So this guy that I've stumbled across via sermon audio, which I highly recommend to everybody, super quick downloads. You can search by topic or speaker, date, church, whatever you want to do there. A wide variety of people on there. They're not all legit. So you've got to listen with your ears open. But this guy has a... really interesting history, broad exposure to a lot of genres. He gets invited to speak at charismatic conferences. And I don't know if he'll say it in here, but he even says that he spoke at a charismatic conference and was actually teaching from Corinthians. And he told them, you can't all pray in tongues at the same time. According to Corinthians, it has to be one person And then it has to be interpreted. And he literally, from the pulpit, said this. He said, and then as soon as I was done, we got up, and they all prayed in tongues all at the same time. So, interesting guy. I don't know how he gets invited, where he gets invited, but apparently. He used to be a megachurch pastor, and now he's an advocate for small churches and or house churches. And this particular message is about heresy, but it covers a lot of territory on how he wants to guard against heresy in the local church. So if he does say something about house church, I think he's actually teaching his own house church or small church in this message. So it doesn't really say where he is, but it sounds like he's with his people. Don't endorse everything I've heard from him. I've tried to invite a wide variety of people because I want to hear what people, what kind of responses people have to this guy. But I think he has a lot of, he is a very simple guy and down to earth. He says gunna, which my wife would correct me now. She heard me saying gunna from the pulpit. But this guy has no problem saying gunna. So he's not speaking to impress people. He's pretty genuine. And I think he has something to say to all of us. And I'm going to try to take notes up here, just bullet a few things, and then we'll talk. And some of the goal of this quadrennial meeting, this is our first quadrennial. I think I made up a word. In the Greek, it means every four years. In the Trent, it means every four years. So part of the goal is to stimulate conversation between people who don't necessarily agree on everything. You're probably going to hear something you don't agree with from this guy, and that's good. That's not a bad thing. So anyway, can somebody open the prayer? Thanks. Our Father in heaven, we thank you. Active problem. Wolves are offensive. There is an invasion of trouble. Hebrews says, it warns, do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings. How do you know a strange teaching when you hear one. Especially if he promises this is based on the Bible. 2 Corinthians 11 speaks of men who are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. The big example of that, if you go to the big box churches, you got this preacher up there, and he's got on a robe, and maybe he's got a dog collar on, a little white dot, and he speaks the Norse voice, and he looks, he looks like this godly church leader. But so often those guys are wolves in sheep's clothing. I'm referring to the ones who are theologically liberal. So, there are false apostles. They're deceitful. They disguise themselves, you see. So don't be surprised. That's the way these guys operate. How do you detect them? It's not easy. 2 Corinthians 26 warns of danger from false brothers. 2 Peter 2 verse 1 says, there will be, in fact, false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies. See, the smart ones are undercover. The smart ones are secret agents of destruction. Many, how good are these guys? They're pretty good. Many will follow their sensuality and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed and their greed they will exploit you with false words. You need to count on the fact that bad theology is going to wash up on your deck. If our churches were just like little rowboats out of Lake Placid for sunny summer afternoon, bro, it wouldn't be a problem. But it's more like you're on the high seas of the Atlantic. It's going to happen sooner or later. But what are you going to do when they come for you? How are you going to handle it? So it doesn't matter whether you're Baptist, or Methodist, or Presbyterian, or house church, you need to be concerned about the influx of heretical teachings. In particular, though, I think as house churches we do. Face it, in our culture, it's weird to do house church. A normal Christian is going to pay about as much serious attention to the idea of house church as he will another piece of junk mail in his mailbox. So you are, like it or not, countercultural. So when you go talking to people about this new church thing you're doing, you're going to be fishing from a large pool of people who are already not in the box church. The reason they're not in the box church is because they are heretics and they've been squeezed out. And so, like a free radical, they're going to look for something to attach themselves to and it's going to be you. The second reason we have to be concerned about it, more so than a Baptist is, we don't put people in a straitjacket when they come through the door. They're going to hear about a participatory meeting. It's open. See, they think they've discovered a truth in the Bible that nobody's seen in 2,000 years. They're the first ones to see it. They're going to start the second reformation, and they would like you to start in your living room. So they think this is going to give them a platform to advance their heresies. How will you deal with this? Are you prepared to deal with it? Can you spot it? Better yet, how can you keep it from happening in the first place? So this is not a Sunday school picnic. Satan hates the church. If you haven't had any trouble with Satan lately, maybe it's because you're going in the same direction he is. Turn around, and you'll probably run right into it. So this is really not a matter of if. This is not hypothetical. But before I start big time into heresy, I want to talk about the difference between just being wrong and heresy. Because we don't need to start an inquisition. You don't need to go on wish hunts. I always think that I'm right. But I don't think that I'm always right. I realized I could be wrong. I wouldn't be teaching this stuff today if I didn't think I was right. Would you teach something you didn't think was right? But I realized that I could be wrong. So obviously when you've got two Christians and they believe two different things about the same subject, somebody's wrong. They might both be wrong. Does that make the other one a heretic? So you shouldn't think that people who disagree with you are heretics. Amen. There are intramural debates. Things like, does the rapture happen before, during, or after the tribulation? Christians disagree. Is pre, post, or amillennialism the right view of the millennium? Christians disagree. Should we baptize babies or believers? Christians disagree. Should Christians go to war? Well, they disagree with that. What about Sunday as a Sabbath day? Is it? That's a disputable matter. Is tithing required under the New Covenant? That's a disputable matter. But these are intramural debates. On things like that, you wouldn't call the people who disagree with you heretics. You would just say, well, they're wrong. Somebody's wrong. I think the spirit of that is very important. Heresy is wrong, too. That's serious error. This is a foundational doctrinal error. That's what heresy is. An easy example of a heresy is somebody that denies the gospel and yet claims to be Christian. The Mormons. the Jehovah's Witnesses, their heritage. They have a false gospel and a false Christ. That's easy. That's a heresy. But heresy can involve other things beyond simply a false gospel. So that's what we'll be looking at. Let me give you a historical example. I said that theological liberalism has wreaked havoc in the big box churches since about 1900. It leaped the Atlantic and came over here from Europe. And they had all kind of church splits starting then. It was just a big mess. Well, Christians from every denomination, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Congregationalists, Wesleyans, they all got together. And they took a stand to define truth versus the heresy of theological liberalism. And they drew up five points that they called the five fundamentals of the faith. Now this grew into modern day fundamentalism, and it's gotten a black eye. But the five fundamentals of the faith transcended the denominational boundaries, and they had to take a stand against the false teaching of theological liberalism. And here's the things they came up with. The Bible teaches Jesus is God. Now that's foundational. That is foundational. What person denies that? He's a heretic. The Bible teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. This is something all the heretics were denying, a bias against the supernatural. God denies that, He's a heretic. The blood atonement. Why did Jesus die on the cross? It wasn't just because we killed Him. It wasn't to show how great His love was that He went along with it. He came to die. His blood atoned for our sins. It was propitiatory. The liberals deny that. They don't want any use with a bloody religion. That's barbaric. That's for Canaanites. We're all already saved. He just came to announce it. In that sense, universal reconciliation is heresy. The idea behind the shack and Rob Bell and those dudes, they're heretics. The bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. When Karl Barth was interviewed by the editor of Christianity Today, who is Karl Henry, Bart was neo-orthodox, and he said stuff that sounded good, but you couldn't quite nail him down. And so the editor of Christianity Today said, look, Professor Bart, if you were at the tomb on Sunday morning, after the resurrection of Jesus, and you looked in the tomb, wouldn't there have been a body there? And Bart said, what's the name of your magazine, Christianity Today? You ought to call it Christianity Yesterday. Who cares? As long as he lives in our hearts. The tomb was empty. By the way, I believe the Jehovah's Witnesses denied the bodily resurrection of Jesus. And the other one they came up with, they called it the inerrancy of scripture. meaning it's without error in the original manuscripts, because the liberals don't believe that. Now it used to be enough to say, you said, oh, the Bible is God's Word. The Bible is inspired in that. Well, the liberals started weaseling around that. I believe in the plenary inspiration of the Bible. It's all inspired. They started weaseling around that. I believe in the infallibility of the Bible. And they started weaseling around that. And then they tacked this one up. Oh, it's inherent. What they really mean by that is it's inspired. It's God's Word. It's true, you see, and so they call that heresy. Now, you can be a Christian and not believe the Bible is completely God's Word, but what it does is it limits the extent of your discipleship. Because let's say you're homosexual, or you're tempted by that, and you want to be Christian, the Bible condemns homosexuality. Well, what are you going to be tempted to do? You know, that part's not God's Word. Whatever your sin is, you know, that part's probably not as far as it is. this as a historical example, this is a large number of Christians crossing all denominational boundaries came together and they drew this up in response to theological liberalism and these are still things that the liberals deny. I interviewed the president of Baptist University, he wouldn't say Jesus died on the cross for his sins, he would say Jesus died because of sins but not for sins. And I said, tell us what happened on the cross, was Jesus death for his sins? Well, he didn't want me to come right out and say no. I knew he didn't think it was because I'd read his papers. Well, he just commenced the talking. And it's just... And he talked for about 20 minutes. Now, I'm trained in theology. I have no idea what he said. And so I asked it a different way. I said, well, tell me what the gospel message is. And he said, the gospel, the gospel. He said, the gospel is too profound if you put it... Okay, he didn't believe it. OK, that's heresy. Well, they still believe this. This is still an active problem. Now, you probably won't get one of these guys in house church. But the big box churches, this is their problem. Typically, that's what they have. And that's why they did that. Well, where am I headed with this? When