Charles Finney is in hell, so why do so many churches continue to use his techniques? Welcome to the Conquering Truth. I'm Dan Horne. I'm Jake Juan Underwood. I'm Charles Churchill. And I'm Joshua Horne. Charles Finney in his Systematic Theology says basically when you're saved that all your sins removed. And in his autobiography, he talks about how when he was justified that all his sin just disappeared. And then he goes on and says that, you know, the Scripture proves that there's abundant grace given to people, to believers, so that all their sins removed. So he's confused and he's inconsistent in his teaching. But he has this underlying principle that salvation is not about God. It's about man. It's about the work of man, that man does not have a nature that is depraved, that he's not dead in his sins and trespasses. So therefore, he can talk anybody into going to heaven. And so based on that, he came up with a series of techniques that was used during the Great Awakening, or the Second Great Awakening, that were to manipulate people into accepting Christ. And the results weren't very good, but that's what he used. And from that then you see the churches adopting those same techniques. But I think one of the things that we forget is just where those techniques led to. And I think one of the things that we want to do on this podcast is go, you know, those ideas and those doctrines, they lead to some really bad places. And specifically, they end up with, you know, we look at the drag queen story hour. Well, that really does come from Finney's theology and from Oberlin College, where he was the person who set up the theological department at Oberlin. And that's actually a logical following. So how does a theological seminary end up getting us into the state where the United States is right now? Well, it's something that takes quite a bit of time, you know, because, you know, Finney was back in the early, you know, 19th century. So, you know, 200 years ago. And he, before he gets into his perfectionism, like you were mentioning, he was a very staunch Arminian. and you know he at the time there was you know the church at least that he was in there was a lot of calvinism so it was kind of either there was some armenianism out there but it was a lot of calvinism or universalism um the the huge armenian movement hadn't really started yet but he's he's kind of one of the one of the people that you know revitalizes armenianism in america where he You know he's a Presbyterian when he gets you know converted quote-unquote converted and he and you know the Presbyterians were Doctrinally staunch Calvinists, but and so he ends up going through and becoming a Presbyterian minister where he says he you know, affirms the Westminster Confession, obviously a Calvinistic doctrine, believing the doctrines of grace. And then later he says, well, I never read that. I had no idea. All that stuff is complete garbage. And so he's someone that, you know, now he's a minister in a Calvinistic denomination and he's a very staunch, aggressive Arminian. really, you know, coming after Calvinism in a way that other groups hadn't before. Because the Methodists were Arminian, but they were a bit more passive about it often. But he was someone who was out there who would write systematic theologies, who would go, you know, head-to-head, you know, doctrinally to argue for Arminianism. Right, and I think if you look in England, the Methodists were very fiercely Arminian, but in the United States they tried and basically they were defeated, and so they were a lot more low-key about it because it wasn't until after people like Finney that it really starts to take off because the Methodists, like you said, they were Arminian. It wasn't that they weren't trying to spread it, it's that the Baptists wouldn't accept it, the Presbyterians wouldn't accept it, and all the major denominations wouldn't accept their Arminianism. and then you have Finney come along saying, look at these huge crowds I have, look at how much success I have, because all these people are following me, that then causes the churches to follow after him and say, hey, this doctrine works. I think calling him an Amerindian is showing him some grace. It was a full-blown Malaysian by rejecting original sin and the imputed righteousness of Christ. That's fair. I mean, if you go back to the Senate, Senate of Dort, I think they would have made a pretty strong, somewhat of a connection between Pelagianism and, and full blown Arminianism. I mean, there was, you know, there was definite language, I think, there that connected those two together. I mean, it's, it's, it's only We've only created semi-Pelagianism and call it Arminianism, but how much different is it really? Right. We've softened our language over time. This is part of the problem. Right. It's one of the real problems that have gone on. You made some really bold claims in the beginning talking about Oberlin College and talking about how that Finney has had this influence that not only has it affected how we do soul winning, but that the theology that he's pushed and the way that he pushed it and the way it was thought of, that when we look at the world, some of the things we, like when we look at and we lament, how could we get to the point where we would have drag queens reading to children in libraries? How could we get there? You're saying there is a causal connection, right? That theology matters. And Finney understood that. I mean, like Joshua was saying, there were a lot of people who would go out and all they really cared about was just maybe either preaching or technique. He said, I want to teach theology. I'm going to go out and fight with anybody. I'm going to overpower them. I'm going to beat them. I'm going to show that this is right. He wanted to change people's minds about how they thought about God, how they thought about sin, and how they thought about the world. And his title is the father of American revivalism. And so, you know, he might not be a household name, but in evangelical churches, you can draw a direct line to a lot of things that go on every Sunday morning to the things that he was pushing. You know, he didn't come up with all of it necessarily, but he was, you know, one of the, you know, the most famous preacher from the second great awakening. And, and he's the one who popularized these things and said, you know, you can cause revivals. You just need to use the right techniques. You need to use, you know, the right emotional appeals, the, you know, the altar call, you know, all these different things. And then you can get people to be converted. It's not God's work. It is our work and we can make it happen. And people schedule revivals, and that comes back from, I mean, that's Finnyism, right? When you schedule a revival, when you're saying man can cause a revival to happen, that is straight from Finny. and how many churches schedule revivals, right? You see, and that they were going to have a tent revival. Well, you can't do a revival if it's the work of God. It has to be the work of man, and that's Finney, and that was what Finney was teaching, and that's, you know, Billy Graham and all his revivals, all his crusades, they all come back to Finney as the theology that was driving this thing that has really polluted the church. I mean, one of the things we really want to tie together here is, I mean, I grew up in churches where Finney was held up. I was told that Finney was a great man of God. The people that said that, I don't think they had actually read, I mean, like, if they had read some of the quotes from Finney we're going to read tonight, I think they would have been shocked. Because what's happened is a lot of the churches would reject many of the theological things that Finney said, but they've absolutely, like you said, they've absolutely adopted his practices. And there's this part of it where the church doesn't believe that theology causes practice, that practice and theology cannot be separated. And that's kind of your argument with Oberlin College, is that the theology flows into things. It makes real changes in the way you approach the world, and over time, that affects the culture. And Finney was very adamant about that theology has to be practical. It has to be applied. It has to be that you don't just say, okay, there is no total depravity. What that means is that you then have to go and try to talk everybody into heaven, because anybody can be talked into heaven. It's your responsibility now to save their soul, because right so he was very much on not just i mean there are many churches