastors who were using this pulpit to preach the gospel, to point to the same doctrines that the Reformers back in the 16th century, they started it to attract people's attention to the Sola Scriptura.

Pastor Mike Grant, he did a very good job so far so we're looking forward for the next 40 minutes or whatever he's gonna use to talk more about our doctrines and how the churches are to be established and what they have as a task to be carried on.

So we.

Will be singing a song and after this, worship him, Pastor Mike, the pulpit is yours. It's good to see everyone that came out on a Saturday, Saturday night. I didn't even know the Super Bowl was tomorrow so hey whatever, I'll be here so I hope you will as well.

Truth in an Obscure Culture

So the topic that I've been assigned is the truth in an obscure culture, the truth in an obscure culture. As I thought about this subject, the first thing that came to mind was what Pontius Pilate said to Jesus.

You may remember this in John chapter 18 verse 37, Jesus said to him, everyone who is of the truth hears my voice, at which point Pilate said to Jesus, what is truth? So everyone who is of the truth hears my voice and yeah, just maybe a dismissive, cynical response, what is truth?

Well that's kind of where we're at today. A lot of people are saying that, you know, what is truth? So if you would, let's turn to 2nd Timothy chapter 4. Actually we're returning to 2nd Timothy 4 because this text was brought out last night, but that's okay.

The truth in an obscure culture. Pontius Pilate was the governor of Judea. He was the leader, that's what he said. What is truth? We have leaders today who say similar things. They don't ask necessarily what is truth, but they say things like you need to speak your truth, and this person can speak their truth, and everyone has their own truth apparently.

Or people say things like truth is relative, or my favorite, you know, when it's declared there's no such thing as absolute truth, and you know what to say when somebody says that, right? Say, is that true?

And it just short-circuits their whole argument. But what is truth? Before we look at the scripture, we're obviously as a Christian, we believe the truth is in God's Word. It is God's Word. Jesus is the Word of God, as was so eloquently brought out last night.

But here's how the dictionary defines the word truth. Are you ready? Not that the dictionary is all that reliable these days, but here's what they say. Merriam-Webster says truth, here's the first definition, the body of real things, events, and facts.

Okay, no problem there, but I like the second definition. A judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or is accepted as true. So an idea that's accepted as true, that's true. So if you can just get enough people to accept it, then that makes it true.

Well, according to the dictionary. So that's the definition that sort of got my attention. Whatever is accepted as true, and how do people come to a consensus? Well, it's formed by popular opinion. You know, the people who have power and influence in our society, they're the ones shaping people's opinions, and then you just get enough people to believe it, and then yeah, that's the truth.

Obviously, that's problematic. So let's look at what the Word of God says, because as a pastor, I'm primarily concerned about the church. So if you would stand for the reading of God's Word, we're gonna hear what the Apostle Paul said to Timothy.

2nd Timothy 4, 1 through 4. He says, I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at his appearing in his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables.

And may God bless the reading of his Word. You may be seated. So you can probably figure out why I chose this passage. Paul warns that the day is coming, and I propose to you that the day has now come where people, and I'm not even just talking about the agnostics of the world and the atheists of the world.

If there are some unbelievers here tonight, I'm glad you're here. If there's an atheist here tonight, I'm glad you're here. I think we're all glad that you're here, and I sincerely hope that you are persuaded.

Maybe you're not an atheist, maybe you're agnostic, maybe you're agnostic and you haven't really told anyone that. Maybe you're still, you know, appearing as a believer, but you don't really believe. Well, I'm glad you're here, and I hope you will be persuaded by this.

So Brother Allen, he gave a wonderful presentation last night about why the Scripture is true. I'm simply going to appeal to the starry sky above, and the moral law of God within, because I really believe and know that deep down inside, every person knows there's a God.

Everybody knows that deep down. We all know the difference between right and wrong. The Scripture says we're all made in God's image. So God has put you here tonight, I believe, so that you might seek the Lord, though he is not far from you.

But going back to what Paul said, the day has come where people, and it happened in his day, but it's more true now, I think, that even Christians, people who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ, even they are not interested in the truth.

