Polemics, Christendom
Vern Peterman · Apr 23, 2006
Polemics, No. 04
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262349375034

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, we wanted after spending a few weeks here of, you know, how did we get here and how do we do this, to kind of look at the time we have ahead of us with this question, what's the lay of the land? What is it that we're going to be doing here for weeks to come? Basically, Randy and I have set out a schedule with one week of flexibility from now to the end of September, and we'll be looking at lots of different issues.

Matter of fact, some of the issues were things that were brought up when we were kind of first asking for thoughts and questions and that sort of thing in apologetics. And some of the different denominations, you know, cult groups, different things that you see marketed about. And so it's important as Christians, as we've said, in some of our previous sessions, that we have discernment, that we have an understanding, that we have a way of appraising and assessing these things. This diagram that we have here is where we're going to start, and the idea is to kind of get three different concepts in our minds. One is the idea of Christendom. What do we mean when we say Christendom? What's that talking about? Why would I use a strange word like that? Tom?

Okay, anyone who names the name of Jesus as a divine Savior and after that it stops. I would possibly differ with you in one respect and you might have people who claim to be some part of Christendom and wouldn't go with the divine part. So they may even be outside of that circle. I mean, I'm not saying you're not correct on the claim. I agree with you. But in terms of how people would see it, there are some who would say, Jesus divine? No, I'm not going for that.

And yet they would call themselves, or at least others would see them as part of Christendom. Yeah, aren't they? It might be those that are not Muslim or Jewish or some, but they would say, yes, I'm a Christian, but they're not saved. Ah, OK. And that's an important distinction we're going to make here. Those who would say, I'm a Christian, but they're not really saved.

How does that happen? Yeah, Randy? If you grew up in an island in Texas, I'd say that culture definitely It can be a family tradition thing. It can be a cultural thing, a combination of the two, that defines them as Christian. but they're still not safe. Right? Any other thoughts? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

What what can be with broad strokes called a Christian country or a Christian culture or something like that, can have some very many exceptions. Certainly individually, but even in great areas of the culture, great numbers of people be an exception to that. Todd?

A lot of the churches where they teach the Bible, they don't really show you how you can get saved. Ah, okay. So they'll teach things that are biblical, but how one is saved is unknown. Never is presented. It's very unclear in some churches how one does get saved. When we use the word Christendom, does it exclude those who are saved? No, okay, right. Why doesn't it exclude those who are saved?

Yeah, it doesn't know the difference. If you look at someone from the outside looking inside and saying, you know, is this part of Christianity, they're not going to have the discernment to know is this person saved or not. They won't have a sense of that. They oftentimes won't have a sense of, you know, what is the gospel.

So they're looking at the outside. They can't distinguish the saved from the unsaved. All they know looking in is, this is Christendom. Somebody flying by, what do they see on the outside? They see a church building, right? And they can assume inside, oh, I see on the sign they meet Sunday morning. There must be some Christians in there. No discernment, no distinction as to are these people saved? What do they teach?

So it's a general category. that includes some things that we would say are pretty whacked out, but still get called Christianity. So that's the outside circle. Let's go to the next circle in. And what that next circle in defines is a saving gospel, but not necessarily anything better than that or more than that. A saving gospel, but there might be or may not be, doctrines that are kind of wacko.

Let's take it for instance. Suppose someone says that, I'm saved because I believed that Jesus Christ died for my sins and was buried and was resurrected on the third day, and when I die, I'm going to go be with Him forever. And until then, I want to make sure that I grow spiritually. So when I go to church, I wear a white shirt. Okay? That's a lot of coughing here all of a sudden. So what's the problem? The person's believed the proper gospel, right? But what was wrong? Ah, okay. Yeah, but wait a minute. I said just so they grow spiritually. It's not for salvation. They just say they want to grow spiritually so they'll be sure to wear a white shirt. The only one that's going to grow here is Linda and Bev, you know.

