work through and logistically
deal with. So there's just a lot of stuff
been going on and we trust in the sovereignty of God in it
all. Even though our flesh cries and our flesh is burdened and
we're overrun by fear and doubt, we have to rest in the sufficiency
of God's sovereignty. And I've got several questions
in regard to that tonight. It's interesting because I have
had a short hiatus and I'm going to continue to take a hiatus
personally on Facebook from my personal profile. I'm going to
move away from doing ministry stuff on my personal profile
on Facebook and just going to use the Pastor James H. Tippins
prep page that's been around for about 10 years now. As a
matter of fact, it's been around for 10 years. So, you know, you'll
get those updates there. Grace Truth Church on Facebook
and everything will continue to get updates there. But I'm
just going to move myself out of social media, interacting
on a personal level. I just don't have the time. But
for those of you who have contact information, Messenger, I'm still
available. It's not that I'm disappearing.
I just don't have time to do all of that and to do what God's
called me to do. So I have to take precautions to make sure
that I put priorities in order. And most of all, my household,
I need to make sure that I'm not dividing my time between
things in regard to my family. But we've got a lot of questions.
I'm not going to have the questions printed up on the screen tonight,
so for those of you who are popping in as the broadcast is going,
you may have to back it up a little bit. I have not had a chance
this week to organize them, so I've got a long list that's come
in, and I'm going to go through and answer some of them. as I
think they would be related to something that would help us
out and would be good for the broadcast. And always, please
put your questions in the comments. If you have questions about anything,
even if you're watching this later, like months later, years
later, and you have questions, please you know, post in the
comments or go to Theology, excuse me, I'm trying to give you the
podcast there. Go to anchoringfaith.org and you can ask a question there
or any of the other social media platforms, even on Twitter and
other places. We're happy to answer your questions
as we're able. Well, let's talk tonight about
a few things. I have a lot of scriptural stuff
and a lot of general things speaking to the conscience as well as
sovereignty. And so, just for the sake of
last time we broadcast, I talked about how we should understand
and read the Bible and some basic biblical interpretation and biblical
literacy, you know, things that we should understand. And this
morning I started teaching in Genesis. I'm going to teach in
Genesis for a couple of weeks. Then we're starting in First
Timothy on the Lord's Day. Then I'm going to be flipping
back and to between the New Testament, Old Testament throughout the
next year or so, getting more of a fuller appreciation and
also the exposition of the Old Testament in light of the gospel.
And so tonight I'm picking some questions that have to do with
certain aspects of Christian living. aspects of fear, aspects
of understanding how we should live. Because here's what happens. We get into some of these, I
don't want to say ruts, but we get into some of these ditches,
if you will. We get into the ditch sometimes
of always dealing with doctrine, always dealing with doctrine.
When I say doctrine, the word literally means teaching. But
what I mean by that is sometimes we get into the theological corners
of the Christian faith, and we never really get into the ring.
We never get off in the ditch, back on the road. And 85% or
so of the instruction of the New Testament is how we relate
to one another in the context of the gospel, how we live together,
how we deal with conflict. questions about how to deal with
conflict and things of that nature. So we have to have a balance,
if I can say that. It's not necessarily a balance,
but we have to have the ability to be instructed in the Bible,
not just that this is true concerning Jesus, but this is true from
the mouth of Jesus as a command to the apostles. And so we've
got to live. We have a certain way in which
we are to live, according to the New Testament. And there's
a lot of people who don't like that, and I don't understand
that. I don't understand How we can say that we glorify God,
but we ignore the instruction of the New Testament. How we
say that we love God and we're defending truth, but we refuse.
And let me tell you what it means to refuse. To refuse the instruction
of the Scripture from any person is to slap Christ. It's to spit
on Him. It's to spurn Him. It's to punch Him in the face
and to mock Him, because He has commanded these things. Now a
lot of folks go, that's very offensive. You better believe
it's offensive. And if we feel offended when that is approached
in that way, it's because we are in sin. We are in sin and
our flesh has come against the very teaching of Christ himself.
So I want us to really just relax a little bit tonight. And let's
talk about some of these things. And some of these questions are
back from the beginning of May. And so let's just get to them.
The first question is this. Scripture clearly teaches that
God is sovereign in salvation. Also, God commands in the Bible,
repeatedly, that people are to believe in Christ. And some examples
are given there. Peter, in his Pentecost sermon,
says to the crowd, who says, what shall we do? He says, believe
in the Lord Jesus. So how am I supposed to address
the issue or the tension between God's sovereignty and salvation
and man's responsibility? Now, I'm going to go ahead and
say this from the onset. That question is one that to get into that language, to
get into those words, requires a historical foundation. And I'm not going to be doing
anything in that nature anymore. I'm not going to deal with historical
uses of words or historical theology whatsoever unless it's specifically
asked of me. What I want to do is to constantly
deal with what is derived from Scripture. So in Peter's preaching
at Pentecost, when they said, what shall we do? He's speaking
to Jews. Okay, so when Jesus, I mean,
when Peter is preaching to these Jews, and he's preaching Moses,
he's preaching the Old Testament promises of salvation through
Messiah, Neshek, the Christ, the Holy Anointed One that comes
from God. which is the claim that Jesus
continued to take. He is the one that came down from heaven.
He is one sent by the Father, and so on and so forth. And then
he preaches this. Then he preaches the earthly
ministry. He tells the story of the earthly
ministry of Jesus. He tells the story that God the
Son came into the world to save his people from their sins. He
tells the story that the prophets and all that the Old Testament
has pointed to has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He tells the
story of God's righteousness. See, this is what evangelism
is. It's tell the story of the Bible about the righteousness
of God and the election of His people, satisfying His own righteousness
through the Son whom He has given. and all the little details that
the scripture teaches in that we you know we sometimes we can't
get to them all but in a nutshell you know peter preached and preached
and preached and he preached all of this he preached the prophets
he preached christ he showed the redemption that came through
this the sacrificial atonement and the substitution that Christ
made for a particular people. This is what Peter preached.
