Let's pray. Our matchless God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we're going to be reminded tonight that those people who know their God are strong, and we pray that we would not only know you as our God, but know those things you've taught in your word that are essential, that we might be transformed by the renewing of our minds and also that we might be a challenge, in the best sense of the word, to the unbelieving thought of our day. Make us to be holy iconoclasts, we pray, and teach us tonight the way, the main way we do that, for Jesus' wonderful sake. Amen. Amen. Please be seated. One of the things I love about conference speaking is you can, when you miss something, which I did from the morning. Incidentally, Ken, how long do I have? Do I have until 8.45? Yeah, you go ahead and tell me. You can stay as long as you want. Forget it. You're going to regret it. You have nothing else? Oh, good. Then we're going to have a question and answer time. As soon as they've said that, look at this. Aaron's going to walk out. Okay, a couple things. One, one of the questions that came up is, and please write down your questions or we'll have some time to talk tonight. So how do you keep yourself from idols, given all that you've heard? And in your Bibles, turn please to 1 Corinthians chapter six and verse 12. When I said, and please, young folks, be careful, don't be a Luddite when it comes to culture. because every development in culture has positives and negatives in it because it's not so much the culture, although no culture is neutral, but that's for another day, but sinful people are using it, right? But it can also be used for good. But anyway, 1 Corinthians 6, and beginning at verse 12, this is your key text in dealing with, among other things, idolatry. All things are lawful for me. Now, obviously, if it's unlawful, it's not lawful. But is it lawful to use social media? Sure. Is it lawful to use artificial intelligence? Sure. Is it lawful to use prescription medications? Absolutely. Okay? So, yes, all things are lawful for me, unless, again, it involves something that is sinful. But not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, But I will not be dominated by anything. And you need to ask yourself, and I need to ask myself, how much time do you spend on social media? Or for that matter, in my case, in front of your iPhone. And is it wrong to have those things? No, I thank God for that technology. But you must not be dominated by any of these things, okay? So is it right to watch a movie? Sure, so long as it's not something that's going to make you sin, but don't be dominated by those things. I think probably the best answer I can give to that very good question, how do you keep yourself from idols? The second, I meant to mention this this morning, but I am obsessed I will stay in the time frame. Look at Psalm 11 for just a moment. This is for your encouragement. Because frankly, after the morning message, you could get pretty discouraged, right? And I don't want you to be discouraged. When Christians are discouraged, They listen to Fox News and Cable News Network. Really, look, hey, listen, I worked in radio, I worked in media, I know the tricks, folks. And don't, a good rule of thumb is for every hour you spend, if you spend an hour on the media, spend at least an hour reading your Bible, because this is a reality check. Okay, Psalm 11. Now, if you're borrowing someone's Bible, don't make this notation in it, but if it's yours, you can do it if you want. This is a confession. In the Lord, that's the covenant name of God, Lord means God's power and God's promises. Covenant name, he speaks, he makes promises, he has power to keep them. In the Lord, I take refuge. How? Can you say to my soul, now, if you've got your own Bible, you want to mark it if you feel the liberty to do that, put the beginning of a quotation mark there. Because this is someone saying to the believer, saying these things. Flee like a bird to your mountain. That's a retreat. For behold, and behold means stop and think about. He's saying, get out of here. This is the Benedict option. Just get away from things. For behold, the wicked bend the bow, and they do. They fitted their arrow to the string, and they are to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" That's at least a question. More likely, it's a challenge. We are living in a culture that is falling apart, going to hell in a handbasket. Then, get out of here. If the foundations, and there's all kinds of, probably referring to law here, if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? That's the end of the quotation. Here's the response. One, the Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. Don't ever forget, all authority in heaven and on earth is given to Christ right now, okay? Number two, His eyes see. His eyelids test the children of men. The Lord tests the righteous. How? Are you going to stand faithfully in our culture? The Bible never tells you to advance. Jesus will advance his kingdom. It does tell you to stand. That language is used in Ephesians 6, what is it, nine times? Something like that. Okay, to stand. So that's number two. Number three. But his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. Let him rain coals on the wicked, fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. That's not your work, that's God's work. Your work is to show compassion, the language of Romans 12. Do good to them and therefore heap coals on their head. But let me tell you, God will stop this stuff. You're grieved by it, God's more grieved by it. And then number four, here's the other reason you don't flee. For the Lord is righteous. He does the right thing. He loves righteous deeds. He loves it when you do the right thing. upright shall behold his face." Or it can also be translated, his face shall behold the upright. They're both true. That's what you're looking for. Is God smiling on you and what you do? That's what counts. Let the whole world frown at you, and it doesn't make any difference if God smiles on you, okay? So that's anyway, but that's for your encouragement. Don't flee the Benedict option. I have to admit, it's attractive, but it's also not right, okay? But anyway, that's just something. We can discuss that for tonight. Okay, here we go. Message part number two. the church before the modern watching world, where in Romans 12 we've dealt with not being, not letting the world push you into its mold, right, not making, not being formed