LIVE DISCUSSION: Anthony Rogers - Sovereignty of God (Part 5/5)

What happens when conviction collides with consensus? We open with a frank look at the temptation to edit core doctrines—like the Trinity—to make Christianity more palatable, and why that move ultimately empties the faith of its saving power. John 6 becomes our anchor: Jesus doesn’t sand down hard edges to keep a crowd; He speaks life-giving truth and lets the chips fall. That frame sets up a deeper dive into free will, human nature, and the way desire actually governs choice.

We explore why the “natural” person doesn’t seek God, how Scripture paints conversion as God’s initiative, and why faith is a gift rather than our contribution. From Lydia’s opened heart to the disciples’ opened minds, the pattern is consistent: the Spirit works by the word to awaken, and then we truly believe. If the Son sets us free, that freedom is from the bondage of sin—not a rubber stamp on alleged neutrality. Expect vivid illustrations, a grounded look at Romans 3 and Philippians 1, and a humble call to see grace at the root of every step toward Christ.

We also take on the claim that the Roman Catholic Church “gave us the Bible,” unpacking the history of the canon, the role of God’s people in recognizing Scripture, and why Jesus’ sheep can hear His voice without a magisterial seal. Then we face the modern push for ecumenism as a strategy for cultural stability. Does unity at any cost deliver what it promises? We argue for something sturdier: preach the gospel plainly, refuse to trade eternal peace for temporary calm, and trust God with outcomes.

The conversation lands on comfort and assurance drawn from a beloved catechism: we belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to Jesus Christ. That certainty doesn’t make us rigid; it makes us steady. Hold fast to the truth, love people well, and resist the urge to reshape the message to fit the moment. If this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend who’s wrestling with these questions, and leave a review to help others find the show.

Transcript

Truth Over Popularity;

SPEAKER_00 0:00

They say, you guys are creating a stumbling block for other people like Jehovah's Witnesses or not Jehovah's Witnesses, Unitarians wouldn't say this. So a Unitarian is somebody who denies the Trinity, for those that haven't heard this. They'll say, You're you're creating a stumbling block for Muslims. They won't come to Christianity because the doctrine of the Trinity it strikes them as just absurd. And so you're, you know, you should stop teaching this. And I'm thinking, you don't make somebody Christian just by redefining it. If that's the case, then where do we stop, right? I can make the whole world Christian just by saying Christianity just is whatever everybody wants to believe. Okay, everybody's a Christian now. Right? That's not how it works. Christianity is what God says. And so, but but when you look at John 6, notice Jesus is not paring off the rough edges. There's a famous story of Procrustus. You guys, you might have heard the saying about a Procrustian bed. Most people uh have probably heard that somewhere in their life, but may not know what that means. Well, there's a there's an old story of this guy named Procrustus who said he has a bed that's one size fits all. Every single person on the planet fits his bed perfectly. Nobody's too long, nobody's too short. They're perfect for his bed. And the way he achieves this is when people get on his bed. If if somebody is too short, well, then he has uh uh clamps that he puts on them and stretches them so that they fit his bed. If they're too long, he just cuts off the excess, right? Everything fits the bed of Procrustis. Well, if you got a Christianity that's like a Procrustian bed, you just cut off what you don't like, you stretch what you don't like. Well, yeah, you know, but that's not what that's not what Christianity is. And Jesus shows that He He is not He's not willing to compromise truth for the sake of people coming to Him. That's what happens in John 6. People turn away because they don't like some of what he's saying. But he's the one who has the words of eternal life. It's not Jesus who has to please us, we are the ones that have to come to him his way. And and so, you know, as much as and I understand something of the desire, like we want all people to believe, but you know, at the end of the day, we're not doing anybody any favors by you know changing the truth, you know, uh even if it's unpopular. Remember what Paul said, one last comment on this. This to me is like a theme verse. Like I think about this often, and there's all kinds of occasions and applications for this. But in Romans 3, Paul says, Let God be true, even if it makes every man a liar. So even if the entire world disagrees, we should agree with God. God is a right, God is the majority. No matter how many other people are are in agreement, it it's always the case that God is in the majority, because his his is the only voice that that matters ultimately. Amen, brother. That's that's that's the truth.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

That is definitely the truth. Uh Sister Candy, you had a question for for Andy, for Anthony?

