Live Free with Josh Howerton - James Talarico’s HERETIC Pastor Exposed in Undercover Video (Pastors RESPOND) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

In this episode of LIVE FREE, Pastors Josh, Carlos, and Paul unpack the Apostle Paul's final words in 2 Timothy 4 and his urgent warning about a time when people will reject sound doctrine and gather teachers who tell them what they want to hear. The conversation explores what it means to preach the Word, remain faithful “in season and out of season,” and know the gospel well enough to recognize when biblical truth is being distorted. The pastors also break down five common false teachings and react to a viral example of progressive theology that challenges foundational Christian beliefs about Scripture, Jesus, and the cross. In this episode: How to recognize faithful biblical teaching What Paul meant by “itching ears” Prosperity Theology vs. biblical blessing The dangers of Word of Faith Theology How Progressive Christianity redefines biblical truth Why works can't earn God's acceptance The danger of “Cafeteria Christianity” Why Jesus' death for our sins remains central to the gospel How to fight the good fight, finish the race, and keep the faith Stand firm. Think biblically. Live free. 💬 This week’s giveaway: Comment HAT 🧢 Want a Live Free hat of your own? Visit LiveFree.shop 📲 Looking to grow deeper in your faith? Check out the Lakepointe App to access our Discipleship Guide, daily Bible reading plan, and more. Text APP to 20411 to download

If you start with what people want, what people will listen to, and what people are attracted to, you're going to end up with churches where everybody's welcome by Jesus, and anything is accepted except clear Bible teaching. She said, Jesus didn't either save our sins. You can trust her word or you can just read your Bible. I meet so many people who live with the perpetual fear that they haven't done enough for God. That's right. It's not about what you've done for him. It's about what he did once and for all for you. Well, hey, Liffrey Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. free nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this.

We want to invite you to take a simple next step and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform and it's more than just watching a service. There are a live host in the chat, prayer team's ready to stand with you and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for for a place to start. Church online is a great way to jump in

and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend, and now enjoy the podcast. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free podcast. My name is Carlos Arraso, and today I'm excited because I'm here with Pastor Josh Howardton and Pastor Paul Cunningham.

Hey, you know why I'm excited? What's up, man? I shot an armadillo this morning. Oh. I was not expecting that. Is it illegal? It's not illegal to do that on your property, is it? Is it?

Google it? If it is illegal, this will be censored. I shot an Armadillo this morning. With a rifle? No, so with my Glock. Oh, okay. Cap, cap. He's been messing with.

On your property? Yeah, dude. No, no, I just went out hunting for Armadillo. Maybe you're from Louisiana. Sorry for all our people. Well, we were hungry for breakfast. Did he mess with the flock? He messed with the flock.

He got the Glock. Okay, there you go. Oh, man. Was this your first time shooting in Armadillo? Yeah, it was. Oh, okay. Yeah. Dude, he bounced around?

I don't know. I'm not going to. Have you ever seen that? They call it the Armadillo jump. Have you guys seen that? It's a thing. Kim's seen it. Okay.

That's a thing. If you hit, why are we talking about this? Sorry, I didn't mean to go on a row. We're going to talk about the Bible. Yes, we are. Well, we're going to have a good episode today. It's going to be a good episode.

Because now that we know that you have shot an armadillo. I did. Andy the Armadillo. And it jumped. You, man, you threw me off over here. We're going to talk about multiple things. Hey, chapter four of Second Timothy. We are in week number eight of Fight the Good Fight sermon series, which has been really fun.

One of my favorites in a long time. You've done a great job bringing the word. We're going to be debunking one of the most or some of the most common Christian heresies out there. Five. Yeah. We're doing five, right? Five. Five.

Five. So we're going to do five most common Christian heresies. We're going to be very careful to define what heresy means. Some of them among prosperity gospel. Yeah. Yep. Maybe name it, claim it. Yes.

Okay. Okay. Some of them are things that people have been influenced by and they don't know they've been influenced by. That's right. Exactly. That's right. So, yeah. We're going to be also reacting to this viral video of James Tilarico's pastor.

Pastricks. Pastricks. Pastricks. Saying that Jesus did not die for us since, actually. Speaking of Pharisee. Sometimes you actually just see a Bible verse, like, float on your screen. I like, bro, there's a lot of, I just saw a lot of Bible verses and the bad ones. We'll get to that in a second.

It's going to be interesting. Hey, we just came off of a. huge celebration. Pastor Josh, would you please tell us what happened? Dude, I've never seen anything like it. I still haven't gotten the numbers. I think when it's all said and done, I'm going to go out on a limb. I'm going to go out of a limb. I think this weekend, we will have ended up baptizing well over 800 people. Just this weekend. I never seen anything like it. And I do want to say, I think it was Jonathan Edwards who talked about how when people are in the middle of a revival, a lot of times they don't know it.

because they treat holy things like they're common. I just want to remind everybody, like if you're part of Lake Point, that ain't normal. That ain't normal to baptize 800 people in a weekend. And we ain't this good. That's a big deal, man. Glory to God.

And it's not just a number. These are real people. Can I share like a couple super quick, two stories? Please do. Trina, can you pull out the younger kid? There you go. So he is Endron. And his story is that at some point,

he asked Lake Point Dad if he could date his daughter. And Lake Point Dad said, no, you need to come to church with me. And so when he invited him, he said, Good job, Lake Point Dad. Shout out. Shout out.

Unsafe kids can't date my daughter. Nope. That's right. So he said, no, I don't want to go to church. And then months later, a friend of Endron, he invited Endron to come to church. And then turns out it's the same church that he was already invited to.

So he went to church, eventually got saved, got into root it. got baptized recently at Firewheel and is now serving with students. Boom! So let's go. Wait, but is he dating the daughter? We shall find out. Stories ongoing.

We shall find out. He's probably watching this right here. So would you please let us know in the comments section? And we'd love to find out. Here's one more. This is from Roy City campus. This right here is Ethan right there getting baptized. So Ethan and his wife were not attending church.

He randomly found the Roy City campus gets plugged in, started serving in production. And at some point during Baptist and weekend recently, He had a conviction, man, I've never been baptized before. And so he said, hey, I want to get baptized. So somebody on our team said, let me get you a shirt. He says, no time. We got to do it now.

Bro, I love it. So he just, like, ripped off his cowboy boots. That's the Ethiopian unit. There's some water right now. Jumped into the water and then got into Rootid and recently he also had the privilege of baptizing his wife as well. So shout out to Ethan. So again, these are, we have literally thousands of stories. Praise God for that big celebration.

Bro, that's the same. By the way, I just want to clarify that guy's not a unit. I just want to say, I just want to, that I know. I wasn't confused, but I'm glad you cleared it up. That I know of. Good clarification. No, wait. Can we do a secondary celebration that is not as important or good as baptizing 800 people in one weekend?

What do you got? We got to celebrate the Phil Pantheon-Madishal episodes. Bro, come back. Dude, first of all, it was such a great episode. I love being there with you. Where were you? Oh, no, he wasn't there. Why were you there, bro?

It was such a brother, presence of God in the room It just fell. Paul, do you remember, uh? You were supposed to be there. Sorry, go ahead. So, by the way, I just, let me just get this in here. The new Paul's never been to Israel joke is Paul wasn't there for the Philip Anthony Mitchell episode.

Like literally right before you're filming, I get a call from my daughter's school saying she is throwing up. And I was like, uh, my first opportunity, my first responsibility is to dad. but I'm not going to go. I was a little disappointed. Pastor Philip, if you're listening or watching this, please come back as soon as you can. Please come back as soon as we can. This joke will not be long ago. No, we need this joke, let me just celebrate it real quick.

So first of all, let's just go to that first one. You know, I mean, we're always celebrating a Protestant cast Reformation Day. Come on. Right. So anytime we get Father Mike, we got to celebrate it. By the way, we love our Catholic friends. We love you. This is a sibling rivalry. This is fun.

But any time we get Father Mike, for the next. number one spot. We got a so way. And then, dude, so then this morning, I think it was Sabrina back here texted this. So on overall podcast globally pumped up this morning, we were at number six. I just want to say we're one spot away from Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan. Okay. So then this is like the Live Free Team text thread. This is what we're showing you. So then somebody says, oh, we're one away from Joe Rogan. Then somebody texts this picture. Which I can't unsee. I will never unsees nervous Joe Rogan. He's been pretty silent.

Ever since that episode dropped. He has been pretty silent. Joe, if you're listening, you're a friend, and we'll love to hang sometime. And then, I'm going to have some fun banter even more. Then, this is last night, go to the next one. So this is top trending podcasts in the globe. It's crazy.

On planet Earth. And we passed Joe. So I just, I want to point this out. This is on episodes, that one episode. So I just want to point this out, man. Like, glory to God. Glory to God. For at least one day, two dudes talking about Jesus surpassed Joe Rogan for most trending podcasts in the world.

And then hilariously, I'll give you another Sabrina meme. Sabrina, you remember the meme of The Shining where it's Jack Nicholson getting ready to, you know, obviously, none of us have ever seen that movie. I've never seen it. Obviously, you should never see that movie. Ever. Yeah. But there's a meme that we're all aware of. And where he's coming through the, here's Johnny through the door.

Yeah. Sabrina sends this, boom. That's hilarious. We burst through the door. So, that's amazing. Man, again, what I want to celebrate is for at least a day. Two dudes talking about Jesus Christ beating Joe Rogan for the most trending podcasts in the world. The tide is turning. The tide is turning.

I didn't plan on it. Can I share a story or two? Please do. Because even connecting it back to the baptism thing, we celebrate the numbers and we celebrate that. Unashamedly, because like you said, we want to get the word of God and help people develop a Christian worldview. And unashamedly, we want to do that for as many people as possible. But what encourages the three of us and all of our team behind the scenes the most is the stories we get. That's right.

And I could tell countless. I get them every week. But I got to meet actually a guy in our lobby this past weekend. He was coming down from El Paso. He was in town for work. But he told me he was like one night, he went to bed praying that God would kill him. because he didn't want to face another day. And he's asking that God would take his life the next day.

And the next day, he turns on YouTube and finds our podcast. And literally says, your podcast saved my life. Now, we know, we know that he believes that God ultimately saved his life. But God used this to speak truth, and him and encouragement into his heart. And so he just came up to me this past weekend and gave me hug. I could tell others. I mean, there was one person who reached out on social media where she said,

I was deep into New Age thought and practice and had all these questions and rejections of the Bible. but actually is watching you guys that filled my life with biblical truth and now I'm a believer. You get stories like that and that's why it matters. I just always want to connect people. It's like it's not simply about a number of ranking.

It's because we know that the more that we can reach people the Word of God, the more it will change them. And so that's what we want to celebrate. The ranking comes and goes. The Word of God remains forever. Boom. That's right. Bro, can I actually kind of do this?

I've been wanting to do this for a long time. I'm not being weird. You got a smile on your face like once you're going to do. This is like an actual. By the way, you never know what can happen. This is like an actual spiritual thing. I want to make a church history observation. Howard, the other Howard and my buddy, Jason Howard in over here.

