Transcript: Episode 0004

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0 2000 Hello!
30000 44160 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast, I am Corey J. Moller, and I'm Wo.
44160 49800 As a sort of warning to the listener, today's episode does run a little long.
49800 54640 Undoubtedly your podcast app has already notified you of the length of the episode so I don't
54640 59680 need to repeat it, not least of all because I do not yet know the exact length.
59680 65760 It is over two hours, really it is a two-part episode, but we do ask that you listen to
65760 72920 the entire episode, preferably in one sitting, and preferably with minimal distractions.
72920 77960 This is an important topic, and the entire thing hangs together.
77960 83360 It is important to listen to the entirety of the episode to get the proper doctrine and
83360 89400 theology and the proper context, because all of it is connected.
89400 97920 We try to aim for roughly an hour with episodes, but some things simply require more
97920 104360 time, because they are important, and we want to make sure that we cover them adequately
104360 108200 and correctly.
108200 110840 Welcome to the delayed election episode.
110840 115680 When we originally decided we wanted to tackle election next, the timing was that it was
115680 120200 going to be the day after the midterm election, so I was going to make a stupid joke about
120200 125840 that, but you've been spared by that by multiple hardware malfunctions.
125840 131360 My very expensive microphone died and it died in such a way that it took me about 40 hours
131360 135960 of debugging and buying several hundred dollars more equipment to isolate that it was in fact
135960 142000 the microphone, so I apologize for the two weeks that we were down.
142080 146240 I love listening to podcasts, too, and I always count on showing up on time, and our goal
146240 150760 is absolutely to make sure that we always deliver every episode on time, so that will be the
150760 152840 case in the future, I think.
152840 156400 Now that we're back up and running, we will try to get a couple episodes in the can so
156400 163040 that we'll be able to deliver even in the event that Clamony befalls us.
163040 167640 On that note, I would like to ask for something of our listeners, first thank you to everyone
167640 173120 who's been sharing the podcast with friends and online and elsewhere, means a lot, because
173120 178920 this is obviously an incredibly niche sort of thing that we'll also never have any marketing
178920 183200 budgets, so the only way anyone's going to hear it is if someone shares it with someone
183200 187720 and says, hey, we think this is worth your time, so we appreciate each and every share
187720 191160 that you provide.
191160 196400 When Cory and I set out to do this, when we finally decided to pull the trigger on a project
196400 202080 we've been talking about pretty much since we were introduced, within about 24 hours
202080 206760 of us deciding to do this, all hell broke loose.
206760 211840 We started having equipment malfunctions, software malfunctions, not just related to
211840 218280 the stuff we were using for the podcasting, but just in general, in life, a whole lot
218280 223160 of stuff went wrong, and some of it went wrong in ways that are literally impossible,
223240 231440 some of the malfunctions that my microphone in recording stuff exhibited, it was the technological
231440 235920 equivalent of water flowing uphill, there was no rational explanation for what was going
235920 240360 on, which is part of why it took me so long to figure out that it was, in fact, the mic
240360 247720 that needed to be replaced, so my request to the audience, if you would consider saying
247720 254280 a prayer for us once in a while to keep Cory and I faithful and steadfast to God's word
254280 260600 and to give us the strength to persevere through the slings and arrows that Satan is throwing
260600 262720 at us.
262720 269400 Audio hardware is kind of a possessed all by itself about any special intervention by
269400 274880 the devil, but the volume and the nature of the things that have gone wrong are such
274880 280440 that I personally think there's no argument that Satan really doesn't want us to be doing
280440 285880 this thing, which we knew going into it, that's precisely why we're doing it, despite
285880 290360 not really wanting to undertake this, we knew that we had to because of the challenges
290360 295200 that were being faced in the world, so if you would just say a prayer for our protection
295200 300360 and faithfulness, it would be greatly appreciated.
300360 305480 It's the sheer unlikeliness of both of us having a mic die because I also had a mic that
305480 311680 bricked itself and it happened within the same week, totally different mics, different
311680 318640 manufacturers, purchased at different times, died within a week of each other, very unlikely.
318640 324760 Yeah, I mean, a microphone is, it's basically a solid state device, there's one moving
324760 328680 part and it barely moves, so it's just, it's not something you would expect to fail.
329080 329880 Yeah, mine's a digital.
329880 338480 Anyway, yeah, yeah, it's just the things that we're talking about in the people that we're
338480 344760 addressing and the problems that we're addressing are we believe vital and that's why we're here.
344760 348880 So we thank you for listening and we hope that you'll consider keeping us in your prayers
348880 351240 once in a while.
351240 355000 The reason that we're talking about election today, it wasn't just a gimmick each
355000 364200 choice based on the timing, but election in other words for it are predestination or having
364200 370520 your name written eternally in the book of life in heaven from before eternity.
370520 376000 These are all ways that the doctrine of election are described in scripture.
376000 381640 The reason that we wanted to talk about it next is that it flows naturally from episode
381640 390040 episode two's discussion of genealogy and episode three's discussion of nationality.
390040 396840 When you look at how election plays out both as it is described in scripture and then what happens
396840 404600 in the world and time and space, it is clear that it is also a manifestation of God's will
404600 412360 through linear inheritance which is not to say that it is only inherited and we'll get into
412360 417400 that but it does flow naturally from from our previous discussions and all of these are laying
417400 421560 the groundwork for additional future episodes that are going to get into some of the most controversial
421560 428600 issues that are frankly they're going to split the church in some really ugly ways and our fear is
428600 432680 that there will be good men on the wrong side of those splits because they have not thought these
432760 439320 things through so that's why we're talking about them now. The three things that I hope the audience
439320 445000 today will keep in mind as we're talking about this particular doctrine. First this is not going
445000 450840 to be a systematic podcast. We're not going to be doing deep dyes on doctrines as a matter of course.
450840 455400 The reason that we are tackling election in particular is that it touches directly on
456120 460120 things that we're facing today and the second half of the episode we'll be making that case
460760 466280 but election is a doctrine that is found everywhere in scripture. Once you realize the different
466280 472280 terms that are being used for it by God, you basically can't turn from from jossist revelation.
472280 477800 You're going to find it smacking you in the face continuously. So it's a doctrine that
480440 485640 is universal. It's not Lutheran doctrine. It's not Protestant doctrine. It's Christian doctrine
485720 493240 and it is the key way that God helps to explain our salvation and the gift of faith that is given
493240 499880 to us. So the first thing I want everyone to keep in mind is that doctrine, the doctrine of election
499880 506120 is given for our comfort. When we're talking about election and predestination, it should never be
506120 512360 thought of in the sense of the condemnation of those who are not believers and we'll get into
512360 519800 why that that is. But election is given for comfort. It is not given for punishment or for doubt.
521320 524840 The second thing that you need to keep in mind as you're listening to this episode is that
526280 531800 this is one of the very short list of doctrines and scripture that is beyond reason.
533080 538120 It's like the Trinity in that sense. When you look at everything in scripture that describes the
538120 543880 Trinity in a great encapsulation of this if you haven't seen it before. Not only the Apostle and
543880 550040 Nicene creeds, but the Athanasian creed. It's something that in Lutheran churches is typically
550040 555560 only read once a year. It is well worth studying. I actually memorized it in seventh grade for extra
555560 561080 credit and that was fun because there's a couple pages long. When you read the Athanasian creed,
561240 570760 what you will find is a faithful confession of what scripture says about God in such a way that
570760 575960 there are no errors in the Athanasian creed because it agrees with scripture. But when you look
575960 582440 at it in totality, it's kind of confusing. It doesn't really make sense how there can be
583240 588280 not three eternal but one eternal. What's the difference between a person and the God? How can
588280 595560 there be three persons but one God? Our human reason fails when we're trying to introspect God,
595560 601720 which shouldn't surprise us. We're creatures. We have a creator who is infinite. So the idea that we
601720 607800 can't fit our creator inside our little tiny created meat minds shouldn't surprise or upset us.
609240 616760 The essence of the Christian faith is believing that which is taught not making a subject to
616840 623080 intellectual ascent and that's a place where some denominations kind of go off the rails. They look
623080 629560 at scripture faithfully and they say, okay, I'm going to believe this. But then they run into things
629560 634040 where it seems like it doesn't add up and reason has made the master over their doctrine and
635240 640040 that is how you invent hairsees. The reason that the creeds were originally written was to deal with
640040 644280 the hairsees that came from the very intelligent men who were looking at scripture and trying to make
644280 651560 sense of the Trinity and they made a mess because they made their reason the master when God
651560 657720 must be the master and what he reveals must be binding upon us whether or not we understand it.
657720 663080 When Christ talks about us having the faith of a child, that's what it means to receive teaching
664840 671560 without requiring it past some smell test of our own reason. It's not to say that you should just
671560 678440 blindly listen to whatever you hear and this is the reason why faithful teachers, faithful pastors
678440 684200 are so crucial because most people are not equipped to understand and reason these things out.
685080 689560 We have thousands of years of faithful doctrine being developed and understood
690440 695640 develop as a weak word, being properly fleshed out in such a way that when you say everything
695640 700040 that scripture says in a certain way, you can know that you're being faithful and so
700680 705080 there are a few doctrines like the Trinity, like the nature of Christ, the hypostatic union,
705080 711880 how can he be both fully God and fully man? It doesn't make sense in as Lutherans were comfortable
711880 717880 saying that we don't understand it's a mystery. We can say what God says but we can't make sense of
717880 723400 it in such a way that it's going to add up in our minds. The same is true of communion of the
723480 731080 Eucharist when God says this is my body, this is my blood. He also says this is bread and this is wine
731720 738840 and the reformed and the Catholics both agree that it can only be one or the other by reason. It
738840 744760 can't possibly be blood if it's wine and it can't be wine if it's blood. So each of them pick one
744760 751160 and they go in opposite directions. Lutherans and to their credit, the the Eastern Orthodox say,
751800 756840 we don't understand how it works but God says it's bread. God says it's his flesh. So it is.
756840 762120 This is the same God who spoke the universe into existence. He's the same God who spoke Lazarus
762120 767640 back to life by saying Lazarus come out. That wasn't a descriptive thing. That was proscriptive.
767640 773960 When God speaks, it is true. So when there are doctrines that are revealed in such a way that we
773960 779000 can't make them subject to our reason, once we've exhausted all of the possibilities as faithful
779000 784200 Christians, we simply have a duty to believe them. And election predestination is one of those
784200 790280 where it's challenging. So as you hear us talking about it today, please don't cherry pick
791080 795960 30 second or two minutes segments of this and try to say, well, that's wrong. That's that's
795960 803240 contrary to scripture because in isolation, you're probably right. The doctrine of predestination,
803240 811080 the doctrine of faith, the doctrine of salvation, it doesn't make sense. And you can say what God
811080 817640 says, but if you try to apply a reason to it, rigorously, you're going to make a mess. And so
817640 822600 I just encourage people to please listen to the whole thing as one piece and then take it as a
822600 827320 coherent whole because that's the only way it can be presented. This is not something I can fit
827320 831800 on a bumper sticker. And the third point I just like to make before we launch into this is that
833400 839240 election is not simply some hypothetical doctrine that doesn't have any applicability.
840200 849160 It is a doctrine which is central to all of the most painful problems that the church and the
849160 854040 world are facing today. And this is the case where we'll be making the second half of the episode.
855240 861160 Every major modern fight about racism, about colonialism, about cultural and racial supremacy,
861880 867320 about patriarchy, all of these things are ultimately attacks on doctrine and on salvation.
868040 872440 And we are doing this episode in order to make the case for
874120 878440 the necessity of us returning to a faithful belief of election because frankly,
879240 886360 while Lutherans certainly say that we subscribe to the doctrine election, when push comes to shove,
887160 891480 our churches are full of universalists. They're full of people who reject election,
892040 898280 who try to be so quote unquote gospel focused that they end up contradicting scripture left and
898280 903240 right. And they're doing it in the name of love. So we're going back to first principles here in
903240 910200 order to try to get our feet under us so that when these discussions are had in future episodes
910200 917000 and elsewhere, you'll be equipped to understand what it is that you're facing because like you said,
917000 923400 this is not just an academic thing. This is a live issue that is it's it's shaping the world around
923400 928440 you. And that is something the doctrine of election is not a novel. It's something that's been around
928440 935640 forever. Everyone in Christianity and the faith has always known about it. But the modern implications
935720 939320 are something that personally I haven't seen discussed elsewhere. And that's the reason we're
939320 945240 doing this episode is to make the connection between the doctrine of scripture and the events
945240 950280 that we're seeing in the world today. So that like the preamble out of the way, let's get into what
950280 959480 election is. Just briefly before we get into election proper, I want to address at the outset an
959480 965000 issue that some will have approaching the matter of election and related things. And that as you
965320 973320 said, it's a mystery. Now the word mystery is going to raise the hackles of some people. Some people
973320 978760 are trained so that they don't like the idea that some things are beyond our knowledge. And we'll
978760 984920 get into that later in the episode. But I just want to point out the word for mystery, the word that
984920 992120 is translated as mystery appears 35 times in scripture, 27 of which are in the New Testament that
992120 996680 is most staring on in the Greek. This is not as mentioned, something that appears in one place,
996680 1002600 this appears throughout the scriptures. And it is mystery or secret, a thing that is hidden.
1002600 1007960 There are things that are beyond our understanding. And that just makes sense. We worship an infinite
1007960 1013320 God who created the universe. There are going to be things in his counsel that we cannot understand
1013320 1019400 fully. We can understand them to the extent that they are revealed to us, primarily in scripture.
1020360 1025240 And so I just wanted to deal with that issue of the word mystery and the fact that it makes some
1025240 1032520 people uncomfortable. As a lifelong Lutheran, that's one of the things that I appreciate the most
1032520 1041720 about our doctrine is that we are content to run out of runway and say, you know what? We're not
1041720 1045560 going to be able to understand this. We can say what God says, but we're not going to be able to
1045560 1049880 make sense of this. And that's okay because we acknowledge that we are creatures and that our
1049880 1057480 God, our Creator is greater than us. And we say right back to him what he says. And if we don't
1057480 1062280 make sense of it, that's okay. We are children in the faith. We do not need to be the masters of
1062280 1068840 these things. And in a very real sense, we do actually have these things revealed to us in
1068840 1074280 scripture. So there are mystery in the sense of they are unknowable with regard to human reason,
1074280 1079800 but they are knowable with regard to revelation because we actually can understand
1080680 1086200 election. In a final sense, we understand what election is, what election does. We cannot
1086200 1091960 necessarily get all of the steps leading up to election, explain the why and the how and all
1091960 1097480 of these things. But the actual doctrine itself is revealed in scripture in a way that it is
1097480 1104280 knowable to those who have the Holy Spirit. And it's very simple. When we talk about it being a
1104280 1112120 mystery, the mystery is that when you, I mean, election in a nutshell is that God is the cause of
1112120 1119400 our salvation solely, not us, only God. We are the cause of our damnation solely, not God.
