Latest / Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo / Dr. Erwin Lutzer: 'The Eclipse Of God,’ Search For A More Tolerant, Inclusive Deity (REPLAY)

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Dr. Erwin Lutzer: 'The Eclipse Of God,’ Search For A More Tolerant, Inclusive Deity (REPLAY) · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

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  Welcome to World View Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events,
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  defending biblical Christianity.
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  No topic, off limits.
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  And now, here's your host, David Fierazzo.
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  Hello, friends.
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  Thank you so much for tuning in for sharing the podcast.
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  God bless you, brothers and sisters in Christ.
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  I've got a special treat for you today.
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  We've got Dr. Urban Lootser on the program.
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  And there's a phenomenal new book out called The Eclipse of God.
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  You guys are going to love this.
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  We're going to dive into it in a minute.
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  But I just want to quote some of the information that was sent to me on the book.
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  Now he encourages Christians to be faithful in the midst of the irrational and absurd.
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  And that's what we're seeing worldwide, particularly in our culture.
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  And we're going to have him respond to that.
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  He encourages believers.
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  And he says America is experiencing a near total eclipse.
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  We see the increase in violence, treachery, the abuse of the law, depravity, and more.
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  He says darkness is being protected and normalized while light is being vilified and criminalized.
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  And the eclipse of God, the book, is not just a warning to the church, by the way,
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  and to be faithful stewards.
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  It's a call to recognize the danger we face when we tinker with transcendent morality
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  given to us by our creator.
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  And finally, Urban Lootser says when the rule of law is replaced by the quest for power,
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  freedom ends.
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  And then he asks, are we ready?
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  Well, I want to bring him in now.
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  Dr. Urban Lootser is pastor emeritus of the Moody Church where he served as the senior
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  pastor for 36 years.
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  He is featured speaker and and and podcasters authored some amazing books, including one
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  of them.
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  I talked to him about a few years ago.
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  We will not be silenced.
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  And a couple of years ago, he wrote no reason to hide and many others.
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  But he has a radio program called running to win.
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  It's a daily Bible teaching broadcast.
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  And that's on over a thousand outlets in the US and across more than 50 countries in
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  seven languages.
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  Pastor Lootser also is a prolific author.
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  He's written 70 books more than 70 now.
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  And the one we're going to talk about today is called the Eclipse of God.
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  Urban Lootser, thank you so much for taking the time to be in World View Matters.
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  Good to see you.
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  Thank you so much, David.
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  And the book that you referenced, the Eclipse of God, just came out recently.
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  So it certainly is my most recent book.
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  And you know, let's talk about the idea of an eclipse.
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  Sure.
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  Eclipse of the sun, the moon comes between the sun and the earth.
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  It doesn't affect the sun.
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  It shines as brightly as ever.
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  But I'm saying in the book that the moon of secularism has brought us into darkness.
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  And we have to understand the darkness and your intro was right on when you said, we
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  are fighting in an irrational world.
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  And the reason for that is because we have turned our back on God, the creator.
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  And of course, because we've done that, we are rebelling against the created order.
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  But David, if I might just take a moment to explain to people, what I do in the book
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  is I show that the shadows of Europe have come to the United States.
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  That's kind of the opening, Nietzsche, who died in the year 1900, proclaimed the death
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  of God.
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  And he said, do we not hear the noise of the gravediggers who have buried God?
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  And so I asked myself the question, who might he be referring to?
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  Karl Marx, who attacked God as ruler, Darwin, who attacked God as creator, Freud, who attacked
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  God as lawgiver.
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  I want to pause just a moment and comment on Darwin and then tell you about how important
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  this is, not only for the church in Europe, it was important, but also for us.
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  But Darwin, in the book, I quote him as saying that the baboon is our grandfather.
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  Well, David, if the baboon is our grandfather, we have no argument against abortion, against
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  infanticide, euthanasia, we do that with animals.
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  And I point out how the animal rights movement wants to elevate animals to the level of humans,
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  but they actually bring humans down to the level of animals.
