I don't even know where to begin. I don't even know how do I even introduce this? What do I even say? I'm kind of all discombobulated and confused. It's all turned into a mess, and this is supposed to be part three. How do you start a part three of a sermon review? Why didn't I finish this all in one episode? There was no way because I have 70 plus minutes of audio to review. It's going to take forever. What do I do? What am I doing? How did I end up here? I don't, I don't have any answers to anything, but I do know this. Good morning, everyone. It is Monday, December the 8th, 2025. It is currently 11.08 a.m. Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. And Abilene, Texas is the home of Dyess Air Force Base. I don't know if you can hear that in the background. I think that's the B-1 bomber. All right, good, it's going away from my house, not towards it, because it would get very, very, very loud. Okay, so good, I would think that's about to interrupt everything, but the B-1 bomber has gone to do whatever it's doing, and I'm here to, I don't know, try to detonate this bomb that we've stumbled upon. This thing has turned into a complete mess. All right, so how did it all start? I've got to try to do this quickly because we need to advance this, all right? It all started because I see a news article. The news article has the headline that reads like this, Young Adults are waiting in line to worship at the fastest growing church in Atlanta. And we were introduced at that point to 2819 church in Atlanta. All right. So I kind of started talking about it. Is this hype? Is this revival? We started seeing some red flags. We checked out their website. We saw a number of problems there. And I made a comment. Hmm. I I think I've talked about this church before, way before everyone was talking about how amazing this church is, before they'd gone viral, before the Associated Press was writing a news article about them. I think I had, and I discovered that way back in February, I did a review of one of their sermons and noticed how quickly they kind of just seemed to burst onto the scene, how popular their podcast was. So, but I moved on. I mean, I moved on. I mean, you know how many episodes I do in a year. So it's hard for me to remember every single thing I've said. So I, I'd moved on. So then we, we found them again and I'm like, well, now they're like the flavor of the month. Now they have all the buzz. They have all the hype. So now I need to do more of an extended look at 2819 church. And that gave birth to our new series, the 2819 Project, the 2819 Project, and we're putting all of the episodes right there in that, in this series, and if you go to Sermon Audio, look up Theology Central, or you download the Church One app, you can go to our series, and you'll see everything is grouped in series. It makes it easy to find things, and you'll see the 2819 Project, and you can find all the episodes, alright? So we decided to start reviewing a new sermon. And this is where things get all convoluted and all confused. All right, so the metadata, the title, the information about the sermon was that this was a sermon on Matthew chapter five, verses one through 12. the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. I thought, well, this will be great. We're trying to figure out all, we're trying to be fair and hear what 2819 actually believes. Well, how they handled the Sermon on the Mount will tell us if they have a proper distinction between law and gospel, or if they destroy that proper distinction and go with the typical everyday approach to the Sermon on the Mount. Well, what was weird is we started the sermon And well, according to what he said, it's not a sermon on Matthew 5, 1 through 12. It's a sermon on Matthew 5, 13 through 16. Okay, I guess that's okay. That's not exactly what I wanted, but okay. I mean, we had already started the review. I know what you're thinking. If you would listen first, you would know that, but that's not doing a sermon review. That's rehearsing your reaction to a sermon. I'm not doing that. When we review a sermon, I'm listening to it with you in real time. So already I was confused. I'm like, okay, so a sermon that was supposed to be about Matthew 5, 1 through 12 is actually a sermon about Matthew 5, 13 through 16. But after our first hour plus of review, he never even got to Matthew 5, period. None. He went into this extended dialogue about identity, identity, identity. And then we have it mixed in with a supposed healing of a migraine on stage, dramatic music, some very clear charismatic ideas, God seemingly to speak outside of scripture. And see, what else do we have? Oh, We learn that we're born innocent. We're born innocent. We're born without sin. So very much Pelagianism. I mean, it's just been this wild, crazy ride. And the second review, the second part of our review, he finally gets to Matthew 5, but then it gets confusing again because he had it. Now, this is very important. All right. I need you now. There's so much more I could remind you of in our two hours plus of review, but I want to really now focus in on one thing so that we can get right back into the audio and see if we can finish this up at some point. But this is important, all right? Because this, what I'm going to point out to you is what I think is probably the most important structural contradiction in his sermon. And I think this is a significant one. I am not saying he's not going to clean this up at some point, but this is a massive structural contradiction within his sermon, all right? So he explicitly teaches in this sermon that we are reviewing. This is the pastor of 2819 Church in Atlanta. And he kind of gives this formula. He teaches a specific formula. The formula is this. Identity leads to functionality, which leads to influence. This is the core framework of his entire sermon, all right? He repeats it multiple times. He builds the entire sermon around it. According to him, identity is who you are. Now, in his understanding of who we are, we're not born sinners. not born sinners, right? He seems at no point in this sermon has he even come close to identifying internal corruption. He seems to focus more on what happens to us from external sources. Parents, neighborhood, whatever. These are things that happen to us. He in no way, shape, or form has even acknowledged or admitted internal corruption and internal depravity. So he's very much, so far, has operated from a Pelagian perspective, all right? So to him, identity is who we are. And I'm just going to say this, even though he's not explicitly said it, but the way he's framed it, identity is who we are without a sinful nature because he's never acknowledged that we possess one so far. In fact, he said literally that we are born, that we're, uh, we're born innocent. All right, well then that I mean, his theology is a mess right here, okay? Then, functionality is what we do. So what we do is determined by who we are. Now, if I look at that from a theological