Latest / Voddie Baucham Sermons / Voddie Baucham - Q&A Panel Tom Ascol, Voddie Baucham, Bradley Pierce, Paul Washer and Joel Beeke

Transcript

Voddie Baucham - Q&A Panel Tom Ascol, Voddie Baucham, Bradley Pierce, Paul Washer and Joel Beeke · Voddie Baucham Sermons

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: All right, well, I'd like to ask our panel of
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: speakers to come on up for this Q & A session. Again,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for the questions that you sent in.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: We got many, many, many questions, and I know we
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: won't be able to get to all of them this morning,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: so I apologize if we don't get to your question,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: but I think this will be a beneficial time for
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: us all. I have not kept track of exactly who
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: our panelists will be this morning. So we may have
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: an empty seat.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: We are missing Vody. Okay. That's okay.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Well, we have a broad range of topics in the
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: questions before us this morning. And any of these questions
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: are for any of you men. I do want to
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: start off with one that is just a classic anthropology question.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: This is for any of you. And the question is this.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Is man composed of a body and spirit or body, soul,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and spirit?
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Joel, I think your phone's ringing, brother.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Would you please.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: I'll try.
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: When the Bible uses more words than one to describe something,
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: it's putting an emphasis on something. And when Paul says,
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: for example, I pray God your whole body, your soul,
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: and your spirit be held blameless, he's not distinguishing soul
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: and spirit as if that's two different people or two
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: different things. parts of man. Actually, man is one whole,
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: and that's the violent ripping apart at death that makes
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: death the king of terrors, because in the resurrection, we
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: get our soul and our body, so may I say it,
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: put back together again, and man is really one. But
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: if you want to break it into two parts, of course,
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  Speaker 4: the soul is the essence of the core of the
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: inner being of who you are, But soul and spirit
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: are used pretty much as synonyms in the Bible. Sometimes
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: it just speaks of body and spirit, as if that's
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: all there is, because the soul is your innermost being,
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: the essence of who you are from within. And, of course,
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: there's all kinds of relationships between your soul and your body,
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: but we're not tripartists. We don't believe that man is
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: made up of three parts. but soul and body. And
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: if you want to use the word spirit and body,
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: that's fine too.
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: I think that also, let me give you an example.
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: Talking about God, it says, who keeps loving kindness for thousands,
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  Speaker 5: who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin. So you have iniquity, transgression,
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  Speaker 5: and sin. You go to the greatest commandment, love the
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
• 3:24
  Speaker 5: Some Some exegetes would want to take each one of
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: these words and nuance it. And of course, there is,
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: in some cases, it's valid to do that. But especially
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: in the Hebrew mind, from the way I understand it,
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: is this idea of heaping one term upon another for emphasis.
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: We also see this with phrases, Hebrew parallelisms, especially in
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: the book of Proverbs or let me make one up.
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: The wicked shall not live in the land.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: The wicked shall be destroyed.
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: It's saying the same thing, but just giving greater and
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: greater emphasis. And so when we see these texts like
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: this or love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul,
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  Speaker 5: mind and strength, the idea is with your entire being,
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  Speaker 5: with everything you are. And we shouldn't really get lost
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  Speaker 5: in the nuance of it.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: There's been some really bad theology that has emerged from
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: that tripartite view of mankind. I'm thinking of Balthazar Hubmeier,
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  Speaker 3: who was an Anabaptist leader, and he built a whole
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: understanding of anthropology based upon that 1 Thessalonians 5 passage.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: And it's like the body is irredeemable, the spirit doesn't
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: need to be redeemed because it's without sin, and the
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: soul is kind of the arbiter. And it's, I mean,
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: that's nuts. The Bible does talk about the inner and
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: the outer life, and obviously the inner life is more
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: important than the outer life. We've talked about that in
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: this conference. Jesus, when he sent his disciples out, said,
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  Speaker 3: don't fear those who can kill your body. Fear him
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  Speaker 3: who can kill your body and cast your soul into
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  Speaker 3: hell afterwards. So there's inner, outer, and yeah, what these
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: brothers said about the way those things are emphasized, the
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  Speaker 3: inner life is emphasized with spirit and soul and strength, heart, mind,
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  Speaker 3: all of that. So we're not just material beings, obviously,
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  Speaker 3: but to try to parse it out in ways that
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  Speaker 3: the Bible doesn't encourage us to do can lead to
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  Speaker 3: all kinds of bad conclusions.
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  Speaker 5: I think one other thing that is very important, and
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  Speaker 5: that's the light that the incarnation of our Lord brings
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  Speaker 5: to this. There's been a tendency in Christianity, we see
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  Speaker 5: in the patristics and things where you have this tendency
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  Speaker 5: towards a strange spirituality that eliminates the body's importance. And
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  Speaker 5: what we need to see in the incarnation of our
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: Lord is that the full redemption of a person and
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  Speaker 5: how important the body is in the new heaven and
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  Speaker 5: the new earth and everything that he's doing, that I
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  Speaker 5: find it magnificent that he loses nothing to death and
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  Speaker 5: that he redeems the entire man And his incarnation is
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  Speaker 5: proof of that also.
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  Speaker 4: It's also interesting that the Bible speaks very little of
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  Speaker 4: the intermediate state, doesn't it? It says the soul goes
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  Speaker 4: to God as soon as you die, and the body
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  Speaker 4: goes to the earth, Ecclesiastes. And then it's almost silent
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  Speaker 4: on the intermediate state.
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  Speaker 2: Why?
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  Speaker 4: Well, because the intermediate state is so short compared to eternity.
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  Speaker 4: Eternity is forever and ever. So the focus is going
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  Speaker 4: to be, of course, on the whole man being redeemed,
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  Speaker 4: soul and body, in the resurrection and being with God forever.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: The next question, can you address biblical anthropology in the
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: domain of sexuality? Is same-sex attraction sin or only actions
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: taken out of same-sex attractions?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I think same-sex attraction is sin. And this is
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: a detailed, detailed debate that's going on right now, even
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  Speaker 3: amongst some very good guys like Robert Gagnon, who takes
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: a more nuanced view opposing what I just said, and
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  Speaker 3: Jared Moore, who has got a book coming out on this,
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  Speaker 3: I think, but he did a lot of study in
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  Speaker 3: his doctoral studies on sexuality at Southern Seminary, who says
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  Speaker 3: basically what I just said. There's a difference between a
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  Speaker 3: man having sexual attraction to a man and a man
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  Speaker 3: having sexual attraction to a woman. Now, no doubt, lust
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: is sinful across the board. But a man's attraction to
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: a woman is wrong if it's not his wife. Sexual
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  Speaker 3: attraction or lust is wrong. But it is not unnatural.
