WEBVTT 00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:00.800 Yeah. 00:00:37.120 --> 00:00:39.440 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.440 --> 00:00:40.480 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.480 --> 00:00:42.800 Mahler. And I'm Wo. 00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:43.600 Today 00:00:43.760 --> 00:00:47.040 on Stone Choir, Corey and I are going to be talking about 00:00:47.040 --> 00:00:48.560 why we are Lutheran. 00:00:48.560 --> 00:00:51.600 Uh this is kind of a midpoint and an arc of discussions 00:00:51.680 --> 00:00:55.360 that have been going on for months now and there's been a 00:00:55.360 --> 00:01:00.160 lot of p controversy recently about small catech or the large catechism 00:01:00.160 --> 00:01:00.800 this week. 00:01:00.800 --> 00:01:05.440 Uh there have been controversies about communion, uh about girls teaching in 00:01:05.440 --> 00:01:06.800 the church. 00:01:06.800 --> 00:01:10.400 And we are frequently some of the first voices speaking up about 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:12.240 those issues inside Lutheranism. 00:01:12.240 --> 00:01:15.200 And so a number of people have asked or said, you know, 00:01:15.200 --> 00:01:17.680 either asked, so why are you Lutheran? 00:01:18.080 --> 00:01:19.120 When are you leaving? 00:01:19.120 --> 00:01:21.680 Or just said you need to join us or you need to 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:24.960 go somewhere else or you stupid Lutherans, you never should have stopped 00:01:24.960 --> 00:01:26.800 being Roman Catholic in the first place. 00:01:26.800 --> 00:01:30.160 So we want to take this opportunity to kind of step back 00:01:30.160 --> 00:01:34.720 from the the noise and the arguments and make the positive case 00:01:34.720 --> 00:01:38.240 for why we care about the doctrine that we hold and why 00:01:38.240 --> 00:01:40.320 we're members of the churches that we are. 00:01:40.320 --> 00:01:43.760 Uh it's it's a fair question, you know, Lutheranism is is a 00:01:43.760 --> 00:01:45.120 small thing today. 00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:48.960 Uh it's there are historical reasons for that and there are theological 00:01:48.960 --> 00:01:53.040 reasons. But I I would hope that someone who's listening to us 00:01:53.360 --> 00:01:57.840 would recognize that being the largest and the most popular, particularly when 00:01:57.840 --> 00:02:04.320 you're talking about something that vitally connects to truth, doesn't necessarily mean 00:02:04.320 --> 00:02:05.200 that it's right. 00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:07.760 And in fact it may well be that the biggest, most popular 00:02:07.760 --> 00:02:09.680 thing is crappy. 00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:15.280 You know, small, amazing restaurants have better, healthier food than McDonald's. 00:02:15.280 --> 00:02:18.000 And sometimes they don't even cost that much more. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:22.160 So being big and popular doesn't mean you're right, and being small 00:02:22.160 --> 00:02:24.880 and unpopular doesn't mean you're wrong. 00:02:24.880 --> 00:02:28.400 The blessing that Christians have is that we have been given by 00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:31.920 God a standard of determining what is true and what is false 00:02:31.920 --> 00:02:34.080 doctrine, and that is scripture. 00:02:34.080 --> 00:02:36.400 And so we've talked a bit in the past about the history 00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:37.280 of Lutheranism. 00:02:37.280 --> 00:02:38.960 We're not going to talk about that today. 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:41.920 Uh, we're not going to talk too much about specific doctrines, but 00:02:41.920 --> 00:02:45.520 we're going to show a couple just as examples of contrast between 00:02:45.520 --> 00:02:50.320 the way Lutherans speak about certain things and approach certain topics uh 00:02:50.480 --> 00:02:52.800 in contrast to other Protestants. 00:02:52.800 --> 00:02:57.280 Uh we're not really going to address the pre-Reformation sects because frankly 00:02:57.440 --> 00:03:03.120 Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Orthodoxy pretty much flatly reject scripture as 00:03:03.680 --> 00:03:05.920 something that rules over all. 00:03:05.920 --> 00:03:09.920 They don't they they'll pay lip surface to things that sound Christian 00:03:09.920 --> 00:03:14.160 to us, to Protestants, but when push comes to shove they will 00:03:14.160 --> 00:03:16.960 always have something that they can use against scripture. 00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:17.600 And so 00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:18.000 uh 00:03:18.240 --> 00:03:18.400 I 00:03:18.400 --> 00:03:22.880 don't I think there's so little common ground there that it's more 00:03:22.880 --> 00:03:28.960 important for us to speak within the post-Reformation family of of denominations, 00:03:28.960 --> 00:03:32.240 why are we the way that we are briefly and to begin 00:03:32.240 --> 00:03:36.320 with why Corey and I are misery sinned Lutherans. 00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:38.240 So Corey, I'll start with you. 00:03:38.240 --> 00:03:41.840 Since you were a m more recent convert, you can tell folks 00:03:41.840 --> 00:03:45.680 how you became Lutheran and and what it what it means to 00:03:45.680 --> 00:03:46.880 you. I think 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:49.760 I'll start off with the same wording that I used in a 00:03:49.760 --> 00:03:54.960 letter that I sent to President Harrison about another issue that was 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:56.880 what was that 00:03:57.280 --> 00:03:59.280 year before last last year? 00:03:59.280 --> 00:04:03.360 At any rate, I am and I am not a cradle Lutheran, 00:04:03.360 --> 00:04:07.200 and what I mean by that is that I did grow up 00:04:07.200 --> 00:04:09.120 in a Lutheran school. 00:04:09.120 --> 00:04:12.880 I went to an LCMS school from preschool through eighth grade. 00:04:12.880 --> 00:04:16.960 I did not go in high school because there are no LCMS 00:04:16.960 --> 00:04:20.400 high schools where I was in California, at least at the time, 00:04:20.400 --> 00:04:22.960 I think there is one now. 00:04:22.960 --> 00:04:23.280 But 00:04:24.560 --> 00:04:28.960 I am not a cradle Lutheran because my parents were not Lutheran, 00:04:28.960 --> 00:04:30.480 still are not Lutheran. 00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:35.280 And so I grew up in a non denominational church, a series 00:04:35.280 --> 00:04:40.160 of a few churches actually, although mostly one particular church. 00:04:40.160 --> 00:04:47.600 And so my background was the general non-denominational, vaguely Baptist Christianity 00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:51.440 that most Christians in the US are. 00:04:51.440 --> 00:04:55.840 And I came back to Lutheranism because obviously, growing up in an 00:04:55.840 --> 00:04:59.680 LCMS school, I had a small catechism, I read the small catechism, 00:04:59.680 --> 00:05:04.800 I memorized the small catechism, but I came back to Lutheranism because 00:05:04.800 --> 00:05:10.800 I started to take my faith more seriously in undergrad and then 00:05:11.600 --> 00:05:15.920 read. Really at the end of and after law school. 00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:20.000 And so that would have been 2012 is when I passed the 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:23.200 bar, so about a decade ago. 00:05:23.200 --> 00:05:27.920 But as part of taking things more seriously, I started reading a 00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:32.720 lot. And not just Lutheran, but also Reformed. 00:05:32.720 --> 00:05:36.720 Some Roman Catholic, although less of that, because I did have a 00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:42.800 fairly firm understanding of why the Reformation had happened and why Protestants 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:45.680 do not agree with Roman doctrine. 00:05:45.680 --> 00:05:50.240 But I had to look into the various Protestant traditions because I 00:05:50.240 --> 00:05:53.040 had never really paid that much attention to them. 00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:57.840 I had paid attention to politics and philosophy and psychology and various 00:05:57.840 --> 00:05:58.640 other fields. 00:05:58.640 --> 00:06:03.920 I'd spent very little time in religion proper, except in so far 00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:06.320 as it touches on philosophy. 00:06:06.320 --> 00:06:09.040 And so I started reading those materials. 00:06:09.040 --> 00:06:11.280 And I started with the reformed materials. 00:06:11.280 --> 00:06:15.520 I spent a lot of time reading the various confessions, listening to 00:06:15.840 --> 00:06:20.240 arguments from the Reformed Position, for the Reformed Position, and 00:06:21.360 --> 00:06:23.840 then I ordered some Lutheran materials. 00:06:23.840 --> 00:06:28.720 I ordered the sort of the starter kit from CPH after I 00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:32.400 had started reading online in the Book of Concord, which is how 00:06:32.400 --> 00:06:35.440 I first started seeing the Book of Concord website, that I eventually 00:06:35.440 --> 00:06:38.720 would rework and put up the new version of that. 00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:42.480 But I ordered the starter set as it were from CPH and 00:06:42.480 --> 00:06:43.440 read through that. 00:06:43.440 --> 00:06:46.160 It's a I don't know, three foot stack of books or something, 00:06:46.160 --> 00:06:48.240 two foot, whatever it is, it's a lot of books. 00:06:48.240 --> 00:06:52.240 And then I started ordering Luther's volumes and reading these materials and 00:06:52.560 --> 00:06:57.200 as so many people have found, if you start reading the Lutheran 00:06:57.200 --> 00:07:01.360 materials, you find that you've been Lutheran all along. 00:07:01.360 --> 00:07:04.720 Or at least you find that Lutheranism is what agrees with what 00:07:04.720 --> 00:07:07.440 you see in scripture, because Lutheran materials are constantly 00:07:08.320 --> 00:07:12.000 going back to Scripture, to the wording of Scripture, as it is 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:16.240 in Scripture, as it is meant to be understood in Scripture. 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:20.560 And if you are the kind of person I wasn't incidentally, I 00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:22.560 am usually somewhat argumentative. 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:25.520 In this case I wasn't really combative or argumentative. 00:07:25.520 --> 00:07:28.880 I looked at the materials, assessed them, and came to the conclusion 00:07:28.880 --> 00:07:32.640 that Lutheran positions are correct because they agree with God's word but 00:07:32.640 --> 00:07:36.000 there are those who will argue against Luther. 00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:40.960 I have spoken with several men who said that they started off 00:07:40.960 --> 00:07:45.520 reading Luther because they wanted to prove Luther wrong, or they wanted 00:07:45.520 --> 00:07:49.200 to see how Luther was wrong, and they said they lost the 00:07:49.200 --> 00:07:56.000 argument. Because Luther uses God's word constantly, and so you will eventually 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:59.280 lose the argument with Luther because he is just going to beat 00:07:59.280 --> 00:08:01.680 you over the head with scripture, which is a good thing in 00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:02.800 this case. 00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:05.920 And so that's essentially how I came to be a Lutheran. 00:08:05.920 --> 00:08:09.200 Obviously, from there I found an LCMS church and started attending the 00:08:09.200 --> 00:08:14.160 church and was finally confirmed, which I had not been earlier in 00:08:14.160 --> 00:08:18.960 life. And so that's essentially how I became a Lutheran. 00:08:18.960 --> 00:08:21.440 Then I moved across the country and part of another Lutheran church, 00:08:21.440 --> 00:08:24.240 still LCMS, just another church in the Synod. 00:08:24.240 --> 00:08:25.520 But that is essentially 00:08:26.560 --> 00:08:30.960 how I came back to Lutheranism in the last decade or so. 00:08:31.360 --> 00:08:32.000 And you were 00:08:32.000 --> 00:08:36.880 lucky in both places that you've lived that after reading what the 00:08:36.880 --> 00:08:40.960 Lutheran fathers wrote about scripture and about doctrine, you were able to 00:08:40.960 --> 00:08:44.480 find churches that were actually consistent with that, because that's not a 00:08:44.480 --> 00:08:47.040 given. And that's something that we'll be talking about in the last 00:08:47.040 --> 00:08:51.360 part of this episode about why why we first we're starting with 00:08:51.360 --> 00:08:54.720 why we are Lutheran, how we became Lutheran, and then why we're 00:08:54.720 --> 00:08:59.920 remaining Lutheran and finally what it is that we are fighting for. 00:08:59.920 --> 00:09:02.480 Why, you know, again briefly, why do we start this podcast? 00:09:02.480 --> 00:09:06.400 Why are we involved in these discussions, in these fights, frankly online, 00:09:06.400 --> 00:09:08.640 why are why are Christians fighting? 00:09:08.640 --> 00:09:12.000 That sounds like it's an oxymoron Christians shouldn't fight. 00:09:12.000 --> 00:09:14.000 I mean that's just it's not nice. 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:17.760 So we're going to make an account for why we are engaged 00:09:18.080 --> 00:09:21.360 in the fights that we are and why so we're beginning with 00:09:21.360 --> 00:09:24.800 where we're coming from so you can understand that as Corey said, 00:09:24.800 --> 00:09:26.480 like he's normally argumentative. 00:09:26.480 --> 00:09:29.920 Like that's I think anyone who knows anything about you knows that's 00:09:29.920 --> 00:09:33.840 true. And yet you're not argumentative for the sake of just picking 00:09:33.840 --> 00:09:37.200 fights. You want to find clarity and truth. 00:09:37.200 --> 00:09:40.640 And usually that means picking apart bad arguments. 00:09:40.640 --> 00:09:45.040 And when confronted with a good argument, you're content. 00:09:45.680 --> 00:09:48.880 that's what an honest man does when he's confronted with the truth. 00:09:48.880 --> 00:09:51.280 You stop fighting and you stop struggling. 00:09:51.280 --> 00:09:53.200 And uh you made a very good point that I want to 00:09:53.200 --> 00:09:56.320 reiterate. It's something I think we've mentioned before, but I have also 00:09:56.320 --> 00:10:01.040 heard it numerous times where people who were raised in other denominations 00:10:01.360 --> 00:10:07.040 will begin reading Lutheran doctrine or talking to Lutherans and asking us, 00:10:07.040 --> 00:10:09.760 so what do you believe about X, Y, and Z? 00:10:09.920 --> 00:10:11.600 And we will say we believe this. 00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:14.160 And in the middle part, we're going to get to a few 00:10:14.160 --> 00:10:18.080 places where most people, most Protestants disagree with Lutherans, and we're going 00:10:18.080 --> 00:10:19.520 to talk about why that is. 00:10:19.520 --> 00:10:23.680 But apart from a couple categories that are very important categories, but 00:10:23.680 --> 00:10:28.880 apart from those few carve-outs, for the most part, Protestants pretty well 00:10:28.880 --> 00:10:34.480 agree with most, if not virtually all things the Lutherans believe, because 00:10:34.480 --> 00:10:36.480 we're all working from the same book. 00:10:36.480 --> 00:10:40.240 And the good thing that has still been preserved in what is 00:10:40.240 --> 00:10:44.880 called evangelical Protestantism is a belief that scripture is is inerrant. 00:10:44.880 --> 00:10:47.040 It's actually the word of God. 00:10:47.040 --> 00:10:49.840 And as such, we can trust it. 00:10:49.840 --> 00:10:55.200 And so anyone, regardless of denomination, regardless of pastor, if he's submerged 00:10:55.200 --> 00:11:00.400 in the word, if he's reading and understanding, and if he's uh 00:11:00.640 --> 00:11:04.000 reluctant to use the word opening his heart and mind, but really 00:11:04.080 --> 00:11:05.440 what else do you call it? 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:08.560 When God is speaking to you and you receive it, the Holy 00:11:08.560 --> 00:11:12.320 Spirit will convict your conscience of the truth. 00:11:12.320 --> 00:11:14.720 And so I have also heard numerous men say 00:11:15.680 --> 00:11:20.080 after reading or having Lutheran doctrine described, well that's what I believe. 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:23.120 And this these are these are people who have been taught the 00:11:23.120 --> 00:11:27.840 opposite. So we will describe what Lutherans teach about something. 00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:32.080 Someone who is from a a very far-flung Protestant denomination will say, 00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:33.680 Well, yeah, that's what I believe. 00:11:33.680 --> 00:11:36.080 And I know for a fact that that's not what's taught in 00:11:36.080 --> 00:11:39.680 their seminaries, and Wayne may well not be taught by their pastors. 00:11:39.680 --> 00:11:43.040 Now, in some cases, you know, pastors are they're human beings too. 00:11:43.040 --> 00:11:45.760 So maybe the pastors have sort of taken the same approach that 00:11:45.760 --> 00:11:49.600 they have, that they were taught one thing, but then scripture convicted 00:11:49.600 --> 00:11:54.560 their consciences of something else and as they look at these issues 00:11:54.720 --> 00:11:56.720 they will agree with God. 00:11:56.720 --> 00:12:02.560 And so when Cory and I make the case for Lutheranism, it's 00:12:02.560 --> 00:12:06.880 never because it is some special version of Christianity. 00:12:06.880 --> 00:12:09.760 And this is a tricky thing to say because pretty much everyone 00:12:09.760 --> 00:12:13.040 makes the same claim and I think it's important to acknowledge that 00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:16.320 and it's ignor important to acknowledge that at most one of us 00:12:16.320 --> 00:12:21.440 is right Only one denomination can possibly be telling the truth that 00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:24.640 we're saying things that have always been believed. 00:12:24.640 --> 00:12:28.320 Now maybe nobody's right, and everyone believes that's wrong, but at most 00:12:28.320 --> 00:12:29.280 one of us is right. 00:12:29.280 --> 00:12:31.200 So it's not confrontational for us to say 00:12:32.160 --> 00:12:36.400 we believe that these beliefs are the historic beliefs of the church 00:12:36.640 --> 00:12:40.160 long before there was something called Rome or certainly long before there 00:12:40.160 --> 00:12:43.760 was a Reformation and you had things called denominations that were different 00:12:43.760 --> 00:12:44.400 than effectively 00:12:45.280 --> 00:12:49.360 uh dioceses in various geographies. 00:12:49.440 --> 00:12:53.360 Uh for my own part, I was um effectively a cradle Lutheran. 