Galatians 3 says, [26] For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
[27] For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
[28] There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
"So how did you become a child of God? Well, you weren’t just born. One hundred years ago the stuff going around was called the 'social gospel.' Then it was the 'fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man.' Today, it’s called 'being woke.' Woke to being a 'social warrior.'
"The term today is all men are 'image-bearers.' What they mean by that is we’re all equal; we’re all the children of God. But you know that ain’t so. We’re all the children of the wrong god until verse 26 of Galatians 3.
[28] There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
"So how did you become a child of God? Well, you weren’t just born. One hundred years ago the stuff going around was called the 'social gospel.' Then it was the 'fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man.' Today, it’s called 'being woke.' Woke to being a 'social warrior.'
"The term today is all men are 'image-bearers.' What they mean by that is we’re all equal; we’re all the children of God. But you know that ain’t so. We’re all the children of the wrong god until verse 26 of Galatians 3.
"Until you make a personal choice to trust the God of the Bible, the creator of heaven and earth, to be your Savior, and you personally rely upon Jesus Christ to be the Savior He died and rose again for you to be, you’re in the wrong family. You get in His family by Galatians 3:26.
"That’s not water baptism. It’s not religion. Forget that stuff designed to hoodwink you into something else.
"In Christ is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free, male nor female. You’re put into a body of Believers where there’s a complete total abandonment of social status and a complete equality in Christ. God is as rich to you in Jesus Christ as He is to the person sitting next to you. More than that, there’s no circumcision, uncircumcision, bond or free.
"If you look at Colossians 3:11, Paul puts it like this:
"That’s all the social distinctions, racial distinctions. All those things are abandoned in Jesus Christ and literally what he’s done is he says to the Corinthians, 'There’s Jew, there’s Gentile, and then there’s the church. We’re literally a new species of humanity. We have a new identity. We’re a new creature.'
"He calls us 'the one new man' and that concept of that classless world in Christ--that blew the minds, the circuitry of the people of the 1st Century. It literally shook the Roman Empire to its very foundation, because here’s a group of people who call each other brother and sister and treat each other like they’re the same, and yet in every other way—socially, politically, economically—they weren’t the same. Different races, Jew and Gentile.
"He calls us 'the one new man' and that concept of that classless world in Christ--that blew the minds, the circuitry of the people of the 1st Century. It literally shook the Roman Empire to its very foundation, because here’s a group of people who call each other brother and sister and treat each other like they’re the same, and yet in every other way—socially, politically, economically—they weren’t the same. Different races, Jew and Gentile.
"Listen, in Ephesians 2:11, Paul says, [11] Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
"That’s a racial distinction God made when He set Israel aside. The Jews and Gentiles called each other names. The contempt, the enmity, it’s always been there because of the old sin nature. The animosity, the hatred, the violence between the groups . . . all of a sudden you got a group of people who aren’t that way. All that racial hostility goes away. All the economic hostility, social-class hostility.
"That’s a racial distinction God made when He set Israel aside. The Jews and Gentiles called each other names. The contempt, the enmity, it’s always been there because of the old sin nature. The animosity, the hatred, the violence between the groups . . . all of a sudden you got a group of people who aren’t that way. All that racial hostility goes away. All the economic hostility, social-class hostility.
"You talk about a class-driven world, the 1st Century was that. Now you have a group of people who are a family: Jews, Gentiles, slaves, free, rich, poor. They’re working and eating together, greeting one another with a holy kiss, raising their children together, taking care of one another, marrying each other. And that literally shook the Roman Empire to its foundations.
*****
"One of the reasons you hear so much about the church growing exponentially in the first three centuries had nothing to do with going back to Pentecost. It had to do with being who they were and this new culture, this new identity that was being created in a world that had never heard the name of Jesus Christ until that century. In a world that had never heard about the gospel of grace until then.
*****
"One of the reasons you hear so much about the church growing exponentially in the first three centuries had nothing to do with going back to Pentecost. It had to do with being who they were and this new culture, this new identity that was being created in a world that had never heard the name of Jesus Christ until that century. In a world that had never heard about the gospel of grace until then.
"Think about this, when Paul went out there, he was the only dude who knew this stuff. People say, 'Well, there’s nobody in our town who believes any of this.' Well, there was a time when Paul said, ‘Nobody in the WORLD knew this!’
"Two things happened in the first three centuries. No. 1, they produced a culture among the Believers of unity and oneness that did away with all the class distinctions. No. 2, in the second and third centuries, there was a great pandemic. About 20 years of pandemic centered in Rome. Thousands of people dying everyday and it was the Christians giving themselves to love and good works that produced a witness. It had nothing to do with, ‘Let’s go back to Pentecost!’ No, not hardly.