you run into heretics, or even theological liberals, the way they disguise themselves, they're very clever about this, they want you to swallow the pill or drink the Kool-Aid. So they've got to disguise it though. And so a lot of times they'll swear allegiance to the Bible. The whole Bible and nothing but the Bible. A lot of times they'll say they believe it. And they really push love. Oh, we've got to love each other. And what that really means is, you shouldn't judge me for my beliefs. You see? That's what that means. And then they'll push, oh, I'm just a sincere seeker of the truth, no matter where that takes me. And I'm just wanting to know the truth. And that's what they'll say. And then they'll always push unity. You wouldn't reject us, would you? You wouldn't cast us out, would you? No, we're one in Christ. And so they sail into these banners as a cover for their heresy. And they might even sincerely do that, which makes it all the harder to do. But this is a smokescreen they throw up. And of course, there's a lot of truth in this. When it comes to disputable matters, like Sabbath observance, you want a lot of truth and unity. When it comes to heresy, you don't take any prisoners. That's the difference. Let me show you what God has done to help us with this problem. Are you in Ephesians 4? Let's zero in on verse 11. This is where it says, Jesus gave apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherd teachers, why? To equip the saints for the work of ministry for the building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature manhood to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. So that, and this is what I want to look at, we may no longer be children in our belief system. tossed to and fro by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine and human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth, the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head in Christ. Christ is given mature leaders, certain gifted men, to help the church be mature, stable, not talked about by everyone in the doctrine if you're listening to MacArthur during the week and you're listening to Sproul during the week and you're a member of the Shack during the week we're all doing something different we're getting exposed to different things which is okay but there needs to be a time when everybody's on the same page and we can grow into unity and that's why there needs the in-depth study of the scripture where everybody in the church is involved. If you can do that in a mid-week Bible study, because everybody can get there in your town, great. But if you can't, then you're going to have to find a way to do it on the Lord's Day in a way that doesn't squelch the first Corinthians 14 time. But it needs to be done, however you do that. But notice how the bad guys work. Look at verse 14. Human cunning. Craftiness. Deceitful schemes. It's not just a bunch of stuff that happens. They have schemes that are deceitful. They are crafty. They are cunning. This is not child's play. Church leaders help you spot these guys. They ferret them out. They deal with them. And they also help protect you from being influenced by it. I'm told it's probably apocryphal, I don't know. But supposedly when bank tellers are trained to spot false currency, they supposedly don't waste their time studying counterfeit currency. They spend all their time studying real money. And they do real money so well, they can spot fake money. Well, in that sense, comes up and you're not tossed about by every wind of doctrine. Because I tell you these heretics all claim to believe the Bible, the whole Bible, nothing but the Bible. As long as they tell you, oh this is from the Bible, you need to listen. No you don't. They're crafty. Again, an overseer must be holding fast a faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching that he may be able to both exhort and sound doctrine, that's a good part, and refute those who contradict. It's going to happen. There are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, that was their big problem then, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach. It's an active problem. Elders are your fighter escorts. They're your fighter protection. So the church is the bomber, does the heavy lifting. And the elder's job is to protect the church against false teachers. Second thing the Holy Spirit has done is seen in John chapter 16. So turn over there, verse 7. Jesus speaking, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And now look down at verse 12. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak. And he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine, therefore I say that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. So tell me again, why is it to our advantage that Jesus is not here anymore? Because we've got the Holy Spirit instead, in all of us, teaching us. That's correct. Now this originally, of course, was spoken to the apostles. It's the basis for the inspiration of the rest of the epistles in the New Testament. And the apostles said a lot of stuff Jesus never did. Well, that's not just their opinion. This is the stuff the Holy Spirit taught them that Jesus didn't say when he was here. But by extension, it applies to us as well. For instance, Paul asked the Corinthians, don't you know that you yourselves, y'all, are God's temple and that God's spirit lives in you? Not only is he in us individually, but the Bible says we are living stones coming together to make a spiritual temple, the foundation, the apostles and the prophets, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. So we as a church corporately are the temple of the Holy Spirit and of course as individuals we have the Holy Spirit. When you look at the Spirit's work throughout the last 2,000 years, in this case through a church history book, that's not just a bunch of stuff that happened. This is the record of the fulfillment of what Jesus said. The Holy Spirit teaching His people throughout the last 2,000 years. A lot of battles have been fought. You want to stand on their shoulders. This is 2,000 years of very godly gifted church leaders and churches battling heretics and declaring the truth over and over and over. And it builds over time as new heresies develop. So you don't want to be out of the stream of that happening. Every denomination has a statement of faith. And the reason there's different denominations is because those statements of faith are different. Somebody's wrong. But they only differ in secondary things. On the core issues, they're all the same. Now, in math, they have this thing called a Venn diagram. And so you draw circles, and they're looking for the intersection of the circles. Let's say this is making this up. You can have one favorite denomination, but there's the Baptists, and there's the Methodists, and there's the Presbyterians, whatever. Well, they're different. But where they intersect, all of them intersect. The fact that they differ make the places they agree on more significant. And all these denominations, even among the Catholics and the Greek Orthodox, there's certain basic things they all agree on. Those things are typically reflected in what's called the ecumenical creed. Before there was a Catholic church, before there was an Orthodox church, before there was a Reformation, there was one church. And they met at different times. and drew up various very minimalistic statement of essential truths. They're not inspired. But since then, all these other denominations that have come up historically, they've all, the overwhelming majority, have agreed with those same basic truths. Well, what I'm saying is, that should get your attention. If you see all Christians throughout time and around the world agreeing without coercion on certain basic things, that's the Holy Spirit working in God's people. that's how i want to apply that so the question is how likely is it that someone is going to see a new truth in the bible that the holy spirit failed to illumine for 2 000 years how likely is that i'd say the reason i don't believe them is because nobody ever told us nobody's been But I don't think the Holy Spirit hides things from the church for 1,850 years. How likely is it that the whole church has been wrong about something for 2,000 years and someone just now discovered that error? Not very likely. Is the Holy Spirit that inept? Is he such a poor communicator? Now take, for example, the Mormons. There's the Old Testament, the New Testament, and another testament. Because the first one was lost, and it's been corrupted, and they have a restored gospel. The Holy Spirit failed to teach the church and it was lost. The Holy Spirit failed until Russell Smith found a place in New York and then this angel, John the Baptist, and people show up and he's like a modern day Apostle Paul. Really? You believe that? That means the Holy Spirit's failed. We need Justice Smith. The Holy Spirit failed and what Jesus said was not fulfilled. You can't trust Jesus. You can't trust the Spirit. I'm arguing earlier, and this weekend for elder-led conversation, while I'm also arguing for interpretation by the consensus of the church as a whole around the world and throughout time. If even the Roman Catholic, and the Greek Orthodox, and the Protestants, and the Baptists, and the Anabaptists, and the Charismatics all agree that the Bible teaches certain basic things, That ought to get your attention. Charles Hodge put it this way. If the scriptures be a plain book, and the spirit performs the functions of a teacher to all the children of God, it follows inevitably that they must agree in all essential matters in their interpretation of the Bible. And from that fact, it follows that for an individual Christian to dissent from the faith of the universal church, i.e. the body of true believers, it is tantamount to dissenting from the scriptures themselves. Michael Horton said it this way, nobody goes to the Bible alone, but carries with them or her a host of influences. See, we're all biased. It is infinitely easier to distort the word of God when we cut ourselves off from the consensus of other Christians across time and space. So, that's what I'm arguing for here. I grew up a fourth generation Methodist. And very often, I don't remember now if it was each week or not, but we would recite this thing called the Apostles' Creed. And part of it went, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. And that, as a kid, always just blew my mind. Because I knew we were Catholics. Well, what does that mean? The Universal Church. And what the Methodists were saying is, you know, we're not the only church. We're part of the Universal Church. throughout time and history, and we're solidly in line with that. Well guys, we need to believe in the Holy Catholic Church. That's what that's about. So the first thing God gave us was what? To help us find heresy. What's the first thing God gave us? Elders, church leaders, apostles, prophets, and all that stuff. What's the second thing he gave us? The Holy Spirit. The third thing he gave us is related to what you said. Look over at 2 Thessalonians 2. Now some of you guys that know your Bible pretty well, what's the problem here in 2 Thessalonians 2? You read chapter 1 and you read chapter 2. What's he talking about? The second coming or end time events. Some kind of eschatology, prophecy stuff. They've been upset by wrong teachings on end time events. And he's trying to help them out. And that's what he's talking about. So in conclusion to all that, he says verse 15. So then brother, stand firm and hold to the, what? Tradition that you were taught by us two different ways. What's the first way? Spoken word or by letter. That word tradition, it's parodicist, it's not the main word for teaching, but you can have a tradition of a way of doing things, like your tradition for Thanksgiving, or you can have a tradition of a set of doctrines, like you could say the Mennonites have a tradition of teaching non-resistance. Well now he says, you need to optimize traditions regarding end-time events. Fair enough. And they learn those traditions two ways. Word of mouth and by letter. So the third thing God has done for us is he's given us apostolic tradition. Written and oral. What do we call the written apostolic tradition? The Bible. He's given us the scriptures. That's their written traditions. We got them on tape. But let's say that you lived in the first century. Would you have a copy of your own New Testament? No. There were scattered letters all over. So while you didn't have your own New