00:12:53.360 --> 00:12:56.320 Uh I was baptized as a toddler, not as an infant. 00:12:56.320 --> 00:13:00.240 My mom who came from the south somehow ended up attending um 00:13:00.400 --> 00:13:04.400 an LCA church uh prior to the uh formation of Elka. 00:13:04.400 --> 00:13:06.800 I'm not sure how because as a southerner I don't think there 00:13:06.800 --> 00:13:10.000 are any Lutheran's where she was from, but for some reason she 00:13:10.000 --> 00:13:12.080 had started attending that church and 00:13:13.040 --> 00:13:17.120 when my parents had me, uh they she in particular wanted to 00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:21.440 get me baptized, and so my dad, who was a laps Baptist, 00:13:21.440 --> 00:13:25.840 became Lutheran basically to because he felt that it was it was 00:13:25.840 --> 00:13:27.280 his duty to his family. 00:13:27.280 --> 00:13:30.320 And one of the things that forced that issue for him was 00:13:30.320 --> 00:13:34.240 that when the pastor gave him the oath that he would take 00:13:34.240 --> 00:13:37.440 as a father and you know, as a is the father of 00:13:37.440 --> 00:13:42.640 the baptized baby, uh included raising the child in the church, etcetera. 00:13:42.640 --> 00:13:47.360 And so he took that oath seriously and committed fully to going 00:13:47.360 --> 00:13:49.680 back to church and to being Lutheran. 00:13:49.680 --> 00:13:54.080 And as he got more engaged, he quickly realized, again, this was 00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:56.720 this was before Elka was formed, but he realized even then that 00:13:56.720 --> 00:13:58.720 the LCA was in dire straits. 00:13:58.720 --> 00:14:02.800 And so as he looked at again, you know, the Lutheran confessions 00:14:02.800 --> 00:14:06.160 and Lutheran doctrine and what he knew from scripture has having been 00:14:06.160 --> 00:14:09.840 raised Baptist, he's like, This is not a good church. 00:14:09.840 --> 00:14:12.960 This is it's it's in bad shape. 00:14:12.960 --> 00:14:15.680 And so he learned some things from his first pastor and then 00:14:15.680 --> 00:14:18.960 the second pastor we had was a universalist and that was the 00:14:19.040 --> 00:14:20.560 very quickly the last straw. 00:14:20.560 --> 00:14:24.480 And thankfully there was a Missouri Siddharth congregation that was also local 00:14:24.480 --> 00:14:27.040 who had a wonderful pastor, just an amazing man. 00:14:27.040 --> 00:14:29.360 I can I can still hear his voice to this day. 00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:32.960 he was just a very gifted preacher and a just a a 00:14:33.680 --> 00:14:36.400 a a rare treasure in the church. 00:14:36.400 --> 00:14:39.600 And he I believe he gave my dad his first book of 00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:43.600 Concord and encouraged him to become engaged in the faith more. 00:14:43.600 --> 00:14:46.880 And when my dad read the Book of Concord, he had exactly 00:14:46.880 --> 00:14:48.640 the same response as Corey. 00:14:48.640 --> 00:14:49.840 This is what I believe. 00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:52.800 Again, even though he was raised Baptist, you know, he probably had 00:14:52.800 --> 00:14:54.880 to work through some of the sacramental stuff. 00:14:54.880 --> 00:14:58.800 But when he saw what Luther said, he's like, Yeah, that's I 00:14:58.800 --> 00:15:01.360 believe this because I believe scripture. 00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:02.000 And so 00:15:02.880 --> 00:15:05.600 I mentioned that as my story because I am his son. 00:15:05.600 --> 00:15:07.120 And so that is my inheritance. 00:15:07.120 --> 00:15:08.960 I was baptized as a as a toddler. 00:15:08.960 --> 00:15:12.000 You know, I was thinking 18 months, twenty months old, something like 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:15.120 that. And that's when I became Lutheran. 00:15:15.120 --> 00:15:17.280 And I've been Lutheran ever since. 00:15:17.280 --> 00:15:18.240 And from 00:15:19.120 --> 00:15:24.640 sixth through twelfth grade, I attended Missouri Synod schools. 00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:28.720 Uh I had the privilege actually of being taught in sixth grade 00:15:28.720 --> 00:15:31.440 by uh Paul McCain Senior's mother. 00:15:31.440 --> 00:15:33.040 Uh I don't even know her m first name. 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:33.920 Her name was Mrs. 00:15:33.920 --> 00:15:36.640 McCain. I remember her 'cause she was by far the best teacher 00:15:36.640 --> 00:15:37.200 I ever had. 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:38.560 She was an amazing lady. 00:15:38.560 --> 00:15:42.400 And whatever good I do with English today, I literally learned in 00:15:42.400 --> 00:15:43.440 sixth grade from her. 00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:45.520 She was an incredible woman. 00:15:45.520 --> 00:15:47.440 And that was an incredibly good school. 00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:50.400 There's some fantastically good Lutheran schools. 00:15:50.400 --> 00:15:52.240 And there are also some really crappy ones. 00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:55.520 Uh the school that I attended from tenth through twelfth grade was 00:15:55.520 --> 00:15:56.480 pretty much garbage. 00:15:56.480 --> 00:15:59.200 I I could have just stayed at home and read books and 00:15:59.200 --> 00:16:00.160 been far better off. 00:16:00.160 --> 00:16:04.000 But I'm still thankful to have had that experience because it kept 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:07.200 me out of the public schools, which were even then in incredibly 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:08.400 dire shape. 00:16:08.400 --> 00:16:10.000 So I was raised 00:16:10.880 --> 00:16:16.240 Lutheran, I was inculcated, I was catechized, I was trained properly, and 00:16:16.240 --> 00:16:18.800 I never really took it seriously. 00:16:18.800 --> 00:16:23.600 Um, one of the things that Lutherans are very good at is 00:16:23.600 --> 00:16:24.240 emphasizing 00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:28.560 God's work in our lives and God's gifts to us. 00:16:28.560 --> 00:16:33.520 And we particularly emphasize infant baptism whenever you're baptized, but especially if 00:16:33.520 --> 00:16:36.640 you're baptized if it is an infant, it makes very clear that 00:16:36.640 --> 00:16:40.640 God has given you faith and it's not you doing stuff. 00:16:40.640 --> 00:16:46.560 And while that is valuable from a soteriological view, I think that 00:16:46.560 --> 00:16:49.120 it's one of the reasons that we have so many people falling 00:16:49.120 --> 00:16:56.480 away today because there's really no and then taught to Lutheran children. 00:16:56.480 --> 00:17:00.320 You know, confirmation is basically graduation from the church for a lot 00:17:00.320 --> 00:17:00.720 of people. 00:17:00.720 --> 00:17:01.840 It's a disaster. 00:17:01.840 --> 00:17:04.400 You get confirmed, you have your first communion, and a lot of 00:17:04.640 --> 00:17:07.840 them just never come back, or they fall away pretty quickly. 00:17:07.840 --> 00:17:10.000 And they don't feel like they're missing anything. 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:13.760 And I honestly believe that part of the reason for that is 00:17:13.920 --> 00:17:18.400 that because Lutherans are so good about correctly emphasizing the gifts that 00:17:18.400 --> 00:17:22.160 God gives us in baptism and in communion and in the Word 00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:22.800 that 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:27.200 we think well if it's all about Jesus and it's all Jesus 00:17:27.200 --> 00:17:31.520 doing stuff, I don't have to do anything, which is completely false 00:17:31.520 --> 00:17:35.040 doctrine. You don't have to do anything to be saved. 00:17:35.040 --> 00:17:36.640 God took care of that. 00:17:36.640 --> 00:17:41.120 But now that you are saved, the Christian life has a tenor 00:17:41.120 --> 00:17:44.960 and it has a certain look to it, and there are things 00:17:44.960 --> 00:17:46.720 that you have to do as a Christian. 00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:49.440 Scripture's clear about that on every page. 00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:52.720 There are things that Christians have to do, not for their salvation, 00:17:52.720 --> 00:17:54.480 but because they're Christian. 00:17:54.480 --> 00:17:57.280 It's like me telling you you have to breathe. 00:17:57.280 --> 00:17:59.280 You know, most of the time you don't think about it because 00:17:59.360 --> 00:18:03.040 it's an autonomic function, but if you stop breathing, somebody needs to 00:18:03.040 --> 00:18:05.840 make you start breathing again or you're gonna die. 00:18:05.840 --> 00:18:10.320 So as James, the epistle of James makes clear, when we on 00:18:10.320 --> 00:18:14.640 this podcast say something that's not quite alien to what Lutherans talk 00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:20.080 about, but it's something that's sorely neglected, when you live as a 00:18:20.080 --> 00:18:24.320 Christian, that's like you living as a human being and breathing. 00:18:24.320 --> 00:18:26.560 Once you're human, you've got to keep breathing. 00:18:26.560 --> 00:18:28.240 Your heart's gotta keep beating. 00:18:28.240 --> 00:18:32.000 Once you're Christian, you have to keep doing Christian things or you 00:18:32.000 --> 00:18:33.280 stop being Christian. 00:18:33.280 --> 00:18:36.880 And it's not God's fault that you stop being Christian, it's because 00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:38.560 of your own apathy. 00:18:38.560 --> 00:18:43.360 And our churches are shrinking in most cases because of the apathy 00:18:43.360 --> 00:18:45.600 of the people in the pews. 00:18:45.600 --> 00:18:50.800 The boomers failed to impress upon their children as, you know, was 00:18:50.960 --> 00:18:53.600 in some ways failed to impress upon me, not by my own 00:18:53.600 --> 00:18:59.040 parents, but by sort of the general experience of of the church 00:18:59.040 --> 00:19:01.840 life and the school life is that well, you know, God's God's 00:19:01.840 --> 00:19:02.720 taking care of everything. 00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:05.600 We just we go to church, we give thanks to God, and 00:19:05.600 --> 00:19:07.600 everything is in his hands. 00:19:07.600 --> 00:19:11.520 And that leaves out the other hundred and sixty seven hours of 00:19:11.520 --> 00:19:15.120 the week that leaves out the rest of the Christian life. 00:19:15.120 --> 00:19:16.400 And so 00:19:17.680 --> 00:19:19.600 my faith was always there. 00:19:19.600 --> 00:19:22.640 I've I've I've been a Christian every day since I was baptized, 00:19:22.640 --> 00:19:26.320 but there were years where I was a a crappy Christian. 00:19:26.320 --> 00:19:28.560 I I was lazy, I was indifferent. 00:19:28.560 --> 00:19:30.960 Uh there was a period of time where I I didn't come 00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:35.120 to church because I had moved somewhere where I I assumed that 00:19:35.120 --> 00:19:38.480 all the churches were bad and rather than actually checking one out, 00:19:38.480 --> 00:19:41.120 I just said, Well, I might be disgusted if I go, so 00:19:41.120 --> 00:19:42.320 I'm I'm just not gonna go. 00:19:42.320 --> 00:19:43.200 I'm still Christian. 00:19:43.200 --> 00:19:44.400 I'm still baptized. 00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:45.120 Which is evil. 00:19:45.120 --> 00:19:47.120 It was a horrible, terrible thing to do. 00:19:47.120 --> 00:19:49.600 And I deprived myself of a period of time where I should 00:19:49.600 --> 00:19:52.880 have been in the Word and receiving receiving God's blessings and living 00:19:52.880 --> 00:19:53.920 a Christian life. 00:19:53.920 --> 00:19:54.960 And I failed to do that. 00:19:54.960 --> 00:19:58.640 And I did so willingly and callously and I did so in 00:19:58.640 --> 00:19:59.760 complete indifference. 00:19:59.760 --> 00:20:03.040 Well, it wasn't open rebellion, consciously on my part. 00:20:03.040 --> 00:20:04.400 It was just eh, whatever. 00:20:04.400 --> 00:20:05.440 I'm I know I'm Christian. 00:20:05.840 --> 00:20:07.600 what do I need that for? 00:20:07.600 --> 00:20:10.720 And what happened to me is I've I mentioned, you know, uh 00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:14.800 once or twice before on this podcast, four or five years ago 00:20:14.880 --> 00:20:19.360 I started realizing as I was talking about politics on Twitter mainly 00:20:19.520 --> 00:20:24.880 and talking to friends privately, I was realizing that m mainly through 00:20:24.880 --> 00:20:28.080 their observations, in most cases I was talking to non Christians or 00:20:28.080 --> 00:20:32.240 people from other denominations, you know, didn't have any similar background to 00:20:32.240 --> 00:20:35.840 mine. I realized when we were talking about politics that we were 00:20:35.840 --> 00:20:38.400 actually talking about a spiritual war. 00:20:38.400 --> 00:20:42.560 And the more I tried to understand into my own mind what 00:20:42.560 --> 00:20:46.720 was going on in the world, the more I realized that this 00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:49.280 wasn't political at all, this was spiritual. 00:20:49.280 --> 00:20:51.920 And that is what pushed me back into, for the first time 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:56.240 my whole life, actively engaging in scripture and being and being involved 00:20:56.240 --> 00:20:59.040 in church and doing what I should have been doing all along, 00:20:59.040 --> 00:21:03.120 which was sharing my faith, investing time and energy and focus in 00:21:03.120 --> 00:21:06.640 my faith, and making sure that as I was looking at the 00:21:06.640 --> 00:21:09.280 world, I was doing it as a Christian and not just someone 00:21:09.280 --> 00:21:12.320 who'd been baptized Christian and then kind of went on with his 00:21:12.320 --> 00:21:14.000 life. And so 00:21:14.960 --> 00:21:20.160 it's interesting that when I started doing that, I I I can 00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:22.160 clearly remember there were a couple times where I was having a 00:21:22.160 --> 00:21:25.600 conversation with someone, they would ask a question, and I would fire 00:21:25.600 --> 00:21:30.160 off a thread, you know, a thousand-word essay that had some significant 00:21:30.240 --> 00:21:34.000 theological theological contact in it, and I would look back and read 00:21:34.400 --> 00:21:35.840 and think, wow, that was really good. 00:21:35.840 --> 00:21:37.280 Where did that come from? 00:21:37.280 --> 00:21:39.920 You know, and it wasn't it wasn't automatic writing, it wasn't some 00:21:39.920 --> 00:21:40.720 sort of inspiration. 00:21:40.720 --> 00:21:42.080 It was just what I'd been taught. 00:21:42.080 --> 00:21:44.800 It was things that I'd been taught and I believed, but I 00:21:44.800 --> 00:21:46.960 forgot about because I stopped caring. 00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:50.240 And once I frankly looked at the world through the eyes of 00:21:50.400 --> 00:21:52.800 of an unbeliever who was saying, What's going on? 00:21:52.800 --> 00:21:54.080 What is this evil? 00:21:54.080 --> 00:21:55.840 I was able to answer that question. 00:21:55.840 --> 00:21:58.880 And that's when for the first time in my life, I actually 00:21:59.040 --> 00:22:04.480 actively took seriously that the gift of Lutheran education and Lutheran doctrine 00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:06.320 is not just about Sunday. 00:22:06.320 --> 00:22:09.280 It's about everything in our lives and it's about the whole world. 00:22:09.280 --> 00:22:12.000 It's about being able to look at these things and approach them 00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:15.440 faithfully without fear and without confusion. 00:22:15.440 --> 00:22:17.840 And once I realized that that was something that was missing very 00:22:17.840 --> 00:22:21.200 much from the conversation, I simply had no choice but to begin 00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:22.560 to talk to people and to share. 00:22:22.560 --> 00:22:26.080 And ultimately it ended up with Corey and I beginning this podcast. 00:22:26.880 --> 00:22:30.960 I also had a period of time in undergrad where I certainly 00:22:30.960 --> 00:22:33.600 did not take my faith as seriously as I should have and 00:22:33.600 --> 00:22:34.720 didn't really attend church. 00:22:34.720 --> 00:22:40.320 I did not bother to find a church when I was in 00:22:40.320 --> 00:22:46.000 undergrad in Michigan, in large part because I had been attending a 00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:51.680 not quite Baptist but non denominational church where they just didn't really 00:22:51.680 --> 00:22:58.080 stress the importance of any of this really, because there's such a 00:22:58.080 --> 00:23:01.600 light touch when it comes to doctrine or theology in so many 00:23:01.600 --> 00:23:03.120 American churches that 00:23:04.640 --> 00:23:09.120 for many children who grow up in that environment, it doesn't seem 00:23:09.120 --> 00:23:10.560 like an important part of their life. 00:23:10.560 --> 00:23:13.920 It's just something they did with their parents on Sunday morning. 00:23:13.920 --> 00:23:16.080 And that was it. 00:23:16.080 --> 00:23:20.960 Because how many people who attend those churches are praying with their 00:23:20.960 --> 00:23:23.360 children every night or having a Bible study. 00:23:23.360 --> 00:23:25.440 Some of them will pray with their children, but are you s 00:23:25.600 --> 00:23:27.200 are you studying the Bible with your children? 00:23:27.200 --> 00:23:28.560 Are you instructing your children? 00:23:28.560 --> 00:23:29.680 Are you teaching them? 00:23:29.680 --> 00:23:32.720 I at least had the advantage of attending an LCMS school, so 00:23:32.720 --> 00:23:36.880 I had the catechism, I had memorized that, which is undoubtedly part 00:23:36.880 --> 00:23:40.880 of what brought me back to the Lutheran Church, and undoubtedly part 00:23:40.880 --> 00:23:44.240 of what kept me a Christian when I wasn't acting as a 00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:49.840 Christian, certainly, because I had that instruction, train up a child in 00:23:49.840 --> 00:23:51.360 the way he should go, and when he is old he will 00:23:51.360 --> 00:23:53.040 not depart from it. 00:23:53.040 --> 00:23:54.800 That is obedience to scripture. 00:23:54.800 --> 00:23:56.320 That is what Lutherans do. 00:23:56.320 --> 00:23:59.920 That is the Lutheran way, and I just did not have that. 00:23:59.920 --> 00:24:04.480 So I had sort of a a conflicting set there because I 00:24:04.480 --> 00:24:07.360 had on the one hand the Lutheran upbringing and on the other 00:24:07.360 --> 00:24:08.880 hand the non denominational. 00:24:08.880 --> 00:24:11.440 So I had a s a seriousness about the faith and an 00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:15.440 unseriousness, and for a while the latter won out. 00:24:15.440 --> 00:24:18.560 Thankfully, and thanks be to God, I have come back to the 00:24:18.560 --> 00:24:22.640 church and was staunch Christian, but undoubtedly, as I said before, that 00:24:22.640 --> 00:24:24.320 is in large part due to the fact 00:24:25.680 --> 00:24:29.200 that I was brought up correctly in a Lutheran school. 