He didn't preach this idea of Jesus died, and if you believe
he died for you, you get salvation. He didn't preach that. Peter
preached salvation finished for the elect of God. Peter preached
the fullness of the glory of God revealed and the creation
of the world for the point of Christ becoming the Lamb of God
to take away the sins of the people of God. And so when we
get into this idea of human responsibility and God's sovereignty, it's really
a misapplication of comparisons. So you cannot put sovereignty
in the net of what has man got to do with sovereignty. Man has
nothing to do with sovereignty. Man has everything to do with
being a sinner. Man is a recipient of God's grace
and not just man but sinners and not just human sinners but
elect human sinners are the recipient of God's grace. God's grace being
that salvific work of an atoning work through Jesus Christ alone
that was effectual unto redemption, unto forgiveness, and unto the
promise fulfilled of eternal life for the people for whom
it was intended. And so when we try to say how
do we deal with the tension between sovereignty and responsibility,
here's the responsibility of all men to submit to and obey
God. So the gospel in proclamation
is also a command. So the command is believe in
what I'm saying." So when Peter said to them, you need to change
the way you're thinking and believe in what I just taught you, he
says that. We use the English variation of this, repent and
believe the gospel, believe the story that I just said that's
good, the good news that I just told you. And so what he's telling
the Jews to do when he preaches and they ask that question, He's
basically saying, I just told you. I just told you what you
can't do. I told you what God did. So here
is how we answer this question. God has finished salvation. God
has applied that salvation to His elect. God's elect are, indeed,
going to receive eternal life because they cannot be lost.
God's elect will, at the time God has allowed according to
John 3, as the Spirit wishes, will change the heart of these
sinners so that they will know that they have been forgiven
in the death of Christ, and that they will know that there is
eternal life through the promises of the power of God, and so on
and so forth. So the responsibility of all
men are to obey God. Adam's responsibility was to
obey God and to enjoy Him and to flourish, but yet that was
not God's purpose. That was not God's decree. God's
decree was that His elect would enjoy Him. His elect would submit
to Him. His elect would find the fulfillment
of true life, the light of God's glory, and the salvation that
He finished in Christ Jesus. And only His elect are going
to find that. But it's not a fulfilled reality in its fullness. In other
words, we don't have the glorification. We're still living in the sinful
body. We still have this struggle in our mind, in our hearts, and
with people, and this world, and sickness, and all sorts of
things. But we will one day be glorified to be like Him. So
we will share in the glory. We'll share in the magnificence
of who Christ is in His glorified person. Not that we would become
God, but we will become completely righteous because God will make
us that way. Even though now our righteousness
is not our own, it is Christ, and Christ will always be our
righteousness. But that transformative reality of glorification, and
the Bible doesn't tell us what it is. So if I say it's going
to be like this, it's just a simile. It's just a speculative idealism
that Tippins in his poetic stupidity may decide to lay down on the
paper of time. But ultimately we don't know
what that's like, but we do know we will forever be sinless. We
will forever be free from all issues related to sin. We will
forever be freed from not just death and suffering, but we will
be freed from the sinful nature that continually plagues us now.
So the tension is really that all of humanity, all things have
responsibility for them to do that which God commands, but
God has the responsibility of sovereignly causing his people
to know what he has done on their behalf. So I could go on and
on and on and continue to talk about that, but it's an age-old
argument, an age-old dichotomy, if you will, where people are
constantly worried about, you know, how do we handle this?
How do we answer that? So I think for a short answer to this in
the sense of where you may be talking to someone, Well, the
Bible commands, why would God command that which can't be done?
Because He's God and He expects it. You know, God has done the
work of redemption sovereignly, and that work of redemption will
be granted in repentance by the Spirit to those for whom it applies
as the Spirit desires and wishes when He wishes. And when they
are granted that, they are given the gift of faith to believe
in the proclamation and also the command of God, and they
will believe because God gives them faith to believe. And the
faith is the fruit of the finished work of Christ and the regeneration
of the new birth of the Holy Spirit. Faith is the result of
that. And that's what the, you know, for those of you who have
followed in our John series, if you go and find on thegraystreet.org,
you can see the, or Sermon Audio, you can see, you know, around
chapters one, two, and three, you can see chapter three, where
we teach about regeneration. And so I'd really encourage you
if you have those questions to, you know, to seek that out and
to read the scripture yourself and then look at, and if you
want to know my thoughts and how I exegete that, you can certainly
do that. The next question we have tonight,
question number two, is what is gossip? What is gossip? Well, gossip is defined in this
way. Peter says that it's murder.
The scripture talks about it being the heart of pride, the
heart of arrogance, it comes from a heart of enjoying talking
about someone else. And here's how we should define
gossip, because gossip is non-edifying. Okay, so if one of you, if some
of us have a conversation, let's say you and I have a conversation,
and it's a pleasant conversation, and you share something that's
great, and you say, man, this is just great, the Lord has shown
me this, and the Lord has shown me that, and I'm joyful, et cetera.