1120120 1124520 When you try to synthesize those two things, when you try to rationalize them and say, well,
1124520 1129960 if X and not Y, then I'm going to infer a bunch of things. You can't. Your inferences are going
1129960 1134600 to be wrong. And so when we talk about reason failing, that's where it fails. It's the reasonable
1134600 1141880 inferences that try to fill in the blanks between God, Jesus chooses those who He saves. But God
1141880 1147080 did not choose those who are damned. That's where it doesn't make sense. And when people try to
1147080 1152440 reconcile those two things beyond saying what God says, you're going to make some profound errors
1152440 1157480 that will themselves have knock on effects that are very harmful. It's the crux theologorum.
1157480 1162920 It's the problem of attempting to resolve the statements in Scripture. God does not wish that
1162920 1171080 anyone perish, but that all would repent to turn and be saved. And God chose those who are saved
1171080 1178760 by giving them faith in time. Now he chose them in eternity. And through faith in time is how he
1178760 1184520 saves them. But attempting to reconcile those two things is beyond the capabilities at least
1184520 1192920 of fallen human reason and possibly of human reason entirely. Yep. So do you want to get into making
1192920 1200920 the scriptural case for where this came from and why we speak the way we do? Sure. We could at some
1200920 1206520 point, I guess, go through the eight points that the book of Concord makes. We'll do that in a
1206520 1211080 little bit. It's actually a very brief section there in one of the last articles in the solid
1211080 1220360 declaration. But just as a summary of election, I think it's best to turn to Romans 8. And that is
1220360 1224920 starting with verse 28, which I am obligated to mention is my confirmation verse every time I bring it
1224920 1230040 up. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are
1230040 1236520 called, according to his purpose, for those whom he for new, he also predestined to be conformed
1236520 1241800 to the image of his son in order that he might be the first born among many brothers. And those
1241800 1247880 whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he
1247880 1256360 justified, he also glorified. We have the entirety of the Christian life in these verses. And we have
1256440 1261080 what it means to be a Christian, how you are made a Christian, why you are made a Christian in
1261080 1270520 these verses. It is only those who are predestined to faith, who are ultimately saved. All of those
1271160 1278120 who are predestined will ultimately be saved, which is to say the elect. These terms are interchangeable.
1279080 1288280 God in eternity shows those that he would save in time the faith, by grace through faith.
1288920 1294280 That's how we're saved. He uses means in time to affect what he decided in eternity.
1295400 1301560 And that's all that predestination is. Now, as mentioned in the opening, it is important to understand
1302360 1309800 that to bring up the law-gospel distinction, predestination is gospel. Predestination is not law.
1309800 1317080 Some take it as really not even law, so much as just a depressing military
1317080 1323320 muster as it has been described in the literature from time to time. Because if you take election
1323320 1330120 predestination to mean that God simply rolled dice or in eternity saw everyone and pointed left
1330120 1336600 and right, a military muster, then that's depressing. And that leads to the problems of either
1337160 1342600 security, because well if I'm elect, then I can do anything I want, and regardless of that,
1343560 1349000 ultimately I will be saved because I am elect, or it leads to despair, on the other hand, being,
1349560 1355480 well, it doesn't matter what I do, because if I am not elect, anything I do doesn't matter because
1355480 1362120 I am ultimately damned. And that is the wrong way of looking at the doctrine. Again, we can judge
1362120 1370680 trees by their fruit, not to directly apply that here, but it can be used as a guide. Predestination
1370680 1379480 election is gospel, because what it means is you were chosen in Christ before the foundation of
1379480 1386360 the world, and he will not lose you out of his hand. Your faith is not in your own hands, it is in
1386360 1391160 his hands, and he will see you through to the end. He who began the good work will see it through.
1392280 1397480 And that is why it is gospel. This is something that is meant to be preached to the sheep in the
1397480 1405480 church, because it is for the comfort of consciences. It is to secure those who are feeling weak in
1405560 1412520 the faith who are weighed down by the troubles of the world. It is to let them know God knew them before
1412520 1418600 anything had been created, and chose them in his son to save them, and that he will see them
1418600 1424440 through to the end. That is the right way of looking at election, of looking at predestination.
1424440 1432120 Any other way of looking at it is incorrect. And this is why God has given us the sacraments. That's
1432120 1437720 why we have baptism. It is why we have communion, because in addition to the assurances and the
1437720 1443800 reassurances and the word, God knows that we will doubt. He knows that we will need something more
1443800 1451000 concrete than a promise, because we are faithless, we are weak. And because of that, in baptism, God puts
1451000 1459480 his name on us to seal us into himself, to say, I marked this child as an adopted son of myself.
1459480 1463640 This child is now my son, because I place my name on him in baptism.
1465320 1475480 It connects the flesh and blood world, the physical reality of our lives to the eternal promise,
1475480 1480120 in such a way that it takes it out of our hands. And like you said, it is for comfort when
1480920 1488440 it is the reason that Lutherans continuously point back to baptism as the touch point in the Christian
1488440 1493960 life when even if someone had faith before baptism by hearing the word, which happens very often,
1494680 1502680 God promises that no matter what, He has given faith in baptism, and that that is a comfort to those
1502680 1509000 who need to hear at most. And this is one of the reasons that Lutherans tend to die well.
1509880 1516760 Ask a pastor who has been bedside with a number of dying Lutherans. Lutherans don't die in fear
1516760 1522520 and uncertainty in doubt. Lutherans die, secure in the knowledge that they belong to Christ.
1523640 1529320 And that when they wake up on the other side of that door, they will be face to face with their
1529320 1537000 Savior. That is true doctrine comforts the sheep. It does not terrify the sheep. It does not make
1537000 1543880 them doubt whether they are saved. If a doctrine brings those who are on their deathbed to the point
1543960 1550280 of despair in doubt, that doctrine is false if that person, of course, is a sheep.
1551320 1558680 Because the sheep are comforted by the words of the shepherd. And with regard to the sacraments,
1560040 1566440 there are those who contend that God doesn't work with means at all. Largely, this would be
1566440 1571880 the enthusiast, Pentecostals. And there are those who contend that God uses only one means,
1571880 1576360 which is to say scripture, although they typically those who consider it one means wouldn't call
1576360 1582200 it a means, but nonetheless, Lutherans look at it and those who believe in the sacraments look at
1582200 1590520 it rightly. God has multiple means of bringing his grace to us, of bringing forgiveness of sins to
1590520 1596840 us. God is super abundant with his grace. He is not stingy. God does not give us no means or just
1596920 1602760 one means. He gives us the word. He gives us absolution. He gives us baptism. He gives us the Lord
1602760 1609560 supper. We have these many ways that God comes to us and comforts us. Let's us know that yes,
1609560 1616200 we are his children. Even though we are still in this world, we are still beset by sin and death.
1616200 1622600 We are beset by the flesh and the devil in the world. We are still his. We are in his hands. He
1622600 1627400 will see us through. And he is super abundant with his grace. That's why there are these
1627400 1633960 multiple means, not just one or none. And it is also because, as Luther and some other
1633960 1641480 theologians have pointed out, my mind, my soul, can grasp the promises, the words of God.
1642600 1649800 My flesh really can't. But my flesh understands water. My flesh understands bread and wine.
1650680 1657880 And human beings are not just a soul. You are not a spirit operating a meat suit. That conception
1658440 1663400 of what human beings are is nostic. It is false. It's a reticle. You are your body.
1664840 1672120 Because human beings are a body, a mind and a soul is as one where our own sort of minor trinity
1672120 1678520 as it were. And so it is important to have these things that the flesh can also grasp.
1679160 1685080 Because it's meant so the totality of the human being can grasp what God is doing and hold
1685080 1692200 tightly to something when weighed down by the world. One of the things that is a classic
1692200 1699400 tale that you're dealing with, Lutheran, is that we constantly point to the cross as the moment
1699400 1705640 in time when God fulfilled all of His promises. And so I can imagine someone hearing us today
1706520 1712920 pointing to the doctrine of election, pointing to the book of life which had our full names first
1712920 1719160 and last written in eternity as a source of comfort. And I can see someone potentially saying,
1719160 1723160 well, you're not pointing at the cross. When, in fact, that's the exact opposite of what's
1723160 1728440 happening. When you point to election, when you point to the book of life, those are pointing
1728440 1734280 to the cross because the cross where Christ sacrificed His precious blood is where the promise was
1734280 1741480 fulfilled. It is where salvation took place. It is where the punishment for every sin
1741480 1747560 that every person in the history of the universe has ever or will ever commit were paid by God.
1748440 1753480 And that's one of the things we'll get into your shortly is that there's a question of completeness
1753480 1759720 when you're talking about both the book of life and the cross. When you apply reason to this,
1759720 1766280 you're like, well, if God omitted some names, then did Jesus not pay for their sins on the cross?
1766840 1772200 And that's one of the things that Five Point Calvinism says absolutely. Jesus didn't die for
1772200 1779160 everyone. He only died for the elect, which is a tremendously harmful false representation of what
1779160 1786360 Scripture says. And I think that the reason that we point to election and to the book of life
1786360 1795000 in this episode is because as I'll demonstrate later, there are aspects of these promises
1795000 1801480 that were known throughout the world before the cross, that the prophecy of the Christ which
1802200 1811480 began in Genesis 315. And then we see it coming to a greater completion in Isaiah just 700 years
1811480 1817160 before Christ's birth. There were other things that were told to believers in between those two
1817160 1822760 periods of time that some of which are not recorded in Scripture, but which are observable in time.
1823320 1830200 And so the reason that we want to point today to election and to connect it to genealogy
1830200 1837480 and to the religions of kings and of their nations is that that is how the faith is propagated.
1837480 1843240 And ultimately, your name is as as Corey, as you just said, your name is written in the book of
1843240 1850680 life. And God gives you faith, which receives the sacrifice on the cross and you are saved. All of that
1850680 1856840 goes together. And God speaks of it as a unified whole. God doesn't speak of these as piecemeal
1856840 1864280 things. These these ideas are all connected repeatedly in Scripture. And it's one of the weaknesses
1864280 1869640 of systematic theology is when you start, when you take Scripture and you try to break it down
1869640 1875080 like a butcher and say, well, the liver goes over here and the shanks go over here. You end up with
1875080 1879720 something that doesn't look like what you started with because you've chopped it up in little pieces.
1879720 1887400 So when we talk about specific doctrines, it's never too separated from the whole. It is to highlight
1887400 1893800 to X-rayer to do an MRI on how this one piece of the whole works within the whole. And again,
1893800 1899800 it's always for comfort. It's never for for judgment for condemnation. And it should be never used
1899800 1906200 as as a distraction. It should never the the book of life should not be the focus of the Christian
1906200 1912200 faith apart from the cross. But we can't forget about it either because God talks about it many times.
1913080 1918760 I happened I found just seven verses among many that specifically talk about the book of life.
1919720 1925800 In Exodus 32, God said to Moses, whoever has sinned against me, I will blot out of my book.
1926600 1933240 In Psalm 69, it's recorded, let them be blotted out of the book of the living, let them not be enrolled
1933240 1939960 among the righteous. And Luke 10, nevertheless, do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to
1939960 1946360 you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. In Philippians 4, it says, yes, I
1946760 1952360 ask you also true companion, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel
1952360 1957400 together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.
1957960 1963720 Not snitching one because Paul is making a pronouncement in time of believers whom he he knows
1963720 1968120 their confession and he knows their works. And he says these people their name their names are in
1968120 1973080 the book of life. I can tell by looking at their Christian lives that this is the case. So again,
1973080 1977640 that's not judgment. It's not talking about fruit checking to determine if you're saved or not,
1977640 1984440 but it is saying the Christian life is not a hypothetical. It's not just a name in a book,
1984440 1989720 it's not a line item and a ledger. It is a real and living thing that God has given to us
1989720 1997080 to live for his glory and our names are recorded in eternity as a part of that whole.
1997720 2002440 In Revelation 3, Jesus himself writes to the Church of Sardis,
2002920 2008120 the one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments and I will never blot his name out
2008120 2012440 of the book of life. I will confess his name before my father and before his angels.
2013240 2019800 And again, in chapter 13 of Revelation and all who dwell on earth will worship it. Everyone
2019800 2024760 whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the
2024760 2031640 Lamb who was slain. That's mentioning verse because it points to one of the really difficult
2031640 2038280 things about speaking about this subject in that Revelation 13 acknowledges there are names that
2038280 2043880 are not written in the book of life. And we'll talk about predestination, double predestination
2043880 2051640 here in a minute, but this is why I did that lengthy preamble is that when you try to apply
2051720 2055400 reason to this, you're going to say, well, God picks on people to be damned. And that's not the
2055400 2059400 case. And that should never be the conclusion that is drawn from scripture because it's not there.