This is not related to me. We've talked about this. So, dude, I got a theory on, and I'm going to zoom out and do a little church. We're going to do church history nerd thing for a second. I got a theory on something. Okay, so just go with me on this. Here's my theory. Virtually every great awakening and revival in history is preceded by

some new mechanism or technology being leveraged for the spread of the gospel. So, bro, I want you to think about this. So I'm going to connect some dots real quick. All right. So first of all, yeah, I'm going to make two points. Okay, just check. So first of all, you have the Great Awakening. That's Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield.

Listen to these dates. Like, just try to keep these in your head if you're listening. First Great Awakening, 1730 to 1740 is when they date it. Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield. Okay. Second Great Awakening, typically dates 1790 to 1850. That's Haystack Revival and Conteastern. Shout out Kentucky, that's where I'm from.

That's Charles Finney. That's Father Nash, all this stuff. Okay, third great awakening, 1910, 1910. That's D.L. Moody. I think New York businessman's revival is somewhere around that time. And then, bro, you fast forward again. Jesus Movement, Billy Graham, Crusades, all that stuff. The dates for that are typically 1960 to 1975.

All right, now, this is where mys start sweating a little bit. I'm going to point out two things. One, basically every revival in American history has been spaced almost exactly 50 years apart. Watch. So first grade awakening, 1730, 1740, fast forward 50 years. Second grade awakening, 1790, 1850.

Fast forward 50 years. Third grade awakening, 1900 and 1910. Fast forward exactly 50 more years. 1960 to 1975, Jesus Movement, Billy Graham Crusades. Carlos and Paul, if you fast forward 50 years, from about 1975, you know where you're at? You're about 2025, 2006. Now, this is really fascinating to me. Think about this. New technology being leveraged for the spread of the gospel.

All right, check this. I did this little homework this week. So the Protestant Reformation comes right on the heels, literally 50 years after the invention and mass production of the printing press. So for the first time in history, Catholic Church, sorry Catholics, they can't contain like a doctrinal rebellion for the first time in history. First Great Awakening, George Whitfield, he mass popularizes the concept of outdoor preaching and advanced marketing. Nobody had ever done that before. So for the first time in church history, he's getting ready to roll up in some little town up in Connecticut or wherever he is. And for the first time in history, thousands of people know he's coming.

So he can preach to 20,000 people in a field. That never happened before. So new technology, okay? Third Great Awakening, D.L. Moody, that's right after the mass production of newspapers. Yeah. That had never happened before in human history. Then, bro, you go even one more. Jesus Movement and Billy Graham Crusades.

So you got 1950, 1950, 1975 around right there, 196, 1975. Guess what had just happened? For the first time in American history, every homes got a TV and a radio. So for the first time, people are like, bro, there he is. And do you all just say this, when I look at stuff like that, and you got the number five trending podcast on planet Earth is about Jesus, dude, there's part of me this like, man, what if for the first time in human history,

we figure out how to leverage this thing of like the little stupid podcast world and all this social media stuff that I always used to think was real dumb? But now what you're seeing is you're seeing stories of dudes walking into churches going, I was going to kill myself, and then I turned on a dang podcast, heard about the love of Jesus for me. So all I'm going to say is 50 years, 50 years, 50 years, 50 years, 2026, you got a new technology. And here I'll just finish with this, Habakkuk 3-2.

Oh, Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work, oh, Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years, revive it. And in the midst of our years, make it known. In wrath, remember mercy. Do it again, Lord. Amen. Why not, man? Amen, that's right.

Why not? Amen. That's amazing. Now, let me, I'm going to pitch the ball back to y'all. You guys did a great episode last week without me. Thank you. Oh, thank you. You got a thought. What do you think, Carlos? Man, it was, Paul did a great job, by the way. That's what I heard. He did a great job. Amazing. But there's one thing that I wouldn't

get to get in there, but, you know, I wish somebody would have taught me this when I first started reading the Bible. Right now, we're getting thousands of people reaching out saying, hey, I'm a brand new believer. I've never read the Bible, and I want to start. And they're asking questions like, how do you, how do I start reading the Bible? Where do I even start? So let me do something real quick. Let me help you for this. So if you're that guy, if you want to know who Jesus is, read the book of John. If you want to go deeper in your identity in Christ, read the book of Ephesians.

If you want to learn how to live in holiness in a culture that is godless, read the book of 1st Corinthians. If you want to have wisdom in life, read the book of Proverbs. If you want to know the origin of the universe and understand why everything is so broken today, read the book of Genesis. If you want to understand the gospel and you want to know what should I believe as a Christian today, read the book of Romans. If you want to understand life without God and why it is meaningless without him, and even if you achieve success, status, popularity, and more, and still, if you don't have God, life will be meaningless, read the book of Ecclesiastes. If you want to learn how to find joy in the midst of your suffering, if you're going through something difficult right now, but you are striving for joy in Christ, read the book of Philippians. If you want to hear how the church started initially and how the Holy Spirit empowered the church do the supernatural things that were done at the time, and we still see those things. Read the book of Acts.

If you want to learn how to put your faith into practice, not just say that you believe something, but actually live it out. Read the book of James. If you want to learn how to pray with honesty, if you're going through something difficult and you want to learn how to bring those emotions to the Lord in prayer, read the book of Psalms. If you want to see a brief preview of the future, of what will happen, and you want to learn. to hold on to a hope right now. Everybody's freaking out about what will happen, what could happen, but you want to hold on to the hope that in the future, Jesus wins. He is still Lord of Lord and King of Kings. Read the Book of Revelations. Here's the point. St. Jerome, who was one of the most famous theologians at the time, I think it's AD 300, who, by the way, translated the Bible to

Latin. He's someone who wrote the Latin Vulgate because he wanted other people to have access to it. He said this. He said, the scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for a theologian to swim in without ever touching the bottom. Here's the point. You cannot read this book and not have it change your life. It will change you. Hope that helps. Boom. That's been a good episode, guys. I think we're hanging up right here. That's very helpful. That's funny. I'm reading Charles Spurgeon's biography right now. Literally last night, he basically has a riff on that Jerome quote. I didn't realize you just said it. Spurgeon's quote was nobody ever outgrows the scriptures, it widens and deepens with years.

Dude, it's so funny, man, because, like, you know, we've been studying the Bible. I've been studying the Bible now 30 years. And honestly, it's really weird. In some ways, I feel like I know it less than I did back then, because the more you study, it's like you realize how much you didn't know. And I'll shoot you straight. It's kind of exciting. Yes.

Because honestly, like, you get to this spot where you're like, I could plunge myself into this thing for the next 50 years of my life, and I'm still going to have some deep into the pool things that I get a saver. So I'm kind of fun, man. What I love about that, and this is true, by way, of God's word, but then also of God himself, theologians have you sometimes used this phrase, that God is infinitely knowable. And the idea there is that we can know God for who he truly is, but we will never know God fully for who he is because he's infinite. And that's not bad news. That's actually good news. It means that we can spend the right. rest of our lives come to know him through his work and never exhausted. But it also means that in

heaven, we will spend the rest of eternity coming to know God just a little bit more day by day. And that's a good thing. Because think about it, the analogy of sometimes they use is like, if you've ever fallen in love, I don't know about you guys, be like, well, I'm assuming you fall in love because you're married. I have very much fallen in love before. I preemptively said, but I was about to say I got the cart before the horse because I don't know about you guys, but what we do when Amy and our first, first starting to date and falling in love, so we just ask each other questions. And it's like the more That's where I was going with that. The more we came to know each other, my love for her and my appreciation and the joy deepened, the more came to know her. And it's amazing. That means the allegiance have said, your joy in God and your love for God will only ever expand for eternity because he's infinitely noble. And if that's true, if that's going to happen in eternity, why not start now by coming to know his word more every day? I'm excited again to the word. Hey, before we do it, that's a cool hat. Pastor Josh, if people are watching on YouTube and Spotify. Look at this guy. Live free, bro. Cool.

Live free. If you want that hat, you can get it. So you go to livery. I actually do think it's cool. I look like an idiot doing that. I actually do think is really cool. Text the word hat to 20411 or go to live free. That's shop.

Be really helpful because I personally pocket every dollar to become a millionaire celebrity pastor. So it really helped me. That's right. That's a joke. And you can also look as good as he does. Wait, can I just clarify because the internet will love that. I don't get a dollar.

Like, not one penny when you buy a hat. That just helps us fund the podcast. Jason said we're cutting all that out. And when you wear that hot, you not only look more like him, you also like your arms get a little bigger too. Oh, do they? Oh, wait, wait. Can I say one thing?

Wait, let's say one more thing. And then we're actually going to get into the word. You're welcome. You're welcome. We're going to get into the word. So when Philip was here, you know, at the end, I asked him to pray for me. Yeah, that was it. You saw this.

I asked him to pray for me. And he just instinctively reached out his hand, you know. He's like, hey, let me pray for you. Now, what was all? awesome is one of our team back there. It was very kind of them. They actually got a close up shot of this prayer moment. It was a close up shot. Here's a close up shot of a man, look at that. Wow. Wow. This is an actual we did the meme. That's exactly the same photo for sure. Yeah, that's awesome. All right. We're just going to be a doubt. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this, Pastor Josh. What are you

make it to the sermon. All right, a lot. I was waiting for you to allow it, man. Oh, wait, ask you again. Hey, can I ask you a question? Yeah. Why did I make it to the sermon? I will allow it. Okay.

Let's keep traditions, traditions. There you go. Let's keep it going. So this is a very emotional sermon to prepare for because what you're doing right here is you're preaching the final words, the Apostle Paul. It's really functionally what you're doing. Dude, actually, hey, Kim, I will actually get a sprite. Can I get a sprite?

Yeah, thank you. There was, so let me, let me, let me, let me, set this up real quick, because I'm just going to read them. And if you're listening, like, I want you to imagine when I read these final words. I want you to imagine this is your spiritual father. Let's say you're, and you're, let's say you're a guy or a girl, you don't even have, you don't even got a dad. And then the godliest man, this ever live, not named Jesus, just sort of steps forward. And he's like, hey, I want to be your spiritual dad. And what I'm going to, going to read here in a second are his final words he says over you. But, dude,

I want to, uh, do you know the story of Michael Carden, Bill Lane? I don't think so. Okay, I'm, So like, it is not often you see an actual representation of what the Apostle Paul did. All right. So now, I'm an 80s baby, but the 90s made me. So for anybody that, Carlos, you're not going to understand any of this. Just roll with me. Back in, way back in the late 1900s when, you know, we rode dinosaurs to school. And this guy right here, will you go ahead and show that picture of this guy?

This guy right here was the most famous musician. Yeah, that guy right there was the most famous Christian musician in the world. Doesn't exactly look like a rock star. No. Do you know who that is? Oh, actually, I already said it. You know who that is, Paul? No.

That's Michael Card. Okay. The name's Michael. Bro, where were you? Come on, bro. I know, I'm just like six months younger than you. I guess I totally missed it. He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

All right. We were a Stephen Curtis Chapman family. Oh, yeah, yeah. All right. So here's a story. Christian artist. Yeah, Christian artist. Absolutely blew up.

