Transcript: Episode 0012

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What is it called?

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Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast, I am Corey J. Moller, and I'm Woe.

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He who is not angry, whereas he has caused to be sins, for unreasonable patience is the

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hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence and incites not only the wicked, but the good

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to do wrong.

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St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople.

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That's a quote that we chose to open with because it puts in context both anger and hatred

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as aspects that are part of the Christian life that is seen properly, as almost always sinful,

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and it's always something to be concerned about.

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Today's episode we're talking about Perfect Hatred, which is the term the Scripture

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uses for it, and we are talking about anger and how we are supposed to deal with it.

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I want to make clear at the outset in this preface that this is not a continuation of

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the episode on lesser-known doctrines, like usery and head coverings and shaking the

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dust off your feet.

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We are not today talking about a doctrine of hatred, in other words, this is not something

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that we are saying, hey, the world needs more hatred and the church needs more hatred.

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The reason that we're doing this episode in particular, the reason we're devoting

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an entire episode to the topic of Perfect Hatred is that, well, I think everyone can

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agree that the world needs less hatred and less anger.

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The question that is vital to Christians today is whether the correct amount of hatred

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is zero, and the scriptural answer to that question is no.

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Perfect hatred is something that God commands, and it's something that obviously makes

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us uncomfortable, because that seems contrary to many of the things that are found in Scripture.

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So today we're going to be discussing the passages that deal with love and condemn hate,

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and we're also going to be talking about the passages that deal with hate and advocate

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it, and what it means to advocate hate, because obviously that sounds like a terrible

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thing.

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That's something that Cory and I are routinely accused of, that we are hateful men who

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hate races and hate people and hate women, and we just hate everything, we're filled

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with hate, and so I'm sure that there are people who will see the subject of this episode

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and be filled with glee that we're going mask off, when, in fact, what we are trying

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to get to is a clear way for all of us to look at our own behavior, our own thoughts

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and our own emotions, and in a scriptural manner evaluate whether what we are feeling

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and saying and doing is, in fact, scriptural, perfect hatred, or if it's sinful hatred,

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and the distinction between those two is a vital one, and it's one that Christians must

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be able to think about and discuss clearly, because as we look at the world, everything

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now is done in terms of love, ever since the 60s, when we had the Age of Aquarius begin,

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the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, and the summer of love, and the love fest, and everything

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since then really has been very overtly done in the name of love.

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Now, the abuse of that term is clearly satanic if you're Christian, if you look at what

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the boomers were doing in the 60s, and the natural consequences of that today with what

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we see, we've discussed many times in previous episodes, things that are done in the name

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of love are over evil, they're horrifying, they're disgusting, and we're told that those

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things are love, and we're told to love them, and the subject of this episode is, is it

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Christian to hate, period, is a Christian to be able to hate, and if so, what things

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are Christians permitted to hate, so that's where we're going to begin.

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And so, of course, the short version of what we are as Christians to love, and what we

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are as Christians to hate, is that we are to love the things that God loves, the things

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that are good, and to hate the things that God hates, the things that are evil.

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And these are not two terms that we can just ignore in Scripture.

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Obviously, no Christian is going to say we can ignore the word love, one would hope

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anyway.

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The Greek word, of course, being agape is the word we're talking about here.

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That word appears many times in Scripture, appears 115 times in the New Testament, 15

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times in the Septuagint, because of course, it's not going to appear in the Hebrew since

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it is a Greek word.

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Agapah-o, the verbal form, appears even more, 143 times in the New Testament, 213 in

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the Septuagint, seems like quite a lot.

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But if you actually look then at the terms for hate in related terms, they are actually

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more frequent in Scripture than the word love.

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Misset-o is to hate in Greek, 40 times in the New Testament, 143 in the Old Testament.

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And then another one that is important is extras, is hostile also enmity or hate, 32 times

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in the New Testament, 320 times in the Septuagint.

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The concept of hate and enmity is not something that is infrequent in Scripture, appears only

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in a few places.

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It appears throughout Scripture from the beginning to the end, from Genesis to Revelation.

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So this is not something that we can neglect as Christians.

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We need to understand what these things are, how they relate to each other, and what we

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are supposed to do with them as Christians.

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In short, love and hatred are really opposite sides of the same coin.

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The love something is also to hate that which would destroy what you love.

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And so God loves us, God loves his sheep.

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Well he hates the wolves because the wolves want to destroy the thing he loves, they want

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to destroy the sheep.

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That is the same that a father would do with relation to his family.

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A father who loves his wife and his children will hate those who would cause them harm.

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That is a perfect hatred because you are hating evil.

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And Scripture speaks of loving your enemy, and of course that is going to come up.

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That does not mean that you permit the enemy to destroy the things that it is your duty

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to protect and love.

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It is not love when you permit your family to whom you owe a higher duty to be destroyed

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by your enemy.

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You still owe duties there.

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You are not to hate your enemy in the sense of a mindless zeal to destroy your enemy.

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It is not a vengeance we are speaking of, but you can still oppose your enemy.

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You can still oppose the enemies of your nation.

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You can oppose those who want to destroy your family.

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In fact it is your Christian duty to do so.

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So this is not a simple or straight forward thing.

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You have to understand deeply what these terms mean and what duties flow from them.

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And I think the first term that we need to properly understand is evil.

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But what actually is evil?

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Fundamentally this episode is a question about God's nature and about the things that

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are fruit of the Holy Spirit.

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When Adam sinned in the garden, he introduced evil into creation as the head of creation

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ordained by God to be over it, the universe fell when Adam fell.

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And I think that when we look, we call God Father because that is the name that he has

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given himself and that is his relationship to us.

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And so we think imperfectly in terms of our own fathers being disappointed or angry when

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we misbehave.

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And you think of it in chronological terms that the child does something wicked, does something

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wrong against the rules.

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And the Father responds by anger, by punishment of some sort.

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And then ideally some form of reconciliation.

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While some of that applies when we are dealing with God, it is not really the beginning of

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the understanding of what is actually going on.

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Because what truly happened when Adam disobeyed God in the garden by listening to his wife

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rather than listening to God and then by taking the fruit that had been forbidden to him,

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it had been an abomination to him according to God's law.

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Adam made himself God.

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He said to God, I know you told me to do one thing.

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I have a better idea.

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I'm going to do something else.

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I am going to be my God.

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You might be my creator, but you're no longer my God.

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At least in this one moment, I'm going to do my thing.

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That was evil.

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Now was it evil because it was on one side of an arbitrary line that God drew in the

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sand.

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I don't think that's the way we can think about this.

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I think that a proper understanding of evil and frankly a proper understanding of God's

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law or God's eternal will is that whatever is good is according to God's will.

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And therefore whatever is evil is contrary to God's eternal will.

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On the sixth day of creation before God rested, he saw that it was very good.

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Now very good when that was said in Genesis 2, isn't referring to, wow, pretty good,

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very good.

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Short or perfect?

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No.

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It was absolutely perfect and it was complete.

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The other days of creation were also good and that there was no defect on them, but they

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were not complete.

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When God declared creation to be very good, He declared it to be complete and to be perfect.

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And that means that it was in accord with His will.

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We have a small concept of this is humans where you may see someone or maybe if you have

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the gift, you make a painting or you create a song and you keep working on it until it's

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finished.

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And then you step back and you say, yeah, that's it.

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I nailed it.

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Everything is there that I want to be there.

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There's nothing there that I don't want to be there.

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You say that your creation is very good.

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God did that with the entire universe.

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And I meant that everything that was there is exactly what He wanted.

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And Adam introduced evil into the world.

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He acted in a way that was contrary to God's nature.

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In other words, the thing that Adam had become was opposite of what God wanted.

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And so the root of hatred, as we're talking about it today, is fundamentally not an emotional

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one.

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I think that's one of the most important things that we need to get across.

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And anger are in one sense and in some cases, they are emotions.

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But that's not all that they are.

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When God says that He hates evil, He's not talking about being emotional.

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God is talking about His relationship to that which is contrary to His will.

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The reason that you and I will die is because we're born with sin that is contrary to God's

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will.

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And the only way that that can be rectified is both through our death and through Christ

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death covering us in His blood so that our sins are atoned for.

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That is how God restores the evil that we have to a goodness that He can welcome.

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And so that's not emotion.

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You know, when God loves us in one sense, it is emotion, but it is more properly understood

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as the thing which God desires us to be, His perfect creation.

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That is in accord with His will.

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And the thing that He hates about us is the sin that is preventing us from being in accord

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with His will.

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So for God, love and hatred are first and foremost two sides, as Corey said, of the coin

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of is this in alignment with God's will or is it contrary to it?

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If it's contrary to it, then from God's perspective and from the perspective downstream

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with us as Christians to hate that which is evil is in accord with God's will, not

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as an act or as an upwelling of emotion, but because whatever is contrary to God should

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not be.

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It shouldn't exist.

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And we are forbidden as Christians to embrace or to tolerate or to welcome that which

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is contrary to God's will, that's fundamentally embracing evil on its face.

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Now there are things to be said about how you handle that in the Christian life, but fundamentally

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to say, yes, I will love evil is to reject God because it is to say, I am going to embrace

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that which is contrary to God's eternal will.

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And the only solution for that is God's eternal damnation.

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So it's really important that we understand and we get this right because there's no

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middle ground for understanding the stakes.

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And when it comes to love and hate in the modern context, this gets more into love.

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I've been working on some things related to that.

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Hopefully I'll publish something soon on it.

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But love in the modern sense in the modern world has come to mean permissiveness.

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And in reality, this is a direct inversion because that's what Satan does.

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Satan takes the good for evil and the evil for good.

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There is a verse directly that speaks to that, of course.

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And if you take love to mean permissiveness, what you are really doing is you are showing

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hatred for that person.

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Because that which is good is that which is in a line with God's will for you.

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That means it's good for you.

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And of course, God's will flows from his nature.

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So you can speak of it neither way you want.

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You can say it's in a line with God's nature or his will permissiveness is saying that

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it is fine to act contrary to God's will.

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And it is love to let that person do what he wants to do.

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And that's not love.

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That is indifference that is actual hatred.

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There is no more vile thing you can do with regard to another person than be indifferent

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to him risking his eternal soul by acting contrary to God's will.

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And so a good illustration of that would be, let's say we're standing in a room together.

