The NXR Podcast - August 13, 2022


QUESTIONS - What’s The Most Common Example Of Spiritual Abuse Committed By Pastors？


Episode Stats


Length

14 minutes

Words per minute

172.93869

Word count

2,454

Sentence count

154

Harmful content

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Pastor Ken teaches on the difference between good works in keeping with repentance and penance, and why the line between penance and good works is so fine-lidded that it can be crossed.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.
00:00:03.360 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,
00:00:06.420 would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five-star review?
00:00:09.740 This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do
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00:00:21.980 If you actually are saved, then you've repented of sin.
00:00:25.780 and if you've actually repented of sin, then you are going to, the evidence of that, the fruit of
00:00:31.360 that is that you're going to do good works in keeping with repentance. Now, a couple things
00:00:35.400 to say here. There is a fine line, and we've got to be careful with this because I've seen it
00:00:40.340 crossed. There's a fine line in doing good works in keeping with repentance versus doing penance.
00:00:47.860 now again we we are protestant christians we are not roman catholics we do not prescribe
00:00:56.260 penance to people but we do command people to do good works in keeping with repentance
00:01:04.180 right or as jesus would say to people go and sin no more your sins are forgiven go and sin no more
00:01:11.420 right? Go not just with forgiveness, but go with a new life, right? A new life that manifests the
00:01:19.200 reality that you are a forgiven person. Live differently, right? You've been forgiven freely,
00:01:26.300 but let's now see some fruit. There's a fine line between prescribing penance and encouraging
00:01:34.620 people to go and sin no more, to do good works in keeping, to bear good fruit in keeping with
00:01:41.400 repentance, right? So let me give you an example, okay? So if you're a pastor and somebody commits
00:01:49.340 a sin, whether it be a fellow elder or it be a deacon or a member in the church, and you've
00:01:55.820 determined that they've committed a sin and even you think that they've made a habit out of it,
00:02:00.520 that it's become kind of not just a one-off,
00:02:02.860 but it's become a pattern,
00:02:04.180 that this person is sinning in the area
00:02:05.720 of whatever it may be, right?
00:02:09.000 What you can say with every ounce of authority
00:02:12.160 in scripture is you must repent.
00:02:16.600 And to repent is both word and deed, word and deed.
00:02:20.880 So you must acknowledge your sin,
00:02:24.480 repent of your sin to God
00:02:26.320 and anyone else that you may have sinned against.
00:02:29.480 If your sin was public, then you need to publicly repent in word saying I was wrong, right?
00:02:36.860 Creflo Dollar so far looks good, right?
00:02:38.880 He publicly sent in his public teaching.
00:02:40.800 So he's now publicly making a statement that he was wrong.
00:02:44.100 So you need to do that.
00:02:45.300 And then you need to do good works, not just repentance in word, but also repentance in
00:02:51.300 deed.
00:02:52.160 And so what you can say, if you have, you know, if you have a fellow elder or a deacon
00:02:57.120 or a member in your church is you can say, verbally, you need to own your sin. You need
00:03:03.140 to own your sin. Confession of sin is not informing God, right? God is omniscient. He
00:03:09.480 doesn't need to be informed. He already knows our sin. We're not informing him. Oh God, I messed up.
00:03:13.400 You may not have seen it. I wanted to bring it to your attention. That's not what we do. When we
00:03:17.680 confess our sin to the Lord, we are not informing him. We are agreeing with him. That's what
00:03:23.480 confession is, okay? Confessing your sin to the Lord is not merely informing the Lord of your sin,
00:03:28.860 but agreeing with the Lord and what he says about the severity of your sin. So that's first,
00:03:35.220 repent in word, which is to confess your sin to the Lord and to anyone else that you may have
00:03:39.860 sinned against, right? The Bible also says, confess your sins one to another, that you might pray for
00:03:44.380 one another, that you might be healed. All right, that so far, what we have is repentance in word.
00:03:49.820 You own your sin.
00:03:51.140 You don't just inform God, but you're owning it
00:03:53.380 and agreeing with God about how serious sin really is.
00:03:58.020 You're not minimizing it.
00:03:59.380 You're not making light of it.
00:04:00.760 You're not blame shifting.
00:04:02.360 You're owning your sin before the Lord
00:04:04.720 and anyone else you send against,
00:04:06.420 agreeing with what God says in his word
00:04:08.540 about the seriousness of your sin.
00:04:10.220 That's repentance in word.
00:04:12.800 Repentance in deed now is doing good works
00:04:14.820 that evidence that, that prove that,
00:04:19.420 that are the result of that,
00:04:20.940 that line up with that
00:04:22.160 in keeping in line with your repentance.
00:04:24.340 Let your life mirror what you just said.