today where they may preach sound doctrine but they don't go therefore you have to go do this finney was very adamant therefore you have to go do this oberlin college which continues to this day is being one of the most influential universities on the left i mean like enormously influential since finney was there in 1835 It's so much so, and it comes back to this idea that what you believe, you must change the world with it. And that was definitely Finney's view, and he pushed it very hard. And one of the things that Finney would also say is that revivals are an Arminian thing, that Calvinists do not have revivals. And, you know, a lot of this discussion, you know, is kind of coming off a book that the church is reading. Our church. Our church. The one true – no, not the one true church. But our local church, which is Revival and Revivalism by Ian Murray. And in this book, he starts at the first Great Awakening and then kind of goes through the end of the second Great Awakening and shows how originally there were these true revivals that were based on Calvinistic doctrine and then how these revivalistic techniques led by Finney and people like him come in. and really change the church for the worse and give us, you know, the church that we have today. And, you know, he really, you know, even, you know, kind of shows how Finney even like in his autobiography how he's talking about how that you know he was saved and you know all the you know the preacher that he was under was just uh you know someone who had no understanding of salvation and and then you know completely switched to convert to you know follow Finney and he kind of shows how you know he's he's making stuff up that you know the it appears at the beginning of the second great awakening was founded on calvinism was founded on sound doctrine but then it quickly gets out of hand fall you know Foolish practices come in, false doctrine comes in, Phinney comes in and takes it to the next level and ends up in a bad place where the people who were supposedly being converted, that there was no change in their life and in a few years it was evident that they weren't actually saved. And it was even evident to Finney. He recognized that the people that allegedly were saved by him, but then being a full-blown Arminian or Pelagian, is that he would say, well, they lost their salvation because he saved them. It was just that they then lost, they destroyed their salvation. And so, um, you know, with that view, that also means that you can say whatever you did was pragmatic and worked. And then it was their fault that it felt that they fell away and not your fault that they weren't really saved in the first place. And so his techniques never got challenged because he came up with an excuse as to why his techniques couldn't be challenged. I mean, one of the other things the book really lays out, I think, really clearly is that there was a war within Christianity over these issues that was going on during that time period. I mean, Finney was actively going to war, like we've talked about, and one of the things that was happening was people who had sound doctrine were basically going, well, we know Finney loves God. Even though Finney was out there preaching sermons like where he would say, create, make in yourself a new heart. Create a new heart in yourself. He will quote where God says, I will put a new heart in you. I will take your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And then he would preach making yourself a new heart. And he was saying things like that. And Finney was going, how can two walk together unless they be agreed? He was attacking the doctrinal issues. And they were really, they were refusing to actually go to war over doctrine. they were refusing to call him out and say, to mark him as a man that needed to be avoided, to mark him as someone that was evil. And like I said, that continues. I mean, if you go and look online, there are a lot of churches that will call Finney out today. But the practice of the church, if you look at it, we're still, we're not really calling out that practice. And what happened is like in 1835 when he's, you know, Oberlin College is trying to recruit him and Hudson College is trying to recruit him both to be the head of their theology department. But Hudson College is saying, this is a man of God, and so when we confront him with the truth of soteriology, he will repent and he will start to preach the truth. So we want to recruit him. Really stupid when you think about it, but this is what Hudson College was trying to do. We'll recruit him to be the head of our theology department, and then we'll change his theology so that it's the correct biblical theology. And Oberlin College is already the founder of it, already believed in, what is it, entire sanctification is the term that they use for sinless perfectionism, that he already believed in entire sanctification, so he's trying to recruit Finney to Oberlin, and Hudson is still- He didn't want to change him at all. He didn't want to change him at all, and Hudson's trying to go, look, if we got him in here, we know he's a man of God, so we can change him, instead of going, a wolf's a wolf. but they couldn't see the doctrine actually makes people wolves. If you reject the nature of God, if you reject the nature of man, you are a wolf if you're trying to lead churches. So why would you invite a wolf in to teach at seminary? And they were being forced or forcing themselves to accept him because the way that it had been set up is either you are with Finney and for revivals or you're against Finney and against revivals because look at the great results Finney's getting. Look at how, you know, people are having these dramatic reactions when Finney's preaching. Look at all the professions of faith he has. Do you not like professions of faith? You know, if you don't like Finney, you don't like, you don't like salvation. And so that's how Finney was intentionally portraying it. And the people were having trouble, you know, you know, drawing lines from the sand and saying, saying no, just because you look, you look good when you look at it, you know, from a certain angle, just because you look good doesn't mean that you are good. And it goes back to what happens in churches today, which is the same fine theology, which is it doesn't matter what Christ you profess, as long as you profess somebody who you call Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter if he's an idol, as long as his name is Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter if he's the God of Scripture, as long as you name the name of Jesus Christ, you will be saved. And so they make Jesus into an idol like Finney did, and the response wasn't of the church. No, these people should really think—I mean, not that God can't save them, God can do whatever he wants—but these people that are responding to Finney should think they're responding to a man, not the Holy Spirit. And then, you know, with Finney, we have the benefit, you know, of being able to look at where he ends up, which is in the Christian perfection. The saying, basically, that full, that complete, perfect obedience is possible in this life and even required in this life. And so here's a quote from Finney's writings where he talks about that. This was just the revelation that I needed. I felt myself justified by faith, and, so far as I could see, I was in a state in which I did not sin. Instead of feeling that I was sinning all the time, my heart was so full of love that it overflowed. My cup ran over with blessing and with love, and I could not feel that I was sinning against God. nor could I recover the least sense of guilt for my past sins. Of this experience, I said nothing that I could recollect at the time to anybody, that is, of this experience of justification." So he's talking about his conversion experience, and he's saying that he has this feeling that he's moved to this state where he's not sinning anymore. And the big problem with Finney, right, is he is a liar. He lies all the time. And so there were years where he was saying he sinned after he was saved, and then later he rewrites his history and says, no, all my sin disappeared when I was justified. So he changed his life story to fix what he has now adopted as his doctrine, like he teaches in his systematic theology. If you read that first quote, somebody might go, well, he's just describing an experience. But here in a systematic theology, he's actually going to talk about justification in a theological manner. Full present obedience is a condition of justification. But