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John Bevere Gets The Gospel Wrong, A Lot · The Remnant Radio's Podcast

• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, welcome back to the wonderful world of Rumnite Radio.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: In this program, we're going to be looking at John DeVere's book undercover and finding the areas where he has definitely confused the gospel with something else entirely.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be an interesting program.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: You guys stay tuned.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Hey guys, thanks for joining us again.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Today we are looking at a book that we've covered once before, John Devere's Undercover in that former program.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: What we did is we looked at the various times in that book where man, cover up culture and kind of just sit down, shut up, obey your leader no matter what they tell you to do, is kind of being pushed and pushed and pushed as a way to access the anointing and a way to be under the covering of God.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: However, in this program, we're going to ever so slightly shift.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that we picked up on when we were reading the book undercover was how frequently John Bevere undermined the gospel itself and frankly confuses what is called law and gospel.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to be an interesting program.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to toss it over to Miller.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Miller, can you uh give me some of your thoughts before we dive into this program?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I I'm going to let the the listener in on some of the problems here that I'm actually like deeply concerned.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: I question whether he knows how to preach the actual gospel.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: And hear me, that's a really harsh statement for a person who I think is largely beloved.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_02: I I think he's a very kind person from all I know, even people who have worked with him.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: So he's nothing but the sweetest person to work with.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: But the things he says in this are really like that bad.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: To where I go, I I don't know if you understand the gospel, which is like kind of the crux.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's the one thing you do need to understand.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: If you know, I I think he might give homage to salvation being a gift given by God's grace.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: But when you read this, it sounds like it's a gift given only to those who are obedient.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: But let's see.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: You guys be the judge.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: We'll go through the quotes and we'll tell you what we think are the concerns and and you know, show up in the comment section.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: Let us know if you agree, disagree, and um and we'll begin some dialogue.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's important probably for the viewer to understand before we start watching any of the clips what law and gospel is.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So uh this is a reformed theological framework that makes sense of the commands of scripture.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Any command that says do is law.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Every command that says or every decree that says done is gospel.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's an easy way to remember things.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Law says do, gospel says done.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: The law can be love your neighbor as yourself.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: The law can be love your wife like Christ says love the church.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: The law can be it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: We're not dividing into Old Testament Mosaic law and New Testament, you know, commands from the apostles in Jesus.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: When we use the phrase law and gospel, we're saying any kind of standard that has been set by our Lord that has some standard of morality that we must follow.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and in order to do that, we earn that's law.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: The law says that uh, man, if you can check all of these boxes, you can merit and earn salvation.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we say, nope, uh, no one has ever done that except for Christ.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the only one who perfectly fulfilled the law.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: So for us, or for unbelievers, I should say, the law stands to condemn and expose.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever loved your wife perfectly as Jesus has loved the church?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know any man that has perfectly and and you know, without fail.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's doing the right things, but also doing the right things perfectly.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: It is also not doing what we call a sin of omission.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm supposed to care for my neighbor as myself.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Was there a moment this week where I didn't care for my neighbor as I did for myself?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: If I have not done uh what is right or neglected to do what is right, I have then broken God's law and I stand under judgment and condemnation.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Every person in the world will stand before God and be judged according to the law.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: If they do anything bad or they didn't do the right thing perfectly, they are condemned because of the law.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: But there's good news.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: We can be justified by work, but not our own work.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's Christ's work.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's the gospel.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: The gospel comes in and says Jesus has perfectly fulfilled every area of the law.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: So when we stand before God on judgment day, are we going to be judged according to our deeds?
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: No, but we will be judged in some sense according to the law, the law that was perfectly fulfilled by Christ and that record that was imputed to us.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's the gospel.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: The gospel is good news that you don't have to work, you don't have to merit, you don't have to earn, you can rest in the finished work of Christ.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was all accomplished for you.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that is the law and gospel distinction.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now, for believers, we do still have responsibility.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: The law now serves us as an opportunity to reveal the moral character of God and for us to know how to rightly worship.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: So even though I see a law that says, hey, love your wife perfectly as Christ loved the church, and I have not yet obtained perfection to that law, I still aim to accomplish that law, not to earn my salvation, but in order to worship God rightly.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Miller, is there anything that I've left out that you think I should add in before we start jumping into clips?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: No, I mean, I think the the big thing that happens is oftentimes people with the they'll flip over to the other side where they think, you know, I've been saved by grace and therefore the law no longer matters.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: I would categorically disagree with that.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like saying, Well, I've been saved by grace, and so therefore the civil laws don't matter.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, guess what?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: There are still consequences for breaking civil law.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: There are also consequences for breaking moral law.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, we would teach oftentimes one of the biggest open doors for people to end up being tormented by evil spirits is indulging, especially regularly, in very sinful practice.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not like we're not saying obedience doesn't matter.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: We actually do think it matters a great deal.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: But when you mix these things up, you actually keep people from Christ in saving grace, then you do draw them into it.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's why we're taking the time to talk about this, largely because this book is incredibly popular.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so we we talked when I mean this author is incredibly popular.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure of all of his books, is if this is the most popular, I would say of all that I have read of his content and listened to, this is the most problematic.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: So hopefully that helps these distinctions.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's dive into the content, Josh.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's a problem when you look to the law.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say that you came to faith.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I would say one, this is going to be an important distinction as well.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: I came to faith, I came to saving faith in Christ by faith alone, right?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: That what justified me was faith.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: Some have taught that then what you must do is continue to obey, to maintain that faith.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's called covenantal gnomanism or gnomism.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we would, I would personally completely reject that idea.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saved by faith, I stay by faith.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what the natural byproduct of a person who believes is that they produce good works, but that is a work of justification.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: It is not a work that maintains that justification.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that might be a helpful clarifier as well.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let's dive into clip number one about those men who made very polite excuses but did not submit themselves to the calling voice and authority of God.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Luke 14, 24.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: How sobering.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Those men would not be permitted to dine at the wedding supper, to which they had previously held honorary invitations.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: They were barred from the marriage supper of the Lamb, not because of sexual misconduct or drug or alcohol abuse, but because of simple disobedience to the word of God.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Why should this surprise us?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: If we think it through, was it not Adam's disobedience that brought the greatest consequence of judgment on mankind?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it interesting?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: There is no mention in this parable of drug addicts, prostitutes, pimps, alcoholics, murderers, or thieves, right?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wrong.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you read on, you will notice the servant reported to the master, and relayed all the excuses.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: The master of the house instructed the servant go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Luke 14, 23.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: The people of the highways and hedges in scripture represent the prostitutes, the pimps, thieves, gang members, murderers, alcoholics, and so on.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: They are in the parable, but in a good sense.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord knows that in these last days many of these people will realize their lives are empty and have brought them nothing but sorrow, and they will tire of kicking against the nails.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: When they hear the call of the Master, they will respond with instant obedience.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: In contrast, those who were invited to attend church consider themselves godly and secure in God's grace, but obey God only when it is convenient or doesn't interfere with their schedules, agendas, blessings, or pleasure, will find themselves with Adam, shut out from God's glorious presence.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, that's clip number one.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Here, John Vivere is looking at the you can call it a parable, I suppose, in Luke 14, 12 through 24.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, in that account, what we have is Jesus reclining at table with a group of Pharisees.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And in this account, in the very opening verses of that chapter, Jesus is going to heal a man that is ill and asks, Is it right for me to heal on the Sabbath?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, ah, and then Jesus heals the guy anyway.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, then later on, uh Jesus is like, Hey, why didn't you invite those people who were disenfranchised, the poor, the needy, the hungry?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: This passage is not 100% is not about the the drunkards, the murderers, the adulterers, and that going into the highways and byways here in Luke is going after those individuals in context to what is happening in Luke.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's about going out after the disenfranchised within Israel, the tax collectors, going out after those individuals who are poor, those who are sick and needy.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Many of these individuals were viewed by the Jewish audience of the time as compromisers.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you were a tax collector, you had aligned yourself with Rome and not with the nation-state of Israel.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you were an individual who was poor andor sick, you were likely in that position because of some kind of divine judgment.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: You have done something in order to deserve this, i.e., the book of Job.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: That theology was still pretty prevalent in the first century.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is why uh when there was a man born blind, the disciples asked Jesus, hey, did this man sin or his parents?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: The assumption was that this was some kind of causal retribution for his actions.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: While Jesus is just saying, hey, look, there are people who are needy, there are people who are hurt, and we are to go out after them and invite them into the kingdom of God.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the thing is with this context, he is embezzling an idea of obedience.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: Where nowhere in this text are we seeing a context of obedience.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: We do have individuals who believe they are self-righteous.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: He uses language of secured in God's grace.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: But again, that's not what the text suggests.