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Voddie Baucham - Questions and Answers Part 2 x Nichols, Sproul, Sproul Jr., and Thomas · Voddie Baucham Sermons

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Reflect back to Dr.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Godfrey's earlier remarks in the first message of the day
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: with the first question. But this is a question to
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: all of you. In Athanasius' day, the deity of Christ
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: was under attack. In your view, what is the strongest
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: enemy the church faces today? And each of you, if
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: you would like to be able to take a run
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: at that, feel free.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Since I'm to your left, I'll start and, you know,
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: just get better. I was thinking as I was listening
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: to Dr. Godfrey honestly about my father's ministry, and it
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: struck me that with his work with the International Council
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: on Biblical Inerrancy, And then later with his work in
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: dealing with the stealth Bible translation, you could argue that
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: he devoted a significant part of his life to defending
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: the authority of Scripture. And then, of course, with first
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Evangelicals and Catholics together and later the Manhattan Declaration, his
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: passion has been the defense of justification by faith alone. And,
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: of course, it dawned on me There's another hero of
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: mine who had that same focus, which then led me
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: to the question, is that always going to be where
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: the battle is at? If you go back to the garden,
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: before there was a need for a gospel, the assault
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: was on the Word of God.
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: What Dr.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: Ferguson was talking about, Satan assaulting the bride of the Adam,
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: made me think, this is always going to be the case.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: It's always going to be the word of God. It's
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: always going to be the gospel. And I would say
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: based on what Dr. Ferguson said, it's always going to
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: be the church. The thing that strikes me more than
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: anything else in our age right now personally is the
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: profoundly low ecclesiology that we have inside the best part
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: of the evangelical church. That people who do know the
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: authority of scripture, people who do know justification by faith alone,
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: have no idea the significance, the importance, and the authority
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: of the church here on earth?
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: Ask the question again.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Athanasius confronted the issue of the deity of Christ. What
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: is the strongest enemy facing the church today?
• 2:44
  Speaker 6: You know, I typically answer that question by saying that
• 2:49
  Speaker 6: pluralism in some form or another is one of the
• 2:55
  Speaker 6: issues that we're always facing. An inability to say the
• 3:03
  Speaker 6: Christian faith is right and everything else is wrong. In
• 3:08
  Speaker 6: order to appear nice to other things, thought forms and
• 3:18
  Speaker 6: world views the slippery slide to a form of pluralism
• 3:25
  Speaker 6: within the church that all forms all roads eventually lead
• 3:32
  Speaker 6: to some form of salvation I still think that that
• 3:36
  Speaker 6: is endemic within our society and I find it sometimes
• 3:41
  Speaker 6: in the church.
• 3:44
  Speaker 7: I think inerrancy is definitely a place to focus. The
• 3:49
  Speaker 7: way in which many who are self-professed evangelicals who then
• 3:54
  Speaker 7: express a desire to move away from any concept of
• 3:57
  Speaker 7: inerrancy is not a good sign for the next generation
• 4:02
  Speaker 7: of the church. And then I think if we think
• 4:05
  Speaker 7: of justification by faith, but also in terms of what
• 4:09
  Speaker 7: Athanasius was dealing with in his day, then we're talking
• 4:12
  Speaker 7: about basic issues of Christology.
• 4:14
  Speaker 8: The person of Christ, and the work of Christ.
• 4:17
  Speaker 7: And probably on the person of Christ part, as American evangelicals,
• 4:20
  Speaker 7: we've done a very good job talking about Jesus as
• 4:22
  Speaker 7: my friend. And we've made him very personal. But sometimes
• 4:27
  Speaker 7: we're a little lacking on the Nicene Chalcedonian to nature Christology.
• 4:32
  Speaker 7: And those are things that we need to make a
• 4:35
  Speaker 7: part of.
• 4:36
  Speaker 8: The church's vocabulary.
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: And in addition to that, then, the work of Christ.
• 4:40
  Speaker 7: Just as these movements away from inerrancy the ways in
• 4:44
  Speaker 7: which justification by faith through the new perspective is being challenged,
• 4:49
  Speaker 7: and then also these issues related to an uncomfortableness with
• 4:54
  Speaker 7: substitutionary atonement, that, again, self-professing evangelicals are distancing themselves from
• 5:01
  Speaker 7: that doctrine. Those, to me, are very two crucial issues,
• 5:04
  Speaker 7: the doctrine of Scripture and the doctrine of Christ.
• 5:09
  Speaker 9: I would say I agree completely with what has been said,
• 5:13
  Speaker 9: but I think it's idolatry in the form of man-centeredness.
• 5:21
  Speaker 9: I think this dethroning of God and this pragmatic utilitarianism
• 5:27
  Speaker 9: that sees man and his desires at the center of
• 5:30
  Speaker 9: all things, both inside the church and outside the church.
• 5:35
  Speaker 9: And I'm reminded of Paul's words in 2 Timothy 4,
• 5:39
  Speaker 9: about people wandering off into myths and no longer being
• 5:44
  Speaker 9: willing to abide sound doctrine and accumulating for themselves teachers
• 5:49
  Speaker 9: in accordance with their own desires. And so you see
• 5:53
  Speaker 9: this kind of pragmatic, utilitarian, What do the people want?
• 5:58
  Speaker 9: What will draw a crowd? Which goes to our low
• 6:03
  Speaker 9: ecclesiology and which goes to our syncretism and which goes
• 6:07
  Speaker 9: to all these other things. I think at the root
• 6:10
  Speaker 9: of it, there is this endemic plague in our culture
• 6:17
  Speaker 9: of man-centeredness, this desire to put man and his wants,
• 6:21
  Speaker 9: his desires, his needs. When you look at the practical issues,
• 6:24
  Speaker 9: when you look at same-sex marriage and things of this nature,
• 6:29
  Speaker 9: what's the argument for that? If two people love each other,
• 6:33
  Speaker 9: it's just man-centered. It goes back to, well, it's what
• 6:38
  Speaker 9: we want. So for me, that's what I see kind
• 6:43
  Speaker 9: of as the epicenter of it all.
• 6:47
  Speaker 10: I think everybody's really mentioned critical issues that we face.