I mean, you will have a lot of Christians, and I'm already preaching now, I mean, I know this is supposed to be a lecture, but you're gonna have a lot of Christians who would rather watch the Super Bowl than be in God's house, okay?

And listen, I'm not down on you, I'm just saying that kind of says something, okay? But you have a lot of people who, and not just Sunday night, I'm talking about people who will skip church Sunday morning to make sure they don't miss the festivities.

But anyways, but you have a lot of people within the church who don't really care about truth, they don't really care about doctrine. So Paul is telling Timothy that, yes, this is going to be a problem.

He says, they will turn their ears away from the truth, and they'll be turned aside to what? What does it say? Fables. Yeah, so the Greek word translated fables is mythos, and you can kind of hear it in the word, right?

They're gonna start listening to myths. Instead of the Bible, God's Word, they're gonna listen to storytelling. And there's a lot of pulpits where it's not preaching, it's not doctrine, it's storytelling.

But another way that can be translated, they will turn their ears away from the truth, and they will start listening to the narrative. That's one way you can translate that term, the narrative. We've all heard about the narrative.

People will start believing things that have been accepted as truth. Why? Because that's what everyone else believes. So that's what even Christians start believing. So number one, the truth is out there, it's just a matter of number one, finding it, number two, believing it, and then number three, applying it to your life.

So we're talking about the truth in an obscure culture. Here are some of the sub points that I was given. So I was given the topic. They let me choose it, actually. I chose this one. Sounded, well, to me it sounded the most interesting, but they're all good.

But here are the sub points, the things I'm gonna be talking about. Foundations of Christian doctrines and ethics. Okay, so what are the foundations of Christian doctrines and ethics? Next, the Christian faith in arenas of resistance.

The next, the Bible versus science. That's a big one today. Another sub point, why is it important not to reconsider the Reformation or the Protestant confessions? And then finally, we're going to address churches that are reconsidering their doctrines in the wake of the latest societal changes.

So I was given a little bit of leeway and what to address and how, so I'll spend more time on some things than others. But what is the foundation of Christian doctrine and ethics? What is the foundation?

You tell me. This isn't a hard question. The Bible, right? I mean, if you gave any other answer, I'd be concerned, I think. Here's what someone might say. They'll say, well, it's not the Bible. And a lot of famous pastors are trying to play this game today.

So it's not the Bible. And stop saying the Bible says, the Bible says. It's all about Jesus. Jesus is the foundation, not the Bible. I mean, that sounds right. Jesus is the cornerstone. Here's the problem with that.

The only thing you know about Jesus is from the Bible. Tell me something that Jesus said that is not found in the Bible. You can't do it. You can't. So as Christians, we are supposed to base our beliefs, not on society, not what the majority says, not what Merriam-Webster says, but we are supposed to base our beliefs on the Word of God.

Now, there have been, you can learn things outside of the Bible, obviously. There have been great scientific discoveries. We're not anti-science, as some people would say. We learn life lessons. Not every truth out there is recorded in Scripture, but Scripture is the truth.

Speaking of science, the knock against Bible-believing Christians these days is that we are anti-science. Of course, that's not really true. I don't deny science. I don't deny hardly anything except for the theory of evolution, the Big Bang, you know.

I don't even doubt the Big Bang. When God created, there probably was a Big Bang. I would question how long ago that happened, but I don't deny that it happened. I believe scientists, when they say the universe had a beginning, I believe them when they say that it's expanding.

Sure, no problem. Even with evolution, I believe in what is called micro evolution, that animals develop and evolve within the species. So when God, for example, when God created dogs, he created a male dog and a female dog, right?

And out of that, they evolved over thousands of years to where now you have wolves and coyotes and German shepherds and labs and, of course, poodles. That's the evidence that the evolutionary process can go wrong at times, but you know, you got all of these different types of dogs from the original too, but in all seriousness, that type of evolution does happen, micro evolution.

But macro evolution, that's a totally different thing. The idea that microbes evolve into fish and then, I don't think they still have this, but remember seeing that picture of the fish that grew legs and it was walking out onto the, you didn't see that?