again to the question, can man be justified while sin remains in him? Surely he cannot, either upon legal or gospel principles, unless the law be repealed. But can he be pardoned and accepted and justified in the gospel sense while sin, any degree of sin, remains in him? Certainly not. And so Finney is saying there very clearly, if I believe, if I believe that I've been justified, anytime that I say I've been justified, there can be no sin in me at all. There can be no sin whatsoever. And I mean, he says later, he says, if a Christian sins, then he, in that period of time, is no different than an unsaved man. Under the law, under the condemnation of the law, under what is going on, he would be identical to an unsaved man. And so if Finney holds that he has been justified and has maintained being justified for any period of time, it is by being without sin because he's very clear it is impossible to be justified and have sin present in you. Because there's different flavors of sinless perfectionism. There's people who say, well, it is possible. So there was a lady, when I was growing up, we would go to a nursing home to a Bible study, and the lady, every single time for years, would ask the question, is it possible to live in this life? But is it possible to live in this life and not sin? So she's saying, is perfection possible? Not that you have to have it, but is it possible? And the answer is no, if you're wondering. But that's one type of sinless perfectionism, that is it possible to be perfect? And then there's other ones that say, you know, you have this expected of you, or that to be a Christian, you have to be perfect. And that if you're not perfect, you're not a Christian. Then you also have the question of, well, when someone does sin, are they able to be saved again? Or is it a permanent thing? You have to be permanently perfect from salvation. And then you can get like, I mean, obviously no one's perfect. So how do you get to perfection? Some people get to perfection by saying you throw out the law, but Finney actually was against antinomianism, at least how he defined it. He, he believed in God's law and said, you have to keep God's law to be perfect. And he said, you can, if you sin, there is a, you can repent and then be saved and go to heaven. But You have to get back to that perfect state. And it's your work that cleanses you from that sin because you must repent. But he still does have to redefine the law to say, well, you can't commit adultery. But the whole thing about having sinful desires, about having lust, and that that being sin, and that being adultery, well, that doesn't work to say you're perfect. To be sin free for any period of time, even if you say the law still exists, you have to diminish the law. Or just be just a major hypocrite. Yeah, but you have to be both. Sometimes you just have to be really blind, right? Because Finney is rewriting his life story, and he does that in his autobiography a lot, and he does that throughout his life. And as his theology changes, he rewrites what happened to him before. And yeah, he kind of explains it. Yeah, I didn't say anything to anybody. But he said the opposite to people. So that meant that he lied then, which means that he wasn't saved according to his own definition. And so he's in this situation where he's proven to not be a believer. because he believes false doctrine and then he lies about the doctrine that he believes, or he's so blinded by his sin that he's lying about it. But either way, he is not believing in the Jesus Christ of the Bible. He's not believing in the God who sent his son so that the father would be exalted. And we should just read for the sake of I mean, this is obviously against Scripture. I mean, 1 John 1.8 says, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. So, I mean, if you had any questions off of what Finney said, it's not even hard. Finney's systematic theology isn't like, oh, it's kind of close to Scripture. No, he just directly denies Scripture. He believed that you could go without sin and be without sin. And 1 John says you can't. And we've talked about it before, but there's not many verses in scripture that say, if you say this, you are not going to heaven. And this is, I mean, this is a very clear one. If you say that you are sinless, the truth is not in you. And, you know, we're talking about Finney because not just to talk about this man that was, you know, 190 years ago. That's not the point. The point is, is that that the Scriptures say that we're the light of the world. It says while Christ was here, he's the light of the world, but he has put his people here to be the light of the world. And, you know, it says in John 1 that the world walks according to the light that Christ gives. And so, as the body of Christ, as the light of the world, the visible church then causes the society to conform to what it says is righteous. So when Finney is out there shining forth this light that is really darkness, right, it's darkness that's in him that he's claiming to be light, the world starts to walk in darkness, and there's a real effect. And it's really interesting because when you look at Finney and you trace what happens in where he put most of his effort, because at first he was the theology professor at Oberlin from like 1835 to 1850, 1849, then from 1849 to 1860s he was the president of Oberlin College. And so, and he actually kind of stole it from the people who like founded it and stuff. So you can get into that whole story too. But the point is, is that this is where he was putting his effort. And you can look at what happens to Oberlin College because they are following his theology. They are walking according to the light that he established. I mean, and one of the things that really happened, I mean, if you look at Finney, Finney was a man of great energy. He was a man of great zeal for what he believed. And in a sense, I mean, that's, if you look at what God was doing, God was kind of, God puts Finney in the world, God gives him, he's a man of great energy, he's a man of great zeal, and he has great zeal for false teaching. And because of that, he goes in the world. I mean, like, imagine if Elon Musk said he was a Christian and started pouring his time and energy into creating, not through Christian means, but creating a church, he would have, he could cause great results in the world. He's an intelligent man, he's driven, he's focused. And this is what happens, this Phineas basically, he is a picture of the work of man in real ways. And this is what he is to the church, he's a lure, a temptation to the church. And the church falls for it. The church goes, we're not going to walk by faith. Before, if you said, like you said with revival, you said God opens the doors of heaven. God causes revival to come. And the church's job is to do the work and wait for him. And Finney said, no, it's not. We can make these things happen. We can cause God to move. We can make God cause people to be saved. We can cause them to be saved. And so Finney really caused the church to shift to focusing on the work of man, and that's been the result for 200 years that the church has been struggling with, is going, do we want to believe in the work of man? Do we want to believe in the work of God? Right God says right in 2nd Timothy 4 That preach the word in season and out of season and what Finney said is when it feels like it's out of season Stop preaching the word and use techniques that will cause people to come to you, right? And so it's fundamental shift that happens, right? The one is about regardless of whether people will listen or not Your purpose is to glorify God And the others is, your purpose is to see results. And the church had a great desire to see results. So when it's out of season, when the preaching of the word isn't causing people to repent, God's not moving in that way, you're not seeing this visible revival, Finney said you have to change your techniques, you have to do something different. Appealing to God isn't working, so let's shift and appeal to man. To the point where his language, I mean, what Murray points out is Finney's language was an eternal state of revival is what he said he could produce. He's like, the day of sporadic revivals are over. And toward the end of his life, he began to see that his technique started to fade, like he couldn't sustain it. But I mean, that was his position, is we're now entering a state of perpetual revival. And that was actually the language he used. And so I think people think, oh, you're making this bigger than it was. No, these were the real arguments that were happening. God really did do something in the world. And Finney said, no, this is the work of man, and we can make it happen forever. And the reason why he says that he failed is because he wasn't preaching Christian perfectionism. Right. So that's the reason why he didn't get that everlasting revival is because he wasn't preaching entirely true doctrine. From the beginning. He said, if I'd been preaching this from the beginning, I would have achieved it. So we have to understand what happens because this isn't new, what happened with Vinny. This has happened before in church history. This has happened before in the Old Testament, is that people don't get the results they want from God. It's a time of being out of season. So what they decide is that the work of man will produce it. And you see this happen after the generation after Joshua in Judges 2, 10 through 13. When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation rose after them who did not know the Lord, nor the work which he had done for Israel. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served the Baals. And they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. And they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them. And they bowed down to them, and they provoked the Lord to anger. They forsook the Lord and served Baal and the Ashtoreths. When we think of Baal worship, we should think of the worship of man. You have what's happening in Egypt, right? Because there's, you know, it talks about at the end of Joshua that you'll either serve the gods of Canaan, the gods of Egypt, or the true God. And the gods of Egypt are the demons, right? This is demon worship. It is to Satan. All the symbols for Satan worship today still come from ancient Egypt. And then you have the worship of, like Sodom and Gomorrah, like Babel, where it's the worship of man and you're raising up man. Baal means master. So you're raising up man to be the master of all things. And so that's basically what Finney did, is he said, well, God's not doing what we want him to do, what I want him to do, so therefore I'll follow after man. I'll figure out techniques that I can use to cause man to respond, and I will make man the center of the gospel rather than God. And if you're thinking that's a harsh comparison, I mean, just genuinely, it's so easy for us to misunderstand what false worship is. You know, when you look and you, I mean, like you said earlier, when a church says, we're going to schedule a fall revival. Do we think about what that means? Do we think that's Baal worship? Right. We're going to cause the hearts of men to be revived. And you can say, no, we're going to pray that God will. But the thing is, is you're going to do all the things that you do, the trappings that you do in that time. You're going to have somebody come who's good at preaching emotional messages, who taps into that and makes you feel. You're going to have special music. Right, and you're going to say, and then we'll feel, and we'll stir up our zeal, and we'll stir up our energy. That's not revival. That's going, if we really push, it'll be revival. We're supposed to work all the time. And if what you're saying is we're going to work, that's one thing. But this is, you're saying we're going to stir up our zeal for something that will cause the gates of heaven to open. We're going to please God in a way that There's a real issue there. I mean, this is where people really need to think. What do you think false worship is? And when you look at it and look at what Finney does, again, Finney was very practical. He said there should be real examples of it. Because if you're about stirring up the zeal of man, you expect them to respond by doing something. And so he was very much, they have to be doing something, which again, it's useful to look at Oberlin College, because Oberlin College talk, I mean, this is their theology. This is, I mean, they don't consider themselves a Christian school anymore, but they weren't at the time of Finney either. I mean, they can call themselves. And they believe in all these things, but what they really, the core belief that they have that they got from Finney is, we need to take what we believe and put it into practice. It's supposed to be changing the world and that's still where Oberlin is now. And this is why, I mean, you've got things like the, you know, when you talk about the altar calls, or you talk about the, you know, where they had the mourner seat or the fidgets, you know, the seat where they would, you would call them up and you would have them sit there in front of everybody and you, and the pastor would focus on them and he would focus his attention on them. And everyone was looking, I mean, this is where Finney said, you know, I can talk someone into heaven. If you give me 15 minutes with a person, if I can't talk them into heaven, then they're damned forever. You know, there's no hope for them because I can bring them to a point where they either decide or they will never decide because I can make it so clear to them. I can stir them up. I can push their buttons. I can, I mean, and this is the thing is if either you can cause men to be saved or it's the work of the Holy Spirit. It's one of those two. And Finney said, if you can cause them, then we can study it. We can come up with techniques. We can figure out how to do it. And you have to ask yourself, as a church, how do you think about it? What is the way that you consider salvation? Who are you following? Yeah, just to add on Charles' point, you know, Paul said he's no nothing among us, but saving Christ and Him crucified, you know, it's a stumbling block. But, you know, it is the power of God unto salvation. And, you know, adopting or adopting, you know, his views on revival is a rejection of the gospel and the power of God. rhetorician he was he was given i mean that's what he was taught when he was in jerusalem and he goes all i'm going to preach is christ and him crucified and not use any of those techniques paul's opinion is exactly the opposite of finney's opinion i mean what you mentioned about the the stumbling block i mean that does not fit with Finney's view. That does not work. I mean, that people are going to—that God causes people to stumble over who he is, that that is what he does. I mean, that—I mean, there is just a real issue. And so once you make your man the center of your theology—and it's really important to recognize what Reformed theology is. Reformed theology is the idea that God is the center of all things instead of man. We forget that, but you can make it about Calvinistic soteriology and the idea that the five points, tulip, and all this other stuff, but the heart of Reformed theology is the created world is about the glory of God, not about man. Finney was, it is about man. Well, if you then take that and you then say, okay, it's supposed to be about man, that everything is for man's good, for his benefit, and we do this by appealing to man and it's not about God, then what's the first thing that you do when you say that it has to have practical impacts? Well, the first thing that he did when he went to Oberlin College is says, we must accept women in a theological school. Right? So before he would, I believe it was even before he would accept the appointment as the theology professor, he insisted that they accept women. And so this goes, this was the first, there was a school that tried to accept women for a little bit and then it closed down right away in like 1780, 1790. And then Oberlin College is the first school that accepted women that continued and didn't go bankrupt. And it was really because of Finney. It was because of his charisma, it was because of his zeal, it was because of his energy. But he goes, if man's the center of all thing, then how can you insult women? Yeah, he encouraged women to pray in public worship. Right, because he says it's all about man. It's all about God. God can't do what he says he did in Genesis 127. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. God couldn't have made two different categories because if man is the center of all things, if man is God, then how can anybody tell God what to do? And so how can you tell a woman not to preach in church? And this is why you're saying there's this trajectory with Oberlin College towards homosexuality and towards sodomy in the end is because... Well, we'll see it over a much longer flow, but yeah, I mean it gets there. I'm aiming it there because in the end what you're saying is proper thought is all about making distinctions. When you think you're making distinctions in areas, you're able to say, this means this and this means this. And Finney is basically creating this area where he can no longer make a distinction in this space. He can no longer make. And at that point, he was still making a distinction in the space, but he would move over time. And Oberlin would go far further. It talks about Jesus Christ says to the Pharisees, you're making your disciples twice the sons of hell that you are. Well, that's exactly what Finney did. And when you look at the drag queen story hour, we have to recognize that's twice the sons of hell, twice the sons of hell, twice the sons of hell, and we're seven generations later, so you get a lot worse people. that Finney wouldn't be sitting there going, oh, drag queen story hour's a good idea. Now, if he lived today, he would because that would be attractive. But in his day, he would have thought that was just ridiculous. That's just horrible. But yet it's his theology and it's his impetus to say, you have to put these things into practice. You have to do it because this is justice. This is truth. This is being sinless. All these things tie together so that you have to do this. And this is where they get to there. I mean, I want to go back to something you said earlier that we should keep thinking about, because when you examine Finney's life, one of the things the church needs to understand, you're looking at 200 years of history. You said that the world lives by the light of the church. And so what we're saying is, as darkness came, they became blind to certain things. They stopped being able to see them. And when you look at the history of the church, this is the thing is people go, how did the world get so confused? And we need to understand God actually provides a means to understand it. And I'm not saying it's all Finney's fault. It's not like Finney, but I'm saying you can look and see where some of these ideas came from and other people picked it up and ran with it. Other people continued to work. And so there's this part of it where these thoughts actually had a result as darkness came and they could no longer see, they moved to the next point and then more darkness came and then they could see less and less. And when you look at the church at the same time, right? I mean, the church continuing on, they're not going the whole way that the world is, but still that light is still creating disciples that are twice the sons of hell that the church is. And you just look and, you know, we did a podcast on Billy Graham and how, you know, you look at Billy Graham and people go, oh, there, that's what a man of God should look like. And the Bible says Satan disguises himself like an angel of light. No, that's actually what Satan looks like. And we forget these things, and when you accept that and say, no, that's what a man of God looks like, the church is producing these evil in the world, even though the church is speaking against the evil, because they won't recognize sin as sin, they won't recognize the heart of it, and they just keep looking at the periphery. And the issue of women in ministry is still one that, of course, is still out there today. And one of the quickest ways to figure out if a church is horrible or not is go to their website and see if they have women pastors, women elders. And that doesn't guarantee that it's a good church, but it can guarantee it's a bad church. And it's something that Phinney failed that test 180 years ago. And I mean, you know, obviously the verses that we're referencing, if most people probably know them, but first Corinthians 14, 34 and 35, let your women keep silent in the churches for they are not permitted to speak there to be submissive as the law says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home for it is shameful for women to speak in church. If you believe God gets to make the rules, if you believe the church is about the glory of the worship of God, rather than the worship of man, You go, God doesn't want women to speak in church, so women don't speak in church. If you think it's about men, you say, how can we tell women not to speak in church? How dare we? Do we think that somehow men are better than women? Do we hate women? All the stories, I mean, I've had this debate hundreds of times, and it all comes down to the same thing, is who is the center of the church? Is it God or is it man? And Finney said it's man. I mean and it's even interesting because like when you started you said exactly what I was going to say the issue of women in ministry that verse is not about women in ministry unless you consider ministry to be praying in church like you know praying in the service because I mean this is whether women can speak in the corporate worship service of the church can they speak there not do you see where it's even moved? It's moved to where an even mainline denomination, people who were considered to be incredibly conservative, the argument is over whether women can be in ministry positions and in positions of authority, not whether they can speak in the service. Right. In 1st Timothy 2, it's clear they're not debates to be in positions of authority over a man. That's not in debate either. But The church who goes, yeah, we're a faithful church, so we're going to have these women soloists sing, or this woman lead in the singing of the congregation. I mean, this happens all the time, where they would never allow a woman to be an elder or a pastor of the church, but they turn around and let them speak in church and to lead in church without feeling anything. guilt. Well, the Bible says that's not pleasing to God. That's not what he's called. No woman has ever been called to that position, or God's a liar and we're all going to hell. And then the next thing that kind of happens in Oberlin, I mean, there's more things that happen, but the next big social change push that Oberlin College pushes for is what's called immediatism, which is the idea that the slaves must be released immediately because slavery is inherently evil. That's a big problem because every Christian's a slave. And God's the biggest slave master. And so if slavery is evil, there's a big problem. But, you know, not if you're an Arminian, because Arminianism is all about God would never control you. But this is also an issue where the church's failure left them a big window, because Oberlin was also one of the first universities to allow African-Americans to come to the university. to get a degree. And so all the other churches, all the other seminaries were not allowing this. And when Harvard was started as a seminary in the 1600s, some of their first students were Indians because they said they can be Christians, they can be pastors, we want them to be missionaries, to make all the Indians Christian. But then now they've moved to the point where you know, the people who originally came from Africa, well, you know, North and South, we don't want them to be, you know, in seminary with white people. So there's a big gap, you know, in the Orthodox Church, that the heretics were the ones who were out in front, you know, in good ways as well as bad. What is sinful is racial bias. What does he judge Israel for, or the Jews for, after they kill Christ? Well, they go, the Gentiles, right? Why did they stone Stephen? Because Stephen said the Gentiles can come in. He said there isn't these other people that You know, and Peter says, I now understand there's no partiality with God. And the church was showing partiality, which is incredibly sinful in the sight of God, because it's saying that man's not made in God's image. Depending on the amount of darkness of his skin, that somehow determines whether they're made in man's image or not. was was accepting this this ridiculous idea that that if you were you know if you're from african heritage that you weren't made in the image of god what are you talking about an evolutionary idea an evolutionary idea that that that was very much about man they because if man is the center of all things then better men produce better things not better understanding of God produces better things, which is the story of Europe in America versus Africa, right? Europe and America have the gospel. That's a huge advantage that Africa didn't have. It's not the nature of the men in Africa. It's the nature of the revelation of God. It's the nature of the light that they received. The same argument Paul makes. What's the benefit of being a Jew? They have the oracles of God, right? Right. It's exactly the same argument. But if you switch the idea that man-centered and you say, look, the