Hello and welcome to the Speak Life Podcast. My name is Glenn Scrivener. Thank you very much for joining us. Last week we had a look at 2 Samuel chapter 13 and a gut punch of a chapter of Scripture. It was the terrible abuse of Tamar, but it was not just Amnon who abused Tamar. It took an entire perverse kingdom in order to rape that poor woman. There was Amnon, there was Jonadab, there was Epsilon, there was David, and there were many unnamed servants who were like cogs turning in a machinery of evil. And it was Tamar who was round in the gears. As I say, a real gut punch of the chapter of scripture, we had a look last week at the systemic evils that enable abuse. And in that context, we thought about Rabbi Zacharias. And we thought that this is not a case of one bad apple who is now gone. We thought of the systemic issues that need to be addressed in the wake of this. And with that in mind, uh this week we are continuing on with the lessons that we need to learn when it comes to the shocking scandals surrounding Rabbi Zacharias. Today we continue that conversation, this time with the New Testament scripture, Matthew chapter 16, and Christ's call for all of us to come and die. What are the implications for us as individual Christians? What are the implications for the work of ministry? How is it that we might be trying to save our lives when in fact in Matthew 16 Jesus says we ought to lose our lives for the sake of Christ? How does that apply to this scandal? How does that apply to each of our own lives? Now, are you subscribed to the Speak Live Podcast? If you are, then a share on social media would be so appreciated. And if you aren't, then why not subscribe to us on your podcatcher of choice? And a rating and review would be really helpful in order for our podcast to get seen by more people. But uh, without further ado, let's think about Matthew chapter 16, and today's podcast is entitled, It's Not Just Az I Am. All of Us Must Die. Last week I had a look at 2 Samuel chapter 13. It is the chapter about the rape of Tamar. And if you haven't seen it, then I'd recommend you see that video first before watching this video. Because in that video, I look at the systemic evil that is perpetrated and then covered over. You have the rape of Tamar, David's daughter, by the crown prince, Amnon, her half-brother. But it doesn't just take an Amnon to rape a Tamar. This is the point of the last video. It took also an impotent David, it also took a wily, crafty, wicked advisor, Jonadab. It also took a cowardly brother, Absalom. It also took a whole bunch of unnamed servants who did the bidding of those wicked men. And there is this nexus of evil that conspired against Tamar, and she is the only one who comes out with any dignity in that whole chapter, and yet she is absolutely desecrated by Amnon. And the big point of that last video was that it doesn't just take an Amnon to cause such horrors. There is systemic evil. And therefore, as we think of the sins of Ravi Zacharias, we're not just dealing with one bad apple who we we can wash our hands of now that he is dead. We need to have a look at the systems in place, the culture, the structures, that not only made space for such sins, but also turned a blind eye to such sins, allowed such sins, and then covered over such sins. We need to look at those things. And so maybe we need to consider how much Amnon there is in us, in me. Maybe I need to consider how much Amnon there is in me, but maybe I also need to consider how much Tamer there is in me. Am I the perpetrator? Am I the victim? There's a lot of both. And am I the wily advisor? Maybe I'm also a bit of Jonadab. Maybe I'm also a bit of impotent David, not using the voice that I do have to speak out properly. Maybe I'm a bit of a cowardly Absalom. Maybe I'm an anonymous servant who is like a cog in this wicked machine, and it's Tamars that get grinded in the gears. And we just we just need to face up to these issues. And so I was I was I was very strong in my condemnation of the systems and structures and culture that enables the rape of Tamar. And I was very strong about Rabbi Zacharias International Ministries and the Global Board, which remains anonymous and which made an open statement from a closed board. And um a couple of things that I that I ought to clarify. Um in the last video, I said that the board was holding the NDA, the non-disclosure agreement, uh, and not releasing Lori Ann Thompson from it. That that is not the case. It is Ravi's widow Margie uh who holds that NDA. And so uh I got that wrong, I'm sorry. Um but people have um have come back on my video and they they've asked good questions, questions like, are you really wanting to be declaiming Ravi Zachariah's International Ministries en masse? Is that what you're trying to do? And in a sense, I I think I see from the prophets ways in which um whole systems and structures are declaimed, and the point of it is not that, you know, when when Isaiah has an oracle against the nation of Assyria, okay, he's not saying that every single Assyrian is like this. Or when, far more commonly, the prophets point the finger back at God's own people and say, these are the sins of Israel, these are the sins of Judah, these are the sins of Jerusalem. Um it is not as though every single Jerusalemite is guilty of every single sin that is listed. But it is a case of to the degree that the shoe fits, it should be owned, it should be worn, um, and action should be taken. So people will say to me, Um, Glenn, there are good people inside RZIM. I know there are. I really know there are. Um and and I've had messages of s of support from a number of RZIM employees on both sides of the Atlantic. Um and and there are people of great integrity. And I think and for that reason, I think we need to separate the persons from the institution, from the structures, from the culture. And for for that reason, I think there either needs to be root and branch reformation or shut it down. And some people say to me, Well, Glenn, don't you have any sympathy for people like Sarah Davis, who is Ravi's daughter, and she was the chairman of the board of trustees and the CEO. She now is simply the CEO of RZIM Global. Um, do I not have sympathy for her? There are different victims of Ravi. And there are the survivors of the abuse, and there are the people who he lied to over so many years and whose trust he betrayed. And um, there's betrayal everywhere, and there's abuse everywhere, and it's all a big hot mess. And um, do I not have sympathy for Sarah Davis? I have so much sympathy for Sarah Davis, so much. I I can't imagine what it is like to in the last year have lost your father in every way it is possible to lose your father. Because that's what's happened. That is unimaginable anguish and grief, and then to be in the position that you now have to expose everything that's gone on and then lead the organization that