• 6:52
  Speaker 10: It's really hard to select from all of them. We
• 6:56
  Speaker 10: look at, you started this with Dr. Godfrey's reference to
• 7:00
  Speaker 10: Athanasius and Arian. In church history, the four centuries where
• 7:07
  Speaker 10: the person and work of Christ have been most severely
• 7:11
  Speaker 10: under attack by heresy were the fourth century, which culminated
• 7:15
  Speaker 10: in Nicaea, the 5th century, which culminated at Chalcedon, the
• 7:21
  Speaker 10: 19th century, with the advent of 19th century liberalism, and
• 7:25
  Speaker 10: the 20th century, which carried that on, and we're still there.
• 7:31
  Speaker 10: And I still see Christology, which is connected to justification,
• 7:36
  Speaker 10: is connected to Sola Scriptura, and all the rest, is
• 7:40
  Speaker 10: going to be the battlefield for the next 30, 40 years,
• 7:44
  Speaker 10: and perhaps longer, As Steve Lawson pointed out yesterday, it's
• 7:48
  Speaker 10: the cross that's under attack.
• 7:51
  Speaker 11: And within evangelicalism, it's the evangel.
• 7:54
  Speaker 10: And understanding the person of Christ right now, the perfect
• 7:59
  Speaker 10: act of obedience of Christ is challenged within evangelicalism. The
• 8:04
  Speaker 10: doctrine of imputation of the merit of Christ as the
• 8:07
  Speaker 10: sole grounds of our justification has been negotiated again and
• 8:11
  Speaker 10: again and again within so-called evangelicalism. These are core doctrines
• 8:18
  Speaker 10: of the Bible, and at the center of it is
• 8:20
  Speaker 10: what we call the gospel. And I think the biggest
• 8:24
  Speaker 10: thing that is, well, I'd say the biggest problem in
• 8:27
  Speaker 10: evangelicalism is we don't know who God is. The second
• 8:30
  Speaker 10: biggest one is we don't know what the gospel is.
• 8:33
  Speaker 10: We've lost an understanding of what the gospel is. So
• 8:36
  Speaker 10: these are critical issues, and we're going to have to
• 8:39
  Speaker 10: deal with all of them.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: This one's from Jesse, age 8. If God wants us
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: to spend all eternity with Him, why didn't He just
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: put us with Him from the start?
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: From Jesse, age eight. Thank you, Jesse.
• 9:08
  Speaker 10: If we would ask my grandchildren that, R.C. 's children particularly,
• 9:15
  Speaker 10: not my daughter's children, But my son's children, before they
• 9:22
  Speaker 10: were age eight, when they were age three, they would
• 9:26
  Speaker 10: have answered that question very simply, for his glory.
• 9:32
  Speaker 11: That's why. That's why he does everything.
• 9:35
  Speaker 10: And so God's plan for the universe and for our
• 9:42
  Speaker 10: ultimate salvation is perfect. A plan based on.
• 9:49
  Speaker 11: His glory.
• 9:51
  Speaker 10: And for some reason, he didn't think that that would
• 9:54
  Speaker 10: satisfy his glory to create us already eternal.
• 10:00
  Speaker 11: Fixed.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: The question is something 80-year-old people can ask as well.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: And I think it grows out of a fundamental misunderstanding
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: about the nature of history. We know something about where
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: it is we're supposed to be going, but we sort
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: of think that God kind of found us where we
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: are and he routed this map, how to get from
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: here to here. But the reality is that because God
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: is sovereign, because once there was God and nothing else,
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: he didn't find anything.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: There was him and everything else was not.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: So he started us here, not because this was the
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: first step to get us to there.
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: But because the whole point was to tell the whole story.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: So you've got to almost take one.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: Step further back from history and see that history as
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: a whole has the goal of telling the story of
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: God's glory. And so that's why we are where we are.
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: Not because somehow we got off track, somehow we just
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: were here, but God is telling this story. If He
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: wanted things to be the way they are at the beginning,
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: That's how they would have been. But he is manifesting
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: his glory in telling the story.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I am new to Reformed theology.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: I come from an Arminian background where free will was
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: emphatically drilled into us day in, day out. I'm still
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: struggling with predestination. How can I deal with the fact
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: that some of my loved ones could be potentially headed
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: to perdition?
• 11:50
  Speaker 9: One of the things I want to say first to
• 11:51
  Speaker 9: that question is that whether you've come to reform theology
• 11:55
  Speaker 9: or not, the second part of that question, everybody has
• 12:00
  Speaker 9: to deal with.
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: The Armenian and the Calvinist has to look at the.
• 12:04
  Speaker 9: Fact that there are people whom we love dearly who
• 12:08
  Speaker 9: may not come to faith in Christ. So I think
• 12:11
  Speaker 9: the first thing to acknowledge is that that's not a
• 12:13
  Speaker 9: product of of reformed theology. It's not a product of
• 12:18
  Speaker 9: coming to this side, you know, of the debate, coming
• 12:22
  Speaker 9: to the Luther versus Erasmus side of the debate on
• 12:26
  Speaker 9: free will. So with that said, I think one of
• 12:31
  Speaker 9: the things that we have to do, that does two
• 12:33
  Speaker 9: things for me. And if I could just take a
• 12:38
  Speaker 9: few seconds. I didn't grow up in church. I didn't
• 12:41
  Speaker 9: grow up around Christians or Christianity. Um, the first time
• 12:45
  Speaker 9: I ever heard the gospel was my first year in university. Um,
• 12:48
  Speaker 9: I was raised by my mother, uh, who was a
• 12:50
  Speaker 9: single teenage mother and a practicing Buddhist. So when I
• 12:54
  Speaker 9: came to faith, my whole life was filled with people
• 12:57
  Speaker 9: who didn't know Jesus. And the day that I was
• 12:59
  Speaker 9: born again, Friday, November 13th, 1987, I wept like a baby.
• 13:05
  Speaker 9: And the guy who had been sharing with me for
• 13:07
  Speaker 9: three weeks came into the locker room where I, where
• 13:10
  Speaker 9: I had, had, had prayed to receive Christ. And asked
• 13:14
  Speaker 9: me what had happened and why I was weeping so bitterly.
• 13:17
  Speaker 9: And I told him it was because of my cousin.
• 13:20
  Speaker 9: My cousin named Jamal. And I realized that I was
• 13:23
  Speaker 9: saved and I realized that Jamal wasn't. And it just
• 13:27
  Speaker 9: crushed me. And he said, well, you can tell him
• 13:30
  Speaker 9: about Jesus.