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  Speaker 3: in the sense that God created men and women for
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  Speaker 3: each other to have a unity together in marriage. It
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  Speaker 3: could be a right and good thing for that attraction
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  Speaker 3: to be expressed in marriage. It can never be a
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  Speaker 3: right and good thing for the attraction between a man
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  Speaker 3: and a man to be expressed. And that's Romans 1.
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  Speaker 3: It is unnatural, Paul says, contrary to nature. And in
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  Speaker 3: the whole effort to talk about gay Christianity, re-voice, living out,
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: these things that I think are perhaps well-motivated, let's give
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: them the benefit of the doubt that they really are
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: trying to minister to people whose loves are so disordered
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  Speaker 3: that they find themselves pursuing unnatural relationships. And the big
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  Speaker 3: statement has been, okay, you've got side A and side
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  Speaker 3: B homosexuality. So it's never right to act on those desires.
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  Speaker 3: But if you have the desires and you don't act
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  Speaker 3: on them, then you're just, we've had evangelical Christians say,
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  Speaker 3: those are real heroes. These are the heroes of the
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  Speaker 3: faith because they have homosexual desires but they refuse to
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: act on them. And it just shows how sacrificially they're
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: living to Christ. Well, we should never act on sin.
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  Speaker 3: And those desires are sinful in and of themselves. And
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  Speaker 3: you don't help someone by telling them that their sin
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  Speaker 3: is not sin. You cut them off from the only
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  Speaker 3: hope they have in Christ through God's grace. And so
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: I don't, it is not loving sin. tell someone who
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: struggles with same-sex attraction that that innate desire is not sinful. Now,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: praise God you don't act on it. That's right. But
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: go to war on the desire. Keep fighting that. And
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  Speaker 3: the same thing would be true for a man who
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  Speaker 3: has lustful thoughts for a woman. Those are sinful thoughts.
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  Speaker 3: They ought to be put to death. But the idea...
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  Speaker 3: of a man finding a woman attractive as a possible mate,
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  Speaker 3: that's not sinful. That is moving down a channel that
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  Speaker 3: God has ordained to be right and good in marriage.
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  Speaker 3: So again, it's a finely debated issue, and I'm grateful
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  Speaker 3: for the debate because what I see happening with movements
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  Speaker 3: like Living Out and Revoice is basically a downplaying of
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  Speaker 3: the unnaturalness, the contrary to created order that has happened
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  Speaker 3: in the distorted loves of homosexuality, gender dysphoria, and all
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  Speaker 3: that we are now treating as commonplace in our day?
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  Speaker 3: I think.
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  Speaker 5: For years and years, theologians have warned about your entire
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: view of God, Scripture, and everything is determined by your
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: view of the first two chapters of our Bible. And
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  Speaker 5: there we see God acting in sovereignty. He's ordering cosmos.
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  Speaker 5: He's ordering the world as he has determined it to
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  Speaker 5: be in his infinite wisdom. And the one thing that happens,
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  Speaker 5: I think, in reprobation is that....
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  Speaker 3: It's kind of like abortion.
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  Speaker 5: When it started out, you know, abortion in the first
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  Speaker 5: few weeks, we would never ask for more. And then
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  Speaker 5: abortion in months, we would never ask for more. And
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  Speaker 5: it keeps going down until now. Even the baby who
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: survives abortion, let it die. Well, it's the same way
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  Speaker 5: with God. It's just not content to sin. But sin
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  Speaker 5: keeps going until literally it desires to uproot sin. the
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  Speaker 5: very foundation of God's decrees to destroy absolutely everything of
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  Speaker 5: the will of God. And that's where I think we've
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  Speaker 5: arrived with this because one of the greatest institutes is
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  Speaker 5: family and the order that God put there. And they
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  Speaker 5: want to uproot it and do away with it entirely.
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  Speaker 5: And the ultimate goal is to do away with God.
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  Speaker 4: One thing I have found that's helpful in this very
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  Speaker 4: vitriolic subject for a young man, for example, who feels
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  Speaker 4: he's been attracted to other young men from as long
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  Speaker 4: as he can remember, and he's abstaining himself, and therefore
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  Speaker 4: he's not sinning, is to just remove yourself from that
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  Speaker 4: situation a moment and ask yourself this question. If I
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: said to you, ever since I can remember, ever since
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  Speaker 4: I was born, I've always wanted to possess everything I see.
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  Speaker 4: I'm by nature a thief. I want to just take everything.
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  Speaker 4: I see you with a purse. I want to take
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  Speaker 4: that purse. That's just who I am. But praise be
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  Speaker 4: to God, I'm not sinning at all because I never
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: take your purse. I restrain myself. Would you compliment me
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  Speaker 4: and say, wow, you're using a lot of self-restraint? Or
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: would you say, yes, it's good you restrain yourself, but
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  Speaker 4: this is a product of the fall. If there were
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: no fall, you would never have this desire to possess
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: everything because you were created to serve. And so what
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  Speaker 4: I try to do is I try to explain to
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  Speaker 4: these young men with compassion that You know, this is
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: a product of the fall. Romans 1.27 is a product
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  Speaker 4: of the fall. Even the natural use of women burning
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: their lust toward one another. So original sin is in
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: all of us, and it manifests itself in different ways.
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  Speaker 4: But we must never call right what God calls wrong,
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  Speaker 4: even in the desire. We sin in our thoughts. We
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: sin in our words. We sin in our speech. And so, yes,
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: it's sin, and God can cure you from that sin.
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  Speaker 4: Confess your sin and go to God, whatever sin it
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  Speaker 4: may be, and God can help you.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: One thing that may be helpful for our audience, we
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: need to understand what the difference between desire and temptation is,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: because the question often arises, well, Jesus was tempted in
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: every way, yet was without sin, so can't you be
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: tempted towards these things yet be sinless in that temptation.