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And you say that you're going to go down the hall to another room.

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If I say, don't do that because I know there's a bear in that room,

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I'm demonstrating love for you because I'm demonstrating care.

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If on the other hand, I say nothing or have fun, I'm demonstrating hatred for you

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because I know that you are going to be harmed and I'm allowing that to come to pass.

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Now, of course, that's an extreme option.

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I hope you don't have a bear in your house, but we see this all the time in society

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because we see people who engage in incredibly destructive behavior.

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And we are told that it's loving to let them do that.

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And so those who engage in transgenderism or homosexuality were told

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that we have to tolerate that, we have to permit that

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because it's actually loving to permit it.

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And know it's exact opposite, it is hateful to permit that.

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The loving option is to rebuke them with God's law

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because that gives the opportunity for the spirit to come in

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and actually potentially change something in that person's life.

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If you speak the words of God to that person, the truth,

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instead of just letting them go on their way, you are demonstrating love.

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And that's the point. Love is not permissiveness.

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These are two totally different concepts. Love, in fact, rebukes, love,

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in fact, corrects. Love speaks the law to people because love actually

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wants what is ultimately good, not what is temporarily pleasurable or enjoyable.

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These are different things.

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There are going to be a couple papers that we'll have in the show notes

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that I hope people will click on.

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One of them is a fairly short document by Professor Mark Quort,

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who is now sainted on Christian disputes and how to handle them.

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And one of the points that he makes in that paper very well is that

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there's a sense really, only in the last century in Christianity

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or so-called Christianity, including among Lutherans,

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where we are told of the law of love, where we're sold things in terms of this

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permissiveness and this license and love is held up as the highest good.

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Now, there's a switcheroo that's going on there because we all know,

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of course, that God is love, but the flip side is that is not necessarily true.

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Love is not God. God, to speak in imperfect human terms, is many things.

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Now, obviously God is only one thing.

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It's when we're dealing with God's nature, it's fundamentally impossible

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to speak with absolute precision because we can't understand.

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We can't fit God in our head.

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So sometimes you'll hear Cory and I kind of choosing our words very carefully

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or doubling back and it's not uncertainty.

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It's very easy to say things that either are heretical or will strongly suggest

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heresies downstream if you follow a claim to its natural conclusion.

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So God is love, but God is also hate because again, these are not emotions.

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I think that's one of the most crucial things.

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A couple episodes ago, I made a, not an offhand comment, but a brief comment

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where I said something in effect that if I talk to someone on Twitter,

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my chief concern is that they understand with clarity what I mean.

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And I said, I don't care how they feel about it.

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I basically said I'm more or less disregard their emotions and I didn't clarify at the

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time.

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And when I was really listening, I realized I would sound kind of horrible to most people.

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For one thing, I feel the same way about myself.

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I don't care about my emotions because in my mind, and I know this is going to sound

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heartless.

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I hope that I can explain myself well.

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For me to feel something in response to a fact, I don't consider that to have any information

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payload.

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It's like if I stub my toe in the dark on the nightstand or something, it hurts.

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It hurts a lot.

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I might cry out.

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It's momentary.

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The fact that I'm feeling pain in that moment tells me that I stub my toe and it's

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part of stubbing my toe.

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And so the fact of the toe being stubbed is the part of that whole scene that has information.

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The fact that I hurt and that I cry out, it's not a salient fact to me.

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It's momentary.

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It's a blip.

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And so for me, emotions are, it's like that or it's like gasp paints.

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Like you're bloated and it's uncomfortable and you can feel something moving inside

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you and it hurts.

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And it's an ugly reminder that you're not a solid hunk of muscle.

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There's actually stuff in there that we don't like to think about.

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But when it hurts, you think about it.

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It feels, it's unnatural, it is natural, but it's unpleasant to be feeling a thing that

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you don't normally feel.

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And so for me, processing of emotions is a temporary thing, but I don't derive knowledge

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from it.

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And on previous episodes, there have been several times where I've mentioned stories

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where someone said something to me that I took a lesson from.

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I think that some people, if you're used to processing your life in terms of your emotions

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over the facts, you might hear that and think, oh, well, he's mad because someone said

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something mean about him.

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And I try to make the point like, I don't care.

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Like I, yes, I was mad.

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It was momentary.

21:17.240 --> 21:18.240
I stubbed my toe.

21:18.240 --> 21:19.240
I got over it.

21:19.240 --> 21:22.360
I remember where the night's end is even in dark.

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And so that's what, to me, and I'm weird, I'm a weird man, I don't, I wouldn't advocate

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that everyone be like this.

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But I do think it's important to understand that there's, there's something that's happened

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in the church as we've become increasingly feminized that more and more, the feelings

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in the emotions that people have in the moment when something is being discussed or something

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is being debated, the feelings are seen as the facts somehow, which is not remotely the

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case that it's the exact opposite.

21:57.280 --> 22:01.520
We should try to respect each other's emotions and I do.

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I am far more cognizant and respectful of other people's emotions than I am of my own.

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I'm utterly ruthless towards myself.

22:08.120 --> 22:12.360
I would, I'd been killed a hundred times over if I treated others the way I treat myself

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internally.

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And it's not self-loathing.

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It's just, I, I'm going to try to be the best that I can be and that's going to hurt sometimes

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and I'm okay with that.

22:22.680 --> 22:27.720
So anyway, the point that Mark War makes in his paper is that there's, there's increasingly

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this feminized notion of making love God and I hope that's coming through clearly.

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Love is being treated.

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Love is a concept now separate from God is being treated as though it is God.

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And very often in these conversations that we see in the church and in the world where

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we as Christians are interacting with others, love is treated as the God, not God, not the

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God who hates evil, not the God who hates those who persecute his saints.

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But just love is this, it's own thing.

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And so this God that emerged in the 60s is named love and it's, it's a name of a God

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that you hear all the time.

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And as Christians we've fallen for it because who doesn't want love?

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Everyone wants to feel loved, wants to enjoy that.

23:19.360 --> 23:21.960
Hatred shouldn't exist.

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I think that's one of the important parts of this.

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The fact that there is any hatred beginning with God's hatred means that there are things

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that are contrary to God's will.

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And after judgment day, there will be no more hatred because everything will finally

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be in perfect accord with God's will as it has not been since the seventh day of creation.

23:42.880 --> 23:51.440
And so it's a vital subject for us to understand that if we're serving love and not serving

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God, we're serving a demon, we're serving a false God.

23:56.720 --> 24:01.600
Even if it's a demon named love and even if the things look and sound loving, if you

24:01.600 --> 24:06.000
are acting contrary to God's nature, you're doing evil.

24:06.000 --> 24:11.560
And that's a really hard part of dealing with this subject because it's a lot easier

24:11.560 --> 24:15.840
to be tolerant, to be permissive, to give license to things because you don't have to

24:15.840 --> 24:19.920
fight back, you don't have to say anything, you just let it slide.

24:19.920 --> 24:24.160
You cross to the other side of the street, you look the other way and you let it go.

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That's the easy choice.

24:25.960 --> 24:29.760
And so Satan's convinced us, well that's the loving choice.

24:29.760 --> 24:35.960
And it's important for us to understand that just because something is called love doesn't

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mean it's from God.

24:37.760 --> 24:41.040
There are some things that are love or some from God.

24:41.040 --> 24:42.840
All true love is from God.

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But there are today false things masquerading as love that were told come from God where

24:48.400 --> 24:49.960
that's not remotely the case.

24:49.960 --> 24:55.320
You've touched on the genealogy of these ideas and of course we went over that in an earlier

24:55.320 --> 25:01.360
episode, but you can also look at the fruits of these things because a tree is known by

25:01.360 --> 25:02.520
its fruit.

25:02.520 --> 25:08.920
And if you take the permissiveness that masquerades is love today and look at the fruit

25:08.920 --> 25:13.520
it has yielded over a course of decades, it's very obvious it's not from God.

25:13.520 --> 25:17.200
That which is from God yields good fruit.

25:17.200 --> 25:23.960
That which has come from this perverted sense of love is wicked and poisonous fruit.

25:23.960 --> 25:24.960
And you see that.

25:24.960 --> 25:30.240
And homosexuality is one of the best examples because we are told that we have to tolerate

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this, that we have to permit this, that we have to let them live their lives as they

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see fit and we will live our lives as we see fit and that is not love.

25:40.400 --> 25:44.960
That is hatred for your fellow man because you are permitting them to merely dance their

25:44.960 --> 25:46.600
way into hell.

25:46.600 --> 25:51.400
And just look at the way they live their lives and the consequences of that lifestyle.

25:51.400 --> 25:56.120
We're not going to go into the details because we don't want to get a strike.

25:56.120 --> 26:01.280
We want to try to keep this at a level where people can listen to it after lunch.

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But the consequences for those who are living in that world are dire in this life and worse

26:09.760 --> 26:14.520
in the next and it is not love to permit them to do that.

26:14.520 --> 26:20.520
And when it comes to being comfortable and just permitting others to do as they please,

26:20.520 --> 26:23.600
you can look at this and you see this in our own churches.

26:23.600 --> 26:27.560
How many pastors preach against obesity?

26:27.560 --> 26:35.280
How many pastors preach from the pulpit against fornication against homosexuality, against

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any of the number of the very common, very widespread sins in our society.

26:41.640 --> 26:45.640
Obesity is probably one of the best examples because I have never actually heard a pastor

26:45.640 --> 26:51.200
preach against it despite the fact that it is rampant in our society.

26:51.200 --> 26:54.440
And they don't speak against it because it makes them uncomfortable to say it and they

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know they will be hated by others if they say it.

26:58.240 --> 27:04.080
But Scripture is very clear and you will be hated by all for my name's sake.

27:04.080 --> 27:06.040
That means you will be hated when you speak the truth.

27:06.040 --> 27:10.000
You will be hated when you preach truth to people.

27:10.000 --> 27:11.200
And you're doing it of course in love.

27:11.200 --> 27:15.320
You're not doing it in hatred but they will hate you in return for that.

27:15.320 --> 27:18.560
Their hatred of course is wicked because they are hating the good.

27:18.560 --> 27:22.440
And so it is possible to have hatred that is righteous, it is possible to have hatred

27:22.440 --> 27:24.640
that is wicked.

