Jeff Durbin | The Essential Starting Point

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All this talk of Calvinism, Reformed theology, and presuppositionalism, and all these beards,

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I feel so at home. This is amazing. And my wife is from the

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South, and so the accents and everything, I feel wonderful. So let's just relax. Hey, I'm late.

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By the way, I think this all started late, which is gonna ruin your night, because I have real sins in the area of keeping time. Because I put in the address into Google, and it sent me to the wrong part of town, to the wrong church.

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As I was driving, it was real dark, and couldn't see anything, and this weird neighborhood, and just this broke down.

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I was like, I don't think this is the place. I think the Deep South Founders Conference has a few more people than this. So I was in the wrong part of town, so we're like, you know, running behind, and it's my fault.

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So, you know, I apologize, and now you are gonna have a long night. So, I appreciate the kind words.

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If you would, pray for us. My life right now feels like controlled chaos, because by God's grace, we've been given something that we wouldn't have believed you if you told us 10 years ago, and that's, we have upwards of 14 states right now that we're working in, this legislative session, with bills of equal protection, abolition, the criminalization of abortion in all those states.

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We have 10 of those we're for sure of, with bills, bills are written, we have the legislators, they're putting this stuff in, but I'm learning more and more every day that more are popping up.

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So the next couple of months for me is gonna be very difficult and crazy, because it's really a matter of getting a phone call, booking a flight that night to maybe testify at a hearing or something like that.

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And so 10 years ago, we were just begging God, Lord, if you could just give us one legislator who loves you, we'll be courageous, we'll stand in your word, and do what's right before you and for these children.

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God, we'd be grateful just for one, and to my knowledge, the very first senator who loves the

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Lord that put that bill in was in Oklahoma, Senator Joseph Silk. It was an amazing moment, and we were just thankful we had just one opportunity to plant that seed, and since that time, we've gotten in states,

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Arizona, Texas, South Carolina, in Colorado, in Pennsylvania, Louisiana, was a remarkable moment, and has everything to do with what we're actually talking about here at this conference.

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There's a remarkable moment of witness and testimony for the church with the gospel, the call to repentance in the state of Louisiana.

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We begged the Lord, Lord, if you would just give us one state with a righteous, godly controversy, where we could speak the truth, and that it could no longer be suppressed, and that the world would know about it.

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And the Lord gave that to us in Louisiana last year. They talked about it on CNN, New York Times, MSNBC.

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It blew the lid off, and it exposed something very, very important, something vitally important to expose that we've been trying to expose for a very long time, and that is the inconsistency in how some have actually fought against the issue of abortion for the last five decades.

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And that inconsistency is devastating. That inconsistency destroys the gospel. That inconsistency removes itself from the authority of God's word, and that is a certain word,

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His word of truth, in the area of the issue of abortion. So much of it has been approached with neutrality, with subjectivity, with personal opinions, and the opinion of the crowd.

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And so we believe that the end of abortion will come through the gospel. We believe the end of abortion is going to come through a proclamation of God's truth.

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We don't believe that the world can change, or I can change, apart from God's certain word.

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His revelation of Himself is that reference point. It's the standard by which we can know.

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And so that's what we're fighting right now. So pray for me. It's a bit chaotic, but I am honored to be here with you all.

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So I was so happy, I have to tell you, as crazy as things have been, and what a gift it's been to be involved in so much recently,

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I was so happy that we would have this weekend to talk about something other than abortion as the main thing.

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To talk about the assurance of grace and salvation. That's so important for all of us, of course, in terms of our eternal future, where we're going, our reconciliation and peace with God.

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It's so important in terms of my own life as a pastor and minister of the gospel, as things get very challenging and difficult, whether there's persecution or whether there is difficulty, this is where my heart and soul rests.

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Right here. This is it. God's grace and His salvation. This is the sum of it all for me.

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So I'm honored to be here talking about this. So I was given a lot of freedom to do the messages for your conference.

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And so we're going to talk about eschatology tonight. I'm just joking. We're not. I'm totally joking.

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It'll come out. No. I wanted to start somewhere that was meaningful.

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Somewhere that was meaningful. Because what we could do, we're talking about God's grace and salvation, the assurance that we have in the grace of God and the salvation we have in Christ, we could just spend time just unloading the proof texts.

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It's unavoidable. You can't avoid it. It's clear. God hasn't misspoke.

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God hasn't confused in His word about the assurance that we have of His grace and salvation in Jesus Christ.

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We could just do that. Just give the dump truck of all the proof texts over two days and give glory to God for all that truth.

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We could do that. But I think a more meaningful thing to do would be to start at the foundation that matters the very most.

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Because you could give the dump truck, you could unload the truck and give all the proof texts of the assurance that we have in God's grace and the salvation that we have in Jesus Christ.

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You could do that. But the question is going to finally come down the way a bit. The question is, well, why should

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I trust that and how do I know? And so this question at the very beginning is really everything. It's the foundation that I brought with me into the hospital where I was a chaplain full -time for many years at a drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility, a hospital with 24 -hour care, doctors and nurses and therapists, the worst of the worst being flown in from across the country on a daily basis.