perspective, I would be like, you're absolutely right. Who am I? A depraved sinner. That is who I am in my very essence. That's who I am in my nature. I am depraved. I am corrupted, which leads to functionality. What I do, streams or flows from who I am. Who I am is a sinner. That's why Jesus says it's from the heart that adultery and fornication—all these things come from inside. We are not corrupted by what comes to us or into us. We are corrupted by what comes from us, from inside of us. His entire framework is contradictory to the Bible. In his framework, Who you are is determined by either what you think about yourself or what people have done to you or what life has done to you. And then once you figure out who you are, then that will determine your functionality. Again, he operates from a Pelagian perspective. I know he may not even state that, but so far he's not given me any indication that he believes we are internally depraved. He explicitly said we are born innocent. right? Then influence flows from that, and this is the impact you make. So my identity is who I am, functionality is what I do, and then this will determine the influence I will have. This framework appears, and this is very important, he gives us this framework before he reads the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, 1 through 12. All right, are you thinking this through? Now, if you give me the framework, identity leads to functionality, which leads to influence, and then you start with the Beatitudes, logically you would think then the Beatitudes gives us our identity. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are they that mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, right? So you would think that that would start giving us our identity, but this is what happens. He rereads Matthew 5, 1 through 12, and he rereads it in the sense that he's already supposedly covered this in a previous sermon, right? He claims that Matthew 5, that the Beatitudes, that these are kingdom kingdom character. It gives us kingdom character. These are the traits that you must display. Now, already right there, we already know his theology is messed up in another way, because he's treating the Sermon on the Mount not as law, which exposes our inability, because no one can keep the law. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, is taking the law and truly showing us what it teaches and what it means, and that it calls for something far greater than just an external obedience, but an internal obedience as well. So by the time you get done with the Sermon on the Mount, everyone should draw the conclusion, this is not the character I can have. It's not even the character that no matter how—that I will never be able to do it, no matter how much I want to, how much I strive to. But the one who preached the sermon He obeyed everything in the sermon. He demonstrated the right character because he was Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, who was without sin. But by faith, he pays for my, he died for my, he died because I cannot keep the law and his obedience is imputed to my account. He doesn't approach the Sermon on the Mount that way. He's like, Do these things and then you'll get blessed. Do these things. I will say, no, I get blessed because I'm in Christ and in Christ I have all spiritual blessings because he did, he had this character. That's who he was. But all right, we can get into that whole discussion. But this is where things get weird, all right? Even though he kept giving us the structure, identity, functionality, and influence, He never explained how Matthew 5, 1 through 12 fit within his own structure, within his own framework. Right? So are the Beatitudes your identity? Are they your functionality? Or are they your influence? He doesn't say. He builds this entire structure, goes to Matthew 5, 1 through 12, and then doesn't fit Matthew 5, 1 through 12 into the structure itself. He treats the Beatitudes as character traits that you should embody. These are conditions for being considered blessed or flourishing. Hey, this is what you must do to be blessed. But over in Ephesians, it says that I have all spiritual blessings in Christ. So do I already have spiritual blessings because I'm in Christ or these are conditional blessings? And if these are conditional blessings, I'm never going to be blessed because I will not meet these conditions. because it says I have to be pure in heart. No one's ever going to be pure in heart because we have a corrupt heart, but in his idea you can have a pure heart because you're born innocent. So his entire framework is so crazy, but he's not even following his own structure here. All right, because it's so crazy. He states the sermon formula, right? So while his stated, let me state it this way. So while his stated sermon formula, would require him to place the Beatitudes into the identity category because they come first, right? Remember, his structure, identity, leads to functionality, which leads to influence. Well, if he reads the Beatitudes first and he places it within that formula, then these should be the identity. But he never does this. So this is already creating internal contradiction within the sermon structure. And I'm already just baffled trying to follow it. Right? Because if his method is, and what's bizarre is, so, oh yeah, there's so much, I want to try to unpack all of it because it's just so crazy. But if his method is consistent, identity would equal the Beatitudes, who we are, then functionality would start in 13. You are the salt of the earth, right? Because of who I am, I am salt. My identity leads to functionality, which is being salt. And salt has function, right? My influence is what that salt and what that light does. If you're following his own structure, But he doesn't do this. He treats the Beatitudes as just character performance. Then he jumps directly to Matthew 5.13 and says, your identity is you are salt. That's directly from the transcript. He literally says, you are salt. That's your identity. So my identity is salt. Then what was the Beatitudes? To me, salt is not identity. Salt is functionality, right? Even in his own words that he said earlier, identity is who you are. Functionality is what you do. Influence is what others experience through you. Salt is function. It's about what salt does. Utility, flavor, preservation. You could talk about it being symbolic in a covenantal way. But he declares, your kingdom identity is salt. To me, this is a complete error. If salt is identity, then why did he say the Beatitudes were kingdom character? And why did he say we already have a pre-assigned identity? And why did he say identity leads to functionality? And why did he skip the step of connecting the Beatitudes to our identity? And now why is he calling what is clearly function and identity? The entire thing seems to collapse. So I'm baffled. I am confused. I put a whole, I got a whole lot more in my notes that I was writing down. I could go through them all, but that's kind of where we are. I don't know how else to get you ready to jump into part three, but that's kind of where we are. I backed up the audio a little bit and So he's going to build everything that your identity is salt. That's your identity. And it's pre-assigned. I don't know what the Beatitudes are, but they're not your identity. They're just what you should be. that make my identity?" I don't know. And just know he's imposing all of this onto the text. I don't think the text in any way is talking about identity, functionality. This sounds like he got this from a self-help book. It sounds like from a psychology book, not from a This is not flowing from doing exegesis on the text. This is clearly eisegesis. He's reading this entire structure upon the text, and I don't think it even makes sense, even in his own structure, I think is contradictory. But there we go. I told you, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say other than, here we go. Let's go back to Atlanta. 