00:24:29.600 --> 00:24:29.840 And 00:24:29.840 --> 00:24:31.520 it was exactly the same thing with me. 00:24:31.520 --> 00:24:33.680 The thing that I was quoting was the large catech or the 00:24:33.680 --> 00:24:34.560 small catechism. 00:24:34.560 --> 00:24:39.840 I started belting out part after part that I had memorized as 00:24:39.920 --> 00:24:43.440 a seventh grader and it was all sitting there and I believed 00:24:43.440 --> 00:24:47.200 it and I'd internalized it and I never rejected it. 00:24:47.200 --> 00:24:49.120 I just didn't treasure it. 00:24:49.120 --> 00:24:52.560 I didn't I didn't think that it had any explanatory power for 00:24:52.560 --> 00:24:56.160 anything other than passing the test to get or uh uh to 00:24:56.160 --> 00:24:58.000 be admitted to communion. 00:24:58.000 --> 00:25:01.040 And so I think that's something that we don't do right. 00:25:01.040 --> 00:25:05.200 I think that we rather than treating it as as a full 00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:09.840 indoctrination into the full rich life of the church, it's treated as 00:25:09.840 --> 00:25:12.320 a graduation where you go on to something else. 00:25:12.320 --> 00:25:16.080 And that's obviously it's not how it's couched, but that's clearly that's 00:25:16.080 --> 00:25:18.080 functionally what's happening. 00:25:18.080 --> 00:25:18.400 And 00:25:19.280 --> 00:25:22.800 we know from the demographics today that a lot of kids now 00:25:22.800 --> 00:25:24.560 don't even make it to confirmation. 00:25:24.560 --> 00:25:27.440 You know, they get baptized and then their their parents just wander 00:25:27.440 --> 00:25:29.200 off for whatever reason. 00:25:29.200 --> 00:25:34.480 And, you know, we're talking about uh Gen X and Millennial and 00:25:34.480 --> 00:25:37.440 eventually we'll be talking about Zoomer parents who were going through that 00:25:37.440 --> 00:25:43.200 cycle. And I'm thankful that as you and I engage with young 00:25:43.200 --> 00:25:47.600 men, particularly on the internet, who see the problems with the evil 00:25:47.600 --> 00:25:51.200 in the world, everyone recognizes that 00:25:52.240 --> 00:25:53.760 we have to go back. 00:25:53.760 --> 00:25:55.840 Yeah, we talked about I think a couple weeks ago about 00:25:56.720 --> 00:25:59.680 whether or not it's possible to go back, whether or not, you 00:25:59.680 --> 00:26:01.920 know, nostalgia is a good thing. 00:26:01.920 --> 00:26:09.040 But doctrinally and lifestyle-wise, yes, it's absolutely vital to go back because 00:26:09.040 --> 00:26:12.720 a hundred and fifty years ago there were big families and churches 00:26:12.720 --> 00:26:15.680 were growing, and today neither of those is true, and that's not 00:26:15.680 --> 00:26:16.720 a coincidence. 00:26:16.720 --> 00:26:19.840 And one of the things that changed, the salient thing that changed 00:26:19.920 --> 00:26:24.080 is that we stop obeying God in so many ways. 00:26:24.080 --> 00:26:28.400 And obedience to God derives God's gifts. 00:26:28.400 --> 00:26:32.560 And disobedience to God derives his wrath. 00:26:32.560 --> 00:26:35.040 And usually the wrath is not disconnected. 00:26:35.520 --> 00:26:38.560 It's not it's not that, oh well, you stop going to church 00:26:38.560 --> 00:26:40.160 and you get hit by lightning. 00:26:40.160 --> 00:26:43.280 It's that you stop going to church and you stop having the 00:26:43.280 --> 00:26:47.200 comfort and the feeding of your soul and the nourishing of your 00:26:47.200 --> 00:26:51.600 faith that keeps you ready for when hard times come. 00:26:52.160 --> 00:26:57.920 the thing that everyone doesn't really think through is that and this 00:26:57.920 --> 00:27:01.120 was present in the in the recent argument about about the large 00:27:01.120 --> 00:27:06.080 cataclysm. You can make mistakes for a little while and just be 00:27:06.080 --> 00:27:09.440 fine. Just like if, you know, you're a human being, you know, 00:27:09.440 --> 00:27:13.360 you're you're average height, average weight, you have an aver average amount 00:27:13.360 --> 00:27:14.560 of blood in your body. 00:27:14.560 --> 00:27:16.960 You can lose ten percent of your blood and you'll still be 00:27:16.960 --> 00:27:18.560 fine. You might be a little weak. 00:27:18.560 --> 00:27:21.120 You know, it's something you probably should get looked at, especially if 00:27:21.120 --> 00:27:22.880 it all comes out at once. 00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:24.640 But you can handle it. 00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:27.920 And spiritually things work the way the same way. 00:27:27.920 --> 00:27:31.280 God gives us slack in the system so that the first time 00:27:31.280 --> 00:27:34.640 you make a mistake, you don't just fall over dead, either physically 00:27:34.640 --> 00:27:38.880 or spiritually, but you will eventually exhaust all of the slack. 00:27:38.880 --> 00:27:44.160 And I think that as every Christian, we we need to focus 00:27:44.160 --> 00:27:47.680 on the fact that we can't let there be slack in the 00:27:47.680 --> 00:27:52.640 system. We can't let false doctrine and false teachers and false ideas 00:27:52.640 --> 00:27:58.320 become ours because the one thing that you believe that's wrong, it's 00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:02.560 not gonna damn you, but it opens the door for the next 00:28:02.560 --> 00:28:05.680 wrong thing that you're gonna believe and the next wrong thing. 00:28:05.680 --> 00:28:08.960 And the more of those things that you believe, it's not simply 00:28:08.960 --> 00:28:11.760 that there's an accretion of errors. 00:28:11.760 --> 00:28:14.560 It's not that you're having higher bitrate errors. 00:28:14.560 --> 00:28:17.840 It's that suddenly the errors get a lot bigger. 00:28:17.840 --> 00:28:20.320 You know, it's like if you've ever seen you know a an 00:28:20.480 --> 00:28:23.520 L C D display die, you know, maybe you get one stuck 00:28:23.520 --> 00:28:25.120 pixel. You're like, okay, that's fine. 00:28:25.120 --> 00:28:27.120 You know, that's that's one piece of false doctrine. 00:28:27.120 --> 00:28:29.120 I got that, but you know, I can still use the thing. 00:28:29.280 --> 00:28:31.840 And then suddenly a small chunk of the screen dies. 00:28:31.840 --> 00:28:34.640 And the next thing you know, a huge stripe, like a third 00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:35.520 of the screen is dead. 00:28:35.520 --> 00:28:38.320 And suddenly you can't use the display anymore. 00:28:38.320 --> 00:28:42.720 The same thing happens when we start bashing and breaking our own 00:28:42.720 --> 00:28:47.280 doctrine and our own hearts, your soul will eventually be beaten to 00:28:47.280 --> 00:28:51.280 the point that there's not enough of what God promised left for 00:28:51.280 --> 00:28:53.200 you that you're going to cling to it. 00:28:53.200 --> 00:28:55.920 You're going to start clinging to the false pieces. 00:28:55.920 --> 00:29:01.440 And so that is why as Lutherans we're adamant about pure doctrine, 00:29:01.440 --> 00:29:03.280 about getting doctrine right. 00:29:03.280 --> 00:29:07.440 It's not it's not about winning an argument with different denominations over 00:29:07.440 --> 00:29:10.400 who has a Who has a better interpretation of the Bible, who 00:29:10.400 --> 00:29:12.240 has a better read on the Bible? 00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:16.080 The question is who is not calling God a liar? 00:29:16.080 --> 00:29:20.400 And that's fundamentally the question underlying every doctrinal dispute. 00:29:20.400 --> 00:29:24.560 God has said one thing in scripture, people say either the same 00:29:24.560 --> 00:29:26.240 thing or they say something else. 00:29:26.240 --> 00:29:29.200 And when you say the same thing as God, you are confessing. 00:29:29.200 --> 00:29:33.040 When you say something else, you're violating the first and second commandments 00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:36.240 because you're saying, you know, you might be my creator, but you're 00:29:36.160 --> 00:29:36.960 not my God anymore. 00:29:36.960 --> 00:29:37.840 I have a better idea. 00:29:37.840 --> 00:29:39.920 I can be a better God than you on this one. 00:29:39.920 --> 00:29:43.040 And I'm going to say something that you said I'm going to 00:29:43.040 --> 00:29:45.840 say something different than what you said, and I'm going to attribute 00:29:45.840 --> 00:29:46.320 it to you. 00:29:46.320 --> 00:29:48.800 And that's a violation of the second commandment, to take the Lord's 00:29:48.800 --> 00:29:52.720 name in vain, to attribute doctrines to God which do not come 00:29:52.720 --> 00:29:53.600 from God. 00:29:53.600 --> 00:29:58.640 And that is a deeply pernicious error because it convicts consciences. 00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:00.320 We see this all the time where 00:30:01.280 --> 00:30:04.960 in our church and in other churches, there are pastors who are 00:30:04.960 --> 00:30:05.920 nice men. 00:30:05.920 --> 00:30:07.200 They're good men. 00:30:07.200 --> 00:30:09.040 They intend to be honest. 00:30:09.040 --> 00:30:10.080 They study. 00:30:10.080 --> 00:30:11.920 They live good, wholesome lives. 00:30:11.920 --> 00:30:14.160 You look at them on paper and you're like, yeah, that's that's 00:30:14.160 --> 00:30:14.880 a good pastor. 00:30:14.880 --> 00:30:16.720 I'm lucky to have him. 00:30:16.720 --> 00:30:19.120 But there are two or three things that they teach that are 00:30:19.120 --> 00:30:21.040 just flat out false doctrine. 00:30:21.040 --> 00:30:23.280 They're plainly contrary to scripture. 00:30:23.280 --> 00:30:24.880 And they can weasel around it. 00:30:24.880 --> 00:30:26.640 You know, they don't think they're weaseling. 00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:30.000 They think that they're being faithful, but they're being faithful to unfaithful 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.000 teaching. And the reason that we've spent so much time focusing on 00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:40.000 pastors and teachers, which is synonymous largely, is that when a pastor 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:43.600 convicts your conscience that this is what God has said, you have 00:30:43.600 --> 00:30:46.240 to believe it or you're disobeying God. 00:30:46.240 --> 00:30:50.800 And as as Corey as you said, raising a man, raising a 00:30:50.800 --> 00:30:56.240 child up as God wishes will result in faithfulness in his latter 00:30:56.240 --> 00:30:58.720 life. The opposite is also true. 00:30:58.720 --> 00:31:02.880 When you give someone in their youth or as they're developing false 00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:06.000 teachings, if they cling to those, they're going to cling to them 00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:08.160 in opposition to scripture. 00:31:08.160 --> 00:31:13.600 And the disputes that occur among the various Protestant denominations today are 00:31:13.600 --> 00:31:15.040 really rooted in that. 00:31:15.040 --> 00:31:18.160 So the next thing that we're going to talk about is really 00:31:18.800 --> 00:31:23.680 I think there's one clear distinction between Lutheranism and everyone else in 00:31:23.680 --> 00:31:28.960 the post Reformation world that explains all the things that make people 00:31:28.960 --> 00:31:31.760 really mad about what Lutherans believe. 00:31:31.760 --> 00:31:34.720 So there we're gonna we're gonna talk about three symptoms, but they 00:31:34.720 --> 00:31:36.480 all have the same cause. 00:31:37.120 --> 00:31:42.880 The fundamental cause and in my view of why Lutherans sound and 00:31:42.880 --> 00:31:47.040 focus in different ways in the other denominations is what the Santa 00:31:47.280 --> 00:31:50.480 Dr. Nagel called who's doing the verbs. 00:31:50.480 --> 00:31:53.280 You know, we talk a lot in in this podcast about polarity, 00:31:53.280 --> 00:31:56.240 about who is doing what, what's the direction of the of the 00:31:56.240 --> 00:31:57.600 speech in scripture. 00:31:57.600 --> 00:31:58.320 So when Dr. 00:31:58.320 --> 00:32:02.320 Nagel asks the question, who's doing the verbs, he's talking out, for 00:32:02.320 --> 00:32:05.360 example, one that we've used before, Lazarus. 00:32:05.360 --> 00:32:07.440 Lazarus was dead in the tomb. 00:32:07.440 --> 00:32:09.200 Jesus came to the graveyard. 00:32:09.200 --> 00:32:13.920 He was bereft, he spoke to him, he said, Lazarus, come out. 00:32:13.920 --> 00:32:18.240 The naagal question is when you look at that scenario, who was 00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:23.600 doing the verb when Jesus, the creator of all things speaks to 00:32:23.600 --> 00:32:27.200 a corpse and says, Lazarus come out. 00:32:27.200 --> 00:32:29.040 Did Lazarus obey? 00:32:29.040 --> 00:32:32.880 Did Lazarus listen to Jesus and decide, Yeah, that's a good idea. 00:32:32.880 --> 00:32:35.440 I'm going to get up and walk out of this tomb? 00:32:35.440 --> 00:32:37.520 Or Or was he dead? 00:32:37.600 --> 00:32:41.680 W was he a corpse that had begun to rot, because it 00:32:41.680 --> 00:32:44.320 had been days? 00:32:44.320 --> 00:32:45.680 Jesus did that. 00:32:45.680 --> 00:32:47.360 Lazarus didn't do that. 00:32:47.360 --> 00:32:49.680 Lazarus didn't rise from the dead. 00:32:49.680 --> 00:32:52.880 Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. 00:32:52.880 --> 00:32:56.320 So when we talk in Lutheran terms, we're talking in all of 00:32:56.320 --> 00:32:59.840 these scenarios that we'll get into about who's actually doing it. 00:32:59.840 --> 00:33:04.000 Because when Lutherans say one thing and all the other post Reformation 00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:08.080 denominations say something else, that's where the fundamental disagreement is. 00:33:08.080 --> 00:33:09.760 And they fall into three categories. 00:33:09.760 --> 00:33:14.640 There's baptism, there's communion, and there's the liturgy, or what is called, 00:33:14.640 --> 00:33:16.960 you know, sometimes the worship service. 00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:20.160 And each of those, the question where Lutherans will come down on 00:33:20.160 --> 00:33:23.440 one one side, and most denominations will come down on the other 00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:27.440 side in one and possibly all three cases, is who's doing it? 00:33:27.440 --> 00:33:29.200 And we're going to talk about that today. 00:33:29.200 --> 00:33:31.600 We're not going to talk so much about the doctrines, but about 00:33:31.600 --> 00:33:35.600 who's doing the verbs, because when you hear a Lutheran talk about 00:33:35.600 --> 00:33:39.520 baptism, you hear something that's fundamentally at odds with the way Baptists 00:33:39.520 --> 00:33:43.120 talk. And we talk right past each other and this is the 00:33:43.120 --> 00:33:47.680 reason why because when a Baptist talks about baptism, a Baptist is 00:33:47.680 --> 00:33:51.760 talk about talking about a person doing something for God that it's 00:33:51.680 --> 00:33:54.320 not spiritual except as an expression. 00:33:54.320 --> 00:33:57.680 There's nothing there except for obedience. 00:33:57.680 --> 00:34:03.440 And as Lutherans, we look to scripture which says in some cases 00:34:03.680 --> 00:34:08.800 that is true superficially, but even then it is because faith has 00:34:08.800 --> 00:34:10.080 first been given. 00:34:10.080 --> 00:34:12.480 And there are other cases that are clear in scripture with it 00:34:12.560 --> 00:34:16.560 where it makes clear that the essence of baptism is that God 00:34:16.560 --> 00:34:18.240 is actually doing it. 00:34:18.240 --> 00:34:22.880 I think that Jesus' own baptism is the clearest example of this. 00:34:22.880 --> 00:34:26.240 You have Jesus obeying by going into the water to be baptized 00:34:26.240 --> 00:34:27.440 by John. 00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:30.960 You have God the Father speaking in his own voice from a 00:34:30.960 --> 00:34:34.560 cloud. They heard the voice of God speaking, saying, This is my 00:34:34.560 --> 00:34:38.400 beloved son, in whom I am well pleased, and the Holy Spirit 00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:42.480 visibly alighted as though a dove on Jesus. 00:34:42.480 --> 00:34:46.800 Now the exact same thing happens at every single baptism that happened 00:34:46.800 --> 00:34:48.320 in Jesus' baptism. 00:34:48.320 --> 00:34:52.320 The only difference is that the Holy Spirit is not visible when 00:34:52.320 --> 00:34:54.960 it is done for everyone else. 00:34:54.960 --> 00:34:58.880 God was demonstrating in that one miraculous moment what is happening in 00:34:58.880 --> 00:35:02.880 baptism? Jesus was putting the baptism into the water. 00:35:02.880 --> 00:35:04.800 That's what was happening there. 00:35:04.800 --> 00:35:08.240 It was a physical example, it was a physical manifestation of the 00:35:08.240 --> 00:35:11.280 Trinity, of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all in 00:35:11.280 --> 00:35:16.320 the same place, all acting in their in particular ways according to 00:35:16.640 --> 00:35:18.800 their persons. 00:35:18.800 --> 00:35:23.280 And yet at the same time, every baptism is just like that. 00:35:23.280 --> 00:35:26.560 You have You have the voice of God saying, I baptize you 00:35:26.560 --> 00:35:28.640 in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy 00:35:28.640 --> 00:35:32.160 Spirit. Now, when Christians do it, it's a man speaking. 00:35:32.320 --> 00:35:35.120 In the case of emergency, it could be anyone, but typically in 00:35:35.120 --> 00:35:37.600 good order, it's a pastor who's baptizing. 00:35:37.600 --> 00:35:41.440 He's saying the words that Math that Jesus gave to us in 00:35:41.440 --> 00:35:45.200 Matthew twenty eight, which bookends Matthew three. 00:35:45.200 --> 00:35:48.240 In Matthew three you have the Trinity physically present. 00:35:48.240 --> 00:35:52.160 In Matthew twenty eight you have Jesus saying, Go therefore and baptize 00:35:52.160 --> 00:35:54.480 all nations in the name of the Father and of the Son 00:35:54.560 --> 00:35:56.560 and of the Holy Spirit. 00:35:56.560 --> 00:36:00.960 The voice of God is spoken in every baptism, not from a 00:36:00.960 --> 00:36:04.800 cloud, but by the man who is obeying God by applying the 00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:09.280 water, which is the visible sign of the invisible Holy Spirit. 00:36:09.280 --> 00:36:13.360 So each baptism is a replay of that obedience. 00:36:13.360 --> 00:36:18.080 But Baptists and some others will focus on the obedience part and 00:36:18.080 --> 00:36:24.560 they'll not listen to the scriptural argument that God is doing everything. 00:36:24.560 --> 00:36:27.920 Yes, you go into the water or the water is applied to 00:36:27.920 --> 00:36:31.760 you, and a man says the words, and that is obedience to 00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:37.040 God, but as as Corey's gonna mention talk in a minute, there's 00:36:36.960 --> 00:36:40.080 no power in the in the water, it's just plain water. 00:36:40.080 --> 00:36:43.040 The power is in the word which is given by God 00:36:43.920 --> 00:36:48.320 to be applied with the water, that is what makes baptism efficacious. 