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  And then you have Freud, with his pleasure, principle of sexuality, believe that there
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  should be no restrictions, and this opens the door also to pedophilia.
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  Now, Nietzsche proclaimed the death of God, and then very quickly, he proclaimed that
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  the cathedrals of Europe have become the tombs of God.
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  Go throughout Europe, you find that many of the cathedrals are libraries and mosques
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  and go to where Bunyan was in England, Bedford, that cathedral is a nightclub, his prediction
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  came to pass.
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  The question is, what we learn from it, and I discuss those things in the book, and then
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  one other thing, and then I'm going to get to all of your questions.
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  There was an article in the economist some time ago that says, God is becoming as liberal
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  as we are.
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  As a matter of fact, the online version was, nearer my God to me.
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  So I have a chapter by that title, emphasizing the fact that we have manufactured in America
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  and in the West generally, our own ideas of God.
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  We have domesticated him.
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  We now have a God that we can control.
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  And so I go into that.
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  And then the article also says, nobody believes in the mighty almighty of the Old Testament.
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  The God who smoked the Egyptians, the God who smoked Sodom and Gomorrah.
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  So I have a chapter on the Old Testament, the stoning of people, the killing of the Canaanites,
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  the flood, and then one of the longest chapters is God more tolerant than he used to be.
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  How do we manage the fact that the New Testament is entirely different?
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  Is it safer to sin under grace than it was under law?
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  And of course, I show that God has not changed.
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  And then after that, the rest of the book is as you properly described showing that God
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  is necessary for truth for law.
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  And the last chapter which should raise some eyebrows is returning to the God of wrath
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  and grace, not the God of unconditional love.
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  So there you have the 30 mile high, 30 foot high summary of the book, The Eclipse of God.
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  Oh, phenomenal.
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  I was going to ask you specifically about a few of those chapters, but I want to quote you
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  from the book and I want to emphasize when you shared the importance of the sun still shining
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  even though there's an eclipse.
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  That's a very important point.
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  You say the sun still shines behind the eclipse and not even a determined secular world can
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  blot out the witness of God's servants who are dedicated to share the light.
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  Dr. Luther, that's an important point because a lot of believers are well intentioned.
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  They want to make an impact.
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  They want to be salt and light, but they get discouraged and overwhelmed because of the darkness.
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  Could you speak to them and just encourage them in the midst of what we're seeing today?
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  I'd be glad to as a matter of fact, as you well know, we're living in a country that is very polarized,
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  politically, racially, and in other ways.
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  So let me speak to the moment that we find ourselves in and this is my encouragement,
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  and I point this out in the book.
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  When Isaiah went into the temple, it says, in the year that King Uzziah died,
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  I saw the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple.
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  What God was saying to Isaiah is this, Uzziah is dead.
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  He was a relatively good King.
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  He rained for 52 years.
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  So the throne of Israel is empty.
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  But Isaiah, I want you to know that the throne in heaven is well occupied.
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  Thank you very much.
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  And when we read the news and we hear the accusations back and forth politically and in every other way,
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  I want to urge believers to look behind the headlines and know that God still does rule.
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  God still does rule.
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  He is King.
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  He is Lord.
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  He sets up leaders.
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  He takes others down.
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  Sometimes he gives us leaders that are better than we deserve.
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  Sometimes he gives us leaders that are worse than we deserve.
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  And sometimes he gives us exactly what we deserve.
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  But God is still God.
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  He's not abandon his people.
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  And the question I tried to deal within the book is,
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  what does it look like to be faithful to God in the midst of our eclips?
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  The subtitle of the book, by the way, friends.
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  And I didn't give the website, forgive me, moodymedia.org.
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  You can go to moodymedia.org or the book is obviously available on Amazon.
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  And it just is days out.
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  So brand new.
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  I can literally say hot off the presses for this book.
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  But the subtitle, our nation's disastrous search for a more inclusive deity.
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  And what we must do about it.
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  So Dr. Luther, with that, I want to just talk about inclusivity and talk about
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  what you mentioned, one of the chapters in on page 127.
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  Chapter six is called,
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  is God more tolerant than he used to be?
