Okay, so we're gonna do a little bit of recapping too because this is the final final week and There's actually quite a jump if you notice we started with During the time of the Apostles, you know in the New Testament the book of Acts when we saw the Judaizers So we followed them and I've got this over here the first century church we followed In our course of study here, the apostles, dealing with the Judaizers, and even if you look, we didn't introduce them until later, but the Ebionites, who said that yes, Jesus was a historical person, but not divine. So even going back as far as that. And then the students, those followers of the apostles, such as Polycarp and some others, in the first into the second century. So we had the church fathers. And then what we've been going over the past six or so weeks has been in the second to the fifth century dealing with just other theological teachers, bishops and different stuff. And I have to make a correction. I'm going to have to go on the audio too. Last week I kept saying Athanasius and I meant Augustine. I meant Augustine. So everywhere I said Athanasius, was incorrect, I meant Augustine, it's another one of those A's because they are two different people and it was different things. Augustine was the one who was under the Manichaeans and battling a lot of the writing. So I kept saying Athanasius because I wrote it up there and my brain just wouldn't stop. So anyways, and then we get into an area here and it's gonna be part of what we're gonna get into but just so you can see. So this is where we ended up last week and now we're gonna be jumping forward from the 5th century into the 16th century. Okay, I've got some red over here, we're gonna discuss it, that's where I started getting my side tangent, because a lot of people say that the church did not exist here, and that's garbage and unbiblical, and we're gonna get into some of that. Okay, it's the dark ages of the church, if you want to call it that, the medieval church, but we know from scripture that God has always had his remnant, he's always had his people, and nothing prevails against his church, his body. So, that's why I got the red over there, we're gonna get into what's going on. But getting into the heretics and heresies we discussed during that top portion there. We had, again, the Judaizers were adding to the gospel. So I answered that one for you, it was the Judaizers. And then we had Gnosticism, which was, I remember it was comparing and contrasting the corrupt physical with the spiritual. And there's a lot of them that fell under that umbrella. What was the Unitarian versus Trinitarian heresy? What does that even mean? What does Unitarian mean? What does Trinitarian mean? Trinitarian doesn't mean three gods, but that's the way the Unitarians saw that teaching. So Trinitarian is what I consider the Orthodox teaching of God three in one. All right? One God and three persons. That's the Trinitarian understanding. Yes, the Unitarians and why they were trying to defend their understanding of God was because they thought that it made it look like three gods. So they both had a monotheistic understanding. God is one. but Unitarian. And some of those heresies that came out of that, do you remember any of those heresies from the Unitarians? Oh, you're good. What was that one? Who remembers what Civilianism was? Modalism, the three hats, put on a different hat. And this is important because, again, all these are important. What we see that took place in history has just been regurgitated by somebody else or parts taken and moved on. So this one, and I've got it different than the Gnosticism, because Gnosticism is going to impact some of the next areas that we saw. But going back to the Unitarian versus Trinitarian, the Modalism. Another one that's going to impact both the Trinitarian nature of God and Christ was Arianism. Who remembers what Arianism was? I'm trying to put you on the spot and see what you retain, but so you know, this is an old heresy that is still going door to door and inviting you to celebrate the death of Christ on what you guys consider Easter over here at the Watchtower Temple. So it is an active belief. All right, modalism. We have the one that's Pentecostals that are very much modalism. So these are not new heresies, but what made them appealing? That's where we're going to get into a lot of what took place over there, but what made them appealing? Why did people seek these out? Christ, person, humanity, divinity. You remember some of those heresies? What were some of the heresies of Christology with his natures? All right, mixing the natures as well as the other ones. Remember, so as if they were two people, completely separate, so there was the mixing, and then the other extreme, this is what we went over last week, the other extreme was completely separating the natures that they were two people, and even before that, they'll go into, who was that? Apollinarius, because that's the one that William Lane Craig is a neo-Apollinarius, that the divine took over the human mind and will of the humanity of Christ. So the man Jesus was basically puppeteered by the divine of the Son of God in his mind and will. So that's another one of these Christological heresies that went on. So you see just in that first Four centuries of the church, there was a lot being discussed and trying to defend. Here's what we believe scripture says about our God, about our Savior. I want to defend that now. And they inadvertently, as we did in a couple of my questions and answers here, you step into heresy. You're trying to explain something and you step into heresy. The Atonement, a lot of these and the Atonement, so even going back up to mysticism or to Gnosticism, the mysticism of that spiritual only, if there's no humanity, the Atonement has a whole different understanding for those people. Some that would say, and we even looked at like Marcion, where the Old Testament God, the God who created was not even the high God, that that wasn't until the New Testament when he sent his messenger. So the atonement looks different. We looked at Pelagius a couple weeks ago, but the atonement was quite different too, because you are the one responsible. God gave you a grace that allowed you to save yourself. That Christ's atonement is unnecessary. So these are heresies that resonated in the early church. Like I said, the first 500 years of the church were battling these different things. and some of them were just rehashing. A lot of them fell under, if you remember the Gnostic umbrella, encompasses a lot of the different beliefs where they pick and choose from different areas. So we see that a lot. And then the last one is what's going to focus on today is this human reason over God's word. And we did see that with some who would, it was Manny who had a crazy idea, that's where the whole cucumber one, if you still haven't listened to that one, they were freeing God from plants. Or even Marcion, where disregarded the complete Old Testament and picked and choose what fit his