Four million albums sold. 19 number one hits. Like the guy, he grew up. rushed. Michael Card later in his life wrote a book. Show that book real quick. It's about an 80-page book. You can literally read it in one setting. It's called The Walk. Okay. All right. Now, check this out. So, and I got a point to this. We're actually, I'm taking you into the scriptures. So Michael Card tells the story. He goes to Western Kentucky University in Bowling Creek, Kentucky. Either he's a baby Christian or something like that. And there's a professor there. The guy's

name was Bill Lane. He's a Christian professor. Michael walks into his office, asking a question by the Bible, and Bill Lane just says this. He says, take a walk with me. Michael Card's freshman year, he starts taking one walk per week with this older senior saint, godly man named Bill Saint. And for the next six years of Michael Card's life, they take a walk every week, and a godly man who's a spiritual father to Michael Card just walks with him, talks about Jesus, talks about the Bible. All right. That's real cool. It affects Michael Carr's life. Then Michael Card moves away from Bowling Green and many years pass.

Fast forward many years. Michael Card is now a guy that sold 4 million albums. He's had 19 number one hits. And he and his wife, they're grown. They live in Nashville. And Bill Lane is across the country at Seattle Pacific University. Michael Card gets his phone call from Bill Lane one day. and Bill tells Michael, hadn't talked to him in a long time, and he says, Michael, I just received a terminal cancer diagnosis.

And I just want to call you and tell you. And Michael thought Bill was calling to say goodbye. And Bill said, no, no, no, that's not what I'm calling. Bill said, no, what I'm doing is me and my wife are moving back to Nashville to be close to you. because the greatest act of my discipleship of you is about to begin. And then he said, I now will show you how a Christian man dies. And he spends the last time of his life taking more walks with Michael Card, showing him how a Christian man dies.

Now, when you get to 2 Timothy chapter 4, many years ago, the apostle paul saw this kid uh named timothy and do you know what he did he looked at little timothy and he said timothy walk with me and for the next 15 years the apostle paul walked an estimated 3,000 miles with this little kid fatherless kid named timothy changed his life what you have in second timothy chapter four remember this one of the last things paul does is he tells Timothy, come to me quickly. He says, I know I'm going to die. Come to me quickly. And what the Apostle Paul is literally saying to Timothy, is he's saying, Timothy, I will now show you how a Christian man dies. Now, before I read the final words of the Apostle Paul, because he deserves some honor,

reverence, glory here, it is the responsibility that we do not talk about very often in the church. it is the responsibility of every Christian man and woman to show the people around them this is how a Christian man this is how a Christian woman dies and here's what I'll say that responsibility begins today we are right now careening towards our deathbeds and we want to be able to say like the Apostle Paul my life was poured out and it was worth it so with that in mind let me read this I'm just going to point out a few things of people probably probably wouldn't think about. The final words of the Apostle Paul.

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming,

this is going to sound familiar. when people will not endure sound teaching or sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. But as for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. for I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.

Now listen, listen, bro, if anything on earth you want to be able to make your final words to your son or spiritual son, verse 7 is it. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. And henceforth, there has laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. and not only to me, but to all who have loved his appearing. I just want to say this. Well done, good and faithful servant to the Apostle Paul. I'm sorry to say that. Now, let me just point out a few things real quick here, and this can be a weird couple minutes,

because Paul's talking to a preacher, and so I'm going to just take a second for people who are listening. There's a few things here that I want you to understand in the heart of your preacher, whether you go to Lake Point or any church, that hang off this. So let me just do a couple of things real quick. One, he starts going, I charge you in the presence of God in Christ Jesus. What he's doing is he's going, hey man, you remember who you're working for. And I just want to remind people of this,

because sometimes people can be real hard on pastors. They can be real hard on them. There is a danger for pastors, and if you're a fellow pastor, I want to warn you of this danger, that especially with kind of this like a movement that has some really good things in it but maybe a couple things could have been different called the attractional church movement. The danger that pastors have is they'll get into this thing it's like the first thing in their head

is I'm trying to attract the people, attract people, attract people. Well hey man, you remember this like, hey dude, I'm not preaching for people. I'm not standing before people. I charge you in the presence of God and Christ. I'm working for God. And if you're not careful, Brian, And we're going to talk about here in a second.

Chad G. Paul C. He's going to talk about like five common American heresies. And basically, I'm going to tell you this. Almost every single one of them, they begin with a Bible teacher who forgot the fear of God. And he forgot that the person who he's working for more than any people are Jesus Christ himself. Okay. Because if you start with what people want, what people will listen to and what people are attracted to, you're going to end up with churches where everybody's welcome but Jesus and anything is accepted,

except clear Bible teaching. So I just want to, like, man, whether you go to Lake Point or you go to any other church, I just want you know this, I'm not preaching for you. I'm preaching to you. I'm not preaching for you.

Your pastor's, he's preaching to you. He's not preaching for you. He's preaching for God. Okay. And what you got to do is a preacher is if you preach the word of God, the word of God attracts the presence of God

and the presence of God will attract the people. You just preach the word, man. So he says that. Then, and I'm not, this is going to be a little bit weird. Then he goes, hey man, you know, preach the word. I will just say this.

People ask us a lot in comments when we get these emails like, hey, man, how do I know if I'm in a good church? You know, how do I know, you know, we actually got a pod coming out soon. How do I know I'm at a good church or whether I should leave? There's a lot you could say, honestly, man, number one, are they preaching a word? Yeah. Are they preaching the word? Okay.

Now, listen, are they preaching the word? Not somebody's opinion, not a TED talk, not four jokes and three stories and one verse in a poem? No, no. is that man opening that thing the sword of the living God and choosing violence like honestly that's like

how I think I'm like I'm going to open that thing I'm going to choose violence the Bible calls itself a sword for a reason and is he preaching of word and I'll just dude I'm going to defend

I'm going to defend and encourage pastors a couple times in this in this pod if you're a pat here's a deal man the world has an unspoken agreement with pastors

if you take it easy on us we'll take it easy on you and the second you start opening that book and you are willing to preach the entire word of God what the apostle Paul calls the whole council of God. If you start doing that and you start choosing a little violence every now and then, I'm going to warn you right now, all hell will break loose. But so will all of heaven. So the question you're asking is, man, like, okay, am I not a good church? Are they preaching the word? Okay. No, they're not preaching some of the word. Are they preaching the word?

So I'm going to give you, actually this is weird. Just go with me here, Carlos. This is not on our little game plan. Like, I'm going to give you one, two, three, four, five. I'm going to give you five. I'm going to give you five tests. If you're sitting in a church and like, man, how do I know if they're preaching a word?

I'm not saying this is all you could say. I'm saying here's five little things to watch out for. Okay, now here's why I say this. There's a quote that's attributed to Martin Luther. That's fire. Martin Luther supposedly said, you probably heard this before. The if I professed with a loudest, yeah, okay. It's true, Martin Luther.

If I profess with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except that one little point, which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I might be professing Christ. Wow. Listen, where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. And to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that one point. So, bro, that's fire.

That's fire, bro. Injected into my veins. Wow. All right. Now, listen. So I'm going to give you five tests. Because, like, what can happen is you can be in a church where somebody opens. the book and they read a verse.

We're actually going to, we're going to show a video at the end of like an actual heretic who they do. They open the, they open a book with leather on the edges of it and they read verses, but they are actually explaining, I'm going to talk about this more in a second. Bro, here's your, I'm not going to give it away yet. Yeah, okay.

So here's what you're asking. Here's five tests. And don't get too legalistic on this. You got to give grace, like give the benefit of the doubt. Look for the way. ways where, oh, bro, I can see how they were doing that. Like, I hate, it's the most annoying thing ever when everybody starts interpreting all the pastors in the worst possible light and then shooting people who don't does this.

It's dumbest, like we literally have Bible verses. Watch out that you do not bite and devour one another. Like these are like literal Bible. So quit doing that stupid stuff. But I will say, here's like a couple tests. Okay. So are they flinching at the points that are going to get you a little hot water? So there's obvious things.

If you walk into a church, especially in the Northeast or in Austin, and there's a pride flag or a BLM flag, like, run. Just get your kids out, get you know, everybody, just run, just run. Okay. Here's test number two. Is the gospel clear? And here's what I mean by that. Listen real close. You're not hearing like, I'm kind of a mistakeer in need of a life coach.

You're hearing, no, no, you're a sinner in need of a savior. And real, real good news. Jesus is better at saving than you aren't sinning. You know, like, you need to hear, like, is the gospel clear? You're a wretched, blackhearted sinner. Jesus is a really awesome savior. Yes. If you don't get him, you're going to hell.

Like, give me a little fire and brimstone, but with a heart that doesn't want you to end up there. That's what you're, okay. Number three, this is, like, I'm doing things where it's like, these are the spots on the battlefield, okay? Are they clear on gender, marriage, and sexuality? Like, if you start, here's what you're watching out for. if you start noticing anytime they hit a passage and they're talking about gender marriage and sexuality listen real close and they're actually not explaining what the word says they're explaining away what the word says bro the number of sermons you listen to and they get to that stuff and the sermon is actually explaining away what you just read and not explaining what you just read bro be having more often you think yeah so are they clear on gender marriage and sexual

Okay. Number four, do this. Now, just go with me. Just don't rage at me in the comments until you hear what I'm going to say. Here's what I would just gently say, are they willing to pastor the women? And dude, here's why I say this, okay? Now, just go with me. All the caveats, men and women are equally sinful. No one is like men and women equally sinful, all the things. But I'll just tell you from experience. When you pre, you know, I did that whole eight week series a few years ago, like, man, you can get up and open that book and yell at men and beat them over the head and, you know, get your acting. Like, you can go hard at dudes. And it will get you clap emojis and fire emojis and your sermons will get shared a billion times. What can happen, by the way, what is one thing that is very different about Lake Point is Lake Point women are the opposite of this. They are the opposite of this. It is a huge gift. In fact, I'm a brag on this. The most viewed sermon I have ever preached at Lake Point is four signs of a god, four traits of a godly woman.

I think that's what's called on YouTube. Because the women of Lake Point, listen, here's my thing. I refuse to rob the women of my church of the discipleship they need to become everything God wants them to be. So here's what I'm saying this is what can happen for pastors. You preach a sermon to dudes. You get all the cheering. you give even a gentle admonition to some churches, ladies, and you just better buckle up,

you're going to catch it in the teeth for the whole week. So I think you just need to go, man, are they willing to pastor everyone and confront the sins of everyone? I think that's a legitimate question. Last thing I say here is here's your last little test. Actually, two more. There's a, I call on there's two types of sermons. There's come and live sermons,

and those are the, you know, Jesus is the water of life and be encouraged, fulfill your calling, the Lord is for you. And then there's go and die servants. Go pick up your cross, amen. Do you not be surprised of the world hates you. I came to a conviction a few years ago when I was preaching through Jesus warning about the end times where he goes, and you will be hated by all,

you will be hated by all men for my namesake. And it was like legitimately a point of conviction where I was like, oh, I have not done a good job preparing my people to be hated by all men for his namesake. So ask yourself the question, am I only hearing come and live sermons, or am I also getting the come and die sermons because those are in a book two? I think that's one. Last few things here. Do they call sin sin? Yes.

Not a struggle. not an illness, you know, here's what you're watching out for. In our culture, what people do today, sin is called sickness, so we think it just requires therapy, not repentance. So you will sometimes see this where it's like, actually, you're just always the victim and it's an illness, and it's like, ah, well, actually you're the villain. You need to repent.

