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All right, let me pray and then we'll jump in. Father, we come to you in the name of Christ this morning. We come rejoicing today you've granted us today. We thank you for salvation in Christ. We thank you for this community of believers. I pray that as we kick off this series, dealing with just all the events going on around us and trying to look at those through a biblical lens, that you would give us grace, that you would give them in preparing clarity and would help us to be boldly standing upon your word, Lord, wherever that truth leads us, recognizing that in our society and even within much of the Christian church now, there's the denial of the sufficiency of your word when it comes to these matters, but you actually give us grace, Lord, where we wouldn't fall among that bunch, but we would be men and women that hold steadfast. I ask all this in Christ's name, amen. So as I mentioned, today is the introduction for what I think is gonna end up being a 13 or 14 part series on what we're calling Biblical Truth in Confused Times. And so as I mentioned, basically, we're gonna line up some big picture issues and also some particular societal things and try to take those from a biblical worldview. So for example, in the general principles area, we're gonna talk about the transforming hope of the gospel, we're gonna talk about a biblical response to persecution, the importance of the local church, and encouragement during difficult times such as this. And then on the specific side, we're going to dive into things like biblical versus social justice, pro-life versus abolitionism, and a biblical view of sexuality and marriage. And I have a tentative schedule. I'm trying to make sure all the guys that are doing the teaching are good with it, and I'll send it out to the church just so everybody kind of knows the timing and what we're planning on covering. sometime in the next week. So it's going to be me, Corey, Jeff, and Alex that are going to be doing the teaching. We kind of have it spread out relatively equally among us. And so what I want to do today is really hopefully just set the stage and help you guys to see, okay, pastorally, why are we even doing this? Why is it something that is important for us as a church? And so I'm going to have four points that I want to go over this morning. One is identifying our standard. The second one is watching out for false teachers. The third is choosing our path. And the fourth is preparing for the battle. So those are the four things I hope to cover that hopefully just help really just to lay the groundwork for the things that we're going to be going over over the next few months. First, we're gonna start out with identifying the standard. For those of you that are my age or maybe a little bit younger, you remember back in the 1990s, they had the what would Jesus do bracelets, right? I guess we were supposed to remind people of how would I act if I was Jesus. I think, in my opinion, the way it turned into kind of a squishy thing, and okay, Jesus is loving, so what does it mean to be loving to you based on what I feel like? And so, I think a better question to ask than what would Jesus do is, what did Jesus do? I mean, we have divinely recorded accounts in scripture of what Jesus actually did. And so, in our context, I think it's helpful to say, okay, what did Jesus rely on when he addressed the theological and cultural issues of his day? Well, seven times in the gospel, here's how he responded. He says, have you not read? And then he gave a quote from the Old Testament scriptures to answer the problems and issues in his day. And so for Jesus, the highest court of appeals was the word of God. It was scripture. And what's ironic, when you look at it, even Jesus' enemies agreed with that at that time, right? There was a disagreement that this was authoritative. It was, okay, the Pharisees and others had twisted Scripture based on their tradition and for their own benefit, but they all agreed to the standard, okay, hey, this is the one place that we can go to actually find truth. And so we could say that Jesus recognized Scripture as authoritative. And what we see is that the reason for the authoritative nature of scripture is because scripture isn't something that's just written by men. It's the very word of God. Jesus says in one of these, have you not read passages in Matthew 22, verses 31 and 32, he says, as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God? And so there you see, we're not talking about just what you read that some men wrote in a dusty old book a long time ago. No, it's have you not read what God had said to you, what God said? And then in the context, he says, am I not the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? And he concludes from all that, he is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. And so you can see from that context that Jesus thought it was authoritative, and you could actually make application based on what the scripture said. And so Jesus recognized that the scripture was inspired. And so we see Peter. In 2 Peter 1 21 said, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So Wayne Grudem in the Systematic Theology defines the authority of scripture this way. He says that it means that all the words in scripture are God's word in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God. So the authority of scripture is that everything written in the Bible is written in such a way that if you disbelieve or disobey anything in there, you're not just disobeying the words of men, you're disobeying what God has said. So that's a huge fundamental understanding that we have to grasp. But not only is scripture authoritative and inspired, it's