And another conversation I have with another person, and I don't
even mention your name, and I say, yeah, I spoke with a sister or
brother today, and they were rejoicing about the word of God
teaching this. Isn't that great? That's not gossip, but it could
be gossip if I said, oh yeah, so-and-so, they were going through
a lot of problems, and then they said this, and then the Word
of God taught them this. If I've done that without your presence
or your permission, I've gossiped. Let's just say something bad
has happened, and this is one of the things that, you know,
pastor elders have to really pay close attention. We don't
get to just share and talk freely because the congregation and
they confide in us. So we have to go to our grave
with a lot of information concerning people. And if we share that
stuff, even in theory, if we share that stuff even without
name, we are actually sinning against God and against the person
who told us these things in confidence. So gossip then should be understood
as a way of talking about a person or in relation to a person that's
non-edifying or that could be misrepresented, even if it's
true. Gossip is not lying. That's false
witness. Bearing false witness is not
gossip. Gossip is telling the truth about someone. and in an
attempt to not edify them. So anything that we say about
anyone that is not, for example, look at the memes during election
time and we talk trash about politicians, that's gossip. And
not only that, it's actually murder according to what the
scripture says. And then so should we ever do it in the context
of the kingdom of heaven? Should we ever talk trash about
people? Should we ever tell the truth negatively? Because here's
what is the point? What's the point when we say
something? Well, I've got to keep it real. You don't have
to keep it real, you need to shut your mouth. And, you know, if I were in my flesh,
I would shut it for you. That kind of thing. That's what
my grandparents used to say. If you boy, I'm going to teach
you. My dad used to always have this little colloquialism. He'd
say, don't let your mouth write a check that your butt cannot
cash. And never really understood that until I had my own kids.
But, you know, that's what we do. We overflow at the mouth.
And Jesus says it this way. is that out of the overflow of
the heart, the mouth speaks. So you can tell where the heart
of someone is. You can tell if the person is
led by the Spirit of God based on how they communicate, based
on how they talk about problems, based on how they communicate
with others because of their fears or concerns. And if it's
always negative and it's always fear and it's always fear mongering
and it's always these things and it's always negative about
other people and what they're not doing and how they're wrong
and all this other kind of stuff, There's no room for reconciliation. The
Spirit of God is not in that discussion, and it is absolutely
murderous 100% of the time. There's no exception whatsoever
in any situation, any circumstance, any time in the history of humanity
from the very beginning breath of Adam to the very last breath
before the trumpet call to glory. It is always murder, and we will
be held accountable for every word that comes out of our mouth.
I don't know what that means because we're not going to be
condemned, but I think there is a level in which we will have a greater
joy knowing that we have put away the flesh and put away sin.
I mean, you think about it. If I say something because I'm
frustrated or angry or that I want to prove a point, or I think
I'm some kind of a divine-inspired soldier for the Lord, and I come
out and I say something negative against someone, and then the
Bible and all of its wisdom, the Word of God and all of the
wisdom there teach us how to handle it, and the people handle
the problem, and then I've spread all of this garbage, guess what?
I have to unspread all the garbage and say, I'm the wicked murderer.
I'm the one who is in sin. But do we typically do that?
No, because our pride prohibits us to do that. So we divorce
ourselves from the very relationships that God has established for
us. And that's not just in the church, that's anywhere. Gossip.
is always saying things about someone else that does not edify
them to others. That's why a lot of prayer meetings
are just gossips. You know, we'll pray for Brother
James. You know, he lost his temper last week and he punched
his wall and he kicked his dog and he threw out his wife's flowers.
You see what I'm saying? There's no way. You can't escape
it. You can't get away from it. But we're all so inclined to
do it. We find ourselves looking at the People magazines on the
the People magazines on the end caps of the cash registers and
the tabloids, and we just enjoy that kind of stuff as humanity,
but we don't realize it until long after it's over that we've
engaged in it. And here's another way that gossip is actuated,
is that when we listen to it. Hey, Passion, I want to tell
you about so-and-so. You better not. You better not tell me about
so-and-so. I don't want to hear about so-and-so." Now, there is a sense in which
people are trying to get, you know, to get wisdom. But you
know what, beloved? Most of the time, we can gain
wisdom on a situation from the biblical point of view of things
without even disclosing any details whatsoever about the circumstance.
How do I deal with a person who is doing this? Or how do I deal
with a person who is talking about me? How do I deal for a
person who stole from me? How do I deal with a person?
How do I deal with this conflict? How do I deal with, generally,
conflict? No matter what kind of conflict,
and if the scripture teaches us what to do, and one of the biggest
things that we do is we never, ever, ever speak evil of anyone,
even if it is true that they are evil. Wow, I didn't mean
to say that much in the context of gossip, but beloved, I had
five people ask me about gossip for just in the last two weeks,
so I figured I better answer it. The next question, question
number three is, are unbelievers part of the church? Now, this
is a little switchy here, because the word church in and of itself
means institution. The word church comes from the
word kirk, and I can share the etymology all the way back, you
know, for centuries. that the word ecclesia and the
word church are not the same words. The word church means
institutional organization. The word gathering or assembly
is a group of people, whether they are worshiping Jesus, whether
they're voting, whether they're watching a ball game. The word
ecclesia means assembly. So if you go to a football game,
that is an ecclesia. That's the Greek word for ecclesia. In the
New Testament, it uses it there, you know, about the procouncil.
It uses it there in Ephesus, the idea of they all church,
they all ecclesiad together, you know, almost into a riot.
So it's not exclusively meaning believers. So when we say the
word church, we're not talking about believers. We're talking
about the gathering that believers do. And amongst that gathering,
the New Testament, you understand, it was not exclusive. Membership
is exclusive, but the gathering is not exclusive. Covenant is
exclusive, but the gathering is not exclusive. We can have
friends, but we only have one spouse. And so in the New Testament,
it's very clear that the gatherings of the church comprise people
who are curious as to what's going on, people who are greedy
and trying to get a handout, people who are trying to malign
and stir up trouble, people who are genuinely believers, people
who are immature, people who are wise, people who are all
in between, people of all walks of life, rich people and influent
people and powerful people and weak people and broken people
and mentally ill people. And everywhere you look in the
New Testament, we see a wide view of people who gather together,
and then we see the religious coming, thinking they're pretty
good, and we see people who say that they're in Christ, but yet
after a while you realize, well, their testimony's not quite there,
something's odd, or maybe you come to find out they don't even
believe the gospel. But ultimately, the church is always going to
be comprised, the gatherings are always going to be comprised
of all sorts of different types of people who, in some shape
or form, desire some type of connectivity with the gospel
message being preached from the pulpit. So the question I'd like
to answer this morning, what is a gospel church? Well, a gospel
church is where there are at least two or more people who
are truly in the faith gathering under the oversight and the teaching
of elders who preach the true gospel of free and sovereign
grace. And that is the assembly. and that is going to always be
the only way we can define the assembly whatsoever until we
get to the Hebrews 12 assembly which is the pure assembly of
the festal gatherings of the angels and the saints of all
time together ultimately and finally forever never to cease
worshiping our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ together. So, unbelievers
are going to be part of the church. And when we recognize them, we
have the clear and solid instruction of the Bible on how to do it.