by the external pressures and forces of this age, but literally be metamorphosed by the renewing of your minds. And it's the language of a caterpillar that is metamorphosed into a butterfly. So it's a beautiful, very expressive word, being transformed by the renewing of your mind. Now let me repeat this. One of the biggest challenges, this is part of being an iconoclast, one of the biggest challenges you face is calling foolishness for what it is. And you must do that without sounding like an arrogant, and I could put words in at the end, but I won't, you fill in the blank, but don't sound arrogant in the way you do it. And it's interesting, some of the ways I've read just in secular culture, these are not, I don't think these are Christians, Bill Mayer is not a Christian by any means, and he's an interesting guy, because politically we would disagree with him, But he's got a way of lancing things in our culture, gender or sex change operations, that you can give to a child, seven, eight, nine years old, if they want it. And this is, again, a wise way of answering. He said, hey, when I was seven years old, I wanted to be a pirate. I wanted to be peg-legged the pirate. I mean, it was popular back then. I'm thankful that my parents didn't let me go to the doctor. I didn't go to the doctor and say, I want my leg cut off so I can be a pirate. Everybody laughs. But there's a way of, there's a biblical text about this, dealing with it. And others, an editorial that I read, again, not from a Christian as far as I know. You can talk You can talk in an elementary school classroom. Elementary school, that's, you know, kindergarten through, what, third grade, fourth grade, whatever. You can talk about all these sexual issues that, historically, parents have wanted to shield their children from because it takes a certain level of maturity to deal with these things. But, In the workplace, if you talk with someone about these issues, you can get fired for sexual harassment. So you see, this is not foolish consistencies, the hobgoblin of little minds. It's the tension in all unbelieving thought between rationality and irrationality. An 18-year-old is not mature enough to own a firearm, and you can debate that or not, but that's an argument that's made. An 18-year-old is not mature enough to own a firearm, but a 5- to 7-year-old can determine his own gender? Now, these are things from the world that are being said that show the foolishness of so much thought. And there's a text that deals with this. I was chatting with Sarah from Michigan about her favorite Proverbs. She's like, I got two of them. I said, there's 31 books of them. But anyway, in this regard, Proverbs 26, verses 4 and 5, don't answer a fool. according to his folly, lest you be like him. Answer a fool as his folly deserves, lest he be wise in his own eyes. If a person's presuppositions, faith commitments, are that my gender can be determined by me, again, I think, therefore I am, developed, and you think like that, you're just playing into their own unbelieving thought. No, it's Proverbs 26, 4 and 5. Answer a fool as his folly deserves. And you can say, well, then let me understand. So if I self-identify as a hamster, is that okay? Now, be kind. Be gracious. And this brings up the huge question. You're dealing with a man who identifies as a female. Do you call him her? We can talk about that separately, but I have my own views that don't seem to be in the majority on it. But anyway, my personal view? is that if I call a male who self-identifies as a female, a female, that I'm lying to that person. But I realize the issue. Anyway, that's far afield. Okay, so that's the challenge, one of your biggest challenges. Now, let's begin to think positively, okay? So think positively about being transformed by the renewing of your mind And here, Francis Schaeffer's The Church Before the Watching World, which deals with biblical absolutes, the main theme of this, and the church at the end of the 20th century, which is how you deal with a rapidly changing culture. Young folks, I don't know what young adults, I'd say singles, because you're really married to Christ if you're married, but I'll say younger ones, because you're all younger than me, other than Ken. And that's only by a couple of months. Be uncompromisingly serious about your commitment to biblical absolutes. Be uncompromisingly serious about your commitment to biblical absolutes. And yes, every word's important. Because you compromise on biblical absolutes and you slide down the hill fast. Now in saying that, be uncompromisingly serious about your commitments to biblical absolutes. You've always got to ask the question, is this really what the scriptures say? Semper Reformanda, always reforming. I'll give you some examples. Women's roles. No, women's are not to be elders. Incidentally, this is a big thing. Now, I'll give you some New York. Oh, you're the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. You don't let women be elders. My answer is this, and I don't smile. I say I do smile on other occasions, not in this one. Say, you're telling me you are that cruel that you will put the responsibility of the eldership on a woman who has a responsibility in most cases for children, in most cases something harder, a responsibility for her husband, or a responsibility for grandchildren, responsibility for house and home management, and you are that cruel? that you are going to put the concern, the everlasting souls and their concern on them? I'm stunned that you're that cruel. And you know why I say that? Because it's true. And this is nothing against, this is for women. It's protecting them from things. I know what it's like. to come home from a session meeting. Well, you don't sleep because of the issues you're having to deal with with people. The last thing that I want for my wife is that she has to deal with that. So this will fit with what we're going to deal with tomorrow in the worship. God's will is good, folks. It's good and pleasing and perfect. And commitment to biblical absolutes will show itself in that way. And if I keep going like this, we will be here half the night, okay? So, women's rules. Educational models. The Bible says homeschooling, and that's it. Excuse me, it doesn't. And we've homeschooled. What do you do when you have an autistic child, or a child with autism? And you don't have the resources for that. Well, sometimes you do need to use resources that the state provides, okay? So please be careful with