The Militant and Triumphant Church Travis Allen Tom Buck Tom Ascol Conrad Mbewe

So this very first question, simple question, but the person who asked it added a little bit of commentary. So I'll ask the question, then I'll add the commentary. So the questioner asks, when thinking about ecclesiology, is there a difference between the Church and the Kingdom of God? And if so, what is it? So that's the question, what is the difference between the Church and the Kingdom of God? And then a little bit of commentary. In Matthew thirteen forty one, it says, the Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out his kingdom. Out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all law breakers. And so he says it stands to reason that law breakers are part of his kingdom prior to the judgment. So again the question, what is the difference between the Church of God and the Kingdom of God? They don't know. Well, the Kingdom of God is the rule of God. That's what that idea is. It's what the words mean. And so where does God rule? Well, he rules everywhere, you know, everything outside of God he's ruling. But the manifestation of his rule with glad submission on the part of his subjects is found when the Gospel goes in power and the spirit of God regenerates a person, and so the Kingdom of God is within you, as Jesus said, So there's that glad submission to the rule of God. The church or churches are to be comprised of people who are in glad submission to the rule of Jesus as Lord. And so churches ought to be expressions of the Kingdom of God. But churches are not the Kingdom of God in that sense. And if you're talking in a more general way, of course God rules everywhere. So you know, the kingdom of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever. So that's going to happen that Matthew thirteen, the Parable of the Tears and the Weak, that was so together, and you know what, do we sort this out now? No, God will sort it out at the end of the age. By the way, that's not the church, the field is the world. So a lot of people will use that. Some of our Presbyterian friends will use that wrongly, some of our Baptist friends to say, we'll see there, you shouldn't worry about Church of discipline or you're gonna have unconverted people in your churches, and you Baptists have it. And so we know that when we baptize our kids that not all of them are going to be believers. It's not that Jesus says the field is the world. So on that day, when he wraps up history and brings in eternity, there's going to be the separation. And he tells us at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, you know that many will say to me, Lord Lord, did we not prophesign your name, cast out demons? Your name, work mighty works in your name. He says, no, not everybody who says to me, Lord Lord is going to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and he'll say out to depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. I never knew you. So there will be a sorting on that day of those who have had an external appearance of being under the lordship of Christ, but who did not possess Christ. There's so many verses about this that warn us of this. Free John two nineteen. They came out from among us because they were not of us. Had they been of us, they would have stayed with us. It wouldn't have come out from among us. So yes, we recognize that even in the best churches, there are going to be some who are outside of Christ, who have professed Christ. And there's you know, good night it used to be. It won't be this way much longer. It's not as much as it used to be fifty years ago. But if you were born in America or you're a Christian, right, you know, it's just I'm not a Muslim, I'm a Christian. So there will be that sorting on the day of judgment. God will make it all right. Churches have the responsibility now, through discipline, to honor Christ's lordship and to represent the Kingdom on the world. In one sense, churches well ordered ought to be outposts of the Kingdom. So we are like colonies of heaven. And when we're functioning the way we ought to, we are displaying the power and the truthfulness of the message we proclaim. So we're not saying one thing and then living contrary to it. Now we're saying Jesus's Lord. This is what it means. When Jesus is Lord, we forgive, we repent, we trust, we believe. Together, we involve each other in our lives and we move forward. The second question, how can a husband shepherd his wife to prepare for persecution that comes from being a faithful pastor? And maybe I would add, how can a husband shepherd his wife to prepare for persecution that comes from being a faithful Christian? It seems that there seems to be a vice script tightening slowly upon the church. And so I don't think it's just pastors who are going to deal with this. I think faithful Christians are going to deal with this. I'll jump in here start this one out. I think a husband would shepherd his wife and past just like a pastor who's going to shepherd his church. We're coming, We're entering into a time, coming out of maybe a benign culture and entering into a more hostile, oppositional culture. And I think that all the churches are learning to adjust to that. And so I think I think what has been common for churches throughout church history is now becoming our reality. We've been in a bit of an anomaly, and I think I think in our country and the Judeo Christian foundations of our country, where there's been a lot that we can assume of even unbelievers around us that they're going to respect the Church, They're going to respect Christ, respect the law, and that's that's that's that's yesterday. So we're entering into a time I think when we're we're we're all having to adjust to that prepare for it. And I think pastors are preparing their churches to for persecution, opposition, going to those texts that solidify our understanding of God and his sovereignty and his power, his care, his protection. And I think that in the same way that a pastor is going to prepare his church, a husband is going to prepare his wife as well. We're all