00:36:48.320 --> 00:36:51.600 It's the s it's the spoken word of God that does the 00:36:51.600 --> 00:36:54.480 miracle. And the fact that there is a man or a child 00:36:54.560 --> 00:36:58.400 or a woman or whomever Receiving the water and the fact that 00:36:58.400 --> 00:37:02.080 they may have consented to it to use that term doesn't mean 00:37:02.080 --> 00:37:03.440 that they're the one doing it. 00:37:03.440 --> 00:37:06.400 God is doing the baptism just as he did it in the 00:37:06.880 --> 00:37:08.640 first baptism with Jesus. 00:37:08.640 --> 00:37:11.360 God does all of it, just as God did all of it 00:37:11.360 --> 00:37:13.120 with Lazarus coming out of the tomb. 00:37:13.120 --> 00:37:16.480 Lazarus obeyed, but it wasn't a conscious obedience. 00:37:16.480 --> 00:37:18.720 It was it was inexorable. 00:37:18.720 --> 00:37:21.680 The creator of the universe said, Lazarus come out, just as he 00:37:21.680 --> 00:37:25.280 said, Let there be light, and there was, and it was. 00:37:25.280 --> 00:37:28.160 When the creator speaks, it is true. 00:37:28.160 --> 00:37:30.800 And that is also true in our baptisms. 00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:34.160 So when Lutherans focus on baptism, this is what we're focusing on. 00:37:34.640 --> 00:37:39.200 It is got on God's promise in the word given to us. 00:37:39.200 --> 00:37:43.040 And for Christians to make that something that we're doing for God 00:37:44.160 --> 00:37:47.840 doesn't rob it of its power because they're still actually doing the 00:37:48.320 --> 00:37:51.760 form of what is given, but they're fundamentally denying the essence of 00:37:51.760 --> 00:37:52.720 what's going on. 00:37:52.720 --> 00:37:57.040 And that leads to some terrible errors that can have awful consequences. 00:37:57.040 --> 00:38:00.720 And so the reason that Lutherans fight for this doctrine is that 00:38:01.040 --> 00:38:04.960 failure to believe in God's promises can lead to despair. 00:38:05.440 --> 00:38:08.720 The reality of baptism is one of the reasons that you will 00:38:08.720 --> 00:38:16.240 see Lutherans very frequently reminding people of their baptism. 00:38:16.240 --> 00:38:21.920 Because your baptism is when God marked you as his own. 00:38:21.920 --> 00:38:24.640 If you are baptized as a child, that is probably when you 00:38:25.200 --> 00:38:27.760 were given faith, you could have already had it from hearing the 00:38:27.760 --> 00:38:30.960 word in utero, and I know that that will set some people's 00:38:30.960 --> 00:38:32.400 hair on fire. 00:38:32.400 --> 00:38:37.680 Well, if you don't believe that your God can give faith to 00:38:37.680 --> 00:38:42.080 an in utero child, then you probably aren't worshiping the god of 00:38:42.080 --> 00:38:45.360 the universe who can do whatever he wants. 00:38:45.360 --> 00:38:49.280 And so you should probably be concerned about that thought. 00:38:49.280 --> 00:38:52.880 But when it comes to baptism, we will often hear those who 00:38:52.880 --> 00:38:57.280 disagree with the Lutheran position, which is typically Baptists on this case, 00:38:57.280 --> 00:39:02.480 unsurprisingly, who will try to say, Oh well that's water baptism. 00:39:02.480 --> 00:39:06.640 One you're denying the creeds, which says, I believe in one baptism 00:39:06.720 --> 00:39:11.200 for the remission of sins, not two baptisms, not three baptisms, not 00:39:11.200 --> 00:39:15.360 a water baptism, and a spirit baptism, no one baptism. 00:39:15.360 --> 00:39:17.040 There's one baptism. 00:39:17.360 --> 00:39:20.560 And they will try to say that, well, it's just water, and 00:39:20.560 --> 00:39:22.720 water can't do that, and we agree. 00:39:22.720 --> 00:39:24.720 Water cannot do that. 00:39:25.200 --> 00:39:30.480 In fact, you're paraphrasing something from our catechism, from the large catechism, 00:39:30.480 --> 00:39:34.960 because we pointed out this supposed objection and struck it down from 00:39:34.960 --> 00:39:39.040 the large catechism I'll read a paragraph here. 00:39:39.280 --> 00:39:43.840 Therefore I exhort you again that these two, the water and the 00:39:43.840 --> 00:39:47.840 word by no means be separated from one another imparted, for if 00:39:47.840 --> 00:39:51.360 the word is separated from it, the water is the same, as 00:39:51.360 --> 00:39:54.240 that with which the servant cooks, and may indeed be called a 00:39:54.240 --> 00:39:56.080 bathkeeper's baptism. 00:39:56.080 --> 00:39:59.600 But when it is added, as God is ordained, it is a 00:39:59.600 --> 00:40:02.640 sacrament, and is called Christ Baptism. 00:40:02.640 --> 00:40:05.440 Let this be the first part regarding the essence and dignity of 00:40:05.440 --> 00:40:06.560 the Holy Sacrament. 00:40:06.560 --> 00:40:10.560 What is being said there is that the Sacrament is the water 00:40:11.120 --> 00:40:13.040 and the word together. 00:40:13.040 --> 00:40:15.200 If you have only one and not the other, you don't have 00:40:15.200 --> 00:40:16.320 the sacrament. 00:40:16.320 --> 00:40:19.360 If you're judg if you are just preaching the word, it's not 00:40:19.360 --> 00:40:24.160 baptism. If you are just throwing water on someone, it's not baptism. 00:40:24.160 --> 00:40:28.000 If you have the water and the words, in other words, if 00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:32.640 you have it ends as instituted by Christ, you have baptism. 00:40:32.640 --> 00:40:34.800 And that is the Lutheran position because that is a position of 00:40:35.280 --> 00:40:40.240 Scripture. And we care about this issue so deeply because this is 00:40:40.240 --> 00:40:42.800 something that brings great comfort to the Christian. 00:40:42.800 --> 00:40:45.280 First off, of course, it is God's truth, and so we care 00:40:45.280 --> 00:40:46.640 about it for that reason. 00:40:46.640 --> 00:40:51.600 But practically, this is also of great benefit to the Christian. 00:40:51.600 --> 00:40:53.280 This is you are God's own. 00:40:53.280 --> 00:40:54.480 Remember your baptism. 00:40:54.480 --> 00:40:56.960 God claimed you as his own. 00:40:56.960 --> 00:41:00.000 Whatever the world wants to tell you, whatever Satan wants to tell 00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:01.280 you, ignore it. 00:41:01.280 --> 00:41:02.960 This is This is what matters. 00:41:02.960 --> 00:41:05.200 You were baptized into the church. 00:41:05.200 --> 00:41:07.520 You are a Christian. 00:41:07.520 --> 00:41:11.440 And so we do not want to let people rob Christians of 00:41:11.440 --> 00:41:14.560 that comfort by saying that it's, oh, well, it's not actually a 00:41:14.400 --> 00:41:15.200 a sacrament. 00:41:15.200 --> 00:41:16.000 That was just you declaring 00:41:17.360 --> 00:41:21.360 your faith in God because that's nowhere in scripture. 00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:26.000 Nowhere in scripture is baptism a declaration of faith. 00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:27.600 That's not what it is. 00:41:27.600 --> 00:41:33.920 Go read all of the times that baptism occurs in Scripture. 00:41:33.920 --> 00:41:37.760 Look at who is doing what, and look at what is being 00:41:37.760 --> 00:41:41.920 done. Look at what is not being done. 00:41:41.920 --> 00:41:45.760 You may just find that scripture does not agree with the position 00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:49.200 you hold, that scripture does not say what you may have thought 00:41:49.200 --> 00:41:52.240 it says. 00:41:52.400 --> 00:41:55.360 And the reason that it's important to point out that there are 00:41:55.360 --> 00:41:59.760 good pastors who are teaching bad things is not to not to 00:41:59.760 --> 00:42:02.400 belittle or to be mean to them, but but but to point 00:42:02.400 --> 00:42:06.240 out that that is precisely when things can go the most awry. 00:42:06.240 --> 00:42:09.840 When a good pastor who is loving and who takes care of 00:42:09.840 --> 00:42:13.920 his flock and teaches something that is contrary to scripture, but explains 00:42:13.920 --> 00:42:15.680 it in a way that if you don't think about it and 00:42:15.680 --> 00:42:18.400 you don't really study it, you can go along with it. 00:42:18.400 --> 00:42:22.240 When someone comes along and says the opposite, it creates a crisis 00:42:22.240 --> 00:42:22.960 of faith. 00:42:22.960 --> 00:42:26.480 It's like hitting a wall because suddenly the thing that you'd been 00:42:26.480 --> 00:42:29.600 counting on, that you had been you thought you were obeying God 00:42:29.600 --> 00:42:33.200 in good conscience with a clean conscience, when someone like a Lutheran 00:42:33.680 --> 00:42:37.840 comes along and says, Actually, that is an evil thing that you've 00:42:37.840 --> 00:42:39.920 been taught. 00:42:39.920 --> 00:42:43.840 Again, when we talked about evil in a previous episode, evil is 00:42:43.840 --> 00:42:48.800 that which is contrary to God's word and contrary to His will. 00:42:48.800 --> 00:42:52.560 It doesn't need to be intentional to be contrary to God's word 00:42:52.720 --> 00:42:54.720 and contrary to His will. 00:42:54.720 --> 00:42:59.440 When someone says that baptism doesn't save you, that's evil because it 00:42:59.440 --> 00:43:01.120 contradicts God. 00:43:01.120 --> 00:43:01.760 And so 00:43:03.120 --> 00:43:09.040 sometimes we we'll use language that is not is is more aggressive, 00:43:09.040 --> 00:43:12.160 uh sometimes pejorative, but it's ultimately true. 00:43:12.160 --> 00:43:15.440 To speak such a way is an evil act. 00:43:15.440 --> 00:43:19.280 It doesn't mean that the person is fundamentally an evil person, but 00:43:19.280 --> 00:43:22.240 the words coming out of their mouth are evil. 00:43:22.240 --> 00:43:24.880 And this is this is understandable to anyone. 00:43:24.880 --> 00:43:27.760 You can I I could sit here and spend five minutes saying 00:43:27.760 --> 00:43:30.000 the most awful, terrible things about people. 00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:31.200 That would be evil. 00:43:31.440 --> 00:43:33.680 If they're if it's not true, if it's not my place to 00:43:33.680 --> 00:43:35.600 speak, that would be an overt evil. 00:43:35.600 --> 00:43:39.280 There's no doubt that evil things can come out of someone's mouth. 00:43:39.280 --> 00:43:42.080 It's particularly dangerous when it's doctrine. 00:43:42.080 --> 00:43:46.800 And as Corey, as you said, the doctrine of baptism in particular 00:43:46.880 --> 00:43:51.360 is so comforting because it's something that's missing from most of the 00:43:51.360 --> 00:43:55.440 rest of Protestant Christianity. 00:43:55.440 --> 00:44:00.480 When Lutherans speak of your baptism, your baptism, when God put his 00:44:00.720 --> 00:44:06.240 holy name on you personally, there were witnesses, there was water as 00:44:06.240 --> 00:44:09.760 a physical means of delivering the promise. 00:44:09.760 --> 00:44:14.480 All of that is it's a concrete touchstone in your life in 00:44:14.480 --> 00:44:20.240 the past, just as the cross is a concrete touchstone in history, 00:44:20.240 --> 00:44:21.120 it happened. 00:44:21.120 --> 00:44:22.640 It literally happened. 00:44:22.640 --> 00:44:25.520 We know almost to the day when it happened, certainly within a 00:44:25.680 --> 00:44:26.800 a year or two. 00:44:26.800 --> 00:44:27.920 We know that it happened. 00:44:27.920 --> 00:44:29.120 They're witnesses to it. 00:44:29.120 --> 00:44:33.440 We point back to the cross as the moment when Christ paid 00:44:33.440 --> 00:44:34.880 for our sins. 00:44:34.880 --> 00:44:40.080 Lutherans point to our baptism as a moment when we were sealed 00:44:40.080 --> 00:44:41.600 as children of God. 00:44:41.680 --> 00:44:44.960 Now, seal is a word that's used by different denominations in different 00:44:44.960 --> 00:44:49.040 ways, but when God puts his name on you, he's claiming you 00:44:49.040 --> 00:44:51.920 for his own. 00:44:51.920 --> 00:44:56.960 There's we all know that there's there's demon possession and there's demon 00:44:56.960 --> 00:45:00.560 oppression, where you know it's possible for a demon to be in 00:45:00.560 --> 00:45:03.840 someone's house or in a place messing with them. 00:45:03.840 --> 00:45:07.280 It's also possible for a demon to get inside someone. 00:45:07.280 --> 00:45:10.880 And sometimes they stay there and they tear the people apart. 00:45:10.880 --> 00:45:13.760 It's it was something that was common in the Old Testament. 00:45:13.760 --> 00:45:16.160 It's something that's increasingly common today. 00:45:16.160 --> 00:45:20.240 It's just that now we apply terms from the DSM for it 00:45:20.240 --> 00:45:23.760 and say, well, that's that's a mental illness. 00:45:23.760 --> 00:45:27.040 Demons are real and they can possess people. 00:45:27.040 --> 00:45:31.760 Now, it's tricky to say this because I don't want to compare 00:45:31.760 --> 00:45:35.840 the Holy Spirit to a demon, but when the Holy Spirit enters 00:45:36.400 --> 00:45:40.160 you through faith through the Word, you are being possessed in a 00:45:40.160 --> 00:45:41.440 sense by God. 00:45:41.440 --> 00:45:44.960 The indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which is a phrase that I 00:45:44.960 --> 00:45:48.800 think is common among a lot of Christians, what is that, if 00:45:48.800 --> 00:45:51.840 not a positive form of possession? 00:45:51.840 --> 00:45:56.480 It is the Holy Spirit, it is God Himself inside you, shaping 00:45:56.480 --> 00:46:01.760 you, forming your heart, guiding your lips, marking your days according to 00:46:01.840 --> 00:46:02.880 his will. 00:46:02.880 --> 00:46:09.360 It's the opposite of evil, oppressive possession, but it's functionally very similar, 00:46:09.360 --> 00:46:12.480 except that when a demon possesses, it's for destruction. 00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:17.040 When the Holy Spirit dwells within you, it is for your sanctification. 00:46:17.040 --> 00:46:21.760 It is you becoming increasingly more in accord with God's will by 00:46:21.760 --> 00:46:25.280 engaging daily in his things in obedience to God. 00:46:25.280 --> 00:46:30.640 And again, as we said many times, this is a post-soteriological concept. 00:46:30.640 --> 00:46:34.000 We're not talking about how you get to heaven. 00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:37.760 We're not talking about you doing something to earn your salvation. 00:46:37.760 --> 00:46:39.200 You're already saved. 00:46:39.200 --> 00:46:42.160 You were saved at the cross, you were saved at baptism, you're 00:46:42.160 --> 00:46:45.040 saved because this Holy Spirit dwells within you. 00:46:45.040 --> 00:46:48.640 And when He gives you the ability to understand the word as 00:46:48.640 --> 00:46:51.600 it's spoken, you receive it with gladness. 00:46:51.600 --> 00:46:54.080 That is also something that we can point to. 00:46:54.400 --> 00:46:58.240 And baptism is so crucial because that is when we say for 00:46:58.240 --> 00:47:01.200 certain that the Holy Spirit entered someone. 00:47:01.200 --> 00:47:05.120 It's absolutely true that first and foremost, the Holy Spirit comes by 00:47:05.120 --> 00:47:05.680 the Word. 00:47:05.680 --> 00:47:09.200 There are many people who receive the gift of faith before they're 00:47:09.200 --> 00:47:13.200 baptized. That does not change what baptism does. 00:47:13.200 --> 00:47:15.120 You God is infinite. 00:47:15.120 --> 00:47:17.520 So if God is already within you and then God comes within 00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:21.600 you again through baptism, you already have as much God as God 00:47:21.600 --> 00:47:22.240 has to give. 00:47:22.240 --> 00:47:25.440 You don't need to worry about the math in these scenarios. 00:47:25.440 --> 00:47:28.960 We get hung up with our rationalism about trying to plot things 00:47:28.960 --> 00:47:29.840 on a timeline. 00:47:30.080 --> 00:47:32.960 And trying to do the math on how much God and how 00:47:32.960 --> 00:47:37.600 much sanctification and how much blessing we get, God pours out more 00:47:37.600 --> 00:47:39.040 than we can possibly take. 00:47:39.040 --> 00:47:41.440 He gives us everything that we need every day. 00:47:41.440 --> 00:47:43.360 And that is the focus that we have. 00:47:43.360 --> 00:47:47.280 And so when we talk about who is doing it, the reason 00:47:47.280 --> 00:47:51.360 it's so important for Lutherans that God is doing baptism is that 00:47:51.360 --> 00:47:54.960 on the day when your faith is threatened by something terrible happening 00:47:54.960 --> 00:47:59.360 in your life, you're confronted with tragedy or loss or doubt of 00:47:59.360 --> 00:48:02.480 some sort, and you don't know if you're Christian anymore. 00:48:02.480 --> 00:48:06.400 You don't know if you've done enough, which is a ca is 00:48:06.400 --> 00:48:08.160 a question that people often ask. 00:48:08.560 --> 00:48:11.680 it's the wrong question, but it's a question that nevertheless gets asked 00:48:11.680 --> 00:48:17.600 regularly. Someone who's been raised Lutheran or someone who believes Lutheran doctrine 00:48:17.840 --> 00:48:21.760 doesn't worry am I God's child? 00:48:21.760 --> 00:48:24.880 Because they know that God put his name on them. 00:48:24.880 --> 00:48:27.360 That's an absolute and it's in the past. 00:48:27.360 --> 00:48:28.640 It's a done deal. 00:48:28.640 --> 00:48:31.440 And as long as you can look back and say, yes, I 00:48:31.440 --> 00:48:34.080 am marked as a child of God, you remain a child of 00:48:34.080 --> 00:48:37.120 God. The only way that you stop being a child of God 00:48:37.120 --> 00:48:39.760 after that is if you say, I don't care, I don't want 00:48:39.760 --> 00:48:40.880 that anymore. 00:48:40.880 --> 00:48:46.400 And frankly, baptism is so important as a means of God's grace 00:48:46.400 --> 00:48:49.760 in our lives that there are now Satanists who are openly doing 00:48:49.760 --> 00:48:54.640 unbaptisms of people who are baptized as believers who wish to renounce 00:48:54.640 --> 00:48:59.520 their faith and renounce their baptism and be unbaptized in reverse in 00:48:59.520 --> 00:49:01.040 the name of Satan. 00:49:01.040 --> 00:49:03.120 That's how much Satan cares about baptism. 00:49:03.120 --> 00:49:04.800 He knows it's not an outward work. 00:49:04.800 --> 00:49:07.440 He knows that it's the Holy Spirit coming to us through God's 00:49:07.440 --> 00:49:11.280 word. And the fact that there are now people actually devoting time 00:49:11.280 --> 00:49:16.480 and energy to overtly driving out the Holy Spirit in public as 00:49:16.480 --> 00:49:18.800 a matter of confession. 00:49:19.360 --> 00:49:23.200 it's not first order proof, but I think it's incredibly strong proof 00:49:23.200 --> 00:49:27.920 that the Lutheran position on this is true, that the the action 00:49:27.920 --> 00:49:32.960 of the man rejecting God, that is his that is his confession. 00:49:32.960 --> 00:49:36.800 But God placing his name on you can only come from above. 