The NXR Podcast - SUNDAY SERMON - How Pietism & Gnosticism Castrated American Evangelicalism

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00:00:41.140 This morning, we continue with our sermon series through the book of Joshua.

00:00:44.320 Our text for today is going to be Joshua chapter 1, verses 1 through 18.

00:00:49.620 Joshua chapter 1, verses 1 through 18.

00:00:53.320 Would you join me now in standing for the reading of God's Word?

00:00:56.160 I'll read our text for us in its entirety.

00:00:58.080 When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say this is the Word of the Lord,

00:01:01.700 at which point I would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying thanks be to God.

00:01:06.540 One final time, our text for today is Joshua chapter 1, verses 10 through 18.

00:01:11.560 The Bible says this,

00:01:13.220 And Joshua commanded the officers of the people,

00:01:16.360 Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people,

00:01:19.520 prepare your provisions for within three days you are to pass over this Jordan to go in to take

00:01:26.220 possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess and to the Reubenites the

00:01:32.500 Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh Joshua said remember the word that Moses the servant of the

00:01:38.660 Lord commanded you saying the Lord your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you

00:01:43.900 this land. Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave

00:01:50.240 you beyond the Jordan. But all the men of valor among you shall pass over armed before your

00:01:56.380 brothers and shall help them until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to you. And they

00:02:03.480 also take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them. Then you shall return

00:02:10.380 to the land of your possession and shall possess it the land that Moses the servant of the Lord

00:02:15.520 gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise and they answered Joshua all that you have commanded

00:02:21.460 us we will do and whenever you send wherever you send us we will go just as we obeyed Moses in all

00:02:28.880 things so we will obey you only may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses whoever

00:02:36.160 rebels against your commandment and disobeys your words, whatever you command him shall be put to

00:02:42.220 death. Only be strong and courageous. This is the word of the Lord. All right, please be seated.

00:02:49.880 The first thing that I want us to see is found in the first verse of our text, namely verse 10.

00:02:55.760 In your notes, commentating on this verse, I've written the following. Immediately after assuming

00:03:00.540 his position in the government of Israel as the successor of Moses, Joshua begins to work toward

00:03:06.220 the obedience of God and the blessing of his people. And the lesser magistrates, officers,

00:03:13.840 immediately attend to Joshua to receive their orders. Joshua could have accomplished little

00:03:20.220 without his officers' eagerness to execute his commands. Scripture requires us to be subject,

00:03:27.080 not only to the king as supreme, but to governors as to those that are sent by him.

00:03:33.580 That's 1 Peter 2, verse 13 through 14. Now, obviously, this can be taken out of context.

00:03:41.680 It can be twisted, and it can be used as a tyrannical club, as it was in 2020 by many

00:03:46.680 evangelical leaders. That is not what I'm saying. But authority, even civil authority,

00:03:52.620 when behaving properly, when executing righteous commands, when in line with the immutable standard

00:04:00.740 of God's holy universal law, civil authority should be submitted to. When civil authority

00:04:08.080 is righteous, when what they say is righteous, when their commands are righteous. And so we see

00:04:14.200 from the very outset of our text today that Joshua is not a lone leader. He is the highest and

00:04:20.880 supreme human official in the government of Israel at this time. But he is not a leader,

00:04:28.460 a civil magistrate alone. He has officers. The first thing that he does when he assumes his

00:04:35.680 position as Moses' successor is he calls other leaders to him, lesser magistrates, those who

00:04:42.660 are not his peers, but also are not peers with the people. They are intermediators. They are

00:04:49.200 in between. They hold some position of civil authority in the government of Israel, and Joshua

00:04:55.680 is dependent on them to go and issue his commands to the people. 1st Timothy chapter 3 verse 1

00:05:04.720 speaks about the office of an elder in an ecclesiastical government. We have three primary

00:05:11.620 governments established by God, that is the family, the church, and the state. All three are governments.

00:05:18.040 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.

00:05:32.540 The family is a government. The church is a government. And the civil government, or the state, is also a government.

00:05:39.320 We do not have merely one government in human society today, but we have three autonomous, independent spheres of government.

00:05:49.520 Not a hierarchy. It is not the state, the church, and then the home.

00:05:54.640 But these three independent, autonomous spheres, all governmental, all forms of government, are parallel side by side.

00:06:02.980 Depending on providence and circumstances, there are times where two or three of these fears may

00:06:10.300 overlap, and it requires the scripture and prudence to determine who has proper jurisdiction.

00:06:17.480 There may be a similar vested interest where the church cares because it pertains to spiritual

00:06:24.480 matters, and yet in the present situation, there are also physical matters of welfare that are also

00:06:31.260 to be concerned about. And so it involves familial fathers in the home. To them has been given

00:06:38.560 primarily the duty of physical welfare, caring for children and wives. So these fears will overlap

00:06:46.640 at times, but they are autonomous. They are autonomous and they are parallel side by side.

00:06:53.520 They are not a hierarchy. The state civil government is not supreme. And the government

00:06:59.680 that we have here in the United States of America, our highest official is not a human. It is a

00:07:06.500 document by design, and it is not a living document that changes or that the interpretation

00:07:13.360 changes. It is a document that is very clear, and it is a document that ultimately comes from the

00:07:20.780 principles of scripture itself. So we don't have the president as supreme. We have the constitution

00:07:27.040 as supreme. And even beyond that, most importantly, we have the Bible. The Bible is the highest rule

00:07:34.960 of law in all the land, in all the land. It doesn't matter what form of government it is.

00:07:41.220 It doesn't matter what their constitution says. It doesn't matter if it's a monarchy or a republic.

00:07:47.700 The Bible is the supreme authority. Now, in the ecclesiastical sphere of government, the church,

00:07:55.320 1 Timothy 3, verse 1 says this,

00:07:58.340 He who desires to be an elder,

00:08:01.300 or he who desires or aspires to the office of elder,

00:08:06.000 desires a noble task.

00:08:09.440 And although Scripture does not explicitly say it,

00:08:12.320 we can, I believe, necessarily conclude from the whole of Scripture

00:08:16.400 that he who desires to be an officer,

00:08:19.780 not merely in ecclesiastical government,

00:08:22.740 in the sphere of the church,

00:08:24.020 but he who desires to be a civil officer in the state, the sphere of the state, also desires a noble task.

00:08:33.940 We are not Gnostics. We are not impotent pietists.

00:08:39.760 We do not believe that the church is the only institution in this world that matters.

00:08:46.380 We value because God values all of life, all of creation, every facet of society.