So, what's the problem? What the problem is, is you have a saving gospel but other teachings are not correct. So that's our next circle in. It's within Christendom, and the people within that circle are indeed saved, but they may indeed have teachings that are off the mark. There have been various Christian groups who have gone off in different directions that way. For example, Paul writes to the church at Corinth. He said, you guys are so goofy and wacko, you can't possibly be saved, right? Is that what he says to them? No. What does he say? What's that? You aren't saved.

He starts off addressing them as the church. He even says you are sanctified with a perfect tense. That means a completed past action, ongoing results of the future. And he tells them God is faithful and He will bring it to completion. Okay? So he's going to pull it off. Then he opens the door and says, by the way, you guys are goofier than a wooden watch. Then he tells them things that they need to get straightened out on.

But he starts off recognizing they are indeed saved. So it is possible, and that's what this kind of next circle in represents, it is those who have believed a saving gospel, a gospel that does indeed save, but have one or more areas where they're not biblical. Now, then notice the circle gets smaller.

We have the inside circle there that says, biblical Christian to faith as defined by the 66 books of the Old and New Testament in teaching and practice, both as to salvation and as to all other matters. This is a fully biblical, gospel and teaching. Why is the circle so small? What's that?

Yeah, there's a very few. The reality is that the great mass of Christendom is probably not saved. The reality is that the great mass of those within that next circle in, though they are saved, have doctrine that's out of whack somewhere. So what we're looking at here in polemics is we're defining those lines. We're wanting to say, first of all, what is a saving gospel?

And that's certainly an eternally critical issue, isn't it? An eternally critical issue. If you don't get that right, the rest of it kind of loses all importance. Okay? Is that correct? Alright, now, outside the circle, what would you say is outside that outer circle of Christendom? You've got everything else, right?

You've got everything from the guy who says, I don't believe you can know anything, and I'm absolutely certain of it. You've got the guy who says, I don't care who knows anything. You've got the guy who says, I am absolutely certain that there isn't a God. You've got the person who says, I know there's a God, and that God has no personality, is in and dispersed through all of the physical realm, moral, good or bad. You've got the person who says, there is the God of that tree, and that rock, and the God of the river, and the God of the waves, and the God of the owl, and the spirit of this, and the spirit of that.

So all those are outside the circle. There are people who hold to beliefs that are in that first circle, Christendom, that are views that really belong on the outside and don't belong to Christianity at all. Some of the teachings among some of the churches these days include teachings that come out of the Eastern religions, teachings that come out of just secular views. So some of that has invaded what we call Christendom. even the thoughts of some of those who are within that next circle in, saved, but still holding to some view that isn't basically Christian at all.

Ever know anybody like that? Yeah, Tom? Yeah, Tom's nodding his head, yeah. Yeah, you may well have encountered folks like that, who will, you know they're saved, but boy, you think, heaven's sakes, what have they gotten mixed up into? They've got something else that they're drawing upon. And so that's very common. Yes, and we will get there.

Roman Catholicism is another one of those things where, is it within Christendom? Yes. Has it got teachings that are way off the mark? Yes. That'll be actually after we look at orthodoxy. By that I mean Russian, Greek, Serbian, Antiochian, all those. So we'll be looking at that individually as well.

So there are those circles as well as the domain outside the circles and some invasion of the circles within Christendom from the outside, even among those who are saved. Okay, I'm looking at the top of page two, and so we'll be looking at here, among the movements that fall inside of Christendom but do not present a saving gospel, the outer ring above, we would include Mormonism. That was Marilyn's question when she saw, Here's a statistic on how many people are Christians, but Mormonism wasn't listed. I said, well, that's inside the Christians list, because that's from the view of the world.

So Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness, Christian Science, and Roman Catholicism, among many others. Many others, yes. I say the statistic of those who have looked at it in detail, over 30,000 Christian denominations. It's even like you say Mormonism, I did a study of it once and I'm sure I'm not current on it because it was many years ago. Seven different groups call themselves under this Mormon umbrella. Bickertonites, Cutlerites, of course the main LDS group in Salt Lake City, the Reorganized Church, the Temple Lot, all kinds of different bunches of them. So lots of Mormon groups.