2060200 2067960 But it is permissible under the right circumstances to say there are names that are not in the book
2067960 2073400 of life and that those names who are not written there, those people are damned, not because of
2073400 2079480 God's actions, because of their own. But well, in the second half of the conversation, we're going to
2079480 2085480 talk about why that's relevant to what's blowing up today. The last verse I want to highlight is from
2085480 2090520 chapter 17 to even Revelation. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book
2090520 2095560 of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast because it was and is not
2095560 2100760 and is to come. So again, their names in the book of life and their names that are not and those
2100760 2106200 whose names are not present will be damned, not because God didn't write their name in the book
2106280 2113800 of life, but because they rejected God's sacrifice on the cross. So maybe that's a good place for us to
2113800 2119160 speak briefly about into a two-feet day because that's one of the areas where Lutherans in particular
2119160 2125320 have contributed to some false teachings about this in periods of time where we struggled with
2125320 2131720 trying to be too reasonable and reach some conclusions that were false. Before we get into
2131800 2138600 into a two-feet day, I just want to highlight that you actually reinforced the fact that when we point
2138600 2144360 to election predestination and we point to the book of life, we are in fact still pointing to the
2144360 2151960 cross because that's exactly what Revelation 13 says. And far be it from me to give the King James
2151960 2159560 only crowd any ammunition, not this is ammunition, but I like the formulation in the King James of
2159560 2165640 Revelation 13 because it is, and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are not
2165640 2171560 written in the book of life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world. I like the placement
2171560 2177480 of that modifying phrase, slain from the foundation of the world, applying to the Lamb because that is
2177480 2185320 what we are pointing to. We are pointing to Christ was slain from eternity. That was God's plan,
2185320 2194360 that was God's purpose to bring humanity the elect back to himself to restore us to cleanses
2194360 2199560 from our sins. And so when we point to election, we point to predestination, we are in fact still
2199560 2207000 pointing to the Lamb. And just to point out the Luther translation has the same wording. So
2208120 2212680 just like that, that wording a little more than the way the ESV moved that phrase around. I'm not
2212680 2218120 saying the ESV is wrong. It's just a different way of writing that particular verse. But then to speak
2218120 2225560 of Intuitu Fidei, and this is going to come up in mostly Lutheran circles, but other places as well
2225560 2233640 because it has become a common error in some denominations and some traditions, whether or not the
2233640 2241160 term is used to view election in this light. Now there are multiple ways that Intuitu Fidei has
2241160 2248120 been used and we should probably define it. That means just in view of faith in Latin or in view
2248120 2255640 of foreseen faith sometimes. It has been used in multiple senses, not all of which are incorrect
2256920 2262360 because some of them get into hyper-technical, philosophical discussions of Aristotleian cause
2263000 2269640 and you know what is the formal cause or the final cause or the instrumental cause or
2270600 2275960 when you get into that kind of stuff, one, there's a question of the utility of it. I'm not saying
2275960 2281880 that philosophy is always useless, but I am saying that philosophy is often useless, particularly when
2281880 2288920 you are trying to pick apart doctrines of scripture that are largely beyond human reason when it comes
2288920 2295240 to those, let's call them finer details. And also these were, yeah, it's exactly, it's harmful. And
2295320 2301000 these were discussions, in part, they were discussions being had by academics and in that setting,
2301000 2306760 okay fine, maybe you can have these discussions, but they bled out into the church and these
2306760 2311960 cause real harm to the sheep when they are exposed to these things because they will not be understood
2311960 2316840 correctly or they will be filtered through false teachers who corrupt them. And so for instance,
2316840 2321880 in the Lutheran tradition, we have Gerhard who did use Intuitu Fidei in his writings, but
2322760 2329000 he used it in a way that was sound doctrinally and theologically, and I could list off many
2329000 2335880 quotes from him to that effect. He was sound on the doctrine. He used it in the sense of faith
2335880 2343880 is the instrumental cause used by God in order to save us in time according to his eternal
2343880 2349240 ordination, which is predestination or election. That is a fine formulation, that is correct.
2350200 2356200 The incorrect formulation, how it has been used in a radical sense from really around the same
2356200 2365320 time as Gerhard to now is that God in eternity foresaw those who would in time persevere in faith
2365880 2372680 to the end. And therefore, their names are written in the book of life because God foresaw that
2372680 2378760 they would persevere. And so it's the same Armenian problem. It's the same free will issue that
2378760 2385960 constantly occurs. It's the idea that man saves himself. And that's not what scripture teaches
2385960 2392120 because scripture teaches that you were dead in your sin and your trespass. Corpse's do not act,
2392120 2397000 go to the morgue, wait around, none of them are going to stand up, unless someone really botched
2397000 2403480 something. The dead do not act, and so you who were dead in your sin and trespass cannot save
2403480 2410600 yourself. So a doctrine that tells you all you just have to persevere to the end. And then
2410600 2414280 God will elect you because of the faith that you held up. That's not how it works.
2415400 2423400 God gave you faith. Faith is a gift. God creates faith in you via means of grace, baptism,
2423400 2429160 reinforced with the Lord's supper, hearing of the word, reinforced with the absolution.
2429960 2437000 God gave you faith as a gift. It is that gift that receives forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
2437000 2443400 It is reliant on God. It is not reliant on you. And so if a theology is telling you, if a
2443400 2452520 tradition is telling you that you have to grasp this faith and hold it to the end, and it is
2452520 2460600 reliant on you, it is not reliant on God, that is a recipe for despair. How will I ever know
2460600 2465720 that I have done enough to persevere? Yes, Scripture tells us to persevere. Yes, you should make
2465720 2472840 your election certain. Yes, you should have good works. We are not denying any of that. But as soon
2472840 2479560 as you make justification, a matter of your works, a matter of your perseverance, a matter of what
2479560 2485880 you do, you are taking the glory from Christ, you are denigrating Christ's death, his work,
2487480 2492360 and you are dooming yourself. Because ultimately, you will figure out, I cannot do this.
2493080 2497000 And so if you believe that you have to do it, and you figure out that you cannot do it, you will
2497000 2503240 despair. And that is a recipe for being an apostate. And that is why this doctrine matters. You have
2503240 2511480 to get the doctrine right. And it seems like a subtle distinction. And when the philosophers were
2511480 2516760 tackling it, they were originally making a subtle distinction. As you said, it leaked out into the
2516760 2522120 world, and it does tremendous harm. Because again, by pointing to your name being in the book of
2522120 2528680 life, you're pointing forward to the cross and to Christ's propitiation for your sins, there's no
2528760 2535080 you in there except as the object of God's mercy. You are not ever the subject in
2536520 2542440 true Christian doctrine. You are always the object. Even when you do good works, you are doing
2542440 2547720 the good works which you received from God, which were also prepared from before the foundation
2547720 2553880 of world, for you to do them for God's glory. So there's nothing that we can ever take credit
2554280 2560280 forever, not a single thing that we can take credit for for our salvation. On the other hand,
2560840 2567320 because God is so merciful, because He paid for all of our sins, every single good thing that we do
2567320 2574040 that He gave us to do, He gives us credit for it. Just as He gave us unfairly the credit for Christ
2574040 2579640 death on the cross, He also gives us credit for the good works that we do that He gave us to do.
2579640 2585960 Just as He gives us salvation because He gave us faith, it's all just God pouring out continuously
2585960 2591720 and eternally for our benefit. None of it is ever fair and that's what we're going to be talking
2591720 2597160 about in the second half is that none of this is fair in either direction. It's not fair for the
2597160 2604520 elect and it's not fair for those who are not elect and that is not accusing God of sin because
2604520 2609960 God simply isn't fair and that's one of the places where our reason rebels against God.
2609960 2615880 Anytime we hear it, anytime someone says, well, people aren't equal, the human mind in the 21st
2615880 2623560 century raves furiously against God at the idea that all men are not equal. It's nonsense.
2623560 2630600 Scripture denies it, our own reason denies it, everything we see denies it, and yet when we come
2630680 2637000 into contact with these things in the world, people either attribute sin to God or they deny
2637000 2643480 that God has anything to do with it, which is equally bad. These discussions must always be
2643480 2650920 focused on the comfort to the believer and the warning to the unbeliever. Now, the book of life
2650920 2657000 is not given as a warning to the unbeliever in the sense that, well, as you said, if your name's
2657000 2661320 not in the book of life, I guess you're just out of love. So, you know, you drink and be married
2661320 2666040 because there's nothing you can do. That's not the message, but the message is all of these
2666040 2672280 benefits which accrue to the elect, which accrue to believers are denied to those who deny Christ.
2672840 2678680 And if someone is an unbeliever, if they're living a godless life, if they do not confess that all
2678680 2684200 of their sins were also paid for at the cross, they don't receive that, those gifts, they don't
2684200 2688840 receive the forgiveness because although Christ did pay for them, if you reject the credit,
2689800 2694840 you've got a debit on your bill. You have a huge debit and you will spend eternity paying for it.
2694840 2703240 And so, these discussions ultimately either end up in a faithful confession of election or they
2703240 2707640 end up in some flavor of universalism, which is what we're literally seeing in the Missouri
2707640 2713000 Senate today. We are seeing pastors openly espoused universalism in opposition to election
2713080 2717720 for the sake of anti-racism, which we'll get to later.
2719240 2724360 Universalism has been a constant plague for the church, for basically all of history,
2724920 2730440 but it does wax and wane in cycles. It is currently growing globally realistically,
2731080 2736120 but it is a problem we notice in our own backyard because, well, it's our backyard,
2737240 2742680 but you touched again on an important thing that we should probably expand on a little bit.
2743080 2749560 That is the scope of the atonement. You have those who argue based on reason,
2749560 2754280 I don't want to go into their actual argument. They know they argument well enough themselves,
2755320 2759320 but they argue that there is a limited atonement, that it is only for the elect.
2760040 2765800 And part of the reason that they are able to maintain that delusional belief, because it is in
2765800 2773160 fact delusional and wrong, is that they don't understand, from the outset, what Christ said about
2773160 2780600 to do, what God did in Christ, with the atonement. The atonement does not cover just the elect.
2782120 2788840 The atonement does not cover just men. The atonement was of all things,
2788840 2795960 Ton cause mon, the universe, everything, absolutely everything in existence was redeemed
2796680 2804440 through Christ. And so if you try to limit it to men, then yes, you can maybe argue yourself
2804440 2808040 into a position where it makes some sense to believe in a limited atonement.
2810360 2816120 But if you're dealing with the actual scope of the atonement, God redeemed plants and animals
2816200 2822840 and rocks and stars, he redeemed everything. And so if you deal with that frame,
2822840 2827800 well, now it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to try to argue that some men aren't covered by the
2827800 2834680 atonement. And so you have to take Scripture at its word, and the word it uses is Ton cause mon,
2834680 2840680 from which we get, of course, cosmos. And the reason, and this is this is going to be run
2840760 2846440 of the recurring themes, probably in virtually every episode we do is headship. The universe fell
2846440 2852520 because Adam was its head. Adam was the head of everything because God gave him that crown.
2853080 2860200 He was the first fruits of creation to be the ruler over the world. And when Adam, as the head
2860200 2866520 of the world, sinned, the whole world fell. The rocks, the trees, the animals, everything fell
2866600 2873080 into disobedience because Adam was its head because of his disobedience. And this is
2874760 2878920 this is another place where when people talk about, well, that's fair. That's not fair.
2879880 2887240 Shut up. There's no fair with God. There's no such thing as fair with God. You will die. I will die.
2887240 2893160 I will be eaten by worms and I will decay into dust because Adam ate the wrong piece of fruit.
2894120 2899240 Even if I let a perfect life, I would still be killed by God and I would be worm food because
2899240 2904280 Adam ate the wrong piece of fruit. Now, I've committed a dozen sins today, more serious in eating
2904280 2908360 the wrong piece of fruit. And I'll commit more once we hang up. Hopefully I won't commit any
2908360 2915080 on this podcast, but the Christian life is knowledge of how evil we are. What Adam did
2915080 2921960 was insignificant by any standard of fairness, but it was disobedience to God. Adam elevated
2922040 2927480 himself above God and said, I don't like what you told me not to do. I think I can be a better
2927480 2932200 God than you. I think I can do it. And he did. And because we are his children, because we are
2932200 2939640 of his seed, we inherit his sin. And that is the reason that Jesus had to come into time and into
2939640 2947400 creation as a man to be the new Adam, to undo the damage that Adam did to the whole universe.
2947400 2952840 And Christ is the ultimate head of the universe, both of the church and of all creation. He's the
2952840 2958920 king over all things, not only those things that believe in him. His perfect redemption
2959560 2965480 redeemed the whole universe, as you said. And that's why when you start talking about a limit
2965480 2971160 at atonement, if you understand it in terms of, well, this isn't about individuals, this isn't
2971160 2977720 about persons. This is about everything. Then the notion that there would be some small carve-out
2977720 2982600 only for unbelievers starts to not even make a lot of rational sense. Like you said, like,
2982600 2987800 you can get into it rationally if you have the wrong understanding of the redemption. But if
2987800 2992920 Christ did, in fact, redeem all things as he says he did, then it doesn't add up.
2993320 3001400 Just had one other point that I wanted to draw out and make sure that we're abundantly clear.
3003400 3009080 What we're talking about here is a number of different issues when we talk about the Christian
3009080 3016680 life and modernism versus synergism, modernism being a single actor in this case, God, synergism being
3017640 3025800 multiple actors in this case, God and man. Justification is monogistic. God alone acts in your
3025800 3033560 justification, and that is good news because your debt was infinite. You would never be able to
3033560 3041880 repay it no matter how long you suffer in hell. And so it is good news that justification is
3041880 3048440 monogistic. Sanctification, which will include good works because good works naturally flow from
3048440 3054920 a living faith, Christians will have good works. Good works do not save you, but you must have them.
3056120 3063160 Sanctification is synergistic because as a not fully yet restored, because of course you won't
3063160 3071000 be fully restored until the second resurrection, which is, say, into eternal life, baptism being
3071080 3081560 the first, of course. You participate in those good works. You work with the Holy Spirit in sanctification
3081560 3088840 because your will is restored to the extent that you can work toward God in that way. You can work
3088840 3096200 with the Holy Spirit. And so monogistic for justification, synergistic for sanctification,
3097000 3102520 which is to say we are not saying that Christians cannot do good works or God forbid we're not
3102520 3108200 saying Christians should not do good works. We are saying that Christians will cooperate, will have
3108200 3116120 good works. And both the cooperation and the good works themselves are also gifts of God through
3116120 3122280 the Holy Spirit. Again, it's all receiving. God gets all the credit, which is good news for us.
3122280 3126760 We don't want the credit because if you have the credit, well now you also have duties and
3127720 3131560 things are reliant on you. You don't want to rely it on you because again, infinite debt.
3133480 3137960 Yeah, I don't want the blame. I'm not going to take the credit. Let God take everything. I'm a
3137960 3144040 creature and he's a creator and I don't. I want to be a slave to that kind of God because I don't
3144040 3149240 have anything to worry about. The little brick that says the buck stops here, you want it to stay on
3149240 3154360 God's desk. Yeah, don't try to steal it for yourself. That ends poorly.
3157400 3162280 So I think one of the other doctrines, the most obvious one that we need to speak to because
3162920 3168920 when most people hear predestination, they probably think of the Calvinists don't call it this,
3168920 3176520 but the doctrine of double predestination, which is the logical conclusion that if God predestined
3176520 3182680 some to be damned or to be saved and that's a subset of all of those men who were born,
3183240 3190040 you have a leftover set. They must also have been predestined to be damned because it's the
3190040 3194840 only thing that makes sense and that's true. It is the only thing that makes sense. The problem is
3194840 3200040 it's contrary to Scripture because there are many places where God says the desires that all men
3200040 3206200 be saved and he says that the sacrifice on the cross was for all men, not only those who believe.
3206200 3214520 And so predestination is heard in most people's minds as double predestination, which is false.