Okay, well, that's the idea that the fish grew legs, came out onto the land, evolved into a monkey, and boom, there you go. We came from chimpanzees or whatever. That's macro evolution and, you know, people want to talk about fairy tales, that's the biggest fairy tale of them all.

I don't believe that because the Bible says that God created man in his own image, in his own likeness. God created Adam, formed him from the dust of the earth. God created Eve out of Adam, and then you have in the scripture their genealogy, and it tells you how long they lived and who begat who, and it goes right back to the beginning.

So we have the truth, it's very, very clear. Beside, just one more comment on evolution, it is still called the theory of evolution. I know it's taught as a fact, but it's still the theory. No one was there to observe it, you cannot test it.

How is it even called science? But yes, Christians do reject some things, but we are not anti-science. And not to get too off topic, but the year 2020, as bad of a year as that was, in some ways it was a real gift, I think, to the church.

Our church was very blessed during 2020. I don't know about everyone else, but bear with me for a moment as I make my point. Remember in March 2020, what did they say? 15 days to flatten the curve, remember that?

15 days to flatten the curve, and then 15 days turned into a month, and then it turned into two months, and then six months, and on and on. What did they tell us? We need to follow, follow the science.

They said, listen to the science. Listen to the science. Well, here's the thing, the science doesn't say anything. Scientists say things, and you know, at the end of the day, scientists are just men. I mean, no government official would ever have some other agenda.

No man would ever lie, right? Well, what does the Bible say? Let God be true in every man, what? I'm just saying, as much as we believe in science and we're thankful for science, and some of you are still alive because of science.

Your limbs still work because of science. We're blessed, but that's not where you find absolute truth, because they're just men and women at the end of the day. 1 Peter 1, 24 and 25, it says, the grass withers and the flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever.

You know, science books, they all get updated, don't they? They have to be updated. The Bible doesn't get updated. The Bible never changes. Why? Because the Bible is true. There's no need for updates.

So you can find the truth in many places, but as Christians, we take what we hear, and here's what we all need to do. As a follower of Christ, you need to take everything you hear, because we're talking about the truth in an obscure culture.

They want to try to muddy the water on everything except what they're telling you, okay? So what we say, believe what we say, do what we say, but everything else is kind of obscure. We need to take, no matter who it is, take what they say and compare it against what.

The Bible should be like a lens. You look, everything filters through the word of God. 1 Thessalonians 5, 21 says, test all things and hold fast to that which is good. There's always going to be opposition.

Things are changing quickly in our culture, even within the scientific community. Things are always changing. Society is changing, but again, the word of God never changes. Speaking of change, moving on to the next subject, some of you older folks who attended church back maybe as far as the 1950s or 1960s, and I can't speak how it was in Moldova or anything, but those who are here in the States who attended church back then in the 1960s, you know how much things have changed in churches today compared to back then.

Isn't that true? No one I've ever heard would deny that. Here's the thing, things are not changing for the better. I mean, there's been a few things maybe that have improved. Going back to what Paul says, the time is going to come where they will not endure sound doctrine, and it's just getting worse, I think, in the churches.

Why the Reformation and Sola Scriptura Still Matter

So, moving on to the next sub-point, why is it important not to reconsider the Reformation or the Protestant Confession? Here's why it's important in considering this question of truth. The Protestant Reformation rediscovered the doctrine of sola scriptura, as the pastor was talking about.

Sola scriptura, what does that mean? Scripture alone is our authority. Now, I wish that was the way it was for the whole world, that every king and ruler said that and believed that, but certainly for the Christian, the Bible is our final authority.

There are people rethinking the Reformation. It's sort of trendy now for Protestants and Catholics to kind of, let's all just get together for the sake of unity, and isn't it great? Well, it's not great, and I'll explain why, but basically it comes down to a question of authority.

So, what's the authority for the Christian? What is it? What's the foundation of our belief system? Yeah, as soon as you start rethinking the Reformation, is the Roman Catholic Church going to be an equal authority as Scripture?

