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Sa. Hello friends. Greg Koukl here. The show of standard race and I'm glad you're part of it today. I was at Summit Ministries in Colorado Springs, actually Manitou Springs, which is a little kind of a village just above Colorado Springs. And I love working with those young people. I often tell them I'm not really a fan of working with young people. I, I kind of joke that it's like talking to a painting for me, but I guess it's worked out in the past, but it's just easier for adults for me. I'm not the youth ministry kind of guy, but it's really great talking to the youth, the young people. Let's 17 to 21 or 22 are the age ranges there at Summit Ministry. We have been promoting them for a long time any way we can because the two weeks that your kid would spend there, it could be life changing for him during the summer, these events. So we have stand to reason, people, every single two week segment. Alan Schliemann is there now. I was there last week for one segment. We love what they're doing. But as I was, I gave a number of lectures then had a large Q and A there in the evening. And apparently in one of the lectures I was talking about a piece that I wrote called the Legend of the Social Justice Jesus. And the reason that I think I was talking about it is because of the fact that many people who quote or cite Jesus and what he was really all about don't read Jesus. They just don't. They hear what other people like them, maybe from their political or social or cultural persuasion say about Jesus and they just repeat it, but they never check it out for themselves. And unfortunately, some pastors who know better or ought to know better will say things like that Jesus was about salvation, but he also campaigned for the poor and for the outcast and for the socially marginalized. Well, I was so concerned about what I thought was a distortion of Jesus that I read every gospel from front to finish for this piece that I was writing to see exactly what Jesus said about the poor and about the outcast and what he said about what his mission was and what, let's just say, divinely inspired people like John the Baptist or the angels at Jesus birth, or John the Baptist's father as he prophesied, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, what they had to say about why Jesus came. And it's so interesting because they all Jesus and all the divinely inspired heralds of Jesus, most of those in the birth narratives. But of course, John the Baptist comes later. Nevertheless, they all spoke with one voice and none of them made any reference to anything that he would. Even when Jesus himself quoted the Old Testament, he didn't make reference to campaigning for the poor and the outcast and the oppressed in a political sense. Oh yes, he said something about the oppressed. But Peter says he came to care for those oppressed by the devil. And Jesus cast out demons as evidence of this concern about the oppressed by the devil. But he never got a bunch of oppressed people together and said, I want to talk to you guys or talk to the rich people about those oppressed people. Like a communist or something, a socialist or a Marxist or something like that. It never happened. Jesus was. How could I put this? He. He spoke to the outcast and he spoke to the leper and he spoke to the poor of all sorts. But he was most interested in addressing the poor in spirit that went across all of those categories. And so when he spoke, he spoke to everybody, whoever will may come. He didn't make those social distinctions. And that's a good thing and that's noble. But only in that sense was he campaigning for the poor and the outcast. No, he didn't campaign at all. Not a single time. And so I mentioned this to the group let's get Jesus right? And not like the he gets us campaign, which is largely a leftist Jesus. That's being manifest there. Very well done promotion. The, the production work is magnificent, very powerful. But the message that comes across in those vignettes is basically a leftist message. Jesus didn't judge people, he washed their feet. Oh, this is nonsense. If Jesus wasn't judging anybody, then he wouldn't have got himself killed. Of course he judged. What about the woe? Woe? Woe? I don't mean like woe, like horse woe. I mean woe on you. Look out, it's coming. Judgment. Jesus was very judgmental by today's standards. And he didn't wash people's feet, not characteristically. There is an event of foot washing in the upper room in John, which precluded an important message to his disciples the last night he was with them about servanthood of each other. But Jesus wasn't kind of going around and just finding lepers and dirty people and washing their feet. This is complete distortion. Well, because I laid this out and I really encourage them to just read the legend of the social justice Jesus because I am very careful about quantifying all of those details from the text. And there just is no doubt in my mind, no confusion in my mind about why Jesus came. I came to seek and to save those who are lost. I came to call sinners to repentance. Those are his words and they capture what everybody else said who was divinely inspired. Even his name, his name shall be called Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. He was not a social reformer. He was not a social justice advocate in the way that that term is understood now. He was the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God came to give his life as a sacrifice for many. So of course, during the Q and A, a question came up in light of my comments. What about the poor? Aren't we responsible to do something for the poor? And my response was yes. And the Scripture is filled with admonitions to care for those who are genuinely poor. I mean, a lot of so called poor people now have cell phones and really so anyway, that's another issue. But there were people that