What does “being a Christian” mean, actually? Ep-1478 - podcast episode cover

What does “being a Christian” mean, actually? Ep-1478

Mar 20, 202446 minSeason 1Ep. 1478
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Episode description

I ask a question in a weird grammatical sense. This is taking off from something that the young people do on Youtube. They'll say things like “How good is this band actually?”. I ask the question "What does “being a Christian” mean, actually?”, because many young people are investigating Christianity. Praise God! Except, Satan loves to use the trick of believing in God to tell you you’re good and do not need to change the way you live. We examine the things that determine if you are actually a Christian and if you are being transformed by Jesus. When social media and entertainment say there are many ways to God, it is important to know what things are salvation issues. We also talk about the ways Jesus is portrayed in our culture.

What Does God’s Word say? 
John 1:1-5
John 14:25-27
John 14:6-7Acts 2:22-25
Matthew 16:13-20
John 3:1-9
Matthew 12:31-32
1 Peter 8
Revelation 20:11-15

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Transcript

Good morning one, joining us live. If you're watching and or listening later, we love you equally. Yeah, I saw the breaking news. I saw that the Supreme Court said that the state of Texas could enforce you know, not being invaded by legal immigrants. And then the Appeals Court said, now you have to let that continue to happen. So we're live. We can respond to breaking news that way that happened yesterday. But there is this

news that's not changing. It's not going to change until judgment Day. That is that there is salvation available for you through the blood of Jesus Christ. Reason I wanted to talk about this today is most of you know this. Most of you know this, some of you have not made the decision to respond to it. The reason I wanted to talk about it is at a fascinating discussion last week with a couple of younger guys who were well pretty responsible

for helping to build the Daily Wire into what it's become. And I mean, there's a whole bunch of people working on They're hardly claiming to be the ones who built it, but they have great insight into what's going on into the youtubes. And I was shocked at how many young people, particularly young men, are becoming Christian curious for saying now they're Christian. I saw the other day that there's once again another celebrities come out and spoke in the Lord's

name. And my wife told me that there's a young woman who had sex on film for money and she now says she's a Christian. And of course we feel great joy at that, obviously, and we live in a world where Satan has very cleverly said, sure, be a Christian, absolutely absolutely, here's how you can be a Christian and still serve me. Well,

of course you can't actually be a Christian serving Christ. But these young people who are looking into this are investigating this in a world where Satan has provided so much distraction and distortion about what being a Christian actually means. It's not the easy thing people think it is. Redemption's easy. It's a free gift. You can take it. The Lord offers it, you can't earn it. But there's more to it. Satan doesn't want us to think about that.

We're going to talk about this with the help of some images of House. The Lord Jesus is viewed, or i should say marketed these days and images that people don't want to see him ass but they're also accurate. We'll talk about this with the help of renewed dot Healthcare, and of course we do this only through the province of the good grace of God Almighty. The Todd Herman Show is one hundred percent disapproved by big pharma technocrats and tyrants everywhere.

No from the high mountains of Free America. Here's the Emerald City exile cod Herman. Today is a day the Lord has made in these are the time so which God is to Sadam we shall live. It was pretty cool to hear from guys in there. I'm guessing maybe mid thirties, the data on how many young men in the YouTube world are seeking Jesus or are professing Christianity, and it reminds me very much of my quest in a different way.

