Hello and welcome to the second in our broadcast we call Plain and Simple and we're dealing with the subject of understanding the times in which we live. Very important. Stay tuned for our broadcast today. Well, on our broadcast last time we looked in 2 Chronicles 12, 32 and talked about men that had understanding of the times to know what Israel ought to do. We need to have understanding of the times today so we know what we ought to do. In our last broadcast we see some good men got together and they did some human reasoning and they came up with what we call the fundamental movement. There's no grounds in the scriptures for any movement. God's program today is the local church. Well, they reasoned together and they came up with what they called their fundamentals, except they left one third of the Great Commission out of it. They just ignored that. They didn't bother with that, because if they're going to talk about the third part, which is baptism, then they wouldn't have unity with all their Anglicans and their Presbyterians. And so for the sake of unity, they dumped the truth. Now, we need to understand the day in which we're living. We're living in an age of apostasy. What we call fundamentalism is further gone. doctrinally than evangelicalism was when I got out of it back in the 1960s. Today we need to understand that what we call fundamentalism today is very man-centered. Our movement started out man-centered and it's man-centered today. Let me give you an example. Recently a concerned parent asked me for some guidelines for her children who were on Facebook. So I researched the site for three days. I made a survey of only 15 young people from independent Baptist churches in our area who were on Facebook. There were at least three times that many fundamental independent Baptist young people and their fundamental pastors in Ontario on this social networking site. Well, as I searched it, I found that some of these young people had some very wicked friends. I found that each of these young people from our fundamental Baptist churches had an average of 120 friends on their site that they communicated with. I found that the friends of these young people had friends promoting the occult, very vulgar sexual comments, and one actually had a close-up picture of a man's privates. I found on some of the sites of our Fundamental Independent Baptist young people a sex button that said browse profiles of hot-looking young people and have sex with them in different positions and places. Put a sex button on your profile so your friends can have sex with you. That's what I found on some of the pages of our Fundamental Independent Baptist Young People. Their friends also had other material and photos too immoral to report in this broadcast. Well, it took me another three days after getting off of this trash to get the trash out of my mind after being on these sites of our fundamental, independent, Baptist young people. Well, I published several articles warning pastors of the dangers of the site, and they're available on our website if you want to read them. Now, keep in mind that the issue I'm dealing with here is not Facebook. I'm not dealing with the issue of Facebook. I'm dealing with the responses of fundamental men And I am dealing with the fact that fundamentalism is man-centered. I got one response from the pastor of a smaller church who said, thank you for the excellent warning, Brother Kirkland. At one time I had profiles on three different social networking sites. And everything you said is very true. Even if someone's motives for being part of one of these sites is pure, they cannot help but be bombarded with immorality, pornographic, or near-pornographic pictures. Also, most of these sites have very sensual advertising, including swimsuit calendars, pornographic screensavers, and dating sites. that will pop up from time to time and are impossible not to see. Well, that was one response from a pastor in a smaller church. I got another response from a pastor in a large church that was very much in the forefront of fundamentalism in our country at that time, and this is what he said to me. He said, I just preached at Crown College two weeks ago and I heard Dr. Sexton encourage his grads to stay in touch with him through Facebook. He continued in his letter to me, Dr. Chappell, and I talked about this when he was here last month. He twitters and has people that stay up with him, and the pastor who wrote me's conclusion was, I don't know that Facebook is sinful. Now, how did he come to the conclusions? He came to the conclusions because of what other well-known fundamental leaders with large ministries said. I'm saying here that fundamentalism is very man-centered. He ignored the facts in my article, and he ignored the testimony of the pastor of a smaller church who confirmed my findings about this trash-filled site. In his letter to me, he started the letter with the phrase, I think. He told me what he thought after he had reasoned together with other big-name fundamentalists to see what they thought. He offered no scripture to support his conclusion. He referred to the opinions of successful-looking fundamentalists. I am saying to you, fundamentalism is man-centered, man-centered. Now, if we're going to, as I recently said in our last broadcast, if we're going to reason together, let's reason out of the Scriptures. That's what Acts 17 and 2 says to do. Well, how do you respond when someone who rebukes you, particularly if you are rebuked about something like this publicly? Well, when Paul was under the direction of the Holy Spirit, he publicly exposed Peter for leading people astray. Peter would obviously respond in one way or another to his rebuke. How did he respond? Well, in Peter's final recorded words in 2 Peter 3.15, he referred to Paul as our beloved brother Paul, and he made reference to the wisdom given unto him. Not only that, prior to that, at the council meeting at Jerusalem, recorded in Acts 15, Peter defended Paul in their discussion concerning the very thing that Paul had publicly confronted him about. The Bible says this, only by pride cometh contention, but with the well-advised is wisdom. Only by pride comes contention. We don't get contentious over issues, we get contentious because of pride. And so, an issue like this, and a broadcast like this, you can get all bent out of shape, or we can say, no, if