Is the Pope going to be an equal authority, that his word is on par with Scripture? I mean, that's kind of how their system works. If you haven't noticed, and listen, if there's a Roman Catholic here tonight, I'm glad you're here, and I care about you.

I'm not against Roman Catholics at all. I love Roman Catholics. I don't love Catholicism, because if you haven't noticed, and I'm sure, actually a lot of Roman Catholics are not happy about this, that the Pope and the Church, these days they're really going the way of the culture.

The Pope just recently said that Roman priests are now allowed to bless same-sex unions. The Pope is, really he's just embraced the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age. So, here's the thing, if we start rethinking as Protestants, Baptists, Evangelicals, whatever term you use, Bible believer, Christian, if we start reconsidering the Reformation, we are cutting our legs out from under us.

That's what we're doing. Just for the few who might not be totally clear on what the Reformation was, to give sort of a simple overview, a thousand years ago or more, the Roman Catholic Church, basically they ruled Europe, more or less they ruled Europe for a thousand years.

So, over time, and just going back to the 1200s, 1300s, 1400s, Rome's power in the Pope's power was immense. In fact, the Pope was so powerful, if he decreed something as truth, it was truth, on equal plane with the Holy Bible.

He also claimed to hold the position of God on Earth, and you can go back and check the quotes. On top of that, the Pope was the one who crowned kings in Europe. We think of Jesus, you probably think of Jesus as what?

The king of kings, right? Because that's what the Bible calls him. But in the Catholic system, the Pope was the king of kings, because if a nation within the Holy Roman Empire, because the Roman Empire fell, and what took its place was the Holy Roman Empire, and it wasn't holy, and it wasn't Roman, and it wasn't even really a Roman Empire.

It was clearly an empire, but the Pope was the head of it. So, if a nation wanted to crown a king in the Holy Roman Empire, the Pope would decide which king would ascend to the throne. He would crown the king.

That made him what? The king of kings. So, that was the type of power and authority the Catholic Church had, and they were less concerned with what the Bible said. Truth was determined by what the Church said, and what the Pope said.

Well, here's the thing. The Pope is a fallible man. The Church is a group of men. This is one of the teachings of the Church, that they say the Pope is infallible. You've heard this? Who's heard that?

The Pope is infallible. Of course, you know that they believe in celibacy for the priests, and the Pope himself is not married. And somebody once said, well, if the Pope was married, he would know he wasn't infallible.

But it came up last night about Galileo, right? Galileo was persecuted by the Church because he said that the earth revolved around the sun instead of the other way around. Well, the Catholic Church had a scientific position that was in error, and they persecuted Galileo.

So, I mean, that's the kind of power they had in society. Do we want that? Do you want to give that type of power to Pope Francis? I don't think you do. Anyways, long story short, the Catholic Church was not following the Bible, because we're talking about the Reformation.

They were making up their own truth, and they did a lot of good. I mean, I will say that. They have done a lot of good, and they do have a lot of correct beliefs, no doubt about it. But there came a man named Martin Luther.

He saw, not Martin Luther King, Jr. Totally different person. Martin Luther, who is a Catholic monk, he saw the corruption in the Catholic Church. And in his studies, as he studied the Scripture, he realized that what the Catholic Church was saying, what the Pope was saying, wasn't lining up with what the Bible said.

It wasn't lining up. So, he, long story short, he protested. He wanted to reform the Church, and the Church was either unable or unwilling to be reformed. So, there you got the Protestants, as they were called.

They broke away from the Church, and that's where you got the Lutherans, the Church of England, then you had the Anabaptists, and on and on it went. But out of the Reformation, here's, if you take notes, write this down.

Out of the Protestant Reformation came these five truths, called the five solas of the Reformation. Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone is our authority. Sola Fide. That is, we are saved by faith alone. Sola Gradia.

Grace alone. Actually, we're saved by grace alone through faith alone. Sola Christus, which means Christ alone. Jesus is the only Savior, and then, number five, Sola Deo Gloria, to the glory of God alone.

Those were the truths that came out of the Reformation, truths that we need to cling to. Even if you don't identify as a Protestant, I don't know if you do or not, but you can get behind this. But really, it's Sola Scriptura that we're concerned about tonight.