27:24.640 --> 27:29.080
And in the case of those who react with hatred against that which is good, that is a wicked

27:29.080 --> 27:30.760
hatred.

27:30.760 --> 27:35.280
As opposed to for instance in Hebrews quoting the Old Testament of course, but of the sun

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he says, your throne O God is forever and ever.

27:37.920 --> 27:40.840
The scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

27:40.840 --> 27:45.880
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

27:45.960 --> 27:48.960
That's a perfect love and a perfect hatred.

27:48.960 --> 27:55.200
And the object of both of those is important to note, loved righteousness, hated wickedness.

27:55.200 --> 27:58.080
That's perfect love and that's perfect hatred.

27:58.080 --> 27:59.720
And that is what a Christian is supposed to have.

27:59.720 --> 28:01.840
We are supposed to imitate Christ.

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And of course that is speaking of Christ, that verse in Hebrews citing the Old Testament.

28:06.840 --> 28:12.320
You had mentioned preaching and that's something we were discussing before we began recording

28:12.320 --> 28:17.400
this as we were talking about some of Christostom's, his own preaching.

28:17.400 --> 28:22.440
He's famous for preaching against drunkenness and against chariot races because those were

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the great debauched sins that were occurring in his own parish.

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The people to whom he was preaching were engaging in public sin that was grievous.

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They were, they were living pagan lives and then coming to church.

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And so when they came to church, he rightly as a faithful preacher condemned their sins.

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He didn't condemn far off hypothetical sins.

28:48.120 --> 28:53.440
He condemned the sins of the people in his pews or maybe they were standing up, but the

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people before him, he addressed their sin.

28:56.680 --> 29:03.720
And so this fear of why must serve love and so I cannot speak truthfully, which just

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on its face should make your skin crawl.

29:06.040 --> 29:09.360
Because that's clearly cannot be coming from God.

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It's not just about dealing with the world.

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It's very prevalent when we're dealing with disputes about doctrine and our own churches.

29:20.080 --> 29:25.280
From the Walther or from the Markwore paper, there's a brief Walther quote that I'd like

29:25.280 --> 29:27.000
to give here.

29:27.000 --> 29:32.680
Walther says, it has always been not so much the pure doctrine per se, which has aroused

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hostility against its representatives.

29:35.280 --> 29:41.520
Much less is that the case in our indifferent age, but taking it seriously, the exclusive adherence

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to it, the rejection and condemnation of the opposite doctrine, and above all the practical

29:46.720 --> 29:54.880
implementation of this doctrinal position, that is was, which at all times provoked hostility.

29:54.880 --> 30:00.000
So also the cardinal of Salzburg said that Luther's doctrine he would tolerate, but

30:00.000 --> 30:05.400
to allow oneself to be reformed out of a corner, that was not to be tolerated.

30:05.400 --> 30:06.920
So it still is today.

30:06.920 --> 30:11.640
What doctrine isn't one prepared to tolerate nowadays, if only it will stand peacefully

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beside the other doctrine.

30:13.760 --> 30:19.960
And just those who want to be orthodox accomplish the most incredible fears in this tolerance,

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only observe the harmonious relation, which shows itself in the academic colleges, the

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peaceable sitting together in pastoral conferences, the tone and the reviews.

30:30.440 --> 30:37.560
So Walther was seeing this 175 years ago that men would tolerate evil.

30:37.560 --> 30:42.360
They would tolerate violating the second commandment and lying about God as long as it meant

30:42.360 --> 30:47.440
that we could sit side by side, pretending to be brothers.

30:47.440 --> 30:52.200
And the brother and neighbor distinction we've talked about a little bit before and the

30:52.200 --> 30:56.800
matter of polarity when you're looking at Scripture, I think is important to address

30:56.800 --> 30:58.840
here again.

30:58.840 --> 31:04.480
There are many times in Jesus' own direct preaching where he had monishes not hating

31:04.480 --> 31:07.080
your brother.

31:07.080 --> 31:08.740
We have two brothers.

31:08.740 --> 31:15.080
We have brothers according to the flesh and we have brothers according to the Spirit.

31:15.080 --> 31:19.000
There are also those who are not your brothers in either.

31:19.800 --> 31:25.200
In almost every case, when Jesus is speaking of our brothers, he is speaking in the flesh.

31:25.200 --> 31:30.200
In other words, Jesus is speaking about our brothers inside the church.

31:30.200 --> 31:35.480
Those are brothers who are brothers because they have also been adopted through baptism

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into God's family, not as natural sons of God, but as adopted sons of God.

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And so you and I are brothers because God has given us faith and made us his own.

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Not through anything in ourselves, but solely through his action.

31:52.960 --> 32:00.120
And so many of the admonitions that are addressing hatred and anger and dissension and rivalries,

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they speak specifically in the context of brothers.

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Now this is a distinction that is lost on us today.

32:07.400 --> 32:09.560
We don't care what brother means anymore.

32:09.560 --> 32:14.400
We're told the babble brotherhood of man means every human being.

32:14.400 --> 32:17.920
But every time you meet someone, it's a Noah family reunion.

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And so we're all brothers.

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Well, that's simply not true.

32:22.960 --> 32:26.840
If someone is within the church, one set of rules applies.

32:26.840 --> 32:30.520
If someone is not in the church, another set of rules apply.

32:30.520 --> 32:32.040
Now, they're very similar.

32:32.040 --> 32:34.640
We're not saying that you can hate anyone who's not within the church.

32:34.640 --> 32:37.160
That's absolutely not what Jesus says.

32:37.160 --> 32:44.280
However, the specific admonitions regarding dissension and anger and strife and hatred have

32:44.280 --> 32:51.520
to do with those who are also sanctified by Christ's blood and who confess it.

32:51.520 --> 32:57.600
And so when we just say, well, those passages apply universally to all people, we're losing

32:57.600 --> 32:59.280
what God is actually saying.

32:59.280 --> 33:01.880
There are other places where He deals with that.

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But it's important just as I took a shot at Mr. Rogers a few weeks ago, because he

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collapsed neighbor and to being a universal.

33:11.520 --> 33:16.560
That anyone could be your main and your neighbor if you like them, we're told the same thing

33:16.560 --> 33:17.560
about brother.

33:17.560 --> 33:19.560
Anyone is your brother if you like them, right?

33:19.560 --> 33:21.000
And you're supposed to like everyone.

33:21.000 --> 33:23.280
So that makes everyone your brother.

33:23.280 --> 33:28.280
Well, that's not what God says, has not what that word means.

33:28.280 --> 33:33.520
And so as you're looking at the various verses dealing with love and with hatred, we are

33:33.520 --> 33:38.200
to love all men because all men are created in the image of God and are descended from

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Adam.

33:39.600 --> 33:44.800
However, that is not necessarily and it is not in fact the same love that we have within

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the body of Christ.

33:46.560 --> 33:52.040
The love that I have for quarry as a brother is different than the love that I am to

33:52.040 --> 33:57.320
have for a random human being halfway around the world.

33:57.320 --> 34:01.000
When that person on the other side of the world somehow becomes my neighbor, I am to love

34:01.000 --> 34:05.080
them as I love myself and that if they're hungry, I would feed them just as I would feed

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myself.

34:06.560 --> 34:11.560
And that is a type of love, but is not the fullness of love such as you would find within

34:11.560 --> 34:12.880
your own family.

34:12.880 --> 34:17.920
There are things that you will do for a mother or a wife or a son that you won't do for

34:17.920 --> 34:19.000
a stranger.

34:19.000 --> 34:20.400
And that's godly.

34:20.400 --> 34:26.120
And I think one of the dangers that we lose when we collapse, what we expand, neighbor

34:26.120 --> 34:32.000
and brother into being universal platitudes, we lose the distinctives that God has given

34:32.000 --> 34:37.160
us to address those specifically within our sphere to get back to what quarry was saying

34:37.160 --> 34:38.320
at the very beginning.

34:38.320 --> 34:43.640
We have offices in our lives to deal with certain people in certain ways.

34:43.640 --> 34:48.680
And that should always be done from a place of love, but that love sometimes requires

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things that to the world don't look like love.

34:52.880 --> 34:58.280
If a home invader breaks into your home at three in the morning, you use violence against

34:58.280 --> 34:59.280
him.

34:59.280 --> 35:03.040
You don't take it as an opportunity to spread the gospel to someone who clearly needs it.

35:03.040 --> 35:08.240
You use whatever violence is necessary to end the threat to protect your family.

35:08.240 --> 35:09.240
That is love.

35:09.240 --> 35:11.200
It is love for your family.

35:11.200 --> 35:16.760
And the man who breaks into your home intending harm and violence, he's receiving the

35:16.760 --> 35:19.200
due penalty for his sin.

35:19.200 --> 35:27.360
And your love for him has a neighbor momentarily is far less important, scripturally, than your

35:27.360 --> 35:33.160
love for your family, to whom you have an absolute duty to protect as their caretaker

35:33.160 --> 35:35.400
and on God's behalf.

35:35.400 --> 35:38.600
You mean you don't just point a camera phone at him, hope for the best?

35:38.600 --> 35:45.120
Yeah, you're not going to convict a man's conscience by pointing out to him the sinning.

35:45.120 --> 35:50.800
You restrain and you end the sin, and then you can go and visit him in jail if he survives,

35:50.800 --> 35:55.520
and you can tell him about Jesus, but yeah.

35:55.520 --> 36:00.040
Just to clarify for the Lutheran audience for those who are paying close attention,

36:00.040 --> 36:04.160
we do, of course, hold that the Yamagodei in man is lost through original sin when we

36:04.160 --> 36:08.720
speak of man being made in the image of God that is man is originally made, it is restored,

36:08.720 --> 36:10.360
of course, in Christ.

36:10.360 --> 36:14.760
That's a subject for another time.

36:14.760 --> 36:21.200
But when it comes to those who would set the various attributes of God against each other,

36:21.200 --> 36:26.880
or particularly in this case, those who would set love against truth or truth against love,

36:26.880 --> 36:31.840
it is important to remember the transcendentals we have spoken of them before, beauty, goodness

36:31.840 --> 36:33.960
and truth being the three core ones.

36:33.960 --> 36:40.360
There is never a time where these can be set against each other.

36:40.360 --> 36:46.840
If you are advocating that any of the attributes of God can be set against the other attributes

36:46.840 --> 36:52.120
of God, you are advocating for a split or division in the Godhead, and that simply cannot

36:52.120 --> 36:53.120
be.