"It’s important you get the idea going on here. I Corinthians 12 says, [12] For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
[13] For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
[14] For the body is not one member, but many.
"Your physical body has all kind of members and yet it’s one body, and that’s how the Body of Christ is. Why? ‘For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.'
*****
[13] For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
[14] For the body is not one member, but many.
"Your physical body has all kind of members and yet it’s one body, and that’s how the Body of Christ is. Why? ‘For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.'
*****
"Bad doctrine from people who don’t rightly divide the Word is no help in understanding or overcoming the racial bigotry, the social distress, the hurt.
"These people are of no help because they don’t have the answer, which is in God’s Word rightly divided. It’s in who God’s made us and 'the one new man.'
"Only Jesus Christ can live His life. He gave His FOR us at Calvary so He could give His life TO us when we trusted Him so then He could live His life THROUGH us as we walk by faith in an understanding of who we are. Everything else would be an outward, forced shell.
"These people are of no help because they don’t have the answer, which is in God’s Word rightly divided. It’s in who God’s made us and 'the one new man.'
"Only Jesus Christ can live His life. He gave His FOR us at Calvary so He could give His life TO us when we trusted Him so then He could live His life THROUGH us as we walk by faith in an understanding of who we are. Everything else would be an outward, forced shell.
"The answer to racism that’s being promoted today among evangelicals ('Big Eva' they call it; I call it the Evangelical Industrial Complex); the answer to the social problems is what’s called being a 'woke social warrior.' That’s the big term today. If you haven’t heard it, God bless you. Be wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil.
"Here’s the way they do it. Tim Keller, best-selling Christian author and founder of Redeemer Church in Manhattan, is one of the titular heads of the social warrior movement; Russell Moore is their southern Baptist guy.
"Using Galatians 2:14, where Paul rebukes Peter for leaving the Gentiles, Keller writes in an article, ‘Paul deals with Peter’s racial pride and cowardice by declaring that he was not living in line with the truth of the gospel.’
"Using Galatians 2:14, where Paul rebukes Peter for leaving the Gentiles, Keller writes in an article, ‘Paul deals with Peter’s racial pride and cowardice by declaring that he was not living in line with the truth of the gospel.’
"What these people say is the reason in Acts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 that the Pentecostal church only focused on Israel . . . As far as Acts 11:19, they go out preaching to none but the Jews only and their answer for that is because Peter and the apostles were 'racist.' Now, you’ll hear that everywhere you go in this stuff and they argue, ‘We can’t be racist.’
"They want to go back to Pentecost to get the Pentecostal power, but the guys they say had the Pentecostal power were racist because they only went to the Jews. You say, ‘Hello, anybody awake?’ Not many.
"When I tell you that you laugh because you know the reason the apostles didn’t go to anybody but the Jews is not because they were racist; it’s because they understood what God was doing at the time. It’s Israel’s program.
"By the way, if they were racist, Jesus Christ told them, ‘Repentance and remission of sins should be preached among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.' Was He a racist? According to Keller He is because He made the distinction.
"In Acts 2, Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit, speaks as the Spirit gave him utterance and three times says, ‘I’m only talking to Israel.' 'Ye men of Judea; I’m not talking to you Gentiles.’ Keller and these guys say he’s a racist. They say the reason they had to raise up the Apostle Paul and send him to the Gentiles was because these 'racist apostles' wouldn’t go! That is as close to blasphemous, nonsense malarkey . . .
"In Acts 2, Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit, speaks as the Spirit gave him utterance and three times says, ‘I’m only talking to Israel.' 'Ye men of Judea; I’m not talking to you Gentiles.’ Keller and these guys say he’s a racist. They say the reason they had to raise up the Apostle Paul and send him to the Gentiles was because these 'racist apostles' wouldn’t go! That is as close to blasphemous, nonsense malarkey . . .
"The point is this is dangerous nonsense. These people have political and religious power and position, but they don’t have an answer, and the reason they don’t is not because they don’t see the problem; they do. They’re trying to ‘bring in the kingdom.’
"They quote, 'Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven,' and they think that means political, economic and social and religious force and external things. They don’t understand what God’s doing today. When you don’t understand how to study your Bible rightly divided, you’re going to wind up in that kind of thing.
"We’re not bringing in the kingdom today and all the foolish talk about doing it only demonstrates that you’re impotent when it comes to facing real problems. The reason our culture today in America and in the West is the way it is is because, when the opportunity to understand that and grow in it was there, the church turned its back on it and 'light rejected becomes lightning.' "
(new post tomorrow)
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