I'm going to have contention here, I am going to have to realize it's only by pride. Now we're dealing now with present day issues. We have some leaders today who are running under the banner of fundamentalism. who are leading people astray. They may be good friends, however, they need to be rebuked before all." Well, we see that Peter had a Christ-like response when he was rebuked before everybody. When we're dealing with present issues today, how are we going to respond if someone rebukes us for something we're doing wrong? God has raised up a ministry, for example, by the name of Way of Life under the direction of David Cloud, who faithfully takes this unpleasant responsibility of exposing compromisers. He's very frank. He's an outspoken man of God, like the Bible says we all should be. He has printed many facts concerning the compromises of some fundamental leaders. And he receives a lot of mail as a result of that. One recent response he received said, you need to stop this hating of people. He was referred to as some kind of a lunatic. And many other mean-spirited remarks were sent to him. If Brother Cloud was exposing someone who wasn't one of our fundamental friends, he would be admired for telling the truth. However, to expose one of our group, he becomes a hateful lunatic. What am I saying? I am saying that fundamentalism is a very man-centered movement. Perhaps today's fundamentalists should publish a new version of the Bible, they could call it their fundamental movement Bible, and they could take 2 Thessalonians 3, 6, where it says, Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not after the tradition which ye have received of us, only they would have to add, unless, of course, you think it will cause your friends in the ministry to dislike you or write some mean things about you. Or maybe they could change 1 Thessalonians 5.20 to hold fast that which is good, unless it is something your friends are holding to that is unscriptural, then you can hold on to whatever they're holding on to. Maybe we could change 2 Timothy 4.2 to reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine, unless it might offend one of your friends. Maybe Titus 2 and 15 could be changed to rebuke with all authority, unless you might lose a friend. Or maybe John 7 and 24, judge righteous judgment, unless it might get one of your buddies upset. Maybe we could change Romans 16, 17 to mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them, unless you think it might bother some of your friends. Maybe what we could do is change 1 Timothy 3.14, these things write I unto thee, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth. But if you think you have a better way, then just go ahead and do that which is right in your own eyes. We might as well come out with a Bible like that, because that's the way many so-called fundamentalists are doing it today. Years ago, A. W. Tozer said, dare we, the heirs of such a legacy of power, tamper with the truth? Dare we, with our stubby pencils, erase the lines of the blueprint or alter the pattern God shows us? God forbid. Let us preach the old cross and we will know the old power. So what we're talking about here is to have the understanding to know what we ought to do in this age of apostasy. Romans 15 and 4 says, for whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning. All the Old Testament says these things happen and they are written for our admonition upon whom the end of the world has come. These things in the Old Testament were written for us. So, we look back there, we see Israel rejected God's plan for what they thought was a better way. In Psalm 78 5, it says that God made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents. Tribes and tents. Well, the leaders in Israel's day, like the leaders of our day, decided they had a better plan. They were weary of dwelling in tents and they didn't like this idea of tribes. They wanted to do things the way the world was doing things. So in 1 Samuel 8 and 4 it says, Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together and came to Samuel and said unto him, Make us a king to judge us like all the nations. We want to do it like the nations are doing it. God wanted the tribes living a simple life. The word tribe or tribes is in the Bible over 350 times. It was God's plan for Israel. In Numbers 24 and verse 5, we read, How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob. Yep, God wanted it that way in Psalm 78 and 5. He made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents. Well, they didn't get tired of the tents. They got tired of the tribes. God's plan for Israel was plain, it was simple. Israel was divided into twelve tribes. God had ordained priests to teach, and in turn the parents were to lead their families in the way of the Lord. Deuteronomy 6, 4-8 says, And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and thou shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up, and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes." So before Israel entered the Promised Land, they followed God's plan. In the wilderness, it was God's plan for priests to teach, and the parents were to be sure their families understood the things that were taught. It was in this context that we read, "'How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob!' and thy tabernacles, O Israel." They were simply doing things God's way. When Joshua led Israel into the Promised Land, we read, the plan remained the same. Psalm 78, 55 said, God cast out the heathen also before them and divided them and inheritance by line, made the tribes of Israel to dwell in tents. Well, the Philistines were a threat to Israel, and Israel and their elders did not trust God to cast out the heathens like He said He would. 1 Samuel 7 and 3, Samuel said, Prepare your hearts unto the Lord, and serve Him only, and He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. Well, the elders decided they would rather trust their own plan. And so in 1 Samuel 8 and 4, it says that all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together and came to Samuel and said unto him, make us a king to judge us like all the nations. Let's do it like the nations are doing it. And so they did it and they ended up in serious trouble. We'll look at it in more detail in our next broadcast. Be sure and tune in. We'll try to make it plain and simple. you you you