Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / God’s Love Letter to His People. Everybody’s a Theologian. Hills to Die on - Highlight Episode 339

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God’s Love Letter to His People. Everybody’s a Theologian. Hills to Die on - Highlight Episode 339 · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: When you don't have good doctrine, you're not rooted in good doctrine.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Especially when you have a leadership of a church who doesn't put a premium on sound biblical doctrine, you are headed for danger.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it reveals an immaturity on the part of those who say that I don't believe in good, sound doctrine.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: It's like someone saying I don't believe in healthy living and you get a lot of young people thinking like that.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Young people say I don't believe in healthy living and you get a lot of young people thinking like that.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: Young people say I don't believe in healthy living because they're healthy and well.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: But just recently there's been a mass of 1960s rockers dying off horribly.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: Lots of them.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: And it's because they've abused their bodies and they're reaping exactly what they've sown.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: And if you abuse sound doctrine, don't take heed to sound doctrine.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: You're going to end up in a mess spiritually.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Scriptures are our chief way of understanding who God is.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: It's his revelation to us.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: I usually don't like using this terminology because it sounds cheesy, but truly it is God's love letter to his people.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: That sounds cheesy, but truly it is God's love letter to his people.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: That sounds cheesy and once again, if you claim to be in relationship with the Father in heaven, how do you not know the Father in heaven?
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: And, as it pertains to the inerrancy and authority, as soon as you start questioning the inerrancy and authority of God's word, ultimately what you do is you make yourself authority over it.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: That's right, it's over it, that's right, it's not cheesy, it's beautiful.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: Everybody is a theologian, just most people are bad theologians, right, right.
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: So we all have, when we think of theologians, theos, god, we all have this study, this knowledge of God.
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: Now, where do you get your information from?
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: If you do not get your information from the Bible, well then it's going to be faulty, and then your life is going to be faulty.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: Right, and what is the saying?
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: So the Word of God is truth.
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: We're sanctified by His truth, and if you're not meditating on God's Word as truth, you're going to believe lies are true and you're going to be dogmatic in your doctrine concerning that truth, which is actually a lie.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know there's a lie.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a weird sort of dynamic that I've come across within Christianity, and it's this aversion to doctrine.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've heard people articulate it in this way even oh man, you don't need to get into doctrine, I just want to love God, right?
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's this mindset that there's some sort of divide between doctrine and like a spiritual, vibrant, passionate life.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: Sadly, I think, a lot of times people have a zeal without knowledge when it comes to even the pursuit of the Lord.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: How much more truly deep and vibrant will your pursuit of the Lord be when it's backed up by real truth, you know?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: And so I think it's important that we understand what's meant by doctrine.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, the simple definition is a belief or set of beliefs held and taught by a church, political party or other group, and I'm glad you highlighted that, oscar.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Everybody has doctrine, and so that's the key it's to get Christians to find that right balance.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: And, mark, there have been, I think, certain elements that have caused people to feel that way, don't you think?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, just seminary, oh, cemetery.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Right, they call it cemetery, I mean because there are some, though, and you've said that you've thrown books across the room because they're full of good truth, but the person talking about evangelism or the gospel won't even preach it themselves.
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you want people that are doers and not just hearers, and you're referring to a book on apologetics.
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: I won't mention the person's name because I have a lot of respect.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: What does it rhyme with?
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: See, I won't do that Compost Ray Comfort.
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: It rhymes with Ray Comfort Because the whole book is about how to utilize apologetics in evangelism and then the very last chapter says it's not part of my natural maludy to share the gospel, but if you do allow me to offer you a fictitious conversation, how it might go out on the streets, well, things never go according to plan.
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: Right, it never happens like that, charles Spurgeon.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: He said discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong, it's knowing the difference between right and almost wrong, almost wrong.
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: So it's not hard to know the difference between right and wrong.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: It's right and almost wrong.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: It's like you're almost there, but to be almost there is to almost be entirely lost.
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah Right, it's like, well, judas, he was almost saved.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: Well, to be almost saved is to be entirely lost.
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: So we need to take heed yourself to the doctrine.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: I was thinking what is the filter for truth?
