Church in the End Times - Part 2

[Music] you father we thank you for this day and we thank you for this time together and we invite you into our lives and our hearts we pray father through your Holy Spirit you would open our lives to what you have for us in the days ahead as we commit this hour and ourselves into your hands in the name of Yeshua our coming King indeed amen well we're going to explore something that I like to call the once and future church the church to the past is also the Church of the future in a very unique way we're going to talk a little bit about the ecclesiastical challenge of the end times you talk about the end times a lot prophetically if things are changing well what are the implications of that for us as leaders and so that's what we're going to expand our agenda is going to deal with four issues we're going to explore the ecclesiastic history of the church as we call it we're going to talk about more specifically our present predicament what makes our predicament unique today and what then in response to that are our resources and they're very distinctive and very unique we're going to try to touch on that and then we're going to talk about some specific challenges particularly in doctrines there are certain doctrines that we can relax and have different views on there's others that are more critical would try to highlight that briefly and then we'll talk about a resource that you need to understand which is very unique and we'll talk a little bit about that so we'll start now with the ecclesiastic history of the church and so we're going to review the prophetic profile what we talked about last night in to some extent and then we'll review that from a secular point of view and we'll talk about the age that we're in which world called the Laodicean age and so just to highlight last night a little bit for those because we have some newcomers that have joined us here you know John who wrote not only his gospel but had the experience on Patmos certainly must have been puzzled and his patent experience we believe occurred prior to his writing the gospel by the way he wrote the gospel at the very end of his life interestingly enough and he had the benefit of the patent experience but he certainly must have been puzzled because while exiled on Patmos he received the most fantastic most elevated vision ever given to anyone on the planet Earth and he must have been really proud because he sees the resurrected Lord in chapter 1 and here is the resurrected Jesus dictating report cards to 7 representative churches and what must have puzzled John is our Lord standing there was so sick he's about to throw out I will spew thee out of my mouth he concludes in chapter 3 verse 15 17 speaking of the Laodicean Church this I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot I would thou wert cold or hot so then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot Wow I will spew thee out of my mouth what a strange reaction or response from the Son of God himself because I'll say as I am rich and increased with Goods and have need of nothing and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked what an indictment I will spew thee out of my mouth now from all of that last night just by way of refreshment as we could be a springboard for where we're going remember the prophetic profile it's amazing how few commentators really analyze chapters 2 & 3 if you've studied our commentary and revelation one of the most popular things we've done by the way but you'll you'll discover that we spend a substantial amount of time on each of the seven churches but to summarize that we have Ephesus Smyrna Pergamum Thyatira Sardis Philadelphia and Laodicea seven churches that the Lord chose because they were representative of what he was trying to communicate and several of these that we aren't well known several those you probably never heard of be prior to this passage the Ephesus speaks the the name all the details of the letter deal with a theme that is clearly relevant to the early Apostolic Church especially and Smyrna the persecuted Church pergamus the married church and my attire what I'll call the medieval church the denominational Church and then the Missionary Church and then the apostate Church what do we mean by that we're going to get into that today a little bit but as we looked at all of this and we realized that the first three letters were uniquely structured that the promises to the overcomer was as a PS outside the body of the letter in contrast to the last four where the promises to the overcomer are in the body of the letter that gets our attention somehow those two those clusters are two mutually exclusive clusters and we also notice as we examine the second group more closely that they're unique in that they each included an explicit reference to the second coming of Christ so that gives us a perspective that we want to understand and we also discovered that of the last for one of them had a explicit threat of being cast into the Great Tribulation if they don't repent profound passage there in that namely that if they do repent they would if they would miss it and that's a big controversy among some but we think the scripture is really quite clear about for a number of other reasons on that very topic we also in contrast if I attire of Philadelphia's promised that they would be removed from the time not just from the tribulation in tribulation but from the time of the Great Tribulation and so that's the promise of the rapture very precious astonishing actually and both of these conclusions are supportable from other passages too but by way of summary if this seems legitimate well that leaves two that are problematic Sardis and Laodicea if they attire represents the Vatican and what-have-you Sardis must represent the Reformation and he says you have a name only but you're dead that's the Lord Jesus talking every one of these seven were surprised every one of these seven churches were surprised by the report card some that thought they were doing well we're not some that weren't doing very well we're doing better than a lot we need to understand that each report card was a surprise to its recipient from our Lord itself but we also looked as we looked at the structure the seven elements the name title commendation the concerns the excitation and the promise of the overcomer were distinctive for each one and there are two that had nothing bad said about them both Smyrna and Philadelphia had no had no were concerns two of them had no commendation Sardis didn't and we've discovered Laodicea had all the elements but not no commendation it's one of the two that had nothing to commend it Wow provocative so we're gonna do a little historical review from a secular point of view 31 BC through about AD 14 of course it was augustus and that was when Jesus was born during his reign and then ATS 37 we have Tiberius took over and Christ was crucified and his reign just to give you a perspective here and then following that was Caligula and he tried but it was unsuccessful at trying to desecrate the temple very interesting issue he tried to do something that would have been the adapt domination of desolation the second time and he wasn't allowed to very provocative event we can talk about that the brakes but then came Claudius and then Nero of course with his persecutions trying to blame the burning of Rome on the Christians and he's the one that of course executed Paul Wow and then we have a couple of would-be guys that didn't make until the station finally said enough of this and he took over and sophist Bayesian he's the one that took over and then and during his 10 years destroyed Jerusalem the famous fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD he had his son Titus follow through on that and then Titus followed him and then we have Domitian he had a violent abuse of the Christians that's it's during his reign that John is banished to Patmos to receive the revelation then we have creation and that's where Christianity was regarded illegal there were formalities of Emperor worship instituted then came Hadrian and then Antoninus Pius and that's why we had the revolt by Bar Kokhba that leads of course into Jerusalem being leveled and I yield Capitolina replacing it and then we get to Marcus Aurelius and he was the most severe since Nero most people don't realize the very educated person did a lot of positive things to the Empire but not from a Christian point of view that was the peak of Roman power you've all seen the movie the gladiator it may surprise you no that was based on some facts because commodious who took it was took over was killed in the arena did you know that I was surprised to discover that book that while the movie is a movie it still was based on some history but then we have a whole series of what's called the barrack Emperor so there was Civil War and army it it gets very turbulent for quite a while and it doesn't when you get to the beginning of the third century we have Christianity starting to be tolerated and then as you get to some that are favorable to it and then we finally get to Philips in 244 and following where he was favorable to Christianity and then his successor persecuted them it's it's very volatile and on again off again kind of thing until you get to the accretion by then he persecutes Christians furiously most severely and he systematically attempted to abolish all Christianity by tortuous deaths that's he was he had a campaign to do that really bad news for the Christians the catacombs of Rome hundreds of miles of graves two to seven million is the estimate among them it's in this area that the Nicolaitans show up Nichols is one of seven deacons apparently in Courtney act six five and it that he was later influenced by Greek dualism he was a deacon originally but then he gets impressed with a Greek thing and he develops he developed what we call today the clergy chol doctrine the idea that you have a clergy and the laity those things we take for granted no they were invented subsequently nação means to conquer above others laity the people conquering over the people the cons - the little Anton's is the what we call today the clergy and there are two letters to the Clement in Roman 8,100 and letters to Ignatius of Antioch highlight some of this the whole idea of elevating a bishop to be the autocratic head of the local church that concept is something we take for granted pretty much because of