So we're going to another specific. We had just a vague, or not a vague, but a broad, heretical idea last week, not tied to a specific person. This week we're going to focus back to a specific person. And this is Manny. Manichaeism, God must be freed, and we're gonna see some crazy notions that he came up with. We'll look at the influences that impacted him, and again, a defender of the faith, one of the church fathers, early church fathers, Augustine of Hippo, he was a bishop. I love the ref tunes on him, got him writing a literal hippo. That's not what it means, but, and then we're gonna look at the life of Manny, and what prompted some of the ideas, and then of course how that has, continued on through the centuries to where we're at now and what that looks like. Cause there is facts, but we'll get to that. There is some remnants of this early cult, but it's also permeated some other beliefs. So I've got some definitions there. And again, I'm getting a lot of this from either Erdman's or the Lexham Bible Dictionary. These are from some different ones this time, though. But Manichaeism, it's a religion founded in the second century. I'd say it was by Mani. And it survived into the middle to late ages, or the late middle ages. But there's actually a temple, a Mani, Manichaeism temple still in China. It's the last one. There is still a small group of these followers in China. today in 2022 so it has continued on and some of these ideas and philosophies have been incorporated by other various religions and heretical sects and even just people's thought process, spirituality. He was a Parthian though and this is going to be over in, again I love the geography, I love the history, Babylon, modern day Iran and that area so this is where he's from. His father was a member of this sect of Christianity, Judaism. They had a strict adherence to the law of the Jews, the judicial law, to the letter of it there, but then they also had some different parts of Christianity. They baptized, so they had some different beliefs and such. which man is going to use parts of that. He was influenced because of, where is that? Zoroastrianism, I'd say ancient Iranian. This was in the BC, 6th century BC that that came up. Of course, I got Buddhism there, which if you're not familiar with Buddhism, it's this path of enlightenment. And you're going to see a lot of it ties into that Gnosticism again, this knowledge. So Buddhists, they continue to be reincarnated until they achieve that perfect enlightenment. So, Manny takes some elements of that. I say he takes some elements of Judaism, but that's only because of what he was taught. And it's hard to get to Christianity without using some of that, even though we're gonna see he rejects a lot of it later. But Manny believed that good and evil battle, that dichotomy again, the... What, you need a pencil? The flesh being corrupt or dark and evil and then the spiritual being light and that human deliverance from evil comes by way of knowledge of this dualism. So again, that's the Gnosticism umbrella we've been looking at the past three weeks. Gnosticism really does have a broad blanket that a lot of people fall under the elements of that, especially with this dualism. Buddhism, like I say, Zoroaster was the 6th century BC. Again, it was a moral dualism. In fact, this still permeates a lot of the religions today. When you talk about Eastern mysticism, Zoroastrianism is definitely a part of it. The Kabbalism takes some elements from that. So it was, like I say, it was a Persian religion, so ancient Iranian time, Babylonian. This was one of their beliefs in the 6th century BC. But even there, they had this idea of one true God. So and we can look at now, even with the Muslim understanding that they have this one true God that has been a part of their religion for a long time. But it was one true God. But he was in opposition against this evil spirit. So much like some Christians today, we have the true God, Jehovah, Yahweh, but he's being opposed by the devil, who's a lesser spiritual being. That's garbage, that's unscriptural, but you can see that a lot of different religions included that. And again, the fundamental message on page two there of Zoroaster was that there's only one God and that people should obey him by following the light, the truth, and goodness rather than the darkness, the lie, and evil. The message entailed radical revision and how the gods who had previously been worshipped in Persia should be understood. So again, there was this one God and Of course, the dualism of Gnosticism, again, this following the light, the truth is this knowledge, this enlightenment, and the fleshly, worldly things is being ruled over by this evil spirit, so that's the bad. So you see a lot of it is just, I say it's contradicting to itself, but it had an appeal to anybody who, like we saw a couple weeks ago, a father of a bishop still being influenced by these unbiblical, heretical ideas and starting his own religion. So here we have Manny. And the reason I have Augustin up here is two reasons. One, he wrote a lot. battling this type of belief and defending Christianity, but he has a special place. So he was from Northern Africa. The City of God, this is his volume of works. If you look up, there have been some modern translations. A lot of stuff's really good, 22 volumes of it. But why his experience battling Mani and Manichaeism is because he spent nine years as a hearer. And we're gonna get into what that means in the religion of Manny and his followers. But Augustine was a member of this religion almost 10 years. And so for him to be redeemed by God and pulled out of this, he has an understanding of what they believed. And now seeing the truth, he has a particular understanding to say, no, this is wrong. Here's what God says, here's what truth says. That's what you say, but here's what truth says. So he had an understanding. He wasn't misrepresenting what Manny believed because he was a follower of that religion. Okay, so getting to the life of Manny. And I hope you guys enjoy. I wanted to use my stamp. I finally used my stamp. I'm going to take a long drink here. Slowly walk to the garbage. Oh, hey. Good evening. How are you doing? No, you're good, bro. It's just audible. So they don't know that it was Seth and Casey that just walked in. But Manny, as I said, he was raised in this weird mixture of Judaism and Christianity. Very zealous in their Judeo-Christian