• 13:30
  Speaker 10: No.
• 13:32
  Speaker 9: He was gunned down six months earlier in a drug
• 13:34
  Speaker 9: deal that went bad.
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: In Oakland, California. He was gone.
• 13:40
  Speaker 11: And that.
• 13:42
  Speaker 9: That still affects me, but it does two things. One,
• 13:46
  Speaker 9: it causes me to rely on the sovereignty of God
• 13:49
  Speaker 9: and the goodness of God. Two, it makes me passionate
• 13:54
  Speaker 9: about the gospel because.
• 13:57
  Speaker 11: It's the gospel.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: It's the gospel. It's the gospel.
• 14:01
  Speaker 9: And so we need to be, we must be passionate
• 14:04
  Speaker 9: about the gospel. The fact that we believe in the
• 14:06
  Speaker 9: sovereignty of God doesn't eliminate the fact that we've been
• 14:10
  Speaker 9: commanded and commended to this work of proclaiming the gospel
• 14:14
  Speaker 9: to the lost and believing that God is their only hope.
• 14:25
  Speaker 10: If we face that problem of concern, working with the
• 14:31
  Speaker 10: pagan Arminian understanding of free will, because that's what it is.
• 14:35
  Speaker 10: It's a pagan understanding of fallen humanity. I would have
• 14:41
  Speaker 10: no hope for the conversion of anybody. Our only hope
• 14:45
  Speaker 10: is in a sovereign God who will redeem my will
• 14:53
  Speaker 10: and rescue it from its bondage to sin and its
• 14:57
  Speaker 10: death in sin. And only He can do that. I
• 15:02
  Speaker 10: cannot do it because I will not do it. If
• 15:06
  Speaker 10: I'm ever left to my fallen will, which is held
• 15:10
  Speaker 10: captive to sin, I never, ever will choose Jesus Christ.
• 15:16
  Speaker 10: That's the sad and bad news of Arminianism.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: If we are chosen before the foundation of the world,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: how does God view us before we are born again?
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Are you viewed the same as those who were not chosen?
• 15:45
  Speaker 10: Can I ask a favor for whoever wrote that question?
• 15:50
  Speaker 10: To change one word in it. Not if we were
• 15:55
  Speaker 10: chosen from the foundation of the world. But how about
• 15:58
  Speaker 10: since we were chosen from the foundation of the world?
• 16:05
  Speaker 11: Then we can address the question.
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: Paul in Ephesians says we were children of wrath, even
• 16:18
  Speaker 6: as others. So even though there is a sovereign, eternal
• 16:24
  Speaker 6: predetermination existentially until we are born again, we are also
• 16:30
  Speaker 6: subjects of his ongoing wrath.
• 16:34
  Speaker 10: Okay.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Question for Dr.
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: Bauckham.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I'm finishing up.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Family Driven Faith, and you wrote something there that intrigued
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: me greatly. You said you had to overcome numerous struggles
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: as a married adult man due to not having your
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: father around.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: I can relate.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Today, God has made me a Reformed Christian disciple, gave
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: me a godly wife and beautiful son. Christ be praised. Nonetheless,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: I struggle and had to overcome much. Can you talk
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: about this a bit? I'm sure there are other men
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: in the audience with similar stories. It'd be encouraging.
• 17:23
  Speaker 9: This really came crashing in on me the day my
• 17:26
  Speaker 9: father died. It was eight years ago, next month. And
• 17:31
  Speaker 9: I hadn't grown up with him, but God had restored
• 17:36
  Speaker 9: a relationship between the two of us.
• 17:39
  Speaker 6: And....
• 17:44
  Speaker 9: Just providentially and gloriously, I got to disciple my father, uh,
• 17:49
  Speaker 9: at the end of his life. Um, but when he died, um,
• 17:57
  Speaker 9: it just, it just dawned on me, um, my, my
• 18:03
  Speaker 9: need for him, you know, even, even as a man.
• 18:06
  Speaker 9: And when I looked in at my own children and
• 18:10
  Speaker 9: the role that God had called me to play and
• 18:12
  Speaker 9: all these things that I was beginning to understand, um,
• 18:14
  Speaker 9: which kind of birthed, you know, that book, um, it
• 18:18
  Speaker 9: made me realize that all these things were not present
• 18:20
  Speaker 9: in my life and that I had to, on the
• 18:22
  Speaker 9: one hand, acknowledge the providence of God and acknowledge that
• 18:26
  Speaker 9: God is absolutely all sufficient and he's enough. But on
• 18:30
  Speaker 9: the other hand, I had to acknowledge the fact that
• 18:34
  Speaker 9: I couldn't have such an important piece missing without there
• 18:39
  Speaker 9: being consequences. Um, And so I think, you know, we're
• 18:45
  Speaker 9: caught between those two things. And the fact of the
• 18:47
  Speaker 9: matter is no one has a perfect father. Everyone has
• 18:51
  Speaker 9: deficits that we must overcome. But that is what causes
• 18:55
  Speaker 9: us to look to God as our perfect father, as
• 18:59
  Speaker 9: our example, and as our help and hope. Again, that
• 19:05
  Speaker 9: doesn't negate the need to find men in our lives
• 19:10
  Speaker 9: who can play the significant roles that we need men
• 19:14
  Speaker 9: to play in our lives. But again, God is sufficient.
• 19:20
  Speaker 9: He didn't make a mistake. What you didn't have was significant,
• 19:27
  Speaker 9: and we shouldn't act like it wasn't significant. But at
• 19:30
  Speaker 9: the same time, we can't use it as an excuse
• 19:34
  Speaker 9: to not pursue godly manhood. because it's available to us,
• 19:38
  Speaker 9: even if we didn't have a father. And let me,
• 19:48
  Speaker 9: let's not, let's not, can we not? not do another
• 19:52
  Speaker 9: question about my past and all that sort of stuff?
• 19:55
  Speaker 5: I feel like I'm on Oprah.
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: I'm going to be crying in a minute.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: And we have a book recommendation for you this afternoon.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: This person writes in, tragic, I am trying to reconcile
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: the death of my adult son, whom I believe not
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: to be saved with my Christian faith. How do I
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: deal with my anger toward God in this long, dark
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: night of the soul?
