The NXR Podcast - April 23, 2023


SUNDAY SERMON - How Pietism & Gnosticism Castrated American Evangelicalism

Topics
authority delegation Joshua Moses hierarchy
Hosted by
Joel Webbon Harrison Smith Antonio Griffith Dale Partridge Wewsley Todd Calvin Robinson
Mentioned
Manasseh Joshua Paul Jesus Christ John Bunyan David Noah King James Joe Biden Scripture Marxists Jordan Moses
DAILY TRUTH - A Brief Word About “Whiteness” DAILY TRUTH - “Waiting To Be TAKEN From The Land” Vs. “Working To TAKE The Land”

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 4 minutes

Words per minute

149.8

Word count

9,600

Sentence count

516

Harmful content

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

43

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Joshua is not a lone leader. He is the highest human official in Israel at this time, but not a leader alone. The first thing that he does when he assumes as Moses' successor is he calls other leaders to him, lesser magistrates. They are not peers; they are intermediators. They hold some position of civil authority in the Government of Israel, and Joshua is dependent on them to execute his commands. Scripture requires us to be subject not only to the king as supreme, but to governors as to those that are sent by him.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 All right, listen, guys, I get it.
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00:00:40 Amen.
00:00:41 This morning, we continue with our sermon series through the book of Joshua.
00:00:44 Our text for today is going to be Joshua chapter 1, verses 1 through 18.
00:00:49 Joshua chapter 1, verses 1 through 18.
00:00:53 Would you join me now in standing for the reading of God's Word?
00:00:56 I'll read our text for us in its entirety.
00:00:58 When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say this is the Word of the Lord,
00:01:01 at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying thanks be to God.
00:01:06 One final time, our text for today is Joshua chapter 1, verses 10 through 18.
00:01:11 The Bible says this,
00:01:13 And Joshua commanded the officers of the people,
00:01:16 Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people,
00:01:19 prepare your provisions for within three days you are to pass over this Jordan to go in to take 0.97
00:01:26 possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess and to the Reubenites the 0.74
00:01:32 Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh Joshua said remember the word that Moses the servant of the 0.69
00:01:38 Lord commanded you saying the Lord your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you
00:01:43 this land. Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave
00:01:50 you beyond the Jordan. But all the men of valor among you shall pass over armed before your
00:01:56 brothers and shall help them until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to you. And they
00:02:03 also take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them. Then you shall return 0.95
00:02:10 to the land of your possession and shall possess it the land that Moses the servant of the Lord
00:02:15 gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise and they answered Joshua all that you have commanded
00:02:21 us we will do and whenever you send wherever you send us we will go just as we obeyed Moses in all
00:02:28 things so we will obey you only may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses whoever
00:02:36 rebels against your commandment and disobeys your words, whatever you command him shall be put to
00:02:42 death. Only be strong and courageous. This is the word of the Lord. All right, please be seated.
00:02:49 The first thing that I want us to see is found in the first verse of our text, namely verse 10.
00:02:55 In your notes, commentating on this verse, I've written the following. Immediately after assuming
00:03:00 his position in the government of Israel as the successor of Moses, Joshua begins to work toward
00:03:06 the obedience of God and the blessing of his people. And the lesser magistrates, officers,
00:03:13 immediately attend to Joshua to receive their orders. Joshua could have accomplished little
00:03:20 without his officers' eagerness to execute his commands. Scripture requires us to be subject,
00:03:27 not only to the king as supreme, but to governors as to those that are sent by him.
00:03:33 That's 1 Peter 2, verse 13 through 14. Now, obviously, this can be taken out of context.
00:03:41 It can be twisted, and it can be used as a tyrannical club, as it was in 2020 by many
00:03:46 evangelical leaders. That is not what I'm saying. But authority, even civil authority,
00:03:52 when behaving properly, when executing righteous commands, when in line with the immutable standard
00:04:00 of God's holy universal law, civil authority should be submitted to. When civil authority
00:04:08 is righteous, when what they say is righteous, when their commands are righteous. And so we see
00:04:14 from the very outset of our text today that Joshua is not a lone leader. He is the highest and
00:04:20 supreme human official in the government of Israel at this time. But he is not a leader,
00:04:28 a civil magistrate alone. He has officers. The first thing that he does when he assumes his
00:04:35 position as Moses' successor is he calls other leaders to him, lesser magistrates, those who
00:04:42 are not his peers, but also are not peers with the people. They are intermediators. They are
00:04:49 in between. They hold some position of civil authority in the government of Israel, and Joshua
00:04:55 is dependent on them to go and issue his commands to the people. 1st Timothy chapter 3 verse 1
00:05:04 speaks about the office of an elder in an ecclesiastical government. We have three primary
00:05:11 governments established by God, that is the family, the church, and the state. All three are governments.
00:05:18 It's helpful to speak of government, civil government, by using that descriptor term, civil government, or the state, and not just calling it government, because it is not the only government.
00:05:32 The family is a government. The church is a government. And the civil government, or the state, is also a government.
00:05:39 We do not have merely one government in human society today, but we have three autonomous, independent spheres of government.
00:05:49 Not a hierarchy. It is not the state, the church, and then the home.
00:05:54 But these three independent, autonomous spheres, all governmental, all forms of government, are parallel side by side.
00:06:02 Depending on providence and circumstances, there are times where two or three of these fears may
00:06:10 overlap, and it requires the scripture and prudence to determine who has proper jurisdiction.
00:06:17 There may be a similar vested interest where the church cares because it pertains to spiritual
00:06:24 matters, and yet in the present situation, there are also physical matters of welfare that are also
00:06:31 to be concerned about. And so it involves familial fathers in the home. To them has been given
00:06:38 primarily the duty of physical welfare, caring for children and wives. So these fears will overlap
00:06:46 at times, but they are autonomous. They are autonomous and they are parallel side by side.
00:06:53 They are not a hierarchy. The state civil government is not supreme. And the government
00:06:59 that we have here in the United States of America, our highest official is not a human. It is a
00:07:06 document by design, and it is not a living document that changes or that the interpretation
00:07:13 changes. It is a document that is very clear, and it is a document that ultimately comes from the
00:07:20 principles of scripture itself. So we don't have the president as supreme. We have the constitution
00:07:27 as supreme. And even beyond that, most importantly, we have the Bible. The Bible is the highest rule
00:07:34 of law in all the land, in all the land. It doesn't matter what form of government it is.