Africans are really poor and we're really rich, well, obviously we're better than they are. we should separate them out. Well, that racism is a reasonable product of Arminianism. And we have to see how this theology and how it was, I mean, it really has an impact on American history because when John Brown, which is the first violence related to the Civil War, when John Brown raids Harper's Ferry, he has people with him from Oberlin College because this is where a lot of the view was being driven, that immediate release of the slaves is the only non-sinful act. that you can do. And so because that's what they're teaching, that's what they're pushing, you know, the people from Lane Seminary come up. I mean, if you look at the history, this is where the theology is coming from that's saying you have to eliminate slavery. You know, this is him saying my theology has to be put into practice. And if you say man's center of all things, then you have to get rid of slavery, because how can you enslave a man? And you should be clear. I mean, John Brown, when he came down, the point they were saying, immediatism, was if you didn't, you should be killed. That was, I mean, that was, I mean, and the first people that John Brown killed, the first person he killed was a slave. I mean, free black man, sorry. The first, but I mean, you should, we should just understand. I mean, it wasn't like we think this should be worked towards. It was, hey, you should be put to death immediately by anybody who's got a gun. I mean, that was the attitude that John Brown and his Raiders had. Right after the Civil War's over, the next thing that Oberlin starts to push, and again, they're saying that we have to take our theology and put it out into practice in the world at this point. At this point, Finney's dead, but they start to put women's suffrage. They put the idea that women should be allowed to vote. Again, you start with the idea in the church that women should be allowed to speak in the church, but then if they're allowed to speak in the church, why shouldn't they be allowed to speak in society? And so it goes from what the practices they're pushing into the church to start to push those practices out into the world. It makes sense because going back to Fenya rejecting Adam's guilt and Christ's righteousness, you have to reject federal headship. they're being consistent with that. Right, and so we think of the theology, and it's very easy to think of these things and just see them as random pieces, but the reality is he was trying to write a systematic theology, and his systematic theology, if you You know, if you eliminate total depravity, his systematic theology would say, of course, women. Why would they be represented by their husband? Why would they be represented by their father? If Adam's not my federal head in the sense of sin, and if I don't get righteousness from Christ, then why should there be federal headship in the world? I mean, understand there are people who are going to listen to this who are going to go, women's suffrage was a good thing. And you understand before that, there was a sense that the home was a unit. And when a woman married a man, she was marrying her representative in the world. Just like when you vote and you elect, I don't go vote in the Senate. And the fact that I can't go vote in the Senate is not a bad thing. And there's this part where people go, well, husbands shouldn't be that. And it's like, do you understand what's wrong with society? Is women don't view husbands as anything worth thinking about. We've destroyed every means to consider what a marriage is. We've destroyed every means to consider that you should expect a man to be anything. And so because of that, you look at where our society's gone, this is what we've torn down. And we've turned ourselves over to the state because once you get rid of God, who's left that has power? So now we're all individuals and the state gives us the right to vote. And it's really important to recognize with women's suffrage, it was men abdicating their responsibility. Women didn't want the vote. Who voted for women to receive the vote? No women voted for that. They didn't have the right to vote for it. And people think all the women wanted it. No, they did not. Most of them are going, I have to raise my children. I have important things to do. I don't want to have to think about politics. And we turn around and say, how dare you? How dare you not want to be involved? And the answer is, my husband has to deal with that. I have to deal with, I want my children to be fed. And not just fed, but trained and taught how to do so many things. I mean, we've just destroyed so many things. As you see this, you can see how in each of these cases, theology matters. And one of the next things that happens is if you're going to say, like we said earlier, if you're going to hold to the law, And you have to have some way to diminish the law or say where sin is so that you don't become a horrible sinner. So one of the things, the way you do that is you externalize sin. And so one of the big next movements was prohibition. And prohibition was centered around the idea that alcohol was the source of sin. Alcohol, the demon rum, the demon liquor, it was in and of itself the corrupter. Not that man was corrupt, not that man was sinful, but that alcohol was the cause of sin. And so you move the view of sin from in man to outside of man. And obviously, I mean, there's a lot of verses. We just picked one here. You know, Psalm 104, 15. And wine that makes glad the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread which strengthens man's heart. I mean, wine here is compared to oil and to bread. I mean, fundamental thing. So we could have chosen another verse from Deuteronomy where it talks about when a person brings their tithe, if they want to sell their barley and they want to buy a strong drink to drink before the Lord, that they can do that and rejoice before the Lord. I mean, it's not just wine. This episode isn't going to be about it. There's plenty of resources out there that show that scripture speaks and says that wine and alcohol is not the sinful thing. It's drunkenness. And it really is. Again, if you say that man is basically good, you reject total depravity. Then when somebody gets drunk, what's the problem? Well, the problem has to be the drink. And so it's not that Finney was saying this. Finney was saying he would still be saying, no, you shouldn't drink and or you shouldn't get drunk. Excuse me. But as you go forward, his disciples, right, because now you're a generation after him, his disciples are going, well, man's good. So if man's getting drunk, it's obviously the alcohol's problem. And in all these things, we have to recognize that Oberlin isn't like following this. It's not like they're going, oh, prohibition's stirring up in the country, so we'll become the prohibition people. No, no, no. When prohibition started to actually take hold as an idea in like 1910, 1915, Oberlin actually stopped talking about it. they were driving it to the point where it caught on in other places, and then they moved on to other issues. So they were trying to be thought leaders. So they were fulfilling what Finney said, is that you have to take your theology, you have to make it practical, you have to make a difference in the world. Once they made a difference, they said, time to move on. that other people keep the fight going. Right, so it's not like we can look at Oberlin and think that somehow that there are these people in the back. No, no, no, no, no. They're the forefront. They're the people that are breaking the new ground that they then expect other people to till and to grow the crops. And not make alcohol from. And then, of course, the next big thing becomes feminism, which you get with World War II. And again, they've moved on by then. But in World War II, a lot of FDR's policies, it was specifically to drive women into the workforce. I mean, that was what his policies were for. They were really bad policies from a war perspective, but they were good policies if what you're trying to do is reform the country. And those ideas of how the country should reform so that there is no difference between men and women, that there's no difference in their roles in the society, that's what FDR was pushing, and Oberlin College was pushing that before him. And again, this is a result of there's darkness coming, and so people can't see. They're becoming blind to things. And the church is really failing in real ways. I mean, the church is failing to stand up against these