00:08:56.500 Civil government and aspiring to positions of civil authority is a noble aspiration.

00:09:04.260 Just as a man desires to be an elder in Christ's church, that is a noble ambition.

00:09:09.980 so too a man who aspires to be a magistrate in the civil form of government and society today

00:09:17.720 aspires to a noble thing. But if he is granted in God's providence that position, he must live

00:09:25.520 in a noble way. He must execute his powers nobly. And all positions of authority, whether it be in

00:09:34.020 the home as a father or as a husband who is head of his wife and head of the children,

00:09:39.260 there is familial authority. A man who has authority in the home, or a man who has authority

00:09:44.880 in the church, or a man who has authority in the state, one of the first things that he should

00:09:50.140 thoroughly familiarize himself with is the limits of his authority, the jurisdiction of his

00:09:57.400 authority. How much authority does he actually have? What is the extent of its reach? Where does

00:10:06.140 his authority stop? What is he allowed to do? What must he do? And what must he not do? And so Joshua

00:10:16.280 would not have gotten very far if he was the only civil leader in the government of Israel at this

00:10:22.180 time. He is the highest leader, but even for Joshua, he is not above the law of God. The scripture is

00:10:30.880 clear that even kings are underneath God's law. And Joshua, too, is underneath God's law. Notice

00:10:37.880 that as we go through the text as a whole, Joshua appeals to a higher authority than himself.

00:10:44.340 When he speaks, for example, to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh,

00:10:49.360 he appeals to the law of Moses. He doesn't say, you can do this. Everybody else is going to do this,

00:10:57.000 and you can do this other thing. And the reason why you can do this other thing is because

00:11:01.180 I said so. That's not the basis of the appeal of his authority. Rather, he says, it is written.

00:11:09.760 It is written. God has spoken. God spoke to Moses. And what God spoke underneath one administration

00:11:17.140 still holds true under the next administration. You had one human civil authority, Moses. Now

00:11:26.480 you have another. And I might have a different leadership style. I might have a different

00:11:32.020 philosophy. But really, it's irrelevant at the end of the day, because ultimately, I'm just here to

00:11:39.680 administer God's word. God's word. God said one thing to Moses, and that one thing he said to

00:11:47.400 Moses still rings true underneath my leadership as well. So that's the way that authority works.

00:11:55.700 So Joshua first, he calls the officers to himself.

00:11:59.100 And this is the same principle, the same system of government that was ultimately established under Moses, the person that Joshua is succeeding.

00:12:09.940 Moses, there was a time where he was handling every single individual isolated case or dispute in all of Israel.

00:12:18.900 He would sit at the opening, the entrance to his tent all day long.

00:12:23.680 And everyone who had a dispute, some kind of issue that they needed justice, they needed a

00:12:29.640 mediation, they needed someone to render a righteous judgment, they would come and bring

00:12:36.780 their dispute to Moses. And it was Moses' father-in-law, Jethro, who said, you can't do this.

00:12:43.880 The people are too great, too great in number. There's too many of them. You need to establish

00:12:49.980 lesser magistrates. You need leaders, men who are qualified to oversee tens, groups of ten,

00:12:57.500 and hundreds, and thousands, and ten thousands. You need to delegate authority. And so we see

00:13:05.600 the entrance of this principle of the lesser magistrate. And we see that principle,

00:13:10.680 that system continued with Joshua. He doesn't just speak directly to the people. There are

00:13:16.220 places and times where that occurs. But in this place, Joshua has just now assumed the successor

00:13:23.720 role, replacing Moses. And the first thing that he does is he does not directly issue orders to all,

00:13:30.740 but rather he delegates authority and commands to the lesser magistrate, his officers, and he assumes

00:13:37.860 and trusts that they will then go to the people and that the people will obey and that they will

00:13:43.900 get ready. Now, we're not going to go in length with the last few verses of our text, but I think

00:13:50.020 it's worth mentioning just for, if nothing else, just for a good laugh. I love that the people say,

00:13:55.600 just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. I'm sure Joshua got a good laugh out of

00:14:03.660 that. Just as Israel obeyed Moses in all things, so too. The way, the same measure of obedience that

00:14:10.340 you saw us display towards Moses, Joshua, you can count on that, right? He's just assumed the

00:14:16.160 position of leadership. I'm sure he was like, oh no, oh no, oh no. Israel was not very obedient,

00:14:24.020 but it does appear, at least in this instance, that Joshua could not necessarily count on the

00:14:30.080 people. People tend to be fickle, but he could at least, or at least he assumes that he can count

00:14:36.660 on his officers. The officers will be able to help shepherd and corral and influence and lead

00:14:43.780 and guide the people. In the sphere of the church, this is why we don't just have one church. We have

00:14:50.860 one church in the universal invisible sense, in the spiritual sense, but we have many in the visible

00:14:57.240 church realm, in the practical sense, many local churches. This is why our church holds to a

00:15:02.680 plurality of elders. Our church is only two years old, but Lord willing, as time goes on, we hope to

00:15:08.220 see that we would have many elders and also many deacons, that we would be able to faithfully

00:15:14.140 shepherd and guide and influence from the scripture, biblically, you, the congregation,

00:15:20.460 not just one leader, but a supreme magistrate, which even in Joshua's day was not Joshua himself,

00:15:27.760 but the law of Moses, God's law word. In our day, it is the word of God and the Constitution

00:15:33.480 insofar as the Constitution mirrors the law of God, which I believe it does.

00:15:38.620 Then beyond that, we do have hierarchy. We are not androgynous. We are not egalitarian.

00:15:45.460 Another way of saying that is we are not Marxists. We are not socialist. We are not communist.

00:15:51.500 We are Christians. And we live in a Christian nation. Currently, I believe in apostasy

00:15:57.000 forsaking that, but still a Christian nation with Christian principles, which means we live in a

00:16:02.920 nation that is hierarchical. And that is not a dirty word. Hierarchy is good. Why do we know

00:16:10.040 that hierarchy is good? Because hierarchy is God's idea. God established hierarchy. There's hierarchy

00:16:16.320 in a home with family. There's hierarchy in a church. And there is hierarchy in the state.

00:16:22.820 And so the supreme law of any land is the law word of God.

00:16:27.080 In our land, we are privileged that the most supreme under the word of God, supreme ruler

00:16:33.040 that we have is not a human official that can err, but rather the constitution that

00:16:38.680 can err.

00:16:39.320 It's not infallible, but at least it's staying.

00:16:43.220 It's not living.