00:04:27.960 You just said you repent,
00:04:29.500 that this is heinous sin before God,
00:04:31.720 that you wronged God and that you wronged people.
00:04:35.400 Okay, now live like it.
00:04:37.740 So what would you do?
00:04:38.700 Now here's where the fine line between penance
00:04:41.120 and doing good works and keeping with repentance
00:04:43.380 often gets breached.
00:04:45.800 What guys will do,
00:04:46.680 what pastors sometimes will do,
00:04:47.960 and this is spiritual abuse,
00:04:49.880 this is a misuse of a pastor's authority,
00:04:51.920 is they will then prescribe
00:04:53.340 with great specification
00:04:56.300 what those good works
00:04:59.380 in keeping with repentance must look like.
00:05:02.140 So you sinned,
00:05:03.420 we're confronting you about your sin,
00:05:05.100 okay, you're verbally acknowledging,
00:05:07.020 so you are not just informing God,
00:05:09.080 and you're not blame shifting
00:05:10.500 or being defensive,
00:05:11.500 you're being humble,
00:05:12.820 and you were agreeing with the correction
00:05:14.940 that you've just received,
00:05:16.140 that you have sinned in this area.
00:05:17.980 You're confessing your sin to the Lord,
00:05:19.640 agreeing with him
00:05:20.780 and confessing your sin to anyone else
00:05:22.860 that you've sinned against
00:05:24.080 that you might need to confess that sin to.
00:05:26.520 And now we want you to do good works
00:05:28.420 in keeping with repentance.
00:05:29.340 And this specifically
00:05:31.860 is exactly what those good works must look like.
00:05:36.180 You must read this book.
00:05:39.560 You have to.
00:05:41.480 And if you don't,
00:05:42.820 uh you are impenitent that's catholic that is catholic that's spiritual abuse
00:05:52.120 god hates that god hates that and pastors do it all the time because what a pastor so let's just
00:05:59.080 to get more specific let's say lust uh and that's too general also let's let's be even more specific
00:06:04.560 let's say looking at pornography so in the realm of lust but specifically the action of looking at
00:06:09.500 pornography. Okay. You confront that individual in your church and you say, this is sin. And I
00:06:18.260 have evidence of this sin, right? Two or three independent lines of witness of testimony. So
00:06:26.260 it's not conjecture. It's not speculation. This is evidence that you committed a sin. I am now
00:06:33.420 charging you, confronting you with your sin. You need to repent in word. We've already covered
00:06:37.740 that. And now you need to do good works in keeping with repentance. All that's perfectly biblical.
00:06:44.980 And then what you can do is you can then counsel, right? There's the authority of counsel and the
00:06:49.560 authority of command. Pastors need to know the difference. With counsel, you can then say to
00:06:54.220 him, I think that you would be wise and do well in your quest to do good works in keeping with
00:07:00.960 repentance. So you've owned your sin of looking at pornography and you've said, I want to live
00:07:06.200 a new life. I want to repent, not just in my word, but in my deed. I want to change my actions. I want
00:07:12.820 to stop looking at pornography. Great. Praise the Lord. Now let's see it. Live it out. Let's see good
00:07:18.740 fruit in keeping with repentance. Let's see your deeds align with your verbal statement that you've
00:07:23.440 just made. Okay. And I think that if you want your deeds to align with that statement, here is some
00:07:29.200 counsel, not a command, but some counsel of what might help you. I think that you might want to
00:07:35.660 reach out to so-and-so and see if they would check in on you once a week to hold you accountable.
00:07:40.800 I think you might want to get covenant eyes or some kind of software on your phone. Or I think
00:07:44.900 you might want to just for a season, get a flip phone, get rid of your smartphone. Or I think that
00:07:49.560 you need to do this. I think you need to do that. I think you need to avoid certain shows on
00:07:55.420 television. Just watch less TV. I think in all these ways, it would serve you well in your quest
00:08:02.100 to do good works and keeping with repentance.
00:08:04.320 What you can't do though, all that may be fine.
00:08:06.940 What you can't do is prescribe penance.
00:08:11.160 What's the difference between encouraging good works
00:08:14.760 and keeping with repentance
00:08:16.260 versus commanding and prescribing penance?
00:08:20.060 Well, the difference is twofold.
00:08:22.660 It's very simple.
00:08:23.940 Counsel versus command and general counsel
00:08:28.400 versus specific prescriptions.
00:08:32.100 right the only way that you will prove to to me and the other elders in this church the only way
00:08:38.020 you will prove to us that your repentance is wrought by god and genuine is if you read these 17 books
00:08:45.180 in this timeline on these days for for this length of a season and write these papers and 0.74
00:08:53.820 yeah that's you're you're catholic bro you're catholic so you need to step down and stop being
00:09:00.720 a Protestant pastor, you're a Catholic. That's penance. That's heresy. It's not just you're not 0.93
00:09:07.860 being an elder with that level of spiritual abuse. You're not being a Christian. You're not 0.99
