Well, I'm really glad you all could join us tonight. We've got Central Illinois, Central Coast of California, and then we've got Kevin from California, and then Carol has joined us from Oregon, and I'm expecting Louise and Chris, as well as probably other people joining us here shortly on the call. I'm just really pleased to have a new Facebook friend on with us tonight, Kevin McHugh. We've known each other for years and years and years via email and back and forth, but this is the first time I've seen Kevin's picture. He's a handsome lad I want you all to know. Thank you. Thank you. The hat is handsome. Yeah, that hat does wonders. You've got a really nice smile, too. Thank you. But anyway, tonight we're going to pick up kind of where we left off last time in the third official job. I think actually, Chris actually read to the end, but I think we actually were In the 11th verse, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Kevin, the 11th through the 14th verse is really where we were kind of laboring. And so I think I'm going to let Kevin just kind of start out. Maybe you could just read those four verses for us, Kevin, and then we can start. start there and then if we have time now I want to just bring Ed in before I lose him. Hold on one second. Hello? Yeah, Ed, how are you? With us? Yeah, I'm here. Okay. I just saw you come in. That's why there wasn't a delay. So I clicked quickly so you wouldn't take too long. So we just started the call and Kevin is beginning. We're going to kind of do concluding remarks tonight on the third epistle of John. We're working in the 11th through the 14th verse. Kevin's gonna read those. And Ed, if you and Kevin would just kind of make any comments you have about those. And then if we get through these four verses, then we're gonna start in the book of Jude. but we may not, so we'll see what goes. Kevin, I'll turn it back over to you. Okay, I'll start at verse 11 then of the Epistle Letter, 3rd John. Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that does good is of God, but he that does evil has not seen God. Demetrius has good report of all men and of the truth itself. Yea, and we also bear record, and you know that our record is true. I had many things to write, but I will not write with ink and pen, write unto thee. But I trust I shall shortly see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be to thee. Our friends salute thee. Greet the friends by name. What are your thoughts on that? including remarks in that third epistle, Kevin? Well, I like how he ends it by mentioning that the saints should be greeted by name. You know, that we recognize those that are in the truth. He says in verse 12 there, and you know that our record is true. Because the church is not to lie one to another. So what we speak to each other should be the truth. And that's how I think of things as I read each line. I see what does that mean to me as well as what the writer is speaking to the church. Sure. Well, I find it really interesting. I've been reading through the letters and the memoirs of Joseph Charles Philpott. Oh, yes, yes. It's just, you know, I had been brought up under the Wesleyan doctrine and my mom had all the Wesley's journals and everything. Wow, what a contrast to read Philpott's memoirs in comparison to Wesley's, okay? No, I mean, it's like the difference of daylight and dark. I mean, Westley's journals are all about him, his activities, everything. And Bill Pott is just totally, he's just totally, I don't even know how to say it, he's, you know, he accentuates his own depravity. And you just don't see that with John Wesley. John Wesley, of course, he's in perfection. Ed, why don't you weigh in on this, the last few verses there that, you know. Well, I focus right in on verse 11, and where it says, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. And then he says, he that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth evil hath not seen God." Now, isn't that interesting? So, he that doeth good is of God. So we're talking about doing good. And then, he that doth evil hath not seen God. So, what does that mean? Because we all sin, okay? So what exactly does that mean? Go ahead. I had the thought of 1 John, where it says, he that does righteousness is righteous. So those two verses would kind of go together. Okay. You know, I have a comment on that, Ed, on your question. You know where it talks about Noah finding grace in the eyes of the Lord? And it talks about that he was perfect in all his generations. Okay. we know that he also was a preacher of righteousness, okay? Now, Noah had to be preaching imputed righteousness because he found grace in the eyes of the Lord. He was a preacher of grace. If he was a preacher of works, then he was not a recipient of grace, okay? And so I think that's what it's alluding to there, It has to be the good that God does in us, God working in us to do unto will of his good pleasure. Yeah, you're both absolutely correct. Let's put some flesh on these bones, because I agree that has to be the meaning, because it cannot be the Arminian view of imparted righteousness. Right. Right. That's right. That's right. Simply cannot be. It is so refuted by every other. So so where what can we do to definitively explain? And you guys are going along a long way in doing that. But what passages do we have? In addition to the ones you've already cited that would explain that what he's talking about here is the imputed righteousness, that is, in God's eyes, he only sees the good that we do, and that those that do evil, that's what he sees of people because other people who are not saved, because that's all he can see, that's all they do do, right? Right, that's right. Because of an evil tree, you get evil fruit. And so if you have a corrupt, if the person's corrupt from the beginning, they're gonna have corrupt fruit. they're going to do evil. But from a good tree, you're going to have somebody doing good. That's the only thing that God will see of them. And so that's how I view this, but can you help me find passages that in fact put meat on the bone? So it's nice to say this, okay, but do we have more passages? One passage I would point to would be 1 Peter 2.5. He says, you know, it sounds a little bit conditional until Peter explains it, but he starts with, you know, chapter two, wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings, this newborn baby's desire, the sense of the word that you may grow thereby. If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious." The condition is, if you have experienced the grace of God, then you will so walk. And then he says, to whom coming as unto a living stone disallowed in deed of men, but chosen of God and precious. He also, as lively stones, built up a spiritual house and a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. So it all points to Christ. And also it all points to our election being chosen of God and the fact that we've been a recipient of his grace. Yeah. Well, you know, there's also a verse that speaks of the resurrection, saying a resurrection of those that have done good unto eternal life, as opposed to those that do evil. Yes, yes. So we have to know that in man, in and of himself, and by himself, there's nothing good in him. Right. That's the key thing to understand, yeah. Yes. So the good that's being spoken of here, it has to be the good that Christ does through us, that God working in us both to do and to will of His good pleasure. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, and this is the meaning of what James says, faith without works is dead. We have to have works, but we have to know that it's not our works. It's his working through us. Right, right. Praise the Lord, yeah. Yeah, and also the fact that, you know, and I know I probably belabor it. I know I do belabor it. But, you know, in Titus, the third chapter of Titus, the seventh verse says, that being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of the eternal life. He doesn't deny that he's affirming that we should be careful to maintain good works and all that. In fact, the next verse says, this is the faithful saying of these things I will affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. He's as good as possible unto men, but he wants to make sure that people understand that it has nothing to do, our salvation is an outcome of grace, not a part of receiving it, okay? Right, right, right. And he talks about making us a peculiar people, zealous of good works. So that goes to Ephesians 2.10, where he says, we are his workmanship created unto good works, which he aforeordained that we should walk in them. So after our conversion, then we begin to do things that are all provoked by the Holy Spirit in us. And it's just incredible. It's incredible to see it. Yeah. You know, I heard a great teaching this Sunday. I think Michael did a real good job. He talked about, on the one side, and we're going to see this in Jude, about the phrases used, I do not, you know, that in Galatians, I think also uses the term frustrate. I do not frustrate the grace of God. Okay. And Well, how can we frustrate the grace of God? Well, if you do a definition for it, frustration, you can look up, you know, in the dictionary, there's different words for that. But if you look at it in the context, Michael was pointing out that this frustration has to, is literally in the scriptures, despised. I do not despise the grace of God. Yes, it means that, you know, you know, when we frustrate it, we make it worthless, or we try to nullify the grace of God, or we thwart it, all those other definitions. But the best definition, if you go and you look up and do a work study on despised, it's synonymous in context with frustrating the grace of God. And so, in 2 Timothy, the second chapter, he begins and says in the first verse, Therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And then in the fourth verse, he says, No man that woreth entangle himself with the fears of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. So there's that balance. So go ahead, Kevin. But I think you're good to point that out, Ed, that that's a good, you know, as we conclude this study on the third official of John, that aspect of evil. I got a call from a lady up in Canada, and she wanted a further explanation. Maybe you guys can answer her question. But she's listening to the talk. She really likes them. But her question is this, and by the way, welcome aboard, Chris. I see you joined us. Anyway, the question from the lady in Canada is this. How do I reconcile that God is absolutely sovereign over all things, including our thoughts, our actions, the bounds of our habitation, and everything else? How do I reconcile that with my own tendency to sin? We know that James says that we sin when we've gone away by a lesson of tithes, but I think it's a good question. And I think we have to look at it in two aspects. One is that the sin of God's elect is obviously viewed differently than the sin of the wicked reprobate. Ed, do you wanna address that a little bit? Yeah, your tendency to sin is by this flesh. And so once saved, you receive the down payment on what will be a perfect existence in heaven with a perfect spiritual body. But while we're in this flesh, and we do have the the earnest of the Holy Spirit, and we are in God, and God is in us. This flesh wars against the Spirit. And so, yes, we do sin. Now, once saved, those sins are not held to our account. We are basically held to be not guilty of those sins in God's eyes because He's paid the price for those sins, all of them. And we, We do, our tendency is no longer to sin. So we have become free not to sin. See, before being saved, you're enslaved to sin. People think that they're free to do what they want. No, actually, their will is always to sin. And simply because people do what they want to do, they think they're free. It's their wanter that has to be changed. God changes the want of the person to no longer want to sin, but to want to obey Christ. And so he changes one's heart. And so the heart is now changed and you're made free to no longer sin. And so in many respects, there will be instances where you would be tempted to sin, but won't sin because you have, in fact, conquer that aspect of your life, but sin is, that's what, we're in this flesh. That's what this flesh is. In this flesh dwells no good thing. So you have to really read God's word and take it to heart and basically understand that when he says that, about the two great commandments, love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself, while those are simple commands, they're really hard to abide while in this flesh. And so you have to stop, think, okay, is your next action, is that something that is to benefit God and somebody else? Am I treating somebody the way they would want to be treated in simplest terms? And that's what it comes down to most often. Sin is usually some selfish conduct, something you do to benefit yourself that you could have done to benefit somebody else but did not. Yeah, and I don't see, and if I'm wrong, I stand corrected and I'll let Chris and Kevin respond to this, but I don't see any, when Paul talks about, as far as the elect and the saved person, not being under law, but being under grace. He doesn't distinguish that it's just ceremonial law we're not under. He doesn't say, by the way, that we're still under the Ten Commandments. You're bound to keep the whole law as far as the Ten Commandments go. You're not under ceremonial. I don't see that scripture. In other words, when he says that we are under grace, That is a law of love, not the legal aspects of the Ten Commandments law. I read something from Philpott. He said, you know, he said the law was delivered at Mount Sinai and Moses couldn't even keep it himself. He broke it by breaking the stones and throwing it down with his wrath, you know. And so the reality of it is none of us on this earth have ever kept the law perfectly. It's an impossibility. Only Christ did that. And so he fulfilled the law at the cross. Of course, I believe that that has also eternal implications. Chris, are you with us? I'm right here listening. Okay. Yeah. Why don't you give your thoughts on that and then we'll go back to Kevin and then go back to Ed. Go ahead. Well, I just feel that, and it's in all of us, I look at sin like a waterfall, you know, and it's always coming down and it's, you know, and we can succumb to it or we can ask God to, you know, get us into some other thought processes and avoid it. But it's always there, whether