Testament, you might have Romans, if you lived in Rome. What you did have instead was the apostles in person, or some of their emissaries in person. So you had their oral teachings, their oral traditions. So if I'm Paul, and I say over here to Rome, I say, hello, Ed, how you doing? I'm Paul. I got some teaching for you. This is oral. Jesus is God. Amen. You're in Rome. Remember that. Then I'm going to sail over here to Ephesus. Hey Dennis, I'm Paul. Nice to meet you. I got some oral. You didn't have to wait to heaven. I just came to you. I have something I'd like to say. Jesus is God. Got that? OK. Where do you live? Ephesus. See you later. And then I'm finally going to sail over here. We'll make Greg over here in Philippi. Hey, I'm Paul. Jesus is God, Greg. You got that? Now I'm going to sail away. I'm going to go somewhere else. I'm going to go to court. I'm going to write a letter. Here's a letter. And I write some stuff. And then I miss you too. I'm going to write you a letter. Here, here's a letter for you. And I miss, I even miss Granger. So I'm going to write Greg a letter. Now here's your letter. These are different cities I've written a letter. Now, Ed reads it. Now how does Ed interpret my words? How does he know what I mean when he reads it? How do you know what I mean? Okay, he knew me, he knew what I said in person, but he gets my letter, he understands the context, and say a few, and say a few. But now let's say that Mender here was living in Sudan, he kind of missed out on them apostolic visits, and he says, I'm going to move to Rome. So Mender moves to Rome, probably he's a gladiator or something, and so he says, you've got a letter from Paul, let me read it. So he snatches it out of Ed's hand and he commences to read it. And Mender says, I've been studying the Bible, I've been studying Paul's letter, And I have concluded, based on my in-depth studies, Jesus is an angel incarnate and not God at all. Now, what's Ed going to say to Mindrew? And Mindrew's going to say, how do you know I'm wrong? And Ed's going to say, OK. He's going to direct him to the Colossi letter. The Bible means what the Apostles said it meant, right? Now, the problem is they're not here, are they? So you ever argue with a Jehovah's Witness? He's got verses, doesn't he? So do you. But boy, they're close-minded. They've got all these verses why Jesus is not God. Well, you've got all these verses why he is. Who's to say? Paul's not here. Well, see, so the early church had Paul and the letters. So they knew. That was very helpful. Now, I want to show you a picture that comes up here. One Sunday after church, this exact document was found on the floor of a church room, church meeting room. And I didn't know what it was. Everybody laughed. And I said to my daughter, who was then, I don't know, 10, I said, hey, look, Dean, Walmart. I don't know what I said. A birdhouse. She said, that's not Walmart. That's our house. I said, that's our house? How do you know it's our house? She said, well, Carissa gave me that. She knew the author. The little girl who colored it gave it to my daughter. And you can't see it in this picture, but it says something to Eden from Charissa. Well, I didn't interpret it right because I didn't know the artist. But my daughter did. Even though the artist left, my daughter had a living memory of what it is, right? The Bible's the same way. So Paul's saying, look, guys, you got this letter from me, and you heard what I said when I was there. Figure it out. So even though they didn't have a whole Bible, they did have pieces of it, and they did have these oral teachings from the apostles. When was the New Testament finally all put together in one book, and they had to figure it out, all 27 books in one place? Around 350 AD, I think it was the Council of Carthage. So finally it's all piled together. You live in 350 AD. Did you have a copy of your own New Testament study? No, you didn't. Why not? No printing press. Unless you copied the whole thing by hand, you might have. Maybe your church had one. Probably the elders had access to it. And they did Bible readings. They'd say, man, Ed, you've got a copy of Romans? Well, we want that. Read it for us. And so Ed would stand up and read it. And we'd all sit here with pencil and paper, write it down. And they'd have Bible reading days, and you'd write down. And so that's how they did it. But most people are not going to have a full copy of the New Testament. What they did have was a living memory of what the apostles taught. So let's fast forward in time to this heretic named Arius. Arius was a church leader. Arius said, I've been studying my Bible, and it looks to me like Jesus is not God. And he was a pretty good teacher. He was pretty influential, persuasive. Well, he started sending some people, and they had Bible studies with him and talks with him, and he just wasn't back then. So they finally had a big church meeting. Now, Christianity had barely been legal, so they met. All these church leaders came from Rome, and Ephesus, and Philippi, and Corinth. They came. These guys were not denominational fat cats. One guy had his eye gouged out, another had an ear cut off, and one was limping, because they'd been through persecution when Christianity was illegal. So they talked with Arius, and they showed him their Bible verses, and he had his Bible verses, wouldn't listen. And they said, well now Ed, now Ed never actually knew Paul because, now that's a couple of 300 years before, about as far as we are from Christopher Columbus maybe, or Declaration of Independence, those guys. They said, well now Ed, Paul went to your church, what's your living memory of who he said Jesus was? And I was like, 200 years? told by Paul that Jesus was God. OK. So then we go over here. Dennis, I know you never met Paul, because that was 200 years ago. But your church has been around. You've got one of those. Which else church is understanding who Jesus was? Yeah, yeah. And Greg, your church was back around back then. What's your living memory of who he was? Yeah, yeah. So then they went to Arius and said, no, Arius, who before you came up with the idea that Jesus wasn't God? What antiquity church line of, where'd it come from? Oh, I don't know. Look it up. He didn't come up with anybody. Nobody. He just saw it. So, they drew up a creed. I think it was a Nicene Creed. They didn't say, we've studied the Bible and it looks to us like Jesus is God. That's not what they did, although they did study the Bible. They said, here is what the church has always believed. Jesus is God. Now, that has a name historically. It's called the Regula Fide in Latin. Let's see if I've got it written up here somewhere. Yeah, the regular feeding. What it means is the rule of faith. They based this not only on the Bible, the written word of the apostles, but what they understood to be the oral traditions of the apostles. All these basic, basic things. That's what they based it on. Now you might not like this. You might chafe at this, but that's what they did. And I could read you a big long list of church leaders over the next centuries, famous people, and they all believed this. All throughout early church history, all throughout the Middle Ages, there was only one church, and this is what they went by, the rule of faith. What they said was, the Bible means what the apostles said it meant. We've got the Bible, and we've got a living tradition, a certain very basic doctrine of what they said it meant. Going all the way back to the time they were in these churches, called The rule of faith, the regula fide. Now that is how they did things. What theologians have called that is Tradition 1. Tradition 1 is the oral tradition of the apostles that went along with their written tradition, the Bible. And that's called Tradition 1. You'll see it referred to most commonly as the regula fide or the rule of faith. In the late Middle Ages, this began to change. And what happened was there arose something new that people have called Tradition 2. And here is Tradition 2. The Pope. The Bible means what the Pope says it does. Here's what everybody else said. The Bible is your supreme authority, but under that is this oral tradition of the apostles and the consensus of the Holy Spirit. So there's two sources of authority. The Bible is your supreme infallible authority, but a lesser authority, and liable to mistake, is church tradition of certain basic doctrines. Well, the Catholics started saying, late, late, late. They changed. They said, you know what? We're going to take unique Catholic tradition, put it not only equal with the Bible, but the Holy Bible, as embodied in the Pope. Well, there was a lot of very loyal Catholics. They knew that was wrong. They said, that's not right. That's not what the church has always believed. The Bible doesn't mean what the Pope says it means. It means what it's always meant. So a number of Catholics balked at that. They protested. We call them protestants, Protestants. And they championed a return to what has always been held, tradition one, and something called sola scriptura. What does that mean? Scripture alone. What that means is scripture alone is inspired. Scripture alone is inerrant. Scripture alone is our final authority. But they did not deny the concept of the regular fee day. and the rule of faith, they still maintained that the consensus of God's people across time and space was a secondary authority to the interpretation of the scriptures underneath the Bible. So they didn't throw out tradition one, but they said, no, it ain't the Pope, it's the scriptures, it's the final arbiter. That's what they were saying. And so that's how it works. Let's read this, summarizing what the reformers said. Scripture was the sole source of revelation and the sole source of infallible authority. However, they continued, the reformers, to teach that this authoritative scripture must be interpreted in and by the church within the hermeneutical context of the rule of faith. It doesn't mean what the Pope says. Now, when was the printing press invented? 1450, I think, is the year I have here, that Gutenberg, printed that first Bible on a printing press. Before the invention of the printing press, would you have had your own Bible? Probably not. It would have been rare. But about the time of the printing press, about the time of the Reformation, in conjunction with the Enlightenment, not the Reformation, but the Enlightenment, came a new way of interpreting the Bible. A new way of interpreting the Bible. You got tradition one, which is what the church has always believed. The Catholics started like the latest tradition two. Now, during the time of the Enlightenment, came this new thing. Tradition zero. How do you suppose that works? Tradition zero said, forget the Pope. It's going to be good. And forget anything that's happened the last 1,450 years. Forget the work of the Holy Spirit across time and place. You've got a Bible now, don't you? Because of the printing press? Their motto is, just me and my Bible. And a corner over here. Remember that? And a corner over here. Who's the ultimate arbiter of Scripture in that scenario? The Pope. The Church of History are you. And all you've done is you've traded one pope for another. Is that really any better? Some people have misused the idea of the priesthood of the believer to mean you're the ultimate arbiter of what the Bible means. You should, as an individual, study the Bible. But you should not study the Bible individualistically. You need to remember tradition one. And the problem with the Enlightenment of the 1600s, their philosophy was, dare to use your own understanding. Let me read you a historian, and he's quoting this philosophy. He says, no generation should be bound by the creeds and dogmas of bygone generations. So let's do an end run around. the Church of History. That's what they say. The very first group to popularize this were the Anabaptists. The Protestants were against the Catholics because of Tradition 2, but then they were against the Anabaptists because of Tradition 0. If you happen to hold to Tradition 0, that does not make you a heretic. You could be completely Orthodox. But where it puts you is out in the woods where the wolves are, because every heretic is going to advocate tradition zero. He doesn't want to be bound by the consensus of the Church of History. He doesn't really care what the oral tradition of the apostles was, but he's got some unique interpretation of the Bible that he wants to pervert. Many of the Anabaptists were absolutely orthodox, but let me tell you, a