We didn't have YouTube, or we didn't have social media at the time, but my quest to become a Christian started as an intellectual thing and as a dear friend. Here's a brother of mine and I don't see him enough, and it really hurts to not see him more often. His name is Matthew, and we became best friends in eighth grade, and I think we became brothers probably ninth grade. I've told you about his family, Unbelievably Jesus

focused Catholic people who started my walk to the Lord. Garing. Karen and I considered them god parents, and they've been kind of to consider me sort of an adopted son. And I had that love, but I didn't connect it to Jesus. They were just a loving family. They were different because they were smarter, they had a better family, because they made more money. They just happened to be really good people. It didn't occur to me

that I was seeing the face of God through them. When I became brothers with Matthew, I knew something was different about him, but I never connected it to well, yeah, it's your Holy spiritracy. Yeah, God has gifted with intelligence and humor and great skill as a musician, and a loyalty, gentility, curiosity, so many of the traits I find attractive in human beings, and I never really understood. Yeah, but what you're seeing is the Holy Spirit. You can give them all the credit you like, but

they didn't design themselves. They also made the decision as a family unit to follow Jesus. So when I began to investigate faith. I started at the intellectual level. So Matthew suggested I read C. S. Lewis, and I did, and some other books and I did, and the deconstructionists and I did, people who are arguing against the faith, and I did to have this bounce approach to it. I remember when I bought my first Bible, I felt great. It was an Oxford antitated Bible. I still have

it. I remember carrying it back to my office through downtown Seattle and beginning to read that and study it. But I was studying it. I wasn't attempting to know God. I was attempting to study him as if my intellect could lead me to understands a being that has existed for all time and always will exist. So one of the biggest myths that's sent to young people about the Christian faith is it's in a book. Yeah, the Bible is vital, so long as you understand it's a love letter. It's a series of

love letters from a loving father who wants you back in the family. It's not an well It is an instruction kit on how to deal with one another and how to live. And it's an owner's manual for our bodies and our minds and our relationships, all those things. But it's also a series of love letters written by human hands inspired by God, a love letter directly to you. And from time to time, your view of the Bible is going

to change. Your view of Scripture is going to change because your circumstances changed. Your life's are cumstances change. That's not a mistake. And that's many, many thousands of pages sixty six books of the Bible. There are going to be times while you read a proverb one day and it makes no sense to you, and the next day it is crisp and clear and so meaningful

to you. But the first step in understanding this, if you're a young person and you're investigating the Christian faith, is Jesus Christ wants to have a relationship with you. He wants to walk with you, he wants to struggle with you. He wants you to yoke yourself to him. And that's like two farm animals oxen yoked together. He say, Hey, yoke yourself to me. My burden is easy, My yoka is light. My yoke is easy, My burden is light. Walk with me, let me carry give

it to me. That is the fundamental relationship that we have with the Lord once we accept him, and that relationship grows closer over time. So I want to get into the depths of this is a degree that I can I'm not qualified to preach. I'm not a pastor. I went to a pastor our residency. I'll probably screw some things up. I'll do my best, and I hope that God works through me where I'm going to screw up and save me from that. This is the world in which young people are exploring

the Lord Jesus. This is a video called who is My Neighbor? So you can see its pictures of diverse people, many of them meth heads, obviously crackheads. The one you don't notice, don't welcome, don't like someone begging a street person on the street. Truly, that's true. And this is the same group that put out the video saying he gets us. They

are our neighbors. And this is a true fact. And what the group that's putting this out wants you to think is that the Lord Jesus looks at them and says keep doing it. So fact number one to consider in relation to Jesus is understand something that he hates sin. The Lord Jesus hates it. God hates sin, and sin has the capability to divorce us from God because if we sin and get really good at it, we cannot have partnership with God. He cannot, in that holy sense, as a holy being,

stand to be around continuous living in sin. It's not that there's mistakes that we can't make. We do make them. But Jesus and God are not saying to someone who's on meth or stealing or in that video, if you're on the video service, you saw the man dressed as a woman. God is not saying continue that behavior. God is saying that sin will keep you. I cannot be around it. It's not that he can't be around people who have sinned. He's anxious to forgive, he's righteous to forgive.