sect. Strict interpretation of the Jewish law, like I said. They believed that Christ was a divine teacher. This goes back to that Gnostic idea again of, yes, he may be divine, maybe not, but definitely the good parts of him were spiritual, so anything fleshly is irrelevant and evil and wicked, so that was not a part of them. They were a baptizing, so they had reverence for the environment. You know, making sure that the land was taken care of, green peace kind of a thing, and baptism. Again, this is what we're seeing is going to influence Manny though. Alright, so Manny then rejects the Old Testament and much of the New Testament. I got my words all mixed up there on the writing as well as in the mouth. So he rejected the Old Testament completely and we saw that again with Marcion. So that's, remember, it's not a new idea. This is just something else. and he rejected much of the New Testament, namely some of the areas he denied resurrection of the dead. Again, going back to Gnosticism, all right, or even if you look at the elements of Buddhism and stuff, the spiritual part keeps going on, the fleshly part passes away, resurrection is not a thing that they believed, they denied it, which is where he did the, what's the Buddhist thing again now? reincarnation but only because until you get the enlightenment so he added all these different elements but denied the resurrection of the dead and very clearly pieced together various religions and spread his beliefs like I said so and there's probably some more smaller sexities but these are the big names that were incorporated into his flavor of Christianity. He claimed to have the unadulterated form of Christianity. So in order to make that claim, though, you have to disregard all the Old Testament and much of the New Testament. So much so that he's going to claim to be the paraclete. Can somebody read John 14, 16? and I will ask the father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever. Manny said that that reference, of course he likes this particular scripture in the New Testament. He says, that's me. It's talking about me. I am this promised paraclete. I am this promised comforter, this helper. Very blasphemous. If we understand, as we do, that the Holy Spirit is one of the persons of God, that the Holy Spirit is truly God, this is blasphemy. This is, again, that you will be like God. I'm gonna take scripture, and this is talking about me. The man gave himself a title, Apostle of Jesus Christ by the appointment of God the Father. All right? We talked a couple weeks ago, people would try to authenticate their false writings by stamping something like that. All right, yes, my writing is true because I'm an apostle. Nobody asked by what authority, which we'll get into Augustine here, though. My favorite part, though, and I love, you guys know I love my sci-fi. I love my fantasy science fiction. So Manny was visited by an angel. The angel is telling him all this stuff. The angel is revealing this unadulterated form of Christianity to him. The angel is actually future glorified Manny who was sent back to talk to un-glorified Manny and to protect him during his earthly ministry until he became that future glorified Manny so he can come back and protect himself and teach himself these truths of Christianity. I've seen that movie. Doc Brown tried to do it. Marty McFly tried to do it. All right. Ethan Hawke tried to do it in a big loop movie. It's fantastic. I love those movies. It's garbage though. It is science fiction. It is fantasy. It is unbiblical. Who's going to doubt him though? Well, I got it from good authority. What authority? Well, me, because I'm that good authority who's going to come and give it to me. And when I talk about circular reasoning, this is it. Not only me, but future me. Future glorified me. Like, hey, what's up? Hey, myself, it's me again. And we'll get into some modern day elements of that. This angel, Mani, telling Mani, redemption is going to be found in separating spirit from matter, good from evil, light from dark. This ascetic morality to break free from evil moralism or materialism. Again, going back to Gnosticism here. So the flesh is bad, materialism is bad, and spiritual immaterial is good. We're gonna see that theme played over and over again in a lot of these heretics. So that's why we said in that second week of Gnosticism has this big umbrella that covers a lot of different beliefs and spiritual understandings or misunderstandings, I'll say. And here it gets even crazier though, if that wasn't crazy enough. You good, bro? Yeah, I'm good. I think Zoe just went to the restroom. So humans are both saved by God, and humans are the saviors of God. Okay, so it's enough that you're getting this self-revelation from yourself because you are the prophesied comforter of Christ. But since you disavow the Old Testament completely, I don't know how you even get an understanding of who Christ is. But anyways, God is trapped on earth, in earth. So in Manichaeism, there's two groups. There is the elect who, and this is gonna be great, they're responsible for freeing the pieces of God that are trapped here by eating plants. Okay, I believe in the video he says it's specifically cucumbers and something else. So specifically these areas, but yes, by eating these plants, you're freeing God. So the bits are now able to go and be reconstructed as spirit and not in physical form. I wish I was making this up. Again, I'm thinking Soylent Green here. I've seen these movies, so I've got lots of references here, but this is not only what the man believed, but what he taught. I say he's got two groups here. This is the first group, the elect. Now they go around eating these plants to free God, which is how they're helping be saved. The elect are almost guaranteed salvation by doing this, but they got to make sure they free all of God. And again, it's like a video game. I don't get this, but they have to keep their power by abstaining from certain things. They abstain from things like buying clothes and food. They only eat, um, these particles to free God and what's given to them, they must abstain from procreation because that causes another material person that is now taken away from God. So you have to not make any more material items, people, possessions, so that the spirit of God you're freeing can continue to be, I don't know, reconstructed. So the second group is the hearers. All right, so, and I know