also inerrant. We see in Proverbs 30 verse 5 that every word of God proves true. So Grudem defines inerrancy this way, he says, it means that scripture in the original manuscripts does not affirm anything that is contrary to fact. And so, just to take an example from our context here, when Jesus says that marriage is between a man and a woman, That's not contrary to fact. That's not, oh, there wasn't some fact way back then that, oh man, Jesus and the apostles, they just didn't know about these gender issue things. And so now we have this great enlightenment. Well, no, the scripture is inerrant, authoritative, and it's inspired. So it is not contrary to any fact. So what we can say is that we have the one resource that's authoritative, inspired, and inerrant. So that clearly should be our guide as we address these things. But we can ask the question, should we really expect it to address the cultural issues of our day, right? That's one of the things right here, man. This is just this book written by men, you know, 2,000 years ago. How can it be expected to address what's going on in our, you know, complex, you know, 21st century society that we live in? Well, we can go to 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17. You guys probably are all familiar with this. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. that the man of God may be complete, equipped for what? Every good work. And so let's ask some questions. Is how justice is to be done in society, is that a good work? We'd have to say yes, right? Is how abortion is to be ended a good work? Yeah, you'd have to say that it was. Is how we handle our money as Christians a good work? Yes, is how Christians relate to the local and state and federal government a good work? Well, absolutely. So every one of those questions, and you could throw a million more in there, and you would have to say, yes, all those things are good works. And so what does Paul say? That scripture will equip us for every one of those good works. And so we can say that the word of God is authoritative, it's inspired, it's inerrant, and it's sufficient. And so it has to be our standard as we come to addressing the issues that we're speaking of, that it will equip us to deal with these things in a way that it's biblical and pleasing to God. So Grudem defines the sufficiency of Scripture in this way, he says, it means that Scripture contained all the words of God that he intended his people to have at each stage of redemptive history. And now it contains all the words of God that we need for salvation, for trusting him perfectly, and for obeying him perfectly. When we hear about obeying Him perfectly, this is not just speaking of our lives as individual Christians. This is how we are to obey Him in, yes, our lives, in our marriages, in our families. within our workplaces, within the church, within society, Scripture is sufficient to give us all those things of how we are to obey God. It doesn't mean that God gives us every minute detail. I mean, take, you know, the ending of abortion, for example. It doesn't mean God lays out this 20-part plan of how to end abortion, but what He does is He gives us the commands, He gives us the principles to be able to take those and then faithfully apply it in whatever context that we come to. I mean, so that's why the Word of God is It goes across all, you know, nations and time periods. That's why, you know, like the Quran is bound up, you know, in this medieval time period. It's a book written by a man, you know, back 1,300, 1,400 years ago, whereas the Bible is transcendent. So it takes, you know, all cultures can take the principles and commands and apply them to an infinite number of circumstances, you know, that each of those individual Christians within those societies have to address. And so, So that's kind of our first point there is identifying what our standard is. And I hope that you see just on that brief summary that it must be the word of God and that the word of God is sufficient to address those things. And so the second thing I want to talk about this morning is watching out for false teachers. So probably all of us recognize this. There's many people, many pastors and teachers within the church even, that wanna be able to pick and choose what circumstances they can take God's word and apply it to, and what circumstances they can take and apply worldly wisdom to. I mean, sort of like a buffet line, you know, like we're okay, I really feel like pizza today, so I'm gonna load up the plate with that, but I don't, you know, egg rolls, maybe I'll take one or two, but those green beans, I can't have any of those. Well, that's not what scripture is, it's a whole, you're gonna take all of it, if you're a believer, if you wanna be submitted to the word of God, and so, We hear that and we think, of course. But I think we'd be naive to think that we could never be tempted with that, that that could never happen to us. Because when we look around and survey, I think we can see that there's a growing number of pastors, of theologians that are men that we once would say, man, these guys were solid. These were guys that, man, across the board, hey, I can trust what I hear from them, but they're men. that are embracing things like wokeness and social justice and the idea that, well, we can have an unrepentant homosexual come into the church and be in good standing in the church. Not like what Paul says, well, such were some of you. Yes, there were people that had that life of sin before, but these are repentant people. And so there's a chasm of difference between those things. So I think we recognize that. And so sometimes it's easy for us to see that, oh, this guy over here is failing in that. But what