things. And understand, in a lot of these cases, what the church is being bought off with is financial success. You know, I mean, there's... Or numbers, maybe not financial, but fame, other things. I was thinking of like the social policies that are being promised certain things. You know, I mean, things that are being dangled before them. And then, like you said, the church itself is actively going out and getting numbers and getting people to come in. You can read the Bible in Deuteronomy 22.5 says, A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment. For all who do so are an abomination to the Lord your God. That idea of a woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, that's not really about clothing so much as it is about taking on the accoutrements, the role, right? When you wear what pertains to a man, it would be like putting on a soldier uniform to become a soldier, to put on a police uniform to become a policeman. That's what it's talking about there. The second part is transvestitism, right? It's where a man wears a dress so that he looks like a woman. But the first thing that they rebelled against was the first part, which is, women should be able to take any role of a man. And in the beginning, it was limited, right? I mean, there were, I mean, they, like all things, you move in, things moved in stages. Well, they started by wearing blue jeans. Because blue jeans were the symbol of a common labor, right? Because now everybody wears blue jeans, but blue jeans are not the comfortable, the most comfortable garment. They're actually heavy. They're actually hot. They wear well, which is the point of it if you're doing labor. They don't get worn through quickly. And so anybody that's wearing blue jeans, they're immediately seen as a common laborer. So the feminist movement, they all started to wear blue jeans because they're going, we are a laborer just like we're as good of a laborer as any man is. It was a deliberate ideological act. They were literally saying a woman should wear what pertains to a man. Because we should take on the uniform of this occupation. I mean, when you think about that pertains to a man, you can understand how that, I mean, even to the point of there were clothing that pertained to a man, like judges have uniforms. Like when we look back at them wearing wigs and robes and things like that, I mean. Well, even today they were robes. They don't wear the wigs anymore. But I'm saying like. We'd all laugh at them if they wore the wigs. But when they did, I mean, there was a reason for it is in the sense of they were, it was very much that when you do these things, there is a way that identifies you as being in this role as a man. And so, I mean, we should understand even we've even lost some of that to where you have like Fetterman going into the Senate floor wearing like, you know, I mean, that we've lost the connection between clothing and being an identifier of who you are. That's getting really fuzzy even now. Like in early America, I mean, certain trades could wear certain clothing. And if you weren't in that trade, it was illegal for you to wear the clothing of another trade. Right. Because you're basically declaring that you're part of that guild and you're not. So it's a false – it's fraud. You're committing fraud. And so … Matt Odell Right. Just like if you put on a police uniform. I mean it would be a form of impersonation. You're impersonating a baker. Trevor Burrus Right. Or impersonating a mason or whatever it is. And so that becomes a big push, right? The next thing is, Oberlin was the first college that allowed men and women to share dorm rooms and to share floors of dorm rooms. They were the first true co-ed dorms were at Oberlin College. Because again, they're going, if this is what man's desire is, If a woman wants to have sex with a man, who are we to stop them? They're like gods. This is Baal worship. This is why Baal worship has so much sexuality associated with it. And that's why it has Sodom and Gomorrah associated with it, too. I don't mean to eliminate that. But sexuality is inherent to it. If you make man's desire the center of your worship, then obviously at some point it's going to become sexual. And when you say men, you mean men and women, right? I mean, you're taking a man and a man. Yes, I'm saying mankind. We've even grinded the language so we don't think of mankind, man, as meaning mankind anymore. I'm too old to think that way. Or too stubborn. Yeah, so following that thought, they go into promoting and if you're looking at man's desire, man desire is to go against the natural order, you know, which leads to homosexuality, you know. So in Romans 1, 22 to 26, Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness and the lusts of their hearts to dishonor their bodies among themselves. who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions, for even their women exchanged their natural use of what is against nature. So you start with the idea of men and women should be able to share dorms because if they want to have sex, why should you stop them? And then you go to, well, why shouldn't two men be allowed to have sex or two women to be allowed to have sex? And all of it is just the same idea that goes back to Finney. Man is the center of all things. If man's the center of all things, and man loves another man, why can't he have sex with that? That's the argument that they make, and that's coming from Finney's theology, even though you're talking 120 years later or something before they're pushing it. It's still Phineas theology. For me, as I think about this, what's really useful is to be able to see how those things connect together and also how God is working out His judgment. Because like you said, they're pursuing their own pleasure. But in Romans 1, God says also, He turns them over. So God's saying, you know, I mean, like the desire of a man for a woman, God says, I created this. That basic desire is not a horrible thing. It's not a bad thing. I gave you constraints. I gave you like the dorms were constraints, right? I mean, there was this part where you're sending your children to this school. So we're going to create these kind of households for them where we'll have a dorm, you know, a den mother who watches over them. You have to be in by 10. You can't leave before seven in the morning. Only women can be in this building. Only men can be in this building. And even when they started with, with co-ed schools, they still didn't have co-ed dorms. Right. And so they've, so, you know, we've, we've destroyed the family in a lot of ways, but we still have this idea that this desire is good. And like you said, we're going to bring this together. And God says, there's a point where I turn you over now to even more base, more turn you over to desires that are debased, that have that go below the base, right? I mean, that's really what it's saying in a sense. I'm turning you over to things that go beyond even the most basic desires. And so you can see God's judgment. And so, I mean, when we ask, we did an episode a couple years ago called, Why is there so much confusion in the world? And in that we were kind of, it was a similar episode, but here what we're trying to do is looking at, if you look from within the church, you can see where this confusion has come from. It's not like you go, I don't understand it. As the church should go, no, we see it. Do you understand? And when we go, there's no hope. The answer is, do you understand how much hope there is? Because the light of God can turn things around. The light can shine forth and people can begin to see. And so, I mean, Finney in real ways, I mean, if you look at him, what he was doing was he was pushing and going, you don't need to have faith. You just need to see my results and chase them. and God saying, do you have faith? Does the church actually have faith? Can you see how the invisible things have controlled the world? They've driven it. And if the church doesn't have faith, there is no hope. It's important to recognize because there's churches out there today that are conservative churches that have a woman that gets up there and sings a solo. That's a woman speaking in church. It's a woman leading in church and leading in worship. And they go, we're completely against homosexuality. But they've actually embraced it already. They just haven't embraced the results of it because they've already said there's no difference between men and women. When the church says there's no difference between men and women, even in the most, the basic thing that says women, it's shameful for