The Bible Provocateur
The Bible Provocateur
LIVE DISCUSSION: True Sons of Abraham (Part 4 of 5)
What happens when allegiance to political figures outshines our devotion to Christ? This provocative exploration of Christian unity challenges us to reconsider where our true loyalties lie.
The conversation opens with a stark observation: many Christians today show more passionate allegiance to political leaders than to Christ Himself. Relationships between believers are severed over political differences while our eternal bonds through Christ are forgotten. As one speaker asks, "Why aren't Christians that rabid when it comes to the one who saved them?"
Diving into Galatians 3:8, we discover the beautiful continuity of God's plan throughout history. From Abraham to present day, salvation has always come through the same gospel of faith. This scripture, described as "a masterpiece," reveals how God intended from the beginning to justify people from all nations through faith in Christ. As Abraham became "father of many nations," we see God's heart for a diverse family united through belief.
The discussion takes an illuminating turn when addressing commonly misunderstood concepts like the "mark of the beast." Rather than physical interpretations, the speakers present a deeper spiritual understanding – how our thoughts (forehead) and actions (hands) demonstrate whom we truly worship. Similarly, believers are sealed by the Holy Spirit, marking divine ownership.
What makes any nation truly "great"? Not economic power or military might, but the freedom to worship God without hindrance. As we navigate divisive times, remember: we are "inextricably linked to one another. Eternally." Our spiritual connections transcend all earthly divisions.
Ready to strengthen your faith perspective? Listen now and join a conversation that will transform how you view your spiritual family, regardless of national borders or political differences.
Beautiful than that. We can sit in my house till four o'clock in the morning and wake up, have coffee, have breakfast and get to it again. That's me, but I also know I'm a little bit of an acquired taste. But my point is we cannot let the world take advantage of us. We cannot let Satan take advantage of us. We cannot let Satan take advantage of us. We need to be there for each other, regardless of our disagreements, the same way you are with your own siblings, who probably don't even agree with you when it comes to spiritual matters. I'm here, I just moved and now I'm here on the border of Mississippi and Tennessee. Bill, I'm saying that for you, but already I met a good brother and a sister here Already. I met a good brother and a sister here and I'm looking forward to being able to have fellowship with fellow believers. I don't care if I you can't. There is no amount of debate or argument of arguing that you can present to me. That's going to make me run. I don't run. I'm not gonna look at you and you shouldn't look at me and go like. You know what I'm gonna like not be involved with this person anymore because he doesn't like the way. You know I do it. I I've seen. Let me tell you something I'm, I'm, you know I'm.
Speaker 1:I brought this up before in the past and and then I'm going to get back to the text. I brought this up before when our current president from the time he started running, I guess 10 or so years ago I have never seen in my lifetime I'll be 61 in September I have never seen in my lifetime An allegiance to Christ the way people have to this man. I've never seen anything like it. Never seen anything like it. Not trying to have a political conversation, that's not the point. What I'm saying is this current president has people that that will do Anything for this man. They are truly what an evangelist for christ should look like.
Speaker 1:I'm asked, I've asked people why is it that christians don't champion christ the way these people champion this president for the last 10 years? Again, I'm not talking about right and wrong, whether he's good or bad. That's not the issue. I'm talking about the allegiance to him. Think about that for a second. We all know what it's been like over the last 10 years. We all know it ain't a second. We all know what it's been like over the last 10 years. We all know.
Speaker 2:It ain't a secret, doesn't that reflect on that? If they don't know his word, then they don't know him. Christians.
Speaker 1:I know Christians that have severed their relationship over that man. Christians broke their bond Over him. They broke their Christian bond Over that man. Why don't Christians? Why aren't Christians that rabid when it comes to the one who saved them, the, the one who bought them, the one who redeemed them? It's crazy, brian, go ahead.
Speaker 3:I think the reason Christians aren't championed that and this is a very controversial point of view Christians aren't champion that. This is a very controversial point of view, but I believe the reason they're not champion that is because actually, the physical church in which we all see, there's actually very few of those people saved. That's what I truly believe.