understanding. So, giving human reason over scripture. Even the Gnosticism, where this enlightenment, you have this special, secret, revealed knowledge that's given you this elitism over others, and that's going against Scripture, this human reason over what Scripture says. So that brings us to Socinus, or Sozinus, Socinus, he had some different names. I mean, you got three aliases, I'm already gonna be questionable about your teachings. But Faustus. Faustus Socinus. And as I said, last week we were ending in the late 400s to 500s AD, and now we're jumping forward to the 16th century. And there's a reason for that, which we'll get into. As I said, I got my little red arrow over there, and then I'm gonna give you a boring history lesson, but it's exciting to me, and it's gonna hopefully give you some more names that you can write down and learn about these godly men and what they fought the faith, their reason for fighting the faith, and what they did for the faith. But I got a little blurb there on Faustus. That's from the Know the Heretics book. And some of these men, their teachings are recorded because of others who went against them. But a lot of The early life on them, you're having to look at biased history. So this is a problem with looking at some areas. It's a biased history. I forget who it was early in the heresies. Omarion, most of the people writing against him, where we got what he did. So we didn't have any of his writings, but we had the opposition. So in some instances, It is a biased understanding, but we can piece together the teachings of them from what has prevailed, what has been written against, and that gives us an understanding, a glimpse into that history. But Faustus, since he was much later, we do have a lot of writing, and this is the little blurb on him. Born from a noble family, independent wealth, and he chose various paths of study, showing promise in law and writing. Eventually, this, the Renaissance man, with connections to the Sinese intellectual elite, he became famous for his theological thought. And that's important because I have below that this Rakovian Catechism. I did not highlight it on yours, but first published in the Polish language. And again, this is a bias. I'm going to tell you where I got this from if you look in the notes. But this groundbreaking work is still controversial after 400 years because of its sound logic and systematic critique of Trinitarian Orthodoxy. This is from a page called Biblical Unitarian. So this is a Unitarian Christian site that of course is against Trinitarianism. So they hold to some of the heresy teachings that we're going to read from Faustus. So kindness today. But sound logic, right, there's an indicator going to this human reason which we'll get into, but sound logic and a systematic critique. I'm okay with that. Some people don't like to hear a critique because they are afraid that's gonna knock their faith down. I'm not a good debater, that's why I don't like debating people. They come at me, like I work with a guy who was always trying to debate me and he is very eloquent, wordy, good at formulating his thoughts, and made me look like, well, I lost, so God doesn't exist because you lost. Well, thank God it's not up to me defending him because, you know, finally I got him tangled up on something. He asked about, there was some, you know, magazines and military and stuff, and he made the comment, well, if God wanted us to have clothes, he would have made us clothes. Hang on a second there, brother. Let me show you a scripture here. And he was like, you show, I'm on to you now. So, it was great though, but I am not good at that. I'm not good at debating. So, It's not that I'm opposed to hearing in opposition, but I'm not good at responding to it. So I have read other arguments. Well, here's what you believe. What about this? Well, I better read that then because I want to know why I believe what I believe. And this is, I love catechizing children, but as they grow up, they are going to be encountered with questions that go against what they thought was the truth. And it's going to be up to them and pray that God is, you know, indwelling them with His Holy Spirit that they will be able to see the truth and that light of truth will illuminate that it is truth. But it's not bad to look at the opposition. I say that with the, you know, the stamp I have there for research purposes only, you know, heretical. By reading the Book of Mormon, well, I won't touch that because it's going to make me believe in it. I hope that your faith is not that weak, but you do need to know what they believe so you have an understanding. I'm not saying read it all because there are some people that did a good job already of fine-tuning what the differences are and what you need to understand. But this Rakovian catechism, again, this is a catechism, so Sokainis and others in this area, this Polish region, wrote this catechism and it has what they believe. So where we have a catechism that asks, how many persons are there in the Godhead? That's not what their catechism says. All right, but we believe that is truth. So that is what we are teaching our young men and women. And they had a different one. So they are teaching what they believe. It's like we say, your children are being catechized in the world even. Whatever they're watching on TV, they are being taught something. So they're being catechized by something. And then I'm bringing up the Reformation here. And I'm not gonna read all that to you. You can look at that. I just grabbed a blurb from one of the pocket dictionaries on Logos of the Protestant Reformation. But I want to bring that up, because that's going to put us into the mindset of what is taking place with this wealthy, smart, intelligent man, Faustus Sokinis. What took place between the 5th century and the 16th century was a lot of fighting, speaking specifically in Europe. A lot of fighting. This is what I went over before, where if a kingdom wanted resources, I'm going to team up with the church. The Catholic Church was, I think, in the 11th century is when they split, Eastern and Western Empire Church split up there. But people would, oh, here's the money over here. Yes, go ahead and baptize me in the name of your church so I can get your backing and we can go to war here. So there was a lot. Christianity was not dead, but it was corrupt. And that led to, that's what the Reformation, we celebrate the Reformation. Some celebrate it a lot weirder than others. I like to eat the 99 Reese's. You see the Reese's pieces on the door? 95 Reese's, sorry. I had four more because I've got to have 99. For a long time, the kids did not know what Reese's tasted like because I was always, that was my daddy tax, but when I quit eating the Reese's, like, this is what it tastes like. And I think our Reformation made it fat free. I did hear that, yeah. Yes. So it's verified by another church member, so it must be true. But there was a lot of corruption taking place. That does not mean that God's people did not exist. God