You're broken. And even like it's in the passive tense, so someone else broke you. So we got to address what other people. And what stuff is, bro, sometimes that's true. It's true, too. It does not have been either or, but that's where the significant accent is on now. The emphasis is on that. The biggest problem in your life, and I know this is tough, man, and I say this with like a gentleness in me because of how deeply some people have been hurt by evil people. The biggest problem in your life is not that somebody else hurt you, is that you hurt Jesus.

And you are estranged from the living God, and you need the gospel and a savior. So do they call sin, sin? And then, you know, last thing I already said is just listen close. When they read tough parts of the word, are they explaining it or are they explaining it away? Any other thoughts there? Any other comments before I move on here? What do you got, Paul? I think it really just to come around on something you said at the beginning.

As you're doing that, you use these appropriately in the sense of whatever church you're at, or if you're maybe new to an area and you're going around and trying to find your church, look for overall patterns. And so in other words, it's not that every week they have to do all of those five or six. I don't. It's more just look like I like to, even I did a teaching for our worship team a week or two ago just on a theology of worship. And we were talking to my, man, like Christian worship, I'm going some more with this, should be Christian. In other words, man, it should be Trinitarian shaped.

It should be gospel influence, all those things. And the point that I kind of made with them that I'd say the same thing as people were evaluating preachers is like, hey, over the course of eight or preachers is like, hey, over the course of eight or people hear the gospel, would they get the idea that God is Father, Spirit. So in the same way in all those things is like, man, think over the course of eight to ten weeks. Are you hearing those kinds of things consistently? So that's just, I think that's both a good way to say, hey, man, like to make sure you're at the right church that's preaching the word faithfully. But also, we don't want people to go into the other ditch, which is becoming hypercritical of every single sermon. We will excommunicate you from Live Free Nation if you become that jerk, the jerk for Jesus that ruins every church because

it's like, that's not our thing. Don't do that. So that's just the one, I just stay on the road. don't go into other those two ditches. Yeah, and we get people come and speak very highly of Lake Point and, you know, speak very highly, obviously, of you, Pastor Josh. But again, just to emphasize that, I think it is interesting for me coming from a different culture in a different country as well. I feel like here in America, man, the honor and respect for pastors is like zero. Like generally speaking, obviously, like when you just go on eggs and people are.

What's it? Give me the difference between South America. Yeah. I mean, there's at least like if you disagree with somebody, man, at least you got to recognize, man, that man is like trying to labor for the Lord. And there's some aspect of respect. I guess you could, maybe this is true in some aspects of like the black church or like, you know, some non-white churches, I guess. There's at least a level of like, man, let me at least call you with a proper title or some sort of like there's a deference to it. Default to honor.

Yeah. But here, boy, you go on X and like that one pastor that you have, you have no visibility over what they're doing, you're like taking shots. Like he's your best bud from college. And it's like, and I'm surprised. I'm like, man. Your greatest enemy from God. Or your greatest enemy. That's right. That's right. And it's just like no respect, no honor, no reverence.

And to me, again, a lot of these pastors, yeah, if you see somebody that is heretical, you call them out. But when you see somebody that you just maybe have a slight disagreement in their ministry philosophy, at least you should, in fact, I think that we have Bible verses, First Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 12 says, hey, respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and esteem them very. highly in love because of their work. I feel like when I was in college and then you get all, you start reading a bunch of books

and you think you know everything and you don't. Then you go to church and be like, oh, you're not preaching the gospel as you should. Right. Yeah, I did that. You got to repent for that. But so don't be that guy. And show them grace, man. The pastor is hard.

Yeah. It's not easy. It's difficult. It's a little difficult. It's a little bit. So a lot of, and again, a lot of these pastors that, you know, they're figuring it out. That's right. We're learning.

We're all learning here. Yeah, dude. Yeah. Man, it's a good word, that's a good. I'm glad you said that, dude. So the big headline is, chill out, bro. Chill out, bro. A couple other things. That should be your next post on X. Chill out, bro. All caps. Let me just say a couple other things. He talks about priest's a word in season and out of season. And man, I will just say, you know, it's really interesting. When you go, Jan and I have spent a little time in Europe. And, you know, in season, out of season, like there's some seasons where it's like, man, it's a little easier to grow a tomato than another season. there's some seasons, there's some soil where it's a little easier to grow a coconut tree.

They call those palm tree than so. So what Paul's saying is, man, there's going to be sometimes some places where, hey dude, you can have all the right fertilizer, you can be doing all the things, you can give it all your energy, you can water it on the right schedule, and bro, you can get very little fruit. There's going to be some seasons like that. You know, if you go to Europe, like we just talked about Martin Lutheran Protestant Reformation. You go to Germany. I look this up this week.

There was a time where the greatest. revival in the world was happening in Germany. Today, it's 1.7% Bible believe in Christian. We preached through Revelation 2 and 3, letters to seven churches. That was literally the global staging ground for the move of God in the entire world in the first century. Today, you're going to go there, you're going to see minarets and mosques. It's less than 1% Bible believe in Christian. And, you know, you're so different things. What he's saying is, hey man, don't matter. Like, you just keep doing your thing. Maybe your workplace. looks a little different, feels a little different.

That's all right. In season, out of season, you just keep being faithful. A couple other things I'll say, and dude, let me just, yeah, man. Let me get one last thing here. One of the great questions of this passage is how can a man who spent more than half of his life hating God, murdering Christians, and blaspheming Christ, how can that guy say, you know what? I fought a good fight. I ran a good race.

And dude, I actually, this is like my favorite part of the passage. What some Christians will do, this is a great little watchout. What some Christians will do is they'll mess up, that stuff in their life, or people who are not Christians, they'll go, man, you know what I need. I need a second chance. And you honestly, and well-meaning Christians, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm talking about he's the God of second chances. And in one sense, I kind of get what you're saying.

But in another sense, I'm like, bro, you don't need a second chance. Like if he gave you a second chance, you're going to screw that one up to. You know, out of the frying pan, into the fire, you know, out of the food addiction, into the porn addiction, you know, whatever it is. You're going to screw that one up too. You don't need a second chance. Here's the analogy I like to use. We have, I got three very, very smart kids.

Not all of them are awesome at math. Okay. If I gave, and I'm not saying she's the one. But if somebody put a calculus two exam in front of my, my 15-year-old Eliana. Right? I'm just going to tell you, it don't matter how many chances you give her.

She's not going to do it. She's not going to pass that test. She's going to fail, fail, fail, fail, fail, no matter how many chances you get. So listen, listen, listen, listen. I love this. What she doesn't need is the second chance. What she needs is a substitute.

She needs somebody. She needs somebody who can walk in the room and say, hey, get up and let me take that test for you. and sit down and they can ace the thing. And what Jesus Christ did when he came to this planet is he looked at all of us screw-ups, all of us rough around the edges. There's guys that are listening to,

you're behind some bars in a correctional facility. And he looked at us, and he was like, hey, man, it really don't matter how many chances I give you. You're going to screw that one up too. Why do you let me step in and take the test for you? And then he came and he lived the perfect life that we could not live, died the death that we deserved. And God made him, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that in him we might become the righteousness of God. So I got a buddy that

says it like this. He says, dude, this is so freeing. He says, in the Christian life, there are no second chances. There's just the blood of Jesus and from now on. Oh, wow. Wow. And what he's saying, dude, is so let's go back to the original question. How can a guy who spends more than half of his life murdering Christians and blaspheming Christ to get to the end of his life and say, you know what, man, fought a good fight, ran a good race. Well, here's why. Because the Apostle Paul could also say, I, the old me, have been crucified with Christ. Yeah. And it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Come on, man. That's awesome. Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. New creation. The oldest past and the newest come. Dude is the best. Last couple of things.

And then I want you to do five most comments because there are, there's why we're doing this. Bro, can I interrupt? Please. I was just notified right now over here on my fake headphones that we just surpassed Joe Rogan on iTunes. Bro. Did we really?

Right there. Literally during the vibe? Like right now. Hang it in the loo. Hang it in the loo. We're going to put it right here in the wall over here. Listen, wow. Go team Jesus go.

We prayed for this. We did. For the glory of God. For the glory of God. We're going to frame it. Some things only happen through prayer and fasting. This probably might be one of those. Boom. That's amazing. Listen, you know who gets a shout out there?

Live free nation. That's fine. Live free nation. You just toppled Joe Rogan for most listened podcasts in the world today. That's insane. That's insane. So let's keep talking about Jesus. So here in a second, you're going to do, I want you to do five most comments. and heresies in American culture.

There's a bunch of them that people may have actually been influenced by. They don't know it. Exactly. And we're going to give a bunch of caveats so you don't become a jerk for Jesus and start shooting people who don't need to be shot. That's right. That's right. But I do want to say this.

Hey, Live Free Nation, let's have fun with this and swing some elections in all seriousness. Midterm elections are obviously coming up in November. In the state of Texas, there's an estimated 16 million Christians, and the midterm elections coming up in November will be decided. by a predicted, actually about 300,000 votes. So what this means is if Christians do their job as salt and light in the world, good things really easily happen.

So what we've done at Live Free Nation is we actually built a website to help mobilize Christians to do our job as salt and light in society. So you can simply text the word vote to the number 20411. Text the word vote to 20411, and we have built a website all at our own expense to help Christians remember to vote leading up into the midterms because the number one reason that Christians don't vote, especially in midterm elections, is they just forgot. So with one text,

vote to 20411. You will get one text, which is a link to the website where you can put in your address. We do not keep any of the information and it will tell you where the polling location is for voting in your area, when to come, and what in your area you need to bring. Again, we keep absolutely none of the data and we will send you that text and then only one other reminder text right before midterms. So let's have some fun with this. Text vote to 20411 and we'll see what Live Free Nation can do. So here's the lead in to what Paul's about to do. So Paul says the so chat G Paul C is who I'm talking about. Now I'm talking about the Apostle Paul. So the Apostle Paul, he does this thing and he goes, hey, he goes, hey here watch out. Listen, listen, watch out.

The time's coming when people will not endure sound teaching. Most translations say sound doctor is the same word. But having, watch, itching ears, this is really helpful. He says having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. Okay, so itching ears.

Listen, here's the way Sam. He's saying, there's a type of person, and if you're listening to this right now, this could be you, and you don't even know it's you, and you need to make sure it's not you. Because if it's you, you're going to put yourself under Bible teaching that is going to be awful for you,

awful for your family, and if it's especially certain kinds of Bible teaching, it's going to lead your family to hell. So what he's saying is watch out. There's a certain type of person. They don't want the truth. They just want relief. So here's what he's going, itching ears.

You ever had like a real, like Carlos, did they have the, did you ever have chicken pox? Yeah, we do actually. And I actually had it. Oh, did you? Okay. Because now they got a vaccine and people don't give it. I guess the technology we didn't have at the time, I suppose.

But did you have it? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Literally everyone. No, no, no. No, no. Like this new generation, though, like my wife didn't have it. Kids these days.

kids these days What's wrong with the society? So, dude, when you got like a terrible, think about it, you got a terrible it's just like, it won't go away. Like your kids are not going to have it, right? No, they won't have it. They've got a vaccine now, I think.