SPEAKER_06 3:17

I do. I'm gonna open up this jar, Jonathan, because uh listening to what he says. Now, Anthony, you said, when God's seeking for those who's gonna seek him. And then a while ago you said, but do people so my question is do people have a free will to come to him? Because you made a comment that they basically they can they either want to serve him or they don't, because they either like his ways and like what he's about or they don't.

John 6 And Hard Sayings;

Let God Be True;

Question: Do We Have Free Will;

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Right. So the the thing here is we have to understand what's meant by free will. Here, a lot of people are very sloppy and have a particular conception of it that just isn't biblical. So I would say that every man makes choices based on his desires. So uh, and obviously you can make comments uh about this where it it seems paradoxical, but think about this, for example. Like if I say, um if my wife asks me, you want to go to the store for me, I might say no, but still go. I and all I'm saying is on uh in one sense, I don't feel like going anywhere, but I have a greater desire to you know do what she's asking me, and so I'll go anyways, right? But I could express this as if I'm acting against my desire, but when there's really just a greater desire that I'm willing, you know, I want my wife to be happy or something like that, right? So everybody always acts on their greatest desire. You know, we we always do that which presents itself to us as the the most desirable thing, even if we can't fully analyze our own thoughts and what's going on with that. Okay, now um but but think about this. If if I set before a lion, let's say, a bowl of lettuce and a bowl of meat, and it's just me and the lion there, right? Uh is the lion free to eat whatever it wants? Now, in one sense, yes, I'm not gonna stop it, right? It's free in the sense that it can do whatever it decides, and I can't do anything to stop it. But the lion has a nature. Its nature is not to eat lettuce, but to eat meat. And so while the lion is doing what it wants, it has no control over its nature. The nature of the lion is out of its control. It can't choose to eat the lettuce because it's just not in its nature. Well, according to the Bible, it's that way with human beings. Human beings have a nature and they have desires that reflect that, and they act out of those desires. The desires of the natural man are not for God. The natural man does not desire God, is not seeking God, does not love God. If he did, he wouldn't need a new heart, right? That's the whole reason he needs a new heart. But that doesn't mean he's not doing what he wants. The problem is that what he wants is just not God, right? It's not righteousness or anything else. So God has to do a work of grace enabling the person to desire him. When I said earlier about seeking, it was God that's seeking, right? It's not man. Paul says no man seeks God. In John 4, it says God is seeking those who uh who will worship him in spirit and truth. So God is the seeker, and he's the one who uh remember how Jeremiah says, uh, can the Ethiopian change its skin or the leopard its spots? The basic idea is an Ethiopian's an Ethiopian. You know, a Sicilian's a Sicilian. Uh you know, you you are what you are. Uh a bad tree bears bad fruit. It you can't make the tree good. The tree can't just will to be good, right? You can't pick bad apples off of the apple tree and make it good. It needs a fundamental change, and only God has the ability to do that. And so uh even though, you know, I think that people who have well, people come in different ways. Like they there's different what I mean is I don't mean way in the sense of like, obviously we have to come through Christ, that's the only way, but I mean the circumstances, right? Some people can't remember a time when they didn't know Jesus because they were raised in a Christian household. God can save people at a young age before they even remember not believing in him, right? If if I were to ask somebody, when did you start loving your mother, right? Most of us are gonna say, uh, I don't remember not loving my mother. That's you know well, God can do that. He did it with John the Baptist, right? But for those that have been converted later in life, you if you if you really look at your what happened in light of scripture, I don't know how you'd come to a different conclusion than that God is the one who is seeking you and bringing this about. I wasn't seeking God. Uh, you know, I I was blindsided, you know, just like Paul, kind of not not just like, but spiritually, you know, it was like that. I uh, you know, but Paul wasn't looking for Jesus when he ran into him on the road to Damascus, right?