36:53.120 --> 36:54.600
That is rank heresy.

36:54.600 --> 37:00.320
And so speaking the truth is not an act of hatred.

37:00.320 --> 37:05.800
Now I'm not saying that you couldn't possibly use the truth to hate someone.

37:05.800 --> 37:10.880
It is possible to use things that are good in themselves for evil.

37:10.880 --> 37:16.120
It is possible to turn the good things of God toward wicked ends, and that happens all

37:16.120 --> 37:20.360
the time that is what Satan frequently does.

37:20.360 --> 37:27.280
Sex is a good gift from God when it is in marriage between a man and his wife.

37:27.280 --> 37:34.400
Good in itself, but in the case of fornication or homosexuality or rape, it is being put toward

37:34.400 --> 37:36.520
an evil, a wicked end.

37:36.520 --> 37:42.040
And so it is possible, as I said, to use that which is good, that which is from God, even

37:42.040 --> 37:47.720
things that are good in themselves, like truth, to use them to attempt to work toward a

37:47.720 --> 37:48.720
wicked end.

37:48.720 --> 37:55.240
However, when those things in and of themselves are being set against each other, that is

37:55.240 --> 38:01.080
an indication that you are dealing with someone who is wicked, who has malice in his heart,

38:01.080 --> 38:04.320
who is attempting to cause you and others harm.

38:04.320 --> 38:09.560
And so someone tells you that you cannot speak the truth because that would be hateful.

38:09.560 --> 38:12.680
That person is a wicked liar and needs to be rebuked.

38:12.680 --> 38:15.200
Yes, there is a way to go about it.

38:15.200 --> 38:17.280
There are good ways to speak the truth.

38:17.280 --> 38:20.000
There are bad ways to speak the truth.

38:20.000 --> 38:24.720
But it is important and it is the duty of the Christian to speak the truth because that

38:24.720 --> 38:27.640
is actually showing love.

38:27.640 --> 38:34.920
And earlier in this episode, I mentioned that the word hate to get back to the topic for

38:34.920 --> 38:38.440
today appears throughout scripture.

38:38.440 --> 38:41.120
Coming to end, Genesis to Revelation.

38:41.120 --> 38:47.760
And so I'd just like to highlight how early on in scripture, hatred appears.

38:47.760 --> 38:52.680
And how near to the end of the scriptures, hatred appears, we'll start with the end,

38:52.680 --> 38:57.040
we'll start Revelation in Revelation 2.6.

38:57.040 --> 39:02.040
Yet this you have, you hate the works of the Nicolaytans, which I also hate.

39:02.040 --> 39:10.160
That is Christ speaking, commending Christians for hating and saying that he himself hates.

39:10.160 --> 39:12.440
God hates wickedness.

39:12.440 --> 39:16.520
That's what he's saying that he hates, he's hating the work of false teachers.

39:16.520 --> 39:18.560
That is a perfect hatred.

39:18.560 --> 39:22.400
Just a bit of a bit of context in Revelation 2.

39:22.400 --> 39:26.360
That's one of the letters that Jesus is writing to the seven churches.

39:26.360 --> 39:31.120
And in that passage, when he's addressing them, he's kind of dressing them down.

39:31.120 --> 39:34.560
He's saying, you guys are screwing a bunch of stuff up.

39:34.560 --> 39:39.280
One of the only things that Jesus commends that church for is their hatred.

39:39.280 --> 39:41.400
Go read Revelation 2.

39:41.400 --> 39:46.040
When you read it clearly with these eyes, it's stark that the thing which God commends

39:46.040 --> 39:50.280
of them, and that the other churches have their own strengths and weaknesses, but one

39:50.280 --> 39:54.080
of the only things that that church is getting, right, is it's hatred?

39:54.080 --> 40:00.840
I think that's a point that cannot be ignored because, again, we're talking about

40:00.840 --> 40:03.400
God's nature and God's will.

40:03.400 --> 40:09.160
And if God is commending a church for its hatred over against their other failings, we can't

40:09.160 --> 40:10.840
ignore that as Christians.

40:10.840 --> 40:14.120
And we cannot say that hatred is always per se evil.

40:14.120 --> 40:18.580
We must acknowledge that there are times and places when not only is it permissible,

40:18.580 --> 40:22.600
but it's required and started before I'd stop interrupting you.

40:22.600 --> 40:23.600
Of course.

40:23.600 --> 40:28.640
You may, you highlighted the point how often love and truth are set in opposition.

40:28.640 --> 40:32.440
That's one of the things that's very much a point in Markov's paper as well.

40:32.440 --> 40:34.000
We see this all the time.

40:34.000 --> 40:40.160
The pastors who personally hate, quarry, and I, for the things that we say and for the things

40:40.160 --> 40:44.440
that we say in this podcast, they hate us for telling the truth.

40:44.440 --> 40:47.200
They hate us for saying what is in Scripture.

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Just as God promised, the righteous would be persecuted by evil doers.

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It's the charges of lovelessness, but the accusation has never falsehood.

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And truth has spoken.

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The accusation is lovelessness.

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And I think that we have to pay extremely careful attention when we see this playing out.

41:07.280 --> 41:10.080
Because again, there's a demon named love.

41:10.080 --> 41:16.480
Just as love is part of God's nature, there is a demon that is named love that is worshiped

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by this world.

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It is worshiped by the worst people in this world.

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And when they say do this in the name of love, they're wanting you to think that they're

41:25.520 --> 41:27.640
talking about God when they're not.

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They're talking about something else.

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And if truth is destroyed by love, that is not love that comes from God.

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Because as this quarry said, God cannot be set in opposition to Himself.

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And it's worth emphasizing again, Christ says, which I also hate.

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He is commending them because they are imitating Him because they are hating the things that He

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hates.

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And again, that is perfect hatred.

41:54.720 --> 42:01.080
And so to switch to Genesis then, the beginning of Scripture, well, this is the more important

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one.

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That's why I've left it for a second.

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Genesis 3.15, which of course is the proto-Avangelian.

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I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

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He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

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And of course that word enmity there has the lexical scope of hatred.

42:23.040 --> 42:29.160
That's what enmity is, enmity is hatred to give you the dictionary definition, enmity

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is the quality of being an enemy, the opposite of friendship, ill will, hatred, malevolence.

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That is what is spoken of there and that is the first instance of the gospel in Scripture.

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The first instance of the gospel does not have the word love in it, but it has the word

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hate in it.

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And so you have hate from the beginning of Scripture to the end of Scripture.

42:54.240 --> 43:00.280
And to be very clear, we are still saying that hate is not an intrinsically good part

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of creation.

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Hate is intrinsically good when it is properly directed because it is directed toward

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that which is evil, but it was not God's original intent for hatred to be part of creation

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because it did not need to be part.

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It entered into creation through disobedience, through wickedness.

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It of course will be removed in the new heavens and the new earth.

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But in so far as we are still in this life, hatred is part of the Christian life and it

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is a necessary part of the Christian life.

43:32.320 --> 43:33.320
It is not an optional part.

43:33.320 --> 43:37.600
It is not something that we can set aside that we can say, well, we are Christians so

43:37.600 --> 43:38.600
we only love.

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No, in order to have love in this life, you must also have hatred because you must hate

43:44.600 --> 43:47.600
that which is evil and love that which is good.

43:47.600 --> 43:53.600
I think probably the single best demonstration in Scripture of this polarity that we so

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often focus on, you know, we've talked in the past about things that are abominations

43:57.840 --> 44:01.840
and we pointed out abomination to whom.

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When we talk about hatred and particularly perfect hatred and I'm going to give you the

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passage where that exact phrase is used by God to describe what he desires.

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It's important to understand when we talk about enemies, there are our enemies and there

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are God's enemies and sometimes they're the same people.

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And so when you look at the passage where Jesus says to turn the other cheek, for one

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thing, the turning of a cheek when someone slaps you, if you look at the hand that Jesus

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references, it's the hand that they use to wipe their behinds after they did their business.

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So it wasn't an act of violence that Jesus was describing, it was a profound personal insult.

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It was an attack on ego, it was a public humiliation to slap someone with that hand.

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And Jesus was telling them if someone humiliates you like that, turn the other cheek, don't

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respond in kind because that person is acting as your enemy.

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In Psalm 139, Jesus references the same sort of hatred that he commends in Revelation

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2, David writes, oh that you would slay the wicked, oh God, oh men of blood depart from

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me.

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They speak against you with malicious intent, your enemies, take your name in vain.

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Do I not hate those who hate you, oh Lord, and do I not loathe those who rise up against

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you, I hate them with perfect hatred, I count them my enemies, search me, oh God, and

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know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any grievous way in me,

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and lead me in the way everlasting.

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Now I included the last couple verses there because at the end of Psalm 139, David appeals

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to God for a clean conscience, which eliminates any possibility of doubt that maybe David was

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describing something sinful, which is an accusation that's made in one of the other papers

46:02.880 --> 46:05.240
that we will link.

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When David is describing this, he is describing the opposite polarity of enemy.

46:10.920 --> 46:17.160
Go read Psalm 139 again for yourself, it's a beautiful psalm, and the first part of

46:17.160 --> 46:25.560
is actually very often used in pro-life contexts, but the end of it is about hating God's enemies.

46:26.560 --> 46:30.720
The psalms are filled with David striving against his own enemies and crying out to God

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for mercy and help.

46:33.200 --> 46:40.880
In Psalm 139, the enemies that David is describing are explicitly enemies of God.

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Now as we've said before, of God means something, enemy of God doesn't mean the same as enemy

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of mine.

46:49.120 --> 46:55.480
They're men who hate me, who hate me for saying the things that God says.

46:55.480 --> 47:01.080
Only there are some days when I struggle to respond to that in a godly way, both in my

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heart and what I'd say out loud either year or on the internet.

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But I always, in order to try to remain in accord with God's will, I focus on what is

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it they're hating because if a man hates me for saying what God says, it's not really

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even me that he's hating, as Quarry quoted previously, when people hate us for the sake

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of God, it is God that they hate fundamentally and exclusively.

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We just happen to be the messengers, and that was what the Old Testament prophets faced

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over and over again.