00:49:36.800 --> 00:49:39.920 And it is only disobedience that can separate us from what God 00:49:39.920 --> 00:49:41.760 has given to us. 00:49:41.760 --> 00:49:46.240 If you want to see how important baptism has been historically to 00:49:46.240 --> 00:49:50.880 Christians, this may be a little more difficult for an American audience, 00:49:50.880 --> 00:49:53.920 but certainly for anyone listening in Europe it should be easy. 00:49:53.920 --> 00:49:56.320 Go find an old graveyard and walk through it and read the 00:49:56.320 --> 00:50:03.520 headstones. Particularly if you are in a Lutheran graveyard, but others as 00:50:03.520 --> 00:50:06.720 well, you will see the date of baptism on some of those 00:50:06.720 --> 00:50:12.160 headstones, and some of them will literally just say Baptisatus sum or 00:50:12.160 --> 00:50:17.040 Isbing Getauf, depending the language they chose, which is I am baptized. 00:50:17.040 --> 00:50:20.240 Note that it is I am, not I was. 00:50:20.240 --> 00:50:21.600 I am baptized. 00:50:21.600 --> 00:50:25.040 That may be the only thing on the headstone. 00:50:25.280 --> 00:50:28.960 Because that's the most important thing, because that is saying I am 00:50:28.960 --> 00:50:30.480 a child of Christ. 00:50:30.480 --> 00:50:32.080 I have his promises. 00:50:32.080 --> 00:50:38.800 I received them in the way he promised to give them. 00:50:38.800 --> 00:50:43.280 That was of such great comfort to our forefathers in the faith. 00:50:43.280 --> 00:50:45.120 That may be the last thing they wrote 00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:48.640 the last thing they wanted, the one thing they wanted other people 00:50:48.640 --> 00:50:52.560 to know about them was I am baptized. 00:50:52.560 --> 00:50:55.840 And so that is why we fight so hard over this issue 00:50:55.840 --> 00:50:57.760 as Lutherans. 00:50:57.760 --> 00:51:02.640 Because we recognize just how vitally important it is to get this 00:51:02.640 --> 00:51:06.640 one right, because if you get it wrong, you will cause people 00:51:06.640 --> 00:51:08.400 to despair. 00:51:08.400 --> 00:51:12.960 Because this is something concrete that you can cling to when Satan 00:51:12.960 --> 00:51:14.880 assails you. 00:51:14.880 --> 00:51:17.520 Yes, you can turn to the word, yes, you can turn to 00:51:17.520 --> 00:51:23.600 prayer, but having that concrete thing you can point to and say, 00:51:23.600 --> 00:51:28.480 I know exactly when God claimed me as his own is incredibly 00:51:28.480 --> 00:51:35.360 comforting. And to speak to the issue of those who try to 00:51:35.360 --> 00:51:38.400 say, Well, I believe because I read the words, why do I 00:51:38.400 --> 00:51:39.120 need baptism? 00:51:39.120 --> 00:51:42.720 It's because God is super abundant in his grace. 00:51:42.720 --> 00:51:45.600 It's the same reason we'll get into it soon enough, the same 00:51:45.600 --> 00:51:48.720 reason we have the sacrament, communion 00:51:49.600 --> 00:51:53.920 God is offering the forgiveness of sins, he is coming to you 00:51:53.920 --> 00:51:57.120 in multiple ways because we constantly need 00:51:58.320 --> 00:52:01.040 that reaffirmation, we need that 00:52:02.160 --> 00:52:06.560 We need God to tell us again, you are forgiven, you are 00:52:06.560 --> 00:52:10.080 my child, you are adopted into my family, because we still live 00:52:10.080 --> 00:52:13.920 in this life and we are still assailed by sin, death, the 00:52:13.920 --> 00:52:15.840 flesh, the world, the devil. 00:52:16.720 --> 00:52:20.960 And so we constantly need the reminder to shore up our faith, 00:52:20.960 --> 00:52:23.760 to keep us strong in the faith, to help us persevere to 00:52:23.760 --> 00:52:24.080 the 00:52:24.080 --> 00:52:26.720 end. And 00:52:26.720 --> 00:52:29.760 you don't need to go to a European graveyard that, you know, 00:52:29.760 --> 00:52:31.440 isn't a Lutheran church. 00:52:31.440 --> 00:52:35.280 You can go into the catacombs and you can see first century 00:52:35.520 --> 00:52:41.440 catacomb emplacements where infants were born, they were baptized, they died, and 00:52:41.440 --> 00:52:44.400 it will list that they were baptized, and it's clear from the 00:52:44.400 --> 00:52:47.440 dates that they lived in many cases less than a year. 00:52:47.440 --> 00:52:50.160 This was the very first practice of the church. 00:52:50.160 --> 00:52:53.040 It is demonstrably proven in time. 00:52:53.040 --> 00:52:55.200 This is not something that Luther made up. 00:52:55.200 --> 00:52:57.440 It's not something that Rome corrupted. 00:52:57.440 --> 00:52:59.760 This was always the belief of the church. 00:52:59.760 --> 00:53:02.480 And it was always the belief of the church because it's straight 00:53:02.480 --> 00:53:03.600 from scripture. 00:53:03.600 --> 00:53:07.600 The idea that we do baptism is the novelty. 00:53:08.000 --> 00:53:11.680 That's the case with the beliefs about the sacrament and also the 00:53:11.680 --> 00:53:13.200 beliefs about worship. 00:53:13.440 --> 00:53:16.880 the idea that we're the ones doing the thing, that's new. 00:53:16.880 --> 00:53:18.000 That's new theology. 00:53:18.000 --> 00:53:22.480 It was never part of the church until later on corruption was 00:53:22.480 --> 00:53:25.120 introduced, who would introduce corruption? 00:53:25.120 --> 00:53:28.480 Who would introduce a corruption that would diminish baptism? 00:53:28.480 --> 00:53:32.320 Maybe it's the same one who's setting up on baptism booths today. 00:53:32.320 --> 00:53:37.360 Because to deny your baptism is only one step removed from being 00:53:37.360 --> 00:53:42.480 unbaptized. If you say God didn't do anything, I did that, that's 00:53:42.480 --> 00:53:44.160 despising God's gifts. 00:53:44.160 --> 00:53:45.440 And that's why we care. 00:53:45.440 --> 00:53:48.720 That's why Lutherans care, because when a good Christian, when a faithful 00:53:48.720 --> 00:53:54.480 Christian will openly despise one of God's precious gifts with a clean 00:53:54.480 --> 00:53:58.800 conscience, that's that's dangerous. 00:53:58.800 --> 00:53:59.760 You know, if if 00:54:00.720 --> 00:54:05.840 we see we see videos of vegan parents who raise their infants 00:54:05.840 --> 00:54:10.080 as vegans and the the poor miserable little children look like they're 00:54:10.080 --> 00:54:11.280 typhus survivors. 00:54:11.280 --> 00:54:16.400 They're skeletonized because they were starved, because they were not given the 00:54:16.400 --> 00:54:21.200 nutrition. You can look at that and you can say that's evil. 00:54:21.200 --> 00:54:23.680 Sure they were feeding them, that they were feeding them things that 00:54:23.680 --> 00:54:29.120 aren't really food suitable for humans, let alone for a growing child. 00:54:29.120 --> 00:54:31.520 The same is true of God's other gifts. 00:54:31.520 --> 00:54:35.280 If you refuse to baptize a child, you're refusing to give that 00:54:35.280 --> 00:54:36.800 which God has given to them. 00:54:36.800 --> 00:54:40.240 It is a denial of God's gift to the one to whom 00:54:40.240 --> 00:54:42.560 God God entrusted to you. 00:54:42.560 --> 00:54:44.880 God entrusted a child to you and said, Take care of this 00:54:44.880 --> 00:54:47.200 child, let the little ones come unto me. 00:54:47.200 --> 00:54:51.360 And the word that Jesus uses in that verse refers to toddlers, 00:54:51.360 --> 00:54:52.080 to infants. 00:54:52.080 --> 00:54:53.840 It's to the smallest children. 00:54:53.840 --> 00:54:57.920 It's not to those of the age of accountability, which never existed. 00:54:57.920 --> 00:55:03.280 The earliest church practice involving baptism essentially mirrored circumcision. 00:55:03.280 --> 00:55:06.160 Baptism was was in some cases done on the eighth day. 00:55:06.160 --> 00:55:09.760 The difference was that baptism was also available to girls. 00:55:09.760 --> 00:55:13.760 But it was understood in the same way that this is something 00:55:13.760 --> 00:55:15.360 that God has given to us. 00:55:15.360 --> 00:55:17.920 Now, there's a typological connection. 00:55:17.920 --> 00:55:22.640 Baptism is not simply a mirror or a repeat of circumcision. 00:55:22.640 --> 00:55:24.160 It does something different. 00:55:24.160 --> 00:55:26.080 So I don't want to open the door to say, well, see, 00:55:26.080 --> 00:55:27.520 it's an outward sign. 00:55:27.520 --> 00:55:31.280 Obedience to God is obedience the way Lazarus obeyed. 00:55:31.280 --> 00:55:34.320 We're dead in our sins and our trespasses until God gives us 00:55:34.320 --> 00:55:36.080 his gifts through his word. 00:55:36.080 --> 00:55:36.400 And 00:55:37.360 --> 00:55:39.760 just to get back to the first point that I wanted to 00:55:39.760 --> 00:55:42.320 make with this whole section, God is the one doing it. 00:55:42.560 --> 00:55:46.240 And so when Lutherans sound different than others, that's the reason why. 00:55:46.240 --> 00:55:49.600 As Corey mentioned, the second doctrine we'll get to, we're not going 00:55:49.600 --> 00:55:53.280 to spend as long on the sacrament, but it works the same 00:55:53.280 --> 00:55:56.560 way. When Jesus was in the upper room and he said, Take 00:55:56.560 --> 00:55:59.280 eat, this is my body, do this as often as you eat 00:55:59.280 --> 00:56:01.680 and drink of it in remembrance of me. 00:56:01.680 --> 00:56:05.200 If that's the only verse you read, you're gonna pick the remembrance 00:56:05.200 --> 00:56:07.840 word and think, well, okay, it's a memorial meal. 00:56:07.840 --> 00:56:11.520 That's it's just us hanging around thinking about Jesus having some food 00:56:11.680 --> 00:56:15.280 and some wine or not wine, if you want to believe that 00:56:15.280 --> 00:56:19.040 you can disobey that. 00:56:19.040 --> 00:56:22.640 You have to ignore the other parts in scripture that also discuss 00:56:23.040 --> 00:56:28.240 communion, because it's referred to in multiple places in multiple different ways, 00:56:28.240 --> 00:56:32.960 not in conflicting ways, but fleshing out that which was given in 00:56:32.960 --> 00:56:34.000 the upper room. 00:56:34.000 --> 00:56:36.960 The upper room wasn't the whole of the teaching that God gave 00:56:36.960 --> 00:56:40.720 to the church or to those present about communion. 00:56:40.720 --> 00:56:43.600 He said other things, and the other things that he said make 00:56:43.680 --> 00:56:47.120 clear that it is him giving us his body and blood for 00:56:47.120 --> 00:56:49.520 the remission of sins. 00:56:49.520 --> 00:56:49.840 And 00:56:51.360 --> 00:56:56.400 when you look at the scenario of someone receiving communion, you see 00:56:56.400 --> 00:56:59.760 the hand going out or the you know, the mouth being opened 00:56:59.840 --> 00:57:03.440 and the person receiving and eating and drinking, and there's a whole 00:57:03.440 --> 00:57:07.840 lot of doing by the person who's up at the communion rail. 00:57:07.840 --> 00:57:10.400 It's easy to ignore what God is doing. 00:57:10.400 --> 00:57:13.760 It's easy, just like in baptism, to say, well, you know, God 00:57:13.920 --> 00:57:18.160 God promised something and maybe it's spiritual, but I'm I'm really the 00:57:18.160 --> 00:57:18.800 doer here. 00:57:18.800 --> 00:57:20.000 I'm the prime mover. 00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:24.640 I'm going up, I'm obeying, I'm remembering, I'm, you know, I'm trying 00:57:24.640 --> 00:57:28.800 to obey, but if you deprive God of being the first mover 00:57:28.800 --> 00:57:32.560 in that scenario where he is the one bestowing his gifts, was 00:57:33.040 --> 00:57:36.800 which are specifically his body and blood, which were again shed on 00:57:36.800 --> 00:57:41.120 the cross, and to tie back to baptism, water also poured out 00:57:41.120 --> 00:57:42.240 of Jesus' side. 00:57:42.240 --> 00:57:46.400 That was a pericardial sac or surrounding his heart being pierced by 00:57:46.400 --> 00:57:48.240 the Roman soldier's spear. 00:57:48.240 --> 00:57:52.480 Water, blood, and the flesh of Christ were all present in the 00:57:53.040 --> 00:57:54.640 moment of his death. 00:57:54.640 --> 00:57:57.840 All of that is mirrored in the sacraments. 00:57:57.840 --> 00:58:00.240 Now this isn't simply reminders. 00:58:00.240 --> 00:58:04.080 This is these aren't simply mnemonics that we use to tie one 00:58:04.080 --> 00:58:06.240 thing to another. 00:58:06.240 --> 00:58:10.880 These typological connections are things that God makes clear in scripture to 00:58:10.880 --> 00:58:12.880 reinforce over and over. 00:58:12.880 --> 00:58:14.560 Here is what I am doing for you. 00:58:14.560 --> 00:58:18.000 Because as Corey said, God gives us a superabundance of that which 00:58:18.000 --> 00:58:20.080 is needed for our comfort. 00:58:20.080 --> 00:58:24.160 It's not that if you don't have communion every Sunday, you're gonna 00:58:24.160 --> 00:58:27.520 run up a surplus of sins and not be forgiven for them. 00:58:27.520 --> 00:58:29.920 All of your sins were forgiven at the cross. 00:58:29.920 --> 00:58:32.400 All of your sins were forgiven at baptism. 00:58:32.400 --> 00:58:35.920 All of your sins are forgiven every time you receive absolution and 00:58:35.920 --> 00:58:38.880 every time you receive communion faithfully. 00:58:38.880 --> 00:58:40.800 God is giving us more than we need. 00:58:40.800 --> 00:58:42.720 There's no math and salvation. 00:58:42.720 --> 00:58:45.920 There's only God's perfect love for us. 00:58:45.920 --> 00:58:49.760 And the sacraments and our view of the sacraments are bound up 00:58:49.760 --> 00:58:51.920 in that in obedience to God. 00:58:52.480 --> 00:58:57.520 Even in churches where they deny the reality of what baptism is, 00:58:57.760 --> 00:59:00.640 and will say that it is their own declaration of faith when 00:59:00.640 --> 00:59:03.840 they stand up there before the congregation. 00:59:03.840 --> 00:59:07.600 They don't baptize themselves. 00:59:07.600 --> 00:59:09.840 They are still being baptized 00:59:10.800 --> 00:59:15.520 by a pastor who is acting in the stead of Christ. 00:59:15.520 --> 00:59:17.040 So some of 00:59:19.360 --> 00:59:25.760 the proper look of baptism, some of that typology is still there. 00:59:25.760 --> 00:59:29.600 They may not realize the fullness of it, but it is still 00:59:29.600 --> 00:59:36.640 present. And you mentioned typology, the verse over which we constantly 00:59:36.640 --> 00:59:40.880 get into fights with Baptists and others is of course Peter three 00:59:41.040 --> 00:59:48.320 twenty one, because it the most clearly states our view Baptism now 00:59:48.320 --> 00:59:49.680 saves you. 00:59:49.680 --> 00:59:52.720 A literal quote from scripture. 00:59:52.720 --> 00:59:53.040 And 00:59:54.000 --> 00:59:58.720 I have had baptists in conversations say that baptism does not save 00:59:58.720 --> 01:00:01.120 you. I would think that would worry them because they are saying 01:00:01.600 --> 01:00:05.920 the exact opposite of what Scripture says. 01:00:05.920 --> 01:00:08.720 And I'll read the fullness of the verse because I want to 01:00:08.720 --> 01:00:12.560 touch on one word that goes to typology that was just mentioned. 01:00:12.560 --> 01:00:16.640 Baptism which corresponds to this now saves you, not as a removal 01:00:16.640 --> 01:00:19.520 of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for 01:00:19.520 --> 01:00:23.200 a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. 01:00:23.200 --> 01:00:28.800 Now what is translated which corresponds to this is The underlying word 01:00:28.800 --> 01:00:31.920 there is actually antitupos, antitype. 01:00:31.920 --> 01:00:34.320 We're dealing here in typology. 01:00:34.320 --> 01:00:38.880 And the verse, of course, not this verse, but the chapter goes 01:00:38.880 --> 01:00:41.440 on to speak of the flood and other things. 01:00:41.440 --> 01:00:44.720 Those are types of baptism. 01:00:44.720 --> 01:00:50.720 Now, a type is something that prefigures, comes before, is an illustration 01:00:50.720 --> 01:00:51.920 of the anti-type. 01:00:51.920 --> 01:00:54.000 The anti-type is the fulfillment. 01:00:54.000 --> 01:00:56.480 The antity is always greater. 01:00:56.480 --> 01:01:00.320 The flood is given as one of the types of baptism. 01:01:00.320 --> 01:01:04.080 So is the deliverance of the Israelites through the Red Sea. 01:01:04.080 --> 01:01:08.480 It's a type of baptism in both of those cases from what 01:01:08.480 --> 01:01:09.360 were they delivered? 01:01:09.360 --> 01:01:14.720 Well, in the case of the Israelites, they were delivered from idolatry 01:01:14.720 --> 01:01:16.640 and slavery in Egypt. 01:01:16.640 --> 01:01:19.440 In the case of the flood, they were delivered from idolatry and 01:01:19.440 --> 01:01:24.880 death, because everyone not on the ark died. 01:01:24.880 --> 01:01:28.400 What is the only thing greater than temporal death from which man 01:01:28.400 --> 01:01:29.680 can be delivered? 01:01:29.680 --> 01:01:31.760 The answer of course is eternal death. 01:01:31.760 --> 01:01:34.640 There is nothing else greater from which you can be delivered. 01:01:34.640 --> 01:01:39.600 And so if the type delivers from temporal death, the only thing 01:01:39.600 --> 01:01:43.760 from which the antitype can deliver because the antitype is again necessarily 01:01:43.760 --> 01:01:48.320 greater than the Greater than the type, well that's eternal death. 01:01:48.320 --> 01:01:53.120 And so baptism delivers you from eternal death. 01:01:53.120 --> 01:01:56.640 And now of course, Baptists and others, their hair will be on 01:01:56.640 --> 01:01:58.720 fire when they hear that because they think that I'm denying 01:01:59.840 --> 01:02:01.920 faith alone, grace alone. 01:02:01.920 --> 01:02:05.360 They think I'm denying the soul eye I'm not. 01:02:05.360 --> 01:02:08.800 What Lutherans are saying when we say this, because this is what 01:02:08.800 --> 01:02:10.320 scripture says, is that God 01:02:11.200 --> 01:02:14.480 uses means to create faith. 01:02:14.480 --> 01:02:16.640 We call these the means of grace. 01:02:16.640 --> 01:02:18.320 Baptism is one of them. 01:02:18.320 --> 01:02:22.640 Baptism is the ordinary way in which an individual is brought into 01:02:22.640 --> 01:02:27.120 the church of God because the ordinary means is baptism as an 01:02:27.120 --> 01:02:32.960 infant. Now of course adult converts typically are going to have faith 01:02:32.960 --> 01:02:36.400 because they heard the word, but that's because there are multiple means 01:02:37.040 --> 01:02:38.560 of grace. 01:02:38.560 --> 01:02:44.640 We are not saying that baptism in and of itself saves you. 01:02:44.640 --> 01:02:49.280 Baptism saves you because it is a means by which God creates 01:02:49.840 --> 01:02:56.240 faith in your heart, and therefore you are annexing to yourself, given 01:02:56.240 --> 01:03:00.400 power by the Spirit to do so, the grace of God given 01:03:00.400 --> 01:03:04.640 to humanity in the cross, the death and resurrection of Christ. 01:03:04.640 --> 01:03:09.200 It is all by grace through faith. 01:03:09.200 --> 01:03:10.880 That's how it works. 01:03:10.880 --> 01:03:16.720 We are not saying that just because you were baptized, you're saved. 01:03:16.720 --> 01:03:18.560 No, it's because baptism creates faith. 01:03:18.560 --> 01:03:20.960 It is still solafide. 01:03:20.960 --> 01:03:27.520 But as the verse makes clear, baptism now saves you. 01:03:27.520 --> 01:03:31.120 And there is no way around that without denying the clear words 01:03:31.120 --> 01:03:32.160 of scripture. 01:03:32.480 --> 01:03:36.560 And this is why we so frequently attack bumper sticker theology, including 01:03:36.560 --> 01:03:39.680 some of our own bumper stickers, where you have something that is 01:03:39.680 --> 01:03:44.640 a valuable concept that is distilled down into simple words, but then 01:03:45.120 --> 01:03:48.560 in time people forget what the concept was and they just use 01:03:48.560 --> 01:03:51.520 the words as though that is the rule and norm. 01:03:51.520 --> 01:03:57.360 And if a Protestant faithfully believes that only faith can save, the 01:03:57.360 --> 01:04:04.080 works cannot save, then if they misapprehend baptism and communion as works, 01:04:04.080 --> 01:04:05.920 well of course they can't be salvific. 