Theonomy Made Practical | Obeying Jesus In All Of Life | with Dr. James White

whoa whoa whoa you're going to want to hear this our next two conferences are coming up quick we've got first our fall conference this is November 11th and 12th that's a full day Saturday and a holdover for the Lord's Day November 12th uh who's speaking at this conference well we've got Jared Longshore and Chris Wiley and yours truly Pastor Joel webben what's the title the title is the household and the war for the cosmos now I know you're thinking wait a second you can't use that title Joel that's the title for Chris Wiley's book well I can use it because he's gonna be there speaking and he gave me his permission we're going to be talking about the household as the basic building block for pushing back the kingdom of darkness in this world we're going to be talking about biblical patriarchy we're going to be talking about marriage and parenting how to keep your kids how to shape and form them like straight arrows like sharp arrows that do damage to the kingdom of darkness training our children in the the fear and ammunition of the Lord a full day on Saturday November 11th and then holding Jared Longshore over for the Lord's Day November 12th to preach at my church Covenant Bible Church in Central Texas you can register at the early bird rate which will not last long but you can register at the early bird rate today by going to rightresponseconference.com again that's right responseconference.com now our second conference is our spring conference this is Friday Saturday and Sunday March 1st 2nd and 3rd the title for this conference blueprints for chrysidum 2.0 blueprints for chrysidum 2.0 we don't want to revert back to Christendom 1.0 although it would certainly be a whole lot better than the clown world that we're currently living in but we recognize despite the phenomenal features of a prior Christendom there were certain bugs that we'd like to see worked out so we're not going back we are pushing forward to Christendom 2.0 we believe that the blueprints are seven doctrines for ruling the world righteously what are these seven doctrines well it's reformed confessionalism it's covenant theology it's biblical patriarchy it's presuppositionalism and kyperianism and general equity theonomy and hopeful eschatology post-millennialism who's going to be teaching us on these doctrines Voldemort he who must not be named Pastor Douglas Wilson himself you also got Mr bright Hearth Mr King's Hall Mr haunted Cosmos Pastor Brian sovay and we also have Dr Joseph Boot and of course yours truly Pastor Joel webben will be doing seven primary lectures as well as two 90-minute panels with all the speakers together and will likely add a couple more speakers along the way again that's March 1st 2nd and 3rd Friday Saturday and Sunday it's blueprints for chrysidum 2.0 we've got the early bird rate going right now but it will run out quickly so go to write responseconference.com writeresponseconference.com to register today having been at a Reformed Baptist Church for 29 and a half years I almost sang a solo right there at the end because you're supposed to sing oh man you know and then there you go um especially when you do Psalm 23 that's just sort of necessary but uh uh have you noticed there's always an amen at the in the hymnal and then we ignore it how would you like to be an amen at the end of a hymn at a Baptist Hymnal and just get ignored your entire life it's a terrible thing but the worst thing was for a while we uh we got new hymnals and for a while the Trinity Hymnal the Presbyterian version it was a red one and then they came out with the blue baptist version uh that we we switched to um but there was a certain song in the red trendy hymnal called El Shaddai anybody know El Shaddai okay who made El Shaddai famous Amy Graham which didn't go over well with some of the older people in the congregation but the young people in the congregation loved it and so they would always request El Shaddai during him sings but since we were Die Hard traditionalist reformed Baptists we were the only people in the world in the world who have ever sung amen at the end of El Shaddai and I'm gonna tell you right now it was not designed to be there it really really wasn't but we sang it because we were that's the way we were anyway it's good to be with you and uh I unlike most everybody else and very very cognizant of time uh and so I will uh be getting done on time um in my in my assigned my assignment here turn with me to uh Jeremiah chapter 31 I just want to start with stuff that we all know about again I I sort of feel like I'm um talking to people who probably could do a much better job than I in uh presenting these things um some of you have mentioned to me that you have for example listened to the if 85 part church history series uh that I taught at uh at Phoenix reformed ending in 2018 um and some of you have also possibly encountered the series that I did um starting oh man I I forget when I started it but I I did a lengthy sermon series on the Holiness code it's available on Sermon Audio and it's still at the prbc Phoenix reform Baptist Church um thing and you can still get it there I did it primarily I started off and I