2819 church. We got a seat. We're on the, we're, we're in the hot spot. All right. This is where everybody wants to be. Oh, we should probably take a couple of selfies. Click, click, click, click. Let's live stream. Hey guys, um, welcome to my Instagram feed. Hey, guess where I am? Look around. That's right. I'm in 2819 church, the hottest church in the land. All right. I'll tell you. I'll tell you how my life has changed right after I'm done. All right. Here we go. All right. So I don't know. Is that what you do? I don't know. All right. Yeah. I'm being a little sarcastic, but you know, when it's like, this is the church and so far what I've heard. Yes. Is he a good speaker? Yes. Is he dramatic? Yes. Do they build an atmosphere with music in the background for some of it? Yes. but so far everything he has said, other than how he has said it, great communicator, engaging, all right, I got no problem with that, but I don't see anything that he's saying that's supposedly so, oh my goodness, you got to get to this church, this is the most, this is pretty like, Well, especially if I want to understand Matthew 5, I would not want to get anywhere near this place at this point. But he's got over 50, almost 60 minutes left of this sermon to try to figure this all out. I don't even know what else he can say for 60 minutes. I'm just baffled by, we got another 60 minutes of this? Where is this going? There's going to be a lot of twists and turns, and you know that it's going to take me hours and hours to finish this review. But I am doing this so that no one thinks I'm taking any of his words out of context. We are trying to be fair. We're trying to allow 2819 Church to speak for themselves. We have looked at their exact words on their website. We saw problems. We've tried to be very fair and try to be very accurate. And that's what we're going to continue. So here we go. I taught you that last week. These are kingdom character. And the Lord says when you have this kind of character, you are blessed. Not blessed as in I'm going to hook you up, blessed as Makarios. You are flourishing, you will be happy, you are thriving. So in God's eyes, everybody look right at me, in God's eyes, when you live with this kind of character, in his eyes, you are bubbling. Note the works-based idea. When you live like this, you're bubbling. No, no. I am bubbling. That's his idea of being blessed. I am blessed because I am in Christ. Ephesians chapter 1. I am blessed with all spiritual blessings because I am in Christ. Christ is how I am blessed, not based on what I do. Because if my blessing is based on what I do, well, then I'm in trouble. Because the Beatitudes are things that you are never going to do perfectly. Because if the blessing is God looking at you going, you made it, you did good enough. He's going to demand absolute perfection. And like I said, I could just go right there. Blessed are the pure in heart. I mean, right there, you're in trouble. You're in trouble. And remember, it's this very sermon. It's this very sermon, Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus is going to say, you have to be perfect as your heavenly Father in heaven is perfect. And you're not going to do that. All right. But all right. So he's kind of got this works-based idea. But what we're trying to do is put this all back in the structure that he has designed. Identity leads to functionality, which leads to influence. You would think the Beatitudes would be the identity part, right? But okay, but for some reason they're not. You may not have the zeros you want in your account, you may not turn the door that you want, you may not drive what you want, but in God's eyes, when you live with this kind of character, you are bubbling, you are flourishing, you are thriving in God's eyes. This is your measuring stick of, are you thriving? Not what you got in your bank account, are you poor in spirit? Not what you got in your bank account, are you meek? Not what you got in your bank account, do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? Not what you got in your bank account, are you a peacemaker? If you see these in your life, you are flourishing. Okay, now everybody watch carefully. Now, connected to this teaching about kingdom character, and view of the social persecution that will come when you live this way. Listen to the closing words of Christ in this intro, because this whole thing I'm reading to you is connected. It is the intro to the Sermon on the Mount. Last week was the first part of the intro. This is the second half of his intro. Now listen closely to the closing words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount as he gives this intro to you, every follower. Listen, he's trying to embolden you, every follower. Listen, he's ascribing to you, every follower. Listen, your pre-assigned kingdom identity. So all those things I just read to you, that is the character you should have. And then Jesus will pivot and say, now here is your kingdom identity. I already chose it for you. Okay, so in his mind, the character is not your identity. Wouldn't your character flow from your identity? So is Jesus saying, here's your identity and the character. I am so confused. I am so very confused. All right, so shouldn't, I'm asking AI here. Shouldn't character be a part of our identity? I'm a little bit confused here. I'm asking AI because AI has got all the transcripts. See, now this is where it gets confusing because AI is going to revert back to theological AI is going to revert back to theological framework because I'm trying to discuss things from a theological framework. And so this is good. I feel like that if we look at this from a theological perspective, this sermon, we're speaking different language. AI says there is a biblical distinction between identity and character. Identity in the scripture in the New Testament is always positional, declarative, given by God, grounded in Christ's work, not on ours. The true, even when our behavior contradicts