Latest / The Immutable Word / EP054 Why Baptist? An Introduction - Part 1

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EP054 Why Baptist? An Introduction - Part 1 · The Immutable Word

• 0:00
  Welcome to The Immutable Word. Today marks a pretty special day.
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  We've hit our 100th anniversary.
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  We're not there yet, but that's the goal. Do you think podcasts will still be around by then?
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  Maybe not. It'll be all telepathy. All AI. There'll be no humans left.
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  That's right. But today is our one-year anniversary. We started March 24th,
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  exactly one year to the day of day of recording, at least.
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  We're going to post this probably Friday or Saturday, so it'll be a couple days after.
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  But it's crazy to think about, 50 episodes. Well, this will be 54, I think.
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  That's crazy yeah yeah it's cool though it is cool made it a year and we i feel
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  like we haven't really touched the surface of so many things that we want to
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  talk about and there's just a lot of topics and subjects which is which is in
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  itself interesting because when we started the podcast,
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  we were thinking hey we just want to talk about the bible we had it down to
• 1:04
  to one thing and thought that would be pretty easy but there's just so many
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  so many topics within the bible that you can cover,
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  which evidently looking at our previous podcast, we cover a lot of different things.
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  And in those different things, we only touched upon those different things.
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  So it's been a wild ride. So first meeting the milestones and seeing the progress
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  or the progression throughout the year,
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  first making it to 10 and then moving from 10 to 20 or 25 and then 50 recently,
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  and now we're at the year mark with 54 episodes.
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  And we're, I don't know if we've mentioned this before, but we're,
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  Thinking about doing a little bit of video here and there.
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  There's still a lot of work to plan out around that, but we would like to do
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  that and would be interested to hear anybody's comments on it.
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  Should we do it? Should we show our faces?
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  Would that make people unsubscribe if we did that? I don't know.
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  Might be worth the risk. What do you think? Yeah, I don't know.
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  I guess we'll wait and see if anybody responds or replies.
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  All three of you, let us know. On a serious note, it's been pretty fun.
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  I've said it many times, like, I like doing this. It's fun to talk about these
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  things and the topics that come up.
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  And even to the commenters, we did that last episode on a replacement theologian,
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  and that wouldn't have been an episode if somebody didn't come in and was really
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  nice enough to provide a comment and use our platform as their platform to preach their gospel.
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  Well, I mean, there's a lot of things. I mean, I watched a video.
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  It was a little short video by an apologist that you and I both listen to a lot, Frank Turek.
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  And he was with another apologist guy that normally debates Muslims, David Wood.
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  And so some of our listeners might know who they are.
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  Maybe Frank Turek, he's probably the more popular one.
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  If you've seen David Wood, if I showed you a video of it, you'd probably recognize
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  him if you've ever seen anybody debating. Muslims.
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  Well, anyway, they were asked by a lady.
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  In one of the question-answer sessions, and she got up and she asked about,
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  well, she opened it with this.
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  She goes, you know, you believe in objective truth.
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  You always argue about it, you know, that we as Christians should always have,
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  that we have an objective truth, an objective standard to judge all things by.
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  It's got to be a perfect standard, so forth and so on. And then she went on
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  and she started asking questions about the King James.
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  She goes, because when I look at the other versions, they attack the deity of
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  Christ, the virgin birth.
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  I mean, she started going through and, you know, she said they have internal contradictions.
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  And then, of course, Frank Turek goes, well, you know, you mentioned that they
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  have contradictions. Can you cite a few?
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  And she started listing like six or seven right off the bat.
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  And it was funny because they responded and it was like a six minute video.
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  And it was actually posted by Frank Turek's ministry or his whatever his apologetics ministry is.
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  And so he responded the way that we expect, you know, the King James was,
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  you know, based off few manuscripts that were late.
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  Scholarship has improved since then. You know, there's words in there that can
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  confuse you and can throw you off. And it was just on and on and on.
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  And I always call it the Oreo sandwich. It's like.
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  There's probably a more crude way to say it, but the Oreo sandwich is where
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  you sugarcoat it on the front end, you blast it in the middle,
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  and then you sugarcoat it on the back end.
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  Oh, you know, the King James Bible is a beautiful Bible. We love it.
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  And it's made such a huge difference in history, and it's got beautiful language.
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  But you know what? It's based off of poor manuscripts.
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  Translations have improved. Scholarship is this and that. It was just so funny
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  to listen to it. So when I hear, I see a video like that, I guess my point is
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  I want to, I want to put a, I want to put an episode on it.
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  I want to highlight the arguments they brought up because I know there's other
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  brothers and sisters that'll come across a video like that.
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  And, and it, and it happened, you know, a friend of ours, a missionary friend
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  of ours, you know, contacted me. He sent me the video right away.
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  And he just, his first question is like, you know, how do you,
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  how would you respond to this? You know? And so, and it's actually a simple response.
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  But, you know, I just did in the back of my mind, I'm thinking,
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  man, that might be a good episode just to highlight the video,
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  the arguments that are made and go through them.
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  And we have gone through them. And that's why I realized, you know,
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  we've done some episodes already defending the King James.
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  But there's a lot out there. And what I don't think people realize is because I think here's here's.
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  I'll say this, and I don't mean to be demeaning, but I'll say this.
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  A lot of our brothers and sisters live in an echo chamber.
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  You know what I'm saying? Meaning that they listen to people they like.
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  They listen to preachers they like. When preachers say things that they agree
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  with politically, socially, you get a lot of amens from the back end of the
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  church. You know what I'm saying?
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  People get excited because they hear things that they agree with.
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  But i've witnessed christians that
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  have been confronted with people that disagree with
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  them very aggressively and those
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  christians break down literally some of them will start crying some of them
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  will get upset some of them will react in anger and i just think that as christians
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  we have a monopoly on on the truth it's the word of god jesus christ said sanctify
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  them by thy word that word is truth,
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  right? So, if we have the word of God, it is the truth.
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  And I think the question was legitimate to Frank Turek and David Wood is,
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  you argue that we're supposed to have an objective, perfect standard,
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  but then you undermine the only objective, perfect standard that exists in this
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  world, which is the words of God.
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  And, you know, I don't think people understand the self-refuting nature.
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  Of that attack, that kind of criticism. And I think Christians need to be more educated about it.
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  Bible-believing Christians, and our missionary friend asked me,
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  and this might be worth another episode, but what's the difference between a
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  Bible believer and a fundamentalist? That's what he asked me.
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  And I told him, and I said, look, I said, I believe that some fundamentalists are Bible believers.
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  I believe that some Bible believers are fundamentalists.
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  I said, but I've seen, at least in my experience, that not all fundamentalists
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  are Bible believers, and they eventually, at some point, begin to attack the
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  Word of God at some level, whether it's philosophically,
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  principally or literally, they will contradict the Word of God or undermine it in some way.
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  So, I don't particularly like the term fundamentalist.
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  I wouldn't call myself a fundamentalist. And he just kind of laughed.
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  He said, you know, it's ironic, but here in the country I'm in,
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  when you say the word fundamentalist, it actually has a very negative connotation.
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  And he says 99.9% of the fundamentalists that he knows of that claim themselves
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  as fundamentalists are actually Bible correctors, and they'll attack the Word of God.
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  They use the Greek, they use the lexicons, they do all this stuff to undermine
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  and correct the Word of God.
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  But a Bible believer is, I think the term would be biblical literalist,
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  is probably what I like the most, biblical literalist, meaning that I take the Bible literally.
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  There's a Ryrie, Charles Ryrie, he put together a Ryrie that studied Bible,
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  he's a dispensationalist. a little bit different than Schofield,
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  but kind of the same vein.
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  Well, Charles Ryrie used to say all theology boils down to two points.
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  He says, well, he says biblical hermeneutics or interpretation comes down to
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  two things, or one statement he would say.
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  He said, literal unless absurd.
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  That's what he would always say, literal unless absurd, meaning that you take
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  the passage literally unless it's absurd to take it literally, right?
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  And we've talked about that before, right? Jesus says, I am the door.
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  He's not a wooden, you know, piece of, you know, furniture with a doorknob on it.
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  Right. So, so we understand that. And of course, what gives us light on that is, is context.
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  So anyway, it's a, it's an interesting thought, but, you know,
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  you know, kind of, and I know this went around the bush the long way around,
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  but, you know, we talk about coming up with topics and stuff.
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  We think about there's so much stuff to cover and, and literally a six minute
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  video like that would just make me think, man, there's a good 40 minute,
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  you know, hour, hour and a half episode right there.
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  The point is that there's never going to be an end to the content that's available.
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  And we've got people like that out there, fundamentalists and Bible correctors
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  and supersessionists and Catholics always providing us great material.
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  Thank you to everybody for their contribution. Right.
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  Well, and I think it's the time we live in, too, man. There's a ton of anti-Semitism
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  out there now. And it's rising.
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  And I really think it's a precursor to the tribulation. And,
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  you know, you've got to get the people there mentally.
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  But here's the other thing is that the Bible says the Christians were supposed to walk circumspectly.
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  That means you're always vigilant. You're always aware.
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  And we've got to be able to identify the false worldviews out there because
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  we're flooded with bad ideas, right?
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  I mean, there's so much junk out there and a Christian needs to learn how to
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  navigate through that. And you're not going to do it just watching YouTube and
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  TikTok videos, you know what I mean? Or even listening to a preacher behind a pulpit.
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  You know, if you as a Christian are not an independent, self-motivated student
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  of the Word of God, at some level you will be deceived.
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  Actually, it kind of goes into a little bit what we're going to talk about.