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: It is being read into the text, not being read from the text.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Miller, any any thoughts on this?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, it's kind of ironic because on some level he gets the first part of the passage right.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like he acknowledges that you've got these guys who are pretty self-righteous and they don't come.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: They have an excuse not to be there.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's like he he starts off there, but then he goes into this other section and says, see, look, they respond with obedience.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's like where do you get that?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: Is an invitation the same thing as a command?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Is that what's happening here?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the it's weird to me.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: I I I'm wondering, like, there's there's got to be I I've been asking this question in my head, like, what's going on in his world that's informing these kinds of statements?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I I can't help but wonder if so much of his own life is based on earning merit from God, earning righteousness based on his own good behavior, rather than learning how to enjoy being enjoyed by God.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Jack Deer used to say this all the time.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_02: One of the great prayers that I think I've taken with me since being with him was praying that I would allow that God would allow me to feel his affection, not based on my righteous activity, but based on his love for me.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I I keep thinking of it like this.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: If my son, if I was to come to my son and say, you know what, bud, I'd really love you more if you just got better grades.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'd really love you more if you were just nicer to people.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like that kind of statement is exactly the kind of thing we avoid.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: I love my son by itself.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like I just love him.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: I can't explain why.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: My sons, I have a daughter and two sons.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: But you get my point.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing that they could do or not do that's gonna stop me from loving them.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: My love for them is already there.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's the thing that's kind of missing.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's it seems to be this love from God is only experienced if you're on the other side of obedience.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: Am I off on that, Josh?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: No, he he is he's contrasting one group of people who believe they have faith and are resting in uh God's grace.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then when you look at that again, actually they're not being obedient.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's why they're being kept out of the kingdom.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: You have another group of people who man don't have a ton of faith, but they have right obedience.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And because of their obedience, they're being justified.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is that this is trying to contrast who is being let into the kingdom, and we have explicit text that aren't parables that tell you how someone is justified, like the entire book of Galatians or Romans, but here's a quick excerpt from Galatians, Galatians 2, 15 through 16.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know their person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: So we also believe in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ, not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: So here uh we have an explicit, uh, what we call a prescriptive text telling us what one must do.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then he is quoting a parable in Luke that he is misapplying the images and pictures and saying, well, that's what this means.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: No, uh the the clearness of the scriptures is very clear on this.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: And if you really want to have a further emphasis on this, I would encourage encourage you to read the parallel passage of this account given in Matthew.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: We've read the account in Luke 14 just now, or he paraphrased it on the reading, but in Matthew chapter 22, 1 through 14, we have a parallel account where Jesus is talking about a banquet and those who have entrance into the kingdom.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: And again, Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, The kingdom of heaven may be compared to the king who is given a wedding feast for his son, and sent servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Again, he sent other servants, saying to these who are invited, see, I prepared my dinner, my oxen and my calf have been slaughtered, and everything is ready.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: Come to the wedding feast.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: But they paid no attention to and went off, and one to his own farm, and another to his own business, while the rest seized his servants, treated them shamefully, and killed them.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: So they again treat the the servants shamefully that went off and get the message, and then they killed them.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: The king was angry and sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Then he said to his servants, The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you can find.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: And those servants went out to the roads, gathering all whom they found, both bad and good.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: So the wedding hall was filled with guests.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Verse 11.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: But when the king came in and looked at the guest, he saw there was a man who had no wedding garment, and he said, Friend, how is it that you got in here without a wedding garment?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: And he was speechless.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Then the king said to the attendant, Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness in the place where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: For many are called, but few are chosen.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Here the called are those who are invited, or many are called, few are chosen.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, those who are chosen were the ones who were invited to the wedding feast.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is clearly a parable about Jews and Gentiles.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: The Jewish people uh were invited to the wedding.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: They were they were keepers of the covenant, they were not keepers of the covenant, they were recipients of the covenant in the Old Testament.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, God had invited them to come to their one true Messiah, who is Christ.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: They refused to come.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And as he sent messengers, they treated the messengers shamefully and they murdered them.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: So God comes in and destroys the city, which would be a direct prophecy, I think, of what happens in 70 AD when uh Jerusalem is sacked and destroyed.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: But then subsequently he says, you know, many are called.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, who are the called?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: The called here are the Gentiles, not those who were directly invited to the feast, but going out into the byways, inviting them.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: That many people in the Calvinistic camp love to quote this passage saying, Many are called, few are chosen, the chosen few are the elect.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's not what this passage is saying.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: You don't, you don't.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: Miller happens to be some of the chosen, uh, but uh but here in this account, he is one who who listened to the invitation and came.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, the reason I bring this up is the emphasis of both of these passages is entry into the kingdom by faith.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Even though Luke uh 11, 12 through 24 is not recounting that faith is what grants you entry into that wedding banquet, it's reception of Christ and receiving that message to that invitation, which again, by way of the uh parable, is faith in Jesus.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we can know this because in Matthew 22, this man doesn't have a garment that has been given by the king, which would suggest some kind of imputed form of righteousness, a very popular picture that comes up in the New Testament and even in the Old Testament, in Zechariah, when Joshua the high priest has soiled garments and is given new garments to stand in the role of the high priest.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: So uh my argumentation here would be that this passage is about entrance into the kingdom.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, one account is about those who are kind of disenfranchised, the other account is about the Gentiles who would then be included.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: But both accounts are going to be based on reception of the message and acceptance of the invitation.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not any kind of personal work, it is receiving the truth, and I would argue by faith.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Miller, any kind of counterpoints, arguments, anything I missed there?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: No, man, let's go to the next uh quote.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds good.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: One such statement is found in the Gospel of Matthew.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven, Matthew 7 21.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: This statement abolishes our general concept and definition of who is saved.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: We have taught and believed that all you have to do is confess a sinner's prayer, and you are insured a secure place in heaven.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: We have neglected or placed no emphasis on a commitment to keep his commands.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: This incomplete gospel message leads many astray, causing them to make light of obedience.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, Those who will be in heaven are those who confess and do the will of God, thus keeping the commands of God.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: True grace has been given to empower us to obey what he demands of us.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: The writer of Hebrews said it best.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Grace empowers us to serve God in an acceptable manner, which is in accordance with his will.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's clip number two.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: He quotes Matthew chapter seven as evidence to those who didn't have good works, which seems to be a really odd passage.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Miller, I'm gonna punt it over to you.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'll let you give your thoughts before I go on a monologue.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: You you have a big monologue to go on?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean So this is this is a complicated thing.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: Depends how you want to define enter the kingdom of God.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's truth in this.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: You you can't come to Christ without first acknowledging him as Lord.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so what does that mean?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it means you're not gonna align your life with God's will in your life.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: But it starts right there with the first part, which is confession, and then the result is a confession him as Lord over your life, belief in him.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Then the this next part is that results in a life changed and transformed into an obedient life, one that now wants to do what God wants you to do.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it feels like he's got it reversed or he's adding to it.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, if you really want to get saved, well which I mean this is this is egregious part right here.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: He says in this quote, this incomplete gospel message leads many astray.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: So salvation by grace through faith, that alone is an incomplete gospel message.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean, Josh, am I reading that wrong?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Or am I understanding him wrong?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, you're right.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the problem here is the idea that if you rely on works, because he's saying, hey, faith alone is not enough, you need faith plus works, but if you rely on works of the law, you are under a curse, says Galatians chapter 3, verse 10.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: For all who rely on the works of the law and err in one.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: They've broken the whole law.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: This is not the uh the the life of someone who has been transformed by the gospel.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: I I think what really bothers me the most is that he uses Matthew 7, 21 through 23 to say that uh, you know, these people just believed but didn't have good works.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: But the passage says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: On that day, many will say to me, Or did I not prophesy in your name?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Did I not cast out demons?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Did I not do mighty works in your name?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then I will declare to them, I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: The irony is that the text is, he's like, Hey, you can't just believe you have to do works.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And he points to a text where they don't have belief and they only have words.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like that well, the works are actually miraculous.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's the whole point is like you would think that somebody's able to do prophetic things or miraculous works.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: You would think that they are in the kingdom.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus is letting you know, actually, none of these things qualify you for being in the kingdom.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: That is like an exceptional irony.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: I'm glad you saw that, Josh.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't see it right away.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's okay.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, do do it, you're like, Oh, if you've got a monologue, it's like, oh, do I have a monologue?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no kidding.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: I can understand why.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh continuing through this passage, you know, he says, uh, why is it that these guys have works and are not led into the kingdom?