history it was actually invented back there in those early years that leads to an era that the previous thing called Pergamon if you will in 220 origin a very very prominent expositor of the Word of God he among other errors seen produced he was heavily heavily allegorical in this view of the scripture but he introduces infant baptism back there in 220 that was a new idea and Constantine then adopts Christianity in 312 he didn't authorize the state really just he just adopted himself because it was politically expedient there are three groups of Sun worshipers that he embodied by making Sunday a holiday that was a shrewd political move but he did for his own administrative reasons but in 325 he issues the Edict of toleration he endorses Christianity as religion so they came out of hiding from the caves into the silks of the court and so suddenly a Christian is no longer illegal that was what they were that was a burden that they had up till then once it gets stayed and endorsed everything was better no it became spiritually worse actually and house churches were first of course outlawed and then we have the Council of Ephesus Mary was worshipped as the mother of God way back in 431 and then the Leo the great was named the Bishop of Rome as some kind of super leader and that of course goes on and let you know confirmed as a spiritually to the Western Empire and then we started a common priestly dress code in this in the beginning of the 6th century Justinian then had a state ordained Church get the picture now pastors are on the state role suddenly it was a legitimate profession by the state that eliminates the spiritual dimension actually - the 3rd was the first Pope of the Catholic Church back in 6 seven no it wasn't Peter that's a myth that they try to promote but kissing the foot starts in the 709 worship of images and relics develops in 786 use of holy water in 850 canonization of dead Saint starts in 995 and fasting on Fridays and before Lent is introduced and then the celibacy of the priesthood was instituted and that was of course a really boon for the prostitutes that's a whole nother story 1090 is that prayer beads are adopted from paganism and the Inquisition begins in 1180 for Jews witches and anybody else that was politically expedient was picked on and Pope innocence the fourth officially establishes the Inquisition and boy what what crimes are produced under that banner the sale of indulgences you you can sin all you like if you can afford it financially and then transubstantiation of water no wine is introduced in 1215 these are when all these ideas that we are invented if you will buy through in history reading of the Bible was forbidden to laymen in 1229 that was the power of the church the control was a the whole idea of the priesthood and the communion cup was forbidden to laypeople 1414 it was a special privilege reduced 1439 the doctrine of purgatory was decreed these are relatively recent ideas 1492 that's when the Jews were outlawed in Spain that's why Columbus had to he and his crew sail and there's a whole story behind that and you can check into 1545 tradition granted equal Authority with a Bible that's the primary divide between Protestant and Catholic perspectives as the Catholics whole tradition in some of them above the Word of God itself and these ideas are reaching a climax which leads of course to the Reformation it didn't start with Luther he just codified it to a certain degree that actually start a little bit earlier but really Luther's famous 95 theses nailed on the door Whittenburg colic castle the chapel the Bingley collection and Calvin John Knox others had already started and that was the Reformation which was made possible by a technological advance Gutenberg press the Gooden burg press made the Reformation possible it's amazing to realize how that technical advance movable-type changed printing which changed made it possible to have copies of the Word of God for everybody what a radical idea that was people died and still are for that privilege and we need to realize that we also have a technological advance which makes our lives possible it's called the Internet it's amazing the implication we'll get to that and so in 1526 we have reversions to traditional forms of services that there was form as if he didn't follow those forms you were an outcast group in 1530 all lay pastors teaching publicly are to be killed was the dictum that is in the among the Protestants it's not an abuse of the Catholic Church alone when the Protestants were in charge they did the same kind of thing and disciples jailed and so forth then you get to 1600 there were over 40 different translations from the Latin Bible so the promotion of the Word of God with all its flaws is going on and it's praised God for that and then the Huguenots and public executions among ten thousands the persecutions continue fourth century Canada zation by the state of course independent fellowships outlawed and persecuted and in the Reformation soteriology reformed they did that Reformation did an incredible job in the field of soteriology salvation by faith alone many were willingly burned at the stake in their commitment to fit to salvation by faith alone and but the tragedy of the Reformation they didn't go any further they didn't go on and we examine their other beliefs they were carrying from the past so all kinds of erroneous traditions were reclaimed and that's our challenge today and Protestant leadership continues to persecute deviant groups adhering to biblical doctrines and there's a book by Broadbent that's you called the pilgrim church is amazing to discover the real history and that's where we also encounter the quarter decimals look in any encyclopedia secular encyclopedic up court or decimals it's a Latin term for fourteen and you'll find out there was a group of believers that held the Word of God tightly and they wanted to celebrate Passover on the 14th of Nisan as the Bible expressly requires and celebrate the resurrection of the master on the third day after that and the seventeenth but because they build their worship around the announcement of Passover on the 14th of Nisan they were called fourteens and they were excommunicated by the early church the early G one of the shocking things to discover is how anti-semitic the early church became the leadership there tried to blame Christ's crucifixion on the Jews and they tried to separate themselves as as aggressively as it could from anything Jewish which of course was tragic for the Jews the abuses under the banner of Christ or throughout history is a shock if you haven't studied it and but the flipside is also true is tragic for the church we lost our Jewish roots and we're beginning to rediscover those praise God and so you want to check that out but it ought to be obvious to even the casual observer of history that the real story of the church is not the one recorded in secular history those intrepid believers which the Bible says of whom the world was not worthy we're not only persecuted by civil authorities they were denounced defamed and decimated by the professing Church of the time you'll quickly discover that throughout history there were small remnants whose labels come from their enemies by the way we'll we who were the Waldenses dog alerts the stun discs the Anabaptist most of us don't know unless you've done some homework and if you do you'll find the information from their enemies not from themselves these names were given by their enemies to those who claimed only the name of Christ and who were prepared to suffer for his cause rather than submit to those man-made traditions that they believed contradicted the Word of God Wow some of those groups had views you might not agree with that the main point understand what they were clinging to and the penalty they paid for clinging to it praise God for that now the anabaptists between 1535 to 1546 thirty thousand were killed well it is converted called Brotherhood's of the they have all kinds of labels we could go through dozens of them you probably have never heard of unless you've done some homework and there is a bibliography and you're not in your workbook and of the whole list I underscore the one I meant if I forgot to buy broadbent the pilgrim church an incredible document was out of print for many years fortunately through the activity of Dave hunt and some others that got back in print Broadbent and give you it give you the whole history what he calls the pilgrim church the whole concept of Church well it was it can't became a building a cathedral or a church we used that term interchangeably and it always involved a special day Sunday show me in the sure where that's called for professional related leadership a priest a clergyman or pastor the concept of a professional clergyman is part of history not the Bible and a special service performed for the people ceremonies interpretation motivation that model is from the 3rd century on and a way to maintain itself tithes and offerings of course and so ok that's a quick snapshot of the ecclesiastic history very superficial because there are limited limitation on time but you get the flavor of it so let's talk about our present predicament where are we now as heirs to all of that history a couple I like to ask you just two questions there's dozens I guess I just can I just picked two why is the divorce rate among Christians no better than among unbelievers something's not working in fact something the Summa statistics say it's even worse within the Christian body but be that as it may another question what is really meant by the commandment thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain we've all heard that preached done most of us associated with swearing or you know a vile language about vocabulary not about vocabulary I can prove them a scripture what that's really all about it's about ambassadorship if you're gonna take the name of the king you better be prepared to represent him competently and faithfully because the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain you're gonna take the name of the king fine praise God but that implies you're gonna prepare for it and cling to it faithfully these are these are strange ideas to many years see there is a regeneration gap that we all notice is over it says but by one survey I'm not the most up to date on the survey this is a few years ago but it's to be it'll be representative for us over 2,000 churches are planted per