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  Yeah, it sets our record straight, by the way, when you were talking about fundamentalists,
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  even our brethren, the echo chamber thing, and Christians breaking down and
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  crying with their challenge. I wasn't crying.
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  I was flustered, but I didn't break down crying. I just want to set that record
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  straight, man. That wasn't cool. Yeah.
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  Yeah, I didn't want to say your name, Alan, but I was actually trying to keep
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  it. Okay, well, I appreciate that.
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  It's okay. I wasn't crying. I think everybody will appreciate your honesty,
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  though. It's not like this is being broadcasted anywhere.
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  Right. No, I mean, I've been there. I'll be honest with you.
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  The frustration, though, but I've been there where I was so frustrated that I did want to cry.
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  I'll admit it, man. I've been there. You know,
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  and I think that And this is one thing I learned Matter of fact,
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  I think it was William Lecrae, he's another apologist He mentioned that,
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  you know Christians need to learn how to argue well But not be argumentative.
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  And he said that Most conversations get heated Because of ignorance,
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  That's why people get flustered People get upset, people get frustrated Because
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  they literally don't know How to respond They don't know the right way to respond So,
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  but, you know, I just want to tell Christians, as a Bible-believing dispensatious,
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  I'm going to tell you right now, it's the right hermeneutic We have the right
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  Bible We have the right belief system,
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  It's the one that's been thoroughly tested And you know what?
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  I know there's a lot of criticism out there with, you know, the King James Bible
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  and translations and stuff And if you listen to those arguments on the surface,
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  they make sense They sound like they make sense but when
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  you compare it to the unalterable and
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  in that our show is called the immutable word because we believe that
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  the word of god is unchanging in in the light of society and culture and philosophy
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  and politics right the word of god stays the same and that's what we see in
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  the book of psalms you know psalms uh david talked about that isaiah the word
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  of our god standeth forever and so forth and so on, right?
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  Well, the word of God's never going to change. So you have to ground. I like how one guy's.
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  I think it was a military novel I was reading not too long ago.
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  And somebody was asking a military leader and, you know, the military leader
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  was dealing with some politicians. You know how politicians are, right?
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  And, you know, especially whenever they feel like they're experts,
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  subject matter experts when it comes to strategy, military strategy or tactics.
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  And they asked him, they said this, they go, they were making a comment about
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  what they thought was right or wrong, right? And he said this,
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  he goes, well, he goes, we, he goes, somebody said, well, you know,
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  before, he goes, what's your gut, what's your gut decision?
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  And he says, well, look, I'll tell you my gut decision, but please don't,
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  don't misunderstand it or confuse it with an evidence-based decision.
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  And he says, until we get all the facts in, we can't make an informed decision.
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  And I like the way he said that, and it got me thinking that as Christians,
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  that's exactly how we should respond.
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  We should make decisions that are evidence-based.
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  And somebody says, well, what's the evidence? Well, the Bible tells you,
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  Hebrews 11, 1, faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
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  Scripture is evidence. So, whether people like it or not, whether people disagree
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  with it or not, that's fine.
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  Right? You can disagree, but at the end of the day, you need to be able to prove
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  that it's incorrect. And most people don't. So...
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  Good stuff. Well, I think that's probably a good segue. I was going to ask you,
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  I was debating, so what do you think about current times and the Iran war and
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  what's really going on there?
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  Yeah, I know. I was thinking back the other day, I could tell you this much.
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  I mean, typically, dispensationalists believe that anything that is prophecy
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  related is going to be connected to Israel, not the church.
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  And we've talked a little bit about before that because the
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  church isn't operating off of prophecy necessarily because
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  all the only thing we're waiting for is a
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  voice from heaven to call us out of this world then all the prophetic events
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  that are you know surrounding daniel's 70th week all the vials you know the
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  unfolding of the end times the the you know the attack on israel the rise of
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  the Antichrist, the one world government,
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  all those things are directly associated with the time of Jacob's trouble,
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  not the church's trouble, according to Jeremiah.
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  So, prophecy in and of itself is tied directly to Israel or some sort of Israel.
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  So, what's going on in Iran?
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  Does that mean another third world war could erupt? I don't know. It could be.
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  The Bible doesn't necessarily talk about those things. The Bible does tell us,
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  though, that the political and the social and the environmental culture and
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  the cultural environment, let's put it that way, the cultural environment.
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  Will be ripe for the Antichrist to step in.
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  That means you have to have a world that's falling apart politically,
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  socially, economically, religiously, in order for one man to step in and fix it.
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  Okay. He's got to step in and fix it. And that's going to trigger all these other events, right?
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  It's going to trigger a one world globalist society, a one world religion,
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  a one world economic system.
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  You know, you can't buy or sell without the mark of the beast.
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  All those things flow into it. So what I say is this, if you want to know what's
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  going on in preparation for the tribulation, always pay attention to what's
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  going on with Israel, Period.
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  Whether you like Israel or not, whether you think Israel is biblical Israel,
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  that's totally irrelevant.
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  When you look at the events that are going on, the Bible says,
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  like Balak said it in the book of Numbers, and God said it over and over again,
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  Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, that Israel would become a burdensome stone, Jerusalem would.
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  It would be the most fought over, bloodied city on the face of this planet And
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  if you haven't been paying attention for the last 50 years Or at least since 1948.
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  You know, the last 70 years If you haven't been paying attention There is more
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  controversy over the city of Jerusalem And the Middle East and that particular
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  land mass Than any other place on the face of the planet.
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  And Jesus Christ said there'd be wars, rumors of wars, there'd be attacks and so forth and so on.
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  Well, there's got to be precursors to this.
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  That's why I say precursors to prophecy, meaning that there will be,
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  you know, prophetical fulfillment, but you've got to set the stage for it.
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  So I think that the disruption with Iran, the looming threats with China, cybersecurity.
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  The Russian influence, the social and cultural Marxism that's on the rise.
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  It's been on the rise the last 20 years in America.
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  The revolutions, the attacks, the Islamic invasion, all these things are breaking
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  the world apart traditionally so that a man can step onto the scene, right?
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  Does that mean I know who the Antichrist is right now? No. Does that mean I
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  know what role Trump is going to play in that? No.
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  But I do know that what we're seeing is it's almost like somebody is just,
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  they're setting up the stage. They're setting up the lighting.
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  They're setting up the props.
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  You know what I mean? It's like everything is falling in place.
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  You know, for people that disagree with the Bible being true,
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  it just seems like everything is falling, you know, together exactly the way
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  the Bible says it's going to.
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  Yeah, I would imagine and I would presume, like you were saying,
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  there has to be a breakdown.
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  Like large countries' superpowers have to be broken down. Maybe. I don't know.
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  See, you watch for alignments, right? Watch for alignments.
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  If you know anything about Freemason history, you know, Freemasons wanted to re-
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  Rebuild, because they're architects, right? They take their Freemasonry,
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  their first Freemason, according to them, was Solomon, King Solomon.
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  And their goal is to reconstruct, you know, the world before the flood that
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  was moving towards a one-world system and society.
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  And of course, you started seeing that again rise up during the Tower of Babel
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  just a few hundred years after the flood.
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  So in their mind, they believe this, they believe that there was supposed to
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  be a confederation of 10 kingdoms that would rule the world.
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  And they would go back to the antediluvian society, you know,
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  where you Atlantis and all this other stuff ruling the world.
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  So I know a lot of this stuff sounds crazy, but I'm just saying that there's
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  a lot of mythology that falls in line with what the word of God says and corroborates.
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  It doesn't mean that Every single detail, those mythologies are absolutely 100%
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  true, but it does tell us that there are some forces in the background that are at work.
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  2 Corinthians 4 says the God of this world is the devil.
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  So that means the philosophical systems, the economical system,
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  the religious system, the political system, all these things play in favor of the God of this world.
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  And God literally, the only interference, think about this, the only interference
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  God has in this culture is the church.
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  That's it. I mean, God is not going to step in until the church is out of here.
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  And the tribulation events start.
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  That's it. I mean, that's really what it boils down to. We are the only intersecting,
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  you know, factor in the current political atmosphere is the church.
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  So, you know, so what do we focus on? Do we focus on politics?
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  Do we focus on, you know, trying to make the world a better place?
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  Or do we focus on exalting the Savior and evangelizing sinners and edifying the saints?
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  See what I'm saying? That's what we have. That's why I believe that things like
• 21:55
  what we're doing right now is so important.
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  You know, look, you know, none of us, you know, me and you have never argued
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  that this is a replacement for the church. I think you need to be in a church.
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  And that's going to be an episode we'll do down the road as well,
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  the importance of the local church and being a part, an active part of that local church.
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  But here's what I'm going to tell you. There's a lot of churches out there that
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  aren't doing their job. There's a lot of pastors behind the pulpit that are
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  not feeding their flock.
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  They're not giving their people doctrine. They're not helping them defend the
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  Christian worldview against the demonic worldview out there.
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  And I believe any worldview that's not a biblical worldview is a false worldview.
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  And every Christian, every single Christian has a responsibility.
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  We'll actually talk about it in the series that we're going to start today.
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  But every single believer has a responsibility to defend the faith.
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  Every single one of us. So, I believe what we're doing, you know,
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  confronting the worldview with the Word of God,
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  the biblical worldview, trying to expose that and trying to help Christians
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  understand how to utilize it, how to defend the faith, how to identify false
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  beliefs, false philosophies that are not rooted in Christ.
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  And I think that that's really a key role that we play in this podcast.
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  And I think anybody, you know, and again, I hate saying, because,
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  you know, we're not trying to say, you know, trying to promote ourselves,
• 23:18
  but we're just trying to put truth out there.