you're like, this is crazy. The elect are now basically supported and protected by these hearers. All right, the hearers, they could basically have this lifestyle, but they had to limit the amount of children because, you know, you have to populate the world so you can make more hearers, but not too much because it takes away from the spiritual good by having more material evil. and they fed the elect, so they gave them the food. So they worked and gave the items that are needed to the elect so they can continue going and freeing God from the cucumbers. If this doesn't sound heretical to you, we have bigger issues, but this is, it's so out there that it seems ridiculous, but as I mentioned, there is still a temple in China, and there is still a group of people that adhere to this lifestyle, the elect and their hearers, okay? We'll get into the relevance of modern day and how some people basically fall into this without knowing that they are. More on manly though. God was all good but not all powerful. This is what he used to get around evil in the world. As people ask us, well God's so good, why does he allow the evil? We have that question. you know, asked to us as believers in God, right? Well, if God's so good, if you have this God who loves, why is there evil in the world? Well, his solution was, well, God is all good, but he's being thwarted by this evil spirit. All right? So, okay, so in order to be all good, your God's not all powerful. That way you can say that's why there's bad in the world, because there's this evil opposing force that is stopping him from letting nothing but good be out there. You know, maybe he's one who's trapping him in the cucumbers. Yes, cucumbers. And again, he's getting some of this idea from Zoroastrianism there. I'm mispronouncing much of these words. The Z. Zism, all right. Zoroastrianism, where there was one deity, one God, but he was being opposed by an evil spirit. All right, so there's still just one true God, but being opposed by an evil spirit. And again, it's not different than Christians today who say God is at battle with the devil. No. All right, that is not a biblical understanding, but That idea has been around for a long time. Like I say, Zoroastrianism since the 6th century BC. Man is just taking it and using parts of that into his unadulterated Christianity here. So yes, God is being thwarted by this evil spirit because he's not all powerful. But that way he can say, that's why God is all good though, because it's not him that's causing evil, it's this evil spirit who's stronger than God. I don't know, maybe he's a zucchini against the cucumbers. I don't know exactly. Again, I'm thinking plants versus zombies here. This is crazy to me. I wish this was a joke, but it's not. All right, and then going on, we're going to see a lot more of this, and we've already seen some of it, but the incarnation did not happen. That they're still going to give credit to Christ, that he was a good teacher, he had good morality, because of course, you need to start your base somewhere, especially in the zealous sect that he grew up in. So Christ was not flesh, nor did he suffer. He was a spiritual teacher only. Again, it's going back to Gnosticism. that there's this spiritual good messenger, even if you wanna call him a sub-divine, a demigod, whatever, they all had this understanding of him, but it was spiritual only. Anything flesh is corrupt, evil, leave that for the zucchini. Is that, you ever heard like, like on some sermons and stuff you see on TV where it's talked about like, binding the devil, that we must bind the devil, is that sort of like a? Well, some do that because they do give, like everybody, you're having temptation. Well, it must be the devil. Not to joke, the devil made me do it, but everybody, when they're having a hard time, it's automatically the devil. Your heart is responsible for most of your evil thoughts. So we are now giving this power to a undivine created being that has no power. We're giving this artificial power to him. Yes, let's bind him so he stops doing this. Well, if he's bothering me right now, he can't be bothering that person in Florida, much less somebody over in Europe right now because he's not omnipresent. But we're giving him that power. So it's basically the myth of this evil being that's on equal par with God that is given all this power and not the actual character of the adversary. I've heard people say this before, but is it true that the angels are always in constant battle with demons? There are battles, there are spiritual battles. What that looks like, we get very little in scripture that tells us anything about that. The problem again is people get so caught up in angiology or demonology that they want to see these battles. And again, some good movies, I watched some of these movies. I love Christopher Walken, he's trying to take over for Satan now and what is he, he's Gabriel or something. It's all garbage, none of that's biblical. And some people even say, well there's a new book of the Bible that came out that everybody's been missing for thousands of years, the Gospel of Jim. This is going to tell you all that stuff where angels are battling demons forever. Okay? This stuff is happening. Hollywood's part to blame. What's the Tom Hanks one that everybody was all over? Da Vinci Code. Okay? Hey, that sounds kind of good. Hey, I'm weak in my understanding of what scripture really says. I'm going to let Hollywood formulate and fill in the gaps for me. Yes, angels are constantly battling demons for my soul. There is some scripture that talks about battling over Moses bones. Okay. So there is some scripture. So people will take that little, little scripture though, and blow it up into a whole philosophy and make up different stories. And well, then this must also mean that. So there are battles, principalities of the air battling their spiritual battles. What that looks like. That's not our area to even worry about. I'm not saying be unconcerned with what scripture says, but people will take that and use that as their driving point. So I don't even like discussing angiology or demonology. And in fact, when we went over the confession and was talking about even the angels that are going to be saved, I was like, what does that mean? Are you an angel? Do you know any angels? It's irrelevant. You worry about what you are responsible for according to scripture. And speaking of that, this incarnation