Book of Acts Part 12

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Let's pray. Lord Jesus, again as we open up your word, we ask you, Holy Spirit, to help us to rightly understand what is revealed there, so that we may properly believe, confess, and do, according to your holy word, we ask in Jesus' name.

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Amen. Now, as I pointed out last week, it was a very, or was it last week or the week before, that it's very important to remember that there were, that a lot of the earliest

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Christians there in Jerusalem were visiting from out of town. And so, I think it was

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Dan Johnson who pointed out that they, that helping each other was kind of a necessary thing, because extended stays, you require, you need help.

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So there's a reason, there's like a practical reason why the believers shared everything in common.

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Again, this is not pro -communism. That's, the Bible's not teaching such thing. And I would note that the big marked difference between what's being described in this next portion of Acts 4 and communism is actually quite simple.

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Oh, okay, hang on a second here. Am I feeding back? Yep, okay. All right. So the reason why they, so the difference between communism and Christianity here is simple.

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Communism takes people's money at the end of a gun. You do not have a right to private property under communism.

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And by the way, it's failed in every country it's ever been tried. I just want to point this out.

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And yet, it's advocates here in the States here, well, they say that no one's done it properly. You know, it doesn't sound like it can actually be done properly then, does it?

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Okay. Right. So like every, every single nation that's ever tried it, including the nation that created it, they, you know, they, it's never worked out for them.

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But here's the difference. Christianity, this is called generosity. The people had every right to possess private property.

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To sell it and to do whatever they wanted with it. I would note, when you consider the seventh commandment, you shall not steal.

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Okay, you shall not steal. And another one, you shall not commit murder.

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Those commandments 100 % presuppose that individuals exist and that individuals have a right to life that's given to them by God and that they have a right to their property given to them by God.

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Right? You steal, God say, I'm going to punish you. How long? Eternity. Right?

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So you'll note that this, when we look at the presuppositions of the Ten Commandments, contrary to collectivist ideas, so you'll note in collectivist governments, that's going to be include communism and fascism.

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Both communism and fascism are collectivist. You do not have any individual rights. Now, I would note that does not mean that somehow rabid individualism is correct, too.

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It's not. Okay? But collectivist governments deny the existence of the individual. And as a result of them, they justify murder and they justify theft.

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That's what they do. So fascism and communism are both contrary to Scripture. But I would note that, you know, rabid individualism is also not correct.

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That the person is, that you have, you are kind of an island unto yourself and that you do not have any responsibilities to your nation, your family, your tribe, your state, your city, or whatever.

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You, you are just your own person. That's contrary to Scripture, too. So, you'll find that in fighting collectivism and individualism, the biblical position is that we are individuals that have rights and we also are individuals that are part of families and communities, and we are expected to be a part, to be, and so the answer is, is that we're both.

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It's not one or the other. And I would note bad things happen when you, when you break that tension. So here in Acts 4, the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, no one said that anything, any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.

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And with great power, the Apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the

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Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them. But watch the focus here. Great power, the

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Apostles were doing what? Giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord. Again, I pointed, point this out, and I'll make the point again, that miracles are not the point.

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Miracles are always there to support the message. And so even if somebody comes along and performs great signs and great wonders, and the message that it's supporting is contrary to the scripture, we are not to listen to them, because that's not the definitive proof that somebody's true.

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Because Jesus, in Matthew 24, says that in the last of the last times, that false prophets would arise and perform great signs and wonders to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

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That being the case, if you do not want to be led astray by somebody who's actually legitimately going to be able to perform, as Jesus says, great signs and wonders, how do you protect yourself?

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You know the word. Okay, that's the point. The word is the point.

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So there was not a needy person among them. As many as were owners of lands or houses sold them, brought the proceeds of what was sold, and laid it at the

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Apostles feet. And it was distributed to each as any had need. They did this willingly, of their own volition.

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Okay, the IRS was not involved. And they were not compelled by the church.

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You'll note that the Apostles weren't saying, if you want to be blessed, you need to sell everything.

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You know, forget that 10%. You've got to give a hundred, right? Yeah, and if you don't, then you're going to go to hell, right?