week wow that's exciting 150 million about 74 going to 650 million 1988 and yet there's a silent exodus of people go out slipping out the back door almost unnoticed the statistics don't pick that up attracted but not contained interested but not inserted into fellowship harvested but not gathered touched but not transformed looked in briefly but we're disappointed about what they saw I want to ask for a show of hands so our cleese day after day 10 biblical illiteracy z' extent it's astonishing to discover the biblical illiteracy that some in the Christian body so much so that the principles of the Christian schools in New Zealand did a survey and conclude that over 75% were biblically illiterate and want to do something about it and they approached us interestingly enough in our early times here to find out can we help we showed them what we do with the Institute and they were enthralled with it so much so they signed up to be members just for themselves to repair their own illiteracy and we a week from now or having an awards banquet where a word efforts a couple of dozen people who have gone through to what we call the bronze level by their own volition and are excited about that and are asking us to help them adapt that into their curricula for this school not for my church of the School of the Christian schools to go from the principals to the teachers down to the kids what a fabulous admission and action plan they're doing something about it and so biblical literacy let me extend that I just mentioned that because it's the exciting thing going on here in New Zealand in America we're probably better informed what's going on in America than we are anywhere else and let me tell you the biblical illiteracy in the pulpits is a shock people work hard go through seminary and learn a lot of interesting things but they don't learn their Bible the biblical illiteracy in the pulpits is astonishing and we're talking about pastors not just the how are the people gonna learn many churches have people in the congregation that are better informed by the Bible and the pastor is Wow okay so the embracement of allegorical myths in other words part of the problem those that know the Bible or something about it have also been victims of what what we call a soft hermeneutics well that's just a figure of speech that's just an allegory you don't take that seriously really the Kingdom the Millennium is not taught in nine out of ten churches they're against it they believe it's an allegory they ignore the 1,800 specific references in the Old Testament and the 300 references in the new testament to the fact that Jesus coming back to rule on the planet Earth from the throne of David and so on and so forth it's astonishing that those ideas are not only not taught they're fought against by nine out of ten churches Wow allegorical myths the centerpiece of Israel one of the things we like to point out is that if you go to any pastors study you'll find a set of books that he got when he was in seminary called systematic theology different authors depending on where they came from but the table of contents have pretty much the same on all of them take them out take a look at them they have a section on in geology and affection on bibley all the different sections of and there's a segment that is not in the table of contents that constitutes 5/6 of the Bible you won't find it in any of the systematic theology publications in any pastors study what is the thing that's missing in Israel adji the study of Israel as an instrument of God's plan of redemption not Israel just national no Israel as a concept of God from Genesis 1 to revelation 22 is not taught in the seminaries are we surprised that there's a vacuum that there's a hole in their perspective Wow the centerpiece of Israel is a controversy to this day and we'll meet until the rapture when things are going to change I often announced as a shock of my friends that I've become a replacement theology you really you're kidding because they know I believe that's a that doctors out of the pit of hell no I'm a replacement theologies I believe that Israel's gonna replace the church everybody laughs because they realized the ellipses I'm talking here because after the rapture that's exactly what God is going to do he's going to deal with the planet Earth through Israel Jesus is Jewish he's the king of Israel he's gonna rule the earth as such it anyway and the eminency of the return of Christ it's amazing how cut controversial a an awareness that Christ may come back at any moment all through the testament you know that you're cautioned to live your life in an atmosphere of expectation that's controversial well I put you in a fringe group you're you're oh you're one of those gosh I sure hope so because there's a crown that DePaul promises Timothy for that so say we've embraced all kinds of pagan fallacies that are anathema we are victims of legacies of what I'll call pseudoscience most of what you've been taught about astronomy in college is not true gravity is a non-player outside the solar system the distance becomes so great and those distances get squared and they're in the denominator it renders gravity irrelevant in any kind of distance as you encounter in astronomy the sky is electric there's the the plasma physicist been trying to tell us that for decades and no one's listening they finally starting to realize it and the current perceptions in science today the cutting edge is that the universe is holographic it's some kind of super hologram David Bohm first suggested that possibility when he and Einstein we're exploring that and now we're getting evidence to seems to confirm that it's not yet still controversial but it's the evidence is pointing in that direction and that's interesting because in a hologram distances are synthetic they're not real pull distances those imaginary additions is out and what happens to geology what happens to the big bang etc and you suddenly discover what you're left with is exactly what the Bible's been saying all along the more you know about science in the cutting edge today the more comfortable Genesis one reads and the Gospel of John and the book of Hebrews and so on boy if you want to if you want to facilitate your evangelism to the the unwashed all you need to do is puncture the holes in the pseudoscience that's commonly taught and the electric sky versus gravitational models the bout that our reality has boundaries the Bible's describe that along not commodities a Hebrew sage in the 13th century pointed out that from the text in Genesis that the universe has four dimensions and it has ten dimensions only four directly accessible and that's what we the Pontic particle physics of the quantum physicists have spent billions of dollars creating atomic accelerators to discover guess what we have at least ten dimensions only four directly addressable no kidding now from all of these took a shortcut he went to the designers manual evolutionary missed it's amazing how many scientists I think they're in the thousands that have certified the idea that evolution no longer is a satisfactory explanation of what we know about the universe Michael Denton started that trend and back in 1986 with his evolution etherion crisis book Michael Behe William density and Bill Johnson and others have written but a three or four or five books have been written in the last year's that decimate evolution is a satisfactory explanation and yet we're not just criticizing my biology microbiology is shattered the idea of evolution microbe Raj is proven that the entire world is digital a digital simulation in the first place but what's amazing is our entire culture is based on evolution are just not just biologically our psychology our laws our political science I'll presume evolution strangely enough and so and then in and on top of the dream of faking man for thousands of years has been the pursuit of truth that was the great dream of all the great minds just somehow find truth and they'll write and argue about how to get there and so forth but that was the pursuit of mankind to pursue truth that's why you went to college to somehow learn right from wrong than to understand truth and we we deny the existence of truth you have your truth I have mine two plus two is four for you that's pretty good what is it for you you know 3.9 4.1 I mean what are you what the truth is truth right no not in today's world relativism we remove the reference points and then wonder why no one has any sense of direction we teach our kids that there's they're the result of some cosmic accident then wonder why they have no concept of destiny we have deliberately disconnected the their destiny from their character the dream was that with good character you would ultimately prevail that was the concept that we villain not anymore so we wonder why we go to relatives and why it's the me generation why everyone's out and why there is widespread corruption from the top down of virtually every government it's amazing in America of all that I originally stood for for two centuries it's astonishing to see the corruption in the executive branch the corruption in the legislative branch where they write they sign laws they've never read in the judiciary where they make no pretense of trying to pull the Constitution they the concept of America was a republic that didn't hold its allegiance to a person that was to a rule of law and they just shredded the rule of law there is no more Constitution their bill of rights was abrogated New Year's Eve recently I mean last evening last New Year's Eve so on it goes so the point is that we've removed then we wonder why this corruption everywhere in the media in the schools astonishing and so off we go we live in the age of deceit that's one of the aspects we need as leaders to understand that almost everything that people have been exposed to and believed it is not true it's deliberately fraudulent the prostitution of the media and the prostitution of the educational system and perhaps the most close at hand we just need to understand that figure out how to deal with Pontius Pilate rhetorically ask well what is truth that's our challenge to find out what is true that's why we have a separate Avenue of study in our Institute the Berean Avenue is a study of the word of God primary Clips is everything else but there's a second parallel that we also encourage study and that's called for lack of another name the isso car to understand