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: And the filter really is the new birth.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: If you're born again, the Holy Spirit is within you, the Spirit of truth leads you, and if you're not born again, you'll believe anything, and that's what's happened.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Within the contemporary body of Christ, we have masses of people who have never found a place of biblical repentance, and they don't bring forth things that accompany salvation, and one of those things is a love of the truth, Right and a desire for truth.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: I remember, as a brand-new Christian, I read one of the Proverbs things.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Proverbs 11, which speaks of it sounded like God brought forth Jesus in the beginning, and it was a Jehovah's Witness that said to me there Jesus was created.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: So I called a guy, an elderly Christian, and I said what does this mean?
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: And he wouldn't tell me.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: He wouldn't tell me.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: He says you search it for yourself, and all I did was read it in context, went back to the Word.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: And it's not speaking of Jesus, it's speaking of wisdom.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: God brought forth wisdom in the beginning and it's always stayed with me that if you search the Scriptures, you'll find truth.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Read things in context.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: We need to remember church history because so often I think we want to water down differences and divides.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: Like you often hear from Christians talking about their Catholic friends in the Catholic church, which we love, our Catholic friends.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: But there is a clear divide between what we believe and they believe.
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: And, like I'm remembering, we were in you and I were in Hawaii and a group of us went to Pearl Harbor and we went.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: You know, when you go to Pearl Harbor you're looking at these essential graves and it's paying respect by remembering the cost of freedom.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: When you visit Auschwitz, you remind yourself not to flirt with fascism.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: You know, the moment of peace monument of peace memorial reminds us against racism yourself not to flirt with fascism.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: The Moment of Peace Monument of Peace Memorial reminds us against racism and, in that same way, church leaders throughout history reminds us the importance of doctrine.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: And so when you try to downplay the Catholic-Protestant divide, you think of Hugh Latimer or Nicholas Ridley or Thomas Cranmer, all burned at the stake over transubstantiation and the nature of mass.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: And.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: Tyndale too.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: These guys lost their lives because of the difference between what they believe and what we believe, and so I think looking at church history reminds us of the importance of doctrine I want us to talk about.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: What are the good, clear doctrines that we should understand and know well, we can't get into all of them in depth, but just to whet people's appetite so they can go and study and explore.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: But, yeah, when we're talking about the essentials, we're talking about things that are essential to the historic Christian faith.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: These are hills to die on, yeah, hills to die on that are settled, that are clear in Scripture and there's no ands, ifs or buts about them, and we'll get into what those are.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Secondary and tertiary issues are dealing with things that are non-essential, things that would deal with, let's say, for example, the spiritual gifts.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Are they, you know, the sign gifts?
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Are they still for today or not?
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: You have good, solid Christians that can disagree on that.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: We can talk ecclesiology and the church and how the church functions and church government.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: We can talk about modes of baptism.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Even right, do you sprinkle, do you dunk?
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: Head first, feet first, long under the water.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: Yes, four minutes, If they live they live If they die, they die.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Other things are eschatology.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Then you have the covenantal system versus the dispensational system and how you interpret Scripture.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: In connection with that, you can get into head coverings, you can get into all kinds of different things like that that fall within those categories as well, and what your diet should be as a Christian, what should eat, what shouldn't eat.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: And I'm surprised how many Christians don't realize who Jesus is.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: They don't fully understand that he was God manifest in the flesh.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: As the scriptures say in Timothy Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine, continue in them, and in doing so you will save both yourself and those who hear you.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: So we've got a tremendous responsibility when we're sharing the gospel, to share the biblical gospel and not get into other stuff that's going to have poison Real good.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Side note we have a pretty robust doctrinal statement on our website, livingwaterscom.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: If you guys have never listened, or if you've never really looked through one or looked through your own churches, that's a great place to start.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, amen.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights from the Living Waters podcast.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Friends, we value your time, so we've created a bite-sized version of our podcast for listeners who want to get equipped.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Without the jokes and fellowship, be sure to check out the full episode every Thursday where we dive deeper into the topic.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Until then, you can watch the full podcast episode available now on livingwaterstv.