were dying in abject poverty. And we have people in our country like that today. And we ought to be helping those who are poor. And even Paul makes reference to the only thing he said we asked them to do is to abstain from fornication and from meat strangled, yes, in blood, and help the poor, which we are happy to do. So helping those who are poor is a Christian virtue. But that's not to say that Jesus purpose was to teach us to do that. And that's why he came, because that wasn't his purpose. There are lots of things we should be doing that Jesus didn't address. Jesus did not address that. In fact, almost every incident where the poor are mentioned, the poor are mentioned. Where Jesus is using the poor to make a different point. Here's the widow's mite, here's all these other people giving lots of money with all the fanfare. And here's the widow who drops in a penny and he says she gave more than the others because she gave all she had. She was poor. So he wasn't campaigning for that poor woman. He was just making a point about giving and using it. This woman as an example. This is the case in almost every time he mentions the poor. Keep in mind in the Beatitudes it's poor in spirit, it's spiritual poverty. It's those people who understand that they are not righteous and blessed are they. Jesus said the poor in spirit. There's another characterization of that sermon where he doesn't mention in spirit. But we know from the Gospel of Matthew that that's what he was talking about. Not just poor people. Like the poor people are going to inherit the kingdom. No, poor in spirit. So anyway, I told the students, given the admonition that we are to help the poor, we should do that. And in our giving pattern as Christians, helping and serving other ministries that are feeding them. Generally, the local church is the premier example of that. But there are others like ours. We feed the body of Christ and let him who is taught share all good things with him who teaches. That's in Galatians 6. And that's a reference to financially supporting those in ministry who are advancing the kingdom, giving the word you're teaching and being taught. Okay. Those who teach ought to benefit from those who are being taught. This is why we encourage people to be strategic partners. If we're a part of your life feeding you, then you could be a part of our life financially. All right, so given those admonitions, we should all do be giving there and also to the poor. Now, how do we give to the poor? I never give any money to panhandlers. There have been some occasions where I've broken that rule, but I was sorry for it. I can remember one time I was driving to Midway Airport in Chicago and I came down the ramp and right there on the ramp, it was busy. People are trying to turn and go in and go to the airport and all that. So it's kind of like a jammed up spot, traffic wise. But there was a woman standing on the corner making an appeal to the drivers and she had a bunch of little kids around her, her children. And she'd please help, please help, please help. And I just grabbed a 20, I leaned over and gave it to her and took the right hand turn to the airport. It was gone. Feeling pretty good about myself until a few minutes later my sister called me and said, by the way, beware of those people on the corner at that intersection. It's been a big problem. It's a bunch of hooey. It's a scam. And I had just given my 20, so that was wasted money. And the problem with helping panhandlers is you never know whether the story they're telling you is true. Now, we've had a number of occasions in our life, my wife and I stis where we've had friends that were in political, I mean, financial straits. And we were very generous and very happy just to give because we understood the money we were given to that poor person who was poor at that time was going to be well used. Sometimes we paid bills for people. There was one guy that was panhandling in front of El Pollo Loco. And if you're out of the LA area, that's the crazy chicken. It's a Mexican food place to carry out. And he said, want some money? I said, look, I have a job. I don't eat. I said, let me get. Can I get you a meal? He said, okay. So I went in and I bought him a meal and I gave him the meal. And that was my contribution at that point. But I knew that I was meeting a real need there and it wasn't going to something foolish like drugs or alcohol. And you never know. I mean, for some people, I think this is a business that if they find a location, they can make a lot of money and they don't have any interest in getting a job and taking care of themselves because they already got a job on the corner and they're doing pretty well at it. So I don't want to encourage any of that. So my rule, pardon me, about giving is to those who have a genuine need. And sometimes I know that because I have visibility. Like the guy who was hungry there and I bought him some food, or they're friends of mine or people I have visibility of, and we can just give to meet a specific need. But most often the way I do it is to find an organization that I trust that is doing that with poor people and communicating the gospel at the same time and doing it well. Now, the organization that we give to is the Orange County Rescue Mission. I might have even mentioned them before. Many of you know the author, Natasha Crane, written wonderful books, five titles so far, and still working on more. And she's been on the show a number of times. She's on our board at Stand to Reason. Love her. Her husband actually directs the Orange County Rescue Mission. And I have known about that organization for years and years and years because back when I was doing commercial radio with kbrt, they were one of our sponsors long before the Cranes were involved. But I had a chance to visit the facility that they had then, and I thought, this is. Is unbelievable what they're accomplishing and