protected His people and we know because we see the thought process coming into even the Reformation. What do we understand the Reformation to be? When did the Reformation start? What's the general understanding of the Reformation? Martin Luther, 1517. So that's going to be the start of the 16th century. All Hallows Eve. That's the formal date of the Reformation, 1517. And again, Martin Luther wasn't trying to start the Lutheran religion. He had questions. He was a Catholic. He was translating scripture, writing scripture like, this Convicting me. This is wrong. Why is the church doing this when scripture says this? So he came up with as he's writing these down. I have 95 issues that I would like to discuss with the church Here's 95 things that I think we don't have right and I would love to discuss them. That's what it was You know, we have these different ideas of him pounding it on the door. Yeah done That that's not what it was, but they like to discuss things. So that's what it was is I have these issues He wanted to reform within the the Catholic Church not start his own Denomination which later that's what happened and I can get into the history. That's where I got sidetracked I can get into the history on all those in the Dieta verms and all these great things and him having to be hidden and stuff But I bring that up because that's not When the Reformation started Here's where I have to get into all the John's When we think about translating the Bible early, what's the name that everybody thinks of I Everybody thinks Tyndale, but that wasn't until after, I think I spelled them right. Yes, Wycliffe, who was John, was in the 14th century. His teachings, though, were picked up by the predecessor to Luther, who Luther even was talking to the Hussites, and that was John Huss. with the Jan, which is a cool name. But John Huss in the 15th century, and so they had the Hussites was his followers. That's why I like the killings, or you can be killing knights if you want to. But John Huss picked up on Wycliffe, and he agreed with him on most. Wycliffe was very much against the transubstantiation during the Lord's Separate Elements. He was against that, whereas John Huss wasn't, but still he was like, I'm reading in this Latin Vulgate, I have this, Bible here and you're saying that we're not allowed to translate it. Well, this was translated from Greek and Hebrew though So why can't we know we're not allowed to translate into the the common vernacular at a time, but it was already done So why not? Well, that's what Wycliffe did and of course that was heretical according to the church the common man couldn't read Hebrew He translated into English and even those who couldn't read at least if okay Jim can read I'm reading you now this I've never had it before I've been listening to the priest Translate from Latin and tell me what they're saying now. I'm reading in English So even if you couldn't read it, you're understanding it in your own language. This was huge and then his different doctrines He developed in different papers. He wrote and then John Huss he Wycliffe was smarter and John Huss was teaching and the Hussites and was against the he wanted reform in a Catholic Church as well and he was burned at the stake and Okay, and of course, I love the ref tunes there, but you know, like, there's gonna be one who comes after me, the Swan, or whatever it was, and a hundred years later, the Reformation got full swing with Martin Luther. So these men had questions, they're reading scripture. So God, the Holy Spirit is illuminating his truth, the word to them, like this is going against tradition. Now that's what the scales over here. During this time, before we get to the translating the Bible and the start of the Reformation, during this time, we had a change of this pendulum. And I've got them equal right here, but so we have the apostles that are giving us the word of God, all right? But it's difficult for everybody to understand everything. For example, the triune nature of God. The natures of Christ. How do we formulate these thoughts? So they wrote creeds, they had councils which we went over, and they formulated this together, this orthodox understanding. Here's what we believe scripture teaches about these things. So it's scriptural, but now, we refer to these creeds, councils, that's tradition. So we have scripture, we have tradition. All right, so the doctrine. Doctrines are based off of scripture, but what if it's difficult to understand? We see the argument over here with the triune nature of God. How does God exhibit these persons? How is he the father? How is he the son? Well, we need to formulate that. They're all trying to base their doctrine off of scripture, But we're looking at these orthodox creeds that we feel summarize scripture the best. So now that's leaning to the tradition as well. We will never put tradition above scripture, but if you just totally throw away tradition, you are disregarding the means that God has used to preserve doctrines as well. His Word is preserved, alright? But do you understand everything you're reading? I know I don't, and I'm still having to look at other men. I saw, I posted the other day, though, it's, you know, all the godly men have come before me are dragging Homer Simpson up this mountain while he's sleeping. He wakes up and is like, wow, look how far I got. I'm not even tired. That's how I feel when I'm reading these writings of these other men. They have done the hard work, and I'm basically you know, leaping on what they have done to help me understand it. Still, scripture, pray, let the Holy Spirit illuminate to you, but you would be wrong to throw out the history of what these men have gone through. I say, just looking at why, even the heretics here, why were they heretic? Well, they were trying to be faithful and defend God. And during the dark ages, there was a lot of Christian sects that were, like, wiped out, too, by the Catholics. Yes, on the biased webpage, but I like what they put on Emperor Theodicius, they made disbelief in the Trinity a capital crime. Okay, so there was a lot of things where translating the Bible into your own language was a capital crime. not believing the Trinity was the capital crime. So I'm not saying that these men weren't godly because I know, like I say, even today with some of the Oneness Pentecostal, there are some brothers and sisters who are part of these, some cults, some just misled denominations. They are members of that, that are members of the body of Christ. So I would not say that they're not Believers. But to say, nope, we're gonna kill anybody who doesn't believe this. Capital crime is going a bit far. And like you said, so these sects were destroyed. You didn't line up exactly with what they were telling you. Gone. Imprisonment at the least and that's the way that they can get revenue. So these things were taking place and That's why I like I say I disagree with the bias in this web page, but that is true There were some sincere people searching for the truth and I bring