prone to anxiety and worry and fear, and so any of those texts that are going to solidify our confidence in God and deepen our conviction, we want to inject that into ourselves and our own hearts and settle our hearts and be at peace. And we want to inject that into our family members as well. And it starts with our wife. And when a wife and a husband come together underneath the powerful protection of God, his care, his fatherly care, his fatherly protection, that's going to transfer down to the whole family as well. So I think that'll serve us well as we head into this future that's uncertain from our vantage point. Would you do you consider the civil rights movement of the nineteen sixties, with leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. Would you consider that an example of the church militant Yes, and no. There there was a sense in which much of what happened during that time was was rooted in and founded in the Church. There was a sense in which much of what was being advocated for at that time was being advocated for based on principles rooted in the scriptures. And so I think that in one sense there's very much that. But in another sense, there were very powerful and vocal actors who were anything but Christian, who are who were also a very big part of that and had a great deal of influence in it. And I think because you know, we had the Reverend doctor Martin Luther King as the kind of focal point, there's a tendency to conflate those two and and that's that's that's usually hugely problematic. I think another problem is that many of those within the movement and within the leadership, including doctor King, had theological convictions that would have been in concer assistant with biblical truth in a number of areas, So yes and no. Yeah. The reason I wanted vote to answer this is he and I had a long conversation sometime last week or so. He's doing research that touches on this and it was eye opening to me. So keep praying for voting as he continues his research. That God will bless that and fruitfulness in the next year or two. Would you said the church today has given grounds to the enemy and may not recognize it, and if so, how do we gain that ground back? Yeah? Would you say that the church today has given ground to the enemy and they may not recognize it, and if so, how do we get that ground back? All right, Well, I mean there's just a lot of areas that we've given up ground are what are what are pieces of ground that we've not given up? Maybe I'm kidding, Okay, I mean one of the I mean it should be obvious that one of the biggest areas is how that we're addressing the whole issue of same sex attraction living out. It's a perfect example. You know, you kind of wonder how that organization and group got into the church and became mainstream. So quickly, even within circles that are reformed like we are. In fact, it was reformed men and pastors and groups that were bringing them in, and they were introducing concepts that or living out was introducing concepts that that are absolutely antithetical to to what God's Word teaches. So we've begun to start dealing with things like, well, attractions are not in and of themselves inherently sinful. Well, if you have a disordered desire, that certainly is different than someone who has a desire that is in excess to God's word. That is like a desire of a man for a woman that God created and designed it to be that way, and then someone lives begins to send an excess of God's design. The desire itself is not inherently sinful. But when you deal with with the issue of same sex attraction, you have an attraction that is disordered, It is out, it is completely there would have that would have never existed. There was no such thing prior to the fall, although there's certainly what would have been prior to the fall, attraction of a man to a woman. And so how we got there, I don't know. And having conversations with men. I think that that have allowed some of this to come in. I think a lot of it's been in the fact of where that will our friendships with these guys and these men agree on all these other areas with me. Well, this is a fundament issue. It's funnel issh fundamental issue. It's an issue of it. If it's sinful, then we must call them to not only turn from practicing the sin, but we should call upon them to ask God to remove that attraction. I'm not saying it will be overnight. I'm not saying that it ever will be. But they need to battle the attraction as much as anything else. But Living Out says it's actually wrong for us to call upon someone to seek that's their language. We should not call upon someone to seek to move away from that. So that that's a huge issue. It's a major shift. If you go to somebody what not even this far ago, but let's just say fifty years ago. If you walked up to somebody that was a conservative evangelical and that would have been in that camp fifty years ago, they wouldn't know what you're even saying at that point. So we've given up major ground in that and the argumentation that's being used can be directly applied to now what we're seeing minor attracted person that's become And I don't know how they're going to if you take their same logic. I don't know how they defend that we have created in the church, broken down a wall that is going to allow the enemy to just run right in and trample upon us if we don't get a hold on this quickly. So that'd be one area. And like so many other things, what happens is the world letches onto this. Right. So now you know, we've we've talked about Canada's C four bill, right, which which is this exact theology that the problem and the error comes in when you believe that you need to correct someone on something like this. And now these people become, you know, to to borrow a term, you know, useful idiots, right, whereas people like you know, the Canadian legislature whatever, can say that you know that enlightened Christians already understand this rightly, right, and so again it becomes an opportunity to seed ground not only within but then without. I learned on your podcast Tom and Graham as