we have to recognize is, man, we have to have this foundation. We have to be firmly girded in these things to guard ourselves, to guard this church against falling in to some of those same type of errors. So this is not a new thing either. You go to the Old Testament, it's full of false prophets, right? An example would be Jeremiah 23, 16. where it says, thus says Yahweh of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of Yahweh. I mean, how much of that do we see today? People just spouting their own imaginations, their own ideas, stuff that they created in their own mind. It's totally contrary to the word of God, but they stand up and say it like, you know, that this is authoritative teaching, you know, that as Christians we must do. And so it's not just something in the Old Testament, it's something Jesus warned about. In Matthew 7, 15, he says, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly you're ravenous wolves. So we have Old Testament, we have Jesus, go to the epistles, or go to Acts. So before his departure from Ephesus, Paul gathered the elders of the church there in Ephesus that he'd been ministering to them, and he gave them a warning about the false teachers to come. And this is Acts 20, 28 through 30. says, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock. So he's speaking to the elders there. It says, in which the Holy Spirit had made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. So Paul is warning, this church that he started that he ministered in for three years that hey there's going to be false teachers coming from outside and you know what elders there's even going to be false teachers that rise up from among you within this church here these people you know personally discipled by paul there's going to be false teachers arise from within them and the elders there were charged with taking care of the church exposing the false teaching and the false teachers We've seen as we've gone through Galatians. Again, this is a church not long after Paul was there, a number of years, and what you have is the Judaizers coming in with this false teaching, this false gospel of salvation by works of the law. And the Judaizers were being tempted after it, right? They'd started to follow the calendar of the Jews. They were being tempted to circumcision. And so I think for us to think, oh man, this could never happen to us, right? We're good. I think is supremely naive, and so that's one of the reasons why, you know, I thought as I talked to the other brothers that have been teaching that this seemed like a necessary thing, not just a suggested thing, but this is something that as a church that we really need to be equipped in as all these things bombard us. So, So what we can recognize is that there will be false teachers, there will be false teaching that is seeking to make its way into the church, and we have to be ready to guard ourselves against it. And then we could look at Paul's warning to the church at Colossae in Colossians 2, six through 10, where he kind of describes what this sort of false teaching is often gonna be like. He says, therefore, as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught abounding in thanksgiving. There is a seed to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human traditions, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority. So what Paul's telling them there is they have to be so firmly rooted within the gospel, so completely firm in the word of God, that no one's going to be able to take them captive by all these empty deceits and philosophies that are going to come in. And so that's why for years what you've heard from the pulpit is, Christian, you need to be in the Word. You need to be reading. You need to be meditating. We need to be, you know, as a community of believers, talking about these things, sharpening one another. We need to be meditating upon the Word. Those are not optional for the Christian. And in so many churches, they're seen that way. So, we have to be firmly rooted in the Gospel and the Word of God. Notice here that it's not just that those things are neutral. I mean, that's what we can think, right? We hear, oh, here's some philosophy, you know, here's some things coming up from the world. Those are just neutral things. Well, what Paul says here is these things are not according to Christ. And so, as Jesus said, you're either for him or against him, right? Like there is no neutrality. That's a myth that we have. Things are either for Christ or things are against him. Things are either in accordance with God's Word, you know, lining up like that straight line, or they're not. It's not that difficult. I mean, we want to make it, I think oftentimes, much more difficult than it is. And notice here, it's not just that the teachers are neutral. What does it say about them? Because they are seeking to take you captive. It's not a positive thing, right? People coming in to try to take you captive. And so the word there means to lead off as prey, to carry off as booty, to rob or to kidnap. So that's what these false teachers are trying to do as they come and creep into the church, to the Christians. So on the surface, what they're teaching may sound good. I mean, it may, oh, hey, that sounds reasonable to me. That sounds helpful to me. A lot of the stuff that we're gonna cover in this class, when you hear When you just catch a snippet of what someone's saying, oh, that's reasonable, right? Okay, I need to love my brother that's a homosexual, and so what it means to be loving is to let him come into the church. But why would we not do that? It's those types of thoughts where we redefine what love is, redefine what God's Word says. and it turns out not to be loving. And so on the