you're in Christ or not. We're just aware of it more because we don't want to sin. And it just makes us more and more aware. I take it that being the subject matter of sin in general. Yeah, we're talking about, and Ed brought this up, and I'm glad he did, that passage in the Third Epistle of John, where it talks about evil, and it alludes to this very issue where it says, Beloved, follow not that which is evil, but that which is good. He that doeth good is of God, but he that doeth evil hath not seen God. Now, again, the only way we can do good is through the power of the Holy Spirit, you know, conforming us to the image of his son. Like Kevin said, and Ephesians has said, that we are chosen from the foundation of the world to be conformed to the image of his son. That's part of our election. And that conforming, and that's what Ed was saying, that we have a new spirit. I love when Paul describes himself as being an apostle by the will of God. And also Paul and Peter and Jude all described themselves as being a servant of Jesus Christ. This idea that, and by the way, there's some of the Calvinists out there have this idea, and this is surely antinomianism. They have the idea you can live any way you want to. You can go out and sin every day and get drunk and fornicate the brains out and everything else. But if you're elect, it doesn't matter. That's not what Paul taught. Paul said, shall we sin so that grace shall abound? God forbid. And so, yeah, Chris, I agree with you. In other words, we are now bondservants of Jesus Christ. And so he has given us the will, he puts in us the will and do of his good pleasure life. There was a guy I used to listen to, I don't agree with him a lot, especially on his doctrine on salvation, but he does make a good point. He says that God wiggled his willer. Well, God does a lot more than wiggle our willers when we are put in by the Holy Spirit. We have been born again by the Spirit of God. I'm going to go back now to Chris or Kevin, either one of you guys jumped in. I just wanted to say, add to that, that if we feel like an antinomian, see, most people aren't even aware of their latitude here, unless you're in Christ. You know, you become aware of this, you know, through life. But anyone, and we all believe it, I would trust that if we feel like, well, I can go sin so grace can abound, you know, well, there's a great percentage of the reality that we were never saved to begin with. If that's our viewpoint, then we probably were never even ever saved. Yeah, I would agree with that. You know, I mean, I know that it's really interesting. I find that with David, when he was taken up in adultery with Bathsheba, and the prophet, you know, gave him the dower to man. In that passage, and I'd have to look it up, but there's another passage that talks about David, that the prophet said, you despise He despised God's laws. Okay, that was one of the allegations against David. And David admitted that he had sinned. And you're absolutely right, Chris. In other words, when we sin, that repentance and that admission of our sin is a token of our election, don't you think? Now, we hate sin. Well, here's an admonition that I've employed that's helped me quite a bit. I think about it before I even consider sin. Think about the after ramification and how rotten I'll feel because a child of God is going to feel terrible after he does the dirty deed. You know? And that's an indication of your salvation. Now, if you just go along, you know, and we all know this, you know, but if people would just, it's kind of like, it's sort of kind of like a parallel I can draw. If the drunk would, before he pulls his keys out and gets in his car to drive away from the bar, if he'd think, you know what, I may not make it this time, I better call a taxi. You know, a little bit of forethought prior to can go a long way. But sin is very subtle and most succumb to it. We as believers know a little bit more than the unbeliever and we know how to combat sin pretty well. But again, We're still flesh, and we're still going to fall into sin. There's no way around it, you know? And I'm not giving it any extra, you know, power or consideration. The fact remains, as a human in this flesh, we're going to sin. We sin in our sleep, you know, when we're unconscious. We're sinning. This is nature. We commit sins of omission all the time. We don't even know we're sinning. Sin is anything that is a violation of the perfect law of God. I'm glad you can relate to that, because a lot of people say, oh no, when I'm unconscious, sleeping, I'm not susceptible to sin. No, no, we always are, because we're in the flesh. The flesh overrules the mind. Yeah, and if they say that, they obviously are coming from an Armenian view about the accountability factor. The age of accountability and all that. Look, we're all sold under sin. We all died in Adam. I had a guy tell me, you're not going to make me responsible for Adam's sin. And he said, the only sin I'm responsible for is sins I commit. And I took you to the fifth chapter of Romans, but I don't want to get too off track on this, but I think that it's good that Ed brought this up. Now, Kevin went on down through here, and I guess we need to keep moving, but the next verse says, we know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not. And Chris, you just said we all sin, so how do we reconcile that? Here's how we reconcile that. Our sins are not imputed to us. He says, he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that living one toucheth him not. How can we keep ourselves? The only way we can keep ourselves is if God keeps us. Perseverance, or he preserves us. Well, yes, and the fact is that, you know, What was it that David said when he was found as a premeditated murderer and fornicator? He said, God has not impeded my sin, doesn't he? Okay, and so, I'm not justifying sin, but the reality of it is, what did Christ accomplish? Why did he come into this cursed world? And so when he says, and we know that we are of God, a whole world lies in wickedness. Okay, in 19, Kevin, why don't you pick up on that one? What verse is that now? Verse 19, and we know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in wickedness. Okay, that's in 1 John, right? Yeah, that's the first shot. I thought that was a good comparison to this evil we're talking about. Well, again, we talked about the many and the few. I think Ed was talking about this one time. Many go there out on the Broadway and few there be that find it. So the many there is the world, the whole world lies in wickedness, the world of the unsaved, the reprobate, the ungodly. as opposed to the few of the saved. What I was thinking of, yeah, go ahead. Well, I just wanted to point out that, again, I just want to point out how we come, and it asks for other scriptures to allude to this imputed righteousness. And we talked about this as well, but in 1 John 2, 29, he says, If he know that he is righteous, he know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of him. Okay, in other words, our righteous deeds are the faith of Christ to believe in what he's done for us. They're not. And so, can you elaborate on that a little bit? And Ed, I'd like for you to pick up and talk about that just a little bit, because I think we need