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  Speaker 2: So what is the difference there between desire and temptation?
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  Speaker 3: Can I.
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  Speaker 6: Just read this here? This is from James 1, verse 12.
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  Speaker 6: It says, Blessed is the man who endures temptation. For
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  Speaker 6: when he has been approved, he will receive the crown
• 15:33
  Speaker 6: of life which the Lord has promised to those who
• 15:35
  Speaker 6: love him. Let no one say when he is tempted,
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  Speaker 6: I am tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted
• 15:41
  Speaker 6: by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. But each
• 15:45
  Speaker 6: one is tempted when he is drawn away by his
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it
• 15:55
  Speaker 6: gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown,
• 15:58
  Speaker 6: brings forth death. And I think we have these categories
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  Speaker 6: of there's temptation, and then there's desire, and then there's action.
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  Speaker 6: And And I think another way of putting the desire
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  Speaker 6: to sin is coveting. I think that's what we would
• 16:18
  Speaker 6: call it in the Old Testament. That is, coveting something
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  Speaker 6: is desiring something that you should not have or you
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  Speaker 6: cannot have and it does not belong to you. And
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  Speaker 6: so that desire for that has to be put to death.
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  Speaker 6: And it's temptation when we entertain the temptation and it
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  Speaker 6: It grows then into desire. That's where we then become
• 16:43
  Speaker 6: sin instead of putting it to death from the moment
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  Speaker 6: that it enters our mind.
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  Speaker 5: Regarding our Lord, sin, the temptation was laid before him,
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  Speaker 5: but there was no affinity. There was nothing in him
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: that desired it.
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  Speaker 3: He hated it.
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  Speaker 5: You know, when we say that God does not sin,
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: it's not that he has the power to resist sin.
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  Speaker 5: There's nothing to resist. He hates it with a pure hatred. Us,
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  Speaker 5: even as believers, there is still something of an affinity.
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  Speaker 5: There's something in our flesh that grabs a hold of that,
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  Speaker 5: that desires that.
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  Speaker 3: But with Christ.
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  Speaker 5: Our mighty, mighty Christ, he hated it. And that's one
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  Speaker 5: of the reasons why we love him and we see
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: him as extraordinary.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: I'd like to underscore what Joel just did because it
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: is so useful in helping to clarify ethical issues today,
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: especially on this issue, sexuality. What he did is he
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: took the argument of the attractions not sinned but the
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: action on the attraction is sin. And he applied it
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: to different sins, to thievery. And you see, well, no,
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  Speaker 3: that's ludicrous. And it just shows us how far we
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: have been moved in our culture to try to accept
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: these things, the homosexual agenda, number one, because this has
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: been a strategy that they have hatched and very forcefully
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: moved on our culture the last 20 plus years and
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: with great success. So if you take thievery or take
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: something even more onerous that the Bible talks about, like bestiality,
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  Speaker 3: and say, well, what about a person who's attracted in
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: that way and yet doesn't act on it? Is that
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: not sin? Well, of course, we still, may not in
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: a few years, but we still have enough sense of
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: God's righteousness that is around us in the world to
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: revolt against that. No, no, no, our pedophilia. which is
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: being pushed today, the minor attracted person, a minor attracted person.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: This is an agenda now that's following in on that.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: So whenever you hear these things, and it's usually couched
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: in very sympathetic terms, you've got to be loving. If
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: you say that this is sinful, that these attractions are sinful,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: then you're just being so harsh and unloving. Take the
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: same argument. Apply it to a different situation. sin and
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: see how it measures up. And if it doesn't measure up,
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: then go back and start looking at the argument more carefully,
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: because very likely you're just being manipulated.
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: I think the reason we do that is because we've
• 19:49
  Speaker 7: accepted some.
• 19:51
  Speaker 7: Fundamental untruths. One fundamental untruth that we've accepted is that
• 19:56
  Speaker 7: homosexuality is just like heterosexuality, right? We equate them. We
• 20:06
  Speaker 7: equate them because we've accepted the idea that people are
• 20:12
  Speaker 7: born like that. We accept them because we've accepted the
• 20:17
  Speaker 7: idea that people have an innate, immutable, unchangeable orientation. And
• 20:26
  Speaker 7: that it's the same as a person having an innate,
• 20:30
  Speaker 7: immutable ethnicity.
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  Speaker 2: It's the same thing.
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  Speaker 7: And once we've accepted those things, then it becomes difficult
• 20:41
  Speaker 7: for us to do what Joel just did and what
• 20:44
  Speaker 7: you just commended, which is to put it in the
• 20:48
  Speaker 7: same category as other things that we continue to believe
• 20:54
  Speaker 7: are abhorrent. And there has been a specific strategy to
• 21:00
  Speaker 7: change the way that we think about this. There's a
• 21:04
  Speaker 7: book that I've mentioned a number of times over the
• 21:09
  Speaker 7: years called called After the Ball, How America Will Overcome
• 21:13
  Speaker 7: Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the Decade of
• 21:15
  Speaker 7: the 90s. It was published in 1989. And if you
• 21:19
  Speaker 7: get it today, it reads like a history book. And
• 21:23
  Speaker 7: it was a strategy. Here's the strategy we need to employ.
• 21:27
  Speaker 7: And there were three main parts of the strategy. One
• 21:32
  Speaker 7: was desensitizing. Desensitizing was the idea of just getting people
• 21:37
  Speaker 7: Images out there, right? Making people continue to make people
• 21:41
  Speaker 7: see it. Continue to make people see it. If you
• 21:45
  Speaker 7: continue to make people see it, they'll get desensitized to it.
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  Speaker 2: Okay?
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  Speaker 7: That was the first part of the strategy. Put it
• 21:51
  Speaker 7: out there. Use the media. Use education. Use everything that
• 21:57
  Speaker 7: we can to desensitize people. They're going to be offended
• 22:00
  Speaker 7: at first, but again, desensitize them. By the way, one
• 22:05
  Speaker 7: of the ways you desensitize them is that you don't
• 22:06
  Speaker 7: show them the dark underbelly. So you hope they never
• 22:10
  Speaker 7: go to a gay pride parade and see what actually
• 22:13
  Speaker 7: happens there. You hope they just see the news report
• 22:17
  Speaker 7: that just shows you glimpses and shows you public officials
• 22:20
  Speaker 7: making speeches at the gay pride event so that you
• 22:23
  Speaker 7: don't see the debauchery that is a gay pride parade, right?