can guarantee you this was the first time that this has ever happened at a reform Baptist Church I played the audio of a section of The West Wing now I never watched The West Wing but you all probably know that there was a Infamous episode of The West Wing where they lampooned uh a female a Jewish female person who was Doctor was it Dr Laura was that who it was because I'm dating myself a little bit here it was Dr Laura okay and she was in some meeting with the president and he went after her on the subject of homosexuality and she made some reference to the levitical law and he went after her and this became viral and it is still so much on a very practical level of I'll be honest with you if you want to interact with our culture today everyone in this room needs to be able to respond to the presentation that who played the president on that who's fairly well-known actor okay Martin Sheen um he went after her about uh tell me uh I have my my my daughter's a senior at George Washington how much can I sell her for in light of what is said in Deuteronomy such and such and such and the uh they still called in the Washington Redskins back then um the the Washington Redskins um what what should I do as president um in light of the fact that they touched pigskin should we kill them before or after the football game and and he goes through all of these uh sections primarily of the Holiness code in Leviticus but also some from Deuteronomy and she's just left dumbfounded she has no response uh probably because the writers uh had never heard anyone respond meaningfully to something like this it's highly effective for the vast majority of evangelicals because the vast majority of evangelicals haven't actually read all of Leviticus and have no passion for it don't realize Jesus quoted from it all the time and the Holiness code isn't Leviticus the stuff that has stuff about leprosy in it and isn't we're not under law we're under grace so why should I even read it right that's how most people think and so whatever you do don't quote from Leviticus 18 or Leviticus 20 about not lying with a male as you lie with a female if you don't know what comes before or after it and what the context is because the other guy might and make you look really bad in the process and so that first sermon I literally played that clip from the uh from The West Wing and then said all right how do we respond to this we are going to go we're going to walk through all the Holiness code so we Leviticus 18. and then we went into Deuteronomy like I said it took a couple of years and we skipped none of the tough passages we talked about them all we talked about texts that maybe you shouldn't even talk about in church um you know the woman that reaches out and grabs the man's genitals while they're fighting and yeah we did a sermon on that we did a sermon on that um like I said they're all still there and anybody with any kind of insight that listened to that verse by verse especially walking into the Holiness code and then catching all these others could have told you and could have told anybody a long time ago that guy's a that's that guy's that's a theonomist okay that guy is saying when I would look at um well it's a real obvious one uh when I would look at uh Leviticus 19 28 which is the one text in all the scriptures that talks about what we would call a tattoo I would look at I looked at that and I remembered when we wrote the same sex controversy in 2000 I think it was a year um I remember we went through that we went through all the Holiness code we we dealt with a lot of the objections that people raise and and I remember looking at that particular text and going how am I to understand this what what does this have that that would be relevant to us today and digging into it and realizing that in just looking at it um there was stuff that I had missed I didn't realize that the Hebrew term there a Ka is a hopoxagamina is a term that appears only one time in all the texts of scripture and hence can't be defined by referring to other other terms that we don't actually know what it means is something permanent is it something temporary we don't know and I was struck by the fact that as I worked through the text I found the parallel in Deuteronomy and the parallel in Deuteronomy has no reference to a car to a a pigment change in the skin but to a shaving of a of the forehead and so it's clearly a cultic thing it had to do with the dead it was said You shall not do this for the Dead I am Yahweh I am your God and it took me a while to realize to figure out that what was really going on here still had a real important relevance to today but had nothing to do with what we thought it had something to do with because that's always the only Texas quote at what you shouldn't get tattoos okay all right fine but what does that have to do with the Dead and so once you dug into it all of a sudden you realize what was being what was going on here is these were people who were altering their appearance either permanently or temporarily to avoid to either avoid the curses of the Dead or to honor the dead I think it was to avoid the curses of death personally now that's still a very relevant thing South America crane somebody said man