So if you've got a really, really terrible itch, you'll like, you'll do anything to relieve the feeling. What he's saying is, you better watch out. Because if you let a desire that start as a foothold become a stronghold in your life and it becomes a chokehold. He's saying that desire will become so big in you, watch you'll eventually get to the spot where you don't want a preacher who tells you truth you just want a preacher who gives you relief from the feelings of guilt you have for satisfying

that sinful desire is going you better watch out because the time will come when in another epistle he says their god is their belly they glory in their destruction is what he's saying he's saying all they care about is their appetites and desires okay so then what people will do watch they'll say stuff like this and dude if you're doing this you're doing this I'm praying the Holy Spirit right now graciously in his love for you. Shows you that's what you're doing. So you can run, man, run,

and get somewhere where you can get the Word of God. What people start doing is they start going, I don't like that pastor because he said I was wrong. And I do like that pastor because he said I was right. Okay, well listen, bro, if that's you, you're not even looking for the truth. You're just looking for somebody who will tell you what you want to hear.

So what you're watching out for is watch, the order with which you listen to Bible teachers. It's about order. Itching ears, it starts with my desires, and you're willing to change what word you will hear to make your desires feel better. People who are like actual disciples, what they do is they start with what the word of God says,

and they let it change their desires to make them more godly. So there's this famous, and it's actually really, really mean. It's actually savage. There's this famous story about Tim Keller, who's hugging Jesus to shout out Tim Keller can't wait to come hug you in heaven where he tells a story

that's very savage where college students would come back you remember you know what I'm talking about college students come back from college and like man pastor I'm deconstructing my faith man pastor I'm just

I'm rethinking religion and God and Tim Kellel this is so savage Tim Keller would go oh let me ask you a question who you're sleeping with and he was like his point was like

Like 95% of the time. And here's his point. Their desire for a sin became so big that they were willing to change what word of God they were willing to hear. That's what Paul's talking about when he goes, the time's going to come when people won't put up with sound teaching. They'll have itching ears and they'll just go find whatever a Bible teacher will affirm whatever desires they have. And I'm just going to tell you right now, bro, I'm going to tell you right now. I don't care what weird, deranged, gross thing you believe, desire, and do. I don't care what it is.

You can find some Bible teacher on the internet somewhere who's got more degrees than Fahrenheit who will spend all their time explaining away what the Word of God says instead of explaining to you what the Word of God says. And if that's you, you have itching ears and you're not putting up with sound teaching. Now, Paul, why don't you tell us five itching year things? So here's what we want to do is we just want to help disciple people. Yep. I'm going to give a very strong caveat.

Yes. There is, the whole thing we were talking about earlier, there's more verses in the New Testament about, hey man, preserve unity. Watch out that you do not bite and devour one another, all the things. There is a difference between I disagree with that Christian on a doctrinal issue, and they're a false teacher, a wolf and a heretic. Those are different things. That's right.

So what we're going to do right now is five common. Do you want to use the word heresies? Is that the right word? Yeah, I was actually, I think it could be false teachings. And then within these, there could be like levels of heresy. Because I even think in a second, I'm going to kind of lay out what heresy is not and what it is. Thank you. And kind of just give some decavice.

Because I think, for example, I'll go ahead and say one thing. It's not. Not every disagreement amongst Christians is heresy. Heck no. It's like one thing that drives me crazy, for example, is like we got into this a few weeks ago in the podcast on Calvinism and Armenianism. And oftentimes I'll see them call each other heretics or false teachings. It's so stupid because there are certain things that faithful Bible-believing Christians have simply disagreed over because the Bible presents some tensions. And just because we disagree doesn't mean you're a heretic.

And so we've got to be really clear on that. But I'm going to give some caveats. But I think like what we want to do is, hey, here are five of the more common ones. It's not exhaustive and that we're not listing all of them. We're just giving five. And we could do an episode on each of these. So just notice we're walking through them. We can't give everything.

We're just going to kind of give some basics. But before I jump in, even to those, okay, if I give some more, some of the other caveats. Like, here's the thing. I say is false teaching is the broader category. You can have false teaching that is dangerous that you do want to avoid and run from. But if we say heresy, heresy is really more like, hey, they're attacking a level one issue. And a level one would be like, who is God, the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, the reality of the resurrection, or hey, if you disagree or teach false things on that, we have a different faith. It's not that we disagreed to, I mean, to agree to disagree. We have a different faith.

And it's a different level of error. That being said, do you guys actually know what the word heresy actually means? I actually don't. I have a theory. What's your theory? Heterodox. Okay. As opposed to orthodox.

Ortho means straight. Hetero means crooked. It can, but it also literally the original... This is not about that, Carlos. Well, actually, it's going to here in a minute. I read a book on heresy a wall back. That's what I said. Oh, all right.

Yeah. Did you really? I did. What was it called? Do you not remember? No, it was called. Heresy. By Chesterston?

By G.K. Chesterston? No, no. He said he wrote a book. No, no. I read a book. Oh, you know. I was like, he didn't remember the title of the book he wrote. Did he used A.I. No. I read a book. I did not write a book on heresy. I wrote.

Did you K. Chesternerden? Heresy? No, it was another feel like. Let me look up here. I'm going to quote him in a second name. A wonderful Catholic believer. He's a stud. No, it was Alistair McGrath. Oh, Alistair. Great guy.

Oh, Alster. My buddy Alster. Another one on heresy. Go ahead. Did you read that one? Yeah, yeah. No, it's good. It's good.

Okay. Of course he did. Wow, where have we gone? Okay. So literally, the original idea of heresy, it can just mean a choice of beliefs or a choice or I'm going to take something for myself. So the idea is instead of receiving what the Bible clearly teaches and what the church across all time and all over the world has consistently taught, I'm going to choose to adopt a different set of beliefs that either contradicts or distorts what the world. clearly says or Christian history clearly says. So that's the idea. Part also of heresy, really of any false teaching. I love how G.K. Cheshion once said, he says it's a truth that hides

all the other truths. So a big idea of false teaching of heresies, even when I go through some of these, I'm going to describe some of their beliefs. And some of them is because they actually take some truths from scripture, but then they either deny or distort the other truths that counterbalance it. So that's even another way to think of heresy is every heresy is an orthodox belief, a right belief that's lost its counterpoint. So in the early church, for example, on Jesus, it was like, some people were like, oh, he's fully God, but he wasn't really a human. He only appeared that way. So he was fully God, but they lost the counterpoint that held it in tension with each other. Same thing in these. And we're going through these, what kind of what I want

to do is basically, we'll list the, list the heresy. Then I think you, uh, we have a meme for each. Yeah, I think we have had a meme for each. Yeah, it's a secret talent of mine. Go ahead. So we'll list what I Did you create these memes? Some, because I got to find a good one. Really? So, well, we needed a good illustration for the pod. So I'm like, if you don't find it, you got to create it. I'm so impressed.

Amen. I guess, thank you for being impressed with my meme creating abilities. So for each of these, I want to list it. And then what I want to do is a few things. Number one, I'm basically going to say, hey, this is the core of what it believes after we show the meme, some distinctive marks and beliefs. And then I actually want to highlight, hey, here are some truths that it actually kind of gets right. Here are some things that it's drawing on. but then I want to emphasize, hey, here's what it leaves out and here's why it's dangerous and wrong.

And I also want to distinguish of, hey, here's some things that are simply false teaching, but then here's some things within these that if you believe it's outright Harris. And when we say Harris, basically we're saying, hey, if you teach these or if you believe these and don't repent from these, is damnable. Yeah, it's damnable. We have a different faith kind of thing. Is that makes sense? Yeah, let's go. So can I call for, are you ready?

Yeah. All right, are you ready? Yeah. All right. Let's go. Harris. I don't know where he's gone. Yeah.

So, all right, Chad Gipal C. Yeah. Heresy number one. Heresy false teaching number one. Prosperity theology. Oh, okay. All right. Prosperity theology.

Here we go now. We got a meme here. It says prosperity gospel teachers. If you have enough faith, you won't suffer. The Apostle Paul, you're in the face. Now, I'm going to, wait, I'm going to give caveats. Because, again, here's the caveat. There are people who teach things that, there are actual Bible verses that sound like

that. So you have to really clearly understand. and what Paul is saying and what he's not saying. This is really important. I'm so glad you gave it. Before we jump in, this is something I should have even said earlier, is that we do have to be careful because sometimes, because they draw on truths from scripture,

people will hear someone that may be in that particular sermon or teaching emphasizing one of those truths. And then because maybe we've heard it falsely done elsewhere, we're like, oh, you must be a prosperity teacher, or oh, you must be one of those woke progressive persons. We have to be very careful and generous and not judge people based on a 10-second clip from a sermon. or just anything like that.

All right, prosperity theology. Here's the idea. God wants his children to have fullness and blessing materially and financially in their health and in their relationships. And if you have enough faith, and even if you're willing to give money, you can have that. And if you don't have those things, it actually is a good sign that you don't have enough faith. And so the idea is even like, if you can go to an extreme, Christ's death is sometimes said to guarantee not merely our final resurrection and redemption, but it guarantees our present physical healing

in material prosperity. So if you don't have those things, you are not leaning into the blessings that Jesus Christ died to give you. Now, the thing is, is that it kind of leaned into some truths that we do see in Scripture. This is really important, man. Because, for example, God really does provide. That's right. It says that if we ask them, he can provide for us. In Deuteronomy 8, it says that God can give wealth. Material provision is generally a gift from God. It's legitimate to pray for your needs and to pray for your health and to pray for your relationships.

What this gets wrong is basically where equates God's blessing to material prosperity. And if you don't have that, you don't have it. Almost to only material prosperity. And here's the other thing I'd say. Because material prosperity can be one way God blesses is true. Because here, maybe even cut into the chase. Here to just show why this is wrong. any theology that would exclude the son of God from qualifying it is generally a pretty crappy theology.

Here's what I mean. Did Jesus Christ have fullness in his health at all times? No. He died. Yeah. Did Jesus Christ have fullness in his riches and in his wealth? No. No.

He said, I have no place to lay my head. Did he have fullness in all of his relationships? No. His own family called him crazy at one point and one of his best friends betrayed him. And so literally, if your definition, go ahead. He had fullness of faith at all times. Exactly. And so that's things.

So basically, if you're looking at Jesus, you have to say, well, hey, he didn't have that. So I guess he didn't have enough faith. And so the danger, so while there are some things that we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, we do want to say, God does provide and we should ask him for things. Far out, he's a good dad who knows how to give good gifts to his kids. We also need to be careful that we turn the freedom to bless, the freedom of God to bless, to the promise of blood. to the promise of blessing that corresponds with our faith or with us giving to God. Because what you often hear, let me even maybe give you some phrases that maybe people have heard in this.

If you will give $1,000, they'll often call it a seed gift of faith. If you'll give $1,000 to God, he'll give you $10,000 in return. That's just a lie. It's a lie. It's like you're not prophesying. You're profiling. Exactly. It's a lie.

And while, man, Jesus Christ did die to give us so much. We've got to be careful. And this is where I would say it elevates it to really the level of heresy. when you're basically saying that Jesus died to give you wealth and to give you physical wholeness when actually he died to forgive you of your sins, to take away your judgment and to reconcile with God, you've twisted the gospel. Anything that you guys would hit on this or anything that I'll lift out? Yeah, there's a couple little things.