47:38.640 --> 47:42.520
They were persecuted, they were murdered, they were chased, and the same thing happened

47:42.520 --> 47:44.480
to John the Baptist and to Jesus.

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When someone comes and says what God says to people who hate God, they're usually hated

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and killed, occasionally they're listened to, but that is up to God.

47:54.880 --> 48:02.960
God determines whether or not those who hear his word are going to, well, that's a free

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will question.

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I'm not sure how to finish that sentence cleanly.

48:06.240 --> 48:13.520
There are times when, see, it's another episode, yes.

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When God acts in this life, what we need to focus on is that when we are acting in accord

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with what God says and we're hated for it, those aren't our enemies.

48:24.200 --> 48:29.640
When these pastors, like Don Stein, who was actually recently in public with a group

48:29.640 --> 48:37.640
of pastors, asked the other pastors to pray to God against this podcast, what do you say

48:37.640 --> 48:39.040
to that?

48:39.040 --> 48:44.520
When God says that we shouldn't judge, judge not, that's what he's talking about, because

48:44.600 --> 48:48.960
God alone can do the math on whose prayers he listens to.

48:48.960 --> 48:53.480
Does he listen to the prayer of the men who are serving him faithfully?

48:53.480 --> 48:59.000
Or does he listen to the prayer of the men who are asking God to strike those men down?

48:59.000 --> 49:01.960
God can sort that out, and so we don't have to worry about it.

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So while there is enmity between men, the focus in the Christian life means needs to be

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against whom is the hatred directed?

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And it's coming in, if someone hates you for being a Christian, Scripture says to rejoice.

49:18.760 --> 49:22.200
You should give thanks when you're hated for his sake.

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That is a type of martyrdom.

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And we shouldn't feel bad about that.

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It doesn't feel great, but it is something to give thanks to God for because the alternative

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is to not say what God says, and therefore to not be hated by the world that is ruled

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by the prince of this dark age who cloaks himself in the name of love.

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And so when we as Christians hate God's enemies, hate those who hate God, that is obedience

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to God.

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Full stop.

49:56.640 --> 50:01.520
There could be no argument, or you have to reject Psalm 139 and all of the other passages

50:01.520 --> 50:05.400
that you know, Corey mentioned hundreds and hundreds of times in Scripture, where it

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is clearly said that hatred of God's enemies, that hatred of evil is obedience to God.

50:13.560 --> 50:18.480
Proverbs 8 says, the fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.

50:18.480 --> 50:22.080
And one of the mistakes that some pastors make when they're trying to thread the needle

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on this and make sure the people don't go too far with their hating, they'll say things

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like, we have no enemy, but Satan, but that's simply not true.

50:31.920 --> 50:35.000
That's absolutely contrary to what Scripture says.

50:35.000 --> 50:37.320
We absolutely have enemies.

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Some of them are just enemies because they don't like us for whatever reason.

50:41.400 --> 50:46.520
There are other enemies who hate us because we're God's children, and God's children

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will be hated by the prince of this world and by his own children, because both God and

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the devil have children.

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And everybody has one father or the other.

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There's no third option there.

50:58.360 --> 51:04.760
And when we speak of hatred, as we're evaluating it, as we're thinking about it, and as

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I said, like, I struggle, this is sometimes I fail.

51:07.920 --> 51:12.840
Someone directs something at me, and my first instinct is to shoot right back twice

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as hard, and I don't always do what God wants me to do.

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But when I look at my own actions and I look at the actions in the world, my first concern

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is not, did that person make me feel bad?

51:26.960 --> 51:27.960
Did he hurt my feelings?

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Did he say something mean?

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My first concern is his, my will and my actions aligned with what God commands and desires.

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And if they are, are the other man's actions and is aligned with God's will and his desires?

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And then I go from there.

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I think that that's what all of us need to spend more time focusing on.

51:48.760 --> 51:51.120
What is God's actual will?

51:51.120 --> 51:55.920
Because we've been, it's all been collapsed into this bumper sticker theology where we've

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all come to believe what God's will is love, right?

51:58.560 --> 52:00.040
I mean, God's will is love.

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That's like, it's such a trope that it's difficult for Christians to push back because we

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don't have the words, because the words are not being given to us by our teachers who

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will clearly say, someone who is doing evil and the name of love is a child of Satan.

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And the fact that they're cloaking themselves in light is no surprise.

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That's what their father does.

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So with Lucifer, the lightbringer, the demon who cloaks himself in light is of course

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going to be appealing because that's how he gets people to be suckered.

52:35.320 --> 52:40.440
It's important as a Christian who has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to listen to God's

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voice in all things, not just the things that make us feel good and not just the things

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that let us off the hook.

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As I say repeatedly, when I read scripture, I find myself condemned.

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That means it's working.

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That means that the Holy Spirit is saying, yeah, I'm telling you, you need to obey God

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when you do these things.

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You need to obey me because as God's speaking, we all need to focus on that.

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And that will sometimes mean that there is outgoing hatred, not in a counter battery,

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not in returning fire, but that there must be hatred of that which is contrary to God's

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will.

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And when we are personally involved with it, that's when it becomes very difficult because

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we are naturally fallen and we will naturally go further than God permits and do things

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that God does not condone.

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And that's why it's so important to understand this clearly, first on our own hearts and

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minds, so that we're always judging our own actions first and any actions of others

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by the measuring stick that God has given us in scripture.

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And really today, the pastors who stand up and condemn hatred by and large are acting

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like fools because it's just not a problem in our churches these days.

53:55.760 --> 54:03.160
Now in some of the liberal, to use the term in a technical sense, denominations, it is

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very much a problem because they have a specific hatred for specific groups, for specific reasons.

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We can get into that eventually in another episode, but by and large in traditional Christian

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denominations and churches, hatred just isn't a problem.

54:19.440 --> 54:20.920
The exact opposite is the problem.

54:20.920 --> 54:22.040
There's no hatred.

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It's all permissiveness and this 60s sense of love and live and let be.

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And so the pastor is condemning a sin that isn't even present in his congregation.

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And that's if he's even condemning it in terms that are the terms related to the sin and

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not the modern misconception, it would be as if a pastor today stood up and condemned

54:46.400 --> 54:47.400
charioteering.

54:47.400 --> 54:52.080
Okay, yes, for Christ's system, that was relevant today, not so much.

54:52.080 --> 54:55.280
I don't think very many people are going out to the track and betting on chariot races

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very often in our churches anymore.

54:58.040 --> 55:03.240
And so it's again, pastors are supposed to speak to the congregation about the things

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that apply to the congregation, not some far off sin of some other people that is a

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relevant to the congregation.

55:10.840 --> 55:11.840
Is it still sin?

55:11.840 --> 55:16.360
Yes, but if it's not a problem in your congregation, why are you spending time?

55:16.840 --> 55:22.880
Hounding your congregation about something that doesn't apply to them at present.

55:22.880 --> 55:30.200
Now I also want to turn back to Psalm 139 for a moment and focus on that word that is translated

55:30.200 --> 55:35.120
as perfect or complete depends on which translation you are reading in the ESV, it's complete

55:35.120 --> 55:37.040
hatred.

55:37.040 --> 55:43.720
The word there is teleos and that is of course related to telos, telos meaning end.

55:43.720 --> 55:49.160
So teleology is dealing with the end of things or the purpose of things, but I'm doing

55:49.160 --> 55:55.680
philosophy or theology, but what that word means is perfect or complete or mature.

55:55.680 --> 56:02.520
It is a hatred that is properly directed toward a rightful end.

56:02.520 --> 56:05.280
And that is the whole point that we're making about hatred.

56:05.280 --> 56:10.240
That is what is being said in that Psalm Psalm 139.

56:10.240 --> 56:16.920
A perfect hatred is a hatred that is properly directed toward a proper end.

56:16.920 --> 56:22.720
And in this case, it is the hatred of God's enemies, and if you hate God's enemies,

56:22.720 --> 56:29.800
that is a perfect hatred because it is properly directed toward the enemies of God.

56:29.800 --> 56:31.640
And that is a proper end for hatred.

56:31.640 --> 56:37.920
I want to give a few verses here just to give some specific scriptural warrant for when

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and how hatred is appropriate among believers.

56:41.720 --> 56:46.240
You mean we're not going to read just the entirety of the poetry or the wisdom literature?

56:46.240 --> 56:49.560
I guess not all of it because not Job and Song of Solomon.

56:49.560 --> 56:54.960
So just the big chunk, the core in the middle, Psalm proverbs and ecclesiastes.

56:54.960 --> 56:56.440
Yeah, exactly.

56:56.440 --> 57:01.840
I, when I was looking, it was mostly in those passages, which shouldn't be surprising,

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but we'll discuss what it means in a minute.

57:06.400 --> 57:08.360
Psalm 97 says,

57:08.360 --> 57:11.120
O you who love the Lord hate evil.

57:11.120 --> 57:13.320
He preserves the lives of his saints.

57:13.320 --> 57:16.600
He delivered the stem from the hand of the wicked.

57:16.600 --> 57:21.800
In Psalm 11, it says, the Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one

57:21.800 --> 57:25.000
who loves violence.

57:25.000 --> 57:29.400
In Psalm 45, you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.

57:29.400 --> 57:34.480
Therefore God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

57:34.480 --> 57:38.840
That of course is the verse that was referred to in Hebrews earlier.

57:38.840 --> 57:40.120
God says in Psalm 26,

57:40.120 --> 57:44.560
I hate the assembly of evil doers and I will not sit with the wicked.

57:44.560 --> 57:46.080
In Psalm 31, he says,

57:46.080 --> 57:52.120
I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the Lord.

57:52.120 --> 57:54.880
This is the longest one that I want to focus on.

57:54.880 --> 57:59.200
There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him,

57:59.200 --> 58:04.720
potty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

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a heart that devises wicked plans,

58:07.240 --> 58:10.040
feet that make haste to run to evil,

58:10.040 --> 58:13.040
a false witness who breathes out lies,

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and one who soes discord among brothers.

58:15.960 --> 58:18.560
That's from Proverbs 6.

58:18.560 --> 58:22.280
Now, as we mentioned earlier, truth and lying show up a couple times here

58:22.280 --> 58:24.280
as things that God hates.

58:24.280 --> 58:28.080
It is not lovelessness that he condemns, although that's condemned elsewhere,

58:28.080 --> 58:33.160
but here, God specifically condemns falsehoods, falsehoods that are slander,

58:33.160 --> 58:36.280
falsehoods that are simply false on their face.