the times and know what we have to do in our environment churches themselves have lifecycle did you realize that we always thought about life cycles of governments and so forth in our things well life sucks we usually start with a people oriented pastor a guy who has a gift a an affinity with people he works pretty well and pretty soon then he starts to get a following and it becomes pulpit oriented who start counting numbers how many came Sunday mmm that's it and that goes through them pretty soon we have a building program I know a lot of people will join a church in the minute they hear there's a building program they move on to another Church it's not that they're adverse to giving it's they know they're going down a path here so that pattern now is that becomes a property oriented you know crystal cathedral or what have you the model of course is Gideon when Gideon had his big victory they said well you rule over us no but I'll take your gold and what was the result of that the seventy heirs were killed by the offspring of a concubine Gideon's a story of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and that's what's going on in some major situation in the US and from the property orient pasture you then come to the power oriented pesterin and get on the top committees and lead it lead a charge to change the world I can't see any place in the Bible where Jesus rises us to change the world the world's our adversary not our conquest and so we have the return of the Nicolaitans in a sense and then you finally get to politically driven decay and I won't ask for a show of hands of how many of you have endured the pain of a division in a church when the pastor goes off with the wife of the youth leader or vice versa or whatever the decay life cycle churches there's an ancient more than this many centuries old poem that's carved in a Gothic medieval alphabet on a towering ornate Cathedral door right in the heart of a small town in Germany I touched on this last night in the summary form but I thought it would be worthwhile doing it these are these were probably on that door in the days of Martin Luther and may have influenced his career for all we know but it certainly he impacted the change of history thus speaks Christ to our Lord this is a translation from the German you call me eternal and do not seek me you call me fair and then do not love me you call me gracious then do not trust me you call me just and do not fear me you call me life then do not choose me you call me light and do not see me you call me Lord then do not respect me you call me master and then do not obey me you call me merciful then do not thank me you call me mighty and then do not honor me you call me noble and then do not serve me you call me rich then do not ask me you call me Savior and then do not praise me you call me Shepherd then do not follow me you call me the way and then do not walk with me you call me wise and then do not heed me you call me son of God and then do not worship me when I condemn you then do not blame me that's translating the German from inscription on the cathedral door and lubeck germany the actual said condemned I took that out of this because I didn't want to get into condemnation and Romans 8:1 and go down that path so I I apologize to my friend from whom I get this but we'll move on so that's our present predicament I always want to think of later the Laodicean age I always think of that poem that indictment that's there well what are our resources ok that's the bad news what have we got to work with what's our toolkit ok well let's talk about the Internet there's lots of other things we can talk about but let's just talk about the Internet do you realize that all of mankind's knowledge is a couple of clicks away if you know how to use it it's astonishing to discover what you can get at on the internet if you know how well there's all this bad stuff yes of course there is I'm glad there is I applaud that it is I'd be terrified if someone was editing that out that didn't necessarily agree with me I applaud its availability yes I regard some IATA filter that with some judgment and it may have some implications for what my kids can get at I understand that but I applaud its availability everything you want you want to find out the floorplan of your neighbor's house to burglarize it you can find it I'm not saying you should but you said just to get your attention okay and and we have major conferences of hackers who take pride in getting through any firewall so understand that there's some challenges out there there's a area called cyber war that's probably the primary front these days and when China gets into the white house inside records as they did a tribute weeks ago that gets everybody's attention and it should because there are remedies there are just like every you know weapon and counter weapon that's part of it that's what's the association of all crows is all about and so forth goes the electric County a measure guys and so forth but the point for us is the Word of God has never been more accessible you think the good in brick press was great you can get at the original language in Greek or Hebrew without knowing Greek or Hebrew you put you a little arrow on any word in the English and up pops a little box it'll tell you what the actual original word was in the Greek or the Hebrew with parts of speech plural singular and whatever it'll even diagram the sentence if you ask it to end the software to do that is free of charge if you haven't discovered the blue letter Bible on the internet that's just one of many options but it's one of the best you have hundreds of commentaries hundreds of dictionaries that's available to you about anything and it's all free of charge the Word of God has never been more accessible you in 20 or 30 minutes can do more at a terminal then a pastor used to be able to accomplish in six weeks of full-time study if we're limited with manual lexicons and because it's word searchable and it's now and it's searchable in English or searchable in the original languages on it goes and there are some very while very expensive passage packages you can buy you can get them free and they're perfectly adequate most of our staff uses stuff that's free of charge some of us use stuff that would cost you ten thousand dollars if you had it all and we get it all because it's given to us for his reasons so I'm not advocating that I'm just saying I'm on acknowledge that there are some packages around that are very very worthwhile and they're worth the money they cost hundreds of dollars you don't need those though you can get what you need with a sword which is a giveaway you can and so on and so forth now the information appliances are unparalleled most of us carry five or six Bibles around in our phone and there weren't searchable try doing that with the Scofield unbelievable and many of us have our weekly or daily Bible study automatically uploaded so it's there when we ask for it it's all done automatically there's ways to do that find out how you can get that done if you don't know how but there's something else that may be even more important than anything I've said so far and that's the power of small groups that's what I always want to see what Satan attacks and he attacks small groups gets the pastor concerned about the the heresies that might occur in the neighborhood as if he's the Guardian for that power of small groups I have studied the Bible for over 65 years and the place I invariably see people grow is not from a forty-five minute sermon once a week Sunday morning it's from be meeting during the week in a small group studying the Word of God not just meeting because it's fun no meeting to expositionally study the Word of God I've invariably seen that be the site where people blossom and become effective Christians say we live in a theatre miracles the sovereign ways to make wine out of water we saw that happening back right done to make donkey's talk that's my favorite line I use if God can use Balaam's ass so you can use talking this with me and make water flow from a rock twice twice the part the sea on several occasions not just that there anyway to use ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary ends that's the whole biblical tale then and it's today it is today so I'm going to call to get back to basics what is the church nothing that we've said so far this morning again comes close the church is the secret and powerful Society of the redeemed that's what it is it's a place where people can literally see the body of Christ not simply touched by an abbreviated gospel of Evan Jellicle blitzkrieg of short duration a guy comes to town he's very articulate he's got those four things and they we have a crowd get together and a lot of people come down and make a commitment and then what happens less than one or two percent or in church a year later no we want to return to the New Testament simplicity and its authenticity that's what we're here for you have spent money to come here to this conference and you've gone traveled a long way and what is the call to get back to basics that's basically it what we're gonna deal with here but let me surprise you went way and there no models I'm going to show you one model but it's not quite the same thing let the spirit lead as he wills is really the banner that we want to fly here how did it all started a group of twelve a group of twelve a long as he Shore that's where it started the birth of the church itself was in the house at Pentecost that was in a house believe it or not next to check it out the early church always met in houses and in your notebook there there's a whole list of these verses you don't have to jot them down there in your lap with your workbook check them out it's a very very and site 'fl discovery for many and as a persecuted Church which it was even before the resurrection they were in closed doors terrified it was the only safe way to meet then and it's going to be again some of us already are beginning to see the pinch of neighborhood restrictions or what have you that's coming not just in America all over the world the home church is the survivable one home fellowships that was the original form of fellowship all instances book of Acts were in homes formal churches as we think of them were invented in the third century by the state home fellowships were ostracized by the medieval church of course under penalty of death by the Reformed churches