He knows it's hard for us. Continuing to sin drives a wedge between you and a holy God who cannot stand to be around it. They so want to show this Jesus, the gentle Lamb, and this is definitely an aspect of the Lord Jesus. This is the Jesus of the sexual left, because that's the Jesus who says I love you no matter what. He does love us no matter what. And a hack can't have you continue to do that. I cannot we can leave that up place. I cannot continue to have

you continue to sin in this way, to practice this sin. It's because he loves This is the lamb of God. This image, it's one of the images of the Lamb of God. So the sexual left wants us to see that little lamb, that little lamb was born that way. If that little lamb went running to jump off a cliff, the good shepherd would stop the lamb from jumping off the cliff. If there was a lion coming to consume that little lamb, the good shepherd would step in and prevent the lion

from harming that little lamb. Satan is a roaring lion, and he seeks to devour you, to destroy you, and to destroy your family. And that same loving Jesus will when you give your life to him and you accept him as Lord and savior and act that way, he will stand between you and the roaring lion. He will arm you, he will equip you. This is never discussed from the perspective of modernity. They would rather discuss things

like this This is from TikTok. This is called gentle parenting. So like Jesus the gentle Lamb, the Lamb of God, gentle parenting is well kind of let the kids do whatever they want. I want to teach you, guys a trick that it was a total game changer for my parenting. And I want to give you a real life adult scenario because I think it'll help you better understand why this is such a big deal. The other day, my husband was working in the garage and I was inside working on some important

things for work. All of a sudden, he came in the house and he said, I need your help right now in the garage. Well, I was in the middle of something, so this immediately frustrated me. I took a deep breath and I said, can you give me two to three minutes? And it dawned on me when Peyton is in the middle of something that she actually enjoys, and I say, come on, it's time to go, or come on, it's bedtime, or come on, it's nap time, it's time to eat. You need to stop what you're doing right

this very second. Come do what mommy is telling you to do. Oh wonder if she gets frustrated. I don't like it when somebody does that to me as an adult. So here's our trick. We use a timer. If she's in the middle of something and we need to transition, I'll go in and say, Peyton, I can see that you're having fun right now. I'm going to set a timer for five minutes, and whenever this goes off, we're going to do bathtime or whatever activity you need to transition to.

Trust me, total game changer. It's not a bad approach. Here's something that I've done with my kids from the beginning that helps to set us up for less tantrums. Okay, I don't take things from them unless they like pick them a knife, which hasn't happened. So let's say you have a new crawler and they wiggle their way all the way over to a little fuzz on the carpet. You don't want them to eat it, but when

they reach for it, don't just snatch it away from them. They worked hard to get there, and even though they can't express it, if you take that without getting them even the satisfaction of being able to pick it up and say I did this, they're gonna start feeling possessive of things because they don't want them to be taken away. So let them grab it and then say something like oh, thank you, and then gently take it out of

their hand. As they get older, you can say, oh, yucky, help me put this in the garbage, and then help them by carrying them or walk them over to the garbage and let them put it in there. This instills trust that just because you see that they have something, you're not going to take it, and it translates into toys, and it also translates into sharing with older siblings. So this is this approach called gentle parenting, and in those two cases they're not horribly extreme. What they morph into

in gentle parenting is anarchy. In the first instance, setting the timer great is set the timer what one. The timer goes off and the kid says no, gentle parenting becomes anarchy. There's plenty of instances that this is gentle parenting. The process of understanding God the Father for parents, and this I missed is us being under the evident guidance of God, the evident control of God. Following his rules is key for these relationships because unlike gentle parenting,

there are things God says you need to do. Now, you need to accept my son. Now you need to impress my word upon your kids. Now you need to act like a change being. If you've accepted the Lord Jesus. Now you need to seek to have less sin in your life, to not sin the same way. You need to seek to grow closer to Me. And here's how to do it. Time with my word, time with my people, time with people who hold you to accounts. Time and

worship, actual worship. What sold to young people is Christianity is hey, I read some books, man some church, and man, I believe. And that's great that you believe. That is not the full kit. That shouldn't come as a surprise to us when Jesus is marketed as this sort of millennial all thumbs up, all thumbs up to everything you want to do. In this image, the thumbs up is implied for everything. Well, just like a parent cannot give a thumbs up to everything. Jesus will let us