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You know, this is not how this works, right? Thus Joseph, who was also called by the

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Apostles Barnabas, which means the son of encouragement, a Levite, a native of Cyprus, he sold a field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the

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Apostles feet. Okay, so far so good. This, I mean, this sounds like really amazing stuff that's taking place in the early church.

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But here's the thing. What follows next is dark. And I would note it happened in a time when paperwork was not required, okay?

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I can't imagine how much paperwork there would be if something like this happened at Kongsbinger. So, you know, but all that being said, a man named

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Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property. And with his wife's knowledge, he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the

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Apostles feet. Now, the issue is, is that he's putting on airs.

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He's making it look like I'm going, I'm doing exactly the same thing that Barnabas did.

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I'm giving the entire proceeds to the church. Now, here's the issue.

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The Apostle Paul is in direct communication with the Holy Spirit, okay, in ways that most are not, okay?

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So Peter isn't going to fall for it. So Peter said to Ananias, Ananias, why has

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Satan so filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own?

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After it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart?

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You've not lied to man. You've lied to God. And when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last.

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And great fear came upon all who heard it. The young man arose and wrapped him and carried him out and buried him.

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That's a pretty severe punishment. All right, and again, you'll note, no need to call the coroner.

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There was, there was no autopsy, right? They just wrapped him up and buried him, right?

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Now, here's the issue. Let's kind of take a look at one of the big points in all of this, is that in the day that we live in, there are very vocal people who are denying the doctrine of the

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Trinity. Most notably is a channel that calls itself

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Truth Unedited. They have nearly 800 ,000 subscribers on YouTube.

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And the guy who runs it, his name is Ron. He never shows his face. And he claims that this idea that God, there is one

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God in three persons, is, he says that that's Greek philosophy. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

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And you know, the guy is, let's just say, a hot mess theologically. But here's the thing.

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There's a reason why those who believe in the doctrine of Trinity, like we do because the scriptures teach it, that we say that there is one

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God, three persons, is because they talk to each other, right?

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So today we heard the voice of the Father say regarding Jesus, You are my beloved

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Son. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. What, if Jesus wasn't a different person than the

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Father, then Jesus would have had to be throwing his voice and be engaging in ventriloquism.

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Okay, which he wasn't. That's a form of deception. And now we've got an interesting thing here.

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Peter asks the question, Why have you, why has Satan so filled your heart that you lie to the

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Holy Spirit? Now, those who deny the doctrine of the Trinity oftentimes will say that the

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Holy Spirit is not a person. If you look at the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Jehovah's Witnesses say the

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Holy Spirit is a force. It's like electricity. It's like gravity, right?

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This is how they talk. Well, let me ask you a question. When was the last time y 'all lied to electricity?

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I tried it once and electricity told me to buzz off. What? You guys don't appreciate humor.

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It was shockingly bad. Okay, very good, very good.

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Okay, you can't, have any of you ever lied to gravity? Huh? You wish you could lie to gravity?

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Yeah, I wish gravity would lie to me, but that's a different story. Yeah, something like that.

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Okay, but you've got to know you can't lie to a force. But I can lie to a person.

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Right? And you'll note here that Peter says that you've lied to the Holy Spirit, and then he further clarifies you have not lied to man, but to God.

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Here, Peter is equating God and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's God. And in lying to the

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Holy Spirit, you have to lie to somebody who is a person. And so that's the idea.

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And then Christ himself says that we are to baptize in the name, singular, of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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And at Jesus's baptism, all three showed up. Jesus was in the water. The Father was speaking from heaven.

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The Holy Spirit descended on him like a dove, right? It's pretty simple stuff. But you get the idea.

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So here Ananias has now lied to the Holy Spirit, and fear has gripped the church. Basically, this is

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God warning people, don't be doing this. Don't be doing it. Now, if you've ever heard bad preaching on this text, oh, wow.

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Let me just say it goes something like this. Are you holding back from God what you should be giving to him?

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That's not the point, right? Yeah. Well, look what happened to Ananias and his wife when they held back.

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Are you robbing God? Now write the check and make it payable to Pastor Chris Roseboro, right?

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Let's sow that seed. No, this is not how this works. You'll note the problem was is that they held back part of it and made it appear.