• 20:28
  Speaker 10: Repent, and repent in dust and ashes. Crawl over glass
• 20:34
  Speaker 10: in your repentance if you're angry at God. There's never
• 20:40
  Speaker 10: been anything that's happened to you in your whole life,
• 20:44
  Speaker 10: including this great tragedy and most painful experience. that could
• 20:50
  Speaker 10: ever possibly justify being angry at God. There are 10
• 20:55
  Speaker 10: million reasons why He should be angry at you. God
• 21:00
  Speaker 10: does not owe us a life without pain and tragedy.
• 21:06
  Speaker 10: He has given us a life of grace and a
• 21:10
  Speaker 10: promise of eternal felicity. And any being who does that
• 21:15
  Speaker 10: for us 100 percent graciously can never righteously be the
• 21:21
  Speaker 10: object of our anger, only of our gratitude. We understand,
• 21:29
  Speaker 10: humanly speaking, the anger, because if you experience anger, it's
• 21:37
  Speaker 10: always caused by some kind of pain. Behind the anger
• 21:43
  Speaker 10: is pain. And you've allowed that pain to produce an
• 21:49
  Speaker 10: anger that will destroy you. And it has greater consequences
• 21:57
  Speaker 10: than even the loss of the one that you love
• 22:01
  Speaker 10: so well. So, really, you've got to deal with this
• 22:07
  Speaker 10: and understand that God does all things well. And if
• 22:13
  Speaker 10: we were listening carefully to Derek's sermon, where He talked
• 22:21
  Speaker 10: about Genesis 18 and the plea for the sparing of Sodom.
• 22:28
  Speaker 10: You know, the comment that Abraham made, far be it
• 22:33
  Speaker 10: from thee, O God, to do that which is not right.
• 22:38
  Speaker 11: And even Abraham, our father, I don't think.
• 22:41
  Speaker 10: Had a clue of how far it is from God
• 22:46
  Speaker 10: to do anything wrong. And when we accuse him of
• 22:50
  Speaker 10: it and are mad at him for it, then we
• 22:56
  Speaker 10: don't understand who he is or who we are. So
• 23:01
  Speaker 10: I couldn't be more, it's devastatingly harmful for anybody.
• 23:07
  Speaker 11: To be angry with God, no matter what.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: If God is slow to anger and patient, excuse me,
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: since God is slow to anger, we're always learning. Since
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: God is slow to anger and patient, then why, when
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: man first sinned, was his wrath and punishment so severe
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: and long-lasting?
• 23:47
  Speaker 11: Time out.
• 23:51
  Speaker 10: Didn't we just have that question a second ago?
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: We did.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we did.
• 23:58
  Speaker 10: That God's punishment for Adam was so severe. This creature
• 24:07
  Speaker 10: from the dirt defied the everlasting holy God. After that,
• 24:15
  Speaker 10: God had said, the day that you shall eat of it,
• 24:19
  Speaker 10: you shall surely die. And instead of dying thanatos, that day,
• 24:27
  Speaker 10: he lived another day and was clothed in his nakedness.
• 24:35
  Speaker 11: By pure grace.
• 24:38
  Speaker 10: And had the consequences of a curse applied for quite
• 24:44
  Speaker 10: some time. But the worst curse would come upon the
• 24:47
  Speaker 10: one who seduced him, whose head would be crushed. by
• 24:52
  Speaker 10: the seed of the woman, and the punishment was too severe?
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: What's wrong with you people?
• 25:01
  Speaker 11: I'm serious. I mean, this is what's wrong with the
• 25:04
  Speaker 11: Christian church today. We don't know who God is, and
• 25:07
  Speaker 11: we don't know who we are.
• 25:14
  Speaker 10: The question is, the question is, why wasn't it infinitely
• 25:20
  Speaker 10: more severe? If we have any understanding of our sin
• 25:24
  Speaker 10: and any understanding of who God is, that's the question,
• 25:29
  Speaker 10: isn't it? I wanted to make sure this one was
• 25:34
  Speaker 10: lively and not boring like the last time we had
• 25:40
  Speaker 10: the Q & A.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: What is the minimum amount of gospel truth that must
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: be known and believed in order to be saved?
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: I'm going to jump in here before Dr.
• 26:02
  Speaker 8: Sproul unleashes his Roth on the question askers.
• 26:14
  Speaker 7: I think this, one of my little hobbies is studying
• 26:17
  Speaker 7: American evangelicalism, and I think this is one of the
• 26:19
  Speaker 7: Achilles heels of American evangelicalism, a reductionism. And I think
• 26:24
  Speaker 7: it's why we can't talk about active and passive obedience
• 26:28
  Speaker 7: of Christ and imputation and justification.
• 26:31
  Speaker 8: The gospel is clear. I think that's true. The gospel
• 26:35
  Speaker 8: is clear.
• 26:36
  Speaker 7: But this idea of how simple can we make it,
• 26:40
  Speaker 7: how much can we boil it down, this reductionism, I
• 26:43
  Speaker 7: think is ultimately our Achilles heel. We don't need to
• 26:48
  Speaker 7: make something obscure. We need to present it as clearly
• 26:52
  Speaker 7: as it is. But We're talking about thinking about Christ properly,
• 26:56
  Speaker 7: the person of Christ and the work of Christ. And
• 26:59
  Speaker 7: those are crucial doctrines. So I'm a little concerned about
• 27:02
  Speaker 7: that reductionism that I see, especially in American evangelicalism.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: I rise to speak in defense of reductionism. And I
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: bring as my first witness our Lord Jesus, who said
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: that the man who said, Lord, be merciful to me
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: a sinner went home justified. I think it's vitally important
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: that we not be simplistic. I think it's also profoundly
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: important that we understand that the core and the essence
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: and the meaning of the gospel is our throwing ourselves.
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: Upon the mercy of God.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: We know that that mercy is provided in Christ and
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: we should proclaim that it's provided in Christ and we
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: should teach how it's provided in Christ and through double
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: imputation and substitutionary atonement, and because he was the God-man,
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: taking on flesh in accordance with the confessions and the creeds.
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: But Jesus said, Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.
• 28:09
  Speaker 11: However, Dr.
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: Sproul rises in objection to the witness.
• 28:18
  Speaker 10: Your Honor, if it pleases the court, The man did
• 28:23
  Speaker 10: not go home justified because he said, have mercy upon me,
• 28:29
  Speaker 10: a sinner. He went home justified because he made a
• 28:34
  Speaker 10: profession of repentance that was authentic.