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  Right? We just want, and you take what we say, you be a Berean,
• 23:25
  you open up your Bible, you compare the Word of God with what we're saying.
• 23:29
  You know, you make that decision, but at the end of the day,
• 23:31
  you have a singular responsibility as a believer to stand up against this world's
• 23:37
  philosophy. Amen to that.
• 23:40
  And just to reiterate the point that we're here, and I think it's appropriate
• 23:45
  to mention that here, is that we're just here to build awareness.
• 23:48
  A lot of Christians get drawn into this trap, and you mentioned three main things.
• 23:55
  The third one, why are we here?
• 23:57
  Should we be focused on politics?
• 24:00
  Should we focus on making the world a better place? Or should we be...
• 24:06
  Focus on getting the truth out there and edifying others and
• 24:09
  focus on the church while we're still here and it
• 24:12
  is the latter and ultimately if somebody
• 24:15
  asks why we're here that's why we're here it's just awareness and
• 24:19
  to build other christians up to edify them and making sure that people have
• 24:25
  the knowledge and focus that the word of god is the tool that is the weapon
• 24:28
  that they have in this spiritual warfare and i i see christians these days in
• 24:34
  the church fundamentalism that they're sucked into this Christian nationalism.
• 24:37
  They want to make this place a better place. This world, it's not going to matter.
• 24:40
  It's all going to burn up. Trump doesn't matter.
• 24:43
  Right. And actually, ironically, the series, and we're going to start a series
• 24:52
  on why we're Baptists, is actually antithetical to Christian nationalism.
• 24:58
  You cannot be a Bible-believing Baptist, let's put it that way,
• 25:02
  and be a Christian nationalist. You can't be.
• 25:05
  So I think that full circle back, we had a side quest going back to what we're
• 25:09
  about to start today, which is Baptist distinctives and Christians be able to
• 25:15
  make the distinction and understanding, well, why they're Baptist.
• 25:21
  I figured this is a good time. We could start digging into it now.
• 25:24
  Or we could start talking about conspiracies like the CFR.
• 25:27
  Well, we've talked about it. You know, we've talked about why that we are Baptists.
• 25:32
  We say we're Bible-believing, independent Baptists. And I'm going to say this.
• 25:36
  There's a lot of Baptists out there, a lot of Baptist groups.
• 25:39
  You've got Southern Baptists.
• 25:41
  You've got Bible Baptist Fellowship. You've got General Association of Regular Baptists.
• 25:45
  You have Hardshell Baptists. You have Free Will Baptists. You have Primitive Baptists.
• 25:50
  You know, you got all kinds of Baptists out there, okay?
• 25:54
  We specifically are independent Bible-believing Baptists.
• 26:00
  And what that means is that we hold these Baptist distinctives that we're going
• 26:05
  to cover, that we're going to talk about over this series.
• 26:08
  But we're also independent in the fact that, you know, we're not part of an association.
• 26:13
  We're not part of a convention. We are not part of a general consensus of Baptist
• 26:19
  churches that dictate church polity, which is really the way that you run the church.
• 26:27
  Or, you know, government, it would probably be another way of saying is church
• 26:30
  government as tall as church polity.
• 26:33
  So we'll talk about a lot of that stuff. And I want to take some time.
• 26:37
  I'm actually teaching it this semester, but I've got short stints where I go
• 26:40
  through each of the distinctions.
• 26:42
  And I really want to take this particular series to really do a deep dive into
• 26:47
  what does it mean to be a Baptist?
• 26:49
  Okay, because there's friends of ours that probably listen to this podcast that
• 26:53
  if you were to ask them a serious, you know, just a serious question,
• 26:57
  you sit down and say, look, tell me, I want you to give me the biblical reason why you're a Baptist.
• 27:02
  And some of them will probably struggle with that response. Some people I've
• 27:07
  seen will say, well, I've always been a Baptist. I grew up in a Baptist church.
• 27:12
  I prefer Baptists because of their culture, their music, you know,
• 27:16
  their Bible believers. I mean, they'll say a bunch of different things.
• 27:19
  But if you were to say, give me a good logical and biblical argument for why
• 27:25
  you're a Baptist, and some of them would really struggle with that.
• 27:28
  So, the way that we outline our Baptist distinctives, okay?
• 27:34
  And when we say distinctives, we're saying that the Baptists have certain beliefs,
• 27:40
  a certain system of beliefs around these topics that have been consistent over the past 2,000 years.
• 27:47
  Some people argue, well, Baptists have only been around since the 1600s when
• 27:52
  John Smith in England started it.
• 27:54
  So, that's why they'll say that the beginning of Baptists is John Smith,
• 27:57
  spelled with a Y, S-M-Y-T-H.
• 28:01
  And they go, John Smith is the one that started the Baptist denomination during,
• 28:05
  you know, the rise of Protestantism, you know, during the Protestant Reformation.
• 28:10
  And they'll say that we are Protestants. But the problem is,
• 28:14
  is like, for example, there was a William Tyndale in the 1300s,
• 28:19
  Erasmus in the 1500s, who's involved in Bible translation, were talking about
• 28:26
  and speaking about Anabaptists and groups of believers like Paulicians,
• 28:32
  you know, the Albigenses, the Waldensians.
• 28:34
  There were groups that they were not explicitly called Baptists.
• 28:38
  However, they had some of these Baptist distinctives in common.
• 28:44
  So, we're going to go through them. So, let me give you the distinctives first.
• 28:48
  Okay? And it's easy. It's an acrostic, and it spells Baptists.
• 28:53
  Okay? That's the easiest way to do it.
• 28:56
  B means Bible alone as our final authority.
• 29:00
  A, autonomy of the church. okay p is
• 29:03
  priesthood of the believer t is two offices
• 29:06
  we believe that the church has two offices i individual
• 29:10
  soul liberty that they have the right to freely
• 29:13
  worship god as they as they want s is saved and baptized church members and
• 29:21
  then the last t is two office or two ordinances which is baptism and the lord's
• 29:27
  supper and then the last s is separation of church and state,
• 29:31
  So, if you were to take those distinctives, so those are nine distinctives,
• 29:35
  B-A-P-T-I-S-T-S, and you were to basically, you can trace those distinctives
• 29:41
  through these ancient Baptist groups and peoples.
• 29:45
  Okay? They weren't always called Baptists.
• 29:48
  They were called Anabaptists because they would baptize again.
• 29:51
  That's what it means, baptize again.
• 29:53
  And what that means is like, you know, the Roman Catholic Church,
• 29:57
  they taught and preached infant baptism since the 4th, 5th century.
• 30:01
  And in their belief system, if you were to baptize again, it's anathema, it's a curse.
• 30:08
  And so, they would burn people at the stake for being re-baptized as adults.
• 30:15
  So, anyway, that's why I'm saying is that you can trace these distinctives,
• 30:22
  whether it's the Bible is the final authority. They didn't hold a church as an authority.
• 30:28
  They believed that an individual should choose for themselves how they would
• 30:32
  worship God or reject God.
• 30:34
  They believed that the church and the state were separate, that they should
• 30:39
  not function together as one entity.
• 30:42
  And this is all anti-Catholicism, and it's actually anti-Protestantism as well,
• 30:47
  because our Protestant brothers believed in church-state merging.
• 30:51
  You know, John Adams, you know, he was our second president.
• 30:54
  Well, John Adams was part of the Puritans out of Massachusetts.
• 30:58
  So you remember Cotton Mather and those people like that.
• 31:01
  And everybody remembers the Salem witch tribals, right?
• 31:05
  Where they would burn witches at the stake. Well, guess what?
• 31:09
  They were also in jailing and fining Baptists for preaching the gospel without a license.
• 31:15
  So, you know, there's history here, right?
• 31:19
  And so, when I say I'm a Bible-believing Baptist, I'm a Bible believer,
• 31:23
  okay, because of my biblical conviction.
• 31:27
  But I'm a Baptist because of my historical conviction.
• 31:32
  So, you know, there's a reason why that we say we're Baptists,
• 31:37
  because we hold to these distinctives, And we believe these distinctives are a model,
• 31:43
  are the closest model of the New Testament church that we see being progressively
• 31:48
  brought forth in the book of Acts.
• 31:51
  And the polity, which are the rules that govern a church, are laid out in the Pauline epistles.
• 31:57
  So, the pastoral epistles, Timothy, Titus, you know, you have the doctrinal
• 32:02
  epistles, you have the church epistles, Thessalonians, Ephesians.
• 32:06
  Philippians, so forth and so on.
• 32:08
  And you see unfolding in Paul's writings how the New Testament church should
• 32:13
  operate and how they should believe.
• 32:15
  And what we believe is that these Baptist distinctives align with those truths
• 32:22
  that are revealed in the Pauline Gospels.
• 32:25
  So, another thing, too, I want to say, this is an illustration I gave my kids,
• 32:30
  and I thought this was, labels are important.
• 32:33
  People are saying, you know, because we have Baptist churches today that are
• 32:36
  taking the name Baptist off their church because they don't want to be,
• 32:40
  you know, they don't like the negative connotation with it.
• 32:42
  Well, there's more than just negative connotation. There's also positive connotation.
• 32:47
  When you strip your church of that Baptist label, you're telling the world what
• 32:53
  you are and what you stand for or what you don't stand for, whether that makes sense to people.
• 32:58
  Labels are important. They go, well, Brother Gamis, you know,
• 33:01
  I don't want to be labeled. Why is a label important? So let me give you this
• 33:05
  illustration, this analogy.
• 33:06
  You open up your medicine cabinet and all your prescriptions,
• 33:10
  all the labels were faded and you couldn't read the writing on them anymore.