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The problem was not that they held it back. It's that they put on the pretense that they were giving the entire amount.

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They basically saw that people had a very high opinion of Barnabas after he did that, and they wanted that same high opinion for themselves.

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So Ananias is now dead, and he's already buried. After an interval of about three hours, she was clearly at Macy's getting a makeover, reworking her wardrobe and stuff with the new money that they had.

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His wife came in not knowing what had happened. So Peter said to her, so tell me whether you sold the land for so much.

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Was this the amount that you sold the property for, right? Oh, she said, oh, yes, for that amount, for so much.

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But Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together to test the spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.

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Immediately she fell at his feet, and she breathed her last. And when the young men came in, they found her dead and carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

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And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things. Okay, the

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Holy Spirit is the spirit of what? Truth. There is no room in Christ's church for airs of piety and pretenses of holiness and stuff like that.

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That's where the real warning is. Now, many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people, watch this, by the hand of the apostles.

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Now, again, it is not exclusive to the apostles. There were some, just a small number of notable non -apostles who were also able to operate in signs and wonders.

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And they did so because they had an apostle lay hands on them. But the primary signs and wonders guys were the apostles.

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There's just no way around it, okay? They were all together in Solomon's portico, or Solomon's colonnade is another way of talking about this.

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So in the temple that was in Jerusalem at the time, you had an outer court, you had an inner court, and in between the outer and the inner court you had this colonnade, which was a great place to meet and do things because it had a roof over it, you can get shade in the day and covering during the rain and stuff like that.

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Now, none of the rest joined them, but the people held them in high esteem. So things are starting to turn at this point.

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Remember, Peter and John and the guy who was healed were arrested, and that was last week. And now the mood is changing a little bit.

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And the mood is changing where it's like, yeah, I want to join them and I believe what they're... but I'm going to hold them in high esteem, but I don't want to be seen there because I can see what's coming.

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They could see, looking down the track, yeah, it's just a matter of time before somebody gets killed.

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And people at this point are starting to avoid that because they can see that this is going to lead to a collision.

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More than ever, though, believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. I like the fact that they're now at this point, we're going to count the women too, men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets, laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by, at least a shadow might fall on some of them.

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And the people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.

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So you'll note, just like Jesus' ministry, now the apostles are able to do the same types of miracles, same quality of miracles, that Christ was able to perform.

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And people, demons cast out, people being healed, and this is all the buzz of the town.

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Everybody in Jerusalem knows what's going on. But here we go again, the apostles arrested. But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him, that is the party of the

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Sadducees. That does not sound like a fun party. And again, if you don't know, the

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Sadducees were, if you look in the Old Testament, they were the Zadokim.

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That's actually how it's pronounced in Hebrew, Zadokim. They were the sons of Zadok, and they were in charge of basically running the temple complex.

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And over time, they became influenced by kind of a liberalizing factor, and the

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Sadducees, at the time of Christ, denied the resurrection. That's the reason they were sad, you see.

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Yeah, just to say it. Yeah, get better material. Okay, I'll hail the kale.

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So the party of the Sadducees, they were filled with jealousy, so they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison.

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Now, this section of Scripture, I call this the worst prison break in all of history.

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We've all seen movies where there's prison breaks, right? And what's a person supposed to do as soon as they break out of prison?

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Run, okay? There's going to be helicopters, infrared, there's going to be dogs, and a posse, and there's going to be a reward, and all this kind of stuff.

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Okay? Huh? And chase music too, right? Exactly. And even like a chase scene montage.

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We know how this is supposed to go. The apostles did not watch any of these movies, and as a result of it, they're going to do something that's just like, no, no, no, listen guys, this is not how a prison break works.

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But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him, they were filled with jealousy, and they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison.

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During the night, an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, now go stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life.

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In other words, return to the scene of the crime and commit it again. Have you guys heard the story?

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It's apparently about a guy from around these parts. I don't know which town.

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But he drove up to rob a bank when there was no snow on the ground, but he drove up in a snowmobile.

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And the snowmobile was his getaway vehicle. They captured him after the bank robbery, put him in prison.