it. Because in the Bible, I am holy. How? Positionally. I am God's child, even when I'm living like the devil. I am righteous in Christ, even when I'm unrighteous. I'm the temple of the Spirit, even when I look like I'm the temple of Satan. I'm a chosen people, even when I look like nobody would choose me. These statements are true even though Christians fail, even though we sin, even though we contradict these things on a daily basis in thought, word, and deed by what we do and leave undone. Identity is what God declares about you in Christ, not what you achieve, not what you do, not what you are. Character is behavioral ethical. Character is what we should be, what we may strive towards, what we will fail to accomplish. All right, so, so, all right, so, yeah, so, I'm trying to follow. We're just going to have to listen more. My mind is going a million miles per second trying to follow this logic. So for him, the Beatitudes is just character. Your identity shows up in 13. Now, please note, he's imposing this entire structure. He's imposing these ideas upon the text. So that makes it very difficult for me to try to take this apart because he's imposing it on the text. Nobody would derive this from the text. He's got this structure that he's imposing. And so I'm sitting there trying to, I think we're, I'm trying to look at it from a theological biblical perspective, but this is structure that's being placed upon it. Here's your identity. Verse 13, you are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost his taste, how shall it be saltiness restored? It is now therefore good for nothing except to be thrown out and trampled under the feet of men. Okay. So Jesus does this teaching about kingdom character that he pivots through that and says, let me tell you your identity in the kingdom. You can't choose it. I already gave it to you. You are the salt of the earth is what he said. So part of your identity in the kingdom is that you are the salt of the earth. Now, last week I taught you about the power of words, okay? Words, I told you when they are written, they are born in a context and they live in a context and they are constructs for the commission of ideas and concepts and stories. and so forth. If you're going to understand words, you must understand them in the context in which they were born. If you read my first journal, you would not be able to apply the principles of my first journal. If you did not know that I was 25, I was living in North Carolina, I was only married for one year, I just had my first child, and I'm trying to figure out life. You can't take those principles and apply them to your life now if you don't understand the context in which those words were born. So Jesus says to the people listening to him is what he says to you. Here is your kingdom identity. You are the salt of the earth. Now, when I said that, nobody in this room got excited because when you hear salt, you think something in a jar sitting on the table at Longhorns. Not Longhorns? Longhorns? No? Stay there? Longhorns. But in the context in which the words were written, salt was one of the most valuable commodities in the earth during the first century. It was almost as valuable as like money, right? And so there were multiple reasons or the people would use salt. I'm gonna give you a couple, just for example. Salt was so valuable, it will be used for wages. Like you go to work and instead of paying you coins, they will pay you salt. So a lot of the Roman soldiers was paid in salt. Their wages was salt because it was that valuable. Okay, now, so I'm just, I'm trying to figure out where this is all coming from, all right? So I went back to artificial intelligence because I'm just baffled here. So I'm needing a little help here because I'm trying to follow all of this. AI says that his framework, right? Identity, functionality, and influence, that it does not come from Matthew 5, all right? We all know that. Everyone should be able to figure that out. AI says not linguistically. All right, I agree. Not structurally, I agree. Not contextually and not philologically. So where does it come from? Right? So this is what AI says. After analyzing the sermon structure, The rhetoric and the sequencing of ideas, we can say with pretty good confidence or with high confidence, his framework comes from modern day leadership theory, not biblical exegesis. The identity functionality influence structure is a classic leadership coaching and motivational speaking model. It is not a biblical structure. It closely parallels John Maxwell's leadership ladders. Greg Groeschel's Identity Shapes Habits Which Shape Outcome, Stephen Covey's Inside Out Paradigm, Identity, Behavior, Influence, Behavioral Psychology Models of Self-Concept, Action, Social Impact, Common Business Coaching Frameworks, Who You Are, What You Do, The Results You Produce. This is the language that sounds like a TED Talk rather than an exegetical commentary. Nothing in Matthew chapter 5 presents this sequence. I knew something was wrong. It's just none of this makes any sense to me. None of this, right? Where is he getting this? This is where you take an idea and you bring it to the text. This is not what the text is saying. All right. So, yeah. If we were to look at this from a theological perspective, I think the Sermon on the Mount has an opposite structure to what he's saying, if you really think about it. The Sermon on the Mount is law. So what does it do? What is it supposed to do? It's supposed to expose. It's supposed to expose, condemn, which leads to judgment, which then leads you to Christ for rescue. Matthew 5 is not teaching identity, functionality, influence. It teaches beatitudes are impossible standards of perfect inward righteousness. Salt and light is how true righteousness would look if someone actually possessed it. The rest of the chapter, deepening condemnation, anger equals murder, lust equals adultery, and the final statement, be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. The Sermon on the Mount is not saying what he is saying. It's a completely different structure, a completely different function, a completely different idea, but he's bringing in modern leadership, psychological self-help nonsense and taking it to the Bible and trying to make the Bible fit this nonsense. That's why I'm so baffled and confused by all this. I'm sitting here like this is like nothing. This is not like anything from a theological framework. And you could say that in some ways the reason this church is so popular is because the modern church theology is dead. Man. If you think of it this way, the Sermon on the Mount is not saying your identity is this, therefore your function is this. It's not. It says, here is the perfect righteousness, here are the perfect righteous demands of the kingdom, or here are the perfect righteous demands of God, however you would like to state it. And then it says you can't do this. This condemns you, shows your need of the one who preached the sermon, and that is