• 33:15
  Labels matter. And you knew that you had a specific medication for a whatever issue.
• 33:21
  Would you just start testing every single pill in every single bottle indiscriminately
• 33:27
  with no discernment? I know people downtown that do that.
• 33:31
  Yeah, they might do that, right? But think about that. Think about the danger in that, right?
• 33:37
  So I would just ask just a real easy question. What role or how important do
• 33:44
  you think a label matters when it comes to picking the medicine that you're
• 33:47
  taking out of your cabinet and digesting?
• 33:50
  It's very important because it could be the difference in life or death, right?
• 33:54
  And so, labels matter.
• 33:57
  If I see the name Bible-Believing Baptist Church or Independent Bible-Believing
• 34:03
  Baptist Church on a church sign, I immediately know what I should expect going
• 34:09
  to that church at a minimum. right?
• 34:12
  I'm not saying that every, you know, every example of music I'd be in agreement
• 34:17
  with, or, you know, modesty or dress codes.
• 34:19
  I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is, at the very minimum,
• 34:23
  I know what to expect as far as some of the doctrines they believe.
• 34:27
  And that's what these Baptist distinctives help us to identify, okay?
• 34:32
  So, that's why the Baptist, Because it matters, you know, because,
• 34:37
  you know, here's the other reason why understanding why you're Baptist matters
• 34:42
  is because you have to, you know, we were talking about the tribulation, right?
• 34:47
  Well, guess what the devil is going to set up? He's going to set up a one world religion.
• 34:51
  How is he going to accomplish that? Well, number one, why would he want to,
• 34:55
  why does that even matter to him?
• 34:58
  Because at the very heart of his goal in existence is worship.
• 35:06
  He didn't want to eradicate God. He wanted to be like God.
• 35:12
  Okay. Isaiah 14, 13 and 14 says, for thou hast said in thine heart,
• 35:18
  I will ascend into heaven.
• 35:20
  I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will be like the Most High. He wants to be like God.
• 35:30
  So, people need to understand that. Well, if the objective of the devil is to
• 35:35
  be like God, then that means he's going to set up a religious system where that can be achieved.
• 35:43
  Okay? Remember when Jesus Christ was tempted by the devil, Matthew 4.
• 35:47
  So, in verse 9, he saith unto him, this is what he says to Jesus Christ,
• 35:53
  all these things will I give that he shows him all the, you know,
• 35:56
  all the kingdoms of the world.
• 35:58
  And he says, I'll give you these if thou will fall down and worship me.
• 36:04
  And of course, Jesus Christ responds, you know, we're only supposed to worship God, him alone.
• 36:10
  And so, the devil, from the very beginning of his fall, his primary goal and desire is worship.
• 36:22
  You know what that presents to us as Christians?
• 36:26
  That gives us the idea, this gives us a very important principle,
• 36:30
  that religion is not neutral.
• 36:34
  How we approach religion and the church we go to is not a neutral issue.
• 36:41
  There's a fallacy called the pretended neutrality fallacy, where you pretend there's neutrality.
• 36:48
  Oh, you know, just go to the church of your choice.
• 36:51
  Oh, go to the church because it's convenient. It's only five minutes down the
• 36:55
  road. Or let me go to this church because it's got a coffee bar, right?
• 36:59
  So, there's this pretended neutrality in the idea of the church that we choose.
• 37:05
  However, that pretended neutrality, you know what it does is it hides the presupposition
• 37:13
  that the devil has no active interest in religion.
• 37:19
  That's the idea, That there's no active interest in how people worship God.
• 37:25
  That's the exact opposite. That's not what the Bible shows us.
• 37:28
  Matter of fact, if you read in 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 4, this is what the Bible says.
• 37:35
  It says, and this is speaking of the Antichrist, the son of perdition.
• 37:38
  It says, Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God,
• 37:49
  whatever is labeled God, Buddha,
• 37:53
  the thousand Hindu gods, right?
• 37:57
  Aliens, we talked about that. Anything that has the label or the association
• 38:03
  of God, he's going to exalt himself above that, or that is worshipped.
• 38:11
  So, anything that's called God, or anything that's worshipped,
• 38:14
  so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
• 38:23
  Now, if that doesn't ring your bell there for a second, that the devil,
• 38:29
  his primary interest is worship and to be like God. So, how is he going to achieve that?
• 38:37
  Ecumenicism is simply where you bring all the religions and all the worship
• 38:43
  types into, you integrate them into one.
• 38:47
  So, you say, for example, if you go back to the Tower of Babel,
• 38:50
  you know, they were building a tower unto heaven, okay?
• 38:53
  Their goal was to reach God at some combined integrated level.
• 38:58
  Well, how did God respond to that?
• 39:00
  He divided them. He messed up their language.
• 39:04
  Because he said, again, they were going to commit the same sin that they did
• 39:07
  in Genesis 6, which was that only the imagination of their heart was continually evil.
• 39:12
  When you take men at their best state, the Bible says in Isaiah,
• 39:17
  they're altogether vanity.
• 39:19
  Their righteousness is as filthy rags. And if you take men and you get them
• 39:24
  in an ecumenical movement where they combine their religious beliefs,
• 39:28
  they combine their worship into one globalistic type of worship,
• 39:34
  it's satanic at its core.
• 39:36
  Because that is exactly what the devil was trying to achieve,
• 39:40
  is one world religion that is centered around worshiping him.
• 39:45
  Okay? So, again, this is where you, you know, in order to push ecumenicism,
• 39:52
  you're promoting unity between different churches, right?
• 39:56
  You're diminishing or ignoring doctrine.
• 39:59
  There's no doctrinal differences anymore, right? We all worship God.
• 40:04
  It's all one way to heaven.
• 40:06
  You know, we're just trying to get to God different, different ways.
• 40:09
  So, when you see that kind of stuff, you'll see that bumper sticker,
• 40:14
  right, that's got all the religious symbols on it,
• 40:16
  you know, and I can't remember the message it says, but I just remember the
• 40:21
  track that says contradict.
• 40:25
  But the point is, is that each one of those contradict each other.
• 40:28
  They have doctrinal differences and distinctions. You cannot put a Muslim and
• 40:35
  a Catholic in the same place and have them believe exactly the same thing unless
• 40:40
  you strip some of their doctrinal differences.
• 40:43
  You have to, in order to get them to work together.
• 40:47
  So, really, that movement is going to set up this one world religion.
• 40:51
  It's going to be the stepping stone,
• 40:53
  you know, so that ultimately 2 Thessalonians 2.4 could be fulfilled.
• 40:57
  And that is the devil will be worshipped as God.
• 41:01
  He'll get exactly what he was trying to get Jesus Christ to do.
• 41:05
  And here's the thing about doctrine. The Bible says in the book of Timothy,
• 41:10
  it says that they're not going to endure.
• 41:12
  There's coming a time where people cannot endure sound doctrine.
• 41:17
  You ought to think about that statement. Enduring, that means withstanding,
• 41:22
  staying faithful to, keeping yourself committed to doctrine.
• 41:26
  People are going to get to the point where they can't stand doctrine.
• 41:29
  I mean, how many times have we heard some preachers say, you know,
• 41:32
  that's just too doctrine. If you're too doctrine, it's too dry.
• 41:35
  I've heard it. And so what do they have to do? They have to make their preaching
• 41:38
  a bunch of jokes and humor and get people, you know, entertain people,
• 41:43
  tell them stories. Like one brother said, you know, a bunch of preaching today
• 41:47
  is story building. It's one story upon another.
• 41:52
  And so, you know, the thing is, is what are you doing? You're getting people
• 41:55
  entertained instead of teaching them doctrine. And doctrine is what matters.
• 42:02
  Doctrine is the only valid way to measure the validity of a church or movement. That's it.
• 42:08
  If you want to test whether or not you should be involved in that abortion march
• 42:12
  with a bunch of Catholics, test the doctrine.
• 42:15
  If you go to a church and you don't know really what that church believes,
• 42:21
  and you're deciding that you and your family are going to join there,
• 42:24
  sit down with the pastor and start asking him some doctrinal questions.
• 42:27
  What do you believe about the deity of Christ?
• 42:29
  What do you believe about the future of the church? Do you believe in a pre-tribulation rapture?
• 42:34
  What do you believe about rightly dividing the word of God? What do you believe
• 42:37
  about, you know, the deity of the Holy Spirit, the Trinity?
• 42:40
  What do you believe about the perfect preserved word of God in the King James Bible?
• 42:45
  You see what I'm saying? All you got to do is start asking doctrinal questions.
• 42:48
  And, you know, we covered the seven mysteries. That's one of the,
• 42:51
  you know, the church, the Bible school that our brother graduated,
• 42:56
  one of the questions that they ask is, give us the seven mysteries.
• 43:01
  Can you imagine having a church today in some of the churches and people we know,
• 43:05
  and you sit down a candidate for the ministry, you're going to ordain them as
• 43:10
  a pastor, you're going to ordain them as a missionary, and the first question
• 43:14
  you ask them is, give us the seven mysteries, and why are they important?
• 43:18
  How many people do you think would be able to recite that? It'd be a very small group today.
• 43:23
  And that is even in our Bible-believing Baptist church. That's right.
• 43:27
  So, there's a pastor, Jim Alter, he's a pastor up in Ohio.
• 43:31
  He said this, because, you know, you always heard, you know,
• 43:34
  we're living in a postmodern world, right?
• 43:37
  We've rejected traditional Christianity and things like that.
• 43:40
  He said, we live in a post-truth world.