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Jesus gives the explanation.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, Because I never knew you.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: There was no knowledge.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I would say that that mutual fellowship between God and his people comes by way of faith.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, eternal life is to know God in Jesus Christ whom he has sent.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And again, not just a theological knowledge that demons have in James, but an experiential, intimate relationship, which is again rooted by faith in knowing the one true God.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: But then he makes this argument that says, Hey, you're not going to get into heaven uh just by faith.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to do the will of my Father.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: He's making this a do, do this a command.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: Then you ask, well, what's the will of the Father?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, I would say that God's will, He certainly desires people to be delivered of demons.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly he wants to command true things to take place and mighty miracles be performed in his name.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not simply moral actions, it's not simply supernatural power.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: The will of God is something else.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I would argue that we can find that in the Gospel of John in multiple places.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: But John chapter six, verse forty for this is the will of my father.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: What is it?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: What's the will?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: That everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I raise him up on the last day.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: Or John 6, 29.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's referring to Jesus.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's the will of the Father, that you believe on Jesus.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Here, the work of God as I understand it.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: What is it?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, not those who say, Lord, Lord, there's tons of people uh who will stand before the Father, they'll have a whole bunch of good works and they'll say, Hey, I believe Jesus saved me, but like, aren't you proud of me because of all of my good works, all of the good things I've done?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I kept myself pure, I kept myself justified, and God's gonna look at them and go, I didn't know you.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: But like faith is not, uh is not, sorry, obedience is not the proving ground for faith.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: If you look to your obedience for your salvation, as John Devere wants you to do over and over in these quotes, what you're gonna find is that you're not known by the Father.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: You need to be in a position of like, I don't have righteousness of my own.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: I need your righteousness.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where the founding blocks of that relationship start.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the gospel is in its very essence.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: It is not due in order to obtain from God.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: It is belief in all that he has done and that record being imputed to you.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: You look at the thief on the cross, the thief on the cross is not going to stand before God, say, you know, hey, Lord, Lord, let me into the kingdom.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he's gonna say, Away from me, I never knew you, because you didn't do enough work.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't, he didn't couldn't do any work.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: There was there was no work to be done.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: He believed in faith alone, and that faith in who Jesus was and what he came to do was transmitted to that thief on the cross.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I I'm neither here nor there, to use Matthew 7 to make the case that it is good works that justifies actually undermines the purpose of that text itself.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: Miller, anything that you need to pick up on on that one?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: No, I just again I would refer to the passage you just quoted in Galatians from the earlier section.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you're trying to earn righteousness by works of the law, then you're under a curse.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's what it says.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's the the thing that Paul is saying to the Galatians, which is makes me wonder again, Vivir, do you see that that's what you're advocating for?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: You're telling people to earn their righteousness by works, by obedience, um, not as a free gift, but as something that is earned a wage.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: And if that's the case, you end up being under a curse because your righteousness will never save you.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, because you're unrighteous, because you've committed sin, that makes you incapable of achieving.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's the whole point of the book of Galatians.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, like in the book of Galatians, Paul has come in, he's preached the gospel, believe on Christ.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: People are united to God by faith.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's a fantastic, wonderful thing.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's a group of people that have come in, and scholars have coined them Judaizers.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're individuals who uh look to the Jewish law as a way to maintain righteousness.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: And they've come in and they've said, hey, look, uh, not only should you have faith in Jesus, that's great.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Be united to the Messiah, be welcomed into the kingdom, uh, but also now you have to maintain that through works.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: You need to get circumcised, uh, you know, new moon feathers, circumcision, those sorts of things, things that Paul undermines in tons of different places.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: But the book of Galatians primarily focuses on the work of circumcision.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, just as Abraham believed God in what, Genesis 15, and then later receives the sign of circumcision, we too must believe God.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's the moan of our justification.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: But in order to continue in the covenant community, we must bear the marks of that covenant community through circumcision.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: So Paul comes in and says, Wait, you started just believing, and now you think you have to continue through works of the law.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what he says after, you know, this is right before the passage about being accursed because you're believing a different gospel.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he describes it this way, O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, it was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly betrayed as crucified.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you this, let me ask you only this.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing in faith?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: Are you so foolish having begun in the spirit that you're now being perfected by the flesh?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: Did you suffer so many things in vain?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: If indeed it was in vain, and does he who supply the spirit to you work miracles among you by works of the law or hearing in faith?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: This is Abraham believed, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: So here Paul is saying, What is the bewitchment?
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: What is the the curse?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: What is this foolery that you're believing?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: That you started in the spirit, just believing, and now you're trying to be fulfilled in the flesh.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: You're trying to use your own work in labor to finish out your sanctification and to carry on your work of salvation until the end.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: What Vavier just called the gospel message, that the one I proclaim, the one that Paul proclaims, he calls it an insufficient gospel.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think Paul would respond saying, You've been bewitched, you you've been tricked, you've been fooled.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: The wool is over your eyes.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: You have been tricked into believing something that is ungodly.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And Paul says in Galatians chapter one, if you believe in another gospel, if if we preach another gospel, an angel from heaven preaches to you another gospel, let him be accursed.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's anathema, damned for destruction.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's heavy language here.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: But I want people to hear the weight of what's being said.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't just like, oh, he disagrees on a minor point.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is the gospel, this is the doctrine of justification by which man rise and fall before God.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is kind of everything.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: It robs believers of assurance.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: If if I were John Bevere and I heard you say that, I'd go, but I don't teach people that they need to be circumcised.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: I don't teach people they have to they have to fulfill the Jewish customs and laws.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you're you're putting words in my mouth.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_02: How would you respond to that, Josh?
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, okay.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: So the Jewish customs and law fit the context of the Church of Galatia, but there's still a requirement of moral obligation in order for salvation.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: So the comparison is not that this is a Jewish custom.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: The comparison is that you're saying that there's a necessary work that must be done to maintain or to fully accomplish salvation.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm saying that that is another gospel.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's like saying, you know, my son hit his brother.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: That was disrespectful.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: You should not disrespect your siblings.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then my sister spits on one of her brothers.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I go, hey, I just told you, don't disrespect.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: And she goes, Well, I didn't do what David did.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't I didn't I didn't strike my brother like my brother struck him.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're taking this out of proportion.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I go, look, it's the same kind of application.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Vavir says, this work, whatever it is, obedience to your leader, uh, this work, taking care of widows and orphans, this work, loving your wife as Christ love the church, saying that that is necessary to accomplish your salvation is the exact same thing as saying circumcision, dietary feasts, new moons.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: It is some kind of extra work added to the gospel.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I was looking for.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, you start getting me talking about law and gospel.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: I can go forever.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh let's go.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: No, actually, I'm I think you're you're way more able to articulate and clarify that than I am.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm actually, it'd be fun for me just to ask questions and kind of push back some as much as I can.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the reason I'm super passionate about this is I I want people to know I lived in a culture, whether it was preached directly to me or I picked it up over time that I must do in order to maintain.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought every time that I had slipped up, every time that I sinned, I lost my salvation because my confidence was not being placed in Christ.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: My confidence was being placed in my work.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: And my work sucked.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was bad.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something you're supposed to say on a podcast.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'll pull it out.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: My work was bad.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was not good.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: It was not enough to justify me.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it constantly caused me to put my faith in me rather than in Jesus.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I have a sensitive conscience.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: So every 10 seconds, I had lost my salvation, and it caused me to live in constant worry and dread and fear that I was outside of God's hand because I had removed myself from God's hand.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: But that's not what the text of scripture is saying.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm extremely passionate about this because it has real implications to people's lives.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: You want to move to the thing.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_02: So there is an irony here because it's sort of working against what the apostles were actually working towards.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: It'll do two things.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: When you confuse the law and gospel, it will make those who are self-righteous believe that they're checking all the boxes, and that gives them a false justification because they think they're good enough.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: And then it crushes those who have a sensitive conscience because they know that they're not good enough.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Both of them are actually living in pride because they're both looking to their own works, and their woke their own works won't be enough.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: Let's hit clip number three.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: I received a sobering spiritual vision that changed the course of my life and ministry.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: I saw a multitude of people, too great, to number the magnitude of which I had never seen before.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: They were amassed before the gates of heaven, awaiting entrance, expecting to hear the master say, Come, you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, Matthew 25-34.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: But instead they heard the master say, Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: I saw the look of terrible shock, anguish, and terror on their faces.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: They really believed they were destined for heaven because they professed the lordship of Jesus and their Christianity.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yet they did not understand the true or core meaning of sin.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: Though they desired heaven, but they lacked the passion to obediently do the will of the Father.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: Same kind of stuff.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the the irony here is he's quoting a passage of scripture saying that these people had professed Christ, these workers of lawlessness.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: Where do you get that, Vavir?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: Are you getting that from a vision or are you getting that from Matthew?