after the Reformation the same kind of power grafts being occurred among our venerated leaders in to this very day many churches try to stamp out home studies or twist them or somehow gain regain what they feel is a loss of control really so obviously home churches are also the reason we're emphasizing all this isn't only because it's more effective anyway but it's also the only viable form for a underground Church and one of the reasons that we are meeting is because we believe that all of us in this room increasingly will experience as the years tick off increasing restrictions in our ability to worship our ability to fellowship yes and even our ability to pray in America it's illegal to pray in public they're trying anyway the advantage of small groups disciplined multiplication when a group gets more than 12 or 20 whatever split into two that's called mitosis it's the most effective form biological growth is mitosis and it's free of any growth barriers there's nothing that prevents your group group going from 12 to 20 but when it gets to 20 think about two tens and that gets exponential you start thinking about it it's not linear its exponential that's exciting and the participants are more involved they're not in a spectator sport if you're attending a group here this if it if it gets any larger it becomes a spectator sport it's small up here when we have a break we can ask questions of each other hey what you mean by that only have you seen this or there's interaction can you imagine your participants not spectators that's profound that means there's more personal transformation and accountability yes a small group is fabulous for the new Christian because you can ask questions without being embarrassment but it also is better for the group because you're starting to be accountable in a foot in a sense and so it's a more effective for nutrition as I mentioned it it's also solves the leadership crisis because you know who will lead in the small group the Holy Spirit yeah indeed and that's and that's exciting to watch it's exciting to have a group of people meet you don't have to have a teacher you need a leader to sort of keep things orderly but you don't have it to you put you put a DVD in the thing and listen for thirty minutes or whatever and talk about it and watch what happens when the Holy Spirit takes over they'll have a group of five six eight ten people and when they leave something will have emerged among them that they no one brought into the room an insight that the Holy spirt emerged from the dialogue and when you watch that happen and realize what happens it blows your mind to realize there's an unseen presence of the Holy Spirit Himself by highlighting something that somebody didn't pre plan to bring in that helps to have some preparation don't misunderstand me but that also can be a jacket that's the danger PowerPoint here I've got a little package thing to get in within 50 minutes or whatever you know that's there's an advantage to that it's sufficient but if it's a springboard to further study great but it's also a form a straightjacket because the Holy Spirit may have something he wants to bring up that wasn't anticipated my stupid little slides the whole thing we used to say in business is we are the PAC's beware the Ides beware the man with the colored slides anyway it's more biblical and it's also a pursuit Kay a persecution proof structure and it's more efficient there's no cost you don't have to subsidize a professional hireling to lead your Bible studies most of you know people that are fabulous leaders among you that are unpaid paul was and so on so it's a way of life not a series of meetings is one of our thoughts here the way is what it's called in acts 18 and elsewhere and there's no such thing as a house of God that's a secular term okay people say God does not live in temples made by human hands let's understand that well they're chewing gum in the sanctuary no no no sanctuaries are chewing gum were the sanctuaries he's indwelling us if we're regenerated no there is no bureaucratic clergy in the New Testament that's an invention in the third century and no clerical mediators clerical is the right term I was going to try to correct that although I would say clergy cool but clerical is also in the dictionary refers to a man of the cloth so you don't and the Nicolaitans was an idea that was adopted from pagan religions of course and you also have liners staff being an organization you have lying people and staff people staff people are not the productive ones they learn they may be part of a necessary part of overhead but they're not productive and so what are you let's let's us be productive not overhead huh so alternatives well there are there is a role for megachurches that's the big thing today and I'm not here to disparage them they have a role there's a value there and there's the local Congregational Church I'm not here to disparage that many people misunderstand my once in future Church presentations they think I'm an titration not at all I am pro homes home fellowships but I think the the the they are the part that's essential those are not they're useful I'm not disparaging them but that's not where the action is the small study group and even more than that I'm going to say the expositional study group and I'll come back to that now one of the my healthiest ourselves that are sponsored by the local church you have the best of both and I was startled when the Institute started getting a membership I had people send emails boy we sure appreciate the coin Institute because we don't have to leave our church now what's all that about I found I found out my dialogue what they're talking about they love their church they love their pastor they love the programs for the kids there's all kinds of reasons they like the church they're frustrated because they're not getting taught so by the Institute of being available on the Internet they can plug that hole they don't have to leave the church to get taught and to grow they get everything else they want which is important and so the combination is important home fellowships is a key part of the picture home churches if you will and there's a subtle difference I won't I don't think it's relevant so I want to have candor here without malice I'm not here to disparage anyone I think we need to understand history for its truth but we're not with malice there are critical assessments we need continually make well that's what the seven churches letters are all about Jesus is making a critical assessment and so the historical reality both Hagel said history teaches us that man learns nothing from history George Santayana said it another way he that doesn't know history was doomed to repeat it we need to understand that we wonder what we're trying to do with the Institute is to get the best of the past and not check ourselves to the errors of the past and that's part of what that we'll talk about here in a minute and there are rules for every variety of fellowship and the idea of network cells one of the things that I'm really convinced of in business as well as survival of the church is our personal network you have a personal network of people you trust spiritually you want to grow that nurture it and invest in it you each need your own private network where you can fellowship with candor and comfort so see small groups are organic they're not organized they just happen their relational not formal they're a persecution proof structure they mature under tiers they multiply under pressure they flourish in the desert they see in the dark they thrive on chaos and the only boast they make is the lamb our king of the lion if you prefer now there are some issues here a small group may have a specific goal that you need to understand and it isn't necessarily evangelistic oh boy we got six people came up over at the house the other night and three of them accepted Christ praise God that's wonderful I'm not knocking that don't misunderstand me but that may not be the reason you're meeting everybody presumes that the reason we meet and get a neighborhood group together is to lead people to Christ not necessarily that isn't necessarily the best way it may be a good way don't misunderstand me I'm trying to point out there may be a much more important role for that group to me meeting and that might be discipleship there are some groups that have learned that it's important not to have newcomers friend of mine was visiting Korea the doctor he knew there and he was there he said would you like to come to our home flat fellowship well I'd love to then I'm pretty worn Duffy's experience he said oh I'll call and see one get permission okay so he calls a leader and they normally pray about it before they bring a newcomer but he they made an exception and let him come oh that's great so they got in his Mercedes and they drove an hour wasn't in the neighborhood it was all a group of doctors they all had something in common beside the correct by practice ID Christ and they also have learned for their own growth they get encumbered by having a newcomer because they want to go on from wherever they are you see so they have a rule that to bring it to bring a newcomer you have to get permission they usually pray about it before they allow it see it's a difference I'm gonna say it's the right way just it I'm trying to stretch her imagine there's different ways to go see is my understanding of the Wesley revival back as famous and they had different what they call bands and we call them groups and there's a kind of group you met if you're a newcomer for the first few weeks of Christine that kind of a group and after you were in that for a few months then you'd go into the next group and after you were there a year or two then you can go to the main group I mean they had they had them categorized some of them were co-head some were not men only women only they had them split they had a whole program that they laid out which is I'm not advocating necessarily it went very very healthy when they they had I think one on 30 in Britain a member of that all before it all fell apart when the Wesley brothers died it all started to fall apart and for whatever reason so the point I'm getting what I'm saying it what's interesting though they recognize that a group is an organ that can benefit by having some integrity of its own and a newcomer punctures that to some extent so there's ways to deal with that have two different kinds