Speaker 1:I do too.
Speaker 3:I believe the parable of the four soils is speaking directly to the church. It's not speaking to people of the world, because the seed is sown. So the people who's hearing the word and yeah, I, I believe that, if you take into into account that there's four different soils, 20 representing 25 percent of peace, and the only soil is the last one, the good and noble soil, which, when they hear the word, receive it with joy and, through perseverance, produce a crop, right, that's 25% of the church. Now, I'm not saying it's literal 25%, but I'm saying that in the parable of the soils we see that there's a small portion of the church who actually receive that word with joy, who actually persevere and who actually produce a crop right right, you know it, it's, you know, I don't know, man, it is, it's just, sometimes you just you, just.
Speaker 1:There's just a lot of words, brother, and for how, what was going on? But I do not believe for one second that the Christian church is going to fall apart. It's impossible, it's impossible. But what I do believe, what I do believe, is that you're all right about the numbers of the numbers of those in the Christian faith who are serious about service to our Lord. Candy, did I let you, did I? Did I call you? Did I let you talk, or did I cut you off?
Speaker 2:No, you were good. I just said that about what I said. But what I wanted to reply to that I put my hand up for was that when you said that about being with fellow brothers and sisters and then not wanting to have anything to do with them after something was said or they did that you didn't like, right? Well, if we take accountability for ourselves and think about how God feels when we do and say things that he doesn't like, does he leave us? Does he sway away from us? Does he not want anything else to do with us? Right, but that's you know. Once again, we have to let ourselves and that part of us go Right, and a lot of us don't think that way until I guess. Is it that maturity level? I guess?
Speaker 1:We live. We it's hard to say because we live in a society that is very independent, driven, where we don't think that we need we're willing to sacrifice crucial, important, critical relationships in order to establish some Psychological monument To ourselves. Psychological monument to ourselves, you know, and I don't understand it, but I recognize it. Well, here's what I'll say. Like in these passages we're reading it's clear that those of us who have the faith of Abraham, we are sons of Abraham. That makes us brothers and sisters in Christ, that makes us family. That makes us family and I'm not being hyperbolic it makes us real family family. Brian, michael, greg, jeffrey, johnny, my brother, mariah, meg, candy, joni, my sister.
Speaker 2:Adopted the sons of God. God Sons of God.
Speaker 1:We are inextricably linked to one another. Eternally. Now, Michael, go ahead, brother.
Speaker 5:I just want to say. One thing I've always told people about my faith is I have more in common with a brother and sister in a secret, hidden church in China than I do with the most patriotic American.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah, it's true, it's true, but people, you know, and we focus a lot and I was about to make the same mistake that I'm about to condemn it's like we always, when we have conversations, we don't personalize the truth in a lot of ways, and what I mean by that is you'll know what I'm talking about when you say something that people say people say this. People do this. People do this. People think this, people, people, people, people, people.
Speaker 1:And we have this more sure word of prophecy, this word of God. That's a guide to how we're supposed to live. It's a guide that tells us what the mind of God is. It's the word that tells us what Christ did on our behalf, and the greater part of Christianity, as far as I can tell, don't really understand what he did. They don't understand propitiation. Somebody mentioned that earlier, I think it was Greg. They don't understand what that is. Mentioned that earlier, I think it was Greg. They don't understand what that is. Most Christians don't even know the word exists in the Bible. You got people Like we talked about several weeks ago. There was some lady that came on. She's telling me about how great she is at speaking in tongues, but doesn't know what Pentecost is, which I find bewildering Propitiation is Romans chapter three, by the way.
Speaker 1:I'm not talking about where it is. I'm talking about they don't know that it is. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, but you know you got people that deny predestination. They don't know what atonement means. They don't understand these principal key doctors of the word of god and and and what's worse is that they're unwilling to listen to anybody who's willing to talk about it. But so my brother gravy, he just says we really need to see one another, listen to each other, loving with all our might, and I totally agree with that. I don't have to agree with you to love you. Let's talk it out. And the thing is, you know, I'm a strong advocate of biblical precision and all I'm saying is learn how to reason. When somebody disagrees, don't run from it. Stay in there with them.