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: Because the profession of Christ is precisely what saves you.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: This is where you're telling us that the profession of Christ is not enough.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you this is the most explicit I think you get.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um on a vision.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: He's doing a teaching based on a vision, not on text.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: Is that what we're supposed to do?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: Are we supposed to exegete our dreams and and make that into a book and then tell people to follow that teaching and claim that that's Christian teaching?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is really bad.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and he uh essentially his entire paragraph there is orthodox except for the last statement, right?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because I do believe people are going to go to heaven, they're gonna be judged according to their works, and anyone who's outside of Christ, it will be their works that cause them to be stand condemned against God.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's that last line.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: They really believed that they they were destined for heaven, understanding, I'm sorry, for heaven, because they professed the lordship of Jesus and their Christianity, yet they did not understand the true or core meaning of sin.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: Though they desired heaven, they lacked the passion to uh obediently do the will of the Father.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: So again, it's it's that line that's actually really, really bad.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because yes, people get judged because of their sin.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's a biblical idea, but that line there is saying that, man, faith in Christ alone is not enough.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: You didn't put you in really understand sin.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: So when John 17, 3 says eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ whom he sent, John Maver is saying, no, actually, it's not eternal life to know God and Jesus Christ whom he sent.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: You also have to know what sin is and how bad it is.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if you play with it, you're not gonna get to go to heaven.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I do think sin is bad.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: I do think it robs the believer of assurance because it robs them of the fruit of their life, which is one of the things that God gives us to give us confidence in the work he has produced in us, is that we bear fruit, even though it might be sporadic and it might not be super consistent, but that fruit shows that there's some kind of work of Christ in us.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we shouldn't play with sin.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: It robs of us of assurance.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: We shouldn't play with sin because it doesn't glorify Christ.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: And our whole point in life is to enjoy God and glorify him forever.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: So we certainly look to these passages to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we we should obey, and sin is bad, but but he's saying that here your lack of knowledge of sin is what keeps you out of heaven.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: You're passionate to, man, really obediently obey the will of the Father is what gets you out of heaven.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I would just say that the will of the Father is to believe on the Son, as we've already mentioned.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: In Galatians chapter one, Paul calls this very thing another gospel, and anyone who would to believe in it would be an a curse.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I I would argue that here we don't need a vision when we have a verse.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: The verse in the text of scripture are pretty explicit that perfect love casts out all fear, and that is the perfect love of God towards us that removes any fear of judgment.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's because of how much I know Jesus loves me and all that he's accomplished for me that causes me to go, oh, I'm not afraid of judgment.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: But here, John Bevere is going to argue you actually need to know what sin is and to have this holy fear of God.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you need to know that if you step outside of that will, there's going to be hell to pay.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say, man, that's not the gospel.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: It is not the perfect love of Jesus that casts out the fear of judgment.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's encouraging this fear of judgment, as we're going to continue to see in these other passages.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: Any additional thoughts, Miller?
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_01: No, no.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's punt to the next one.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: As a side note, this refutes an incomplete saying we often hear in our churches today.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: God will accept you just the way you are.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: That is true.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we can't leave it there.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: God does accept us the way we are, if we repent.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: Try this partial statement out on Ananias and Sapphira.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't fit.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're dead.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Acts 5, 1 to 11.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: God didn't accept Cain's offering.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Furthermore, he didn't accept Cain.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: That he didn't accept Cain doesn't mean Cain's destiny was permanent rejection.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: But our modern-day theology of God's unconditional acceptance is inaccurate.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it is dangerous because it removes the reverential fear of the Lord from our hearts.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: There it is.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: He says that is true, but we can't leave it there.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: God does accept us the way we are if we repent.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um I mean I just try to think of this in my own head, Josh.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: When I became a Christian, I was looking at my life, going, I've been doing it my own way, and it's gotten me nowhere.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: I was depressed, I was unhappy, and I could see the trajectory of my life going in a direction that was going to leave me in a pit somewhere.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so, in some sense, there was repentance, but it was also recognition that the the choices I had made were lead weren't leading to life.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so I said, Jesus, I'm giving you my life.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_02: And that is an act of repentance.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I I I guess I'm just wondering what he means by that.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_02: Because if I was to put in the context of everything else he just said, it seems like he's saying repentance means I'm already changed prior to coming to faith.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I actually think it's it's coming to faith that that brings about that change.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's realizing what Jesus has done that maybe go, gosh, yeah, okay, you really can be my Lord.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: You've done all this, this, and this to pay for my sins.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_02: I give you my life.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: For a lot of believers, it's going to be instantaneous, right?
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: For a lot of our personal experience, it's faith and repentance are going to kind of come coalescing in a moment.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but imagine the drug addict, right?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: Who's like a constant user and then hears the gospel and believes in Jesus and then has to fight.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: Or are you saying that until he's completely clean, he's not saved?
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, no.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_02: Tell me what you mean by repentance, because that's that's really the crux in this argument.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: If repentance means I've been cleaned up beforehand, I go, No, because you can't clean yourself up beforehand.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: You're actually incapable of repentance without Christ.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: It actually takes Christ to repent.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_02: Like he's got to change your heart, he's got to make you uh the kind of person who's able to respond in repentance.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't know.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_02: I know the gospel requires like, hey, repent in each believe each one of you and believe.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: So that uh I think man, I don't know.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's a reversal.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, Romans chapter two, verse four does not say that it is our goodness that leads God to give us um repentance.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_01: It actually says it's the goodness of God that leads us to repentance.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: It is again recognizing who he is and all that he's done for us that changes who we are.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the famous Bible verse that's always misquoted is that I must decrease so that he might increase.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, the exact opposite.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: It is that he must increase so that I might decrease.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: It is seeing God rightly that allows me to see who I am rightly.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's the the knowledge of God reveals knowledge of man, that we repent in light of all that God is.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it reverses the order of Romans 5.8, which says that Christ died for us while we were sinners, not after we heard and repented enough and turned back and believed the gospel message.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I would argue what John is probably unaware of is the context of the Merrow controversy.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's something that a lot of Protestants aren't super familiar with.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but think about the Scottish Presbyterian, you know, Reformation that is taking place.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and among these Scottish Presbyterians in 1717, uh, there's a group of them that say, hey, look, moralism is kind of creeping into the mainline general assembly of the Scottish Church and is saying, look, you need to repent, you need to change before, you know, as you come to Christ.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like these two things are married together, faith and repentance.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: Where there was another group of these Scottish Presbyterians who are saying, Hey, look, actually, repentance is a byproduct of faith.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something that necessarily has to coalesce in the same moment, or else someone is going to believe and think that you must do all of these things in order to inherit salvation.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you have to change the way you're acting, change the way you're living, change the way that you're caring for other people in order to inherit, which means that my salvation is my own work.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Rather, what we would say is come to Jesus by faith.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then what follows is a life of repentance.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you might argue, but but on the day of Pentecost, Peter gets up, preaches, they interrupt him.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, what must we do?
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: And G, and then Peter looks to them and says, You have to be, you have to repent and be baptized, right?