those things. And political views. Biblically, you can criticize liberalism, and you can criticize conservatism. Selfishness. Selfishness. That's free enterprise. You allow selfishness, everyone will benefit. I don't think the Bible speaks real favorably about selfishness. So be careful. You're going to line up one way or the other. I certainly saw my shirt under this. You'll know where I stand. Make Orwell fiction again. So you know where I am with things. But again, is it really what the Bible teaches? And that's why we need one another to answer those things. OK, here we go. So now you're waiting for biblical or doctrinal absolutes to both confront our culture and to be transforming your mind. So connected with the first one, these things are going to help you to be iconoclasts, okay? But they're also going to help you as you think through how you function in this modern world. So there's four of them. Number one, and all the others flow from this, and I'm using Dr. Schaeffer's book title, because I don't know a better way to put it. Number one, God is there, folks. God is there, and He's not silent. If you Google in, now alone in the universe used to mean something philosophically, now alone in the universe is, I don't believe in aliens. So the thought has kind of changed a bit, although there is something interesting in that. But this is a world in which people feel literally alone in the universe. You've got to say, no, God is there, and he's not silent. The loss of moral absolutes. I love to tell people, you've got a GPS to get you from one part of Suffolk County to the end. What's your GPS for your life? What's your standard for how you know what to do? But there's this loss of moral absolutes, rightly called relativism. And then you've got modern atheism, which is, if I'm reading it properly, I think, I think that modern atheism has kind of passed its heyday in the 21st century. I may be wrong, but I don't hear as much about it. Why? Because there's so many good responses to it. And incidentally, there is no modern atheism. All modern atheism is old atheism with modern dress. But how do you respond to these things? Number one, You've got to have a robust view of general revelation, which is great out in this area. And I mean a really robust view of the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork, Psalm 19, Romans 1, right? Even nature itself shows God's eternal power and Godhead. Do you believe that? What does it mean? You can quote the Scripture, but develop it. What does it mean that this creation displays God's eternal power and Godhead? That's interesting. We'll come to this later. You cannot rightly understand the world apart from the Trinity. Think about that, His eternal power and Godhead. We'll see about that in a moment, okay? A robust view of general revelation Now, general revelation is insufficient. It's not going to tell you about Jesus. It's not going to tell you about how your sins are forgiven. And it's not going to tell you what the scriptures specifically tell you in words. But it's hardly unimportant. Young folks, study the natural sciences. Physics, biology. Not that you have to get into all of it. But just, I mean, even want, they may be evolutionary in their view, but the wonder of what we've learned from the Hubble telescope, and what the wonder of the way creatures are made, study the natural sciences. The Discovery Institute, okay, intelligent design, all right. You know, some reformed people have conniptions. The telling is a design. That's not going to tell you about the Trinity. No, it's not. But it sure will tell you this. Darwin made it very clear in The Origin of Species that things became more complex from the simple. I mean, that's probably a basic Darwinian idea, which actually is a pagan Greek idea, but that's another day. Michael Bayhee. I don't know where Michael Bayhe is with respect to Christ. Michael Bayhe says, wait a minute, there is no simple organism. There is irreducible complexity. The more you get right down to the makeup of DNA, you have increasing complexity. Now, that doesn't teach you the Trinity, the Bible does, but it sure does teach you the folly of macroevolution, all right? And there is an evolution within species, but we're talking about evolution that goes beyond species. And I was chatting with a Reformed, a friend of mine, a Reformed veterinarian and an excellent doctor. I mean, he really knows his field well. And he went to all secular schools for his graduate studies. And I said, how an evolutionist working with the anatomy of a horse, at the end of the day, has to come to somehow this thing evolve from the Eohippus or whatever the thing was. How would you deal with that? He said, the more you study the wonder of a living body, the more you're brought down on your knees to worship God. Wow. And that's it. So study the natural science, the natural sciences. So, robust view of general revelation. And incidentally, Everything in General Revelation, in one way or another, is a reflection of God and His work. I love the, I love, we can, in our home, you look out east and you see the sun coming up, and I love to be reminded the Son of Righteousness will rise with healing in His wings. Now that sun doesn't tell me the gospel, But the gospel does tell me about that son. So that's the kind of thing we're getting at. And if you're really interested in, to me, what is fascinating, how all is a reflection of God and his work, read Augustine on the Psalms. And even if you just read him on Psalm 19, magnificent thoughts about that. Number two, this is on your response, robust view of general revelation and even more robust view of special revelation. The word of God inspired all scriptures given by the, is God breathed out and is profitable? It is inerrant. And where do you get inerrancy? Hello, God doesn't lie. So if it's the Word of God, it must be inerrant, right? And it's sufficient that the man of God, that's the first case, the minister, but all of the Lord's people might be complete, mature, thoroughly equipped unto every good work. That's the sufficiency of Scripture. You know, so someone comes to you and says, hey, I know God's will for your life. God told me you need to go to France as a missionary. Now, wait a minute, you know, I've got a completed scripture that tells me those things. So I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but an even more robust view of special revelation. Now, young folks, if you have doubts about this, please