SPEAKER_06 8:45

Um but and and that was kind of what I was getting at. Like what you like it wasn't for me, and I think that we have for will, because I don't. God is the reason, it is about him. He's the one who draws near, he's the one that causes you to do his plans, purpose, statutes, and follow his laws. So, but then you have people who say it's because of that choice that they have free will to do what they want. But do you really? Because God is the increase, he is the reason, he is the cause that causes us to walk in his way. But then he's like, okay, went back to was it is it in is it Joshua or Jeremiah, where it says they basically have a they could they choose to either follow or they don't.

Desires, Nature, And Real Choice;

God Seeks And Gives A New Heart;

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Well, so yeah. In Joshua 24, Joshua's speaking to Israel, whom God has taken out of Egypt, and he says, Choose you this day whom you will serve. What people who are arguing for now remember, I'm saying people have a will in the sense that they can act according to their nature. But when people are talking about free will in this other sense, what they're saying is people can choose to act in a they're they can choose to act for God independently of God enabling them to do so. And scripture doesn't teach that. So they they will go to verses that talk about choosing, but they never address the question who will choose and how will that happen? Because scripture is clear that those who do exercise faith in Jesus are doing so because God, prior to them doing anything, enabled them to do so. So faith itself is a gift, right? Nowhere in scripture does it speak of faith as our contribution to the equation, like God did his part, and now we're gonna add faith that we mustered up. Faith is always viewed as a gift, right? So Paul says in Philippians 1.29 uh that that uh God granted uh or uh uh what is the exact language he uses there? Uh he's thanking God for the faith that the Philippians have. Why is he thanking God for their faith, right? Uh in Romans 10, Paul says, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So it comes. It's not it's not something from within us, it it comes to us, and the means God uses to give it to us is is his word, and the spirit working by and with the word in our hearts. Uh other text, the same thing in Acts 16, it says, the Lord opened Lydia's heart to respond to the message that Paul was preaching to her. Uh uh Luke 24, one of my favorite texts, you have uh, first of all, uh Jesus appears to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and it says he holds he withholds their eyes from recognizing him. So you're being given this physical image of them being blind, as it were, and Jesus is talking with them about the scriptures. Well, then uh right before he disappears, it says he breaks the bread, and then he uh he disappears and their eyes are uh right before he disappears, their eyes are open and they recognize him. Well, later in the chapter, he appears to all the disciples, and it says, he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. So first it's illustrating this to us in a physical way, that he held their eyes from recognizing him physically, but then later talks about how he does the same thing spiritually. He opens the minds of the disciples to understand the scriptures. So all of that is God's work. God enables, God opens the heart, God opens the eyes, God gives faith. And then we do believe, but uh it's because we've been enabled. And that's why so Jesus said, uh, whoever commits sin is the slave of sin. They're not free, they're in slavery to sin. But the one the sun sets free will be free indeed.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

And I love that because it was I I think we talked about this last night in our in our in our disset in our session, which is if man has a free will in the way that people gener generally talk about it, then in what sense does Christ set you free? That's the question that has to be asked. What do you if you if your will is already free, then what is it that Christ did to set you free um posthumous to having this quote unquote free will? And if you have a free will to choose Christ, does God's grace precede that choice, or does God's grace come as a result of it? And these are the and these are the you know, the overriding questions that people need to ask these to ask themselves this. But when you but when you really think about the both of these and what you're and what you've already talked about, uh you only come to one conclusion, that is from God. Man is not uh man is not unbiased, uh, and man is not indifferent, as you both specify clearly. He is motivated and moved by his nature, uh, and always will be. And so just like a goldfish in a bowl is free to swim around that goldfish bowl all it wants to, but it can't stop being a fish. And it can't decide to walk out of the jump out of the goldfish and start walking on dry ground. It can't do that, and that is what man's nature is about. Um, you have, let's see, we got a few people. Lisa, Lisa, then John, and then Meg.