whole bunch of them were coots. The Munster Rebellion and all that. When the Baptists first were able to legally print something without being wiped out, in 1644, they printed their first statement of faith. And 10 Baptist churches in London got together, and they said, this is the statement of faith of 10 churches in Christ in London, which are commonly, though falsely, called Anabaptists. They're very close to being Anabaptists. Why did they not want to be associated with Anabaptists? Because they'd become associated with kookiness. In theology, it's not that the Anabaptists are heretics. No. But tradition zero allowed whom created this milieu where people who were heretics just went wild with it. Rightly or wrongly, they all got called Anabaptists because the Anabaptists kind of went with this tradition zero thing. Well, anyway, we take it for granted that we all have Bibles and it's a blessing. But for most of history, the average Christian has not had one. So true. So if tradition zero is really the way God wants us to interpret the Bible, you need to realize that for most of church history, it's been impossible, because you didn't have a Bible to read in that way. So what we've done today is we've taken the evangelical doctrine of so-la-scriptura, and we made it so-lo-scriptura, just me and my Bible. I'm going to suggest to you that's not the wisest course of action. So what we act like is, the church was just walking along one day and all of a sudden from the clouds, a book from God has fallen from the heavens. Kind of like Joseph Smith did with those slushy donuts. That's not how we got the Bible. It was handed to you by the Church of History. And along with it came certain basic interpretations. How can you take the Bible from the church of history and reject the basic doctrines that come along with it? It's not smart. Did you know there is a man-made, uninspired creed in every Bible in this room? And you all probably know it. Genesis 1-1 is the Word of God, right? Right before Genesis 1-1 is something called the entanglement of contents. That's a creed. That was decided by the Council of Carthage around 350 AD. Do you know what creed means? What? Credo. What does it mean? I believe. Or you could say, we believe. Every one of you in this room has a creed. If you do something, you believe. You might not have written it down, but you have a creed. You'll either make up your own creed, or you'll accept the basic creeds of the Church of History. Again, it's not that these things are creeds aren't inspired. But when you see overlapping, like that Venn diagram, areas where the vast majority of all Christians agree on certain basic things, that ought to get your attention. And so I'm saying that's the creed you need to buy into. Do you really have the authority to make up your own creed? Do you really think you do? I don't think it's a very wise thing. So tradition zero, look at it as zero, it's so low, wants to interpret the Bible apart from the Church of History, apart from the ancient rule of faith, apart from the regular feeding. Tradition zero says it's wrong to have creedal formulations of historic Christianity. Tradition zero elevates the private judgment of the individual believer over the corporate judgment of the whole church throughout time and space. It is pure individualism. And in my humble opinion, it's a recipe for disaster. So when you've got America's democratic populism combined with rugged individualism, and you apply that to Bible interpretation, when you've got religion by the people, of the people, and for the people, it's going to be a train wreck. You know, most of the world's cults have come out of the United States. Did you know that? Yes, sir? This is what makes this structure such a great thing, is you're not going to save the Bible and the Bible isn't for me. If you meet a guy and he's against historical theology, he's against theological systems, Oh, the Bible's my creed. He might not be a heretic, but I'm telling you, that milieu creates heretics. You've got Calvinism and Arminianism. People say, isms should be wasms. We're just going to go with the Bible. Well, it's good to think it's Biblicalism. That's an ism, too. So how about Trinitarianism? Are you going to reject that one? You have to. Like I said, when you've got a zero, it puts you in the woods. The reason the wolves are out there is they want to divorce the Bible from the church of history. Your cultist is going to claim to go by the Bible. Let me give you an example. Ed Stevens, he's what's called a hyper-preterist. This guy has figured out that the second coming already happened, and you missed it. Just like the Jews missed the first coming, the church missed the second coming. It all happened at 7 E.M.E., right? Now, this goes against every creed and confession almost that's ever been written. So he's got a problem. He's got to get you away from the creed. So what does he say? Well, we must not take the creed any more seriously than we do the righting of opinions of men like Luther, Zwingli Calvin, the Westminster Assembly, Campbell, Rajputi, or C.S. Lewis. See, what he's saying is, if he's right, You shouldn't take the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity any more seriously than you do some idiosyncratic doctrine of Alexander Campbell, who started the Church Christ. Yes, sir? These guys are going to house church doctrine, and they're going to teach. They won't let the church open. They need to get someone else out to study these things. They secretly introduced this. Yeah. I know a house church guy, tradition zero. He's certain Luther wasn't a Christian. Zwingli wasn't a Christian. Calvin wasn't a Christian. He would add, Augustine wasn't a Christian. When guys start saying things like that, you better be real careful. But he alone, of course, has the right answer to that. He's found it. He hasn't been unduly influenced by anyone else. Here's another example. A.B. Grosz was a Unitarian minister, not Trinitarian, Unitarian. He denies Jesus as God. He denies the Holy Spirit as God. He denies one God in every person. So, he's got to get you away from the creeds. What does he say? In religious faith, we have but one Father and one Master. The Bible! The Bible! Is our only Dutch creed book. That's tradition zero. Where does it lead? Well, it makes a lot of room for Unitarians. He's disconnected from historical orthodoxy. Here's another. Belknap was a classical liberal theologian. He denies all those five things I had up here earlier. He said, lay aside all attachment to human systems, all partiality to names, councils and churches, and honestly inquire, what sayeth the scriptures? That sounds good, doesn't it? This man, as noble as it sounds, he has an agenda. He wants to divorce you from the church of history. He's got to. Here's another one. This is another liberal, Charles Beecher. He denounced what he called creed power. And what did he call for? The Bible? The whole Bible? Nothing but the Bible. Doesn't that sound good? Did you read the Heresies? I mean it can. Here's another one. This is more common. Jehovah's Witnesses. Their thing, let God be true. The first part sounds pretty good. To arrive at truth, We must dismiss religious prejudices from heart to mind. Now there is such a thing as a religious prejudice. Okay, that's right. We must let God speak for himself. That's right. To let God be true means to let God have the say as to what is truth and what sets men free. Who's going to argue with that? It means to accept his word. The Bible is the truth. Our appeal to the Bible for truth, just like Arius did back in the 300s. This same publication calls a creed a man-made tradition, the precepts of men, opinion. We've got to get you away from that so you can buy into this wrong stuff that we've invented. So let's say there's a wily young man interested in your daughter. And he would like to have his way with your daughter. But God put something in your daughter's life to protect her. It's called you. So if he's going to have his way with that young lady, what's he got to do? He's got to get rid of dad. So he's going to start undermining. You know, is your dad ever wrong? He's kind of a funny guy, isn't he? Kind of old-fashioned. Your dad makes mistakes. He's right about everything. And he starts saying things to make her disconnect from dad so he can have at it. Well, this is what the heretics do. They want to separate you from the church of history so they can poison you with this terrible stuff they've got. So you've got the spirit inspired scriptures along with the spirit indwelt church existing together in reciprocal relationship. That's it. Your individual isolated little house church doesn't really have the authority to come up with a Bible interpretation contrary to the universal consensus of the Holy Catholic Church. Keith Matheson wrote a book of... Kind of a cliffhanger, what happened? Uh-oh. He lost his spot. Well, I think we'll get it back. And he would like to have his way with your darling. He's got to get rid of Dad. Disconnect from Dad, so he can have Alex. Well this is what the heretics do. They want to separate you from the church's history. So they can poison you with this terrible stuff they've got. So you've got the spirit inspired scriptures along with the spirit indwelt church existing together in reciprocal relationship. That's it. Your individual isolated little house church doesn't really have the authority to to come up with a Bible interpretation that's contrary to the universal consensus of the Holy Catholic Church. Keith Matheson wrote a book about it. Why? Keith Matheson doesn't like me. We'll do this here. Start over again and see if you can stop at the same spot. I think it might have had a problem, but I'm connected to Wi-Fi. We could just live stream it here, I think. Hey, what was that quote that he said? I always think I'm right, but. trying to figure out if you said you liked it, but I was like, I always think I'm right, but I don't always think I'm right or something like that. I always think I'm right, but I'm not always right. Yeah. I know I'm not always right. I know I'm not always right. False teaching is an act of false belief. I know. This is a fact. The arguments of somebody who's going against these basic with a Bible interpretation that's contrary to the universal consensus of the Holy Catholic Church. Keith Matheson wrote a book about this called The Shape of Solah Scriptura. It's a good book, if you want to read more about it. Already threw us. He said, the greatest church by any Christian is a ship tossed to and fro, carried about by every wind of doctrine, compelled to consider every contradictory theological fad and novelty that comes along as long as the one proclaiming it assures his audience that it is simply what the Bible teaches. I thought he said that pretty well. What do these creeds do for you? They're like a smoke detector. When somebody teaches something that goes against these basic, basic creeds, that ought to be like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Something's wrong. There's a problem here. There's a theological fire that needs to be dealt with. If nothing else, they're good for that. You don't even need to consider the arguments of somebody who's going against these basic foundational truths. Your elders should deal with them, but you don't have to. You don't have to give them any court. You need a Geiger counter for heresy is what you need. An example here, after you start with the Nicene Creed, what it's talking about, there's only one God. And Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. We believe in the Holy Catholic Church, that kind of stuff. Rob Bell, or the Shack, that's heresy. I don't know if those guys are Christians or not, I hope they aren't, but when these denominations write up a statement of faith, They don't believe everybody's going to heaven. Universal reconciliation. There is a hell, and sadly, there's going to be people in it. Forever. The creeds and confessions don't teach annihilationism. Sir? He is a smooth talker. Boy, ain't he a smooth talker. You know, a lot of people, oh, I love the Shack. You ever wrote that? Now, I know he's being creative and he's telling a story, but God is not presented in the scriptures as a woman. And the idea of the Trinity is all mucked up in that book. It's an awful book. So the point is, we have an obligation to defend the church, brothers, if you're an elder, to defend the flock from false teaching. For somebody to try to undermine the historic faith of the church through your