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

Moore's Corner Church

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February 11, 2024

Agape Moldovan Baptist Church English February 10 2024 Day #2 Evening

03:23: Listen careful, put questions and then we will spend as much time as needed for the
03:30: Q &A's. Is there any other announcements? Oh yeah, live streaming.
03:37: Just type the church, this local church, the Agape Moldavian Baptist Church, type the name of this church and it'll pop up a
03:45: YouTube channel where it's a Facebook page and what has been streamed last night and this morning you can you can send it to your friends, your family members, you can review it in another time.
04:03: Victor are we good with live streaming right now? Yes, praise the Lord for that. So shall we begin, right?
04:09: All right, let's stand up and I think we will start with a song. How about that? Let's sing a song.
04:24: It's a state of vanity and crucified being.
04:42: The tree, born and there is no divide to me.
04:52: There my heart is on the liberty. The girl who lost her sin,
05:04: I raise my stream to thee.
06:42: We thank you for this evening and for the opportunity to learn more about your word, your will and about the truth.
07:21: 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.
07:36: 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.
07:53: 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're not paying attention anymore to the
08:12: 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.
08:27: 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.
08:48: 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 need it 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.
09:26: 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 in it.
09:42: The Bible, yes, it contains a lot of historical facts. Still, the
09:48: 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.
09:58: 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.
10:14: 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.
10:35: Pastor Matt 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.
10:59: So we will be singing a song and after this, worship him. Pastor Mike, the pulpit is yours.
11:09: Praise to you,
11:24: God, nothing less than Jesus, love and righteousness.
11:30: Thy direction was the sweetest way, God's holy name on Jesus' head.
11:40: Oh, Christ, the solid rock I stand on is safely stand, on other ground is safely stand.
11:54: In every professor we give a name, my soul can stand.
12:07: He then is our Christ, the solid rock
12:16: I stand on, on other ground is safely stand, on other ground is safely stand.
12:33: Unchanging though I trust His righteous character, it's in His hand.
12:45: Oh, Christ, the solid rock I stand on, on other ground is safely stand, on other ground is safely stand.
12:59: He shall come with trumpet sound, the wisdom
13:08: His righteousness alone. Oh, Christ, you stand before the
13:18: Lord. Oh, Christ, the solid rock I stand on, on other ground is safely stand, on other ground is safely stand.
13:42: Good evening. Good evening. It's good to see everyone that came out on a
13:47: Saturday night. I didn't even know the Super Bowl was tomorrow.
13:53: So, hey, whatever, I'll be here, so I hope you will as well. So the topic that I've been assigned is the truth in an obscure culture, the truth in an obscure culture.
14:08: As I thought about this subject, the first thing that came to mind was what
14:15: Pontius Pilate said to Jesus. You may remember this.
14:20: In John 18, verse 37, Jesus said to him, everyone who is of the truth hears my voice, at which point
14:33: 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.
14:45: What is truth? Well, that's kind of where we're at today.
14:50: A lot of people are saying that. What is truth? So if you would, let's turn to 2
14:57: Timothy chapter 4. Actually, we're returning to 2 Timothy 4 because this text was brought out last night, but that's okay.
15:07: The truth in an obscure culture. Pontius Pilate was the governor of Judea.
15:16: He was the leader, and that's what he said. What is truth? We have leaders today who say similar things.
15:25: 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.
15:40: Or people say things like truth is relative, or my favorite, when it's declared there's no such thing as absolute truth, and you know what to say when somebody says that, right?
15:54: You say, is that true? And it just short -circuits their whole argument.
16:00: But what is truth? Before we look at the Scripture, we're obviously, as a
16:05: Christian, we believe the truth is in God's Word. It is
16:11: God's Word. Jesus is the Word of God, as was so eloquently brought out last night.
16:17: 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.
16:29: Merriam -Webster says truth, here's the first definition, the body of real things, events, and facts.
16:39: OK, no problem there. But I like the second definition. A judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or is accepted as true.
16:54: 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?
17:03: Well, according to the dictionary. So that's the definition that sort of got my attention.
17:10: Whatever is accepted as true, and how do people come to a consensus?
17:16: Well, it's formed by popular opinion. 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.
17:30: Obviously, that's problematic. So let's look at what the Word of God says, because as a pastor,
17:37: I'm primarily concerned about the church. So if you would stand for the reading of God's Word, we're going to hear what the
17:44: Apostle Paul said to Timothy. 2 Timothy 4, 1 through 4.
17:52: He says, As 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 longsuffering and doctrine.
18:15: 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.
18:35: And may God bless the reading of his word. You may be seated. So you can probably figure out why
18:43: 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.
19:02: If there are some unbelievers here tonight, I'm glad you're here. If there's an atheist here tonight,
19:09: I'm glad you're here. I think we're all glad that you're here. And I sincerely hope that you are persuaded.
19:16: Maybe you're not an atheist. Maybe you're agnostic. Maybe you're agnostic and you haven't really told anyone that.
19:22: Maybe you're still 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.
19:32: So Brother Allen, he gave a wonderful presentation last night about why the Scripture is true.
19:38: 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
19:53: God. Everybody knows that deep down. We all know the difference between right and wrong.
20:01: The Scripture says we're all made in God's image. So God has put you here tonight,
20:08: I believe, so that you might seek the Lord, though he is not far from you.
20:14: 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,
20:22: I think, that even Christians, people who profess to be followers of Jesus Christ, even they are not interested in the truth.
20:32: I mean, you will have a lot of Christians, and I'm already preaching now. I know this is supposed to be a lecture, but you're going to have a lot of Christians who would rather watch the
20:43: Super Bowl than be in God's house. And listen, I'm not down on you. I'm just saying that kind of says something.
20:49: But you have a lot of people who, and not just Sunday night. I'm talking about people who will skip church
20:56: 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.
21:07: They don't really care about doctrine. So Paul is telling
21:12: 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?
21:22: 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?
21:33: They're going to start listening to myths. Instead of the Bible, God's word, they're going to listen to storytelling.
21:40: And there's a lot of pulpits where it's not preaching, it's not doctrine, it's storytelling.
21:47: But another way that can be translated, they will turn their ears away from the truth, and they will start listening to the narrative.
21:59: That's one way you can translate that term. The narrative, we've all heard about the narrative.
22:05: People will start believing things that have been accepted as truth. Why? Because that's what everyone else believes.
22:12: So that's what even Christians start believing. So number one, the truth is out there.
22:21: It's just a matter of, number one, finding it, number two, believing it, and then number three, applying it to your life.
22:27: So we're talking about the truth in an obscure culture. Here are some of the subpoints that I was given.
22:33: So I was given the topic. They let me choose it, actually. I chose this one. It sounded, well, to me it sounded the most interesting, but they're all good.
22:43: But here are the subpoints, the things I'm going to be talking about. Foundations of Christian doctrines and ethics.
22:51: Okay, so what are the foundations of Christian doctrines and ethics? Next, the
22:57: Christian faith in arenas of resistance. Next, the Bible versus science.
23:03: That's a big one today. Another subpoint, why is it important not to reconsider the
23:10: 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.
23:23: So I was given a little bit of leeway in what to address and how, so I'll spend more time on some things than others.
23:31: But what is the foundation of Christian doctrine and ethics? What is the foundation?
23:36: You tell me. This isn't a hard question. The Bible, right? I mean, if you gave any other answer,
23:44: I'd be concerned, I think. Here's what someone might say. They'll say, well, it's not the
23:50: Bible, and a lot of famous pastors are trying to play this game today. It's not the Bible, and stop saying the
23:56: Bible says, the Bible says. It's all about Jesus. Jesus is the foundation, not the
24:02: Bible. I mean, that sounds right. Jesus is the cornerstone.
24:09: 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
24:18: Bible. You can't do it. You can't.
24:24: So as Christians, we are supposed to base our beliefs not on society, not what the majority says, not what
24:31: Merriam -Webster says, but we are supposed to base our beliefs on the
24:37: Word of God. Now, you can learn things outside of the Bible, obviously. There have been great scientific discoveries.
24:45: 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.
24:58: Speaking of science, the knock against Bible -believing
25:04: Christians these days is that we are anti -science. Of course, that's not really true.
25:09: I don't deny science. I don't deny hardly anything except for the theory of evolution, the
25:18: Big Bang, you know. I don't even doubt the Big Bang. When God created, there probably was a
25:23: Big Bang. I would question how long ago that happened, but I don't deny that it happened.
25:32: I believe scientists when they say the universe had a beginning. I believe them when they say that it's expanding.
25:41: Sure, no problem. Even with evolution, I believe in what is called micro -evolution, that animals develop and evolve within the species.
25:54: So when God, for example, when God created dogs, he created a male dog and a female dog, right?
26:02: 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.
26:13: That's the evidence that the evolutionary process can go wrong at times. But, you know, you've got all of these different types of dogs from the original two.
26:24: But in all seriousness, that type of evolution does happen, micro -evolution.
26:31: But macro -evolution, that's a totally different thing. The idea that microbes evolve into fish and then...
26:41: 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...
26:49: You didn't see that? Okay, well... Well, that's the idea that the fish grew legs, came out onto the land, evolved into a monkey, and boom, there you go.
27:00: We came from chimpanzees or whatever. That's macro -evolution.
27:07: And, you know, people want to talk about fairy tales. That's the biggest fairy tale of them all.
27:13: I don't believe that because the Bible says that God created man in his own image, in his own likeness.
27:20: God created Adam, formed him from the dust of the earth. God created
27:25: 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.
27:35: So we have the truth. It's very, very clear. Besides, just one more comment on evolution.
27:42: It is still called the theory of evolution. I know it's taught as a fact, but it's still the theory.
27:49: No one was there to observe it. You cannot test it. How is it even called science?
27:55: But, yes, Christians do reject some things, but we are not anti -science.
28:02: 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,
28:12: I think, to the church. Our church was very blessed during 2020.
28:17: I don't know about everyone else, but bear with me for a moment as I make my point.
28:23: Remember in March 2020, what did they say? 15 days to flatten the curve.
28:29: 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 it went.
28:42: What did they tell us? We need to follow, follow the science.
28:48: They said, listen to the science. Listen to the science. Well, here's the thing.
28:54: The science doesn't say anything. Scientists say things.
29:00: And, you know, at the end of the day, scientists are just men. I mean, no government official would ever have some other agenda.
29:09: No man would ever lie, right? Well, what does the Bible say? Let God be true in every man, what?
29:16: 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.
29:26: 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.
29:39: 1 Peter 1, 24 and 25, it says,
29:44: The grass withers and the flower falls away, but the word of the
29:51: Lord endures forever. You know, science books, they all get updated, don't they?
29:57: They have to be updated. The Bible doesn't get updated. The Bible never changes.