stuff, we're going to look at some scriptures here, and I'm glad you're here, Mary, because we're going to have to read from John chapter 1 here in a second. But just some responses to Manny, and some of this is from the video. Again, this is a 15-minute video, but I don't want us to be watching videos in here, because I do want to get into some craziness that we're going to see in 2022. This isn't done. All right, but I like the battles here. And again, this is, Augustine wrote a lot of this. So he had the City of God, and was it Faustus? John, do you remember? He wrote another book of Faustus. Was that who the Manichaeus was? I don't know about Faustus, but I know City of God is like a 10-hour lesson. It's 22 volumes I've picked it up several times and it is like to look that up but I think it's like contra Faustus the Manichaeist or something like that but there was another another priest yeah that was but he was a hearer so he Augustine was taking care and protecting the elect so he was you know working so that they can continue eating cucumbers all right so he was one of the hearers and this was almost a decade that he was under this So the beauty in that story is that God... It's a cucumber, man. You're never going to look at Larry the Cucumber the same now, huh? But anyways, he had a unique perspective. He was coming out of this... this very heretical teaching, so he knew what they believed. And that's like even now, if I were to go against a, let me say I'm going up against a Jehovah's Witness, I have never been under their teaching. I only know what other men have taught me through books and through my limited experience with them. I still believe that they're wrong because when I do interact, they're contrary to the word of God. But imagine somebody who grew up as a Jehovah's Witness or under that teaching, they now have a particular understanding or perspective to counter that. This is Augustine. Some of his battles against it in our response, the Orthodox response, if God's not all-powerful, he can't be all-good. You talked about that, so that means that the evil force is more powerful than God. That's ridiculous. And it can't be all good. If there's a force that is more powerful than God, then God can't be all good. So again, it goes into the circular reason. There are better answers for why evil takes place. God is not the author of sin. God is not the cause. But everything is ordained according to His eternal decree. You ratify that and justify that in your understanding as you grow in the knowledge, but it is difficult. People say that something really bad happens to you. How can this loving God do this? I understand that it's appealing to you. Rejecting the Old Testament rejects God's work in history. Cutting off the Old Testament baffles me in so many areas, but I'm a Christian who only believes in Jesus, but I don't believe in the word where the revelation of who Jesus is comes from. That baffles me. The New Testament quotes the Old Testament validating this man over and over again, this God-man, over and over again, but you're going to throw that part out. What do you have that you have empty? You have these new Gospels that are being found today. All right, there is no divine authority to them. There is no, maybe it is a good moral book. And some people do say that, you know, the Bible, I don't believe it, but it has some good moral teachings. Well, by what standard do you find that morality then? You know, we go into that presupposition. All right, and then the rejecting of the incarnation makes the work of Christ meaningless. Which some don't mind that. There are non-Christian religions that will credit, yes, Jesus was a real man. He had good morals. He was a good teacher. All right? But they're at least crediting he's a man. Why would they need Christ if they're the Savior of God? You know, they saved God. And why would you save God if you're the Savior? Because you like cucumbers, OK? That's why. You're missing the cucumber part. Yeah, so again, he is, we're going to read from John here in a second, but he is taking scripture, applying it to himself, coming up with other aspects of these religions that he likes. And we're going to see that the modern version of that is very much alive. All right. And then seeking the wrong source for salvation. The salvation comes from the Lord, our God and him alone. You know, salvation doesn't come from your works, which that would be a workspace to free enough of the God, but that's why it says to free God. That's the subtitle to that, you know, God must be freed. So we're gonna be saved by God, but by saving God, we're saved for God, from God. It gets very convoluted there as well. But going to the incarnation, and since I've waited for so long, Mary, can you read from John one and do verses one through four, please? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made. That was made in him was life, and the life was in the light of man. Thank you very much. I know that this seems like it can be misworded and people have done that. I say the facts being the Jehovah's Witness, they take this and we're going to change up an article here to make it not mean what you think it means. Well, that's garbage in itself, but those who are denying the incarnation, okay, well, that's not what it's talking about, it's still spiritual. If somebody will read in that same chapter 14, read verse 14. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. All right, first of all, that truth, If we're going to say that Christ is truth, then everything he says must be true, so the entirety of his dialogue must be considered true, which goes against some of these other teachings. Second, the incarnation. What do you think being made flesh means? If flesh is evil, wicked, you would think that they would use some other way of describing how this divine spiritual teacher came to talk to people other than flesh. All right, we see these different visions. They mentioned visions and such. Why wasn't it spoken like that? This is flesh and dwelt among us. All right, this is something else. Even in the ancient pagans, the spiritual gods had to come and dwell inside of something physical. That's why they had their idols and stuff. You know, not all of them, there were different understandings, but there's still this place where it has to live. All right, and this is language here that is to say it's anything other than an incarnation, even if you don't know what that means exactly. This is a man. And we go into the other accounts of the gospels where he was born. All right, conceived, born. child raised up we see that growth in Christ to an adulthood we see these things and then we can go into the ends of the gospel with even to Thomas touch me you don't believe me touch me if it's not flesh what's he touching so that baffles me and then the second part before we start discussing some of the modern stuff is this Very blasphemous. We talk about using the word heretic. Yes, that's a heresy, but it's not a damning heresy. This man is saying that he is God. There's no way around that. I am the Paraclete. I am the third person of God here. I am the Apostle of Jesus Christ, appointed by God the Father. I am the Holy Spirit. I am the Paraclete. In Acts chapter two, And somebody can read the first four verses. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place, and suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as a fire appeared appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." So this has got to be part of the New Testament that's disregarded. If you're claiming to be the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, promised by Jesus, the Paraclete, this can't be a narrative that you are going to allow. throw this out now, the author of this account is also the author of the Gospel of Luke. So you see we're taking out all of this scripture. Now you start unraveling the thread, well I don't want that, I'm gonna pick this and now I have to disregard all this other stuff. And now that one part that you wanna hold onto, well wait a minute, if the man who wrote that is saying that this other stuff is true, then you cannot be who he's speaking about. It's very, it's important for us, and this is why I really do love this class, I get that we're all at different levels, and some of us love the geeky stuff more than not, but if you just have a basic understanding of Christianity, you're just on the milk and you don't want to progress anymore, it's easy to fall into these other things. It's very easy. Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah, why would God let this happen? Oh, tell me more about this false image of God, this incorrect description of who God is, this new God that you've created, and Christians fall into that. So for us to study this, see what it looks like, and that's why I love the absurdity of this, how absurd that was, eating plants to free God, but people believed it. Alright, they believed it. People still believe ideas like that, if not the same literal go and eat cucumbers, but there is this idea, I want a cheeseburger and somebody's gonna be mad at me and want to murder me because I like the fact that this cow tastes delicious. Alright, they want me to eat cucumbers and lettuce. Not saying they're saying free God that way, but you see what I'm saying with this understanding of modern beliefs. Not all vegans are that way, but there are some that are very extreme. And yes, I'm sorry, meat is good. I guess it's sort of like that philosophy. And even on that, because, well, I'm going to redefine that then. I agree with you that God is sovereign, but that doesn't mean He's in control of everything. You mean to tell me that this book is infallible? Well, infallible doesn't mean without error. It doesn't have errors in it. It's not misleading. That's not what it means. It just means that you can get some good stuff out of it. It's not an errand. It's infallible. But infallible means that you get good stuff from it. So just modifying words. changing descriptions, which they're constantly changing descriptions. Yes, definitions are constantly changing. And it's funny to watch sometimes, but then it's sad when you see what is being manipulated and changed and why it's being manipulated and changed. So again, just looking at some contemporary examples. One of the first ones I thought of when I see his title there, and I don't know how many vans I see around town with something like that on the side. All right. I'm going to tell you what the Bible really says by what authority. Well, I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ appointed by God the Father. That's how. That sounds awesome. It's on my business card even here. Boom. I got it on my van. It's on my license plate. By what authority? But you know, we see that in Catholicism today. With the Pope, I mean, Francis changed the words of prayer. I mean, he... The vicar of Christ. So there's no apostles, but the ones originally... And again, when we start talking about the apostolic age, so yes, when the apostles were done, and that's why last week, if you don't have it, I have one over there, but last week, showing the five main early church fathers. So the right after the apostles, these are the church fathers. And most of them, I know the two that we looked at were Polycarp and the other guy were John's disciples. And so they're getting teaching straight from the apostles and the defense they're using against these heresies are scriptural. They're using John's letter. Here's John's letter. I'm going to use this. So they're not making up their own teachings even, but they never claimed to be apostles. So that's a big difference in reading these. That's why history is important. Reading these early church fathers, none of them are claiming authority based on an apostolic line. Some people add that later on like, yes, this man was the fourth pope because Peter gave it to him. Well, where do you get that from? That helps you in your current religion by going back and retroactively changing things. But if you go and read these men's writing, they're not claiming that. Here's the authority. Here's what Christ said. Here's the letter. Here's the scripture I'm using. All right, so like I say, even Polycarp, he is literally using phrases straight out of one of John's epistles. Here is scripture. Here's the proof. Here is the authority that I'm giving you, which is coming from the Holy Spirit, revealed to us through his word. So yes, there are no apostles today. And I get some people don't understand that. And we get into the cessationism versus miracles. And God is able to do whatever God wants to do. That's not the argument there. We're going to get into one of those hypocritical, make a rock you can't lift kind of things. But throughout history we see that the teachings came down through the Holy Spirit, then