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When he was eventually released, he drove up to the same bank on a snowmobile, out of season, and they just called the police because they knew he was going to rob the bank, and guess what?

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He was there to rob the bank again. Okay. Dumbest bank robber in all of human history from these parts of the world.

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I just want to let you all know. So the angel said, go back to the scene of crime and commit it again.

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So when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak, and they began to teach.

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Now, when the high priest came, and those who were with him, they called together the council, all the senate of the people of Israel, and sent them to the prison to have them brought.

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So we have both the left -hand and the right -hand kingdom now meeting. The high priest has called everybody.

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You go in prison, you bring those guys up here, and we're going to have a chat before the entire government.

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So when the officers came, they did not find them in prison, so they returned and reported.

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We found the prison securely locked and the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside.

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Now, when the captain of the temple and the chief priest heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them, wondering what this would come to.

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So someone came and told them, hey, look, the men who you put in prison are standing in the temple, and they're teaching the people.

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Worst prison break ever, right? So then the captain, with the officers, went and brought them, but not by force, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people.

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You could just see these guys coming up to Peter and John going, we need to talk, right?

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So when they had brought them, they set them before the council, and the high priest questioned them, saying, we strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet you have filled

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Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us. Too late for that, okay?

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But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised

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Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as leader.

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Interesting word, archegos. That leader doesn't quite get it, but it's in the same ballpark.

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Leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and the forgiveness of sins, and we are witnesses to these things.

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And so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him. Now, at this point, we need to have a little conversation, a conversation about when do we disobey the government, okay?

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Because as Christians, we note that we have an example here from the apostles that they were told by the government, the left -hand kingdom, to stop preaching in Jesus' name.

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Did they obey? Did they sin by disobeying the government?

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No. So we'll note this then, that in the scriptures, there are notable instances of people disobeying government or doing things that are shady and sus when it comes to saving lives.

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Let me give you an example. One of my favorites is in Exodus, Exodus 1,

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I believe. So Pharaoh oppressed Israel. The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives.

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Here we go. In Exodus 1, 15, the king of Egypt, he's Pharaoh, he said to the

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Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other, Puah, when you serve as midwife to the

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Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it's a son, you shall kill him. If it is a daughter, she shall live.

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That comes all the way from the top of the government, Pharaoh himself, right? Are Shiphrah and Puah obligated to obey this commandment?

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No, they're not. They're obligated to not obey it. But the midwives, they feared

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God and they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded. So here you can argue they broke the fourth commandment.

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But did they? Does the fourth commandment require you to obey authorities regardless of what they command you to do?

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Nope. So they did not obey, but they let the male children live.

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So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, why have you done this and let the male children live?

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Midwives said to Pharaoh, well, because the Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women. They're vigorous and they give birth before the midwives come to them.

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Now they lie. So they have disobeyed the fourth commandment and they've technically broken the eighth.

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Shouldn't God strike them down? But it says this,

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God dealt well with the midwives and the people multiplied and grew very strong. And because the midwives feared

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God, he gave them families. So they lied to the face of Pharaoh, disobeyed his command.

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And so here's the idea. As Christians, we have to recognize that there are times when the government is going to overstep.

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And when the government oversteps, we must disobey the government. But that does not mean that we have the right to not suffer consequences for that disobedience.

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And this was the attitude of the apostles. And the attitude basically is this, is that yeah, that's a rightly established government and they can punish us if we want, but what they've commanded us to do, we cannot obey because we must obey

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God. Remember, the purpose of the government is for the purpose of punishing the evildoer.

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And at times, governments have a funny thing that they do. They identify Christians as evildoers.

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And when they do that, they have misidentified who the evildoer is.

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I would note that the evildoers are the ones stealing stuff and no, you shouldn't set the threshold at $999.

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The evildoers are those who are stealing. The government needs to punish them. And you'll note in regimes like California's, the thieves go unpunished and the

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Christians, the God -fearing people, live in fear of their government. So we need not fear our government.

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We just need to be prepared that if the government decides that we're going to suffer consequences, then we're going to suffer consequences.

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And don't sit there and say, well, President Trump just made Paula White the head of the new Department of Faith and that she's going to fight against those who are fighting against Christianity.

