you you you you Thank you. th th Okay. That was cool. It's day two and hopefully you got a good night's rest, you got some energy to make it through another good day of preaching, another good day of equipping. When we set out to do this conference, I was praying that the Lord's blessing would be upon the conference our church had been praying. And honestly, sometimes you don't know if God's in a thing or not. You don't know for sure if this is what we should do. You can imagine there's a lot of work that goes into putting something like this together, a lot of things to coordinate. And sometimes you're like, well, could we have used our energies in doing something, use that same energy to do something else. And I came to the conclusion that, at least in my own mind, that this is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. And I don't know if this conference is gonna have eternal benefit in the kingdom of God, if it's gonna have any spiritual lasting effect upon those who attend. I don't know. I did not know that. I couldn't be certain that God's fully into this, in this, and is gonna bless this. But I come to the conclusion that we'd rather as a church, and I as one of the pastors of the church, I'd rather swing and miss than not swing at all. And so our conference is our attempt to try to hit a ball, to swing. And as of yesterday, I feel like we hit a home run. And so we're going to try to hit another one today. So we're grateful for your here. I'm thankful for each of you being here and the sacrifice you made to be a part of this conference, supporting this conference. So I thank you for that. I have some more books to peddle. You may not know, but Free Grace Press has probably the best parenting book on the market. It's right up there with Shepherding a Child's Heart by John and Cindy Radquist. Purposeful and persistent. I don't know if you know who Sam Waldron is. But Paul Worcester says Selma Waldron is his favorite theologian. And Selma Waldron says this is the best book that he's ever read on parenting. And that is high praise. So this book. has been a wonderful seller for us. And if you're a grandparent, this is the book you get your son or your daughter, your married children. If you're a new family and you have young kids, This is the book to get. And the problem is, I only have a few left on the table out there. So first come, first serve. You'll definitely want to get that. And then everybody knows Charles Spurgeon. And we have three books related to Charles Spurgeon. One of them is Through the Eyes of Charles Spurgeon. It's a handy book. I don't know anybody that's more quotable than Spurgeon. And here you have some of the best pithy quotes put in alphabetical order. So if you wanna just look up pride, mother's leadership, Holy Spirit, honesty, I'm just going through this, heart, good works, gospel, you can go in there, especially if you're a pastor or if you're a friend of a pastor and they need, you know how pastors put out these quotes and like, man, that guy reads a lot. No, they have books like this. So that's a good book to give a pastor, if you're a Sunday school teacher. Then if you love the doctrines of grace and you love Spurgeon, you would want this book because it's Spurgeon's Calvinism. It's five sermons on the five points of Calvinism that Spurgeon gave. And it's a great book on each of the points of Calvinism by Charles Spurgeon. And then this is Spurgeon's best book. You know, you get one of the best theologians, best book, then you got one of the best books possible. Now, Free Grace Press is not the only publishing company that has printed this, but we have a beautiful, attractive volume, All of Grace. It's the gospel. This is the book you want to give a lost person. This is the book you want to get for devotional reading. This is a book that when you're discouraged, you want to just go through and just remind yourself of who Christ is and what he's done for you. All of grace by C.H. Spurgeon. All right, let's ask the Lord's blessing upon today's events, and then we'll sing, and then I'll introduce our speaker. Lord willing. Lord, it's a pleasure to bow our heads. It's a pleasure to surrender our lives and take a moment before we begin to not just recognize you, but ask for you to come. Lord, we have plenty of people here, but we had asked that you would send your spirit to attend and then bless the preaching. Speak to us. Your words are life, they're nourishment. They're instructive, Lord, even when we're rebuked, we're satisfied when we know it comes from you. Lord, we want to be your children. We want to be obedient children. We want to be believing children. We want to be submissive children. We want to be happy children. We want to be children that bring you glory. We want to be children that are easy to take commands and easy to control. We don't want to be running around wildly and crazy in our thinking. be dissatisfied in our hearts and discontent, grumbling. Lord, we need to be equipped for the battle that's set before us. We need weapons. We need ammunition. We need a shield. We need a sword. We need shoes. We need a helmet. Dear God, we do equip us today. You said that the weapons that we battle with are not fleshly, but they're spiritual. They're powerful. And Lord, that's what we want. It's the word of God that is able to. Help us to take captive every wild thought that we may have and bring it into subjection. And so we want our thinking and our emotions and our lives to be brought in full subjection to the word of God, our only authority. So we pray, dear God, that you would administer the word of God to us, that you'd fill us with praise and appreciation to your name as we sing. We pray that you'd fill us with love for one another. root out bitterness, root out sin, root out the things that are not pleasing to you or edifying to the brethren. This we pray in your son's name, amen. I invite you all to stand with us. We're going to sing, O Church, Arise. This song is loaded with military language, and it speaks about putting on our armor, our full armor of God, which is what we're here to do today. O Church, arise, and put your armor on. Hear the call of Christ, our Captain. For now the weak can say that they are strong in the strength that God has given. The shield of faith and belt of truth will stand against the devil's lies. The army of those that oblige the preaching out to those in darkness. To love the captive soul But to rage against the captor And with the sword that makes the wounded whole We will fight with faith and valor When faced with trials on every side We know the outcome is secure Christ will have the prize for which He died, an inheritance of His own. O see the cross, where love and mercy meet, as the Son of God is risen. O see His throne, that clutched beneath His feet, for the cross the world has risen. And as the stone is rolled away, and Christ emerges from the grave, Every eye and heart shall see Him So Spirit come, put strength in every stride Give grace for every hurdle that we may run With faith to win the prize of a serving good and faithful As saints of old still line the way, Retelling triumphs of His grace, We hear them all. and hunger for the day, when with Christ we stand in glory. As saints of old, as saints of old, still line the way, retelling triumphs of His praise. We hear the calls and hunger for the day, when with Christ we stand in glory. Amen. You may be seated. Well, we've already heard from our speaker yesterday, and we get the privilege of hearing again from Anthony Mathenia, a friend of mine from Radford, Virginia, who pastors Christ Church there and is involved in HeartCry. I recommend that if you're not familiar with HeartCry Missionary Organization to take a look at them and check out what they're doing around the world. What I love about the HeartCry missionary organization is that their main desire is to train indigenous pastors and equip them. What we're trying to do with Grace Bible Theological Seminary in the States, they are doing around the world, various ministers and equipping them and planning churches around the world. So, Anthony, will you come and preach the word to us? Good morning, it is good to be back with you today, the opportunity to again open up the scriptures and consider God's word together. Yesterday we looked at the clarity with which God created humanity, making them male and female. I want to continue that move a little bit further along in our passage, moving from Genesis 1 to Genesis chapter 2, if you want to open your Bibles there and consider marriage and sexuality. Social justice is, without question, antithetical to the Bible. You've heard that stated over and over. It is contrary to God's revealed will. Yet somehow the social justice proponents the professing Christian social justice proponents have somehow figured out a way to make those who are doing what God has commanded, what he wills with regard to marriage and sex, they have made them, made us out to be the oppressors or the bad guys in their society. You know what? Marriage was such an easy target for them. Because marriage and family have been under attack for a long time, since Genesis chapter 3. But more recently, we can feel it in our own generation. Marriage and family, they've not been strong, they've not been healthy within the church. And over the past several decades, we have focused on the family, and we have centralized the family, and we've integrated the family. all to minimal avail, really. Until Christ is the focus, until the scriptures are centralized, marriage and family will continue to be in shambles. Let's look and