00:07:41 It doesn't matter what their constitution says. It doesn't matter if it's a monarchy or a republic.
00:07:47 The Bible is the supreme authority. Now, in the ecclesiastical sphere of government, the church,
00:07:55 1 Timothy 3, verse 1 says this,
00:07:58 He who desires to be an elder,
00:08:01 or he who desires or aspires to the office of elder,
00:08:06 desires a noble task.
00:08:09 And although Scripture does not explicitly say it,
00:08:12 we can, I believe, necessarily conclude from the whole of Scripture
00:08:16 that he who desires to be an officer,
00:08:19 not merely in ecclesiastical government,
00:08:22 in the sphere of the church,
00:08:24 but he who desires to be a civil officer in the state, the sphere of the state, also desires a noble task.
00:08:33 We are not Gnostics. We are not impotent pietists.
00:08:39 We do not believe that the church is the only institution in this world that matters.
00:08:46 We value because God values all of life, all of creation, every facet of society.
00:08:56 Civil government and aspiring to positions of civil authority is a noble aspiration.
00:09:04 Just as a man desires to be an elder in Christ's church, that is a noble ambition.
00:09:09 so too a man who aspires to be a magistrate in the civil form of government and society today
00:09:17 aspires to a noble thing. But if he is granted in God's providence that position, he must live
00:09:25 in a noble way. He must execute his powers nobly. And all positions of authority, whether it be in
00:09:34 the home as a father or as a husband who is head of his wife and head of the children,
00:09:39 there is familial authority. A man who has authority in the home, or a man who has authority
00:09:44 in the church, or a man who has authority in the state, one of the first things that he should
00:09:50 thoroughly familiarize himself with is the limits of his authority, the jurisdiction of his
00:09:57 authority. How much authority does he actually have? What is the extent of its reach? Where does
00:10:06 his authority stop? What is he allowed to do? What must he do? And what must he not do? And so Joshua
00:10:16 would not have gotten very far if he was the only civil leader in the government of Israel at this
00:10:22 time. He is the highest leader, but even for Joshua, he is not above the law of God. The scripture is
00:10:30 clear that even kings are underneath God's law. And Joshua, too, is underneath God's law. Notice
00:10:37 that as we go through the text as a whole, Joshua appeals to a higher authority than himself.
00:10:44 When he speaks, for example, to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh,
00:10:49 he appeals to the law of Moses. He doesn't say, you can do this. Everybody else is going to do this,
00:10:57 and you can do this other thing. And the reason why you can do this other thing is because
00:11:01 I said so. That's not the basis of the appeal of his authority. Rather, he says, it is written.
00:11:09 It is written. God has spoken. God spoke to Moses. And what God spoke underneath one administration
00:11:17 still holds true under the next administration. You had one human civil authority, Moses. Now
00:11:26 you have another. And I might have a different leadership style. I might have a different
00:11:32 philosophy. But really, it's irrelevant at the end of the day, because ultimately, I'm just here to
00:11:39 administer God's word. God's word. God said one thing to Moses, and that one thing he said to
00:11:47 Moses still rings true underneath my leadership as well. So that's the way that authority works.
00:11:55 So Joshua first, he calls the officers to himself.
00:11:59 And this is the same principle, the same system of government that was ultimately established under Moses, the person that Joshua is succeeding.
00:12:09 Moses, there was a time where he was handling every single individual isolated case or dispute in all of Israel.
00:12:18 He would sit at the opening, the entrance to his tent all day long.
00:12:23 And everyone who had a dispute, some kind of issue that they needed justice, they needed a
00:12:29 mediation, they needed someone to render a righteous judgment, they would come and bring
00:12:36 their dispute to Moses. And it was Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, who said, you can't do this.
00:12:43 The people are too great, too great in number. There's too many of them. You need to establish
00:12:49 lesser magistrates. You need leaders, men who are qualified to oversee tens, groups of ten,
00:12:57 and hundreds, and thousands, and ten thousands. You need to delegate authority. And so we see
00:13:05 the entrance of this principle of the lesser magistrate. And we see that principle,
00:13:10 that system continued with Joshua. He doesn't just speak directly to the people. There are
00:13:16 places and times where that occurs. But in this place, Joshua has just now assumed the successor
00:13:23 role, replacing Moses. And the first thing that he does is he does not directly issue orders to all,
00:13:30 but rather he delegates authority and commands to the lesser magistrate, his officers, and he assumes
00:13:37 and trusts that they will then go to the people and that the people will obey and that they will
00:13:43 get ready. Now, we're not going to go in length with the last few verses of our text, but I think
00:13:50 it's worth mentioning just for, if nothing else, just for a good laugh. I love that the people say,
00:13:55 just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. I'm sure Joshua got a good laugh out of
00:14:03 that. Just as Israel obeyed Moses in all things, so too. The way, the same measure of obedience that
00:14:10 you saw us display towards Moses, Joshua, you can count on that, right? He's just assumed the
00:14:16 position of leadership. I'm sure he was like, oh no, oh no, oh no. Israel was not very obedient,
00:14:24 but it does appear, at least in this instance, that Joshua could not necessarily count on the
00:14:30 people. People tend to be fickle, but he could at least, or at least he assumes that he can count
00:14:36 on his officers. The officers will be able to help shepherd and corral and influence and lead
00:14:43 and guide the people. In the sphere of the church, this is why we don't just have one church. We have
00:14:50 one church in the universal invisible sense, in the spiritual sense, but we have many in the visible
00:14:57 church realm, in the practical sense, many local churches. This is why our church holds to a
00:15:02 plurality of elders. Our church is only two years old, but Lord willing, as time goes on, we hope to
00:15:08 see that we would have many elders and also many deacons, that we would be able to faithfully
00:15:14 shepherd and guide and influence from the scripture, biblically, you, the congregation,
00:15:20 not just one leader, but a supreme magistrate, which even in Joshua's day was not Joshua himself,
00:15:27 but the law of Moses, God's law word. In our day, it is the word of God and the Constitution
00:15:33 insofar as the Constitution mirrors the law of God, which I believe it does.
00:15:38 Then beyond that, we do have hierarchy. We are not androgynous. We are not egalitarian.