Pastor elders are the only ones in the body who are authorized
to deal with that type of discipline. and everybody else has to hush
and deal with things accordingly, whether it be infidelity, whether
it be doctrinal issues, whether it just be absolute being a knucklehead
and not doing that which the Bible calls. You realize whether
you have a doctrinal error or a behavior error, it's equally
evil in the eyes of the New Testament apostles because they say both
of those things are immediate and ultimate grounds when they
become divisive in either our behavior or error. They are grounds
for excommunication, and that is a public event whereby we
tell people, not that you can't come to the assembly, the assembly
is a public meeting, but that the body, that the church of
Christ can no longer have anything to do with you whatsoever. They
can't feed you, they can't pray for you, they can't talk to you,
they can't meet with you, they cannot have life with you, because it
is a cancer that eats the church. So there's a lot there, and ecclesiology
is something that I think is very waning. People don't understand
it. People have decided that they
want to be sort of like Israel. Listen, folks, the nation of
Israel, people like to make parallels, but they're just ignorant as
a rock when it comes to that kind of stuff and dumb as a hammer,
as I like to say. And that's what we do. We create
our own ideas. But, you know, even in the Old
Testament, Israel was a majority unbelievers and a small remnant. So even in the local assembly
of saints, you're going to have you're gonna have a remnant of
believers that throughout time, we're gonna see an ebb and flow
of people come in and out of the faith. I see it all the time.
I mean, almost 23 years now, I've been in the ministry and
I've seen more people come into the fold and profess the gospel
and profess to wanna be intimate, but then after a month, a year
or 10 years, they just fly out because something rubs them the
wrong way and they're not willing to submit to the word of God
in correction or intimacy. And so you're gonna have that.
You're gonna have that. Good question. Number four. Back to
the sovereignty issue, question number four says, when thinking
of sovereignty, how deep does this go? Am I able to trust God's
promises and God's power in all things? What about if I make
the wrong choice in life? Now, this is a good question.
Now, we talked a little bit about it this morning in Genesis chapter
1, verses 1 and 2. And we could go to Isaiah, we
could go to the Psalms, we could look and see all sorts of things
in the context of the prophets where God spoke through the prophets
and said, hey, look, my ways, I'll always do what I want. God is in the heavens. He does
as He pleases. He causes this and that. What does Isaiah say?
God says to Isaiah that He causes a bird to fly over here and a
man to move over here. He does all that He wishes. The
scripture teaches continually that God is in control of all
things. I mean, you look at the first
century. Now, you take the first century as a news report. Excuse
me, not the first century. You take the gospel account as
a news report. Take the book of Acts. Take the gospel of Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John. Put them together. Get the real
historicity of that as it's done. And people have tried. They put
it on the silver screen. Now, just paint this picture
in your own mind for a second. Here is this man who disappeared,
and they saw him for a little bit when he was 12, and then
they see him again for a long, long time. And all of a sudden,
this other man comes out they didn't see for a while. He's
preaching the kingdom of God is at hand. Change the way you're
thinking and believe. in the gospel, the good news
of Messiah, the Lamb of God. And you see all this turmoil.
You see the religious leaders. You see people being separated
from their families. You see all this stuff. You see
the political powers of Rome. Now put it in the news. Put it
in the BBC. Put it in Al Jazeera. Put it on CNN or Fox or whatever.
And you see it. What would we think? Oh, good
Lord, help us. Oh, my goodness, look what's
going on in the Middle East. Oh, my gosh, look what's happening
there. See, this all took place in Palestine. Palestine is the
whole area and which is to Asia Minor, Palestine specifically.
And we would have been freaked out. And the people of that day
were all freaked out. Everything was freaked out. Everybody
was just going insane, worried. Now imagine if they had had all
the information all the time being reported to them constantly.
Wow, what would it be like? It'd be like we are today. We're
scared to death of everything. We have conditioned ourselves
to not believe in the sovereignty of God. We've conditioned ourselves
into being self-sufficient in our fears, self-sufficient in
our knowledge and wisdom, self-sufficient while all the while praising
God for His sovereignty, praising God. And this is what we do.
We come to the place of literally giving into our flesh, thinking
that we're actually believing in the Lord and His power, but
ultimately we're not. We're just giving into the culture
around us. But yet all through that, there's never going to
be a time as volatile as the days of Jesus' ministry, those
four years that he was on the earth, politically, spiritually,
religiously, at all. You may think it's bad in some
places, but it's not. There's never going to be a time
that's going to be more volatile than it was then on the social
sphere, the political sphere, and the spiritual sphere, and
religious sphere. Look at the Pharisees. Look at
Rome and all of that. And they were killing people
on crosses. And then they kill this man who was exonerated by
Pilate because it was better to kill him than for the relationship
between the Jews and Rome to start butting heads. So they
kill him. Imagine seeing the news of this.
and hearing about, oh, the outrage, oh, my goodness, we're gonna
go over there, oh, president, we're gonna write letters to
our congressman, we gotta do something about this. But what does the
scripture teach us? What do the apostles say? What
does Jesus say? I lay down my life when I'm ready,
and I take it up again. What did he tell Pilate? You have no power over me, Pilate.