to talk about this a little bit more to bring the linkage together here between our actual sin and I guess my question is I would throw out to everybody, do we have any actual righteousness of our own apart from the righteousness of Christ? No, no, no, still zero. It has to be all by imputation. It has to be. If it's not, then we have to completely take out our pens and cross out and change what the gospel says, which is basically what the Arminians have done, because they do have an imparted righteousness, an actual righteousness. The only righteousness we can have is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. Larry, you were mentioning earlier Galatians chapter 2 verse 21 with regard to the definition of frustrate. And what was the other, what was the contrary word you used? I can't remember. It was something other than- Despised. Pardon me? Despised. Despised. Yeah. Well, I'm reading this, I'm reading this by the way, and I'm trying to, yeah, work any definition in there other than the idea of nullify, and I can't find any dictionary anywhere that has any definition other than to disappoint, to nullify, to render of no effect. And so as I read this passage, I read it differently. I think that what he's saying is he does not frustrate the grace of God. That is, what he's saying is what he does not do. He does not nullify, he does not render it a nullified, because, and then it makes the point, for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead and vain. So he's saying, I don't frustrate the, in other words, he's not suggesting that he even could, he's just saying, I don't, I don't do it. That's how I read it. I don't know what you think. I think that there is the aspect of, you know, the reality of it, that the word frustrating in dictionary terms is just what you stated, vilify, do away with, so it works, all of that. But if you go back to the biblical aspect of it, especially in the Old Testament, in fact, I would recommend that you also do a word study on the word despise, okay? Because you'll see that it is contextually the same thing here. For an example, under the old law service, because the Old Testament people were under the old law service. By the way, they were also under grace, those who were God's elect. But in Ezra 4, 5, you might want to look at that, Isaiah 44, 25, There's a number of other passages, Isaiah 524, Isaiah 53-3, Isaiah 60-14. All of those passages talk about this despising of God's covenant, despising of God's law, coming against it or trying to make it, nullify it. So there seems to be a marriage between distorting this nullifying and this despising. In other words, just take it in this dispensation of time that we're living in. I was reading Philpott earlier, and he was warning, now he died in 1869, and he was warning one of his best friends, Kit Kat, that, you know, be careful and understand that you will be despised, you will be despised, and those around you will try to frustrate you, even in the old school and primitive Baptist, as well as the Wesleyan Archdiocese churches, because you're coming against their traditions of then. And I think that's what he's talking here about, you know, in Galatians, that this frustration, I do not frustrate the grace of God, Who is frustrating the grace of God? Well, now, you can't frustrate God, okay? But you can certainly cause havoc. We see that that is, we're gonna get into that in Jude. I don't wanna jump ahead, but Jude, he talks about, there were certain ones that came in, crept in unawares, right? And it says that, who were before of old ordained to this congregation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. These people were attempting to thwart or frustrate the gospel of grace, just like they were doing in Galatians. The Arminian does that by saying that grace is resistible. That's right. Yeah, so if you say you can resist what God has determined and spoke to be, then you frustrated his grace and his purpose to save whom he will save. Absolutely. There's another, you're right Kevin, and there's another verse that brings in this grieving of the Holy Spirit that I believe that it can only be done by believers. When we fall into sin, as a believer, we do what's called grieving the Holy Spirit. Yeah, or quenching. Yeah, those two words. Yeah, there's a better term for it. Yeah, it's the same thing, same outcome, and we don't want to do that, but at least the good Lord has made us aware of it when we're doing it. usually after the fact. And again, a little trick I employ is I think about what I'm gonna do before I even begin or attempt to do it. And if it's not gonna be pleasing to God, then I'm gonna go get my mind wrapped around something else. That is my escape. Yeah, and sometimes we think of the chastisement that may follow. Not so much is it pleasing to the Lord, but am I going to get slapped for it? And that's a good thought too. Well, I think also another aspect of this frustration of the grace of God, I don't see, I'm like Ed, I don't see his remark there as the fact that, you know, he says, I don't do it. God's grace can be frustrated by others as it relates to his elect. In other words, David talks about this. He says in the third chapter of Psalms, Lord, how are they increased that trouble me? Many are they that rise up against me. Many there be which say of my soul, there is no help for him in God. Okay? So there, he, by his own admission, says there's times when he's troubled by this. He's frustrated by this as an elect child of God. But he goes on and he says, verse three, that thou art a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter up of my head. I cry to the Lord, so on. So there is the aspect of those rabble-rousers, those Judaizers. I think that's why Paul spent so much time in Galatians saying, you know, I'm amazed that you're so soon removed from the gospel, you know? And he talks about those that trouble you, okay? So anyway, there is that aspect to it, I believe. Why don't we move on, Kevin? Okay, well, I had a thought. We were talking about the answering the woman's question. how to reconcile the sin. I think of the verse in Job where he talks about the sea coming against the shore and going no further. So God restrains us from the evil we otherwise might do, because if Satan had a free hand, he would kill us all immediately. But he can't do that, because God has a plan and a purpose for evil to express itself in such and such a way. And if God wasn't sovereign over everything, even our sin, then he's not God, because something would be out of his control. Absolutely. I'm glad you brought that up, because that was one of the things that was giving this sister so much comfort, because she said, you know, to realize that even the bounds of our habitation are under his control, that nothing can happen without his authorization, that gives me great selflessness. I can relate to that, yeah. Yeah, I would encourage her to focus at the idea of the times when she might have sinned and the Lord blocked it, prevented it in one way or another, that it didn't come to fruition for some reason. And we can look back at times like that and thank the Lord that He did stop us, because at times we don't stop ourselves. Speaking from this old, wicked, no-good, lousy Senator Larry Phillips, I will say this. I look back at the times that he's given me such great mercy and forgiveness when I have such comfort. Yeah, right. And he's brought back the joy of the Lord. Oh, yes. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Yeah. Not that I haven't been in the depth of the, you know, guilt and everything else that goes along with it, like Chris was saying, but at the same time, there is, His mercies are new every morning. They exist day to day. It's great to have an advocate with the Father, with the Son, with the Holy Spirit, where we can be reconciled back to God if we do fall into a sin. Or, you know, I don't see, I don't know everybody, but to have a besetting sin, that would be horrible. And I'm sure we've all possessed what's called a besetting sin somewhere in our walk, where God gave us a victory over that, to the point where we have no desire at all to ever do that. ever again. Right, that's right. And that's a nice relief because that can nail a lot of people, you know, they can be nailed right to the wall with a besetting sin that just invades and destroys their Christian walk, you know, and it could be any tribe. There's a verse that says, come my children, I'll teach you the fear of the Lord. And a child in his family with his parents learns obedience through chastisement, through correction. And the punishment, of course, fell on Christ, but we get corrected. But it says that it's not pleasant, and it's grievous. And so it's most severe when we are chastened to the Lord. And I just thank God that he smacked me one time really good. And it just puts such a fear in me that there's one besetting sin I will not do again. And I thank the Lord for that because he cared enough. I think we've all been there and we've all learned from it or we're idiots. I have to be honest. I have to be honest with him. He smacked me a lot more than one time. I've got a lot of smacks. I'm just glad that the reality of it is the chastisement, like you said, again, for the evidence that we're not basket, like you said, you know, we're just children. Hey, I just got a call from guest nine and I don't know who you are, but I see you called in. If you want to identify yourself, if you have a question or whatever, I've unblocked, I've unheeded your microphone. If you're with us and you want to join in guest nine, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. Okay. Oh, hi, Walt. Okay. I didn't know who you were. So now I know. Okay. Well, welcome, Walt. And, Walt, do you want to weigh in on this? I know you've kind of been listening. Go ahead. Well, Larry, I just was late getting on the call here. Okay. We're talking about really, there was a gal that called me here on my landline. And I haven't, we keep changing voice message back and forth. She's such a sweet lady, but she was really, she's been listening to our talk show and she said she's been so blessed by it because dealing with the issue of sin. She said so many people don't even wanna talk about sin. They won't even address it. They don't even, you know, what's the remedy for this, you know? And she wanted to know how we reconcile the sovereignty of God have the responsibility of man over their sin. That's your question for us. But anyway, do you have any thoughts on that? I know it's kind of spur of the moment, Walt. Well, I noticed in my life the last couple of years, especially the last year, you know, that, you know, I God is the Holy Spirit has made me a lot better listener to what people are saying. I mean, I, I mean, I know when I go out into the world to the bank or the store, I mean, I, I, I, I mean, and I know when somebody asks me questions now when they're baiting me, see, and I just, cause I, I realized I'm fully, I'm certain, you know, that we're in this world, but not of it. And, uh, And especially, you know, the last week we've been, you know, the mass media has been bombarding the people again. And, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, and, you know, I, and, and I, you know, there's some, there's some things, you know, that I heard, I think Kevin said, you know, I'll never do that again. And, you know, when you, somebody says that, you say, well, how can you say that? Well, I just, you know, there's some things that God has showed me the last year here that, man, you know, I just don't want to enter into it again, you know. Yeah, yeah. And you know what? I guess I'm a slow learner. Okay. Well, yeah, I take the warning, Walt, because if I think I stand, I should be ready to fall. I think that we all need the war. My whole thing is back to Peter. I think Peter's resolve was that he was going to die for his Lord. And I think that his resolve, I think when he said it, I think that he had his flesh, every intention was that he would go to the cross and be with Christ. But when pushed in to shove, something happened, didn't it? And so, my own experiences there, you know, I like what, I like what, I think it was someone sent me an email today and reminded me again that the heart is desperately wicked. Who could know it? You know, our bodies, We might think our motives are pure as the driven snow, but in reality, only God knows our heart. We don't even know our own hearts, you know? And so, anyway, that's pretty well covered, I think. What happens on this now, the 12th verse, Demetrius hath a good report of all men, and the truth itself, yea, and also their record. And we know that our record is true. There was Demetrius, and then there was Diotrephus. Diotrephus slept with preeminence, we see in verse nine, but Demetrius had a good report. Have you ever experienced this? I'm just asking a question to everybody. Have you ever had an experience where you recognize certain people that haven't been reported all in, but they were just absolutely full of pride and they knew that everybody was saying good things about them. Total silence. Can you repeat the question? Because you were breaking up a little bit. It's hard to hear your question. Okay, but here's the question. Okay, have you ever had a situation where You knew someone like Demetrius. I'm not saying Demetrius was this way, though. Like Demetrius, had a good rapport with all men, and everybody was saying good things about him, but he was just full of pride because, you know, it was very evident that everybody was saying good things about him, and he was eating it up. Have you ever experienced that with people? Yeah, really, I'm stuck on that one. Well, the reason I ask that question is, I've been reading, like I said, I've been reading J.C. Philpott, and when he resigned from the Anglican Church, a bunch of people came to him that were still in the Anglican Church and said, you know, we think you're doing what's right. And so we want to support you, and we want to build you a little chapel. And when we build you a little chapel, you could be our minister. And we'll all come out of the Anglican Church and be your follower. OK? And Bill Potts said, you know, wow, that sounded great. Man, I've got an instantaneous following. And I could preach to them, but they're going to subscribe to what I have to say. And he said, I realized that that was the wrong thing to do. And he said, I went back to all those people and I said, I can't do it. You know, I just can't do it. And