• 22:27
  Speaker 7: So that's part of the desensitizing. Second step is jamming.
• 22:31
  Speaker 7: Now what jamming does... is jamming takes images that you abhor, skinheads, Nazis, KKK,
• 22:39
  Speaker 7: and they equate being anti-homosexual with being those things. So
• 22:45
  Speaker 7: that every time you think about this biblical idea, these
• 22:48
  Speaker 7: things that we've heard, there's something in you that goes,
• 22:51
  Speaker 7: you know, you want to defend yourself. That's why when
• 22:54
  Speaker 7: preachers preach on homosexuality today, you get like 10 minutes
• 22:58
  Speaker 7: of apology beforehand, right? Can you imagine a preacher going,
• 23:02
  Speaker 7: now listen, before I preach this message on pedophilia, just
• 23:07
  Speaker 7: know God loves pedophiles. I have friends who are pedophiles.
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: But that's what we do when we preach on homosexuality,
• 23:16
  Speaker 7: because of jamming. And then the third phase is conversion.
• 23:21
  Speaker 7: Conversion is not making people themselves, you know, LGBTQAI2S +, whatever. Conversion...
• 23:32
  Speaker 7: is about turning people into allies. By the way, the A, LGBTQIA,
• 23:38
  Speaker 7: that's for allies, right? Conversion is about turning people into
• 23:42
  Speaker 7: allies so that they go to war on your behalf
• 23:46
  Speaker 7: on this.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: And that's the strategy.
• 23:50
  Speaker 7: That has been carried out incredibly effectively and successfully.
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: So much so that now.
• 24:01
  Speaker 7: The desensitizing has really turned a corner to now it's coercion.
• 24:07
  Speaker 7: It's not you get used to seeing the images. Now
• 24:10
  Speaker 7: it's you've been so converted that if a hockey player says,
• 24:16
  Speaker 7: I'm not wearing the rainbow gear. Did y'all hear this
• 24:20
  Speaker 7: just a couple of days ago, right? I'm not wearing
• 24:23
  Speaker 7: the rainbow gear. Then people in the news media are
• 24:27
  Speaker 7: saying the NHL's got to do something. They need to
• 24:30
  Speaker 7: find this team. They need to do something. So just
• 24:34
  Speaker 7: know that, you know, our thinking on this has been co-opted,
• 24:40
  Speaker 7: that it continues to be co-opted. And that's why exercises
• 24:45
  Speaker 7: like this one are incredibly important. Put another sin in
• 24:50
  Speaker 7: that category. Think about how you would respond and then
• 24:54
  Speaker 7: ask yourself, what has happened to you and your Christian
• 24:56
  Speaker 7: sensibilities today? so that you have to have an exercise
• 25:00
  Speaker 7: like that in order to think rightly about this particular sin.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Are there more components to the cultural mandate in addition
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: to work? Bodhi, you pretty well established that the cultural
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: mandate is still in effect.
• 25:14
  Speaker 7: Are there more components to that cultural mandate? Yeah, so
• 25:18
  Speaker 7: remember I talked about pursuing truth, beauty, and goodness. It's
• 25:23
  Speaker 7: not just our work, but it's It's taking pleasure in beauty,
• 25:33
  Speaker 7: in things like art and music and literature and these
• 25:39
  Speaker 7: sorts of things. It is expressing that God-given desire for truth, beauty,
• 25:47
  Speaker 7: and goodness through all the things that we do. One
• 25:49
  Speaker 7: of the things I brought up was parenting, right? And
• 25:54
  Speaker 7: we'll talk about that some in my message today, but
• 25:57
  Speaker 7: the whole idea.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: It's be fruitful and multiply.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 26:02
  Speaker 7: And then, you know, exercise this dominion. The only way
• 26:07
  Speaker 7: that that mandate was going to be carried out is
• 26:09
  Speaker 7: through the fruitfulness.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:13
  Speaker 7: And so fruitfulness is not just about having children. It's
• 26:17
  Speaker 7: about having children and raising children and training children with
• 26:20
  Speaker 7: a view toward them continuing in this. So it's, it's,
• 26:27
  Speaker 7: it is our work. but it's our work in the
• 26:31
  Speaker 7: sense that it's everything that our hands find to do.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: You teach at a liberal arts university in Lusaka, and
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: I teach at a liberal arts school here in Florida,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: and what I often tell my students is the difference
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: between a science and an art. A science is a
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: body of knowledge which you study in order to know,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: and art is their skills which you master in order
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: to produce. And so production out of that work is
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: massive when it comes to.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: The cultural mandate. Can I add something to that?
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: As someone who has 10 children, I'm a big believer
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: in be fruitful and multiply. You know, and I think
• 27:07
  Speaker 6: that is part of the cultural mandate, you know, that
• 27:09
  Speaker 6: God says be fruitful. You know, it's interesting that that's
• 27:12
  Speaker 6: really the once, after he created man and woman, that's
• 27:16
  Speaker 6: the first thing he says to them.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: And it's interesting, he says.
• 27:19
  Speaker 6: And God blessed them, and God told them, be fruitful
• 27:25
  Speaker 6: and multiply. Yeah. In our culture today, do we consider
• 27:28
  Speaker 6: children a blessing? You know, and then it wasn't just then.
• 27:31
  Speaker 6: Then Noah, they come off the ark. The first thing
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: God says, it says, and God blessed him and said,
• 27:41
  Speaker 6: be fruitful, multiply. And then God calls Jacob and it says,
• 27:46
  Speaker 6: and God blessed him and said, be fruitful, multiply. This
• 27:50
  Speaker 6: is something that, again, at the creation of the world,
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: to Noah, at the creation of the nation of Israel,
• 27:57
  Speaker 6: all of these points, at the beginning of each of
• 27:59
  Speaker 6: these points, God blesses, and the very first blessing he
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: gives is be fruitful and multiply.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: Well, Bradley and Vody, we just published a book called
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: Sweeter by the Dozen. You would both enjoy that book
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: a lot.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Keep going, brother.
• 28:18
  Speaker 7: And I would also say that when you look at
• 28:20
  Speaker 7: the church, that it's the same thing. He blesses us,
• 28:23
  Speaker 7: and he calls us to be fruitful and multiply.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: That's right. That's right.