00:16:44.540 It's not moving.

00:16:45.460 It's not fluctuating.

00:16:46.700 And I do believe it mirrors the law of God.

00:16:49.200 After that, we do have human officials and they're not all equal.

00:16:52.820 we have a hierarchy of human officials and the lesser magistrate is a legitimate position and

00:16:58.960 it is something that in the same way a man who aspires to the office of an elder in the church

00:17:05.120 government that is a noble aspiration so too my prayer is that many men from this local church

00:17:11.660 in fact and many christian men all over our nation and in other nations throughout the world

00:17:16.580 would begin to aspire to the noble task of civil government. That too is a noble office,

00:17:23.940 a noble aspiration. I think part of the problem where we are today, I'll say this and we'll move

00:17:30.200 on to the next portion of our text, but part of the problem where we are today is this,

00:17:35.500 that what the church has done for a long time because of, I believe, this Gnostic pietistic

00:17:40.180 sense, and to define those terms very briefly, Gnosticism is the idea that the body is of little

00:17:46.400 account, that the physical world is trivial, that it doesn't have real value. The Gnostics

00:17:53.800 in the first century that the apostles were combating, the Gnostics and their false

00:17:58.800 heretical teaching, what they were continuing to say again and again is that the body is just

00:18:04.860 a prison. It's this fleshly, carnal, unvaluable, trivial prison for the soul. And the soul is

00:18:14.640 really of value. Now, the word Gnostic comes from Gnosis. Gnosis means secret knowledge. So that's

00:18:19.720 another element of Gnosticism is this idea that there's this hidden, secret, elite, spiritual

00:18:27.540 knowledge. It's a mystery. It's a secret. It's something that you can't see. You can't ascertain.

00:18:35.100 And so what do you need? Well, you need to be inducted into the Cool Kids Club.

00:18:41.880 The only way to find out this really meaningful, true, the truest truth that's ever been trued in the whole true world,

00:18:48.000 the only way to figure that out is you have to have one of these elite guys tell you about it.

00:18:54.860 Because it's invisible. It's hidden. You'll never find it on your own.

00:18:59.000 And so there's this elitist mentality, this secret mentality.

00:19:03.220 But the other element, the other aspect of Gnosticism is that it's all spiritual.

00:19:08.160 It's not something that can be reasoned to.

00:19:10.360 It's not something physical in the world. It's not rational. It's something that you would never

00:19:16.360 be able to ascertain on your own. And sadly, that is a false doctrine that was combated by

00:19:23.380 the apostles in the first century Christian church. But sadly, that is something that

00:19:27.660 the Western church in the last few, I would say, I don't know, 150, maybe 300 years,

00:19:34.820 has really embraced, in large part because of the Enlightenment.

00:19:39.940 And the embrace of Gnosticism, and now pietism, real briefly,

00:19:43.840 pietism is this idea, well, to sum it up in a phrase,

00:19:47.240 the old phrase, that guy is so heavenly bound or heavenly focused

00:19:52.340 that he's no earthly good.

00:19:54.380 Have you ever heard that phrase before?

00:19:56.060 He's so heavenly minded, he's no earthly good, right?

00:19:59.380 That he's just thinking about floating on a cloud

00:20:02.900 as a disembodied spirit with Jesus for eternity.

00:20:06.280 But he's not really engaged in the physical world at all.

00:20:11.380 He's not really caring about practical matters,

00:20:13.780 physical matters, earthly matters at all.

00:20:16.660 Surely we should be heavenly minded.

00:20:18.900 But being heavenly minded in a true biblical sense

00:20:22.200 immediately calls us right back to earth.

00:20:25.480 Just as Connor was saying, true saving faith,

00:20:28.500 trusting the lord jesus longing for for eternal union with him there's there's fullness of joy

00:20:35.540 in his presence there in his right hand there are pleasures forevermore and the christian longs for

00:20:40.160 these things but in longing for christ and a longing for for a spiritual eternal reality with

00:20:47.020 christ longing for heaven for the christian immediately calls us back to earth because if

00:20:52.480 we love Christ, Jesus said, if you love me, you will obey me. And when we look to the commands

00:20:58.060 of Christ, they all have physical, tangible, earthly application. So Christ said, you love me

00:21:03.780 and you long to be with me always. Great work and feed your kids. Oh, okay. You love me and you long

00:21:11.340 to be with me in heaven. Great. Love your wife as I've loved the church. See the spiritual marriage,

00:21:18.180 eternal marriage, Christ in the church, see how I love her, I wash her, I gave myself up for her.

00:21:24.280 Okay, you go do that in physical, tangible, earthly ways. Here, now, with a woman in front

00:21:30.100 of your face that you can see. Not just this ethereal, universal, invisible sense, but in a

00:21:35.840 real sense. Don't be a pietist. Piety is a good thing. Piety, the Puritans often spoke of piety.

00:21:45.980 piety is simply it's the spiritual disciplines it's study of scripture it's fasting it's prayer

00:21:52.020 it's longing to be further sanctified and and conformed into the image of christ it's the

00:21:57.240 desire for progressive holiness progressive not positional you are positionally perfectly

00:22:03.480 righteous the moment you believe because positional perfect righteousness is the

00:22:08.380 righteousness of christ which is received not progressively and gradually through obedience

00:22:13.520 but rather immediately and fully through grace and faith alone, okay? But the desire for

00:22:21.060 progressive righteousness, progressive holiness, sanctification, this is piety. Piety, good.

00:22:27.860 Pietism, bad. Piety, good. But being a pietist, in the sense that I'm using the word, is a bad

00:22:37.680 thing. It's the person who doesn't really care about the world. And the thing that's so wrong

00:22:44.160 about not really caring about the world is that we're called to be like God. And guess what?

00:22:51.060 God cares about the world. God so loved the world that he sent his only son. God cares about this

00:22:58.220 world. So we don't want to be Gnostics, secret, spiritual, ethereal knowledge in the 17th

00:23:02.680 dimension, and we don't want to be pietist. Just sitting, right? My Christian life involves 12

00:23:08.420 hours of sitting and thinking about heaven, but I've done nothing in any practical terms.