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To which I would say this, well, by putting her in that position, he's come dangerously close to making her the whore of Babylon.

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She is not sound. And whatever is going to come out of her department is going to be corrupt to the core.

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How do I know this? She is in defiance of the clear commands of Christ that women are not to be pastors.

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She is a notorious word -of -faith, money -grubbing, prosperity heretic.

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Putting her in charge of a government department, well, we might as well have foxes guarding hen houses at this point.

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Trust me when I tell you, you do not have to be a prophet to know this isn't going to end well.

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And here's my concern. When the inevitable happens and we find out that Paula White has ingratiated herself financially and exploited people and all this kind of stuff, which she will do, you don't have to be a prophet to see this, when all of that comes to light, the blame will be placed first at Trump and then on Christians, and there will be a severe backlash against Christianity as a result of it.

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You thought things were bad in the previous administration. Wait till the one that comes up with a righteous anger against the wickedness of Paula White.

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Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah. That was a very, very unwise choice.

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All that being said, as Christians, then, we need to be ready to suffer. We must disobey the government when the government commands us to go contrary to Christ.

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They don't have the authority to do that, but they still have the authority to arrest us. They have the authority to prosecute us.

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They have the authority to put us in prison. They have the authority to take our lives if they want, which is why the disciples basically say, we're going to obey

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God, but you do whatever you're going to do. That's their attitude. So when the government heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them.

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What did they hear again? We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised

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Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at the right hand as leader and Savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

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We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him. And now they come unglued.

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I kill you! It's a miracle they got out of there alive.

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And it was like all of the apostles. But a Pharisee in the council named

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Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while.

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And he said to them, men of Israel, you take care of what you are about to do with these men. For before these days

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Thutis rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him.

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He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. And after him Judas the

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Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered.

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So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone. For if this plan or undertaking is of man, it will fail.

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If it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found to be opposing

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God. So they took his advice, and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them, which had to hurt.

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And I would note, having been beaten, they were probably in need of some medical attention after that.

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As a 56 -year -old man, if I had been beaten like this, I would be probably spending a few days in the hospital.

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When they called them, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and to let them go.

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Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

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Nobody saw that one coming. They're leaving going, Woo -hoo! Ah, ah, ah, yay! You know, right?

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They are rejoicing. Why? Because they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of Christ.

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Keep this in mind in dark days ahead, that some of us may be chosen to suffer dishonor for the name of Christ.

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Every day in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ, that's the

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Messiah, is Jesus. Now, real quick, I want to talk about a misuse of this text that I have seen done.

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There's one notable historical version of the abuse. The abuse goes something like this.

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Along comes a new theology in Christianity. Maybe it's the

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Word of Faith movement. They're Johnny -come -latelys. They didn't exist really prior to World War II.

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And it was Kenneth Hagin that popularized that whole movement. Maybe it's the modernist liberals who were running rampant in the early 20th century in the mainline denominations, particularly

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Presbyterianism and the Anglican Church. But what happens is that they come along and people are going,

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That's not biblical! This stuff is wrong! Well, I've heard people argue,

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Well, doesn't the Bible say that we should just let it be? Because if it's from God, then it'll succeed, and if it's from man, it'll fail.

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No. That is a misuse of this text. So the idea here is, you're going to note,

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Gamaliel's advice was advice given by a Pharisee to a governing body, but it's not a prescription for how we're to deal with false teachers today.

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I remember decades ago when Joel Osteen first came on the scene.

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I was teaching an adult class at Ocean Hills Community Church in San Juan Capistrano, California.

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And I warned the people in my adult class. I said, Listen, Joel Osteen's a bad guy.

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He's teaching false doctrine. And in this book that had just come out and hit the New York Times bestseller list, called

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Your Best Life Now, I just looked at him and I said, This is not Christianity. And I said,

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Your best life now? If you have your best life now, that means you're going to hell. It's just simple logic, right?

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And I even made a point of finding some things that Joel had said that contradict the Scripture and pointed it out to him.

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Well, afterwards, some lady came up to me and says, Well, Chris, I mean, I understand he's new and all this kind of stuff, but shouldn't we just wait and see?