a woman to speak in church when they go, no, no, no, that's not true. And they say, it's shameful for her to be an elder. Well, you've already said God can't define gender roles. Well, if you say God can't define gender roles, how can you say homosexuality is wrong? Because those are gender roles. And so these churches that are out there that they're thinking, I am so, we're passionately against homosexuality and the rise of homosexuality in our society. And then they have a woman do a solo. They should recognize, no, give them a generation and they're teaching, maybe two generations, but they're teaching the people in that church that no, homosexuality is fine. Because, I mean, when you're saying that, people are going, no, they haven't embraced it yet. But I want to go back to a verse you read earlier. And that is what you're saying, is you're telling them right now, God Forsake the Lord of your fathers. You're already worshiping a idolatrous form of God. So where are they gonna go but into further idolatry? Sure, God can come in and cause a revival, but it's gonna have nothing to do with what you're teaching them. You're setting them on a path to go deeper into idolatry. And can you read scripture and go, oh, that's what happened. We didn't teach them to know the Lord their God. And it was because of Baal worship. The reason that that woman leads, and the woman can be incredibly more talented than anybody else in that church. But it doesn't make it pleasing to God. It still makes it shameful. Because that's not the standard. God does not desire sacrifice. God does not desire somebody to have spent 20 years learning how to sing in a beautiful way for worship and then turn and disobey. God doesn't desire sacrifice. He desires obedience. And God says women stay silent in church. And so they've rejected obedience because they go, but the woman's so talented. That's man worship. That's Baal worship. And then, as the homosexual movement gained steam, Oberlin College can't live with that, because now they're mainstream, and they have to be pushing their theology, they have to be moving forward, so then they embrace the transgenderism, they're the leaders about being able to change your gender, and all this other garbage. And Oberlin's still there, and they're still doing the same thing, and they're still taking Finney's thoughts, the direction that he sent them on, and they're going further and further and further, to the point they're running out of, how do you figure out how to rebel against God and make man more of a God than what they've already done? Right, they're gonna be pushing minor attracted people, they're gonna be pushing, I mean, they're- I'm sure they already are. Right, I mean, they're going to be, Because in the end, they're just going, what can we see? What can we see next? Where are our desires taking us? They're just going to the next logical conclusion based on what they've done. They're just following a path. Man's basically good, so why shouldn't you dress up as a drag queen? and read to little children, because little children can decide for themselves whether they wanna be a transvestite, whether they wanna go to sodomy, because they're little gods too. And so, in the introduction, I connected Finney to the Drag Queen Story Hour, and we have to recognize this is a direct connection. This isn't like, this is his teaching being put into practical effort by zealous people that have energy, and this is the result you get. this isn't something different right i mean they're like the head of woke still but i mean the they made news like a couple years ago right or a few years ago because there was a black man that went in there and and stole from the store i've been in the store that that uh they they sold something off the shelf and so they sold something they stole something off the shelf and so they the store owner called the police on them they were oblan college students And Oberlin College said, the only reason you did it is because they're black, not because they're thieves. Where do you get this? I don't know. And they said, because blacks are inherently allowed to steal, I guess. I mean, that's kind of their position is because they've been subjected in the whole The DEI and the intersectionality and stuff, so they're going, well, they were forced to steal. Well, they're at Oberlin College. Oberlin College is expensive. It's an elite liberal school. It's not cheap. These people are poor and suffering. These people, I mean, even if they are on scholarship, it's a really expensive scholarship. But yet, I mean, and they ended up that they basically had to pay the widow of the man because the stress of going through all this, the man who owned the store died. And they ended up having to pay the widow $30 million. But it was all, they believe in woke so much, and they're such leaders, thought leaders in woke to this day that they went through this whole thing. And finally, the courts went, you went too far. But look at all the things that they did before the courts went, you went too far. I mean, and I think we said this earlier, but I mean, the point of this is theology matters, faith matters, and who you, like you said, the Reformed faith is about God being the center of all things. And does the church understand that? We look at the United Methodists and we go, okay, so they were the first group that accepted practicing sodomite women as bishops. And we all go, look how terrible that is. We have to recognize that's just playing out what's already in practice in a lot of conservative churches. A lot of churches, even reformed churches, that claim to be reformed but aren't willing to submit to scripture where it offends the society. And they don't understand that you have that woman who says, okay, I'm gonna lead during prayer. And those connect, that theology matters. Where's the heart of your worship? Where's the heart of Christianity? Is it to serve God or is it to serve man? Finney said it's to serve man. And then you end up, sooner or later, you'll end up with the drag queen story hour, just a matter of time. And eventually you'll end up further than that. It's even hard for us to see where that will be, but we'll see it. And then at some point we'll be destroyed. Because God will say enough. And we're not saying that to be, we're not being down, we're saying if the church doesn't repent, it would be good for God to destroy the nation. If God's not gonna, but I mean, but we should, there's this part of it where, in contrast to Finney, the church should cry out to God for revival. And instead of us saying that we have to stir ourselves up to temporary zeal, we should turn to daily service because we have the Holy Spirit. We don't need artificial zeal. We have the Holy Spirit that causes us to obey and that gives us the power to serve God. And every believer, not just pastors, but every believer should preach the Word of God in season and out of season. That's what our words need to be. That's what our words need to be when we talk to people on the street. That's what our words need to be. The way you dispel darkness is by shining forth light. And unfortunately, the church is very active in shining forth darkness. They want to do their revivals. They want to do their altar calls. They want to do their special numbers. They want to do their rappers in the morning. They want to do their rock bands. They want to do their motorcycle jumping and their smoke shows and all this other garbage that they're doing that's all about the worship of man. The way the church revives, the way the country restores itself, obviously not itself, but God is doing it, is through the Word of God and through light dispelling the darkness. And that only happens when Christians stop saying, let's say what people want to hear and start saying, let's say what God wants us to say. It's really easy for us to disconnect how we think about the world from what's going on in the world. Finney understood that they're very connected, and I think the modern church doesn't. Start thinking about the practices in your home. Start thinking about the practices in your church. Say, are these what God is commanding us to do for his glory? Are they about what man's glory wants, what we want? The end of the worship of man is destruction. The end of the worship of God is glory with him. Seek God. Thanks for joining us. This has been The Conquering Truth, a project of Reformation Baptist Church. If you found this helpful, you can visit us online at theconqueringtruth.com and subscribe here or in your favorite podcast app. Thanks for watching.