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How did I minister to those people who were in the worst situations imaginable?

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How do you minister to the woman that's experienced so much pain, so much difficulty in that context?

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I mean the stories that I heard as a pastor, as a minister of the gospel, sitting in a room talking to those people for years will raise the hair on your neck.

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Some of them I couldn't talk about publicly because they are so horrific and so challenging to hear. It's the foundation that I brought with me in that context.

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It's the foundation that I've brought with me in my hardest moments as just a brother in Christ and someone who loves the

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Lord. It's the foundation that I brought with me out in front of the Mormon temple in Mesa, Arizona to go do evangelism.

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It's the foundation I bring with myself when I go out to ASU to debate and to defend the faith.

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It's the foundation that I bring with me when I fight against the issue of abortion. This is the foundation.

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How do you know? Why start here? When talking about God's grace and the assurance we have in salvation, why start here, the essential starting point?

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God's own revelation. Why start here? Well, see there's a popular thing we know and like I said,

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I feel at home. We're talking about Calvinist and Reformed theology and presuppositional apologetics. There is something we all know and that is sola scriptura.

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Now oftentimes when you hear that in our circles, sola scriptura, we often think of it as what?

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We think about it as that church doctrine, right? Sola scriptura is what? That the scriptures of the

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Old and New Testament are the sole and fallible rule of faith and practice for what?

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Anybody know? I thought we're Calvinists here, right? The church. I got one person. Okay. The pastor, of course, right?

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The church. And we typically think about sola scriptura in that way. Like when we're defending the five solas or we're defending the doctrines of grace, we're thinking about sola scriptura and we're talking about it in the context of the church.

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So the problem with that is if we take sola scriptura and we relegate it to the walls of the church and what we think about when we think about Christian doctrine, we're actually not understanding what sola scriptura really is all about.

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Sola scriptura really at its heart is this. It is a revelational epistemology.

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Now, here's the thing. Ready? I know it's late. So you throw words like epistemology around. A lot of people say,

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I didn't know I was coming for that. I wanted to get encouraged and now I'm not encouraged, right? Epistemology.

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It's very important here. It might be a might be a high level term, but epistemology is just a theory of knowledge.

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It just means this. How do you know? How do you know? Now get this. You're doing it all the time.

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You did it on the way here. You're doing it with your children. We're doing it all the time. You're doing it when you watch the news. You're doing it when you make claims.

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All of us, even the atheist out there on the street, the secular humanist, the rabid pro -choicer, all of us have some sense of how we know what we know.

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It's a theory of knowledge, an epistemology. How do you know what you know? And at the heart of sola scriptura, really the heartbeat of sola scriptura is really revelational epistemology.

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And that is simply this. God Now we're afraid to say that today.

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We're afraid to say that. If you got a chance or if you get a chance to look at it later,

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I had a online debate, radio debate with Andy Stanley.

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A radio debate with Andy Stanley on the unbelievable radio program. We were talking about how he wants to unhitch the

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Old Testament from the New Testament. And really, we got down to brass tacks. And the main issue between Andy Stanley and myself was he didn't like the claim.

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I believe that because God said. Fundamentally opposed to that.

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His system is a theory of knowledge and how you know that really is divorced from the claim

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God spoke and that's how I know. He wants to go a different direction. We're afraid to say that today.

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As a matter of fact, he was kind of surprised when I said it when he was asking like what's the basis? How do you know? And I said the revelation of God.

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The word of God. And he was like, okay. Strange. Weird to say that. That's it.

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God spoke. You see that? There's more to it. You could actually fill that out philosophically.

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You could show the foundations of God's self -attesting revelation. You could talk about preconditions of intelligibility.

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You can do the high -level talking about the subject of how do you know what you know? But let's be honest as Christians.

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Let's be honest. Let's put it on the table. Let's make the claim. We know what we know because of God's revelation.

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God spoke and that's why I'm certain. Because God said. That's a revelational epistemology and that's the heart of Sola Scriptura.

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And here's what's really important. That claim actually goes out broader than just the church walls.

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It goes out everywhere. It's actually a claim that's not just confined to the church itself.

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It's something that actually defines the whole of life. The whole of life. You see here's the problem though with this issue of God speaking.

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And this comes to the heart of our conflicts. Our personal conflicts. And what I mean by this is in terms of as a believer when you turn to Christ in faith and you experience salvation.

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God declares you righteous. You have peace with God. All that happens and as you walk further and further into the

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Christian life, you know at times you lose that joy. You lose your sight. You lose your vision.

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Sometimes if you're like me, you've had those moments where you're far into your Christian life and you wake up at 3 a .m

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and all of a sudden there's this onslaught of your past life and the old way and all the things that you've done and all of your sins.

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And you struggle with those things. You struggle to trust in those promises.

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Sometimes you believe your own inner monologue. We lie to ourselves. God's not faithful.

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God has abandoned me. God is tired of me. God is worn out by me. God is angry with me.

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God no longer forgives me. You see there's a problem in this at a starting point in terms of understanding and glorying in the grace of God and the assurance of God that we have in salvation.