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I mean, if it's from God, it's going to succeed. If it's from man, it's going to fail. That's what it says in Acts 5. And I said,

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No, we're to follow the instructions of Titus chapter 1.

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Let me explain. So when it comes to biblical hermeneutics, one of the things you have to identify is the difference between a descriptive text and a prescriptive text.

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And in this passage in Acts 5, we are not prescribed to let heretics be.

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Does that make sense? It is only describing what transpired historically.

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And in no way does this passage then put on us a prescription that when some new theology shows up, that we're supposed to just wait and see.

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Instead, what you have to do in sound biblical hermeneutics is you need to identify which passages prescribe to us what we're supposed to be doing under any given circumstance.

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So, for instance, Titus chapter 1. Titus chapter 1.

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Talking about the duties of an overseer. Paul says to Titus, Note here, pastors are

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God's stewards. They must be above reproach. A drunkard, violent, or greedy for gain.

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But hospitable, a lover of good, self -controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. Anyone have a problem with that list so far?

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And here's the issue. In so many churches today, that's their only focus, is our pastor above reproach.

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We don't care how much money he steals from people. We don't care how much he twists the scriptures.

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We don't care how much he talks about stuff that isn't even in the Bible. As long as there's a veneer that he's not a drunkard or greedy and he's hospitable and self -controlled, and he's above reproach, we'll put up with him.

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Except when he's hiding money in the bathroom walls or trolling chicks with, God told me my wife is going to die and we can get married.

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Stuff like that, right? But here's the next part. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught.

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So no, there's a standard. There's a standard. The standard is this. The Bible as already taught.

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Is new theology allowed under that rubric? Nope, it's not.

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So that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine, and here we go, and also to rebuke those who contradict it.

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And there's more to it. And he says, For there are many, not some, who are insubordinate, always with the heretics.

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That's the case. They are empty talkers. You know, like could have bought a

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Hyundai, should have bought a Kia. That's empty talk, right? Or God told me that we're entering into a season of suddenlies and that in this coming season you'll experience breakthrough.

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That's empty talk as well, isn't it? So there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party, and here's

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God's will. Are you ready? They must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.

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So God wills that they be rebuked, that they be silenced, that they be opposed publicly.

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So Gamaliel's advice, which is recorded for us not as a prescription but a description of what happened, is not the standard for dealing with false teachers.

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Now, I'm going to give you historically, let me find him real quick here. I'm going to look for Harry Emerson Fosdick shall the fundamentalists win, okay?

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Now, modernist liberalism. It really started, the seedbed of modernist liberalism as a theological movement in the church began with the publication of Darwin's Origin of the

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Species. What happened is that Christians didn't know how to combat Darwin and as a result of it there was a crack then that formed in Christianity.

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Two completely different camps. One camp that said, well the Bible's true but it must be teaching us some kind of spiritual knowledge so it's true in the spiritual sense but we're not going to push on the material aspect of it.

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And the other group that said kind of this idea. All truth is

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God's truth and since Darwin is telling us the truth we as Christians need to embrace

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Darwinism. That's the thing that God wants us to do. And it creates then this movement that runs through all of the seminaries of Europe and some of the ones in the

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States that basically says Jesus wasn't born of the Virgin Mary.

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Jesus didn't bodily rise from the grave. He didn't truly perform miracles. He did not prophesy the future.

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And so they look for ways to rewrite Christian history and give alternate explanations as to why these things are in the

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Bible and then they end up reducing the New Testament basically down to the

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Sermon on the Mount. I kid you not. That's a big part of that movement. And so I think this thing ran its course and kind of began to come to an end when you had

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Bishop Shelby Spong of the Episcopal Church in the 70s, 80s, and 90s writing book after book after book basically attacking every cardinal doctrine of Christianity while still being a bishop in the

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Episcopal Church. Denying the resurrection, denying the virgin birth, denying the miracles, all this kind of stuff.

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But it started with Harry Emerson Fosdick and the people who were opposing him most vociferously at that time were the group called the

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Fundamentalists. Now, there's some issues with the Fundamentalists.

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There legitimately are. They're a little too tightly wound. But if you ask the question, where were the

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Lutheran theologians at the time? The big fight in confessional Lutheranism at the time that this was going on was whether or not the liturgy should be in English or in the original language of German.