you were talking to the head of the Liberty Coalition Canada. He said that the MP that brought this the C four Canadian Bill C four before the Parliament is Rob Moore. He comes from an evangelical background, and so he is the one bringing this to a vote and calling for this unanimous decision where everybody stood up and applauded this calling calling Christianity, calling the biblical view of sexuality a myth that should not be perpetrated, to the harm of individuals in Canada and to the harm of Canadian citizens. That's that's an evangelical saying that. So that's what's coming into the government. So yeah, they're useful idiots on the one hand, but on the other hand, they're perpetrating this on their entire country. So giving ground, that's that's one issue where we're giving ground. And I think when you talk about giving ground, I'm looking at my church and I'm saying, we're trying very hard not to give ground. Okay, So there are faithful churches that are churches represented here where we're not giving ground. We're fighting to not give ground. I think it's it's what we're making. The call to other churches is stop giving ground, join join the counter culture. The revolution in a biblical direction, so that we don't give ground. I think one of the ways that we tend to give ground or evangelicals can give ground. Confessionally they can be believe in the sovereignty of God and salvation. Confessionally they're calvinistic, but practically they can be very Arminian in their view of reaching the lost, and then their practice they can reach the loss through trying to appeal to them, trying to soft path gospel issues to them. So one one way that a church can be very quickly become liberal is by is through their evangelism, through an Armenian approach to evangelism, and that just that just weakens everything. So I think so much of CRT and the cultural Marxism and the all the you know, the revoice stuff. And there's another one coming out theology and the raw I think is the conference where where some of the some people that we've counted as friends in the past are going there and they're in support of exactly what Tom was talking about, this side be Christian kind of thing. So it's it's a I think, through through an approach to evangelism that's Armenian in its practice. It's not confessionally calvinistic and functionally calvinistic, calling fearing God and calling sinners to repentance and not shaving off any hard edges of the Gospel. I think that's a way that the church can give ground. Yeah, you mentioned revoice, and I think that for the most part, evangelicals are seeing the problem with revoice. I think one of the issues is groups like the Living Out that's kind of this middle way or this try to find that. And I think it was Spurgeon that said that the true discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong, but knowing the difference between right and almost right. And I think that's a huge issue that we've got have going on right now, because anytime you point out this is off, people say we need to be gracious, we need to be gentle in that situation. As I talked, you know, we kind of talked about what biblical gentleness was yesterday. We need to start practicing true biblical discernment. We need to be able to discern between right and almost right, and if it's just almost right, we need to run from that or at least identified enough to help that person clarify to make it right or show their error that they're really completely wrong. Yeah. The addition that I really wanted to make is a comment I made last time when I was preaching Well the Fifth Someone towards the end, and it's it's the fact that as Christians, Jesus doesn't just change us as individuals and bring us into a colony of faith. He mandates us to be sort and light in the world. And what seems to me as an outside the visiting to be happening is that there is a such a shift where Christians are getting into a kind of garrison mentality that let's sort of shut ourselves in and just make sure we hold out as long as possible, when really, from the very beginning, the world is in darkness, it's in rebellion, it's ignorant of the ways of God, hardened by sin, and we are mandated by Christ to be sold and light in the world. Not just our pastors who have a very big responsibility to preach the truth, and it's sagged that many are reversing and beginning to survive on equivocals and even abandoning the truth, but even those who are the sheep who are mingling with the world on a daily basis. I think it's crucial that as Christians, that the Biblical truth should be radiating forth from all of us. I think that's really the little that I wanted to add to this. Yeah, let me give three areas we mentioned sexuality, feminism, and other area. I mean with the sexuality, Karen Swallow Pryor, who's a professor at Southeastern Seminary, endorsed revoice. In talking to Danny Aik and the president, he said, well, she signed all our confessions, you know, So that's okay. It's kind of like you're not right, but it's not completely bad wrong. So there's an example. The b d Annabelle recently has come out and spoken of pastors. We all try to encourage pastors. He or she probably needs it, you know. I mean he just said that, and then he doesn't like the fact that people said, hey, you said that, but he said that. So what is that? Well, it's giving ground. It's giving ground. Abortion. Abortion. We saw ethicists lose their mind last summer because of Southern Medics Convention passed a resolution saying abortions essentially murder and it should never be right. And this the call for we need to end this murder of unborn children. And all these ethicists, well, you don't understand. You don't understand. I try to remind our folks regularly. Look, we're being discipled. Your children are being discipled twenty four to seven by the world. You're being discipled. Your kids are being discipled. You let them watch Disney movies and stuff without commentary, without helping them. It's not innocent, it's not neutral. They're being discipled. And I'm not saying don't ever watch a