01:04:05.920 --> 01:04:07.360 And that's the entire disconnect here. 01:04:07.360 --> 01:04:10.080 That's why we s that's why we focus this on who's doing 01:04:10.080 --> 01:04:11.040 the verbs. 01:04:11.040 --> 01:04:15.120 If we were saying I must baptize, I must be baptized, that's 01:04:15.120 --> 01:04:17.920 the only way I can be saved, that would be false. 01:04:17.920 --> 01:04:20.640 That would violate sola fide. 01:04:20.640 --> 01:04:24.000 That's not what God says, that's not what we're saying. 01:04:24.000 --> 01:04:26.080 It's not what Scripture says. 01:04:26.080 --> 01:04:29.200 These things are given to us for our blessing. 01:04:29.200 --> 01:04:33.920 And you know, as we've reiterated, you can receive faith from hearing. 01:04:33.920 --> 01:04:37.680 You can receive faith from baptism, which by the way, is also 01:04:37.680 --> 01:04:42.560 hearing. Once you're a Christian, once you have faith, regardless of how 01:04:42.560 --> 01:04:46.160 it came to you, if you as a Christian say, Oh, I 01:04:46.160 --> 01:04:48.800 was baptized, I don't need to hear the word, guess what? 01:04:49.120 --> 01:04:51.280 You're going to stop being a Christian. 01:04:51.280 --> 01:04:54.320 If you say, I hear the word, I don't need to be 01:04:54.320 --> 01:04:57.040 baptized, you're not going to keep being a Christian. 01:04:57.040 --> 01:04:59.760 If you say, I don't need communion, I've been baptized and I 01:04:59.760 --> 01:05:02.080 hear the word, I don't need that stuff, you're not going to 01:05:02.080 --> 01:05:03.040 be a Christian. 01:05:03.040 --> 01:05:05.040 Because God commands these things. 01:05:05.040 --> 01:05:06.720 These are gifts in their commands. 01:05:06.720 --> 01:05:09.120 When God speaks, it's the same thing. 01:05:09.120 --> 01:05:11.360 A gift of God is not optional. 01:05:11.360 --> 01:05:13.520 You don't send it back. 01:05:13.520 --> 01:05:16.960 You don't exchange it for something you like better. 01:05:16.960 --> 01:05:20.880 You receive God's gift by faith and you give thanks to God 01:05:20.880 --> 01:05:24.960 for what he in his infinite wisdom and mercy gave to you. 01:05:24.960 --> 01:05:28.160 We can't send these things back and we can't say we don't 01:05:28.080 --> 01:05:30.400 like them and they're not for us and I don't think they 01:05:30.400 --> 01:05:31.760 do anything anyway. 01:05:31.760 --> 01:05:34.400 That is fundamentally calling God a liar. 01:05:34.400 --> 01:05:38.960 Regardless of how someone gets there rationally, to be in that place 01:05:38.960 --> 01:05:43.520 spiritually is dangerous, even if you get everything else right, because what 01:05:43.520 --> 01:05:44.240 have you done? 01:05:44.240 --> 01:05:49.280 You've taken the solas, which are encapsulations of sound doctrine, and use 01:05:49.440 --> 01:05:51.600 them to attack sound doctrine. 01:05:51.600 --> 01:05:54.240 That's not what sound doctrine does. 01:05:54.240 --> 01:05:58.960 Sound doctrine reinforces all other sound doctrine because God is one. 01:05:58.960 --> 01:06:00.960 All of these things are interconnected. 01:06:00.960 --> 01:06:02.960 All of these things have the same origin. 01:06:02.960 --> 01:06:06.400 There's not people doing some things and God doing others. 01:06:06.400 --> 01:06:08.400 All of this is from God. 01:06:08.400 --> 01:06:12.320 And the same is true in the liturgy, which is the reason 01:06:12.320 --> 01:06:17.600 you'll hear Christian or you'll hear Lutherans talking about the liturgy, we 01:06:18.160 --> 01:06:21.040 typically will avoid talking about a worship service. 01:06:21.040 --> 01:06:23.680 You'll hear us refer to it as the divine service. 01:06:23.680 --> 01:06:28.480 And again, that's very explicitly consciously focusing on who's doing the the 01:06:28.480 --> 01:06:32.640 verbs. If it's a worship service, well, I'm the worshiper. 01:06:32.640 --> 01:06:35.120 I'm going there, I get dressed up or not. 01:06:35.120 --> 01:06:36.640 I go, I worship. 01:06:36.640 --> 01:06:38.800 Maybe it's loud, maybe I feel something. 01:06:38.800 --> 01:06:41.200 That's me doing the worship. 01:06:41.200 --> 01:06:46.080 We say divine service because it's true, and because it's a rejection 01:06:46.080 --> 01:06:48.960 of the idea that we're going to church to do anything. 01:06:48.960 --> 01:06:51.760 We're going there to receive God's gifts. 01:06:51.760 --> 01:06:56.880 The divine service is the divine serving us in the Word, in 01:06:56.880 --> 01:07:00.160 communion, and in baptism when you're blessed to witness one. 01:07:00.160 --> 01:07:03.440 Because when you see someone else being baptized of any age, it's 01:07:03.440 --> 01:07:07.120 a reminder of your own baptism, a reminder that I am baptized 01:07:07.200 --> 01:07:10.000 because this happened for me as well. 01:07:10.400 --> 01:07:14.080 All of these things, the reason that they're important to Lutherans is 01:07:14.080 --> 01:07:18.880 that by pointing to God, we refuse to point to ourselves, which 01:07:18.960 --> 01:07:21.360 by the way is the point of the soul eye. 01:07:21.360 --> 01:07:25.120 The idea is that if God is doing this stuff, all we 01:07:25.120 --> 01:07:28.160 have to believe in is that God is going to keep being 01:07:28.160 --> 01:07:31.920 God. I don't have to worry if my faith isn't strong enough. 01:07:31.920 --> 01:07:35.120 I don't have to worry if I didn't decide for Christ in 01:07:35.120 --> 01:07:35.840 the right way. 01:07:36.160 --> 01:07:39.680 I don't have to worry if my fruits don't bear out my 01:07:39.680 --> 01:07:43.360 faith. All I have to worry about is whether God is God. 01:07:43.360 --> 01:07:45.600 And that's no worry at all for the Christian. 01:07:45.600 --> 01:07:47.440 God cannot help but be God. 01:07:47.440 --> 01:07:50.880 And when God puts his name on you, there's nothing for you 01:07:50.880 --> 01:07:54.400 to worry about when you trust in those promises. 01:07:54.400 --> 01:07:58.960 The gift of Lutheran doctrine is a distillation of these things to 01:07:58.960 --> 01:08:02.160 the point that there can be no ambiguity about how we're saved 01:08:02.720 --> 01:08:04.880 or about what we do once we're saved. 01:08:04.880 --> 01:08:09.840 And the reason that we look weird to other Protestant denominations is 01:08:09.840 --> 01:08:14.640 that this fundamentally different approach to a couple questions leads to radically 01:08:14.640 --> 01:08:15.760 different conclusions. 01:08:15.760 --> 01:08:16.000 And 01:08:17.200 --> 01:08:18.560 they're they're radical. 01:08:18.800 --> 01:08:20.720 it's your on your they're as far as the East is from 01:08:20.720 --> 01:08:21.440 the West. 01:08:21.440 --> 01:08:25.040 When we say baptism saves you and someone says baptism doesn't save 01:08:25.040 --> 01:08:27.680 anyone, that's intractable. 01:08:27.840 --> 01:08:30.400 Somebody is calling God a liar. 01:08:30.400 --> 01:08:33.600 And that's the reason that it's worth fighting for. 01:08:33.600 --> 01:08:38.000 It's worth fighting for sound doctrine because if you can't trust God 01:08:38.000 --> 01:08:41.760 at His Word, why bother being a Christian at all? 01:08:41.760 --> 01:08:44.560 Why waste time and money and effort on church? 01:08:44.560 --> 01:08:47.760 You can go live a self-centered life and not worry about any 01:08:47.760 --> 01:08:48.800 of this crap. 01:08:48.800 --> 01:08:52.000 If you trust and believe in God, it changes you. 01:08:52.000 --> 01:08:55.840 The indwelling of the Holy Spirit changes your life forever. 01:08:55.840 --> 01:08:59.360 It means the things that you once found pleasing, you now find 01:08:59.520 --> 01:09:02.240 disgusting, but because they're contrary to God's will. 01:09:02.240 --> 01:09:05.280 And the more that God pours that blessing out on us, the 01:09:05.280 --> 01:09:08.880 easier it does is for us to stay away from the margins, 01:09:08.880 --> 01:09:13.280 to stay away from the errors that can lead to damnation, that 01:09:13.280 --> 01:09:16.240 can lead to doubt that will cause us to lose our faith 01:09:16.240 --> 01:09:17.200 in God. 01:09:17.200 --> 01:09:21.440 And the gift of Lutheran doctrine is that it's Christian doctrine. 01:09:21.440 --> 01:09:24.720 Like Corey said at the beginning, he read what Luther had wrote 01:09:24.800 --> 01:09:26.400 and he said, This is what I believe. 01:09:26.400 --> 01:09:27.760 He'd never read it before. 01:09:27.760 --> 01:09:29.840 It had never been explained to him that way. 01:09:29.840 --> 01:09:33.440 And yet because he read scripture and he believed scripture when he 01:09:33.440 --> 01:09:37.920 saw how it was argued in a Lutheran context, in a Lutheran 01:09:37.920 --> 01:09:41.840 di uh dialect, it made sense. 01:09:41.840 --> 01:09:46.240 Being Lutheran is not a particular type of being Christian. 01:09:46.240 --> 01:09:49.120 Being Lutheran is being a faithful Christian. 01:09:49.120 --> 01:09:52.720 And those are fighting words because again, everybody else says the same 01:09:52.720 --> 01:09:55.440 thing, and most one of us is right. 01:09:55.440 --> 01:09:58.880 And Cory and I believe that if you look at scripture and 01:09:58.880 --> 01:10:03.520 you compare it to the manner in which Lutherans faithfully discuss it, 01:10:03.520 --> 01:10:05.200 it's the same picture. 01:10:05.200 --> 01:10:09.200 It's an explanation in God's language of what God has already said. 01:10:09.200 --> 01:10:13.440 And someone with the Holy Spirit cannot help but say, Yeah, that 01:10:13.440 --> 01:10:14.480 makes sense. 01:10:14.480 --> 01:10:17.360 And over and over again, we see that happening in our own 01:10:17.360 --> 01:10:18.720 lives with other people. 01:10:18.720 --> 01:10:20.800 It's not this is not speculative. 01:10:20.800 --> 01:10:22.400 It actually happens. 01:10:22.480 --> 01:10:22.640 You 01:10:22.640 --> 01:10:26.480 mentioned that Lutherans will call it the divine service. 01:10:26.480 --> 01:10:30.560 There's another term that I have to bring up the German because 01:10:30.560 --> 01:10:33.920 of course it is also called the Gottistienst, which just means that 01:10:33.920 --> 01:10:38.880 it is God's service, which we are recognizing really we're recognizing it 01:10:38.880 --> 01:10:42.720 in both English and in German, just in a slightly different way. 01:10:42.720 --> 01:10:44.800 This is God's service. 01:10:44.800 --> 01:10:49.680 The direction is God coming to us and then us responding to 01:10:49.680 --> 01:10:53.520 God. Which of course is just what scripture says, because we love 01:10:53.520 --> 01:10:56.400 him because he first loved us. 01:10:56.400 --> 01:10:59.120 Without me you can do nothing. 01:10:59.120 --> 01:11:03.440 Without God, without God coming to us first, we cannot respond to 01:11:03.440 --> 01:11:05.680 him, we cannot do anything because we are dead in sin and 01:11:05.680 --> 01:11:09.120 trespass, and corpses do not act. 01:11:09.120 --> 01:11:11.520 So there is no making a choice for God. 01:11:11.520 --> 01:11:14.800 There is no coming to God of your own volition. 01:11:14.800 --> 01:11:16.240 You are Lazarus. 01:11:16.240 --> 01:11:20.640 You are dead in the tomb, that's why that's in Scripture. 01:11:20.640 --> 01:11:22.640 Because you are the corpse. 01:11:22.640 --> 01:11:26.800 And unless God comes to you and enlivens you with his word, 01:11:26.800 --> 01:11:31.200 which he can also bring to you through the sacrament of baptism, 01:11:31.200 --> 01:11:33.520 you cannot do anything. 01:11:33.520 --> 01:11:38.720 And so that is the recognition of the Lutheran liturgical service is 01:11:38.720 --> 01:11:42.800 that we are coming into God's presence into his house to receive 01:11:42.800 --> 01:11:45.520 his gifts. 01:11:45.520 --> 01:11:47.600 And that is the big difference. 01:11:47.600 --> 01:11:51.920 We are not doing as so many other Christian traditions believe, it 01:11:51.920 --> 01:11:56.000 is not first and foremost us coming to God and worshiping Him 01:11:56.080 --> 01:11:58.800 and then begging Him for things. 01:11:58.800 --> 01:12:01.760 It is us coming to God to receive the things He has 01:12:01.760 --> 01:12:06.000 promised to give us where He has promised to give them, and 01:12:06.000 --> 01:12:11.200 then responding in thankfulness and worship to him for those gifts. 01:12:11.200 --> 01:12:15.840 It is important to recognize which direction things are flowing in the 01:12:15.840 --> 01:12:20.160 divine service, and most Christian traditions get it exactly backward 01:12:21.200 --> 01:12:24.800 In the show notes, we will link uh three videos that Pastor 01:12:24.800 --> 01:12:28.400 Whedon did with Matt Whitman of the 10 Minute Bible Hour. 01:12:28.400 --> 01:12:31.920 I think we mentioned before, we'll link them again because those videos 01:12:31.920 --> 01:12:34.320 show part of what the divine service looks like. 01:12:34.400 --> 01:12:38.160 And Wien does a great job of explaining why we do things 01:12:38.160 --> 01:12:41.600 the way we do, why the liturgy and the divine service looks 01:12:41.600 --> 01:12:46.000 so different from the enthusiastic sort of worship that is that is 01:12:46.000 --> 01:12:50.800 so common, especially in things like megachurches that are frankly some Lutheran 01:12:50.800 --> 01:12:53.120 churches are are being pushed to do that and some are are 01:12:53.120 --> 01:12:54.960 open mega churches too. 01:12:54.960 --> 01:12:57.680 Uh and that's actually the the last thing we want to talk 01:12:57.680 --> 01:13:02.320 about today that we've described uh how we became Lutheran, why we 01:13:02.320 --> 01:13:05.520 are Lutheran, why we believe it's important, and now we want to 01:13:05.520 --> 01:13:09.520 close with why we fight for Lutheranism, rather than simply leaving. 01:13:09.520 --> 01:13:12.480 Um I think the simply leaving part I hope we've made clear 01:13:12.480 --> 01:13:15.440 that we don't believe that there's anywhere else to go. 01:13:15.440 --> 01:13:19.200 We don't believe that there is another denomination that has a more 01:13:19.200 --> 01:13:23.440 clear confession of Christian doctrine. 01:13:23.440 --> 01:13:27.440 You know, when when someone of any denomination reads the small catechism, 01:13:27.920 --> 01:13:31.200 the section on baptism they may disagree with, second on section on 01:13:31.200 --> 01:13:34.960 communion they may disagree with, everything else they're probably going to agree 01:13:34.960 --> 01:13:37.840 with completely, even though they've never heard it before, even though they 01:13:37.840 --> 01:13:42.560 might not know or care about Luther, when you read those explanations 01:13:42.560 --> 01:13:47.440 in a Lutheran dialect, you're like, yeah, this is what I believe. 01:13:47.440 --> 01:13:52.400 The Lutheran faith is fundamentally the ecumenical Christian faith, which is really 01:13:52.400 --> 01:13:53.520 what Catholic means. 01:13:53.520 --> 01:13:55.520 It means universal or of the whole. 01:13:55.520 --> 01:13:56.800 It doesn't mean Roman. 01:13:56.800 --> 01:13:58.560 Catholic doesn't mean papist. 01:13:58.560 --> 01:14:01.520 It's some people are trying to reclaim that word, but it's it's 01:14:01.520 --> 01:14:03.200 lost due to abuse. 01:14:03.200 --> 01:14:07.840 But fundamentally the Catholic Church is the true church where true doctrine 01:14:07.840 --> 01:14:10.480 is preached, and we believe that that is here. 01:14:10.480 --> 01:14:14.800 Uh whether or not the Missouri Synod is going to survive, I 01:14:14.800 --> 01:14:15.760 don't know. 01:14:15.760 --> 01:14:18.160 It's been around 175 years. 01:14:18.160 --> 01:14:23.520 It started on really rocky ground, not doctrinally, but just situationally. 01:14:23.520 --> 01:14:26.560 They were effectively refugees from Saxony. 01:14:26.560 --> 01:14:29.840 They came to the Midwest, you know, really on the frontier and 01:14:29.840 --> 01:14:33.360 things immediately went horribly wrong in multiple ways. 01:14:33.360 --> 01:14:37.520 Uh they muddled through and they became they began to quickly grow. 01:14:37.520 --> 01:14:39.360 And initially a lot of the growth was 01:14:39.840 --> 01:14:42.640 they also lost one of their ships in route. 01:14:43.360 --> 01:14:47.360 Yeah, I think they didn't even all make it to the US. 01:14:47.440 --> 01:14:51.200 Yeah. And yet they grew substantially, and a lot of that growth 01:14:51.200 --> 01:14:56.240 was from other Germans coming and then refining the original Lutheran faith, 01:14:56.240 --> 01:14:59.280 which had basically been wiped out in Germany, the reason they were 01:14:59.440 --> 01:15:03.440 they were not economic refugees, they were religious refugees because of the 01:15:03.440 --> 01:15:04.560 Prussian Union. 01:15:04.560 --> 01:15:08.080 The only way that they could practice this doctrine that we cling 01:15:08.080 --> 01:15:12.400 to was to flee their homeland because it had effectively in some 01:15:12.400 --> 01:15:15.760 parts been banned, and so coming here was the only way they 01:15:15.760 --> 01:15:20.640 could continue to preach and and practice faithfully. 01:15:21.360 --> 01:15:27.360 We don't care about a particular corporation or a particular designation for 01:15:27.360 --> 01:15:28.400 its own sake. 01:15:28.400 --> 01:15:31.680 The LCMS has roots 175 years old. 01:15:31.680 --> 01:15:34.480 Lutheranism has roots 500 years old. 01:15:34.480 --> 01:15:37.680 The Christian church has roots two thousand years old. 01:15:37.680 --> 01:15:40.960 The Christian faith has roots six thousand years old. 01:15:40.960 --> 01:15:43.840 We don't the only root that we need to worry about is 01:15:43.840 --> 01:15:46.560 the root that we have in Jesus Christ and in his word 01:15:46.720 --> 01:15:48.800 that's given to us in scripture. 01:15:48.800 --> 01:15:53.920 So the reason that Corey and I fight today for the LCMS 01:15:53.920 --> 01:15:57.280 is because it's it's what we have, it's where we are, this 01:15:57.280 --> 01:15:58.880 is our backyard. 01:15:58.880 --> 01:16:03.520 These disagreements that occur in the church, these places where there are 01:16:03.520 --> 01:16:08.720 pastors who seek to introduce un Lutheran and in some cases unchristian 01:16:08.720 --> 01:16:12.640 practices into the church, that's our problem. 01:16:12.640 --> 01:16:15.200 You know, we we hear the things that are going on in 01:16:15.200 --> 01:16:18.640 Rome and we'll take pot shots at it sometime, but it's not 01:16:18.880 --> 01:16:20.240 it's not our fight. 01:16:20.240 --> 01:16:23.600 R Rome is already a mess before the th latest thing that 01:16:23.600 --> 01:16:26.960 happened. So if Rome keeps being a mess, that just tells us 01:16:26.960 --> 01:16:27.920 that there's still Rome. 01:16:27.920 --> 01:16:29.760 That doesn't give us new information. 01:16:29.760 --> 01:16:35.520 The Missouri Synod started out doctrinally strong and has grown increasingly less 01:16:35.520 --> 01:16:36.960 so over time. 01:16:36.960 --> 01:16:40.800 And we'll link in this show uh stream that Corey and I 01:16:40.800 --> 01:16:45.920 did along with two other friends last night on YouTube discussing the 01:16:45.920 --> 01:16:51.520 large cataclysm blow up that occurred when last week the LCMS through 01:16:51.520 --> 01:16:55.840 Concordia Publishing House, published a brand new large catechism that has a 01:16:55.840 --> 01:17:01.600 bunch of uh new essays that include horrific false doctrine across the 01:17:01.600 --> 01:17:04.960 board. some of the essays are good, but there's so much garbage 01:17:05.440 --> 01:17:09.120 in there, the every copy should be burned. 