of groups whatever you can work that out but the point is the mission is relevant and the leadership here it's nice to have prepared teachers but it's not hard to be prepared if you're in a group it's not hard if you're studying a book of the Bible to stay one chapter ahead of your group yes you know you spend the weekend doing a little study so when Tuesday night or whenever it is comes by and you met together you've done a little bit of homework you've got at least some questions to ask you don't have to have all the answers that's key but being prepared makes sense you really need to be a discussion facilitator that just takes some thought don't let one person dominate they they draw people out so everybody's participating and there is a value in having a semi-structured approach so that you move along some sense of progress some sense of credentials what have you but their soul there's another issue to deal with here and that is the special challenges that we face today and you know there's let's talk a little bit about that the Augustan is famous for an admonition it hangs in the lobby of my wife's ministry and I love it augusten apparently is it's attributed to him in essentials unity in non essentials Liberty but in all things are got a precious precious things in essentials unity non essentials Liberty we should be free to have differences of view on some of these peripheral passages there are some things about which you need to be unifying the sufficiency of Christ for sure and there's a few others so what are essentials well the Trinity is one of them that's important to understand the Trinity from the old as well as a new testament crucial concept that's an area we need to really be comfortable that we agree on and the ultimate in all that is the sufficiency of Christ to try to add to what he did is blasphemy we need to understand that crucial this vision of Christ he known he was God he was also a man complete in both cases and the gospel most people cannot define the gospel what do you mean the gospel of good news what do mean good news you can't do this and you can't do that that's good news wait time I worded gospel no the gospel is defined in 1st Corinthians 15 first four verses Paul defines it for us how the Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures that he was buried he rose again the third day period that's it no mention of miracles no mention of his teachings no mention of his example no no no no it's what he did is the gospel he did it all for us God the screams that God went to on our behalf is the flabbergasting good news we need to understand it what's disturbing about that is that you can't find it in churches find a church that preaches the blood of Christ as our basis for approaching the throne Wow really yeah the gospel need to understand that basic stuff the other thing that we tend to emphasize is what's called hermeneutics hermeneutics a fancy word for your theory theory of interpretation if take the Bible seriously literally you have a different outcome than if you sort of figure well it's some of it's the Word of God if you're if you're van have a tattoo then you're being the judge of what isn't isn't no no we've in the 65 years I've said in the Bible many many times throughout that history I've had to change my view as I learned but it's always been in the direction of taking the text more seriously than before and that's caused me to be an extremist on that point of view I don't believe I don't believe there's any synonyms I think two words can be synonymous and they mean almost the same thing watch out for almost there's a gap in there that can be a treasure if you discover hermeneutics is our primary cornerstone of everything we do and I'll talk about the piston logical cycle before through and so there are some major challenges here there are some specific doctrinal challenges what about replacement theology I can walk into a strange church being there the first time and if I find out how they feel about Israel I know a lot about the hermeneutics do they take Israel seriously that doesn't solve all the problems don't misunderstand me but at least I that that's a litmus test it covers miles if you will the gifts of the Spirit it's astonishing to me to discover some of the most conservative seminaries in America are tremendous in what they have a history for and yet they're totally blind about the gifts of the Spirit because of the abuses in that area the gifts are for today how do I know that because it says so in Acts chapter 2 they had the gift of tongues being given and Peter quotes Joel chapter 2 this is that which Joel predicted would come but Joel is talking about the end times the day of the Lord so if that started there's no place that ends until the day of the Lord so whatever they are and therefore they're not terminated and attempts to Terminator are we a Dallas Theological Seminary is one of those seminaries that for years is taught that they give to the spirit or would they they were only until the cannon was complete their concept was by a misunderstanding of another verse I won't borrow with you or not but they build like try to build a case that when the cannon is complete then the gifts were no longer needed which is nonsense so I tell my friends were what about revelation 10 what do you mean well john heard the seven thunders that are their voice and he heard what the city is about to write he said see thou do or not so he knew what they said he's about to write it but he was forbidden to write it why my premise to them I say well that's because the canons not complete until he does so any doctrine built on the Canon being complete as frail and they thought I was being facetious I was dead serious no that's nonsense no the gifts are for today that doesn't mean much of what masquerades as the gifts is legitimate don't misunderstand me Walter Martin used to have fun what Walter Martin was one that prayed in tongues privately but he also when he was a young minister had raised a girl from the dead in New Guinea it was published in Christian today so it's something that people that know Walter know about his background and he used to love to get with one of the Pentecostals and when he found out to what they were after he said down well gee do you have a gift of raising the dead oh no and Walter and his unique way would just fall crestfallen oh well I'll pray for you so you might enter into and he started giving you this line that one gift is above another he's obviously being sarcastic no the gifts are give severally as they will that's the difference between being charismatic and being Pentecostal being charismatic implies that you believe the gifts are for today and you can defend that from the scripture if you're Pentecostal if you are insisting that one gift is above another you're violating 1st Corinthians 12 and 4 12 and 14 14 especially and so it's interesting that the only place that tongues are dealt with in the Bible is to the Corinthians which were the most carnal fellowship of the whole list interestingly enough but 12 13 and 14 are the answer 12 introduces it 14 talks about the abuses but right in the middle Paul's as I show you a better way yeah first Corinthians 13 is their ultimate rebuttal but they gives the spirit are crucial it's crucial that their operative here in this conference before we leave tomorrow morning and the kingdom perspective the whole idea that Jesus is that when we pray in the Lord's Prayer thy kingdom come what are we talking about we're talking about him taking his kingdom and he confirms that cabl told Mary that he would sit on David's throne and never has he has yet to do that Jesus himself confirmed it and his ascension it's not for you know the time but I'm gonna do it in other words and so forth and the pivotal event in the book of Acts was acts 15 the council Jerusalem which among other things deals with what's going to happen to Israel and James the staff brother Jesus quotes from Amos chapter 9 verse 11 and 12 that God is going to reestablish the tabernacle of David that's not the temple of Solomon that a Barack will be it's a palace of the king that's yep coming that gets into the whole issue of the Bema seat judgments and all that then we have those who have these strange groups of dominions that say that the church is supposed to get the world ready for the second coming of Christ that's utter nonsense it's a totally contrast to what the Bible really teaches we'll get to that when we get to start setting Isaiah 63 and so forth we also discovered when he published her book kingdom power and glory there was a view widely held in among certain groups that I didn't even know existed that's called high participants that being dispensationalist is very easy to defend for a lot of reasons but hyper dispensationalism are those people who believe that the church was born in Acts chapter 2 and everything prior to that was given to unbelieving Jews that the only thing a Gentile has to deal with are the epistles which is utter nonsense by the way because Paul says whatsoever written aforetime were written for our learning that whatsoever is all of it but there are some that try to to avoid most of the teachings of the Gospels under this is very strange and what's so strange about this view is that not only is it not defendable it also is is not fruit-bearing it's astonishing that they they have that view so militantly we discovered strange stuff and then we have the whole problem of cults in general the Mormons the java's witnesses and so forth every cult has a way of somehow denying the deity of Christ and so if you're a really strong in the sufficiency of Christ you'll have an answer for each one of those and each one has resources available to deal with if you want to but the key thing in our world is hermeneutics and you have three stages of that the first thing is what we call exegesis what does the text really say that's your first step what does it really say and in today's world that's not there they're the places where that's a debate is in very specialized areas what you really then move into is what's called exposition what does the text mean and it's my strong admonition that if you have a home group and that you take a book of the Bible and go out at verse by verse chapter by chapter and just see what this says and exposit it it's an expositional study and of course what comes out of that is homiletics how do you apply it to your walk if that's