These groups will teach a number of other doctrines aside from the gospel which do not stand up to the light of scripture. So not only is it not a saving gospel, there are also other teachings which don't hold up to scripture. So both. While we would have to consider this a generalization, so please keep that in mind, those groups that often teach a saving gospel but deviate from biblical teaching in other respects would include a number of the Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Pentecostal and charismatic churches, among others. And I could just as well say many others if you want. And we'll go into some of the distinctions on some of those. Some of each in these categories do not or no longer teach a saving gospel. Some of them no longer teach a saving gospel. Can't even present the gospel straight. As a matter of fact, just a quick story.

A little town that I grew up in during my high school years, we had moved up from the San Francisco Bay Area out to this farm community, and we had arranged with the prior pastor at this Methodist church to have a vacation Bible school there. Well, wouldn't you know it that a new pastor was going to come in just the week before this Vacation Bible School started. And this new pastor, I hate to tell you, was not a Christian. He became a Christian during that week. Yeah, he became a Christian during that week.

So anyway, this is interesting. Had he not become a believer, and the only reason, at least from the way we see it, the only reason he became a believer is somebody from the outside brought the gospel to him and sat down, you know, with him. But, you know, not the bishop of the denomination didn't seem to call that a concern. The various other people in the organization, the seminary that he'd been through, all that, none of that had really gotten through to the point that he really was not a believer. He described himself as a liberal existentialist. So anyway, let's see.

Within this category, though they preach a saving gospel, it will typically teach some element of ritual legalism and or experience as God ordained or otherwise required for those who have come to salvation by faith. So even if they do teach a saving gospel, they frequently look to something else outside of scripture as being valid. We've got the right rituals. We've got the right, you know, laws that you're supposed to abide by, personal rules. We have got the right organizational structure, that kind of thing.

Or you just have to have this experience or you've not arrived yet. Okay? Now, while we talk about this teaching, many just fail to teach the people in their churches all together. in this little town called Boonville where I went to high school, a few times I visited a Baptist church. And they would ask, they'd have kind of a sharing time every Sunday.

And interesting, the times that I was there, and I talked to other folks and they told me it was the same, that the sharing time would open up, one older gentleman would stand up and he'd say, I'm glad I'm saved, and sit down. And that was all that happened. And it was like there was nothing else going on and basically the entire sermon, the entire message, everything that was shared was all about getting saved. That was it. Nothing else. So there was no real teaching of anything else other than just how to get saved. Okay, so let's get down to it here.

What is a saving gospel? Scripture is very clear on this point. Salvation is entirely by faith in Jesus Christ. Paul put it to the believers of the church at Corinth, And I'm kind of drawing some summary portions there. Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preach to you, by which also you are saved. For I deliver to you of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and so you believed.

That's it. That's the gospel. Okay? Do you believe it? You're saved. Okay? That's it. It's that simple. Now, we could of course go through and explain that in a lot more detail, and that's something that at certain points we'll make sure we do. But, we want to distinguish between what is a saving gospel and what is not. Okay? So look at the first bullet there.

Here are things that we have to exclude from a gospel message. because they don't belong there. Salvation by works, law, rules, or performance is either all or part of salvation. Anybody run into anyone that has thought that? Anybody knock on your front door?

Okay. Often two at a time. Yeah, and it's basically they're looking, they must earn their salvation. Okay. Christ died on the cross so that you could earn your salvation. Yes, Tom? Black backpacks, yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. You can spot them at quite a distance. Yeah, I hear you.