make mistakes, so let us pick up the fuzz on the carpet. He'll even let us eat it. But then he's there to say, how'd it work? Now? It was my way better his way? Is better. What what's sold to young people is that's Jesus loving your behaviors. He can love you and not love your behaviors. This next image is the one that no one on the sexual left wants to admit is true that young people who are investigating the Lord Jesus, they are not finding this. This is Jesus

coming as judge, as king, to come back and make decisions. There are people who will spend etrinity in hell. There are people who will spend the Trinity and the New Heaven and the New Earth with Jesus the lamb in an environment where there is no sin. There can't be because of the way God has set up the rules and the way He's making us holier by the process of working with him. That's how we become holy as we work with

him. You've ever gotten to know someone better than actually working side by side with them on a hard project. This is how God wants to work with us. There are some issues that are so serious that they're called salvation issues. There are things that you as a Christian must accept, and I'll probably screw some of these up, and I'll do my very very best, but it's better than what's being marketed to people on Youtubebe to young people that the

act of being a Christian is to say, I'm a Christian. I believe God exists, I believe in Jesus and such and maybe even a devil. Maybe you have to believe in both, because Jesus spoke of the devil. As C. S. Lewis said, Jesus either is exactly what he said he is the Son of God, the Messiah, part of the Triune God, or may as well be posted egg choose. This is something that people who are investigating Christianity, young people on YouTube, they're being lied about,

lied to about. You have to choose. Is Jesus exactly who he said he was, exactly who he said he was or not. And if he's exactly who he said he was, then everything he said is true. Everything he said is true. Being the only way to the Father in the salvation issues, young people are being kept away from one of the key and most important issues. Listen to this yogi talk. Jesus is just talking about the yoga of devotion, nothing else, because one thing that's his way. He's

dimensional. He's just talking about one dimension of approaching the ultimate. He's just saying just follow me, it'll happen. It is devotion. Christian is also saying the same things. He's saying, I am the way. I think Jesus said something like you can only know my father through me. But I think he went further somewhere else and said me and my Father are one. But in that part of the world, I think such a thing was total sacrilege. Anybody claiming that me and my father are won means that I am

God. Such a claim will immediately bring that penalty that part of the world. And yet it did bring the death penalty. Jesus knew exactly what it would bring. He said, it will bring that. So let's start at the very beginning. And this is what people are not getting, young people who are seeking to understand Christianity or even calling themselves Christians. Let's start here in Genesis Genesis one, verses three through five, and God said, let

there be light. There was light. God saw the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morning in the first day. So the God that this guy wants to compare Christiana to he started things off this way. He foresaw throughout the Bible speaks for of the coming of the Lord Jesus. In fact, if you dig a little further into Genesis, you get to this the beginning. In the

beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. The what oh, the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. So God created the earth and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. The Christian were probably the yogi who wants to say, yeah, but Christian and all these other paths, they didn't do this, or maybe they did. You choose. The Bible states this

very very clearly, that there's one God that did all these things. So being a Christian is to accept these facts. Period. You could say, well, no, some of this is allegory. No, that's not what the Bible says. The Bible does not say it's allegory. You're being told that pick could choose the stories from the Boby you like, the teachings you like, that's not what Jesus said. That's not what it says in the Book of revelation as it wraps up. Don't add to or subtract from.

This makes a very similar claim in our very similar order in deuterotomy. I believe in John. Now, this is in the New Testament John chapter one, verses one through five. Remember what we just talked about in Genesis, the spirit of God. Remember that God spoke the world into existence. He said, let there be light. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him,

nothing that has been made, nothing was made. That has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of mankind, of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John is talking about the Lord Jesus being there at the very beginning. We just write about God and the Spirit of God, and Jesus was there at the very beginning. So you have to believe these things. Well, but John's just a dude. No, John's not just a dude.