SPEAKER_05 14:42

Um, Anthony, I just had a question from somebody in the chat. I said I would ask. They said, the question is, how do you respond when you hear a Catholic say that they gave you the Bible? They gave us the Bible. Catholic a Catholic.

Raised In Faith Versus Later Conversion;

Choosing And The Gift Of Faith;

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah, well, so number one, they didn't give us the Bible because we don't accept their canon, right? That's what they're claiming. They gave us the canon. They have a number of books that aren't part of our canon. And so obviously, we weren't listening to them for that. Number two, Protestants had a defined canon before Rome did. So in the when Rome claims, first of all, there's a difference between regional councils and an ecumenical council. A regional council would just be like, you know, if you think about um you have a church, and let's say the church makes certain decisions on certain things, uh, and then you might have a group of churches in a given area making a decision on something. Uh, those would be like regional decisions. They don't necessarily have, in the in the eyes of a of the Catholic Church, they wouldn't have universal binding validity. Uh a greater group of churches of the Catholic Church, they would say, could overturn that. But when you get the whole church with the Pope and the bishops and all that, then that's supposed to be final. It's ecumenical. Well, Rome had never had such a council until after Protestants were talking about uh they they didn't have any universal council. But Christians, you could be sure, had a canon before that, right? The Christian church was using the Bible long before the the mag when Rome talks about the church, they mean the magisterium, which is the Pope together with the bishops. But the the Christian church was using the Bible long before their Rome's magisterium claimed the right to define what the Bible is. Now, think about this though. This is incredible when you when you think about it. In the the idea of a council is supposed to be that it's it's all the bishops, I'm saying in the Roman Catholic view, all the bishops, not just a few, right? That we just make a small local council or whatever. You're supposed to have a majority of bishops making a decision. So it reflects the mind of the universal terms. There were 800 Catholic bishops in the world at the time of the Council of Trent in the 1500s. Only 55 of those 800 were present for that session of the Council of Trent that decided the canon for them. Okay, only 55 were present. Now catch this. Only 25 voted on Rome's canon. I think uh I can't remember the exact number of people that abstained, but a lot of people, like 15, let's just say, abstained, and then uh 15 voted against. So you don't even have a majority of people at this council representative of the whole church, nor do you even have a majority of people present voting for Rome's canon, but because some people abstained, they ended up being the greater number. Now, uh, so I just recently did a debate with a Roman Catholic named Trent Horn. He's one of their foremost debaters. I just debated him on Saturday. Formal debate down in Texas. One of the things I brought up, and this will blow your mind, I quoted one of the cardinals, so one of the members of the magisterium, Rome's official teaching office, supposedly infallible and all that, Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius. Here's what that guy said. He said, the scriptures have no more force than the fables of Aesop, if destitute of the authority of the Catholic Church. Now, can you possibly imagine receiving your canon from somebody like that? This is the mindset of the people who decided on the canon for Rome. They had the audacity to say that God's word is of no greater force and authority than the fables of Aesop unless their church stamps God's papers. But think about this. Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. They don't recognize the voice of a stranger. There's nothing in there about the need for a pope, even if there is such a thing. There's nothing in there about the need for a magisterium, even if there were such a thing. Jesus makes it clear that his sheep hear his voice and therefore are not in need of farming out the job to somebody else to tell them that they heard for them. And nobody's gonna stand before God someday and and say, Well, I didn't hear your voice, but you know, the Pope did for me, or I heard you because the Pope told I heard the Pope and He told me to hear you. That's just not how it's gonna go. Uh and again, I I mean I could go on and on with this sort of thing, but um here's another way, uh, one more thing I'll I'll mention. The early church, even before the apostles wrote the New Testament, already had an Old Testament.