how they're stretching the dollar to meet the needs. I mean, it just. It shames the US Government for their efforts with the poor. It just shames them in terms of how well they're using their money and the fact that it's not, you know, nobody's pilfering it. And that's what the government does, in my view. And I was so amazed I began supporting them. That was many years ago. That was three decades ago. But what about 10 years ago, I kind of stumbled again across the Orange County Rescue Mission through our association with Natasha and with whole standard reason crowd, our whole office. We did a field trip to there just to see what you're doing. And we have been strong supporters of them every year, monthly, like our strategic partners. And then at the end of the year, we find some money to give a larger gift at the end of the year because we're giving to the poor. So here's what I suggest. Find some Christian organization that is properly and efficiently and effectively meeting the needs of the poor and send money to them every month. And every time you think about giving a $20 bill to a panhandler or a five dollar bill, don't do it. Just go home and write a check to that organization. If you're in Southern California, it might be the Orange County Rescue Mission. It's amazing. It's amazing what they do. If you're in, you know, east of the Mississippi, you can still probably send money through the Orange County Rescue Mission. You can find them online, but just find a group. And by the way, I would say not the Salvation army. Okay? I'm just saying we've talked about this in the past. There's a number of reasons not to support them. Find some organization that you're totally comfortable knowing the background, what they teach, their doctrine, how they comport themselves and how they help the poor. And again, like I said, the Orange County Rescue Mission is fabulous. Maybe you can find one like it. But we do have an obligation, and the obligation is to help the poor, those who have genuine need. And in fact, when we plan our own finances, I think what we ought to be doing is thinking here. Our budget is this, which includes a portion that goes where we're being fed spiritually and a portion that goes to feeding the poor, literally food. Not spiritual food, physical food. So find a way to do that. Maybe it's $20 a month. I mean, who can't afford $20 a month? If you can't afford $20 a month, we should be given to you or other Christians should be helping. So keep your eye open for people also in your community that are hurting. Ask your pastor. Do you know anybody who needs help? We can help. We got 100 or 200 or 300, and we can just pay a bill for them or buy groceries for them or something. Or give to your local church who has that program and they're doing something. That's another way of doing it. Don't waste your money on Panhandlers. Invest it for the kingdom. Cast your bread along upon the waters and it will come back to you. Give and it shall be given to you. Pressed down, shaken together, overflowing in your lap. Jesus said so. We don't have to worry. God will take care of us. Let's be generous, especially to those who have great need in our immediate surroundings. First, our family, our Christian community, our friends, and then, if that's not pressing right now, organizations that are doing a good job, like the Orange County Rescue Mission. All right, let's take a break. I got a call here and like to get to that when I return on Stand to Reason. Would you like a Stand a Reason speaker at your event? Greg Allen, Tim John, Megan, and I Tripp are available in person or online. Just email bookingstr.org Our team speaks on a wide range of topics from issues in bioethics, gender, and science to topics in apologetics, theology and philosophy, and how to respond to other worldviews, all from a biblical perspective. Whether it's a conference, youth event, or Sunday service, we're here to give confidence for every Christian. Clear thinking for every challenge, courage and grace for every encounter. Have you ever wondered how Stand to Reason is able to produce fresh, accessible content? Each week we rely on generous donors so that we can provide you with the tools and tactics you need to be an effective ambassador for Christ. If you've benefited from this podcast or any of our donor provided resources, including our apps, blog posts, articles and short videos, consider making a financial contribution to Stand to Reason today. Just visit str.orgdonate to show your financial support. It has been an honor providing you with a host of free resources for more than 27 years to help you give voice to the Christian worldview. Help us continue by making a financial gift today@str.org donate. All right, friends. All right. We got Lucas in Washington here. Lucas, welcome to the show.
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Hi, Greg.
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Hi. Thank you. In Washington state, I presume, right? Yep. Where at?
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Bellingham.
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Oh, Bellingham. Well, that's right. Where our reality. We have our reality, right? Isn't that Bellingham? Oh, Bellevue. Oh, there's too many bells. I get confused. Yeah, okay, Bellevue. I got it. Isn't there a Bellevue in New York where crazy people go? I don't know. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Glad to have you on board, Lucas. What's up?
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Thank you. My question was about Christians who get dementia later in life. What? I just, you know.
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Yeah.
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You know.
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Yeah, Yeah. I don't remember. That's a joke.
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I know.