Christ. It's a completely opposite message. So now he starts this whole thing about salt. He's going to make all these historical claims about salt. Let's just see where this goes. And that's kind of dope how Jesus said that. I could preach that, like all my preachers. That's good preaching material. Like salt, like I'm the wages of, I'm the payment for what Jesus did. Like we can preach that if we wanted to. Right? Another reason for salt in the first century was for covenants. Any agreement between two human beings had to been sealed with salt. Oh boy. Okay. So he said the whole, uh, Roman soldiers were paid in salt, right? Once again, this is AI. People get mad at me when I keep talking about AI, AI, AI. The reason I go to AI is because I don't trust preachers, any of them. Roman soldiers were not paid in salt. This is one of the most widespread Christian sermon myths, but historians unanimously reject it. Roman soldiers were paid in money, not salt. Roman soldiers received regular cash wages, special cash bonuses from emperors, grain rations or food allotments, shares of war plunder, land or retirement benefits. None of the official military pay records list salt as a form of wage. There is zero ancient evidence of salt being used as payment for Roman troops. So where does this come from? The word salary. Salary comes from salarum, which sounds like it's related to salt. Because of that linguistic coincidence, a medieval myth spread that Roman soldiers were paid in salt. But here's the reality. Salarium was an allowance for buying salt, not a payment in salt. Salt was valuable, but soldiers were not given salt. No Roman source describes salt pay. The salarium eventually became a general monetary allowance. Even the earliest writers who mentioned the connection point out it's not a literal wage. In other words, it's kind of an idea, but it's not what they were literally paid. Roman historians universally reject the idea. Modern scholars, and it names one, two, three, four, like four modern scholars, Roman soldiers were never paid in salt. It is a misinterpretation of salarium. Salt was important, but not a currency. This means any sermon, any devotional, or any commentary claiming Roman soldiers were paid in salt is factually incorrect. Hey, this is the most popular church. They have over a million subscribers on YouTube. They've got nothing but five-star ratings on Spotify, yet they can't get a simple historical fact right. This is where I get frustrated. This is where I get sick and tired of it. This is where I just say, what's the point? What's the point of trying to care? What's the point of trying to teach? What's the point of trying to be factual? What's the point? We already saw in their doctrinal statement on their own website. You can go look at it. They refer to baptism in the Lord's Supper as a sacrament, then give definitions that are not sacramental, but are definitely in line with the idea of an ordinance. They don't even know the difference there. Oh, but you can buy one of their shirts for $45. You can buy a hoodie, or I think for 65, whatever it is. I forgot all the merchandise they have. They got time to make merch. Man, five seconds using it, and see, and this is why people are like, oh, oh, you know, you need to stop being, you know, I think you're completely wrong about AI. AI doesn't do anything. AI makes mistakes. And preachers constantly make some mistakes. We saw just the other day that pastor reading from James and completely misreading that to somehow tell me that Job was happy in his suffering. It's not what the text says at all. It was a complete misreading of James. How many sermons where they get facts completely wrong, say things that are completely fraudulent? How many times have I had to check something while we're listening to a sermon? They say, Oh, Spurgeon said this, or, uh, I don't remember. And we find out that the quotes are complete myths and lies stated from the pulpit over and over and over and over again. Oh, but you need to go to church and you need to support a church. Why? So I can be lied to for an hour? Oh, man. See, this is where I just want to stop the review. I just, I mean, like, look, if you can't even get this right, it took three seconds to check that. Three seconds. AI didn't even hesitate. No, this is a lie. And it says it's one of the most common myths put forth in sermons. So that means one preacher said it, then another preacher said it, and another, and not one preacher stopped. Hey, wait, guys, guys, come on. Where did we get this information from? Nobody. Nobody. No. Because you just need to preach a sermon. Because nobody in the pew cares if it's true. Nobody in the pew cares if it's right. As long as it sounds good. And I'm having an experience. And it's a revival. Oh, and his migraine was healed with dramatic music in the background. That's what matters. Oh, man. I don't even know what, we just gotta finish this. I'm gonna lose my mind. By the time this is over, I'm gonna be an atheist, okay? Because I can't, man, I don't get it. I'm trying to follow his structure. I've tried to be fair. I've tried to be calm. But at some point, how many things are piling up? It's starting to get to the point that I don't even know what to say anymore. So salt was like a contract. If two men made an agreement for land, they would eat salt together. And as they ate the salt, that was a binding contract. So it would be like getting an attorney and saying, sign this contract. That was another purpose for salt, for covenants. We could preach that, right, for all my preachers. That's good preaching material, right, Kristen? We're in a covenant with Jesus. We're with the salt of the earth. So we're in covenant with the Savior, right? You'll take it. I'm not even going to look up some of these other claims to see whether they're right or whether they're wrong, because I would have to stop and look up every single one. And that's the thing I say sometimes that's so frustrating about sermons, is you've got to hit pause every five seconds in a sermon to look it up and go, not true, not true, not true. After about four or five times, you just kind of be like, you know what, I'm done. And I don't know when pre... Hey, look, I know the older generation is just going to sit there oblivious saying, Amen, Amen, Amen, and then go off to Golden Corral afterwards to have a little buffet and talk about the weather and say, Oh, good Christian fellowship or whatever they do. Okay. That's how most Christians are going to operate. But there's some of us who, now I'm sorry, we're not operating like it was 1800. I can check you. I can verify the facts and I can do it in five seconds. Sorry, pastors, your day of lying and myths and misinformation from the pulpit should be over because now we have the tools to verify you in real time without disrupting anything. You can just be like really quick on your phone. Not true. Not true. Not true. Now, I'm never saying someone should disrupt a sermon. I'm not saying