00:23:14.380 These are not positive things. And so in all of that, God calls some people to ministry

00:23:22.640 in the church, in the sphere of the church. He will call others to the realm of the state,

00:23:28.420 still others to the marketplace, to medicine, to the arts, and certainly many of us, the vast

00:23:35.640 majority of us, will be called to be fathers and mothers in the home. And all that, going back to

00:23:42.460 what I was saying, this last point on this portion, part of the problem in the evangelical church over

00:23:48.520 the last, again, I would say 150 years at least in America, part of the problem is that wherever we

00:23:54.700 have found a solid, stout, courageous, gifted, passionate Christian man. Do you know what we do

00:24:04.160 with him? We tell him to leave whatever vocation he's currently holding and to go to seminary and

00:24:11.380 be a pastor. So you find a solid Christian man in politics and you immediately, the church

00:24:18.060 immediately ushers him out of politics and tells him you should be a pastor because we've just

00:24:23.580 thought that if anyone cares about theological matters if anyone really loves christ if anybody

00:24:31.740 understands the scripture and has a passion for the scripture we intuitively and instinctually

00:24:39.300 assume he's called to ministry and then we narrowly truncate ministry as though the only

00:24:47.160 ministry there is, is church ministry. And so for the longest time, part of the reasons you might

00:24:53.720 say, how has the left, how has godless people taken over all of our institutions? Well, you

00:25:00.060 took your most powerful, gifted, intelligent individuals who were Christian out of those

00:25:06.520 institutions and put them in the church. This guy is a doctor. He really loves scripture.

00:25:12.760 Quit your profession.

00:25:15.460 Because Christianity doesn't mean helping people who are physically sick.

00:25:19.720 It means meditating on the scripture, being a pietist and a Gnostic, and being a pastor.

00:25:27.700 When I was pastoring in Southern California, before I had learned some of these things,

00:25:33.860 my mindset was, we want to see evangelism?

00:25:37.500 Yes and amen.

00:25:39.140 Baptism?

00:25:40.040 Yes and amen.

00:25:40.620 good biblical preaching yes and amen and church planting so my idea was we want lots of elders

00:25:48.000 for the local church that i was currently pastoring but we also want we want elders on reserve

00:25:53.140 for all these future churches that will be planted out of this one and so a lot of emphasis

00:25:58.420 was on um being called to be an elder being called to preach being called to be a church planter

00:26:05.460 having an elder track having this having that you know all these all these different things

00:26:09.580 I don't talk about eldership hardly ever anymore.

00:26:14.880 If one of you men want to be an elder,

00:26:16.680 I'll say it right now.

00:26:17.980 And I will intentionally not say it

00:26:19.520 for a very, very long time after this.

00:26:23.160 Because I don't want to rig the deck.

00:26:28.040 If you desire to be an elder,

00:26:30.480 1 Timothy 3, verse 1 says,

00:26:32.300 he who aspires to the office of an elder

00:26:34.500 desires a noble thing.

00:26:35.980 And then it lists these qualifications.

00:26:38.080 He must be above reproach.

00:26:39.580 manna but one wife. The first qualification for an elder actually is, in verse one, he aspires to

00:26:47.140 the office. We skip over that one. We don't see it as a qualification. The first qualification

00:26:52.680 for a guy who is truly called to be a pastor is self-nomination. Not in a presumptuous, arrogant

00:27:00.620 way, but desire. He so badly wants to be a pastor that he will make that desire known.

00:27:07.880 he'll make it known but what happens when when the current elders the current pastor is constantly

00:27:15.660 rigging the deck and constantly imputing and incepting into the men in the church you should

00:27:23.040 want to be a pastor you should want to be and that's coming up regularly and we've got this

00:27:26.860 this pastor program to be a pastor and this and that then guess what they all want to be pastors

00:27:32.680 And guess what?

00:27:33.540 Likely, they're not all called to be pastors.

00:27:36.720 And the reason they want to be pastors is because they love,

00:27:39.160 they genuinely, they're Christian men, they love Jesus.

00:27:41.920 But you have not demonstrated for them from the word of God in your preaching,

00:27:46.460 you have not demonstrated to them that there is another viable option,

00:27:51.880 that you can deeply and profoundly love the Lord Jesus Christ and his word

00:27:56.260 and have a meaningful, absolutely necessary ministry

00:28:02.980 and it not be in the pulpit.

00:28:07.600 You can be a minister in medicine.

00:28:09.460 You can be a minister in civil government.

00:28:11.840 You can be a minister in the home.

00:28:13.500 You can be a minister in the arts.

00:28:14.940 You can be a minister in the marketplace.

00:28:16.960 All these different things.

00:28:18.740 And we need that again.

00:28:20.280 I'm excited about seeing guys who they know theology.

00:28:23.980 you. In fact, they're more theologically astute than a lot of guys who currently are pastors

00:28:28.800 filling pulpits in the church today. And yet they don't want to be a pastor. And it's not because

00:28:34.160 they don't want Jesus. It's not because they don't love his church. But they see that Christ

00:28:39.980 has called them to another sphere. And that's a good thing, not a bad thing. So Joshua could not

00:28:46.460 have gotten very far without his officers and desiring an office in the church, like elder or

00:28:53.120 deacon or even in the state i believe both biblically speaking is a noble aspiration

00:28:59.700 moving on now the church militant and triumphant let's look at verse 11 of our text pass through

00:29:08.760 the midst of the camp this is the order that joshua now is giving to the officers that they

00:29:14.080 will then give to the people pass through the midst of the camp and command the people prepare

00:29:19.800 your provisions. For within three days, you are to pass over this Jordan, that is the Jordan River,

00:29:27.260 to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. In your

00:29:35.020 notes, I've written the following. Israel's former leader, Moses, who was a type of Christ, that means

00:29:41.880 he's a symbol of Christ. He represents Jesus. That's not all Moses was meant to do, that he

00:29:48.260 merely serves as a type of Jesus, but that's part of it. So just as the ark, Noah and the ark,

00:29:55.600 the ark is a type of Christ. That's not its only purpose. In the practical, immediate sense,

00:30:01.280 the purpose of the ark is to make sure people don't drown in the flood, namely eight people,

00:30:06.520 Noah, his wife, three sons, and their three wives. But the ark also has an allegorical purpose,

00:30:12.540 a symbolic purpose, type and antitype. Well, we might use the language of shadow and substance.

00:30:20.060 The shadow matters. The shadow in and of itself has a certain purpose, but the ultimate purpose

00:30:27.060 of a type is to shadow the antitype. And so too, Moses, and this is where it gets unique,

00:30:34.060 both Moses and Joshua serve as types of Christ. So Israel's former leader Moses who was a type

00:30:44.180 of Christ he symbolized Christ he is now dead and rather than continuing to mourn his death

00:30:51.720 Israel did mourn his death but not indefinitely. So rather than continuing to mourn his death

00:30:59.900 Israel is commanded to prepare for what is coming next.