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I Sometimes feel like I'm getting that dementia because there are things that I can't remember, like my daughter's names. That's not good anyway. But this is, to me, a very fundamental issue. All right. I guess the question I would ask you is, does our salvation continue to depend on us and something about us, like our memory?
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Right.
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What would you say?
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No.
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No, it doesn't. In my view, it never has. It ultimately depends on what God has done for me in choosing me and electing me. Both biblical terms that I think speak clearly and regardless of one's view on that particular issue. The fact that when I become a Christian, I am regenerated, and I am convinced from the text that genuine regeneration is irreversible. God regenerates, and you become a new man. Any man who's in Christ is a new creature. Old things have passed away. The new things have come. And the new creature thing. Yeah. Is not just a perspective, though that certainly is included. I think that it is a new creation, I think maybe is the way it's translated sometimes. And we are regenerated by the Spirit. Now, all kinds of things can happen after that, that to us. But if there is a genuine regeneration. And so I'm just stipulating that there could be a lot of people who seem like they're real Christians, and then they just. They're gone. You know, in the Bible, you know how when Paul ends some of his letters, he'll talk about the people that are with him?
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Yeah.
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Well, Demas was one of his buddies. Demas hung with him and whatever. And was it Colossians? I just read. And at the end, he's saying such, and so says this and that and blah, blah, blah, greetings. And Demas, he doesn't say a lot about Demas, which is kind of interesting. He didn't say, and Demas are faithful servant to the Lord, like he says about others. He just says, and Demas greets you. Okay, well, second Timothy, as Paul's about to leave, he announces Demas has left him, having loved this present world. Oh, well, he showed his true colors, you know, and he's with the Apostle Paul. So there are some people who can do that and then leave. But my conviction is, as John says in one John, they left us because they really weren't one of us. And so, yeah, my conviction is that those who are genuine believers persevere to the end. And when it comes to. So that's all in the category of, I guess you could say, once saved, stipulated, they're really Saved. Once saved, always saved. Once saved. Yeah, I believe that too.
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But that also kind of leads me. Sorry, to like, make this into another question. How come? Well, didn't God take away his spirit from Saul?
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Wait, I didn't get that. Say that again. How come?
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Didn't God take away his Holy Spirit from Saul?
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Oh, didn't God take his Holy Spirit from Saul? Yes, he did. Okay, so that's a fair question. But remember, Saul was under a whole different system. And having the Spirit was not. In the Old Testament, the Spirit did not indwell anybody. It came upon them. Now, wait, wait, that's just like different verbs or whatever. But it was attempt to communicate something somewhat ineffable, hard to explain. And that is the spirit's role in the Old Testament was different. This is why people were anointed with oil, because the oil was kind of a picture of the Holy Spirit coming upon somebody. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit indwells and we are sealed in the Holy Spirit until the day of redemption. Paul says in Ephesians. So it's a different motif. And that's why if the Holy Spirit is given, it can be taken away. Just like Saul is a good example of that. And so when God removes his pleasure from Saul for good reason, well, that was bad for Saul. And incidentally, have you seen this? Is it the Amazon prime that has the Kingdom of David? Is that what it's called as a series?
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The House of David?
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Yes, the House of David. Have you seen it? Yeah, yeah, I saw the first two seasons and I thought they were magnificent.
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Yeah, me too.
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Yeah. And in fact, after the end of the second season, I went back and I read First Samuel all the way through almost in one sitting. That's a lot of chapters. Because it was so fascinating, I get caught up and now I'm picturing all the characters that were played by actors. And I got a visual and Saul too. And I think the casting was superb. I'm hoping they come out with a third season. I think they're talking about that, but I don't know how they're going to age that young lad who was David all these years to make him look like this robust warrior. Right. So in that situation, the spirit was given for certain purposes. As I'm reading now, in one of my first kings, Solomon just built the temple and he selected a few people to be the artisans of the temple. And what the text says, that the Spirit comes on them, gives them wisdom for the task. So there are different occasions in the Old Testament where the Spirit comes upon somebody, so to speak. I mean, it's hard to know. Well, the Spirit's in immaterial, so he's not honoring. You know, it's hard to think about how does that actually work. But just like our own spirits aren't in our bodies the way a pea is in a pod, you know, so how does that work? Whatever. What we do know is that the workings of the Spirit in the Old Testament are of a different sort of thing than the working of the Spirit in the Christians like in the New Testament. So the Holy Spirit cannot be taken away from us in the same way it was taken from Saul. And David said, don't take your spirit from me in that wonderful psalm of repentance that we see in Psalm 51.