58:36.280 --> 58:42.560
In particular, I want to focus on God's hatred of one who soes discord among brothers,

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because that was the focus in part of the Markquart paper.

58:47.760 --> 58:51.880
It's a focus of what is directed against Cory and I for this podcast

58:51.880 --> 58:53.920
and for the other things that we say.

58:53.960 --> 58:59.400
And again, the word brother is there, which means in the church among Christians.

58:59.400 --> 59:03.520
Now, scripture, we'll talk about this in another episode, but...

59:03.520 --> 59:08.600
Discord does not simply mean that there's disagreement,

59:08.600 --> 59:11.600
or rather, when there is discord among brothers,

59:11.600 --> 59:15.880
it means that there is falsehood among brothers, first and foremost.

59:15.880 --> 59:21.040
There can be no dispute among Christians that is not based on lies.

59:21.080 --> 59:27.640
And so when discord arises, again, to get back to the mention early on

59:27.640 --> 59:34.520
of distinguishing between the fact and the feeling that arises from encountering the fact,

59:34.520 --> 59:40.520
so often today, when there is discord among believers,

59:40.520 --> 59:44.560
the finger is pointed by those who would charge lovelessness

59:44.560 --> 59:47.520
against the one who has raised the alarm,

59:47.560 --> 59:51.360
against the man who has said, wait, stop what you're doing,

59:51.360 --> 59:54.920
stop what you're saying, scripture says something different.

59:54.920 --> 59:57.720
Let's get back on the same page as God.

59:57.720 --> 01:00:03.840
The man who charges lovelessness is attacking the man who speaks of scripture.

01:00:03.840 --> 01:00:09.480
And so that when there are discussions of discord among believers,

01:00:09.480 --> 01:00:15.280
again, polarity comes into play, from whom was the discord introduced,

01:00:15.280 --> 01:00:18.800
was the discord introduced by the man who pulled the fire alarm,

01:00:18.800 --> 01:00:22.680
or was the discord introduced by the man who lit the match.

01:00:22.680 --> 01:00:27.520
The contention that Kory and I have is that we as the stones who cry out,

01:00:27.520 --> 01:00:30.400
we as the men who are pulling the fire alarm,

01:00:30.400 --> 01:00:34.320
are pointing out that a fire has already started among us,

01:00:34.320 --> 01:00:39.920
and that the discord was started by those who speak contrary to scripture.

01:00:39.920 --> 01:00:43.440
Now, every man has to figure this out for himself by looking to scripture,

01:00:43.440 --> 01:00:47.760
who is in agreement with God, and who is not.

01:00:47.760 --> 01:00:50.720
Behavior is one thing and feelings are one thing,

01:00:50.720 --> 01:00:54.480
but the truth is immutable and the truth is knowable.

01:00:54.480 --> 01:00:57.840
As we talked about in the episode on the persecutory of scripture,

01:00:57.840 --> 01:01:01.720
you can absolutely understand what God is saying about these things.

01:01:01.720 --> 01:01:04.960
It's not a mystery what God wants us to do,

01:01:04.960 --> 01:01:08.400
and it's not a mystery what God declares to us.

01:01:08.480 --> 01:01:15.520
And so when men will seek to undermine the church by saying things that are confusing,

01:01:15.520 --> 01:01:19.520
that are false, that lead us further away from God says,

01:01:19.520 --> 01:01:23.120
including leading us further away from being able to hate,

01:01:23.120 --> 01:01:27.760
that which is contrary to God's will, they are sowing discord.

01:01:27.760 --> 01:01:30.400
They are sowing the discord that God hates.

01:01:30.400 --> 01:01:34.240
And when the second man speaks, and maybe he shouts,

01:01:34.240 --> 01:01:36.800
maybe his tone of voice is very tense,

01:01:36.800 --> 01:01:40.240
because a man has just lit a fire in the midst of a church,

01:01:40.240 --> 01:01:43.120
and he says, stop what you're doing. This is evil.

01:01:43.120 --> 01:01:45.520
We must stop it immediately.

01:01:45.520 --> 01:01:49.360
That man will immediately be accused of causing discord.

01:01:49.360 --> 01:01:52.560
As Christians, we have to figure out where it's coming from.

01:01:52.560 --> 01:01:56.720
Is the man who raises the alarm, or is the man who spreads the lie,

01:01:56.720 --> 01:01:59.440
the one who is doing the evil?

01:01:59.440 --> 01:02:02.320
It's a question that obviously we know what we think,

01:02:02.320 --> 01:02:05.280
and we act with a clean conscience in these matters.

01:02:05.360 --> 01:02:08.640
You as observers, and you as participants in other places,

01:02:08.640 --> 01:02:13.680
must think for yourselves from whom is the discord arising?

01:02:13.680 --> 01:02:16.160
Is it he who speaks contrary to scripture,

01:02:16.160 --> 01:02:19.120
or is it he who cares enough about pure doctrine,

01:02:19.120 --> 01:02:22.320
that he will fight, even if it means fighting someone

01:02:22.320 --> 01:02:25.280
who, on paper, is inside the church.

01:02:25.280 --> 01:02:28.880
And this is one of the really tough things about what in the church means,

01:02:28.880 --> 01:02:31.440
and what a brother in Christ means,

01:02:31.440 --> 01:02:35.120
because in the church means that we are part of the body

01:02:36.080 --> 01:02:40.000
and there is nothing imperfect or evil in the body of Christ.

01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:42.160
Now obviously that doesn't exclude sinners,

01:02:42.160 --> 01:02:44.320
because otherwise it would be a headless church.

01:02:44.320 --> 01:02:45.280
There'd be nothing in it.

01:02:46.240 --> 01:02:49.120
But it is important to focus on the fact that

01:02:49.120 --> 01:02:51.440
when men are acting in evil ways,

01:02:52.240 --> 01:02:55.440
they are saying, I am not a brother.

01:02:55.440 --> 01:02:57.760
I am no longer your brother in Christ.

01:02:57.760 --> 01:02:59.520
I am like Adam in the garden.

01:02:59.520 --> 01:03:00.800
I am my own God.

01:03:00.800 --> 01:03:03.680
I am serving the God who is named love,

01:03:03.680 --> 01:03:07.120
and not the God from whom the love we have been given flows.

01:03:08.480 --> 01:03:11.520
Distinguishing between the two is not obvious.

01:03:11.520 --> 01:03:13.760
It's not some of the fix on a bumper sticker.

01:03:13.760 --> 01:03:17.520
But the fact that we continue to fail to discern these matters clearly

01:03:17.520 --> 01:03:21.200
is precisely why our churches continue to decay

01:03:21.200 --> 01:03:23.200
and our hearts continue to grow cold,

01:03:23.200 --> 01:03:26.000
because we're not listening to God's voice.

01:03:26.000 --> 01:03:30.320
We're listening to the age of Aquarius as the tune plays on.

01:03:30.320 --> 01:03:33.200
And the further and further we get from God,

01:03:33.200 --> 01:03:35.760
the more we sound like we're still doing Jesus-y stuff.

01:03:35.760 --> 01:03:37.520
We're still talking about love,

01:03:37.520 --> 01:03:39.760
but it's not the love that comes from God.

01:03:39.760 --> 01:03:41.520
It's just something else entirely.

01:03:41.520 --> 01:03:45.440
So you went through a few verses there that had to deal with hatred.

01:03:45.440 --> 01:03:47.760
And there, of course, many of them, as mentioned earlier,

01:03:47.760 --> 01:03:51.760
there are many instances of these words in scripture.

01:03:52.480 --> 01:03:54.160
We had pretty much the same list for the Psalter.

01:03:54.160 --> 01:03:55.840
One other one that I had was Psalm 5,

01:03:55.840 --> 01:03:56.560
which, of course, says,

01:03:56.560 --> 01:03:58.720
the boastful shall not stand before your eyes.

01:03:59.440 --> 01:04:01.120
You hate all evil-doers.

01:04:01.920 --> 01:04:05.760
And of course, that is a prophet saying that God hates evil.

01:04:05.760 --> 01:04:07.440
God hates evil-doers.

01:04:07.440 --> 01:04:11.360
That is actually one thing that some modern pastors

01:04:11.360 --> 01:04:15.520
and others like to try to weasel out of hatred by saying,

01:04:15.520 --> 01:04:17.280
no, no, no, God hates sin.

01:04:17.280 --> 01:04:18.720
God doesn't hate the sinner.

01:04:18.720 --> 01:04:20.160
Well, scripture is very clear.

01:04:20.800 --> 01:04:22.960
You hate all evil-doers.

01:04:23.760 --> 01:04:25.200
God hates sinners.

01:04:25.200 --> 01:04:28.160
It, in fact, doesn't really even make sense just to hate sin,

01:04:28.160 --> 01:04:30.960
because without sinners, there's no sin.

01:04:32.960 --> 01:04:36.000
And so, no, it's God hates sin and sinners.

01:04:36.000 --> 01:04:38.000
God hates evil and evil-doers.

01:04:38.800 --> 01:04:41.600
You cannot speak of him hating one and not the other.

01:04:41.600 --> 01:04:43.600
That is to lie about what scripture says.

01:04:45.120 --> 01:04:49.920
But to get back to the frequency with which these terms appear,

01:04:49.920 --> 01:04:54.160
some may have noticed that there is a difference in the frequency

01:04:54.160 --> 01:04:56.160
between the new and the Old Testament.

01:04:56.160 --> 01:04:59.440
It may have been hard to note just when I was going through very briefly.

01:05:00.320 --> 01:05:05.680
But yes, the words related to hatred do appear more frequently

01:05:06.320 --> 01:05:07.920
in the Old Testament.

01:05:07.920 --> 01:05:11.600
And so, of course, there are some who will try to make something of that.

01:05:12.880 --> 01:05:15.520
But that's really just bringing up an ancient heresy

01:05:16.720 --> 01:05:18.560
that, of course, continues to rear its head.

01:05:18.560 --> 01:05:20.800
Because the demon, responsible for that,

01:05:21.600 --> 01:05:25.120
still around and will still try to subvert the church by saying,

01:05:25.680 --> 01:05:29.120
is the God of the Old Testament really the God of the New Testament?