that's really relevant you should see what a lot of the Eastern Orthodox do in regards to the Saints and the things that they that they're fearful about in regards to the Dead but we missed it because we weren't looking at the entirety of what the text was saying in the context in which it was written and for the vast majority of Christians it's like it's in Leviticus it doesn't matter it's an inviticus it doesn't matter well it does matter we are not to fear the Dead there are people who live their lives in fear of the Dead there are people who live their lives to honor the dead there are people who live lives to honor Saints I mean I'm going to tell you I've said this to a number of Roman Catholics and I'll say it to you you need to understand something Mary does not have a clue that anyone on this planet has ever tried to pray to her because it would break her heart and once you are at rest in Christ the tears are wiped away you're not up there in heaven suffering because billions of people are trying to pray to you she has no idea that has ever happened God would not make her suffer in that way the things that are done in regards to Saints and angels and it's it's amazing that one text was still relevant but you had to look at it very carefully and so anybody could have looked at that and could have realized yeah this guy's a this guy's a theonomous what is that law you know the text in about the New Covenant in Jeremiah chapter 31. you know that it is quoted in Hebrews chapter 8 and in verse 33 but this is a covenant which I would cut with the house of Israel after those days declares Yahweh I will put my law within them and on their heart I will write it and I will be their God and they shall be my people and they will not teach again each man is neighbor and each man is brother saying no Yahweh for they will all know me from the least of the greatest of them declares Yahweh for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more now just in passing let me make sure that you're aware of of a little tidbit especially many of you are pastors and your teachers um this is not directly relevant but I I want to make sure that you notice it um notice in actually I should have started in verse 32 not like the Covenant which I caught with their fathers and the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt my Covenant which they broke but I was a husband to them declares Yahweh I was a husband to them now if you have memorized this text as it's found in the book of Hebrews you realize there's an important difference because when this is quoted in Hebrews chapter 8 it does not say but I was a husband to them it says though I did not care for them now you need to be aware of that because if you if you preach through Hebrews 8 um there's always somebody in your congregation that notices the footnote references and is go back and read Jeremiah 31 and they're going to come up to you after the sermon and go hey Pastor have you noticed there's a difference why is that and it's not going to look good if you're sitting there going uh uh I didn't know about that why is there a difference between the two I'm sorry I heard someone either mumbling under your breath right the writer to the Hebrews is quoting from the Greek Septuagint which was the Bible of the early church and there is a textual variant between the Greek Septuagint and the Hebrew text which you're reading in uh almost any translation that you'll be reading of Jeremiah is a translation of the Hebrew masoretic text and the term there is but all you've heard the Bales b-a-a-l but all means Lord it would also mean husband in that context to despise someone or not care for someone is ga'al and a gimmel and a bait are very close to each other in shape so there's one letter difference between the Hebrew for all and all for to despise someone the Greek Septuagint the manuscripts of the Hebrew that it translated from had all and so it says though I did not care for them which interestingly enough is part of the argument of citing the text in the first place now that raises a whole big issue I can't talk about right now and that is what do you do when the New Testament writers quote from a textual variant between the Hebrew and the Greek it does happen in other places in Hebrews um that you need to be aware of when you're doing that kind of exegetical study but the point is this text is the text that by inspiration is quoted by the New Testament writers as the very definition of the New Covenant it happens to be why I having engaged in numerous debates with my dear Presbyterian Brothers on the subject of baptism remain a Baptist because this definition of the New Covenant and hence the New Covenant signs does not leave open the giving of that sign to someone who does not know Yahweh it says right there they will they will not teach again each man is neighbor and each man his brother saying no Yahweh for they will all know me who is the will all those whose sins are forgiven who are in the New Covenant those are the New Covenant members to give the sign of that Covenant to someone who does not yet know Yahweh will either require you to believe in some sort of baptismal regeneration or to embrace the standard definitions found in