3214520 3220520 And as we've said earlier, when you get these things wrong, you will cause despair in the
3220520 3227240 hearer. Any false doctrine will ultimately potentially lead to damnation because if false doctrine
3227320 3235240 is a lie and a lie has a father and his name is Satan. And I don't mean to be harsh against the
3235240 3241480 tulip Calvinists, but double predestination to say that there is limited atonement and that not
3241480 3250680 all men are able to receive the sacrifice that God paid on the cross is false. And it is,
3250680 3255560 as we described it, does tremendous harm to hearers to hear that. So the reason that we,
3255560 3260200 the reason it's so difficult to talk about this is that, like I said up front, like if you just
3260200 3264680 listen to two minutes as this, you're going to think that it's crazy because we're saying that God
3264680 3268680 picked some men and that means that he picked other men. And either I don't like the sound of that
3268680 3274520 or I believe that. And both of those are wrong. You shouldn't believe it. And you shouldn't
3274520 3281720 like the sound of it because it doesn't, it's not true. It is true that God is the sole reason for
3281720 3288280 our salvation and we are the sole reason for our damnation. And there's no math they can fill in
3288280 3294440 the blanks or connect the dots between those two scriptural facts. And so it's vital for us when
3294440 3299240 we're thinking about this and applying this doctrine elsewhere in the Christian life. And it
3299240 3305640 does have application never to think that God created a man in order to damn him because that's
3306280 3313480 utterly false and it's a terrible thing. To quickly address an argument directly to the reform,
3313480 3319880 this is one that should be compelling for the reformed if they will simply hear it out and listen
3319880 3327960 to it. The reformed have a tendency to want to reduce things to reason. We know that the reformed
3327960 3333960 know that as well. I don't think they would necessarily say that that characterization is wrong
3334040 3343320 or unfair. And so we have Calvin's famous comment, the finite is not capable of the infinite
3345560 3349640 which is a generally true statement with regard to human reason.
3351560 3357320 But of course we have the incarnation in which an infinite God because the fullness of deity
3357400 3366920 dwelt bodily in Christ, as scripture says. So you have finite human form containing the infinite.
3367960 3374120 That's not my argument though. My argument for the reformed is this, if you try to say that these
3374120 3379560 statements in scripture, whatever they happen to be, do not make sense together. And so we have to
3379560 3385720 do something, you know, thinglies aliosis, whatever it happens to be, in order to make them make
3385720 3395240 sense. What you are ultimately saying is that I, you in this case, are saying, I, a finite,
3395240 3402840 the finitum in Calvin's statement, am capable of understanding the infinite. And of course,
3402840 3410600 to understand the infinite, you must be infinite. That's incoherent. It's contradictory,
3410600 3418200 it's self-defeating. And so the central claim of reformed doctrine, in this way, doesn't even
3418200 3423400 stand up to the general rules of reformed doctrine that things must submit to reason.
3424680 3431560 So if you actually think through your statement, your axiom, finitum, known infinity,
3431560 3435720 kapaks, if you think it through, it doesn't even meet its own standard.
3436360 3443320 Just believe what the word of God says. We have an infinite God who is infinitely good,
3444200 3450680 who has elected us, before the foundation of the world, in his son. Believe what he tells us,
3451240 3456440 because that's the right way to come to all of these things. You don't come to it first
3456440 3462360 by looking at scripture, resolving all of the issues, and saying, okay, this makes sense to me,
3462360 3468760 therefore there must be a God. That's exactly wrong. You come to scripture with the knowledge
3468760 3474120 there as a God, and believe what scripture says, because God is the one who has given it to you.
3475000 3479640 The causation flows the opposite way, from the way many people approach scripture.
3480840 3486280 And so if you look at it as God gave me this, we're to believe and then we're to try to understand,
3486280 3491720 not the other way around. Yeah, now believing it makes perfect sense. I don't have to be able
3492360 3498680 to resolve everything in scripture, to the satisfaction of my fallen reason, because I know
3498680 3506440 the source, and I can trust him, so I can trust what it says. And that's, that should be the root
3506440 3511880 of all, all-sound doctrine, is that if you, if you fear love and trust in God above all things,
3512120 3518520 you don't worry when you're confused. You don't worry when you're scared. You don't worry
3518520 3524360 when you're worrying, because I realize that sounds silly, but I mean it when
3526600 3535960 when you are facing the worst moments in your life, your faith should and will when you are
3535960 3542040 faithful and you understand God as, as a human can, you'll know that the, when the worst thing
3542040 3548200 is happening to you, if, when you're, when you're dying, maybe you're dying terribly. You are still
3548200 3555480 gods, and God is still God, you belong to him, because he put his name on you in baptism, because
3555480 3560520 he wrote your name down in the book of life before eternity. So there's nothing that can happen to
3561160 3566600 you, even if it's falling into an industrial shredder, shredder. It's, it's going to hurt a lot,
3566600 3571640 and then you're going to die, but that's nothing in comparison to the promises of a God who created
3571640 3580840 you. And a faith that is rooted in that sort of certainty of God, of who God is, is a faith that
3580840 3586120 cannot be shaken, and it's the reason that everything that we say tries to point us away from
3586200 3593400 ourselves. And Christian doctrine should always seek to point away from the individual and his
3593400 3599160 actions as a means of salvation or as a means of comfort, because if that's where you're rooting
3599160 3605560 your confidence, you're going to fail yourself. And on the day where you need yourself the most
3605560 3611000 and you're failing, you have nothing. Whereas if you're rooting your confidence in God on the day
3611000 3616280 when you need God most, he's there because he's been there every day since before there were days.
3616840 3623560 And that sort of certainty defies the worst things that could happen to anyone. And that is the
3623560 3631960 comfort of the gospel properly understood. And just to repeat myself and to repeat what you've said,
3633240 3637320 we do not ultimately have to understand everything God tells us.
3638280 3645320 Because we understand enough of what God tells us and we understand enough of God to know that we
3645320 3655080 should trust Him. My dog is the same way and the difference between my dog and me is significantly
3655080 3662200 smaller than the difference between me and God. My dog trusts me. He does not always understand
3662280 3666360 what I am telling him to do, but he does it because he trusts me.
3667960 3675400 I believe what God has told me because I trust God. I have excellent warrant. I have perfect warrant
3675400 3683080 to trust God. And so it makes sense. It is actually ultimately rational to believe what God says in
3683080 3689720 his word because God is trustworthy. Is there anything else that you would like to say about
3689720 3697640 election before we move on to how it happens in time? The only thing I do is a tangent on fairness,
3697640 3703240 but I think we can leave that for another time. Well, I think that's actually what we're just about
3703240 3709320 to get into. That's actually true. Fairness is nonsense is the short version, but let's go with the longer
3709320 3716040 one. Yeah. So we've been talking about election in your name being written in the book of life from
3716040 3721320 before eternity, which is a mouthful, but it's it's vital to get every word in there because each
3721320 3726520 of those words is comforting. And each of those words means something, including that your name was
3726520 3733800 written in the book of life, not not a your social security number, not an ID number or something,
3733800 3739960 your name. And we'll get into that in a minute. But first is we've been saying all along,
3740920 3748280 God for new you, he for ordained your salvation, he gave you the gift of faith to receive the salvation,
3748280 3756600 you receive faith, you are saved. How do you come to faith? And that's where all the people who say
3756600 3761640 they believe in the doctrine of election, when push comes to shove in the modern world, many of
3761640 3768200 them fall away and they no longer believe it. In Romans 10, it's recorded, how then will they call
3768280 3774600 on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him who may have never heard?
3774600 3779560 And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?
3780680 3788600 Now, when you take that in the context of Romans in the in the first century, after Jesus has come
3788600 3796120 and ascended, as Christians, we think about that strictly in terms of the New Testament gospel,
3796120 3802520 that Jesus, the promise of the Messiah was fulfilled. The sacrifice on the cross was made.
3802520 3808120 He was raised from the dead. He ascended into heaven. It's done. As Christ said, it is finished on
3808120 3816760 the cross. The propitiating work is complete. And so when we think about how will they believe in
3816760 3823320 him and who they have never heard, we're thinking about that. But the point that I want to make now is that
3824200 3830440 when you look at human history, not only Christian history, not only history of believers in God,
3830440 3835960 but of every people, of every tribe and every nation, the manner in which they have believed
3837480 3845080 reflects upon this too. Now, as we've talked about in previous episodes, as Europeans, we are,
3845080 3851160 as humans, we're sons of Adam, as humans, we're sons of Noah, as Europeans, we're sons of
3851240 3861400 Japheth, Barnoa, that was his father. I have, and you have, as a European, the faith of Japheth,
3862120 3870600 the faith that Noah gave to him as his father, transmitting to him by teaching him. Now Noah predated
3870600 3876920 Abraham, predated the covenant that God gave Abraham, that included circumcision, that included
3877240 3883320 the law as it was laid out to preserve the Hebrew people as they were bounced through time as,
3884200 3892280 as frankly, objects of wrath on many occasions. The faith that Noah had is the same faith that we
3892280 3901240 have today. And I was watching a show recently that talked about ancient history. And it was done
3901320 3907000 by a pagan who was clearly denied God, and he was clearly an evolutionist. And so some of his
3907000 3912760 dates were wrong, but the work that he had done, had done, I found invaluable as a Christian who
3912760 3919240 believes that the earth is about 6,000 years old, and that the flood was a global event as recorded
3919240 3926120 in Scripture. What he found as he's traveled all over the world doing excavations and learning
3926520 3933320 about cultures that were separated from the tower of Babel. These are people who clearly
3933320 3937480 went in different directions. We're talking about Aztecs, we're talking about Egyptians,
3937480 3944920 we're talking about people in far, the far eastern Asia, people who never heard about Isaiah
3944920 3950520 promising the virgin birth, people who never heard that Jesus had died until after it had occurred.
3951240 3959960 There is still the case even in those scattered civilizations, those scattered nations,
3960840 3967240 where some of the nascent elements of the Christian faith are found. Now they're not found in a
3967240 3972280 salvific sense. I'm not saying that these people were Christians secretly, but if you look at,
3973160 3984040 for example, Egyptian mythology. The Egyptians, about 1350 BC, they were originating the myth of
3984040 3991320 Osiris and Iris and Horus, where there was a virgin birth of a god who then died sacrificially.
3992200 3998840 Now the timing of that is interesting because the virgin birth thing doesn't show up in Scripture
3998920 4005720 until 700 BC. 650 years after they were coming up with this, is the first time it's recorded
4006360 4013640 that there would be a virgin born. The import of that is that the first record that we have
4014200 4021640 is in Isaiah, but if you look at how many places this shows up, now with the Egyptians you could say
4021640 4028360 maybe they heard it from the Hebrews who had been, who had just left a hundred years earlier.
4028360 4033240 So for the 400 years that the Hebrews were there, they may have been sharing the faith.
4033240 4039000 But even then, for the Egyptians to have picked up the virgin birth of a god who would sacrifice
4039000 4046200 himself, that story, that myth, would have had to have been known to the Hebrews centuries
4046200 4051800 prior to Isaiah. And even then you would have contact between the Hebrews and the Egyptians to
4051800 4057640 transmit that, and they were in the same place and time. So that's conceivable. We don't know if
4057640 4063880 that was the case or not. However, you can look even further far afield to the Vietnamese
4063880 4069240 and to the Aztecs who also have similar, more corrupted stories, but stories that
4070040 4074520 repeat some of the same elements that there would be a virgin birth of a god and that there
4074520 4080600 would be some sort of sacrifice. And there are some other cultures where some of those elements
4080600 4085880 are present, but they're bastardized to the point that it's really impossible to infer whether
4085880 4092600 they came via transmission or they arrived at independently not, not as some sort of prophecy
4092600 4097480 that was originally rooted in Christianity. But the point I'm making with this is that
4098840 4103080 the only way that the Egyptians and the Aztecs and the Vietnamese and others would have heard
4103080 4108680 about the virgin birth of a god would have come from the time of the Tower of Babel.
4109640 4113640 Long before there was a Abraham, long before there was a covenant, long before there was
4113720 4119640 an Isaiah, they would have heard those promises. And that's entirely consistent with scripture,
4119640 4125560 which doesn't say anything about it. But the promises that are given in scripture were given to
4125560 4132120 the Hebrews and were given to us. Noah was a prophet. The men of Noah's day and earlier,
4132680 4137800 many of them were prophets. They walked with God, they spoke with God. There is every reason for
4137800 4142920 us to believe that they would have had more than just the Genesis 315 promise because there's not
4142920 4149080 much there. You could read it. And if you didn't know anything about Jesus, you might not occur to
4149080 4155320 you that that was a fulfillment. And it is only later on in scripture where other elements of,
4155320 4161000 I think there are at least 300 odd prophecies of Christ's birth in his life and his death and his
4161000 4167720 resurrection in the Old Testament. That doesn't mean that that was a complete picture. There may well
4167720 4178360 have been more. And the anthropological evidence strongly, strongly indicates that that was the case,
4178360 4183560 that the promise of a Messiah was known. We know it was known to Noah and his children because
4184360 4190280 they were Noah's. Their faith was transmitted by their fathers to them. We know that
4190280 4196520 J 5 was blessed and we know that Shem was blessed. We know that Ham was cursed by God and his
4196520 4203080 descendants bear that curse. Noah was a prophet. He didn't have any authority to curse anyone or
4203080 4209800 to bless anyone. Any curses or blessings coming from him came from God. That's the only Christian
4209800 4216920 conclusion that we can reach. So when we look into the historical record and we see those people
4216920 4223080 who branched out from Babel scattered across the earth as God had commanded them to do,
4224040 4230200 carrying elements of the true Christian faith. Again, bastardized to the point that they
4230200 4236040 were no longer salvific. They no longer knew God. But they all knew about the flood. That's
4236040 4242760 something that's preserved even in cultures that have no record whatsoever of anything that we
4242760 4247960 would consider Christian doctrine. They still record that historical event. And after that,
4247960 4251640 many of them do also record things that could be considered to have been
4252840 4259080 elements of the Christian faith. Now, this is a tricky area to get into because most of the people
4259080 4265880 talking about it are atheists. They're worldly men who deny and hate God simultaneously.