the so what question so what do I do about and that's usually a very practical thing that will emerge from the discussion how do you handle difficult passages there's a whole bunch of things that we suggest but one of the first things to do is you don't have to take sides in a small group you find something that has a difficult passage no problem don't feel you have to resolve it the Holy Spirit will resolve it in his own way in his own time you will and one of the secrets about doing that is simply put Jesus Christ right in the middle and see what happens if there's a knot you'll discover just unravels these weird little rules in the Old Testament you wonder what on earth was that all about and when your study you discover it's all about the Messiah the cities of refuge are all about the Messiah most people don't realize that the the we could go on example but that gets us into all the side roads expositional teaching the whole council got we have a strong affinity for architectural issues you want to study the whole Council of God verse by verse chapter by chapter and what I encourage you to grasp is a recognition of the systematic design of the total package once you begin to realize that the sixty-six books are an integrated message deliberately designed every detail deliver their deliberately it changes your whole approach and you suddenly see how it all fits together and you only get that with expositional teaching anybody that's an artist knows exactly what I'm talking about if you do a painting you know that every dab of color on that canvas affects every other color that's why artists typically we try to cover all with at least some tentative suggests and they gradually make it more and more specific but every dab of that brush affects every other part of the canvas that's what an artist discovers its intrinsic to his craft well the same things through the Bible every verse impacts and is impacted by every other verse you need to understand that it's a fabric and every verse impacts every other one and every verse in the Bible reveal something about Christ whereas Jesus Christ in the Bible on every page when I believe I could even defend the idea it's on every verse it's all about him he says so in Psalm 44 7 the volume of the book is written to me he says that's quoted also in the Epistle Hebrew there is a place for topical teaching most people like to take a topic and teach it that's very hazardous that focuses on specific doctrines or problem areas and that will happen I'm not disparaging it but I want you to realize the caution when you do that because you run you run some risks by doing that it can be hazardous because you can extra take an extracted segment that involves the editing and it will reveal biases and they're always there so understand that when you're going verse by verse through the whole Bible you constrain yourself pretty much to what the Bible is saying when you take a topic like the Holy Spirit or baptism or the Lord's Supper or some toppings or worthwhile topic but it's hazardous because you're going you can exclude segments that you didn't mean to include and you can result what they say majoring on the minors you can take something as less important than the total thing and spend your life there are people making careers of verse you know long-term values if you have a long-term perspective of the Bible you will lean toward expositional approaches take a book any one of them go at it verse by verse chapter by chapter and you're unsafe ground and you probably heard me do this before but when you find a verse that you don't understand rejoice get a note we get a journal that's gonna be secret your own private thing find a page put down the reference and try to write what confuses you about that verse why does it confuse you try to express that and do it make not pencil I'll show you why once you've done that then you take it before the Lord said Lord you promised that you would teach me the Holy Spirit would teach me all things not most all things I'm confused about this earth I don't understand it I'm asking you and in the name of Jesus to reveal what that means to me in the name of his name ie precision and and watch what happens not necessarily next 10 seconds but what will happen is something will occur in your life that will make that verse obvious it may be something here on the radio an unrelated matter it might be something you overhear in a conversation in a restaurant it can be who knows what the whole but the Holy Spirit will bring something crush bet that will unravel that I want you to go back to that journal put that behind that page and write down the date the time of how the Holy Spirit revealed it to you and what it means you do this all in ink so you can't change it by rationalizing later say Chuck I like that why all the paperwork's I'll tell you why that journal will be one of your most treasured collections you don't show it to anybody because I want you to stay candid with it you don't show it to anybody there's no pride here just you and the journal and the Holy Spirit because what's going to happen is you're going to go through the valley of doubt and you can have times that you wonder boy have I just got and turned away with it all you go back to that journal and re-examine the places or the Holy Spirit guided you through that doubt how he carried you and that will become one of your most treasured possessions hermeneutics there are several levels there's the there's the literal penis in Hebrew the Mashhad is the literal sense of course of the text the Ramez is the hint of something deeper the Dhiraj is the homiletics the spiritual message that's there the humma the practical application those three we have in Gentile hermeneutics but there's the the Hebrews asked a fourth one called the sword the mystical conjectures about it and they memorize the four of these by the the word partiz which can mean paradise or garden either what depending on bowels you point for it but that's there that's the the Hebrew hermeneutics if I know your eschatology the first break breakers are your omlet premillennial most churches unfortunately are all millennial there used to be post millennial but most that is evaporates pretty much because as everybody recognizes things are not getting better and better that we are not in the Millennium yet preterism is a form of amillennialism that's that isn't even consistent I want to go down that path here but most of us are a millennial but even us are divided in three groups post-trib mid-trib or pre-trib depending on where you think the church fits relative to the tribulation most denominations are all millennial post relational most people who are independent fundamental Bible believers are at the other end of the thing their fundamentalist and that depends on your hermeneutics if you take the Bible very very literally you'll be you'll swing on the right side of that diagram if you're willing to allegorize treat the scripture just as a metaphor or an allegory your freedom to do that would be on the left side and so if I know your hermeneutics I can predict your eschatology okay that's pretty straightforward I can also if I look at versions of the Bible some of them are driven by a verbal equivalency Dead Sea Scrolls being the ultimate example and dynamic equivalency putting it in modern language that's a trade-off every translator has to deal with and of course we choose to stay with the King James for a number of reasons every one of them has problems but the problems the King James are well known and well documented so there's an epistolary your hermeneutics hermeneutics I know your eschatology but here's the interesting thing if I know your eschatology most from from that little chart I showed you then I can predict your ecclesiology most controversies of eschatology are really not eschatological controversies they're ecclesia of the church if I know your eschatology of the church you see from that little diagram we went through last night then I know your your ecclesiology well if I know your ecclesiology I can also predict your hair minuites by the willingness of how seriously you take the Bible so what's interesting this whole thing is self regenerative okay is that it all the tighter hermeneutics sharpened your eschatology eschatology will sharpen the understanding of the church in the end times that's what we're here for and that will impact your hermeneutics if you survive the cycle a few times you will be driven so to speak into a tighter and higher hermeneutic and all the other problems will fall out of in any case it always points to the Messiah and that's the secret to epistemology is the study of knowledge is scope and limits and that's that's the model we're following here so that leaves us with one last topic coin the Institute and I want to talk a little about the ki model I want you to understand our statement of faith because you'll see where you may fit or not fit with us it's very minimalistic and we'll talk about the heuristic commitment our threefold structure and the fact that and then how we're governed we'll go through all of that here in a minute so the statement of faith three parts that the Bible is the very word of God is inerrant in its original autographs and is fully and totally and uniquely reliable is the primary guide to all actions commitments that's our primary commitment in the Institute and we hope you're comfortable with that second one that Jesus Christ is God incarnate became man to fill a destiny in our behalf was crucified buried and bodily resurrected is presently seated on his Father's throne and will soon return to establish his kingdom on the planet Earth very simple and that last phrase will exclude ninety nine ten churches strangely enough and the third I know I'm not sure about the statistic that's just a horse bad guess but the third one then is that in the meantime the Holy Spirit is uniquely active in pursuing his mission and calling equipping and empowering believers and is essential for any and all the pursuits of the Institute to be fruitful and effective that's it period there are a lot of people with whom we would disagree that are perfectly comfortable under that umbrella that means we have non essentials that we can have a lot of joy over so everybody knows what Tony asks our publisher but the coin Institute is a relatively new creation that God has done for just as such a time as this and I want you to understand the