What's really interesting is actually in one sense, Jesus did die for you to have prosperity. It did die for you to have your best life later. Yeah, exactly. It's like, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, man, kind of what I'm driving at, here's, here's a line. Here's where I go, man, a line. Because you will hear people lean into, by the way, actual Bible promises that do actually say that, man, things like, you know, seek first to give. And then all these things will be added to you.

Press down, shaking together overflowing. You know, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 talking about, man, as you as you give, you will be blessed in every way. There are actual Bible promises. Like, man, God does respond. In blessing when you get, yes. Yes. Here's your line. Here's your line.

If you start hearing things like, man, if you don't have material prosperity, it's because you didn't have enough faith. If you didn't get healed, it's because you didn't have enough faith. That's where we've crossed the line into something that is kind of heterodox. Yes? Yes. We would say, do not confuse the prosperity gospel with the promises of the gospel. Bingo.

So again, that's great, Carlos. can God and again I'm bringing here for somebody that may be you know somebody can be like well you guys are financially well off or whatever you guys seem to be healthy even if you're not in a spot like that

is God a provider of financial means like yes he's owner of everything is he a healer yes is he Jesus talked about the abundant life yes he did but when wealth health prosperity success becomes the ultimate treasure that's a problem

Jesus is your ultimate treasure And so we are grateful for what comes from God's hands, but ultimately we do not neglect to see God's face. There you go. That's so good. That's so good. All right. Number two, what do we got? All right.

There's going to be a phone one because there's some nuances to it. And there's a range, range of beliefs. Word of faith theology. Where's our meme? Here we go. We got a meme over here. That's me. And by that I mean the guy over there, not my will, but yours be done is the girlfriend.

And then the other girl is name it, claim it, declare it. Let me just say, you got to be on YouTube to see these. That's hilarious. Yeah, that's hilarious. If you're just listening, you probably should go pause and, like, go find the video because this is great. By the way, I just want to say this, be a one woman man with your eyes. That's exactly.

There you go. There you go. But all right, what you got? So the basic idea of word of faith is that a believer can bring about their desired reality into being through manifestation, through faith and faith-filled words specifically. This really caught on with the guy named Kenneth Hagan in the 1960s. And he emphasized the idea of speaking words of faith. as a way to manifest health and wealth and other blessings.

So you can see some of this is overlapping with prosperity theology. They are a little bit different, but there's still a correlation. But the idea here is that a huge emphasis putting on the idea between the Lagos, the written word, and Remo, which is a spoken word. So you often hear, if you hear people spoken, the idea of the Rima word, it's not a definite sign, but it could be a telltale sign that you're listening to a word of faith preacher. Yeah, and I'll give a heavy caveat there because I know tons of very faithful charismatic Bible teacher. that'll talk about, you know, Ramah versus Kai Ross. Yeah. And they're not this at all.

And that's what you got to be careful. You got to be careful. And so oftentimes this will be something that people call it, and this is what leaning into the meme, a name it and claim it theology. So, for example, someone will say, well, man, don't say I have cancer. Because in your accepting reality, you've got to speak healing over your life and you've got to claim it. And listen, again, part of this is leaning into stuff that is in scripture.

Faith matters enormously in scripture. And the idea of faith expressed through expectation. It's hard to say that I'm having faith in God if I'm not expecting anything from God. Expectation is a form of faith. I mean, you see in scripture the idea of in the book of Mark, it says Jesus could not, not decided not, but he could not do many miracles because the people in particular town did not have faith. So, man, man, faith matters enormously. And by the way, we should pray boldly.

That's right. So, man, those are important things. But where this gets out of line is the simple idea that I can manifest a reality into existence by simply speaking and into existence. Faith is not a force by which I impose my will upon reality. Faith is trust in God who rules reality. Dude, here's how I like to say this. So the anchor verse for some word of faith guys is the, I think it's it's a proverb 17, life and death. 1521.

Life and death is in the power of the tongue. Okay. So first of all, let's acknowledge something that's true. That verse is true. That verse is true. But listen, this is really, really important. Okay. So what we're not, listen, here's the difference. We're not saying, man, your words have so much power that you can get God to agree with your words. Here's what we are saying.

There is power in getting your words to agree with God. Exactly. That's where the power is. Yes. In prayer, we can both say, I know you can. And I pray you will. and say your will be done. There you go.

And so when Jesus prayed in the garden, and basically if you will, take a cup of me, but not my will but yours. He was praying a biblical prayer. He didn't like faith. The Apostle Paul prayed three times that God would remove a thorn from his flesh, and he didn't.

It's not because he lacked faith. He asked and God said no. So the idea, I'd say, the danger, the false teaching part is the idea if it's about me and what I want. When the right posture towards God is saying, man, I'm going to bring to my request. I'm going to have faith that you respond.

But it's not primarily what I want. want. It's about what you want. Now, let me give do a, let me do give a few places where this can go from harmful or false teaching into outright heresy. There are some lines of thinking in the Word of Faith movement, which again, that's a very broad term. And sometimes, I'm glad you point out, sometimes people think that all charismatic are extreme word of faith people. That's false. It's simply false and not true. But it can't cross, there are some elements in Word of Faith teaching that basically believes that we are little gods. Kenneth Copeland's famous, I don't know what that I've heard that before.

What heck's that even? That's a great. It sounds really great. It's a weird thing to say, bro. And even like the way Kenneth Copeland was saying is like, you don't have a God in you. You are a little God. When it gets that level, that at that point is probably at that point I would say is level one heresy. And you've got to run for the hills.

Man, we do have the living God inside of us by the Holy Spirit. But we are not little gods. Also, I'd say you've got to be watch out for. It's almost like basically it can make God sound like he has to do whatever you want him to do if you have enough. of faith. And basically you're making him your servant and him your vending machine. And that's where this can really get out of line. Let me give one more. I think this is where I want to add in. So to your point, sorry, Paul. So Jesus in John 1034 cites an oldism and verse from Psalm 82 verse 6 that says you are gods. And again, when he does that, you want to explain it?

No, you keep going. I think you're going to say what I'm going to say. When he does that, he's not implying that you and I share in some sort of divine nature. He is speaking to an authority sense. So again, I don't know if that's where these preachers get that, but again, it's, one, it's confusing, two, not helpful. Three, if it implies that there is some sort of divine sharing in the divine, it's just wrong and heretical. It's just thinking weird.

It's just thinking weird. I do want to warn about a subgroup, again, this is not all, it's not, again, because that's part of some of these, it's helpful to say some of these are a spectrum of beliefs, is there is a group called NAR or NAR or the new appellate. of the Apostolic Reformation. This is not an official denomination. You've never heard of them? Never heard of them.

Never. That's a joke. Go ahead. Go ahead. There's a lot of jokes that we just want to make with each other right now, but we're not going to. This is not an official denomination, but it's kind of a group. And basically their idea is this, is that, man, their reformation is the idea of God never meant

for the official office of apostle to go out. And so the idea is, capital A, apostle. Big A capital A, apostle. So the idea is that God is raising up apostles who have the same authority as Peter and Paul in the other apostles in the new testament. Yeah, bro. If you hear somebody say run for the hills, run for the hills. Because not all, but many who refer to themselves as apostles

basically say that their commands and their authority are on level with the Apostle of Paul and Peter and therefore begin to kind of encroach upon the level of authority of scripture. Yeah, bro, we got Bible verses for that. We are delivering to you the message of God, quote, once and for all delivered to the saints. And nobody receiving any revelation on par with the authority of scripture anymore.

Sorry, run for the hills. Yeah. These guys, they'll start basically saying, hey, what I say to you is on par with Scripture, or they'll say, well, hey, let me explain what Scripture says and their interpretation is authoritative. So frankly, this wouldn't be a guy who's gnar, but this is what Joseph Smith did that sort of Mormonism. He would take Scripture and basically he referred himself at one point as a new apostle, basically, and said, hey, this is actually, hey, you guys got this wrong. This doesn't mean the Trinity, this means there are three separate gods and stuff like that. Run for the hills. You never go full Mormonism. That's right. That's another meme. We ready for, go ahead. We ready for the third one? Number three, number three. All right, this would be a fun one. I don't know where you're going, dude.

You're going to be based on progressive Christianity. Okay, yeah. Progressive Christianity. That's our guy. I don't always follow the Bible, but when I do, it's the parts I already agree with. That's hilarious rather. Those hilarious rather. Once the Tracy Men.

Okay. For this one, a few cab. This one covers a wide range of beliefs. There isn't necessarily unanimity between all the people who could be lumped in as progressive Christians or well Christians. but let me summarize it with a few core beliefs that they would hope in common. Number one, the Bible is no longer the final authority. The Bible is no longer the final authority. Scripture is treated as a fallible record of ancient people's experiences and beliefs about God,

but not necessarily as God's words themselves to us and what God himself is saying to us. The Bible can be respected quoted to preach from, but here's the key. If Scripture conflicts with modern beliefs about God or about any kind of ethics, fix or whatsoever sexuality. We don't go with what the Bible says. We go with what we say. We had to only once, and I won't use the name, maybe I should. We kicked, it's the only guy we've ever had to do this. We had to remove a guy from strategic launcher our church planning network who became an actually biblically defined heretic. And this was the, this was the heresy. And it was that, and it was really interesting. I got into a rather heated conversation one time.

And here's the question I asked. I said, what is the difference between your ethics and the ethics of any secular humanist? And he could not give me a single difference. So dude, the big thing, you're going to talk more about this for a second. The big thing about progressive Christianity is they will hollow out your religion and wear it like a skin suit. This is my very next point, is that they'll all. use the same Christian words and the same Bible words that we use, but their meanings drastically change. I know we're going to respond to a video on the latter half of this, and we'll definitely hit into this now. So they'll use words like the gospel or salvation or sin or resurrection,

but they'll radically redefine those. So the resurrection, ah, that doesn't actually mean that Jesus literally roast from the grave. It's just the resurrection of our faith. Sin becomes not so much about what I do, but what's done to me, or it's just the oppression of the poor. It's just what I do to others. Sin is not first and foremost what I do against God. It's what I do against other people. Jesus is primarily example rather than a savior from sin. Radical redefinition of sexual ethics. And here's a big one, is that in progressive Christianity, Jesus is no longer necessarily the only way to God. Never, ever, ever, ever. He's a good example. And hey, if Jesus makes your life better. But you know what? Hey, if someone sincerely believes in Allah, if someone sincerely a Buddhist, that's great.

There's many paths and many ways that you can get to God. John Mark Comer one time, who was a pastor up in Portland for a long time, he wisely, you know, he wisely one time, because here's what happened. Some people, they grow up in a church like ours, Bible believing church, you know, the whole word for the whole thing. And then they go to college. By the way, parents, please stop paying to send your kids to organizations whose entire goal is to reverse and undisciple your kids.

Let's not do that. So then they do that. And so then they become, so what they do is they go from Bible believing Christian to progressive Christian. And so he was up in Portland, this is like what he was surrounded by. And here's what he said. He said, in my experience, progressive Christianity is just to stop over on the way to post-Christianity. Oh, 100%. It's just basically, hey, man, you're just deconverting.