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The problem is a problem of human sin. The problem is not with God's speech.

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It's not with God's word and his revelation and his promises. The problem is me. The problem is us.

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It's our sin. It's our rebellion. It's our unbelief. Just think about for a moment all of the woes that every human can't help but having in a fallen world.

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How many times have you seen an advertisement? Is it just me that gets it? Are they trying to say something to me? The advertisement for like you need therapy, right?

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You ever get those on social media like you're going through social? It's just me. So they're saying something to me, right? Okay. Okay. I apologize for bringing you into my problems.

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Okay, so you're scrolling through social media and you start seeing all these different companies advertisements for now.

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I'm certainly going to get it. My phone is right here. Let's listen to every word I'm saying. This guy wants therapy. All the advertisements for therapy, therapy, therapy, right?

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The unbelieving world is struggling with anxiety and loneliness and fear. And all the rest.

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See this is a problem because we're in the image of God. You can't escape the fact that you feel distant from God and something is not, we're not right with the world.

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Not believing in Christ isn't going to actually save you from those problems. You're going to feel it because you're in God's image and this is

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God's world and it's a fallen creation. You're going to feel those things and we all feel the weight of those things, right?

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Anxiety, sin, condemnation, all those things we'll feel. Everybody feels it.

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So how does the world try to solve the problem? They try to solve the problem with pills, potions, motivational speeches and all those things.

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Does it heal? Is it going to heal you? Is it going to heal me? Is it going to do anything ultimately to satisfy the image of God?

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I don't believe so. The problem is a human problem, not with God's speech, not with what we can know with certainty.

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It's a human problem of our sin, our rebellion. You see, we have to think about three particular things when we think about this question of the grace of God in salvation.

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How does God define how he saves us, the assurance that we have in that grace and our salvation in Christ?

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There is a problem and that is three. Lies from the enemy. Lies from the enemy.

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When you and I consider the world that we live in and the conflicting stories that we have about how somebody has peace with God, how you're saved, you also have, you have to start at the first with the admission that yes, there is a spiritual war and a spiritual battle.

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We have lies from the enemy, a voice from the enemy that we have to contend with. We have to face that down.

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Now, of course, we're good reform folks here, so we don't want to go wild and off balance like some people and look for the devil behind every rock, right?

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There's a balance. Sometimes it's just me. I'm sinful. I'm the one that's the problem, right? It's not the devil made me do it or this is some spiritual attack.

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I think we give the devil too much credit at times. Sometimes we give him too little. Sometimes it's too much, but we have to be balanced, but recognize that in this problem that we're dealing with and actually getting down to what does

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God say in his word about his grace and our assurance of salvation, we have to deal and contend with the lies of the enemy.

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Scripture tells us that the enemy of our souls is like a lie. He prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

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That is something we have to contend with. The second problem we have to contend with when we're asking the question of how do

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I know? How can I be certain about God's grace and salvation? The second problem is the problem of the lies from false religion.

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They're making claims too, right? When you think about Roman Catholicism and how they distort the nature of grace and what

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Christ accomplishes in redemption and in the atonement itself and how a person is reconciled to God, you have to deal with, okay, there's lies coming from man -made religion, distortions of the

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Christian message in the gospel itself. Whether you're dealing with Roman Catholicism or Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses, the

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Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, religions that ape Christianity or religions that don't necessarily ape

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Christianity. They're their own thing. They're making claims about how a person has peace with God or their gods.

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So we have lies from the enemy to deal with. We have lies from false religion and some of those are mixed. I understand that.

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And we also have to deal, number three, with lies from within. Lies from our own inner monologue.

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See I was, as I said, I was a the head chaplain at a hospital for many years. And a lot of those people in the hospital would talk about how they came to their drug of choice.

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Why do they pursue it? There's always a reason, right? There's always a reason. What was it? Was it a pursuit of pleasure?

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What was it? Is it trying to get freedom from anxiety and fear so you try to drink it away?

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Is it taking benzodiazepines so that you can feel comfortable and not fearful and no longer anxious all the time?

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And so what people do in, say, anxiety, they're anxious.

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They're fearful. They're worried about the future. And so they don't go to Christ for that.

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They think things like the future is going to be horrible. Things are going to blow up. Things are going to be awful. They think about the worst case scenario and they obsess about those things.

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Maybe they think God is far off. He's not concerned. He's the absentee landlord. And so they live a life of fear.

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And what is that ultimately? Unbelief. What is it? Unbelief.

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How does Jesus tell us to deal with anxiety in our lives? By the way, he says to people who are dealing with anxieties, he says, do not be anxious.

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What is that? Is that a request? Is that a suggestion? Is that a motivational, you can do this?

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What is that? That's a command. That came from the voice of God. Do not be anxious.

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And then when Jesus tells us to not be anxious, he doesn't just say don't be anxious. He tells us why we are not to be anxious.

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He says because your father. He's the sovereign. That's the ultimate summary of it, isn't it?

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Because your father's a sovereign. There's not a bird that falls off a branch apart from your father's knowledge. You can't change the color of your hair by your worrying, right?