Disney movie, though you'd probably have a better life if you didn't, But just disciple, you know, to help your kids to see recognize what's going on in these things that they're being submitted to, and realize they're being trained to think, and you want them to think from the world view of the scriptures. So our churches need to own the responsibility to help our kids and our adults to think christianly because they're gonna be discipled. We're gonna be disciples. And if we don't understand that and take it seriously, we've lost already. And then underneath all of that's what we've already talked about here in this conference. But I cannot emphasize it enough. It's law and gospel. Who says what's right, who says what's just? Who says what's loving? Who says what's gracious? God says that. And yet we're constantly being told you're not being loving because you tell this guy who says I'm a gay Christian that you know what, you really need to deal with this because you're not thinking right and you've bought into wrong ideologies. Oh that's unkind of you. That's unloving, that's not unkind. According to God's word, that's loving. So it's law gospel. I think churches would be well served if they just took maybe six months to read the Ten Commandments every time they gather. Just read the commandments, just remind people that God has given us his law. So yeah, and you know, I confess that I grew up in an era when even issues like talking about how we speak to someone who is dealing with homosexuality. I grew up hearing homosexuals mocked from the pulpit in ways that are ungodly. So you know, I remember Howard Henry and Seminary saying that the church seems to only be balanced when it's swinging from one end of the penulum to the other and just for a slight moment, and we need we're now at the other extreme. We still need to of course, we need to communicate lovingly and graciously, but part of loving someone and being gracious to them is speaking truth to them. How gracious and loving is it to look at someone and coddle them into hell? This is ridiculous. So we can certainly drive people out from hearing the gospel preach by us because we're acting in ungodly ways in the way you can we communicate it. But we can also be assisting people on the road to hell by not telling them the truth. And we better quickly learn how to do this where in a way that's consistent with the scriptures Christ. Just go look at a Christ's model of ministry, at Paul's model of ministry, and it'll be become very crystal clear to you of how you need to speak boldly and succinctly and directly at the same time with the humble attitude that I too am a sinner who needs the grace of God, and I am calling you to come out from your skin and to Christ, just like I had to. Yeah, and I'm struck by you know, Tom, you say the law in the Gospel, the correct understanding of that is the right way to go about seeing how we overcome these issues, and this issue of same sex attraction and the law. I mean to say that my desires don't matter. What does Jesus tell us when he summarizes the law. It's all about the desires, It's all about the affection love, God, love neighbors. So Christ is certainly interested in our desires. Connected to this question, how does the church speak to these cultural issues, these political issues without losing our focus on the Gospel. Yeah, first of all, let me just throw it in this point that at the end of the day, there's no contradiction between the two things. First of all, when we're thinking in terms of the Gospel, we are recognizing that the world is fallen. Simply going to the world to say pick yourself by your Bootlesces is mocking the world. They need the grace of God through the Gospel. God himself, who has given the Law, has also given the Gospel through his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So what we're basically doing as we're going in in any situation, we are mindful that they need God through Christ, and he's made that provision. However, having done that, and that's the point. Having done that, we recognize the fact that that light needs to spread where that diesness is. And so individuals who are thus being transformed by the Gospel need to be challenged not to put that light under a bushel, but rather lift the lead so that they are able, in whichever's fear they might be, to bring in the revelation of the Creator. He is not to be hidden within the four walls of the church. He created. He's put in all that is necessary for life and living, and therefore we are to make his mind known. And it is in that sense that we become cultural transformers. And we need to emphasize that because as long as we are remaining in our comfort zone, and that's all that we are doing with respect of the Christian faith, then what we are doing is we are allowing that darkness to be the one to be invading the church. We should recognize there is a real fight. In fact, we're talking about the church militant. There's a real fight. It's a black de fight. We as the Christian Church, must get out there and put up that gallant fight. Thank you. Just to augment that comment. We in our church have been going through Luke's Gospel for quite some time, and it's been remarkable, a real joy for me to see Jesus out among the people. And it doesn't matter what he encounters, what he faces, whether it's a demoniac, whether it's someone in need of healing, whether it's someone who says, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. So inheritance issues, whether it's traditions of the elders and the scribes and the Pharisees and washing before meals, it doesn't matter what the issue is. Every issue for Jesus becomes a gospel issue. Everything is an entrance to speak about God, his claim on the person's life. The demand that a demand that more, you know, human morality can't meet. And just exactly what Conrad said that we are not preaching moralism. It's cruel to preach moralism. Get better to the culture. They can't get better. They need regeneration by the spirit of God. They need to be born again, and so we preach the gospel. That law