30:04: 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.
30:14: 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.
30:23: 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.
30:32: We need to take, no matter who it is, take what they say and compare it against what.
30:39: The Bible should be like a lens. You look, everything filters through the word of God.
30:45: 1 Thessalonians 5, 21 says, Test all things and hold fast to that which is good.
30:52: There's always going to be opposition. Things are changing quickly in our culture, even within the scientific community.
30:59: Things are always changing. Society is changing, but again, the word of God never changes.
31:08: Speaking of change, kind of 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
31:25: States who attended church back then in the 1960s, you know how much things have changed in churches today compared to back then.
31:35: Isn't that true? No one I've ever heard would deny that. Here's the thing.
31:41: Things are not changing for the better. I mean, there's been a few things maybe that have improved.
31:47: 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,
31:55: I think, in the churches. So moving on to the next sub -point, why is it important not to reconsider the
32:03: Reformation or the Protestant confession? Here's why it's important in considering this question of truth.
32:12: The Protestant Reformation rediscovered the doctrine of sola scriptura, as the pastor was talking about.
32:21: Sola scriptura, what does that mean? Scripture alone is our authority.
32:28: 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
32:36: Christian, the Bible is our final authority. There are people rethinking the
32:41: 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?
32:50: Well, it's not great, and I'll explain why. But basically, it comes down to a question of authority.
32:57: So what's the authority for the Christian? What is it? What's the foundation of our belief system?
33:06: Yeah, as soon as you start rethinking the Reformation, is the Roman Catholic Church going to be an equal authority as Scripture?
33:16: 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.
33:23: 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.
33:30: I'm not against Roman Catholics at all. I love Roman Catholics. I don't love
33:35: Catholicism, because if you haven't noticed, and I'm sure actually a lot of Roman Catholics are not happy about this, that the
33:45: Pope and the Church, these days they're really going the way of the culture.
33:51: The Pope just recently said that Roman priests are now allowed to bless same -sex unions.
34:01: The Pope is, really, he's just embraced the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age.
34:08: So here's the thing. If we start rethinking as Protestants, Baptists, Evangelicals, whatever term you use,
34:14: Bible believer, Christian, if we start reconsidering the Reformation, we are cutting our legs out from under us.
34:22: That's what we're doing. Just for the few who might not be totally clear on what the
34:29: Reformation was, to give sort of a simple overview, a thousand years ago or more, the
34:36: Roman Catholic Church, basically they ruled Europe. More or less, they ruled
34:41: Europe for a thousand years. So over time, just going back to the 1200s, 1300s, 1400s,
34:50: Rome's power and the Pope's power was immense. In fact, the
34:56: Pope was so powerful, if he decreed something as truth, it was truth.
35:04: 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.
35:17: 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?
35:27: The king of kings, right? Because that's what the Bible calls him. But in the Catholic system, the
35:32: Pope was the king of kings, because if a nation within the Holy Roman Empire, because the
35:39: Roman Empire fell, and what took its place was the Holy Roman Empire, and it wasn't holy, and it wasn't
35:45: Roman, and it wasn't even really an empire, but the Pope was the head of it. So if a nation wanted to crown a king in the
35:53: Holy Roman Empire, the Pope would decide which king would ascend to the throne.
36:00: He would crown the king. That made him what? The king of kings.
36:07: So that was the type of power and authority the Catholic Church had, and they were less concerned with what the
36:14: Bible said. Truth was determined by what the Church said, and what the
36:19: Pope said. Well, here's the thing. The Pope is a fallible man.
36:26: The Church is a group of men. This is one of the teachings of the Church, that they say the
36:32: Pope is infallible. You've heard this? Who's heard that? The Pope is infallible.
36:37: Of course, you know that they believe in celibacy for the priests, and the
36:42: Pope himself is not married, and somebody once said, well, if the Pope was married, he would know he wasn't infallible.
36:51: That's... But it came up last night about Galileo, right? Galileo was persecuted by the
36:57: Church because he said that the earth revolved around the sun instead of the other way around.
37:04: Well, the Catholic Church had a scientific position. That was an error, and they persecuted
37:09: Galileo. So, I mean, that's the kind of power they had in society. Do we want that?
37:16: Do you want to give that type of power to Pope Francis? I don't think you do. Anyways, long story short, the
37:24: 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.
37:32: 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.
37:38: But there came a man named Martin Luther. He saw, not Martin Luther King Jr.,
37:44: totally different person, Martin Luther, who was a Catholic monk, he saw the corruption in the
37:51: Catholic Church. And in his studies, as he studied the Scripture, he realized that what the
37:57: Catholic Church was saying, what the Pope was saying, wasn't lining up with what the Bible said.
38:03: It wasn't lining up. So he, long story short, he protested.
38:10: He wanted to reform the Church, and the Church was either unable or unwilling to be reformed, so there you've got the
38:20: Protestants, as they were called. They broke away from the Church, and that's where you've got the Lutherans, the
38:26: 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.
38:34: Out of the Protestant Reformation came these five truths, called the five solas of the
38:43: Reformation. Sola Scriptura. Scripture alone is our authority.
38:50: Sola Fide. That is, we are saved by faith alone.
38:55: Sola Gradia. Grace alone. Actually, we're saved by grace alone through faith alone.
39:02: Sola Christus, which means Christ alone. Jesus is the only
39:07: Savior. And then, number five, Sola Deo Gloria, to the glory of God alone.
39:14: Those were the truths that came out of the Reformation, truths that we need to cling to.
39:19: Even if you don't identify as a Protestant, I don't know if you do or not, but you can get behind this.
39:28: But really, it's sola Scriptura that we're concerned about tonight. So, I don't have time.
39:35: 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
39:48: Bible say? It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this, the judgment.
39:55: Everyone is going to face God. So the question is, when you stand before God, what are you going to say?
40:02: Well, you're probably not going to say much. But if God were to ask you, why should
40:09: I allow you into my heaven? What would you say?
40:14: Here's what I would say. I don't deserve it. I have sinned.
40:20: I have fallen short. I do not deserve a place in heaven.
40:26: But the Bible said that Jesus Christ died for my sin.
40:34: I have put all my faith and trust in him. That's the only thing that I can appeal to.
40:44: But the Bible says, all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
40:50: 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.
41:03: But we're talking about the Bible. So the Scripture is our final authority, the truth in an obscure culture.
41:10: Where's the truth? Where do you find the truth? The Word of God. Someone will say, yeah, but the
41:15: Bible was written by men. You're saying scientists are men, the Pope's a man. Yeah, but the
41:20: Bible was written by men. Who's heard this argument? I mean, obviously men were the ones who penned the words, but 2
41:29: 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.
41:40: You notice that? It never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the
41:48: Holy Spirit. Who's the real author of the Bible? Yeah, it's not Moses.
41:54: It's not Peter. It's not John. It's the Holy Spirit of God. And then as far as the
42:02: Scripture, okay, this is what a Catholic might say. Where does the Bible teach soulless
42:07: Scripture? 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.
42:19: Seems like Jesus had that viewpoint where Scripture was the authority.
42:25: Of course, he was the embodiment of Scripture. He is the word of God made flesh.
42:31: So all of that to say this, the Scripture is the final authority because the
42:36: Holy Spirit is the true author. Men are fallible. God is infallible, meaning
42:44: God is not wrong. Not only because you're talking about inerrant and infallible, the
42:51: Bible is inerrant and it's infallible. Inerrant means it's not wrong and God is inerrant, but God is infallible and the
42:58: Holy Scriptures are infallible, meaning they cannot be wrong. And to this day, the
43:05: Bible has never once been proven wrong. What's the title of the message?
43:11: The Truth in an Obscure Culture. My friends, without God's input, without his word, humanity is blind.
43:24: 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.
43:40: 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.
43:50: There are people in high places, principalities and powers, you might say, that are intentionally trying to confuse and divide us.
44:00: 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.
44:09: They're supposed to be feeding you the truth, the news, and they're saying the exact opposite. I know, some would say, yeah, but it's this one, they're right.
44:21: Again, not to dig up 2020, but I think the year 2020, 2021 was a real eye -opener in this regard.
44:29: You know, conspiracy theories. One of these days, I'd love to do a whole sermon on conspiracy theories.
44:35: 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.
44:47: But in 2020, conspiracies went mainstream. Why? Because some of them turned out to be true.
44:56: 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.
45:08: Truth is very elusive these days, and it leads many to despair.
45:15: They want to throw their hands up. Well, how can, 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.
45:29: God's truth is not obscure. The word of God endures forever.
45:35: Okay, the final point that we're going to be looking at, and with this, we'll get into more of the application.
45:43: I'll try to leave you with something that you can take away from tonight, but the final thing, we'll discuss churches that are reconsidering their doctrines in the wake of the latest societal changes.
45:56: To me, this is one of the most tragic things. You know, as a pastor, this is the one that really gets me.
46:02: 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,
46:15: 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 like 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
46:44: Apostles' Creed. You say, what's wrong with that, the Apostles' Creed?
46:50: Well, the Apostles' Creed, okay, depending on how you define a few things,
46:56: 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
47:03: 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
47:20: 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.
47:31: The man who is arguably the greatest Christian who ever lived said in 2
47:38: Timothy 4, 2, he said, preach the word, preach the
47:43: 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
48:02: Christians, because they're 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 doctoral statement, but just all of their doctrines.
48:20: Bible teaching, Bible preaching, oh, that's not what people want. If you wanna bring people in, you gotta get rid of that and you gotta entertain people, right?
48:28: Churches have been turned into an entertainment center. It's basically like a rock concert followed by a motivational speaker.
48:35: I don't know what that is. It ain't church. But a lot of churches are dropping their doctrinal statements altogether.
48:45: You visit the church website. You have no earthly idea what they believe, and it's all by design.
48:52: You might even go and attend for a few weeks and you listen to the message. You're trying to discern, is this a
48:58: Baptist church? Is it a covenant theology? You're like, what is this? And you don't even know. Why?
49:04: Because churches aren't, pastors aren't teaching doctrine anymore. They're not teaching doctrine.
49:13: The mantra since the 1960s has been doctrine divides, love unifies.
49:20: Oh, that sounds so good. Sounds so nice. Except that the apostle
49:27: Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13 .6, he says that love rejoices in the truth.
49:35: 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?
49:43: He said, well, no creed but Christ. Get rid of the doctrine. Get rid of all this. It's just Christ.
49:49: Again, that sounds so good, but just say, okay, tell me something about this Christ. Well, then you get into doctrine because the
49:58: Mormons have their Christ. The Jehovah's Witnesses have their Christ who is a glorified angel.
50:03: The liberal churches have their Christ who is not God. And everyone has their own version of Christ.