participatory meetings has got to be stopped. There's got to be a lot in the first place. Or if they're in body parts before private dinner parties, and they secretly are trying to undermine it, You've got to be an overseer. You've got to have your rider on. You've got to know what's going on with people. And there are commands in Scripture to squash heresy. Paul says, command certain men not to teach strange doctrine any longer. Then there's a verse we haven't dealt with yet. It says, to warn divisive persons. Then warn them a second time. After that, have nothing to do with it. Now, this word for divisive is the Greek word hereticos. We get a word heresy from that. The King James says, want a heretic one. What the word fundamentally means is divisive. Heretics are divisive. What do they want to do? You've got the main body of the church universal, right? They want to call off some sheep over here, divide you from the Church of History. That's what a heretic does. And in that sense, you could be a heretic with the truth if you use the truth to divide brothers. But more commonly, we think of false teachers doing that. We had a guy coming who did not believe in the Trinity. He was a genuine Unitarian. But the thing is, he knew we were Trinitarians, but he had no agenda. He had no interest in propagating that. And it was really like pulling one of his teeth to get him to even admit that he believed it. That's serious error, but he wasn't a threat to the Church. And we were glad he was coming because he was exposed to the truth, and we had a chance to influence him. But see, he wasn't about a new Reformation. He was just messed up. And see, that's where we do need to tolerate people. It's because they're different. It's OK. But you look at the heart attitude of what they're about. Yes, sir. And you should ask, if somebody wants to come to your church, say, where are you going to church now? Where have you been going to church? No, I'm a lawyer. He's real close to what he says. And if he says, I can't find a church for 10 years or whatever, how come? And then if he tells you some crazy doctrinal thing, this is not because he's confused about it. He's got an ax to grind. And so you can tell a lot. We had a couple want to come to our church. A Presbyterian church had done discipline against them. Well, if you get to the point they've done discipline against you because of heresy, you're not an honest seeker, you bought into it. And so that spirit of the thing is very important. Let me say one final thought. Just having a creed won't keep your church from being eaten up by heresy. It's just one of many of the things God's given us. For example, the Methodist. have a creed, and it's a pretty good one, and yet they're eaten up with liberalism. What happened was, even though they had it on paper, the living elders, who should have been protecting the flock, dropped the ball. And from within their own numbers came these wolves. And they just gutted out the creeds, just like some politicians today do the Constitution. A lot of politicians don't want to go by the original intent of the Constitution. They want to make it a living document so they can reinterpret it. And they basically gut everything it says to do what they want to do. Well, this is what wolves do. It takes all these pieces together in place. So number one, do you need elders? Yes, you need elders. Christ has given the church leaders, certain gifted men, to help the church be mature, stable, not talked about by every wind of doctrine. And at the very least, your elders need a statement of faith. One of the things I appreciated that John MacArthur's church did it. I guess they still do this. That statement of faith is called the elder's perspective. And it's what the elders believe. They said, you don't have to believe that to come here, but this is what we teach. And the implication is, you better not. I don't mind this. And so if you can live with this, come on. You can come. And so at the very least, your elders need a statement of faith. My favorite one is the First London Baptist Confession of 1644, revised in 1646. Widely recognized as a very orthodox statement of faith. And I promise you, that alone, often, is enough to repel heretics. If you've got security systems in your houses, let's say you've got brick security and they wire your house all up, they'll give you a little sign you put in front of your house. Protected by brick security. So now I'm a burglar and I walk up and I see that sign. Does that sign stop me from stepping right over and going in? Why do they want you to put that sign up there? There's going to be a problem with the church. Oh, look, this house doesn't say that. I believe I'll break into this one. If I'm a heretic, and I see that you're protected by Orthodox Christianity, I say, these guys aren't suckers. If they look like suckers, I'll go over here. That's going to save your church so much vexation. So at the very least, the elders need to do that. Ideally, the whole church should do it. We as a church, in general, believe this. You could say a new person doesn't have to believe it, but you've got to understand, we're going to consider you a divisive person if you go against this. If you try to undermine this, you don't have to believe it. But if you have private parties to try to persuade people differently, or if you try to teach something different in a meeting, we'll consider that divisive. So I would encourage you to align yourselves with historic Christian orthodoxy. One of the ways we do this on our website for our church, it says what my statement of faith is, and then it says that our church is decidedly in alignment with historic Christian orthodoxy. So do that some way. The second thing I'm going to suggest you do is to reject Sola Scriptura, which is by default what a lot of people in America believe, and Adas Sola Scriptura. Amen. Big difference, doesn't it? Amen. When you look at the Spirit's work throughout the last 2,000 years, this is the record of the fulfillment of what Jesus said. The Holy Spirit teaching His people throughout the last 2,000 years. You want to stand on their shoulders. This is 2,000 years of church leaders and churches battling heretics and declaring the truth. The Bible is your supreme authority, but under that is this oral tradition of the apostles and the consensus of the Holy Spirit. So there's two sources of authority. The Bible is your supreme infallible authority, sola scriptura, but a lesser authority is church. I'm arguing for interpretation by the consensus of the church as a whole around the world and throughout time. So you've got the spirit-inspired scriptures, along with the spirit-indwelled church, existing together in reciprocal relationship. This message was produced by the New Testament. Well, all right. Perfect. So hopefully, Daryl, do you need to flip any switches or anything? I do, yeah. As we convert over, I'll make that happen. Should I pause? We should probably pause really quick while we convert over to that. Going to take a moment to switch over to. We're going to FaceTime. It looks like we've got Joel has not responded. So it looks like we just got Josh popping on FaceTime here. And then I'll be responding to comments. Are we still broadcasting? We're still broadcasting. So Tim can hear us. Tim can hear us. And I've got it on my phone up here. So I can comment there. Good. I think I'll just pop Josh on here and then drop it over there on the corner, maybe. Tim was asking who's teaching. Yeah, you want to address that? There were a couple comments on the Facebook. I'm intentionally trying to conceal who the teacher is because I don't want people, I don't know. I guess one of the reasons why I want to discuss this message is because he's alluding to some things I figured some people would disagree with. But I don't want him to become the new go-to. And I recently read a book by one of the guys who's a new go-to. Dale Partridge was recommended to me. And while I couldn't disagree with anything in the book, he wrote a letter at the end of the book. And he says basically what this guy tells us not to do. Sure. my wife and I have been called by God to restore the church to what it was meant to be 2,000 years ago. He's saying that God himself and the Holy Spirit were not able to accomplish what Jesus began on planet Earth 2,000 years ago. God failed. The Holy Spirit failed. So I don't want people to try to find a guy who's the be-all end-all who's somebody out there you know I think we can we can be inspired we can learn from these guys and we can be challenged but anyway I try to avoid that because you know I don't necessarily agree with everything this guy says so there are other people I can probably recommend with my rubber stamp without that kind of hesitation but anyway I hope you're not offended by me doing that but So there it is. And hey, Josh. Hey. I'm going to just make a few comments about what we heard there. And just in summary, I think he was pretty clear in communicating not all who believe heresy are heretics. And we shouldn't race to label people. Probably we could say heretics are those people who are intentionally divisibly, secretly subverting orthodoxy. And they know they are. Maybe they don't know they are, but they're just doing it against the established church, the historic church that he referred to. I also want to say that not too many years ago, I used to hear people getting together and saying things like, do you hold to the 1689 or do you hold to the 1644? And I would just roll my eyes and completely tune out and have nothing to do with them. I was that guy who was code zero, tradition zero. I was that guy. As a former Lutheran, I I had disdained for Luther. I looked down on him. I saw nothing positive in Luther. I've kind of had to take a different look at that. I remember going to Bible college and struggling with wanting to be authentic and wanting to be original. I don't want to preach something somebody else has already preached. I remember thinking that. I was creed zero. And I see the error of my ways in that, and I see who I'm agreeing with by having thought that. And those are not the people that I want to be hanging out with anymore. So let me see if I have any other stars here. He said every heretic will adhere to tradition zero, because they have to get you away from traditional Orthodox Christianity. And he mentioned, Mormons have another Gospel, and so on and so forth. So, to get you away from your Bible, interesting thing about solo Scripture, which is me, myself, and I, and the Holy Spirit, solo as in solo cup, one, solo means one, is is that it's based on the Bible, the Bible only, which sounds great. But the reality is every cult leader only teaches the Bible unless they're referencing another gospel, the Book of Mormon, whatever. But most heretics will say they're only teaching what the Bible teaches, or all heretics probably. I looked up some quick facts on literacy on this subject here. Global literacy in 1820 was only 12%. So in 1820, only 12% of people could even read. Not that long ago. 1820. So if so low scriptura was what the Holy Spirit intended for us, for 1820 years, we had a 88% failure rate. Holy Spirit, again, failing 88% of humanity. You see what I'm saying? That's solo scriptura. So 1960 we had 42% literacy, 2016 we had 86% literacy, but if we even go back to when he was referencing the printing press coming out, and we know the King James Bible, 1611, So what happened before that? What were people, how were they to preserve Christianity as the apostles put it on planet Earth for us in 2020? How did they do it? They did it by oral tradition. Talked about it a lot. Talked about it. Wrote it down as somebody else thought. I heard this from Paul himself. And I wrote it down and passed it to so and so. This is where we end up in the topic of creeds and tradition, not in the Roman-ish sense as authoritative. And even the Seventh-day Adventists take the 2,000-some prophecies of Ellen White, and they put that on par with scripture. It's not that it's on par with scripture. It's that we've already figured these things out, guys. Don't try to be as authentic as Trent Benjamin in Bible college. and come up with it yourself all over again. So that's what he's saying. And I like that idea when somebody comes, and I have no problem with this at all, when somebody shows up in church saying, where you been going to church? Because I want to know why they're here. And it's kind of funny, because I've only been here a year myself. But I think our doors are a little too