Speaker 1:In verse 8, galatians 3, paul says in the scripture foreseeing and Paul is personifying the word of God, the scripture foreseeing. Now here's the thing when he says that the scripture, he's talking about the Old Testament scriptures. We all know the New Testament wasn't written yet, it was being, the experiences were still being had in order to be written about later. So he says in verse 8 and the scripture foreseeing that god would justify the gentiles how by faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying in thee shall all nations be blessed. Let me tell you something If you're reading this passage, read Galatians 3, verse 8. It is rich, it's a sermon in and of itself. That one verse, the scripture, the Old Testament foreseeing, personified what that God would justify render righteous, forensically, reconciling in the future the Gentiles how by faith, not by obedience to the Jewish law, but by obedience to faith in Christ. Obeying that. That is the requirement. The Gentiles having faith would then be made Abraham's spiritual, real descendants, sons. And then he says that the gospel preached I mean that God, foreseeing that the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached. Who preached the scripture he's personifying, giving personality to the scripture. It foresees that God would justify the Gentiles by faith.
Speaker 1:And the gospel is in the scripture, you know, preaching beforehand, before now the gospel unto Abraham, which goes back to what Moriah said earlier. The gospel has Abraham, which goes back to what Mariah said earlier. The gospel has never Been different than what it is Now. Abraham, david, samson, moses, miriam, aaron, every Old Testament Saint, every Old Testament believer. They were all saved Noah, lot, abel, all saved by the same gospel that we are saved Today. The same gospel. The very same gospel. Was it rendered as conspicuous to them as it is to us today? No, the gospel has pinned together all believing people who are sons of Abraham, from the garden until Armageddon. Same gospel. Abraham believed the gospel.
Speaker 1:It says that the scripture preached before the gospel unto Abraham. And what did it say to him? In thee, abraham, shall all nations be blessed. What was the gospel? God so loved the world, all nations that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever among these nations that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever among these nations who believe shall be blessed and shall inherit eternal, everlasting life. They will be the sons of Abraham and therefore become the sons of God and shall be ransomed, redeemed, regenerated and, in the future, resurrected by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:Read, christians. Read verse 8. Just read it. It is a masterpiece. You read a verse like this and you wonder how is it? How is it that people don't see this? How can people read this? Just one verse? How can people read? And you can do this? I'm sure all of us can look and find a verse in the scripture and we go. There's no way that any man could write this. There's no way a man could do this. It's too profound. It's do this. It's too profound, it's too deep, it's too soul digging. Brian, go ahead.
Speaker 3:Thank you it is deep it is.
Speaker 3:I completely agree with you. It's incredibly deep. Remember who Paul said he was he was a Hebrew of Hebrews. With you, it's incredibly deep. Remember who paul said he was he was a hebrew of hebrews. The reason I love reading paul is because you can really see the opening of the old testament through his writings. He's always trying to open the old testament to the readers, um, in what he writes. But isaiah says that he makes known the end from the beginning. Right, and a lot of theologians get into this Genesis, chapter 1, and then you have 7-day Adventist and all this. However, the word beginning there is Genesis, right, right, he makes known the end from Genesis. And the whole way through Genesis we can see the gospel. The whole way through Genesis we can see the prophecy of jesus christ's coming, god's perfect plan and his covenant as well.
Speaker 3:So when, when paul writes something like this, it just gets me tingling because because it's just it's, it's always been there the jews had it, they had it, they didn't recognize the fulfillment of it and, and now it's expounded upon onto us and we are incredibly blessed for what we know and what we understand. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:The name. I'll add to that Abraham's name. God doesn't just say things just to just throw words out. There's nothing random about what God does and what he says Nothing. He changed his name to Abraham for a reason. His name change alone. His name is the gospel, Father of many nations.