John is a guy who walked with the Lord Jesus on earth, side by side, who worked next to him, who struggled with him, who became friends with him who was given knowledge immediately poured into him personally by the Lord Jesus, and then through the Holy Spirit. You have to believe these things or you're not a Christian. You can dabble in it, but you're denying God. If you don't believe these things, you're denying his word. That puts a wedge between you and him, and enough wedges and you can't

see him anymore or hear his voice anymore. In John chapter fourteen, verse twenty five through twenty seven, all this I've spoken while still with you. This is the Lord Jesus speaking. But the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I've said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be

afraid. That's the Lord Jesus making mention of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. So as a Christian, when you accept the Lord Jesus, you are welcoming into your body the Holy spirits who dwell within you, the actual Kingdom of Heaven within you. You have to believe these things. To not believe them is to drive wedges between you and the Lord and to deny him. No, there's more than one God. No, sorry, you're out. That is a salvation issue. There's not more than one God.

Jesus Christ is his son. And Jesus did say there's one way. There's one way. Despite what Oprah Winfrey wants to talk about from time to time, this is an old clip to be a fair to her. I don't know that she's changed. She's a little sick. You know, is one way and only one way, and that is Jesus. Couldn't possibly be only one Jesus. Are there many paths to get to the one God? Well, I believe opened it there. I believe that Jesus is the way to

the one God. But I believe the many past to Jesus. Do you not hear that from a battle? I believe that Jesus is a path for God, that there are many paths to Jesus. Where are the other paths to forget to Jesus? Somebody help me? Do you know what you don't know? Do you know I didn't want to stop from the book. Do I as been scared on record on opera. I believe that Jesus because you know that I did said Jesus is not they will attack him because of polity.

I said about homosexology, which you say on the peat again, he said, let me talk to it in a nice way, because I let me know, do like Opra Monrad was, Jesus come in you anyway to go, So let me not go a prast. So let me do like a Pato the pastor ride denial of Christ. If any man preach any other gospel, even if it's an angel, the Bible says, let them be a curse. You don't know how Jesus would reveal himself to somebody, so I'm not into excluding people. Jesus can reveal himself to him. I don't

know how anybody. So they got true for rebellion depth my body through his love they got, and you got. So let's pause and just think about this. Yeah, the act of being in Islam can show you evil. The Lord Jesus could come to you. First of all, people only get to come to the Lord Jesus because the Father calls them. Father says, these are the ones I want. But darkness cannot partner with light. Jesus is not in partnership with Mohammed or Krishna. They're not partners. Many paths

to the Lord Jesus. Yeah, there's many ways that people come to faith, but all of them start by the Father calling you to himself. That's how it starts. Joel Olstein saying there are many pasts to Jesus is sort of a way to dodge what Jesus very very clearly said, which is so vital to understand, and it is truly a salvation issue. It goes to the very heart and fact of salvation issues. When we speak of heart, we often think about, right the moral implications of hearts, and that's all

very very true. Heart, mind, soul. You were created body, mind and soul as one unit boom, created by God. Just like that. You were created with working parts. That man, what we've done to our working parts. I do wonder in heaven how much how much conversation God's going to have with us about why did you guys do that to all the food I created? There is right now in this country a huge problem affecting about one hundred million Americans. People don't like to talk about this because it's

gross and it's fatty liver. You have not been successful in dropping fat and you're still on that path. I want you to know. I talked to a company makes a product called Liver Liver Health. First thing I asked him is well, but this can be solved if people drop weight. They said, oh yeah, yeah, No, we want to emphasize this to people. The first priority is to not be so fat that you end up with fatty liver. And in fact, but people do have it. My dad