Anything else which must be added to faith such as an experience, a feeling. Yeah, but you can't just believe. You've got to repent. No, I mean really repent. I mean you've got to feel really bad for your sins. See? And if you don't feel really, really bad for your sins, then you're not saved. See? So, what's that? No, no, no. That's only a double A Baptist. We've got to talk bad for your sins, okay? Alright. Anything added to it. Experience, feeling, or feelings. You've got to get several different feelings in there. Water baptism. Do I feel saved? You know? Any other ritual, procedure, behavior, or accomplishment?

I once, when I was going to engineering school, had this lady, and boy was I glad when the bus came. She just hounded me with incredible persistence and said that the Sabbath must be observed on Thursday. Absolutely must be on Thursday. God hates anything else. And she just would not let go of my ear on this subject until I got on the bus and started taking off. And even then, it was only when the bus started taking off that she quit. I mean, she kept going and going with real persistence on this thing. Well, guess what? That's somewhere on this second bullet here. Anything else you want to add to it?

Asking for commitment to Christ. Are you committed to Christ? I mean, take your hearts and lock and load. You've got to be committed. That's the whole thing. You've got to be committed to Christ and go see a psychiatrist. Right? So some folks will put it that way. Boy, you've got to take your heart and just wrap it around Jesus and then you're saved. See? As if your level of commitment is what saves you. Right? That's not what Paul talked about, did he?

One time someone had talked about how many people had committed their lives to Christ. and the response of one of the believers was, was too bad nobody got saved. Shocking, okay, to hear that. But commitment to Christ is not what's called for. Anyone who claims that a specific group or person, group, church, or earthly organization is the sole channel through which salvation must be obtained. How many, can you think of some churches that claim that? We are the one singular church.

Pardon? Roman Catholic. Okay, what's that? Church of Christ. Church of Christ is another one, yes. Okay. Seventh-day. Seventh-day is frequently you hear that sort of thing too, yeah. What else? Anybody, others? The Joe's Witness would be another one. You go down the list.

Most groups that have control of the people as a central theme will have something along this line, that we're the ones who have it. And if you don't come through our channel, you're not there. And so that's a frequent theme. Yeah, Tom? Yeah, it's essentially a very heavy control thing and what's really interesting is scripture will encourage and admonish the body to be meeting regularly and their lives to be intertwined with one another and yet not make that a basis for salvation. It will be the result of those who are saved walking in the position that they have, not the means of salvation. So you have this important distinction there. So those who are really interested in controlling people will frequently have that as one of their criteria is, you know, we're the group.

Don't go anywhere else because we've got to gotcha. Okay? All right. Now, last page there. Top of page three, Christians will not be the ones deciding who is saved and who is lost. Revelation chapter 20. But we do have sufficient basis in scripture for determining the basis on which we must be saved. The content of the gospel that is to be presented to others and for guidance in how we interact with people from day to day. So, let me ask this. Do I have to know for absolute certain whether someone is saved or not? I see head shaking, no. Why not? Why can't I know that? What's that?

God knows, yeah. It's interesting. If you look at it, Paul writes in Philippians about the book of life. You see it several times in the book of Revelation. And it's interesting. How many of you have ever seen the book of life? I haven't either. So here's this interesting thing. I've never seen the book.

I can't go and check, ah, yeah, that guy's name's in there, this guy, no. The Lord has not chosen to put that in our hands. So that's not something for us to determine. Who's going to end up deciding where those people go for eternity who have not put their trust in the Lord? Jesus. Yeah. It's not mine to do.

Essentially, we have a position of asking the question for the sake of, do you know the real gospel? And that's a valid thing for us to do. We have, like even within the church, and even the question of, you know, marriage. Do I have some sense that this person is indeed a Christian?

I don't want to have somebody, you know, called in, for example, as an elder or a deacon, or even serving in other capacities around the church, if I have some sense, no, this person isn't a believer. But in the ultimate, I'm not the one that decides, right? In the ultimate, God's the one that decides. So Scripture gives us some basis for understanding and operating, but not for us to decide.

And we're never the channel for salvation. We are the medium through which the Lord speaks the gospel to others. He is the one means of salvation. There's no other name given among men by which you must be saved. There's one mediator between God and man.