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: For the forgiveness of your sins.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: Someone would listen to that and go, hey, look, there it is right there, repentance.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: But then I would say, Hey, are you saved at the moment that you are baptized?
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, you're not saved the moment you're baptized, right?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: We believe on on this side of the Protestant Reformation that faith in Christ is all that justifies.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_01: And here, baptism is a natural work that flows out of that faith.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_01: So these people are hearing the gospel message proclaimed by Peter and they say, Well, what do we do?
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: Why are they asking what do we do?
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's because they believe the message, because faith is rooted in their heart.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then they respond, what must we do?
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says, Hey, repent and be baptized.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's the natural response that outflows from this faith.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: So if there are people out there who are like, hey man, uh, I believe, and do I have to clean up my life before I come to Christ, and say, no, come to Christ.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: He will empower you to clean up your life, he will complete the work that he started in you proverbially.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: Miller, any kind of additional thoughts on that, my friend?
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I just say that we need um I need Christ to to need him.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like I actually need him to change my heart in order to have a desire to do things otherwise.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's the whole idea of the new covenant.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's that he's gonna take out this thing called a heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: A heart of stone cannot respond to God's call.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_02: The heart of stone cannot repent.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: But a heart of flesh, it can.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_02: A heart of flesh is actually malleable malleable.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: It feels, it moves.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so that is kind of the crux of all of this.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um we say that we love because he first loved us.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: When we say that we repent, it's because he first showed us his goodness and we believed, and then repentance becomes the natural outflow of that.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_02: I I just can't think of anything I've entered into in this life with pure motivation.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's almost all of it, every call that I've had from God to step into something always had a mixture of me in it.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: But it's in the call and in responding to God's goodness and grace, that my life has changed.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: My motives changed.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: I remember when I first wanted to see miracles, I did it because I wanted to see something cool.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to know that God was still doing these things.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: But it was in doing it that God actually changed my heart to see his kindness and his goodness.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: He showed me aspects of himself that I hadn't seen previously.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so that that's how it is with everything we venture into, starting with the very faith that we're called into.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one of the things I didn't tackle was Cain.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: He mentions here uh that Cain's offering, furthermore, he he didn't accept Cain because of his offering, that he he didn't accept Cain didn't mean that Cain's destiny was a permanent rejection, but by modern theology, uh God's unconditional acceptance is inaccurate.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it is dangerous because it removes the reverential fear of the Lord of God in our hearts.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there's there's some things here with the Cain's offering and Abel's offering.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_01: Why was Abel's offering accepted in Hebrews?
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was by faith, and we're about to see that here in a moment in this next clip in chapter 5.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: The scriptures tell us by faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: God testifying of his gifts, and through it, he being dead still speaks.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 11.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: The New Testament writer equated the obedience of Abel with faith.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: We will learn in a future chapter that true faith is equated with, as well as founded on, obedience.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: True faith operates out of obedience rather than a sense of right and wrong.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: So he's completely changed that order.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you noticed it.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: He says faith comes from obedience, not obedience from faith.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a pretty crucial error.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: Miller, do you have any uh initial thoughts on this clip?
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: I know it was a short one.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm just trying to go back to this because in the past quote he talks about how God didn't only did not only reject Cain's offering, he had already rejected Cain.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I don't see that.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: When I go back to the narrative, the Cain and Abel narrative, I see God very much showing his goodness to Cain on the front end.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like he may have rejected his offering, but he looks at him and he says, Why are you angry?
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: Why is your face downcast?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_02: It desires to have you, but you must rule over it.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like right at the very beginning, God is still showing his goodness to Cain.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: He's not rejecting him entirely.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: He may have rejected his offering, uh, but he didn't reject Cain.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: I I just don't see that.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then then Cain doesn't do what God pleads with him to do and kills his brother.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then all of a sudden you've got like this curse that's that's put on Cain.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm just not seeing what he's seeing.
• 45:18
  unknown: Yeah.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I'm just wondering there's something he's bringing into all of these texts.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: There is an overlying belief that he has that causes him to interpret every single text that we've gone through or that he actually mentions in the exact opposite of the way the author probably intended it.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't help but wonder like, what is it?
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: What is motivating his eisegesis here?
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're you're entirely right.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when he's reversing the order, you know, he uses Hebrews 11:4 by faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_01: So why was Cain rejected?
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, because faith, because faith was the thing that gave him the acceptable sacrifice, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gift.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_01: And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_01: The text says that faith is what produced the offering.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: Bavir then reads it backwards and said it was obedience that was the cause of the faith, that he did what was right, and that's what rooted his faith.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_01: He reads it exactly backwards from what Hebrews actually says.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: Bavir makes faith the uh the production, what is produced out of obedience rather than its source.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_01: In Romans chapter 14, verse 23, it dispels that idea because it says whatever is not of faith is sin.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: So again, you can't be obedience, which is not sinning.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: Not sinning is what produces faith.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: It actually has to be faith, knowing who God is and knowing what God says that determines what is obedience and disobedience.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: So he his framework doesn't even make sense of what is demanding.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's impossible.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you and I, we have this conversation a lot because of the the word of faith movement, you know, our desire to see uh a right definition of faith being out there.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_02: Our faith doesn't necessarily mean it results in obedience, but the faith begins with this idea, trusting in God, trusting in his goodness and his character.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you tasted the goodness, you place your trust in his goodness and his character, what he's done for us, and then out of that comes this life of obedience.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: But for him, that doesn't seem to be what is happening.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you obedient and then you what believe in God?
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you get psychological certainty that God is good.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's actually what he thinks.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_02: I I think even his definition of faith might be backwards here.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um considering the background he comes from, word of faith, Benny Hen, even uh what was the church down in the springs that he was a part of?
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like all of those churches would have more of that view of faith rather than trusting in a sovereign God, it's conjuring up psychological certainty about who that God is.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:52
  unknown: Yeah.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: Look at look at the last statement of that quote.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: True faith operates out of obedience rather than a sense of right and wrong.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: What is obedience if it's not doing what's right and wrong?
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_01: A sense of right and wrong, yeah.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: The claim doesn't make absolutely any sense.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: Obedience only exists because we know what is right and wrong.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think what he's doing is he's he's trying to paint this picture because later he's gonna tell a story of like this.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna do these block parties and he's really excited, you know, having all these kids do home groups and like getting all these kids into these home groups.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: He went out to Louisiana, you know, did a training with them, is you know, spent months of work, thousands of dollars trying to invest in this.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then one day Benny Hen just decides, nope, we're not doing home groups.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: God's told us not to do that, we're not gonna do it.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he's frustrated and he's making this argumentation that we have to obey no matter what.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not necessarily obedience to God, it's obedience to your dictator.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, leader.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: So here in this account, what's sorry, uh Freudian slip.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh what's happening in this account is he's saying, hey, look, what you think is right and wrong doesn't matter.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: What matters is obedience.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, what is obedience if not right and wrong?
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think what he's doing is he's telegraphing his punches.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's telling us where he's going to go with this.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: He means obedience to his leader.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's I think the most charitable way to read this.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's also unbiblical and not right, as we've addressed in our former video.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: But then Bavir puts words into the mouth of scripture that the scriptures doesn't.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, neither Hebrews 11, 4 nor Genesis 4 uses the word obedience anywhere.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: It just uses faith.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Genesis doesn't uh use faith to my recollection, but Bavir asserts that the text is saying things and then doesn't provide any receipts for it.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: He just claims that it's so.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: SpongeBob, I think it's because of imagination, right?
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't there there's nothing in the text that claims this.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: Any any uh well, because I mentioned this a moment ago, but faith here in Galatians chapter 2, 16, it says, uh, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: So we also believe in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no man is justified.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then we have Ephesians chapter 2, 8 through 9.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and it is not of your own doing, is a gift of God, not a result of works, so that any should boast.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what would be claimed here is that uh Cain and Abel, Abel should be able to boast because of his own obedience.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um now later he's going to say in his book, well, we can't we can't be self-righteous in our obedience.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: However, it's the one thing he keeps pointing you to hold on to.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um so he wants you to hold to your own obedience without being prideful about it.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: We're speaking out of both sides of his mouth, and I don't think he realizes he's being contradictory in doing so.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_02: But but I would imagine he's got to live with a significant amount of cognitive dissonance because I think he really believes this stuff.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: You ready for the next slip?