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todd. You also get this free bonus gift for your order, and it's a thirty day supply plus the free gift, So it's get liverhelp dot com slash todd, Get liverhelp dot com slash todd. And take care of the very container that stores the Holy Spirit within you. That is the temple of your body. The body is a temple. This is something that young people are also not really aware of. How don't mean to say that you're not

when I'm talking about young people. I'm talking about these people who think God, praise God are now beginning to investigate Christianity, but so many of them are doing it at the head level, not the heart level. God wants a loving relationship with you, and he is very very clear Joel Olstein very clear. Jesus said, he's the Messiah. He died for our sins. Only through him can we get to the Father. In John chapter fourteen, verse six, verses six and seven, Jesus answered, I am. They

asked him, where is you going? Where are you going? How come we can't follow? Where's the map? And Jesus said, look, guys, I am the Way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well from now on. You do know him and have seen him. To be a Christian is to understand. That is the path. To understand that the Father calls you to himself through the Lord Jesus.

It's like an introduction. These are things you must believe to be a Christian and must act upon. We cannot earn grace. Once we're say right, we want to respond, and some of the ways we know that we've truly been saved. This by how response is driven in us, what we're driven to do. When you're changed by God, you're driven to act in different ways. Again. In Acts chapter two twenty through twenty two through twenty five, here's Peter Okay, apostle Peter. Now you must understand the context here.

They knew the Lord was tortured. He was beaten and whipped. That beating was so severe his ribs were probably showing through his back. That's what the scourging did to him. He went on that cross for three hours, and God poured out on him the cup of wrath that have been saved up for us. This is why the Lord Jesus said, I don't want to drink from this cup. This is the major reality that people who are now dabbling with are investigating coming to Christ. You must understand the depth of this,

this act for you. And this is Peter, and he's speaking in front of about five thousand maybe more people. This is at something after Pentecost, they were given the Holy spirits. This was Peter's first sermon, public sermon. Peter's speaking here in front of the same people who tortured Jesus Christ to death. Okay, he is right now, a guy who had run away, he'd hid, he denied Jesus. Oh, I don't know any guide him. Jesus. What are you talking about. I've never been to

Nazareth. Noah, the dudes insane. Ah never been there who Jesus. You mean Jesus the Gardener. No, I don't. But somehow he's brave enough to do this in front of probably the very soldiers who carried out that death, definitely in front of the very bosses, the religious technocrats, bureaucrats.

And Peter spoke, fellow Israelites, listen to this, Jesus, if Natherras was a man accredited to God, by God, to you by miracles, wonders and signs which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know, this man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreign knowledge, and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by kneeling to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, fring him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to

keep his hold on him. He speaks these words knowing full well that that could bring him to the same fate well, and ultimately it did. Peter was crucified, and the tradition in the church is that he was crucified upside down, but not before he had to watch his wife be tortured and crucified. That's what the tradition of the church tells us these vital salvation beliefs. You must believe that Jesus Christ died for you. You must believe that it

was a personal decision on your behalf. The depth of this relationship is what we're seeking to describe here. Imagine if your father, your own personal father, did this for you. If you'd been sentenced to prison and a beating, and your dad stepped up and said, no, no, I'll do it, No take me, you'd weep, no Dad, No, yes, I'm doing it for you. They cannot do this to you, son.

That's what Jesus did. In Matthew chapter sixteen, Verses thirteen through twenty, Peter declares Jesus is the Messiah. When Jesus came to the region of Cascernia, Philippine, he asked his disciples, who do people say? The Son of Man is the reply? Some say John the Baptist, other say Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets, which was a big deal to say one of the prophets. They've been without prophets in Israel for a long time. But what about you, Jesus asked, who do you

say? I am? Simon Peter answered, you're the Messiah, the son of the Living God. And Jesus replied, blessed are you, Simon of Jonah. For this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in Heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter. And on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. And I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever

you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Then he ordered his disciples to not tell anyone yet that he was the Messiah. Jesus is the Messiah. He did die for our sins. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. And this is something that Christians have to believe, or you're not yet there. Now. Peter had to develop his faith. His faith was tested and he failed multiple times. It is not possible for human beings to never have doubt. That's just how we're made. That's part

of a brokenness. One of the key elements of Christianity that we're not good at saying is it doesn't solve everything. Becoming a Christian will not alleviate your pain here that it will not You will face troubles in this world, but you'll be armed and equipped in ways that you're not now. Prosperity Gospel get that gets that part all wrong. We must accept Jesus and be born of the spirit rather than the flesh. John three, verses one through nine.

Now there was a pharisee. This is a teacher of the law. The pharisee a man named Nicodemus, who is a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night. Secretly, he came and said, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who's come from God, for no one could perform the signs you're doing if God was not with him. Jesus replied, very truly, I tell you, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless they're born again. The Kademus asked, how can they

be born when they're old. Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother's womb to be born. Jesus said, very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God unless they're born of the water and the spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying you must be born again. The wind blows wherever it pleases you. Hear it sound, you

cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. We were born all of us of mothers. Sorry sexual left mothers are adult human females, not men. Men cannot do this. In that birth, we were given the gift of life. In this we're given the opportunity for a new life to be born of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit in us, so that we can become more and

more holy, and closer and closer and closer to God. And the fact is, when you accept this, the Holy Spirit dwells within you, and blaspheming the Holy Spirit is a grievous and in fact unforgivable sin. I can't tell you I know what it is to blasphem the Holy Spirit. I know, I'm very careful about it. Matthew Chapter twelve, verses thirty one through thirty two. And so I tell you every kind of sin and slander can

be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. That seems to me to be an indicator that's once you've been saved, if you make a decision to blasphem the Holy Spirit, you can screw it all up and not be forgiven. That's controversial.

I know there's people who believe once saved, always saved. I would actually say this, once saved, why take the chance. Furthermore, once you love Jesus, why disappoint him that way? The biggest probably most well, the second most controversial thing I think for young people. First most controversial is

men leading the household. The young women I know hate that and it's wildly misunderstood, and we've addressed it. Here's one that no one wants to talk about, and that is the fact that Satan is an actual being who seeks to destroy you and keep you from God forever. One Peter eight. Be alert and sober of mind. Your enemy. The devil prows like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour you. As a Christian, are duty bound to believe in Satan. Jesus spoke about Satan. He spoke about the

enemy. He talked about the time in the desert. Why do you think the apostles knew the time in the desert happened. They weren't there with him, he told them, And the apostles weren't of Satan as a being set on seeking to destroy you through deception, depression and distraction, distortion because he hates you, because he hates your body, because he hates that we were

given bodies, because he hates it we were made in God's image. For young people examining Christianity, lots of people are reluctant to believe that Satan is a real thing. Oh, the guy with the weird horns I see on Halloween. That's one way if you want to look at him that way. Another way to look at him is a fallen angel who's very very good at separating you from God. He's corrupt. See the problem I think in our society is things have become so corrupt that it's hard for us sometimes to even

hear the word corruption and react appropriately. Corruption should make recoil, It should make us run away, Like I don't want to be around anything corrupt. Just look at our financial system. It's wildly corrupt. Our money is fake, it doesn't mean anything. It's utterly fake. We've talked about this, but now there's an opportunity for you to have an interactive conversation with Zach Abram. Zach is doing one of his famous free live webinars coming up Thursday,