that up because even these heretics we looked at All right, were they setting out to be a heretic? Were they setting out to come up with his teaching that went against what scripture teaches? No, they were trying to defend God. They were trying to say I don't think what you said is right, so I'm going to say this." And well, now we both stepped into heresy. And then Thomas is going to try to correct us both and step into a third heresy. And so then these men get together and we did see that there was some rivalry taking place in the different areas. So a lot of that leads to what was taking place during this dark time. I do, like I say, I hate when people say, you know, all The true religion was lost until the Reformation, and we do get some elitism and arrogance in that. No. We can even go back to look in the Old Testament, when at the worst time you saw in God's people's lives, He still preserved His remnant. We can go all the way back to Genesis and Noah. I'm gonna say these eight. I'm gonna say these eight. That's a small number. I don't know the number, and I'm being careless if I were to come up with something, but I'm pretty sure there's probably more than eight of God's people surviving through this time of turmoil and, yes, darkness in the church. I would say it because it was a lot of corruption. But getting us now to so kindness, and I'm sorry for my rel, the tangent there, but this idea of tradition versus scripture is what's going to lead him, and I can't say specifically because We don't know each person's motivation. Even with Wycliffe, there was some political animosity between some of the magistrates at the time. So was some of it politically driven? I don't know. God's word into the common person's language was the right thing to do. So even if the motivation started off wrong, that was the right thing to do and he paid for it with his life. So tradition taking over though, and we do see that now. All right, no, this tradition, no, we're gonna add in purgatory and penance. Okay, why? Because we said so. Well, weren't you guys against that over here? Well, that wasn't wrong. We just added to it a new pope, new revelation, new scripture. Remember, they never corrected a church edict. They would write something else, and so they were never wrong. So these things could never be in error. They would just write something else. So even if you see a perceived contradiction, it always was in the church's favor. All right, and that's where tradition. So they like to say we keep an equal balance of the authority of scripture and the authority of tradition. Okay, we would like to say we will look at tradition only as much as it lines up with the authority of scripture. So if you wanna say that that's the balance, yes. Well, so kindness was definitely against that. And now we can finally get to my second page there. He had some views of the Trinity, he had some views of the atonement, he had some views of Christ that were already discussed as heretical in the first five centuries of the Church. Right? Why didn't he listen to that? That's garbage. If you're looking at tradition, you're wrong. It's only Scripture. No creed but Christ. Okay, I agree with you. Now let's flesh that out, because you guys follow a catechism here which teaches certain things. So that means you have some kind of tradition there. But look at his views on the Trinity here, that Jesus, the Son of God, in our Trinitarian understanding, that's one of the three persons of the Godhead, that he is fully God, that he is everything that is God is Christ, but he is also the third person. So he has what we know in the incarnation is a hypostatic union where he takes on a human nature. But that role of the son of God does not exist in the view of so kindness. The Logos, the person Jesus is an office. It's not the third person or the second person of the Trinity. However you're numbering there, I believe it logically should be the second person. But the Logos was an office and not an aspect of God's nature. So Jesus, the human person, was born. And this goes into, do you remember a heresy before? Adoptionism? All right, so Jesus, a human, is born, and God is adopting him to take this office of logos, all right? So he is to be respected, and this is, again, goes where Augustine was like, you're worshiping those, so now that makes you a heretic because you're worshiping, you're not supposed to worship God, and you're worshiping someone who you say is not God. But they said that Jesus should be respected and worshiped, but limited to his office. How that works and looks, I don't know. And I tried to get a copy of that catechism, but I didn't want to buy the book just to look at a few things there. So hopefully I can get that resource. I do want to look into that a little bit more and see that that catechism has carried on. But so adoptionism revisited. God the Father was truly and fully divine and God alone. Only the Father was God. I can go back to Arius. He doesn't like tradition, but he's grabbing certain teachings from heretical tradition. So that's why I say we need to be careful when we say that we're not looking at history, that I'm only going by what this says. Well, one, you're already wrong by saying that Christ is not God, because when He claims it Himself, now you're having to throw out the authority of Scripture. And you just said that you're only authority of Scripture. So, well, tradition says that Jesus is the Son of God, but I'm only going by the Scripture. Well, what do you do with these verses here, then? Okay? The Holy Spirit is just the power of the Father's actions. It goes back to that force, the action that we see the Father using. This is not even a form of modalism, so it's not even that God is these three different persons at different times. God the Father. Everything else is either His actions, or it's this office that this human was adopted into for the purpose of that Lagos. And what is the purpose of that though? Because Jesus was not divine, so His atonement, His death, did nothing for salvation. It was just a model of true love. The death of Christ on the cross was an example, according to Sokinos and his followers. It did not satisfy any debt. And again, his teachings, what satisfied that, there's a couple different areas. Again, I don't know what he specifically believed, but his teachings went into a couple areas, but it is a works-based, or it goes into the semi-Pelagian again, where you're given enough grace to be able to get this far so that God can pull you the rest of the way. All right, but again, that's nothing to do with Christ. So the adoptionism and then the atonement. So Christ has no place in the Sokinis philosophy or their religion. And then his worldview. And this is where the problem comes in. This is why I said on our last one here, for human reason over God's word. And it's difficult sometimes because when you read the miracles in here, like that doesn't make sense. That's impossible. Human reason is going to tell you that's wrong, and there are some people