he ended up preaching in the barn for awhile. Okay. In other words, that's what I'm trying to talk, allude to is that, you know, sometimes it's to our detriment when everyone's speaking well about us, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I don't want the whole world. I want people to even question and think negative things, but not behind my back. I want it to come full circle to where I hear it. Otherwise, how can I advance and learn of my mistake? You know, I want to hear what anybody has. And you know, the Proverbs says, what the admonitions of you know, of a brother, I'll paraphrase badly, I'm afraid, but you'll get the gist, hopefully. The admonitions of a brother, you know, are not as good as the rebuke. You know, if Brother Larry was to rebuke me, that tells me he loves me, because I know enough. Now, the natural man would take it in a natural sense and be And his nose would be out of joint as a result of it. But I think all of us would appreciate being checked every now and then. And we're all mature enough Christians to take it as not just a put down or a slant, but, hey, this brother really loves me and they're telling me. But take the brother aside, as the Bible says elsewhere, and tell it to him privately. I want to read two things, and I'll make it brief. I read this before, but this was something that was happening in my own life as a result of it, and it came to me. I wrote it down. I want to read it. What are friends for? Just because you and I may be friends, shouldn't that be where the honesty begins? or should I change my doctrine to suit your cup of tea and you change yours so that it will suit me? I think not, my friends, let's tell the truth. And if it's offensive or considered uncouth, then give me your side of the picture as well and you might change my mind if the word of God tells. But I don't think I'm going to change my doctrine for you just because we are friends to my own conscience I'll be true. But nobody, Larry, agrees with you, well, Noah survived the flood and his neighbors drowned in the blue. Okay, that's my point. In other words, to my own conscience be true, if we, you know, it goes back to the 98-year-old lady that they, she won the contest in the little local county there, and they asked her, well, you know, what's the greatest thing about being 98 years old? And she said, oh, that's easy. There's no peer pressure. Now one other thing I want to read and then I'll shut up. This is called a Christian popularity contest. If you're counting on how many likes you get, someday this counting may leave you in a mess. Because if you stick by the Bible, what I tell you is true, not very many people are going to like you. If you look for the acceptance of those in your church, this looking for acceptance may leave you in a lurch. Your rule of faith and life should be God's word, and frankly, most people think that's absurd. If you're wanting the approval of relatives and friends, the question is where the truth starts and where falsehood ends. Are you trying to ride the fence and compromise? My friend, this is not acceptable in God's eyes. So the next time you look to see how many likes you got, Remember one thing, what the Bible is not. It is not a popularity guide for you to socially climb to the top. It is the word of God that might cause your social flaws. Okay? So, I just wanted to point that out because we're living in such a society where all these people want to be friends on Facebook and it doesn't matter what you believe. Wave at me, just give me a wave, you know? So, anyway, let's move on. Well, I got a comment on that, Larry. Sure, sure. Well, because, you know, I just came across, I think I sent an email to you, this statement is real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. Oh, yeah. By the way, I shared that with Brother Michael over Sunday, Walt, and he thought that was really good. I mean, that's right on. Well, and I know in this group, you know, that there's people that know the gospel. I've read and it's imprinted into their heart, you know, but, you know, and it's not that I, that I feel lacking, but once you understand the Holy spirit and you understand, you know, the gospel salvation, it takes you out of the, like I had a neighbor called me, here one morning at eight o'clock, and he started talking about the Boy Scouts. And it was an article that was in the Argonian, and he was complaining that it was in B section, it should be on the front page. Now this is the man that is very liberal, and six or seven years ago told me that the Bible should be burnt. But what's happened to me the last, year or so, a couple of years is, is I'm not so much interested in, in what I know, but I'm interested in what other people and where they're at and how they view something. I'll give you an example. I had a, uh, this lady called me here the other day. I hadn't talked to her for a long time. She lives in Alabama. And I just threw this question out. And she gave me the right answer. Because I knew we have differences. But I said to her, do you think that the sun is 93 million miles away? And there's a right answer to that question. And the question is, I don't know. The answer is, I don't know. See, in other words, there's so much And if you go to 2 Thessalonians now and you read that, God will send them a strong delusion. God will. And I think we're living right in the middle of this. I mean, we, we are getting a media blitz and the only, and I finally said to my friend Dave, he said, who's, who's causing, cause he got into evil. good and evil. Well, I, and that's when I just, I directed him to the Bible. I said, I said, Dave, you need to, you need to get a Bible by yourself and you need to read it for yourself. The gospel of Jesus Christ. Don't, don't listen to anybody else, but just to pay the words on the page, you know, because how can, and I can say this and I'll, I'll close with this. How could anybody understand what is going on now if we didn't have the word of God and the Holy Spirit. Right on. Right on. I mean, we would be just, I mean, I have become more and more at peace because, you know, I gotta be still because I'm not going to convince anybody, you know, you know, but I, I'm not, I'm, I'm not afraid to share. And I, you know, and of course Dave knows, knows that my belief system and he attacked me six or seven years ago. But I've noticed a change in Dave. As time is going on, he's getting, he's mellowing. He's got a grandson now, you know, and he's, you know, and he sees this evilness in this world. And how can you understand good and evil if you don't understand God? Well, I also want to say, I want to say to Walt, you know, I would strongly encourage you in your, I believe, the Holy Spirit has placed it in Walt's desire to do a talk to you on creation. And I would really hope that Ed could some way find it a possible time to be a part of that because Ed and Walt, there is a great, huge body of people, you know, that I know in my center of influence and in Michael's center of influence that really want to answer something. and it came up in this fellowship Sunday. We talked for probably, there was nine people conversing about questions about why, and you see it on Facebook all the time, people say, what relevance does creation