Right? So, you know, I'm glad we have this building. I'm glad we meet here. But this isn't the channel. This isn't the sole place that holds it. It is in what the Lord has accomplished through the person of Jesus Christ. Belief in Him and nothing else. We're gathering here together not to get saved or make sure we're saved or stay saved. We are gathering here together because we're saved. And the Lord's the one that decides that.

Now, why do some groups have biblical doctrine and others don't? When a group that calls itself Christian, let's look at the bullet points here, tradition, including some acceptance by Some views of a group, which is the more recently developed group, has broken away. A tradition might be long-standing for centuries, or it might be fairly recently established.

Let's take, for instance, has the church from all the way down to the time of the apostles, has the church always believed that being baptized is effective spiritually in your life? Has the church always believed that? No, no. When did that change? We looked at that, you know, last time we got together here, about the year 220 is when that began to be believed.

When it first started, it wasn't a tradition. It was brand new, right? But that's been 1,800 years ago. So now we have a long-standing tradition that at the start was brand new, but it still isn't biblical and wasn't believed by the apostles. But it was believed later, so it became a tradition. Eventually, what becomes a tradition starts as brand new.

How about additional books or something similar to that as a basis of authority. And you think of different groups that have additional books that they add to scripture, that's their basis of authority. Todd? Pardon? Okay, and what do they consider their additional books? Okay, all right. They've got the Apocrypha, right? Okay, good. Other ones you had?

Mormonism, okay. Mormonism has the Book of Mormon, Doctrine of Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. They also have apostles and prophets, so they have ongoing revelation in addition to that to supplement those books. So they got the Bible, which they trust the least, and then their three books, and then supplemental revelation on top of that. Other groups. Christian Science. Mary Baker, Glover, Patterson, Eddy. and her Science and Key to the Scriptures is a supplemental book.

Yes. Yes, they have the New World Translation. Interesting, they were around actually as a break off of the Seventh-day Adventists, the Jehovah's Witnesses were. And they broke off and then about World War II era, they developed the New World Translation, their own. And so they've got a slightly different Bible, although it does have the gospel in it, if one looks carefully.

Yeah. Others? Yeah. I mean, basically you could go on. A lot of these groups have supplemental books. Let's take a look. Groups or individuals recognized as either, excuse me, authoritative in their interpretation of scripture or as providing valid supplemental and ongoing revelation for the group.

So we mentioned the Mormons have that. If you have any of the Jehovah's Witnesses come up to you, they have what kind of thing that they want to give to you or sell to you? They want their watchtower awake, okay? And it's from the Watchtower Society. It's what I understand. I don't know if it's been superseded, but they have the world's largest printing presses, printing out this stuff like crazy.

And so their group, which keeps changing its teachings, their group, that formulates this stuff, the leadership, they are able to continually reveal new things. So, you know, they're able to supplement it, change it, shift it around, switch it, you know, and come up with new things. Personal experiences or revelations that are recognized as validations of personal viewpoints, perspectives, or decisions.

You know, think of groups that you've got to have some certain experience you haven't arrived yet. Pardon? Some of the Pentecostal, right? Okay. So you have to have this and this and this experience, and we got to see it, you know, and then we know that you really got this, okay? Then you know you've really taken it. And we would think of that.

There's also others that get into various other kinds of, you know, existentialist sorts of experiences, and we'll look to that as essential. acceptance and or institutionalization of approaches to scripture which provide for some degree of allegorical interpretation. So it's to provide a meaning that is not conveyed in the text itself. Allegorical interpretation is the most common interpretation within approach within Christendom, at least in some degree. What do I mean by allegorical interpretation? It means looking at the text and it's not intended to be allegorical from the context, but where an allegory is applied to it that's not apparent from reading it. Let me give you, for instance, one of the allegories that was forced upon a text was Job's seven sons represent the twelve apostles.