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He knows the very hairs on your head. They're all numbered. You can't add an hour to your life through your worry because the essential part there for Jesus to get across is that your father's in control of the days of your life.

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He's already determined all of that. And you can't change that through your worry. So he says do not be anxious.

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Don't be worried. Why? Because you have a sovereign father in heaven who loves you.

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You're more valuable than the sparrows. You're more valuable than the birds. That's what Jesus says. And the world deals with those issues.

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And when people have inner monologues, they lie to themselves about themselves and God. How do you heal in the area of anxiety and worry as a believer?

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Is it through pills and potions the rest of your life? I mean, what does that actually solve when you do that?

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I'm not against moments where you have a person, let's say, they lose a family member in a car accident and all of a sudden everything is chaos and it's horrible.

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I'm not opposed to a person getting medical treatment and help for the moment to calm down because they've experienced a tragedy.

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But long -term use of those things to solve the spiritual problem of my unbelief and my distrust of God is not going to help.

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It's not going to help. Because ultimately what's the way to be satisfied and healed in the area of anxiety?

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What's the what's the way? It's actually telling your own inner monologue to be quiet. We have to be willing to tell ourselves to shut up.

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That God said. And that's how I know. So we deal with this problem of God's grace or the the problem we can have in dealing with different voices coming to us about God's grace and the assurance that we have in salvation.

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We have to remember there are lies from the enemy. There are lies from false religion. There are lies from our own inner monologue.

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And this this is what is glorious. Think about this for a moment. What are the promises in scripture?

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The glorious promises in scripture made to God's people about the salvation that we have. What does Jesus say?

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He promises us what kind of life? See this is the problem talking to reformed churches that you don't talk back.

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Okay. It was I'll tell you what I was at we were at the creation museum yesterday and it's like a mixed bag.

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We got to get all the christian church together. It's a mixed bag and there were a lot of people like shouting and yelling and hooting hollering. I was like, all right, calm down.

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That's a little too much. Just enough right balance. Think about the promises.

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What do you know? I want you to think in your mind for a moment. Now, what do you know about God's grace and the assurance you have in salvation? What does Jesus promise you when you come to him to trust in him?

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What kind of life? Everlasting. Abundant. Right.

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What does scripture say about what we have in Christ because we've been declared righteous. We've been justified. It says therefore having been justified by faith.

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We have what with God? Peace with God. Been justified.

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We've been justified by faith. We have presently peace with God. There is therefore now no what?

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Condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Are you in Christ Jesus? Are you? Yes, if you trust in him you are and the promise is there is no condemnation.

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What does he promise us in Romans chapter 4 is that God actually counts us righteous apart from our works and he'll never count our sins against us.

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He counts you righteous apart from works and he'll never count your sins against you. So why the struggle?

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Why the moments of darkness and depression and sadness? Is it that God is not clear in his word?

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Is it is it that he hasn't given us enough testimony and evidence of his love for his children that he'll never lose you?

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He'll never forsake you. You're in his hand and nothing can snatch you out of his hand. Is it that there's not enough?

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No, the problem is a problem of human sin. It's a problem of rebellion. It's a problem of distrust of God's own revelation of himself.

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So again this week in my hope is that we would all be encouraged by God's truth and what he says about his grace and his assurance in salvation, but there's a fundamental issue we have to get right.

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And that is that what are we standing on? What are we standing on?

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Whose word will we believe? Will you believe the voice of the enemy? Will I? Will you believe the false claims of man -made religion that contradict

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God's word at every turn? Or will you believe your own inner monologue?

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And let me just hang on this point for a moment in terms of trying to speak to this as a pastor and as your brother. What's true is that honestly, if we really think about it, the problem is not that God isn't clear.

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The problem is is that we believe our own inner monologue over God. I mean think about this for a moment.

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Who talks to you more than you? Right? Think about it for a moment now.

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The Mormon, do you have a lot of Mormons here in Jackson? Do you? Do you?

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Okay. So do they come to your door still? Okay. Well, praise God. Get them. The Mormon, listen, watch this.

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You have the Christian man or Christian woman sulky and sad in their house at their table, feeling like God is far off, feeling like they're lost, feeling like God doesn't love them, feeling a lack of joy, no rejoicing, feeling shame and condemnation in some sense from their past.

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Whatever the case may be, they're feeling all of that over a cup of coffee at the table. Knock at the door.

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Open the door. Two young men. They're getting younger and younger, by the way. They're having a hard time finding missionaries.

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They're like, yeah, 12 is fine. No. Two young men come to the door and they start telling you, we're with the

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Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints or Church of Christ or however they try to rebrand themselves now.

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And they carry in the Book of Mormon and their quad, the standard works of the church, right?

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Now, you've done some study now. This guy who's been sulky a moment ago at the coffee table and drinking a cup of coffee, sad and feeling like God is far off.

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He's done some study. So he goes to the door. These Mormons are at the door and the Mormons start making claims. Did you know that God came to Joseph Smith, a young man, in this grove and that he told

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Joseph Smith to join none of the churches for they are all wrong. All their creeds are an abomination. All their professors are corrupt.