00:31:04.420 Now notice, this is not a coincidence.

00:31:06.760 In three days' time, in the same way that Christ, remember, a type of Christ,

00:31:12.100 the same way that Jesus was in the grave, three days, on the third day, rose again.

00:31:17.660 In three days' time, Joshua, who is another, not just Moses, a type of Christ,

00:31:23.300 but now Joshua also serving as a type of Christ, a symbol,

00:31:27.220 would lead Israel, which is a type of the church. Joshua would lead Israel across the Jordan River,

00:31:37.400 which is a type of death. Serves to represent, in a sense, death. That's not all the Jordan River

00:31:44.280 represents. But in this instance, in our text today, particularly, the Jordan River, in very

00:31:50.460 many ways. It serves as a symbol representing passing over from this life to new life. And the

00:31:58.400 river represents death. I believe I said this last week. I'll remind you again. This is the allegory

00:32:05.020 that one of the greatest writers of allegory who's ever lived, namely John Bunyan in Pilgrim's

00:32:12.220 Progress. This is what he used to signify the final step of the pilgrimage, passing through death to

00:32:19.420 the celestial city. He used a river. The pilgrims had to pass through the river. Now the river was

00:32:25.660 not very deep. We're actually reading about the river right now this morning and yesterday morning

00:32:30.680 with my children in our family worship time at breakfast. We're reading Pilgrim's Progress and

00:32:35.760 we're right now on the portion of the river. The river was not very deep in the objective sense

00:32:40.900 but the pilgrims were not permitted to take a boat across the river. They had to wade through it.

00:32:46.800 They didn't get any help. This river, they had to do alone. And the way to make it through the river

00:32:53.580 most efficiently was to keep their eyes on the celestial city and on the king and his son,

00:33:02.300 Jesus Christ. And so by doing so, they were able to make it through the river and hopeful,

00:33:09.280 the lead character, the lead pilgrim in Pilgrim's Progress is a man named Christian. His comrade,

00:33:15.700 his main friend is hopeful hopeful marches through that river and and it barely wades up to his knees

00:33:25.200 and he's just eyes on the celestial city thinking of the king all of his promises trusting and what

00:33:32.900 that signifies is that hopeful dies he crosses the river it's not like like he's elijah and he's

00:33:38.700 caught up in a chariot of fire and is able to skip death physical death no he has to die like everyone

00:33:44.480 else but what it signifies is that hopeful is dying in virtuous hope hence his name hopeful

00:33:52.440 he's dying in virtuous hope and so too some christians there are testimonies many of them

00:33:58.220 in fact some christians they go through physical death at the end of this life in virtuous hope

00:34:04.320 and what I'm saying is that they die well never losing faith eyes on Jesus but what I so appreciate

00:34:15.180 about Pilgrim's Progress and the way that John Bunyan wrote it is that the lead character not

00:34:20.860 the second but the primary character Christian himself he's the one who doesn't easily wade

00:34:27.820 through the river in fact he gets all the way down to where the water is up to his neck

00:34:33.820 and at certain points there are waves in the river that are washing over his head and he's crying out

00:34:40.260 he can't even see the celestial city at all what that represents is that in that moment even though

00:34:47.180 he's trusted there are many other times on this pilgrimage where hopeful is the one who needed

00:34:52.220 christian christians keeping hopeful in line reminding hopeful of all the promises and the

00:34:58.200 covenants. But here at the very end, in this last leg of the race, going through the river, going

00:35:05.000 through death, it is Christian rather than hopeful who's struggling to believe. He can't see the

00:35:10.960 promises of God. He is doubting the promises of God. Death, he's not dying in virtuous hope.

00:35:16.960 He is being tempted and giving in in certain degrees to despair in death. And hopeful actually

00:35:25.360 reaches out and grabs him and reminds him of God's promises. Look to Christ. Look to the

00:35:33.220 celestial kingdom. Look to the king. He has never left us. He has never forsaken us. He is always

00:35:38.960 with us. He has been good thus far. As David said, David had lived through so many battles,

00:35:45.160 so many trials, and seeing God again and again, time after time come through, that at a certain

00:35:50.500 point in his life he just says it he just calls it as it is surely goodness and mercy shall follow

00:35:56.160 me all the days of my life and i shall dwell in the house of the lord forever he won't forsake me

00:36:03.900 or see his holy one seed decay because if he was going to leave me he already would have done it

00:36:10.080 but he's been with me thus far and so surely he will be with me to the very end as jesus promised

00:36:19.000 even to his disciples. Before he left them, he said, I will be with you even to the end of the

00:36:24.940 age. A promise for them and a promise just as good for you and I. But the river signifies death.

00:36:35.140 So four types to cover them once more. Moses, a type of Christ who has died. Joshua, his successor,

00:36:43.120 replacing him, also a type of Christ who is alive. Then we have Israel that is a type of the church

00:36:51.100 and the Jordan River, which serves as a type of death. So you guys are a smart bunch. You probably

00:36:58.220 get it, but just to spell it out for you, you have Jesus dying, Moses, and then Jesus leading the

00:37:07.200 church through death unto resurrection joshua that's the picture that we have now all that

00:37:15.540 having been established the final piece of the puzzle that we need to understand is this

00:37:21.640 jesus dying moses type of christ jesus resurrected three days literally it's like it's almost

00:37:29.380 allegory to the point where it's not even creative at the you know what i mean it's two on the nose

00:37:33.240 three days really okay God I mean I appreciate it because sometimes we can be a bit thick-headed

00:37:38.980 and and we need some of the obvious you know clues to you know to point us in you know what's going

00:37:44.740 on but we have you know Jesus died Moses and then we have three days resurrection passing the river

00:37:51.500 of death Jordan and Joshua but here's the final piece of the puzzle that I think a lot of New

00:37:56.580 testament christians especially in western civilization today miss because of the pietism

00:38:03.520 gnosticism thing that i defined earlier and that's why i took the time to do it this is what they

00:38:08.380 miss israel is going to pass through death following in resurrection life but unto what

00:38:17.300 to rest

00:38:19.660 to war

00:38:22.140 I'll say it again

00:38:24.700 Israel is going to pass through death

00:38:27.640 into resurrection life

00:38:30.600 but for what purpose

00:38:33.340 unto what end

00:38:35.380 for rest

00:38:36.480 for war

00:38:38.120 for war

00:38:40.020 and there are two and a half tribes

00:38:42.800 namely

00:38:45.720 the reubenites the gadites and the half tribe of manasseh that actually had the already provision