• 43:43
  And so, there's a theme, I've been kind of pushing it to you the last few days,
• 43:48
  it's really stood out in my head, especially after we did the mysteries,
• 43:53
  and it's a thematic statement or a mission statement, if you will.
• 43:58
  And what I've been describing it is basically stewardship of the truth.
• 44:05
  And stewardship is a responsibility. It's a management responsibility.
• 44:09
  You're given, we're given the mysteries, for example, or the doctrines of the
• 44:13
  Word of God, and we're supposed to manage them in a way that would profit our master.
• 44:18
  We're supposed to manage those truths in a way that gives glory to the Savior
• 44:22
  and gives him the preeminence, okay?
• 44:25
  So stewardship of the truth, that's the mission statement in my mind.
• 44:29
  And I'm thinking more and more than I want to make the immutable word.
• 44:32
  I want to kind of make, because I've already have a badge that I've created
• 44:34
  and I've thought about it. But stewardship of the truth is this,
• 44:37
  is that we have a commitment to the truth.
• 44:40
  So we may say things that maybe, you know, some of our listeners don't like,
• 44:47
  right? Maybe there's things, even our tone or our demeanor might be off-putting.
• 44:54
  But here's the question. The question is, is it maintaining a commitment to the truth?
• 45:00
  Anything that deviates from a commitment or loyalty to the truth is a red herring, is a fallacy.
• 45:05
  So that's why we can't get drawn away in our emotions.
• 45:08
  We can't get drawn away in poor arguments, fallacies, fallacious arguments,
• 45:14
  right? So what we need to do is always remember truth is the pinnacle thing
• 45:18
  truth is what matters at the end of the day.
• 45:21
  So brother jim alter he says we live in a post-truth world So that post-truth world.
• 45:28
  Is to me I think is the most accurate statement i've ever heard because When
• 45:32
  you try to deal with people about the truth What do they do? They get angry at you.
• 45:36
  They want to they want to You know, they want to beat you up.
• 45:39
  They want to scream at you spit at you They want to mock you ridicule you I
• 45:44
  mean i've been preaching on the street long enough that Some of the some of
• 45:47
  the things i've seen on the street lately man are horrible.
• 45:52
  Horrible, you know, just um attitudes And it's all And it has nothing to do
• 45:57
  with the truth like you can talk to people About the truth and they don't want
• 46:01
  to hear anything about it so,
• 46:04
  Their authority, when it comes down to what they think is truth, is subjective, right?
• 46:10
  It's whatever society decides, it's whatever culture decides, whatever.
• 46:14
  But we know as Bible-believing Baptists that the Word of God is what's final.
• 46:19
  That's why we're not going to go into the distinctives today.
• 46:23
  We're just as kind of like an introduction into why studying this subject of
• 46:27
  why we're Baptist matters.
• 46:30
  But, you know, the first distinctive is the Bible is our final authority.
• 46:34
  And we'll talk a lot about that when we get to it.
• 46:36
  But here's the thing. We don't measure a doctrine by how long it's been taught,
• 46:40
  but whether God said it at all.
• 46:43
  That's what matters, right? Scripture is the only standard.
• 46:47
  Jesus Christ, like I said, John 17, 17, he says, sanctify them by thy word.
• 46:51
  Thy word is objectively true.
• 46:55
  It is the only objective standard on the face of the planet in written form is the word of God.
• 47:02
  So, that means everything else outside of the propositions given in Scripture are fallacies.
• 47:07
  We talked about that. A fallacy is an error in your thinking.
• 47:10
  Which means if you don't have biblically-based, evidence-based thinking,
• 47:14
  you're going to commit a fallacy in your reasoning process. Okay?
• 47:21
  So, just understanding the why the Baptist thing, that first,
• 47:25
  really the first thing everybody needs to understand is Satan's strategy is
• 47:29
  to create a one-world religion.
• 47:31
  That is why it's important to understand why you're a Baptist.
• 47:35
  Once you start stripping those distinctions, you start stripping those doctrinal
• 47:40
  beliefs, then you're just one step closer to a one-world religion.
• 47:46
  And one can just observe today and look around in the environment with all the
• 47:50
  religions that are out there.
• 47:51
  You covered this in the beginning, that it's extremely evident and prominent
• 47:56
  all around where Satan uses religions to blind people and is very effective at it.
• 48:04
  Right. I think, you know, we talked about it before. We haven't done,
• 48:09
  you know, the three enemies of the Christian, which is the world,
• 48:13
  the flesh, and the devil.
• 48:13
  You know we'll probably do something like that down the road but this is what
• 48:16
  i would say about is you know you can get away from the devil the bible says
• 48:20
  you can flee from the devil right resist the devil he'll flee from you in the
• 48:23
  book of james you can get away from the world
• 48:26
  i mean you can go build a cabin out in the middle of the wilderness you know
• 48:30
  15 hours from you know any modern civilization and get away from the world but
• 48:36
  you know what you can never get away with is from your flesh, yourself.
• 48:40
  You are your worst enemy. But in identifying those three enemies,
• 48:44
  the world, the flesh, and the devil, the flesh is very specific.
• 48:48
  In Galatians, it lists the flesh of things like variance, emulation,
• 48:52
  hatred, witchcraft, all these things are works of the flesh.
• 48:56
  But the works of the devil are religious.
• 48:59
  See, the tendency, this is the kind of preaching you'll hear sometimes.
• 49:03
  They'll go, we got to get away from the devil, he's going to get you into that
• 49:05
  pornography. No, your flesh gets you into pornography.
• 49:09
  You better watch out for that devil's music. We're actually going to do a series
• 49:13
  on music too at some point.
• 49:16
  But I believe the music that the devil is involved in it, but that's not the devil's primary goal.
• 49:21
  That's a work of the flesh. It's sensual. Okay?
• 49:25
  Even things like atheism and things like that, they're, I think,
• 49:29
  ultimately rooted in some satanic influence.
• 49:32
  But that's part of rebellion, is a sin of witchcraft. And witchcraft is listed
• 49:37
  as a work of the flesh in the book of Galatians.
• 49:40
  We would think it's a spiritual sin. But you know where the devil really operates?
• 49:43
  He operates in false doctrine.
• 49:46
  He operates in religious circles.
• 49:49
  He's the JW that's knocking on your door. He's the Mormon trying to tell you
• 49:54
  that, oh, we all believe in the same Jesus.
• 49:56
  He's the Muslim telling you, oh, well, we believe that Jesus is a great prophet as well.
• 50:01
  We all agree with Jesus. He's the Roman Catholic that says, hey,
• 50:05
  you know, that we belong to the church that Jesus Christ started.
• 50:09
  You see what I'm saying? That's how the devil operates. he operates in religious
• 50:13
  deception and that's so important that that believers understand that,
• 50:19
  so when he operates the way he does again it's that's why he's going to always
• 50:24
  try to circumvent doctrine he's always going to try to water down doctrine he's
• 50:28
  always going to try to tell you oh you know quit holding on to so much doctrine
• 50:32
  that's not that's not important so when you start to see that,
• 50:36
  and that's why Paul warned Timothy, hey man,
• 50:40
  the last days, the predominant.
• 50:43
  Prevailing philosophy is that they will not endure sound doctrine,
• 50:48
  but they will give in to doctrines of devils.
• 50:52
  So, that's the way he operates. So, anyway, that first reason why it's important
• 50:58
  to study Baptist history and why we're Baptists is because of the satanic religious
• 51:02
  deception that's prevalent in this world.
• 51:06
  But another thing about the Y Baptist thing that we have to understand is what
• 51:10
  a New Testament church is, okay?
• 51:12
  So, the church, the word church is actually, it's a Greek word,
• 51:15
  ecclesia, which means called out assembly.
• 51:18
  The Bible describes the church in two ways, okay?
• 51:23
  Number one, it describes it as an organism, which is the body of Christ,
• 51:28
  which every born-again believer becomes a part of as soon as they get saved.
• 51:34
  Once you are baptized into Christ, you are part of the body of Christ.
• 51:38
  That's one of the mysteries we talked about.
• 51:40
  Okay? But that includes every single born-again believer. There's no unsaved
• 51:45
  person inside the body of Christ.
• 51:47
  That's an organism. That's what we call the heavenly church.
• 51:51
  That's the church that is residing as flesh of Christ's flesh and bone of his
• 51:56
  bone. Ephesians 5 and so forth.
• 51:59
  Then you have the church as an organization which is the physical visible manifestation,
• 52:06
  of the body of christ here on earth and that
• 52:08
  is your local church and it is only
• 52:11
  described as a local church the fundamental
• 52:14
  difference between baptists and catholics for example is
• 52:18
  the catholics argue for a universal church and i
• 52:21
  used to use that term universal body of church invisible church but
• 52:24
  i like to say i think the better way to say it's a heavenly church It's a church
• 52:28
  that's in heaven in Christ But when the Catholic church Uses universal it's
• 52:33
  an equivocation Because what they mean is that Every physical church on the
• 52:37
  face of the planet Falls under the auspices And leadership of the pope.
• 52:42
  That's a different universal church. That's not what we're talking about.
• 52:46
  We believe in what's called the autonomy and the individual liberty of every
• 52:51
  church, that it should function.
• 52:53
  It's a self-organized group of body believers that can preach and teach whatever
• 52:59
  it feels led by the Holy Spirit to teach and preach.
• 53:02
  And the only governing body of that church is, you know, the pastor and deacon,
• 53:09
  pastor primarily in leadership, but also the Word of God is the one that provides
• 53:14
  the boundaries for how that church operates.
• 53:16
  Well, anyway, so the church operates in two ways.
• 53:21
  Number one, it's an organism. It's the body of Christ, spiritually in Christ,
• 53:24
  and that's every single born of a canon believer.