wide open in some ways. So I guess I better, I'm getting kind of cranked up here. Part of me is trying to talk loud for you guys out there. Yeah, I don't have any comment on it. It's too quiet. So the Facebook Live is taking it. Oh, good, good, good. They would tell me if it's too quiet, I'm sure. So it's like Mark just got on. With that, who got on? Mark. Who's Mark? How'd you do? Oh, OK. Hi, Mark. I like, and I don't think, you know, all of us have baggage. as far as where we come from. And I like what he said about tradition zero, and us being Americans, the rugged American individualism, and pure individualism. I don't think we realize how our American independence affects our perspective when we come to scripture, and how we reject a lot of the work that's been done ahead of us. that we should be relying on. So do you know, did he create the tradition terminology? I don't know. Has anybody heard that before? What? Tradition 1-0-2? No, I've never heard that before. So maybe he did. The first two traditions are common. I mean, I don't know about the terminology, but not a whole lot of people talk about tradition 0. He could have just. I came up with that out of the terms, paradigms to follow along. Yeah. It's common knowledge about a lot of the Anabaptists that they were like that. Not all of them, but I mean, I said to Mike some time ago, I said, I was just making a comparison. It's not exact, but I said, our church and OBC church kind of reminds me kind of of the reformers in a sense. And I said, a lot of in America, a lot of the homeschoolers that are built to connect with a local church, I said, they remind me of the Anabaptists. I'm not talking about the Mennonites. I'm talking about those Anabaptists who were Tradition Zero, and who did go off into heresy because of that. Because a lot of them, they start all over. And even, let's deny the Trinity, anything can start all over and happen. And when were the Anabaptists? When was that? He has a message about the Anabaptists, where he talks about them. We don't know who it is, so we can't look it up. He even said, and so they got together for the first London Baptist confession, which was 1644. So right then, they were saying, hey, we're not the Anabaptists, we're the London Baptists, or whatever they were called. So at that time, when they made the distinction, so it would have been around that time. And I know, I mean, the Puritans were contemporary Separatists. 1525 is the year they nailed down for Anabaptists, but some Anabaptists would identify themselves with groups that existed before their evolution. But the big problem with the Anabaptists, as we talk about Anabaptists, there's a humongous variety. They were united with coming out of Catholicism and wanting to baptize non-infants. Other than that, you have a humongous variety. Some were polygamists. And you can Google it. He mentioned the Munster Rebellion, I think it was. I wrote that down, yeah. And I heard that in a long time. It's quite a story. You're just in a book at the Taylor King that talks all about Munster. And there's a whole biography about it. It was ugly. And we're talking women getting their heads chopped off in the middle of town square. Women dancing around the woman that got her head cut off. That's a primary example of where Tradition Zero gets you with the Monster Rebellion. I mean, that's to the extreme of Tradition Zero. Ugly story. And I thought it was interesting how he, you know, again, something that we've tried to do is to, you know, remain orthodox with the traditional historical church. Because when you begin to veer off from what they've always held to, I mean, he's talking about it. This is what we've been talking about. It's interesting how history keeps repeating itself. Isn't it interesting how that continues to happen? And we are right in the beast of it again, where not on tradition zero, but there's liberal. I mean, it's just amazing. And I had mentioned Dave Hunt earlier in that message. I really want all you guys to watch that, because it's just stunning. Hunt is there, standing there, where husk was burned, at the stake, and he's crying, he's almost crying, talking about Passam, just the, you know, again, the price that was paid for the historical church, and wanting to hold on to those things, and it's just been a constant, never-ending battle. You know, you talk about, when he kept talking about the shack, well, you know, I remember Spurgeon one time, he made this statement, he said that the difference between, you know, right, and almost right is the ability to discern. That's what discernment is, being able to discern something that's right and almost right. Because again, much of this stuff isn't brought in under the opposite. If it was such a heresy to begin with, many would revolt against it. But they don't. It's brought in, and then it's ever so subtly then moved upon. And that's the issue that you have. When you know it's heresy, it's heresy. Boom. It's not coming in. But it's that subtlety. It's that almost right stuff that can really, really, really get you into trouble. That's like in the second Peter, he started with secretly bringing in. Yes. Yeah. It's not on the open. I want to make a comment, though, from the Facebook. Tim said, I think, regarding what Dean was commenting on the house church. Tim says that's a broad assumption on the house church. And I think what he would be noting is, for those of us who have attended house church, the comment that, do you want to maybe address that? I know we've talked about that briefly. No, I don't know where you're going. So he says the broad assumption that house church, because of the, I think the comment was made about house church leading into tradition zero. And I don't know if the speaker, because the speaker is maybe advocating for a participant meeting. And so. we're looking at. The participatory aspect is how he views 1st Corinthians 14 or 16. That's kind of a different subject. He's actually, I don't know, in case you guys missed it, he's actually a house church pastor. He's teaching that message. Sounds like he's in his own congregation. And every now and then people would pop up and say things. people have that freedom kind of thing. One of the things I like that he kept stressing, though, was the polity. Even in a house church, this is part of the problem, is that the structure of the church. I don't have any problem with house. I've been part of a house church before myself. But many times what happens is the structure isn't there. The elders aren't there. Those leaders whom God has gifted to lead the house church, to lead the church just like it does a regular church like we have, That's the issue with me, a lot of times, is it's not, the structure's not there, the leadership isn't there, and that's what leads into Tradition Zero, which then leads you into all manner of aberrant doctrines. It can, I'm not saying it always does, but it certainly can. And that's exactly why he was advocating in the message for the number one thing to keep you from error, and then all throughout scripture, I mean, we had three, four, five verses where it's saying the elder's job is to protect against error in a number of ways. Because if you don't have the structure and elders in the church, that's how those little things like craftiness and stuff can kind of get shifted away and shifted away and shifted away because there's no one in the church to teach the sermon, rather than everyone's like, We're learning about the Bible. We're getting knowledge of the Bible and this and that. But there's no one there to be watching for those things. And so that's why it's really important to have a structure of a church. So you have people there who have discernment. Two things, too, I was thinking of something that Trent had mentioned. For our church, well, one thing the preacher mentioned, one thing Trent mentioned, with the doctrinal statement, that's something that our church has dealt with. And we were thinking of using the 1689 Baptist confession. But the problem is, is technically not all three of the elders could agree with everything on the 1689. So we did come up with a doctrinal statement where all three elders do technically agree. I'm not sure if you put it on the website. It's not there yet. So it's not that every believer in the church has to agree with everything on the statement. But at least the elders agree on it. So I'm glad our church has done that. especially if it's on the website, I mean, if people see that. But I think something, Trenton mentioned that the door is open. I agree with Trenton. One of the things that we had talked about before was, I can't remember, Mike and Howard and I, we talked about if people come in the church, we should ask, you know, basically the same question you had mentioned. And it can be wise even to, if they won't give you direct answers, like, oh, I was at Mandi at Baptist, and they won't tell you why, to contact someone like Brother Wall over there, who's a pastor, and ask what's going on with the Esperance kids. Maybe there is an issue, and you need to deal with that. So I totally agree with that. I guess since I've come back from India, the only people I've seen come in the doors have been quickly gone or grabbed, and his family's still barely in India. In my own experience, that is true, too. But I think that it's, yeah. It's the wisest thing for a church to do. That's good. Well, I remember, oh, where was this? Maybe it was in Sovereign Grace when we were kids. No, I'm thinking, well, there was that experience where we had to retake the membership class. And my parents did, even though it was the same denomination, but because the pastor wanted to know that my parents were secure. But I... I'm thinking of our handyman, Philip. Yep. Phil, plural. When he came from Ohio, was it his pastor wrote a letter of recommendation to Jeffrey and my dad and the pastor of the church we were in. And I was probably 17. I was just never heard of that before. Yeah, he basically wrote a letter saying that he was a member in good standing. spoke highly of him. I just sent one down to South Dakota for my brother Warren, a pastor of the church down there. So I had to write a letter and send it to him, that he was in good standing. Who went down there? Warren Sterlatz. Yeah, it was a guy that used to go to church here. His family and stuff moved down there. So he moved down to that church. The elders wanted another letter of recommendation for him. I mean, it's kind of the same, you might think, oh, Like the elders are just trying to, you know, like control or like, I don't know, like snitch on, you know, like, but it's like the same thing, like if you're, there's parents like, you know, a gathering and I see someone else's kid, like, doing something that they really shouldn't be doing, it's like, you're going to tell the other parent, like, hey, watch out for that, watch out for that, you know, it's like, you know what I mean? I mean, it's turning a blind, it's basically turning a blind eye to that or whatever. Even in this church, there was a man who came here, and I tell Mike, because I don't know what Mike didn't know was going on. Before our church realized it was planning a congregation here, he was there, and he had to be dismantled out of the church. And he just disappeared. I started, when we became members here, he was coming here to some of the services, and I tell Mike, he was dismantled out of the church, and he had to repent it. Wow. Lo and behold, he came on Sunday, he was sitting in the front row, and I don't think he knew I was preaching that Sunday. And he, if you remember, he obviously knew who I was. Since that time, he hasn't come out. Unless he came when I was in India. But the thing is, I had talked to Mike before that, that he keeps coming out at the deal with me. So that communication has to be there as well. Yeah, so that, you know, like Connor was alluding to, that goes against the grain. It greats our rugged American individualism. Like, who do you think you are? I have a right to show up here and be completely anonymous and independent of your authority, which is what we're saying. That's right. And so we have no concept of authority in this country, especially. We despise authority. And yet, as we read the New Testament, especially, Authority was put over the church. Yeah, it was left behind to keep the church going and to protect the church and so Yeah, interestingly enough. I just this guy that I follow on YouTube this channel is called thinking biblically and just last night He was doing the