surface, that teaching may sound right and on the surface, their motives may seem right. But what they're doing is they're playing intellectual games and they're being used by the enemy to lead people away from Christ and the gospel. So these are serious, serious things. And so brothers and sisters, we have to recognize that we are in a spiritual battle and the enemy is seeking to take us captive through those false teachings that are coming into the church. And now, many places the doors are just wide open. I mean, as we talked about those, you know, solid ministry, solid men that have embraced these things and let it in, and it's not a small thing. Like I heard this week, I think it was on the dividing line, where, you know, there was one man that was, I think he has a doctorate from Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he was He posted something on Twitter basically saying the whole woke thing is just made up. I mean, guys like Bode Backham and Josh Bice and James White, they're just wrong. Like this doesn't exist. There's not one Southern Baptist pastor or theologian that believes this. And so, I mean, that's foolish on its face. I mean, it would be, it's so simple to refute, but that's what people are saying. And the people, you know, in the pews, they hear that and go, Oh, okay. Yeah. This is not a big deal. I need to ignore these things. And so it's just a part of the enemy's plan to be able to lull the church to sleep while these false teachings come in. So J.B. Lightfoot says this in summarizing verse 8. He says, Be on your guard. Do not suffer yourselves to fall prey to certain people who would lead you captive by a hollow and deceitful system which they call philosophy. They substitute the traditions of men for the truth of God. They enforce an elementary discipline of mundane ordinances fit only for children. Theirs is not the gospel of Christ. So we need men to speak up like that in pulpits today. So we've identified our standard and we've discussed this watching out for false teachers and now we're going to talk about choosing our path. So we have two different paths before us, right? We have follow God's word or the philosophies of men. it seems almost that you have to say, which one do you choose? Right? I mean, obviously there's people that there's professing Christians, maybe true Christians that have a problem with that. But what we see first Kings 18 tells us these things are quite clear. Elijah came near to all the people and he said, how long will you go limping between two different opinions? If Yahweh is God, follow him. But if fail, then follow him. And that's where we're at, Christian. If God is who he says he is, if his word is what he says it is, then we are to follow it. It's not complicated. It's not hard. It's simple. But it may be difficult in having to work that out, especially in our society now, in facing persecution and the cancel culture and all those things that come with that, but it's simple. We have to be honest about that. In most of these cases, this is not like some rocket science thing that we have to put together what God's word says. His words speak very clearly. So either God is the sovereign creator and ruler of the universe or He's not. Either God spoke to us in His word or He didn't. So if He is who He says He is, if His word is what He says it is, then we have no choice but to follow Him and follow it. We see that in my calling as a pastor. In Titus 1.9, He says, This is an elder that he must hold firm to the trustworthy word is taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. So not only must elders instruct the church in the truth of what God's Word says, they have to refute or rebuke those people that contradict it. So it's not optional. It's actually a requirement to be an elder to do those things. And so the society is going to tell you, man, this is so unloving. I mean, they can just believe what they want to believe, right? I mean, you know, who knows who's right? But that's not what the Word of God says. The Word of God says, no, We have to be clear and pastors are the ones called to be the gatekeepers to be the one that's saying no This is contrary to the what the Word of God says and we have to stand firm in it Then it's not just pastors, but all of us have to Understand to be able to refute that kind of false teaching look at the Great Commission You guys are all familiar with this Matthew 28 18 through 20 says and Jesus said to them I All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." So who's called to fulfill the Great Commission? Yeah, every person in this room, if you're in Christ, you are called to do this. It's not just for pastors, it's not just for missionaries, it's for all Christians. And what does Jesus say? What was the basis for the Great Commission? All authority. All authority where? Heaven on earth has been given to Jesus. So what does that mean? What does all authority mean? Yeah, it's not complex, right? So it's all authority over us as individuals. It's all authority over us in our marriages. It's all authority over our families, over our homes. It's all authorities in our workplaces. If we own a business, it's all authority there. It's all authority over local government. It's all authority over the state government. It's all authority over the national government. It's all, in this case, means all authority has been given to Jesus. The Jesus is King over it all. What the world wants to tell us, you gonna say something? Yeah, just, I don't know if it's interactive. Yeah, brother, yeah. Yeah, so, you think he says all authority in heaven and on earth. I don't think anybody in here would debate what that authority looks like in heaven and the fact that he basically, he makes them