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: And Josh, well, I'm just here's another thing, and for those of you out there that struggle with the same thing, or you've listened to John Bevier and you've found his stuff very helpful.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_02: Question for you Did you ever find yourself alternating between one of two sides of the spectrum?
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: One side of the spectrum over here, falling into self-righteousness, boasting in your good works and all that you've managed to accomplish.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, nobody, very seldom will people admit that.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_02: But then on the other side of the spectrum is never feeling like you did enough and therefore feeling disqualified by God.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think anybody who believes what John Babier is saying is gonna oscillate between those two sides of the spectrum.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: Constantly feeling like the scum of the earth because you never measure up, or feeling like you're so much better than everybody else because you do measure up.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that is the result of believing a gospel based on law, not based on a free gift given by God.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen an Old Testament example that rebellion is witchcraft, and there are plenty more.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's examine the New Testament.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Paul wrote a stern letter to the churches in Galatia.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was not a letter to the general populace of Galatia, but specifically directed to the church.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: Carefully read Paul's statement.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wait a minute.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: Paul was telling the church they were under a witchcraft curse.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: You may question.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: I thought there was no divination or witchcraft against God's people.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: That is correct.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: No curse can be released against the obedient.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: But remember, rebellion or disobedience places a person under witchcraft.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: Recall my assistant's meeting with a former witch, delivered from sorcery.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: When she saw his excitement upon learning that curses couldn't be placed on Christians, she quickly added, But Pastor, we could affect lukewarm people in the church.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: The disobedient in confirmation.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hear what Paul said?
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth?
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: Gal.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: 3-1.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: The bewitchment involved disobeying God's word, not any curses that sorcerers had conjured up.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because rebellion is witchcraft.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: In essence, the church in Galatia came under a witchcraft curse because of disobedience.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: Before going any farther, I must clarify this point.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: We come under bewitchment when we disobey what God has made clear to us, not when we disobey what has not been revealed to us.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: This becomes clear as Paul continued.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: Galatians.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: This specific incident yields a universal truth.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: God had revealed his salvation by grace to those churches through Paul's preaching.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't long before they embraced the reasoning and traditions of another and disobeyed what was once made so very clear to them by the Holy Spirit.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: They began to teach and live under the belief that salvation came by keeping the works of the law.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: However, the universal premise we want to focus on is this whenever we disobey what God has clearly revealed to us, we bring ourselves under the influence of a witchcraft curse.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because rebellion is witchcraft.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen this with entire congregations, families, and individuals.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: I have met many churchgoers who, for some reason or another, live in an almost constant state of disobedience.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_00: Most are unaware of its severity because they have been numbed by a lopsided teaching of grace that downplays the importance of obedience.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't nothing you said was right.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so sorry, Joe.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: I I I've tried to be nice to you so many times.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is like this is so bad.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like the it's the whole purpose of the letter.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like he he's writing them, telling them that they're obedient, that they're good works.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_02: It won't do the job.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then when he says, Who has bewitched you?
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's because they got it all wrong.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_02: They thought their good works would actually save them.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_02: How did he get from that to if you're disobedient, you're now under a curse?
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the point of Paul's letter here.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's like here's the thing Do I think Christians can come under a curse?
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, actually, I I do think that happens.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_02: I I've known Christians who were quite literally under the curse invoked by their ancestors in Freemasonry.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: They may not have been in Freemasonry themselves, they may have become Christian, but I've seen them suffer under a curse.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I I I get it, but but but what he's doing here has nothing to do with that.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like Paul's talking about being bewitched here, it has to do with like their backward way of thinking.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_02: This belief that they had that their own works would save them.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: He's saying, like, dude, you've you've lost it entirely.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how is it that you've gone from receiving a free gift to thinking that you have to do X, Y, and Z in order to be loved and accepted by God?
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_02: But yet he turns it into the exact opposite message.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like, dude, I'm like, has he read the letter?
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't understand.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_02: I don't understand how like you can so badly misunderstand it.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: Josh LBS.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_01: We read it earlier.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: We we we we read it at the top of the show.
• 55:16
  SPEAKER_01: We read Galatians, and and maybe it's worth reading again.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was before your eyes that Christ Jesus was publicly betrayed as crucified.
• 55:24
  SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you this did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing in faith?
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_01: Are you so foolish?
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: Having begun by the Spirit, you're being perfected by the flesh?
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: Did you suffer so many things in vain?
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: If it was indeed in vain, does he who supply the spirit at you work miracles among you by works of the law or hearing in faith?
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_01: Was Abra just as Abraham believed in God counted to him as righteousness?
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: So here in both of the the he's quoting verses out of context that support his idea.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: But what is the curse?
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: What's the curse here in this passage?
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: We we read it earlier in the show.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Galatians, I believe it's chapter three, verse 10, uh, which says, Um, blah blah blah, for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, curses everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_01: So here, the passage that we're looking at in Galatians three actually tells us what the curse is.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a witchcraft curse.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's a curse of trying to be obedient to the law and not measuring up.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's the curse.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: So actually, you're saying, hey guys, you're under a witchcraft curse because you're not obedient.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, what you're doing is placing people under a curse, trying to be obedient to maintain their salvation.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're doing the very thing Paul is saying, don't do.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're you're twisting the scriptures and deceiving people from the glorious message of the gospel, which is Christ is enough to say, well, Christ is good and he gets you in, but you better you better keep working if you're gonna stay in.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the problem here is again, he uses language here.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he's using a Jewish idiom, Paul, when he says, Who has bewitched you?
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_01: It would be similar to me saying, Miller, who pulled the wool over your eyes.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not telling Miller that he literally has like a you know wolf fur or he's got some kind of like uh you know knitted sweater of wool that he's like placing over his face.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm saying, who's blinded you to the truth?
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: And here Paul is using a popular idiom saying who has bewitched you, not that there was some active work of sorcery taking place.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then he quotes first Samuel, but then he actually undermines what first Samuel says in first Samuel 15, verse 23.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: He calls rebellion as to the sin of witchcraft.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: It would like me saying that round tree is like a werewolf.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that Michael is a werewolf, I'm just saying he's like one.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: That comes from a comment section of someone that me and Miller were laughing about earlier today.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: Neither didn't or he called you a dwarf.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm assuming that went right over your head, though.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he he said I had a dwarf spirit.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't quite get what that meant, just right over my head.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then round tree had a werewolf spirit.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, whoa, whoa, praise God.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: Crazy people on the internet.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: What are you gonna do?
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: Howling.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he was howling at that comment for sure.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the thing to say something is like something doesn't make it that thing.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: And here he is making a kind of a similarity.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's similar, it must be the same kind of fallacy.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's not what the text is saying.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's similar to because both witchcraft tries to use external forces to control outcomes.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, well, rebellion is doing the same thing.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: Leadership is leading in a certain direction, and you're rebelling against that because you don't want that outcome.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it has the same function in its application.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: Again, similar to the disrespect of striking and the disrespect of spitting.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, these things are analogous to one another.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: They're similar, they're not the same.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I I it's ironic.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: Do you guys know what's well?
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_02: The exact opposite of what Paul's intent here is in Galatians is he wants them to walk by faith, not by the flesh, not by works of law.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: He wants them to trust Christ, that being first and foremost.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: And by trusting Christ, it will result in the very thing that he is wanting for, uh what what John Babier would actually want everybody to do, which is obedience.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_02: You know, one of the best l books I read that sort of explains this by way of analogy is actually the Chronicles of Narnia.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_02: Do you remember in the second book, Lucy and the the four Pevincy children, they come back to Narnia.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_02: Lucy sees the lion and she follows him, she trusts him.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_02: And the other kids, they can't see him.
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_02: But one of the things that's amazing is they as they are concerned for their sisters, they're following their sister, each one by one, they see him, and then what's the result?
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_02: They then follow him.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's when they see him as he is, when they actually see Aslan, the lion, the Christ figure in this story, and they they then immediately trust him and follow him in his guidance.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_02: He's got again the cart before the horse here.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's and he's using every text he uses again means the exact opposite of what the author intends.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's frustrating.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's one thing to get a text wrong, right?