• 28:39
  Speaker 11: He didn't just say it.
• 28:40
  Speaker 10: And I say that because that's the other critical problem
• 28:44
  Speaker 10: in evangelicalism today. People are really relying upon having made
• 28:48
  Speaker 10: a profession of faith or having said something Prayed the prayer,
• 28:54
  Speaker 10: and they confuse profession of faith with possession of it. Now,
• 28:59
  Speaker 10: if we possess it, we're supposed to profess it.
• 29:01
  Speaker 11: So stipulate.
• 29:02
  Speaker 10: You can't profess it, but you may and do profess
• 29:05
  Speaker 10: it without having it. And you certainly would agree with me,
• 29:08
  Speaker 10: would not, Your Honor, that the man had to believe
• 29:12
  Speaker 10: that he was saying that sincerely, have mercy upon me,
• 29:14
  Speaker 10: a sinner.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: Most assuredly. Thank you.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I'm worried to ask this question.
• 29:34
  Speaker 11: Dr.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Sproul, take a sip of Diet Coke.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: How can we overcome the view that the Old Testament
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: portrays an angry, unloving, non-gracious God?
• 29:54
  Speaker 9: Can I just... We're finishing... We're finishing the book of
• 30:00
  Speaker 9: Revelation at our church this Lord's Day. And anyone who
• 30:05
  Speaker 9: believes that the God on the left side of the
• 30:07
  Speaker 9: book is the angry guy and the God on the
• 30:11
  Speaker 9: right side of the book is, you know, meek and gracious,
• 30:19
  Speaker 9: read all the way to the right side.
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: Of the book.
• 30:21
  Speaker 11: Because....
• 30:32
  Speaker 9: And the key, of course, is, and I think this
• 30:35
  Speaker 9: goes back to the other question as well, about, you know,
• 30:38
  Speaker 9: if he just wants us to be with him for eternity.
• 30:41
  Speaker 9: Because the fact of the matter is, God is glorified
• 30:44
  Speaker 9: when he pours out his wrath on sin and unrighteousness.
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: And he is no less glorified.
• 30:53
  Speaker 9: By that in the New Testament, I would argue more so,
• 30:57
  Speaker 9: than he is in the Old Testament. And so that
• 30:59
  Speaker 9: has to do with his wrath against sin.
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: You can say it.
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: Void, you need to practice it a little more.
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 31:13
  Speaker 10: Wrath. Wrath.
• 31:15
  Speaker 8: Wrath.
• 31:16
  Speaker 6: Wrath. Everyone has heard Dr. Sproul's sermon on Uzzah and
• 31:23
  Speaker 6: the Ark. I mean, some of us have heard it
• 31:26
  Speaker 6: many times. And it gets better every time we hear it.
• 31:31
  Speaker 6: It's one of his most wonderful, extraordinary sermons. You know,
• 31:40
  Speaker 6: and you could react to Usser. He puts out his hand,
• 31:43
  Speaker 6: stable the arc. You know, it's Florida roads. I-4, potholes,
• 31:52
  Speaker 6: holes in the concrete.
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: If it were I-4, it wouldn't be moving.
• 31:57
  Speaker 11: Well, that's true. That's true.
• 32:04
  Speaker 6: He touches the ark. Now, everything about the story is wrong.
• 32:08
  Speaker 6: The ark should never have been there. The Kohathites were
• 32:10
  Speaker 6: supposed to be dealing with the ark, then not touching it,
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: but with poles and so on and so on. But
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: God strikes him dead. And you could respond and say, well,
• 32:21
  Speaker 6: that's Old Testament. And then, okay, let's go into the
• 32:27
  Speaker 6: church of the New Testament, post-Pentecost, and you've got Ananias
• 32:32
  Speaker 6: and Sapphira about the price of a piece of real
• 32:36
  Speaker 6: estate that the church may or may not have had
• 32:38
  Speaker 6: any business knowing anyway, and he strikes both of them dead.
• 32:43
  Speaker 6: And that's the New Testament. That's post-Pentecost, still in the
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: flush of Pentecost. Let's get back to the early church. Yeah,
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: let's get back to the early church. It's way too
• 33:00
  Speaker 6: simplistic to divide the God of the Old Testament and
• 33:03
  Speaker 6: the God of the New Testament.
• 33:05
  Speaker 4: There is a difference, though.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: One of the ways that I answer that question is
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: to remind people that only once in all of the
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: Bible did God kill an innocent man, and that was
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: in the New Testament.
• 33:20
  Speaker 11: Innocent in himself. But guilty by imputation.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Could you discuss the relationship between God's sovereignty and salvation
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: and man's responsibility?
• 33:44
  Speaker 11: What's the talk about it to me?
• 33:45
  Speaker 10: God's sovereign and his sovereignty makes me responsible for.
• 33:52
  Speaker 11: Everything I do.
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: Moving on.
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: What is the balance between standing for truth and maintaining
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: the unity of the Spirit?
• 34:19
  Speaker 10: That reminds me of a story. Many years ago in Ligonier,
• 34:23
  Speaker 10: we were visited by a group of about 30 Pentecostal
• 34:29
  Speaker 10: Christians from France. And They visited our house, and they
• 34:38
  Speaker 10: were so excited about their unity in the Spirit. And
• 34:43
  Speaker 10: their favorite song is, We Are One in the Spirit,
• 34:45
  Speaker 10: and so on. And they were telling me in their
• 34:48
  Speaker 10: zeal and excitement about their experience how their unity in
• 34:53
  Speaker 10: the Spirit had overcome any disunity. And there were Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists,
• 35:02
  Speaker 10: you know, All the different groups.
• 35:04
  Speaker 11: And I said, that's an amazing thing. It's a great thing.
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: I said, but.
• 35:10
  Speaker 10: You both, you, the Roman Catholic, you, the Methodist, the Lutheran,
• 35:18
  Speaker 10: you're one in the spirit. Let me just ask you,
• 35:22
  Speaker 10: are you justified by faith and faith alone? Or is
• 35:26
  Speaker 10: it by faith and something else? And within five minutes,
• 35:31
  Speaker 10: they were at each other's throats. Because what they did
• 35:36
  Speaker 10: was they tried to camouflage their differences and dismiss them
• 35:43
  Speaker 10: as insignificant. I don't think that is blasphemy against the
• 35:46
  Speaker 10: Holy Spirit, but it's very close. Because the Spirit is
• 35:51
  Speaker 10: the author of truth. And it is the Spirit who
• 35:54
  Speaker 10: gives us the word of truth. And the grounds of
• 35:58
  Speaker 10: our sanctification is that word of truth. And so you
• 36:03
  Speaker 10: can't put the unity of the Spirit against the truth
• 36:07
  Speaker 10: of the Spirit without dire consequences.