01:05:29.120 --> 01:05:31.920
And the answer, of course, is yes, because God does not change.

01:05:31.920 --> 01:05:36.320
One of the papers that we're going to link is one that I wrote about two years ago,

01:05:36.880 --> 01:05:41.280
in response to a paper written by Reverend Dr. Jeff Gibbs,

01:05:42.560 --> 01:05:46.880
retired recently from the St. Louis seminary of the Missouri Senate.

01:05:47.840 --> 01:05:52.720
He wrote a paper on righteous anger, the term that he used, basically condemning it.

01:05:52.800 --> 01:05:56.800
And if, in effect, his argument, it was like a 20-page paper,

01:05:56.800 --> 01:05:58.960
but the gist of it was essentially,

01:06:00.880 --> 01:06:07.040
while technically it might be scriptural to say that something like righteous anger might

01:06:07.040 --> 01:06:12.320
possibly exist, humans are so sensible that we can never possibly get it right.

01:06:12.320 --> 01:06:15.040
So, it's better if we just never have any anger at all.

01:06:16.000 --> 01:06:21.600
In effect, he was condemning outright any anger in the hearts of any Christians for any reason,

01:06:21.600 --> 01:06:29.360
whatsoever. And the principal logical fallacy that he made in that error,

01:06:29.360 --> 01:06:35.840
there was the premise of his paper, was that he saw anger as strictly an emotional thing,

01:06:35.840 --> 01:06:44.880
that it's an upwelling of a feeling disconnected from fact, and without regard to the fact,

01:06:44.880 --> 01:06:50.400
either the emotion is right or wrong. And so when scripture is speaking of anger and of hatred,

01:06:51.920 --> 01:06:55.760
Gibbs contention was the scripture is only speaking of emotions.

01:06:56.320 --> 01:07:01.120
And the contention that we're making here in this presentation that I make in the paper separately

01:07:01.120 --> 01:07:07.680
is that this isn't about emotion at all, at least not principally. When God hates sin

01:07:07.680 --> 01:07:14.960
and God hates the wicked, that is the evil doers, the men who are wicked, that's not emotion.

01:07:14.960 --> 01:07:20.240
That's not in any human sense, and it's not just that God's not human, so he works differently.

01:07:20.320 --> 01:07:26.640
It's that again, that which is evil is contrary to God's nature. He hates and abours that,

01:07:26.640 --> 01:07:33.040
which is contrary to himself, and he will destroy it eternally and fire. That is his perfect will.

01:07:34.480 --> 01:07:40.400
That's not emotional, that's judgment. Now, I mentioned the judge not passage earlier,

01:07:40.400 --> 01:07:46.240
and I think I mentioned this before, but it's worth reiterating. We all know if we've ever

01:07:46.240 --> 01:07:50.080
watched a corporate procedure or anything. There are two different kinds of judgment. There's

01:07:50.080 --> 01:07:55.760
the judgment of fact, which is done by the jury, and there's the judgment of sentence, which is

01:07:55.760 --> 01:08:03.040
given by the judge. When God instructs Christians to judge not, he's referring to the second.

01:08:03.040 --> 01:08:10.720
He is saying that when a man like Don Stein imprecates us before the church and says that God

01:08:11.200 --> 01:08:17.120
must restrain us because we're evil, only God can figure out how to do the math on that mess.

01:08:17.760 --> 01:08:24.160
We, as humans, don't know what the final disposition of that will be. Is Don Stein damned,

01:08:24.160 --> 01:08:30.560
because he prayed a damnable prayer and involved other pastors in his wickedness? I don't know.

01:08:30.560 --> 01:08:37.520
I hope not. I hope that he'll repent for this ongoing sin. I cannot judge the final disposition of

01:08:37.520 --> 01:08:43.600
those acts, but I can tell you with an absolute certainty that I judge those acts to be wicked on

01:08:43.600 --> 01:08:50.240
their face, because the lies and the deception in the malice that got to the point that those

01:08:50.240 --> 01:08:57.120
prayers were said in public are profoundly and obviously evil. They're obviously contrary to God.

01:08:57.120 --> 01:09:04.400
That is wickedness. And as a member of the body of Christ, not only am I equipped to judge as a

01:09:04.400 --> 01:09:11.840
jurist, whether or not something is sinful, I am obligated to do so. And when it is a public sin,

01:09:11.840 --> 01:09:18.160
as was in the case of Don Stein's sin at this pastoral gathering, that public sin can and must be

01:09:18.160 --> 01:09:26.800
repudiated publicly. That's another part of Markwartz paper. And so when Gibbs talks about anger and

01:09:26.800 --> 01:09:31.920
wants to make it just an emotional thing, it's a trap that's really easy to fall into. And I see a

01:09:31.920 --> 01:09:36.880
lot of people who criticize Cory and I online say we're angry about something is though we're

01:09:36.880 --> 01:09:42.080
emotional about something. Yes, I do some kinds get emotional. I don't typically show it on Twitter.

01:09:42.080 --> 01:09:46.880
I mean, if I show just pleasure on Twitter, it's usually tactical. It's usually for effect.

01:09:47.680 --> 01:09:54.240
It's not that I've lost control and I'm just blustering. But because we live in a feminized world

01:09:54.240 --> 01:10:03.040
today, people look at the presence of emotion or something that could be described as emotion and say,

01:10:03.040 --> 01:10:07.520
aha, there's the content. Those are the facts that are relevant to what's going on here.

01:10:07.520 --> 01:10:12.800
When that's simply not the case, there's truth and there's falsity. And that, which is measured

01:10:12.800 --> 01:10:18.640
true, should be received by believers and will be hated by unbelievers. And the opposite of true

01:10:19.120 --> 01:10:24.960
is if something is false, if something is slanderous, it will be hated by Christians because it is

01:10:24.960 --> 01:10:31.360
contrary to what God says. And so is it emotional to say that I hate when there are pastors

01:10:31.360 --> 01:10:38.720
praying evil prayers? I don't think so. I'm not personally upset about it. I'm whatever emotional

01:10:38.720 --> 01:10:43.680
response I have to that is about the fact that our church has fallen so far that we have the sort

01:10:43.680 --> 01:10:48.960
of public evil going on and nothing is done about it. And it continues to be the case that the

01:10:48.960 --> 01:10:55.040
evil gets worse and the silence gets more deafening as time goes on. That upsets me. That's like

01:10:55.040 --> 01:11:00.560
stubbing my toe. That hurts a lot because I don't know if I'm ever going to stop stubbing my toe

01:11:00.560 --> 01:11:05.760
against this kind of wickedness. There doesn't seem to be anyone who's stepping forward to end it.

01:11:05.760 --> 01:11:10.320
So yeah, there's some emotion there, but it's still transient. There's not there's not something

01:11:10.320 --> 01:11:15.840
there that I think will that made me upset in there for I've stamped my book that someone made

01:11:15.840 --> 01:11:22.480
me mad on such and such a day and I'm never going to forget. I don't care. I do care. The hateful

01:11:22.480 --> 01:11:31.920
things to God are a threat to souls. The reason that Cory and I do this podcast is that these lies

01:11:31.920 --> 01:11:37.360
are a threat to souls. You know, we did the episode a couple weeks back where we talked about

01:11:37.360 --> 01:11:47.280
disputes and we mentioned the blow up over communion within Lutheranism. And I have seen numerous

01:11:47.280 --> 01:11:53.520
public and private reports since then of men who were considering becoming Lutheran or who had

01:11:53.520 --> 01:12:00.400
been Lutheran, who have already ceased to be Lutheran because of what Jordan Cooper said online.

01:12:01.120 --> 01:12:06.400
He said things that sounded reformed and people said, well, that sounds reformed. I was already

01:12:06.400 --> 01:12:11.760
reformed. I don't need this crap. Why would I be Lutheran? I already have this. There are things I

01:12:11.760 --> 01:12:16.880
like about reading being reformed that I don't like about being Lutheran. I can be exactly what I

01:12:16.880 --> 01:12:22.080
am over there. And Jordan Cooper gives me license to remain reformed because he says we believe the

01:12:22.080 --> 01:12:27.760
same things. Now Jordan will say that he didn't mean to do that, but that was the effect of his words.

01:12:28.480 --> 01:12:37.680
That makes me furious. That fills me with hatred. Not at the man so much as that the fact this

01:12:37.680 --> 01:12:44.400
unmitigated evil continues among us. And we can't get our act together to speak faithfully about

01:12:44.400 --> 01:12:50.960
the gifts that God has given us and people who are looking simply walk away. There will be thousands

01:12:50.960 --> 01:12:55.680
of people as a result of that blow up who will either leave the church, the Lutheran church,

01:12:55.680 --> 01:13:00.080
or the leave the church entirely and lose their faith. There are people who will go to hell

01:13:00.080 --> 01:13:05.120
because of what Jordan Cooper said. And not for the first time. This has been his pattern for years.

01:13:05.840 --> 01:13:12.640
That is a righteous object of perfect hatred. That is pure evil. And the fact that someone can do

01:13:12.640 --> 01:13:18.000
it with a collar and someone can do it while saying they're Lutheran and saying they're confessional

01:13:18.080 --> 01:13:26.400
doesn't change the facts. So as a Christian, I have to separate the emotion that these things

01:13:27.040 --> 01:13:35.440
cause from the righteous assessment as a juror of good and evil. We are told that we will judge

01:13:35.440 --> 01:13:41.440
angels. And there will be judgment that Christians will pass on creation. That is what God has

01:13:41.440 --> 01:13:46.160
assigned to us. And by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we're capable of it imperfectly

01:13:46.160 --> 01:13:51.760
today. I can tell whether or not something is good or evil, not perfectly, not an absolutely

01:13:51.760 --> 01:13:57.600
every case. But generally I can do a pretty darn good job because the Holy Spirit and scripture

01:13:57.600 --> 01:14:05.440
has equipped me and should equip every believer to do that. And when the world tells us love, love,

01:14:05.440 --> 01:14:10.480
you need to love. There needs to be more love. Use your end or voice. Don't get upset. You can't

01:14:10.560 --> 01:14:16.560
hate. You can't hate when something bad is happening. That is the voice of Satan because the more

01:14:16.560 --> 01:14:21.840
that these things happen and the more that they're received or covered up in the name of love,

01:14:22.400 --> 01:14:28.880
the further we get from what God commands of us. When Jesus commended that that wishy washy

01:14:28.880 --> 01:14:33.680
crappy church and revelation to and he said the only thing they had going for him was their hatred

01:14:33.680 --> 01:14:38.960
which he shares. He would not give us the same commendation. We have no hatred in our hearts today.