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's one thing to be like, hey, yeah, we get text wrong all the time.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_02: But it has to be this particular yeah, this particular theology, getting it wrong actually reserts results in the opposite of salvation, but rather being damned.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_02: Coming under the curse, as Galatians says, by trying to achieve by your own works, you're under a curse.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that that's that's two points.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like one was hey, it's one thing to get a scripture wrong.
• 1:00:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's another to do the exact opposite of the author's intent, and to do it on something that has such high stakes, something that is so important, like the gospel, you know, the one thing that Christians are to know, to proclaim to the world and to get that backwards does such intense damage to the body of Christ.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: It would be like Satan wants it.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was like the bait of Satan or something.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, do you want to watch this next clip?
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_02: Pun well played.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was a good one.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: Rum 4 11 to 12.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_00: In response to Abraham's obedience, God cut covenant with him.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: Where did he get because of his obedience?
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: God cut covenant with him.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like wait, what is credited to it accredited to him as righteousness?
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, no, no.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_02: Does Bavir think it says his obedience is what credited him righteousness, or was it he believed?
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_02: Which one was it?
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because you those things are mutually exclusive.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't get to be one or the other.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't get to be obedience.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean, dude.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: We we we should look at the passage, okay?
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_01: So Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 3.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now the Lord said to Abraham, Go from your country and from your kindred to your father's house, and to the land that I will show you, and I will make you a great nation, I will bless you, and I'll make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse, and in all your families will all the nations of the earth be blessed.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, God here is not giving him a thing to do other than believe in me, follow me, go do what I'm I'm telling you to do, like follow after me.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and he he trusts him, but it wasn't until later that he believed on God and his word, and it was accredited to him as righteousness when he says, look up to the stars, and how many are you in a number?
• 1:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: And he believes God.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: That that's the moment of his justification.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: But then later he he picks up on a different account that it was his obedience.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: Nowhere in the text is it recorded.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, Paul over and over says he was righteous before.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um Paul in Romans 4 explicitly says the exact opposite of what Bavir is saying.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: For what does the scripture say?
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_01: And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was not because Abraham pleased God that God cut covenant with him.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_01: God doesn't cut covenant with Abraham until much later on in the story, and Abraham is not even a part of it.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_01: God splits the animals and then walks through it while Abraham is asleep.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and he's this firepot that says, Hey, I'm gonna be the covenant keeper, and he swears an oath to himself.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_01: He doesn't swear an oath to Abraham, Abraham doesn't swallow an oath to God, Abraham doesn't contribute anything.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_01: God is the one who says, I will uphold this covenant alone.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_01: And if it was obedience that made Abraham a man of faith, then why did Abraham disobey over and over and over?
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, in the initial call, when God calls Abraham out, he doesn't instantly leave Ur of the Chaldees.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he actually stops in Haran and sat there until his father died.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then he finishes his trip to Canaan.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: So he was disobedient to God in that account.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_01: Abraham lied to Sarah, lied to uh the Pharaoh in Egypt about Sarah being his wife, passed her off.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now, believing, now thank God it didn't happen, right?
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because God shut the wombs of people and brought destruction and gave bad, scary dreams to everybody.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_01: But but he had expected this.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm passing off my wife to this pagan king because he's gonna have his way with her.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: And Abraham was okay with that because it saved his own skin.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: That is not an obedient, righteous man.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_01: Abraham takes Hagar because, again, he didn't believe God's word, so he's gonna raise up an offspring of his own house.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you have Abraham who asks God to settle for less.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_01: When God's like, I'm gonna raise up an offspring from you, and he's like, Wow, but you know, uh, what about what about this guy?
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_01: What about Ishmael?
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let him be my heir.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: God's like, nope, not gonna happen.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_01: Then he lies about Sarah again with Abimelech many years later.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_01: So again, if if Abraham is gonna have covenant with God because he's so obedient, then like this is not the guy to pick because he wasn't obedient, he's not a good guy.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I I can see how these things get conflated for people.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if you hear, let's say you're walking in a darkened pathway and you hear God say, turn left.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_02: And and you don't, you know, you're like, okay, I'm gonna obey God, and you turn left.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_02: And next day you go back to that road and you find out that you almost walked right off a cliff.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_02: That if you had kept going straight, you would have quite literally died.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_02: So God saved you.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_02: Now some might walk away and say, See, God saved you because you were obedient to him.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_02: But that's actually not true.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_02: The reason you obeyed is because you trusted his voice to begin with.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like you you would obey because you the voice spoke and you go, Oh, well, God knows.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_02: You believe God, and that ends up resulting in obedience, not the other way around.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_02: But I can see why those things get easily conflated.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, it's conflated in this book all throughout it.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_02: And if you were to follow his teachings, you'd actually find yourself in a pit.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_02: One that one where you're not actually saved because you're relying on your obedience and not trust in Christ.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's right, man.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think that if you go to the hall of faith, you're about to make the argument that again, obedience, our faith flows out of obedience.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_01: But if you go to the hall of faith there in Hebrews 11 and you read through that passage, the people that are mentioned there are not orally upstanding obedient individuals.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_01: Let me let me open Bible Gateway real quick and pull up Hebrews 11.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_01: We've got in the hall of faith, okay, uh, we've got Abraham.
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: We've already talked about how he was not super obedient and righteous.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_01: We've got Jacob, who is known as a liar and a trickster all throughout the Bible.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: We've got Moses, who murdered a guy and was kept out of the promise by striking a rock with his staff.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_01: We've got, well, there's a woman here named Rahab the Harlot.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know Harlot is not her last name.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_01: She was a woman of the night, uh, not known for being deeply obedient to the covenants of God, but she aligned herself by faith with Yahweh.
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then you've got Samson, again, uh maybe the best example of the judges, someone who could not follow.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_01: Single instruction, but each of them have made it into the hall of faith not because of their faithfulness, not because of their obedience, but because they trusted God.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then it is in this context that you know the writer of Hebrews is saying, look at these examples of men and women of faith, not because they're perfect, not because they're faithful, not because they're obedient.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, they may be some of the most disobedient individuals in our Bible.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he didn't mention Daniel.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_01: Daniel doesn't have a record of some kind of moral failure.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_01: He could have used an upstanding gentleman and said, Hey, this guy, uh, he's got no record of horribly screwing up.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_01: Let's let's use Daniel as our example of a man of faith.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: But instead, he goes out to mention prostitutes, he goes out to mention unfaithful judges, he goes out of his way to mention the patriarchs, who were, you know, of their own accord deemed righteous by faith, but by their own actions were disqualified from making covenant with God by obedience alone.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I I I So much of this is wrong.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I I'm without words.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, do we need to hit the next clip, Miller?
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_01: We got two more.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I have a ton of commentary on this one, so we'll see what happens.
• 1:08:14
  SPEAKER_00: Abraham received the promises through true faith and endurance, which translates to obedience to completion.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_00: His faith and obedience were inseparable, as James so clearly pointed out.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_00: In this scripture I am going to substitute the words obedient actions for the word works.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_00: But do you want to know, oh foolish man, that faith without obedient actions is dead?
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_00: Was not Abraham our father justified by obedient actions when he offered Isaac his son on the altar?
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see that faith was working together with his obedient actions, and by obedient actions faith was made perfect?
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the scripture was fulfilled which says, Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he was called the friend of God.
• 1:08:45
  SPEAKER_00: You see then that a man is justified by obedient actions, and not by faith only.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_00: For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without obedient actions is dead also.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_00: 220-2426.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_00: In the final verse, faith and obedient actions are compared to the body and spirit of a man.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_00: In his example, you'll discover faith is compared to the physical body, and obedient actions are likened to the spirit of a man.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_00: The two must have each other to express themselves in this world.
• 1:09:06
  SPEAKER_00: If the spirit departs the body, the body dies.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_00: Once the spirit departs, the body cannot be raised unless the spirit returns, as in the case of Lazarus.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thus James showed from his example how faith completely depends on obedient actions.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_00: That was why James said, Show me your faith without your obedient actions, and I will show you my faith by my obedient actions.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_00: James 2.18.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_00: Faith is not true faith apart from obedience.
• 1:09:26
  SPEAKER_00: Make no mistake about it.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture makes it clear that by obedient actions faith is made complete.