the New Testament of who it was who received the sign of baptism and that is people who are repentant Believers in Jesus Christ no matter what their age might be all of that to get us to this point where notice what it says I will put my law within them and on their heart I will write it now there was a time about 30 some odd years ago when I started reading some material and sort of got involved for a brief period of time with listening to and even talking with people who were presenting something called new covenant theology it was a movement at that time it's still out there but new covenant theology and the idea of new covenant theology was everything that is relevant to us today is only found in the law of Christ in the New Covenant scriptures this became so radical and so radicalized by some people that they literally adopted the position that you could if you wanted to marry your sister because there's nothing in the New Covenant scriptures that say that that's wrong now it became very very obvious to me that's not how the New Testament writers understood the relationship between the New Covenant scriptures and the old Covenant scriptures uh that you can recognize levels of continuity while recognizing levels of discontinuity but no matter how you slice it you have to ask the question in Jeremiah 31 what law is being written upon the hearts of these new these new creatures as we would interpret it from the from the New Testament these New Covenant Believers what law I will put my law within them what would Jeremiah have understood that to be how should we understand that today because again the New Covenant guys say that's the law of Christ well that is a phrase that is used law of Christ but what is the content of that law how is that a fulfillment especially of for example and they will not teach again each man his neighbor and each man his brother saying no Yahweh you see under the old Covenant the priests had to teach the people to know Yahweh because there were sadly many people though they bore the Covenant sign that did not know Yahweh because they they may be physically circumcised but they were not spiritually circumcised they bore the Covenant sign and brought shame to the name of Yahweh by the way they behaved Manasseh was a member of the Covenant but he was an idolater and many others many others of the kings of of Israel and Judah they were they bore the Covenant sign but they were not changed in their heart and so they had to be taught to know Yahweh this New Covenant is different because their sins have their iniquity has been forgiven their sins will be remembered no more and they will each one know Yahweh they will know God this is what Ezekiel was talking about when he talks about taking out the Heart of Stone and giving the heart of Flesh and when that's Heart of Stone is taken out and you're given the heart of Flesh that heart of Flesh desires to do what is pleasing to the god he has come to know and to love that's the work of the spirit of God within us and one thing that is just marked so much of evangelicalism in our day we are right to recognize the need of personal conversion a person who is not repentant toward God may do right things to their own condemnation they have to have their right relationship first it's necessary we must be evangelists we can never cower back from that we can never as Calvinists say well if they're going to get saved they're going to get saved no God is ordained the ends as well as the means and we're the means and so we have to call all men and women to Bow the knee before Jesus Christ in Repentance and faith that's the only way for a heart to be changed but once that heart is changed once that takes place what is that heart going to do just go back to its old ways just muddle along with what with what the world's going to give it no there's going to be desire if I have fallen in love with this God who has redeemed me then I'm going to ask the question what can I do that will be pleasing in his sight how do I order my life a right now are we given tremendous and important guidance in the New Testament scriptures as to how to live our lives well of course of course we have books like first John and yes first John is the simplest Greek in the New Testament but that simple Greek can be so tremendously convicting I've taught Greek for years and years and years and led people through reading that and every time we get to First John chapter 2. and we translate and there's there's no question about what it means there's no issues about its grammar do not love the world nor the things in the world if you love the world the love of the father is not in you and man I wish it was more complicated than that I wish there was some textual variant I could refer to I wish there was some way I could get around that but it is black and white it is simple and it's straightforward if you love the things the world love the father is it not in you and man that's a sermon that hits me right between the eyes every single time I have to go through it so are we given great guidance of course but I would submit to you all of the Practical guidance that you find in first John requires you to understand what came in the law of God before or it won't