unknown 19:55

Right?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

They already had the law of Moses, the prophets, and the other writings, the Psalms, the Proverbs, and so forth. What did Rome have to do with choosing any of those books? Right? Jesus said the law of Moses is from God, the prophets were from God, the writings of the Psalms and so forth were from God. In Romans 3, Paul says, uh, even though the Jews were not living up to all their privileges, he said they were very much blessed. They had all kinds of privileges. Paul's asking the question, he says, Um, if circumcision isn't automatically all that one needs, then what advantage is there in being a Jew? And he says, Well, much in every way. To them were entrusted the oracles of God. So they were privileged because they had God's oracles. They at least had access to the truth, even if they weren't believing in it. There's at least hope for them that they would come to the truth. But notice, he says, to them were entrusted the oracles of God. The oracles of God were given to them. They had them and knew them altogether apart from the Catholic Church. Nobody needed the Catholic Church. There was no Catholic Church, right? So it's it's a claim that they make that Protestants often don't think about, and so they're caught off guard. But it's not a good argument. There's nothing there really for them to appeal to.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

Do you have a book you recommend for people to read up on that on what you just talked about?

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Oh, okay.

Opened Hearts And Minds In Scripture;

SPEAKER_05 21:26

So uh it depends how how deep you're trying to go, because some of this can get very deep, but um easy just to show my mom because I'm out of the Catholic Church. So I just want to show her look, or you know, my family.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:46

But yeah, I've been called out. Oh, praise the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

And if you can't think about it, if you can't think about it now, brother, you can send it to me to tomorrow or the next day, and I can share it with everybody else for people who are interested in reading that. I'd actually like to read that myself, actually.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Okay, so I'll I'll look through my stuff to find what I think is probably well one one book would be well I'll I'll look just to make sure um that it's it's the one that I think is most useful for for most people Okay that's perfect that sounds good thank you so uh John Langlow you had a question and then Meg.

Freedom From Sin Through The Son;

SPEAKER_04 22:21

Yeah mine's a little off topic um talking about uh back in the days of Pharaoh and um the Egyptians and Israelites, right? So um they in um sorry in Exodus three um verse 21 forgive me it's um having a hard time reading at this point in time in the night uh it says and I will give the I'm sorry and I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians and it shall come to pass that when ye go ye shall not go empty but every woman shall borrow of her neighbor and of her that sworn sojourneth in her house jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiment and ye shall put them upon your sons and upon your daughters and ye shall spoil the Egyptians so um they borrowed this uh jewelry and such and then I thought this was a interesting uh long time ago and I was just thinking about it uh when I think about the sovereignty of God and Pharaoh and and and all that um and then it says and Aaron said unto them in in um first chapter uh thirty two um and Aaron said unto them break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives of your sons and of your daughters and bring them unto me and all the people break broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them unto Aaron and blah blah Aaron made a golden calf so much so these these slaves had no probably had no gold but they got all the gold from the Egyptians and and uh that's what I imagine that happened there and uh so they borrowed it and I guess those people didn't didn't know if they'd ever get them back but uh anyways well well actually I'll tell you something the the the the word borrow there is not what it means uh in our English language the way we use borrow it was actually more of a demand something they were taking something it wasn't borrow there is not the same word as like I want to I want to get this from you now and I will give it back later so the full import of that whole thing borrow as we know it is not even in the Bible that word but it's an unfortunate translation but when you go and read this for yourself you'll see that borrow is not um what it is in English.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Okay I mean I hear you uh it does it does say and I will give the I will give the people favor um right before that so I don't know but I I hear you um anyway so they make the calf and then um Moses comes down and and and he eventually takes the calf and he uh breaks it I mean sorry burns it and it says he ground it in the powder and straw it upon the water and made the children of Israel drink of it which I don't understand the the reasoning behind that um it's uh anybody want to comment on that one why why why would he make them drink of it well I yeah drink up I mean the drinking you're drinking uh that's the minerals so I I somebody asked me a question about um the Catholic Church a moment ago uh when I was a kid so my family's Sicilian and most Sicilians especially back then were Catholic probably still in Sicily but uh I so I in my earliest years was uh you for example I went to a uh Catholic uh grade school and I was a bad kid so I'd get in trouble all the time and I remember one of the things that the nuns used to do when I would get in trouble like if I bit somebody I would bite a little girl or something they would make me drink a tablespoon of vinegar and uh they they got me away from biting people. Well my my point is just to say you know that they're basically being made to eat the fruit of their evil evil deeds. This is this is a punishment. Now there there may be more going on with that but that at least is is part of the the equation.