Okay? Does that make good sense to you? Okay? That when, for example, one of the allegorists that lived during the time of Christ He was Jewish, said that, you know, we're in end of Genesis 2, a man shall leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife. And instead of having to do with personal relationships there, that's the higher principle and the lower principle and the heavenly principle and the earthly principle and the heavenly principle come and join itself with the earthly principle. And isn't that a good thing? Make sense? No. Okay. So this was, You know, this was a teaching that was developed, again, that's applying an allegory that's not apparent from the text.

One of them, real common, we touched on it when we went through the book of Revelation, Revelation chapter 7, lists 144,000. And the 144,000 are Jews. Matter of fact, they are celibate male Jews. And there are 12,000 from each tribe. The name of each tribe is listed. So a number of allegorical interpreters look at that 144,000 with the 12 Jewish tribes named, 12,000 from each of the tribes, they look at that as representing the Christian denominations.

The Jehovah's Witnesses say that that is the number of those, and they're mostly not Jewish, that is the number of those who are going to heaven. The rest of the Jehovah's Witnesses are going to, if they're saved, are going to be on the earth. Heaven's full, long time ago in Jehovah's Witness theology.

Mormonism applies allegory. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches apply allegory. Calvinism, Lutheranism, they force allegory on the text. And one of the things you'll find is that churches particularly the ones that teach a non-saving gospel, will almost categorically use allegorical interpretation because there's no control over what it means.

Anybody can say this is what it means because who's to say your allegory is better than mine? Except that if I claim I'm the one in authority, then mine goes, right? So allegorical interpretation is great because it can mean anything you want it to mean. So that's why you find almost a universal pattern. Churches that have false teaching will apply allegorical interpretation because they can make it mean anything they want to say. Cross the board.

Okay, we'll get into some of those groups later. A group that has some element of unbiblical doctrine will incorporate one or more of the above means to supplement and or override the meaning of Scripture intended by the Holy Spirit. Why do I say supplement and or override? Let's think of supplemental.

Seventh-day Adventists teach that Adam was about nine feet tall. Now, does that override the teaching of Scripture? It supplements it. Scripture doesn't say it, but it doesn't say, no, he was six feet. So it supplements the meaning of Scripture. Suppose, however, that I said, for you to be saved, you have to believe that Jesus died for your sins, but that He wasn't really a man, and He was just sort of a spirit being, and that your belief in Him has got to go along with certain meditational practices in order for this to be carried out. And that when you're done with this life, then you'll reincarnate into a better reincarnation.

What am I doing? Is that supplementing or is that overriding? It's largely overriding scripture because I'm saying, no, here's something scripture teaches. I think that's not correct. I've got this other thing I'm going to teach and believe instead. So you have both of those things going on in a lot of these various groups. They will add to scripture, and then they will say something contrary to scripture. And you'll often get a mixture of those two. And you can find either one. Okay, last little bit there. Now for the approach. As we go through these groups in the weeks ahead here, In view of the concepts shown in the diagram on page one, we will examine these groups and movements generally from the outside first and work towards the center. So what does that mean?

We are first going to take a look at those groups that are within Christendom but teach a non-saving gospel. They teach a non-saving gospel. The gospel that they teach is not sufficient for a person to be saved. We're going to start with those. and then work our way up. And as we do so, we're going to be using Scripture as the measure. How does this compare to Scripture?

Because that's really what counts, isn't it? We'll be taking a look, in some cases more than others, about how things got the way they were. How'd they get here? How'd they get to this place where this is what they're teaching and believing? Because we think a lot of times that's very helpful and insightful. So we'll be examining that as well. Working our way towards the middle so that we will end up talking about those groups who teach a saving gospel, perhaps, but have other teachings that are off the mark. So that's going to be our approach. Thoughts, comments, questions, jubilations, exasperations, art.

When I believe, do I in fact not repent? Yes. To restate Art's question slash confirmation, when I believe, do I in fact not repent? Yes, that is the case. Repentance is not something you do supplemental to belief, it is built into belief. What is repentance? It's not, as we were jokingly saying before, feeling really bad for your sins, okay?