who claim to be Christian apologetics today that will say you don't have to believe in the miracles. No, they're probably not true anyway. They're good stories. Human reason should guide you in what scripture says. William Lane Craig is one of those who teaches this philosophy, and I bring his name up not because I'm against the man, but he has a huge following that's getting bigger and bigger, especially with young men who are, they love this philosophy of debating, and he is really good at debating. Okay, but you're rehashing, like I say, he called himself a neo-apollinarianist, so you're rehashing old heresies. Alright, but there's human reason over church tradition. I'm not saying human reason over scripture at first, human reason over church tradition. Alright, but where did this church tradition come from? We believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. No. Human Reason, though, says it can't be three. Okay. We've seen how that was dealt with over here in other Unitarians. They were trying to be faithful to God. But now, Christ. You're not even saying it's a mode of God. It's not even God. Even Arius was saying he's divine-ish. He was the first created before everything. So this teaching is not even going into those areas. It is something new, but not completely new. It is revisiting old heresies, and compiling them into his. Remember Gnostics? We're good about that. I'm going to pick from these different religions parts I like. But it's really bad when you're picking from what we consider to be the Word of God, the inerrant, infallible Word of God. When that's what you're using as your whole background and source for your doctrine, that's where it gets more difficult. Well, that's what you think the Bible says, but here's what I think it says. That's why we had these councils in the early days. That's why we had these councils, because if everybody believes, and again, even today, I... We are sola scriptura, not solo, where we say solo means only the Bible and nothing else. Then that's where each of us can have a different interpretation. Where sola is this is our final authority, but we are not going to overlook those councils that already took place. Or we can have councils. Now, if we disagree on it, we don't have to look at the councils, but let's look at it and we should come to a consistence. So that's still gonna mean that we have to give a little. If I only believe it says this and you believe it says that, we're never going to agree. Here the third one comes in now. Well, what are we going to get at? The Bible can't be true to all three of those. Only the Bible as interpreted with human reasoning. Tradition and church teachings were against a lot of so-called personal understanding of scripture. He even called upon believers to reject every interpretation which is repugnant to right reason. What does that mean and by what standard? We see that today. I am okay with the homosexual lifestyle. So I'm gonna reject that part of scripture because human reason says love is good. I'm okay with four wives because love is good and I'm gonna actually go to scripture and show all these concubines that the patriarchs had. Would anybody here agree with either of those statements? I would hope that you would run me out of here if I believed those. John's already getting his Phineas sphere over there. Because God allowed and blessed for his purpose different events does not mean that that was the right thing. So we have a skewed perspective. Again, though, looking at some of what he said. That's why I don't like to just throw out everybody with the heretics. There are some heresies that, yes, completely wrong. But others like he wanted to reclaim original purity of scripture. Again, this is taking place. We say during this Reformation time, so anybody who's trying to seek and going against the tradition of the one church who has capital punishment for certain heresies, I understand that. You want to seek the truth, all right? Luther, in some of the stuff that he did, I don't agree with, but he wanted to seek the truth, what he saw in Scripture. So I have to give credit to that, to reclaim the original purity of Scripture. But again, by what standard? So if you're doing that in a vacuum, it's for nothing. They had human teachers, but they had limited roles. It was according to this Rakovian Catechism, which is why I do want to read some of that, though. And human reason would trump everything. So, yes, read the scriptures, but if your human reason says something contrary to that, go with your human reason, because that's where your spark of divinity came from. It's sort of like rationalism. It is rationalism, yes. That's why I say rationalism, it goes all the way back to Gnosticism with the secret knowledge now and the elitism, so yeah. And again, he says this clear teaching of scripture, according to who? And I have on there for you, this is, I didn't mark it correctly because I actually pulled it from, that's one thing I don't like about Logos, I pulled it from Sproul's book because it's the original, but it credits Sproul in the citation instead of the 1689. This is Chapter 1, Paragraph 7 of the 1689 on the Holy Scriptures. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all, yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded and open in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of ordinary means, may attain to a sufficient understanding of them. Scripture is difficult in some areas. The things that need to be known for salvation, they say, that's the whole, if you're, well, he didn't understand the Bible, so he couldn't be saved. That's not, that's how we would think. That's not God. That's not how God works, all right? And we need to quit putting ourselves in a place of God. But we do have scripture telling us that scripture is difficult. Can somebody go to, and I'm really sorry that I didn't have a lot more scriptures. This is a lot of history in these classes, but I'm trying to at least get you some of the scriptures here. 2nd Peter 3 16 and somebody else can go to 1st Corinthians chapter 2 reading verses 6 & 7 But Peter is going to be talking about some of Paul's stuff here and in 2nd Peter 3 16 One, I agree with him. Some of Paul's stuff, me and John talking today was at chapter 11 in Corinthians. What? There's got to be some side notes here. What? But do not twist it for your own. It's like they do other scriptures. Human reasoning, this doesn't make sense, so let me interpret it how I want it to be. Or I don't like it at all, so I'm gonna reinterpret it to say the opposite. Or that's not really what he meant. I just can't picture somebody telling that to the holy creator of the universe, that's not what you meant. Oh yes, tell me what I meant then. Please elaborate on what I was wrong in this. But some of the scriptures are difficult and would say twist them to their own peril as they do other scriptures. 