Catholic Claim: “We Gave You The Bible”;

SPEAKER_04 27:15

Yeah I thought it like soap in the mouth after you say a bad word or something like that maybe um so I I was um a Catholic raised and I was an altar boy altar boy for a very short time and I probably committed one of the worst sins imaginable when I would go you know in the church early there and have to put the little clothes you know the little apron or whatever that thing with I forgot what they called that you know the little white dressy thing you put on. And um but hey there was a bag of Eucharist there so every once in a while I'd eat some of those things like crackers.

SPEAKER_07 28:01

So the Lord forgive me Sister Mig you got it you got a question for brother brother Anthony sorry John made me laugh um I I just wanted to like to answer Candy like when she was talking about like free will and like so like the question that I always ask people which they have to come into thought with is could you could one choose God if he didn't choose you first? And so that's simply the question of going into free will and the answer is no none of us could so I just I ask that question a lot candy so I just wanted to comment on that.

SPEAKER_03 28:48

Brother Pat uh go ahead and then we'll we'll wrap it up and give our brother a break brother Pat go ahead well I I feel like I I'm trying to ask you every tough question Anthony we got you here so I'm gonna I'm gonna make no exception with this one here's an here's another one the issue of acumenism um so you will hear from people that the world is in chaos um that there's a battle for Western civilization and that we need to unite um Protestant and Catholic for the greater good of society.

Canon, Councils, And Trent;

SPEAKER_00 29:30

What say you well I I just think that just sounds like another version of uh losing one's soul to gain the world you know it we don't do the world any favors by pursuing its peace here and now at the expense of eternal peace. So so an individual who's clasp grasping after certain things here at you know at the expense of his own soul that right that's not where he wants to be and I don't think you know but by extension that's that's what we need to do when it comes to society. And I don't think it works either that you know there's uh that just never has worked there's there's always been people clamoring for everybody just ignoring their differences. The problem is for for one you need you can't have and there there's never been a society that doesn't have at least some implicit underlying religious presuppositions. Okay meaning so if you look at all cultures in the ancient world they all professed some kind of uh belief in God or the gods and that was the underlying foundation for their moral order for their civil order and stuff like that. Now admittedly in modern societies they don't explicitly say anything like this but there's always got to be something underneath it there's always some kind of assumption and uh you know there there have been many Christians who've written on that the implicit religion that underlies certain things. But like think about it you know if if if all if we're erasing differences well then you know does Satanism what what about people who say it's okay to sacrifice children? Well people are going to say well no that's out.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

Well on what principle on what principle unless we we're saying you know well you know that this is true right we've got to have some principle to say this is excluded and and it's not acceptable and and these things are and what's in inevitably going to be the case is people are going to be saying no it's this no it's that right so I you you just you can't get uh you you're you're not going to get what people think you can get the whole idea of striving for a utopia right that's never worked right people people striving for all that so I I would just say that the Christian church needs to do its job preach the gospel call people to faith don't come up with your own message it it's it's not going to do anybody any good it's not gonna do you any good it's not going to glorify God so just just preach the gospel and uh let the Lord handle uh how that all works out amen brother well brother Anthony I want to thank you my friend for being here and what I normally do at night is that we we will usually have I'll go around and give people their last word for the night but I want to reserve that for you so I mean let you give us your your last great takeaway for the night for all of us and and and and brother I'm telling you you will always be welcome here and I'm gonna I'm not just gonna hold that out there I'm gonna chase you down and and get you on the calendar before we can do this again because I think it's beneficial and helpful and um and I was truly blessed by it and I'm sure everybody else was too so give us give us your your your last word for the night okay so I didn't actually have a thought at until just now as you're as you're saying that one of my favorite this is this is a uh a catechism so many people think catechisms are Catholic things but it was actually the Protestants who were were insistent on Christians being instructed.