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Psalm 51, yeah.
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So it was a different circumstance. So anyway, that's my take on that. And by the way, so the dementia doesn't matter. Once saved, always saved. All kinds of things can happen to us. In this case, the dementia is not under our moral control at all. Someone could forget all kinds of stuff, but that's a physical malady, I think that does not affect in any way our spiritual condition.
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Awesome.
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All right, thank you for that clarification. All right, Lucas, I'm glad you called. Thanks so much for chatting with me. From Bell, one of the bells up there in Seattle. I just get a mix up. Bellevue, Bellingham, whatever. So let's see. Let's go to our open mic calls. And by the way, Open mic, that's where you can call in to our website, actually using your computer and leave your questions. Just go to the homepage and then under podcasts, you'll find live podcasts and you could leave your question there. Incidentally, you can actually to call it now, too. The numbers. Is this the new number right here, the 562 number? Because we've had trouble with our. Yes, okay. We got one line that works at the moment, but I think we're working on that. Been working on that for a long time. It's like the Illinois highway system. They're always working on it, but they never fix it. Anyway, we'll get it fixed. Here's the number. 562-424-8714. Once again, 562-424-8-714. If you tried to get in and weren't able to, it's because we had one person on the line. That's all we can take at the moment. Sometimes in the past we've had the lines all full, and that's Wonderful. Now, it's one at a time, so we're still working on that. But if you're listening live through a live feed, 562-424-8714. If you'd like to call in and talk to Katie, Katie will take your call and put you through. All right, let's, let's see what Kenneth has to say. Kenneth Coleman, what's up, Ken? Hello, Greg. My name is Kenneth Coleman from Fortim in Mississippi. I love this thing that we're doing here now because I don't have a chance to call into the show. So thank you for offering this. But my question is what is the difference between our conscience and the Holy Spirit? Can we tell the difference? How do we decide which one is which? Can you just give me some, some thoughts on that? And I really appreciate everything that you do. You've been asking for questions, and I have lots of questions, so I may be able to help you out. Thanks again, Greg. Talk to you later. Bye. All right. Thank you, Ken. And I love that accent. Mississippi. That's just sweet. And I thank you for your call. Well, in one way, it's easy to make the distinction between the Holy Spirit and our conscience. My conscience belongs to me and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. So we have two different things operating. We have me and the Holy Spirit. And then inside of me, made in me as a faculty of my soul that allows me to manage, if you will, moral things. Our conscience is that feature that allows me to manage moral things. So maybe as an analogy here, think of hearing. So hearing is my faculty to be aware of what others are saying. I'm not talking about the Holy Spirit. No, I'm just talking about people who might talk to me or other sounds in the environment that give me signals. So I have this capability to hear physical sounds of different sorts of. Now sometimes the capability falters, as in my case. So I wear hearing aids, and if I don't have the hearing aids in, forget about it. It's just not going to happen. So I need some help to hear accurately. Okay. Now, when it comes to the conscience, it's like that the conscience is not an absolute. That what I mean is what our conscience receives or dwells on or in a sense, hears is not an absolute. That means it's not always reliable. So if you think about your conscience as that faculty that allows you to hear as it were, it's kind of a loose parallel. It is also a thing that in which we have our moral sense because that's what we're thinking about or talking about. When we talk about conscience, we're talking about morality, that which is right and wrong. And so it seems like we have this capacity not just to hear, but there's content already built in. There's content already built in. In Romans 2. Let me just turn there. Paul talks about the ability that we have to discern right and wrong or to recognize wrong in other people. And then we point our finger at them because we recognize with our moral compass, if you will. Maybe that's a better word to think about. Use it to describe it. It's a moral compass, our conscience. And then he points out, you know, you got one finger pointed at other people, but, you know, three others are pointing back at yourself. So let's see, Romans, chapter two. Let me find it here. That's a 3. 