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  Because it seems that we, not we Bible-believing Christians,
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  but our nation's secular society has redefined tolerance and inclusivity.
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  Would you care to speak to that, please?
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  I'd be glad to speak to it.
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  First of all, you mentioned how the book can be purchased.
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  And also, if people go to eclips of God,
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  without the word the, just eclips of God, there's a special website.
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  And that goes to our media ministry.
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  So I want to highlight that.
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  But also, of course, as you mentioned,
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  Amazon, Christianbook.com, and other places.
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  And I believe so deeply that this message is needed.
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  All right, let's pick that up.
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  Is God more tolerant than he used to be?
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  The Old Testament, you have the killing of the Canaanites,
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  which I deal with in the previous chapter.
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  You have stoning.
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  How do we manage the fact that in the New Testament,
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  things are very different?
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  Well, in the New Testament, we don't have a theocracy.
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  And the church, instead of being a nation localized
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  within certain borders, the church exists throughout the world.
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  It is a transnational community.
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  So we do not have the same responsibilities as they had in the Old Testament.
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  And God administers things differently today.
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  And what the church should be doing is
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  disciplining people for the infractions
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  that were considered important in the Old Testament.
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  And one thing I want to say,
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  there were civil laws in the Old Testament
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  that have absolutely no application today.
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  All of the ceremonial laws were fulfilled in Christ.
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  But here's what I want everyone to hear with clarity.
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  The Bible says in the book of Hebrews,
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  if people were found guilty under Moses
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  and were worthy of being stoned with two or three witnesses,
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  of how much greater punishment do you think will be found worthy?
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  Those who have trampled underfoot the blood of Christ.
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  What the New Testament teaches is this,
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  that the greater the grace, the greater the responsibility,
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  this is chilling.
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  When you read the book of revelations and the judgment that is to come,
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  when you read that book of revelation,
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  what you discover is the judgments that are coming upon this earth
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  are far worse than anything in the Old Testament.
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  God has not become more tolerant.
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  He's dealing with things differently today.
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  There's a different way to administer what he is doing through the church,
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  but he is the Lord and he changes not.
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  And as I emphasize in the book what we have done is
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  we have paired God down to reasonable proportions.
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  We have domesticated him.
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  We've created our own vision of God.
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  You know, David, people today don't mind saying they believe in God
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  just as long as they are God, they're perfectly comfortable with saying that.
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  And that's why in the previous chapter where I discuss nearer my God to me,
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  I talk about the idea of, oh, I'm spiritual,
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  but I'm not religious.
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  I don't believe in anything specific, but I'm spiritual.
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  This utterly is nonsense.
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  You know, there's a book, there's a verse in Isaiah that just comes to mind now.
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  I quoted in the book in which Isaiah said that false religions are like somebody who's hungry.
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  He goes to sleep, dreams he is eating, but wakes up hungry still.
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  It's like somebody who is thirsty, he goes to bed dreaming that he is drinking,
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  and then he wakes up and he is thirsty still.
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  All of this nonsense that we have today about spirituality
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  becomes the idea that your consciousness is really God.
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  And God becomes whatever you want him to be.
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  You can ignore him, you can use him,
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  but he is at your disposal and essentially at your control.
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  And you don't have to deal with sin.
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  You just need help.
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  You don't need redemption.
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  So that's the God of popular culture.
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  And I'll tell you this, read the New Testament, read the book of Revelation,
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  and it gives you chills.
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  Our God is a consuming fire and terrifying.
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  Amen.
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  And we unfortunately, especially in America,
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  we are creating God's inner own image,
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  because we want to pursue pleasure and happiness rather than holiness.
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  And we've got to take a brief pause with Dr. Irwin Luther in the book
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  is called the Eclipse of God.
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  We will be right back on World View Matters.
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• 15:12
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• 15:24
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• 15:27
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• 15:29
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• 15:34
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  Before we go back into the Eclipse of God, I want to mention
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  one of Dr. Luther's previous books.
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  I have this is phenomenal.
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  We will not be silenced.