1 Corinthians 2, 6 and 7. Yet among the mature, we do not impart wisdom. We do impart wisdom, although it is not the wisdom of this age, or of the elders of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart the secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages of our glory. So we can see a few things from the scriptures. In some areas, this is not an excuse to not study. Scripture is difficult in some areas, yes. There are some areas I don't think any men are gonna agree on in a majority for forever. And that doesn't even matter because we're gonna be worshiping in the presence of God, so we're not gonna care what that verse meant there. Okay, but Scripture is difficult. Then there's this other aspect. I do not expect, as we've seen in history, somebody who's coming from a very pagan understanding or a very humanistic understanding, now you're confronting them with this Holy Word of God. They don't know what a lot of this is. Well, you're not supposed to do that because of this, or this is how you're supposed to do this because of this. That doesn't make sense to them. They have lived 40, 50 years under a different system. So there's a maturity. Where do you learn about this stuff? If you're waiting for scripture only, meaning the Bible only, to get you past this phase, to get you over this stuff, you're going to be in a world of hurt. Is it possible? Yes, it is possible through God. Is that the normal means? No. How do we learn the things of God? How will they know unless somebody teaches them? How will they hear unless somebody goes? And this argues for the primacy of preaching and the understanding of what preaching truly is. It's not emotionalism. It is laying bare the word of God and explaining and teaching on the influence and the meaning of the Holy Spirit. So you said go to church for the tradition? But again, to have a scale with only the scripture, that's all of us trying to fight in this vacuum. What does it mean? I don't like the way John did that. I think it means this. Well, by what standard? Because I don't like that he made me feel bad for pointing out that I'm not supposed to be having an adulterous affair. I want to look at David's example before his repentance to justify my actions. Even in the church that I went to for Mother's Day, it was a small Southern Baptist church. But traditionally, too, on Mother's Day, they're going to preach somehow it's going to be a mother. You know, if that mother saw Psalm 31, Proverbs 31. Proverbs 31, woman. But they also, I was looking at their bulletin, And in their bulletin, they had a poem about a mother written by Helen Rice, which is a lot of the Greek and Greek art things. But in a line in there, towards the end, it's like, God in his wisdom knew he could not be everywhere, so he placed the child in his mother's care. And I'm like, but it got in their bulletin. Because no one's really No, it sounds good. It sounds good, and no one's paying attention to it. And I'm like, wow. And if you don't like that, it means you don't love moms. And I'm not going to be accused of not loving moms. Or if I'm there, and I'm not a Christian, and I'm reading it. Yeah. I mean, it was... I know that... Yeah, it's not the intent to be... But still, it's because the intent wasn't there to make sure. Which does give you an appreciation for our bulletins and the Word of God that's on them and that, because it was just that little, you know, body-packed attention to the whole thing. Probably half the people didn't read it, but I was just like, it stood out to me. John and I say we're intentional and I picked up on that because even when I'm going back and listening to some of these, that's why I picked up that I was giving you the wrong theologian last week, but listening like, ooh, I stepped all over myself on this one. I need to go back and that's not what I meant or I said it this way, but let me clarify because that statement in itself is opening a can of worms. But on those lines, and since you brought up how old the crow is, there's a line in one of my favorite Brennan Lee movies that says, mother is the word for God on the mouths of children. And that's deep. Is it blasphemous? Well, there's only one God. But to a child, that mother is their everything. So I'm like, I understand that understanding. But that mother should be training that child. No. Yes. So, in certain doses and stuff, and I said that was great, and it was Brandon Lee, and that's a sad story behind him anyways, but there, yeah, there are things that are just out there. It's like, that's kind of ridiculous. We talked about Easter, sunrise services. You know, there's some tradition. We don't follow a liturgical calendar on everything, but there are some traditions. I'm like, this is a good one. You know, what's wrong with this? We celebrate the advent. There are some that, I've got some really godly men who, it's Sunday and there is no, you know, recognizing one over the others. Well, we recognize the birth of Christ and the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. We do say that those are days we recognize a little bit more. We're not saying that those are the only days we recognize, but we do. And somebody made that point of, we love your wife every day, but I guarantee on the anniversary, you elevate it a little bit more. Well, some of us do. Some of us do. Now, Valentine's Day, you're on your own. I don't mess with that garbage. That's what Reformation Day is for. 95 Reese's. But that understanding of Scripture, and I can say, Historically, I love the history, but... I'm at the advantage where I'm looking at the scripture that was used to support a lot of this, and I feel bad that I'm not just throwing more scripture at you like we did for the confessions. I wanna make sure that that was, here's all the supporting scriptures. History's a little bit different for me, but I do wanna look at, as that last page there, some of the modern Unitarians. I say this teaching is still going on. We saw it in the third and fourth century of the church. We see it in the Reformation as they're trying to come out of this, heavy-handed tradition of the Catholic Church, and then, as we see in our Baptist brethren, the English Church, also carrying on some of that oppression. But modern Unitarianism, the Oneness Pentecostals, there are others that, even if they don't know that's what they believe, when they explain what they believe, you're like, I like looking at a church's page and looking at the what they believe stuff. That's why I'm glad we got the webpage now. But when I first was looking up Trinity, I'm like, I don't see anything on, I don't know what this church believes at all. So I got with John, I'm like, you need to tell me here because I couldn't find it on the webpage. It's 2022, people go to the webpage. But I like looking at stuff, I'm like, this was very vague here, but I think they did it for a particular reason. I was like, that is, okay, yeah, that's, somebody needs to proofread your church stuff there. But we also have liberal theology that falls under this too. So if my human reasoning is now what dictates if scripture is authoritative or not, That's where