• 28:27
  Speaker 4: But in this book, it's very, very interesting because the
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: author does two things. First, he was a judge in
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: the Grand Rapids area, just a really godly man. But
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: he first gives the story of all 13 of his children,
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: and he talks about each one and how he loves them.
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: It's very moving. And then the second half of the
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: book is he looks at all the biblical arguments that
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: are made today about people planning just to have these
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: small families, and he just demolishes them one by one.
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: Needless to say, it's not our best runaway seller. But
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: the same thing we were just talking about with homosexuality,
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: he shows how the culture's attitude of selfishness, and I
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: want my desire no matter what, that it just degenerates.
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: also in this area, so that people plan as if
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: they're God and say, well, we're just going to have
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: two kids, you know. And so he really demolishes all
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: of that. And it's powerful because he wanted to be
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: an airplane pilot, and he had all these dreams and visions,
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: and he said, well, with child number four, all my
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: plans came crashing down, and I had to deny myself,
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: but I had to do it in order to live
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: out this beautiful example of raising children in the fear
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: of God.
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: Just one thing as a side note is that I
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: believe by their own words, I can say this, that
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: If you're now sending your children to public schools and
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: to public universities, you need to realize you're sending them
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: to religious institutions set against the God of creation. And,
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: you know, if you... Let me give you an illustration.
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: So if you have a big sore on your head
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: that's bleeding and never heals, and you say, the doctors
• 30:25
  Speaker 5: can't cure me, And you say, Brother Paul, could you
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: pray or do something and maybe come up with an answer?
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: And I say, well, I'm no doctor, but I'll watch you.
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: So at one o'clock in the morning, I see that
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: you get up out of bed and the clock strikes
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: one and you smack your head against the wall and
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: then you go back to bed. And then clock strikes two,
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: you get up and you do it again and go
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: through 24 hours and you've beat yourself rather badly against
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: the wall. And I come to you and say, well,
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: I'm no doctor, but I think I've found your problem.
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: You're sitting there, so many people, and they're going, I
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: don't know why we're losing our generations. I don't know why.
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: Because you're sending them to religious institutions that hate your God.
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: And you need to realize that.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: And, you know, it's funny.
• 31:21
  Speaker 7: I hear you say that. And I wrote about that
• 31:24
  Speaker 7: in Family Driven Faith in 2007. And there were ministries
• 31:27
  Speaker 7: that wouldn't have me at events because I was saying
• 31:33
  Speaker 7: that just, just, just to show you how the worm
• 31:37
  Speaker 7: has turned.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 31:39
  Speaker 7: Um, there, there, there were, there were folks who, you know,
• 31:42
  Speaker 7: I was dangerous and an extremist and an elitist and, and,
• 31:48
  Speaker 7: and all this other stuff. Um, but I'm, I'm, it's,
• 31:53
  Speaker 7: it's here and, and we see it. And, and there's
• 31:56
  Speaker 7: no denying it. It's unfortunate that we've had to get
• 32:01
  Speaker 7: to this point, right?
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: I think it's probably one thing you didn't want to
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: be proved right about.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. Not at all, no.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Well, shifting gears a little bit to ecclesiology, how would
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: you define church discipline, and how can it actively be applied?
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: I think church discipline is, in one sense, it's everything
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: a church does in the process of disciple making. So
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: there's the formative discipline that is the kind of warp
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: and woof of church life. We don't often think of
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: it in these terms, but older writers did. And whenever
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: you read a good book on church discipline, they'll always
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: start with formative discipline. You want to see Christ formed
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: inside of people to become more and more like Christ.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: How does that happen? Well, it happens through the ordinary
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: means of grace. It happens through the preaching and teaching
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: of God's word, through fellowship, through encouragement to live out
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: godly lives and making disciples of others, evangelism, all of
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: those things, the casual conversations that you have with believers
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: to remind each other of things that we know to
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: be true in the gospel of the Lord Jesus, memorizing scripture,
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: all of the things that you would think of that
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: help you to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ,
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: that is formative. And the church ought to be facilitating
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: that and promoting that. When we think of church discipline,
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: we tend to think only of the corrective side of discipline,
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: and that's vitally important as well. But where the ordinary
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: means of grace are emphasized and where there is common
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: commitment in a church so that when you come into
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: the membership of a church, It is with a conscious
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: awareness of, yes, we're going to follow Christ with this
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: body of believers in these ways that we all see
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: to be in the scripture. Corrective discipline will be the exception.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: And it's what must happen whenever someone who has made
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: the commitment to be formed more and more into Christ
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: begins to deviate and walk away. And most of the time,
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: corrective discipline will take place without many people knowing about it.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, Jesus says that in Matthew 18. You see
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: your brother in sin, you go to him and confront him,
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: correct him. If he hears you, you've won your brother.
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: That's it.
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: You know, you don't put a picture up on Instagram saying,
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: I'm so glad I was able to correct my brother
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: today about this. Or you don't go and report it.
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: To the church.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: You just, you know, it's what Christians do. We help
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: each other. If he doesn't hear you, you take a
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: couple others with you for that same purpose. And if
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: he hears you then, praise God, it's over. You don't
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: need to make a big deal out of that. This
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: is the way Christians live. We help each other. And
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: it's only when that rises to the level of unwillingness
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: to hear two or three brothers or sisters are coming
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: to you to help you that Jesus says, then you
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: tell it to the church. I mean, this is a
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: serious matter because now we've got a case that has
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: devolved into something that if it is not corrected is
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: going to be scandalous. And the church goes after this
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: brother or sister saying, look, We welcomed you in here
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: because we affirmed your discipleship. And now you're, you said
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: you were going to live this way. You're not living
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: this way. And you're not willing to repent when we're
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: calling upon you to repent. The whole church is calling
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: upon you in the name of Jesus Christ to repent.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: And it's interesting in Matthew 18, Jesus says, and if
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: he refuses to hear even the church, like, can you
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: imagine that? The authority that I vested in the church,
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: if they don't do that, then you treat them like a, Gentile,
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: tax collector, that means you no longer affirm them to
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: be a member of the church. You remove them from membership.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: You excommunicate them. 1 Corinthians 5, you hand them over
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: to the devil in hopes that their soul might be
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: saved in the day of Christ. But that too, it's
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: not punitive. You're not saying, oh, we're just going to
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: kick you out of the church because we don't want
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: you here anymore. It's corrective. You want to see them
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: come to Christ. But if they're not willing to return
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: to Christ, the glory of Christ is too great. to
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: let that go on in the body. So those are
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: the normal ways of corrective discipline. There are exceptions to that.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: If something is so scandalous, so public, so immediate, 1
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: Corinthians 5, Paul doesn't say, well, you know, look, we
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: gotta get two or three people to go talk to
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: this person.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: He says, no.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: He says, remove that church member. Do it decisively, do
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: it immediately, because this is of such a nature that
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: if you let this go on in the church, You're
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: actually communicating to the world and to the unseen principalities
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: and powers that scandalous sin can go unaddressed among the
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: people of God who say that they are living for
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: and worshiping the holy God and are committed to being
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: a holy people. And you should be embarrassed if you
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: let that go on in your church.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: There's a.