00:15:45 Another way of saying that is we are not Marxists. We are not socialist. We are not communist.
00:15:51 We are Christians. And we live in a Christian nation. Currently, I believe in apostasy
00:15:57 forsaking that, but still a Christian nation with Christian principles, which means we live in a
00:16:02 nation that is hierarchical. And that is not a dirty word. Hierarchy is good. Why do we know
00:16:10 that hierarchy is good? Because hierarchy is God's idea. God established hierarchy. There's hierarchy
00:16:16 in a home with family. There's hierarchy in a church. And there is hierarchy in the state.
00:16:22 And so the supreme law of any land is the law word of God.
00:16:27 In our land, we are privileged that the most supreme under the word of God, supreme ruler
00:16:33 that we have is not a human official that can err, but rather the constitution that
00:16:38 can err.
00:16:39 It's not infallible, but at least it's staying.
00:16:43 It's not living.
00:16:44 It's not moving.
00:16:45 It's not fluctuating.
00:16:46 And I do believe it mirrors the law of God.
00:16:49 After that, we do have human officials and they're not all equal.
00:16:52 we have a hierarchy of human officials and the lesser magistrate is a legitimate position and
00:16:58 it is something that in the same way a man who aspires to the office of an elder in the church
00:17:05 government that is a noble aspiration so too my prayer is that many men from this local church
00:17:11 in fact and many christian men all over our nation and in other nations throughout the world
00:17:16 would begin to aspire to the noble task of civil government. That too is a noble office,
00:17:23 a noble aspiration. I think part of the problem where we are today, I'll say this and we'll move
00:17:30 on to the next portion of our text, but part of the problem where we are today is this, 0.92
00:17:35 that what the church has done for a long time because of, I believe, this Gnostic pietistic
00:17:40 sense, and to define those terms very briefly, Gnosticism is the idea that the body is of little
00:17:46 account, that the physical world is trivial, that it doesn't have real value. The Gnostics
00:17:53 in the first century that the apostles were combating, the Gnostics and their false 0.98
00:17:58 heretical teaching, what they were continuing to say again and again is that the body is just
00:18:04 a prison. It's this fleshly, carnal, unvaluable, trivial prison for the soul. And the soul is
00:18:14 really of value. Now, the word Gnostic comes from Gnosis. Gnosis means secret knowledge. So that's
00:18:19 another element of Gnosticism is this idea that there's this hidden, secret, elite, spiritual
00:18:27 knowledge. It's a mystery. It's a secret. It's something that you can't see. You can't ascertain.
00:18:35 And so what do you need? Well, you need to be inducted into the Cool Kids Club.
00:18:41 The only way to find out this really meaningful, true, the truest truth that's ever been trued in the whole true world,
00:18:48 the only way to figure that out is you have to have one of these elite guys tell you about it.
00:18:54 Because it's invisible. It's hidden. You'll never find it on your own.
00:18:59 And so there's this elitist mentality, this secret mentality.
00:19:03 But the other element, the other aspect of Gnosticism is that it's all spiritual.
00:19:08 It's not something that can be reasoned to.
00:19:10 It's not something physical in the world. It's not rational. It's something that you would never
00:19:16 be able to ascertain on your own. And sadly, that is a false doctrine that was combated by
00:19:23 the apostles in the first century Christian church. But sadly, that is something that
00:19:27 the Western church in the last few, I would say, I don't know, 150, maybe 300 years,
00:19:34 has really embraced, in large part because of the Enlightenment.
00:19:39 And the embrace of Gnosticism, and now pietism, real briefly,
00:19:43 pietism is this idea, well, to sum it up in a phrase,
00:19:47 the old phrase, that guy is so heavenly bound or heavenly focused
00:19:52 that he's no earthly good.
00:19:54 Have you ever heard that phrase before?
00:19:56 He's so heavenly minded, he's no earthly good, right?
00:19:59 That he's just thinking about floating on a cloud
00:20:02 as a disembodied spirit with Jesus for eternity.
00:20:06 But he's not really engaged in the physical world at all.
00:20:11 He's not really caring about practical matters,
00:20:13 physical matters, earthly matters at all.
00:20:16 Surely we should be heavenly minded.
00:20:18 But being heavenly minded in a true biblical sense
00:20:22 immediately calls us right back to earth.
00:20:25 Just as Connor was saying, true saving faith,
00:20:28 trusting the lord jesus longing for for eternal union with him there's there's fullness of joy
00:20:35 in his presence there in his right hand there are pleasures forevermore and the christian longs for
00:20:40 these things but in longing for christ and a longing for for a spiritual eternal reality with
00:20:47 christ longing for heaven for the christian immediately calls us back to earth because if
00:20:52 we love Christ, Jesus said, if you love me, you will obey me. And when we look to the commands
00:20:58 of Christ, they all have physical, tangible, earthly application. So Christ said, you love me
00:21:03 and you long to be with me always. Great work and feed your kids. Oh, okay. You love me and you long
00:21:11 to be with me in heaven. Great. Love your wife as I've loved the church. See the spiritual marriage,
00:21:18 eternal marriage, Christ in the church, see how I love her, I wash her, I gave myself up for her.
00:21:24 Okay, you go do that in physical, tangible, earthly ways. Here, now, with a woman in front 0.98
00:21:30 of your face that you can see. Not just this ethereal, universal, invisible sense, but in a
00:21:35 real sense. Don't be a pietist. Piety is a good thing. Piety, the Puritans often spoke of piety. 0.97
00:21:45 piety is simply it's the spiritual disciplines it's study of scripture it's fasting it's prayer
00:21:52 it's longing to be further sanctified and and conformed into the image of christ it's the
00:21:57 desire for progressive holiness progressive not positional you are positionally perfectly
00:22:03 righteous the moment you believe because positional perfect righteousness is the
00:22:08 righteousness of christ which is received not progressively and gradually through obedience
00:22:13 but rather immediately and fully through grace and faith alone, okay? But the desire for
00:22:21 progressive righteousness, progressive holiness, sanctification, this is piety. Piety, good.
00:22:27 Pietism, bad. Piety, good. But being a pietist, in the sense that I'm using the word, is a bad
00:22:37 thing. It's the person who doesn't really care about the world. And the thing that's so wrong 0.99
00:22:44 about not really caring about the world is that we're called to be like God. And guess what?