three legs of that stool Berean is scar and cornice we called Berean of courses after acts 17:11 that's been our trademark for four or five decades and them that received the word roll all over us in mind but searched the Scriptures daily to prove whether those things be so but the second one is a different pursuit altogether to be like the sons of Issachar in that they understood the times and knew what their country had to do and we've discovered the resources and tools of those two avenues of study are antithetical in the brain every we know the Bible is true the challenges to understand it in the Issyk are what we're dealing with our intelligence reports news clips what-have-you we know they're biased we know they're not true the trick is what is really true different set of tools different resources those two should go in parallel we believe Brean being dominant of course but his car needs to accompany that's what makes us distinctive from a seminary or a Bible College is the existence of that second Avenue of study in side by side and that all leads to action which we call the coin eNOS which is a term for fellowship and communication it's motivated by the third commandment that's why I asked that question earlier thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain we argue that the action of all of this is ambassadorship the reason you study the Bible the reason you study what's going on is to be his ambassador that's in relevant terms to today that's think that's what it's all about that's why the Institute is not a seminary it's something quite unique we encourage the members of the to balance all three of these not to become a specialist yes you know your word but yes you also know what's going on in the world and yet you're committed to an a calling of some kind and when you've got to the first level all three we Ward it with a trail marker we call a bronze medallion when you get to the second level of all three you've got a bronze and ultimately gold but our goal is not a gold medallion it's a golden crown on a glassy sea these are just trail markers to make it fun to give it to make it feel that you're making some progress here all of this can be done for university credit we actually have four or five six maybe now PhDs in which the transcripts that were awarded on the basis of transcripts for the Institute they're increase if we don't give the degrees the universities do but they do it on the basis of the respect for the work product that we're dealing with from the Institute and for that's worth so the trail markers for diligent that's why we have these these medallions they're big and clumsy and the only we only use them at certain ceremonial occasions but them for such a time as this are you saved praise God well then have you discovered your calling and that's what we want to deal with for the rest of this day by the way to help you discover your calling are you in a fellowship that's committed to preparing you for that calling that's a question what have you invested in that preparation I'm not drawing dollars your time what have you committed to it what is it done to your priorities oh that's an interesting question maybe a chance to think about that later today how are we gonna stand this and that's part of our mission in the next few weeks to go up there we have some annual meetings from all over the world to come together we're gonna solidify some of these things but we have an international trust that was created that a decade ago here in New Zealand and that run by a Council of Elders but there are three councils one for each avenue Council for the Berean Avenue a Council for the iskar and accounts for that these are the people that determine the policies of each of those councils the operations are run by Koinonia house in Idaho and through Lyons Media here in New Zealand and the chairman of the three policies or Lewis Powell he's the ones invented these little crosses that include a mp3 player for all our teachings that are audio that we've hands out to missionaries in New Guinea or wherever by the hundreds and they cost 10 bucks apiece they're astonishing everything who knows in a in a little cross that they can rerun and they can listen and solar-powered and what have you and then Steve Albert is our head of Issachar and he's been appointed to National Intelligence Council in the United States because it was for a number of reasons and I love it when they there's a number of titles he could use when he appears perfectly but he loves to say senior analyst for corny Institute what's the Institute people ask the right question is good and Larry Mattoon heads up the cleaners now the operations of mark Dustin is our chief operating officer in Idaho and he has a staff a small tight highly motivated staff that that executes the things that need to be done to implement the but the operations are separate from policy so we have the Jeanine model of government corporate governance going here and we have Ron Medicine who runs the line said media the entity here that is the that formulates the materials that point house distributes so to speak if that's the way the direction we're going here and the the chairman here of the council's of three councils always elected vice chairman the Chairman serves the he serves for two years as vice chairman than two years as chairman and then two years as post chairman and there's a rollover from that so so he gets six years of commitment of a trained person overlapping it's a great great for your constant coiny house operates through a provost and we have deputy Provost being established around the world we have a deputy Provost here for New Zealand he lives up in in the North Shore and growing as it goes and I might point out that Ron is actually running a wholly owned subsidiary of a corporation called Landsat Development Corporation which is owned by the trust so we have a corporate we have a corporate legal arm that's a resource to the trust that line said media is is operating we are going we're in the process of installing a endowment fund also under the trust as the assets as we get ahead of our debt and get on top of it and so that's the something else you should understand the parts that are in green are volunteers that we do have a paid staff in Idaho that are salaried implementers if you will but everything else here is done as volunteers that you see in green for what it's worth the Provost is a salary the executive motor will markups and the deputy Provost and the regions are volunteers it's almost a full-time job I understand that sort of like the Boy Scout being a scout Scout troop leader or something but anyway that's the concept so there we are the true church the supernatural invention endowed with immortality that it's the means to disciple each other it's to transfer Jesus life to each other and turns atheists to apostles policewomen in the profit of the terrorists and the teachers plumbers in the pastors and elders into evangelists and so forth we have an army of nobodies or they're under persecution or celebrate and talk-shows under unspeakable difficulties are walking on red carpets despised or adored ridiculed or consulted cheated or honored scorned or quoted tortured or pampered with frequent flyer cards or walking barefoot no unknown or known some strange resumes in the background here Moses was 80 years old and wanted for murder do you realize that Jacob was a schemer in a Conner she never buy a used car from Jacob hmm Elisha and Jeremiah both suffered from depression they were and Hosea couldn't keep his marriage together Amos was a farmer with no ministry training Peter tried to kill a man with a sword John Mark was a quitter Paul couldn't get along with his partner Barnabas and couldn't stay out of prison well one last thing and we'll wrap it up here in 1980 a young man from Wanda was forced by his tribe to either renounce Christ or face certain death he refused to renounce Christ and he was killed on the spot when they went into his room the night before they found he'd written a commitment that was nailed to the wall says I'm part of the Fellowship of the unashamed I have Holy Spirit power the die has been cast I've stepped over the line the decisions been made I'm a disciple of his I won't look back let up slow down back away or be stilled my past is redeemed my present makes sense my future is secure wow I'm finished with low living sight walking small planning smooths knees colourless dreams tame visions mundane talking cheap living it's Dorf goals I no longer need preeminence prosperity position promotion plaudits or popularity there's nothing there you know you went to seminary I don't have to be right first tops recognized praised regarded or rewarded I now live by faith lean on his presence walk by patience lift by prayer and labor by power my face is set my gait is fast my goal is heaven my road is narrow my way rough my companions whew my guide reliable my mission clear I cannot be bought compromised detoured lured away turned back deluded or delayed I love this guy I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice hesitate in the presence of adverse adversary negotiate that at the table of the enemy ponder at the pool of popularity or meander the pace of mediocrity eloquent kid here I won't give up shut up or let up until I have stayed up stored up prayed up paid up and preached up for the cause of Christ I'm a disciple of Jesus I will go till he comes I will give till I drop preach till all no and work till he stops me and what he comes for his own he'll have no problems recognizing me my banner will be clear so with that let's bow our heads for prayer how many father we thank you for who you are we thank you for bringing us together and we thank you Father for the challenges that face us here we thank you for your presence and we ask for your guidance that you would open our hearts and lives to what you would have of us in the days ahead as we commit ourselves with great joy and great commitment into your hands in the name of Yeshua our coming King indeed amen [Music] you

Channel: Koinonia House

Views: 69,360

Rating: 4.9118943 out of 5

Keywords: jesus, christ, chuck, missler, koinonia, house, khouse, institute

Id: tCqHjzBBTzE

Length: 91min 18sec (5478 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 03 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Tzmamabear137]

it says a lot about govt... the church needs to stand up and pray.