make any sense it can't be separated out and when you go to Paul oh my goodness he's quoting from the Old Testament text all the time even in the midst of his practical exhortations to the Christian people as to how they are to live now I I really do think that in our modern day we use the the accusation of gnosticism way too much especially because I don't think 98 of the people who talk about other people being gnostics could ever Define what gnosticism actually believed gnosticism was a massively complex a variegated movement and unless someone is literally promoting like uh the protevangelium of James or the Gospel of Thomas or the the secret Gospel of John and things like that don't call a monastic because they probably Gnostic probably wouldn't even recognize what they were talking about but we do need to recognize that there are elements that the gnostics believed that still exists today you may be familiar with the man by the name I'm sorry I didn't mean to put you to sleep there brother um got to be careful my eyesight's not too bad I can actually see folks pretty good only back to about there after that y'all can yawn all you want I can't see you uh it's okay but up front I still got you gonna keep you all awake now aren't I oh yeah you don't want to be on YouTube because there's some guy around here with a camera he may come running down and get you you know oh he's the one yeah okay all right anyways what were we talking about oh yeah gnostics all right good it's always good to take a break before you get into gnostics because man it gets really really weird but there is a fellow by the name of marcione and you need to know about marciong uh church history Professor a moment here almost everybody in the early church who was anybody for about 200 years wrote a book against marcion it's how it's how you started your publishing work I mean have you written your book on Martian yet no you better get to it it was just everybody wrote a book against Marshawn that's how that's how deadly gnosticism was as an enemy of the early church and marcion helped the church to recognize and work through the issues of the New Testament Canon because he came up with his own Cannon and he threw a bunch of stuff out and he chopped up a bunch of Paul because there couldn't be anything positive about Judaism or the Jewish god in the New Testament because from his perspective the god of the Old Testament was a demi urge a lower creature that came out of the play Roma almost an abortion that survived and he despised to God the Old Testament so can you imagine how much editing of the New Testament you would have to do to get rid of anything positive about the Jews or about the God of the Old Testament he had a pretty mold New Testament and that was one of the things that forced the church to have to deal with okay what is the New Testament what is what are the boundaries what books are from the apostles and things like that so he did have a a role in that play but part of gnosticism was this distinction between the Flesh and the spirit and as a result the idea of an objective moral revelation that specifically would give guidance was simply not a part of anything that they would want to want to promote and so today we have a lot of people within evangelicalism who look at their Bible and they've never been taught this from the pulpit in the sense of it being enunciated but what happens and I'm speaking primarily myself and my own upbringing within independent fundamentalist Baptist background then into the Southern Baptist Church these things were communicated by example not by specific statement that this is what we believe but first of all there was a there was an incipient division between the Old and New Testament as to inspiration let's just be honest for a lot of Christians the Old Testament is a great storybook to keep the kids from going crazy during Sunday School they can draw lots of pictures of Daniel and the Lion's Den and David and Goliath and stuff like that but that's all it's really for if you want the real theology that's Romans and that's John not so much James but Romans and John and so you have a lowering of the authority of the Old Testament as a whole and certainly Genesis Exodus those are great great stories Moses yay but come on Leviticus Deuteronomy come on and the the prophets we really can't figure those guys out because we don't really know what the historical context was and so we just put all that stuff aside and you you have a canonical problem in the church but that leads to fundamental problems than the interpretation of the New Testament I don't know how anyone can make heads or tails out of the book of Hebrews if you don't know Leviticus chapter 16. and maybe that's why a lot of people don't even try to make heads or tails out of Leviticus right I mean how many people honestly just give up in their reading through the Bible in a year somewhere around Leviticus right it's not a how many people would say I you know I find Leviticus to be fascinating I'm so thankful for it no you don't hear that but you can't figure out what the argument of Hebrews is if you don't know what happened on the day of atonements notice I said plural because there was more of them than