50:11: How can you find the truth? There's only one place you can find the truth. It's in this book.
50:18: And by the way, it's a literal reading of this book because some people can twist this around like you wouldn't believe.
50:24: 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.
50:38: I'm almost done. Any unity that seeks to undermine and or to get rid of Bible doctrine,
50:46: I submit to you, that is a superficial unity. It's fake. That's what it is. It's fake.
50:53: Unity in what? The Greek word translated doctrine here simply means teaching or instruction.
51:01: Here's the thing. If a minister, this is what pastors do. They get up in front of a group like you.
51:07: They talk for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes. At Green River Bible Church, 50 plus minutes.
51:15: God bless them. That's a compliment, by the way, just so you know.
51:21: If a pastor is not standing up and preaching the Bible, he's up there talking about something.
51:30: What's he talking about? His musings about his new fresh approach to ministry, about his opinion, whatever it is.
51:38: 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.
51:46: It's in the Bible. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word.
51:53: I thank you that in this culture where everyone's confused, they don't even know what a man and a woman is today,
52:00: Lord, your word tells us that and everything else that we need, that we need to know for life and godliness.
52:07: 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,
52:15: I pray that you would use this message. Put a fire in them to really have a hunger and a thirst for your word.
52:24: And we pray it all in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you,
52:29: Pastor Mike. Let's remain standing. We will stretch a little bit our muscles and singing a worshiping song.
52:37: And after that, I'll introduce the second speaker for tonight.
52:51: Standing on the promises of Christ my King Through eternal ages let his praises ring
53:00: Glory in the highest heaven shall then sing Standing on the promises of God Standing, standing
53:15: Standing on the promises of God my Savior Standing, standing
53:23: I'm standing on the promises of God Standing on the promise shall prevail
53:42: Standing on the promise In eternity my love strong Oh, hear it so Standing on the promises of God Listening every moment to the spirit
55:22: You may be seated. Pastor Mike, if you think Pastor Jason is preaching long sermons, you haven't heard
55:32: Brother Angel when he's fired up. 29 years ago, we were almost at the end of,
55:42: I was at the end of my first year at the Bible College. June.
55:50: The campus was a building with three stories at the top floor.
55:56: The administration decided to convert it into a chapel. No AC. It was
56:02: Moldova. And Pastor Nate came to visit
56:07: Moldova. And of course, people with open hearts preach, brother. So he took advantage.
56:14: For that timing. Now, if you think on purpose,
56:20: I said that every evening, Pastor Nate should speak the second person.
56:26: You're right. It was on purpose because it's really hard to speak the second person and try not to repeat what the first one said.
56:36: And especially when you have to deliver the third sermon, right? Because Pastor Nate already spoke twice this morning.
56:45: It was an amazing, amazing teachings and time. Praise the Lord for the
56:51: Holy Spirit that works in our hearts. So, Pastor Nate, it's your time.
56:59: And we pray that God will use you in an amazing way. So, the pulpit is yours.
57:09: Yes. Please take your
57:15: Bibles and turn to 2 Peter, if you would, please. 2 Peter. We continue the theme for this evening.
57:23: 2 Peter chapter 3. If you would hold your finger there as well and turn to the Old Testament book of Proverbs.
57:31: Proverbs chapter number 22. So I'm thankful for all the references to the
57:38: Word of God that lives and abides forever. And we're so thankful that though the culture is changing, the
57:46: Word of God is steadfast and sure. And it never changes. And I trust that this evening, your faith will be challenged once again to put your faith in the
57:58: Word of God. The only way that you can place your faith in Jesus Christ is to first, by the hearing of the
58:05: Word, you hear the Word, and the Word of God directs you to the living Word, Jesus Christ.
58:11: And through the living Word, you have eternal life. And he that believeth on the Son hath life.
58:17: And he that believeth not the Son of God hath not life. And these are words that have been given to us from the
58:24: Scriptures by which we know that we have eternal life through Jesus Christ the
58:30: Lord. If you'll stand with me for the reading of the Word of God in 2 Peter chapter number 3.
58:37: We've already heard the words of Paul the Apostle. And now we are looking at the words of Peter the
58:45: Apostle. This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you, in both which
58:52: I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the
59:08: Lord Jesus Christ. And there you have a summation of the Old Testament and the New Testament in one statement.
59:14: Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lust, and saying,
59:23: Where is the promise of his coming? Now we'll not go into all the verses that follow concerning the second coming of the
59:32: Lord Jesus Christ. But I do want to draw your attention to those words from Peter that we be mindful of the words of the prophets.
59:43: Moses was a prophet. The first five books of the Old Testament carries us all the way through Malachi, the last prophet of the
59:49: Old Testament. John the Baptist, the first prophet of the New Testament. And then the apostles. All the way through to the book of Revelation, which is the apostle
59:59: John's writing concerning the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. So if you will, look down in 2
01:00:07: Peter 3, down to the end of the chapter, verse 17, to sum up what Peter is saying.
01:00:14: Ye therefore, beloved, if you're saved, say Amen. That's who he's referring to here, the saved brothers and sisters.
01:00:21: Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware.
01:00:26: Now when you say beware of the dog, what does that mean? Beware, lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness.
01:00:44: But grow in grace, sola gracia. We just heard about that.
01:00:50: Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
01:00:58: To Him be glory, sola gloria. Again, we already understood that truth.
01:01:05: To Him be glory, both now and forever. And all God's people said, Amen. Will you pray with me a moment before you're seated,
01:01:11: Father in Heaven? We ask now that the Holy Spirit of God would speak to every one of our hearts.
01:01:17: Speak to me as I deliver your word. Speak, Lord, to the hearts of men and women here gathered tonight and young people on this
01:01:25: Saturday night. O Spirit of God, we depend upon your application of the inspired word of God.
01:01:33: We are mere mortals. We speak with lips of clay. But your word is eternal. And Spirit of God, I pray that you would speak that Jesus Christ might be glorified in our midst.
01:01:45: We ask it in His name. Amen. You may be seated. Now I ask you to turn also to Proverbs chapter 23, chapter 22, and chapter 23.
01:01:58: We find in this context as the Old Testament, the prophets that are writing, the
01:02:05: New Testament, the apostles that are writing. And here we have also a warning. Peter warned us to beware that we did not fall into the error of the wicked, and that is not being mindful of the
01:02:19: Scriptures, not adhering to the truth of the word of God. And so in chapter 22, verse 17, we read these words.
01:02:40: The Lord is a pleasant thing if thou keep them with thee, that they shall withal be fitted to thy lips, that thy trust, thy reliance, thy dependence, thy faith may be in the
01:02:55: Lord. I have made known to thee this day, even to thee, have not
01:03:01: I written to thee excellent things in counsels and in knowledge, that I might make thee to know the certainty of the words of truth.
01:03:14: I love the way the wise man poses the fact that God's truth, all truth is
01:03:21: God's truth, and the truth that we have revealed here, that thou mayest be able to answer, notice verse 21, the words of truth to them that send unto thee.
01:03:34: We believe that the Bible has the answer to every human need for life and for godliness.
01:03:42: We understand that the Bible speaks truth to every culture, every culture, every generation.
01:03:52: And as we get to the end of this chapter, the wise man turns his attention to these words in verse 28.
01:04:00: Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set.
01:04:10: Now this is again a clear command in the Old Testament that's reinforced in the New Testament.
01:04:16: The word remove means to displace, to take it and move it out of its place, to move it out of its context.
01:04:26: To displace or to move back. The idea to remove is to take something and move it into the background.
01:04:35: Not being important, again, not being up front. It also means the word remove there means to carry it away.
01:04:46: And here the writer is saying be careful. Do not remove certain things.
01:04:53: Do not displace them. Do not move them back in the background. Do not carry them away.
01:05:02: And then notice what he says in particular, the ancient landmark. The word ancient here means everlasting.
01:05:10: It means those things that have been in place for time and eternity, the things that never change.
01:05:18: The word ancient means perpetual. That means it's carried on from generation to generation to generation to generation.
01:05:25: It never changes. It means age long. So we see the writer agrees with the
01:05:33: New Testament writers, Paul and Peter, not to remove the ancient landmark.
01:05:40: Now notice that word landmark. It was understood by the Hebrews. They knew they marked their boundaries with stones.
01:05:48: If you go to Israel today, everything is marked by stones. Many of the buildings are out of stone.
01:05:54: The walls are built out of stone. And the landmarks were stones that marked your property.
01:06:02: They said this was the corners of your property. It was territory that was enclosed within a boundary, within a boundary.
01:06:12: I speak to young people all the time. And young people, they say, well, we don't like boundaries.
01:06:17: We don't like rules. Well, you know, boundaries are good. If you're going down the interstate and there's a precipice that goes down the side of the mountain and there happens to be a guardrail there, if you're in a tent at the wheel, you'll hit the guardrail before you hit the bottom of the ravine.
01:06:35: So boundaries are good. And here the Scriptures lay down the boundaries of truth.
01:06:42: What is truth? Remove not the ancient, the perpetual, the everlasting boundaries that thy fathers have set.
01:06:55: It's interesting referring back to the fathers of the Reformation, but even referring back to the fathers, the apostles, okay, and referring even back beyond them to the prophets before them.
01:07:08: And it says do not remove those landmarks that have been put in place by your forefathers based upon the truth, the unchanging truth of God's Word.
01:07:22: The last word in that, verse 28, is the word set. Set. It has the idea to put it in order and leave it in place.
01:07:34: Put it in order and leave it in place. So I'm thankful that we have the
01:07:42: Scriptures today, that God has commanded us to keep all of His truth, all of the
01:07:50: Word of God in its place, not push it in the background, not be ashamed of it, not try to hide it and somehow trick people into becoming
01:08:03: Christians. So now we're going to look at this tradition in the
01:08:10: Jewish context. When they're writing, this is not the only time you look in chapter 23, it says do not remove the boundary once again in chapter 23, verse 10.
01:08:21: And this is all throughout the Old Testament law. Don't move the boundaries. What was happening is under the cover of darkness, a person would go in and steal his neighbor's property one inch at a time.
01:08:34: In other words, he would go out at night and he would move the stone boundaries, increasing his property and decreasing his neighbor's property.
01:08:44: And especially they were taking advantage of the widows who could not go out and defend their property.
01:08:50: And God was adamant. He said, do not steal your neighbor's property under the cover of darkness.
01:08:59: We know the increasing darkness in our age. We know the increasing darkness all around us.
01:09:06: We must not remove the boundaries during a time of dark culture and truths that we never believed would be taught to our children.
01:09:18: Do not remove the landmarks that God has put in place. Now, landmarks are important.
01:09:26: They establish boundaries. They establish property ownership. Boundaries also in the
01:09:34: Christian church produce conviction, deep abiding conviction.