00:09:12.580 being a Christian. Ironically, you need to repent. You need to repent. Okay, so we can't do that. 1.00
00:09:18.220 So my point is, I can't say to Creflo Dollar, you must do these exact things. However,
00:09:25.380 there are some things he has to do. Okay. So, so it's doing good works, right? This is where it
00:09:31.200 gets blurry. Doing good works in keeping with repentance is on one hand general. It can't be
00:09:39.420 specifically prescribed penance, but on the other hand, it may be general, but it's not arbitrary.
00:09:47.720 And there's a difference.
00:09:48.660 It's not random, right?
00:09:50.940 So it can't be, I stole from my neighbor, right?
00:09:56.180 In the middle of the night,
00:09:56.900 I snuck in through the window of his house
00:09:58.780 and I stole $1,000 out of his safe.
00:10:02.220 And I know, I'm owning that.
00:10:04.840 I've confessed my sin to God
00:10:06.100 and I've confessed my sin to my neighbor.
00:10:08.060 And I know that repentance in word is not enough.
00:10:10.240 It also needs to be repentance in deed.
00:10:11.980 And so to make it right,
00:10:13.440 because I stole $1,000 from him,
00:10:15.300 I'm going to give $100 to my other neighbor in generosity.
00:10:20.520 Well, but that doesn't work.
00:10:22.940 You didn't wrong your other neighbor.
00:10:24.860 You wronged this neighbor.
00:10:26.920 And you stole $1,000 from him.
00:10:29.660 You need to give him $1,000 back.
00:10:32.720 And if you did it 10 years ago,
00:10:34.120 you probably need to give him more than $1,000.
00:10:36.460 But however, look, Jesus doesn't say,
00:10:38.660 Zacchaeus, for your repentance to be real,
00:10:40.460 you must give back four times.
00:10:42.700 No, Zacchaeus says that.
00:10:43.640 and jesus gives zacchaeus underneath the work of the holy spirit who who gifts people with
00:10:51.260 repentance jesus gives zacchaeus the freedom the christian liberty to to say i'm going there's
00:10:59.720 certain things that are not up for debate i'm going to do good works and keep with repentance
00:11:03.440 that's non-negotiable i'm going to do that but i'm going to do it in this way and not just any way
00:11:09.880 not random, not arbitrary. I wronged certain people, and I'm going to make it right with
00:11:14.740 those same people. And I wronged them in this way, in the area of theft, monetary theft. I'm
00:11:22.140 going to make it right with the same people I wronged in the same area. But Jesus doesn't tell
00:11:28.220 them exactly how much. So here's the question. If Zacchaeus had said, and I'm going to give back
00:11:33.840 two times what I stole. Would Jesus then respond in the same way that he does by saying, surely
00:11:40.640 salvation has come to this house today? I think he would. I think he would. See, Jesus is not
00:11:48.280 prescribing, and Jesus could, he's God. Jesus could give this command, but even Jesus is not
00:11:53.500 prescribing. It must be four times. He's allowing Zacchaeus that freedom. He's, well, in a sense,
00:12:02.020 It's not even so much allowing Zacchaeus the freedom.
00:12:04.280 It's allowing, Jesus is allowing the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, to
00:12:10.260 bring about those good works.
00:12:11.880 See, it's the Holy Spirit who determines what the good works in keeping with repentance
00:12:16.980 will be.
00:12:18.280 And again, within measure, meaning that it has to be general.
00:12:23.840 We cannot specifically, we can't be so specific and so rigid in prescribing penance to someone.
00:12:30.580 it must be this or nothing anything other than exactly this is in penitence that's spiritual
00:12:37.220 abuse that's penance that's catholic that's heresy can't do that okay but what you can do
00:12:43.000 is you can say the holy spirit is going to bring about these good works in keeping with repentance
00:12:47.900 it's he who works in through us that which is good and pleasing in his sight so the holy spirit
00:12:51.980 is going to do this and there's some some wiggle room here because the holy spirit is god he gets
00:12:55.760 to decide but we know the holy spirit because we have his word and we know that because you wronged
00:13:01.880 these people in these ways you're going to do something in that realm in that same manner with
00:13:07.880 those same people to make it right because that's what the holy spirit does that's his nature the
00:13:13.200 holy spirit reconciles and the holy spirit makes things right with the same party that was wronged
00:13:19.180 we know that of the holy spirit now we don't know exactly down to the dollar and cents and this and
00:13:23.720 that and blah, blah. No, we're not. We're not Catholic. We're not going to do that. But we're
00:13:27.380 going to let the Holy Spirit decide. But we know that the Holy Spirit is just. We know that the
00:13:33.240 Holy Spirit is proportional. We know that the Holy Spirit is fair. We know that the Holy Spirit is
00:13:39.160 righteous. We know certain things about God. And therefore, we know with generality, not arbitrary,
00:13:46.080 not random, but in general, we know what Holy Spirit wrought good works in keeping with repentance
00:13:52.600 will look like, generally.
00:13:54.900 Thanks so much for listening.
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