speak with your pastor or speak with one of your elders, speak with me. But if you're wrestling with these things, deal with those issues. Because you start questioning the inerrancy of Scripture, and you're pulling a thread out of the Bible, and other threads will come, and I don't want to see that happen to you, okay? You don't have to get a lot of questions about the harmony of the Scriptures and inerrancy that are difficult to answer, I get it. But at the end of the day, the Word of God is the Word of God, and you have to have a robust view of that. And one of the things we were talking about at dinner, I won't mention the state, but there is a state in the United States that was a place that was a reformed Mecca for many years. And it's not in the South. And I have been stunned to see how that state has changed in its political views and what it accepts when there are so many Reformed churches. And the person with whom I spoke had it right. It's the loss of passion for the Reformed faith. You tell me you're Reformed, All you're telling me is you're being honest with what the Scriptures say. Are you passionate about it? Are you passionate about the fact that that reveals the God of all grace? That's what we're getting at when I say a robust view of special revelation. And number three, and I got a couple more, three more points I gotta go. It's not enough just robust view of general revelation, robust view of special revelation. Can you say that's my God through Jesus Christ? You've got to be able to say that in this culture. I don't like the hymn in the garden for a lot of things, but he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own. I don't have any problem with that. That's what the reformed faith teaches, even about the assurance of faith that we're meant to have. Do you have that kind of commitment? The Bible does not say that if anyone does not love the doctrines of grace, and I do, if anyone does not love the doctrines of grace, let him be anathema. There's a lot of Reformed people who think like that. If anyone doesn't love the Lord Jesus, let him be anathema. Do you love Christ? If you don't love Christ above all things, you're not going to be able to deal with this culture. Because our culture has a problem, ultimately, of lovelessness. But anyway, so OK. So you remember that in that regard, good devotional materials, I can't, with all due respect to the Trinity Hymnal, that version was one that was approved. And there were a number of us who were quite upset because we had asked back in the early 80s that all the 150 psalms be included, and we ended up getting, in this version, which is a good hymnal, fewer psalms than the Blue Trinity hymnal, and thank God now we have the Trinity Psalter hymnal. But that's a tremendous devotional aid and other things. But whatever it takes, so that Jesus kisses you with the kisses of his mouth, and you can say, wow, this God that made all things, he's my God. And that God who speaks in the scriptures, he's given me a love letter, and I love to commune with him. You've got to be able to say that, okay? And then, why he is there and he's not silent. See, you tell the world, say, you know, God has entered history. God, not only is God spoken in the world and in scripture, but the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And you really need to tell people about that. Tell people, Jesus, what do you do with Jesus? Jesus is the great elephant in the room of human history. And here, I know this bothers some Presbyterians who don't want the imposition of a church calendar on the church, and I agree with that completely. I don't want somebody telling me what to do every Sunday as an electionary. But, I would suggest that you not throw out special emphasis on the birth of Christ, the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the ascension of Christ, the sending of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, as well as the return of Christ. You take that view, I'm never going to emphasize those things because the Bible says they're not holy days. I'm not talking about a holy day. I'm talking about events in history. And everyone has to come to grips with those things. Jesus is the elephant in the room of human history. You want to know God? Whether you use the word Christmas or not, to me, is irrelevant. Do you talk about the birth of Christ? That's how you know God. What do you do with your sin problem? There's something called Good Friday. When, on that Friday, that God-man took hell. That's what darkness is. He took the hell that is basically the distillation of all the judgments of God for his people. Obviously you emphasize that. The resurrection of Christ, you know what the resurrection of Christ is? It's D-Day in human history. God broke the back of Satan's power as a destroyer by Easter Sunday. And the ascension of Christ, which we don't even mention. Who's the... Big deal about the coronation a few weeks ago. Hello? Christ was coronated. So please, whether you use the terms or not, don't ditch these truths. The world's got to hear. You can't understand history. Remember B.C. I love this. B.C.E. What does it mean? Before Common Era. What do you mean by the Common Era? Or A.D. It's not mean after death. Anno Domine, Year of the Lord. Praise the Lord for that in our culture. All right, okay, so I gotta get going or we'll be here all night. So you got the first one, God is there, he is not silent. The second one, Dr. Schaeffer used the language, the manishness of man, but I would speak of the humanity, the humanness of people, both male and female, the real humanity of men and women. Do you realize our culture does not know what is man? Our culture doesn't know how to answer that. And it's fascinating, in a culture of self, the first message, you have people who don't even know what self is. You can emphasize and must the real humanity of human beings. Your response, man as man, man as male, man as woman, man as man is the image of God. Praise the Lord. Genesis 127, let us make man in our image, in our image made he them. Do you tell people that? Psalm 8, what is man? That you're mindful of him, the son of man. It's ultimately speaking of Christ, but of all people. James 3 in verse 9, with our tongues, we bless God and curse people who are made, the word there is likeness, in the likeness of God. Now, And please don't say people are partly the image of God. People are the image of God. And what is sin? Sin defaces that image in various ways. So