drives them to the Gospel, it drives them to Christ and you see Christ doing that all the time. It doesn't matter, doesn't matter if he's in a house, if he's in a synagogue, it doesn't matter if he's out among the people. He's out there, and it certainly salt and light. And so that's that's exactly our pattern, even though we're not all conducting itinerant ministries. We're in one place, in one location, and God has given us a reach, given us a sphere of influence. Christ is our pattern. So whatever issue, whatever conversation, whatever trouble people are going through, this is all a doorway into the gracious Gospel of God that saves sinners. So there's been quite a bit of discussion, and Pastor Travis, you talked about this directly in your serving yesterday about eschatology, and so the question is, you know, what is the importance of eschatology? How much unity can we have when we have differing views of the end times? You know, I spent the better part of my early ministry concerned about escatamania, you know, and trying to avoid escadomaniac. And what finally dawned on me is I've become an scataphobiac. And that was no better. So I've come to understand, Yeah, this is vitally important. I mean, this is this is the tea loss, this is where everything is going. And praise God that He's revealed it to us from the beginning, I mean from Genesis. However, there God has not given us everything as clearly as we might like to have in this area. And so we have these conversations a lot of ha them. Graham and I talk about these things. Sometimes our elders will get into it a little more broadly. And I've talked to pastors about it all the time about you know, where are you? And man, there's just there's things that I see that there's bedrock realities that every Christian must be willing to say yes to or else you're bad. Wrong. So I mean, Jesus Christ is coming back bodily. There's going to be a real, genuine bodily return of Lord Jesus. We don't know when that's going to happen. So anybody that tells you they got that figured out, you know they're wrong. I mean, you just know that right now that it's not there. It hadn't even been revealed to the Sun the apostles, and so we know that. Thirdly, He's going to come back and make all things right. There is an escaton, there is an eternity when there will be no more sorrow, no more tears, no unrighteousness, no sin. Everything will be made right. And as my friend Richard Barcelis has put it in one of his books, it'll be better than the beginning. And the beginning was great and what God set forth, but the end is going to be on a better foundation because it won't be dependent upon a mere man who is capable of sin. It'll be on the basis of the God Man who once for all has earned everything, who is never ever going to lose anything that he's accomplished. So our eternity will be fully secured, much better than at the beginning. So where you have Christians that can agree on those basic realities, then the question of okay, what are the details surrounding that? You know, what is the millennial rain? When is the millennial rain? We ought to have fraternal debates about that. And you know, I've shifted in my own thinking over the years, and people ask me, now, you know, they said, well, you sound like a post millennialists. Are you a post millennialist? I'll say, well, you know, I might be a post millennialist with a low level of assurance, you know, so, or I might just be a really optimistic a millennialist, you know. But there are things that I see in the scripture that haven't happened yet that we're told is going to happen, and I look forward to that. And now I think that I'm looking forward to a wonderful outpouring of God's spirit. How when what that's going to relate to the very end, I don't know. And I'm happy to have the debates so all that to say, yeah, it's important. And every time I try to get into this and go more, I'm just further reminded of I've got a little bit of pea brain and it's stained by sin, and this is God, you know. So I don't get all exercised that I can't figure it all out. And the guys I love we disagree on some things, and that's fine. I think that's the I think that's a true fraternal kind of appropriate way to engage something that's very important. But good people would see differently in the details, the details of which are not going to separate us because we agree on the essentials. To this point, I think it's very important to know, in very telling that none of the early confessions tried to settle this. All, all of the Confessions, all of the all of the Reformed confessions have here are the absolute truths. You know that that that we all agree on, but none of them stake out a particular escheological position. You asked about the purpose of eschatology, and I think that just in within what these men have well said, we we do want to study what the Bible does reveal, because God reveals what he reveals about the future to give us hope and to strengthen our assurance and confidence that God is sovereign, He's got a plan, He's wise, he's good, he's powerful. Evil does not triumph. Good triumphs God triumphs. Christ wins. He has one we in him win. Those are things we need to hear. We need to hear when we look around and see the that evil seems to prevail. We just need to realize, like he preaching out of Acts chapter or I keep saying Acts, it's Psalm to Psalm too, just to see, just to see the that God laughs, he finds the the the rebellions of this it's like an ant shaking its fists, a combat boot coming down on top of it. All the rebellions of kings and tyrants are laughable. They're comical to God, who stands in heaven. I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. He's winning. You. You better kiss the son because he is going to crush your rebellion. So I think I think that's the that's the purpose. And as much as you could the scatological phobia, as Tom described, we don't want to do that. We do. We do want to study the details that God has revealed, but we got to stop there and not speculate and then start to divide in our speculations. I think it's important to remember also one of the major, one of the major purposes of eschatology is not merely to think about the future, but to affect how you live now. So Scripture says that those who long for the return of Christ purify themselves. So what's amazing to me is how how many people who who fight over escathology act in very impure ways in the way that they do it. So if my eschatology, whatever it may be, is not causing me to become more christ Like and not causing me to seek to purify myself. Here and now, it doesn't matter what your position is, you're holding it in a way that the Bible never intended you to hold them. Amen. Tom, you said that we can have fraternal debates on eschatology. I was wondering if I could do that right now. Sure, I'm wrong, let us let us demonstrate that, and someday you'll believe in a rapture. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Tom, Tom, we'll explain it to them on the way up, sort out all the air. I'm sorry, Tom, I should have said, my brother, you're wrong. Paternal that's good, that's good, Okay, moving on. We can talk about eschatologist forever and we will. But I think that that that's also you know, not to belabor it, but I think that's also a beautiful picture of the point that we're making. You know, you have we have brothers we love dearly and go to war with, not against, go to war with. We have different escheological positions, you know, and you know we hold those positions, we teach those positions, we'll argue for those positions. But that that's that's not what the whole thing is about. And it shouldn't be that kind of a barrier. Not to belabor the belabored point, but I couldn't have more when I was I was in the Navy and went to the first Golf War, and I loved the Army dogs. I worked with the Marines, I worked with the Navy, guy, the Air Force. All of them have different perspectives and different missions and different things there they're interested in and good at. But man, it's one force trying to do one thing. And so it's and especially when you go through the kind of difficulty, pressure, stress, affliction, some persecution that we're going to be going through more and more. I mean, our brother James Coates couldn't make it here to this conference because of what's going on. That's a brother in arms. So the more pressure that comes upon us, the more in Christ we're squeezed together, and we're we're welded together in heart and mind and marching forward with one purpose in one mission. Man, when you suffer together, you're forged together in one force under Christ. So I love these guys. So you think there's more and more persecution coming, that means you're not a post millennialist. All right, I do think there's more difficulty coming for us, Yes, I do. I don't know the other part of the question you asked, But all right, So what should a church member do when his eyes are open to how the church is lifting up or supporting critical race theory, intersectionality, black lives matter, et cetera. He's the only member attempting to point out these errors. So what should a church member do when he seems to be the only person in his church that sees these errors? The only person in the church, I'm sorry, who sees the errors of intersexuality, critical race theory, the only person in his congregation, and the church is promoting he might want to go to a faithful church. But next question, I mean, but I get this question a lot, and usually it's with tears from people that have been members of a church for twenty five years or more, you know, and they just, I mean, they love the church's family, They've invested in the church, and then suddenly it's like, what are we saying? What are we hearing? And it's disorienting. And I'm very sympathetic to that because this was a disorienting thing for me. I had friends that you know, vote and Michael Fallon some others that were telling me years ago about some of this, and it's just like, you know, he's okay, okay, you know, but I wasn't getting it and until maybe five years ago, four and a half, five years ago, and I just it was disorienting. I'm thinking these are not in our church, but in the broader evangelical world, because these are men that I love and respect, and having conversations with some of them privately and hanging up and thinking we're in trouble. We're in trouble. What do you do? And so what Travis says, right, I mean, And I've seen it happen. People have left churches where they have been faithful members for decades and their heartbroken over and it ought to be a heartbreaking thing when you leave a church. There's a time to leave a church, and you can do it in the right way. So I would be demonishing you to humility, but try to talk to the leadership, try to give them resources that you have learned from and just ask them, you know, am I seeing this wrong? Be humble enough to do that because you might be seeing it wrong, and can we can we look at the scriptures. You know, maybe have conversations in a broader context with some people that have helped me. Have you talked to this pastor? Or would you make this song called? You need to be careful about that, but you know, godly leaders are wont to be helped the Bible and second Grinthing. On Second Timothy three sixteen seventeen, Paul mentions four purposes for which the Bible is useful and sufficient. It's for teaching, doctrine, for correction, for reproof, for training, and righteousness. Four things. He says there. Two of them are negative reproof correction. So if you're reading the Bible and it's only ever affirming what you already think, you're not reading it the right way. I mean, we shouldn't be offended whenever we find our minds changed by the Word of God. That's what it's designed to do. And godly leaders understand that and would want that. So if you can help them by giving them resources, you know, give them votes, book fault lines, just to say, would you read that I read this, this man, this is opened my eyes. Could you help me here and what you might discover? And this has happened so many times again. It's heartbreaking to me just