But repentance is, metanoia is the Greek, it's a change of mind, it is a change of perspective such that the mind is oriented towards the truth instead of oriented towards falsehood. The appeal to many of the Jews was, and you see it in the initial chapters of Acts, was not to believe but to repent. Not that that was anything radically different or somehow supplemental from believing, but for them, they had been presented with the Messiah. They needed to have a change of mind about the Messiah that they had seen and whom they had heard and whom they'd heard about. they needed to have a change of mind to come to a place that is to be within belief.

So it's not in addition to believing. It's not something supplemental or some tweak on it. It is built into believing. Thank you for that, Art. That's a good clarification. Other questions? Thoughts? Observations? Yes? When we repent, as believers, we become the ones that confess our sins. So not that it's called repentance, but the thing is, it's a reconciliation with our relationship with the Lord, and it doesn't have to be item by item through a list of every sin we've committed. There's a really big group of a lot of legalistic churches Randy's point here, and especially for those who might be listening to the recording, Randy's point here is that repentance should not be looked at, you know, having to comb through some item by item list of sins And, you know, feeling bad for each one individually so that you've gone down the list and kind of hit the checklist. One analogy that I've used with people to try to get this point across is confession of sins is not going down the list. Confession is homologia. Do you say the same as God? Do you agree with God about them?

And let me give you a for instance of what this looks like. In your trash at home, When it's time to take the trash out, do you take all the pieces of trash out and look through them individually and assess, yes, this is indeed trash. You think about it and you think about how it got there and you think about, you know, where it's going to go and what it's been and all that. Do you ponder that and take each one and catalog it? Oh, by the way, you've got digital cameras these days. You want to take a picture, right? You don't do that, do you?

What you do is you look at the bag, you say, that's trash. That needs to go out. Do you agree? Yes, I agree it needs to go out. You take it, you pick it up, you drop it in the trash can. That's it. Do you agree with God summarily that this is really a bunch of trash? Yes. That's all He's asking for. Not an item by item, poring over it, categorizing it, going through the checklist. Okay? Do you call it trash? Yeah, I call it trash. Take it out. That's it. That's all He wants. Because He's not interested in having you behold the trash. He wants you to behold Him.

Big difference there, isn't there? Behold the Lord and grow, or behold what's growing on the trash. Alright, other thoughts, questions? Yes? A lot of newborn Christians, including myself, will have to say, Ah, okay, yeah. Out of a sense of gratitude, there's a sense of wanting to pay it back. Right, yeah.

And it's really not understanding grace, you know. It's why a lot of times when I'm talking through people on this, I'll use some figure. It's like you owe a debt. By the way, the amount's $4 trillion, you know. And how much of that are you going to chip away at? Probably not, right?

It's far better for us to recognize grace is grace all the way, and not to think that we're going to do something to pay anything back. We live from that point of initial belief unto salvation, continuing on the basis of what He has done, and who He is, and what He's accomplishing, and what He is going to accomplish. Not on the basis of anything we can pay back. Not on the basis of, boy, I'll owe Him one, or anything of the sort. There's no way we can even touch it. We can't touch the $4 trillion. What we can do doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.

Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. Grace is grace all the way. If it isn't amazing, it's not grace. Yes, yeah. It is not wages. If you want wages, you want something to work for, that's death. Wages of sin is death. You want death? You're going to have to work for it. But if you want life, that's absolutely free. There's no working for it. That's grace. Excellent point to bring up. Yes? Ah, clarity. Yes. Ah, yeah.

Mankind is fundamentally very confused. Paul frequently describes human beings as being blind, blinded, unable to see, rampant confusion, and inability to recognize what's true. And that's one thing we're doing here as we gather this morning and in the weeks ahead. We want clarity. We want to see the difference between what is and isn't the truth. We want to see the difference between what is and isn't the gospel, what is and isn't a part of our growth in the Lord Jesus Christ. So, clarity, yes, very important.