don't get caught up in all those issues. That's what makes sin so serious. It's sin against the body that God has made. Now let me tell you how important that is, and I'll use a Francis Schaeffer illustration. Dr. Schaefer was, I think, flying from the United States back to Switzerland. And he was an evangelist. He loved to talk to people. He would draw them out and speak with them. And he was kind of a curious figure, too. He wore knickers. He had a beard, long hair. People kind of, who is this character over here? And kind of soft-spoken, basically. He's on a plane coming back to Switzerland. There's a guy sitting next to him, a hippie, and the guy didn't smell good, he didn't look good, and it was a mess. He probably had bummed his head out on drugs, I don't know. And Dr. Schaefer was trying to draw out this young man to speak. That was in a time people did speak to one another and didn't put earbuds in their ears, okay? You had to listen. So finally, this fellow says to Dr. Schaefer, he says, I'm a mess. Why are you so interested in me? When Dr. Schaffer said, young man, because you're made in God's image, wow. You know how powerful that is in a culture that doesn't know where people come from? And don't begin with redemption. A person over here, are you a Christian? And there's a place to ask that. I would suggest you not start there. Start with the fact that this black person, this Asian person, this male, this female, this one, and you're not really sure what that person is, or this person that has tattoos all over the place where you'd never think people would have tattoos, that doesn't make any difference. That person's made in God's image. I was speaking with someone pretty well known in the evangelical community, and I made the point when we were chatting that if evangelicals, he was Reformed, but he was in the evangelical camp, if evangelicals would just even think like that, that would change our dealing with people overnight. His answer still stunned me. I agree with you. Most evangelicals would not. Hello? Because you think first, if you think of it at all, are they Christians or not? And yes, you ask that. But don't begin there. Begin with the fact that they're made in God's image, male and female. And when it comes to male and female, this is a whole other topic. Don't have stereotypes of this. A man never washes the dishes. That's one of the things Margaret and I got in our premarital counseling. And I had the temerity to say, I think, where do you get that out of the word of God? Well, we just, men don't wash dishes. That's a woman's rule. Baloney. Your wife has got children, and she's taking care of them, and they're sick, and she's exhausted. I think the Bible says love your wife as you love yourself. Give yourself for her good. There's an example of not having stereotypes. The woman is not to speak in church. Well, can she worship? Can she open her mouth? No, okay, you don't interrupt the worship service. And there is a point, sowing respect and honor for authority. But be careful with how you define these things, okay? And work on those. But that's just some examples. And of course, you've got the classic text. Just don't let culture dictate what your view is. One way, the Proverbs 31, you know, where's your model of manhood? Hello, Jesus Christ is God and man, and two distinct natures in one person forever. And you didn't have any gender confusion. On the other hand, you have the Apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 2 saying, I was affectionately longing for you as a mother for her child, as the language of a mother for her dying child. So yeah, you can take that language and say it was a woman, but so define things biblically in that regard, okay? So that's number two, the manishness of man, the real humanity of human beings. And when, young folks, you have a lesbian in your home, one of the challenges that we had in Franklin Square was dealing with a woman who had been pimped out by her father as a girl. I will remember after Margaret, I didn't tell Margaret what situation was, and I in principle do not do lengthy counseling with females. That really, I hear again. Women should never be in any teaching position with other people. Okay, Paul says, the scriptures, let the older women, I love that incidentally. He didn't say old, he said older. Older women, so if you're 30 years old, you're older than the 20 year old, right? The older women teach the younger women, oh he says exhort, I think, to be keepers of the home and so on. Do the churches in which you're in, do they have a way to implement that? Oh no, we wouldn't let women do that. I think our final authority is the scriptures. So the training of women to do that, and the training of men to work with younger men, anyway. Okay, so the humanity, and anyway, the reason I say that, Margaret, we needed a gospel-saturated woman who could keep confidences, who would listen to what had happened with this woman. Margaret spent, it was about an hour and 15 minutes, and I went out and got the food. I knew a little bit of it, but not a lot. Margaret's skin color was the color of the white on that piece of tapestry up there. She was so stunned by this account of how this woman made in the image of God had been treated like garbage. Now sadly, she ended up living in a life of lesbianism. We're still working with her as much as we can, but it really fouled her up. You get done a meeting like that, all you want to do is cry. You want to minister our culture, that's what you got to do. Is be able to take people that have been fouled up. Psalm 11, don't retreat. The foundations are destroyed and they're a mess. One of you was commenting on my world. I learned to deconstruct everything in my world and all I had was rubble. And that's when I realized I better get serious about religion and ended up coming to Christ. But that's what you're dealing with, okay. Number three, and I'm not gonna spend a lot of time with it now because this will be the first message tomorrow, it's, of all of them, I am particularly burdened with this one. Biblical orthodoxy is an orthodoxy of community. We live in a, and I'm not trying to be negative to my Baptist brothers and sisters, I have many of them and I love them, but we live in a Baptistic culture. that is very individualistic. This is a climate, the United States is a climate for a baptistic approach to individuals. The Bible's not individualistic. The Bible speaks of the one and the many. You'll see this in the message