01:09:46: We see an absence of conviction. It's whatever.
01:09:52: I'll go to church. Whatever. It doesn't matter about their worship. It doesn't matter what they do.
01:09:58: Whatever. And there's not a deep abiding conviction.
01:10:04: And conviction is missing in most of our churches. And what
01:10:09: I mean by that, people come to church, they hear the message, and they go home unchanged. They go home unmoved, many times unchallenged because they're not confronted with the word of God, just men's opinions.
01:10:26: And here we understand that convictions produce conviction in the soul.
01:10:34: This is an important truth. We see conviction, according to Webster, says conviction is the realization of one's guilt.
01:10:46: You see, a lot of people don't need a savior in the sense that they don't have a sense of guilt.
01:10:55: Everything is relative. There's no fixed boundaries of right and wrong and righteousness and unrighteousness and godliness and ungodliness.
01:11:05: And therefore, young people are like, no conviction. They can go on unmoved, unchanged.
01:11:13: They don't lose any sleep about their social media sinful life. It doesn't bother them.
01:11:21: And when we move the landmarks, we remove the conviction of the
01:11:28: Holy Spirit of God within the church, within the family.
01:11:34: When we move the landmarks in our family and the Bible is not the center of our Christian home, then kids grow up in a
01:11:41: Christian home and as soon as they can, they fly the nest and they go out in the world and many of them, multitudes of them, never return to church again.
01:11:54: Why? There was no conviction in the home. I was thankful and blessed to be raised in an old -fashioned home where the
01:12:04: Bible was the center of our home. Daddy was the head of our home. Mother was the heart of the home.
01:12:12: And that home was sanctified unto Christ. And I can remember the most significant church service
01:12:18: I ever had was not in a church building. It was in our living room in Royal Oak, Michigan when my dad pulled out the
01:12:25: Bible and he said, This family is not measuring up to the Word of God and here
01:12:31: I am the pastor and my own family is not following the Scripture.
01:12:37: Wow, that was a solid moment. At that moment, my 16 -year -old brother had decided he was going to take his own way.
01:12:47: He was breaking my mother's heart. There was division in the home. But I can tell you that night as my dad read the
01:12:54: Scriptures with tears coming down his face, conviction fell on that living room setting and the tears began to flow.
01:13:05: And I'll never forget the scene when my older brother got up out of his seat and walked across the room, got on his knees in front of my mother and said,
01:13:12: I am so sorry for how I've treated you, how I've spoken to you, how
01:13:17: I've disrespected you. Listen, when my older brother did that, he never apologized to anybody.
01:13:23: He'd beat you up, never apologized. But he apologized that night and revival fell in that living room that night and all five of us kids came out of there with a conviction, the
01:13:35: Bible is true and God is God. It's missing today.
01:13:42: So I told you we didn't have a television in our home growing up. You think, really? How did you survive?
01:13:52: Well, we learned to play games of all kinds and our favorite game was to play church.
01:13:59: I don't know if you ever grew up in a home like that but, I mean, my dad was the pastor and so my oldest brother, after he got right with God, he was the preacher and he would get milk crates and stack up three milk crates.
01:14:12: That was the pulpit. And then my older sister, Ruth, was the piano player and, by the way, she became a piano player all of her life.
01:14:21: And then my next brother, older than me, he was the preacher and then that left me to be the congregation and I kept the nursery because my little sister, she came to church too.
01:14:36: So I kept the nursery while my brother, three years older, he preached to us and he only had one sermon.
01:14:43: It didn't matter where he opened his Bible and he said, you get right with God or you're going to hell. And he preached that one night while Mom and Dad were out on church visitation and my brother, he got under such conviction that night, he said,
01:15:00: I want to be saved. My oldest brother said, I don't know what to do with you now, man. You'll just have to wait until Mom and Daddy get home.
01:15:10: And when Mom and Daddy got home, my brother Phil was sitting in the middle of his bed, tears running down his face.
01:15:15: He said, I don't want to die in my sins and go to hell. I want to be saved. And my dad took the
01:15:20: Word of God and showed him the plan of salvation. And he's been a brother and a preacher for 40 years.
01:15:26: You know, that's called conviction. But we move the landmarks and we don't have conviction anymore.
01:15:34: Not only do we have conviction in our homes, we don't have conviction in our churches. We don't have conviction in our youth groups. They want to come together and be entertained and have a good time and the
01:15:43: Word of God is never pulled out. And there's no conviction in the lives of young people today.
01:15:48: So the Bible says don't move the landmarks which thy fathers have put in place.
01:15:55: You see, the landmarks that are being moved are gradually being moved so slowly that most people don't even realize what's happening.
01:16:05: And it's all taking place under the cultural darkness around us until the original truth is completely lost.
01:16:18: Now let me just represent from the Word of God what I believe some of the landmarks that should be in place.
01:16:25: If we're going to see God move in revival and in conviction, in life transformation, it's going to come out of the doctrines, the teachings of the
01:16:39: Word of God. The first landmark that must never be removed is the landmark of the holiness of God.
01:16:46: The landmark of the holiness of God. The psalmist says in Psalm 47 and verse 8,
01:16:54: God sitteth on the throne of His holiness. In Psalm 98 and verse 5,
01:16:59: Exalt ye the Lord our God and worship at His footstool for He is holy.
01:17:06: Psalm 99 and verse 9, Exalt the Lord our God and worship at His holy hill for the
01:17:12: Lord our God is holy. Psalm 97 verse 12, Give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness.
01:17:21: Psalm 96 verse 9, Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
01:17:28: Fear before Him all the earth. Then Habakkuk the prophet said,
01:17:34: Thou art purer eyes than to behold evil. Thou canst not look upon iniquity.
01:17:42: Our God is so holy that when Jesus Christ hung upon the cross, the sinless Son of God, and our sins were placed upon Him, and He took our sins in His body on the tree, that God the
01:17:56: Father turned away from His Son and could not behold Him and during the hours when
01:18:04: He was bearing our sins and paying the price, what a holy
01:18:10: God, a God whose character that He demands that He punishes every sin.
01:18:17: And there's a just recompense of reward for every sin because God is a holy God. And God's holiness demands justice.
01:18:28: We see in our day and age the boundary being moved concerning the holiness of God.
01:18:35: People say, well, He's the man upstairs. Well, my friend, find that in the Word of God. Find the idea that we bring
01:18:44: God down into our congregation so that we can be entertained. Where is the fear?
01:18:51: Where is the reverence? Where is the trembling at the thought of a thrice holy
01:18:58: God who demands that sin must be punished?
01:19:03: You tell a young person who understands that, my friend, he will never desire salvation.
01:19:10: He will never seek redemption. Remove the holiness of God, and we'll see the results everywhere in our society today.
01:19:22: We understand that Jesus said, when you pray, pray, our
01:19:28: Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
01:19:39: We have not even begun to enter into the presence of God until we understand His holiness is absolutely without even the thought of sin.
01:19:49: Not only does our God not act in sin, He cannot think sin.
01:19:56: He is incapable of sin. He is holy, holy, holy, as we saw this morning in Isaiah chapter 6, that even the created angels in heaven cover their faces in the presence of a holy
01:20:16: God. When's the last time, my friend, that when you entered in the presence of the
01:20:21: Lord, you were on your face? Look at all the times throughout
01:20:27: Scripture when God represented Himself and how the people fell before a holy
01:20:35: God. But we've moved that landmark now, and how dangerous it is to move the landmark of the holiness of God.
01:20:48: That leads me to the second landmark that's being moved ever so gradually under the cover of darkness, and that's the landmark of the awfulness of sin.
01:20:58: The awfulness of sin. The Bible speaks concerning Cain and the first family and the first son, and we see
01:21:11: Cain sinned against his brother. Cain talked with his brother
01:21:16: Abel in Genesis chapter 4, verse 8, and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and slew him.
01:21:24: And the Lord said unto Cain, Where's thy Abel, thy brother? And he said,
01:21:31: Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done?
01:21:36: The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground, and now thou art cursed from the earth which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand.
01:21:51: And you remember as Cain threw his hands over his face and cried,
01:21:57: My punishment is more than I can bear. And he went out as a fugitive before the
01:22:08: Lord. We once again must understand the awfulness of sin.
01:22:15: When Christ was upon the cross and our sins were placed upon Him, they were spitting upon Him, they had cursed
01:22:22: Him, they had driven the nails in His hand, the spike in His feet, they put the crown of thorns on His head.
01:22:28: And Jesus looked out from the cross and said, May the Father forgive them for they know not what they do.
01:22:38: Sin is serious, my friend. And most people don't know the awfulness of their sin.
01:22:44: They do not realize the magnitude of their sin. Because their punishment is not sudden, they think that God is appeased.
01:22:54: They think because judgment does not fall immediately that their sin is not serious.
01:23:00: Their seared consciences do not reveal the sin of their hearts.
01:23:06: And men, even in our churches, come to the place where they excuse sin, Oh, that's just my weakness, that's just the way
01:23:12: I am. My friend, when we see the holiness of God, then we see the awfulness of our sin.
01:23:21: And we see that sin robs us of the presence of a holy God. It robs us to be able to praise in His presence.
01:23:33: We understand that when we sin, we forfeit His blessing, we forfeit
01:23:39: His power in our lives. Cain's deed was horrible.
01:23:47: It was treason against a God who had given instructions to Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel.
01:23:55: Heart treason, sin is serious business because it's treason against our
01:24:00: God, our Creator. And there's consequences from sin.
01:24:06: And sin is serious because it's not just about you, it's about those that you affect. Right here in the back of my
01:24:13: Bible, I have the picture of all my kids and all my grandkids. And I realize that our lives affect others.
01:24:21: We have influence. And there's consequences for sin. And Cain said, my sin is more than I can bear.
01:24:28: But then there's eternal consequences for our sin. Eternal consequences that continue on and on.
01:24:36: And we've moved the boundary of the awfulness of sin. And by the way, that's why the
01:24:41: Bible instructs parents to lovingly but firmly discipline your children when they disobey.
01:24:48: To save their soul from hell. It starts in the family when we understand that a lie is serious.
01:24:57: Disobedience is serious. Because God is holy and sin is an awful business.
01:25:04: Which leads me to the third landmark that's been removed in our culture and that's the landmark of the reality of hellfire.
01:25:13: The landmark of the reality of hellfire. Jesus said in Mark chapter 9 in verse 43,
01:25:20: If thy hand offend thee, cut it off. For it is better for thee to enter into life, maimed or crippled, than having two hands to enter into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched.
01:25:35: Remember, this is our Savior, the loving Savior who sacrificed His life. Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
01:25:43: If thy foot offend thee, cut it off. It's better for thee to go through life crippled than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.