that. But sooner or later, someone's going to have to call a pastor aside and like, everything you said was a lie. Everything you said was wrong. And when I say a lie, I'm not saying that they're lying on purpose. I'm just saying the information is fraudulent. The information is a lie. I'm not saying the pastor then they're going, oh, I'm going to make up a lie, but they just are, they are continuing to present and push forward. So the lie. So I'm not going to fact check everything here. Some of this I'm assuming is right. Okay. And I know what you're saying, but don't you know, I don't know anything. My approach to everything is I don't know until I study that time. And you say, well, how about next time you hear a sermon and there's something about salt? You know what I'm saying? I'm going to immediately look it up again and say, nope, still not true. Because maybe they find information that will prove it to be true at some point. I know whatever I know now is of no value tomorrow. So the next time I listen to a sermon and someone says something about salt, I'm not going to immediately say, not true. I'm going to look it up again. And then the next time I'm going to look it up and then I will look it up and look it up and look it up because I will never assume that I know. I only know now and knowing now doesn't mean anything one minute from now. I'm very much committed to that precept and that idea. Knowledge is only temporary because the next day I need to re-challenge and re-look up and re-learn because whatever I know could be wrong. That's the only way to help you move past error to truth is you have to constantly challenge what you know now because it could be wrong. All right. Man, I'm getting so frustrated. All right. We got, we got to advance this. We're never going to get anywhere in this sermon. Every five seconds, I got to stop and correct something. Another, another reason, another use for salt in the first century was for seasoning, right? Seasoning. They had a lot of bland food, no Lowry's. No Texas Pete, no A1. The seeds of salt was almost necessary for every single meal. Every piece of fish, everything they did, they had to put salt to make food taste better. We could preach that. Like Jesus is saying, you're the seasoning of the earth. That Christianity is supposed to make things taste better in the earth. Our values are supposed to make things better, taste better. You make the job better. You make the family better. I'm gonna season you on your family reunion and make the family reunion better. When they start fighting and pulling out guns and dice, you become the peacemaker at the family reunion. So you season the family reunion. We could preach that. But that wasn't the number one use of salt in the first century AD. The number one use of salt in the first century AD, when they had no refrigerators, they would pack it into bland food. to keep food from decaying. So the number one use of salt in the first century watch was a preservative. It was to keep it was to keep things from dying. It was to keep things from being rotten. It was to keep things from decaying. So the number one reason for salt in the first century was to keep things from decaying. If we didn't want something to die, we pack it with salt. If we didn't want something to rot, we pack it with salt. It's going to click for you in a minute. If we didn't want something to decay, we pack it with salt. The fact that Jesus would say to them and to us, you are the salt of the earth is a presupposition. He is already telling you that the world that you are living in, the earth, it is decaying. Society is decaying. Morals are decaying. Value, I feel it's my spirit. They are decaying, no? Marriages are decaying. Churches are decaying. Values are decaying. Morality is decaying. Goodness is decaying. Honor is decaying. Doing right is decaying. What Jesus is saying to his children, I'm trying to pack you into the earth like salt. What I expect my followers to do is to keep back decay. Don't let the family decay. Don't let marriages or the definition of marriage decay. Don't let how we feel about children in the womb decay. Don't let how we do church decay. Don't let godly values and godly standards and godly priorities... Don't let these things decay. Wherever I pack you into that state, city, or nation, keep back decay. Okay, we got to think about this logically. Now, what he's saying here, once again, is typical preaching. There's nothing he's saying here that's like, oh, I got to get to 2819 church because I've never heard this before. I've heard this preservation idea a million times. We are to preserve culture. We are to stop it. We are to hold it back. Now, first and foremost, let's make it very clear. The decay occurs within people. And I can be around 30 people but the decay is coming from inside of them and I cannot fix that and I cannot change that and I cannot hold that back. Maybe you could argue I could hold back the outward demonstration of it. I guess by doing what? Scolding them, saying, oh, how dare you say that language around me? I'm a Christian. Don't talk that way. I guess I could go around and scold everyone like I'm a librarian telling them, shh, don't talk that way. But it's not going to change the actual moral decay because the moral decay is inside of us. But see, in his framework, I guess nobody has that. Now, I did ask AI about that. A.I. said this, alright? A.I. says this, your instinct is right to pause here because the pastor's claim is not what Jesus is teaching and it smuggles in a modern day moral culture war idea that is completely foreign to the world of Matthew chapter 5. Did ancient salt function as a preserver? Salt can preserve food, especially meats and fish. But here's a critical distinction. Salt was not used to preserve morals. It was used to preserve meat. When salt preserves meat from decaying, therefore Christians preserve the world from moral decay, that is taking a physical function of salt and turning it into a modern political moral metaphor that Jesus never makes. The biblical world almost never uses salt as a moral preservation metaphor. Here's what salt means in scripture. Covenantal loyalty. Purity and completeness in sacrifice. Wisdom. Nowhere does scripture use salt as a metaphor for preserving moral standards in society. This is a modern American evangelical reading. It is not a Jewish or biblical reading. So what does you are the salt of the earth actually mean? To understand, you must look at the Beatitudes right before this verse. Jesus describes the people as poor in spirit, mourning meek, hungering for righteousness, merciful... hang on. All right, I'm sorry, my chat GPT was trying to talk to me. So what does you are the salt of the earth actually mean? To understand Jesus, you must look at the Beatitudes right before this verse. Jesus describes the people of the kingdom as poor, mourning, meek, hungering, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, persecuted. Then he says you are the