the same. Yeah, it's synonymous there, yeah. Yeah, it's synonymous that, like, I guess it challenges in our view of what His authority looks like here on earth. Yeah, that's really helpful. And that's one of the reasons why we're going to talk about the Christian in government. Because I think, you know, you talk about, okay, how do we apply God's word in society? And I think that some people will go immediately to, well, are you saying that the church is over the, should be over the local government? I mean, like kind of what you see in some of the times of the Reformation and medieval period. That's not what we're saying. We're not saying the church has authority over all, we're saying Christ is rule over all. And he's given, it's one of the things we're gonna talk about, is the different spheres that he's given. And I think historically in the church, we've seen those things not done rightly most of the time. You know, you've had this battle between the church and the state. Sometimes the church is over the state, sometimes the state's over the church, but very rarely were they actually functioning in their proper role together, both under the authority of God. And so it's a good point, brother, and it's one of the things that we're gonna, try to get through to help flesh some of those things out. And so, I think what most Christians would think when you just say, well, Jesus has authority. Well, I think what they're gonna go through is, well, okay, Jesus has authority over what's in my heart, and Jesus has authority over like the hour here on Sunday morning. Okay, I'll agree with that, right? But that's kind of the extent of it. That's what you see even from, you know, Christian politicians and things like, well, I mean, with all the mask mandates and things, well, okay, we can just shut the church down whenever we want. Well, who gave you authority there? I mean, that's one of the things I appreciated about Governor Abbott. Lots of stuff I didn't, but one of the things I did appreciate is, you know, he acknowledged that, you know, from very early on that, hey, I don't have authority. I'm going to make recommendations to the church, but that's not my sphere. That's not my realm. And so I think that that was a right statement, a right decision from him, biblically and even constitutionally within Texas. But I think, unfortunately, most Christians haven't even processed those things. I mean, in either case, I mean, what the Bible says or what the Constitution says about that. I think that's one of the things that, you know, pastorally and as a church, we have to be much better about is, okay, how do we take the word of God and hold it up and look at these things and be able to filter and understand? As a part of the Great Commission, we're to go and make disciples of the nations. But what are we supposed to teach them? What's the content of our teaching to them? Yes, we're to obey which commandments? Yeah, another all, right? And so, yeah, we're to teach the nations all of what Christ has commanded. So again, it's not just, okay, we're to teach the nations just a little stuff, squishy stuff about our heart, or we're to teach the nations the stuff about what goes on on Sunday morning. We're to teach the nations everything that Christ commanded. The God-man who is ruler over all on heaven and on earth, we're to teach them all that he has commanded. And so this is not just information to fill their minds, right? What does it say here? It says, we're to teach them to do what? We're just to teach them? Yeah, so we're to teach them to observe, we're to teach them to do, we're to teach them to obey what Jesus has commanded. So it's not just, oh, you go, I mean, we're gonna tell the legislatures, okay, God says that abortion is murder. Okay, what does that mean? What means you need to stop it, right? I mean, they're to obey what God has said. And so we need to be, not just me as a pastor, but us as Christians, us here within the church need to be equipped to be able to have those discussions with people, to be able to tell them, what God has commanded in each one of those spheres. And again, that is part of what we're trying to do. That's part of my job as a pastor is to help do that in the church. And so that's one of the reasons for this class is to be able to help us to see how do we do that? And so again, it starts with the gospel, because where does this obedience come from? Well, it goes from preaching the gospel to the nations. People are converted and out of an overflow of their heart, then they want to obey what God has commanded. So this doesn't come, it's not like you have the gospel over here and obedience of the nations over here. It's these things are intimately connected, right? So we can't we can't miss that because I think you've seen movements You know within Christianity where that happens, right? You have this big like Christian nationalism, you know However, you wanted to find that now that sort of popped up Where you know with Trump and everything you see you see some maybe some good stuff within there, but it's rooted apart from the gospel, which kind of it has to be when the guy just leading it doesn't seem to be a Christian. It's one of the problems. But again, this is one of those things that I want to help us flesh out in the class. and I hope as Christians that we're beginning more and more to recognize the need to think through. I think a lot of us, pastors included, have been asleep when it comes to these things, and the time now is to wake up. We've talked about James Coates up in Canada. You have a guy in this supposedly free nation right next to us that's thrown in jail, and now literally there's barricades up around their church building not letting them