00:22:51 God cares about the world. God so loved the world that he sent his only son. God cares about this
00:22:58 world. So we don't want to be Gnostics, secret, spiritual, ethereal knowledge in the 17th 1.00
00:23:02 dimension, and we don't want to be pietist. Just sitting, right? My Christian life involves 12 0.99
00:23:08 hours of sitting and thinking about heaven, but I've done nothing in any practical terms.
00:23:14 These are not positive things. And so in all of that, God calls some people to ministry
00:23:22 in the church, in the sphere of the church. He will call others to the realm of the state,
00:23:28 still others to the marketplace, to medicine, to the arts, and certainly many of us, the vast
00:23:35 majority of us, will be called to be fathers and mothers in the home. And all that, going back to
00:23:42 what I was saying, this last point on this portion, part of the problem in the evangelical church over
00:23:48 the last, again, I would say 150 years at least in America, part of the problem is that wherever we
00:23:54 have found a solid, stout, courageous, gifted, passionate Christian man. Do you know what we do
00:24:04 with him? We tell him to leave whatever vocation he's currently holding and to go to seminary and
00:24:11 be a pastor. So you find a solid Christian man in politics and you immediately, the church
00:24:18 immediately ushers him out of politics and tells him you should be a pastor because we've just
00:24:23 thought that if anyone cares about theological matters if anyone really loves christ if anybody
00:24:31 understands the scripture and has a passion for the scripture we intuitively and instinctually
00:24:39 assume he's called to ministry and then we narrowly truncate ministry as though the only
00:24:47 ministry there is, is church ministry. And so for the longest time, part of the reasons you might
00:24:53 say, how has the left, how has godless people taken over all of our institutions? Well, you
00:25:00 took your most powerful, gifted, intelligent individuals who were Christian out of those 0.55
00:25:06 institutions and put them in the church. This guy is a doctor. He really loves scripture.
00:25:12 Quit your profession. 0.88
00:25:15 Because Christianity doesn't mean helping people who are physically sick. 0.94
00:25:19 It means meditating on the scripture, being a pietist and a Gnostic, and being a pastor.
00:25:27 When I was pastoring in Southern California, before I had learned some of these things,
00:25:33 my mindset was, we want to see evangelism?
00:25:37 Yes and amen.
00:25:39 Baptism?
00:25:40 Yes and amen.
00:25:40 good biblical preaching yes and amen and church planting so my idea was we want lots of elders
00:25:48 for the local church that i was currently pastoring but we also want we want elders on reserve
00:25:53 for all these future churches that will be planted out of this one and so a lot of emphasis
00:25:58 was on um being called to be an elder being called to preach being called to be a church planter
00:26:05 having an elder track having this having that you know all these all these different things
00:26:09 I don't talk about eldership hardly ever anymore.
00:26:14 If one of you men want to be an elder,
00:26:16 I'll say it right now.
00:26:17 And I will intentionally not say it
00:26:19 for a very, very long time after this.
00:26:23 Because I don't want to rig the deck.
00:26:28 If you desire to be an elder,
00:26:30 1 Timothy 3, verse 1 says,
00:26:32 he who aspires to the office of an elder
00:26:34 desires a noble thing.
00:26:35 And then it lists these qualifications.
00:26:38 He must be above reproach. 0.96
00:26:39 manna but one wife. The first qualification for an elder actually is, in verse one, he aspires to
00:26:47 the office. We skip over that one. We don't see it as a qualification. The first qualification
00:26:52 for a guy who is truly called to be a pastor is self-nomination. Not in a presumptuous, arrogant
00:27:00 way, but desire. He so badly wants to be a pastor that he will make that desire known.
00:27:07 he'll make it known but what happens when when the current elders the current pastor is constantly
00:27:15 rigging the deck and constantly imputing and incepting into the men in the church you should
00:27:23 want to be a pastor you should want to be and that's coming up regularly and we've got this
00:27:26 this pastor program to be a pastor and this and that then guess what they all want to be pastors
00:27:32 And guess what?
00:27:33 Likely, they're not all called to be pastors.
00:27:36 And the reason they want to be pastors is because they love,
00:27:39 they genuinely, they're Christian men, they love Jesus.
00:27:41 But you have not demonstrated for them from the word of God in your preaching,
00:27:46 you have not demonstrated to them that there is another viable option,
00:27:51 that you can deeply and profoundly love the Lord Jesus Christ and his word
00:27:56 and have a meaningful, absolutely necessary ministry
00:28:02 and it not be in the pulpit.
00:28:07 You can be a minister in medicine.
00:28:09 You can be a minister in civil government.
00:28:11 You can be a minister in the home.
00:28:13 You can be a minister in the arts.
00:28:14 You can be a minister in the marketplace.
00:28:16 All these different things.
00:28:18 And we need that again.
00:28:20 I'm excited about seeing guys who they know theology.
00:28:23 you. In fact, they're more theologically astute than a lot of guys who currently are pastors
00:28:28 filling pulpits in the church today. And yet they don't want to be a pastor. And it's not because
00:28:34 they don't want Jesus. It's not because they don't love his church. But they see that Christ
00:28:39 has called them to another sphere. And that's a good thing, not a bad thing. So Joshua could not
00:28:46 have gotten very far without his officers and desiring an office in the church, like elder or
00:28:53 deacon or even in the state i believe both biblically speaking is a noble aspiration
00:28:59 moving on now the church militant and triumphant let's look at verse 11 of our text pass through
00:29:08 the midst of the camp this is the order that joshua now is giving to the officers that they
00:29:14 will then give to the people pass through the midst of the camp and command the people prepare
00:29:19 your provisions. For within three days, you are to pass over this Jordan, that is the Jordan River,
00:29:27 to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. In your
00:29:35 notes, I've written the following. Israel's former leader, Moses, who was a type of Christ, that means
00:29:41 he's a symbol of Christ. He represents Jesus. That's not all Moses was meant to do, that he
00:29:48 merely serves as a type of Jesus, but that's part of it. So just as the ark, Noah and the ark,
00:29:55 the ark is a type of Christ. That's not its only purpose. In the practical, immediate sense,
00:30:01 the purpose of the ark is to make sure people don't drown in the flood, namely eight people,
00:30:06 Noah, his wife, three sons, and their three wives. But the ark also has an allegorical purpose,
00:30:12 a symbolic purpose, type and antitype. Well, we might use the language of shadow and substance.