01:14:38.960 --> 01:14:45.200
We have no perfect hatred for anything except racism incidentally. If you're racist, if you do

01:14:45.200 --> 01:14:51.200
if you do a racism, that will inspire the full wrath of our churches today. There's virtually nothing

01:14:51.200 --> 01:14:57.520
else that will get anyone's dander up. That's a conversation for a near episode coming up soon.

01:14:58.080 --> 01:15:04.880
But think about that. You will see perfect hatred. Well, it's not perfect, but you will see hatred

01:15:04.880 --> 01:15:11.360
among our pastors and among the laity against certain things. And the things that they're

01:15:12.240 --> 01:15:16.800
attacking are things that are not even sins. They're things that are not scriptural. They're

01:15:16.800 --> 01:15:21.520
things that are not from God. And that is the only place that you'll see hatred. That's not a

01:15:21.520 --> 01:15:27.760
coincidence. It's not a coincidence that there is no hatred of false teaching. There's there's only

01:15:27.760 --> 01:15:33.920
hatred of the men who would say, Hey, I think this is false teaching. That's not a coincidence. That

01:15:34.000 --> 01:15:39.360
is achieving an end that is contrary to God's will. And that is something that is Christians. We

01:15:39.360 --> 01:15:47.200
must hate. I generally have the same response you do when it comes to the various pastors and

01:15:47.200 --> 01:15:54.080
detractors online a little more of the Germanic, fligmatic disposition. I personally just don't care.

01:15:54.800 --> 01:16:00.400
It doesn't, it listed an emotional response for me in any way, shape or form, except I would

01:16:00.400 --> 01:16:06.640
agree with you when it comes to the fact that this is actively harming other souls. Nothing

01:16:06.640 --> 01:16:15.440
these men say affects me in any way. So for my own sake, I don't care. There are others who are

01:16:15.440 --> 01:16:22.080
more annoyed by it on my behalf. And thank you for that. But in my case, there's not going to be

01:16:22.080 --> 01:16:27.520
an emotional response. So that accusation just falls entirely flat. It's nonsense. Of course,

01:16:27.520 --> 01:16:33.520
it's still a violation of the eighth commandment on their part. But I don't have personal enemies

01:16:33.520 --> 01:16:38.880
like that because it's silly and I don't see a point. The entire point of why we're doing this,

01:16:38.880 --> 01:16:45.600
the entire purpose is because there are men out there who are teaching falsely, who are harming

01:16:45.600 --> 01:16:52.800
souls, who are driving particularly young men out of the churches. They are actively harmful

01:16:52.800 --> 01:17:00.560
to Christ's church. And someone has to stand up and speak against them. And since we've brought

01:17:00.560 --> 01:17:07.440
up the issue of private versus public sin, I think this is a great time to read paragraph 284

01:17:07.440 --> 01:17:11.280
from the large catechism. It's part one dealing with the eighth commandment.

01:17:13.040 --> 01:17:19.040
All this has been said regarding secret sins, but where the sin is quite public so that the judge

01:17:19.040 --> 01:17:25.200
and everybody know it, you can without any sin avoid him and let him go because he has brought

01:17:25.200 --> 01:17:32.000
himself into disgrace. And you may also publicly testify concerning him. For when a matter is public

01:17:32.000 --> 01:17:38.080
in the light of day, there can be no slandering or false judging or testifying. As when we now

01:17:38.080 --> 01:17:43.200
approve the Pope with his doctrine, which is publicly set forth in books and proclaimed in all the

01:17:43.280 --> 01:17:50.640
world for where the sin is public, the reproof also must be public that everyone may learn to guard

01:17:50.640 --> 01:17:58.160
against it. And that is exactly what we are dealing with because nothing we have said on any

01:17:58.160 --> 01:18:06.880
episodes of our nothing we will say has dealt with private matters. These are false teachers and wolves

01:18:06.880 --> 01:18:14.320
masquerading his pastors who are spreading their filth online who are spreading it on social media

01:18:14.320 --> 01:18:21.120
who are spreading it on YouTube who are teaching people falsely who are driving people out of the

01:18:21.120 --> 01:18:27.280
church who are harming souls who are leading men straight into hell and all of it is public.

01:18:27.920 --> 01:18:34.880
And so the rebuke must be public. It is a matter of hatred. It is a matter of perfect hatred.

01:18:34.880 --> 01:18:42.400
It is a matter of not impassioned hatred, not emotional hatred, but a cold in the technical

01:18:42.400 --> 01:18:48.800
term, the technical sense of the term hatred. It is a hatred of the things that stand against God

01:18:49.680 --> 01:18:56.400
that cause harm to his sheep. It is a hatred of that which is evil and wicked, which is to say

01:18:56.400 --> 01:19:02.000
it is love for that which is good and right. It is a love for the sheep. It is a love for

01:19:02.080 --> 01:19:07.680
Christ church because when you act that of hatred for the evil, you are acting out of love for the

01:19:07.680 --> 01:19:15.680
good and vice versa. And it is important to reiterate that anything that a pastor, that an

01:19:15.680 --> 01:19:25.040
ordained minister of the word says, pastors don't get to have private theological opinions that

01:19:25.360 --> 01:19:32.320
is absolutely disqualified. By virtue of their office as a pastor, whatever a man who is called an

01:19:32.320 --> 01:19:40.160
ordained thinks about God's word is de facto public. Every thought in his head and certainly every

01:19:40.160 --> 01:19:46.400
word that he has ever said to anyone with regard to scripture, with regard to doctrine is a public

01:19:46.400 --> 01:19:52.240
matter because when a man with a collar speaks, it binds consciences. We have said on numerous

01:19:52.240 --> 01:19:58.400
episodes, this is just a podcast. We're here. We're teaching. You can pick it up. You can shut

01:19:58.400 --> 01:20:04.400
it down. We don't know your names. You're not accountable to us in any way. We're accountable to

01:20:04.400 --> 01:20:09.840
God for what we say, but we hold no authority over you. Anything that you hear us say that you

01:20:09.840 --> 01:20:15.120
might agree with, it's only because the Holy Spirit has convicted you of that because the arguments

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that we make are arguments from scripture. We do not exercise any authority on our own. This is

01:20:21.760 --> 01:20:27.440
not true of pastors. Any pastor, whether regardless of denomination, if he stands up and says,

01:20:27.440 --> 01:20:34.640
I'm a pastor, let me tell you what God says. He is speaking in the stead and by the command of God.

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Or he's speaking in the stead and contrary to the command of God. And these men who speak falsely

01:20:42.320 --> 01:20:48.480
are lucky that they are not struck dead. It is if they're blessed and they're going to convert and

01:20:48.480 --> 01:20:53.120
become Christians again, it will be a blessing that their lives continue from that day forward

01:20:53.120 --> 01:20:59.920
that they may return to the faith and be forgiven. If it were not the case that these men will not

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repent, that they will continue to take these high-handed sins, this slander in this evil that they

01:21:06.320 --> 01:21:11.040
feel there are their most proud moments. If they're going to take those to judgment day, it would be

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better for them when they're burning in hell if God were to strike them dead today. I know that

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sounds like a horrible thing to say, but strictly speaking, that is the most merciful thing that could

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happen. God will judge how that may happen. God determines the hour of each of our deaths. It's

01:21:28.640 --> 01:21:33.920
none of my business. Well, that is also just straight scriptural because Christ says of Judas,

01:21:33.920 --> 01:21:40.080
it would have been better for him had he not been born. Andy, that's not just something you infer

01:21:40.160 --> 01:21:49.600
from Scripture. That is a literal quote from Christ. Yeah. And so we spend more time than I wish

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that we would. I don't want this to be a podcast complaining about pastors, but the whole reason

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we're talking about perfect hatred is that there are very few pastors that are who are speaking

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about it correctly. There are great many pastors who accuse us of hatred, of evil hatred, of hatred

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that comes from Satan that say that we work for Satan by telling you these things that this

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podcast is from Satan and they're praying to their God to destroy us. That's between them and their

01:22:19.600 --> 01:22:24.880
maker. I'm not a part of that. If we're hated for saying what God says, I thank God for that

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martyrdom. It shames me to say that because I don't deserve martyrdom. If I were ever to be

01:22:32.880 --> 01:22:38.960
faced with being killed for being a Christian, I would beg them not for my life that they would

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kill me for something else because I do not deserve to stand in the courts of those who have died

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for the faith. However, it's not up to us. We say what God gives us to say and we say it to

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whoever will listen and the manner in which that is received is between each listener and the Holy

01:22:56.480 --> 01:23:03.520
Spirit. The reason for discussing all of these forgotten doctrines in things like hatred is because

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Satan is doing an end run around the entire church today. The things that we're discussing are

01:23:09.440 --> 01:23:14.160
the things that no one else is discussing. So it's frequently going to be upsetting to people

01:23:14.160 --> 01:23:18.880
or confusing to hear our episodes because we're talking about things you probably haven't heard

01:23:18.880 --> 01:23:23.680
before and that should rightly get your hackles up. It should make you nervous to hear somebody

01:23:23.680 --> 01:23:31.200
talking about theology in a way you've never heard. That's a huge red flag. The question is whether

01:23:31.200 --> 01:23:36.880
what we're saying is anything new. And the simple fact is that everything we're saying is ancient.

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This is not new theology or new doctrines that we just came up with because we were mad online.

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We look at scripture and we look at the history of the church and the history of believers

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and this is all we see until the last few centuries when all of these things came under attack.

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And each of these episodes is a different moving part of Satan's attack against the church and our

01:23:59.040 --> 01:24:06.880
efforts as individual men as laymen to try to rally whatever faithful men remain to look and to

01:24:06.880 --> 01:24:13.040
see clearly what it is that's going on in the church and in the world and to address it faithfully.

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And there will be days when addressing it faithfully requires that we hate with perfect hatred.

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And if we have not thought about what that means, how it works, what we can do and what we cannot

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do before that day, we will not be equipped to obey God on the day when our perfect hatred

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is required of us as obedience to God. Amen.