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  I had the pleasure of speaking with him a few years ago on this book.
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  This is where we're at today, friends.
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  We cannot afford as believers in Christ to be silent
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  and to be quiet in this culture where people need to hear the truth
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  and they need to hear the whole gospel.
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  So I'm off my soapbox now back to our guest, Dr. Irwin Luther.
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  We talked a little bit about how we are in a very interesting culture and time today,
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  where there's irrationality, where evil is being called good, good is called evil.
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  You can be whatever gender you want to be and it's just irrational.
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  And you say in the book, this is a battle that reason, science, and biology cannot win.
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  Explain further, please.
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  Well, the reason that we can't win the war that way is because at root,
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  it's rebellion against God.
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  You know, Al Mola wrote the intro to my book and he said it was a direct hit
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  because at the end of the day, all of our problems are theological.
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  But you know, David, you raised something else that I want to get to and that is the
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  chapter that I have on truth, truth or truthiness, speaking the truth in an age of lies.
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  What parents need to do is to understand this.
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  You send your child to university or to college, oftentimes they come back and they think differently
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  than you do. Boy, they sure do. What has happened? It used to be before men could have babies.
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  It used to be that people believe that truth was objective.
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  It existed outside of the mind.
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  It was something to be sought today because of the exaltation of man and the fact that we believe
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  that we are gods because of that, that has now moved inside of us.
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  So truth exists within us.
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  And when you read history, for example, what you're looking for is not truth per se.
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  You're looking for higher art keys.
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  You are reading these texts, as Karl Marx said we should, looking for opportunities to maintain
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  power. So the words of the text no longer have ultimate authority because they have no stable
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  meaning. It is within you. As a matter of fact, I quote a teacher's manual in which it says,
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  no student should ever be told that he is wrong because it might damage his self esteem.
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  So it gives all of these options and says what you must do is if he says something wrong, say,
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  why, I never thought of that before or that's an idea. Let's hang on to that.
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  And then about 12 other possibilities because after all history has become therapy.
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  So your child comes back from college and sees everything through his viewpoint and that
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  that becomes the truth. He has his truth and you have your truth. And that's the way we are.
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  One other thing I have to throw out and that is this that in the book, I quote a university
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  that has speech codes. They say don't use the word field. Don't use the word America. Don't use the
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  word illegal because after all these are pejorative. Now everyone listening, David, has to take a deep
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  breath. What is going on there? What's going on is this. It is not intended to elevate the debate.
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  It's intended to silence the debate. You have no idea what's appropriate. Can you go into a
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  restaurant and still ask for a menu? Or is that a concession to masculine toxicity?
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  So people have no idea. And so most college students end up self censoring themselves. And if they
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  hear something that they don't agree with, they have to retreat to a safe place to lick the wounds
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  of their unappreciated what shall we say, oppression. So that's the reason that they think differently.
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  Truth is not exclusive and I point out in the book obviously it is. When Jesus said I am the way
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  the truth and the life, he was shutting out all other options. Two plus two is equal to four.
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  And there's only one right answer to that and not an almost an infinite number of wrong answers.
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  So this idea that we have inclusive truth ends up being irrational and nonsense. That's why
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  emphasize in the book the need for us to seek God. This is a spiritual battle that can't just be
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  won by rationality because we are irrational. And every chapter in my book has a paragraph it
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  ends with a paragraph of dependence upon God and then an action step. So in the book that we're
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  talking about the eclipse of God, my desire is to help people to see what's happening to a culture
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  during this very serious eclipse of God. I was going to thank you for putting those action steps
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  in there at the end of each chapter very helpful. Before we run out of time I've got to get back to
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  something you talk about called the great evangelical compromise regarding creation. Obviously if we,
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  the church don't get genesis right and creation right and God's word is not inerrant and inspired.
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  We're in a lot of trouble then go ahead and share more. David I can't believe this but you
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  would be surprised that the number of professors even in so-called evangelical schools
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  that deny the existence of Adam and Eve as they are described in the Bible.