00:30:20 The shadow matters. The shadow in and of itself has a certain purpose, but the ultimate purpose
00:30:27 of a type is to shadow the antitype. And so too, Moses, and this is where it gets unique,
00:30:34 both Moses and Joshua serve as types of Christ. So Israel's former leader Moses who was a type
00:30:44 of Christ he symbolized Christ he is now dead and rather than continuing to mourn his death
00:30:51 Israel did mourn his death but not indefinitely. So rather than continuing to mourn his death
00:30:59 Israel is commanded to prepare for what is coming next.
00:31:04 Now notice, this is not a coincidence.
00:31:06 In three days' time, in the same way that Christ, remember, a type of Christ,
00:31:12 the same way that Jesus was in the grave, three days, on the third day, rose again.
00:31:17 In three days' time, Joshua, who is another, not just Moses, a type of Christ,
00:31:23 but now Joshua also serving as a type of Christ, a symbol,
00:31:27 would lead Israel, which is a type of the church. Joshua would lead Israel across the Jordan River,
00:31:37 which is a type of death. Serves to represent, in a sense, death. That's not all the Jordan River 0.88
00:31:44 represents. But in this instance, in our text today, particularly, the Jordan River, in very
00:31:50 many ways. It serves as a symbol representing passing over from this life to new life. And the
00:31:58 river represents death. I believe I said this last week. I'll remind you again. This is the allegory
00:32:05 that one of the greatest writers of allegory who's ever lived, namely John Bunyan in Pilgrim's
00:32:12 Progress. This is what he used to signify the final step of the pilgrimage, passing through death to
00:32:19 the celestial city. He used a river. The pilgrims had to pass through the river. Now the river was
00:32:25 not very deep. We're actually reading about the river right now this morning and yesterday morning
00:32:30 with my children in our family worship time at breakfast. We're reading Pilgrim's Progress and
00:32:35 we're right now on the portion of the river. The river was not very deep in the objective sense
00:32:40 but the pilgrims were not permitted to take a boat across the river. They had to wade through it.
00:32:46 They didn't get any help. This river, they had to do alone. And the way to make it through the river
00:32:53 most efficiently was to keep their eyes on the celestial city and on the king and his son,
00:33:02 Jesus Christ. And so by doing so, they were able to make it through the river and hopeful,
00:33:09 the lead character, the lead pilgrim in Pilgrim's Progress is a man named Christian. His comrade,
00:33:15 his main friend is hopeful hopeful marches through that river and and it barely wades up to his knees
00:33:25 and he's just eyes on the celestial city thinking of the king all of his promises trusting and what
00:33:32 that signifies is that hopeful dies he crosses the river it's not like like he's elijah and he's
00:33:38 caught up in a chariot of fire and is able to skip death physical death no he has to die like everyone
00:33:44 else but what it signifies is that hopeful is dying in virtuous hope hence his name hopeful
00:33:52 he's dying in virtuous hope and so too some christians there are testimonies many of them
00:33:58 in fact some christians they go through physical death at the end of this life in virtuous hope
00:34:04 and what I'm saying is that they die well never losing faith eyes on Jesus but what I so appreciate
00:34:15 about Pilgrim's Progress and the way that John Bunyan wrote it is that the lead character not
00:34:20 the second but the primary character Christian himself he's the one who doesn't easily wade
00:34:27 through the river in fact he gets all the way down to where the water is up to his neck
00:34:33 and at certain points there are waves in the river that are washing over his head and he's crying out
00:34:40 he can't even see the celestial city at all what that represents is that in that moment even though
00:34:47 he's trusted there are many other times on this pilgrimage where hopeful is the one who needed
00:34:52 christian christians keeping hopeful in line reminding hopeful of all the promises and the
00:34:58 covenants. But here at the very end, in this last leg of the race, going through the river, going
00:35:05 through death, it is Christian rather than hopeful who's struggling to believe. He can't see the 0.98
00:35:10 promises of God. He is doubting the promises of God. Death, he's not dying in virtuous hope.
00:35:16 He is being tempted and giving in in certain degrees to despair in death. And hopeful actually
00:35:25 reaches out and grabs him and reminds him of God's promises. Look to Christ. Look to the
00:35:33 celestial kingdom. Look to the king. He has never left us. He has never forsaken us. He is always
00:35:38 with us. He has been good thus far. As David said, David had lived through so many battles,
00:35:45 so many trials, and seeing God again and again, time after time come through, that at a certain
00:35:50 point in his life he just says it he just calls it as it is surely goodness and mercy shall follow
00:35:56 me all the days of my life and i shall dwell in the house of the lord forever he won't forsake me
00:36:03 or see his holy one seed decay because if he was going to leave me he already would have done it
00:36:10 but he's been with me thus far and so surely he will be with me to the very end as jesus promised
00:36:19 even to his disciples. Before he left them, he said, I will be with you even to the end of the
00:36:24 age. A promise for them and a promise just as good for you and I. But the river signifies death.