So, I don't have time, again, I'm supposed to be giving a lecture, so I'm not supposed to be preaching, really, but going back to Sola Fide, if you've never placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you know, we're all, what's the Bible say?

It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this, the judgment. Everyone is going to face God. So, the question is, when you stand before God, what are you going to say? Well, you're probably not going to say much.

But if God were to ask you, why should I allow you into my heaven, what would you say? Here's what I would say. I don't deserve it. I have sinned. I have fallen short. I do not deserve a place in heaven.

But the Bible said that Jesus Christ died for my sin. I have put all my faith and trust in him. That's the only thing that I can appeal to. But the Bible says, all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

So, if you've never done that, please, do that now. Do that tonight. Talk to me or one of the other pastors and get that resolved before you leave this place. But we're talking about the Bible. Sola Scriptura is our final authority.

You know, the truth in an obscure culture. Where's the truth? Where do you find the truth? The word of God. Someone will say, yeah, but the Bible was written by men. You're saying scientists are men, the Pope's a man.

Yeah, but the Bible was written by men. Who's heard this argument? I mean, obviously, men were the ones who penned the words. But 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21 says, knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation.

For prophecy never came by the will of man. You notice that? It never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Who's the real author of the Bible? Yeah, it's not Moses.

It's not Peter. It's not John. It's the Holy Spirit of God. And then, as far as the Scripture, okay, this is what a Catholic might say. Where does the Bible teach Sola Scriptura? Well, that's a good question, but I would appeal to Jesus in Matthew 4, 4, when he said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Seems like Jesus had that viewpoint where Scripture was the authority. Of course, he was the embodiment of Scripture. He is the word of God made flesh. So, all of that to say this, the Scripture is the final authority because the Holy Spirit is the true author.

Men are fallible. God is infallible. Meaning God is not wrong. Not only because we're talking about inerrant and infallible, the Bible is inerrant and it's infallible. Inerrant means it's not wrong and God is inerrant, but God is infallible and the Holy Scriptures are infallible, meaning they cannot be wrong.

And to this day, the Bible has never once been proven wrong. What's the title of the message? The Truth in an Obscure Culture. My friends, without God's input, without his word, humanity is blind. But we have the truth.

Here's the sad thing. Our culture once accepted the truth, at least to a degree, but now our society is intentionally trying to obscure the truth and move away from it. That's why there's so much distrust.

That's why there's so much confusion. People have never been more confused than they are today. There are people in high places, principalities and powers, you might say, that are intentionally trying to confuse and divide us.

Case in point, you turn on one news station, they say one thing. You turn on the other cable news station, they say the exact opposite. They're supposed to be feeding you the truth, the news, and they're saying the exact opposite.

I know it's so much, they say, yeah, but it's this one, they're right. Again, not to dig up 2020, but I think the year 2020 -2021 was a real eye-opener in this regard. Conspiracy theories, one of these days I'd love to do a whole sermon on conspiracy theories.

I don't know that I have a text for that, so I don't know if I'll be able to do it, but I'd like to. Nobody wants to be considered one of those conspiracy theory guys, or at least that's the way it was.

But in 2020, conspiracies went mainstream. Why? Because some of them turned out to be true. We all saw it. Why does that matter? How does that tie in? Because people are questioning things like never before, and they're questioning authority like never before.

Truth is very elusive these days, and it leads many to despair. They want to throw their hands up. You're like Pilate, what is truth? How can we even know? Well, don't despair, because the solid rock of God's truth is not obscure.

God's truth is not obscure. The word of God endures forever. Okay, the final point that we're going to be looking at, and with this we'll get into more of the application. I'll try to leave you with something that you can take away from tonight.

The final thing, we'll discuss churches that are reconsidering their doctrines in the wake of the latest societal changes. To me, this is one of the most tragic things. As a pastor, this is the one that really gets me.

In the past 10 years especially, and this is where the spiritual gift of discernment comes in, and if you want more, if you want to hear more, I have a YouTube channel. You can check it out, Pastor Michael Grant on YouTube.