4. Light reaches tolerant patience during a breath. Yeah, well, now I'm looking at it. For now, I can't find it very easily. But what he does is, he says, is our conscience bearing. Oh, here it is, verse 14 and 15. When Gentiles who do not have the law do instinctively the things of the law, these not having the law, that is the written law, these things that they know instinctively are the law, a law to themselves in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them. Now, Paul has more to say about that there. But just note that the conscience is like a moral compass that has content to it, but it also can be appealed to. And so the Holy Spirit can convict of sin. And Jesus talks about that in the upper room discourse in John. The Holy Spirit will convict people of sin, righteousness, and judgment. So there is a function there of the Spirit speaking to that faculty that we have that allows us to make sense of moral categories and make sense of what is right or wrong. Now, that's a faculty that is developed over time. An infant doesn't exercise that faculty. They have the faculty or the potential to do that. But it takes time for their. Their brains and their bodies and their souls to develop so that faculty can be experienced and expressed. And they reach some age, characteristically called the age of accountability, where they can discern the difference between right and wrong. And there's some statements in Isaiah 7 that make reference to that. But be that as it may, here we have the moral compass with content, and the Holy Spirit who is able to speak to that. Okay, now here's what's difficult, and I think it's probably what prompted your Question, Kenneth. And that is sometimes. Well, for one, our conscience can be seared. Scripture talks about a seared conscience. If you do bad stuff long enough, you'll stop feeling bad about it. Maybe the first time you do a bad thing, you're going to go, oh, I shouldn't have done that. Bad me. And that's your conscience bearing witness, accusing you. And that's good. It ought to. But if we do bad things long enough, pretty soon that voice of our conscience gets dulled. And the scriptural term, I think, is seared, but burned. And now we no longer, in a sense, hear the voice of our conscience. We silenced it. And that certainly is possible too. And sometimes, too, instead of having our conscience seared, our conscience gets overly sensitive so that we kind of start feeling we're doing wrong when we haven't done anything wrong or we feel bad about something. And so we feel compelled maybe to speak. And maybe it's not a good idea to speak in that way. Regarding our own moral failures. All of us falter all the time. There are times when it's good and appropriate, I think, to let someone else know of our moral failures. That's called confession. But I don't think we always have to do that in every case. And sometimes I've heard advice from people that I don't think is good advice about revealing to intimates or in relationships all these things that are going on. And I just have learned from experience that that sometimes makes things a lot worse and wasn't necessary in the first place. A lot depends on the circumstance, but neverthele I've experienced that. And so I've learned sometimes that my own conscience can be oversensitive. Where I feel in my conscience, well, I ought to say this and confess this to this person, for example. And that doesn't mean it's a good thing to do. I had somebody a number of years ago confess to me a bad attitude that they had secretly had about me. And they were feeling it's appropriate for them to confess. And so they confessed and they asked for forgiveness. I gave forgiveness, okay. But their bad attitude towards me, as far as I know, never hurt me. So my sense was that there was nothing to forgive because they hadn't injured me at all. Now, they might go to God about their bad attitude. Fine. But there was no need to go to me. Now, the problem that resulted in that confession was that every time I saw that person, I thought of what he told me. This was not good. Now I had a struggle with a bad attitude towards the person Now I'm in a position where I may be stumbling because it seemed to me that he had a sensitive conscience about that issue. And so therefore he needed to tell me. Now, I don't know anything in Scripture that required him to confess to me his bad attitude about me. I mean, sometimes we do harm to a person, we better go to that person and apologize. Jesus talks about that, but this, no. So notice that I've had similar circumstances where I brought something out, and I think afterwards this didn't help anything and there was no reason I should have done this. There's no biblical reason. So anyway, sometimes our conscience can be too sensitive. But I do think that is it is the means by which the Holy Spirit moves us to action regarding sin. It's called conviction of the Spirit. Of course, I've intimated just a moment ago that sometimes we can feel what we might think is the conviction of the Spirit, but it's just an oversensitive conscience. Now what? Well, in my case, I. But I learned from experience that my conscience is a little oversensitive. And sometimes I have to act. I feel like I have to act on something I don't need to act on. And maybe some of you have a conscience that's seared. And in both cases, we take our instruction about morality from the text, not from our feelings. And then we act according to what is right. If we feel the holy. Maybe the Holy Spirit is convicting us of something we have to see. Are we feeling bad about something we've actually done to someone else that they are aware of, that we need to go and ask for their forgiveness and reconciliation. If you have a, you know, if you go postal on your wife, guys, okay. And then you go to church and you're praising the Lord and then you start feeling, oh, my goodness, I got to deal with this. Well, that's the Holy Spirit. If you're not seared, if you've done it a bunch of times after the first time, it gets easier, and you do it a bunch of times and it's ordinary to you, well, then you're not going to feel bad about it, probably. But you still should take counsel from scripture on things like this and do what scripture