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: There's a teaching I do on why you should never
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: discipline your child. And, yes.
• 37:21
  Speaker 8: Another washer shocking statement.
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: And it also applies to the church. I've heard a
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: lot of men beat their chest.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: I discipline my children.
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: I hear about churches.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: We discipline people.
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: But what I mean by that is this. In 2 Timothy,
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: he says this, all scriptures inspired by God and profitable
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training and righteousness.
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: If you're not willing to do these things, don't pound
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: your chest and say that you discipline children or churches.
• 38:02
  Speaker 5: We have a responsibility to dedicate our lives to to
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: teaching the scriptures, to reproving with the scriptures, to correcting
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: with the scriptures, to training with the scriptures.
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: And then that.
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: Last part of discipline, that's the last part. And it
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: is important and it is biblical, but like Tom said,
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: it begins the moment someone comes to your church and
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: you preach the gospel to them. Whenever I'm having to
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: deal with contracts, Or our negotiations. And I'm trying to.
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: I have someone else with me. And I'm trying to
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: train them about. How do you do these things? I
• 38:44
  Speaker 5: always tell them. Whatever you don't deal with up front.
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: Will come back and bite you. So if you deal
• 38:53
  Speaker 5: with souls. As some of our fathers in the faith.
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: As scripture commands. If you deal with souls that way.
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: You'll have less discipline problems at the end. It's the
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: same way with children. Don't say I disciplined. Okay, do
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: you teach with the scriptures? Do you rebuke the child
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: with the scriptures? Do you correct and encourage the child
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: with the scriptures and the church member? Do you train
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: them in righteousness, in the means of grace? And then
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: at the end, there's discipline.
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, both of your responses have just been outstanding. And
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: it's very good. I just want to add one little
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: footnote that when someone comes to you and says, which
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: is quite often in our day, you know, isn't discipline cruel?
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: I think you can answer this way. Well, what's the
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: purpose of discipline? It's for the purity of the church
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: and one thing. That's not cruel. And it's also to
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: heal the person who's sinning. So is it cruel for
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: a doctor to give medicine to his patient? Of course not.
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: So when you come with discipline, it's very important that
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: you're honest with the individual, but you also come in
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: a loving spirit. You don't try to pound it into him.
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: You don't get angry. If you discipline wrongly, It's like
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: a parent yelling at his child. That's no way to
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: discipline a child. So when you come with love but
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: firmness in the biblical emphasis, you're aiming for purity and
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: you're aiming for the restoration of the individual. It's a medicine.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: That's positive on both sides. So let's see discipline, church discipline,
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: when it's done rightly as a real blessing for the
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: church and a real blessing for the individual.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I think one thing that you said, Tom, it's not punitive.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: The church is not given the sword. The church is
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: given the keys. And so there's a difference between punishment
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: and discipline. And for the church, it's not church punishment.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: We're not seeking to administer justice. We leave that to
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: the civil magistrate and to God. We're seeking to discipline
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: and to correct.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: May I add one thing? Because I've seen mistakes made
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: on this, especially with young pastors going into churches that
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: have not been taught this at all. And there's something,
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: maybe even a scandalous sin that comes up. And you think,
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: we just have to excommunicate this person. And I need
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: to go through the steps. I need to take this.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: And what winds up happening if a man does that
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: immediately that way, it's preacher discipline. It's not church discipline.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: The church has to be taught. And you might have
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: to let some things go in ways that you wouldn't
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: let them go down the road because you haven't had
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: the opportunity to teach them. And I'm not saying paper
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: over it, ignore it.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: It or call it.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: Anything less than it is. But I am saying you
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: take those opportunities to teach the church and say, this
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: is what the word of God says we're supposed to do.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: And you've never done it and you're not doing it now.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: And we're in sin and we need to repent and
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: we need to decide, are we going to follow Christ
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: or not? And, and don't, don't take it upon yourself
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: to go to somebody and say, look, you can't come
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: back to church here or you're, you're, I'm kicking you
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: out of the church. That's preacher discipline. And the church
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: is called upon by Christ to carry this out. So
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: the most significant thing you need to do is teach
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: the congregation what it means to be the stewards of
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: the oracles of God that he's given to us, which
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: include these keys to decide who's welcomed in and who
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: can no longer be welcomed in. But until you do that,
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: you may have to gulp to get to where the
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: congregation needs to be led so that you can begin
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: to practice this.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Here's a good one.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: It may be helpful for some. How should a married
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: couple with differing views on baptism, so Paedo-Baptist or Credo-Baptist,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: how should they go about finding a church?
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: They should just find the best Reformed Baptist church they
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: can and join.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Next question.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: That was awesome.
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: I believe that, first of all, we all believe that
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: God is absolutely sovereign and God has brought these two together.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: It has happened.
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: And it's going to be what it always is. It's
• 43:35
  Speaker 5: going to be settled by them lovingly, patiently dealing with
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: one another, going through scripture. And the man obviously must
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: lead his wife, but not lead his wife by any
• 43:51
  Speaker 5: coercion of the conscience, but trust the Lord. We all
• 43:56
  Speaker 5: know that we sit up here and our Presbyterian More
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: Presbyterian brothers that are here have a deep appreciation for
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: the Reformed Baptists. The Reformed Baptists have a deep appreciation.