01:25:56: Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. If thy eye offend thee, pluck it out.
01:26:03: It's better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than it is having two eyes to enter into hellfire.
01:26:11: Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is never, no never quenched.
01:26:20: This is the Savior who loved us, the Savior who went to Calvary, who reminds us that the end of a sinful life is an eternal separation in the lake of fire.
01:26:37: The Bible makes it very clear that hell is a real place. You know, I don't find people questioning heaven and even unbelievers on NBC, CBS, ABC.
01:26:49: They'll talk about people they love who die and, well, they're in a better place. And they don't hesitate for a moment to think that beyond the grave there is a place where God has prepared for the redeemed, where there's no sin, there's no sorrow, there's no death, there's no crime.
01:27:10: Oh, what a place. Oh, what a place. But just as sure, my friend, as there is a place called heaven, there's a place called hell.
01:27:18: And it's just as literal, it's just as real. Where in heaven the streets are paved with gold and the city has walls of jasper and there's no need of the sun or the moon for he is the light of that city.
01:27:31: Oh, what a glorious place that is. We can't even fathom it with our finite minds, but neither can we fathom the fires of hell.
01:27:40: And what it's like for a person to die without Christ and to plunge into hell where the fire is never quenched,
01:27:49: Jesus said, where the worm dieth not, where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth.
01:27:56: When's the last time you paused for a moment and thought about someone in your family who's on their way to hell?
01:28:05: If your family member was sick, you would go to the hospital, you would stay up all night at the emergency room, you would stay outside the intensive care unit for days so that they would come back to you.
01:28:17: But my friend, if they die without Christ and go to hell, they'll be in the place of eternal torment forever and forever.
01:28:25: Not only is the fire eternal, Jesus said in Matthew, that also the punishment is eternal.
01:28:32: You see, sin is against an eternal God, therefore it demands an eternal punishment. And we must understand that if we move that landmark, there'll be no conviction, there'll be no people broken over their sins, there will be no people losing sleep over their transgressions and iniquities against God.
01:28:55: You see, we have to understand that hell immediately follows death.
01:29:01: I've been to a lot of funerals. And at every funeral I stand at the front to preside,
01:29:08: I always speak the gospel because there's people there that that's the only time they'll ever hear the gospel of the
01:29:15: Lord Jesus Christ in their whole life. But they'll come to a relative or friend's funeral.
01:29:22: But I've been to funerals, my friend, where not only was the gospel not preached, but heresy was spoken about people who lived in sin and died in sin and said that they're in a better place now.
01:29:36: My friend, if they died in their sin, they're not in a better place. We need to get the landmark back in place.
01:29:44: The landmark of the literal, eternal, burning furnace of fire, words of Jesus, furnace of fire for those that are lost.
01:29:54: And I know the culture. I know the young people. It's a mockery out there today. Hell ain't a bad place to be.
01:29:59: You know, me and my friends, when we get to hell, we're gonna party. My friend, if you die and go to hell, you're not gonna party because you're not gonna have one drop of water, much less a can of beer if you die and go to hell.
01:30:12: There's not a drop of water to quench your thirst. But secondly, you won't have any friends in hell.
01:30:17: They'll hate you because you led them there. Oh, think about it, my friend, the landmark of the holiness of God, the awfulness of sin, the reality of hellfire needs to be put back in place.
01:30:34: Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set.
01:30:43: I'll not belabor. I could stay here, but I want to move to the next landmark that's being moved, and that's respect for the
01:30:50: Word of God, the Bible. Wow, I even face it at a Christian college.
01:30:55: I say, when you come to chapel, bring your Bible. And, you know, it's interesting.
01:31:07: So here's what young people do. I'm smart. I've been around a while. You tell them to open their
01:31:12: Bible on their phone, and the rest of the hour, they're checking all their messages.
01:31:20: They don't hear another word you said. So we've made chapel a no -phone zone.
01:31:27: You bring your Bible, not your phone. I wonder if we did that at church.
01:31:35: Listen, there's been a disrespecting of the Word of God. It starts in the home when you've got the
01:31:41: TV on all the time and all these magazines laid around, but where's the Bible? Well, it's hidden somewhere under here.
01:31:50: Someone go please find a Bible. The disrespect from the
01:31:56: Word of God leads to alarming disregard for what
01:32:02: God's Word says. See, that's the answer to the questions. Well, hey, is this right or is this wrong?
01:32:09: What does God's Word say about it? And you open the Word of God, but there's a disregard and a disrespect for the
01:32:17: Word of God, and we've moved the boundary. You remember when
01:32:22: Belshazzar was throwing a party for a thousand of his lords, and man, the wine was flowing, and the party was just getting started, and he said, hey, go down there and get the vessels that belong to the temple of God and bring out the golden goblets, and let's drink wine and praise the gods of gold and silver and wood and bronze.
01:32:45: So they went and they got the vessels that were holy, consecrated to God, and brought them to the party, and about the time they were pouring the liquor in those vessels that were dedicated to God, suddenly, suddenly, a finger appeared on the wall in Belshazzar's palace in Babylon.
01:33:06: It began to write. You ever done your fingernail on a chalkboard? I wondered what it sounded like, and God began to write the
01:33:20: Word of God on the wall in a heathen
01:33:26: Babylonian temple. They called for Daniel, and he said, oh, king, the finger is the finger of God, and the
01:33:37: Word is the Word of God, and God has just written your judgment.
01:33:44: You've just had your last day on earth. God has weighed you.
01:33:53: You don't weigh enough. You see, when you reintroduce the Bible in a conversation, and it's not your word, it's not your opinion, it's the
01:34:01: Word of God, not only were the Ten Commandments written by the finger of God, but the scriptures are given by inspiration of God, and every word is
01:34:12: God's Word. We need to reintroduce it in our society. We need to reintroduce it in our churches, and we need to reintroduce it in our homes.
01:34:23: I don't think my three children can probably remember two sermons I preached, but you know what they do remember?
01:34:31: And they tell me over and over again, now that they're raising their own kid, they say, Dad, I'll never forget when you and Mom got us around every night and got out the
01:34:38: Bible, and you began to read, and we began to talk, and we began to converse about the scriptures, and then we began to pray, and she said, we'll never forget that, and now we're trying to do the same thing with our children.
01:34:51: We need to put the Word of God back in place. The Word of God needs to be restored to its proper place.
01:34:57: We've had so many verses about that, I'm not going to refer to all the verses that we referred to last night, but then we need to have a reverence for God's Holy Spirit put back in place.
01:35:07: You see, you do not see Jesus in this room. If so, we'd all stand up. Remember, as soon as that door opened,
01:35:15: Jesus Christ walked in, we'd all stand up, and we'd step back, and we would revere that the
01:35:20: Son of God is with us, but Jesus said, it's better for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the
01:35:28: Comforter will not come unto you, but when I depart, I will send him unto you. Let me tell you who's in this room tonight.
01:35:36: The third person of the Trinity's in this room tonight, and we need to respect and reverence the
01:35:46: Holy Spirit of God. It's very frightening when people disregard the
01:35:53: Holy Spirit. People do some strange things in church because they are not aware that the
01:35:59: Holy Spirit is in the midst and dwelling in the body of the believer and that the church is
01:36:05: Christ's body by the miracle, a miracle that takes place.
01:36:11: When you put your faith in Christ, you are placed into the body of Christ. He's the head. Christ is on the throne.
01:36:18: He's in heaven, but His Spirit is here, and how we ought to reverence the
01:36:25: Word of God. You remember the couple in the New Testament church who, you know, they were at church.
01:36:30: They gave their offerings, you know. They honored the apostles, but they conceived together that they were going to lie, and they said, well, we're selling our property for so much.
01:36:44: They didn't have to sell it, but they said, we're going to sell, and we're going to give all the proceeds to the apostles to distribute to the needy.
01:36:52: You know their names, Ananias and Sapphira, and so Ananias came into the church service, and Peter said, would you like to say something,
01:37:01: Ananias? Sure, and he comes down, and he gives his testimony. Oh, my wife and I, we prayed about it, and we've sold our property, and here's what we got for it, and we're going to give it to the
01:37:13: Lord for the apostles to distribute for whatever need, and Peter discerning that they were not telling the truth said, why have you lied?
01:37:24: You've not lied unto men. You've lied to God, and he said, the
01:37:30: Holy Spirit holds you accountable. So what happens to Ananias? He drops dead. Well, talking about long preaching, three hours later,
01:37:38: Sapphira came in. That's a testimony to the New Testament church where they preached, and sometimes
01:37:43: Paul preached all night, but here's the second evidence of this. It takes women a lot longer to get ready than men, and three hours later, she showed up at church, and so she comes in, and Peter said, let me ask you a question.
01:37:58: Quickly. Hey, did you and your husband sell the property for so -and -so? Yes, we did.
01:38:04: You plan to give all of it to the church? Sure did. Sister, they've already carried your husband to the cemetery because he did irreverence to the
01:38:14: Holy Spirit. Now the same ushers are waiting for you, and she dropped dead in front of the congregation, and here's the understatement of the year.
01:38:22: Fear fell upon all the church. Can you imagine if God dealt with us now? But you know what?
01:38:30: The worst thing that God is doing, the dangerous thing is He's allowing people to do irreverence to the
01:38:37: Holy Spirit, and ultimately, the judgment falls upon their family, upon their children, upon their grandchildren.
01:38:47: I would say to you, we need to respect the Holy Spirit. Amen? And there's many verses on that.
01:38:54: I want to get to the last point here, and that is we need to put the landmark back in place of the necessity of the blood of Jesus Christ.
01:39:08: We're talking about landmarks that are being moved ever so gradually. First, it was to take the blood out of the hymn books.
01:39:16: Then it was to take the blood out of the doctrinal statement so that people don't know that, oh, you're those
01:39:23: Christians that believe in the blood. And the
01:39:29: Bible is very clear, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission for sin.
01:39:35: And apart from the blood of Jesus Christ, there is no remedy for our sin problem.
01:39:42: But thankfully, through the blood of Jesus Christ, my friend, his blood is the complete satisfaction of God's wrath concerning our sins.
01:39:52: And when God looks upon the blood, he passes over us, and we receive his grace because we have put our faith in the blood of the
01:40:01: Lord Jesus Christ. I'll quickly draw this to conclusion. When you go to the book of Revelation, you remember the prophets, the
01:40:08: Old Testament, the apostles, the words of Christ, all of that we are not to forget, and we are not to let it be moved.
01:40:18: Do not remove the ancient landmark. And the blood of Christ is absolutely necessary for us to enter into heaven.
01:40:31: I love what our brother testified. If God were to ask you why he should let you into heaven, what would you say?