tradition zero on me bashing every creed well, they're full of air and Well, wait. And by the time it was all done, Wendy and I were listening to it, and I told my wife, I said, well, wait a minute. Many times, these creeds that we have, that are sound, are reactions and reaffirming the church historical. That's what they are. And obviously, yes, they're written by men, and there's the possibility of error there. But at the same time, it's a reaction to, again, that cycle, the liberalism and all You know, Aaron, all this stuff, it's just amazing to look at church history and see, here we are smack dab, it's 2020, and we are still dealing with the same relevant issues that they did, that Scripture has addresses on a relevant basis. And it's really amazing. In fact, I wrote his name down, I said, here he is, Tradition Zero, this is what this guy was saying last night. We've got the Bible, yes! I understand that. But we still have history and church history and historians and great men of God who taught these things that we can certainly glean from and learn from. So I was thinking biblically, you said? Yeah. He's got, I'm on his YouTube page. Are you? Three Reasons I'm No Longer Lutheran. Yeah, yeah, that's one of them, yeah, yeah. Can You Be Soulless? Yeah, he's, that's the one I watch. Yeah, yeah. So he's against them. He's saying, no, you can't. Yeah, you cannot have a creed and be a soul of scripture. Yeah, he's talking about James White and Theonomist. So he's definitely got a worldview, a polemic. Yeah. Well, there's a big misconception. There's a difference between having a statement of faith and making your own statement of faith not like, thinking of something, but it's like, maybe like, this is what we're believing, like, this is our beliefs in this household or whatever, and there's a difference between making up a creed. Like, there's a difference between making up a creed, getting your statement of faith, in order, like, this is what I'm following, and just making up a creed, because you can't just be making up a creed, I mean, creed's in the Bible, you know what I mean? The whole concept of no creed but Christ, no book but the Bible, that is a creed in and of itself. Everybody has a creed, that's a good point that he made, even if you don't write it down, everybody has a creed. And even the table of contents, that's decided by the Nicene Council. It's kind of like that statement the liberals like to make, there is no such thing as an absolute truth. Well wait, that's a truth to this man. That's a truth to you. Yeah, and so I like, again, he had those three points that he wove throughout the message. And he ended with them. I don't mean he mainly covered elders, but he said what we have to have to defend against false teachers was elders and the Holy Spirit, and then the tradition being defined as a set of doctrines as given by the apostles. And to me, it almost like I wonder how my apostolic or oneness Pentecostal friends would to listen to this message, because he did mention being Trinitarian, so they would definitely not agree with it. But if I skipped out those parts, I feel like they would really like all of that, because it just sounded so appealing in the way they talk. It's very smooth. It's very appealing. Obviously, he was doing it in a more Southern manner, which makes it easier to keep up with. But I think that that's right along with, the apostolic oneness people are trying to do is all of this. And I mean, I almost think that aside from disagreeing with some of the great church confessions, they would be able to even recognize this message, and yet still be in deep error. They would have their own twist on it. Yeah, yeah. We were just talking on the way over, Peter, son-in-law, was asking Daryl for music references, like, what are some other groups to listen to? And Daryl says, well, I don't like Shane and Shane. Oh, no. I mean, you know. This was on, because we were on the thread of, they always come up with Sovereign Grace, another one I like. That's right. Spotify or Suggestions. Yeah. And I had discovered a Shane and Shane song that we played numerous times in our house before Daryl told us they were won as Pentecostals. I've never even heard of them. Yeah, they're probably from... They're like early 2000s, maybe even late 90s. Well, they're making a comeback. They got this song done. Oh, that's right. Yeah, they're like Toby Mac. They're like gray-haired, you know, flesh. They got done raising their kids, you know, they're coming back. They got the bellies. They're up there, but they were on the stage at the Brooklyn Gospel Tabernacle. Huge, well-known, Church, Charismatic Church, but they were doing this song along with the choir, and it was awesome. But we were just commenting, well, that's kind of strange if they're really one of those Pentecostals that the tabernacle would actually have them on. It just goes to show that people are not concerned about orthodoxy. They are not saying, well, what church did you go to before you showed up here in my doorstep? There's a church, that like Unitarian church right on Divide, right by the Capitol. But that's different. Yeah, the Unitarians are universalists. They're like super arms wide open. More don't care. They lie down to that tree in front of their building. But on the apostolic note, what Darrell was referring to in our town, the sanctuary, I don't know, what is it, 26 weeks? One is Pentecostal, so they don't believe in the Trinity as we do, or a nickname for them would be Jesus only. They actually, we have a chiropractor we go to, so Darrell gets conversational every now and then. He was told that they actually believe they are the 2020 version of the Apostolic Church. So in that sense, they're almost the same as too. So they've brought the Apostles forward, and they believe in, you know, the healing gifts and everything just like that. And see Peter Wagner, who basically founded the New Apostolic Reformation, in a charismatic sense, not a denomination, but they're trying to do the same thing. Trying to carry that, they would call it the tradition of the Apostles. I know, but it's not Orthodox Christianity. And just an interesting side note, I was talking to my dad. He's raised in Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, which is probably one of the most conservative branches in existence, theologically speaking. I was trying to explain to him what the church was that Cole and Peter got married in the L.C. MS, Lutheran Church, Mission in Christ, or something like this. So I went on their website. And they basically formed when the ELCA started to have open arms towards ordaining homosexuals. So they split off of there. There's like 1,000 congregations worldwide. But interestingly enough, they don't claim to be a denomination. So they're trying to ride this wave of just about Just the Bible. Just the Bible. We're not a denomination. That's bad. Denominations are bad. We're not. They have an annual convention. They have camps. They're not a denomination. No, no. Uh-uh. Uh-uh. So it's just, and that's a fairly recent, you know, like in the 90s, I think. That's what the Campbellite movement always grabs onto. Right. We're non-denominational. I always look at them. No, you're a non-denominational denomination. That's what you are. You have camps, you have churches, you guys all gather together. That is your denomination. Yeah, I think that's the restoration movement. It's the restoration of... Yeah, the Campbellites. Alexander and Thomas Campbell. Yeah, the only distinction we have is we have no distinctions. That's their motto. We have no distinctions. Well, that is a distinction. The one that's been a cause for us too, I think that they... would have a problem with the rule of faith, technically, because they are not in the majority in church history. But the tradition, I think, technically, apostolic tradition, they would, I don't know what they would say to it, but I do know that they claim that the early church fathers would agree with them. Like, they would say Ignatius agrees with their ways. Shepherd of Hermes, which is not very orthodox early church document they would do. But they would take Ignatius out of context and things like that. But I think that they would have a big problem with the rule of faith. I don't know what they would say to it, but they definitely couldn't affirm it truthfully because they're not in the majority. You have to ask him. Yeah, I think. Let me see him. Comment on that. What he thinks of the Nicene Creed. Well, I do know that. We're talking about when the Trinity was founded. So in regard to that, affirmed, yeah. That's the word I'm looking for. So they would say, and this is from our conversation, that there's no need to have a reformation because the apostolic church has always existed parallel to the Catholic church since the apostles founded it. And so that's one belief. And so then that means that all church confessions, because they did not come out of the apostolic church, are thus not necessary to be governing us. And so creeds and confessions, they would definitely follow. I guess we would have to call it tradition zero, in the no creed but Christ model, being the Bible would be the only creed. And so that's kind of the blend, though, because, you know, he talks about, this message talks about heresy, a big part, the first part, before he moves into talking about creeds and confessions, he has And then the second part of the message where we talk about the authority or the guiding principle of the consensus from the Holy Catholic Church, because they do believe that if you're not a oneness Pentecostal, I guess I should rephrase that. Salvation is evidenced through speaking in tongues and having that second baptism of the Spirit. And it just seems that it's easier to be saved if you're a oneness Pentecostal. What do you mean by that? So there would be suspicion of all of the church creeds because they were not written by apostolic people, who may not have been saved in their definition if they hadn't spoken in tongues. And I've even heard one say, well, during Nicaea, there wasn't a consensus, because afterwards, the persecution of Trinitarians taking place within the Roman Empire and so forth. Just at least at that time, there was controversy concerning that. That's just an argument they would make. But I think the Pentecostal group like that is, there's a lot of strange teachings brought in which weren't the consensus, whether it's non-trumentarianism, baptismal regeneration, in their form. I mean, speaking in tongues is a necessary sign of conversion. There's a lot of things there. And I know that's kind of relevant for us today, but I really picked up on the message. I'm just thinking about my study of Stephen Frick in the last year. So many things apply. And he talks about, and he represents the culture as a whole that we're not even addressing. The illustration of the young man getting the daughter to doubt the father, that is so much what I see in the messages I've watched. Numerous messages, usually like the one I think you sent me, one of those pages where they parallel John MacArthur and somebody, or Piper and somebody. And that's kind of how I've. taken in some of that false teaching. And the idea really being on the approachableness of the Bible, making it so much more approachable, so thus minimizing any hard area that they're teaching on. And using that to then, especially in like revivals, even, you know, and I know This is crazy, but Levi Lusko was at a revival hosted by Verdict, the same revival where Teeny Jakes was. Not the same year, but overlapping. And he used the illustration of Moses hitting the rock and water pouring forth to basically tell the group that they needed to donate more money to the effort, to the mission, so that we could receive more good things and it would be great. The whole message was from the Old Testament. I actually thought it was going to be good because I wasn't sure. I didn't want to take the YouTube headline as accurate and just judge it. And so I watched it. And I was like, are we going to learn something great about the Old Testament today? And that was the whole message was. That's a great thing to learn. Donate your money to us. Wow. Yeah. Basically using the Bible as an allegory for whatever I want. Exactly. That's what Furtick does all the time. Allegory. Yeah. Narcissus. He's in every passage. Just listen to him. That's why Matt Chandler says that. It's not about you. Well, it's about Stephen Furtick. He puts himself into every script. It doesn't matter. He's