01:17:09.120 --> 01:17:12.160 And we were the first that went to war against this thing 01:17:12.160 --> 01:17:13.600 because we thought it was evil. 01:17:13.600 --> 01:17:15.760 Now there are other things that we've gone to war against and 01:17:15.760 --> 01:17:18.400 we bet ignored or we've been shouted down. 01:17:18.400 --> 01:17:21.520 This time, you know, when this began, I I tweeted on the 01:17:21.520 --> 01:17:26.560 very first day something to the effect that this these annotations, these 01:17:26.560 --> 01:17:31.040 changes to the the Lutheran doctrine in this book from Synod are 01:17:31.040 --> 01:17:35.040 evil. And I effectively said the pastor if pastors don't speak up 01:17:35.040 --> 01:17:36.800 about this, they're cowards. 01:17:36.800 --> 01:17:38.080 And that was a challenge. 01:17:38.080 --> 01:17:41.840 And honestly, I didn't think that I didn't expect people to rise 01:17:41.840 --> 01:17:42.560 to the challenge. 01:17:42.560 --> 01:17:43.680 Not that it was my challenge. 01:17:43.680 --> 01:17:45.520 Like I didn't I didn't do anything. 01:17:45.520 --> 01:17:47.120 Corey and I didn't do anything. 01:17:47.120 --> 01:17:52.480 Ryan Turrepsey didn't except for publicize to the whole church that there 01:17:52.480 --> 01:17:54.640 are deep-seated problems. 01:17:54.640 --> 01:17:57.680 And one of the reasons that we are having these fights in 01:17:57.680 --> 01:18:00.640 the open is that for a long time these fights have been 01:18:00.640 --> 01:18:04.400 happening in secret and they kept getting buried. 01:18:04.400 --> 01:18:06.800 I think that most people don't you know, most people have heard 01:18:06.800 --> 01:18:07.760 about Elka today. 01:18:07.760 --> 01:18:10.800 You know that it's the largest American Lutheran denomination. 01:18:10.800 --> 01:18:12.400 And you know that it's apostate. 01:18:12.400 --> 01:18:16.080 You know that they have tranny demons, they have lesbians, they have 01:18:16.080 --> 01:18:18.800 every every sort of perversion you can have. 01:18:18.800 --> 01:18:22.640 They're universalists, they deny God, they deny the creeds, they deny everything. 01:18:22.640 --> 01:18:23.360 They're not Christian. 01:18:23.360 --> 01:18:26.080 By any measure, they're not Christian. 01:18:26.080 --> 01:18:29.440 What most people don't know is that Elka is not Christian because 01:18:29.440 --> 01:18:31.360 of the LCMS. 01:18:31.360 --> 01:18:34.800 In the forties, in the fifties, in the sixties, and then ultimately 01:18:34.800 --> 01:18:38.640 in the seventies, there was a fight in the LCMS that was 01:18:38.640 --> 01:18:41.360 called at the time the battle for the Bible. 01:18:41.360 --> 01:18:44.720 It was a battle over scriptural inerrancy. 01:18:44.720 --> 01:18:47.600 Is the word of God really the word of God? 01:18:47.600 --> 01:18:48.640 Can we trust it? 01:18:48.640 --> 01:18:49.680 Can we understand it? 01:18:49.680 --> 01:18:50.400 Can we believe it? 01:18:50.400 --> 01:18:52.880 Do we need to stick to it or can we believe different 01:18:52.880 --> 01:18:57.120 things? And there is an increasingly vocal group of pastors at the 01:18:57.120 --> 01:19:01.600 time, including some in very high places, who were openly pushing to 01:19:01.600 --> 01:19:04.240 cast down the Bible and say, Well, that's not what that means. 01:19:04.240 --> 01:19:06.160 We're gonna go in a different direction. 01:19:06.160 --> 01:19:09.280 We need to be more Christian than this Bible thing is gonna 01:19:09.280 --> 01:19:10.080 let us do. 01:19:10.080 --> 01:19:12.960 We got to have more love, and that's gonna mean setting some 01:19:12.960 --> 01:19:15.360 of this stuff aside. 01:19:15.360 --> 01:19:19.200 This common culminated in the early 70s in what's called seminex. 01:19:19.200 --> 01:19:20.480 It was a seminary in exile. 01:19:20.480 --> 01:19:22.000 It was basically where the St. 01:19:22.000 --> 01:19:24.560 Louis Seminary effectively imploded. 01:19:24.560 --> 01:19:27.760 All but I think five of the professors remained. 01:19:27.760 --> 01:19:30.960 The rest all walked out, most of the student body walked out 01:19:31.120 --> 01:19:35.760 because they agreed with this radical satanic agenda of the destruction of 01:19:35.760 --> 01:19:37.040 the Christian church. 01:19:37.040 --> 01:19:40.160 They were trying to destroy Christian the scripture because they intended to 01:19:40.160 --> 01:19:43.440 destro destroy the LCMS. 01:19:43.440 --> 01:19:48.800 By God's grace, the Bible won, God won, and the demons of 01:19:48.800 --> 01:19:50.240 Seminex left. 01:19:50.240 --> 01:19:51.280 You know where they went? 01:19:51.280 --> 01:19:53.840 They went to the one of the predecessor bodies of Elka and 01:19:53.840 --> 01:19:56.640 they quickly took over that predecessor body. 01:19:56.640 --> 01:19:59.840 They became those in the greatest influential seats. 01:19:59.840 --> 01:20:03.200 They shaped what became Elka, and then they ran Elka. 01:20:03.200 --> 01:20:05.280 They ran Elka right into the ground. 01:20:05.280 --> 01:20:09.040 All of the demon demonic things that you see in Elka today, 01:20:09.040 --> 01:20:12.400 they came out of the LCMS by men who were at one 01:20:12.400 --> 01:20:16.800 time they were rostered, they had collars, they were well well respected, 01:20:16.800 --> 01:20:19.760 they were believed to be Missouri Synod Lutherans. 01:20:19.760 --> 01:20:23.360 And And again, by God's grace, they were driven out because they 01:20:23.360 --> 01:20:24.080 were demons. 01:20:24.080 --> 01:20:26.560 They were wolves of the highest order. 01:20:26.560 --> 01:20:30.240 And unfortunately, we didn't drive all of them out, but most of 01:20:30.240 --> 01:20:31.760 them we got rid of. 01:20:31.760 --> 01:20:35.040 There are regions of this country today where Lutheranism once sort of 01:20:35.120 --> 01:20:39.200 existed and basically doesn't exist anymore because we didn't drive out the 01:20:39.200 --> 01:20:43.920 pastors who had graduated from the seminary at the time when these 01:20:43.920 --> 01:20:45.680 demons were teaching everyone. 01:20:45.680 --> 01:20:48.720 And so these guys just sort of festered, but by God's grace, 01:20:48.720 --> 01:20:51.360 either they all just retired because they were lazy, they didn't believe 01:20:51.280 --> 01:20:54.080 in being called for life, or they're all dead. 01:20:54.080 --> 01:20:55.280 They're increasingly dying. 01:20:55.280 --> 01:20:58.800 They're almost all gone now because they were they were early boomers. 01:20:58.800 --> 01:21:02.720 And so they've basically been removed from the board now. 01:21:02.720 --> 01:21:07.200 But it's crucial to make the point that ELKA is demonic because 01:21:07.200 --> 01:21:12.000 the LCMS expelled a demonic presence in its own midst. 01:21:12.000 --> 01:21:14.000 We're facing that again today. 01:21:14.000 --> 01:21:17.520 The evils that were arising in the forties and fifties and sixties 01:21:17.760 --> 01:21:21.840 that culminated in 7x, they never went away because Satan's never going 01:21:21.840 --> 01:21:22.720 to go away. 01:21:22.720 --> 01:21:25.200 And we should give thanks to God for that. 01:21:25.200 --> 01:21:29.360 We should thank God that the Missouri Synod has something today that 01:21:29.360 --> 01:21:31.280 Satan has to destroy. 01:21:31.280 --> 01:21:34.640 He keeps coming at us and keeps coming at us because we 01:21:34.640 --> 01:21:36.320 have sound doctrine. 01:21:36.320 --> 01:21:38.080 It's not perfect anymore. 01:21:38.080 --> 01:21:41.280 If it ever was, it's certainly far less perfect than it was 01:21:41.280 --> 01:21:42.800 in Walther's Day. 01:21:42.800 --> 01:21:46.720 But even at that, Satan still needs to destroy us in order 01:21:46.720 --> 01:21:49.120 to complete his plans for this world. 01:21:49.120 --> 01:21:53.920 And so when we see pastors today calling us evil for pointing 01:21:53.920 --> 01:21:57.920 out things that are evil in the Missouri Synod, I'm thankful for 01:21:57.920 --> 01:22:00.320 that. That makes that fills me with joy. 01:22:00.320 --> 01:22:02.880 I don't mind being called evil by these men who are gonna 01:22:02.880 --> 01:22:06.640 spend eternity in hell with the same demons from seminx, because they're 01:22:06.640 --> 01:22:10.080 on the same side and they're trying to accomplish the same things. 01:22:10.080 --> 01:22:14.480 Destruction of this church is unspeakably evil, and as long as Corey 01:22:14.480 --> 01:22:17.040 and I draw breath, we will not permit it. 01:22:17.040 --> 01:22:21.200 We will we will light every signal beacon, we will pull every 01:22:21.200 --> 01:22:24.560 alarm, we will raise every stink that we possibly can. 01:22:24.560 --> 01:22:26.160 Because frankly that's all we can do. 01:22:26.160 --> 01:22:28.720 All we can tell people is all we can do is bear 01:22:28.720 --> 01:22:30.800 witness. We can tell people what's going on. 01:22:30.800 --> 01:22:31.760 We have no power. 01:22:31.760 --> 01:22:32.880 We have no authority. 01:22:32.880 --> 01:22:33.760 We're two men. 01:22:33.760 --> 01:22:37.920 We're two stones crying out in the wilderness saying, There's a problem. 01:22:37.920 --> 01:22:39.920 The church needs to deal with it. 01:22:39.920 --> 01:22:44.560 And thankfully, yesterday, the church said yes there's a problem that needs 01:22:44.560 --> 01:22:45.360 to be dealt with. 01:22:45.360 --> 01:22:50.160 President Matt Harrison admitted that CTCR needs to be reined in, that 01:22:50.160 --> 01:22:52.000 there are problems with what they're doing. 01:22:52.000 --> 01:22:53.840 He didn't go so far as to say that they all need 01:22:53.840 --> 01:22:55.360 to be defrocked and fired. 01:22:55.360 --> 01:22:57.920 It's probably not get not gonna get there, but that would be 01:22:57.920 --> 01:23:00.160 the just outcome for the situation. 01:23:00.160 --> 01:23:04.080 Even today we have Jack Kilcreese, who's a member of the CTCR, 01:23:04.080 --> 01:23:07.920 continuing to defend the evil in that catechism, taking full credit for 01:23:07.920 --> 01:23:12.400 it. And he made clear that he's gonna go fight with Harrison 01:23:12.400 --> 01:23:15.040 to try to make sure that this continues. 01:23:15.040 --> 01:23:17.440 Well, it's up to God whether or not that happens. 01:23:17.440 --> 01:23:20.880 I I hope that God will steal Harrison's heart and that he 01:23:20.880 --> 01:23:24.080 has the fight in him to preserve sound doctrine. 01:23:24.080 --> 01:23:27.440 And if he doesn't, I hope that God will give him the 01:23:27.440 --> 01:23:30.400 wisdom to understand that he's no longer the man to fight these 01:23:30.400 --> 01:23:33.440 battles. Cause frankly, we've been losing them over and over again. 01:23:33.440 --> 01:23:34.720 This is not a fluke. 01:23:34.880 --> 01:23:39.520 this just as seminx is connected to this, the national youth gathering 01:23:39.520 --> 01:23:44.640 last year, the blow up at Concordia University, Wisconsin, where exactly the 01:23:44.640 --> 01:23:49.920 same racial animus was being spread by the same people, incidentally. 01:23:49.920 --> 01:23:54.000 The fact that it's happening with CTCR's blessing through CPH on behalf 01:23:54.000 --> 01:23:56.000 of Synod is a huge deal. 01:23:56.000 --> 01:23:57.120 It is a pattern. 01:23:57.120 --> 01:23:58.240 It is not a fluke. 01:23:58.240 --> 01:23:59.600 It's not a one time thing. 01:23:59.600 --> 01:24:01.040 It's not a couple essays. 01:24:01.040 --> 01:24:06.800 It's a consistent group of people inside the church seeking its destruction 01:24:06.800 --> 01:24:08.800 by spreading false doctrine. 01:24:09.280 --> 01:24:12.560 There will be some in some other church bodies who will be 01:24:12.560 --> 01:24:14.400 listening to the history of what has happened. 01:24:14.640 --> 01:24:18.640 Happened in particularly American Lutheranism, although not just in the US, of 01:24:18.640 --> 01:24:21.440 course, we did mention Saxony. 01:24:21.440 --> 01:24:24.960 And they will hear echoes of what is currently happening in their 01:24:24.960 --> 01:24:29.840 own denominations, their own traditions, and there's a reason for that. 01:24:29.840 --> 01:24:36.880 This happened to Lutherans earlier than basically everyone else, because it happened 01:24:36.880 --> 01:24:41.200 in the circles of what's called higher criticism, or originally started out 01:24:41.200 --> 01:24:45.600 as historical criticism, grew into higher criticism in the nineteenth and the 01:24:45.600 --> 01:24:49.680 twentieth centuries, and all of that was basically in German. 01:24:49.680 --> 01:24:54.960 And so Lutherans, German speaking Lutherans, had access to these materials, and 01:24:54.960 --> 01:25:00.000 we have writings from Walter, the founder of our synod, arguing with 01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:02.800 these false teachers in German. 01:25:02.800 --> 01:25:03.520 Back and forth. 01:25:03.520 --> 01:25:06.000 We have publication of it in our own journals. 01:25:06.000 --> 01:25:10.000 We have him writing letters because they had access to the materials, 01:25:10.000 --> 01:25:13.440 and so it did not really get translated into English. 01:25:13.440 --> 01:25:16.960 It did not enter into other traditions and denominations in the U.S. 01:25:16.960 --> 01:25:19.520 until significantly later. 01:25:19.520 --> 01:25:22.880 We see some of these splits happening in the Baptists and even 01:25:22.880 --> 01:25:27.840 Methodists and some others today, because it took that long to filter 01:25:27.840 --> 01:25:32.640 through. Lutherans have already had these fights. 01:25:32.640 --> 01:25:37.280 We have resolved them in some cases, they are ongoing in others. 01:25:37.280 --> 01:25:41.200 In the case of Semenex, we did in fact eject most of 01:25:41.200 --> 01:25:44.000 them, but not all of them, and so we are fighting a 01:25:44.000 --> 01:25:48.480 cleanup operation now because that was allowed to fester and to become 01:25:48.480 --> 01:25:50.080 a problem again. 01:25:50.080 --> 01:25:52.960 But that's why it'll sound like, well, this sounds a lot like 01:25:52.960 --> 01:25:55.600 what's happening in my tradition, because it is. 01:25:55.600 --> 01:25:58.400 Satan is using the same playbook. 01:25:58.400 --> 01:26:04.160 He is very intent on destroying the LCMS because the LCMS is 01:26:04.160 --> 01:26:09.680 basically the last bastion in the world of true Lutheranism. 01:26:09.840 --> 01:26:15.440 There are small, practically micro synods in some places that are faithful, 01:26:15.440 --> 01:26:20.000 but there is nowhere else where you have this many Lutherans in 01:26:20.000 --> 01:26:22.880 one body still holding to sound doctrine. 01:26:22.880 --> 01:26:25.200 Yes, we have problems with our leadership. 01:26:25.200 --> 01:26:29.360 Yes, we have some problems particularly at one seminary, but by and 01:26:29.360 --> 01:26:33.840 large the rank and file, and that includes most of our pastors 01:26:34.080 --> 01:26:36.880 in the LCMS are faithful men. 01:26:38.080 --> 01:26:41.600 They believe what the scriptures say. 01:26:41.600 --> 01:26:44.720 They believe insofar as they know them, and they could certainly know 01:26:44.720 --> 01:26:45.200 them better. 01:26:45.200 --> 01:26:49.360 We need to be better about instruction and higher level catechesis, but 01:26:49.360 --> 01:26:52.240 insofar as they know them, they agree with what is said in 01:26:52.240 --> 01:26:54.560 the confessions and they hold that. 01:26:54.560 --> 01:26:57.920 And so Satan has to destroy that. 01:26:57.920 --> 01:27:01.680 Because he has already destroyed most of the other churches. 01:27:01.680 --> 01:27:04.960 Because most of the other churches did not actually mount a fight 01:27:04.960 --> 01:27:06.400 against this stuff. 01:27:06.400 --> 01:27:08.000 They rolled over. 01:27:08.000 --> 01:27:11.360 The same as most of our societal institutions. 01:27:11.360 --> 01:27:13.840 They did the same thing that the Academy did. 01:27:13.840 --> 01:27:18.720 They got infiltrated, they didn't fight, and they lost. 01:27:18.720 --> 01:27:24.320 Lutherans have been fighting this for two centuries now. 01:27:24.320 --> 01:27:27.600 And we will continue to fight it as long as we have 01:27:27.600 --> 01:27:31.600 to. Which will probably be as long as we can fight because 01:27:31.600 --> 01:27:35.760 Satan does not give up in this life. 01:27:35.760 --> 01:27:40.960 But that is the reason that Lutherans are being targeted. 01:27:40.960 --> 01:27:45.520 Satan is going to target only those institutions he does not own. 01:27:45.520 --> 01:27:48.400 There's no reason for him to target Elka. 01:27:48.400 --> 01:27:50.080 He owns Elka. 01:27:50.080 --> 01:27:52.240 What reason would he target them? 01:27:52.240 --> 01:27:54.320 It doesn't benefit him. 01:27:54.320 --> 01:27:58.720 So if you are being attacked, there is a reason for that. 01:27:58.720 --> 01:28:02.640 That is why we see what is happening today in the LCMS. 01:28:02.640 --> 01:28:06.640 Satan hates the LCMS because it is a faithful body by and 01:28:06.640 --> 01:28:12.240 large. Yes, he has managed to corrupt some of the leadership, but 01:28:12.880 --> 01:28:17.200 the whole point of that large catechism, the reason they tried to 01:28:17.200 --> 01:28:19.120 push that through, the reason they will continue to try to push 01:28:19.600 --> 01:28:22.080 that through and we will continue to have to fight it until 01:28:22.080 --> 01:28:28.560 it is destroyed, not simply recalled, is because the large catechism is 01:28:28.560 --> 01:28:33.120 the document that will be used by pastors to teach in their 01:28:33.120 --> 01:28:39.280 parishes, and then by fathers, faithful fathers, to teach their families. 01:28:39.280 --> 01:28:41.680 And that is why we have to have this fight over this 01:28:41.680 --> 01:28:44.960 document. It is absolutely vital. 01:28:44.960 --> 01:28:47.760 Because the resources that are used by the teachers in the church 01:28:48.160 --> 01:28:52.160 will eventually become the beliefs of the entire church. 01:28:52.160 --> 01:28:55.840 That is why Satan is targeting the things he is targeting. 01:28:55.840 --> 01:28:58.000 That is why he targets the seminaries. 01:28:58.000 --> 01:29:00.640 Because if he can target the seminaries, if he can take over 01:29:00.640 --> 01:29:03.040 the seminaries, and he's done a pretty good job with one of 01:29:03.040 --> 01:29:06.240 them, then he can get the men who will go out and 01:29:06.240 --> 01:29:08.800 teach the rest of the church. 01:29:08.800 --> 01:29:10.160 It's the same thing we saw 01:29:11.120 --> 01:29:13.120 in the left hand kingdom. 01:29:13.520 --> 01:29:17.200 Satan targeted and took over the universities because if you can take 01:29:17.200 --> 01:29:20.160 over the universities, you can take over the government. 01:29:20.160 --> 01:29:23.040 If you can take over the government, you've got the society. 01:29:23.040 --> 01:29:26.160 Satan knows how to play the game, he's very good at it. 01:29:26.160 --> 01:29:28.960 Christians need to get better at it. 01:29:29.520 --> 01:29:32.000 It's the long march through the institutions. 