00:38:54.960 of rest that their land we don't know all the details but from what we can tell from the text

00:39:01.620 their land that they were to inherit was uncontested and so it's only a very small

00:39:08.400 portion of israel which again represents the church a type of the new testament church

00:39:13.460 it is not the whole church not even close but rather a minority a small portion of the church

00:39:19.820 if we can use those terms which we can and should that actually is going to be able to pass through

00:39:25.180 the Jordan River signifying death unto immediate rest and notice this which leads us into our next

00:39:32.480 point the final point from our text today the small minority portion of Israel that could pass

00:39:39.740 through the death of the Jordan unto rest, even they don't. What does Joshua say to them? He says

00:39:46.920 the word of Moses still stands true. We're under a different administration now. Namely, Joshua is

00:39:53.640 in command, no longer Moses, but both administrations, the human highest official, Moses and Joshua are

00:40:01.020 still subject to the highest official, which is not a person, but the law word of God. And it's

00:40:08.400 immutable and unchanging. So what God spoke to Israel, namely these two and a half tribes,

00:40:15.320 what he spoke through Moses is still good now that we have Joshua in command. And what is it?

00:40:21.360 That this land belongs to these two and a half tribes, and this land is already at rest. It is

00:40:27.560 uncontested, and it's ready to be settled right now. There are no pagan, wicked, enemy of God

00:40:34.240 inhabitants currently residing within this land the land designated to the reubenites the gadites

00:40:40.220 and the half tribe of manasseh so you could for all intents and purposes pass through the jordan

00:40:46.620 and immediately rest but joshua says but you're not going to instead what joshua says leave your

00:40:56.520 wives and children to rest to settle with provision but the men of valor of these two and a half

00:41:03.620 tribes, instead of resting yourselves with the land that God has already settled, you should

00:41:09.940 rather recognize that as a mercy from God. And with that mercy and the gratitude that springs

00:41:16.360 forth, having received God's mercy and blessing, in that gratitude, what should you do? You should

00:41:22.800 help your brothers. Go with them to war so that they can rest also. See, brothers and sisters,

00:41:31.800 we are called to fight and laugh and feast both war and rest fight laugh feast but here's the

00:41:40.460 last part the unspoken part but the part that nonetheless probably needs to be spoken from

00:41:45.300 time to time because i think we forget it we're called to fight laugh feast together

00:41:50.780 together it is not merely making it to the celestial city over the course of an afternoon

00:41:59.100 and enjoying Jesus all by yourself.

00:42:02.780 We live in such an individualistic, atomistic society

00:42:08.580 and such a Gnostic and pietistic society.

00:42:13.600 In other words, to speak plainly,

00:42:16.740 this has worked into the culture,

00:42:19.580 seeped into the culture of the church, sadly.

00:42:22.820 And what it means is that most Christians think in terms

00:42:25.820 of themselves as individuals having a forever honeymoon with jesus and that's it that's the

00:42:34.860 christian life they don't think about war they think about romantic honeymoons they think about

00:42:41.580 long walks on the beach with jesus and two things integral things if we believe the scripture are

00:42:49.580 missing in their imagination of the christian life with their long walk on the beach with jesus

00:42:54.840 the two things that are missing are this one there's no enemies on the beach

00:43:00.400 we get to have a long walk with jesus on the beach but it's kind of like the beach of normandy

00:43:05.140 and not in hawaii so one thing that's missing is enemies combat conquest battle

00:43:15.880 war the other thing that is missing is everyone else the enemies the opposition is missing

00:43:24.760 and the rest of the army your allies the church is missing it's not corporate it's isolated

00:43:33.460 it's private not corporate but private and not conquest and battle and war

00:43:41.560 but just romanticized boyfriend songs where you replace boyfriend with jesus and here we have

00:43:51.680 the modern, American, evangelical, Christian imagination.

00:43:59.300 And then we wake up one day in 2023 and say,

00:44:02.660 how'd the world get like this?

00:44:05.180 Really?

00:44:07.380 Really?

00:44:10.520 That's like having, you know, we have a pet tortoise in our home.

00:44:16.220 And it's great.

00:44:17.720 Tortoise, I highly recommend it.

00:44:19.140 low maintenance pet low maintenance and durable pet we got little kids they drop pets

00:44:25.860 it's got a built-in shield it's perfect it is perfect

00:44:30.120 but if we don't feed the tortoise or even look at it for two months and then walk by and the

00:44:37.640 tortoise is dead and my response to that scenario is how did this happen you know what i mean then

00:44:46.880 And it's just like, you're not qualified to have a tortoise,

00:44:49.520 but we also need to consider whether or not you should have children.

00:44:52.740 Should he be our pastor?

00:44:54.320 Should he be gainfully employed?

00:44:57.720 But that's the evangelical American church today.

00:45:00.300 How did this happen?

00:45:02.120 You're pietists.

00:45:03.580 You're Gnostics.

00:45:06.300 You think more in terms of the Enlightenment than the Scripture.

00:45:10.860 You're romanticized.

00:45:12.900 You're individualistic, atomistic.

00:45:14.860 You have no corporate language.

00:45:16.880 You think nothing can be a Christian except an individual regenerate person.

00:45:21.340 No Christian family, no Christian school, really starts to contradict some things

00:45:25.980 because you have a Christian seminary, but I guess that's an institution,

00:45:29.400 and institutions can't be Christian.

00:45:30.700 You're fools.

00:45:32.640 You're being foolish.

00:45:34.960 You're being foolish.

00:45:36.940 It's time to grow up.

00:45:38.800 It's time to put our big boy pants on.

00:45:42.120 It's time to get our provisions, as the text says,

00:45:45.340 to cross the river and know that the purpose of crossing the river

00:45:49.860 is for the purpose of war, of conquest.

00:45:54.500 We die with Christ, brothers and sisters. We do.

00:45:58.560 And we are resurrected and live with Christ. We do.

00:46:03.820 But we are resurrected unto eternal rest in one sense.

00:46:07.960 Both are true. It's both and, not either or.

00:46:10.120 we are resurrected unto eternal rest with Christ and war with Christ.

00:46:17.180 He is our Savior who grants us rest.