Sheep Hear Christ’s Voice;

SPEAKER_00 33:34

And so they they formulated biblical answers. Now obviously these things are only as good as they reflect the Bible if they don't then they don't have any authority but uh I think everybody if you hear this an example of one of these that I'm gonna cite for you you'll say oh that's biblical through and through this is the first question and answer of what's known as the Heidelberg Catechism. One of my favorite statements in all of extra biblical literature. So it begins by asking this is what they're using to teach their children. It asks the question what is your only comfort in life and in death so what is your only comfort in life and in death and here's the answer that I am not my own but belong body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven. In fact all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him Christ by his Holy Spirit he assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. That's a long answer but uh the idea of just this supreme confidence in God through Christ that he is our Father and the same one who determines whether we lose a single hair of our head we that to me is the heart of our the the the gospel to us that that through Christ we have this assurance this comfort this confidence and man if that doesn't allow you to sleep peacefully at night I mean apart from maybe having some you know physical malady or something that keeps you up you know but just in terms of your internal you know your your soul and so forth uh or allow you to walk through the day uh you know knowing that you know something might happen you don't like but uh at the end of it all not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my father in heaven in fact all things must work together for my salvation.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

Amen brother thank you so I thank you so much man for taking the time to do this because I know you got a busy schedule and you took time to hang out with us man I really really sincerely appreciate it and I I'm definitely going to ask you to you know come do this again and uh and I'm definitely gonna reach out to you about benefiting from this platform which I think it needs more voices like yours on it. And uh and to the extent that we can find a way to make it easy for you I I want to help do that if I can and uh and I'll talk to you about that.

Old Testament Authority Before Rome;

SPEAKER_03 36:29

So I appreciate you and uh you know I know we kept you for a while so I want to make sure you can get to get dinner and get get uh wherever you gotta be but I thank you very much and and I'm sure everyone here appreciates it brother and Pat would you mind closing this out absolutely brother uh join me in prayer if you will dear heavenly father we come to you in humility and and just thanksgiving for your many blessings Lord we thank you for the blessing of your truth Lord and we recognize how unworthy we are to receive the very words of the Holy God Lord and so we thank you for that gift Lord we pray that these these truths that we heard tonight uh work in us come alive in us um and build us up in in the faith Lord uh we thank you for the gift of of teachers Lord and and for all the blessings Lord um we pray that you will continue to uh bless this ministry Lord and and also have your fan your hand on everything that Anthony does Lord in this world um that you you guide his steps Lord um we praise you Lord and we thank you for all you have done and all you will do in Jesus' name amen thank you so much Anthony thank you so much you bless us all good night big blessing Anthony appreciate you brother Mariah is up already asleep already they're sleep they're not feeling too well so they went to sleep a little early tonight I just have to say that was hardcore you guys that was hardcore you guys your kids in there too no that was me that was me saying that was Savannah's kid we have a mini choir go in here yeah well I I I really enjoyed that you guys and and I I want I want to try to get some other folks that I that I know that that can come on here and if you guys know somebody that's sound I mean I think I think it's a good thing to be able to get these different voices and get different perspectives and I just found him tremendously uh bright and and delightful to listen to are you saying you want to borrow him again yeah I want to borrow him again that's what I'm borrowing I'm gonna look that up look it up look it up you'll find that it it just it means something different but um yeah there's um anyway bye bye bye bye bye look at that we got we got a whole squad here we're gonna have a whole squad really soon amen amen we're gonna have a whole squad here well god bless you all you're gonna do everybody you guys have a great night until tomorrow good night bye bye god bless god bless god bless