4266600 4272760 And those men will twist what has occurred. So you have Jordan Peterson today,
4273480 4278600 and you have his spiritual father, Joseph Campbell, and you have Carl Jung before him,
4279240 4285080 all basically making the claim that the reason that we have these repeated stories popping up
4285080 4291160 globally, their rationalization for how that could occur, they say that it's an upwelling
4291320 4300280 of man's own spirit that there's some indwelling of our own human nature that manifests these stories,
4300280 4306280 these myths that are not connected to God because God doesn't exist. They're just us. They're us
4306280 4313000 doing our own thing in space and time and across space and time. And when they delete God,
4313000 4318760 that's the best they can do it. It's silly. But if you look at it scripturally, you can see that
4318760 4325880 the opposite was true, that when the people got off the ark, they were Christians. They had a
4325880 4331800 belief in the Messiah who was to come at that time. They knew what God had revealed to them,
4331800 4337720 which was clearly more than is revealed in scripture at that point for our benefit,
4338440 4342680 because it's recording what we need. And now what they need at the time, no, it was talking
4342680 4347240 directly to God. You didn't have to write this stuff down. If he did, it was for the benefit of
4347240 4355720 future generations. So as we look at this, it's important to understand that the transmission
4355720 4360280 of faith, how can they call on him and who they have not believed and how can they believe in him
4360280 4367560 of whom they have not heard? How do you hear? You hear from your father. You hear from the man
4367560 4373320 that God has placed in your family as your head. You are his seed. You are your father's seed
4373320 4380040 and he transmits the faith to you or he fails to transmit the faith to you. And so in time,
4380040 4384280 we see that there were some fathers who came off the ark and their children and their children's
4384280 4391560 children who preserved the faith that was transmitted to them by their fathers. We see other fathers
4391560 4397000 who were faithless, who were evil, who abandoned God just as quickly as their ancestors before
4397080 4403320 the flood at abandoned God and went off an intremendously evil directions. And so the inheritance
4404040 4412360 of those men for both good and evil is either faith or a lack of faith. And that's where we're
4412360 4419160 going to get into the intersection of election and faith in time because you inherit faith one
4419160 4424760 way or another. Either it's inherited directly from your parents who give it to you or if you were
4424760 4430280 not blessed with faithful parents, you may have to rebel against them and inherit it through adoption.
4430280 4434520 And we're all adopted sons of God through baptism. I'm not saying that there's there's not a
4434520 4441560 sense here where there is a hereditary claim to God, which was what the the Israelites misunderstood
4441560 4446040 the Pharisees later on. They thought that it was a genetic claim. That was never the case.
4446040 4451400 And what CI claims today? Yeah, absolutely. It's the Christian identity and various other
4451480 4456680 heresies all make a complete mess of these things because they don't want to believe what is true.
4458520 4463720 Abraham's faith was counted to him as righteousness. It wasn't that God had given him a covenant and
4463720 4468680 made a promise to him. It was that he believed the promises of God. That was counted to him as
4468680 4473880 righteousness. That's another way of saying faith. Abraham had faith because he received faith.
4473880 4479480 He gave faith to his children by transmitting the word to them. He preached to them. He told them
4479560 4488120 about God and they received faith. So when we talk about election, it is always in terms of faith
4488120 4493160 and faith is always transmitted. And the point of that, that historical snippet is that
4494840 4501320 the faith was transmitted for a time outside of the sons of Shem, outside of the line that became
4501320 4509080 the line of David. It was transmitted by fathers to their sons. That's hereditary. Their posterity
4509080 4516440 received the blessing of their faith. There were a couple recent surveys in the last decade that
4516440 4523160 were done by some Reformed and Baptist. According to data collected by promise keepers in Baptist
4523160 4530600 press, if a father does not go to church, even if his wife does, only one child in 50, one child
4530600 4536920 in 50, that's 2% will become regular worshipper. If a father does go regularly, regardless of what
4537000 4541400 the mother does, between two thirds and three quarters of their children will attend church as
4541400 4548840 adults. That's a difference of either 2% without the father or between 66 and 75% with the father.
4549400 4558520 That is radical. And that is far more than simply a sociological effect because what we found
4558520 4564440 with what another survey showed was that if the first person in a household to become a Christian
4564520 4569880 was a child, there's about a 3.5% chance that everyone else in the house would follow. If the
4569880 4574360 mother is the first person to become a Christian, there's about a 17% chance. It's quite a bit
4574360 4581320 better than a child adopted in Christianity first, if the mother did. When the father was the first
4581320 4586440 to become a Christian, there's a 93% chance that everyone else in the house will follow.
4587400 4595640 Now this is not a sociological consequence. This is not something for demographers and sociologists
4595640 4601240 to discuss. This is a theological discussion. This is a theological discussion of headship.
4601240 4608040 The father is the head. That's not just a metaphor. It is a reality. The father is the head of the
4608040 4613560 wife. The father is of his wife. He's the head of his children. He's the head of everyone under
4613560 4622040 his house under his roof, in his household, and his faith becomes their faith on contact.
4622760 4628200 This is remarkable. We're talking about what we must presume to be true faith. If children
4628200 4633720 began attending church because their father does, and they do it into adulthood, for the most part,
4634520 4640040 those are probably Christians, whereas if only the mother does, it's inconsequential.
4640200 4652120 It's a fundamental element of the manner in which election is delivered in time that the faith
4652120 4658200 of the father becomes the faith of the children, and the faithlessness of the father also becomes
4658200 4667160 the faithlessness of the children. That's also why in Scripture, when we look at how God deals
4668120 4675160 with humanity, he doesn't actually typically deal with individuals. God works with families and
4675160 4683000 nations. Yes, individuals are also involved, but God didn't just call Abram, who would become
4683000 4691240 Abraham. He called him to bring his family at the time, of course, just his wife and his cousins,
4691880 4702280 but it is the head of the family that represents the family. In the same way that Adam
4702280 4708840 represented creation, and so creation fell when Adam sinned, in the same way that Christ
4708840 4714360 is the head of the new creation. Those of us who are in Christ are also part of that new
4714360 4719160 creation. That's why you have to be in Christ in order to actually be part of that new creation
4719240 4726280 in order to see paradise, in order not to spend eternity in hell. But to go back briefly,
4726280 4730040 I guess we're going to mention C.I. We may as well also mention a little more paganism.
4732200 4737720 When it comes to myths and the various peoples who preserved them or failed to preserve them,
4737720 4743000 I think one of the best examples, and I know there are those who will comment that this was written
4743000 4747400 down in the 10th century, and that's true, but it was an oral history before that, and I happen
4747400 4754600 to believe it's an ancient one. The Havamal is a great example of a corruption, but also a
4754600 4759720 maintenance of some Christian truths in a number of places. I think one of the best ones, though,
4760440 4769960 Odin, in part of the Havamal, is hanged on the world tree, Iggdrasil. He offers himself
4770600 4779160 to himself on the world tree. He's stabbed with a spear. He receives neither food nor drink.
4779160 4784440 He peers into the deep one could consider that a corruption of the descent into hell.
4786200 4792120 These parallels are extremely close to what we actually have as the truth in Christianity,
4792120 4799320 and so you can see a preservation of the faith of the forefathers even if corrupted by demons,
4799400 4805480 by gnosticism over a course of time, and these sorts of things do not just happen.
4806360 4813160 This is not something people in far flung parts of the world do not create the same myths
4813160 4820680 out of whole cloth with no interaction, and the Vikings and the Vietnamese were not really
4820760 4831080 interacting in B.C., that just wasn't a thing. But just another example of the carrying forward of
4832040 4835880 mythology, Christian mythology, and it's not wrong to call it that because the term has multiple
4835880 4841560 senses. The carrying forward, if also the corruption in time, because of the faithlessness
4842440 4848760 of some of the fathers in that line, they failed to transmit the faith correctly. They permitted it
4848760 4853640 to become corrupted, and so their children, instead of carrying forward the true faith,
4853640 4860200 carried forward that corruption. Now, we have an advantage today that basically none of our
4860200 4866200 ancestors until the last handful of centuries did, and that advantage figuratively is the printing
4866200 4871800 press. Today, of course, we have iPads and computers and all that, but ultimately,
4872520 4877640 printed books do have more staying power. Computers can die. Yes, books can burn, but they are
4877640 4884280 typically easier to preserve. And so we have the advantage, if we have a number of faithless
4884280 4891160 generations, as we have recently had, we can still return to the true faith, and what are we doing?
4891160 4897800 We are returning to the faith of our fathers who gave us the sound doctrine, who preserved for
4897800 4906600 us the Bible, who gave us these truths, carried them forward. We don't have to, as many of our ancestors
4907080 4912840 carry on the false and the corrupted faith of our immediate forebears. Because that is all they
4912840 4917800 had, because there's what have been orally transmitted, and if all you heard was the corrupted
4917800 4923400 version of the truth, well, all you had was the corrupted version of the truth, because that's what
4923400 4928680 you received from your head, whether it was your father, or your grandfather, or your king,
4928680 4936280 or just the leader of your tribe, you received that from your head. Today, again, we can actually
4936280 4942520 go back to the truth. We can go back to things before they were corrupted by faithless
4942520 4949320 generations, because we have that luxury thanks be to God. But it is still a matter of headship,
4949320 4956600 because that was transmitted to us by a far distant head. So for instance, Japheth is head of the
4956680 4967960 European peoples. Ashkenaz is head of the Germans, and so you have nations descended from individual
4967960 4974200 men. All men kind descended from Adam, and all mankind descended from Noah, because of course
4974200 4981560 there was a little bit of a bottleneck there. Europe descended from Japheth. The East, roughly
4981640 4988280 speaking, descended from Shem. Africa descended from ham, and so those men are the heads of those
4988280 4995720 large people groups, but within those you have nations and tribes, and then under that you have
4995720 5003080 families. It's all a matter of hierarchy and headship, and what is transmitted faithfully or faithlessly.
5003160 5007800 All right, we're ready to go. And that's why I mentioned up front that
5008760 5015400 election is connected to all of this, to the way that the gospel is spread, to the way that
5015400 5019800 we come to faith, and the way that the problems that we're facing in the church today
5019800 5026600 are really rooted in this. When you look in scripture, you see that
5027560 5034120 men are identified by name, but it's not just their name. It's, for example, Jonah, the son of
5034120 5041640 Amitai, the prophet Zechariah was a son of Barakaya, son of Edo. When Samuel was born, there was a
5041640 5048280 certain man of the hill country whose name was Elkana, the son of Jerome, and he gives his father's
5048280 5051480 name and his father's name and his father's name, and the country that he was from.
5052120 5060360 That wasn't simply genealogy for the sake of narrowing down which Samuel or which Zechariah
5060360 5067640 or which zone Jonah was. That was identifying the men in space and time as God created them,
5068440 5074040 and most of the names that are given in scripture in those ways are usually of faithful men.
5074680 5081560 They're not a lot of faithless men whose names are given. In the show notes, there's going to be
5081560 5088760 two video links on YouTube that are an absolutely vital part of understanding that the point
5088760 5093320 that we're trying to make with this episode. The reason that there are two of them, it's split into
5093320 5099560 two parts. It's not very long. One is the spread of Christianity. It's basically just a map of
5099640 5110840 visual representation of where Christianity was held between year 1 and 81,000 and then from
5110840 5118840 81,000 to a current day. The reason that I want to talk about those videos as we wrap up here is
5118840 5125640 that when we talk about election, when we talk about Christianity, we're not simply talking about
5125720 5132600 the hypothetical. One may have faith and one may be saved, but we can point to particular people
5132600 5138360 in space and time who were saved. We know that they were saved just as Paul knew when he was
5138360 5142920 referring to those people who were known to him whose names he said were written in the book of
5142920 5148200 life because of their confession and because of their Christian life. There was an immediate
5148200 5154360 connection between their life and the fact that they were saved. Those are demonstrable facts.
5155720 5161320 It's not to suggest that you can perfectly judge someone's heart the way that God can and will,
5162920 5168760 but in general, you're going to tell a Christian from an on-Christian just by talking to him by
5168760 5174760 looking at how they live and that's always been the case throughout time. The reason that these
5174760 5182920 videos are important is where the video shows Christianity spreading. Like we said a minute ago,
5183080 5190520 the faith was transmitted from Adam through Noah, through Japheth and through Shem to their
5190520 5197880 sons and then most of them lost it over time, but they lost it to varying degrees. Some lost it
5197880 5205480 entirely. Not to say that salvation comes by degrees, but a memory of the true faith can be lost
5205480 5212040 by degrees and that's clearly what we see in this historical record. When you get back to Jesus
5212040 5218520 birth, death and resurrection in the beginning of the church, the spread of the knowledge of the
5218520 5224760 true faith begins again. Now it was always the case. It wasn't the great commission that Jesus
5224760 5231720 gave to his disciples saying, go there for and baptize all nations in my name. That wasn't the
5231720 5236440 first time that that had ever been true, but it was a command that was specifically given that to them
5236760 5245960 in the place of Rome and Judea in the time when Greek and Latin were widely spoken and in a
5245960 5252920 place in time where the roads could carry the message of the gospel faster than the guards and the
5252920 5260440 men chasing the apostles trying to kill them. So it was a very efficacious moment that God chose
5261160 5270360 to enact the great commission and the maps and the video show where and how that great commission
5270360 5276840 was followed. And what you see in the maps is that almost immediately, same mark, I believe,
5276840 5285160 goes to the Western coast of India where to this day there's a tiny sliver on the coast of India
5285160 5290120 where there have been Christians for 2000 years. It was an apostolic church that has been preserved
5290360 5297320 there by God's grace throughout time. Now, it never spread beyond that place. It never went to the
5297320 5303000 rest of the Indian people, but at least within that tiny sliver, the word was rightly preached and
5303000 5309240 those people did have faith. The first thousand years of the video omits something that's
5309240 5313800 important for this conversation, but it does show up in the second thousand years. And that is
5313800 5320040 Ethiopia and Sudan, or the modern countries thereof. Ethiopia is interesting because they claim
5320040 5325400 a salamonic dynasty. They claim that they're descended from from the as of Solomon,
5326040 5334200 and continuously to the to living memory that some of their leaders have had that blood. And
5334200 5340120 the faith has been preserved there as well. What's interesting is if you look at the many of the
5340120 5348280 leaders for when we have photographs in modern Ethiopia, they look more Persian than they do
5348280 5355560 sub-Saharan African, even though Ethiopia is a sub-Saharan African country. Ethiopia and Sudan
5355560 5360520 modern day have had the faith since the beginning. There were churches that were planted there
5361400 5366920 because although it's sub-Saharan Africa, it's also adjacent to the Red Sea. So there was maritime
5366920 5371400 travel that was able to get there. It didn't have to go too far inland in order for those people
5371400 5376360 to receive the gospel and to believe it. And they too have kept it and preserved the faith
5376360 5381800 under this day. So as I said, the first thousand years of the video will omit Africa, but it's
5381800 5388840 there continuously. And that one tiny corner, Africa is an unfathomably large con, and it's three
5388840 5395880 times the size of North America. But in that one small place, there were believers continuously.
5396920 5401480 Real quick, in the case of Ethiopia, it's also worth mentioning that the language they use, Amharic,
5402200 5409800 is not an African language, but a shemitic language, a Near Eastern language. And so we also see
5409800 5415480 that interchange, that relationship of the peoples in the area, in the language they speak,
5415480 5420520 which is further proof that you had this interaction and explains why they had the faith.