• 1:09:31
  SPEAKER_00: The writer of Hebrews intermingled faith with obedient actions.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're inseparable.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_00: If faith was given just to receive miracles, then why would he include those who wandered in the deserts and mountains, afflicted, and tormented?
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_00: Those men and women finished well.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_00: They obeyed to completion.
• 1:09:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is true faith.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you desire great faith, then obey God's authority, whether direct or delegated, all the way to completion.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_00: Your faith is directly proportional to your obedience.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_00: The safeguard of humility.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_00: The final point Jesus impressed upon his disciples was to keep an attitude of humility.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_00: He said, So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you were commanded, say, We are unprofitable servants.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_00: We have done what was our duty to do.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_00: When we maintain this attitude, we position ourselves for the reward that comes from the Master.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Those who exalt themselves will be humbled.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_00: However, those who are base in their own eyes, the Master exalts.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're gonna pause there.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, lots and lots of things in the text here.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Miller, do you have any initial thoughts?
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's just bring some clarity to what James is actually saying.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_02: When he says faith without works is dead, uh what he's showing you is that the person who doesn't actually have a righteousness that follows their faith is a person who never truly had faith.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_02: He's not saying that your obedience is what allows your faith to be real.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Faith is real whether there's obedience that follows or not.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_02: The faith of the thief on the cross was real, even though there was no action to back it up, because he died.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_02: But for the person who truly does have faith, they will receive a transformed heart and a propensity towards the righteousness of God, and that's given by the Spirit.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_02: But he he's flipping this round.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_02: He says that your obedience is proportionate or your your faith is proportionate to your obedience.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, again, you're you're you're switching, you're reversing the order.
• 1:11:13
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually your obedience starts with your faith.
• 1:11:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like it says, we prophesy in accordance to our faith.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_02: It all starts right there.
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_02: Your belief and trust in Christ results in these kinds of actions, not the other way around.
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, in the Hebrews passage, it's like he gets something right there.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_02: He talks about these guys who end up having really horrible ends because that end in tragedy.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_02: But he says these are the heroes of the faith.
• 1:11:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, is it that their obedience proved their faith?
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Or sorry, was it their obedience that gave them faith, or was it rather that they trusted God that there really was going to be a resurrection, that their life on this earth didn't matter, but they were living for the next life?
• 1:11:53
  SPEAKER_02: To me, it seems like their obedience came from the fact that they really do believe that Christ is going to raise them from the dead.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_02: So he it's like he he kind of gets it right, but then gets it wrong at the same time.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'll pick up back up where you did with James.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, James, his point is that there are individuals in the community who aren't caring for their neighbor, they're not loving one another, they are uh not taking care of the poor and the needy and the hungry.
• 1:12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And James comes in and says, Hey, look, demons have faith like you guys.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like demons, they have right doctrine.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_01: They believe, you know, they they profess, we know what you've come to do with us, you know, uh, son of the most high, come and torment us before our time, etc., etc., etc.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_01: The demons know who Jesus is, they have knowledge of him, but it's not a relational knowledge that comes through faith.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_01: It is a kind of theological facts that they have been able to collect about him.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say that here, James is saying, you are professing right true things, but your life is not produced any fruit.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Your life is rotten.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_01: And again, the the pressing point here is that many of us are going to have fruit in our life that is inconsistent.
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we shouldn't look to our life and say, oh, I had bad fruit here, therefore I must not be saved.
• 1:13:01
  SPEAKER_01: But it's to say, hey, look, there is some good fruit here.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_01: That is a evidence, not the evidence of my salvation.
• 1:13:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's a evidence that God has really changed my life and transformed my heart by the work of his grace through faith.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_01: And when I look here, they're talking about two different issues.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_01: James is saying, hey, look, obedience flows out of faith.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Vavir is saying that obedience is faith or that faith comes out of obedience, but that's simply not the case.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_01: They're having completely two different people that are in question.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_01: James is saying, How do you know that you're really saved?
• 1:13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because you just say right things.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_01: You're not there, there's no evidence of that in the fruit of your life.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So not the same.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Abraham here is the proof case, but here James is actually quoting Genesis 15, 6, where Abraham is deemed righteous by faith alone, and then goes to Genesis 22, where he offers up Isaac.
• 1:13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Abraham's salvation is not more secure or less secure after Genesis 22.
• 1:13:57
  SPEAKER_01: He was justified in Genesis 15.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but here the idea of his faith being made perfect means to be brought to completion or mature.
• 1:14:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's the exact same language that James uses in James chapter one.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Consider all joy, brothers, when you counter various trials, testing your faith produces endurance, let endurance have its perfect work, they be perfect, complete, lacking in nothing.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_01: It means mature, the fullness of an expression of a thing.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it's one thing for me to believe that I will preach the gospel no matter the consequences.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's another thing to have a beer thrown in my face and to be assaulted.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And if I'm having a beer thrown in my face and assaulted, and I'm still proclaiming the gospel, I'm still loving my neighbor in the midst of that persecution, that is bringing that fruit to fruition and maturity.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_01: So what Abraham's initial faith that he had was being manifested and put on display as he offers up his son Isaac in Genesis 22.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Bavir reads, matured as you know, if it existed at all.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you really had any faith at all, it would be proved out by your works, where James is saying, if you have faith, it's going to come into maturity through these sorts of actions.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_01: So one is making a comparison of salvation or not salvation, the other is making an argumentation of mature and immature that is developing over time.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Bavir initially swaps works for obedient actions.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_01: James's own words here, when he says works in this passage earlier, it is speaking of mercy towards individuals, mercy being poured out over the poor, over the neglected, over the disenfranchised.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Hey, you need to show mercy.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Bavir turns that into any kind of obligatory statement or law that must be followed to a T.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_01: But again, that's the opposite.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Fruit is works, fruit is faith.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_01: It is a byproduct of, not the reverse.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_01: James's own letter runs on kind of a grace before obligation.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_01: He grounds his appeal into his love for neighbor and the work of God that was accomplished for us.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and before he ever issues the command, uh, he calls this the law of liberty, not again, that sort of obligation.
• 1:16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, man, Vir, man, I hope you watch this video.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_01: I hope someone sends it to you.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_01: You're cared for.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_01: We don't hate you.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_01: But man, I I hear this and think that you are putting people's souls in jeopardy.
• 1:16:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think there are believers who are gonna live in constant dread and fear, or at worst, maybe be completely self-righteous of their own actions.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_01: This articulation of the gospel will do nothing but rob believers and potentially at worst man damn people's souls, thinking that they're believing the true gospel when they receive the false one.
• 1:16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry if that seems too heavy.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_01: Miller, any kind of closing thoughts, my friend?
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_02: I I think it's heavy because that's the egregious nature of what's happening in this book.
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_02: He's advocating for workspace salvation and doesn't even acknowledge that he's doing it.
• 1:16:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this is why we protested, this is why we're Protestant.
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know another way to phrase it.
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's heavy because he's doing the opposite of what Paul is actually encouraging in Galatians.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I hate to say it, but John Bavier, you're you're the one who's been bewitched.
• 1:17:08
  SPEAKER_02: Paul was speaking to you, and it's precisely for this way of this wrong gospel that you're preaching.
• 1:17:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry, I'm gonna say it's plainly.
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's a wrong gospel.
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's a gospel that cannot save you when you tell people to rely on their own works, their obedience, rather than pointing them to Christ so that they can see Christ for who he is, and then allow that to be the transforming work that takes place in their lives.
• 1:17:32
  SPEAKER_02: So that's that's it.
• 1:17:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I I I think it's a sober thing and hard thing because it's actually that serious of a degree, uh a grievance.
• 1:17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Guys, hey, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode.
• 1:17:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's not a fun one.
• 1:17:47
  SPEAKER_01: We don't have any personal bone to pick with John Bevere.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_01: We were very kind to him in our first video, but but man, when you when you start playing with the gospel, there are there there's more at stake.
• 1:17:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I think tone needs to match the intensity of the error.
• 1:18:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope we've done that today.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe we've been too charitable.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think we probably have, if I'm gonna be honest.
• 1:18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Concerned about this?
• 1:18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you guys for watching so much.
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure to subscribe to the channel, share the video around to anyone who's got the gospel and the law confused, and hopefully this will serve them well.
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for seeing this episode, guys.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you next time.