And he didn't say it in a haughty way like I'm just laughing, it
just, it makes me giggle in a sense. Don't you know I have the power
to set you free or to take your life? And Jesus says, you don't
have any power over me. You have no power, you can't
do anything. All this stuff that you think's happening, none of
it is happening outside my Father's power and purpose and providence. It is all my Father's doing in
his decree and I will lay down my life when the time comes and
I alone will take it up again. You can't kill me until I'm ready
to lay my life down for my people. things aren't as bad right now,
yet we all live as though things are at the end of the line. I
yelled out the other day, I feel like Chicken Little. That's exactly
what, I said that out loud. And I was not talking to anyone.
I was not near anyone. I was just walking, minding my
own business. And I was going through my brain and all this
weirdness that I have in my brain. And I literally just was having
these arguments with myself. And I role play, like I'm talking
to somebody or whatever. And then it just, I was overcome
with anxiety and I just yelled out. I felt like Chicken Little.
The sky's falling. Everything's terrible. You know,
the world is coming to an end. And in a humorous sense, but
also in a very somber way, the Spirit of God reminded me of
what the Scripture teaches, is that God is sovereignty. God
is absolutely sovereign, and His sovereignty rules every aspect
of my day. You know, wow, the computer didn't
reboot. Goodness, Theology on Call's got to go. Listen, God's
sovereign over that. I get a piece of dirt in my eye,
God's sovereign over that. I twist my ankle all up and it
swells up this big and I can't walk for a week, God is sovereign
over that. God is sovereign over everything.
So that in everything, and that means everything, and specifically
the bad things, I am able to rest. And there's one prescription
that gives us the promise of that joy. And that is to know
the gospel and stay connected with those who know the gospel,
no matter what. And God's prescribed remedy for
all this fear and to see his sovereignty is to hold fast in
the midst of the greatest storms. I mean, you look at the imagery
that comes out of just seeing how the disciples slept. I mean,
the disciples were upset that Jesus was sleeping in the midst
of the storm on the sea, remember? And they were like, we're just
gonna perish. And he stands up and he's like, shh, and the whole
storm stops. You know, my grandmother used
to sing a song, I Know the Master of the Wind, I Know the Maker
of the Waves, or something of that nature. It's a powerful,
powerful song because it's true. We do know the maker of the waves.
We do know the one who ordered the cosmos in order to provide
the perfect place to grow a human being who are his elect, that
he may multiply them on the earth. Even through reprobate people,
God's elect are born. I want you to think about that
for a second. Election is not a genealogical reality. Election
is a sovereign reality of grace alone, and it is freely given
as God sees fit. So many of the elect are born
through reprobate homes, and many of the elect's children
may be reprobate. God multiplies His glory in the
manifestation of the gospel and bringing His people to the truth
of the cross of Christ and to the truth of the good news of
His redemptive promises, and nothing can stop Him. So if the
whole world, hurricanes included, see there's two storm systems
that are out there. You don't know. One day I'll
take a picture of what I'm looking at right now, which has got some
cameras and some screens, about four screens here, and I'll show
you that one of them during the day has a National Hurricane
Center map on it. But even in the hurricanes, God
is bringing all things under his feet so that his elect may
come to know the knowledge of him. And we can rest in that. What's the worst that happens?
We lose our lives and stand before our King? It's really not that
bad, guys. It really is skipping all of the playtime and getting
right to the real. It's skipping the shadow and
going straight to the promise. So, yeah, if we make wrong choices,
I pray that we grow in wisdom, but beloved, we don't get to
dictate how God does his promises based on the choices we make.
God's promises are yay and amen, period, without James even in
the equation, without my decisions even being part of the makeup.
It's not even in the jar. Everything that I do and everything
that I am and everything that I'm ever going to be is relative
to what God has already done and accomplished and decreed
for me. So no matter which way I'm going or which way you're
going, God's always going to bring us to the same place if
we belong to Him. And if we don't, He'll bring
them to the same place, too. Question number five. How can
my conscience, how can my conscience be my guide if I'm not supposed
to listen to my heart or mind? Well, let me tell you something,
beloved. The only place we see the conscience
being an issue is when someone thinks a practice may or may
not be right for them. All right. We pay attention to
them. I think I put this on Facebook
a couple of weeks ago when this question was asked of me. Our conscience, what we think
and how we feel sometimes, our emotions, let's just use conscience
as, because conscience is emotion. We feel something because of
something we think, and vice versa, that causes thinking,
and our conscience and our emotions are like a warning light on a
car. I have a 2006 Tahoe, and the check engine light is on
permanently. I've taken it in, my mechanic says, it's a $700
part, That's probably going to fail again. It's an electrical
problem with this particular year. Nothing's wrong. It's not
running lean. Everything is fine. You want me to replace it or
not? No, I don't. I don't want to spend the money
on something that's not necessary. But then I started thinking,
well, what happens when something is wrong and the light doesn't
come on again? He says, well, if it gets any
worse, it'll start blinking, you know, whatever. So we pay attention
to the warning lights. We pay attention to the blinkers
on the cars in front of us. And sometimes people will put
a blinker on and never turn. It's just blinking, blinking, blinking,
blinking, blinking. Well, The emotions in our thoughts, in
our mind, in our conscience, we pay attention to them, but
we arrest them. We take them and go, okay, here's a picture
of what I'm thinking, feeling. snapshot, screenshot if you will.
Now let's take it and let's put it in front of the scripture.
Let's put it in front of the scripture. What am I feeling? I'm feeling a burden. What does
the scripture say when we're feeling a burden? We rest in
Christ and we pray for that burden. We ask, we receive not because
we ask not. That's some James stuff we're
going to get into in a couple of months on midweek. So we feel
burdened. We don't act in any other way
except to pray. Oh, we don't know what to do. We have no wisdom. What does James say? We ask and
God gives without reproach freely to all who ask, but we have to
ask in faith. We don't get the immediate answer. So what do
we do in the meantime? Oh no, we do exactly what God
has commanded for us to do. We maintain a steadfastness in
the steadfastness of Christ, the one who stands forever for
us. Like in Stephen, he looks up and he sees Jesus in the right
hand of majesty standing on his behalf, standing to receive him.