01:40:39: Friend, that's not the $60 ,000 question. That's not the million -dollar question. That's the question that will determine your eternity.
01:40:49: I read in Revelation 7, verse 13, And one of the elders answered, saying unto me,
01:40:55: What are these that are arrayed in white robes? And whence came they? Where did they come from? And I said unto him,
01:41:01: Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the
01:41:12: Lamb. Amen? So listen, the only entrance into heaven is that you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ alone.
01:41:25: You are trusting him, and his blood is the testament.
01:41:30: In his blood, that you are saved, that you have eternal life, that your sins are covered and paid for.
01:41:39: Hallelujah. He's put them behind his back, which literally means in the Hebrew, he puts them behind his shoulder blades.
01:41:47: See, I can see stuff on my shoulder, but I can't see between my shoulder blades.
01:41:53: He has put our sins behind his back because the blood of Jesus Christ has been applied to my sinful soul.
01:42:01: Have you trusted in the blood of Christ? Are you relying upon Christ's finished work and the shedding of blood of the innocent
01:42:10: Lamb of God who died for us, who paid the price for us?
01:42:17: There was an English lady, and she told her servant, she said, I want you to go get a lamb out of the flock.
01:42:23: We're going to have lamb chops for supper tonight, and I want you to go get the lamb and prepare it and then bring it in the kitchen, let the cooks fix it.
01:42:31: And the servant did exactly what the English lady had asked her to do. Went out and got the lamb and brought the lamb in, slew the lamb, gave the meat to the kitchen to cook.
01:42:42: And then the servant came in and had a little basin and said, Lady, Madam, the lamb is being prepared.
01:42:52: What do I do with the blood? My friend, that's the question.
01:43:01: Jesus has died for you. He's paid the price for your sins. What will you do with the blood of the lamb?
01:43:09: We dare not treat the blood of Christ as something irreverently to be trampled beneath our feet.
01:43:16: Oh, how important it is that we re -instituted our churches to understand the cup represents the blood, and this do in remembrance of me until that day that I sit down with you.
01:43:35: Isn't that going to be a marvelous day when we're in heaven and Jesus comes and the only thing that remains of the suffering are the nail prints in His hands, the lamb that was slain.
01:43:51: What are you doing with the blood, young person? Is the blood applied? It's not enough for you to believe in a lecture that Jesus died for you.
01:43:59: We know that's in the Bible. We know it's true. But you must, by faith, have the blood applied to your life, to your sin.
01:44:07: And once you know the blood has covered your sin, hallelujah, you'll be in that redeemed number around the throne of God.
01:44:16: Will you bow your heads with me, please? Thank you. Thank you for so much listening so attentively.
01:44:23: So thankful for Pastor Grant sharing with us what he shared with us.
01:44:29: And now it's decision time. You say, oh, we don't give invitations in our church.
01:44:37: Oh, yes, the Word of God always gives an invitation. Whether you come to the altar or don't come to the altar, that's not the point.
01:44:42: The point is you have to decide what you're going to do with the Word of God. And some of you, for the first time, you need to put the landmark in place and say,
01:44:51: God, you're a holy God. My sin's awful. I don't want to die in my sins and go to hell, but I believe your
01:44:56: Word is true, and I'm going to put my trust in Jesus Christ as my Savior. Will you do that tonight?
01:45:04: Will you turn from trusting yourself in sin and turn to trusting in Jesus, the
01:45:11: Lamb of God? If so, will you pray this prayer right now, right where you are? Those of you that are watching online, it's not a prayer that saves you.
01:45:20: You just pray in sincerity if you mean it. Dear God, I know
01:45:26: I'm a sinner, and I know I deserve to go to hell, but I believe
01:45:32: Jesus, your God's Son, and I believe that you died for me on the cross, and you were buried, and I believe on the third day, you rose back to life again.
01:45:48: And, Lord, I call upon you to save me a sinner. Save me a sinner for Jesus' sake.
01:45:58: I trust you now, Lord. I place my faith in you alone.
01:46:07: If you pray that prayer in all sincerity, the Bible says you'll not be ashamed. This will give you opportunity to come to one of the brothers and sisters and say, listen,
01:46:17: I'm a new Christian. I prayed to receive Christ, and I want to understand more.
01:46:23: I want to learn the Bible. I want to learn to walk in God's Word. Now, the messages tonight have been to the church because we're the ones moving the boundaries.
01:46:34: It's not the world moving the boundaries. We're moving the boundaries, and we need to put the boundaries back in place.
01:46:42: And whatever that means in your life, whatever that means in your marriage, whatever that means in your family, it's time that we no longer disrespect the
01:46:53: Word of God, but we put it back in its proper place. We also allow
01:47:00: God the Holy Spirit to take the Word of God and teach us the things of the
01:47:06: Lord, the ways of the Lord, and be mindful of those things. If somehow you're part of a church that's moving the boundaries, you need to begin to pray that the boundaries can be put back in place and old -time conviction can come once again and people will be converted unto
01:47:24: Christ. Father, we thank you for your Word. We can't thank you enough for your
01:47:31: Word. Lord, without the Word of God, we would be lost on a sea, without a compass, without a direction, but thank you for your
01:47:41: Word. Thank you for the peace that passes all understanding that you grant to us as we receive the
01:47:48: Word by faith, and the Holy Spirit applies the truth to our lives. May you bless these men of God that are here tonight on this
01:47:56: Saturday night and bless their families, Lord, that you might sanctify and protect them in an age that's attacking the ministry.
01:48:05: I also pray for these young people here on a Saturday night. We look across the congregation. We see so many young faces.
01:48:11: Lord, may this be the weekend that they surrender their all to Christ and begin to follow you with their whole heart and make that commitment,
01:48:22: Lord, to Jesus Christ because the Lord will be the one that will give them the strength to keep that commitment.
01:48:29: And we thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name, all God's people said. Amen. Pastor, you come.
01:48:36: You may be seated. Thank you, Pastor. So we're gonna set up the chairs and get ready for the
01:48:50: Q &As. If you have any Q &As, Mike, you can collect them, just stand up and see if people are gonna hand you any.
01:49:01: It's a Saturday night. I think we can spend enough time to have an open discussion and give the answers for the questions.
01:49:11: We will see how it goes. Maybe we're not gonna answer all of them and we will leave some of them for tomorrow night, but we will try to give an answer to as many as possible.
01:49:22: So we're gonna just sing one or two. Okay, let's get ready.
01:49:30: Christ alone,
01:49:49: Christ alone What is our only confidence
01:49:57: That our souls to Him belong
01:50:02: Who holds our days within His hand
01:50:07: What comes apart From His celestial span
01:50:24: O sing alleluia Strange eternal
01:50:33: O sing alleluia
01:50:41: Christ our hope and life and All right, we got a bunch of questions.
01:51:20: I kind of expected that because the topic, it's a touchy one.
01:51:28: It's kind of difficult. It's difficult to understand for ourselves as pastors and it's even more difficult to give the proper counsel when somebody is asking.
01:51:45: And Pastor Mike, you mentioned about Pilate asking Jesus what is truth.
01:51:51: So my question is, why do people want to know what the truth is and when they receive the answer, they're not willing to apply in their lives?
01:52:05: Why is it like that? Well, whatever they perceive as truth,
01:52:18: I'm not so sure everybody wants to know what the truth is. Very few people would say, no,
01:52:27: I'm not interested in the truth. I mean, who's going to say that? So if anyone asks the question, a person, an unbeliever, they're asking, maybe they're seeking the truth, but it goes back,
01:52:46: I think, to the fallen nature of man. A man is not seeking after God.
01:52:53: Romans chapter 3 is very clear that there's none good, no, not one.
01:53:01: None seek after God. So they're not seeking that truth.
01:53:10: So unless the Holy Spirit of God is drawing them, whatever truth they're seeking is not the truth.
01:53:23: Pastor Nate? I think repentance and belief are two sides of the same coin.
01:53:32: In order to accept the truth, believe the truth, you have to have a repentant heart, and that is to turn away from self and sin, and then when you hear
01:53:45: God's answer, repentance means you go in the other direction. You go in God's direction. In working with teenagers all the years, they would say, you know,
01:53:54: I want to know what God's will is. This boy, I want to date him, but I want to know
01:54:01: God's will. He's not a Christian. And you say, well, what does God's word say? What's the truth?
01:54:08: And then you show them God's word, and really what they, they wanted God to approve their decision that they were already planning to carry out, and that's not repentance.
01:54:19: So repentance and faith are inseparable. So we have to turn from our way, and we accept
01:54:25: God's way. Okay, thank you. It was mentioned that in the churches there are believers who care less about the truth.
01:54:36: One of the reasons is that the gospel teachers are presenting conflicting interpretations, or there is some other reasons?
01:54:48: The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? I think that you go back to the fact that what
01:54:56: Pastor Grant said, that our hearts are bent against God, and until there's regeneration and conversion, that there will be a resistance to the word of God.
01:55:11: And the heart is tricky. It's deceitful. It tells you lies. And the reason
01:55:18: I think that there are people, some in the church, that aren't sincere, and their hearts will lead them.
01:55:25: It's not because of different interpretations necessarily. It's not because a conscientious pastor, he's going to teach the word of God faithfully.
01:55:34: But I think it's because the heart is bent away from the truth of God's word.
01:55:43: Without question, there are pastors who preach one thing, and another pastor is preaching something different.
01:55:50: That's true with a lot of issues that we call secondary issues and tertiary issues.
01:55:58: In this room, there's a lot of people who are redeemed and love
01:56:04: Christ, but we might have a different view of the mode of baptism or the end times or something like that.
01:56:13: That's not the heart of the Christian message. The gospel, as far as being saved, we're all preaching the right thing.
01:56:25: But there's a lot of other things. My point is, if somebody is saying that all these different churches are preaching different interpretations, well, to a degree, that might be right.
01:56:36: But what about Christ? The nature of Christ, the person and work of Christ, is very, very clear.
01:56:48: They're getting the truth on that. All one has to do is open the Bible and read it. It's plain.
01:56:54: Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Following on the same subject, how can it be that two people hold different opinions in regards to the same issue and at the same time believing that they are the ones who correctly interpret the
01:57:14: Bible passage? Pastor Mike, that's a little bit a hint to the latest events of these celebrity pastors and stuff like that.
01:57:25: Two decades ago, had one view. Today, it's a different view on the same issue. How is that possible?
01:57:31: Because of sin. Whose sin? The congregation's sin or his personal?
01:57:39: If there was no sin, then we would all be right about everything. Sin is the problem, obviously.
01:57:49: What you referenced, like the issue of the current thing going on where the advice that was given by a famous pastor to a grandmother that she should attend her grandson's trans wedding.
01:58:07: The majority of Christians, from what I can tell, see the problem with that advice, but there's still quite a few people defending that advice.