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That was the big fight. So the best way I can put it is the confessional

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Lutherans were not on the battlefield for this. But Harry Emerson Fosdick in his sermon legitimately used the same argument that Gamaliel gave regarding you just need to give us time and if this is from God, it's going to succeed.

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I kid you not. Let me see if I can find the actual... Yeah, here it is. That's too small for my old eyes.

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Hang on a second here. All right. Let me read part of the sermon, although it seems like blasphemy to do so in this holy space.

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But I want you to see what his argument was. So Fosdick comes along, and one of his arguments was we should not believe in the resurrection because we live in the time of the electric razor.

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I kid you not. That was one of his arguments. Well, you know, apparently he saw that that made sense.

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That doesn't make any sense to me because I'm not very impressed by electric razors, to be honest with you. So listen to a portion of this sermon.

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Fosdick preached, This morning we are to think of the fundamentalist controversy which threatens to divide the

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American churches as though already they were not sufficiently split and riven. Always with heretics and people coming up with new theologies, they always blame those who are opposing them with scripture as being the ones who are dividing the church.

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If I had a dollar for every time I was accused of being divisive for what

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I say on Fighting for the Faith, I would literally be a millionaire. So Fosdick, same thing.

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A scene suggestive for our thought is depicted in the fifth chapter of the book of Acts where the

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Jewish leaders hail before them Peter and other of the apostles because they had been preaching

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Jesus as the Messiah. Moreover, the Jewish leaders propose to slay them when in opposition

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Gamaliel speaks, Refrain from these men and let them alone. If this counsel or this work be of men, it will be overthrown.

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But if it is of God, ye will not be able to overthrow them, lest happily ye be found even to be fighting against God.

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Already all of us must have heard about the people who call themselves the fundamentalists.

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Their apparent intention is to drive out of the evangelical churches men and women of liberal opinions.

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I speak of them the more freely because there are no two denominations more affected by them than the

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Baptist and the Presbyterian. We should not identify the fundamentalists with conservatives.

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All fundamentalists are conservative, but not all conservatives are fundamentalists. The best conservatives can often give lessons to the liberals in true liberality of spirit, but the fundamentalist program is essentially illiberal and intolerant.

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And what were the fundamentalists saying? They were saying if you deny the virgin birth, you're not a Christian, that's a cardinal doctrine.

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And they were right. You deny the resurrection of Christ, you are not a Christian.

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That is absolutely non -negotiable. And so he is absolutely not having it.

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So the fundamentalists see, and they truly see, that in this last generation there have been strange new movements in Christian thought.

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A great mass of new knowledge has come into man's possession. See where the argument is?

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New knowledge about the physical universe, its origin, its forces, its laws.

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New knowledge about human history, and in particular about the ways in which the ancient people used to think in matters of religion and the methods by which they phrased and explained their spiritual experiences.

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And new knowledge also about other religions and the strangely similar ways in which men's faiths and religious practices have developed everywhere.

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Now, there are multitudes of reverent Christians who have been unable to keep this new knowledge in one compartment of their minds and the

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Christian faith in another. They have been sure that all truth comes from one God and is

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His revelation, not therefore from irreverence or caprice or destructive zeal, but for the sake of intellectual and spiritual integrity, that they might really love the

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Lord their God, not only with all their heart and soul and strength, but with all their mind.

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They have been trying to see this new knowledge in terms of the Christian faith and to see the Christian faith in terms of this new knowledge.

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For instance, evolution. You see what the problem is here?

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This is a pious -sounding, plausible argument that opposes the truth of Scripture.

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Right? Oh no, we're not irreverent. We have such a reverence for God and for the truth.

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We want to take these new ideas that are true and weave them into Christianity because of our love and reverence for God.

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It's deceitful, isn't it? But did you see how he used Gamaliel? He references, basically saying, this is from God, leave us alone.

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Doubtless, they have made many mistakes. Doubtless, there have been among them reckless radicals gifted with intellectual ingenuity but lacking spiritual depth.

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Yet, the enterprise itself seems to them indispensable to the Christian church. The new knowledge and the old faith cannot be left antagonistic or even disparate.