tells you to do. When it identifies the sin that you're committed or committed that you don't feel bad about, you still should do what's right. So in both cases, whether you have a weak conscience or a seared conscience, I should say a sensitive conscience, oversensitive, or a seared conscience, in both cases, you should be Taking counsel from the Scripture and then act accordingly. So that would be my counsel to you, Kenneth. And thank you for that call from Mississippi. Tim's got a question about the Trinity. Let me hear from Tim. Hello, Greg. I know that no analogy is ever perfect. Nevertheless, I keep trying to find ways to conceptualize the Trinity. What are your thoughts about the Trinity being something like our government in that there are three distinct branches? Three who's, if you will, but they are all part of one government. One what? As outlined by the Constitution. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Yeah, well, I don't think it's a good analogy. To put it simply, and this is the difficulty of all such analogies. I actually can only think of one that is close. It's probably not anyone is. Even Augustine used the sun and rays and stuff like that. I never liked that. But I'm not going to offer the one that I think is closest because I don't want people to lean on analogies to in a sense, understand the Trinity. The reason that the government is not a good example is you have three parts that make a whole. No part is the whole. You have three parts that make the whole. So that would be like three members of the mom, dad and the kid makes the three make the whole one family. Well, those are three distinct persons, but they are only part of the family. One of them isn't the family, another one isn't the family. It's them together that make the family. The family is a result of adding each together, but that's not the Trinity. Each member of the Trinity fully participates or has the entire divine nature. Each individual shares the whole, not part of it. You don't have to add all three up to get the whole, but that's what you have with the government illustration. What my appeal is in this regard, and it's not satisfying to a lot of people. Let me back up for a second. In virtually every single case where people draw on illustrations or analogies for the Trinity, what they do is they give a great analogy of a falsehood of a heretical view, like water that can be in three forms, like solid ice, liquid water, or I should say H2O solid ice, liquid water, or H2O gas. Oh, there's the Trinity. No, it isn't. That's modalism, an ancient heresy. Or sometimes the analogy errors on the side of tritheism or something. It's just none of them work. And that's because there's nothing in the world like God. How do we understand the Trinity? We Let the text speak for itself. Jesus is not the Father, he's not the Spirit, the Spirit is neither, and the Father is neither. They are each individual centers of consciousness. However, they each are the one God. They are identical to God in the sense of essential predication. They aren't identical to each other, and Jesus isn't identical to the full God. So it's not the is of identity. He is God in the sense of. These are philosophical terms, but they're fair distinctions of essential predication. He. He has the full divine nature which they all share. So you have three in one, three centers of consciousness in one. And it isn't like each is a third that makes up one third of God. Each is all of God. Now, I know some of you are scratching your head saying, well, that's just hard to understand. It's hard to conceptualize. You can't picture it in your head. It's not going to work because God isn't like that. But it isn't hard to understand. One divine nature, three centers of consciousness. That's perfectly understandable. It doesn't plumb the depths. Obviously it's still weird. But the doctrine can be stated in a way that's understandable. And this is my appeal when it comes to these kinds of things. It's just better for people to kind of go with the text and not try to lean on something else like a three leaf clover or ice and liquid water and steam, or the government or any of a number of illustrations that people come up with. None of them work. So let's just go with the biblical record. And you're not going to find the Trinity in any one place in the Bible. It will be kind of maybe exemplified in a loose sense, baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You see the Trinitarian formula there. But they didn't call it the Trinitarian formula where Trinity didn't come until what, the end of the second century. But nevertheless, the way they dealt with things, the way they communicated, does entail all the details of the Trinity. What is the way that Jesus was characteristically addressed? He was called Lord. Well, Lord wasn't just a nobleman, he was the Lord, not a Lord. And the Lord was a way of describing God. And the Lord. God said, you know, Jesus was the Lord, so they knew he was God in some sense. It was hard to kind of figured out, scratching their head. But he wasn't the same as the Father, they knew that, etc. Etc. So I'm not going to go heavy into Trinity teaching right now. But if you don't have a Trinity, you got a problem with the Scripture. The Trinity is the only way to make sense of all the verses so that they don't conflict with each other. But try to put that into an analogy. It's not going to work. Okay, thank you so much, Tim, for that. Let's see. All right, let me see if I can take Tom's question about inclusivism in the next seven minutes. Let's give it a try. Okay.