March twenty eighth. This is free, but they do sell out because there's a limited room in this. Zach's going to talk about the global unrest, the rising cost of living, and this market volatility and how they apply risk management techniques so that your retirement is not destroyed or put off for ten years,

meaning maybe never. When you join this free live webinar, Zach will also talk about the performance of the Bord Capital Management Fund to date, what it looks like coming up to see their performances in person, and Zach always leaves time for question because at heart, Zach is a teacher. So do this to learn more and sign up for the free live webinar. Go to Know Your Risk Radio dot Com. Again, space is limited. Happens nearly

every time people want to come and register. On the last day they don't get in. Go to Know Your Risk radio dot com. That's know Know Your Risk Radio dot com to register. Investment advisory services are offered through Truck Financial LLC and SEC Registered Investment Advisor, and investments involve risk. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. The decision to not follow Jesus Christ's doesn't just involve risk. It involves a promise. It's a promise all of

us will face. It's a promise communicated in ways that people don't want to read. And it has to do with the Book of Revelation. In Book of Revelation, chapter twenty, verses eleven through fifteen, this is the same John who said God in the beginning the word is with God. The word was God. This is him writing from a prison island. And John says, then I saw it was edited into a dream and went into the spiritual Roman was revealed to him many things as used to happen with the prophets.

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were open. Another book was open, which is the Book of Life. The dead were judged according what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them. Each

person was judged according to what they'd done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire. So let's read that again, just verse fifteen. Some people whose names were not in the Book of Life are thrown into the lake of Fire's some what it says all of us will be in the books that record our sins, all of us because all of us fall short of

the glory of God, and all of us will face judgment. And you're an eternal being. There's a theory called eliminationism. The eliminationist theory is to get out of jail free card when you're dead. You're dead. He might go to hell for a little while, but then God's going to have mercy and your existence. Scripture doesn't support it. Big question for a lot of people, including myself, is how far along am I in having genuine saving

faith. I don't agree with everything John MacArthur does. In fact, some of the things he's done been very, very frustrating, But I think he's a great, great scholar of the Bible. In the show notes today, I'm leaving for you something that comes in the back of one of his study Bibles, and it's so well backed up by scripture. These are some things that indicate the state of your faith, Things that neither prove nor disprove one's faith. Now listen to this. None of these things mean that you are

a Christian in his mind. They do not prove your faith. Visible morality, sure you can be moral and not serve the Lord Jesus. Intellectual knowledge, religious involvement, active ministry, conviction of sin, assurances the time of decision. None of these things, in his mind, means that you are an active Christian who's had full saving grace. Things that do authenticate that in his mind. Love for God. Do you want to hurt the people you love? Do you want to be separated from them from a long time?

Do you feel better when you're with them? Repentance from sin meaning true sorrow when you sin because it hurt a loving God, genuine humility, recognizing that all you have is through the glory of God, Devotion to God's glory, continuous prayer. This doesn't necessarily mean being always on your knees. For the past three or four weeks, I've been in continuous prayer, invoking God's words

to help my minds not go to negative places. It's been remarkable. Continuous prayers, a continuous conversation with God, help me Jesus, selfless love, separation from the world, being in it but not of it. Spiritual growth, obedient living, hunger for God's word. That's a hard one for me. I just admit it. Sometimes I don't want to read the Bible. Sometimes I'm too busy. I got shows to do. Baby. How does it feel when your kids don't want anything to do with you? Doesn't feel

good. So when we love God, we develop a hunger for his word and then transformation of life. Your life will be transformed if you have the pure, true, saving grace of faith. That's how John MacArthur describes it. I hope this is helpful for young people in your life who are experiencing now a calling in their hearts for something greater than themselves. Because the enemy loves to say, sure, be a Christian, pick up a book, say you believe in Jesus. Look, you're saved, but you don't really

need to change what you're doing. After all, Jesus loves you. He made you that way, so go embrace your sin because you're forgiven. It's one of the biggest deceptions and cruelties in the world that that's being imparted to young people. For the parts I screwed up. I hope you'll forgive me for the parts that I got right. God did that. Thank you, Father, God, for your word and for who you are, and for loving us so much that you go to these links to bring us back into

the family. This is the Todd hermersheaw Please go be well, be strong, be kind, and make a decision. A decision to not decide is a decision.

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