And we hold fast to the command to not forsake the assembly.
We gather together with the saints as we're able to do. and we come
to rest in the perfection of what God has promised, in the
certainty of what God has promised. We're fearful. Why would you
fear? What is fear except a lack of faith and knowing that God
will establish what he's promised for us. So we rest, we pray,
we ask others to pray with us. we learn, and most importantly,
we serve the body. We serve the body and we submit
to those who are keeping a watch over our souls because they will
help guide and direct us in these ways and in these places of great
turmoil so that our conscience may be a guide to not violate
on certain aspects. But if you'll notice when Paul
talks about the conscience, he says that there are people with
weak consciences and that we should, as mature believers,
especially in Romans, not flaunt our liberty. We're free and we're
not worried about these things anymore, but some people are.
And these are always in these, you know, do I do this? Do I
do that? Do I do the other? And what does the scripture say?
That we who are more mature, who have the liberty, should
be careful not to offend our weaker brothers and sisters.
But at the same time, we don't let them stay in that weak place.
We press them. We say, listen, I hear what you're
saying and I understand. And you don't have to. However,
you can't live in fear of this. Because God has established this
in His Word. God has promised this in His
Word. And beloved, everything fits in that prescription. Everything
fits in that scaffolding. Everything fits in those promises.
God is able to do it. God is able to do it. Sometimes
our faith is weak and our faith is strong. And when our faith
is weak, our conscience will dictate to us how we do life
and the decisions we make. And we have this fight or flight
idea. And some of us want to fight
and some of us want to fly. And we've got to make sure that
we're resting and standing on the foundation of Christ. And
there's nothing that I can say to you to cause you to do that.
It has to be the Spirit of God. Some people don't want to hear
this kind of counsel from me because they just think it's
ridiculous. Well, that's fine. But I'm telling
you, the scripture says this. And when God shows you, you won't
see that it's ridiculous. It's not my ideas. It's the Word
of God. It's what Scripture would teach
us. Question number six. Question number six. What does
it mean to spurn the Son of God? How do we spurn Christ? Well,
this is a loaded question, and I came up with a conversation
that I had and some things that I've said. over the last few
months, but ultimately there's one major way in Hebrews. Um,
it talks about spurning the son of God. And if we look at that
text, uh, I'm just going to pull it up on my screen so I can,
I can see a little bit better. Uh, but if we pull up that text
in Hebrews, the context there is talking about, excuse me,
is, is talking about in Hebrews 10, I've got all sorts of windows
open here. I do apologize. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get
these questions posted ahead of time so that you could see
them. But in Hebrews chapter 10, Paul
is writing about this covenant, and he's talking about how the
finished work of Christ as a high priest is done, that salvation
is finished, that there is no sacrifice for sin whatsoever.
And if we start in verse 19, of chapter 10 of Hebrews, you'll
see this incredible, incredible exposition of confidence, of
assurance, of solidity, of foundation through the promise of God for
His people to be always secure in the finished work of Christ.
And so he reiterates the gospel and he says, therefore, brothers,
as we have confidence to enter into the holy places by the blood
of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened up through
the curtain, that is through his flesh. And since we have
a great high priest over the house of God, he gives a command
there. Let us draw near with a true
heart. in full assurance of faith with
our hearts clean, our consciences clean before God from an evil
conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. This is the
regenerative idea of having the liberty to stand in the presence
of God without fear and guilt and shame and condemnation because
Christ's blood has satisfied the wrath of God for his people.
So we don't cower before God, we stand before God in his presence
clean. And then in verse 24, and then
he says, let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without
wavering. Don't be wishy-washy. Don't know
what the Bible says, as James would say, and then do something
else. Don't ask for wisdom. We have wisdom who is Jesus Christ. So let us hold fast to the confession
of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful.
So we stand, our wavering is not how close we are to God.
I mean, that's what, you know, we waver because we think, oh,
I'm doing it wrong. I'm living on whatever. But we
don't waver because the work of Christ, Christ has brought
us near to him. We can't get away. He has grabbed
hold of us and we can't get away because he who promised is faithful.
Verse 24 of chapter 10, it says, and let us consider, let us always
be thinking how we can stir each other up to love and to the service
of the church. That's what the good works are
there. and not neglecting to meet together as some are in
the habit of doing, but always encouraging one another more
and more and more and more and more and more until the day of
Jesus Christ. So our number one goal as Christians is to be encouraging
each other to serve other believers and to put away our flesh and
our needs because if we're serving, somebody else will be serving
us. You see what I'm saying? And so in that, In verse 26, there's
this warning passage, and we've just finished Hebrews a couple
of months back. But it says, for if we go on
deliberately sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there
no longer remains a sacrifice for sin. So what's he doing? He's still talking about his
context there. He gave some instruction. He
gave some warnings. He gave some encouragement and
admonishment to the body, to the believers. And then he goes
on to give, in a sense, not talking to believers, but talking about
those who are feeling like they just need to give up and throw
their hands up and walk away from the body of Christ. I'm
gonna tell you now, this is the context here. Because the heat
that's on them is pressed by men, humanity, the peers, the
family, the others, continually pressed there, and they're willing
to walk away from the very nature of what Christ has done to the
point that they're willing to say there's gotta, because what's
the context of them wanting to walk away from the body? they'd
rather go back into Judaism. You got to understand that now.
They're talking about leaving the Christian faith and the saints
and going back into the practice of sacrificing at the temple
because it would take the heat off of them. This isn't a complete
parallel for every time somebody gets upset and leaves the church
now. This is specifically in this context. So if we know the
truth, and we continue to not rest in the truth, we don't believe.