- [50:38]
B
Hey, Greg, Tom Poynter here. You recently commented on the question of how people were saved prior to the coming of Christ, and your response brought to mind a question for me. Both of us were brought up in the Catholic Church, but neither one of us attends a Catholic church today. And one of the reasons, I think, is their stance on how people are saved. And you can correct me if I'm misusing the term here, but from what I understand, Catholics hold to an inclusive view of salvation whereby people are saved through Christ, but if they earnestly seek God, but even if they don't know Jesus or have never heard of him. And my question is, how does this differ from those saved before Jesus, cross and resurrection? You talked about how Abraham believed in God and it was credited to him as righteousness. And his object of faith, as you put it, was, was the promise of God. And then who came afterwards who put their faith in the sacrificial system? They trust in God's grace for forgiveness. And, yeah, these are rooted in Christ's sacrifice to come. But I'm struggling to see how that's not the same as what Catholic doctrine says. So when I researched what the Catechism of the Catholic Church actually states, it says that, and I quote, every man who is ignorant of the gospel of Christ and his church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God, in accordance with to his understanding of it, can be saved. And then it goes on to say that those acting under the inspiration of grace who seek God and strive to do God's will can be saved. And I'm not saying that I agree with the stance, but I'm struggling to separate the Catholic position from those saved by God's grace through. I'll just call it Old Testament faith.
- [52:23]
A
Sure.
- [52:23]
B
So if you could help me get some clarity here, that would be great. Thanks, Greg. God bless.
- [52:29]
A
Thank you, Tom. And the question is a completely fair one. And there is a sense that there is a similarity between the way people were saved in the Old Testament times. And you described it really well. And the Roman Catholic inclusivistic view. But the question is whether the Old Testament method of salvation, as you described it, applies in a New Testament economy. And the answer is no, it doesn't. And this is really clear in the Scripture. So I'll just use the most obvious example. And I've written about this a couple of times in Solid Grounds. You can find it online. Is One Way the Only Way, or something like that. There's a couple of pieces I wrote on that issue, on inclusivism, and I'm very careful to show the distinction between the Old Testament and the New Testament, because the grounds of salvation has always been means, has been faith. The ground has been the work of Christ, and God passed over the sins previously committed until now, in this time when Christ is now revealed. And so the object of faith was different before Christ was revealed. The object was the sacrificial system or Abraham believing God's promise, etc. Okay, now that Christ has come, the object of faith and the ground of faith are the same. Which is why it was necessary for the evangelistic work in the New Testament to go forward. Because even though there were people that were pursuing religious goals the best way they knew how, which included the Jews at the time, that wasn't good enough. Paul says in Romans 10, I bear them witness. They have a zeal for God, and this would qualify here, seeks truth and does the will of God as they understand it. What you cited out of the catechism, that would be the Jews of that time. But Paul then goes, as is Romans 10, the first couple verses. But it's not according to knowledge. For not knowing about God's sense of righteousness, they sought to establish their own. And they did not subject themselves to the righteousness of God, to Christ as the end of the law of righteousness for all who believe. And then he says a little later, if you confess with your mouth, Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, then you will be saved. So what the New Testament language does is it closes the door on that
- [55:17]
B
other
- [55:20]
A
avenue, because Jesus hadn't been revealed then, now he's been revealed. And so the ground of salvation and the object of faith are the same. And we know this really clearly, in part because of what Paul says in Romans, which is a direct contradiction to what you just read out of the catechism, for one, and also because of what we see in Acts 10. Cornelius, Cornelius, look, read his pedigree. He was giving alms. He's a Gentile soldier, centurion he is giving alms. He's a God fearer. He prays on a regular basis, and he even gets a vision from God. And that vision is what brokered the connection with Peter. Then Peter comes and he preaches to his whole family. And he says, now I know that God is not partial. And he honors everyone who comes to him. Now he doesn't then say, see you later. The reason he keeps going and he preaches the gospel is because Cornelius, for all his spiritual pedigree, which is pretty amazing when you read the text, was not saved. He was seeking the truth and doing the will of God as he understood it. And he was not saved. He needed the gospel and he got the gospel. And in fact, right in the middle of the sermon, he and the rest of the group manifest the Holy Spirit. And then they can be baptized. They get saved, then they weren't saved before. Duh. It's so obvious to me. I'm sorry for the duh part, but this is this. What you read from the catechism is such a distortion. And what it does is it gives false hope to people who need to know Christ and exercise active faith. People say, well, that's not fair. Whatever you want to say, read the text. The text is the final word. All right. There's my music done for today. Great, Coco. For stand a reason. All right. Give them heaven. Bye bye, Sam.