Thank you. Other thoughts? Yes? I read the H5S URL, so thank you. Yeah. A lot of questions have been on my mind for quite some time. When you read these different tracts, You know, repentance and belief and et cetera. How do you, what basis do you bring to someone who is lost and has no, and a combination of the scriptures, what steps do you take to, how do you, you talk about repentance, okay. It's a matter of believing what you hear, Sure. We started off with, and I think you stepped in Make sure you get a handout here.

We were looking at 1 Corinthians 15, and 1 Corinthians 15 says that the basic elements, do you believe that Christ died for your sins? And of course, what's built into that? What do you have to recognize before you say Christ died for my sins? Yeah, if you don't recognize that you have a sin problem, If you don't recognize there is a God, if you don't recognize that that sin has alienated you from God and that something needs to be dealt with and reconciled, then that's not going to make much sense. So you need to start off with, here is God. He is holy. I as a human being have sinned and violated God's character. And that's a fundamental.

Christ's death on the cross will be just kind of senseless, won't it? It won't make much sense. Mankind across the board needs to be reconciled with the Creator. Having sinned, each person then must believe in Christ's death on the cross as payment for those sins, as the complete reconciliation, not just opening the door so I can earn my salvation, but the complete reconciliation between myself and God. I believe it.

That settles it, okay? In his burial, the burial was the confirmation that he was indeed dead, that he did indeed die for my sins, and his resurrection, which is bringing to newness of life. Without the resurrection, I might have payment, but what good does it do? I'm still dead, okay? It is the belief in Christ's death on the cross for my sins, and the understanding that goes through that, that there is a God, that He's been violated by sins, that Christ's death on the cross is payment for that violation, that Christ did indeed die, and that He rose again so that not only is He alive, but I have newness of life in Him.

That's the quick summary. Obviously, if someone was talking to someone, I could take time to explain things in more detail. But those are the quick things that have to be covered that's built into it. In one sense, it's very simple. It's not something that requires rocket science mentality or years and years of college training. So in one sense, it's very simple, but it's also very profound.

And it also requires a recognition of who God is, who I am, and that I very much need the Savior. Yes, and those things must be heard and understood. Now, how people hear it may vary all over the place, but they ultimately have to come to a place of hearing the Gospel and responding to it, basically as I've summarized here.

I have one friend of years ago that he was working on the Yosemite Park trail crew after the winter was done and the snow was melting. And usually the trail crew at night they just sit around the campfire and drink beer and smoke marijuana. And he was getting ready to do that and all of a sudden he just kind of felt grabbed and he got led off to this place away from the rest of the group and there was a track there on the ground. And he picked up the track, read it, and became a believer that day.

I mean, the Lord can use whatever He wants. That same fellow wrote to the girlfriend that he had across the country who he had lived with, but she wasn't saved, and up until that point, he wasn't either. He wrote to her and said, you know, we can't go on like this because, you know, I'm a believer in Jesus Christ now and this doesn't make sense. And she called, you know, on the phone and right back and said, don't go anywhere.

I'm coming right there. She hopped on the next plane out of Atlanta. Just came flying in and when she got there, because he was at our house, when she got there, we stayed up until the wee hours of the night just giving her the gospel. explaining in more detail the very question that you asked. And so that night she became a believer. So here's one guy that became a believer by the Lord just drawing his attention to a tract that was, I don't know how it got there, out in the melting snows of Yosemite before the beginning of the tourist season.

And then this other girl, she said, I have been asking for the gospel my whole life. She says, An uncle who was a pastor, and he couldn't tell me. He says, I've been just desperate for the gospel, and I'm glad you told me. She's now a missionary, by the way. Anyway, the Lord does marvelous things, but I'm glad for your question. A person must hear the gospel. The gospel is as simple as we've presented and seen here this morning, although some, certainly further explanation could be given. It is the life and death truth for eternity.