00:36:35 So four types to cover them once more. Moses, a type of Christ who has died. Joshua, his successor,
00:36:43 replacing him, also a type of Christ who is alive. Then we have Israel that is a type of the church
00:36:51 and the Jordan River, which serves as a type of death. So you guys are a smart bunch. You probably
00:36:58 get it, but just to spell it out for you, you have Jesus dying, Moses, and then Jesus leading the
00:37:07 church through death unto resurrection joshua that's the picture that we have now all that
00:37:15 having been established the final piece of the puzzle that we need to understand is this
00:37:21 jesus dying moses type of christ jesus resurrected three days literally it's like it's almost
00:37:29 allegory to the point where it's not even creative at the you know what i mean it's two on the nose
00:37:33 three days really okay God I mean I appreciate it because sometimes we can be a bit thick-headed
00:37:38 and and we need some of the obvious you know clues to you know to point us in you know what's going
00:37:44 on but we have you know Jesus died Moses and then we have three days resurrection passing the river
00:37:51 of death Jordan and Joshua but here's the final piece of the puzzle that I think a lot of New
00:37:56 testament christians especially in western civilization today miss because of the pietism
00:38:03 gnosticism thing that i defined earlier and that's why i took the time to do it this is what they
00:38:08 miss israel is going to pass through death following in resurrection life but unto what
00:38:17 to rest 0.89
00:38:19 to war 0.62
00:38:22 I'll say it again 1.00
00:38:24 Israel is going to pass through death 1.00
00:38:27 into resurrection life 0.96
00:38:30 but for what purpose
00:38:33 unto what end
00:38:35 for rest
00:38:36 for war
00:38:38 for war
00:38:40 and there are two and a half tribes
00:38:42 namely
00:38:45 the reubenites the gadites and the half tribe of manasseh that actually had the already provision
00:38:54 of rest that their land we don't know all the details but from what we can tell from the text
00:39:01 their land that they were to inherit was uncontested and so it's only a very small
00:39:08 portion of israel which again represents the church a type of the new testament church
00:39:13 it is not the whole church not even close but rather a minority a small portion of the church
00:39:19 if we can use those terms which we can and should that actually is going to be able to pass through
00:39:25 the Jordan River signifying death unto immediate rest and notice this which leads us into our next
00:39:32 point the final point from our text today the small minority portion of Israel that could pass 0.65
00:39:39 through the death of the Jordan unto rest, even they don't. What does Joshua say to them? He says 0.73
00:39:46 the word of Moses still stands true. We're under a different administration now. Namely, Joshua is
00:39:53 in command, no longer Moses, but both administrations, the human highest official, Moses and Joshua are
00:40:01 still subject to the highest official, which is not a person, but the law word of God. And it's
00:40:08 immutable and unchanging. So what God spoke to Israel, namely these two and a half tribes,
00:40:15 what he spoke through Moses is still good now that we have Joshua in command. And what is it?
00:40:21 That this land belongs to these two and a half tribes, and this land is already at rest. It is
00:40:27 uncontested, and it's ready to be settled right now. There are no pagan, wicked, enemy of God
00:40:34 inhabitants currently residing within this land the land designated to the reubenites the gadites
00:40:40 and the half tribe of manasseh so you could for all intents and purposes pass through the jordan
00:40:46 and immediately rest but joshua says but you're not going to instead what joshua says leave your
00:40:56 wives and children to rest to settle with provision but the men of valor of these two and a half
00:41:03 tribes, instead of resting yourselves with the land that God has already settled, you should
00:41:09 rather recognize that as a mercy from God. And with that mercy and the gratitude that springs
00:41:16 forth, having received God's mercy and blessing, in that gratitude, what should you do? You should
00:41:22 help your brothers. Go with them to war so that they can rest also. See, brothers and sisters,
00:41:31 we are called to fight and laugh and feast both war and rest fight laugh feast but here's the
00:41:40 last part the unspoken part but the part that nonetheless probably needs to be spoken from
00:41:45 time to time because i think we forget it we're called to fight laugh feast together
00:41:50 together it is not merely making it to the celestial city over the course of an afternoon
00:41:59 and enjoying Jesus all by yourself.
00:42:02 We live in such an individualistic, atomistic society 0.99
00:42:08 and such a Gnostic and pietistic society. 1.00
00:42:13 In other words, to speak plainly, 0.72
00:42:16 this has worked into the culture,
00:42:19 seeped into the culture of the church, sadly.
00:42:22 And what it means is that most Christians think in terms
00:42:25 of themselves as individuals having a forever honeymoon with jesus and that's it that's the
00:42:34 christian life they don't think about war they think about romantic honeymoons they think about
00:42:41 long walks on the beach with jesus and two things integral things if we believe the scripture are
00:42:49 missing in their imagination of the christian life with their long walk on the beach with jesus
00:42:54 the two things that are missing are this one there's no enemies on the beach
00:43:00 we get to have a long walk with jesus on the beach but it's kind of like the beach of normandy
00:43:05 and not in hawaii so one thing that's missing is enemies combat conquest battle
00:43:15 war the other thing that is missing is everyone else the enemies the opposition is missing
00:43:24 and the rest of the army your allies the church is missing it's not corporate it's isolated
00:43:33 it's private not corporate but private and not conquest and battle and war
00:43:41 but just romanticized boyfriend songs where you replace boyfriend with jesus and here we have
00:43:51 the modern, American, evangelical, Christian imagination.
00:43:59 And then we wake up one day in 2023 and say,
00:44:02 how'd the world get like this?
00:44:05 Really?
00:44:07 Really?
00:44:10 That's like having, you know, we have a pet tortoise in our home.
00:44:16 And it's great.
00:44:17 Tortoise, I highly recommend it.
00:44:19 low maintenance pet low maintenance and durable pet we got little kids they drop pets
00:44:25 it's got a built-in shield it's perfect it is perfect
00:44:30 but if we don't feed the tortoise or even look at it for two months and then walk by and the
00:44:37 tortoise is dead and my response to that scenario is how did this happen you know what i mean then
00:44:46 And it's just like, you're not qualified to have a tortoise,
00:44:49 but we also need to consider whether or not you should have children.
00:44:52 Should he be our pastor?
00:44:54 Should he be gainfully employed? 0.86
00:44:57 But that's the evangelical American church today.
00:45:00 How did this happen? 1.00
00:45:02 You're pietists. 1.00
00:45:03 You're Gnostics. 1.00
00:45:06 You think more in terms of the Enlightenment than the Scripture. 0.97
00:45:10 You're romanticized.
00:45:12 You're individualistic, atomistic.
00:45:14 You have no corporate language.
00:45:16 You think nothing can be a Christian except an individual regenerate person.
00:45:21 No Christian family, no Christian school, really starts to contradict some things
00:45:25 because you have a Christian seminary, but I guess that's an institution, 0.55
00:45:29 and institutions can't be Christian. 1.00
00:45:30 You're fools. 1.00
00:45:32 You're being foolish. 1.00
00:45:34 You're being foolish. 1.00
00:45:36 It's time to grow up. 1.00
00:45:38 It's time to put our big boy pants on.
00:45:42 It's time to get our provisions, as the text says,
00:45:45 to cross the river and know that the purpose of crossing the river
00:45:49 is for the purpose of war, of conquest.
00:45:54 We die with Christ, brothers and sisters. We do.
00:45:58 And we are resurrected and live with Christ. We do.
00:46:03 But we are resurrected unto eternal rest in one sense.
00:46:07 Both are true. It's both and, not either or.