listening to the stories. Is the leaders say no, no, no, you know we're going this way. Vote's not right about this, or these guys are got an agenda that's not biblical and they just rejected out of hand. I think these issues are vitally important, and I would not stay in church like that, and with sorrow in my heart, I would say to the leader's, look, we're going different ways. I don't want to make your life miserable, and I know you don't want to make my life miserable, and especially if you've got young kids or kids, I can't. I just we're gonna have to go. We want to do it in the right way. Would you pray for us, We'll pray for you, And then as humbly as you can and as respectfully as you can, to leave the church and try to find a church where these things are seen more clearly. But it's happening all over. Since I've been here this week, I've talked to many of you churches that have split, churches that are beginning to go the wrong way or have gone the wrong way. It's heartbreaking. So be a Christian, find out what the we just go back to what the Bible tells you to do as a Christian every day, and you do this in a Christian way, with humility, meekness, resolve, and a determination to follow the Scripture wherever it leads you, whatever the cost, whatever the consequence. If I could just add this first came on the CRT intersectionality and all that started coming on my radar as a result of what you men did in the statement on social justice and the Gospel. And when I read that, it didn't take me long to get on the right side of the issue. I could see what you men were saying, and I wanted That's what seemed faithful to the Scripture to me. But Oddie, when did this come on your radar, these kind of issues, because you've been studying for quite some time, probably somewhere between four and seven. Yeah, back when I would kind of get the eye roll and tom as you were talking, I remember, I don't remember. I guess four or five years ago, as you said, when I think I came to an event or something and you said something to the effect of, listen, we've talked about this before, but I think we need to talk about it and talk about it and talk about it again, and so, but I think it's really important for us to recognize that for a lot of people, this kind of caught them off guard. And for a lot of people, they're not they're not really embracing the ideology, but they're downstream looking at shiny objects, right, and they hear racial justice and I mean, that's a shiny object, you know, and you swallow that, and the next thing you know, there's a hook in your mouth, right or anti racist, right, that just sounds like something we ought to be right. And so again it's a shiny object, and we go for it, and we go So I think we also need to be really careful and make sure that what we're dealing with is not so one with with good motives who happens to be naive's grabbed onto some shiny objects and doesn't really understand the implications of it, versus people who have sort of imbibed this ideology right, oak line and sinker. And one of the ways that you'll be able to tell the difference is when you push back and ask for clarification. You'll you'll, you'll, you'll you'll make some headway. Right, A person who hears the term, for example, racial justice, but has not imbibed c RT. You press them on that and ask them to define that, and you may be able to move them to another term because they don't mean right. It's it's kind of like I always say, it's that that that Princess Bride theology. Right, you keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means right inconceivable? Yes, yes, And so you know, I think we I think we need to be careful on that because there's some people, you know, you get your ears perked up and somebody you know, just says the word justice, and you're ready to get up and leave. Right, So I think we need to be you know, slow to speak, quick to listen, and make sure make so you were providing early warning for many people. That's that's that's quite a few years earlier, and I'm sure for quite some time you were a voice crying in the wilderness and hoping someone was gonna hear the crazy person. Crazy persons some would say, eating locus and wild honey and such, locus kind of getting your beard though and honey and all that. But you know that that warning, there were other people that started to heed. It came out with your book Social Justice and the Gospel Statement. Uh and and so those who hear the clarity of the gospel in that book and in that statement, Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice, Listen to me and follow me. So I think if you're in a church, just going back to the original question when you said, if you're the only guy in a church who is seeing this, maybe it's exactly what you said that they're just not aware. So bring it, don't don't leave hurriedly. I was kind of joking a little bit when I said that. But but take take some of these resources. You don't have to do the fighting on your own. You don't need to do their articulation on your own. Just take a resource to them and say, hey, listen, this has really impacted me. Bring it to your leadership and say what do you what do you guys think of this? My sheep hear my voice, Jesus said, So if they hear the Shepherd's voice through these resources and they start to make changes in the true church, Man, you're in a that's a good church. That's one that's going to humble itself before the word of God and be in submission to God's word. Stay there be a part of that change. Help them, But if they refuse to listen, you do want to find a faithful church that's in submission to God's word. I think we need to realize this thing has been flying under the radar for way longer than it's been talked about openly and publicly, and a lot of the some of the people that have been promoting this, either covertly or overtly, or maybe even implicitly or whatever. Our individuals that we respect and individuals that we've told other people to respect. The first time that I heard any of this, i'd never heard any CRTs. I didn't even know what I was