01:58:20: If you ask me why, it's because of sin. Someone asked me last night on the way out.
01:58:29: They said, okay, when we get to heaven, are there going to be all these different groups? The amazing thing is that everyone that comes through the blood of the
01:58:39: Lamb, as we just read about, and puts their faith in the finished work of Calvary, there's only going to be one celebrity in heaven, and it's going to be
01:58:48: Jesus Christ. Every lip will say, worthy is the Lamb that was slain. We'll have our differences because it's just human nature that we want to be right.
01:59:00: We are seeking the truth, and we're honest in doing that. We all know that the five points that were pointed out by Pastor Grant in the very beginning, that's the cardinal truth upon which we rest our faith.
01:59:13: We agree together with brothers and sisters who may disagree on the secondary issues. Let me just say, we're all wrong about something.
01:59:21: I don't want to give you the wrong idea. I'm wrong about some things.
01:59:27: I know I am. Now, I'm not sure what those things are because if I knew what I was wrong about, I'd change, and then
01:59:32: I'd be right. Nobody is infallible except God, himself,
01:59:40: Christ, and his word. We're all wrong about something, and hopefully it's not the gospel.
01:59:48: Right, right, right. That's clear. Yeah, I remember that brother in Christ now lives in another city, but when he started to attend the evening services, the
02:00:02: Sunday evening services, he was really surprised to see the pulpit pastors from different churches, and even he was surprised that we are so concerned for preaching the gospel in the community and not that much with holding a set of traditions, not the doctrines but traditions.
02:00:27: So, sola scriptura, yes. Only scripture. So, my question is, if we are the ones that we're saying our beliefs and the way of doing church is based only on the scripture, does that mean that we are the true carriers or inheritance of the apostolic teachings and traditions?
02:00:54: So, the apostolic teachings and traditions are what are taught in the New Testament, and so when we adhere to the
02:01:02: New Testament and the application of the Old Testament being the shadow and the
02:01:08: New Testament being the substance, then we're accurate concerning the basic cardinal truths of the word of God, and we are in agreement with our brothers and sisters who also adhere to the
02:01:25: New Testament and believe the cardinal truths of the scriptures, the basic fundamentals, all right, that are absolutely essential if you are going to be a believer, if you're going to be saved, and you have eternal life.
02:01:38: And so it's interesting, and all through the years and now this 46 years I've preached on platforms with all kinds of men of God, and we did not always dot our
02:01:49: I's and cross our T's the same way on some doctrinal issues, but we were agreed on the cross of Christ and the fact that it's not works but only by faith, by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
02:02:03: And you know that people appreciate when they see that that are out there in the congregation like people coming on Sunday night that see that men of God can disagree on some things, but they agree on that which is essential.
02:02:17: That was a good answer. Okay. No, I would just add two teachers that I learned so much from and looked up to, and one of them is still alive.
02:02:31: One of them has passed away. It was Dr. R .C. Sproul and John MacArthur.
02:02:39: And the two of those men disagreed on baptism and the end times and a whole host of issues, but they had unity in the gospel and a lot of issues.
02:02:55: But that's the type of thing that we can experience here. The different pastors that preach, there's some of those differences, but it's the truth of the gospel, that apostolic witness.
02:03:11: We are perfectly in line and lockstep with that. Okay. My next question is a little bit attached to the background or the country, the region.
02:03:29: To what extent the cultural aspect of a country or a certain region have to be considered when you're approaching to interpret the
02:03:42: Holy Scripture and give to a person an advice? Is that has to be taken into consideration or not?
02:03:50: The cultural background. Let's say what we're advising some people here in the
02:03:56: States is not going to work in Africa or something. I remember reading a book where the author said that was years and decades and decades ago.
02:04:06: He said he arrived to somewhere, to a tribe, and they had no idea what bread is and what it came to explain that Jesus is the bread of life.
02:04:17: He had to bring in an analogy that they will understand.
02:04:24: Are we allowed to do that or not? Oh, yes. I believe we can adapt the illustrations of the truth to the culture in which you're carrying the gospel, but we do not compromise the gospel.
02:04:39: The gospel is the same in every culture. The gospel is the same no matter where you go, but people understand, like you said, they're going to understand differently according to their cultural background, and that's okay to adapt to that.
02:04:53: You're not changing the gospel by explaining bread in a different way to the individual, the sustenance of life.
02:05:03: Yeah, I would just say those things that are universal, understanding that we have all sinned and have come short,
02:05:14: I mean, they would understand that, so just focus on those. I'm sure in giving advice and explaining, there'd be all sorts of challenges that I'm not familiar with since I've never been in that setting, but just stick to the main thing, and you'll be okay,
02:05:32: I think. All right. This question led to another one, which is,
02:05:40: I remember when I was a child and I grew up in a church, and of course it's a different culture.
02:05:45: It's Eastern Europe, and I don't remember ever anybody to mention, we have a doctrinal statement.
02:05:52: We have to abide to it. For some of us, this thing is something new.
02:05:59: What we noticed that the churches will stick really strong to the doctrinal statement, and it seems like in order for a person to be accepted in the church, they have to go through that statement, which is kind of like, isn't the church closing the doors for people?
02:06:26: Because you both, you mentioned about the doctrines and the statements, and some of them are changing them.
02:06:32: We shouldn't change it. Should we update it to the current, whatever it is understandable for people, or what should be our approach for this?
02:06:46: Yeah, so if, and I don't know the way it was in Moldova or other nations.
02:06:54: Maybe churches don't have that same structure where they have a doctrinal statement.
02:07:01: So when I was talking about that, I mean I'm talking about churches in the
02:07:07: United States where every church had a doctrinal statement. So what's happening is churches are getting rid of that.
02:07:18: They're replacing it with something as generic as they can, or kind of,
02:07:24: I don't want to say lowering the standards because that's not necessarily it, but they don't want it to be a problem, which
02:07:30: I can understand. You don't want the doctrinal statement to be a problem of people, but at the same time, you need to believe the right things about Christ and the gospel and all the rest.
02:07:46: I would say that a church, the one thing you want to make sure is that people aren't going to come in and just start fighting you.
02:07:57: So as long as a person isn't going to come in and start arguing about the church's statement about the mode of baptism, they're not going to come in and start picking a fight about your view of the end times, then
02:08:09: I think that's why they're there. It's a guide, but some churches are more strict about it than others.
02:08:19: Okay, thank you. So we know when we come into the church by faith in Christ, we're part of the body of Christ.
02:08:25: So that is the universal church of Christ. However, the Bible emphasizes the local church.
02:08:31: All the New Testament letters written to local churches with local pastors that were overseers that were appointed by the apostles.
02:08:40: And so it's very important that there be a unity and a oneness in the purpose of that local church to evangelize their community, to win people to the
02:08:48: Lord Jesus Christ. And I think it's a process from the person getting saved, getting baptized, and then being taught some of the basic cardinal doctrines like the virgin birth, the blood atonement of Christ, things that are non -negotiables.
02:09:05: And then when they understand those things and they agree to those things, they come into the membership of the church. I think it's a process.
02:09:11: So it's not eliminating people. It's not pushing people away. It's just bringing a child, a newborn baby, into the family and gradually introducing them into the life of the church.
02:09:23: Okay, and over a number of years, these statements or confessions, they gain more authority than the scripture itself.
02:09:35: Isn't a danger in that? No. I would say so, yes. We're biblicists, right?
02:09:41: Yeah. We're biblicists. And we're not following any one man's interpretation of scripture.
02:09:49: We're biblicists. And whatever the Bible teaches, the Bible has the authority over any man. It's not the word of men, but rather the word of God.
02:09:56: And I think that unifies the church body together. And if we, like you said, if you elevate the statement of faith above the word of God, that could be dangerous.
02:10:10: But the statement of faith should embody the word of God. The purpose of the doctoral statement is to be a summary.
02:10:18: And just like the creeds and confessions, it's supposed to summarize what the Bible teaches. Because if you say, well, we believe the
02:10:25: Bible here. Well, some other guys, he's going to say the same thing. And the Mormons will say, you know, and the
02:10:31: Catholics, everyone will say, we believe the Bible, and yet they're coming to radically different conclusions.
02:10:37: So the purpose of the doctoral statement is to summarize the key tenets of the faith, of what you need to believe to join this church.
02:10:48: That's a good thing. And it should be laced with the scripture. So the statement of faith should be,
02:10:53: I mean, it should be laced with the word of God. Every statement that is made ought to have the scriptures right there to back it up.
02:11:00: Okay, thank you. I will ask you one more question from my list that I got, and then we can turn to those cards.
02:11:10: This is a tricky question. So it is believed that the invention of the
02:11:17: Gutenberg Press in the 14th century facilitated greatly the 16th century
02:11:23: Reformation because, you know, they started to print Bibles and books and booklets and flyers and stuff like that.
02:11:31: So at that time, the printing worked against the Roman Catholic Church, right?
02:11:37: Because people had more access. Don't you think that the current scientific progress is working against the
02:11:44: Protestant Church? It looks like the church is losing its authority. People have access to millions and millions of books everywhere.
02:11:57: Most of the authors cannot be verified. And the church is losing,
02:12:04: I don't want to use the word power, but still to a certain extent, the preacher preaches a sermon of 30 minutes and it's gone.
02:12:14: And then six days of the week, everybody in the church is available, has available options to all kinds of sources.
02:12:26: Is it the technology at this moment working against the church or not? That may be the way it appears.
02:12:35: I mean, whoever wrote the question, I suspect that it appears that way. It may appear that way.
02:12:42: But as much as technology and other things may be working against us, it can also work for us.
02:12:52: Take social media. Well, and the phones. I mean, that's a huge problem. Okay, people are addicted to their phones.
02:12:59: They got their phone out in church, but they're not really reading the scripture. And like you said, they're checking their messages. But at the same time, there's a phone and it's recording us and we're getting the gospel out to people that we could never reach otherwise.
02:13:14: So, I mean, it goes both ways. That's so true.
02:13:19: That's so true. Well, obviously it's a choice on the part of the believer what they're going to allow to dominate their thought processes.
02:13:29: And Christians who determine that they're not going to be controlled by the culture, but they're going to discipline their mind and their thinking, then they just get stronger in the word of God because they're spending time in the word.
02:13:41: They're in the fellowship of the believers and their faith just gets stronger and stronger. But if they choose, which we all have a choice, to allow our minds to be controlled by the culture instead of renewed daily by the word, then it's going to work counter to us.
02:13:59: So, I think it can work either way, but it's a choice on the individual believer's part of where he's going to put his thoughts in his mind.
02:14:07: Thank you. Thank you. Can we... Oh. There was one card,
02:14:14: I think. Somebody is requesting a private conversation of Pastor Nate. So, there is plenty of rooms at the end of this meeting.