01:29:32.000 --> 01:29:33.200 It's the same playbook. 01:29:33.200 --> 01:29:34.800 It's applied everywhere. 01:29:34.800 --> 01:29:38.960 I I mentioned before the fight the fight that culminated in seminx 01:29:39.120 --> 01:29:42.320 in the seventies began publicly in the forties. 01:29:42.320 --> 01:29:46.960 Now that's important because it wasn't obviously the same fight the entire 01:29:46.960 --> 01:29:50.880 time. That was the infiltration first making itself known in the in 01:29:50.880 --> 01:29:51.760 the mid forties. 01:29:52.240 --> 01:29:56.640 And the very first signals that something was wrong were very small 01:29:56.640 --> 01:30:00.320 signals. You know, if you've ever seen something about radio telescopes, the 01:30:00.320 --> 01:30:03.920 signals they're picking up from outer space are Space are incredibly faint. 01:30:03.920 --> 01:30:06.560 There's virtually no signal there. 01:30:06.560 --> 01:30:08.160 It's almost all noise. 01:30:08.160 --> 01:30:11.040 And yet with the right tuning, with the right instruments and with 01:30:11.040 --> 01:30:14.800 the right software, you can detect a signal that's coming from far 01:30:14.800 --> 01:30:16.480 away, even though it's faint. 01:30:16.640 --> 01:30:20.400 Now the signal in the forties wasn't particularly faint, but it was 01:30:20.720 --> 01:30:24.000 exp exponentially fainter than it was by the seventies. 01:30:24.000 --> 01:30:27.600 By the time 7X happened, it was all out in the open. 01:30:27.600 --> 01:30:32.000 And the retrenchment occurred because they realized they went too far. 01:30:32.000 --> 01:30:34.160 Some of them left, some of them remained. 01:30:34.160 --> 01:30:37.360 They continued to subvert, some of them are dead, some of their 01:30:37.360 --> 01:30:39.680 acolytes continue on to this day. 01:30:39.680 --> 01:30:47.200 And to reiterate the the large catechisms corruption with these new essays 01:30:47.360 --> 01:30:53.040 that teach new doctrines that are contrary to Christianity, they're being woven 01:30:53.040 --> 01:30:55.200 in with things that sound Lutheran. 01:30:55.360 --> 01:30:59.920 What these men are doing, men like Leopoldo Sanchez and all the 01:30:59.920 --> 01:31:03.600 other guys, John Nunez, who wrote some of the worst essays in 01:31:03.600 --> 01:31:07.120 there, they're spiritual groomers. 01:31:07.120 --> 01:31:12.400 If you know anything about how a sexual predator grooms a small 01:31:12.400 --> 01:31:16.480 child or a young woman who's not of age, who's dumb and 01:31:16.480 --> 01:31:22.320 doesn't know what she's doing, a groomer begins small, enticing them with 01:31:22.320 --> 01:31:26.880 something completely neutral, something that's appealing, that's not at all scary. 01:31:26.880 --> 01:31:29.920 And then once they establish trust, what do they do? 01:31:29.920 --> 01:31:31.840 They introduce a little bit of spice. 01:31:31.840 --> 01:31:36.960 Something a little bit dangerous, a little bit transgressive, is introduced, knowing 01:31:36.960 --> 01:31:42.000 that it's going to make the target, the the grooming target, uncomfortable. 01:31:42.000 --> 01:31:45.520 The idea is to make them uncomfortable in that moment because they're 01:31:45.520 --> 01:31:47.120 gonna push past it. 01:31:47.600 --> 01:31:51.200 the victim is uncomfortable and then they back off, they say, ha 01:31:51.280 --> 01:31:52.320 ha, just kidding. 01:31:52.320 --> 01:31:54.400 And then they come back a little while later. 01:31:54.400 --> 01:31:58.560 And now the thing that they pushed that was the transgressive element 01:31:58.800 --> 01:32:03.040 is the new normal that thing that was a a small deception, 01:32:03.040 --> 01:32:07.280 a small evil that has now been part of the conversation between 01:32:07.280 --> 01:32:12.800 the groomer and the groomie gives them the opportunity to ratchet further, 01:32:12.800 --> 01:32:16.880 to do something more overt and more overt and it's a gradual 01:32:16.880 --> 01:32:20.720 process. The reason it's called grooming, it is it's not kidnapping. 01:32:20.720 --> 01:32:23.360 It's not grabbing someone throwing in a van and taking them off 01:32:23.360 --> 01:32:24.240 to the woods. 01:32:24.240 --> 01:32:29.120 The groomer acts subtly, acts consistently over time. 01:32:29.120 --> 01:32:33.200 They pick a target and they seduce it by measures and by 01:32:33.200 --> 01:32:35.360 means and by degrees. 01:32:35.360 --> 01:32:39.760 And the language that was introduced in the new large cataclysm is 01:32:39.760 --> 01:32:43.440 absolutely groomer language for Satanism. 01:32:43.440 --> 01:32:45.760 It's and it's not even particularly subtle. 01:32:45.760 --> 01:32:47.600 Like they're not starting on step one. 01:32:47.600 --> 01:32:49.760 They're starting on about step five. 01:32:49.760 --> 01:32:54.880 If that catechism had been published 20 years ago, the entire synod 01:32:54.880 --> 01:32:57.520 would have detonated on the spot, no question asked. 01:32:57.520 --> 01:33:01.280 There'd been no one who'd been pushing back, because it openly says 01:33:01.280 --> 01:33:05.200 that pedophilia is a burden that some people live with and it 01:33:05.200 --> 01:33:10.720 says that if you are someone who is possessed by sexual depravity, 01:33:10.720 --> 01:33:13.200 the Holy Spirit can't do anything for you. 01:33:13.200 --> 01:33:16.640 It doesn't matter if you believe in God and if you repent, 01:33:16.640 --> 01:33:20.000 you're still going to be stuck exactly the way you are forever, 01:33:20.000 --> 01:33:21.600 because that's your identity. 01:33:21.600 --> 01:33:22.960 That's demonic. 01:33:22.960 --> 01:33:26.640 That is that is as satanic a thing as I've ever heard 01:33:26.640 --> 01:33:28.800 ever happening in the Missouri Synod. 01:33:28.800 --> 01:33:33.360 And is being done by these radical leftist groomers who work in 01:33:33.360 --> 01:33:36.400 the dark and they sneak this stuff in, hoping that no one 01:33:36.400 --> 01:33:37.200 would notice. 01:33:37.200 --> 01:33:40.880 And if our group of friends had not noticed when this dropped, 01:33:40.880 --> 01:33:41.920 it would have gone. 01:33:41.920 --> 01:33:43.760 It did no one would have said anything. 01:33:43.760 --> 01:33:46.960 Eventually someone might have said, huh, do you notice this guy wrote 01:33:46.960 --> 01:33:47.440 this essay? 01:33:47.440 --> 01:33:48.880 It's kind of sketchy. 01:33:48.880 --> 01:33:53.040 It was only by the efforts of a few faithful laymen who 01:33:53.040 --> 01:33:55.760 said this is evil and this Wilma stand. 01:33:56.240 --> 01:33:57.760 And you know what? 01:33:57.760 --> 01:34:01.360 By God's grace, Synod is at least now listening. 01:34:01.360 --> 01:34:04.800 Uh Ryan Turnipseb, the gentleman, and that is his real name, that's 01:34:04.720 --> 01:34:08.800 his legal name, who initially published the thread with these findings of 01:34:08.800 --> 01:34:10.880 just a Of just a small piece of the evil in the 01:34:10.880 --> 01:34:12.240 large cataclysm. 01:34:12.240 --> 01:34:16.080 His thread today was on Revolver News, which is basically the new 01:34:16.080 --> 01:34:17.120 Drudge Report. 01:34:17.120 --> 01:34:20.320 The reason that's important is because it flies in the face of 01:34:20.320 --> 01:34:24.960 the claims of many of these radical leftists inside the LCMS today 01:34:25.040 --> 01:34:27.120 who are saying, oh, that language is fine. 01:34:27.440 --> 01:34:28.240 that's gospel. 01:34:28.240 --> 01:34:30.400 You just you need to understand it in context. 01:34:30.400 --> 01:34:31.520 That's okay. 01:34:31.520 --> 01:34:34.800 When the average revolver news reader can read it and say, Yeah, 01:34:34.800 --> 01:34:36.880 that's Marxism, that is absolutely evil. 01:34:36.880 --> 01:34:38.400 I see this crap everywhere. 01:34:38.400 --> 01:34:42.000 This is the same language that I'm taught in at work when 01:34:42.000 --> 01:34:46.640 I'm being indoctrinated annually as part of my diversity, equity, and inclusion 01:34:46.640 --> 01:34:51.280 brainwashing. It's exactly the same language that the Missouri Synod published. 01:34:51.280 --> 01:34:54.320 And so for a bunch of Lutherans who are not true Lutherans, 01:34:54.320 --> 01:34:55.360 they're liars. 01:34:55.360 --> 01:34:58.960 For those groomers to say, oh, it's fine, you just don't understand, 01:34:58.960 --> 01:35:01.040 you don't get it, it's just relax. 01:35:01.040 --> 01:35:04.640 When pagans and people who are alien to our church can say, 01:35:04.640 --> 01:35:06.720 you know, that's absolute evil. 01:35:06.720 --> 01:35:10.080 That is the proof that the evil is open and it's overt 01:35:10.160 --> 01:35:12.160 and these people need to be driven out. 01:35:12.160 --> 01:35:15.920 And this is a fight that is going to reverberate for many 01:35:15.920 --> 01:35:21.520 years because thankfully for the first time these open groomers, these spiritual 01:35:21.520 --> 01:35:27.440 molesters have been caught red handed and enough people shouted initially that 01:35:27.440 --> 01:35:29.840 they weren't able to drag the little kid into the woods. 01:35:29.840 --> 01:35:32.000 They had to retreat and they're bloodied. 01:35:32.000 --> 01:35:35.040 They've not they've not had blood drawn in a long time. 01:35:35.040 --> 01:35:37.120 They're normally the ones doing the damage. 01:35:37.120 --> 01:35:39.680 And they took it on the nose and they're reeling, right right 01:35:39.840 --> 01:35:42.640 now, but they're pissed and they're gonna fight back. 01:35:42.640 --> 01:35:46.160 And every faithful man in the Missouri Senate is going to continue 01:35:46.160 --> 01:35:46.880 to fight them. 01:35:46.880 --> 01:35:48.560 'Cause there's nowhere else to go. 01:35:48.560 --> 01:35:51.760 I don't know if the Missouri Senate is gonna split or fracture. 01:35:51.760 --> 01:35:52.640 That's up to God. 01:35:52.640 --> 01:35:56.240 Whatever happens down the road, we will continue to be faithful to 01:35:56.240 --> 01:35:59.360 God's word, and we will continue to be Lutheran because that is 01:35:59.360 --> 01:36:01.200 the only way that we know how to do 01:36:01.200 --> 01:36:02.000 it. 01:36:02.080 --> 01:36:05.600 And by the time this comes out tomorrow, we will be highlighting 01:36:05.600 --> 01:36:11.440 at least one more ongoing issue in synod in order to keep 01:36:11.440 --> 01:36:15.760 up the pressure on our adversaries because the last thing they want 01:36:16.480 --> 01:36:19.440 is for people to keep looking at them and to keep looking 01:36:19.440 --> 01:36:21.440 at what they've been doing. 01:36:21.440 --> 01:36:26.640 They would prefer this gets swept under the rug for the so-called 01:36:26.640 --> 01:36:30.560 large catechism with annotations to go through another round of review and 01:36:30.560 --> 01:36:34.320 then they will try to publish it with minor edits sometime later 01:36:34.320 --> 01:36:34.800 in the year. 01:36:34.800 --> 01:36:37.280 That's what they love to do, and we are not going to 01:36:37.280 --> 01:36:38.720 let them do that. 01:36:38.720 --> 01:36:42.000 We are going to keep pointing out all of the places they're 01:36:42.000 --> 01:36:44.880 hiding. We are going to turn over every rock and find all 01:36:44.880 --> 01:36:47.280 of these snakes. 01:36:47.280 --> 01:36:50.640 Because that is our duty to God and to the sheep in 01:36:50.640 --> 01:36:53.280 this church. 01:36:53.280 --> 01:36:53.520 And 01:36:53.520 --> 01:36:56.240 if they don't like it, they can either repent or they can 01:36:56.240 --> 01:36:58.880 be driven out, because there's no third option. 01:36:58.880 --> 01:37:00.000 They're not gonna win. 01:37:00.000 --> 01:37:03.680 It's not gonna happen and it's no longer gonna happen in secret. 01:37:03.680 --> 01:37:07.520 The one unfortunate thing that Matt Harrison has made clear to men 01:37:07.520 --> 01:37:11.040 who care about these matters is that there's only a response from 01:37:11.040 --> 01:37:14.560 his administration when there's public humiliation. 01:37:14.560 --> 01:37:19.200 If this book had been intercepted when it was prepublication, we would 01:37:19.200 --> 01:37:20.880 not have said something publicly. 01:37:20.880 --> 01:37:24.000 We would have per first tried to prevent it from being published. 01:37:24.240 --> 01:37:26.640 It was made public for the world. 01:37:26.640 --> 01:37:29.920 And therefore it was necessary for this to be made public as 01:37:29.920 --> 01:37:32.960 well. It was demonstrated at the National Youth Gathering. 01:37:32.960 --> 01:37:38.160 It was demonstrated with Conf Concordia University Wisconsin, that only when the 01:37:38.160 --> 01:37:42.640 Missouri Senate is humiliated for swinging so far to the left that 01:37:42.640 --> 01:37:48.720 we make even normal non-Christian conservatives look like their Nazis by the 01:37:48.720 --> 01:37:54.000 things that we're doing, that's when the Missouri Synod gets a bloody 01:37:54.000 --> 01:37:55.760 nose and recoils. 01:37:55.760 --> 01:37:59.280 It's humiliation that motivates obeying God. 01:37:59.280 --> 01:38:01.680 That in itself is a separate problem. 01:38:01.680 --> 01:38:03.200 We shouldn't have to resort to humiliation 01:38:04.320 --> 01:38:06.960 for men to obey God and to do their duty. 01:38:06.960 --> 01:38:11.040 But until such time as the CTCR, if it continues to exist 01:38:11.120 --> 01:38:14.160 and God willing it won't, it's an abomination that should never ex 01:38:14.400 --> 01:38:15.280 have existed. 01:38:15.280 --> 01:38:19.840 CTCR exists because of seminx, because Saint Louis Seminary was so evil 01:38:19.840 --> 01:38:24.480 that it could no longer be counted on to issue doctrinal statements, 01:38:24.480 --> 01:38:28.080 and so a committee was created, a permanent standing committee that was 01:38:28.080 --> 01:38:29.760 going to do it instead of the seminaries. 01:38:29.760 --> 01:38:33.600 Well, the emergency passed and we just kept the new institution, and 01:38:33.600 --> 01:38:35.120 now somehow we think it's good. 01:38:35.120 --> 01:38:38.640 Good. Turns out, unsurprisingly, it's been co-opted as well. 01:38:38.640 --> 01:38:39.840 CTCR is evil. 01:38:39.840 --> 01:38:44.640 There are evil men on it, including John Pless and Jack Kilcrease, 01:38:44.640 --> 01:38:46.080 who are pushing these things. 01:38:46.080 --> 01:38:49.600 They continue to publicly defend the indefensible. 01:38:49.600 --> 01:38:52.720 And I'm glad that this fight is happening in open out in 01:38:52.720 --> 01:38:53.280 the open. 01:38:53.280 --> 01:38:55.120 It's not us doing the fighting anymore. 01:38:55.120 --> 01:38:57.680 All we can do is say, hey guys, there's a problem. 01:38:57.680 --> 01:38:58.880 Here you go. 01:38:58.880 --> 01:39:02.960 So until such time as the Missouri Senate cleans house and makes 01:39:02.960 --> 01:39:06.160 sure that these things can happen again, we will continue to raise 01:39:06.160 --> 01:39:06.720 the alarm. 01:39:06.720 --> 01:39:09.680 We will continue to be on watch, and we will trust that 01:39:09.680 --> 01:39:13.120 the faithful men in the synod, as Corey said there are many, 01:39:13.120 --> 01:39:16.800 they will continue to make sure that these things don't happen, because 01:39:16.800 --> 01:39:20.080 this is the last bastion that any of us have for this 01:39:20.080 --> 01:39:21.280 sort of sound doctrine. 01:39:21.280 --> 01:39:24.560 There's no other denomination we can go to that's not in worse 01:39:24.560 --> 01:39:26.960 shape. And I include Wells and L's in that. 01:39:26.960 --> 01:39:29.200 They're not my problem, so we're not gonna pick on 'em. 01:39:29.200 --> 01:39:32.160 If you think that they're in better shape than us, y you 01:39:32.160 --> 01:39:33.760 just don't know what's going on. 01:39:34.240 --> 01:39:38.080 they're smaller, but they're subject to all the same societal pressures. 01:39:38.080 --> 01:39:41.040 They're responding to them differently, but they're bending differently. 01:39:41.040 --> 01:39:44.240 They're all inexorably marching in the same direction. 01:39:44.240 --> 01:39:47.440 This is the fight of our generation, and it is again a 01:39:47.440 --> 01:39:48.800 battle for the Bible. 01:39:48.800 --> 01:39:53.440 The difference is at this time, rather than attacking attacking scripture directly, 01:39:53.440 --> 01:39:55.120 it's just being reinterpreted. 01:39:55.120 --> 01:40:02.160 We have Synod issuing these essays that weave Marxist dialectic with Martin 01:40:02.160 --> 01:40:05.840 Luther to confuse the reader into thinking that they're the same thing, 01:40:05.840 --> 01:40:09.760 so that the next time the reader hears in his Diversity, Equity 01:40:09.840 --> 01:40:14.640 and Inclusion Brainwashing that that all of these Marxist ideas are good 01:40:14.720 --> 01:40:18.000 actually, his response is gonna be, well, hey, my pastor told me 01:40:18.000 --> 01:40:19.200 that's Lutheranism. 01:40:19.200 --> 01:40:20.640 Maybe I shouldn't resist. 01:40:20.640 --> 01:40:23.840 Even if his conscience is telling him it's evil, he's now been 01:40:23.840 --> 01:40:28.560 anesthetized by the lies that the synod published, and thankfully again they 01:40:28.560 --> 01:40:29.600 unpublished it. 01:40:29.600 --> 01:40:32.560 We'll see if it remains unpublished and we will see if there 01:40:32.560 --> 01:40:35.360 are future efforts to do this or worse. 01:40:35.360 --> 01:40:39.520 This fight is only beginning, and I'm thankful that God has given 01:40:39.520 --> 01:40:42.480 us this platform to be able to reach a few people, to 01:40:42.480 --> 01:40:44.320 let them know what's going on. 01:40:44.320 --> 01:40:45.920 And that as 01:40:46.800 --> 01:40:50.640 things continue, hopefully more and more faithful men will be emboldened to 01:40:50.640 --> 01:40:51.120 speak out as well 01:40:52.160 --> 01:40:55.920 because two jerks with a podcast are not going to do anything. 01:40:55.920 --> 01:40:58.960 It takes men who have the boldness to say, I will not 01:40:58.960 --> 01:41:00.640 let this happen to my church. 01:41:00.640 --> 01:41:03.520 It's what all the fathers in the faith that we proclaim as 01:41:03.520 --> 01:41:08.080 heroes did, and yet today we're still looking for such heroes to 01:41:08.080 --> 01:41:09.760 stand up from among our clergy. 01:41:09.760 --> 01:41:10.480 They're there. 01:41:10.480 --> 01:41:12.720 They just need to find the courage to act. 01:41:12.720 --> 01:41:15.840 And God willing, we will be able to do something to embolden 01:41:15.840 --> 01:41:19.040 them to do what God expects of them, not because we said 01:41:19.040 --> 01:41:22.160 it, not because other people think it's a good idea, because if 01:41:22.160 --> 01:41:24.960 they are convicted by scripture, they have no choice to boot but 01:41:24.960 --> 01:41:26.080 to do anything else. 01:41:26.080 --> 01:41:28.080 Because that is why we are here and that's why we are 01:41:28.080 --> 01:41:28.880 speaking to 01:41:30.640 --> 01:41:30.880 The 01:41:30.880 --> 01:41:34.240 short version of why we are doing what we are doing and 01:41:34.240 --> 01:41:37.840 why we are going nowhere, and why we will continue to fight 01:41:37.840 --> 01:41:42.000 for this church body, even if the name has to change, depending 01:41:42.000 --> 01:41:46.080 on how things go, is to echo the words of Peter that 01:41:46.080 --> 01:41:49.680 we say in the divine service every Sunday, Lord to whom shall 01:41:49.680 --> 01:41:50.320 we go? 01:41:50.320 --> 01:41:52.720 You have the words of eternal life.