• 36:14
  Speaker 6: And then I think we need to distinguish things that
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: are first of all, I delivered unto you that which
• 36:22
  Speaker 6: I also received, and Paul says there are things that
• 36:25
  Speaker 6: are first of all that Christ died for our sins
• 36:27
  Speaker 6: according to the Scriptures and so on. And then there
• 36:31
  Speaker 6: are things that are of secondary importance, and there are
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: things of tertiary importance. You know, I'm not willing to
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: experience pain for my interpretation of women's head covering in
• 36:49
  Speaker 6: 1 Corinthians. I'm not sure what Paul is talking about.
• 36:54
  Speaker 6: I've read extensively.
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: I have my opinion.
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: But I'm not going to suffer torture for my view
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: on women's head covering. I do not regard that as
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: something that's of first importance or second importance.
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: It's important.
• 37:14
  Speaker 6: Everything in the Bible is important, but there are gradations.
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: There are levels.
• 37:18
  Speaker 6: And over gospel issues, things for me that are summarized in, yeah,
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: the Westminster Confession.
• 37:31
  Speaker 11: I would go that far.
• 37:33
  Speaker 6: There are things of first importance and secondary importance in
• 37:35
  Speaker 6: the Westminster Confession for good order. There are things that
• 37:38
  Speaker 6: are necessary for me to understand the gospel and my
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: relationship with Jesus Christ. And there are things that are
• 37:46
  Speaker 6: important on a different level for good order in church
• 37:52
  Speaker 6: and government. And I need to distinguish those two things.
• 37:58
  Speaker 6: But on those first things... It's a no-surrender policy. Here
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: I stand, so help me God, I can do no other.
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: I would agree, except second London instead of Westminster.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: A question about Luther. A question about Luther's anti-Semitism. Luther's
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: anti-Semitism in his writings, his support of persecutions and expulsion
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: of Jews from Europe is deeply disturbing and perplexing. How
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: would these attitudes and actions of the father of the
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: Reformation be justified?
• 38:51
  Speaker 11: Well, I'll just take a shot at it briefly.
• 38:55
  Speaker 10: It is a tough issue, but there are a couple
• 38:57
  Speaker 10: of things you have to understand. One, earlier, than the
• 39:01
  Speaker 10: later diatribes against the Jews, Luther wrote a significant essay
• 39:07
  Speaker 10: against anti-Semitism saying that every Gentile has to understand that
• 39:12
  Speaker 10: ultimately salvation is of the Jews and that our Lord
• 39:16
  Speaker 10: Himself was a Jew. And Luther strongly criticized anybody who
• 39:22
  Speaker 10: would hate somebody simply because they were of Jewish ethnicity.
• 39:29
  Speaker 10: Later on one of the great issues that disturbed him
• 39:34
  Speaker 10: was the exploitation of the people by the major banking
• 39:39
  Speaker 10: houses of Europe that were involved in shameful levels of usury.
• 39:48
  Speaker 10: that is extortive levels of interest rates. And that particular
• 39:56
  Speaker 10: industry was controlled by basically the Jewish families of Germany.
• 40:03
  Speaker 10: And that was one great point of contention. The other
• 40:07
  Speaker 10: one was contemporary forms of Judaism as a religion were
• 40:15
  Speaker 10: in such opposition to Christianity and to the central affirmation
• 40:24
  Speaker 10: of the identity of Jesus as the Messiah. That provoked
• 40:29
  Speaker 10: Luther's wrath. Luther understood that post-first century Judaism was not
• 40:38
  Speaker 10: an extension of Old Testament Judaism, but a patent rejection
• 40:44
  Speaker 10: of Old Testament Judaism. as we saw the great crisis
• 40:49
  Speaker 10: between Jesus and the Jewish leaders who rejected his messianic office.
• 40:57
  Speaker 10: So that all subsequent forms of Judaism, conservative, orthodox, reform,
• 41:02
  Speaker 10: were all, though they differed among themselves, shared that common
• 41:07
  Speaker 10: rejection of Christ as Messiah. And so Luther wasn't hating
• 41:14
  Speaker 10: Jews because they were Jews.
• 41:16
  Speaker 11: But Luther was.
• 41:17
  Speaker 10: Profoundly opposed to Judaism as a hostile religious faith towards Christianity.
• 41:31
  Speaker 9: I think there's another issue as well. People bring up
• 41:37
  Speaker 9: that and Edwards and slavery and Calvin and issues that
• 41:41
  Speaker 9: he had. I think one of the dangers in all
• 41:45
  Speaker 9: of that is that we're assuming that, number one, there
• 41:56
  Speaker 9: are some Christian writers, leaders, historical figures out there that
• 42:03
  Speaker 9: weren't sinners.
• 42:07
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 42:08
  Speaker 9: Because whatever Luther wrote, here's a newsflash, what he thought
• 42:14
  Speaker 9: was worse. And I'm not talking about this issue. I
• 42:18
  Speaker 9: just mean in general. He was a sinful man. He
• 42:23
  Speaker 9: said sinful things. He thought sinful things. He did sinful things.
• 42:27
  Speaker 9: But so are you. And it's always ironic to me
• 42:31
  Speaker 9: that people want to dismiss Luther or Calvin or Edwards
• 42:35
  Speaker 9: or whomever because of some issue that they find out
• 42:37
  Speaker 9: about in their lives, but they don't disqualify themselves for
• 42:41
  Speaker 9: things that they think and say and do. And the
• 42:50
  Speaker 9: fact of the matter is, you know, God's never used
• 42:55
  Speaker 9: a sinless man to write things for us.
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: All of them are sinners.
• 43:02
  Speaker 9: So unless you're getting ready to dismiss everything that's ever
• 43:05
  Speaker 9: been written, be real careful about, you know, whether or
• 43:09
  Speaker 9: not somebody who writes things that are true and helpful
• 43:12
  Speaker 9: should be dismissed because there are areas in their life
• 43:16
  Speaker 9: where they were inconsistent and hypocritical.