00:46:20.600 And he is also in the very same breath our commander in chief

00:46:24.580 who commands us to prepare our victuals, as the old King James would say,

00:46:31.000 to gird up our loins, to beat our plowshares into swords,

00:46:36.540 to muster our courage and valor

00:46:40.260 for the glory of the king

00:46:43.700 for the welfare of our wives and our children

00:46:47.140 for the good of our land

00:46:50.540 unto war, Christian soldier

00:46:54.580 unto war

00:46:56.300 the church is both militant and triumphant

00:47:00.200 but the key is when and where

00:47:04.040 the church is triumphant but theologically within the reformed tradition and beyond this has always

00:47:13.440 been spoken of in terms the church being triumphant in terms of the church in heaven

00:47:19.680 that's when you're done but the church on earth the body of christ is not the church triumphant

00:47:29.980 but always has been theologically spoken of consistently as the church militant

00:47:36.280 the church militant the problem is that we have a bunch of christians in the church today still

00:47:45.080 alive called to be corporate unified and militant instead living christian lives that are isolated

00:47:52.720 individualistic private pietist and living as though it's triumphant before they actually

00:48:00.060 get there it's almost like a virtual reality christianity

00:48:04.280 is what we're seeing a virtual reality christianity let it not be so of us

00:48:12.800 let me finish with this a quote from c.s lewis this is from the horse and his boy

00:48:21.520 And it's quoting King Loon, who was the king of Archenland, which was an ally to Narnia.

00:48:30.640 It came in their defense.

00:48:32.900 He's now instructing what a king should be.

00:48:37.940 For this is what it means to be a king, to be first in every desperate attack and last

00:48:45.260 in every desperate retreat.

00:48:46.980 and when there's hunger in the land as must be now and then in bad years to be a king is to wear

00:48:55.620 finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land that's what it is

00:49:04.940 to be a king first to attack last to retreat and in times of providence when provisions are few

00:49:14.020 not to paint yourself up with dust and ashes like the pharisees did

00:49:21.180 choosing not to bathe they wanted everyone to know that they were fasting to look scrawny to

00:49:28.740 look mournful no no a king is in 2023 when they're mutilating children and murdering them in the womb

00:49:36.280 a king takes it seriously he's the first into battle the last to retreat and though don't miss

00:49:43.280 says as he's fighting he's laughing he's laughing his kids are not afraid

00:49:52.600 the weight of the matter is in fact waiting but the kids don't know it i can't even remember the

00:50:02.100 the movie i want to say schindler's list maybe but i remember distinctly watching a movie when

00:50:07.060 i was younger with my parents i think it was black and white and it was about the holocaust

00:50:11.980 and it was about a father and his son in an internment camp and he's the whole time

00:50:20.520 like making it like a game to where they're in one of the most terrible scenarios you could imagine

00:50:27.640 and yet the child is having a decent time and even when he's being taken off at the end

00:50:35.180 to the gas chamber to die he hides his boy away there's a little crack where the boy's able to

00:50:41.580 see his father. And his father's making a joke out of it and marching like this and smiling

00:50:47.460 and winking at his son. Because it's two things. One, he cares for the boy. There are certain

00:50:57.400 things that our children are not ready to carry. But two, it's not just pretending for the sake

00:51:06.340 of the boy he's pretending for the sake of the boy in the christian reality is actually not

00:51:11.900 pretending it's actually living into the truer reality because we are able to say death where

00:51:19.800 is your sting we're able to actually laugh as we go to the gas chamber because christ has won

00:51:30.900 His victory is final.

00:51:33.500 This world and all its pain and sin and rebellion against God

00:51:37.660 is not the end of the story.

00:51:40.520 It's not.

00:51:42.840 And so we raise our children to know the whole story.

00:51:46.240 And the whole story involves things that are sad.

00:51:50.800 Truly, deeply sad.

00:51:55.280 But sadness is swallowed up in joy.

00:51:58.120 though the sadness may last for the night the joy comes in the morning darkness is swallowed up in

00:52:05.920 light death swallowed up in victory the truer truth is life not death light not darkness

00:52:19.700 and so we're able what that does is it doesn't cause you to be a pietist disengaged when we

00:52:27.220 truly believe the truest end of the story what it allows you to do instead is it allows you to

00:52:33.280 embrace honestly with integrity every ounce of the darkness because you can bear it because the light

00:52:42.260 outweighs it the light is greater it allows you to be brutally honest with death because death

00:52:51.600 pales in comparison to life and the final end of the story is that death is swallowed up

00:52:58.060 in life a king and we are all brothers and sisters called to be a holy priesthood

00:53:05.900 a kingdom of priests to live and reign with the son a christian king

00:53:13.040 is first to the fight last in retreat and laughing along the way

00:53:20.940 the final application some of you like the gadites the reubenites and the half tribe of manasseh

00:53:31.780 some of you already have a higher degree of rest none of us as a church militant in this life as

00:53:41.240 long as we're in this life none of us have complete rest there's always a battle but there

00:53:47.120 are degrees of battle in this life and degrees of victory. And there's a corporate sense, but there

00:53:54.180 is also an individual sense. What I'm saying is this. Some of you, there's the spiritual and the

00:54:01.380 practical application. Speaking first to the spiritual, some of you have been following Jesus

00:54:06.600 more faithfully and for a longer period of time. And therefore, you have achieved by grace alone,

00:54:14.200 God working in you and through you that which is good and pleasing in his sight

00:54:18.420 but by grace Christ work in and through you you have achieved a higher degree of rest

00:54:25.100 from what in the spiritual sense from sin you have conquered more enemies namely the enemy

00:54:34.100 of your own flesh and the sin as Romans 7 says that still resides within the members of your being

00:54:39.840 You have, by God's grace, his work in and through you, you have been able to attain to a higher

00:54:46.020 degree, even in this life, of rest than some of your other brothers and sisters.

00:54:51.720 So like the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, what should you do

00:54:56.720 with that higher degree of sanctification? Struggling with less temptation in a particular

00:55:03.240 area than perhaps the average Christian. I have a picnic and enjoy it. No, go and help your

00:55:10.400 brothers. You have other brothers who are warring right now. They're in the fiercest part of their

00:55:18.020 battle. They're being slaughtered by lust. Some of the vain, carnal, fleshly temptation

00:55:31.220 we're surrounded in in the world and they have not yet achieved the same degree of victory by grace

00:55:37.660 in that particular area as you have so what's the spiritual application for us this principle that

00:55:44.580 i'm getting at from our text today one is very simple discipleship

00:55:50.660 as you by god's grace attain to higher degrees of sanctification and victory over sin which

00:55:58.740 brings a sense of spiritual rest even in this life. Share the wealth. Go to those who are less

00:56:07.020 mature in the faith and teach them. Fight with them. Not fighting against them, but joining with

00:56:15.560 them and fighting against their sin. And show them how to wield the sword against that particular

00:56:22.120 foe that by God's grace you have experienced a great degree of success in yourself.