• 53:27
  And then number two, it's local manifestation on earth is a local church.
• 53:32
  So, our church here in Austin, Texas that we belong to, that is a physical monetization,
• 53:38
  that's an organization.
• 53:40
  And then, of course, when it comes down to the Baptists, like we talked about
• 53:44
  it historically, by conviction, that's why we're Baptists, understanding our history matters.
• 53:50
  It also, it protects us from ignorance of our beliefs and why following false
• 53:56
  teachings and all this other stuff is so dangerous to the Christian.
• 54:00
  So, you know, understanding what the New Testament church is.
• 54:02
  And here's, I will say, I mentioned it earlier, but there's three primary functions
• 54:07
  or goals or missions of the church.
• 54:10
  Every single New Testament church, legitimate New Testament church, okay?
• 54:15
  So in our case, Bible-believing Baptists, they have three primary goals.
• 54:20
  Number one, exalting the Savior.
• 54:22
  The Bible says in Colossians 1 that Christ should have the preeminence in everything,
• 54:26
  okay? He should have the preeminence.
• 54:28
  Exalting the Savior. Everything it does in its preaching, in its music,
• 54:33
  in its moderation, in its temperance, in its governance of the body should always put Christ first.
• 54:40
  There's a guy by the name of Diotrephes in 1 John 3.
• 54:44
  The Bible says he loveth to have the preeminence. That's the example of a Laodicean
• 54:49
  backslidden Christian where he wants the preeminence instead of Christ.
• 54:54
  But the purpose of the church is to give Christ the preeminence.
• 54:56
  So the music should exalt Christ, not the singer.
• 54:59
  Right that the dress should exalt christ not the people and the individual and
• 55:06
  flashy suits and all this other junk right so again exalt the savior so number
• 55:10
  one exalt the savior number two,
• 55:12
  evangelize the sinner if you have if you're part of a church that is not actively involved.
• 55:19
  In street preaching and bus ministries prison ministries door-to-door mission
• 55:26
  work if it is not actively involved in those things, I wouldn't be a part of that church. Period.
• 55:33
  Because if you're in a non-evangelistic church, that church is dead.
• 55:38
  It's serving a different purpose than what it's created for.
• 55:42
  Christ gave the Great Commission. He says, go out in all the world,
• 55:45
  preach and teach that, you know, whatsoever things I've commanded you.
• 55:48
  He tells them in Acts 1.8, he goes, you will be witnesses unto me,
• 55:52
  Samaria, or unto Jerusalem, Samaria, and under most parts of the world.
• 55:56
  We're supposed to go out and preach and propagate the truth.
• 55:59
  That is the responsibility of the church. So if the church is number one,
• 56:02
  not exalting the Savior, and number two, not evangelizing the sinner,
• 56:05
  it is failing in its first two primary goals. And what's the third goal?
• 56:10
  The third goal is kind of like what we're doing, even though we're not a local
• 56:14
  church, but what we're doing is what the local church should be doing,
• 56:17
  and that is edification of the sinners, or saints.
• 56:21
  So you have exalt the Savior, evangelize the sinner, edify the saints.
• 56:26
  Those are the three primary root, ground, foundational purposes of the church.
• 56:34
  It's supposed to fulfill those three things.
• 56:36
  Exalt the Savior, evangelize the sinner, and edify the saints.
• 56:40
  So if you go to a church that's imbalanced in one of those, then our recommendation
• 56:46
  is go find another church.
• 56:48
  Talked about it before, people say, well, Billy King, it's really hard to go
• 56:51
  find a church, you know, where we're at.
• 56:53
  It's really hard to go, you know, I'm not near a good church.
• 56:56
  And of course, you know, we talked about the ABC rule.
• 56:58
  A would be the church that matches every one of your beliefs as a Bible-believing Christian, right?
• 57:06
  They're dispensational, they're evangelistic, they are a King James Bible-believing
• 57:11
  church, so forth and so on.
• 57:12
  That would be like the A church, right? It's got good music,
• 57:15
  good leadership, balance.
• 57:17
  That would be the perfect church to the A church. Well, if you can't find the
• 57:19
  A church, find the B church.
• 57:21
  And if you can't find the B church, find the C church.
• 57:24
  It might be the third best, but it's worth going to. And then there's a fourth
• 57:28
  rule I recently heard from another pastor.
• 57:31
  He said this, he goes, if you're within an hour of a good Bible-believing church, go to that church.
• 57:39
  If you're outside of an hour drive trying to get to a good church moves there.
• 57:47
  Your location. And I thought that was a good rule because again,
• 57:51
  the priority shouldn't be your job.
• 57:54
  Your priority shouldn't be, you know, the aesthetics of where you live.
• 57:57
  I want to live because I mean, if I had my druthers, I'd go live in the mountains
• 58:00
  of Idaho, you know what I mean?
• 58:02
  Or, or, you know, Colorado, if it wasn't for the politics or Northern Arizona,
• 58:08
  you know, I would love that.
• 58:09
  I mean, I would love it, but I can't go, I can't move and uproot my family because
• 58:14
  that's where I want to live.
• 58:16
  It's got to be because there's a good church there that I can be a part of and so forth, right?
• 58:21
  So that's why I like that rule is if it's more than an hour to a good church, move.
• 58:27
  So I thought that was a good rule of thumb. You know, it might mean taking a job with lesser pay.
• 58:33
  Hey, it might mean moving away from family members, but that might also be a
• 58:38
  good thing is to move away from some family members, you know.
• 58:41
  But the point is, I think people need to understand that, you know,
• 58:45
  when you understand what a New Testament church is, what the function of that
• 58:47
  church is, what the church is defined biblically, that'll help us navigate this whole,
• 58:54
  you know, what church should you be a part of? Why are we about believing Baptists, right? So.
• 58:58
  Anyway, any thoughts about that? No, I think those are really good rules of
• 59:02
  thumb. I didn't think about the distance.
• 59:05
  And also, people don't think about the priorities. Being in this age,
• 59:08
  too, people think about, especially in the U.S., we're very,
• 59:12
  very spoiled Christians.
• 59:13
  We think about our careers first. We think about how much money we can make.
• 59:16
  We think about the houses we want to build, houses we want to live in. It's our comfort.
• 59:21
  Again, it's the flesh. We're appealing to the flesh. So, is it the determining
• 59:25
  factor? It is. And when you talk to other Christians, sometimes you hear that
• 59:30
  come out about their job, the money, the truck, especially here in Texas.
• 59:36
  Everybody loves their big giant pickup trucks and the big houses and stuff like that.
• 59:41
  So, I think that's good to call out is when it comes down to bottom line,
• 59:46
  the most important priority is your local church and being close to one.
• 59:52
  And I like the rule of thumb. If
• 59:54
  it's beyond an hour, you have to give up whatever it is or where you live.
• 59:59
  You think it's important. That you think it's important and where you're comfortable.
• 1:00:03
  And sometimes you have to get uncomfortable to get closer to that local church.
• 1:00:10
  Those are my thoughts, two cents. So, that kind of brings us down,
• 1:00:14
  again, to knowing our history, then, our third point, and why it's important
• 1:00:18
  to study about being Baptist, is our heritage.
• 1:00:22
  We're not going to go through a history lesson, but I want to give at least
• 1:00:26
  a foundation of the historical heritage.
• 1:00:29
  We talked a little bit about it, but we'll probably, that's also going to be,
• 1:00:33
  to me, I think it's going to be an entirely different series to go through historical Baptist.
• 1:00:39
  And maybe we'll do that one day, where we'll just do a character study of a
• 1:00:42
  famous Baptist and just go along, because there's a lot of them,
• 1:00:45
  a lot of great Baptist heroes of the faith.
• 1:00:48
  But what we do find in the Bible is there's two lines of church history that are kind of distinct.
• 1:00:55
  Okay? And, of course, we see this also in history itself.
• 1:00:59
  But in Acts 11, verse 26, the Bible says the disciples were first called Christians
• 1:01:04
  in Antioch. That's Antioch, Syria, just north of Israel.
• 1:01:10
  So what's important about that is that's the first time that Christians were called Christians.
• 1:01:15
  What's interesting is that the manuscripts, the manuscript textual line or the
• 1:01:23
  line of manuscripts that lead up to the Reformation Bibles and then eventually
• 1:01:29
  the culmination of the King James Bible come from Antioch, Syria.
• 1:01:32
  The Syrian manuscripts are considered what we call the majority text or the
• 1:01:37
  received text, because that was the text that was actively used in the production
• 1:01:42
  of the Waldensian Old Latin Velgate.
• 1:01:45
  It was some of the French, the Syriac, which was put out in 250 AD.
• 1:01:51
  I mean, you're talking about 90 years after the book of Revelation was completed.
• 1:01:56
  You know, that they had New Testament translations that match the same underlying
• 1:02:01
  manuscripts that build the King James Bible.
• 1:02:04
  So, when you look at that, and again, I would say, well, I didn't say this before,
• 1:02:08
  but I would say it now is that when you study church history,
• 1:02:11
  you're studying the history of the Bible.
• 1:02:13
  Follow the line of the Bible. So, one distinct line of church history brings
• 1:02:19
  us all the way back, you know, from England, the culmination of the King James
• 1:02:23
  Bible, all the way back to Syria.
• 1:02:26
  Antioch of Syria, which is where the first place they were called Christians.
• 1:02:31
  Then, of course, you have the line of Rome, and that's going to be the line
• 1:02:35
  of religious, this religious system that departed from the faith at some point.
• 1:02:40
  And what you find is that Rome has a very distinct legacy in scripture.