David. He's this. He's that. He's everybody. Isaac listened to that one on the way down to South Dakota. The famous Matt Chandler. He was prior to Matt David. Yeah. He tried to listen about it. Yeah. So Daryl started talking about, you know, you know, simplifying scripture to make it easier or eliminating the harder parts of scripture and things like that. And I think that is the result of tradition zero as well, because, you know, it's pretty hard to start from zero and get to 60 or 100 miles an hour by yourself without relying on centuries of exegetical, expository, Bible study, Bible research, conversations. One of my favorite stories from when we lived in New York is we got to visit the Glenn Curtis Museum. He had a bicycle shop that was four stories high that burnt to the ground. But in the process of building bicycles, he also started building airplanes. And his airplanes were the first airplanes to be used by the U.S. military. Guess who, on a hot summer night, he was on his roof, hanging out with? The Wright Brothers. Wright Brothers would go to Kitty Hawk in the summertime, which is in North Carolina. And they would try to get their airplanes to fly. But they would also hang out with this guy in upstate New York, on Keuka Lake. in Bath, New York. Actually, Hammondsport, I think, is the town. And they had these conversations about airplanes into the night. Why would we want to trash all the conversations that our forefathers of the faith who've gone before us have had to hammer these things out and think that we, myself and I, could start from zero as a baby Christian knowing nothing, and land on 100% truth 100% of the time. It's ludicrous. It is a pipe dream. It is the height of spiritual vanity to think that. And so just for the guys listening online, by the way, This group of guys here, we don't get together and recite the creeds. I don't think I've even read any of the 16 whatevers. I should. To my shame, I haven't. Yeah, if Ethan was still here, we would have all read it by now. He's like, have you got my pamphlet? I got one. He's like, I've read it now. I remember when he read it. It was before you moved, I think. Yeah. Just thinking of those who've gone before us, who literally, many of them died, died for what we have today. It was not handed to us by people of tradition zero. It was not. And it wouldn't go into the future with what tradition is doing, zero is doing either. It's people who are guarding the flock and caring about orthodoxy having conversations to keep things, I don't even like the word accountability, it's not in the Bible, but keeping us faithful, that's in the Bible, keeping guys in the pulpit faithful, keeping guys in the house, fathers of the house faithful. We live way too private lives. And so Joel had a group of guys together a couple weeks ago at his house, Joel Anderson I was going to read it, but I forgot to bring it. But just talking about how back in the day, men would get together and have conversations, like the Wright brothers and Glenn Curtis. Only they would have these conversations about theology. You know, hammer these things out so that they become real to each one of us. And we have foundation to stand on, to build on, to build our families on, build our churches on and keep our churches on solid ground. And, um, do you want that? Yeah. Go ahead, Daryl. What, what was the thing that, yeah, the round table. Okay. I'll read the quote starting from Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones. When you remove polemics from the church, the church dies. There has to be constant and healthy and serious debate about truth in the church. So it says, in times gone by, it was common for Christian men to regularly gather publicly for healthy theological discussions with the intention to glorify God, sanctify, equip, and edify each other through vigorous yet vital dialogue. However, in recent years, any form of debate has been looked upon as simply divisive or arrogant. Biblical discernment and doctrinal precision have been replaced by careless interpretation at best or abject heresy at worst. This should not be. We need these discussions. Jude 1, 3 exhorts the reader to contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all handed down for the saints. Amen. Amen. Yeah, once for all handed down. Contend for it. I just want to close on that thought. You know, we read some scriptures that literally say, they tell us to warn and command divisive men. Those people who are promoting heresy and false doctrine. that we are to reject solo scripture. I want to read 1 Corinthians 16. This is a verse that a friend of Daryl sent him on his birthday on January 1st this year. He literally was listening to a message by Phil Johnson about this verse when Daryl got this via text. It says in 1 Corinthians 16, 13, Stand firm in the faith. Act like men. Be strong. Let all that you do be done in love. So, just a lot of solid, manly stuff in that verse. Be like men. Act like men. If I could just say one thing, too. Jude was just brought up. It's interesting, the passage, and we all know this, but, you know, THE faith. And we notice the passage, in fact, that he read, that the good brother read tonight in Ephesians 4 there. It's unity in THE faith. That's the unity. THE faith, which was once for all given to the saints. And then, later on in the passage, I even wrote it down again, because I preached through here a few years ago, but not only THE faith, but THE truth. So you have THE faith, unity in THE faith, unity in THE truth. There's the biblical truth in the standards of the Bible that we have. So yeah. And not to divert from closing, but as you were talking about thinking we're reinventing things, I was kind of alluding to, with my illustration, alluding to even your Dale Partridge illustration, where he quotes Spurgeon. So you have kind of a hybrid of that. So that's something else that I don't know if the speaker mentioned, another discussion within our time. You mean guys that are trying to be original, but they quote nothing but reformers? Right. So where are we going? They're very confusing. Yeah. Josh, did you have anything you wanted to question or add? Not that you guys probably have time for. No, man. Well, you can pick that up with Daryl, then. there is a famous for being on the phone walks in the house that he goes to his bedroom and he's on the phone for another half hour just watch one out there let's see if we got time yeah launch one josh we got time for one oh well i mean one thing that i think the biggest thing that this culture has probably got to pay from is just the fact that we're supposed to create this signals not just christians and i think that's one of the biggest things that people exceed the critical of those newer creatures do they just i don't know if they do this and that's important but no we're supposed to be decided and uh... thinking about the future and creating a foundation for ourselves and our brains and this work out okay so does that get them saved they're going to get the heaven and have no way to fight all the the heresy that they're gonna Amen. That's that 2 Timothy 2 right there, right where Paul says, teach faithful men that they might teach faithful men. I mean, there's that principle there for sure. Amen. Dad thought the question was going to be longer. It's OK. I'm just, I want to make sure I don't quote in the air, I'm just re-looking up where I found out about the chain and chain religious leanings. So I'll make sure. I'm going to double check that. So if I'm wrong, I'll let you know. But as I was doing my study of oneness, I think that's where I came across it. All right, we're ready for closing, closing, final thoughts. Oh. Never mind. Mike's going to run to the restroom. I should have had an intermission. I got a final question. Go ahead. Final question. In the corner there, see you at, is those dates confirmed? Surprised? Yeah. Because I was wondering throughout the week, should I be preparing, or what are those dates that are confirmed? Yeah, it just got confirmed. It's putting on the board. OK, good. Yeah, I didn't know that I communicated uncertainty there. I didn't want to do it, and then all of a sudden, if we weren't having it, so. Yeah. A little advertisement for March 20th and 21st, just a few weeks from now, three I think, we're having Parental Peace University here at the church. It's basically going to be a family equippers workshop focused on parenting. So we're hoping to provide some child care, which we need to scramble to arrange. Maybe not for the whole thing, but for certain parts of it. We don't want kids to learn our game plans. We don't want them to read our playbooks. But we want parents to be able to ask questions freely and interact freely without hesitation. I have a Child. It's a child I know of. One of my friend's kids, actually. Yeah. So yeah, right. Friend of a friend. It's going to be. It's going to be. A guy named Durant. OK. Sorry. Sorry. Having this parent seminar is something I've been probably mulling over for five to seven years. And so we're going to kick it off finally. and then work the bugs out as we go. Dean is going to present on marriage, dating, betrothal, et cetera. He's going to be presenting on that, not necessarily you must do this this way, but things to think about. And we're going to have a panel discussion. I'm going to try to have a slot for Bible study methods. as well, just kind of off the topic, but just something I think we all need. And then plenty of time for questions and answers. We have a new gaga ball ring that's been made. If you call it octoball, if you want to sound a little bit more professional. Oh, OK. Octoball, that's what I meant. Not like a door knock thing, but yeah. Gaga. Be like Ben. It should be here before then. And it should be more child-proof. than the one that we threw up. But we're going to try to get the word out a little more. And who knows who could be here? I mean, we're going to invite unbelievers. Not going to hold back. But you know, people believe in training their dogs. Why would they train their children? You know? Anyway, thought the title was pretty clever, Parental Peace University. You get a lot of peace as a parent when your children are trained, as opposed to not trained. What's the university part? It's a play. It's a spinoff of D'Angelo Bresci's University. I borrowed. See? I'm trying not to be original. Trying to be as unauthentic, or unoriginal, I should say, as possible. Yeah, and that is something I've heard just maybe in the last year or two, that every preacher should strive to be as unoriginal as possible. Yeah. And that is, you know, holding to the faith, epistolic faith handed down to us. So Mike, would you close us in prayer? Sure. Sure. Father, we, uh, Thank you again for the opportunity to be gathered together this evening. Thank you for the message that we've heard and just the many questions. It just turns our hearts back towards the historic church. And Father, we pray for those who are certainly stuck out there in Tradition Zero. Lord, we pray that you would draw them back to the historical church orthodoxy. Father, that you would open their eyes to that, because that's what it comes down to. It comes down to the Lord opening the hearts and minds and the eyes and ears to hear and understand these things. Father, we pray for them. Father, I pray for those sound local churches who have good leaders, good elders, and good, strong families in the fellowship. Father, we pray for them as well, that you'll strengthen us, Lord, that you will draw us ever closer together, that you will bind us in the unity of the faith and the truth. Father, we thank you again for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for his atoning work, his atoning sacrifice. His death, his burial, His resurrection, His reigning at the right hand of God, and Father, His ultimate return, His second advent as He comes as the King of kings and Lord of lords. And Father, we thank You for all of those wonderful biblical truths. And we ask now as we depart, as we depart this place tonight, and the brothers who are listening and watching in their homes and in their places, Father, that You will give us all a great night's rest tonight. Father, that tomorrow we'll be ready, our hearts, our minds will be ready to hear the Word and to fellowship, be a part of the fellowship tomorrow. Father, we ask and again thank you for all these things. We pray in the mighty name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and all God's people say, Amen. Thanks for coming everybody.