see what God says here in Genesis 2 specifically regarding marriage, beginning in verse 18. We considered this verse yesterday. We'll read from there to the end of the chapter. Then the Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him out of the ground. The Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper suitable for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man and he slept. And then he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which he had taken from the man and brought her to the man. The man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. When we transition from Genesis chapter one and God's creative work over the first six days, chapter two opens with the first Sabbath and then verse four, This is the account of the heavens and earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made heaven and the earth. That the handiwork of God is put on display from a chronologically based scan in chapter one of the heavens and earth being created to more of a thematic narrative in chapter two. It's more narrow in scope that the details are being colored in of what's happening there in the garden. It's the handiwork of God on display. He made the heavens and the earth. He caused it not to rain initially. He watered the earth. He formed it. He breathed into man. He planted the gardens. He placed them there. He caused them to grow. And then when he gets to verse 18, where we picked up our reading, we have God dealing with the matters of marriage. Marriage and sexuality, as God prescribes, is the foundational fabric of society. When God gets to chapter 2, it's a different focus of the creation account. It gives different details. From the massively majestic God spoke and the world came into existence to the minutely magnificent of how he was intricately involved in the details of creation. In verse 7, he formed man of the dust of the ground. He breathed into his nostrils and he became a living being. There was no life. among humanity, outside of God, before God breathed it into Adam. Pre-Adamic man is not a scriptural possibility. God breathed life into him. There's an intimacy in the relationship that God has with mankind. He breathed eternity into us. He has, Ecclesiastes 3, set eternity in our hearts. And the garden was great, more magnificent than we can begin to imagine. But for Adam and Eve in the garden, it was not some sort of extended holiday. They didn't just pull up lawn chairs and have a cold drink. It was a place for worship, for serving God, for obeying him, for cultivating and keeping that they were commanded to do, for serving and for obeying. They, like us, were created for worship. God gave them life. He gave them breath. He gave them work. Verse 15 of Genesis 2, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden to cultivate it and keep it. God gives breath. He gives work. He provides both for us. But he doesn't just provide. There's prohibition. The Lord commanded the man saying, from any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. It's prohibition with a penalty. The prohibition is as strong as anything that we find in the Ten Commandments. Obeying God is life. Disobeying God is death. And it's right on the heels of this prohibition. that we hear God saying it's not good for Adam to be alone. Aloneness is not what we were created for. People who claim to be Christian but only desire their own company, worshipping only in solitude, have a warped view of themselves as well as a blatant disregard for God's word and God's will and God's ways. It wasn't good for a man to be alone, so God created woman and brought her to the man. God delivers her, as it were. So much of this is probably where we get the idea of the bride being given away on her wedding day. It's what God did initially there in the garden. Marriage is designed by God. It's not a human invention. It's not a social custom. Weddings, ceremonies, cultural expectations, societal norms, these things are the creation of man, but not marriage. God designed marriage. When the Lord God fashioned the woman and brought her to the man, Adam responded. Verse 23, you can hear it in his response of poetry and doxology. Finally, there wasn't a helper suitable for him, but now there is. This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She'll be called woman because she was taken out of man. She's part of me. She's like me. I have relationship now with her. And verse 24, for this reason, Because God designed marriage, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Marriage requires leaving behind all other loyalties. It's marked, marriage is marked by a couple's soul or primary commitment to each other. For this reason, because God designed marriage, If we're going to serve and obey God rightly, we must follow his word, his will, and his ways. Jesus repeats this. Matthew 19, have you not read? that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh, so they are no longer two but one? What therefore God has joined together let no man separate. What did God join together? One man and one woman. Let no man separate or alter in any fashion And they were both naked and not ashamed. They were living in complete harmony, perfect transparency, unhindered unity. They were married. And marriage, as God prescribes in his word, is the foundational fabric of society. It's a union between a man and a woman, and it's personal and covenantal and physical and permanent. But the word of God also gives us the roles that men and women play in marriage and the relationships that each of them possess. And there are restrictions or boundaries for marriage. And any contradiction, all contradictions outside of God's design of his roles, relationships, and restrictions is sin. Any and all sexual desire contrary to scripture is sin. The biggest target where we see this in the headlines and where we're affected by it in our culture is homosexuality. That it is the most prominent area that is clamoring for justice. Now, granted, they're not clamoring for biblical justice. Go read what the Bible says about it. Homosexuality, that is desiring and or practicing sex with the same gender. Legitimizing same gender attraction, legitimizing same gender sex requires a different creation story. God said, I will make him a helper suitable for him. God fashioned into a woman the man and his wife crystal clear realities from God with regard to marriage and sexuality. Homosexuality perverts God's created purpose that is revealed in nature. in the way that he's created the world, same-sex attraction, same-sex desire. We're being told that it's morally neutral, that it's possible for it to even be acceptable to God. Some would go so far as to argue that Christ is completely silent on homosexuality. But Matthew 5 seems to make clear that Jesus actually takes sexual sin very seriously. He regards all sexual activity, thoughts as well as deeds that take place outside of marriage to a single individual of the opposite gender as jeopardizing your entrance into the kingdom of God. Listen to Jesus' words. You have heard that it was said, you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. For it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you. For it is better, Jesus says, for you to lose one of the parts of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. Christ is not silent with regard to sexual sin. He makes clear that sexual sin, sexual thought, and sexual deed outside the bounds in the context of biblical marriage jeopardizes your entrance into his kingdom, into heaven. Backing up just prior in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus makes clear that anger in our hearts makes us guilty with regard to judgment. And in the passage that we noted, lust condemns us for adultery. And if that's the case, then same-gender attraction most certainly leaves us guilty of sin before God. If malice-filled hearts and sinful lusts are unacceptable to God, then same-gender attraction and homosexual desires even more so, because it's an affront against God and his created order. There are numerous professing Christians in our day that are promoting just the opposite. I mentioned the Revoice ministry yesterday. One speaker from Revoice, Greg Coles, in his book, Single Gay, and Christian, a personal journey of faith and sexual identity, writes this. Is it too dangerous, too unorthodox to believe that I am uniquely designed to reflect the glory of God? That my orientation before the fall was meant to be a gift in appreciating the beauty of my own sex as I celebrated the friendship of the opposite sex? that perhaps within God's flawless original design, there might have been eunuchs, people called to lives of holy singleness. We in the church recoil from the word gay, from the very notion of same-sex orientation, because we know what it looks like only outside of Eden, where everything has gone wrong. But what if there's goodness hiding in the ruins? Coles writes, what if the calling to gay Christian celibacy is more than just a failure of straightness? What if God dreamed it for me, wove it into the fabric of my being as he knit me together and sang life into me? Is it possible for me to continue pursuing wholeness in Christ even if I stop praying to be straight? What if God dreamed it for me? What if the garden had homosexuality and we just didn't know it? This is absurd. But you know what? Books like this are receiving recommendations like this. This book reminds us of what submission to King Jesus looks like, what it feels like. D.A. Carson. Or Nate Collins, who I mentioned yesterday in His book, All But Invisible, exploring identity