00:46:10 we are resurrected unto eternal rest with Christ and war with Christ.
00:46:17 He is our Savior who grants us rest.
00:46:20 And he is also in the very same breath our commander in chief
00:46:24 who commands us to prepare our victuals, as the old King James would say,
00:46:31 to gird up our loins, to beat our plowshares into swords,
00:46:36 to muster our courage and valor
00:46:40 for the glory of the king
00:46:43 for the welfare of our wives and our children
00:46:47 for the good of our land
00:46:50 unto war, Christian soldier 1.00
00:46:54 unto war
00:46:56 the church is both militant and triumphant
00:47:00 but the key is when and where
00:47:04 the church is triumphant but theologically within the reformed tradition and beyond this has always
00:47:13 been spoken of in terms the church being triumphant in terms of the church in heaven
00:47:19 that's when you're done but the church on earth the body of christ is not the church triumphant
00:47:29 but always has been theologically spoken of consistently as the church militant
00:47:36 the church militant the problem is that we have a bunch of christians in the church today still
00:47:45 alive called to be corporate unified and militant instead living christian lives that are isolated
00:47:52 individualistic private pietist and living as though it's triumphant before they actually
00:48:00 get there it's almost like a virtual reality christianity
00:48:04 is what we're seeing a virtual reality christianity let it not be so of us
00:48:12 let me finish with this a quote from c.s lewis this is from the horse and his boy
00:48:21 And it's quoting King Loon, who was the king of Archenland, which was an ally to Narnia.
00:48:30 It came in their defense.
00:48:32 He's now instructing what a king should be.
00:48:37 For this is what it means to be a king, to be first in every desperate attack and last
00:48:45 in every desperate retreat.
00:48:46 and when there's hunger in the land as must be now and then in bad years to be a king is to wear
00:48:55 finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land that's what it is
00:49:04 to be a king first to attack last to retreat and in times of providence when provisions are few 0.86
00:49:14 not to paint yourself up with dust and ashes like the pharisees did 0.74
00:49:21 choosing not to bathe they wanted everyone to know that they were fasting to look scrawny to 0.99
00:49:28 look mournful no no a king is in 2023 when they're mutilating children and murdering them in the womb
00:49:36 a king takes it seriously he's the first into battle the last to retreat and though don't miss
00:49:43 says as he's fighting he's laughing he's laughing his kids are not afraid
00:49:52 the weight of the matter is in fact waiting but the kids don't know it i can't even remember the
00:50:02 the movie i want to say schindler's list maybe but i remember distinctly watching a movie when
00:50:07 i was younger with my parents i think it was black and white and it was about the holocaust
00:50:11 and it was about a father and his son in an internment camp and he's the whole time
00:50:20 like making it like a game to where they're in one of the most terrible scenarios you could imagine
00:50:27 and yet the child is having a decent time and even when he's being taken off at the end
00:50:35 to the gas chamber to die he hides his boy away there's a little crack where the boy's able to
00:50:41 see his father. And his father's making a joke out of it and marching like this and smiling
00:50:47 and winking at his son. Because it's two things. One, he cares for the boy. There are certain
00:50:57 things that our children are not ready to carry. But two, it's not just pretending for the sake
00:51:06 of the boy he's pretending for the sake of the boy in the christian reality is actually not
00:51:11 pretending it's actually living into the truer reality because we are able to say death where 0.56
00:51:19 is your sting we're able to actually laugh as we go to the gas chamber because christ has won
00:51:30 His victory is final.
00:51:33 This world and all its pain and sin and rebellion against God
00:51:37 is not the end of the story.
00:51:40 It's not.
00:51:42 And so we raise our children to know the whole story.
00:51:46 And the whole story involves things that are sad.
00:51:50 Truly, deeply sad.
00:51:55 But sadness is swallowed up in joy.
00:51:58 though the sadness may last for the night the joy comes in the morning darkness is swallowed up in
00:52:05 light death swallowed up in victory the truer truth is life not death light not darkness
00:52:19 and so we're able what that does is it doesn't cause you to be a pietist disengaged when we
00:52:27 truly believe the truest end of the story what it allows you to do instead is it allows you to
00:52:33 embrace honestly with integrity every ounce of the darkness because you can bear it because the light
00:52:42 outweighs it the light is greater it allows you to be brutally honest with death because death
00:52:51 pales in comparison to life and the final end of the story is that death is swallowed up
00:52:58 in life a king and we are all brothers and sisters called to be a holy priesthood
00:53:05 a kingdom of priests to live and reign with the son a christian king
00:53:13 is first to the fight last in retreat and laughing along the way
00:53:20 the final application some of you like the gadites the reubenites and the half tribe of manasseh
00:53:31 some of you already have a higher degree of rest none of us as a church militant in this life as
00:53:41 long as we're in this life none of us have complete rest there's always a battle but there
00:53:47 are degrees of battle in this life and degrees of victory. And there's a corporate sense, but there
00:53:54 is also an individual sense. What I'm saying is this. Some of you, there's the spiritual and the
00:54:01 practical application. Speaking first to the spiritual, some of you have been following Jesus
00:54:06 more faithfully and for a longer period of time. And therefore, you have achieved by grace alone,
00:54:14 God working in you and through you that which is good and pleasing in his sight
00:54:18 but by grace Christ work in and through you you have achieved a higher degree of rest
00:54:25 from what in the spiritual sense from sin you have conquered more enemies namely the enemy
00:54:34 of your own flesh and the sin as Romans 7 says that still resides within the members of your being
00:54:39 You have, by God's grace, his work in and through you, you have been able to attain to a higher
00:54:46 degree, even in this life, of rest than some of your other brothers and sisters.
00:54:51 So like the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, what should you do
00:54:56 with that higher degree of sanctification? Struggling with less temptation in a particular
00:55:03 area than perhaps the average Christian. I have a picnic and enjoy it. No, go and help your
00:55:10 brothers. You have other brothers who are warring right now. They're in the fiercest part of their
00:55:18 battle. They're being slaughtered by lust. Some of the vain, carnal, fleshly temptation
00:55:31 we're surrounded in in the world and they have not yet achieved the same degree of victory by grace
00:55:37 in that particular area as you have so what's the spiritual application for us this principle that
00:55:44 i'm getting at from our text today one is very simple discipleship
00:55:50 as you by god's grace attain to higher degrees of sanctification and victory over sin which
00:55:58 brings a sense of spiritual rest even in this life. Share the wealth. Go to those who are less
00:56:07 mature in the faith and teach them. Fight with them. Not fighting against them, but joining with 1.00
00:56:15 them and fighting against their sin. And show them how to wield the sword against that particular
00:56:22 foe that by God's grace you have experienced a great degree of success in yourself.