02:14:24: You can work tomorrow. It doesn't matter when, but there is rooms available.
02:14:30: You can... Oh, brother, I don't think
02:14:36: I can read this. It's a cursive, very neat English cursive.
02:14:41: I cannot read it. I'm sorry. What are some passages that urge a
02:14:48: Christian to become a member of a church as opposed to someone who merely attends a church on a weekly basis?
02:14:58: Other than Hebrew 10, 24, and 25. Passages on commitment, perhaps.
02:15:05: Well, Hebrews 10, 25. That's enough, isn't it? But, well, this question about commitment or is church membership biblical?
02:15:18: Do I really need to be committed to a local church? I mean, it's... Yeah, there's no one
02:15:23: Bible verse that says, thou shall be a member of a local church or something like that.
02:15:30: But, I mean, you're not going to find explicit statements for a lot of things. The question is, does the
02:15:35: Bible teach that? And it's just assumed all through the New Testament. Acts 2, verse 41, they were baptized and it says that they were added unto the church, right?
02:15:52: The 3 ,000, they were added unto them. Who's them? Like, they obviously knew who was part of the church and who wasn't.
02:16:01: There was the 120. They knew who they were. Hebrews 13, 17, obey those who rule over you and be submissive for they watch out for your souls as those who must give an account.
02:16:14: So, the pastors have to know who the sheep are. So, it's just built into the whole thing.
02:16:24: I think one of the evidences of church membership is church discipline that's required throughout the
02:16:31: New Testament. And in order to discipline, you have to be a member of that body.
02:16:36: In other words, I can't discipline your kids, but I can discipline my kids because they're in my family.
02:16:43: And so, church discipline, John MacArthur brought this out years ago. He said, so few churches are practicing church discipline anymore because there's such a loose connection of attendees.
02:16:54: But we would have more power in the church if we could address sin in the body of the believers in a loving
02:17:01: Christian way in order to bring about restoration. But there's got to be a connection of membership and there has to be leadership in that church in order to do that.
02:17:11: So, this second card is on the same topic. Is church membership necessary slash mandatory?
02:17:20: Or is it okay to attend different churches every week? I think you just answered that question.
02:17:29: You just didn't specify or didn't use the word mandatory. Am I right or I got it wrong?
02:17:38: It's certainly emphasized throughout the whole New Testament and that we watch for each other's souls.
02:17:45: And in order to do that, we're in a connected fellowship of believers. You know, what form that membership takes, but definitely it's believers connected one to another in faith and they're also looking out for the welfare.
02:17:59: All those one another passages in the New Testament, one another, well, who are the one and others?
02:18:05: I don't know the brothers and sisters at the other church down the road and I don't know the ones down the road, but I know those that I fellowship with and worship with.
02:18:12: And how is my pastor going to prepare the word of God and preach the word of God if the congregation is different every week?
02:18:20: You know, there's got to be, you know, my wife knows what I eat and when
02:18:25: I come home, she has the meals prepared knowing what I can eat, what I can't eat, what's proper, but she doesn't fix for the neighborhood.
02:18:36: Okay, this one says, how can a pastor or bishop inspired teach the,
02:18:48: I'm like you brother, teach in the church. The question is,
02:18:57: I'm going to rephrase it because here's what the question is. How does the pastor faithfully preach doctrinally and not his opinions?
02:19:08: I think whoever wrote the question, you correct me. That's the question, yeah.
02:19:14: I'll take his word for it, but here's what they need to do. They need to open the
02:19:20: Bible and preach verse by verse. Amen. That's all you have to do. Preach verse by verse.
02:19:27: I mean, you can't, it's impossible to preach every week and not give your opinion at times, obviously, but if you're going chapter by chapter, verse by verse, which is called expository preaching, that way it ensures that God's message will get out.
02:19:47: That's right. As opposed to a topical message, which is good and they're necessary, but with a topical message, the pastor's choosing which verses he's going to read, one here and one here and one here.
02:20:01: So expository preaching will help that. Yes. Preaching through books of the
02:20:07: Bible. You can't go wrong preaching through the books of the Bible. Just go straight through the word of God and you know,
02:20:15: I've been preaching 46 years and I'm still not through all 66. It takes a long time to preach through books of the
02:20:22: Bible. Try Isaiah. All right.
02:20:28: Thank you. So the question on this card, it has to do more with what has been said last night and my plan was for tomorrow night to have all the speakers over here in front.
02:20:44: So I'm assuming Brother Alan is going to answer this question tomorrow night.
02:20:52: It has to do a little bit with the topic that we discussed last night about the
02:20:59: Bible and the inerrancy of the scripture. But let's come back to the truth in a culture, in an obscure culture where everything is relevant.
02:21:14: It's kind of like... My question is... Where is the question?
02:21:22: I lost it. Oh man, it has to do...
02:21:29: Okay. You mentioned about the evolution, Pastor Mike, you mentioned about evolution and of course,
02:21:37: Pastor Nate spoke about the Bible being in the right place and spot in our houses.
02:21:45: So the Christian faith in arenas of resistance. Is there room for Christian kids in the public school systems?
02:21:57: My own personal experience started many years ago when Christian school was not an option and I went all the way through public school and by the grace of God and a praying family and a great pastor, youth pastor that worked in my life.
02:22:16: I survived. I believe that my faith was tested in that environment.
02:22:24: But I would not recommend that for young people since there's been such a huge shift now aggressively to change the thinking and change the hearts and minds.
02:22:38: We can see Daniel went into the Babylonian culture and he learned the basic, what we would call reading, writing, arithmetic except he was expert in the various fields and he seemed to maintain his faith and became a great leader in the country.
02:22:53: So I know it's possible to go through the public school system for a Christian to do that.
02:22:59: But I would recommend that the command is not to the government to train our kids.
02:23:06: The command is to the parents to instruct your kids and the responsibility for instruction ultimately lies with the parents.
02:23:15: Okay, thank you. Yeah, and I've heard some people you know, podcasts online and they would say it's wrong, it's a sin or they would maybe not say that but they would get close to it.
02:23:29: To put your kids in the public school system is wrong, you can't and I think things did change 2014, 2015, 2016 somewhere around that time things got, like you said, more aggressive.
02:23:49: I could tell you stories. So yeah, I would not recommend it.
02:23:55: It's one of my big regrets. Growing up, I had a very negative view towards homeschooling and it was because I only knew one or two families and it wasn't a good situation.
02:24:09: And when I was in school, it was pretty there was one or two teachers who had an agenda but I don't remember anything other than evolution and we were taught at church and at home that this isn't true.
02:24:22: I didn't think it was a big problem but things are totally different now. So there's people and parents in very difficult situations.
02:24:33: I don't think you can say it's wrong. I wouldn't want to say that but I would just say if you can avoid it if you can avoid putting kids in the public school system then homeschool, if you can.
02:24:49: But not everyone's in that position so I wouldn't want to make anyone feel... Okay, thank you.
02:24:57: Last, probably last question. Pastor Nate, you mentioned this morning you bring an example of a girl who said that God didn't speak to her in a long time.
02:25:12: Could you please elaborate more on this? Because not only me but somebody else they may wonder if the
02:25:21: Holy Scripture doesn't have all the answers for our life issues and questions that we have and they may start looking for other means of communication with God.
02:25:37: So, beware lest you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
02:25:43: So the process of knowingly continuing down the road of sin causes a hardening in the heart and therefore
02:25:52: God is still speaking to those individuals but they're not hearing them.
02:25:57: God is merciful, He's gracious, He's kind He's long -suffering, He's patient so He's still communicating
02:26:03: His truth but their hearts have become hardened and they can still repent. Can I finish the story of the young lady?
02:26:10: Yes. The young lady grew to the point where she tried to take her life and she took so many pills they had to rush her to the hospital.
02:26:20: Her parents were in the church they were believers and so we met them at the hospital they pumped her stomach out and saved her life.
02:26:27: When she opened her eyes she thought she was going to be dead she opened her eyes and saw her father standing there first words out of her mouth was
02:26:35: I hate you, I want to die. I hate you. So that same young lady was forced to come to church because her parents said if you live in the house you're going to go to church.
02:26:45: She sat on the back row as far as the way she could from the front but at some point
02:26:52: God in his mercy God in his grace and I can't explain the grace and mercy of God I just know it's real.
02:26:59: God broke through the hardness the hatred that young lady came forward in her service and knelt right at the front and her mom and dad were standing they were shocked they were standing on the front row and they really didn't know what to do they just were watching her she wept and my wife went out and prayed with her and when she got up she saw her parents standing there and she ran with open arms through her arms around daddy's neck mama's neck and said please forgive me
02:27:22: I love you. The transforming power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
02:27:27: But there is that tendency that when we follow the pathway of sin our hearts become hardened and we do not hear.
02:27:36: That word hearken hear and obey that word has a double meaning in the scripture hearken unto me hear and obey.
02:27:44: Thank you. Thank you. So we will we will stop here. Tomorrow night we will be touching another subject is the church or the the group of believers in the post -Christian era if I can call it.
02:28:05: All this I was asked and the most curious person asking the details about this conference guess who is my wife she is asking who gave you all these ideas weird points sub points and stuff like that and I and I mentioned to Pastor Anan and Pastor Nate last night that back in 2013 14 15
02:28:32: I was attending summer camp for youth and I was always curious to see what they are thinking and what they are the questions that bother them so most of them
02:28:42: I saved and and there was about 100 100 young young people at the camp in Tennessee so I I saved some of them the most interesting ones and the most difficult ones and the ones that I thought even 10 years from now is going to be actual so some of them are coming from there and some of them are coming from my conversation with people some of the sub points that you guys you discussed is just something that I come
02:29:11: I came up with the obscure culture and stuff like that how you define obscure culture that's why
02:29:18: I said something that is gray you cannot you cannot see a precise delineation what is wrong and what is right that's why
02:29:26: I came up with this exactly exactly with the tomorrow night topic it's an important one you will hear details share the word of your friends and if you have more questions or questions that are little bit intimate you can approach pastor
02:29:46: Mike pastor Nate pastor Alan pastor Gary pastor Jason myself we will try to help you with the wisdom from the
02:29:57: Holy Spirit to give you the proper answers so with that being said any final comments if not pastor
02:30:07: Mike would you lead us in prayer and lord we thank you for this evening we thank you for your word and the way that your spirit takes it and applies it to each heart and I would just again ask lord if there's someone here tonight who has never placed their faith in Jesus they don't they don't want to harden their heart every time they hear it and reject it their heart gets just a little bit harder so lord soften their heart
02:30:41: I pray they would receive Christ tonight and we pray it all in Jesus name amen amen may