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They draw near to me with their lips and their hearts are far from me. Did you know this happened in history? That Joseph Smith brought us the

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Book of Mormon, which is another testament of Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith taught us that actually you can become like God one day.

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That God was not always God and that here then is eternal life to know the only wise and true

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God. And you've got to learn to become gods yourselves the same way all gods have done before you.

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Now, I'll remind you for a moment now that Christian was just in that house, sulky and sad, feeling like God is far off, not trusting his promises.

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And he comes to the door. He hears that mess and he immediately firms it up. He goes, wait a minute. Let's go.

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Isaiah 43, 10. Before me, there was no God formed.

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Neither shall there be after me. Isaiah 44, 6. I am the first and I am the last.

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Besides me, there is no God. Isaiah 44, 8. Is there a God besides me?

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Indeed, there is no other God. I know not one. And that Christian goes to battle for the truth, defends the faith, ministers to these

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Mormons, goes to the word of God and starts saying, no, the word of God says, by grace you've been saved through faith in that not of yourselves.

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It is the gift of God, not according to works, lest any man should boast, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus.

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And he starts going in with all the verses and he feels so full that he's served Christ and he's given the truth to these

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Mormons and the door shuts. Now, typically what happens when that Christian goes back to that coffee table is they just rejoice for a moment.

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Oh God, your word is so clear and I pray that it touches their hearts. And what's amazing about that moment is that when that voice came through the door from those missionaries, that Christian who was just sulky over there had no problem filtering that voice through the word of God.

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Every claim that was made from Joseph Smith or Brigham Young or Orson Pratt or Orson Hyde or whoever was filtered through the word of God and that Christian heard and said, nope, that voice is wrong.

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How do I know? Because here it says, this is the word of the Lord. Here's what

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God says. Isn't it amazing that we are so capable and so willing to filter all those voices through the word of God and say that's not true.

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I reject that. Here's what the word says. But when it comes to our own inner monologue, we lie to ourselves and we don't believe the word of God when it comes to the assurance that we have in Christ.

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And our deepest, hardest, darkest moments. Isn't it just so much an example of our own pride?

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Because what are we saying? When the television comes on and people are telling us about all the gender bending and all the perverse human sexuality and everything going on, it's so easy for us to be able to filter that through the word of God and God says, no, that's toevah.

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That's an abomination. God calls that an abomination. God says that's sin. We're so willing to filter all those voices through the word of God and say

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I know what the word of the Lord says. But when it comes to our own lives, we lie to ourselves.

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And that's the problem. The voice of the enemy, the voice of false religion, the voice of our own inner monologue. We believe ourselves over God all the time.

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Can we confess that? Are we allowed to confess sin in reformed churches? I hope so. So this is a question.

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How do we know? By the way, what time is it? When am I supposed to stop, pastor? Okay. All right.

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That was a mistake. Okay. I'm not going to run over Jeff's time though.

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So I'm going to do my best here. Okay. So the question is how do you know? You really have to answer that.

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And again, you could do this and we could have a whole thing here. We do the tough talking and philosophically rigorous stuff in terms of a revelational epistemology.

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We could talk about foundations and different approaches to epistemology and all the rest. But let's simplify this.

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We do this every day. We do it every day. How do you know? Just consider for a moment all the craziness going on in the world around us in terms of the gender bending and all the rest.

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Men with beards and clearly biologically male parts saying, I feel like a woman.

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Maybelline. Some of you are getting that one. Us old people.

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Abortion. How do you know? I mean seriously, how do you know?

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A woman goes into a clinic. From a Christian perspective, she executes her child in the womb.

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We have a way that we define what just took place. Right? Is it just personal opinion? Is it just the community you're with?

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Or do we say there's actually a transcendent law? You see? How do you know? When you complain about things like that in culture and society, how do you know?

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I mean really when you're challenged on it, what's your answer? Think about it. Is it just your personal opinion? If we took five people, put them in a room and say, how do you feel about the biological issue in terms of gender and all those things?

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Are we just supposed to listen to everyone's opinion and just say everyone has their own way of looking at this? Is that really how the world works?

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I mean if you're an atheist, that would actually be a little more consistent to say, hey, it doesn't really matter anyways.

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There's no good. There's no evil. There's only blind and pitiless indifference. You live, you die, and you're gone.

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You're absolutely gone when you die. That's Richard Dawkins and Dr. Will Provine. That's what they said about the matter.

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Is that how you get to truth? So how do you know? How do you know that this is a sin? How do you know that this is wrong?

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We talk about human sexuality. I'm hoping every person in this room has a clear perspective of human sexuality.

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What is right? What is wrong? What is true? What is beautiful? What is lovely? But here's the question. How do you know?

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What's really the answer? What's the foundation? Why are we afraid to say it today?

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I think much of the darkness around us in culture is simply because of that. We're afraid to stand on the word of God and say

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God says. And that's how I know. By the way, that's the only way you can call people to repentance.

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Right? I mean, how did you and I come to Christ? It's because God said we were sinners. God said we needed

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Christ. God said this is what Christ has done. And that's why we turn from our sin to trust in Jesus. Why do we think the world's not going to come to Christ in the same way?