00:56:28 And now the practical application.
00:56:32 Some of you have achieved by grace, same principle.
00:56:36 It's not your own doing.
00:56:38 You cannot boast.
00:56:40 You've worked, yes.
00:56:42 But your work is simply a manifestation of Christ willing and working in and through you.
00:56:50 And so too, as Christ works by the Spirit and sanctification in and through us against sin in this life,
00:56:56 in the spiritual sense, so too Christ gives us victory and achievement and success in practical
00:57:03 matters as well. So to speak plainly, some of you are older, literally older.
00:57:13 Some of you own land. Some of you don't. Some of you are in your 60s or 70s. Some of you are in
00:57:21 your 20s some of you have raised eight children some of you have one two-year-old
00:57:28 and so in the latter years of your life in the practical sense
00:57:35 biblically speaking there is no category known as retirement
00:57:41 it's not and you can retire from a particular vocation
00:57:47 but you you don't ever retire from productivity the last years of your life are the years where
00:57:57 you have acquired the most wisdom the most experience and you don't have the physical
00:58:03 strength anymore you know and that's so gracious on god's part you think about the way he designed
00:58:08 the the cycle of human life you know what me and my wife need right now we need spiritual wisdom
00:58:15 but we also really need physical energy we need a lot of physical energy with four little ones in
00:58:24 our home five and under now when our children are older i won't need that much energy i could be in
00:58:31 a wheelchair i'd like to not be but i could be but you know what what my kids will need then
00:58:36 they're gonna need like if i have a wheelchair they're gonna need me to shave my head and have
00:58:40 like some professor xavier wisdom to offer you know what i mean i don't necessarily have to run
00:58:45 around and roll on the floor as much as I used to. But I better have some answers to some of the
00:58:51 tough questions in life. Well, so too, for some of you, more seasoned saints would be the euphemism.
00:59:00 It's true, though. Seasoned saints, the nice way to put it. It's a true way to put it.
00:59:05 Some of you, it's not just a spiritual discipleship and spiritually speaking,
00:59:09 warring against sin, but it's also practically, you know how to budget a checkbook.
00:59:16 A lot of young people today don't. I mean, that's always been a problem with young people,
00:59:23 not particularly wise with money, but especially in this current generation.
00:59:29 Some of you, you know how to invest. Some of you know how to buy land and maintain it.
00:59:36 some of you you have kids but you've raised them your youngest is 20 where somebody else their
00:59:44 oldest is three and you have some of that time and that wisdom that you can come and instead of
00:59:51 just enjoying the rest because guess what we're gonna enjoy the rest the church triumphant that
00:59:56 comes it does come but it's not here yet you're not dead yet praise god and i think of the apostle
01:00:05 of Paul, where he's hard pressed, he says, between the two options. And he's being facetious in his
01:00:11 language. He knows that the options aren't his, but ultimately the Lord and his sovereignty, God
01:00:16 will decide. But he says, if I remain in the body, then that means fruitful labor for me. And it's
01:00:23 better for your sake, church. But if I die, then to be absent in the body is to be present with the
01:00:30 Lord, which is far better. What Paul is essentially saying is this. If I die, I'll be with Jesus.
01:00:38 And that's my choice. That is the best. But if I live, it means fruitful language. It's flowery,
01:00:46 pretty language. But what he's saying is this. If I'm alive, as long as I'm alive, down to the very
01:00:52 end, until the final bell rings, as long as I'm living, fruitful labor, it's just another way of
01:00:58 saying, if I'm alive, it means work. It means work. And if I work, that's good for you. You
01:01:04 guys want me to be alive because it's not going to be work for myself. It's going to be work for
01:01:07 you. So if I'm alive, I'm going to keep working to help out some of you crazy, immature Christians 1.00
01:01:14 that need some help. You know, and he's saying it nicely, but, but if I die, that'd be really great 1.00
01:01:21 because it's a lot of work and I've been doing it for quite a while and I'm starting to get
01:01:28 a little tired. But the principle there, it's just as plain. What I've been saying all along,
01:01:33 that's just another biblical example. Paul is saying it is to the younger, less mature
01:01:39 Christians benefit that the more seasoned saint like Paul, that his life continue a little longer.
01:01:46 Because as long as he is in that life, as long as we are in this life, it means rest.
01:01:53 not in the truest sense everything we do comes from rest and faith in christ and the finished
01:02:00 work of the gospel but in the very same breath the christian life as long as we're living here
01:02:06 on earth means work the church triumphant true and final rest heaven the church militant that's
01:02:15 the church on earth. That's the church alive. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word.
01:02:23 Bless it to your people for our good and your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.
01:02:27 Can I be frank with you for just a second right here at the end? Look, some of you guys,
01:02:32 you're financially supporting this ministry, and from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you. I
01:02:37 cannot thank you enough. However, some of you, you just, you can't afford it. In fact, some of you,
01:02:45 you shouldn't afford it. Let's be honest. I mean, we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy.
01:02:51 Our nation and our totalitarian political elites lost their minds over the last three years 0.91
01:02:59 due to COVID. We have written checks that we simply cannot cash. It doesn't matter if people
01:03:06 change the definition of a recession. We are living in a recession right now, regardless.
01:03:13 Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of eggs at the grocery store.
01:03:18 You cannot support financially this ministry at this time, nor should you.
01:03:24 But you could still help us tremendously.
01:03:27 I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do so, take one minute of your time.
01:03:33 Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform, iTunes, Spotify, whatever that might be.
01:03:40 This is the way the system works.
01:03:42 We want to be innocent as doves, but shrewd as vipers.
01:03:46 We need to be strategic.
01:03:48 You leave us a five-star review, and our podcast shows up for more people.
01:03:53 And the Word of God and courageous theology applied in practical ways to every realm of
01:04:00 life gets out there.
01:04:02 Help us get it out there.
01:04:04 Thanks for tuning in.