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As though a man on Saturday could use one set of regulative ideas for his life and on Sunday could change gear to another altogether.

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We must be able to think our modern life clear through in Christian terms.

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And to do that, we must also be able to think our Christian faith clear through in modern terms.

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There is nothing new about the situation. It has happened again and again in history. As, for example, when the stationary earth suddenly began to move and the universe that had been centered on this planet was centered in the sun and around the planet's world.

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Whenever such a situation has arisen, there has been only one way out. The new knowledge and the old faith had to be blended into a new combination.

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Now, the people in this generation who are trying to do this are the liberals, and he's one of them, and he thinks they're the good guys.

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And the fundamentalists are out on a campaign to shut against them the doors of the Christian fellowship.

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Shall they be allowed to succeed? You can see how the rhetoric works.

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It's interesting to note where the fundamentalists are driving in their stakes to mark out the deadline of doctrine around the church across which no one is to pass except on terms of agreement.

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They insist that we must all believe in the historicity of certain special miracles, you know, the resurrection, the virgin birth, preeminently the virgin birth of our

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Lord, that we must believe in a special theory of inspiration, that the original documents of Scripture, which, of course, we no longer possess, were inerrantly dictated to men, and a good deal, as a man might dictate to a stenographer, that we must believe in a special theory of the atonement, that the blood of our

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Lord shed in a substitutionary death placates an alienated deity and makes possible welcome for the returning sinner.

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Note what he's attacking, the gospel itself, right? And that we must believe in the second coming of our

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Lord upon the clouds of heaven to set up a millennium here. Now, here's where the fundamentalists were wrong.

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The fundamentalists were steeped in Darbyism and the rapture doctrine and stuff like this.

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They were wrong about that. Such are some of the stakes which are being driven to mark a deadline of doctrine around the church.

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If a man is a genuine liberal, his primary protest is not against holding these opinions, although he may well protest against their being considered the fundamentals of Christianity.

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This is a free country, and anybody has a right to hold these opinions or others if he is sincerely convinced of them.

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What a weird argument. Since we live in the United States, you have a right to your own opinions.

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That means anybody can have whatever opinions they want in church, too. You guys see the point?

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Yeah. Then he asks this question.

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The question is, has anybody a right to deny the Christian name to those who differ with them on such points and to shut against them the doors of the

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Christian fellowship? The answer is yes. We're called to cast the evildoer out and to silence him.

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Fundamentalists say that this must be done. In this country and on the foreign field, they are trying to do it. They have actually endeavored to put on the statute books of whole -state binding laws against teaching modern biology.

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If they had their way, this is a reference to the Scopes Monkey Trial, by the way. If they had their way within the church, they would set up in Protestantism a doctrinal tribunal more rigid than the

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Pope's. Now, all of this is to basically say, did you see how he used the descriptive text and inferred that it's a prescription?

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That somehow we just need to wait and see if the modernist liberals and their denial of inspiration of Scripture, their attacks on the penal substitutionary atonement, their denial of the virgin birth, and their denial of the resurrection, that we just need to wait and see if this is from man or if it's from God because they were claiming piously.

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They were mixing new truth with the Scripture and coming up with a new combination. But what does the

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Scripture say about such things? We are to hold to the faith once for all delivered to the saints. We are not to add to or take away from God's Word.

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And as I pointed out in the sermon today, Proverbs 30 makes it very clear. Every word of God proves to be true.

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Every word of God. And Christ says the Scripture cannot be broken. So was Christ born of a virgin? Yep. Did he rise from the dead bodily?

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You betcha. Well, corpses don't rise. That's the point, isn't it? Duh. Was the earth created in six days?

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Of course it was. Jesus said so. You get the idea. And when you are opposing the truth of Scripture while claiming pious airs for yourself, say, well,

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Gamaliel said just leave us alone. Notice how he twisted the Scripture to basically give cover for himself.

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And by the way, did time prove them to be right? There are very few modernist liberals left.

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This gave way to post -modernism and post -modernism completely tore this thing apart.

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Didn't replace it with real biblical Christianity but it left this in complete tatters. All right, this is where we're going to end today.