And so all we have is a fearful expectation of judgment, a fury
of fire that will consume the adversaries. Now that's not for
us. That's for what? That's for unbelievers, and that's
more specifically for reprobate people. Anyone who has set aside
the law of Moses dies without mercy, just on the evidence of
two or three. How much worse punishment then do you think?
will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son
of God and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was
sanctified and has outraged the Spirit of grace. Don't we know,
Paul says, vengeance is mine, I will repay. And it says the
Lord will judge his people. And he remarks in verse 31, it's
a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
And then he says, don't give up, don't give up. So in this
question now, that's where we see spurning the Son of God.
We see that idea of spurning the Son of God, and spurning
the Son of God is to shrink back into the law after being taught
grace. That's the purest way to answer
that question. But there's also a way we spurn
the Lord, in that once he also teaches us the remedy for other
things, We just go, ah, there's gotta be another way. I'll handle
this on my own. Now, it's not the same manner. It's not with the same severity.
It's definitely not an eternal issue. But I like to say it that
way because what does James say? In James chapter one, James says
that anyone needs wisdom, just ask. And God, who gives freely
to all, gives so without saying, oh, here you go, dummy. He gives
it freely without reproach. I preached that a couple of weeks
ago, midweek. And in doing so, he says, but
there's a condition in which you can receive wisdom. You've
got to receive wisdom by faith, knowing that God will grant that
wisdom. So part of that granting wisdom is to be patient, waiting
on the Lord to resolve whatever it is we need wisdom for. Waiting
on the Lord's word and then the collaboration around the word
and prayerfully, without fear, but prayerfully in faith to rest
on what God has promised. So this is part of Christian
living. This is what shepherds are supposed
to be doing. This is why preaching is so important. I think we got
the doctrines right. I think we keep on pressing the
gospel. We always preach the gospel of Christ. We always preach
the cross. We always remind each other every single moment as
we're able that the gospel is this, and his name is Jesus,
and we are satisfactory to the Father, because Christ has taken
away our sins, but we don't then forget about the therefores.
Then we walk into the therefores. And sometimes when we are lacking
wisdom, and we know what the scripture says, James says, but
we don't do it, we're like being tossed to and fro like a wave
in the sea. And I think that that, in a sense, is a way of
spurning the Son of God. I think there's a sense in spurning
the Son of God when we treat brothers and sisters, when we
treat our enemies, when we treat our neighbors in a hateful way,
when we gossip. Because what we do is we say,
well, this is the example of Christ, but I don't have to follow
it. I don't have to follow it. And we know that's not true.
We don't walk in that way. We desire to walk in a manner
worthy of the gospel. And so that's what we do. And
we do so by faith, knowing that no matter how well or not well
we walk, it does not change our relationship with the Father
who purchased us through the blood of Jesus and our salvation
is complete. But when we are together, when we learn the full
counsel of God's Word, which is the gospel and living together
as gospel recipients, when we learn the full counsel of God's
Word, we begin to strive out of worship and gratitude because
of what God has done for us. And then our joy is completed
because we're no longer being snatched around. We're solid.
We stand solidly on the truth who is Jesus Christ. Question
number seven, isn't simple faith just saying that Jesus is the
only way to heaven? Isn't that all that is required for salvation?
Growing up as a child, I was taught that all you had to do
was know that Jesus was the way. Well, that sounds really interesting,
but you've got to understand something, that evangelism is
the teaching of the story of Jesus, which is to teach the
promise of God for salvation, which is to go into the Jewish
history. You see, in John chapter 4, when
Jesus was talking to the woman at Sychar, let me just pull it
up. John chapter 4, when Jesus was talking to the woman at Sychar,
he, you know, she was around Jewish tradition. She had grown
up learning these things. She claimed Jacob as her own
spiritual father. But Jesus says something extremely
interesting here when he's talking to her. He says that, don't you
know that Salvation is of the Jews and
you have to forgive me guys. I'm still dealing with these
glasses. So I'm having a hard time seeing certain words in
certain places Salvation is from the Jews and
you know, she was like what I Yeah, our Father is seeking those who
worship Him in the Spirit and in truth. In other words, the
story of Jesus deals with the story of Abraham, deals with
Moses, deals with creation. The story of Jesus and the redemptive
plan of God and the purposes of God go all the way back. So we have to, in a general sense,
teach the story of Jesus from start to finish, which includes
who He is. And that's why we don't use the
law as an evangelistic tool. We use the law as a relationship
to the righteousness who is Jesus Christ. That's what Romans 3
teaches us. We don't say that God gives us
righteousness and makes us righteous. We say that God credits the righteousness
of Jesus to our account. And so, yeah, in a, you know,
mystical, not mystical, in a misty sense. In other words, you're
just the aroma, in an aroma of the gospel. Faith is knowing
Christ is the way. I am the way, the truth, and
life. But no one is born again through that type of just very
vague, you got to believe in Jesus. Well, what does it mean
to believe? It means to know him. What does it mean to know
him? That means you got to know something about him. Well, how do we know something
about him? Somebody's got to tell you or you got to read it for yourself.
You have to learn who Jesus is. So there's not a magic word in
the Bible. There's not a magic phrase. There's not a magic road
of some kind of passages that if we do, then poof, people can
come to know the faith. We teach the faith. We teach
the faith. And some people will come along and say, you know
what? I do believe. I believe. And they may not have been born
again yet, but they're still engaged in the learning of the
word. And so we, as the shepherds and as the saints, we continue
to teach and encourage and disciple. And then all of a sudden, one
day, that person may go, wow, I see this gospel so beautifully.
I've been born again today. Or they may not even know that
phrase. They may not know, but years later, they can say, you
know, I remember the time, I remember the season of life, or I remember
the opportunity where that sort of came to light for me. And
we don't have a love affair with the idolatry of salvation experiences.