one on that day it's Central to the argument of the nature of Christ's priesthood and the nature of his atonement and the relationship of the father and the son in fact I would say to you the book of Hebrews has more intentional teaching on the nature of the atonement than the other any of the book of the Bible and yet it is it's a closed book to the vast majority of people because they don't see its Old Testament connections hey by the way Revelations same thing if you don't see the the background of the Old Testament in Revelation you can make it say anything you want and that's exactly what we've done anyway this law that is written on their heart has to come from someplace and once you start looking at the New Testament scriptures and asking the question what am I to do to please God you discover the New Testament authors are constantly quoting from the Old Testament to answer that question and so we're I I grew up with a sort of gnostic idea that was communicated to me without words to where I could read the 119th psalm okay um I went to the vacation bible school I remember one particular Vacation Bible School that we did it was actually my dad's church and I was really getting serious about my faith at that point in time but I was a young person I was like 12 maybe and we were we memorized uh sections of one of Psalm 119. I bet you everybody in here has at least something Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against see see we've all been there right we share that together and yet I didn't realize that Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem because you know Psalm 119 is an acrostic poem each one of those sections corresponds to each one of the Hebrew word Hebrew alphabet and each section begins with the same so all all of the first section and then bait the sex section gimmel all the way through and the author or authors of the 119th psalm ransacked the Hebrew language to use every possible word for law testimony word you've got memra and davar and and Amar as you they had to because you had to include it in each one of your sections I had an Old Testament Professor once and said I'd love to meet the the guy that gave this assignment um to a class of Hebrew students uh long long ago uh and they they came up with 119 some I'm not sure how that's I don't think that's how it came along but that's how he thought it was how it came along and they ransacked the Hebrew language for words for Law and commandment and way and and everything else and I would read that and I would just have this Bland idea of Bible and so I love my Bible that's what the 119 Psalm is about 119 Psalm says I love your Commandments teach me your ways open my mind to understand your word it's so much deeper than just simply going yeah I should read my Bible once a while that's not what it's saying and it struck me eventually shouldn't I as a New Covenant Believer indwelt by the Holy Spirit I have Romans I have Ephesians I have the light of the cross the light of the open Tomb shouldn't my love of God's scripture and his ways and Commandments be so much farther than even whoever it was that wrote the 119th psalm he didn't have anything comparison to what I have I mean even with the Old Testament even with the Hebrew scriptures I love one of my favorite texts in all of scripture is the trial the false gods in Isaiah 40-48 I mean you can learn so much about Yahweh by reading Isaiah 40-40 you know why because God's putting the false gods on trial and so he says he puts them in the witness chair and says okay you do this you tell me what's going to happen in the future you tell me what's happened in the past and why it happened and they can't answer because they're not real Gods but what are you learning in the process you're learning the unique unique things that actually Define God as God some of the deepest theology you'll ever find will be found in Isaiah whoever wrote Psalm 119 didn't have Isaiah they pretty much had the pentateuch maybe some of the some portions of the historical books maybe job I don't know that may be very very old we don't know we have so much more but I never had I never heard anyone saying think about what it was like for this writer to say open my heart and my understanding that I may have the guidance of your law how did we get to the point where in most churches today you go to a Bible study class and everybody sits around and says so what do you think about this text how do you feel about it not here is objective guidance from here is light for your path we walk in such a dark land today you need light to not stumble and fall and it's given to us but because of our traditions we're literally told you're not really as spiritual as the rest of us if you need something like the revelation of God's law if you're if you're sitting around meditating on the Holiness code well you must think that you're going to be made right before God by law keeping no anybody anybody who's listened to almost any of my debates read almost any of my books knows that I have spent a tremendous amount of time defending justification by faith the doctrines of Grace God's sovereignty and salvation uh the docs in the Trinity and by the way may I just mentioned because it was