I have a podcast dedicated to this subject, because I think it's so important. But just the way churches are going in getting rid of their doctrinal statement, it's a real trend. And I realize someone might be from a church who's done this, so I don't intend to step on any toes.

But it's a popular thing to do to kind of get rid of the doctrinal statement and replace it with the Apostles' Creed. You say, what's wrong with that, the Apostles' Creed? Well, the Apostles' Creed, okay, depending on how you define a few things, I can get behind the Apostles' Creed.

Don't get me wrong. But here's the thing, going back to Pope Francis, says he believes the Apostles' Creed. I'm just saying, if the Apostles' Creed is your church's doctrinal statement, it basically tells you nothing.

But going back to this passage of Scripture, are you still in 2 Timothy 4? Let's look at that again. But it's so, to me, it's so painfully obvious that Paul's words are coming true. The man who is arguably the greatest Christian who ever lived said in 2 Timothy 4, 2, he said, preach the Word, preach the Bible, right?

Be ready in season and out of season. And as it was stated last night, we are out of season without question. And because the Word of God is out of season, and because people even professing Christians, because they are buying into the spirit of the age, church leaders, in an attempt to lure more people through the front door, they are reconsidering their, not just their doctrinal statement, but just all of their doctrines.

Bible teaching, Bible preaching. Well, that's not what people want. If you wanna bring people in, you gotta get rid of that, and you gotta entertain people, right? Churches have been turned into an entertainment center.

It's basically like a rock concert followed by a motivational speaker. I don't know what that is, it ain't church. But a lot of churches are dropping their doctrinal statements altogether. You visit the church website, you have no earthly idea what they believe, and it's all by design.

You might even go and attend for a few weeks, and you listen to the message, and you're trying to discern, is this a Baptist church? Is it a covenant theology? Like, what is this? And you don't even know.

Why? Because churches aren't, pastors aren't teaching doctrine anymore. They're not teaching doctrine. The mantra since the 1960s has been, doctrine divides, love unifies. Oh, that sounds so good. Sounds so nice.

Except that the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, 6, he says that love rejoices in the truth. I mean, if you're not preaching the truth, I mean, what kind of unity do you have if it's not centered around the truth of Christ and His word?

He said, well, no creed but Christ. Get rid of the doctrine, get rid of all this. It's just Christ. Again, that sounds so good, but just say, okay, tell me something about this Christ. Well, then you get into doctrine.

Because the Mormons have their Christ, the Jehovah's Witnesses have their Christ, who is a glorified angel. The liberal churches have their Christ, who is not God, and everyone has their own version of Christ.

How can you find the truth? There's only one place you can find the truth. It's in this book. And by the way, it's a literal reading of this book. Because some people can twist this around like you wouldn't believe.

The Bible says what it means. It means what it says. We have our unity in Christ. But Christ is the word of God made flesh. I'm almost done. Any unity that seeks to undermine and or to get rid of Bible doctrine, I submit to you, that is a superficial unity.

It's fake. That's what it is. It's fake. Unity in what? The Greek word translated doctrine here simply means teaching or instruction. Here's the thing. If a minister, this is what pastors do. They get up in front of a group like you.

They talk for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes. At Green River Bible Church, 50 plus minutes. God bless them. That's a compliment, by the way, just so you know. But if a pastor is not standing up and preaching the Bible, he's up there talking about something.

What's he talking about? His musings about his new fresh approach to ministry. About his opinion, whatever it is. If it ain't the word of God, it ain't worth listening to. Because truth in an obscure culture, there's only one way to find it.

It's in the Bible. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word. I thank you that in this culture where everyone's confused. They don't even know what a man and a woman is today, Lord.

Your word tells us that and everything else that we need. That we need to know for life and godliness. Lord, I just pray if there's someone here who's never read the Bible. They've never read it cover to cover.

They've never spent hardly any time in the scripture. I pray that you would use this message. Put a fire in them to really have a hunger and a thirst for your word. And we pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you, Pastor Mike. Let's remain standing. We will stretch a little bit our muscles. And singing a worshiping song. And after that, I'll introduce the second speaker for tonight.