salt on the earth, meaning the weak, the broken, the persecuted ones are God's covenant people in the world. Salt, Covenant Faithfulness, Israel's Vocation Now Fulfilled in the Kingdom Community. This reading is consistent with Jewish covenant imagery, Second Temple interpretations, the structure of Jesus' teaching, and the placement of salt and light after the Beatitudes. Salt is not about fixing the culture. Salt is about identity as God's covenant people. authenticity of kingdom life, bearing God's truth faithfully, the danger of losing covenant fidelity." All right? So what does it mean here? You, the weak, the broken, the persecuted ones, are God's covenant people in the world. So you are salt means we're God's covenant people. That's what Jesus meant. That's what AI is saying. We could do more work on this. AI says, this sermon that we're listening to assumes Christians prevent the world from decaying, but biblically the world is already condemned. The world hates the disciples. Evil worsens as the age progresses. Look at 2 Timothy 3. Things are going to get worse and worse, and that's even inside the church. Christians suffer, not control culture. There is no biblical doctrine that believers preserve the world's morality. And it says, ironically, he's contradicting his own formula. Because if salt is a preserver, then salt is about functionality, not identity. Okay. So we have to do more there. But I have heard that, hey, we're salt. We are to preserve. We are to preserve. But I thought we were the ones who were hated. And I thought things are going to get worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. So now are you saying it won't get worse if Christians do a good job? Well, Christians have been around for 2,000 years. Is the world in a good place? Have we held back the immorality? I know some Christians, well, it would be far worse if it wasn't for us. Would it? Because I see all of the corruption inside the church, right? I don't know. Hearing all that. Yay! Jesus! Yay! What are you applauding? What are you clapping about? I don't get it. Man, people, people. Oh, goodness stinking gracious, man. There is no point in even trying anymore. This is what people want. Doesn't matter if it doesn't make any sense. Here's the thing, to any young man who wants to be a pastor, Check your communication skills. If you are a good speaker, then you've got a good chance, right? Just be a good speaker. Don't worry about going to Bible college to learn anything. You don't need to know anything. Just be a good communicator and be able to write interesting sermons and know how to preach it. Just focus on your performance. Don't focus on your content because you can lie and you'll be good to go. When salt hit food, you can't see it. This part of your identity ain't talking about all that stuff you do on social media. He ain't talking about your preaching, your posting a microphone on salt. He's talking about the way you move and live amongst people. Keep back decay on the low. is the way you live and move in such a way that without a post I'm keeping back decay. So that's me fighting to be a good husband with no posts and fighting to be a good father with no posts and trying to be a real man of God with no posts. You are the salt of the whole earth. That you in the Greek is an emphatic pronoun. That means you only. Not the government, not social services. I'm talking to you. Not social services, not group homes, not anything else. You, my children, you and you only. the salt of the earth. I'm trying to pack y'all in to keep society from decay. Yeah, God needs me to keep the world from decay. Or he could just remove everyone's sinful nature. Hey, hey, he needs me to stop the world from decaying. But the problem is their sinful nature. How do I stop the sinful nature from decaying because the sinful nature is already corrupt totally? So how can I preserve the world and keep it back from corruption when everyone is already totally corrupt and they came from the womb corrupt? But of course you are a Pelagian even though you're not admitting it. Because obviously you deny that internal corruption. So everyone is basically good, and I can keep them basically good, if I will just be a good husband, and a good this, and a good that, and a good this, because obviously I don't have internal corruption. How can those of us who are internally corrupt hold back the corruption of others when we ourselves are corrupt? And guess what 2,000 years of church history has shown? We're just as corrupt as the ones we're supposed to be holding the corruption back. Instead of worrying about holding the corruption back of everyone else, we probably should look in the mirror and go, the church has been a disaster for 2,000 years. So Jesus looking out on the crowds, everybody look right at me. He's looking out over the crowds over this bland pile of humanity, food with no taste. He sees the brokenness of humanity and his answer is not just pray for them. His answer is I'm gonna season y'all with my children. The people are acting like... The crowd reactions are going to drive me out of my mind. They're like, oh my goodness! Wow! Oh wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! It's like, calm down. He's not saying anything that hasn't been said a million times. This is standard. Get on Sermon Audio today. Find how many sermons say salt is a preserver and we're supposed to preserve the world. I mean, every, probably every sermon on Sermon Audio is going to say that. J. Vernon McGee, the only thing he would say different is he would say it's a preserver, but salt makes people thirsty and we're supposed to make people thirsty for God and his Southern drawl. But the preserving idea is about as common as common can be. And they're like, wow, wow, wow! Have you never listened to a sermon? Have you never read a commentary? We're crying out loud. Let's see here. I'm looking at this Bible that I have here in front of me. Okay, it doesn't say anything here. I thought it was going to say something about the salt, but I could just start looking up any commentaries. There's nothing shocking. There's nothing, oh my goodness, he figured it out. This is like standard stuff. So when I hear people gossiping in the church, I keep back decay by saying, let's not gossip. Let's pray for this brother or sister. When I see people trying to slander in the church, I keep back decay by saying, let's not slander, let's pray. When I see people doing things they're not supposed to be doing, I don't need to make no posts. I keep back decay by not allowing people to, so wherever I can enforce Christian values, I'm being soaked by keeping back decay. wherever you can enforce it, you're only creating behavioral modification. You're not stopping decay because those actions are coming from the decay inside. Why are Christians gossiping? Why are Christians slandering? Because there's decay already inside of them. You're only holding it back from the behavioral modification standpoint. You're