mentioned to me earlier once again I have never not once said anything positive held to preached or taught EFS eras or anything like that I've never held to those positions if you're not familiar with what they are you're probably better off not knowing what those things are Eternal functional subordination never held those Physicians it's just so sad there are so many people running around today saying that's what it holds to it's uh when when it's the Brethren it's one thing I can understand when unbelievers go after you but once the Brethren to go after you sometimes you just you just wonder but you have to give it to the Lord anyway anybody who knows me knows that those some of those very first debates I did were on justification by faith how we're made right before God and it is not by obedience to law I know what Romans chapter 4 says to him who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly his faith is credited to him as righteousness and then Paul goes on to quote from psalm 32. and speak of the blessedness of the man to whom the Lord imputes righteousness in fact I just had the opportunity just a number of months ago I was asked to speak on the subject of Roman Catholicism Down Louisiana and a young some that's really funny this uh this obviously reformed or Baptist guy or Reformed Baptist guy or something had brought his Roman Catholic friend and so he brings him down front to talk to me and it's sort of like here here's here's here's Dr White sacrificial lamb here all right cool yeah I'm gone it's like stay here man don't just anyway uh we had a wonderful conversation and I asked him the same question I ask every Roman Catholic when I speak with them I said are you the blessed man Romans 4 8 blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin now Paul is interpreting that as the positive imputation of righteousness because of the context he's provided to but a Roman Catholic cannot answer the question based on Romans 4 8. if you have any room maybe there's maybe the Lord maybe there's someone in this group who's going to be talking to Roman Catholic this afternoon or you have Roman Catholic family members and you sort of run up against a wall maybe the only reason I've taken this exit here is for you I don't know but you need to understand in Roman Catholicism there is no non-imputation of sin if you commit a mortal sin it's imputed to you you lose the grace of justification you have to be readjustified if you commit a venial sin it's imputed to you you have to work off the temporal punishment of that sin that's why you go to purgatory there is no non-imputation of sin there is no situation Roman Catholicism where my sins are imputed to Christ his righteousness is imputed to me they reject that that was rejected by Trent Council of Trent dogmatically and so they cannot answer the question of Romans 4 8. if you want to see how that works go to YouTube and watch my debate or even the clips of my debate with Father Peter stravinskis we were debating purgatory and I asked him are you the blessed man this man has two phds from Ivy League schools and when I asked him based on Romans 4 8 are you the blessed man you know what his answer was first of all I said who is the blessed man and he said Jesus think about that one a second blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin is sin that's Jesus he had obviously never even thought about it this man was the editor of the Catholic answer had never even been faced with the question before so I gave him an opportunity I said I don't think that would be Jesus because it's talking about not imputing their sin to them so are you the blessed man and the sad thing was his only answer was well I hope to be I hope to be you see any believer who reads Romans 4 should understand every single Christian is the blessed man of Romans 4 8. that's what the gospel is all about and it's not about keeping laws so none of us are no theonomist worth is salt is actually saying to anybody you are justified by keeping God's law that was never the purpose of the law to begin with what we are saying is when you are justified by grace through faith God does not leave you to just simply go wandering about as to how in the world you're going to please God how you're going to order your life how you're going to respond to the world around you especially now that you have completely different priorities you have a clear Revelation from God as to what pleases him one of the one of the when I had the opportunity um to do that a sermon series uh through the the Holiness code one of the things that really struck me was I realized that what you have in Leviticus God has come to dwell with his people and they don't know what to do with them they don't know how to act with a holy God living amongst them and so a lot of bad things happen as a result you know they do things and a plague breaks out and thirty thousand die and things like that they need guidance as to how you are to live with the Holy Yahweh in the Tabernacle amongst the people and so God gives them that guidance what do we have now is there anything less holy living amongst us no the Holy One has now made us his Dwelling Place his Temple and are we going to be left without guidance