we had the church fathers who even their defense was still using Scripture, and that is how we're supposed to do it today too. There's not going to be a special revelation. It's been revealed to us. We have the revelation of God as He wants us to know Him right here in front of us. That's why even with Marcion and that canon of Scripture, Go ahead and throw out all the books you want. God's word is going to be preserved. He has preserved his word. We have many documents that are verifying that the book in front of us, these books in front of us are legit. Okay, so it's beautiful to see that. But- I think, Jim, there's this, I wrote it down here, this idea of a functional dualism in Christianity today where we've, and God playing chess. And you sit there and you go like, oh, that sounds like a really cool analogy if you realize what really being said there is saying is equal to God, and they're having a strategy battle. So the other one, you sit there and you start realizing how many of us really are functioning in a way that is Sad. I had a conversation with a guy a long time ago telling me about even chromogenesis. And he goes, yeah, and Adam did that, and there's God wringing his hand trying to figure out what he's got to do to fix the fault. And you sit there, and you start realizing that they're not saying that they're not redeemed, but they're functioning in this way, and it's really sad because you have a God who is equal to his creature or a creature who's equal to God, or you have a God that has to react to a lesser creature that he created. And so in either case, God is not God. And so how do we deal with that? I mean, do some of us really function that way sometimes? That's what you said, helping God, right? The means that God uses does not mean that that's the necessity. Okay? We believe that God uses means. All right? Can God do this situation without any other forces? Yes. What's he doing? He's using these three men to go and do this. So it's not that God needs them to do that. That's the means that God use. So means does not equal necessity. And I do think that we conflate that a lot of times. So see, God needed these people to do that. No, no, he didn't. No, but he used them to do that. So we get that a lot of times and we can see that I see, you know, different times you're reading scripture. I never noticed that before. Look at how this all I say, connecting the dots. Wow. No, that was not, God needed them to all do this in order for that to work out. God's eternal decree, God's divine providence. Here's what happened. And it's more beautiful to me that way that we do have a sovereign property defined God. I mean, having verified that, you have to verify that we were God. You could say He spoke to me, and He switched from cucumber to carrots. I didn't say carrots, bro, I said cucumbers. Let's not... No, but there is this... I say, in the modern age, this seems absurd. But let's look at some modern examples. At the bare level, yes, I like that functioning dualism because we do have this misunderstanding. And I say we collectively because everybody is not saved and has this vast knowledge of God and the doctrines and everything. Explain to Trinity, I'm just saved. I believe that God redeemed me. Okay, what's that mean? Explain that. Not gonna happen immediately. Praise God, some people do function faster in their growth and their desire and thirst, but others, it is a little bit harder. There is a struggle. There is more sanctification than needs. Like we talked about before, some people just need a fine cloth to be polished and the rest of us need the chainsaw and the sandpaper. But we shouldn't be satisfied with being, that's all I need. That's why, again, the means of growth is coming and hearing the preaching of the word. The spirit applies that to us. But I'm good with this. Okay, well now you're going to fall into all these other means. Or yes, now I'm going to be my own authority. I don't like the way this says that. And of course, that's one of the problems with Manny was he rejected any elements of Christianity that clashed with his worldview. So I don't like this part of it, but I like how they address it. I like how they address it. All right, we get that a lot. Now, that's not the Jesus that I follow. The Jesus I follow wouldn't do that. 25 times, he did it right here. Well, I don't like that Jesus. All right, and yes, again, so disassociate from the Old Testament, that's ridiculous as well. But this, you said revelation, there's no revelation. There's another angel. That's a great way to pronounce that, yes. Moron. Moron. It's a combination of moron and it's macaroni, it's a more Roman. Anybody know who this angel is? Yes. I know John knows who it is. Anybody else? If you weren't already in awe of this ridiculousness of the Cucumber Man, Moroni's gonna find a guy who used to swindle people for their money by lying to them about the special power he had, and Moroni's gonna give them these two tablets with Egyptian hieroglyphics. And he was a New Yorker. You can't read Egyptian hieroglyphics, it's not a problem. I'm going to give you these glasses that you can read the stones with. But you have to hide so nobody else can see you translating the stones for me. You tell this guy out here writing what they're going to say and I'm going to teach you how to write the Book of Mormon. Oh, that guy. It's not cucumbers, but what's the absurdity in that? And now what authority? Well, I am the one who is chosen. I am the further revelation of Jesus Christ. By what authority? Oh, I'm gonna give myself a cool fancy title. Business cards. It gets more ridiculous, but that's Moroni. That's how it came to be. And yes, it's defended by many today, but how many actually know? And that's one thing, though, because I'm going to flip that switch on us again. Okay, Christian, what do you really know? When the followers of this tradition, the modern-day cucumber eaters, come to you talking about, well, that's not what the Bible you're reading really means. Let me properly translate it to you. All right, it's easy to fall into those, especially when they are doing good works, especially when you see this idea of love coming from them. Yes, I'm having a hard time right now. You're telling me things that make me feel good and oh, okay, now I can disassociate from the worldview I don't like and the parts of Christianity that conflict with that and I'm gonna embrace this