• 1:02:46
  Right? The Bible sets a precedent here.
• 1:02:48
  Their pattern, their reputation is that they're a persecutor of the saints.
• 1:02:52
  Rome beheaded James, Acts chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.
• 1:02:56
  Rome imprisoned Paul, Acts 28, verse 16. Rome crucified the Lord Jesus Christ
• 1:03:01
  in Matthew 27, So you see that the religious history that follows Rome is set
• 1:03:08
  by a biblical precedent.
• 1:03:10
  Antioch, guess what? Antioch at 1126 is where they were first called Christians.
• 1:03:14
  Guess where the heart of the missionary movement was started with Paul and Barnabas
• 1:03:19
  and Paul and Silas was Antioch.
• 1:03:22
  And so that became the missionary basis of the pattern of their paths and their
• 1:03:29
  missionary routes that they took into Asia Minor.
• 1:03:32
  So, there is a precedent that's set.
• 1:03:35
  And, of course, we can follow that through. And we're not, again,
• 1:03:38
  we're not going to go into every detail, but I just wanted to mention that.
• 1:03:40
  But there's an argument, I mentioned it earlier, the John Smith argument,
• 1:03:44
  and that's where critics claim that Baptists started in 1609 with John Smith.
• 1:03:49
  You know, and the problem is, it's a logical error, it's a category error,
• 1:03:53
  because they think that we measure our church's distinction by name alone.
• 1:03:59
  That just because John Smith officially called it the Baptist denomination,
• 1:04:05
  that's where they were born.
• 1:04:08
  What they fail to understand is that we don't measure a church by a label,
• 1:04:13
  we measure it by the doctrine it holds.
• 1:04:16
  That's why understanding these Baptist distinctives are important.
• 1:04:19
  Like I said, when you look at the Waldens and the Paulicians,
• 1:04:22
  the Albigenses, all these different groups, these ancient Baptist groups held
• 1:04:27
  many, if not all of those Baptist distinctives that we'll study.
• 1:04:32
  So, there's historical evidence, you know, not just the Baptist distinctives
• 1:04:37
  doctrinally, but they're historical evidence for the Baptist antiquity.
• 1:04:40
  The Catholic admission, Cardinal Suis, or I can't remember, I don't know how you say his name.
• 1:04:48
  Anyway, it was at the Council on Trent. He admitted in 1524 that at the Council
• 1:04:53
  on Trent, that Anabaptists had already existed for 1,200 years in 1524. So, that's 300.
• 1:05:01
  That puts him about, yeah, it puts it about 380. Yeah.
• 1:05:05
  Then the Diet of Spear, which was in 1529, and this is where Protestantism was
• 1:05:11
  born, and this is where the Reformers, that's where the Diet of Spear is where
• 1:05:15
  Martin Luther was involved in the debates and stuff with Catholics.
• 1:05:18
  At the meeting where the Protestant Reformation was born, the Reformers and
• 1:05:25
  the Catholics agreed to execute Baptists, that they hated Baptists.
• 1:05:31
  So both your protestants and your catholics admitted
• 1:05:35
  1529 remember 1609 the
• 1:05:37
  argument is that that the baptists started in 1609 with
• 1:05:40
  john smith and then of course then here's the
• 1:05:43
  question we have if baptists are protestants then
• 1:05:47
  why did the you know why did that document as far
• 1:05:50
  as the spirit and the catholic admission why these documents
• 1:05:53
  that in the document that they defined what
• 1:05:55
  a protestant was called for the execution of baptists before
• 1:06:00
  1609 clearly conflate if they didn't
• 1:06:02
  exist yeah like why would they say hey you can
• 1:06:05
  persecute us we agree to that i mean
• 1:06:09
  that's the logic but but
• 1:06:12
  that's the key the key is is again that 1609 argument
• 1:06:15
  because catholics and this is i say this because i'm just
• 1:06:17
  telling all our listeners if you start to talk
• 1:06:20
  to catholics about that they are going to bring up john smith they're
• 1:06:24
  going to say oh yeah you guys started in 1609 you know
• 1:06:27
  how could you guys be the original church because their argument is is
• 1:06:30
  that christ started the catholic church and it's been the catholic church since
• 1:06:35
  the first century so they'll say that baptists didn't exist because you guys
• 1:06:40
  are protestants and you didn't start until 1609 after the protestant reformation
• 1:06:45
  so that's the reason why you know bring up some of those facts There's historical
• 1:06:49
  evidence that proves otherwise.
• 1:06:52
  The other thing, too, about this understanding, you know, why studying to be
• 1:06:55
  a Baptist is important, besides our Baptist heritage, is to understand that
• 1:06:59
  there is history and historical evidence that proves those distinctives have been consistent.
• 1:07:04
  But also, because of the future stuff that we've been talking about,
• 1:07:07
  that there is a danger of apostasy.
• 1:07:10
  And apostasy just simply means falling away from a fixed position or moving
• 1:07:15
  away from a fixed position.
• 1:07:16
  So apostasy or total desertion of
• 1:07:20
  the faith is what happens whenever you
• 1:07:23
  start to lose those distinctives when you start to
• 1:07:26
  you know you start to become ignorant of both
• 1:07:29
  the heritage of baptists and those doctrinal distinctions that's why we want
• 1:07:35
  to try to prevent that the warning is if we forget our heritage then obviously
• 1:07:38
  we're destined to repeat a lot of the past mistakes hosea 4 6 bible says my
• 1:07:42
  people are destroyed for lack
• 1:07:44
  of knowledge because that was rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee.
• 1:07:48
  Seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.
• 1:07:51
  Of course, that's a warning to Israel, but that's a principle that applies,
• 1:07:54
  is that if you reject knowledge, then God will reject using you.
• 1:08:00
  So, this departure happens. It's happened in several, you know.
• 1:08:06
  Religious or Christian denominations that have gone into full apostasy.
• 1:08:10
  I mean, there's, you know, some of the movements like the Mennonites,
• 1:08:14
  Seventh-day Adventist.
• 1:08:15
  Some of these groups actually started out as legitimate, you know,
• 1:08:20
  either Baptistic or, you know, Christian denominations.
• 1:08:24
  And eventually they move away. And even some of our fundamentalist Baptists today—.
• 1:08:30
  Started as, you know, you know, started really strong.
• 1:08:33
  And so, there was, you know, there's a Bible teacher, he teaches that the apostasy
• 1:08:38
  happens at five stages, typically. It's a cyclic, you know, pattern.
• 1:08:44
  And what he says, it always starts with a man. And so, for example,
• 1:08:49
  a movement, you know, there's a leader that has great zeal, great character,
• 1:08:54
  great, you know, charisma.
• 1:08:56
  People follow that man you know to
• 1:08:59
  the nth degree then that man the
• 1:09:02
  man stage moves into a movement stage it's no
• 1:09:05
  longer about the man there's a movement that develops so his influence it spreads
• 1:09:09
  into a collective group or a cause around what that man used to stand for and
• 1:09:14
  eventually they start to drop some of the convictions of the man well eventually
• 1:09:19
  that movement turns into something popular.
• 1:09:23
  And maybe now it's making money.
• 1:09:25
  Now it's bringing in, you know, influence and power.
• 1:09:29
  Well, that movement becomes an organization and now it's prioritized by its
• 1:09:33
  own mechanics and self-survival.
• 1:09:36
  Hey, we got to keep the budget going. We got to keep people,
• 1:09:39
  you know, and now it becomes an institution, right?
• 1:09:42
  It becomes a college or it becomes a Bible, you know, a Christian university.
• 1:09:47
  And so, and by the way, you can actually trace this same pattern with Bob Jones,
• 1:09:52
  senior, and then eventually Bob Jones university.
• 1:09:56
  Then it turns into, it goes to a machine, and then eventually it goes into materialism.
• 1:10:02
  And that's where a monument, it goes from machine to monument,
• 1:10:06
  and that's where the focus shifts from honoring the past.
• 1:10:09
  And they're no longer practicing truth and preaching.
• 1:10:14
  So, you know, Bob Jones University would never dare preach the things that Bob
• 1:10:17
  Jones Sr. used to preach.
• 1:10:20
  Right? And then, of course, it turns into materialism, and that's the final
• 1:10:24
  stage where it's just all about power and physical wealth. It's no longer about the Holy Spirit.
• 1:10:30
  It's no longer about the Word of God. It doesn't even resemble a Christian university.
• 1:10:33
  A perfect example would be Brown University in New York, right?
• 1:10:39
  You take Harvard, you take Oxford, you take any of these colleges.
• 1:10:43
  All those colleges, Princeton University was a, Princeton and Harvard were colleges
• 1:10:50
  that were meant to train preachers and evangelists.
• 1:10:54
  That was its primary goal and function.
• 1:10:58
  As a matter of fact, and you've been there, I've been there,
• 1:11:00
  you go to Boston, right? And what do you see on the buildings? You see scripture.
• 1:11:04
  They have scripture all over their buildings.
• 1:11:07
  Because the primary function of those universities used to be training preachers.
• 1:11:11
  They moved away from it. I mean, you go to Princeton or Harvard nowadays,
• 1:11:16
  and you're going to learn about LGBTQ, Marxism, you'll learn about materialism,
• 1:11:22
  the furthest thing from Christian truth.
• 1:11:25
  That's a perfect picture of apostasy. Those universities are no longer what it used to be.
• 1:11:29
  So, those five stages of apostasy can happen to any Baptist church.
• 1:11:36
  The reason I bring it up is because if you as a Baptist believer are not aware
• 1:11:40
  and cognizant of that, you know, that apostasy, that pattern of apostasy,
• 1:11:46
  you can be in danger of being subject to it.