tomorrow in Romans, in the language that's there. Biblical orthodoxy means, I emphasize, community. Do you realize the pernicious, I even want to say devilish effects of shutting down a culture for two years? We've not witnessed anything like that. There have been emergencies where normal activities are halted, including worship for time. I get that. Two years? Where parents are not permitted to see their children when they're in a nursing home? When children are not permitted to be with other young people even for playground activities? When people are petrified of being within six feet of somebody else, whether or not they wear a mask? Do you realize the effects of that in our culture? That suicides have gone up almost exponentially? That young people today are facing mental illness issues? And finally, finally, this is being admitted even by secularists. Why? God made us for community. Why? We're made in the image of the Trinity. And God is three persons and one God. And everything in the created order represents that. This goes back philosophically to Plato, who considered the one, the universal. You've got a rose, for example. And Aristotle, who points to the ground with his fingers, he thinks of the many. And it's the old philosophical issue. What's fundamental? The one or the many? We deal with this with Nan in the house, as we talk about the difference between Eastern culture and Western culture. The West thinks of the individual, and that's not wrong. But we think in terms of the individual, whereas Eastern culture thinks more in terms of the state, and that's not wrong either. But both, see both are true anyway. The emphasis on community. What should be your response? We're made for community because we are made in the image of the Trinity. And no, that's not popular. Now, the gospel is about me and Jesus. I've accepted Jesus into my heart. I've seen a lot of bad things in churches. I don't need the church. I've just got Jesus. I don't think you have Jesus if you don't have the church. Because Jesus happens to have a bride, and he's one flesh with that bride. And you talk about what you have to bear with in churches, and I grieve with you with those things too. What do you think Jesus does with his church? And again, lovingly but faithfully, you have to emphasize, not just church, that's a huge part of it. We're meant for one another. I love that language. I couldn't quite read it from where I was. What was that statement at the end about the Machen house and, or Machen, except you gotta change retreat in there, the strategic withdrawal. But what was it? We want to learn the Presbyterian way. What was the language? I couldn't read it. Something about not being a bunch of Berkeley elders, but coming together as one. Yeah. Okay, there you go. That's right. That's exactly right. And we were talking about this at the table. And when it comes to church, okay, you have the doctrinal standards and so on. I'm talking now not just about church. I'm talking about the broader Christian community. We need one another. We don't have all the answers in Reformed churches. And so you can be careful how this is done. There's different levels of it. But Christians in the medical profession, they need one another as they face issues like, what do you say to this male who self-identifies as female? And doctors, of course, have dealt with these things for years. What do you do when a person's born with two sets of reproductive organs? That's very uncommon. But the old answer is, again, what's the chromosomal makeup? Is it XX of a female or XY of a male? So we've dealt with these issues, but that's why older doctors and young, but you get the point. We need community on every level, but you say, what are the standards for community? One, holiness. Holiness is not a series of do's and don'ts. Holiness is I'm separated unto God. That's what holy means. In all communities, is there a separation unto God? And again, you've got to parse that in different ways. But also, is there observable love? That's Dr. Schaeffer's, the mark of the Christian. That's what you look for. And that's what you need to be. Now see, if you're separated unto God in a godly way, a lot of even professed Christians are not going to like you. God smiles on you, doesn't make any difference who frowns. That's holiness. In all cases, love. Giving yourself for the good of other people And of course you love even if they're non-Christians, but within the Christian community, observable love. I love the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I'm thankful to God and I will be when I go to glory for the privilege of working in a church where I can keep my conscience clear. I'll tell you one thing I don't love, a litigious spirit. Everybody's got to bring charges against everybody. I'm old enough I can get away with this, but my line that I've said to some ministers, you want to be a lawyer? Be a lawyer. If you want to be a pastor, you be a pastor. And sometimes you've got to bring charges. But in most cases, you work with these things with careful, gracious pastoral work and something that is called repentance. Repentance is Not, I'm sorry. Somebody tells me they're sorry. I say, well, that's just the sensor on your dashboard. You know something's wrong. What are you telling me? Well, I apologize. No. Apologize is, I said I was going to have a meeting at two o'clock. I got there 20 minutes late because I had a flat tire and I had to change it. You apologize. You sin against someone, you ask forgiveness. One of the people was saying she wants to do family and marriage counseling. Great, wonderful. Here's lesson number one. You sit down with a couple, husband's over here, wife's over here, and you come to that house and you want to talk with them about OPC foreign missions and how great they are. And it's clear they can't stand one another's guts. You say, you know, I noticed that there's probably some friction here in the house. And then they kind of laugh. Talk to me. He's mean to me. She doesn't respect me. Give me some specifics. Legal pad, you need more than one of them. You want to stun them? If you ask forgiveness of your spouse, and you get this stunned silence, and say, you know, the Bible is about forgiveness. That's what the gospel is all about. Forgiveness is a promise. I won't bring this up to you. Forgiveness, here's forgiveness, my thumb. I won't bring this up to you, I won't bring it up to the Lord, I won't bring it up to myself, and I won't bring it