Egyptian hieroglyphics, gold tablets and the magic reading glasses. They weren't really glasses, I think they were Supposed to be, he can put them on the book and read it, but I like thinking of them as glasses. He puts on his magic steampunk glasses, Victorian era, and he can read the Egyptian hieroglyphics now. Even better, even better. If you're hearing This is Jim's sentence. But if you're hearing an angel, especially if his name is Moroni or something like that, and you're hearing him tell you a new gospel, what does the Bible say about that? If somebody's bringing a new gospel to you, what does scripture say? Please tell me we can at least defend that right now. I don't know what he said, but... What did Paul say about that? If anyone comes to you with any other gospel, it can be accursed. Even if it's me. Let's go to the Word of God. Let's make sure that we understand. And this is why that firm foundation, that basic biblical understanding should cause us to want to grow more and more. You don't have to be a expert that can debate all this. Like I said, I got into a conversation the other day over eschatology, and you guys know I joke about that, but that's all he wanted to talk about. I'm like, this is not even the relevant part of the conversation we're having right now, but you're fixed on this, so I guess we'll talk here. What about this other stuff? I don't know that. What about this? Well, I don't know about that. You want to focus on this area of Scripture and not what it means to you. You want to focus on angels and demons, some people, but not what this means. As we looked last week, you want to focus on this aspect of Christ's ministry, but not the rest of it. Even the, you know, help people. Yes, we believe in helping people. The organization, the Red Letter Christians. And then Stanley, this is the part we're focusing on, this ministry here of helping people. Okay, but if you're helping them, they're still going to hell because you're not telling them the truth. Again, God's not needing you to do that, but that's the understanding we should have, that I don't care about their soul. No, that's an irresponsible and arrogant attitude. That's why when people hear about you have Calvinistic wings, you don't care about the loss. No, we should be very passionate about God's elect, about whom God is going to save. We should be very passionate about God's truth. And that's what our conversation should be. I love the fun stuff. I love joking in the eschatology. I love joking in the history of it. All right. I say Alexander the Great, just being able to see that in two books in the Bible unfold like this is awesome. They had the script of what was going to happen before it happened. And then afterwards, like, wow. All right. So I love that stuff. But don't get so caught up in this that we're missing the truth and what our obligation is. Don't don't wait for the Moroni to tell you what to do here. All right, and then of course we get this universalism, so that's incorporating a lot of this. All right, yes, the spirit, oh, it didn't work out, that's okay, you're gonna be born again, and then try it all over again, eat more cucumbers this time. You know, I don't know. It seems ridiculous, but people are going to hell, and these are some of the teachers that are out there. Well, even the Mormons, the Book of Mormon is revised and rewritten. their own book, like some of them, not just like we get different translations because we figure out better ways to word it, like they're completely revising. No, we didn't mean that. We got a new revelation that changed the one that we had that They have had some, and again, there have been some godly men, I say godly men because you read their other writings and there is what appears to be proof of their salvation. They had some wrong ideas throughout history, okay? But scripture is not rewritten to reflect that. It's either a proper understanding or a better exegesis on what that says. We need to rewrite this because that literally says that... Your race is descendants from Satan, so we need to rewrite that now because we were wrong. So he misread the original text here when you said that it can't be? Or which of his four books is the legit one to use? When you get into Mormonism, the problem in Mormonism is that it's a man that becomes God. And how does that happen? Because there's just so many holes. And even what you just said is right. They're even throwing some of their former apostles that they will never question. They're throwing them under the bus now, and what they're going with is, we all believe. Yeah, but what do we believe? And that's, I think you're right, Jim, in that some of us like to be, I had this conversation years ago with a guy, he goes, I'm not worried about rewards, I just want to get into heaven. So like, it's like see Christians, you know what I mean? Like, I want to get an A. Mediocrity. We should be hungering to know God. I mean, to really know him and what he says about himself. I mean, that should be our hunger. Dry read, but... Look what he did, coming out of that, defending God, using the word of God. Like if you were to ask a writer in Hollywood about spirituality, that would be it. Yes, it is. It's probably like, let's just take what they think is the good qualities of each religion and put them together and say, oh, that's spirituality. And you see that on TV shows. It's really powerful to our kids. You know, I like the Avatar cartoon series, and I used it to teach Hinduism to my kids, And it's not just, we like to think that it's only these outside, not Christian things that are doing it. It's only PBS that's pushing it. It's only Disney. It's only, and it's like, it's not. Arya had a thing in her school today. Now this is her school is from a Christian organization. They are God-centered and yet there are still we still find things here and there you know and it was like filling in a crossword thing it was God made you to be his blank and I was looking at it I was like no just I think it's friend I was like that did not make me his friend that can't be the answer I'm like oh my goodness that's the answer they're looking for God made you to be his friend and this is like this is a God-centered curriculum and I'm like God didn't make you to be his friend. He is your friend, but he didn't make you to be his friend. And Joseph said in Proverbs, he made you to glorify him. And I was like, that's