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: And that needs to be held in that marriage. And
• 44:12
  Speaker 5: I believe that if they'll just be in the Word,
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: and they'll be in prayer, and deal patiently, God will
• 44:17
  Speaker 5: bring them through that. You know, that may not sound
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: like the exact answer, but in a case like that,
• 44:24
  Speaker 5: you're dealing with conscience. And one of the things that
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: I do want to say in the leadership of the Homes.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: Be very careful.
• 44:34
  Speaker 5: You do not have the right to manipulate conscience.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: Or coerce.
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: You lead by teaching, by prayer, and by example, and
• 44:46
  Speaker 5: you need to be very, very patient. And from that moment,
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: I have nothing left to say, but I know that
• 44:53
  Speaker 5: God will work it out.
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and sometimes it can come. It's a big issue
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: for certain couples. Sometimes it can come pretty far. And
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: if they work together in love, I think normally God
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: will work it out where they can be united. But
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: there have been cases on both sides where, for example,
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: in the paedobaptist side, where, say, the father has really
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: been convicted that he needs to baptize his children. Not
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: that they're saved. They have to be born again. So
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: he and his wife are agreed on that, on the
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: fact that they need to be born again. But actually,
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: the man stands up and takes the vows, and he agrees.
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: His wife respects the conscience of his wife. She believes
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: everything that is being vowed in its essence, but just
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: doesn't agree with the baptism of the children. And so
• 45:50
  Speaker 4: she either stands beside him and doesn't take the vow
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: or sits in the pew, doesn't take the vow. And
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: they both respect each other for that. I've seen that
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: happen in extreme cases. And they go forward with somewhat
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: the same principles of how they're going to raise their children,
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: even though they disagree on whether the child should be baptized.
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: Let me just say this as a paedo-baptist. I.
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: I tell people this openly. I have more Reformed Baptist
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: friends around the world than I do Presbyterians. And sometimes
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: when I go to Europe, one time I was sitting
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: on the plane coming back, I just preached 19 sermons,
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: and I was thinking on the way back, hey, they
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: were all in Baptist churches. In our seminary, I don't
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: even know a lot of the students if they're Baptist
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: or not. We don't make a big deal of that.
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: I think Baptists are more conscious of being Baptist than Christians.
• 46:48
  Speaker 4: Paedo-Baptists are conscious of being Paedo-Baptists. But what I find
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: binding and why I love Reformed Baptists is especially those
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: Reformed Baptists who have the experiential emphasis of conversion and
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: the work of God in the soul. To me, that's
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: far more important than whether you agree or not on
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: when to baptize people.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: If the Credo-Baptist parent holds out long enough, eventually your
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: child will grow up. Don't take that.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: That's not good advice. Don't take that advice.
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: Boy, I'm tempted to say something, but I don't want.
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: To.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: All right. Here, this question is good. Can you further
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: explain what is meant when it is said, we will
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: give an account to God at the end of our lives?
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: Well, Paul says we must all appear before the judgment
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: seat of Christ so that we can receive the rewards
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: or the consequences of that which we've done. And the
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: parables of Jesus also teaches. I think this is all
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: through the scripture of accountability. The Luke 19, the minas,
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: you know, the nobleman gives money. one mina to each
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: of those ten servants, and then based on what they
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: have done with it when it comes to them, their
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: accountability determines what's going to happen, if they're going to
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: be put in charge of many cities or if they're
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: going to be condemned for having just buried it. So yeah,
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: accountability exists. But I think sometimes Christians get afraid of
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: this because you think, oh my, I've just done so
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: poorly with opportunities in my life. And I understand that burden.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: I feel that in my own soul at times. But
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: just as we will be judged on the final day
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: based upon the grace of God that has been given
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: to us in Jesus Christ, and the righteousness of Christ
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: will be our plea, it won't be, as I think
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: Paul pointed out in one of his messages, the argument
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: won't be, but Lord, we did this, we did that,
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: we did that. No, no, no. You say, Lord, I
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: have Christ. Christ is my Savior. His righteousness covers me.
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: His death is paid for my sin. Just as we're
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: judged by God's we will have God's grace covering us
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: at the judgment for our justification, we will have God's
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: grace covering us at the judgment for our sanctification. And
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: when we hear, well done, good and faithful servant, it
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: will not be because we've done everything just right that
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: we should have done. It will be because of the
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: grace of God in Jesus Christ. And you see that
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: in the way the Lord rewards those or describes the
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: reward of those who took what was entrusted to them
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: and invested it and brought back a good return. You think, man,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: the reward is way beyond the return on the investment.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: How does that happen? It happens the same way that
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: you're justified, by the grace of God in Jesus Christ.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: So what does that do? Does that make us lazy
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: and antinomian?
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: No.
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: It should make us like Paul. I worked harder than
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: anybody else because of the grace of God in me.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: I'm going to give my whole life to doing what
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: God has entrusted for me to do, knowing at the
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: end of the day I'm an unprofitable servant. I've only
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: done my duty. And that anything that the Lord says
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: to me that is approving, anything that the Lord rewards
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: to me, It's all going to be because of Jesus Christ.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: And we live by that grace now, and we will
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: be judged by that grace in that great day.
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: I think also it's extremely, I think it's a very
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: important question because it's extremely important to, as a preacher too,
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: to press home upon people, the unconverted in particular, but
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: even God's people, the enormity of sin in the light
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: of the judgment day. I will stand before God, the
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: Belgian Confession of Faith says, Article 37, and give an
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: account of every idle word, every idle word I have spoken.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: So we're very responsible creatures, how we live, how we speak,
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: and we owe everything back to God, how we use
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: our eyes, how we use our hands, how we use
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: our feet, how we use the thoughts of our soul.
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: And this awareness of the judgment day, this awareness of eternity,
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: is something we need a lot more of today to
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: press upon the consciences of people so that they will
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: flee to Christ, yes, and be saved, but even being saved,
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: that we should live much more, as the reformers and
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: Puritans said, in Coram Deo, in the presence of God,
• 51:54
  Speaker 4: knowing we come before him on the great day.
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul says that, therefore we have
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: pleasing to him. And then he goes on and he
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: gives two motivations for ambition. to be pleasing to the Lord.