liberal theologians come from. That's where the miracles are necessary. It's a good example. And as long as it's only the good stuff, the red letter Christian movement that is finally fading away there. Only the good stuff that Jesus said. They say only the things that Jesus said and did, but then when you start showing them the sons of Satan and den of vipers. No, no, not that part though. Not the, you know. Not the mean stuff. Elevation of human reason. And I didn't put it on there, but the confession and some others in the catechism also say that, but your human understanding is, you still have an obligation to be using your human reasoning. You do. There is no blind faith. Everybody says it's a blind faith. Well, caveat that. What do you mean? I need you to explain that a little bit more. What is a blind faith? You do have a gift of thinking that was given to you by the Creator. So, human reasoning is an element of your life, but do not elevate that above, one, the guiding of the Holy Spirit. If you are a child of God, you have the illumination of the Holy Spirit. And two, yes, some things don't make sense, and I'm like, that doesn't make sense. Jonah being swallowed by a fish, whale, whatever, that doesn't make sense. Well, it does, except for the fact that he lived. No, I watch C-movies all the time. Yeah, you got eaten by that shark. No. He lived. He was vomited out. He went on to preach and accomplish what God told him to in a very... I loved the illustration of that with his mopiness still. I knew you were going to save those people. But anyways, that's your human reasoning says that's... No. If I read that story, I think it was from the National Enquirer or The Sun. Right under Bat Boy found. I'm standing in the grocery line and I see that there. Those stories are the ones that I read when I was a kid. They haven't even changed their stories. It still sells the paper. I'm having Bigfoot's baby. What? For human reasons, that's garbage. in the context of the word of God and seeing the entirety. And that's why the last thing I have on there, though, is proper hermeneutics and the four Cs. Do you know what hermeneutics is? How we approach our Bible study. That's our hermeneutics. I love it. Who is this hermeneutic? I've never heard of him. No, but somebody made a picture. But, you know what? Knowing what he preaches, it's possible. But a proper hermeneutics, and how are you going to know how to study scripture? So kindness, they had their own catechism, they had their own teachers. So you're against all this tradition of the church teaching you how to think and what to believe. So to correct that, you're gonna set up these men over here who are gonna teach you how to study, how to think, and how to believe. hypocrisy much, but he said, no, but we need to, to safeguard. Exactly. That's what these men did. All right. It was difficult for them. It was difficult for them. And the four C's, that's your creeds, your councils, your confessions, and your catechisms. All right, there are some great resources out there. I know if you went through the confession class, we went over the 1689, you can get it in the modern. It's a very good companion to the Westminster Confession. In fact, that's part of the paper I'm having to do there, is the Baptists used very popular Pado-Baptist confessions of the time to show their unity with them. They corrected where they were wrong, but so you have the Westminster, you have the Savoy Declaration from the Congregationalists, you have the, Anyways, you have the Heidelberg Catechism, which Hercules Collins corrected, and I say corrected, I'm being partly funny, but partly true as well, because I do think that he corrected some errors that they had. So we have the Orthodox Catechism, we have Keech's Catechism, The other Keech's Catechism that's actually not his, that we call Keech's Catechism. There are some new ones. Spurgeon did a version of that to reword it because even reading some of that, I know some of them look at it, that's a three paragraph answer for this. How do you expect kids to learn this? Well, they expected the kids in the 1600s to learn that and they did. So, kids are capable. However, I get that John Piper took a version of the Baptist Catechism and changed some of the wording to make it a little bit, you know, read smoother. Because, yeah, sometimes I'm like, let me read that again because that didn't come out right. Okay, but we have these teachers. You can go and look at what the councils discussed. We see where they came out, like the Chalcedonian definition of words and stuff. Show off. Did you? Like I said, even the early creeds, though, you know, I believe in God the Father, Almighty Maker of heaven and earth, and Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, crucified, suffered under Pontius Pilate, crucified, buried, raised three days, ascended into heaven, where He sits at the right hand, from whence He's going to come to judge the quick and the dead, and in the Holy Spirit, God's Church, resurrection of the saints, resurrection of the body, communion of saints, life everlasting. that obviously had some problems. Well, yeah, I can affirm that and still think that Jesus was created and not God. So that's why, yes, I understand tradition is, we're going to formulate this creed here, but then another council had to come and formulate it a little bit better. And then at the nation, like, nope, I'm going to reword it now so that you understand exactly what I'm saying right here. And my words are not confused because that's what it is. Well, what do you mean by that? Oh, I mean this. Sounds true at face value. Do you believe in God? Yes. Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? Yes. Okay, we're good. Wait, that's a Book of Mormon you have there. I thought we agreed though, because you answered those basic questions. So knowing the history, and I say those four C's are, I love them anyways. I love the creeds, the councils, the confessions. And even though I make fun of some of my Presbyterian brothers, we do it in jokingly though, but where the reverence of scripture is and making sure that the things that ought to be known and believed about God are the same. That is our unity in the Christian faith. So the scale, on the doctrine, the scripture. I say, I've got it equal because that's what everybody tries to balance. But to completely erase that side, all right, what's the purpose of the scale? And that's not saying the tradition is on any way, shape or form on par with scripture, but it is a tutor. It does help us. All right. Does anybody here understand this completely? Have you ever met somebody that understands it completely? Say, I would not trust that man. What's up, brother? I was going to say, I mean, it's incredible to see a church throughout the years, the first 1,500 years. It was real, I guess, hectic, turbulent. And then even after that, 1500 years of the Reformation, women became judges. You see, those people, they didn't have the, you know, Jesus said in Matthew 23, he said, I'm