come in and meet. It may not surprise us, but it really should, right? I mean, this is something out of some dystopian novel that we're seeing unfold before us. And I think it's happening so quickly that, you know, I don't even know that we know what to think about it. And to think that it couldn't happen here, I mean, I look at Texas and I go, okay, maybe we're more protected than some places. Maybe in the area that we're at, even in Texas, we're more protected. But to think that it couldn't happen here, I think it's very naive. And so I think, Again, this is why we have to think through. As a pastor, I have to think through, okay, what happens if there's someone standing outside the door next week and says, hey, you can't come in. You can't come here to meet. I mean, some people would be like, okay, we're gonna go back and I'll just live stream from my house, right? I think that's sort of the default answer to this seems today, but is that sufficient? I'm gonna say no. I mean, one of the brothers is gonna teach on the importance of the local church, because I think that's a critical aspect of this today that really has led to a lot of problems is people misunderstand the importance of what we're doing here right now and think that somehow we can just hook up electronically and do what God has commanded. So we sort of see the same principle in Deuteronomy 6, and many of us are familiar with that. It's sort of the go-to family discipleship passage. I just want to walk through and pull a couple of principles out of there that I think you'll see align with what we're talking about. So Deuteronomy 6, 4 through 9, it says, Hero Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one. You shall love Yahweh, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk to them when you sit down in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. So again, this is one of those texts that the Jews took very literally, but I think missed the actual application of oftentimes. So it begins with what? What's the start? It's loving God with all your heart and soul. And then from that, he gives commandments that follow. So what are you supposed to do with these things? He's not just asking you to mentally assent to things, right? So he speaks of putting them as a front lip between your eyes. So that would be kind of the mental aspect. But then what do we see? That we're to have them as signs on our hands. So that doesn't mean just, you know, I'm going to write a scripture verse and somehow velcro it to my hand, right? It means this is going to impact how you live in the world. I mean, how you do everything is going to be impacted by what God has said in his word. And where else did he say to write them? He says, write them on the doorposts of your house. So these commands are not just going to affect your mind, they're not just going to affect how you act, they're going to affect how you live in your home. They're going to affect the life of the home. Where's the other place you have to write them? On your gate. So these commands don't affect just your mind, they affect how you live, they affect your home, and they affect society. So you're telling, you know, everything is impacted by the commands, and that's kind of what we've walked through to see, you know, in previous texts, that the Word of God impacts everything. All authority has been given to Christ. This is not something new. I mean, this is just a fulfillment of what, you know, we see promised and foretold in the Old Testament. This is not just some kind of, again, personal faith. And that's often how all these issues sort of get reduced into, yeah, okay, this is just me and Jesus under a tree, you know, kind of thing. So it's just incorrect. So the three points we've seen is we've seen what is our standard? It's the Word of God. We've seen the need to watch out for false teaching and false teachers within the church. And we've seen which path we must choose. And I think the path is absolutely clear. And so just to wrap it up, the fourth point is preparing for the battle. So we recognize that the gospel has the power to change hearts and minds, to change families, to change societies. We recognize all of that. The gospel is transformational, you know, even to cultures, but That doesn't mean that all these things we're talking about are going to be easy. It doesn't mean that all these things that we're talking about are without danger. So I think you can hold the hope and power of the gospel on this side and the recognition that, man, there can be some really dangerous, difficult times, you know, ahead of us. So Tom Askle. summarizes it this way. He says, one of the reasons that I love Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is because he's so graphically and helpfully depicts the life of the Christian as a dangerous journey. Yet I fear that we tend not to think of the Christian life that way today. We much prefer to think we're safe, that we're okay. We don't really have much fear about our spiritual lives and therefore we don't need to really be aware to be careful. He continues, such complacency has set upon modern evangelicals to be played. What I mean is that we are in the midst of a very subtle, intentional, and deadly maneuver by the devil that's designed to lead pastors, evangelical leaders, and churches away from the allegiance to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the authority and the sufficiency of his word. And so I think that is just a wonderful, precise summary of where we're at. And so I think each one of us has to recognize that we are in the battle. It's not a matter of, I mean, the battle exists, right? We're not the ones that instigated this. The enemy is coming with all these things that we've