Yep. You're just crock pot deconverting instead of light switch deconverting. Yep. So here's while I'll summarize this. And I want you to move the fourth one, so we keep rolling. Here's what you're a notice. It redefines, so it redefines sin, salvation, and redemption, and atonement. Sin, salvation, redemption, and atonement.

So in Progressive Christianity, the problem is not sin. The problem is social injustice, inequity in the system. The solution is not repentance and atonement. The solution is social justice activism. They practice tolerance of sin, not repentance of sin. Jesus did not die for your sins as a penal substitutionary atonement, or using theology nerd words there. Jesus didn't die as a penal substitution for your sins.

He was really just an example of another victim of social injustice in the evil Roman Empire, and he died as an example of speaking truth to power, social justice activism. And discipleship isn't actual discipleship. It's more just like vote left and protest things. Yeah. And like put bumper stickers on your car and yell at people and say, do better. Yep. Not Christianity.

Not Christianity. All right. Number four. All right. So the first three were primarily, things that you could find in specific churches, denominations, probably more a spouse from the pulpit or from the stage. The next two can be those for sure, but they're actually found across many churches and are probably

more predominant in the seats in the pews than in the pulpit. Wow. And so the next two are the, I'll get the first one first. Workspace Christianity. Yeah, this is a meme. This is a man choosing one or the other having a hard time. One of the option says Jesus said it is finished. And the other option says, but maybe if I read my Bible 30 more minutes, God will love me more.

Theology nerd humor. Neesh. Did you create that one? Did you create that one? I felt you on that one. I'm trying to illustrate whatever he was going to say. I thought it was great. I'm saying, I felt you on that one. That was good.

The entire book of Galatians is written contrary this Harrison. Exactly. So here's the core thing. And again, this is, this sneaks not in just necessarily through the pulpit, but just into the people's minds and hearts that are just sitting in almost any church. And it's this, my standing before God depends, holier partly, on what I do for God, rather than what he has done for me. That's the core of this.

Best news you over here. That's the core of this. People who think this thing, hey, man, God's love for me and his acceptance of me depends wholly or partly on what I do for him rather than what he did for me through Jesus Christ on the cross. That is the heart of this. Now, this looks, I think, like two versions. There's a religious version, which is, yeah, I'm saved because I believe in Jesus, but

now it's on me. I've got to get my stuff together. It's like instead of it just being grace, period, I'm giving a grace period. Like, oh, God gives me grace, but then I've got to give my stuff together. and live a good life for him to keep him loving me. It sounds like this. I'm saved by, I get God's love by faith, but I got to keep God's love by works. Yes.

But then, exactly. Then I would say there's actually a much more common version that's outside of the church that is this. I call it nice person justification. I am saved if I'm a generally good and nice person. Like if I'm a really good person, I don't kill anyone. I think when I die, the good or outweigh the bad. That's not.

And here's what actually some of this gets right. man, your life does matter. How you live does matter. Like, I mean, Ephesians too says that we are not saved by works, but it does say we are so saved for works. So that's the key to things. We don't want make people think like, oh, I can confess Jesus, walk the aisle when I'm six and now live like heaven until I go, I mean, live like hell until I go to heaven. We don't want to make people think that, but rather we got to get the order right. I am not saved by what I do and buy works, but I am saved for good works. You want to move to the fifth one? The whole point of the gospel, it is grace.

I've heard somebody said that grace means God's riches at Christ's expense. That's right. And so it's not your expense. It's Christ's expense. That's why there's a whole. The thing I like to do, I love doing this in sermons, is about, hey, pick a number in your head. On a scale one to ten, if you're a Christian, how much has God love you right now? And I get it very, the answer is it's always a ten.

Because the Bible says there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ, Listen, God does not love you to the degree that you are like Christ Jesus. He loves you to the degree that you are in Christ Jesus. So what I like to do is, are Christians saved by good works? Yes. Just not ours. And it matters for your lesson. I'm going to make this brief.

Because, again, a lot of this can send like theory, but I meet so many people who live with a perpetual fear that they haven't done enough for God. That's right. And they go to bed afraid sometimes. Like, oh, what if I've done? I'm like, you know, no, no, like, it's not about what you've done for him. It's about what he did once and for all for you. All right. All right, number five.

Our last one, I call this one, cafeteria Christianity or billow-de-bear Christianity, depending on what you like to do. That's cute. Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. This is the guy being smart says, can't be convicted by scripture if you ignore the verses that convict you? I got to, I think that's hilarious. Do you make that?

I did. Bro, you're so good. No, man. It's so good. The best memes for the one he personally created. These are old-school memes, by the way. Thanks internet. Trinity wouldn't approve of these memes.

I would actually argue. They're not busting enough. They're not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're a skittany, bro. What's the Gen Z slang, Trinity? She says it's skittany toilet. I don't know if I don't want to go home.

I would actually argue that this is probably the most widespread false teaching or false belief or heresy out there in most people. And the idea is this. The thing if I go to, if I go to a cafeteria or if you go to, I don't know if it's prominent where people live, the idea of a goal. and corral. The whole idea is, man, I'm going to get a tray and I'm going to play, and I'm going to pick and choose what I like, and then I'm going to leave what I don't. And so the way a lot of people build their belief system or their ethics system, the way they live is, hey, if the Bible says

something that I agree with and that I like, man, I'm going to take it. Oh, God is loved. That's amazing. Oh, God judges and he's also a God of wrath. No, thanks. No, no thanks. I'm going to leave that. Man, like, hey, take care of the poor and love the poor. Yeah. Hey, man, control your body sexually and live a certain life. No, I'm good. I'm going to live however one. And so basically, here's the issue with this. It makes Jesus my Savior, but I still get to be Lord. Oh, bro, that's great. That's good, Paul. It makes Jesus my Savior, but I still get to be Lord, because I get to choose what parts of him he has,

both in my mind and what I believe and in my life and what I do, and what parts he has. And I forget, you may remember the actual guy, but there's a famous story of this Christian emperor that when he was baptized, he allowed him to baptize all of them, but he kept his hand and his sword above the water. I looked it up a few years ago. It's a true story of it was some Christians during the Crusades,

that they would, there were soldiers that would be baptized, they would hold their sword out of the water because they felt, by the way, I actually think there's an argument that they were waging just wars. So they actually might not need it to have done that. But they would hold their swords out of the water because they thought, I'm probably sinning by how I use my sword. So they would baptize every part of them except the sword. Exactly. And so the idea is like you can have every part of me but this. And that's the mindset of this.

Is that we have to remember, Jesus doesn't merely offer salvation. He demands Lord show you. It's not in either or words of both. Luke 646 says, why do you call me Lord? Lord and not do what I tell you. Yep. And practically speaking as well, I'm connecting dots here, but selective Christianity or cafeteria Christianity eventually leads to progressive Christianity and progressive Christianity eventually leads to post-Christianity where like you exit the faith. Typically true. There you go. Anything you guys think I left out or anything you think I missed?

No, let's talk about James Taylor. Let's do it. Come on because we're going to give an example. Yeah, this is great because basically let's double click on one and now we get to see a living live version of it. Okay, so this video isn't super viral recently, literally this week. And this is what you'll see is Reverend Babs Miller, who is a minister at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas. Her official title is Minister to the Parish. This is James Taylorico, long-time congregation, and it's obviously a hidden camera, and she's going to share what she really believes on some topics that she's being asked to in this moment. Yeah, I want to say a couple things about this. Some of you may have listened to some of these Chedji Palsy run through some of the heresies,

and you're like, nobody actually does that. wrong. Do not pass go, do not like $200. Honestly, this stuff is like, it's all over the place. Yes. It's for real, it's all over the place. And you don't know it. Bless God, because you're not around it.

But it's all over the place. Now, I want to set this up real quick. So, dude, I'm going to zoom out. I'm going to give you, this is an old conversation me and John Tyson had one time. And so I'm going to bring this here. What you're seeing right now in American culture is you're seeing something. I don't think at a meta-narrative, people don't realize what's happening. So for the last, honestly, I'd probably say since, just after World War II, secularism has kind of been the official kind of predominant religion governing the social order in the United States.

Bro, this is Tyson. This is fire. Tyson says secularism does a reverse exorcism. It goes throughout society and wherever it finds God, it cries out, come out in humanity's name. only John Tyson can throw fireballs like that. Okay, now that in some more progressive areas, that secularism might still be, honestly, most people think secularism is generally dying. Now, dude, here's the, bro, here's the warning, because we got Bible verses for this.

Nature hates a vacuum. Yes. And Jesus gives this example. You remember that time he's telling the little parable, Hey man, if you drive out one demon and if you don't backfill it, if you drive out an unclean spirit and you don't backfill it with the Holy Spirit, hey, actually watch out because seven other unclean spirits will backfill the one unclean spirit you just expelled. And the last state of the person will be worse than the first. Dude, I'm going to give you a theory and we can watch for the next 20 years and see if I'm right.

I think as secularism is dying and being driven out, you're actually going to start to see an American society competing spirits and spiritualities vying for cultural dominance in America so instead of it being like ah we're committed to atheism and secularism honestly dude I think you're going to see and understand what I'm saying and what I'm not saying I think you're going to see it's like

Islam Christianity demonic progressive Christianity various spirits and spirituality start to hey man a bunch of unclean spirits try to backfill the vacuum created by driving out the first unclean spirit of secularism, which leads me to why, and I know these are strong words, but these are Bible words,

why you're starting to see demonic false teachers moving from pulpits to politics. So there's actually two prominent ones. I haven't mentioned the other one on the pod yet. One's James Tolariko. We've done that a million times here. The other one is, I think it's in Kansas, Adam Hamilton, is running for office, progressive Christian pastor. The dude's like got a church, I think it's like the largest Methodist church in the United States. Bro, they're like literally financially sponsor pride festivals. They're like having drag, you know, affirming church, all the things. Like it's evil, man.

He's running on a pro-choice platform. It's evil. It's like overt evil. And these guys are like a wolf and sheep's clothing kind of deal. And I use that in the biblical sense of the term. Just because you disagree with something a pastor says. does me as a wolf and sheep's club. I'm talking about somebody actually teaching heterodoxy.

Yeah. These are like openly affirming non-orthodox, non-orthopraxy guys running for office. They're moving from pulpits to politics, which leads me to what you're about to see. Okay. So this is James Talleyko's, I'll call her a pastricks. We'll just say that. So this is Reverend Babs Miller. Now, Trinity, I'm going to have you stop start a couple times because I want to help people get a play-by-play of what progressive Christianity

sounds like. So when Paul's talking about itching ears, oh, that's what it's talking about. So we'll do this real fast, okay? So here we go. Do we really believe

that like a virgin gave birth to a baby? No. Yeah, okay. I just don't want to offend my own common sense. Yeah. No, don't.