• 1:11:49
  So, what's our responsibility today?
• 1:11:53
  And again, you know, we mentioned the three pillars, right, of the local church,
• 1:11:57
  which is exalting the Savior, edifying the saints, evangelizing the sinners. So, what do we do?
• 1:12:02
  The Bible says in Jude 1.3, it's needful for me to write unto you and exhort
• 1:12:06
  that you should earnestly contend for the faith, which was once delivered unto
• 1:12:11
  the saints. And we can go on and on and on. There's several places.
• 1:12:14
  Ephesians 4, the unity of doctrine, the unity of the faith is what should be
• 1:12:19
  prioritized in a church. Not the unity of, oh, fellowship and food and let's
• 1:12:23
  hang out and, you know, we all dress the same, we all listen to the same music.
• 1:12:28
  You know what I mean? That's not it. We all love the same preacher.
• 1:12:31
  No, no, no, no. It should be unity of doctrine.
• 1:12:33
  It should be unity of the faith.
• 1:12:36
  That's what we should be fighting for. So, you know, in order to maintain those
• 1:12:41
  three, you know, pillars, exalting the Savior, edifying the saints and so forth
• 1:12:46
  and so on, evangelizing sinners, the only way we can do that.
• 1:12:50
  Is to maintain doctrinal purity.
• 1:12:54
  Stewardship of the truth. That's what it comes down to.
• 1:12:58
  If you want to be a faithful Baptist and you want to retain the Baptist convictions
• 1:13:03
  and distinctives that we hold to, it's going to take fighting for what's right. Okay?
• 1:13:10
  So, the argument ultimately about why we're Baptist, it comes down to this. Here's the premise.
• 1:13:16
  There's a biblical standard for what is right as far as the church is concerned.
• 1:13:21
  A valid church identity requires strict adherence to biblical mandates,
• 1:13:27
  governance, how it governs itself,
• 1:13:30
  doctrine, the Great Commission, prioritizing New Testament scriptural authority
• 1:13:34
  over human tradition and preference.
• 1:13:36
  And there's a whole slew of passages that go along with that.
• 1:13:40
  So, there's a biblical standard.
• 1:13:42
  Then, of course, the minor premise, which is a specific example,
• 1:13:45
  is going to be the Baptist alignment.
• 1:13:48
  So, a scripturally rooted historical conviction.
• 1:13:52
  The distinctives that we're going to look at, the B-A-P-T-I-S-T-S,
• 1:13:56
  that they define our essence and the faith that we contend for,
• 1:14:00
  and it's the fabric of true New Testament Christianity, okay?
• 1:14:05
  So, that's the minor preference.
• 1:14:07
  The major premise is there's a biblical standard. The minor premise is the Baptists
• 1:14:11
  follow that biblical standard, and what is the inference to how we get to our conclusion is,
• 1:14:18
  since a valid church identity requires New Testament obedience to Baptist distinctives,
• 1:14:24
  and adopting the Baptist identity is part of that biblical obedience and it's
• 1:14:30
  not a preference, right? What's the conclusion? Therefore—,
• 1:14:34
  and this is what we're arguing for. Therefore, being a Baptist is not a denominational
• 1:14:39
  preference, but it's a necessary conviction derived from understanding and obeying biblical truth.
• 1:14:47
  We are Baptists because it is the logical result of letting the Bible,
• 1:14:53
  rather than tradition or convenience or even our flesh, define the church.
• 1:14:58
  So, when you let the Bible define the church, than the inferences,
• 1:15:03
  then I need to be part of that church.
• 1:15:06
  I'm not part of that church because, oh, I like the leadership of that church.
• 1:15:10
  I like the colors and the decoration. I like how comfortable the pew is. I like the music.
• 1:15:16
  I like the food that they service. I like the fact that they have a coffee bar.
• 1:15:20
  You know what I'm saying? That's not why we pick a church. You pick a church
• 1:15:24
  because it meets the biblical definition of a New Testament church.
• 1:15:29
  And that, my friends, as why we're Baptists.
• 1:15:33
  So, as we study these distinctives, the distinctives will serve as the evidence
• 1:15:38
  of what a New Testament church should consist of and what that New Testament
• 1:15:42
  church should believe as part of its doctrine and statement of faith. So, anyway.
• 1:15:47
  That's the intro. That's it. What do you think? Yeah, I think the one thing
• 1:15:51
  that, somebody that's listening to this, it seems like it's a lot that you were
• 1:15:56
  walking through, all very relevant, very practical, but if there's one thing to walk away with,
• 1:16:01
  is that, and you just said it, we are Baptists because it is the logical result
• 1:16:07
  of letting the Bible rather than tradition or convenience to find the church.
• 1:16:12
  That is why we're Baptists. There's one thing to walk away from.
• 1:16:15
  It's just to remember that.
• 1:16:17
  So more to come. Obviously, the definition of BAP, we're using the acronym, sorry, of BAPTIST.
• 1:16:25
  We're going to run through all of those. So it's going to be a long running
• 1:16:27
  series that will go on for a little while.
• 1:16:29
  It's not, I mean, we'll still intersperse other episodes in between like we've done before.
• 1:16:34
  But just so everybody knows, follow the B-A-P-T-I-S-T acrostic.
• 1:16:39
  And that's really something I would recommend everybody write in your Bible.
• 1:16:43
  You write on the top of it and say, why am I Baptist? And put B-A-P-T-I-S-T-S, right?
• 1:16:49
  Bible is final authority, autonomy of the church, priesthood of the believers,
• 1:16:53
  two ordinances, individual soul of liberty, the saved, regenerated Baptist membership,
• 1:17:00
  and two offices, and separation of church and state.
• 1:17:03
  So once you get those down, the more familiar you become with each of those
• 1:17:09
  distinctives, literally that should be your guidepost when you go into a church.
• 1:17:15
  You can develop your own questions, you can develop your own analysis as to
• 1:17:20
  whether that church fits the biblical pattern of a New Testament church or not.
• 1:17:27
  That's a good framework. And I know it's going to be a lot in these series.
• 1:17:31
  One way to make this sticky and to learn it is pick one of those.
• 1:17:35
  Maybe one week, look at B and Baptist and practice it and apply it.
• 1:17:42
  And focus on that one thing.
• 1:17:45
  And then when you get that one thing down, move on to the next thing.
• 1:17:48
  And when we get our website up, we'll put it in the resources.
• 1:17:51
  One day, we'll get our website up. What we can do, though, what I can probably
• 1:17:56
  do is maybe create a one-pager with the acrostic to kind of break it down,
• 1:18:02
  you know, and then if people want it,
• 1:18:04
  just reach out to us, email us. But here's the condition.
• 1:18:08
  You need to like or subscribe and share our episodes out on your platforms.
• 1:18:15
  On a serious note, that truly does help us.
• 1:18:18
  I'm dead serious, man. You do that, man, I'll get you a one-pager,
• 1:18:22
  you know, of this Baptist acrostic and a layout of it.
• 1:18:25
  Yeah, and a photographic, visual, comic book style, you name it.
• 1:18:30
  That's right. We really do appreciate it.
• 1:18:33
  Yeah, but we just wanted to stand out. I want it to be a help to people.
• 1:18:38
  I mean, the edification of the saints is our priority.
• 1:18:41
  I want it to be said, you know,
• 1:18:44
  when I stand before the Lord, that I did everything that we possibly could to
• 1:18:48
  put truth out there that was digestible and, you know, that it helped and strengthened
• 1:18:55
  the faith of believers. That's what we want.
• 1:19:00
  Go all right well we'll wrap
• 1:19:03
  it up with this one i think it was a great episode to
• 1:19:06
  set the foundation the stage for the rest of the series
• 1:19:08
  and to celebrate our one-year anniversary is a mutable word and i really like
• 1:19:13
  the theme i think that stewardship of the truth should be a theme going forward
• 1:19:18
  and tied to the podcast so stewardship of the truth right absolutely and if
• 1:19:25
  And if you guys don't know,
• 1:19:27
  you know, Alan posted a thing on YouTube today because of our 100th year anniversary.
• 1:19:35
  It feels like 100 years. In the background is actually a picture of our dad's Bible.
• 1:19:41
  So I've got a copy of it. I've been kind of holding on to it.
• 1:19:46
  I plan on getting it rebound.
• 1:19:47
  But man, you know, we've always, that's always been something in the back of my mind.
• 1:19:51
  Our dad, he loved this stuff.
• 1:19:54
  He loved studying the Bible he loved preaching the truth
• 1:19:57
  he was one of those guys that if he could start a television show
• 1:20:00
  start a prison ministry start writing for the newspaper and preaching on a street
• 1:20:05
  and an institute he would have done all three in the same week let's just start
• 1:20:08
  and he had done that back in the day he had a radio industry there was one thing
• 1:20:14
  I don't remember anything that he preached on the radio but I remember one thing
• 1:20:17
  that he'd always used to say,
• 1:20:19
  when he started his radio broadcast he'd always say don't touch that dial you
• 1:20:24
  know when there were dials on radios,
• 1:20:26
  that's the only thing I remember I don't know why but I always think that's funny,
• 1:20:30
  he was a character we miss him but yeah that is the bible so there's a lot of
• 1:20:34
  meaning to that image and we
• 1:20:35
  just wanted to bring that through what we're trying to do today absolutely.
• 1:20:42
  Alright man until next time we will see everybody next week and again thanks
• 1:20:47
  for the support and thanks for listening if you have any questions please feel
• 1:20:50
  free to reach out comment subscribe and all that good stuff See y'all next time.