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: Because that's all of us.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Several months ago, a prayer walk was held on my
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: college campus, and several people began to speak in tongues.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: This happened several weeks in a row and sparked a
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: huge debate over this gift. Some people said speaking in
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: tongues no longer existed, and others said it did. What
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: is the Reformed view of speaking in tongues?
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: My brother here says.
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: I think my point, I was reciting a poem in Welsh. But,
• 44:27
  Speaker 6: which I learned when I was eight or nine or something.
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: And it's a very famous poem. It's about, let me
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: interpret it according to the principle of 1 Corinthians 14.
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: That it's about a stream.
• 44:40
  Speaker 6: It's a bit like Marblast, Smetana's Marblast, about a stream
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: that begins up on the mountain.
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: And ends up as an estuary and exits into the sea.
• 44:50
  Speaker 6: I think the first thing I'd want to ask is,
• 44:53
  Speaker 6: you know, what do you understand by a New Testament
• 44:57
  Speaker 6: phenomenon of tongue speaking? And for me, the New Testament
• 45:01
  Speaker 6: phenomenon of tongue speaking, whether it's in Acts, Pentecost, or
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: whether it's in Corinth, is foreign languages, known languages. foreign languages.
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: So it's Spanish or Portuguese or Welsh or Hindustani or something.
• 45:20
  Speaker 6: And it's a gift. I understand it as a gift
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: of speaking rather than a gift of hearing. What this
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: seems to be implying may well be something different. This
• 45:33
  Speaker 6: is ecstatic utterances an angelic language or something, and involuntary
• 45:45
  Speaker 6: sounds that come out that are attributed to the Holy Spirit,
• 45:48
  Speaker 6: and whatever that is, and I'm not denying the phenomenon,
• 45:52
  Speaker 6: but it's not unique to Christianity. All the world religions
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: have that phenomenon of involuntary sounds that sound like a language. Now,
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: whatever the psychological or sociological or or psychological explanation, that
• 46:10
  Speaker 6: has absolutely nothing to do with tongues in the New Testament.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Given that we are not of the world, but sent
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: into the world, what should our political involvement be, particularly
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: on moral issues, for example, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, et cetera?
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: The one place that jumps to my mind where the
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: concept of our relationship to the world touches on the
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: kinds of issues that you've listed here is in the
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: book of James, where James tells us that true and
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: undefiled religion is this, that we visit widows and orphans
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: in their trouble and remain unspotted by the world. I
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: don't see how you can claim that we're going to
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: be spotted by the world when, for instance, in the
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: abortion issue, we speak out for those orphans whose parents
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: may be alive but who are actively seeking the death
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: of the child. So I would argue that it is,
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: in fact, the calling of not only Christians but the
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: Church of Jesus Christ to fulfill its prophetic role to
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: speak for the least of these, to speak for God's Word,
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: to speak for what God has revealed even on the
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: issue of marriage.
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: We need to remember on a lot of the conversations
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: you hear.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: About this, the arguments made, well, we have this Christian
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: view of marriage and they have their view of marriage. Well,
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: the Christian view of marriage is that marriage is a
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: gift of God for all men everywhere. This is what
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: we call in theology a creation ordinance. It's given in
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: the garden for men as men. And so when we
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: are speaking in defense of it, we're not being.
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: Dogmatic or.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: Narrow-minded, just trying to protect, parochial is the word I'm
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: looking for. We're not being parochial trying to defend our
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: own peculiar Christian interests. We're trying to speak for that
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: which the God of heaven and earth, who is the
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: God of the Bible, has revealed for all men everywhere.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: And so, again, this is not to be worldly to
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: get involved with these things. It's to be worldly to
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: fail to be involved with these things.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: I have a friend who says she was saved at 18,
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: loves Christ, but doesn't need to go to church to
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: be a Christian. Anymore, she used to go. She has
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: two daughters. How can I help her return to church?
• 49:18
  Speaker 11: A couple things.
• 49:21
  Speaker 10: We don't have the ability to read people's hearts and
• 49:25
  Speaker 10: there are all kinds of people who say they're Christians
• 49:27
  Speaker 10: who aren't but there are all kinds of sins that
• 49:32
  Speaker 10: true Christians commit but it's hard to imagine how anybody
• 49:42
  Speaker 10: could be a Christian for any length of time and
• 49:46
  Speaker 10: have even the slightest understanding of the teaching of the
• 49:52
  Speaker 10: New Testament and come to the conclusion they don't need
• 49:57
  Speaker 10: to go to church. I would start by showing them
• 50:01
  Speaker 10: that the Bible teaches us that we ought not to
• 50:05
  Speaker 10: neglect the gathering together, the assembling together of the saints.
• 50:09
  Speaker 10: in all that we're taught in the epistles as well
• 50:12
  Speaker 10: as in the gospels, about the church as Christ's body.
• 50:17
  Speaker 10: The very word church, which is different in different languages.
• 50:23
  Speaker 10: It's the kirk in Scotland, kirk in Holland. It's the
• 50:29
  Speaker 10: kirk in German. They all have those same basic linguistic sounds,
• 50:35
  Speaker 10: a hard C or K at the beginning and at
• 50:38
  Speaker 10: the end. with an R in the middle and some
• 50:41
  Speaker 10: kind of a vowel. Those words, etymologically, all derive from
• 50:46
  Speaker 10: the Greek word Kyriake, which being translated, the Greek word
• 50:52
  Speaker 10: for church is ekklesia, but the word from which the
• 50:56
  Speaker 10: English word church derived is Kyriake, which means those who
• 51:01
  Speaker 10: belong to the Kyrios. And if you belong to the Kyrios,
• 51:08
  Speaker 10: then you have to be a part of the body
• 51:12
  Speaker 10: of the kurios, the Lord. You can't say, I accept
• 51:17
  Speaker 10: the Lord and reject His bride.
• 51:21
  Speaker 11: You can't do that.
• 51:23
  Speaker 10: And it should be a short conversation with that person.
• 51:28
  Speaker 11: But beginning with a question, a serious question, are you
• 51:31
  Speaker 11: really a Christian?
• 51:34
  Speaker 10: Why do you think you're a Christian if you have
• 51:37
  Speaker 10: this utter lack of interest.