up to anybody else. Now, in a counseling situation, you need to deal with the issues, but basically, no fishing in those waters. Have you asked for forgiveness? No. Then you're sinning against one another. Sinning? Me? Yes. Husband, over here. You start asking your wife for forgiveness. I don't want to do it. I don't care whether you want to do it or not. You a Christian? In fact, even if you're not, you're still required to do it. This is one I've gotten into, now excuse the language here, but I've gotten it. I was brought up in a family where my dad yelled at my wife, my mother, all the time, and that's all I've seen. I don't give a tinker's damn about your family's upbringing. Now you say it in love, don't say it in harshness. And you may even have to say, my friend, my brother, I struggle with this too. You want to start dealing with our culture and its sin, that's where you've got to begin. And anyway, how did I get off on all that? Community. Holiness and love means you always express that. And you might want to say something like, as we close, I didn't mean anything to be wrongly offensive to you. And if I sounded harsh or uncaring, forgive me. But I'm serious about you being serious about Jesus. And when there are light views of sin, and that's putting it mildly in our culture, that's because of light views of the cross. All right? So anyway, but in community, these are the kinds of things that you see. Isn't it wonderful that beginning in the home and in the church, you have people who will say to someone, you know, I need to ask your forgiveness. I spoke to you harshly, and would you forgive me? Not all the time, but that there's this kind of gracious interaction with others. The world needs to see that, because their view of Christians is that we're the only army that shoots our own wounded. And then finally this, and then what time is it? Oh, five minutes. We'll have more on this at the very last message. Okay, so God is there and he's not silent. That's number one. Number two, the manishness of man, the real humanity of human beings. Three, community. You've got to emphasize these things. The fourth one is the end of all things. Fancy word, eschatology. Okay, please don't throw that word around with people. I love to study eschatology. They wonder what field of medicine you're talking about. They I'm fascinated with the end of all things and what will come and it's really not the end of all things But the end of human history, okay, but the end of all things Let me give you let me tell you what are the metaphor for our modern culture is Airline pilot he comes on the intercom and he says well I I've got good news and I've got bad news. And of course everybody's quiet. Here's the good news. We are making tremendous time. Here's the bad news, I have no idea where we are. And that's pretty much what our culture is, and we could, you know, there's a lot, that's largely the influence of both existentialism and materialism. Existentialism, kind of hard to define, it's a squishy word, but existentialism basically, we talk about the living in the moment, which is not a bad term, incidentally. So, in the moment, right now, God has ordained that you have to listen to this guy from New York dealing with the church before the modern watching world, and you're in the moment profiting from it. That's fine. Existentialism is living for the moment. It's living for that next experience. It's a very interesting philosophical development. So you've got that plus materialism, where, you know, basically, what the material is, all there is. So what's death? Well, your body decomposes and that's it. And nobody can really contemplate their non-existence for very long before driving themselves batty, okay? But these are some of the challenges in modern culture. What's your response? There's a real heaven and a real hell. And both are eternal. There's no annihilation in hell. There's a real heaven and a real hell. And it will transform your whole view of salvation. I'll give you the fancy word that Gerhardt and Voss used and then spin it out a bit more. All soteriology, all a biblical view of salvation, is eschatology. What does that mean? What's the fruit of the Spirit? It's a down payment of heaven. These are the things that will be the aroma of heaven. We are the ones on whom the ends of the ages have come, Paul says in 1 Corinthians. Under the means of grace we have tasted of the powers of the age to come. Jesus, with the coming of Jesus, the kingdom is near. What's the Sermon on the Mount? The Sermon on the Mount is a charter for what heavenly life is on earth. What's the church? It's an outpost of heaven on earth. Okay, so you get the point. And we've got to emphasize that God has a purpose for history. And the purpose for history is not that you might live your best life now. In fact, the purpose of history isn't that you live your best life. The purpose of history, Ephesians 1, verses 3 to 13, is God's gonna glorify his son. Now that gets us into the problem of evil, interesting, fascinating topic. Probably the best volume is the book What About Evil, which is massive, but excellent reading. This doesn't answer all the question of the powers of evil, or the meaning of evil, but you realize that if there'd been no fall, there are things we would never know about God, grace, forgiveness, mercy, long-suffering, love. And so in the plan of God, there is a decree for the fall. And if you want to use the decree to permit the fall, that's fine. Even Calvin had no problem with that within bounds. There was a decree for the fall. But prior to that, there's a decree that Christ is going to be glorified. And that ought to captivate you as you think about your whole life. To be able to say not only God has a purpose in history, but to be able to say with humility, because it's all of grace, I know where I'm going. Do you? How do you know where you're going? Let me tell you about Good Friday. Let me tell you before that about Christmas. And I use those words because people do. All right, I don't like the words either. But that's in people's mind. And to be able to explain that to them and say, I know where I'm going because of Easter. Jesus really conquered death. So be able to say that, that's very practically where I'm going. puts wings into the sails of a Christian culture, especially when you're, whether you're optimistic amillennial, or as I am, postmillennial, you better have an optimistic view of the gospel. If you don't, you're guilty of