have to do with redemption? Why do you have to, why can't you just present the gospel? Why do you have to bring these side issues up? Well, it's not a side issue. And it's pretty, and it's evident by the book, you know, The Greatest Lie on Earth that Ed has done. And it answers a lot of questions, but the problem is people don't have the patience to sit down and wait through all of that. But they will listen to a format on creation. And I noticed that Ben Hovland is now doing some stuff with, I noticed he was doing something with a project with, And I hope that text can have a positive influence on Ken Hovind and his Arminian theology. But the point is that, Ed, maybe you can address that a little bit. Why is there such an interest? Why do people get so angry on Facebook? I see just hundreds of people attacking, I mean, people are attacking Michael Smith. out of hand just because he's a flat earther. I had a friend of mine on Facebook, his name is Stan, and he said, oh Larry, you had Michael do the forward in your book, is that the Michael Smith that's a flat earther? Now I'm damned because I'm not a flat earther, right? What's going on with this thought? Why do people get so angry over this Ed? First of all, people have to understand and step back and look at, there is a very evil force, Satan, who has his minions, so we wrestle not against flesh and blood. And so this conditioning process is part and parcel of Satan's kingdom. So he must keep from people's minds a knowledge of God's creation. In order to drive from their minds any knowledge of God. So this is really the linchpin of his conspiracy to enslave man, his conspiracy against God. And it's a futile conspiracy, okay? We're very much embroiled in that. And so if he can deceive people about the nature of God's creation, then he can very easily deceive people about the nature of God. Which is why we have these false Gospels and these false Bibles that people are so easily hoodwinked into accepting. Because they have been hoodwinked from the get-go into believing in this idea of the Earth being a ball that is spinning in a vacuum of space. and that we have NASA spacemen who have gone up and said, hey, we've been up there. It's an empty vacuum. Well, when we read in the Bible, we see that above the firmament is heaven, okay? And that is the abode of God. And heaven is his throne, and the earth is his footstool. Well, the astronauts, though, from NASA said, no, no, no, we've been up there, and guess what? We're floating around. There's nothing here. It's a vacuum. Well, you know what that does? That impeaches God's word, you see. So either NASA is part and parcel of some evil plan to deceive the world, okay, or NASA's correct and the Bible's wrong. You have to choose. You have to choose. And so what I've uncovered is the fact that NASA is, in fact, part of Satan's evil plan to deceive the world that there is no God. That's why this is important. I have to share this with... I think I've shared this with Ed already, but I want everyone else to hear this. I have a dear friend that lives here in Arkansas. He asked me to share his name because it's amazing. People are concerned about how they're perceived and everything, but anyway, He read Ed's book, The Anti-Gospel, and he just absolutely loved it. He said, there's not anything in that book I disagree with. Then he started reading Bloody Zion, and he called me after he got to page 100, and he says, where has Edward Henry been all my life? OK? He said, this is what I've always been portraying. No one else has portrayed this. But he said, I have a question for you. And I thought, uh-oh. There's always when those butts start coming up. He said, what is this book called The Greatest Lie on Earth? And I thought, oh boy, you know. And I said, I'm not going to tell you. And he said, what? I said, I'm not going to tell you. I said, you know, I'm not qualified to tell you. He said, now Larry, you're concealing something from me. And I said, look, you need to get his book. and read it. He says, well, obviously, he says, if it's the greatest lie on earth, it's got to be who the Antichrist is, right? And I said, well, that's part of it. I said, you know, I don't want to get into it. He said, just give me a summary. I said, well, it has to do with the theory of heliocentrism versus geocentrism. And he gets into that. He's done a lot of research on that. And now here's a guy He's two years older than me. He's my wife's age. He's 66 years old, 65 years old. Rosa just corrected me. Now, I'm in trouble. He actually has thousands of books. Now, most of them are old school books like, you know, we've got Gatsby and these old writers. But you know what he said when I said it has to do with heliocentrism versus geocentrism? He said, I don't have a clue what you're talking about. What is that? Isn't that amazing? Wow. Yeah. I'd like to make a comment. Yeah. There's another guy on this program that said that same thing to Walt about eight months ago. Go ahead. Go ahead. You know, I did a website on chapter 19, NASA and Freemasonry out of Ed's book. But if you, this is a, I found this out. I put this, but if you do a Google search on notoriously assisting Satan's agenda, you will come to this page. It's the number one hit. If you, if you search the internet for notoriously assisting Satan's agenda, you will come to the NASA Freemason chapter. You know, and so it is, it's a, it's a hard pill to swallow, but when you realize that NASA is just magic, NASA is just, you know, smoke and mirrors, I mean, you don't want to admit it to yourself, you know, and that's, you know, I want to, I want to interrupt you and I want to welcome Adiola. Adiola, it's been a long time since we've talked. Both of us are real busy, but Adeola's call is on the chat room in Canada tonight, so I want to welcome Adeola tonight. And Walt knows Adeola. I think Chris and Walt know Adeola, and I don't know if anyone... Kevin, do you know Adeola? No, I don't. Okay. Anyway, welcome aboard, Adeola. We're glad to have you here with us, and maybe sometime you can actually call in on, you know, we can get you on Skype or something, we can get you around. We've been on the line now for about an hour and 30 minutes. We try to stay, keep this format about an hour and 30 minutes, but I just want to restate, I don't want to, I don't want to be charged with going off on a tangent on flat earth and all that stuff, but I think there is a need for a talk show program on creation. And I think Walt would be an excellent moderator to do that. I would be very supportive of that. And I would think Ed would be a great, great asset to be a part of that. And then those that want not to talk about that subject, they wouldn't have to be there. They would give a format for that. So you all pray about that and consider it. Go ahead, Walt. You know, another thing, too. you know, like Ed's book. Yes, he mentions flat earth, but this, listen, it's about what you just said. We're living heliocentric, geocentric and up is up and down is down. And people in Antarctic or Australia are not standing on their heads right now. You know? I mean, it's, it's, it's good. It's just getting basically, and we live in an enclosed, environment. Now, I don't know. The truth of it is, none of us can tell you