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  And I name one or two of those scholars and I'm very hesitant to name people because
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  they are believers they love God. But the idea is that we came up through the animal world through
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  evolution and then there were homo sapiens and God somehow created within them in his own image
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  but they want to be able to unite the evolutionary theory with humanity. But I point out in the
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  book this is so heartbreaking. Once you give up Adam and Eve you give up the contrast that Paul
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  makes in Romans chapter 5 between Adam and Christ all that begins to fall apart. The whole idea
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  of us being an Adam and here's the most concerning thing. There is no fall into sin.
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  Everything just evolved there is no fall so what does that do to sin what does that do to redemption
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  and yet I urge you parents who have children in evangelical schools even Christian schools
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  check to see whether they have professors who deny the the existence of Adam and Eve as they
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  are in the Bible. Now they will say well I believe in Adam and Eve but not the Adam and Eve
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  of the Bible and you have to check that out because we're living it at time when I hear here's
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  the point that I make isn't it interesting that people like that take archaeology and paleology
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  literally the Bible literally. So where does that lead us and so parents please check that out you
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  might be surprised. I saw a list of 60 supposed evangelicals who now deny the existence of Adam
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  and Eve as found in the scriptures. Wow. Wow sad and we know over the decades our even our
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  seminaries have changed and these are some of the young pastors coming out of those seminaries
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  and we can't say they have a true biblical worldview but we've got to move on this maybe the
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  last question Dr. Luther in your book page 265 you say until we see hell as it is we cannot
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  appreciate grace as it is and that is in the chapter you mentioned returning to the god
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  of wrath and grace not unconditional love and unfortunately we hear a lot of the one set on
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  God is love of course but God is also truth and I'd love for you to speak to that before we let
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  you go. Well God loves the world John 316 and you can tell people God loves you but think of all
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  of the judgments against the wicked it is not an unconditional love now for those who are saved it
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  is an unconditional love based on John 17 but this whole idea that God loves me unconditionally
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  which means that I'm sleeping with my girlfriend but it doesn't matter because he accepts
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  what I do unconditionally like one person said well accepting me unconditionally is his job
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  so in evangelicalism today you have an over emphasis on the love of God not that you can overemphasize
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  it except that it is preached and it is not balanced with the awesome judgment of God and I have
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  to say this from my heart that is one of the most powerful chapters I have ever written to bring
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  people to repentance and grace is not sweet until sin is bitter and until we see what sin is leading to
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  and the eventual judgment of hell which people don't talk about that's why I urge people to
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  cleave to Christ and believe on him because he saves us from the wrath to come when was the last time
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  you heard a sermon on the wrath of God it's time that we hear some of those sermons it's been a while
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  it's sad and I think maybe Dr. Luther some people have good intentions and I mean church leaders
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  thinking we're gonna attract the world by softening it and kind of watering it down and softening
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  the wrath of God but you cannot do that that's just part of who he is and part of what the word of
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  God teaches and they get away from the whole council of God but I know I'm preaching to the choir
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  on that one so friends you can go to moodymedia.org you can go to amazon and so many other places this
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  will be likely another bestseller Dr. Litzer I just thank you so much for your ministry of all
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  these years your clear voice speaking to this generation at this time I know it's another very
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  needed and relevant book with an important message for people believers and non-believers need to
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  read this but thank you so much anything else you'd like to share before we let you go sir
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  simply this remember there are two doctrines that destroy the church one is the essential goodness
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  of humanity and the other is the endless tolerance of a non-judgmental God make sure that we
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  have a right view of God so that we might have a right view of grace excellent point wow that's
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  something to think about thank you for leaving us with that Dr. Irwin Litzer God bless you sir we
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  appreciate your time thank you so much David you're most welcome all right guys and these books I
• 27:24
  I encourage you to get them and share them these messages need to get out friends the church needs
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  to be restrained and sometimes in some cases we need some repentance in the church let's come back
• 27:37
  together let's be strong and let's speak to this generation that is hungry for truth and the gospel
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  and thank you for watching and for sharing the podcast God bless you and as always keep speaking
• 27:47
  the truth about things that matter