We should not as the church. We don't need to have an Americanized
idol of, when were you saved? I mean, very few people know
that. unless you come out of a very
clear false gospel into the truth. Some people who just grew up
reading the Bible, some people who just, you know, I mean there's
a lot of people who are in sovereign grace churches who are not born
again and all of a sudden they become born again because the
Spirit of God causes them to know Christ. And so that is,
you know, faith is knowing Christ. Faith is knowing who Christ is
according to the Bible. Faith is knowing and understanding,
and most importantly, resting, sitting still on the foundation
of the prophets and the foundation of the apostles and the foundation
of the Father as He testifies to the Son concerning the salvation
of His people. And it's a story to be heard,
and it's a story to be learned, and it's a story to be told.
but it is a salvation that is the power of God. And He alone
can grant that salvation. He alone can grant, He alone
has finished the salvation. He alone can grant that faith
for His people to believe in what He has done. I got three
or four more questions. I don't have a whole lot of time
here, but I do have this question. And it says, I know that the
Bible is the primary means by which we learn. and understand
and grow as Christians. But in the past, I've anticipated
I've appreciated having a systematic theology to outline and assist
in understanding certain concepts and doctrines. Is there such
a tool in understanding sovereign grace theology? And I'm just
going to say this because I get a lot of flack sometimes for
two sides of the same coin. I get a lot of flack for the
don't read study Bibles, don't read commentaries, don't worry
about historical theology, don't worry about traditions, don't
worry about theologians, don't worry about systematic. read
your Bible." And then I get on the other side of that coin,
I get flack by saying, you know, we can glean something from other
people's experiences, because we can. But ultimately, we need
to understand this. Like some people would say, well,
we've got to have the doctrine of the Trinity. No, we don't. The doctrine of
the Trinity, the teaching of the triune God is in the Bible.
We don't need that systematized outline in order to understand
that. And what has happened is people have come to learn Trinitarian
theology. But they don't know the Bible.
So they can't show anybody in the Bible what's what. They can't
say, well, here, I see the Son speaking, and here, I see the
Father speaking, and here, I see the Spirit moving. Here, I see
Jesus calling Himself God. Here, the best thing that we
should do as we read the Bible is say, you know what? Jesus
is God, and He is the Son, and the Father is God, and He is
the Father, and the Spirit is God, and He is the Spirit. Wow,
there are three persons. There are three personalities.
There are three different persons going on here who are all God
and the Bible says that God is one, you know, so we don't need
to exterminate the simple teaching of the scripture by defining
things in such a way and systematizing. No, they're beneficial. So the
answer to that is no, I don't think there are helpful system,
you know, systemized outlines to better understand the concepts
and doctrines in Sovereign Grace Theology. Here's how I think
the local church needs to establish this. I think the elders of the
church need to write little paragraphs and little papers that relate
to their teaching as the occasion comes up. For example, we're
writing some little papers on what's known historically, and
that history is not very long, but what's known historically
as a well-meant offer and that verbiage and the common grace
and progressive sanctification and the love of God. So we're
dealing with these four things and we're going to write them
down and we're going to deliver them to our church and say here's what
the Bible says concerning these things and here's what the words
are and here's where we think is the wise way in which we should
understand the use of these things and here's the heresy behind
it and here's ABC or whatever, you know, whatever it might mean
depending on what we're talking about. And then as we are alive
today and those pastor shepherds and other brothers and sisters
who are also able to write and communicate, I think we can learn
better from one another so that when the next generation comes
along, they too can also learn. I don't think we need to solidify,
bind, and continue to uphold dead men's stuff to the point
that we forsake the very learning through the Bible and by the
Spirit, because God does not teach us Himself through systematic
theology. He does not do it. And you can
argue that with me all you want, but I can sit you down and give
you a test, and you will fail it. If you think you've learned
Christ through systematic theology, I can prove to you that you've
failed it. And the reason for that is you won't have a testimony,
a biblical testimony, of who Christ is in this way from the
text and the context of Scripture. You just won't have it. You might
have a proof text or six, but you won't have an experiential
testimony of those things. So that is where... That is how
I want to answer that question. Now, do I love systematization?
Yes. Do I love theology? Beloved,
I've got books. I'm telling you, I got books.
I got books stacked up. I couldn't show you, but I got
books everywhere, and I'm throwing away books by the dozens of people.
Oh, let me have them. You don't want them. I don't
want you to have them. I don't want you to have them. I just want to
chuck them and get rid of them, because the books that I'm discarding
have no use for the believer whatsoever. I promise you, I'm
tired of the research. I'm tired of the apologetics.
I'm tired of coming to the table and always saying, oh, I can
look that up for you. I can tell you what so-and-so said back
in 1822 or 1519. I don't want to deal with that
anymore. I want to shepherd the flock
that is among me, and I want to live the rest of my life in
unity correcting, admonishing, encouraging, and growing in grace
and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and loving
one another and dealing with all of the things that God has
put on my plate patiently by His power and His mercy so that
God will continue to call His elect sheep to Himself and make
known to them His glorious grace that they may worship together
as one people. That is my desire. And you know,
most of the time when people get older, they move more into
the academic way of things. But beloved, I started out that
way, and I'm getting out of it. I'm getting out of it because
I see it as a as a huge hindrance and stumbling block in the context
of you know, of Christian growth because people rely on it too
much. It becomes a hobby horse rather than a holy worship time.
And don't quote me on that. Anyway, well, beloved, that's
all the time I have for today. I see a lot of posting going
on. And if you've asked a question,
I will put it first for next week. I do apologize. But thank
you guys for being here. I've missed you all. Please let
me know how I can love you and pray for you. Also, share this
video with someone that you think it might be beneficial. And if
there's any specific topics or doctrines that you think would
be good for some other type of promotions or publications or
publishings, that's the word I was looking for, we're happy
to do that as well. But until then, we will see you
guys on Wednesday. We love you. that like button
while you're there if you're on YouTube. God bless.