sending you teachers. You know, I'm sending you scribes. I'm sending you all these people. I think he was talking about, he's sending the church to them. But it's going to be over the years. And now in the 21st century, we have all of this, you know, we have all these great men and women of God, you know, that, That was just such a great witness for the church. It's almost like now, how do we still fall? How do people still fall into the same heresies? But the people that started these heresies, they didn't have a John Calvin. They didn't have a Wycliffe or a Tyndale. We do. We can look back. And not only that, but they wrote down things. Oh yeah, I forgot about that John. John Calvin. John Gill. I mean, it's just amazing to see how the church can do all of that over the centuries. And the church is still here. I think part of it is reading Preaching and Preachers by Martin Lloyd-Jones. It's a series of lectures that he gave at Westminster in the 60s. But he makes the distinction between a preacher and a pulpiteer. And what happened, somewhere along the line, we lost preachers who would preach doctrine, and we got pulpiteers who would be driving people emotionally and manipulatively. Entertaining them. And he makes that distinction. And I think that this idea of doctrine, when you start talking, we're preaching theology, we're teaching theology, we're teaching doctrine. People tend to think that that's dry and boring or whatever. But doctrine is the safeguard for us. That's how we can get together and say, yeah, that's what that passage means. Because what we say in the church is usually you'll hear, well, that's what it means to you. What does that mean? Because if you're saying that, then that means that scripture really has no meaning. Because if God did not mean what he said, he would have said what he meant. And so that's the part with that. The other thing I just wanted to make come, history is like a drunk man walking in a snowstorm, dragging a stick, trying to make a straight line. It's not, history is not straight like that. It's up and down and loose and sections are missing. And you made a good point. We only know about some of these guys because of the people that are arguing against them. When they say the victor writes the history books. But speaking of doctrine, even simple stuff. Who made you? That's a doctrine. So even the new Christian says, I'm not a theologian, I don't need to know. That's theology. You need to know that. Who made you? That's important. What is sin? What do you need to say? And going to your overlooking stuff, I think that was C.S. Lewis, the chronological snobbery. That means is that we think that we're so knowledgeable now, in 2022, we have access to everything. We don't need to look at any of this stuff. We know more than they did, so we don't need to look at them. And that's how you come up with the Rakovian Catechism. And just to finish off, I know we're done here, just to finish off my history because, again, it fascinates me, but the Reformation, these men starting it, firing it, and then, of course, where we find our Baptist roots in the Church of England and their battles, again, with the separationists, the separatists. So even the churches there were under scrutiny. That's why Benjamin Keech was locked in the stocks. No, we don't baptize babies. Put them in the stocks. You got this catechism you're teaching contrary to us put them in the stocks arrest them. So there was still battles going on All right, but we have the Reformation so we hear the Reformation It was a small period of time, okay? It went from the, I say from the 14th century with Wycliffe going into Huss and then going into Luther. So 1517 is the date we got, so I put 16th century for Reformation. Then, and I think it's Muller, I read something on him where he's got the dates broken out a bit more for this early Orthodox which is the 16th and 17th century, ending in the 1640s, which is right before we get to the first London Baptist confession of faith. So this early orthodoxy, and that's why Baptists were still They weren't accepted in the Orthodoxy because one, they were accused of being either Arminian or the anti-Baptist movement, which was very anti-government and some pro-other stuff that was contrary to scripture. But then the high Orthodoxy is where we get a lot of our confessions. all right and that's of course the 17th to 18th century even where the confession from London made it over to America and they adopted it as the Philadelphia confession and in the late orthodox which is where we get John Gill my final John for the John Gill, a preacher at the church that would later have Charles Spurgeon preaching at it. And if you're ever wanting a commentary on scripture, again, I think it's good. Yes, you read scripture to determine what it says. You pray, you read, you let God guide you, but look at some commentaries. And there's a great free one on lots of sites. I hate that I have to buy it to be able to cite on some stuff, but John Gill's entire commentary is free on about 100 different websites. All right, he breaks down every verse of every book, and he does a pretty good job of making it understandable for the most part. Some areas, I'm like, I don't know why you just said that. It has nothing to do with it, but it's one of those difficult verses. It's probably a Pauline letter because Paul is difficult. We have it in the library here, but at your house I say just look up John Gill commentary I believe a blue letter Bible Bible or all those have have it so you can look at it Eastwards, but there are some resources for you. Not all commentaries are free. I think Matthew Henry's I don't like some of his Understanding but Matthew Henry is a free one and look at a few different look at a few different translations I know John's so mad at me. I don't have the Greek but Look at the other translations and why this is a net Bible. This even tells you why they use certain words. So, yes, hold scripture in high regard, but use the other resources that God has given us. He sent men. Use the other resources that God has given us. These books. I'm not saying you have to read a hundred books and come away with your eyes burning and stuff, but there are some avenues for it. It was for me the other day. I'm like, my head hurts. What was I doing today? That's a date night. So anybody have any questions, any thoughts, input? And like I said, I'm glad that we landed on this one because there was that large gap. And there have been other heretics and heresies, but a lot of them are very similar to one of these big ones in the umbrella. And I wanted to make sure that we had a good history of those in the early church and why they were important because most of these men did not set out to be heretics. I say most, I still don't understand Manny and I don't understand that. All right, Marcion and completely ignoring the God who created. So I guess I would have been a neo-Marcionist because I didn't agree with him on that part. But anyways, any other thoughts? And I appreciate.