emotional heterodoxy. Ken, I said that to a ruling elder at General Assembly. He was, I teased people about being postmillennial, and he said to me, I want you to know I am a pessimistic amillennialist. And I said, brother, you're guilty of emotional heterodoxy. You need to repent. Frankly, regardless of your eschatology, do you believe the gospel is God's power unto salvation to all those that believe? Yeah, but you don't know our culture. Hello? Paul said this to Rome, which in the book of Revelation was the beast. And he said, the gospel is God's power under salvation to all those who believe, to the Jew first and also the Greek. And when you see human history as 2,000 years of Christ's power, and what God has done. People say, well, why are you post-mill? Say, well, let me ask you a question. How many people were faithful to Jesus when he was crucified? Well, you know, one or two that might have been there. Okay. How many were converted on the day of Pentecost? Well, 3,000. Later, 5,000. Uh-huh. There are more than 3,000 Christians in the world today? Yup. Then I get this. Yeah, but you don't know how imperfect these churches are. You really regard them as churches. Really? Have you read your New Testament? You want to be part of the church in Corinth? Drunkards coming to the Lord's Supper, worships of Pentecostal free-for-all, Christians are taking one another to court, the rich people wouldn't eat with the poor people at the Lord's Supper, they're divided over sectarian issues. You want to be part of that church? No, I don't want to be part of that church. How about Galatia, where they turned away from the gospel unto another gospel? I don't want to be part of that church. How about Colossae? were they held to a new-age spirituality? No, I don't want to be part of that church either. How about Philippi, where Uriah and Syntyche were at one another's throats, and the word of God had to call them out. How'd you like to be them in eternity? In the word of God, they're called. No, I don't want to be part of that church. How about church at Ephesus? That's orthodox. Yes, that's where I want to be. Right, the Lord was going to take out their candlestick because they lost their first love. Now, You talk about the church in the world today? No, it's not perfect, never will be. But young folks, please have an optimistic view, however you parse it with your eschatology. You really believe that the gospel is going to go into all the world? And it really does change people? I'm not talking about trans... You're a transformationalist. Yeah, I believe that people are transformed by the grace of God. And when people are transformed by the grace of God, it's like Midas. Whatever they touch turns to a gold. It should affect people. In that sense, I'm a transformationalist. Not another one. But anyway, do you have that optimistic view? Or do you say, ah, the world's going to hell in a handbasket. We try to rescue one or two people. Faithful remnant. Eventually the Lord's going to come back and straighten it out. I don't want your eschatology. I don't even think that's anything like what the scriptures teach. The gospel went to the whole known world, and it did change people. It turned the world upside down, really right side up. You've got to have that. Real quick story, and then I'll wrap it up for the night. When I was in graduate school, and again, this was in a fundamentalist institution, and it was pre-trib, pre-mill, pre-whatever the thing. Now, by that time, I'd come to the Reformed faith, and I probably was in the Amillennial camp, I don't know, but here's the thing that bothered me. As a communist, we had a view of the future. We literally believed that every single thing that we did in our culture was going to further the goal of a utopia. And I was really bothered that Christians, at least in those circles, the only thing they could think of is, I just hope that the Lord brings a rapture before I have my history test tomorrow. until I came across the book Communist Eschatology by Francis Nigel Lee, and it's a massive thing. But it really helped me to realize that communism is a counterfeit of the Christian view of eschatology. And that helped me so much to realize when you're thinking about missions, when you're thinking about discipleship, when you're thinking about worldview, you're thinking about a conference like this, it really has a purpose. to see the knowledge of the glory of God cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. I know that won't be perfect until eternity. I know that. But how much of the not yet do you think you're going to see in the already? I think there's going to be a fair amount of it, okay? Because the nations themselves, how many Christians in the world today? About one-third of the world. in one way or another is identified with the Christian faith. Wow. There's my case. All right. So, anyway, having a proper view of the end, and let me wrap it up with these words. Here's your word for this message. Orthodoxy. I love it. Straight. Orthodoxy means straight or sound teaching. And here's one of the reasons why I love that word. The Apostle Paul writing to Timothy, especially in 1st Timothy, 2nd Timothy, and Titus, uses the language, because he's speaking to ministers here, of sound teaching. The word means therapeutic. I don't mean that in a therapeutic culture. Or it can also mean hygienic. In fact, that's probably the term used more frequently, sound doctrine, hygienic teaching, which means what? It brings real spiritual health to people. Not in the sense of the health and wealth gospel, but it helps clear up people's minds, being transformed by the renewing of your minds. As you'll learn in the second message tomorrow, there are real bodily effects of sound doctrine. I'll give you a hint. Tomorrow is the Sabbath, and it does have certain physical effects. Your view of God will affect your psychology. Your contentment will affect your life. Sound teaching is cleansing of the soul and the whole life. And our culture is very sick, folks, very sick. That's why you want orthodoxy. So you can take the Word of God and chew on it. Be like a cow, okay? Chew on the Word of God as the cow chews on its cud and gets more and more out of it. Meditate on it. and think about how it really transforms you, and then bring it out to other people. That's really what the gospel is all about. So there's your word for tonight. Orthodoxy, which is crucial for the church's witness before the watching world. I'm done.