Yeah. Absolutely don't. Part of what we encourage here is for people to think for themselves. Okay, pause. So we have like an actual clear doctrine of the Bible virgin birth of Jesus. Hey, you know, don't check your, don't stop doing your thoughts and doing

God's thoughts. Keep doing your thoughts and ignore God's thoughts. I just want to point this out. Huge hallmark of progressive Christianity is in the garden. How does Satan tempt mankind? Hey, did God really say? You will not surely die. In other words, Satan's gone, really, what I'm encouraging here is for you to think for yourself. Well, I'll just tell you, Like me as a pastor, I'm not. I'm not encouraging you to think for yourself. I'm trying to get you to be transformed by the renewing of your mind by the Word of God. Okay?

That's okay. Now keep going. Yeah. And take what makes sense. It's kind of like what they say in 12-step programs. Take what you want and leave the rest. Okay, boss. So Babs.

Bill DeBarre. Babs. Take what you want, leave the rest. The Apostle Paul, I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole council of God. Okay. keep going. So you, you,

and I know that that would greatly offend your relatives. Yeah. Who want to hang on to these archaic rules. Mary and the virgin birth

comes out of the pagan belief that the gods came down and impregnated people. Oh my gosh. As my grandma would say, bless your heart. Bless your heart. And dude, actually I want to say

something way more serious. So think about this. She's taking this Holy Spirit-inspired virgin birth of Jesus and going, hey, you know where that idea came from? Demonic pagan religions. So, dude, I just want to point this out. In Mark 3, Jesus says, and we could do a whole episode on what this means and what it doesn't mean, Jesus says, hey, do you know what the unforgivable sin is?

He says, truly I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man and whatever blasphemies they utter. but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness but is guilty of an eternal sin for they were saying he has an unclean spirit in other words Jesus is warning and this is a whole podcast episode he's saying if you continue for the rest of your life in a spirit

where you look at things the Holy Spirit did and start telling people unholy spirits are doing that he says you better watch out because if you die in that spot you're going to hell. Yeah. That's what Jesus is saying. She's literally looking at an act of the Holy Spirit and saying,

that came from demonic pagan religions. We got Bible verses for that. All right. Now, keep going. Yeah. That people were still hanging on to during that time. I'm going to apologize in advance, but not apologize. I'm going to use a very strong word in a second,

but we have biblical merit for me saying what I'm about to say. Okay, keep going, watch what she says here. We have no way of knowing if Jesus really existed. Pause. Then get the hell out of a pulpit. And here's why I say that. I know that sounds harsh. Nope.

In Galatians 1-8, the Apostle Paul says, even if we or an angel from heaven preach to you another gospel, let them be damned. So I literally mean you're seeing someone pull hell up onto earth and into a pulpit. Get out. Yeah. Get out. Okay.

Now keep going to watch. Any more than we have. of knowing that the original Buddha ever existed. And whether or not Jesus existed doesn't really matter to me. Awesome. Okay. Whether or not Jesus really exists, doesn't really matter to me. Okay.

The Apostle Paul in 1st Corinthians 15. And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is futile. And you are still in your sins. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. So I'm team Paul. Yeah, and also, historically speaking, it's just not true. Like, even, like, if you talk to the vast majority of historians today,

of atheist historians. And even, like, the most ardent atheist today that our historians, they will acknowledge that the vast majority that the consensus is, like, he definitely existed. Yes. This is actually a quote from an atheist historian, agnostic actually today, Bart Erman, who rejects the resurrection and much of traditional Christian doctrine. He says this, Jesus certainly existed. As virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees.

Except Babs. Except Babs. All right, keep going. The fact remains that that message that was delivered by someone named Jesus supposedly, and it could have all been made up for all I know. And the God in the Old Testament is not a loving God. It's a vengeful, killing people, kind of God. Pause.

Okay. Now, every progressive Christian you almost meet ever says that. That's going to get thrown at you at the water cooler at your office. So let me tell you how to respond to that really quick. The God of the Old Testament is a vengeful, killing people kind of God. What they're doing is they're looking at the passages in the Old Testament that people call the, quote, Slaughtering of the Innocence passages. Look, God commands the slaughtering of the innocence. Okay, if you ever get that thrown at you, let me tell you how to think about that.

I got great news for you. Great, great, great news for you. In all the passages that people call the slaughtering of the innocents passages, great news. All the innocent ones were spared. Bad news. There were no innocent ones. Why? Because I got a Bible verse that says, the wages of sin is death and all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

So good news, bad news. Now, I got better news. So here's why I want to help Babs, better news. the only slaughtering of the innocence, there actually is a slaughtering of the innocence of the Bible. The only slaughtering of the innocence that happens in the entire Bible, it's not in the Old Testament,

it's in the New Testament. And God did not do it to man. Man did it to God. When we crucified Jesus by nailing him to the cross, which leads me to the very best news. He did it so he would never have to kill you. and that you would have life, life, everlasting life.

God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that in him we might become the righteousness of God. So, swing and a miss, Babs. Let's keep you on. And that's one more thing. Yeah, also, you know who else disagrees with Babbs? Jesus does. He looks at the Old Testament and he affirms the Old Testament.

Jesus said in John 10 verse 35, a scripture cannot be broken. Also, it's a false caricature of God in the Old Testament. you see God's judgment in the altism, and what a lot of these people will admit is all the verses that talk about the Lord's compassion and His patience, Exodus 34, verse 6. The Lord, the Lord, the God, merciful, and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Again, it's selective reading. Yeah. I want to keep going on that passage because it says forgiving wickedness, rebellion, and sin.

And doesn't he, he goes to the 10th generation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, anyway, you have this thing in the whole Old Testament that's like, hey man, for a thousand. generation, I want to pour out my love and faithfulness on you. And then he does a little thing of, yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished. He punishes the children and their children. He's talking about the natural consequences of sin. And kind of this thing you have is, man, my love and faithfulness

goes for a thousand generations. And I'll only let the consequences in judgment of sin go for two or three. Bras, it's the best. It's awesome. It's awesome. All right. Keep going. Now, oh, whoa, whoa, what you're getting ready to see right here is what we said earlier, progressive Christianity. It redefines sin into social inequity and social systemic injustice kind of thing, and then redefines the solution to, oh, we just need to do social justice activism. You're about to hear like a perfect case and point of that. Watch what she says right here. Yeah. This is a lot of mythology. Jesus was political. Yeah. Jesus was put on that cross not to save us. Jesus was put on that cross because Rome aided him.

And they thought he was a threat to their domination of that area. Yeah. And so they killed him. Yeah. So he was kind of more of them. He didn't die to save our sins. I'll just keep saying the same thing. But even if we or an angel from heaven or a demonic false teacher named Babs preaches to you another

gospel, let her be a cursed. That is it. You just literally, he didn't die to save our sins. your problem's not that you're a sinner, your problems that, you know, the government is bad. Can I tell one more thing? Please. She said,

Jesus didn't die to save our sins. You can trust her word or you can just read your Bible. 1 Corinthians 153, for I delivered to you as a first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture. John 1.29, the next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and said, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. First Peter, 224, he himself bore our

sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed. Oh, and there's the announcement of the angel to the family of saying, you shall call him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. It's literally his name. His name is Jesus. It comes from Yeshua, which comes to the Hebrew verb Yasha, which means to rescue or save. It's literally his name. All right, I have no words. Let's keep going. Okay. died more as a kind of a social justice warrior in some sense. Yeah, okay, I know it's, I keep pausing. He was really here as a social, so again, I just want to point this out earlier.

She was like, Jesus was political. He came as a social justice warrior. I just want to point this out. So if you're a Christian who's any politically aware at all, you know that what James Talarico, Adam Hamilton, what these guys do is they look at guys like us who take actual biblical convictions and we're like, we should apply those in the, in every sphere, including the societal and political realm. And they're like, hey, watch out.

These guys are scary Christian nationalists. They're trying to take their Christian beliefs and bring them into the political realm. That's wrong. They're scary Christian nationalists. I just want to point this out to you. They're running a bait and switch on you and you keep following for the same play every time.

They're doing the same thing. They're just using, they're just interpreting their Bible in the exact wrong way and then taking their unbiblical, quote-unquote, biblical beliefs and applying their progressive Christian heresy into the political, they're doing the same thing. That's called progressive Christian nationalism is what that's called. So here's what you, it's the whole podcast. But what you notice is when people like this, when the Bible is used to advance progressive causes,

man, you know what that is? That's speaking truth to power. You know what that is? That's being a faithful presence. But then when people use the Bible to advance what feels to them like a quote-unquote conservative cause, that's scary Christian nationalism. You're trying to impose your beliefs on other people. So were you.

You're just that. All right, keep going. We'll finish this up. So that makes a whole lot more sense to me than to say that some God would kill his son for us. That's what makes sense. How does that make up for all the things I can do? I would love to answer that question. I would love to answer that question.

So first of all, I have righteous anger at the things that she said. Yes. Jesus Christ loves that woman. Yes, he does. And he died for that woman. And so, man, if I ever got a chance to have a coffee with Babs, I would restrain my righteous anger in the moment. And what I would want to tell her is, man, how does that make up for all the things

that I do? Well, I'm so glad you asked. Because what the Bible says is God made him who knew no sin. to be sin for us so that in him he might become, we might become the righteousness of God. It makes up for all the things that I do because the blood of Jesus can cleanse us from any sin. That's right. And as far as the east is from the west, so has God cast our transgressions from us. So much so that the Bible says he forgives our transgressions and he, quote,

remembers our sins no more. And so we began this podcast talking about a guy who began his, his life for the first 30 years, hating and blaspheming Jesus, just like we watched a woman, hate and blaspheme the actual Jesus. And in the exact same way, that God loved, chased down, redeemed, forgave, and used the Apostle Paul to preach the gospel. Jesus Christ could love, chase down, redeem, and use babes someday to preach the actual gospel. Why? Because Jesus Christ is a friend of sinners and he actually can forgive all of your sins and make you a new woman in Christ. So good. So I want to finish with the love of Jesus Christ for that one. Amen. Pastor Josh on that note, would you pray for us?

No, I'm going to ask you to do it, Carlos. Oh, okay. I'll talk to you much. Yeah, man. No, man. Good. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you because this is the best news there is ever. That you, while we were still sinners, you gave up your life because you loved us enough, not because we were better or because we were impressive or brought anything to the table, but ultimately because who you are, that you are a good father. Lord, I pray for the people listening to this. I pray that their faith may be strengthened,

emboldened, encouraged, that we may receive the words of the Apostle Paul to Timothy, that we may do the work, focus on what you've called us to do, and that we may fulfill our ministry, and that we may run the race that you've said before us. Father, I pray maybe for people listening right now that might disagree.

I pray, Holy Spirit, that you may do. do a work that only you can do. We can try to change somebody's mind, but only you can change their heart. So Lord, would you do it again? We are celebrating coming off of this weekend to see all the life change. People publicly proclaiming their faith in you

through baptism. Lord, I pray that you may do it one more time. Father, thank you because you don't need us, but you still invite us to be a part of the redeeming work that we find hope in the gospel. That it is power for salvation, not just a matter of words. So thank you for what you're doing.

Thank you for the Live Free podcast. We glorify you for everything you're doing through this podcast. Lord, we want to humble ourselves before you. We want to give you all the glory. And again, we just want to pray that the name of Jesus be made much of, that we may decrease that you may increase Jesus. So thank you. May your kingdom come and may your will be done.

And we pray all of this in your mighty name. Amen, amen, amen, amen. Live free, brother.