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: And I call them, one is the moon and the
• 52:21
  Speaker 5: other is the sun. One is a greater light and
• 52:23
  Speaker 5: one is.
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: A lesser light.
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: The lesser light is for we must all appear before
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: be recompensed for his deeds in the body according to
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: what he has done, whether good or bad.
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: So that is the first, that is a.
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: True motivation for Paul to be pleasing to God. But
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: then he gives us a greater reason light his greatest
• 52:48
  Speaker 5: motivation which is this for the love of Christ controls
• 52:52
  Speaker 5: us having concluded this that one died for all therefore
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: all died and he died for all so that they
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: who live might no longer live for themselves but for
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: him who died and rose again on their behalf and
• 53:05
  Speaker 5: the the genitive there the love of Christ is is
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: not Paul's great love for Christ but Christ's great love
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: for Paul was the great And I believe that in
• 53:21
  Speaker 5: some ways for me, I deal with this in the
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: same way that I deal with the Trinity. With regard
• 53:28
  Speaker 5: to the Trinity, I must simply look at the scriptures
• 53:33
  Speaker 5: that confirm that God is one and submit to that.
• 53:37
  Speaker 5: And I must submit to the scriptures that speak of
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: three real and distinct individuals who are God. And here
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: I know that I will stand before the judgment seat
• 53:53
  Speaker 5: of Christ. And I know that, as Dr. Beeky said,
• 53:57
  Speaker 5: I will be judged for even every careless word. But
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: the judge is a father and a brother. And the
• 54:10
  Speaker 5: one thing that I want all of us to realize
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: is that This is to be taken seriously. But I
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: find most saints, when they look in the mirror, they're
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: saddened and frightened by what they see.
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: I know that.
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: Oftentimes I am. And I find encouragement in something that
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: one night just came into my mind. God did not
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: do all of this. God did not send his son
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: to become flesh in the likeness of sinful flesh. to
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: live among us, to die, having suffered the wrath of God.
• 54:48
  Speaker 5: God did not do all of this, saint, so that
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: when you step into heaven, the first thing you see
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: on his face is a scowl of disappointment. And that's
• 55:03
  Speaker 5: what so many of you have in the back of
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: your mind. You look in the mirror of God's word,
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: just like You'd be surprised if you went home with
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: me how normal my life is and how much it
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: is like yours. I don't want to pretend anything. And
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: I know how you feel. Like, how can it be?
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: I mean, there's all these great men and these great
• 55:33
  Speaker 5: books and then there's me, right? You look in the mirror.
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: There's me.
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: Where do I go?
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: Jesus didn't suffer what he suffered so that the first
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: time you see him, he looks at you with a scowl. Oh,
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: be so encouraged. I'm sure Dr. Beakey could say that
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: you probably know the quote better than I do, but
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: the pastor who was struggling with assurance and one night
• 56:06
  Speaker 5: supposedly has a dream and he sees Standing at the
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: gates of heaven and a horn blows and this great entourage,
• 56:15
  Speaker 5: glorious trumpets and these saints come in and he asked
• 56:19
  Speaker 5: the angel, who are they? And it was something like, well,
• 56:22
  Speaker 5: they're the patriarchs. And he said to himself, I can't
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: enter in with them. And then another horn blows and
• 56:30
  Speaker 5: more glory. And who are these?
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: These are the prophets.
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: I can't enter in with them. And then another horn blows,
• 56:39
  Speaker 5: far more trumpets, far more glory. And here come the
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: apostles and the martyrs. And he says, I can't enter
• 56:46
  Speaker 5: in with them. But then glory upon glory upon glory
• 56:51
  Speaker 5: is revealed. Trumpets are blowing.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: And here he sees Rahab.
• 57:00
  Speaker 5: Failure after failure in the scriptures. Great sinners and yet
• 57:05
  Speaker 5: great glory. And he goes, I can enter in with them.
• 57:09
  Speaker 5: And I probably didn't get all that right.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: But you get the point.
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: It was really Vanessa.
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: I knew he would know that.
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: I just always hate it when I talk to him.
• 57:25
  Speaker 5: I'll bring up something and, you know, paraphrase it and
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: he'll go. He'll quote it completely and then give me,
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: that's in Flavel chapter 1, page 692, right on the right,
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: I think, second column.
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: And me, I'm just happy I could read the book.
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: You're making all that up.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 57:48
  Speaker 4: Actually, it's a wonderful story.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: Because....
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: See, no, no.
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: Presbyterians are just Reformed Baptists who can read.
• 58:05
  Speaker 8: Well, Reformed Baptists believe in everything Presbyterians believe in.
• 58:18
  Speaker 4: They just forget the water.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: No, we didn't.
• 58:22
  Speaker 5: We just need more of it.
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: He's never read John 13. Peter says, if you wash
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: my feet, you wash me completely.
• 58:42
  Speaker 5: And then the one, look, there's a lot of water here.
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: Hey, Graham, is this over?
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: Are we past time now?
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: Here we go.
• 58:52
  Speaker 7: Now you guys know what it's like when it's just
• 58:54
  Speaker 7: us and you're not around.
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: Okay, tell this story right.
• 59:00
  Speaker 4: You're totally right. But then the wonderful part was at
• 59:03
  Speaker 4: the end. See, all these people had come to him.
• 59:07
  Speaker 4: James Kennedy, this is a pastor, actually. who came in
• 59:10
  Speaker 4: great darkness. And he was used for many people. And
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: he just had a very dark deathbed. And John Kennedy,
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: the famous Scottish preacher from Dingwall, came to see him.
• 59:23
  Speaker 4: His elders couldn't encourage him. He was in this darkness.
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: He had this dream. And then When he saw Manasseh coming,
• 59:31
  Speaker 4: who filled the streets of Jerusalem with the blood of
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: the saints, the voice said to him in his dream,
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: can you not go in with him? And he woke
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: up at that point. And then suddenly he thought, wow,
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: this dream is really telling me something very important. Yes,
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: I can go in with him. He called his wife.
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: He said, go get Dr. Kennedy. Go get Galmael.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: He's coming around.
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: Old humic fail can go in by the blood of Jesus.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: And that's the beauty of it all. We get saved
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: only by the blood.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 7: Amen.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: Well, that is a wonderful note for us to end
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: on this morning. Thank you so much, gentlemen. Give our
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: panelists a round of applause.