the size that even the Bible tells you it's unlimited, you know, but, but the point of it is, the point of it is, is, and they got it, it came from the Kabbalah. But in other words, they're teaching, they're teaching another religion. And it's in like, this Robbie Davison's commented that he's, it's, it's called scientism. And you know, and I, and I just, I kind of shed away from the word flat earth, you know, but I'm not afraid to ask questions. I'm not afraid, you know, you know, do you, do you believe, because if, in other words, it's like this, you can ask somebody, do you believe we went to the moon? And if they solidly believe, there's no sense getting into a debate. There are ways that you can really, in a humorous way, now Walt is good at this. Walt used to call me up after he exposed me to this. I have to admit my total naivety about it. I was an 8th grade science teacher there for a while. And when he introduced me, he called me up and he said, well, Larry, are you still spinning? Are you dizzy yet, Larry? Are you dizzy? And so I said, hey, all I know is when I was a kid coming up, I was about, oh, sophomore in high school, Tommy Rowe wrote a rock and roll song that was a hit and it said, I'm so dizzy, my head is spinning. Okay. But you know, that's what, that's what, We have to think about this. I mean, 66,000 miles an hour, and we're sitting here, I'm in a chair, and I can't feel anything. I can't feel anything turning, okay? So anyway, I'm gonna bring this to a close. I want to open the forum up for any final comments. Ed, Kevin, Chris, anyone else that has an open mic is welcome to join us as well. But while we just start, Chris, do you have any final thoughts on this whole subject that we've covered tonight? Well, God is love, but God chastens his elect. And I'm glad to be a recipient of his chastening. And if I don't learn from that, well, then I'm a fool. I'm left with the consequences, but the Lord will never, ever, once He's given me evidence of my salvation, He'll never take that away. Amen. And that causes me to be more inclined to do His will the best I'm able to and stay away from the things of the world that we know that are prone to causes to fall. It isn't it. It isn't it causing us to fall. It's us allowing it to cause us to fall. Whatever that means. Yeah, and you know what? I think it's, I like, I know a lot of people don't like this, but Michael Mason's statement, every sin that the elect commit has been ordained for our good. Yeah, that's good. You know? That's right. We're not, we're not condoning sin, but look, God, if you want to use it aloud, or decrees, every sin that we've committed, okay, is, if we believe that scripture that says, all things work together for good to them that love the Lord and them that are called according to his purpose, that includes every sin we commit. Because all things mean all things, okay? We can't start, we can't start putting conditions on. Now, I'm not condoning it, but I'm saying that for the elect, God allows these things. He decrees these things take place in the elect's life to humble us and to bring him to himself. And I'm convinced of that. That's been my experience. Ed, do you have any final thoughts tonight? No, no, I think we've covered about enough. Thank you. Okay. So with that, I'm going to let Walt kind of in this now. Walt, when are you going to start this talk show program, brother? Oh, you know, in probably a couple of weeks right now. I'm still getting my kind of my legs. OK. You know, I'm you know, in other words, I'm I'm I'm just like I when people I mean, I don't when I see I'm interested in where people's heads are. Right. And you know, but in other words, again, I'm not so much interested. I'm not, you know, big, but in other words, by asking questions, you know, and you're able to communicate in this, in this particular group, you know, I, we, we can, you don't have to believe everything somebody says, but when it comes, you know, it comes to scripture, that's, you know, it's different, but, but it's, it's, um, It is interesting, it is interesting, and I go back to second Thessalonians now, and God will send them a strong delusion, and it's God that's still sovereign. And what we see, we see this big delusion, this, we see it in science, I mean, in the media, the media is, you know, I mean, I mean, it falls over into sports. It's just a lot bigger than we want to admit. We have been bombarded with so many lies. And I was talking to a friend, and see, I'm 73 years old. That doesn't make me so much wiser. But my generation was the last generation that my formative years were not in front of a TV. And you see, you see, in other words, before that time, people were brought up and they, I was brought up and I remember as a child listening to adults. Now the culture that we live in, they're listening to the media. And one of the strongest influences on our children is Hollywood. I'm looking forward to getting together with Ed and having a little series of talks on this. In other words, I just don't go out and readily just grab somebody and try to get into a geocentric, heliocentric, because I just don't do that. I just don't do that. But the thing of it is, with every one of us in here, and I'll close with this, I always am amazed by the hummingbird. Now, I don't know how God created it, but I do know that God did create it. And the mystery of it is I don't know how God did it. When you look about and you see what we partake in on a day-to-day basis, every single breath we take is a miracle. So with that, I just want to say to everyone that Michael has asked me to do this. I've indicated to him they're probably getting really tired of me continually inviting them to this October the 22nd fellowship. I said, they might hang up on me and say, go away Larry, I'm not coming. But Michael wanted me to be sure that you guys know that you're welcome in Joplin on the 22nd of Sunday morning. And he said, I want you to tell Kevin and Michael and Ed Henry that they will have an open forum to speak. at that fellowship. We're not a top-down management kind of a thing. So, you know, I wanted to let you guys know that he is open to equal exchange and learning through the gospel, through the Bible. And so, he wanted me to be sure that you're welcome. And by the way, I know there's been a couple of people mentioned, well, I want to wait until Thanksgiving, and I wouldn't recommend that for this part of the country because I'm telling you, we have a lot of sleet and snow and crazy things happening at that time of year here. And I'd hate to see you guys come out here and have a, you know. That's why we made it before November so we wouldn't be in the midst of that. So that's going to be in a couple of weeks and we are going to have good fellowship here. So you all are welcome. And if you decide to come, please let us know so we'll know how. And by the way, if you want to have turkey early, we can prepare things. That's not a big deal. So, with that, I'm going to say goodnight, and I want to thank everybody for their openness on this fellowship. And we'll continue next time, completing the third epistle of John, then we'll move into Jude. So, with that, I say goodnight, everybody. Good night, brothers. All right, good night, Carter. Good night.