questions at the intersection of faith, gender, and sexuality. What does gayness look like when it's redeemed? I'm proposing that we develop a theology of orientation that can flesh out our biblical doctrines of sin, temptation, and healing. According to the word of God, which is the only standard of truth that we have as humans, especially as Christians, any and all sexual desires or relations outside of God-ordained marriage is illegitimate, displeasing to the Lord, and is sin. Now I mentioned that homosexuality is the most prominent area clamoring for justice, but we should point out that every other area that is contrary to biblical marriage and biblical sexuality is also problematic. Polygamy, having more than one spouse. God says, The man was joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh. Jesus specifies the two shall become one flesh. Or transgenderism, gender confusion, which is certainly growing in our day. Identity and gender, the thought behind transgenderism and gender confusion is that identity and gender do not correspond with birth sex or birth gender. We dealt with this more specifically yesterday. In the image of God, God created him male and female. He created them. And any alteration or obscuring of this is a denial of who God is and the rights that he has over us. Or male chauvinism. a prejudice against women, suggesting that men are superior in ability or intelligence, using areas of God-given responsibility that men do have from God, but using them for selfish purposes. Again, God's word is clear. He made Eve as a helper suitable for Adam. He gives us wives that are corresponding and complementary. opposite in many ways, yet equal in essence. Not just male chauvinism, but feminism says that it's based on equality for women, but it actually undermines the roles, relationships, and restrictions of the word of God. Feminism, more than any of these others, has destabilized the American family. In an article in the New York Post in 2018, Says, feminists greet unwed parenthood and easy divorce as steps on the ladder of liberation. Professing Christians have played a part in this liberation that feminists are looking for. Fornication. Any physical or sexual relationship outside of marriage with someone else, which would be adultery for those who are married, or with oneself, is contrary to the word of God and is sin and jeopardizes our entrance into the kingdom. So I should take a moment and say a word about fornication, particularly with regard to pornography, which is also sin. Looking at, reading, listening to, watching sexually explicit material primarily for personal arousal or self-sex is sin. It's unacceptable. It is contrary to the clearly granted to us and provided word of God. I hope that you have a proactive policy against pornography. God created us as sexual beings. It's undeniable. Yet he also gave us clear intentions for sex and specific parameters regarding sex. Being an all-wise creator, he made us to enjoy the opposite gender within the confines of marriage. When sex is desired, pursued, or practiced outside of marriage, it is a distortion of what God intended. It's a perversion of what God wills. And sexual perversion, of many different types, and we've just run through a small list of the possibilities, is increasingly visible in our day, even celebrated more so than it has been in recent history. Sexual identity. It's one of these areas that's clamoring for attention among the social justice warriors. Regarding sexual identity, MD Perkins in his book, Dangerous Affirmation, the Threat of Gay Christianity, which I recommend getting. It won't be released until later this summer. Dangerous Affirmation, the Threat of Gay Christianity. What Michael David has done in this book is what a lot of good men have failed to do and to point out these dangers. with regards to marriage and sexuality and gender, the dangers that are happening among the previously conservative denominations and Christians in our country. Michael David writes, scripture doesn't give us any unique sexual identities outside of husbands and wives because sexual intercourse is only meant for a man and woman in marriage. where the Bible may describe other sexual identities, they are violations of God's law and God's design. Adulterers, fornicators, prostitutes, homosexuals, sexually immoral. Our sexual identity is intrinsically tied to our biological sex. A man cannot become a wife and a woman cannot become a husband. Those terms are sex specific and they're not fair game for redefinition. We must be vigilant. to know what God says about sin, even sexual sin, or for our purposes this morning, especially sexual sin. What does he say? Do you not know, the apostle writes, that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. But it doesn't stop there. Such were some of you, Paul continues, but you were washed. But you were sanctified. But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God. There's hope for the sexually broken. Along with all people who break any of God's laws. And the hope is to realize that God is holy. and that he will rightfully judge all who have sinned against him by breaking his holy law. Like any sinner anywhere, the sexually confused, the sexually deviant, the sexually sinful needs to repent and to receive Christ by faith and to be saved from God's righteous judgment by trusting in Christ and the judgment that fell upon him at the cross. When we come to Jesus, our lives and our hearts begin to be put back together and to work in proper order again. Rather than, like the quote previously, attempting to redefine what God has said is right, reestablishing God's rules in the garden, we come to Christ and he makes us whole. If you are sexually sinful, You too were made in the image of God, but you're in rebellion against him. So-called sexual minorities are in far more danger of damnation than they are discrimination. Marriage is to be held in high honor among all, Hebrews 13, 4. And the marriage bed is to be undefiled. For fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. I've said it a couple times already. Marriage, as God prescribes, is the foundational fabric of our society. Marriage is to be held in high honor among all. Every family, every couple has the amazing privilege of putting on display the glorious truths of the gospel. that Christ came to save sinners. The context of Hebrews 13 reveals that marriage is expected to display God's love in all of society and culture from the wider circle to the inner. Those who see your marriage, those who are looking in, in your community, do they hold marriage in high honor as a result of seeing your marriage? Are the unmarried people in your life, are they being prodded to get married because they see its benefits clearly exhibited in your own marriage? Are you guilty of bemoaning your marriage or complaining about your spouse at the office or the gym or the Bible study? Do people leave interactions with you individually or your family glad to be unmarried and determined to remain that way? Marriage is such a good thing. It was instituted by God near the very beginning of time. Even prior to the fall, two specific things were instituted by God before sin entered in, marriage and vocation. And both are terribly difficult because of the fall, but they are still incredibly good. We are created for them. Before time existed, before the world was, God delighted in God for all of eternity. And that delight welled up within himself and overflowed into creation. And he created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him. Humanity was fashioned in the likeness of the most glorious being imaginable. You were made in the likeness of God, who is the greatest of all beings. Not just you, but me and everyone. Everything in Genesis chapter 2 is geared for the benefit of men and women. For God's highest creation. He provides life. He breathed eternity into our souls. He provides work, which is beneficial for us. It is a blessing for us. It also means to serve or to worship, which is what we are created to do, to worship and to serve one another. Early initial blessings included fellowship with God and abundant provision of every need. Then, verse 18 appears. It's not good. It's the first time. Everything has been good. And yesterday we pointed out it wasn't because of sin. But God takes what was not good and makes it good by creating woman. God had delighted in fellowship and intimacy within the triune Godhead for all time. And now he sees that man, Adam, lacked that intimacy, that fellowship, which is why he said, it's not good for him to be alone. I'll make him a helper suitable for him. I'll make him a partner that's perfectly suited for him. And God created woman, male and female, he created them. And the Lord fashioned her and he brought her to the man. And leaving behind all other loyalties, they gave focus and attention to the new relationship of marriage. God knew exactly what we needed because he made us. He's our creator. And he continued providing for and sustaining his people. And he does the same today. His divine power, Peter writes, has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness. But the goodness and the glory that was so prevalent immediately after creation among Adam and Eve unfortunately didn't last long. When God instituted marriage between humanity's first parents, all was well. But all didn't remain well. We might say it was a short honeymoon. Genesis three happens, their decision to disobey God has consequential effects on their relationship. It also affects their respective relationships with God and all