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The only way people come to Christ is when they have a revelation of their own sin before a holy God and they're called to repent and to believe.

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The answer is God says. See, again, we do this every day. How do you and I know that we are to love our neighbors rather than eat them?

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Oh, I love it when people laugh at that. Because I've had these conversations with atheists, public debates or on the street debate, whatever the case may be.

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Ask the question. Should I love my neighbor or eat my neighbor? Why is it absolutely morally wrong to eat my neighbor rather than love them?

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So I had a radio discussion on a show called Provoked where we had an atheist come on the show. We had a discussion about ethics and morality and I challenged him on his position.

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I said now if you believe that you're just a bag of chemicals in a godless universe, there's no heaven above you.

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It's only sky. If you believe you're just a bag of chemicals and protoplasm bobbing along the surface of the cosmos that doesn't care about you, if you believe that your ancestors were fish and you're descended ultimately from bacteria, if you believe there are no ultimate standards, then why, pray tell, ought

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I to love my neighbor rather than eat them? And as I pushed and prodded and pushed and pushed and pushed and presuppositional apologetics, all that, okay.

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As we pushed, he finally admitted and you can listen to it yourself. He said, well, actually I don't think it really is wrong to eat your neighbor as long as you clean your plate.

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Yeah. He wasn't joking. Because as I showed him the foundation he was standing on, not standing on the revelation of God and the

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Christian worldview, he finally had to come to the conclusion. Yeah, maybe it's not absolutely wrong to eat your neighbor.

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He said, well, I would just hope that, yeah, it's not really wrong. But I think you should definitely do it in a humane way.

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Like make sure you dispatch them quickly and that you eat them and you make sure you don't waste any of it. My word to him right after was, welcome to atheism.

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How do you know? You see, we make that claim all the time. We say, you know, love your neighbor as you love yourself. Who said that? Jesus. And that's why we believe it because God says, why ought

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I to love my neighbor rather than eat them? What's the ultimate answer? Really? What is it? Why are we afraid to say it?

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God says. Now again, you can have this discussion and debate at the highest level.

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Yes, you can. I refer you to Dr. Greg Bonson for all of that. All the debates he had with Gordon Stein and all the rest.

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You can listen to those things and hear that the very rigorous way to defend this, but ultimately that's really it.

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God says. That's why I'm gonna love my neighbor because they're made in the very image of God. God is love.

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Love does no harm to its neighbor. What am I doing? I'm quoting the revelation of God.

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There's the definition. There's the foundation. How do you and I know?

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God says. You do with your kids every day. You and I do it with our kids every day.

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Think about this for a moment. When you say to your children, when you say, when they, you know, sin or they're acting up a bit and you say to your children, you say, honor your father and your mother.

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Obey your parents and the Lord. What if your child said to you, how do you know? Do we spank in Mississippi?

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No, but think about it. It's actually, it's a good question because you can answer that. Right? You need to honor your father and your mother.

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You need to obey your parents. Well, parents, how do you know that?

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Who says? I mean, what if we are just the random results of evolutionary processes? What if there's no

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God above us, justice ahead of us? What if there's no transcendent law? Who are you to make the claim that children need to obey their parents at all?

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You see, what's important here is notice the way that God set the world up. Christians have an actual way to define this and to defend it because when we say children are to obey their parents, we don't just mean

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Christian children, do we? Do we? Isn't that the way that God made the world?

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Don't we say that the children of atheists are supposed to obey their parents? Don't we say that? Isn't that the way that God made the world?

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But the question is, how do you know? We do this every single day. How do you know what's moral and what people ought to do?

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Did you hear the story recently about the two gay men who adopted the children? Did you hear it?

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I'll be careful. I want to be careful from this pulpit. Did you hear that story? It's horrendous.

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Is it wrong for two gay men to adopt children and then to actually abuse their bodies and to put them into sex trafficking?

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Is that wrong? Who says? Who says? When you think about copulating with animals, is that sinful?

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Is it wrong? Should it be a crime? Challenging question. How do you know? How do you know?

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By what standard? Who is in charge here?

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That's the question. How do you know? So when you're answering any question in life, should you obey your parents?

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Should animals be part of human sexuality? What ought people to be able to do to their children?

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Gender, abortion, sexuality. The question of God's grace and assurance and salvation. You have to have that fundamental starting point.

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That place you stand. And it's only one place of certainty. And that is this, God's speech.

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God has spoken. And here's what's really important to get across. This is not necessarily the most important thing to get.

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But it's just in terms of communicating this with some of the battles that are going on. Some of the debates that are going on right now.

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God has spoken and he's made clear to us in his word that he's spoken essentially in two books.

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Now what I don't mean old new testament. I mean there are two books that God has laid down in human history.

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There is general revelation that he's given. That's his speech. And he's given us what?

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Special revelation. You didn't know you were getting tested tonight, did you? Okay. General revelation and special revelation.

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I called them two books because I want us to remember that both of those are

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God's speech and given to us by God. They don't contradict one another. They can't contradict one another because they are two books given by the same

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God. Everyone hear me on that? I think if you guys are in some of these discussions that are happening today around general revelation and special revelation you understand why

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I'm making that point. In terms of certainty, there is a book of general revelation that God gives.