5420760 5429080 Yep, that's a very good point. And the reason that I've highlighted India and Africa is because
5430440 5436600 those are the only places outside of the Middle East and Europe where Christianity existed prior
5436600 5441720 to the 1500s. And this is what the video shows. It shows the spread of
5443400 5448840 Christianity proper. It shows the spread of Aryanism, which is a heresy, a bastardization of
5448920 5455400 Christianity. One thing that's omitted in the video, it doesn't show that Aryanism did make
5455400 5461880 inroads as far as China. And I believe was preserved until well into the 10th and 11th century.
5461880 5469560 And then it was stamped out. Now, the Aryan doctrine, which denies the divinity of Christ fully,
5470600 5476920 does, it's properly condemned as a heresy, but it is fair to say that even when there were
5477000 5483000 Aryan heretics that were in control, the word of God was still in those places. So
5484520 5489160 while their confession may not have been true, there are many cases where people are taught
5489160 5493800 one thing and they believe another and they believe what's in scripture. That's something that
5494360 5498200 is Lutheran Jew and I run into all the time where we're talking to someone who has been
5498840 5504120 raised Baptist or raised reformed or something. And we're talking about areas where we know that
5504200 5509560 Lutheran and Baptist doctrine differ. And they say, oh, no, that's what I've always believed.
5509560 5514440 And it's always interesting because we know for a fact that that's not with any Baptist
5514440 5519320 whatever taught them, but it is what they read in the Bible. And so it's called
5519320 5525240 Felicitis Inconsistency that you may say one thing, you may be taught one thing, but in your heart,
5526440 5531480 if you have faith in your receiving God's word, you may ultimately believe something that is
5531480 5536280 true even if what you're taught and maybe even what you think about when you're just sort of
5536280 5544520 mouthing the words is contrary to it. So I wouldn't go so far to say with the where Aryanism was
5544520 5550600 spread, everyone is damned, although it is a false confession, but I will say that where the word
5550600 5554920 of God is spoken, it is not returned to avoid. So there's hope in those places.
5555880 5563480 It's better to be partly right than entirely wrong. And that's, we're not saying that it will
5563480 5569880 save you being partly right. If you're wrong about the core things, if you get the atonement
5569880 5574520 wrong, and you're right about some ancillary things, that's not going to save you, but
5575880 5581240 there are still blessings, there is still good that is attached to believing the truth.
5582200 5586200 And if you get some of the things right, you are still believing some of the truth,
5586200 5593400 and there are still benefits to that. And as mentioned, if at least these heretics believe
5593400 5598520 that they are Christian, the word of God will be present, and the word of God does not return to
5598520 5606600 him void. Yep. And so in the in the early part of the video in the first five centuries or so,
5606680 5611160 you'll see that there's a back and forth between Aryan Christianity. And I think they call it
5611160 5617960 Nicene Christianity in the video. Eventually, Nicene, which is to say Trinitarian Christianity,
5617960 5624040 which is to say Christianity, it's redundant, but proper Christian doctrine did begin to prevail.
5624040 5627320 And eventually, Aryanism was effectively wiped out in Europe.
5629560 5634680 The import of the videos and the reason that we are talking about it is that
5635000 5644680 if we truly believe the doctrine of election, that God elected those unto salvation for himself
5645720 5652280 from before creation, and he knew those men's names, and he wrote them in the book of life,
5653000 5659960 then when you watch that video, you cannot help but conclude that virtually all of those who
5659960 5666680 were elected to faith were sons of Japheth. It's the only possible conclusion when you look at
5666680 5675320 the map because it's showing the whole known world where Christianity was believed. And eventually
5675320 5683080 zooms out in the second thousand years to show the entire globe. And there's nothing until Columbus
5683080 5690360 comes to the Americas outside of Europe and in the Middle East. Now, when I say Japheth,
5690360 5696680 obviously, many of the sons of Shem, not many, but some of the sons of Shem did come to faith
5696680 5702840 in the Middle East. There were some Jews who converted. Those men ceased to be Jewish in not
5702840 5710040 too much time. They simply became men of their area, but they eventually abandoned those cultures
5710040 5716760 in that custom and became integrated as Europeans with their neighbors and brothers. But
5717960 5727480 that was still a small portion of those who received the faith. Overwhelmingly, the number
5727480 5734040 throughout time has been in Europe, which is as Corey mentioned, Christian identity,
5734680 5739640 their heretics, they believe that only white people can be saved. They believe that only white
5739640 5744200 people, I think, are human. They say some terrible things that are simply false that are blatantly
5744200 5748920 contrary to scripture. They also happen to deny the Trinity because once you're being a heretic,
5748920 5755560 why not go all in? Well, their history is also wildly incorrect because they couldn't be
5755560 5759960 right about anything. So they have to be wrong about everything. I mean, they try to argue that
5760840 5764680 the kings of, in some cases, the kings of England are descended from David.
5764680 5768440 Yeah, it's just insane arguments.
5769320 5774280 Yeah, it's insane. It's false. And these are people with whom we are lumped in by those who
5775160 5778280 say that we're going to hell for what we're saying right now, which is
5778840 5783560 straight from scripture and it's straight from history, not in contradiction to scripture in
5783560 5792600 scripture. I did some math. This is my own work that's these are very rough estimates.
5792600 5799400 Basically what I did, I took the best estimates by century of the population of Europe.
5801320 5810440 So 708,909,000 up through the year 1900. I took a look at the estimates of the population of
5810440 5817240 Europe. I then took a look at the estimate of approximately what percent of those people were
5818200 5825080 nominally Christian. As I say, their king was Christian. They were baptized and lived Christian
5825080 5831160 lives. Now, obviously, that is not by itself proof that any particular individual is a Christian.
5831160 5836600 That's not what I'm saying. But when someone's confession and their life claims to be Christian,
5837560 5842360 that's not something that I'm not going to question that when I'm looking back through time.
5842360 5849400 So these are very rough estimates. But what I found was that in part of the reason that's
5849400 5856520 possible to give a very rough estimate of the number of believers is when the kings converted
5857080 5861880 because that's what's borne out in history. When the king converted the head of a nation converted
5862440 5870360 generally within a generation or two, most of the people followed. So in about the year 700 AD,
5870920 5876600 about 25% of Europe's population of about 32 million people were Christian. So
5876600 5880920 there were around 8 million Christians in Europe in the year 700 roughly.
5882520 5887560 That's interesting number because that is at least four or five times more than the number
5887560 5894920 who have ever lived in Ethiopia and Sudan. The area that we're talking about where Christianity has
5894920 5900360 been preserved there was never very populist. The land simply couldn't sustain it. The people
5900360 5905560 couldn't sustain it. So when we're talking about, I don't want to call it a numbers game because
5905560 5911000 this is, we're talking about salvation. We're not talking about a game. But when we're talking about
5912120 5917960 the number of names that are in the book of life, the number of African names prior to
5918760 5924120 European colonization of Africa, which we'll get to, was very small. There were some by God's
5924120 5931880 grace. And thank God that there were Ethiopians who were preserved. But by and large, they were
5931880 5936520 believers in Europe and nowhere else. And by Europe, I mean greater Europe, so the Mediterranean,
5937160 5943480 Northern Africa, which is like the Mediterranean is effectively Europe, not Africa. Those countries
5943480 5948920 were soon lost to Islam, which began to make end roads even into the rest of Europe.
5949560 5957320 By 81,000, the population had gone up about 10 million to about 42 million. And the percentage
5957320 5963800 of Christians was probably about 85% give or tape. So you're looking at about 35, 36 million
5963800 5971080 Christians in 81,000. Fast forward another 300 years and the population has gone up about 50% to
5971080 5979080 around 60 million. And probably about 95% of those were at least culturally Christian. Again,
5979080 5984120 I'm not claiming that virtually everyone who's ever been European is saved. There's no way to
5984120 5989800 know that. And it's realistically, that's probably not the case. But they were in Christians land,
5989800 5994040 Christian lands with Christian kings. They were living as Christians. They were attending church.
5994040 5999480 They were hearing the word of God. There's more hope for them than there is for the vast majority
5999480 6005560 of America. So if I'm going to place a stake somewhere, it's going to be to say that most of
6005560 6011960 those people are probably in heaven. By 1900, Europe's population had increased to about 240 million
6011960 6018680 and still about 90% were Christian. Now adding all of those objects at just at the century marks
6019320 6027240 was about roughly a billion souls would have likely been Christian in Europe. Now when you
6027240 6031800 compare that billion people and that's only at the century marks. Obviously, there are people who
6031800 6038440 who lived and died in between the century marks. So again, these are these are numbers that
6039240 6044360 I did this work myself. I'm not claiming that these are these are absolute to their precise.
6044360 6051080 But they're definitely in the ballpark in terms of the ratios relative to other people groups.
6051080 6056920 So I would not stake a claim on these numbers being precision numbers. They're not at all
6056920 6062680 unrealistic. They're based on on what we know of history. And so if there were a billion people
6062680 6068600 alive right at the century marks between 700 and 1900, my guess is that there's probably about
6068600 6075720 two and a half billion Christians in that time period in those places. In beginning in the 1800s,
6075720 6082440 I also included the Americas, which was a very small number. In 1800, there was about 5.3 million
6082440 6090200 Christians in America, 5 million. And in 1900, there was about 69 million. So not about 10%
6090200 6097080 of the total European population of Christians was in the Americas. So give or take, you're looking
6097080 6103320 at about two and a half billion Christians, all of European descent, all of all sons of Japh
6103960 6109080 all holding to the faith of Japh in that time period. Now, as I said, when you look to
6110040 6118040 to the Sudan and Ethiopia, those numbers are minuscule by comparison. And the tiny slew in Somalia
6118040 6124360 or it's our Ethiopia and India, those numbers are necessarily minuscule by comparison. And
6125720 6132200 we as Christians should be able to say this without fear that we're going to be murdered by someone
6132200 6137640 calling us rape racist, calling us evil, calling us hateful. I am simply recounting
6138360 6144600 what has happened in time. I was not the causal effect of that. It is not what I would have wished.
6144600 6149000 I wish what God wishes, which is that all people would know Christ and would come to salvation.
6150520 6156520 The reality is that that is not what has happened in time. And so the reason for discussing
6156520 6164760 election in terms of genealogy and nationality and now specifically honing in on the sons of
6164760 6174840 Japheth is that Japheth's children were faithful where other children were not. When you look at the
6174840 6181080 map of the second half, the second video, and it shows beginning with European exploration and
6181080 6188520 colonization of the Americas and then in about the 1700s, colonization and exploration began in
6188520 6197160 Africa. Those are the very first times for four thousand years since the flood that the people
6197160 6204200 living in those places would have actually heard the Christian faith. Now like I said earlier,
6205160 6212120 there were elements of the faith that had been preserved as mythology among them, but it was no
6212120 6219400 longer efficacious. It was just a few tiny mangled bits and pieces. But that is in fact the
6219400 6224760 demonstration that they had lost the faith. There's no way to say that someone who was an Aztec
6224760 6231560 in the year 1300 went to heaven. 100% of them went to hell. I can say that was certainty because
6231560 6238200 the Christian faith, the true faith, could not have existed in those places. And when the Spaniards
6238920 6244360 showed up and they saw what the Aztecs were doing when when Pizarro and his men went into the Aztec
6244360 6252520 temples, they literally vomited because the stench was so vile from the death, the murder of
6253560 6260840 humans who were sacrificed to the demon gods of the Aztec. So although they had preserved some tiny
6260920 6268920 piece of the virgin birth of a god and his death for some purpose, they were worshiping demons.
6268920 6275080 The ancestors of those people were worshiping demons until the Europeans showed up. The sons of
6275080 6282040 Japheth showed up colonized those places and gave them the gospel for the first time. And that's why
6282040 6286280 we're talking about this story because when you look at the video and you see the way in which
6286840 6293320 Christianity spread, after about the first couple centuries where Paul obviously was a Jew who
6293320 6299000 went to the Gentiles, there were other Jews who converted to Christianity and became Christian,
6299000 6306440 they ceased to be Jews. Apart from that little explosion in the Middle East at the very
6306440 6314200 beginning of the church, virtually all of the spread and keeping of the gospel has been in white lands.
6314520 6322120 So think about that fact if you're Satan, if you seek that all men be destroyed, that every life
6322680 6329560 is a life of evil and that they are cast bodily and soul upon death into the eternal lake of
6329560 6337160 fire with Satan, who will be right there with them being punished. To have white people showing
6337960 6345640 in the 1500s and 1600s and 1700s in Africa and in the Americas, going to people who had all been
6345640 6351800 going to hell for three and four thousand years, and suddenly they began converting to Christianity.
6351800 6357480 When the colonizers showed up with crucifixes and they told these people about the gospel and
6357480 6364760 they baptized them, in some cases forcefully, forcefully, those people were converted to Christianity
6364920 6370200 and many of them were saved. And there are places to this day that are now Christian in Africa
6370200 6377720 and the Americas among native populations who would never have had the gospel if the sons of
6377720 6386440 Japheth had not shown up. So think about that when you hear rabbit anti-white hatred, when you hear
6386440 6394440 hatred against colonialism, when you hear hatred against patriarchy, when you hear hatred against
6394440 6399800 kings versus democracy, where it's a free for all and we do what we think is best in our own eyes.
6400520 6404360 Think about that like Satan would think about that. When white people showed up and happy,
6405080 6410760 when they came under the cross, what was the response of the demons that the Aztecs were
6410760 6416680 worshipping and sacrificing all those innocent people to? They were not happy and they're still not
6416680 6421960 happy because demons don't die. Those demons didn't go away. They were still out there in the jungle
6422040 6429160 and by many accounts they are back on the prowl today and the backlash that we see against
6430920 6438600 Europeans in particular, against Germans in particular, against Christianity, against patriarchy,
6438600 6445080 against every form of headship that is ordained by God both for salvific purposes and for the
6445080 6450200 purpose simply of proper order in this life. Those are the things that the most evil people on the
6450200 6459080 planet hate. And I fundamentally believe that that is the root of all of these societal issues
6459080 6468120 that we're seeing that God's election, his predestination, which was unfair, predominantly predestined
6468120 6475560 Europeans for salvation. I didn't do it. God did it. But again, when you look at how were they saved,
6475560 6480280 they weren't saved because they were white. They weren't saved because their parents were
6480280 6486040 anything in particular. They were saved because their fathers were faithful. And the Africans
6486040 6491400 and the South Americans and the North American Indians were damned because their fathers were
6491400 6498520 faithless. They abandoned God. They ceased to teach his word. And just as you will die because
6498600 6505880 Adam sinned. Those people are in hell because their fathers failed to transmit the faith to them.