future relationships among humans, both the relationships among other humans with God and relationships among one another. Rather than following the clear path of joy that was laid out before them in eternal happiness and righteousness, an alternate route was taken, one of serving self and sin rather than God. We, in our first parents, chose the path marked by sin, disobedience, unrighteousness, and wickedness. Yet, in remarkable kindness and incomprehensible mercy, God didn't cast us off. And he didn't just brush humanity aside, but rather he displayed his undying eternal love for his people by implementing that everlasting plan for reconciliation and redemption. God, who alone knows exactly what we need, who alone supplies all of our needs, provides for us through the work of his son Christ Jesus on the cross. There's never been a greater need for all of humanity than the forgiveness of sins. And God supplied and provided by sending Christ for us. Exactly what was needed, Christ provided. So that all who trust in Him, repenting of their sin, will return to that never-ending bliss, that unspeakable glory that we were initially created for. The first great problem, the first noted need, The first necessary provision in the garden was Adam's aloneness, the need for a companion, the need for a woman, and God provided it. And immediately in the next chapter, the first great need and problem turns into the greatest of all possible problems, the greatest of all needs, and the greatest of necessary provisions, sin. Separation, alienation, broken communion, and God provided it initially by way of promise and eventually by way of his own son. When the Apostle Paul speaks of marriage in Ephesians chapter five, he calls it a mystery. This is the mystery revealed. It is the gospel displayed. What God has done through Christ for his people. For their guilt, he's provided a sacrifice. For the wrath, propitiation. For the alienation, reconciliation. For the bondage that we experience, he's granted redemption. For the captivity that we were in, we've been given ransom. The basic narrative of Genesis chapter 2 is quite simple. God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep. He took a portion of Adam's side and closed up the place from which he had taken it, and he made woman and brought her to Adam. But Paul says the mystery is deeper than that. There's one greater than Adam who would one day be united together with his people by the glorious working of God Most High, Earth's first marriage, Adam and Eve here in the garden in Genesis chapter two, is but a shadow of heaven's far earlier and far greater love between Christ and his people. I have loved you with an everlasting love, God says. The last Adam sleeps the sleep of death, not in Eden's innocent delights, but rather on the altar of his shameful cross. His side was not just opened and closed on the afternoon of the sixth day, but it was pierced. And the water and the blood flowing provided the means to create and to constitute the people of God, the New Testament church. Blood to propitiate every sin and water to wash away every stain. God the Father presents Eve to Adam. And that same father gives his favored bride to Christ. Adam received her as a portion of himself. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Christ takes up the same welcome. We are united to him by faith. We are members of his body, of his flesh, of his bones. The Lord stooped, condescending to make you his. Forever, from an infinite distance, he came willingly and timely. The way Octavius Winslow says it, he came on wings of love and he didn't rest until he had accomplished it all. The bridegroom counts all efforts light to win the bride's affection. In marriage, the bride rejects the distinction of her former name. A new address attests that she's no longer her own. It's similar to the spiritual union. Jehovah t'kenu, the Lord our righteousness is his name. The Lord our righteousness is our name too. All his attributes are our grand inheritance. His wisdom is ours to guide. His power is ours to sustain and uphold. His love is ours to be our joy. His faithfulness and truth are our shield and support. His spirit is poured down in great measure to teach and to comfort and to bless. His righteousness is ours to be our spotless robe. His heaven Ours to be our home, his throne, ours to be our seat, his glory, ours to be our crown, his eternity, ours that we may enjoy him forever. The glories of the gospel of Jesus Christ should be reflected in marriages. Marriage as God prescribes. in his revealed word, is the foundational fabric of society. The gospel is not portrayed in any other sexual relationship or union. The mystery of marriage is that it displays the glory of the gospel. If Christ is what you need for salvation, and he is, the God-man himself representing us before God in the heavens and living for us here on earth, then your earthly spouse, your husband or your wife, is also exactly what you need. God has sovereignly and lovingly provided both. No one, I'm guessing, is willing to argue that Christ is not the savior that you need. Yet somehow, some way, we're tempted to believe that some other spouse or some other situation that is contrary to the scriptures would be better for us. We find ourselves searching for compatibility when the real pursuit ought to be conformity. This is the will of God, your sanctification. Compatibility is of minimal importance, especially when compared to conformity. Are you portraying an accurate depiction of who Christ is? One of the best ways that we can battle the social justice nonsense of our day is to pursue godly marriages. Is your marriage relationship mirroring the remarkable union between Christ and the church? Is the mysterious reality of the gospel being displayed in your marriage? Husbands, are you loving and sacrificing for your wives? Wives, are you trusting and following and submitting to your husbands? Are our marriages displaying gospel glories? One way that we can certainly be fighting this battle is to honor God in our marriages and in our families. Here in Genesis chapter 2, God prepared a wonderful garden there in Eden for the first humans. But he has prepared a place for all of the redeemed to live as well. In fact, he said as much in John 14 too, I go to prepare a place for you. The first home was magnificent. All that they needed was provided. It was perfect, it lacked nothing. Yet it pales in comparison to the final home. that is being prepared for those who are in Christ Jesus. If you're not in him, friend, I beg you, come. He stands ready, willing to forgive. Pursue him with your whole heart. Seek him during these finding times in order that you might be rescued from your sin, even sexual sin. Let's pray. Our Lord and our God, we thank you for your word that you have not left us to ourselves, but you've given us all that we need to know about you and how we ought to conduct our lives, revealed in your scriptures, preserved for us, provided to us. Grant us grace to make room in our lives to live in light of these truths as they are in Christ our King. We pray in his name, amen. If I could get you to stand with us. Seeing Christ, the sure and steady anchor. Rise the sure and steady anchor In the fury of the storm When the winds of doubt blow through me And its sails have all been torn In the suffering, in the sorrow, when my sinking hopes are few, I will hold fast to the anchor, it shall never be removed. Raise the sure and steady anchor While the tempest rages on While temptation claims the battle And it seems the night has won Keep us still, then goes the anchor Though I justly stand accused, I will hold fast to the anchor, it shall never be removed. Christ the sure and steady anchor, through the floods of unbelief. Hopeless somehow, hold my soul now, lift your eyes to Calvary. Bless my ballast of assurance, sing His love forever proof. All my hope is in the anchor It shall never be removed Christ the sure and steady anchor Through whom we face the wave of death When these trials give way to glory As we draw our final breath We will cross that great horizon Clouds behind and life secure and the calm will be the better for the storms that we endure. Christ the sure of our salvation, ever faithful, ever true. We will hold fast to the anchor. It shall never be removed. Please be seated. What a joy and what a benefit that we're receiving this weekend. My name's Tommy Walls. I'm one of the elders at Grace Bible Church, and I'm thankful that God has blessed the health of Brother Tom Askle. We've prayed for you, brother, and we're glad that the Lord has allowed him to be here, and he's gonna be speaking once again here in a moment, right after I pray, so let's bow. Father, we come to you and we recognize and we realize that we're living in desperate times. We hear people say sometimes, if we ever needed the Lord, we need him now. There's never been a time, Lord, that we didn't need you. Thank you for men that you've equipped, that you're raising up, that you've allowed to gather this weekend to teach us to inform us, to challenge us. And Father, most of all, we thank you for your Holy Spirit. Father, we can't receive, we can't comprehend, we can't even think rightly according to your Word without the help of your Holy Spirit. So Father, please continue to allow your Holy Spirit to open our eyes, to allow us to receive these truths, that they won't fall flat, that Lord, you will ignite them within our souls, that we will stand firm in these days that we live. Grow us, Father. in the grace and the knowledge of Christ. Thank you for the gospel that's being repeated to us, for that is our hope. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Brother Tony. Some ways I Wish I could be around 20 or 30 years from now whenever historians start writing about 2020 and trying to give assessments of what all took place in that year. What a surreal year on so many levels, not the least of which was what took place toward the latter weeks of President Trump's administration. On September 4th of 2020, President Trump issued an executive order requiring all federal departments and agencies to eliminate CRT-based training from their organizations. And, you know, as an American citizen, I praise God for that. I celebrated it. And then I had to be reminded that our president then seemed to have more wisdom and insight than a lot of our evangelical leaders. I mean, it's fascinating. I read through those documents. I really was thankful for it. And they cited examples of where critical race theory had infiltrated federal agencies. For example, the Argonne National Laboratories, which is a federal entity, had stated in their documents that racism is, quote, interwoven into every fabric of America. And they went on to describe statements like being colorblind or meritocracy, that you ought to get what you earn, that these are actual actions of bias. Or materials from the Sandia National Nuclear Laboratories, also a federal entity, had statements regarding non-minority males that any emphasis on quote rationality over emotionality is characteristic of white males and that white males should acknowledge their privilege if they're going to speak in that language. So if you're working off of rational thinking rather than emotional feeling, that's racist and that's white privilege. The Smithsonian Institution had a museum graphic that claimed concepts like, quote, objective, rational, linear thinking and, quote, hard work, suggesting that these are keys to success. And ideas like, quote, the nuclear family and belief in a single God are not values that unite Americans of all races, but instead are, quote, aspects and assumptions of whiteness. And the museum also stated that facing your whiteness is hard and can result in feelings of guilt, sadness, confusion, defensiveness, or fear. But nevertheless, you ought to go ahead and do it. Now these are just some of the things that the prior presidential administration recognized and said, we can't do this. And again, as an American citizen, I praised God when those executive orders were given. Now they've since been rescinded by the current administration. But I praised God because, number one, these ideologies that are embedded within critical race theory divide people. They don't do any good for the people that they say they want to help. And they wind up balkanizing the citizens of the nation that employ them. So I'm glad. I was glad whenever they were identified as being detrimental and needed to be eradicated from federal agencies. But secondly, If you're going to promote these ideologies, please don't ask me to pay for it. Don't take my money to do so. Well, again, when I go from thinking what was happening on the national scale in our federal government and then come over to our evangelical world, I have the same kind of concerns. Because several evangelical institutions and churches and leaders are indeed promoting ideas that are embedded within and arise from critical race theory and intersectionality. And some of those very institutions want our money and depend upon our money to be sustained. And I would like to say, please don't do this. It separates people. And as I want to try to argue this morning, It undermines the gospel of Jesus Christ that we all say we believe and that we are all committed to trying to make known. And it hurts those whom you are professing to try to help. But then secondly, don't expect me to keep giving my money to support your promotion of these ideas that I am convinced undermine the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I want to show how this is being done in the evangelical world on a couple of fronts. But before doing so, I want to revisit what we've already talked about in several sessions about the nature of critical race theory and the nature of intersectionality, and then show why these ideologies are contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. So what is critical race theory? Well, Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay have recently written a book called Cynical Theories, and they have engaged with primary resources in coming up with this definition. Critical race theory formally arose in the 1970s through the critical study of law as it pertains to issues of race. The word critical means that its intention and methods are specifically geared toward identifying and exposing problems in order to facilitate revolutionary political change. So critical social theory is not descriptive primarily. It has assumptions embedded in it that I will try to highlight here in a moment, but it identifies what's going on for the purpose of changing it, of deconstructing it. And in one sense, we ought to give, you know, some small acknowledgement of the good intentions of those that promote this way of looking at the world, because it is a materialistic worldview, and by that I mean there's no God. in the worldview that undergirds critical race theory and intersectionality. And so when you start from that vantage point, then if you want to do what you think is good, your ideas of good come not from God, but from other sources. And you have limited ways of trying to make things better, given you're factoring out God from the world that he created in which you live. Well, advocates of CRT readily admit that their agenda is not simply to understand what is, to explain racial issues, but rather to transform society based on the problems that they claim exist in that society. Richard Delgado and Gene Stefanchik's book, Critical Race Theory, An Introduction, which is regarded as a good primer for anyone that wants to get into the subject. In fact, Jarvis Williams, who's a New Testament professor at Southern Seminary, highly recommends this book. He says it's a book that every evangelical Christian ought to read because we're so far behind in our thinking about race relations. In this book by Delgado, The authors write, the critical race theory movement is a collection of activists and scholars interested in and transforming the relationship among race, racism, and power. It not only tries to understand our social situation, but to change it. It sets out not only to ascertain how society organizes itself along racial lines and hierarchies, but to transform it for the better. So again, understand when you hear critical race theory, intersectionality being promoted as good analytical tools, embedded in those tools is activism. There's an agenda that goes with the tools inevitably. According to the UCLA School of Public Affairs, an article that was published on their website years ago by a student coalition that was seeking to address these issues with faculty advisors and in conjunction with other universities, CRT recognizes that racism is ingrained in the fabric and system of American society. The individual racists need not exist to note that institutional racism is pervasive in the dominant culture. This is the analytical lens that CRT uses in examining existing power structures. Again, you can hear the Marxian way of thinking about relationships in terms of power dynamics, the oppressors, the haves, the oppressed, the have-nots. It goes on, CRT identifies that these power structures are based on white privilege and white supremacy, which perpetuates the marginalization of people of color. CRT also rejects the traditions of liberalism and meritocracy. Rejects meritocracy. Legal discourse says that the law is neutral and colorblind. However, CRT challenges this legal, quote, truth by examining liberalism and meritocracy as a vehicle for self-interest, power, and privilege. CRT also recognizes that liberalism and meritocracy are often stories heard from those with wealth, power, and privilege. These stories paint a false picture of meritocracy. Everyone who works hard can attain wealth, power, and privilege while ignoring the systemic inequalities and institutional racism that racism provides. So it's the idea that you ought to be rewarded and you will be rewarded when you work hard, that those are ideological ideas embedded in, quote, whiteness that are designed to repress people of color. Critical race theory teaches this. Well, this way of thinking opposes Christianity and its very presuppositions. CRT demands that you accept its presuppositions, which I have summarized into two statements. Racism is ingrained in the fabric and system of the American society that is fundamental, cannot be questioned, cannot be challenged, need not be demonstrated because it is inherently presumed. Second, that power structures based on white privilege and white supremacy exist and must be overthrown. So CRT assumes that people of color are inherently oppressed and marginalized by power structures that are rooted in white privilege and white supremacy. And furthermore, CRT doesn't merely make the observation, it is definitionally committed to transforming the perceived oppressions that it identifies. So critical race theory says that racism unquestionably exists and is systemic in American society, which has been built by and for the advantage of those who benefit from this oppressive ideology of whiteness. So there doesn't need to be a racist in the room in order for racism to exist because racism