• 51:41
  Speaker 11: In the body of Christ.
• 51:43
  Speaker 10: In other words, what I'm saying is it's possible that
• 51:45
  Speaker 10: that person is a Christian and just misinformed, but for
• 51:49
  Speaker 10: this length of time to remain that misinformed would suggest
• 51:53
  Speaker 10: the probability that the person is not converted at all.
• 51:58
  Speaker 10: And I would discuss that with them.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: Final question here. How do you recommend pastors lead their
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: flocks to engage the world in the most effective way
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: in the public square?
• 52:25
  Speaker 9: I think that's going to depend on where the flock
• 52:27
  Speaker 9: is because the public square is not uniform. The public
• 52:32
  Speaker 9: square looks differently in different places. And I think what
• 52:35
  Speaker 9: we do is we encourage people to use what they have,
• 52:41
  Speaker 9: whatever that may be. For some people, that may be
• 52:45
  Speaker 9: public witnessing. For some people, it may be abortion clinics.
• 52:51
  Speaker 9: For some people, it may be the legislature. For some people,
• 52:55
  Speaker 9: it may be some other form. But I think we
• 53:01
  Speaker 9: keep those two things in mind. Number one, what is
• 53:02
  Speaker 9: the public square? look like for us? What are the
• 53:06
  Speaker 9: opportunities that are presented because of what the public square
• 53:09
  Speaker 9: looks like for us? And what are the gifts that
• 53:11
  Speaker 9: God has given to make an impact in that regard?
• 53:16
  Speaker 9: I think we get into dangerous waters when, you know,
• 53:20
  Speaker 9: we have this hierarchical list of things that you need
• 53:24
  Speaker 9: to be involved in. And if you check these off,
• 53:27
  Speaker 9: then you're really you know, then you're really an active
• 53:30
  Speaker 9: Christian and making a difference. But if you're not involved
• 53:32
  Speaker 9: in these areas and somehow you're lagging behind, I would
• 53:38
  Speaker 9: argue that there are hundreds if not thousands of issues
• 53:42
  Speaker 9: and areas wherein we need to be involved. And if
• 53:44
  Speaker 9: we're all going after the same five, then something's being neglected.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: Last question.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: Is repentance more than just a change of mind? How
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: can I know I've repented enough?
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: If you think you have repented enough, that's a sure
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: sign that you have not. The best advice I would
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: give and that I seek to follow is that when
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: I have entered most fully into my own sin and
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: wept and cried out for God's mercy in Christ, the
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: next thing for me to do is to weep and
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: cry out for God's mercy in Christ for my failure
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: to grasp the depth and the scope of my sin.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: From time to time, I have occasion to do some
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: personal counseling. And generally, the first thing on my list
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: to encourage people to do is to have what I
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: call a race to the bottom. What you need to
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: do is you need to explore the depth and the
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: scope of your sin as fearlessly.
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: You need to be diving and diving and diving.
• 55:10
  Speaker 3: And as painful as it is, as difficult as it is,
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: you need to do so knowing that you can never
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: dive beyond the grace of God. That however deeply you
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: look in your sin, however dark it may be, His
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: light is stronger.
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: Jesus always wins.
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: But he always wins when we confess that we always lose.
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: So don't ever get it in your head that while
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: it's absolutely true that we're called to repent and believe
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: the gospel, don't ever get it in your head that
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: when you die and stand before the throne of God
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: and he says, why should I let you into my kingdom?
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: If you say, have you ever met anybody as repentant
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: as me? Laughter That's not what you want to be saying.
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: You want to be beating your breasts saying, Lord, be
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: merciful to me.
• 56:01
  Speaker 5: A sinner.
• 56:04
  Speaker 7: Something you said reminded me of a letter that Jonathan
• 56:08
  Speaker 7: Edwards wrote. It sort of comes to us in history
• 56:12
  Speaker 7: called Letter to a Young Convert. Her name was Deborah Hathaway,
• 56:16
  Speaker 7: and the church she was at was without a pastor.
• 56:18
  Speaker 7: Edwards preached there. We sort of think that maybe she
• 56:22
  Speaker 7: came to Christ through Edwards preaching there. And so she
• 56:25
  Speaker 7: wrote him a letter asking for his advice on how
• 56:28
  Speaker 7: to live the Christian life. This is a very busy
• 56:30
  Speaker 7: man at the time of the Great Awakening. And he
• 56:32
  Speaker 7: writes her a 17 paragraph letter. And in that letter,
• 56:37
  Speaker 7: one of the things he says to her is, you
• 56:39
  Speaker 7: can never think highly enough of your sins. You can
• 56:45
  Speaker 7: never have this high enough view of yourself as a sinner.
• 56:49
  Speaker 7: But then he immediately says, but you can also never
• 56:53
  Speaker 7: think enough of the mercy of Christ. And he says
• 56:57
  Speaker 7: to her, it's a beautiful image, that no matter how
• 57:00
  Speaker 7: high the mountain of our sin is, the mountain of
• 57:06
  Speaker 7: Christ's mercy infinitely overtops the mountain of our sin.
• 57:12
  Speaker 8: And so that was a powerful pastoral.
• 57:14
  Speaker 7: Image to leave this young convert with.
• 57:19
  Speaker 11: A couple of things.
• 57:23
  Speaker 6: Come to the session on Pilgrim's Progress, because that's what
• 57:29
  Speaker 6: Pilgrim's Progress is about. And secondly, we are all hardwired
• 57:37
  Speaker 6: to self-justification. That gene is in us all, and evangelicals
• 57:44
  Speaker 6: can do a very subtle thing. We can say we
• 57:47
  Speaker 6: are justified by the depth of our repentance. And we
• 57:51
  Speaker 6: are not justified by the depth of our repentance.
• 57:55
  Speaker 11: We are not.
• 57:56
  Speaker 6: Justified by the depth or degree of our faith. It
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: is in Christ that we are justified. And we can
• 58:03
  Speaker 6: turn repentance and we can turn faith into something that
• 58:08
  Speaker 6: we can do and measure and quantify and base our
• 58:12
  Speaker 6: salvation on that. And it's just another form of justification
• 58:16
  Speaker 6: by works.
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you, gentlemen. Would you thank our panelists this afternoon?
• 58:23
  Speaker 11: Thank you.