right, baby. Good job, good job. You remember nothing else. We talked about not knowing what Easter was about last week, but that's okay. You know that you were made to glorify God. The kids are being catechized. By what? Is it by the truth, or is it by the truth? You know, we were doing, I was at a church where they did children's church, and it was our turn to do children's church, and I'm not in agreement with that. I was just a woefully ignorant Christian. And so, but, so we're teaching about Jesus, you know, feeding the 5,000. And the theme of the lesson that was given to us from this book was, you know, Jesus did this because Sharon is caring. And you sit there and, you know, I'm not the smartest guy, but I look at that and I go, I know that ain't right. I don't know the right answer, but I know that's not me. That's not right. And so, but you sit there and you go like, how often was that lesson taught that way and being taught that way all the way through, you know, wherever this book is being sent? Because it was, it was a book that was geared towards teaching children's church. And so if we're not careful, you know, we will hurt our kids. We really will. And that's why I see we want to teach our kids. We're going to use this new model. It's going to help them learn it better. How did they used to do it? And I thought, well, why can't we use pictures of Jesus to teach them about Jesus? Show me where Paul was doing that. Yeah, they walked around and had the coloring pages to pass out. No, that's not how they did it. The Word of God, the Holy Spirit's gonna apply that truth to them. We have to believe this. If it goes to the other way, well, I have to do it this way, it's now God's relying on us. I can't help these kids learn about God if I'm not doing this. Proclaim the truth of God's Word. I love our catechisms. We have one that's a little bit easier for the kids. We have Keeches, which it does have some wording that even I get tongue-tied over. And then we're using the Orthodox catechism. All right. Kids know the Puritans were catechizing their kids with the Heidelberg, which there's some long answers. There are five paragraph answers under some of it there. So, all right. Let's not demean our children and their future by, you know, not expecting anything from them. If they are redeemed, if they have that same power of the Holy Spirit that you have in you, they're going to learn this. It might not be the same at that age, like, say, my son Joseph, I heard John say, Jesus died on the cross. God can't die. You're right. But Jesus is God, yes. But Jesus died, yes. But God can't die, yes. And as you grow, you're going to learn. I pray that you're going to learn and be able to articulate that more. And then you're going to be able to say hypostatic union, trinity means, and it's going to be great. But as a kid, just basic catechizing and that protects this again, the catechizing, the creeds, the confessions, biblically based, biblical authority are keeping the parameters. So you don't have this. Anything. Just bombarding culture with that. See, if you're not blocking your left and right with the truth, you're going to get into some of these heresies over here. Even just a little bit. You step out just a little bit. Next thing you're embracing a little bit fuller. Next thing you're eating cucumbers to free God. We say no. This is less than 200 years separated from the revolution of Christianity. Yes, I like that. I'm going to change it. I'm going to take these other older models and stuff. And I get that. Some people, they look at Christianity, oh, you're just taking that from this old Babylonian gods that they worship here. or those Babylonians are mimicking the truth from God's word. They had to see what was taking place by God's people. All right, looking at all the, I call them the termites, the Ammonites, the Canaanites, all the termites. All right, they are witnessing what God is doing for them. And so yes, there's gonna be some mimicking. There's gonna be some overlapping and the influence from our idolatrous hearts. When you look at those ancient creation stories, everybody's Because of that life, it's trying to figure out how we get here. Why are we here? What's our purpose? I mean, they're not, we're not any smarter than those guys. And they're certainly no dumber than we are. So, I mean, everybody's asking those questions. What is my purpose? And everybody can look outside and see, I didn't make the sun. I didn't make the trees. How did that happen? You know? Everyone without excuse I like to use that though because that light within us Yes a proper understanding. We're gonna call it the image of God. We have this this truth not enough for salvation obviously, but that basic understanding with a improper teaching Is not going to these that light within us? Oh now I can help spark that light and Oh, now I need to do these good works to get that spark into a flame. Ooh, I need to do this other stuff. Hey, that sounds kind of good. Let me get into this aspect of it. Uh-oh, the spark is spiritual. Now I'm going all full dualism Gnosticist. So even that proper understanding, yes, there is a light within us. Okay, we are made in the image of God, but it's that knowledge of God is that light, and people will use terminology, and you're not grounding the truth right and left. Yeah, hey, I like that too. I'm gonna take these elements of Zen Buddhism to help me. He also had Hinduism, yeah, so I'm not as familiar with Hinduism because they all seem to have some overlap. Buddhism, I'm the most familiar with. I'm still wrong. It's a dualistic reincarnation over and over again. And yeah, I'll be a bug or something the next time. And then I'll eat more cucumbers and then read some Egyptian hieroglyphics. It's crazy. But that is Manny. If you want to, Yes, City of God, I think it's 22 volumes. I have to look it up, I believe it's Faustus, something like that, but he is specifically battling the anti-mani teachings that this guy had. But Augustine, another theologian defender of the faith. And I believe I first learned of him in one of John Piper's, he had the Defenders of the Faith series. So I learned about Athanasius there, Augustine, had some different ones on what they were defending. So here's a heresy. And here's a church father that was battling that heresy. And it's just another good book, good resource for us. But does anybody have any final thoughts or questions on Manny?