exists in the very structure of the room. It's built in. With these presuppositions, CRT will not allow the question to be asked, was there racism involved in that conversation or event? But CRT always requires the question to be framed this way, in what way do we see racism involved in that conversation or event? Two people are walking down the street, one person of majority race and one person of minority race, and the person of majority race crosses the street. The question is not, why did he cross the street? The question is, how is he exhibiting racism by crossing the street? So you assume that racism is involved in every type of event, encounter, or conversation like that. CRT is built on these presuppositions and requires that they be embraced. Refusal to embrace the presuppositions is to reject critical race theory, which I categorically do. But there are those who say, oh, no, no, we can use them as analytical tools, but we don't have to use the worldview that they commend or take the presuppositions. Well, once you take the presuppositions out, whatever you have, it's not critical race theory. Well, why is critical race theory incompatible with Christianity? Well, CRT, along with every other Marxist ideology, cannot be reconciled with what the Bible teaches us about sin and salvation. First, to view all relationships in terms of power dynamics requires that people be seen in terms of the powerful, the privileged, the oppressors, and the powerless, the marginalized, the oppressed. And along with striking out against God-ordained hierarchies and authority structures by evaluating them only in terms of oppressive power structures, this way of viewing the world fails to evaluate people in their primary relationship which is their relationship as creatures made in the image of their creator. Secondly, CRT is incompatible with the gospel because he who defines the problem gets to define the solution. And if the main problem for people of color is that they are inevitably oppressed by structures that are inherently oppressive, then the only solution is to tear down those structures in the pursuit of justice. And this way of thinking, at the very least, clouds the fact revealed in the Bible that every person's fundamental problem is that they have sinned against the holy God who created them. And that is true. for people of any and every category, no matter how you might put them into a category of oppression, or oppressor, or oppressed, or victim, or victimizer, or marginalized, or privileged. Everyone needs the grace of God to operate in their lives, to redeem them, to win them back to God, because everyone has rebelled against God. and we are all his creatures living in his world. And the fundamental need of every person is to be made right with the God whose world in which we live. This is exactly what God has provided for us in the life and death and resurrection of his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So in other words, the greatest need of mankind collectively and individually is to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ the Lord. And if you do not recognize that, you do not proclaim that, you do not defend that, you do not take that in all of its significance as it is set forth for us in every page of the Bible, then you cannot do people good by thinking that you're going to help them in some kind of temporal way. Everybody needs the grace of God because everybody's rebelled against God. Now the good news of the gospel is that what we cannot supply for ourselves that we desperately need, God himself has supplied. God justifies the ungodly. Isn't that amazing? There's no qualification that a man or a woman must have in order to make themselves somehow acceptable or a candidate for God's grace. God justifies ungodly people. No matter who you are, what you've done, where you've been, no matter who you know and what that person has done or that person has been, you and I can look them in the eye and say, God justifies the ungodly just like you. That you can be reconciled to God right now on the basis that he himself has provided for sinners. You don't have to clean up your act. You don't have to turn over a new leaf. You don't have to make a thousand promises. You don't have to join a church or jump through any hoop. You simply need to bow before the provision that God has made in Christ and turn from your sin, trust Christ Jesus as Lord, and you, an ungodly person, will be justified in his sight for Christ's sake. Now that's incredibly good news. I mean, that's news that doesn't make distinctions between people and saying, well, there's one way for this group of people who are privileged and another way for this group of people who have no privilege. The only hope that any of us has is what Jesus has done as a substitute for sinners. The only salvation that exists is the salvation that is in Christ. There is no other way to be reconciled to our creator, which is our fundamental need because of our fundamental problem being that we have rebelled against him. What about Christians who believe everything I've just said about the gospel? and yet tell us that critical race theory can be a useful analytical tool, a good thing that we can employ to help us think about race and racism. Well, the most charitable way that I can describe those Christians is that they are naive, and I would have to say dangerously naive. Why? Because the tool that you use matters. Even when a problem is properly diagnosed, that problem can be exacerbated rather than solved by trying to address it with the wrong tool. I live in Southwest Florida. And we have these creatures that afflict us that we call no-see-ums. And the reason is because they're hard to see. But whenever they infest an area, you know they're there. because they sting, they bite you. And whenever I find myself in an infested area like that, I don't want to just get out of the area, nor do I just want to kill the no-see-ums. I want to smash them. I want to make them suffer. And you know, I could take a hammer. Hammer's a good tool, right? Hammer smashes. And I could go to town trying to smash no-see-ums with a hammer, using it as a good tool, right? What would happen? Well, I'd probably kill some no-see-ums. I'd probably break some bones, too, along the way. And at the end of the day, when I take evaluation, I will realize I've done far more damage than I have done good. Why? Because the tool that I chose to address the problem was not designed to address that problem in the best way. The damage would outweigh any good. Well, that's true with critical race theory. It comes from and has embedded within it a godless materialistic view of the world. And it cannot be employed in ways that are true to the ideologies embedded in it without undermining the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Now, the same thing is true of intersectionality. a way of identifying people that grew out of critical race theory, and which in many ways is even more corrosive in its impact on social relationships and society at large than is CRT. Intersectionality describes the way the different types of discrimination overlap in a marginalized or oppressed person's experience. It's the idea that a person's true identity is measured by how many victim statuses they can call their own. And like CRT, intersectionality views the world through the lens of power dynamics, with a person's social position best understood in terms of power and privilege or discrimination and disadvantage. So the more disadvantaged groups that you can identify with, the more oppressed you are. And the number of such groups is virtually infinite, and they are being multiplied daily. Here's the way the Encyclopedia of Diversity and Social Justice describes intersectionality. Our experiences of the social world are shaped by our ethnicity, race, social class, gender identity, sexual orientation, and numerous other facets of social stratification. Some social locations afford privilege, for example, being white. while others are oppressive, for example, being poor. These various aspects of social inequality do not operate independently of each other. They interact to create interrelated systems of oppression and domination. The concept of intersectionality refers to how these various aspects of social location intersect to mutually constitute individuals' lived experiences. So, for example, by current standards, a black man is more oppressed than a white man. And a black woman is more oppressed than a black man. And a black lesbian woman is more oppressed than a black heterosexual woman. And so it goes. And as the oppressed categories multiply, so do the intersectional values of one's life. So white, heterosexual, cis-gendered, able-bodied Christian males are at the top of the offender list. And those who can claim the greatest number of opposite categories are at the bottom, or they're the most oppressed in this way of viewing the world. The more victim statuses a person has, the greater is his insight into an authority to speak on matters of justice, oppression, and oppression. This standpoint epistemology claims that a person's lived experience and social location provide him special insight into how the world really works, especially in areas of justice and oppression. So there's special knowledge that comes with your social location. You have special insight that those who are not socially located the way you are cannot attain and therefore the best thing they can do is to sit back, sit down, be quiet and listen so that they can learn from your special knowledge. We know the early church