not doing a stinking thing. The issue is what's going on inside of them. That's where the decay is. I see a married couple in trouble, I'm not in the air of the wife saying, man, you... No, you should probably love your husband and be submitted to him and pray for him and be patient. No, no, no, no, no. Dude, you should probably be patient with your wife and kind. I'm trying to keep back decay. When I go into the booth to vote, I'm trying to keep back decay. I'm not just pulling a lever for blue just because I'm black. Who represents the values of the kingdom? I pull the lever to keep back decay. You think your vote's going to hold back moral decay? Oh, for crying out loud, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. Yeah, I hope if you voted for Trump, I'm sure you cared about moral decay. Let me tell you, when you voted for Trump, all you cared about, if that's who you're voting for, I don't know, but it doesn't matter. Blue, red, you're not holding back moral decay. Give me a stinking break. Now you're going towards Christian nationalism is where you're going. See, if your identity is Democrat, that's the way you vote. If your identity is kingdom, you vote according to the kingdom, not Republican or Democrat. Who best represents the values of the kingdom? Does any political party show the values of the kingdom? Give me a stinking break. You keep attaching all these other things to your identity first. That's why you don't know who you are. So when you walk in a room, you don't know who you are. And when you go in a booth, you don't know who you are. And when you're in a conversation, you don't know who you are. And when you're in a gym, you don't know who you are. And when you're in a Zoom, you don't know who you are. You forgot that you are the salt of the earth, that God has packed you into every sphere of influence to keep back decay. There's the wows again. We're at 63 minutes. Man, we're never going to finish this sermon. You know what we're going to have to do. We're going to have to go back at some point. I'll probably start the next review whenever I do that. I don't know if I'll do it today. Oh man, I'm tired. I'm already tired of this thing. Man, I am. To be honest, I am tired. I'm now just kind of fed up. Now I don't even want to review it. I don't. It started off as, oh, this should be interesting. This is the fastest growing church in Atlanta. Everyone's talking about it. The Associated Press wrote a news article about it. This is the most amazing thing in the history of mankind. It's life changing. Revival has arrived. And I'm like, OK, well, then let's check it out. And after now three our three episodes of review, each going over an hour plus, I've reached the point that I'm about done, okay? I think I've been as fair as I can be, but I'm going to finish it because no one's going to accuse me of taking anything out of context, but this is a theological train wreck. All right? That's what this is. But we will have to be fair about the SALT idea. But the SALT idea seems to be predicated on the idea that people are not corrupted on the inside. unless what he means about holding back corruption is simply keeping people from behaving a certain way externally. But you can only hold it back so long. We tried to stop people from drinking alcohol in this country in prohibition. Did that work? No. We've had the war on drugs forever. No. I don't care how many boats you blow up and international water is not heading towards the United States of America. I don't care how many people you kill and how many people you justify. As long as people are corrupted, They're going to desire, in many cases, illegal and illicit drugs. You can try to stop it all day long as long as there is a desire and a want and a need and a demand, they will produce drugs. Have we not figured that out yet? Prohibition did not stop alcohol. The war on drugs has not stopped drug use. All the yelling and screaming about pornography has not stopped that because where does all of it arise from? It doesn't arrive from somewhere in the Caribbean. It starts inside your heart and my heart. Corruption is internal. It's inside of me. Instead of me worrying about holding back the corruption in you, I got to worry about holding back the corruption in me. But we will do more work on being salt and being light because we do need to be fair with it and we need to make sure we have an accurate understanding of it. Maybe I will extract that concept or this passage, Matthew 5, 13 and following, 13-16, and maybe I will add a teaching on it separate from our review and then just put it in the the 28, 28, 19 project. And so the teaching will just be separate. Maybe I'll do that. I don't know. I don't know what to do at this point. I mean, it's like there's so much here in a review that you almost have to stop every five seconds and do all of this work. So I. Yeah. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do here. It seems like his entire worldview is predicated that people are basically innocent. That seems what his whole worldview is predicated on. I know he would not say that. I think he would argue again. I don't think he would claim to be a Pelagian. I don't think so. I don't think he would claim to be a semi Pelagian. I don't think so. But functionally, he clearly is operating from the perspective that people are basically innocent. All right, I got a lot to think about. I'll try to figure it all out. We will come back and address this at some point. We'll see how the rest of the day goes. Right now, I am just, man, I'm exhausted. Just, man. It all started with just a news article, and here we are. I feel like I'm trapped now. I hate feeling trapped. I feel like there's no way out. You can check in, but you can't check out. Uh-oh, I'm quoting the Eagles, okay? Hotel California. Okay, never mind. All right, now I'm just gonna start. Music sounds much more entertaining right now. I'm more... Better than this? Okay, yeah, man. But I will do some more work on it. I know we did not get into great detail about everything there, but man, we've got to, we definitely will do some work on this. I promise you that. We will work on all of these, all the issues that are arising from the sermon. We will then dedicate so that we handle them in a correct way because I haven't handled them completely correct because I'm simply trying to react to a sermon in real time. So please don't expect like, well, you didn't really go into this or go into this. I've already gone over 60 minutes. I can only respond to the best I can in real time, but we will do more work. All right. So we'll stop it right there in the middle of his I guess the most earth-shattering, shocking news about Salt because his congregation is losing their ever-living minds like they've just heard the greatest truth that has never been heard by man anywhere. Their reaction is crazy, but all right. We'll stop there. I would say thanks for listening, but I feel bad that you did, so I don't know. God bless.