talked about before us. The fight has been brought to us. And so the question is, how are we gonna respond? As we talked, what is our standard? What path are we going to go down? How are we going to approach this? And so again, that's what I hope the big picture view for you guys in this class is helping us to be able to do that in all these different areas. And so we're going to try to take each one of those individual topics spend an hour or two hours just diving deep down into them, in many cases, it's just gonna still be scratching the surface. And so what I hope is that this really just provides kind of a springboard for discussion among us within the church. It provides, you know, maybe, hey, people take different of these areas and continue, you know, to dive deeper, to go further, and to continue to study them. Hopefully what happens is, my desire is that we're gonna take these things, we're gonna expose them to the Word of God, and that we all grow in greater understanding and greater unity in Christ as we do that. And so I think it's very important for us as a church, for me as a pastor, to basically be like Luther, say, you know, here I stand. And I think that we've gotta be at a place where in each one of these areas, It's upon us. The battle is upon us. We have to do that. That's why it seemed like the right, wise thing to do is to do that now. The reason that I wanted to do it here is I also don't want to neglect the systematic exposition of Scripture. I think these things are very, very important for us as a church, but I also don't want to go, our foundation still is just systematically working through the full counsel of God. And that's why I didn't want to go, okay, we're just for three months gonna set that aside. It seemed like this format was kind of the best way to do all of that. So that's why I chose to do it in this format, chose to do it the way that we've done it. And so it seems to me that this was the best way to do it. And I'm open to correction if it's not, I guess. And so again, I hope this is something that that really spurs us on and we really can walk forward in that. And I guess maybe not any specific questions necessarily on content to come, but any questions you guys have or comments just about what I've covered. in the introduction. Yeah, brother. Will this be weekly now? Yes, so it's going to be weekly. Like I mentioned, I have a schedule and I just have to make sure it works with all the brothers that are going to be teaching because I'm also trying to line up where nobody that's preaching is teaching on the same day. So it's kind of 13 connected but also not exactly connected topics. I'm also trying to have it flow to some degree because I think there's some that make sense to come before others. Anything else? All right, so let me pray for us, and I encourage you guys, like I said, to make this a priority. If you're not gonna be able to make it, like I said, we're gonna post it. Yeah, brother, go ahead. Yeah, I guess it'd be good to ask. Obviously, you listened to men and read things that kind of made you aware of this and sharpened your understanding. I guess, brother, what would you recommend for people that they're not really familiar with these? issues that are going to come ahead and I guess what would be like a good introduction to why the Christian should be engaged in these things or at least be aware of the different like societal issues, cultural issues we're about to talk about. That's a good question brother. I think one of the things that might be helpful is that we go through the individual teachings. Maybe we provide some recommended resources on the individual topics. I think one thing that we talked about a little bit in the men's meeting yesterday was founders ministry. And Tom Askell is the president who I quoted, and that quote at the end there, they produced a documentary called By What Standard? If you guys haven't seen it, I would encourage you to do it. It's related specifically to what's going on in the SBC, but it's pretty universally applicable. I think it's for free online, probably an hour and a half. And they wrote a book that's a companion to that, that Tom Askell and Bodhi and Jared Longshore each wrote some chapters that I kind of do a big picture summary of where we're at. And so, yeah, I'd, I'd commend their work, their, their ministry, um, just as a general resource for some of those things. But, uh, like I said, as we go through, like we're in it for the men, we're going to do a book on social justice for the men's meeting next month and maybe the following month after that. And so, um, well, we actually have that available today. So we're going to try to, I think in different contexts, continue pushing some of these things, but yeah, we'll try to have some good resources for extra study as well. So thanks for that. That's a good point. Is there anything else? All right. Lou Frey, I appreciate you guys making the time to be here today. Father, we do ask for your help, Lord, as we think through these things individually and as a church, that you would give us grace, that you would unite us in the truth and hope of the gospel, and that you would help us to really seek to apply your word and look at the commands and principles of how we address each one of these things. Lord, help us to have grace with one another as we work through these things, recognizing that not everyone comes to The same conclusions and the same timing, and we recognize that just in our own lives, individually in our spiritual growth over the years. So just give us grace and unity in all this, in Christ's name, amen.
Biblical Truth in Confused Times
ស៊េរី BiblicalTruth in ConfusedTimes
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