Speaker 1:If you look at Galatians 3, which is what we're looking at right now and you read 7, 8, and 9, what is Paul proving? What is he telling us? He's telling us that God is a God of many nations, many nations of people, many people from many nations. He's telling the Jews that God is not just your God Many of you are saved but he also has people from other nations that belong to him and they are on equal footing with you. Your bloodline means diddly squat to me. The piece of land that you take your repose in means nothing to me. In means nothing to me. The temple that you used to worship in, or whatever temple you think you're going to worship in in the future, means nothing to me. What matters to me is faith in me through my son that's it.
Speaker 1:There is no rebuilt temple physically that is going to be anywhere on earth, that God cares one iota about. Every one of you believers who may be listening who thinks there's any hope or expectation about a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem, you're wasting your time because the Lord Jesus Christ himself is that rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. You're wasting your time because the Lord Jesus Christ himself is that rebuilt temple, which was torn down on Friday and resurrected on Sunday. That is the rebuilt temple.
Speaker 6:The issue is is that people are constantly looking for all these signs. People are constantly looking for all these signs, right, you know, just like Jesus told the Pharisees. He says you search the scriptures, thinking in them that you have eternal life, but they are which that testify of me. Like people always want to look for signs, oh, the mark of the beast is here. Oh, look at the red heifers, oh, there's something. But if you look deep into that, it's Rockefellers had something to do with the Schofield Bible. Put all of that together, I honestly think that the pre-trib is going to be something that's going to deceive a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Well, the fact of the matter is looking for all these things.
Speaker 1:The fact is there is no, there is no pre-trib and there is no tribulation. There is no better thing, when you think about it, that Satan could do than to isolate people from paying attention to what's happening now in their own lives and to say you know what, you don't have to worry about it, you won't be here. It genders complacency and laziness and slothfulness. It doesn't make you watchful anymore. So if you don't see I mean since I'm alive, since I've been alive on earth, like many of you, I can't tell you there's probably been at least five or six what has been perceived as the mark of the beast, and none of those things were what they thought they were. And then people just they just dismiss it like, oh well, you know, is is they, just they just blow it off. But when you tell people what really makes sense and what makes sense is what the truth is. But the truth is that makes sense the truth that makes sense to the believer Is the truth that is unbelievable to the unbeliever. So here's what I mean I've said this before For anybody who's ever listened Mark of the beast In your forehead Symbolic.
Speaker 1:It means that you, that you worship the devil and how you think, your psychological life, your ideological life, your philosophical life, your inward being, the inner being, you worship him. After the inward man, the carnal mind, is that enmity against God that is the mark of the beast. You're that enmity that is in you that resists God. So you receive the mark of the beast in your hand. What is that? You worship him. What you do, your works, your works, your deeds, deeds, what you create, your inventions. So if you're not looking at that, then you are ignoring what's really, what really you have already embraced and don't even realize it, because you're looking for something physical, like the covet shot yeah, silliness.
Speaker 1:And it says what about the christians? Why do the christian believers? Why do they not receive the mark of the beast? It says because they can't receive it. Because they have a seat, the seal of god, where, on their foreheads, on their foreheads. They don't have one in their hand. Why Don't go by works, brother, don't go by works, amen. So when they receive it in their forehead, they're sealed until the day of redemption.
Speaker 3:May I add something?
Speaker 1:to that. What's that, brother? May I add something to that. What's that brother?
Speaker 3:May I add something to that? Sure, please, thank you. So I completely believe every single word you're saying, completely. When I think of the second coming, I consider the first coming as almost a representation of it, because there was a harvest at the first coming as well. A lot of people missed that. Jesus harvested at the first coming, saw the seed. That seed will be harvested at the second coming.
Speaker 3:Now, at the first coming, we see that the jews who stayed in judaism, who didn't come out of the synagogues, those Jews were cut off right. A mark is a sign of ownership, the seal in Scripture. The seal is also a mark in the Old Testament. I believe it's either Ezekiel or Zechariah. The seal is a mark, right. So the mark is a sign of ownership.