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You already know this. Psalm 19 1. The heavens what? You sound so sad.

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Right? Declare. The heavens declare. Okay. The heavens declare the glory of God.

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God is speaking through. He's giving a speech. He's speaking through the created order.

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He is not whispering to humanity. He is shouting to humanity. He's shouting to Dr.

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Will Provine. He's who's dead now. He's shouting to Richard Dawkins. He's shouting to Christopher Hitchens.

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The atheists who rebel against God. His speech isn't unclear. He is speaking in that book.

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General revelation is testifying about his existence, his character.

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They know. It's his speech. He's revealing himself and he's given to us special revelation in history that we would say is the very words of God in scripture.

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Now, why am I making this point? Here's the point I'm making in terms of God's speech. And this is where the anchor comes.

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General revelation gets through. How do we know that God's revelation in nature gets through to the atheist?

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The unbeliever. The one who's hostile to God and the gospel. How do we know that that revelation actually gets through to the creature?

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Because of special revelation. Special revelation tells us in Romans chapter 1. It says that everybody knows the true and living

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God. They know him so clearly and they so understand him from general revelation and what

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God gives to us in nature. They so know that he's there. It's so clearly communicated.

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But the problem is not that he's not shouting at them. It is that they are doing what with that truth?

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Suppressing the knowledge of God. They don't want, Paul says, they don't want God in their knowledge.

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Meaning they don't want to know him. That's what it means. Not wanting God in their knowledge. I don't want to know him.

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I don't want to think about him. I don't want him to be there, but he's there and they know it,

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Paul says. And so what they do is they suppress that truth in unrighteousness. So Paul says they are left unapologetus.

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They are left without an apologetic. They are left without an apologia, a reasoned defense.

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They cannot argue on the last day. Nobody is going to say God, I didn't know. Nobody will be able to argue before a holy

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God. I didn't know every human being made in God's image and that's everybody, including those in the womb.

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Everybody knows the true and living God. The problem is not that that revelation is unclear.

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It is a problem of human sin and suppression and rejection of the truth. Get it? Everyone here?

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Yes? Special revelation. Is God's communication of his word outside of general revelation that is special.

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There is the grounding for certainty. So when you and I want to know and delight in and rejoice in the grace of God and the assurance that we have in our salvation, we need to be standing not in our emotions, not in our own interpretation, not in our perception, not in man -made religion, not in the voice of the enemy, not our own inner monologue.

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We need to be standing on the word of the living God, his revelation of his character, his sovereignty, his power, his promises to save.

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That's where we need to stand. Special revelation is God's own preserved certain word in history.

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Now I'm going to give you an example of this from the Lord Jesus in Matthew chapter 22. How did

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Jesus talk about God's revelation in history? Matthew chapter 22 and then we'll get to the great tribulation in 24.

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I'm just kidding. Okay, you thought. In Matthew chapter 22, it's one of those things and can you admit

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I admit this like I read this so many times over and over and over read it so many times and it wasn't until Dr.

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James White pointed it out when I was a young man that I was like, how did I not see that? He's a smart man.

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That's why he lost all his hair. All the thinking. In Matthew chapter 22,

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Jesus is challenged on a question about the resurrection and in verse 29, it says this, but Jesus answered them,

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You are wrong because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God for in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

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And as for the resurrection of the dead, here it is. Have you not read what was said to you or spoken to you by God?

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And now we quote scripture. Quote, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the

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God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

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So did you notice that before? That Jesus in conflict with Jews who profess to love

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Yahweh, to love his revelation, his scripture, they knew what they knew what it was.

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No confusion in this day. You had the Old Testament books, exactly what we've got in our Old Testament today, laid up in the

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Jewish temple, in that second Jewish temple. They knew what their book was. Paul says in Romans chapter three, he says that God's people, the

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Jews, were entrusted with the oracles of God. They knew what the word of God was. They had it laid up in the temple.

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They had it read to them in synagogue. They knew the revelation of God. And when Jesus is in conflict with them as God incarnate, how does he manage the conflict with those first century

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Jews? He brings them back to the word of God, the revelation of God. You should know this. You're supposed to know this. You have to know this.

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These are your scriptures. You've been entrusted with them. This is the word of God. Jesus says, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

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Jesus equated, don't miss it. Don't miss it. Because in your hardest, darkest, most difficult moments, this will be your peace.

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He tells those first century Jews, have you not read? What was spoken to you by God?

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But wait, wait, wait, hold on. Well, hold on. Technically, technically

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God spoke those words to Jews before. But Jesus actually quotes the word of God from the

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Old Testament revelation. He says, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

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These words of God are the words of the living God and they are for you.

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Do you hear that? There's the anchor for the grace of God and assurance that we have in salvation is, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

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It's good as pastors to do that with people who are struggling with assurance of salvation or the grace of God and salvation is to simply go to the word of God and say, no,

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I know your struggles and I feel your pain right now, but have you not read what was spoken to you by God? There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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I know my sheep. They know me. I give them eternal life. They'll never perish.