hearing at the time. I didn't have a category for it. And it was in twenty fifteen at a nine Marks event where they talked about that's the first time I heard were white supremacists. This is the first time I heard that, And that was in twenty fifteen, and then given the Divided by Faith book, which is heavily CRT and never endorsed that book, and it's still up on the ELC website. So you know, the only reason I mentioned names is not because I don't love my brothers. I do love them, and maybe that is why I mention their names, is because I love them and I love people to say these are men that have contributed in my life in many many ways and helped me see many many things well and better. But this is very dangerous, and I don't think people realize how dangerous it is. It's been flying under the radar for a long time before that, because I think Divided by Faith started to be promoted in these evangelical circles around twenty eleven, so this has been a decade going on. And pastors have been steeped in this, even within the Nine Marks network, and so you're going to have good pastors and good churches that have been influenced by this. So it's a hard topic right now. Acts twenty nine, Acts twenty nine SPC. There's the PCA. This thing is really infiltrated a lot of the places where we've had friends over over the years. And I spent at least four years of trying to have conversations because I thought, and maybe I'm wrong, I really did. I went and bought the books and I read them. I didn't even talk to you yet you really helped open my eyes to a lot of this vote because I didn't know what was wrong with it. And so I think you've got pastors out there too who respect these voices and they've listened to them all all these other things like, well, they can't be this, This is just a bunch of troublemakers that are trying to stir things up. Now I care about the truth. Well that is kind of true, though, Okay, I'm just saying we are a bunch of troublemakers. You like to stir things up. So I'm just gonna go ahead and own that. It's it's I think it's a grace of Christ in preparing the church for the future. Though that that what he's revealing is we we should not have an institutional allegiance, but rather a higher allegiance to the authority of God's where than the truth. And so he's calling people out of institutions that maybe have drifted and don't even realize it. And he's used this CRT issue to start to draw the dividing line. Who's going to come to it? Let me let me mention this too. I'm in and through all this be Christian. I mean if you see this, somebody else doesn't. Why is that? It's not because we're so much smarter or holier. God's shown us this, This is from God. John Newton talks about people who become Calvinists and then get mad at folks aren't Calvinists. It's like a blind man that has his eyes open miraculously and he goes around and he gets a stick and he goes and beats up other blind people because they can't see, you know, And I mean, we mustn't do that. And so I've had not a bunch, but I've had a few pastors who've called me and asked for my forgiveness because of public statements they've made about me being crazier, going down the wrong world. And they said, we didn't see it, we see it now. We were wrong. Praise God for that. And it's and again, it's not because I'm smarter holier than they are. God in whatever. Again, I still ask this question, why, Lord, you know why there's so many other people that should be doing things far better and more readily better equip than what I am. And if God showed me something, it's his grace, So be patient. We can't be haughty, But don't bend either. Don't budge because if what we're saying is right and true, then we have got to tow this line. Come what may, doesn't matter even friendships. Relationships have to be severed, sad, heartbreaking, But don't budge because these are issues of eternal life and death. One of the questions that was asked that I'm not going to ask, is with everything going on, why aren't we namings? But that's kind of a silly question after this panel discussion, because Alexander the Coppersmith lives on Main Street. Yeah, that one, that one over there. Yes, all right, Well this will be our final question for this morning. It's a simple question. Well, we simply asked, how do we accurately assess the spiritual maturity in our local church? Yeah? I just wanted to read very quickly colloss chapter two, verse six down to verse eight. Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosoph and empty deceit. According to human tradition, according to the spirits of the world are not according to Christ. If I was to try and summarize my answer to this question, I would say that ultimately the health of individuals and the health of the church depends on our appreciation of the person and work of Christ. His relevance in a very real way is relevance to the whole of life when individuals abandon that foundation and begin to build their lives on all kinds of things. We have examples here and the kind of topic we just said a minute or two ago. The the outward facade may still look like church, but the inner life has begun to be eaten away. It's a matter of time the structure will cave in and collapse. When husbands, wives, parents, children build their lives on Christ, you have not just a strong church for today, but you're building a strong foundation for the future. So, if I was to listen in in terms of being a doctor seeking to ascertain the health of God's people, I really want to know is Christ really treasured? There? Is he the main message in the pulpit? Is He the glue that is keeping us together as brothers and sisters in the Lord? Where that is number one, Number two number three all the way to number ten, you have true spiritual vitality. There Where that is compromised, I would say we need to do a lot of foundational work to ensure that we have the right structures for true spiritual health. So ultimately it's Christ. Thank you well, Thank you brothers for your candor, for your wisdom this morning, and for for your labors. Let's give our speakers a hand