Speaker 3:At the first coming, those Jews who didn't come to Christ, they had the mark of the beast then at the first coming and that mark was signified by their false interpretation of the scriptures, by their disbelief of who Christ was and by their ignorance to God's ultimate plan and their love of men's traditions as if they were the traditions of God. And I believe at the second coming it's going to be the same, because we see in John, chapter 8, even people who call themselves children of God are not children of God. Their father is the devil. So at the second coming it's going to be the same thing. I believe that the mark is the misinterpretation sorry, the arrogant misinterpretation of Scripture, because it also talks about those who have drank of her maddening wine of adultery.
Speaker 3:Go to Jeremiah. The people committed adultery on God. He gave them their certificate of divorce, and one of Jesus' rebuke to the Pharisees is the wine that they were on. Right, right, we've got to fit all this together. That's what I'm saying, and I implore everybody to try their best to study this, because once you get out that crazy hoo-ha of the physical and bring it to the spiritual, it's amazing what you can discover.
Speaker 1:It gets real, doesn't it, Brother Greg? Go ahead.
Speaker 4:Yeah, brian's, 100% right. The sign, the seal, is a mark of ownership, yep, and that's why the Holy Spirit is our seal, our sign of the new covenant, not baptism.
Speaker 1:Right, absolutely. I mean, you know, and the thing is, paul talked about I think it's in 2 Corinthians 11, 3, I think it is when he talks about frustrating the simplicity that's in Christ. Paul uses frustration. You could tell that he was an apostle who was frustrated a lot about what people were embracing ourselves in a physical sense to things that we can do, that that give something visible and action to our belief, that we can say see, this is how we know that I am like meg was bringing up about, you know, all these things that I call da Vinci cold christianity, needing signs, and and all this kind of stuff, the puzzles and enigmas. You know, and the fact is it's really simple. All we have to do is believe, to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust him. This is it To trust him that our lives are in his hands and he will bring us home, he will carry us through the trial. I'm not afraid. I mean, if there were a tribulation period, I would not be afraid of it, but there isn't, because we are already in tribulation at all times, in varying degrees in in various places, and the church is always going through something like the brother mentioned earlier. Uh, about what's going on in the congo, but people don't even know what's going on in the congo. People don't know what it means to be in to be a christian in china. If you, if you look at, if I'll give you an example One of the places that is most notorious for its hatred of the Bible is a place in Africa called Eritrea.
Speaker 1:Does anybody here know what happened in Eritrea? Anybody, anybody, no. Eritrea, e-r-i-t-r-e-a. That is where the slave trade first began. That's where it began. Eritrea. Now it is like one of the number one places in the world where the Bible is. Don't be caught with the Bible. Imagine that.
Speaker 1:So what I'm saying is what I'm saying. What I'm saying is we don't understand. We don't know how good we have it. We really don't. And even though there are many people that are talking about making America great again, how can America be any greater than being a place where we have no restrictions from being able to worship the Lord God who created heaven and earth? America be any greater than being a place where we have no restrictions from being able to worship the Lord God who created heaven and earth? This is what makes any place great the ability to worship and fellowship and to glorify God without hindrance. No one's burning Bibles yet, but the seeds are being planted. But the only thing that makes any country great on this earth, the only thing, is the influence and the impact Of being able to open up the word of God, to believe it and to be able to freely Worship and honor God in it. That is the only thing that makes any country great. If that's possible, I can't see Any Christian. If that's possible, I can't see any Christian disagreeing with me on that.
Speaker 1:But in verse 8, galatians 3, the scripture foresees and the scriptures preached what Gentiles will be justified by faith along with Jews, and that the gospel was preached unto Abraham saying that all nations will be blessed. That statement right there, that in thee all nations shall be blessed, is basically a parallel verse to what Jesus, what he says in John 3, 16, god so loved the world. This is what John 3, 16 means In thee, all nations shall be blessed. God so loved the world. What is the world? All the nations. That's what he was talking about. That's what he was talking about. And then we get to verse 9. Paul says so. Then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. So