no we haven't been left out guidance at all God has now taken that law which was external it was on tablets of stone and the promise of the New Covenant is I will write my law upon their hearts and so you can hear the psalmist who has been the recipient of God's grace open my eyes let me meditate upon your law let me understand your ways because he understood that's not something you just do once and then okay I got it we're good it's a daily thing it's a lifestyle thing and now we as Believers in the New Covenant who know Yahweh our sins have been covered that's been dealt with we're not talking about Works righteousness but we are talking about the fact that God has given us clear Direction now let me give you in just a matter of moments here because I'm going to be on time um how important is this well I've given you one illustration earlier but let's just be honest we live in a day where our society is clearly determined to openly detest everything that God's word says is good to openly do so I don't see how you can look at what's going on today with the attack upon our children the attack upon marriage the attack upon women I am viscerally sickened by a society that would say to me it is good and moral to look at Dylan Mulvaney and call that thing a woman I know what a woman is I've been married to one for over 40 years and that's guy is not a woman that's easy because we all feel that and if you're a man and you've watched your wife nurse your children you've watched her live a life into them to grow them into the people they've become today and then you see the world putting that Admiral dude or Bruce Jenner or the swimming guy I don't care who it is up on a pedestal and say that's a woman you know you're living in a day of absolute insanity and perversion but you have to have a foundation other than just your visceral feelings about it yes God's made us that way and yes those are proper feelings but we need to be able to say to our society here is where God's law speaks to this how many of you saw and this is getting to be a few years ago now but I had the opportunity I love to talk about because it was an amazing situation um I had the opportunity of being on the Dr Drew show back when it was on CNN how many of you saw that that's about 10 okay good you can go to sleep um real quick first I was on via Skype not even Zoom back then I was on via Skype on the Dr Drew show to talk about transgenderism that's not the way to do it you can't argue with anybody they can always talk over you it was terrible it was a waste of time but they called me back afterwards and they said we'd like to have you come back on I said well I'd like to but I'll only do it if I can come in studio well we can't fly you over my wife works fear lines I Can Fly for Free well we can't put you up don't worry we'll do we'll take care of that if you can get to the studio CNN in Los Angeles you can be in studio to have the conversation so okay let's do it so I walked through the Gates of Hell uh to um which is where you have to go uh to get to the studio um fighting through the demons and thinking about Pilgrim's Progress and it was interesting in The Green Room the the producer of the show literally I'm not making this up said now please be concise in your answers the studies of our audience shows that if any one person speaks for more than 15 seconds they will tune out tells you what's wrong in the world today doesn't it some of you saw it at one point I quoted Matthew chapter 19. I think that's part of God's law because God spoke it and God quoting from his own law uh as the Incarnate one said that the Creator from the beginning made them male and female he defined those things and said it was good and one of the dudes up there on the stage uh said well you know that's just that's just one religious leader we can't make that binding on everyone and my response to him was that same individual predicted his death burial and Resurrection he then died and rose again ascended on Highs at the right hand of the father and when you can pull that off we'll listen to you but till then we need to listen to him we have to have that Foundation we have to have that basis it can't just be my feelings it is an amazing thing to be able to say the Lord Of Glory the one who gives you every breath of your mouth and every beat of your heart said this obey him believe him we can't tell the world to do that if we're not doing it ourselves we can't that's why I'm a theonomist let's pray [Music] father we don't want to become enamored with certain terms or Traditions or movements but we do want to be your people who serve you and glorify you and are used by you even in these dark and difficult days so father we know we must begin with ourselves help us to be like the psalmist help us to love your law your testimony your ways Lord if we're truly your servants you've written your law Upon Our Hearts may we remove any encumbrances to being obedient to it in all aspects of Our Lives we pray in Christ's name amen foreign [Applause]

Channel: Right Response Ministries

Views: 7,470

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Id: QhBCjr6IDRI

Length: 55min 12sec (3312 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023