6505880 6511640 They inherited damnation and they lived up to it. And now they're they're suffering under it.
6511640 6519080 Is that fair? No. But at the same time, we look at that in the context of the spread of the gospel
6519080 6523160 from the first century and think, oh, well, they weren't ever told about Jesus. How could they know?
6523800 6528200 They were told about Jesus. Their fathers were told about Jesus four thousand years ago when they
6528200 6534840 got off the ark. And those fathers ceased to believe. And that is why their children are not
6534840 6542760 believers. And just as salvation is transmissible, not as a physical inheritance, but as a spiritual
6542760 6548680 inheritance that comes directly by hearing from one's father in an absolutely efficacious manner.
6548680 6555560 So to unbelief is transmissible. It is heritable. And it's inevitable. If your father is evil,
6555560 6561080 and as you said, Corey, without the benefit of access to go around your father to go around your
6561080 6567880 nation to find the truth as we can do today, there's no way for someone to be saved. And that's not
6567880 6573720 fair, but that is God's will. Because if their fathers had been faithful and had obeyed, they would
6573720 6581320 have been saved. So election intersects with reality in ways that make us extremely uncomfortable.
6581320 6585160 Because all of this sounds like it's totally contrary to the gospel. And it's certainly
6585160 6590760 contrary to modern beliefs of morality outside the church. But it's true.
6592360 6597560 The reason it makes so many people uncomfortable is because it runs counter to the enlightenment.
6598440 6603320 It's not that it runs counter to scripture because obviously we have demonstrated this is all
6603320 6609560 grounded in scripture. This is readily discoverable for anyone who reads scripture, at least anyone who
6609640 6619080 has the Holy Spirit. But heaven looks rather a lot like Europe, at present. Of course,
6619080 6625240 depending on how long things continue and which areas become or remain Christian and which ones
6625240 6633720 do not, that composition could change. But as of today, paradise is going to be very white.
6634680 6640760 And that is simply the fact of the matter from history. That is how things have worked out in
6640760 6647000 time. And those who say that, well, that's not fair. Like I said, they are appealing to the
6647000 6652200 enlightenment to harken back to an earlier episode where I pointed out that that's not fair,
6652200 6658840 is the cry of a child who didn't get his way. And that's ridiculous to side with the child in
6658920 6666840 that because fairness is incoherent. No one really actually wants fairness in the final assessment.
6667880 6672520 When we speak about fairness, if we are using it in a way that makes any sense whatsoever,
6672520 6679640 then that would be that we want justice, not fairness. You don't want fairness because if God is
6679640 6688040 perfectly fair, you get to spend eternity in hell. Because charging your sin to Christ,
6688760 6695320 crucifying Christ, and then attributing his righteousness to you is not fair.
6696200 6700840 But it is the only way that you can be saved. It is the only way that any of the sons of Japheth
6700840 6708200 were saved. And so fairness is this concept that comes from the enlightenment. It is built on
6708200 6715080 Tabla Rasa. It is built on that blank slate idea that human beings are just little lumps of clay
6715080 6720440 that arise by chance in a time and place. They're not really connected to the time, the place,
6720440 6726920 their ancestry, any of that. God flings a soul at random into this little lump of clay. And we should
6726920 6733720 treat that as a blank slate. Whatever that person does in life is the only thing that matters.
6733720 6737960 But of course that's completely ridiculous because what the person does in life flows from what
6737960 6743480 the person is, flows from where the person was born, flows from the family, flows from headship and
6743480 6750600 hierarchy, and all of these things we have been mentioning because you are not an individual.
6751240 6759320 You are not an individual with no tethers, no ties, no connections. You are the son of your father,
6759400 6763240 who is the son of his father, who is the son of his father, all the way back
6763800 6772280 through whichever son of Noah, through Noah, to Adam. You are part of that line. You are part
6772280 6777640 of a tribe and a nation. You are part of a people. And these things matter. This is the way God
6777640 6785480 has designed creation. This is the way God has designed humanity. And so these appeals to concepts
6785560 6792360 like fairness are not born a scripture. Find it in scripture. If you want to argue for fairness,
6793080 6799560 go ahead, try to find it. See if God is acted in that way. See if that is what God wants us to do.
6799560 6806280 You won't because it isn't there. That is something born of the mind of secular, which is to say
6806280 6813720 atheist philosophers, not of Christians. And you had mentioned the composition of Europe today,
6813720 6820600 or the composition of heaven. I think that it's important to acknowledge and to be grateful
6820600 6827640 for the spread of Christianity in Asia and Africa in places that historically have rejected the
6827640 6833800 gospel, have rejected God's word. They are now turning around. And although the African Christianity
6833800 6838840 has some very serious problems with syncretism and demon worship and things,
6839320 6844440 there are at least, there are certainly many believers there. And there are
6846200 6852520 based on looking at the numbers that have lived in Ethiopia for the last 2000 years.
6853480 6859480 And before that, there are more living Africans who are Christians who will go to heaven than
6859480 6865720 there are Africans in heaven. That is an easy claim to make if you look at the simple numbers of
6865800 6872280 history. And again, none of this is what you or I would wish for anything. I am thankful,
6872280 6879000 I am grateful. It gives me joy to see Christians in Africa worshipping in their own languages.
6879000 6884440 It's amazing in particular to see some of the churches there that are Lutheran churches that
6884440 6891720 are trying to be confessional, who are happily adopting the liturgy and the vestments that
6891720 6898280 they're inheriting from their European brothers. They're saying if this is how God is worshiped,
6898280 6902920 we want to worship this God. This is how we want to do it. They don't seek to do it in their own
6902920 6909080 way. They don't seek to do it as the is worship of old took place for the demons. New God,
6909080 6915000 new worship, they're fine with that. And so it's a wonderful thing to see. And frankly, it's at odds
6915640 6923320 with some of the pastors in the Missouri Senate. There is a man in the Northwest District named
6923320 6931560 Rick McCafferty, who is on the Northwest District's webpage on the Vimeo page, giving a talk
6931560 6938600 about how he and his Eskimo and other Indian ancestors always worship God. Long before the white
6938600 6944200 man showed up, they knew the creator and they worship the creator and they knew the Holy Spirit
6944280 6949960 who was the great spirit. These are his words. These are his direct claims. And the reason that he
6949960 6957640 made the video, which is an anti-racist video directed at us, was to implore all of the Lutherans
6957640 6963480 who want to evangelize the Indians to stop telling those Indians who have been communing with
6963480 6967800 demons for 4,000 years to stop telling them that the way they're worshiping is wrong.
6968600 6974760 He literally says in the video, we'll link it. He says, don't tell us we can't be drums at the
6974760 6980120 sunrise to our God. He's always been the same God you guys worship. Don't tell us we need to have
6980120 6985320 a liturgy. Don't tell us how to worship. We've always known God. The only thing we're missing
6985320 6991880 the details about, the great warrior who is Jesus again, his words. So that's pure syncretism and
6991880 6997320 that's pure universalism because I say that all of Rick McCafferty's ancestors are burning an
6997320 7002280 hell. He says that they're in heaven. He says that they've always worshiped God. And then it's
7002280 7007640 these Lutherans who are coming to their reservations, trying to tell them about the triune God and show
7007640 7014200 them how to worship his Christians have always worshiped. We are the problem. Well, one of us is
7014200 7020680 wrong and one of us is going to hell because we do not worship the same God. And again, this is
7020680 7027560 an LCMS pastor. We're not talking about someone who's just a random person on the internet. He
7027560 7032920 was ordained to evangelize to these people who need to hear the word of God and he's depriving
7032920 7037960 them of it because he's a universalist. He's saying the exact opposite of what God says. He's
7037960 7042040 saying you've always worshiped God. You guys are great. Let me tell you about Jesus, but it's a
7042040 7046520 Jesus you already knew you just you knew him by another name, which is not at all the point of
7046520 7051400 the discussion early about mythology. We are not saying that these people knew God. We're saying
7051400 7057800 that a reflection of the truth echoed through time, but it was never salvific. It was simply
7057800 7063000 evidence of the fact that the truth at one point had been transmitted to them by their fathers.
7063000 7069560 And then the children of some of those fathers at some point long ago abandoned God and damned
7069560 7075320 their children to hell. They damned Rick McCafferty's ancestors to hell because they did not
7075320 7080680 worship the true God. They communed with demons and they did so. In many cases to this day,
7080680 7088600 we there I have heard stories of actual Lutheran churches near reservations where the people come
7088600 7094760 off the reservation targeting the Lutheran churches and they will have demonic ceremonies in their
7094760 7099320 parking lot to try to bind the spirits in those churches to keep them from threatening the
7099320 7105960 reservation. Those people served demons today in the current year 2022. They are having demonic
7105960 7112200 ceremonies in our church parking lots to stop the spread of the gospel. Don't tell me that this
7112200 7117000 isn't spiritual warfare. We're not talking about hypotheticals. We're not talking about some leaf
7117000 7123000 note doctrine that that's not relevant relevant to life. We're talking about souls that will either
7123000 7128680 go to heaven if they repent and believe the true God or they will go to hell if they continue to
7128680 7136200 worship. These demon worshiping Indians do. In a future episode, we'll talk about some of those,
7136200 7141880 the other rejected doctrines in scripture, but one of them is the doctrine of shaking the dust
7141880 7147240 off your feet as a curse against those who refuse to hear the gospel. This is something that Jesus
7147240 7155080 repeatedly commanded to his apostles to the disciples. As soon as Jesus sent into heaven,
7155080 7159800 there are multiple instances of them doing that very thing. They literally shake the dust off
7159800 7166440 their feet against a place to curse it, to say, you have rejected God, you are now rejected.
7166440 7172120 We take the gospel elsewhere. Find a Christian who will do that today. Find a Christian who will
7172120 7179800 not spend 100 years pouring good money after bad to people who won worship demons. They don't want
7179880 7186440 to hear about Jesus. They want to do what they're doing. And in the name of a false gospel,
7186440 7192200 we think that we have to just continue pouring out our treasure when there are people who need it.
7193560 7200760 There's an example of a pastor in Ohio, Ben Meyer, an LCMS pastor who was called to rural Ohio.
7200760 7205880 That's kind of the middle of the nowhere. Very an area without many people. They're all white.
7206680 7214120 And he gets up in the morning and he drives 45 minutes to Columbus so that he can spend time
7216040 7221480 spreading the gospel in his words to Ethiopian immigrants. Now, I was fascinated by that because
7221480 7226280 when he's raising money for this project, when he's telling all the gullible Lutherans,
7226280 7231640 oh, this is so wonderful. We have these Africans who are coming here who need to hear the word of God.
7232040 7235320 Yes, everyone needs to hear the word of God. But for you to suggest
7236120 7241880 that the Ethiopian immigrant, an immigrant is not a word. These people are being shipped here.
7243000 7248840 When an Ethiopian leaves Ethiopia and comes to Ohio, he's going from a Christian country to a
7248840 7254600 pagan state. There are more Christians in Ethiopia today by percentage than there are in Ohio.
7255320 7259240 But where is Ben Meyer's heart? Is it with the people that God sent to him?
7259800 7264280 Did to whom he's the God sent him? No, it's 45 minutes away where he can complete
7264280 7269640 preach to black people because they're foreign. And he gets the benefit of all the social status
7270120 7275800 of, oh, look at me. I'm so good. I'm reaching out to these Africans when they're Christian.
7276520 7281480 Now, some of them are Muslim because that's the other problem that Ethiopia has. There's
7281480 7288200 they've had problems with Muslims for many years, centuries. But to pretend that it's a not
7288360 7293480 in Christian place where these people have never heard the gospel is insane. It's a lie. It is
7293480 7299880 a damnable lie. Ethiopia is a Christian country. And as a Christian, I'm thankful for that.
7299880 7304520 I don't want anyone to go to hell. And it's got nothing to do with their skin color,
7304520 7309720 their race, with their fathers. I want the same thing that God wants, which is all for all men to
7309720 7317240 be redeemed. But guys like Ben Meyer will drive right past all of those souls in Ohio. You know,
7318280 7325320 the Lutheran population in Ohio is something like 0.4% or something. It's minuscule.
7325320 7331480 It's effectively zero. It's a rounding error. And the number of Christians is not a whole lot
7331480 7337640 better. When you look at actual church attendance at actual churches and people who actually
7337640 7344920 believe what the actual church teaches, it's a tiny number. He is neglecting white people because
7344920 7350040 they're white, even though they're his neighbors in the place where God sent him. So that he can tell
7350840 7356920 people already know Jesus about Jesus because that scores good boy points. That's what these
7356920 7363640 fights are about. That is how much race matters to people who despise election. That they will drive
7363640 7369960 past their white neighbors for the sake of an alien from 3, 4,000 miles away because that person
7369960 7375240 who looks completely different and sounds completely different in seems exotic somehow is more
7375240 7380360 worthy of the gospel than the men who live down the road from this man who will never tell them.
7380360 7384600 He's not going to spend all that time. He's got to go somewhere else and do it for strangers.
7385640 7389000 This is not love and this is not the gospel. This is how the church dies.
7391960 7397720 And the men who are engaged in synchrotistic arguments and worship if we're being
7398440 7406280 very loose with the term, they are going to damn people to hell because those who hear, well,
7406280 7410920 know your ancestors who were worshiping demons, you won't say that of course, but your ancestors,
7410920 7415800 they were worshipping the true God, you can continue to do what they were doing. That's the voice
7415800 7422920 of Satan speaking. That's what that is. I'm looking at a picture right now that's a class of
7422920 7431320 seminarians from Madagascar. There are about 3 million Lutherans, baptized Lutherans in Madagascar.