00:56:28.740 And now the practical application.

00:56:32.500 Some of you have achieved by grace, same principle.

00:56:36.280 It's not your own doing.

00:56:38.220 You cannot boast.

00:56:40.180 You've worked, yes.

00:56:42.820 But your work is simply a manifestation of Christ willing and working in and through you.

00:56:50.360 And so too, as Christ works by the Spirit and sanctification in and through us against sin in this life,

00:56:56.280 in the spiritual sense, so too Christ gives us victory and achievement and success in practical

00:57:03.360 matters as well. So to speak plainly, some of you are older, literally older.

00:57:13.200 Some of you own land. Some of you don't. Some of you are in your 60s or 70s. Some of you are in

00:57:21.800 your 20s some of you have raised eight children some of you have one two-year-old

00:57:28.500 and so in the latter years of your life in the practical sense

00:57:35.620 biblically speaking there is no category known as retirement

00:57:41.380 it's not and you can retire from a particular vocation

00:57:47.460 but you you don't ever retire from productivity the last years of your life are the years where

00:57:57.460 you have acquired the most wisdom the most experience and you don't have the physical

00:58:03.860 strength anymore you know and that's so gracious on god's part you think about the way he designed

00:58:08.700 the the cycle of human life you know what me and my wife need right now we need spiritual wisdom

00:58:15.940 but we also really need physical energy we need a lot of physical energy with four little ones in

00:58:24.280 our home five and under now when our children are older i won't need that much energy i could be in

00:58:31.160 a wheelchair i'd like to not be but i could be but you know what what my kids will need then

00:58:36.340 they're gonna need like if i have a wheelchair they're gonna need me to shave my head and have

00:58:40.680 like some professor xavier wisdom to offer you know what i mean i don't necessarily have to run

00:58:45.360 around and roll on the floor as much as I used to. But I better have some answers to some of the

00:58:51.540 tough questions in life. Well, so too, for some of you, more seasoned saints would be the euphemism.

00:59:00.800 It's true, though. Seasoned saints, the nice way to put it. It's a true way to put it.

00:59:05.840 Some of you, it's not just a spiritual discipleship and spiritually speaking,

00:59:09.680 warring against sin, but it's also practically, you know how to budget a checkbook.

00:59:16.900 A lot of young people today don't. I mean, that's always been a problem with young people,

00:59:23.260 not particularly wise with money, but especially in this current generation.

00:59:29.440 Some of you, you know how to invest. Some of you know how to buy land and maintain it.

00:59:36.500 some of you you have kids but you've raised them your youngest is 20 where somebody else their

00:59:44.740 oldest is three and you have some of that time and that wisdom that you can come and instead of

00:59:51.100 just enjoying the rest because guess what we're gonna enjoy the rest the church triumphant that

00:59:56.720 comes it does come but it's not here yet you're not dead yet praise god and i think of the apostle

01:00:05.080 of Paul, where he's hard pressed, he says, between the two options. And he's being facetious in his

01:00:11.560 language. He knows that the options aren't his, but ultimately the Lord and his sovereignty, God

01:00:16.380 will decide. But he says, if I remain in the body, then that means fruitful labor for me. And it's

01:00:23.240 better for your sake, church. But if I die, then to be absent in the body is to be present with the

01:00:30.300 Lord, which is far better. What Paul is essentially saying is this. If I die, I'll be with Jesus.

01:00:38.580 And that's my choice. That is the best. But if I live, it means fruitful language. It's flowery,

01:00:46.220 pretty language. But what he's saying is this. If I'm alive, as long as I'm alive, down to the very

01:00:52.640 end, until the final bell rings, as long as I'm living, fruitful labor, it's just another way of

01:00:58.420 saying, if I'm alive, it means work. It means work. And if I work, that's good for you. You

01:01:04.320 guys want me to be alive because it's not going to be work for myself. It's going to be work for

01:01:07.480 you. So if I'm alive, I'm going to keep working to help out some of you crazy, immature Christians

01:01:14.620 that need some help. You know, and he's saying it nicely, but, but if I die, that'd be really great

01:01:21.480 because it's a lot of work and I've been doing it for quite a while and I'm starting to get

01:01:28.280 a little tired. But the principle there, it's just as plain. What I've been saying all along,

01:01:33.620 that's just another biblical example. Paul is saying it is to the younger, less mature

01:01:39.900 Christians benefit that the more seasoned saint like Paul, that his life continue a little longer.

01:01:46.620 Because as long as he is in that life, as long as we are in this life, it means rest.

01:01:53.280 not in the truest sense everything we do comes from rest and faith in christ and the finished

01:02:00.020 work of the gospel but in the very same breath the christian life as long as we're living here

01:02:06.180 on earth means work the church triumphant true and final rest heaven the church militant that's

01:02:15.980 the church on earth. That's the church alive. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word.

01:02:23.260 Bless it to your people for our good and your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.

01:02:27.780 Can I be frank with you for just a second right here at the end? Look, some of you guys,

01:02:32.300 you're financially supporting this ministry, and from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you. I

01:02:37.700 cannot thank you enough. However, some of you, you just, you can't afford it. In fact, some of you,

01:02:45.040 you shouldn't afford it. Let's be honest. I mean, we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy.

01:02:51.780 Our nation and our totalitarian political elites lost their minds over the last three years

01:02:59.920 due to COVID. We have written checks that we simply cannot cash. It doesn't matter if people

01:03:06.840 change the definition of a recession. We are living in a recession right now, regardless.

01:03:13.680 Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of eggs at the grocery store.

01:03:18.300 You cannot support financially this ministry at this time, nor should you.

01:03:24.540 But you could still help us tremendously.

01:03:27.360 I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do so, take one minute of your time.

01:03:33.280 Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform, iTunes, Spotify, whatever that might be.

01:03:40.680 This is the way the system works.

01:03:42.420 We want to be innocent as doves, but shrewd as vipers.

01:03:46.980 We need to be strategic.

01:03:48.840 You leave us a five-star review, and our podcast shows up for more people.

01:03:53.820 And the Word of God and courageous theology applied in practical ways to every realm of

01:04:00.580 life gets out there.

01:04:02.660 Help us get it out there.

01:04:04.340 Thanks for tuning in.

The NXR Podcast - April 23, 2023

SUNDAY SERMON - How Pietism & Gnosticism Castrated American Evangelicalism

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