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You're in my hand. Nothing can snatch you from my hand. You're in the Father's hand. Nothing can snatch you from the

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Father's hand. There's the hope. There's the anchor. It's very simply in this God said.

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How much time do I have? Okay. I have a lot more

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I'd like to do, but I don't want to go all night. So let's say be continued till tomorrow, right?

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Does that sound good? Yes. Okay, but I do want to end with this. I want to provide some more foundations in the morning.

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Again, I apologize for the late start. I want to provide more foundations on this question in the morning as we get into God's sovereign grace in salvation, which is another anchor, but I want to challenge you with this is what we've been talking about thus far.

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Have you not read what was spoken to you by God? God's Word, the very foundation of all things.

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Just consider for a moment. What is said to us in 2nd Timothy 3, 16 through 17?

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Do you know that verse? I see some heads nodding. All scripture is breathed out by God.

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Theanoustos. Breathed out by God. Isn't that wild?

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That the Apostle Paul is talking to this young man.

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You've known this from childhood. You've known this from the beginning.

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All scripture is breathed out by God. Theanoustos is the very understanding of God's own breath.

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You can put your hand in front of your mouth and you can feel the breath hitting your palm. Breathed out, that breath, that breath of God, that Word of God.

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All scripture is breathed out by God. These are the very words of God. And so, so what?

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So what? If these are the very words of God, if it's the very foundation of all truth and all questions about truth, if we can only truly know and have certainty because of God's revelation, so what?

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In our conflict with the world, it's going to come out. And how we face down things out there and speak against things out there, it's going to come out.

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So what? The answer is, well, God's revelation says here and God's revelation says there.

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This is what is true. This is what is beautiful. This is what is lovely. In our conflict with how people try to bring transformation in the world, whether it's dealing with failures that we've done, like I said, in the last 50 years since Roe versus Wade, in the pro -life establishments, or questions about justice.

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Everybody talks today, especially in the last couple of years, about social justice and justice and justice and all these different things. Image bearers of God can't avoid the demand of justice.

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But if they don't know God, their justice will be injustice and perverse. And so this question goes everywhere.

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God said it's the foundation of everything. These are the breathed out words of God. Have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

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This is God's speech. It's going to count everywhere in terms of justice. So what? Do you ever think about this?

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Slavery. Everywhere the Christian church has gone in history, we have defeated and destroyed slavery everywhere we go.

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And how come? Because of God's revelation. Because of God's word and what it says. I mean, our nation was the only place where in Christian history we actually ended it with so much bloodshed.

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However, it ended ultimately. Ultimately. Ultimately how?

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Because Christians testified to the truth. Christians were testifying to the truth about that issue.

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God says that if you kidnap and enslave a man or a woman, that's worthy of what?

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Capital punishments. God says we're all made in the image of God. God says we all come from one blood.

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Amen. Yes. And so these are the words of God. How did it end? Here's the thing. Get the point in terms of certainty and how we know we know.

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Slavery wasn't ended in this nation or in England with Wilberforce. It wasn't ended because of atheism.

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Right? Like I love to challenge people on the street when having conversations in conflict with people on college campuses.

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I love to challenge atheists and secularists on this point here when they talk about slavery in the past or whatever. I like to point out.

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Yeah, slavery is a victory under the feet of Jesus in this nation only because of the Christian message and the word of the living

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God. Your atheism didn't defeat slavery. As a matter of fact, atheism has no basis to complain about anything at all, much less slavery.

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Right? So why why did slavery end in England with Wilberforce? It was explicitly because he stood on the revelation of God and he preached the word of God and that's what brought transformation.

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It did take some time, by the way. It did take some time to do with the word of God and in this nation, in this nation, the same foundation was laid to start talking about the issue of slavery across the nation in the very same way.

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It's an abomination. God condemns it. Capital crime in God's word. This person's in the image of God.

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That's how it ended. Do you see how important this is? How valuable it is to say, so what? When you are facing justice in the public square, how will you answer?

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And then, false religion. How will you respond to the claims of Rome? How will you respond to the claims of Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russell, Judge Rutherford, David Koresh, and all the men like him?

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How will you respond? What will it be? And then finally, in those late nights or those hard moments, how will you endure?

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How will you rest? How will you have joy and be satisfied? When you have a loved one who dies unexpectedly or horribly, when you experience disease, decay, death, betrayal, slander, gossip, lies, whatever the case may be, anxiety, fear, sin, or sorry, shame and condemnation.

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When you're experiencing those things as a child of God, how will you respond? Will you respond with,

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God says. And that's how I know. That's what I hope to communicate over the next couple of days with us, brothers and sisters.

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Let's pray. Father, I pray you bless, Lord, the word that went out today for your glory and for your kingdom. Please bless us,

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Lord. I do ask that you speak, Lord, to your people as we pour over your word the next couple of days.

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Would you speak to us in such a way through your word that you bring healing to our hearts and our minds and you create a firm foundation,

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Lord, not only for us and our delight in you because of what you've done in Christ, but also,

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God, create that foundation in us so we give it as a bold proclamation to the world for your glory and kingdom.