7431320 7437560 It's a country of about 28 million give or take a bit. And the reason there are 3 million
7438920 7445640 believing baptized Christians in the Lutheran churches in Madagascar is because two Norwegian men,
7445640 7450840 John Ang and Niels Nielsen, I'm sure I didn't get the last names entirely right, but you can look
7450920 7457080 up their names because those two Norwegian Lutheran men went there and spread the gospel to them,
7457080 7461400 set up a seminary, started instructing them so they could teach their own people so you could
7461400 7468280 have proper headship so you can have fathers learn from their pastors who then turn around and
7468280 7473000 teach their wives and their children. And that's the reason that you have them and they didn't go
7473000 7477400 over there and tell them keep worshipping your ancestors because ancestor worship is a problem in
7477400 7483720 Madagascar. A huge problem in large parts of Africa. They didn't say continue your animistic
7483720 7490600 practices. No, they said your ancestors worship demons. We are going to tell you about the true
7490600 7496840 God. We are going to tell you about Christ. We are going to tell you how to be saved. They did not
7496840 7502040 let them continue syncretistic practices. They fought against those because these are men who
7502120 7509640 actually want their brothers in Africa to be saved. The men here and other places who tell them to
7509640 7514440 continue traditional so-called practices which aren't even traditional because if you go back
7514440 7519320 far enough the actual practices would have been worshipping the Lord God. The men who tell them to
7519320 7525960 continue those syncretistic and pagan practices are damning them to hell. Maybe not the men who hear
7525960 7531560 it, but their grandchildren. How do you think all this stuff was lost in the first place? It was
7531560 7537880 lost in the first place because someone loosened something here. Change something there. Said,
7538520 7545560 no, it's okay if we engage in this heterodox practice over time that accumulates. It never gets
7545560 7550440 better. It always gets worse and that's why you have to fight against it as soon as it crops up.
7550440 7557000 No matter how trivial it may seem and it would be a blessing from God if the issues we have today
7557000 7564760 were trivial. We have serious issues that are matters of eternal life or eternal death. We're not
7564760 7571400 dealing with squabbles over the color of the pyramids or something of that nature. We are dealing with
7571400 7578920 core issues of the faith. Core truths about creation and if you deny core truths about creation
7578920 7586360 you are denying the first article of the creed because we believe in God who is the creator of
7586360 7593960 heaven and earth. And so these issues that over which we are fighting are vitally important to the
7593960 7601160 church. The outcome of these issues will determine, will decide whether or not there is a Christian
7601160 7607880 church on this continent in a hundred years because we've seen it elsewhere. You can have the
7607880 7613880 gospel. You can have the truth. You can have the worship of the Lord God and a hundred years later
7613960 7619000 all of your children are apostate. Look in Europe because it depends on exactly look at
7619640 7626360 look at ham how quickly did the children of ham apostatize? It seems in scripture like it was
7626360 7632040 almost immediate and then you had thousands of years of almost no Christians in Africa because of
7632040 7638360 that. Most of the children of Shem apostatized and so you had thousands of years of most of those in
7638360 7644040 the near and middle east. No Christians. There are real consequences for this and that's why it matters.
7644680 7650520 Fathers have to be faithful or else they will not have faithful children. It takes one faithless
7650520 7658520 generation to lose this and we have had several. We are in dire straits. Again we do have the
7658520 7664280 advantage of we have the written material to which we can return that is sound so we are not in
7664360 7669560 as bad of a situation as those four thousand six thousand years ago whatever it happens to be
7671240 7677560 but we are still living in a country where a tiny percentage of people believe that Christ is God.
7678840 7687000 Look at the survey data. If you ask the question is Jesus Christ God? Most who claim to be Christian
7687000 7693720 even those who claim to be evangelical Christians will say no. We are surrounded by apostates
7694280 7702280 because of faithless fathers and grandfathers. And you're absolutely right. We have a presumption that
7704120 7712440 we're living in the ashes of the faithful grandsons of J5. Obviously at some point they lost their way
7712440 7719240 and descended into paganism. They quickly took back to the true God when he came to them in the
7720200 7724360 word. And that was the inheritance that their children received. That's the reason that we are
7724360 7732360 Christian today because our fathers were Christian going back 1500 years in some cases including my own.
7734200 7741960 The inheritance only works when it is transmitted. And that is why there's never been any claim that
7742520 7749720 there is a genetic inheritance of faith. That's not the claim. But the same father who gives you
7749720 7756120 genes gives you belief in something for better or worse your father is going to teach you. And
7756120 7763160 either you're the only choice you have when your father teaches you is to obey him or to rebel.
7763880 7769640 And if your father is faithful and you obey him you're blessed. If he's faithful and you rebel you
7769640 7777240 fall away. Now if he's faithless you must rebel in order to obey God. But only narrowly within the
7777240 7784280 confines of what is necessary to believe and God and to obey him. In other ways you should still
7784280 7791160 obey your father even if he's faithless as much as possible within your conscience. But we live
7791160 7797240 in a time today where if the pastors who are running things in our synod and in the other Christian
7797240 7804840 denominations in this country, if they continue on the trajectory they have chosen not only will
7804840 7811320 there not be any Lutheran and is a ministry, Christianity will be wiped out on this continent because
7811320 7818200 there is no one left defending it. And as I've said before you can recite the creeds all you want,
7818200 7823400 you can point to scripture and you can point to the book of conquered all you want. But if you
7823480 7831400 tell lies in God's stead you are serving Satan no matter what else you do you can't lie about any
7831400 7837560 of this stuff. And all that we see online all that we see whenever these questions come up about race
7837560 7844760 about evangelism about colonialism and all these things that are when those words are you and things
7844760 7852680 like colonialism and patriarchy they're thought of as secular they're thought of as political things
7852680 7860440 they're not their Christian things they are profoundly fundamental and vital to the faith
7860440 7867800 to saving faith and their absence proves the absence of that faith. And we are in churches today
7867800 7873560 where those things are despised those things are attacked those things are forbidden to speak truthfully
7873560 7881240 is forbidden on many subjects in our churches that's only in one end one way that's why we're
7881320 7887000 talking about these things if we can change minds if we can help point people to scripture to
7887000 7894200 understand that this is going on and here's why it matters hopefully a few more voices will rise
7894200 7901320 and eventually we will begin to see the only sort of change that will be able to present the death
7901320 7907800 of Christianity on this continent because who knows what sort of faith came across the land bridge
7907880 7913240 when when the American Indians came here probably none but if they had anything in long
7913240 7920360 sense died it's going to die again if it's not preserved and as you said it is up to us to preserve
7920360 7926440 it because it doesn't take more than a generation to lose something entirely and we're several
7926440 7936600 generations deep in that apostasy. We often hear that everything is political particularly given the
7936600 7944120 realities of the age in which we live but what we never hear is the the more true and the more
7944120 7950600 important statement everything is also theological yes because everything you do or fail to do is a
7950600 7959800 confession of what you believe or what you do not believe and so when we have pastors lying
7960200 7969720 about demonstrable facts what does that say to the world about what those pastors believe it certainly
7969720 7973800 isn't good there are many things you could take away from that you could take away from it that
7973800 7978600 they don't really believe the things they say on Sunday morning you could take away from it that
7979400 7984200 lying about these core truths is entirely fine you could take away from it that maybe they don't
7984200 7990200 really believe in a creator god who created this world and all the constituent parts of it
7990200 7995400 who set it up in a certain way if they are willing to lie about the way that he did things
7997800 8003560 and so the witness that they are presenting they are giving to the world is going to
8005080 8010280 if not drive men away from Christianity at least prevent them from ever coming into the church
8011000 8016600 and that is exactly what we see happening the zoomer generation and younger many of them
8017800 8023400 are not even going to consider Christianity because of what these faithless pastors are doing
8023960 8030040 because they see these faithless pastors just parroting all of the lies and the condemnation
8030040 8038040 and the slander of the world so when they see that why on earth would you go to service on Sunday
8038120 8043960 morning why would you do that if I'm just going to hear the exact same thing that I hear from
8043960 8050760 university professors and the media and all of these others why would I wake up early to go
8050760 8056920 hear it at church makes much more sense just to wake up late and go get brunch and this is not
8056920 8061880 a hypothetical you and I have born witness to this over and over again personally with our own
8061880 8069080 eyes online as we talk to people it's gotten so bad in the Missouri Senate that I honestly
8069080 8075000 in good faith and good conscience could not recommend that someone join our churches anymore
8075000 8079880 now that's not to say that there are no specific congregations with pastors who are known to
8079880 8087000 me to be faithful where I can direct someone but as a church body we are apostate we are shameful
8087000 8093400 I am I am disgraced by what I see our pastors by what I see our seminaries by what I see our
8093400 8099640 synod doing they're a disgrace to God these men are ashamed of Jesus and they think that they're
8099640 8106360 going to go to heaven because they said the right words in church God warns them differently
8106360 8112360 and the worst part is we're basically the best off yeah yeah and that's that's the thing
8112360 8117400 that's that's the terrible part yeah we're not there is there it we cannot make a block a blanket
8117400 8122840 recommendation for our own churches we can make recommendation for specific ones and I do that
8122840 8127640 all the time and as I know you do as well but we cannot make the general recommendation
8127640 8134680 because we know there are these apostates in some of our pulpits and nothing is being done
8134680 8139880 to remove them and as we have mentioned many times you know the the district presidents and the
8139960 8147640 presidents so called God is not going to judge you differently from a bishop because you declined
8147640 8154920 to use the term you are going to receive the stricter judgment of a bishop because you held the
8154920 8161480 office and so those men should fear even though they don't but when it comes to the other churches in
8161480 8168680 the U.S absolutely cannot make a recommendation to join them because we know the false doctrines
8168680 8173240 that are being taught in those churches so we can't any longer just tell someone go to church
8173240 8180840 on Sunday I mean yes I do post go to church tomorrow every Saturday evening but we have so many
8180840 8187080 apostate churches that it is nearly impossible to give a general recommendation and in particular
8187080 8196680 parts of the country there are no faithful churches not one I mean I live in the south now and I can
8197240 8207240 say with absolute certainty that the number of truly faithful churches here is tiny I can probably count
8207240 8212040 on one hand the number of faithful ones within driving distance of where I live in your and I am
8213160 8216920 I'm being quite liberal in terms of driving distance I used to live in LA so driving distance
8216920 8221320 for me is a considerable thing and you're also lucky because that's an incredible concentration
8221400 8228360 many people in most parts of the country I would be lucky to have one there it's why we're doing
8228360 8233000 this podcast it's why we're talking about these things because the intersection of everything that
8233000 8239160 people see on MSNBC that's called politics that's called worldly that's called left hand kingdom
8239880 8246840 all of it is rooted in attacking the fundamentals of the Christian faith it's not attacking
8246840 8252200 justification it's not attacking Jesus died for you and that's why all these Lutherans have lost
8252200 8257000 their minds they've lost their bearings they have no understanding of what's going on because all
8257000 8263400 they can see is a battlefield in terms of 16th century wars that they're not fighting we're not
8263400 8269080 fighting a battle for justification we're fighting a battle for creation we're fighting a battle for
8269080 8277560 how God operates in space and time and he operates using election through fathers who transmit the
8277560 8284200 faith for their sons that is racial whatever the race is you are of your father's race going back
8284200 8290680 to Adam but as those races branched out they became distinct they became distinct physically they
8290680 8297320 became distinct intellectually they came distinct function culturally but and those things are
8297320 8302840 permissible those are part of God's order what is not permissible is that they also became distinct
8303560 8309240 religiously they adopted different faiths these men who went to all these various parts of the
8309240 8315480 world began worshipping the demons they found there instead of worshipping the true God and you know
8315480 8320760 it happened as soon as they got off the ark you by the time you get to the the story of Babel
8321320 8325160 they've lost their minds they're doing evil on an industrial scale again
8325800 8329400 after God literally destroyed everything on the planet except for eight people
8330200 8339880 they're right back at it and and Noah was probably still living yeah I know it wasn't even dead yet
8340520 8349000 yeah so these these subject in these fights I hope that these I hope that the narrative arc that
8349000 8354200 we're starting to build here will become clear to people in the fullness of time these things are
8354200 8360520 connected and the reason that we talk about race is not because we care about race it's because
8360520 8367480 we care about how God made us and we care about how God made us Christian and our race is part of
8367480 8376760 both of those and to deny that or to attack that is to deny and attack your creator which is the
8376760 8382440 first article of the Creed if you don't have the first article you don't get the second article
8382440 8389560 you don't get christ salvation on the cross if you deny your creator and we have churches who
8389560 8394680 are second article only they're Jesus on the cross and they're gospel only but it's not the real
8394680 8401080 gospel it's not the gospel of scripture it's a fabricated gospel that plays well on the internet
8401080 8408040 with people who hate God and that should be a warning to any Christian it's not a warning to
8408120 8415240 these men and I think that on judgment day we'll we'll see how that plays out but I am I'm not
8415240 8421320 optimistic but at the same time I'm not despairing either because all we can do is obey God
8421320 8426520 and it is it is tremendously comforting to know that my name is written in the book of life from
8426520 8432680 before eternity and the gifts that I have are all from God and whatever good I do in this life is
8433640 8441880 yet is not of me it is not to my credit of my own volition it is solely of and for and by God
8442920 8450040 and that's enough I my relationship is with my creator my my churches where I attend and I'm
8450040 8456920 thankful to have a good one but these men will not ruin Christianity even if they burn our churches
8456920 8460840 to the ground and we will continue to fight to make sure that we don't have to deal with either one
8460840 8466760 of those because it should not be the case and as long as there are faithful men who draw breath
8466760 8471640 even who are willing to speak publicly that will not be the case it's only when the last man
8471640 8478760 goes silent that that happens and we are on the tail end of generations who did go completely silent
8478760 8484040 they abandoned all of these things the inheritance we have been given today is an evil inheritance
8484040 8490040 in our own churches the only good things that we are inheriting in our churches are centuries old
8490040 8495560 all of the new things that we're inheriting need to be set on fire and destroyed and if the men
8495560 8504600 responsible will not relent then they can be put on the pyre 2 I mean in the Lutheran case there's
8504600 8512760 really no better example than we have the book of Concord 1580 centuries old and then we have in
8512760 8518360 contrast the CTCR documents that should all be put in a pile and burned you know like you said
8518360 8523400 it's word and those of course are largely from the 60s yeah no and everything on hi it's
8524520 8530280 truly oh yes but the 60s were a truly apostate decade they were everything that came from the
8530280 8535640 from the 50s and 60s needs to be erased from history nothing can be left standing yes
8537240 8544360 well it is the election episode so I think we'll close out here go through just briefly basically
8544360 8552120 eight sentences describing the eight points on election what election is from the solid declaration
8552120 8559640 the formula of Concord so point one the human race is truly redeemed and reconciled with God
8559640 8567080 through Christ point two such merit and benefits of Christ are presented offered and distributed to
8567080 8574280 us through his word and sacraments point three Christ will be effective and active in us will convert
8574280 8581400 hearts to repentance and preserve them in the true faith point four the spirit will justify all
8581400 8588600 those who in true repentance receive Christ by a true faith point five he will also sanctify and
8588600 8594920 love those who were justified point six he also will protect them in their great weakness against
8594920 8601320 the devil the world and the flesh point seven he will also strengthen increase and support to the
8601320 8609240 end the good work that he has begun in them last point point eight finally he will eternally save
8609240 8619720 and glorify in life eternal those whom he is elected called and justified
8639240 8641800 you