called such claims to special knowledge based on experience Gnosticism, heresy. Well, why is intersectionality incompatible with the gospel? Like critical race theory, the great problem with intersectionality is the worldview that forged it and is inevitably embedded within it. Intersectionality operates on a sub-Christian worldview that takes no account of God's sovereignty over his creation or the prerogative authority that he has to order his creation however he determines best. Intersectionality emphasizes the ways that people differ from each other while ignoring or rejecting altogether what the Bible says about the commonality of the human race. And the commonality of the human race is seen specifically in three critical ways in the Bible. First, all people are created in God's image. We are all responsible creatures who have come from the same Creator. Paul made this point to the Athenian philosophers in Acts 17, verse 26, when he said that God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place. So in that sense, there is one human race. And we all have peculiarities about us, both by ethnicity, background, family experience, life opportunities, difficulties that have happened to us, blessings that have come to us. But fundamentally, in and through and before all of that, is that we are all image bearers of God. Brothers and sisters, this is why we must never look down on anyone thinking ourselves better than them. Thinking that we have something that we have not been given by God's grace. This is why we should never stand by when people are mistreated and being dealt with unjustly. Why? Because they, like we, are image bearers. This is what makes murder such a heinous crime. Yes. It takes the life of a living human being. Yes, it separates family and friends, and yes, all of those things are true, but fundamentally, it is an attack upon God himself because it's an attack upon the image bearer of God. And as such, we have a commonality that trumps anything that any ideology might try to set before us and say, oh, no, no, no, you're altogether unlike these other people. That's one way. Intersectionality is incompatible with scripture. The second way that people have commonality in ways that intersectionality would overlook is that we have all sinned against our creator. Paul spends the bulk of the first three chapters in Romans establishing this point. He emphatically declares in Romans 3, 22 and 23, for there's no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. There's no distinction, Paul says. Intersectionality says, oh, wait a minute, there are many distinctions between people. And honoring those distinctions is necessary if we're going to really help people with their real problems in this world. Well, you see immediately how that eviscerates the foundation on which we all stand, not simply as image bearers of God, but as image bearers of God who've rebelled against God. We're all in the same boat. All have sinned. The third way. that intersectionality undermines the Bible's teaching is by downplaying, if not rejecting outright, the oneness that Christians have with each other because of our union with Christ. To be in Christ is to be spiritually united to all who are in Christ. It is to belong to the family of God. It's to have God as our Father. And Christians, no matter where they come from, what their lived experience or what their ethnicities as our brothers and sisters. This is precisely the point that Paul makes in Galatians chapter three, when he writes, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There's neither June or Greek, neither slave nor free. There's no male or female for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And this is why it's such a dangerous and tragic thing to hear Christians say, yes, I'm a Christian, but don't say I'm a Christian who happens to be black or white, but I'm a white man or I'm a black man who's a Christian. And my racial identity is to be the leading way that you are to think about me. And it's being said, it's being promoted. tragically, by some who, up until the last few years, I have regarded as trustworthy teachers of the gospel. Our identity is found in our relationship to God, by nature, as his creatures, by sin, as rebels against him, by grace, as his children. Authority comes from God. It belongs to those in whom he vests that authority in the various spheres of life. Insight into how we are to live in God's world and church comes from scripture and not from one's social location or lived experience. So those who promote the use of critical race theory and intersectionality are standing against what the Word of God teaches about the nature of humanity, the nature of sin, and the nature of righteousness and grace. These ideologies are incompatible with the authority and sufficiency of God's Word and therefore with the faith, the Christianity that the Word reveals. They are not useful analytical tools that Christians can employ as if they are neutral. They have ideas embedded within them that are not only antithetical to the way of Christ, but are committed to the deconstruction of the Christian faith because they view the Christian faith as a part of an oppressive power system that systemically and unjustly oppresses marginalized people. Furthermore, these ideologies are superfluous to the Christian who reads and understands the Bible and is submissive to its inerrancy, authority, and sufficiency. So I can't say strongly enough how committed I am to the understanding that critical race theory is not simply some distraction that Christians need to get over, quit talking about, so we can be about the main work of the gospel. These ideologies seek to undermine the gospel. And if they are not refuted, and if Christians try to embrace them while thinking that they can continue to proclaim and defend the gospel, one or the other will have to go. Well, I want to shift gears to think for a few minutes about the failure of Christian leaders to recognize this threat to the word of God and the gospel. And I do this, I mean, I do this with a broken heart. This is not what I envisioned I would be doing at this stage in my life. I'm a pastor. I love being a pastor. I got plenty to do as a pastor of that church that God has placed me in. And there are people far better equipped than I am that should be helping us and leading us in this and for whatever reason they're not. And so we have to take note of what's going on in the evangelical world and sound the alarm and try to help equip one another from God's word to recognize the failure of these leaders when they don't recognize the threat that's upon us. As these ideologies have become more prominent in our culture over the last decades. They have begun to make their way into evangelical churches and institutions. I and many others in this room, many who have spoken here this weekend, have documented this repeatedly in articles and talks and interviews over the last three to four years. If you want just a quick introduction into it, you can go to founders.org and search for CRTI or critical race theory intersectionality or social justice and you will come up with dozens and dozens if not hundreds of resources that we have tried to put out to help Christians think through this. If you're not familiar with the documentary, By What Standard? God's World, God's Rules that Founders Ministries produced in 2019, let me commend that to you as well. We did it to highlight ways in which these ideologies are infiltrating evangelical institutions. Despite the overwhelming evidence that destructive Marxist postmodern ideas are being promoted within our evangelical ranks, key evangelical leaders have been hesitant and even unwilling to do anything to stop them. In some cases, they have been complicit in promoting them. A few pastors and leaders have tried to sound the alarm. Those warnings, however, have not only been largely unheeded, but have been often ridiculed, castigated, dismissed by prominent evangelicals and evangelical institutions and organizations. I mentioned last night that on June 14th of 2018, I had the privilege of joining with 13 other men who met in Dallas, Texas, in order to try to think through what we were all seeing from our different vantage points that was going on under the banner of the social justice movement. The result of that was the statement that was published called the Statement on Social Justice and the Gospel. We published that statement for two primary reasons. One, that we might help faithful Christians understand what is going on. And two, that we might invite Christian leaders who we disagreed with and disagreed with us to engage in dialogue. Well, the first hope's been realized in gratifying ways. The statement has garnered a lot of attention over the last couple of years. It has been successful in promoting constructive fraternal dialogue amongst those who see these things, but however, it has not been successful in promoting dialogue with evangelical leaders who disagree with us. In fact, just the opposite has happened on many fronts. Dr. Philip Bethencourt, who was at that time the vice president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC, called Josh Bison and me the week before that statement on social justice was released. And he tried to talk us out of releasing it. He suggested that it would be an embarrassment for us. that it would be a stain on our ministries, that the statement wouldn't gain traction because you really don't have any significant people that are involved in it, except for John MacArthur, and nobody listens to him anymore. He said, you know, you don't have to do this. People will dismiss you and your ministries if you do it. After the statement was released, Dr. Tim Keller criticized it. And he criticized it not because of what it actually says, but as he put it, because of what it does. These are his words. It's not so much what the statement says, but what it does. It's trying to marginalize people talking about race and injustice. It's trying to say, quote, you're really not biblical. And it's not fair in that sense. If somebody tried to go down the statement with me, will you agree with this? Will you agree with this and with this? I would say, well, you're looking at the level of what it says and not the level of what it is doing. I do think that what it's trying to do is it's trying to say, quote, don't make this emphasis, don't worry about the poor, don't worry about the injustice. That's really what it's saying. Even if I could agree with most of it, it's what it's doing that I don't like. Well, that's at best a very uncharitable reading of the document where we state, we welcome dialogue, we want dialogue. Many of us have tried to have dialogue privately. Well, along with being accused of not caring about the poor, those of us who issued the statement were also accused of being neo-Confederates, misogynists, racists, not caring about injustices in the world. And those are simply the things that I can mention in this kind of company. We're also described as misunderstanding the gospel, as lacking an evangelical conscience, as feeling threatened by women and minority voices in the church, of shutting down helpful conversations about race, of trying to scare Christians away from working for real justice in the world. Well, none of these things is true. We tried to state our motivation as clearly as we could, to warn against dangerous ideologies that are being embraced by some Christian leaders and institutions and churches, ideologies that by their very nature will wind up crippling the very people that they purport to help by undermining true biblical justice in the name of social justice. And we think these things are so important that Christian leaders ought to be willing to get together and have open, honest conversation about them. Dr. Al Mohler, president of Southern Seminary, explained to students when he was asked why he didn't sign the document that he disagreed with the language that it uses. In 2019, at the Shepherds Conference out in California, when Phil Johnson asked him pointedly about the statement on social justice and the gospel, he said, I was not particularly appreciative of being handed a statement. And he went on to say that he had no opportunity to offer any particular consultation or suggestion. Faculty members from Southern Seminary have indicated to me that they were strongly discouraged from signing the statement. And I've heard that from faculty members of other institutions as well. Thabiti Anyabwele, who has been a prominent speaker at T4G conferences is the pastor of Anacostia River Church in Washington, D.C. He's a council member on the Gospel Coalition. He wrote two articles in response to things that I had produced or said or written, arguing that my warnings about these ideologies infiltrating evangelicalism were simply wrong. There is no evangelical social justice movement, he said. That's a quote. More recently, he has called CRT a mere, quote, boogeyman that I and others have invoked to divide and scare God's people. Mike Cosper, the director of podcasting for Christianity Today magazine, has dismissed our alarms by suggesting that no one really knows what CRT is, implying that when we speak about it, we're speaking ignorantly and therefore we should be ignored. Now it's hard to believe that any Christian, much less any Christian pastor or leader could be so cavalier and unmoved in the face of the attacks that are being waged on our churches and institutions by these ideologies. And it's even more disconcerting to see some defend and promote these ideologies from institutions, agencies, and organizations that are funded by the very people and churches that are trying to repudiate critical race theory and intersectionality. That's precisely what happened at the 2019 Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Birmingham, Alabama. That's the convention when the infamous Resolution 9 on critical race theory and intersectionality was recommended to the convention by the Resolutions Committee and was subsequently adopted by the convention. That committee on resolutions included four members from Southern Baptist seminaries. Walter Strickland, who's the vice president of at Southeastern Baptist Seminary, Keith Whitfield, who's Vice President at Southeastern Seminary, Alicia Wong, who was Director of Women's Studies at Gateway Seminary, and then the Chairman of the Resolutions Committee, Curtis Woods, who at that time was on the faculty of Southern Seminary. Despite the efforts of a few of us who were in the room at that time, including Dr. Tom Buck and myself, who spoke against the resolution and tried to amend it, the convention passed the resolution unamended and went on record as accepting CRT and intersectionality as useful analytical tools that can be employed by faithful Christians. Well, that was a colossal mistake. It's important to note that There were six Southern Baptist seminary presidents in the room when that resolution was being debated. And their silence was deafening. So here's where we find ourselves today. Critical race theory and intersectionality have been thoroughly infused in many of our academic, legal, and political institutions in this nation. It is trying to gain ascendancy in evangelicalism. We had, a national president whose administration was given enough wisdom to try to root out these ideologies from our federal government. And we have evangelical leaders today who are unwilling to be as decisive in doing the same thing for churches and institutions. It's been well documented that some are actually promoting these ideologies in the name of promoting social justice among Christians. And there's a whole movement now called Woke Church. claiming that as we embrace these ways of thinking, we are actually moving toward a better version of Christianity. But brothers and sisters, we must be crystal clear. What we're actually facing in this movement is not a better version of Christianity. Those churches, institutions, and leaders who are advocating CRT intersectionality as useful analytical tools are not proposing a different kind of Christianity. They are proposing a different religion. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that everyone who is complicit and everyone who thinks there's good ideas in these ideologies has completely rejected Christ. I am saying they're welcoming in a religion that is contrary to the way of Christ. Those of us who love Christ and are unwilling to bow to any other must resist these attempts at every point. And we must call those who are Advocating and being complicit in the advocation of these ideologies, we must call them to repentance. If they refuse to repent, we certainly must not go on financially supporting their efforts. For whether they do it wittingly or unwittingly, these ideologies being welcomed into institutions and agencies will erode the very foundations of the Christian faith. So we're in a spiritual war. And our Lord and Savior calls us to stand firm. If we are for him, we must stand against the ideologies of critical race theory, intersectionality, critical theory. If anyone advocates for those ideologies, we must recognize that they are opposing Jesus Christ and his gospel in doing so. And we must be willing to think clearly and speak plainly on these issues. There is no neutral ground. And may God help us. Let's pray. Our Father, we bow to you with heavy hearts. We want to be faithful stewards of the word you've given us. We realize that ours is not the first generation to deal with these kinds of divisive efforts of our enemies. You've told us that Satan prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may destroy. You've warned us that we are not to make friends with this world in all of its ideological ways of thinking apart from you. And you've commanded us to put the sin that remains within us to death. And so we know that as we fight our own flesh, this worldly way of living and the devil, that we are engaged in the same battle that all of our brothers and sisters have been engaged in throughout the history of redemption. So help us to be faithful in our day, to be good stewards. Oh God, where we, where I have misperceived things, please bring clarity, correction. where brothers and sisters that we know and love are misperceiving things, please do the same and have mercy upon your people in this day at this time. Come to us by the power of your spirit, revive in us a deeper submission to the lordship of Christ, a greater readiness to take you at your word, and a willingness to stand upon that word regardless of cost or consequence. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you, Pastor Tom. All right, it's time for our lunch break. I have one announcement, one request. If you are here and you have yet to check in at that front table, we want to be sure that you get your conference bag with registration. And so if you have yet to check in at the front table right out here, right outside of the sanctuary. Be sure to do that before coming back to our panel discussion after our lunch break. So we're gonna break for lunch. We'll see you back here at 2.15. We'll be starting the panel discussion at 2.15. Thank y'all.