bears his name through a process of change. I I think that's an impossible situation to be in. And therefore, I don't think she should be in that position. Do I not have sympathy for Sarah? I've I've got so much sympathy for her, therefore she must recuse herself. She is in an impossible position, and I have all the sympathy in the world for her. But this this is why we we must we must have a category for systemic sin. We must. And we must try to save people from systems and structures that are doing them great harm. And that and that goes for the CEO of R Z I M. Of course it does. So when I say things like RZIM Global must have root and branch reformation, or just shut the doors, shut it down. When I say that, I I I don't say that out of any animosity. I say that not because I think RZIM Global should die, but speak life. The ministry I'm involved with should live. I don't think that at all. Here's the point of this video. It's not that R Z I Am Global should die while everyone else gets to live. Everyone should die. Everyone must die. This is what Christian discipleship is. In this video, we're gonna have a look at some verses from Matthew chapter 16, and we'll look at the Christian life is is one of taking up our cross daily. It is one of dying to ourselves daily, it is one of letting go of control, letting go of self-promotion, and dying to self because whoever seeks to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Christ will save it. We're gonna have a look at that. Um this path, and we must encourage one another towards this path of death, towards this path of dying well. That's what this video is all about. That's a cheery topic, isn't it? Everyone's gotta die well. And the Lorianne Thompsons of this world, the Tamars of this world, those who have spoken their truth and been crucified for it, they are showing the way. You know, I've I've had a little bit of back and forth with um Lorianne in in this last week, and we've we've spoken about Philippians 3. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection, the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings. And Lorianne has walked that path and knows that path. She knows what it is to walk, walk with Christ and in Christ and like Christ, to die daily, as the real kind of life. She knows what it is to die well and then therefore to live well. And it's it's the it's the victims who are showing the way, the survivors are showing the way, the women are showing the way, and we we must catch up. Because Jesus said, if you want to save your life, you'll lose it. If you lose your life for Christ, you'll save it. So in this video, we're gonna have a look at uh Matthew chapter 16, and uh I I just want to circle back at the end and just briefly talk about look, there are four traps, which are half truths that we might buy at this time when we think about Ravi. Four traps, judge not, all sin is sin, don't cast stones, don't look at disciples, it's Christ alone. Um, those are four traps that we can fall into, and then four truths. Uh, systemic sin is real, inflating credentials is deadly, loyalty is to the truth, and we all must die. Um let's have a look at Matthew chapter 16. Um, right at the heart of Matthew's gospel, Jesus is in Caesarea Philippi. He's just asked his disciples, Who do the people say that I am? And they give the sort of answer that an undergraduate gives when they, you know, write the essay where they don't know the answer. You know, the answers to that question are many and various, and take in all manner of um they give the, you know, some people think you're this, some people think you're that. And then Jesus asks the direct personal question, Who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living Gods. Okay? Messiah is um the Hebrew word that means the anointed one. When you bring that into Greek, it's the word Christos, we would say Christ, right? It means the one who is full to overflowing with the Holy Spirit, anointed beyond measure with the Holy Spirit. You are the one full of the Holy Spirit, and you are the one who is the Son of the Living Gods. I love that description of the Father, the living God. You know, the the God Christians believe in doesn't just exist. What a bland deity that would be. God doesn't just exist, and who cares about the existence of God? According to the Bible, God is a fountain of life. He is the life-giving God, the living God, a father giving life to his son in the spirit, a fountain of life. That is who the living God is. And Jesus is the second person of that triune living God. A father has his son and fills him with the life-giving Holy Spirit. That's who Jesus is, the second person of the Trinity. He didn't just invent a religion, he invented the universe. That's the Christian claim. And Peter gets it. Verse 17, Jesus replied, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. That's really important because what Jesus is saying is the way you come into Christianity is the way you keep going in Christianity. You don't rise up, you don't ascend, you don't climb. It's not by the powers of the flesh that you figure out Jesus. It's revealed to you. God is the down and out God, right? He comes all the way down in Christ, fills us with his spirit, and sends us all the way out to the ends of the earth. God is the down and out God. We always try to be up and in Christians, and we'll see the real problem with that. That is that is what the flesh is. The flesh is this dynamic by which we always want to climb and ascend and grab and get on top, and that is no way to come into the Christian life, and it is no way to continue in the Christian life, and it is certainly no way to carry on ministry in the name of Jesus. There are fleshly ways of ministering and there are spiritual ways of ministering. Fleshly ways of ministering are always up and in, spiritual ways of ministry are always down and out. And Jesus says, Look, Peter, you've come in, you've understood this because the Father by the Spirit has opened your eyes to me, not because you have climbed the ladder. Okay. So blessed are you, Simon, Son of Jonah. And I tell you that you are Peter. And Peter, right, the Greek word petros, right? And on this rock, this Petra, I will build my church. On the basis of a true confession of Christ, here is this rock on which Christ will build his church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. This is amazing. Okay, so on the proclamation of Christ as the Messiah, the Son of God, then there will be a church that goes and spreads, and you know, it's fascinating to think of the gates of Hades will not overcome the church. Okay, gates do not advance. The church advances and plunders Satan's kingdom, and out it goes to the ends of the earth, as we proclaim Christ, the Son of the living God. And he says to Peter, I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. See, that that's interesting because what Jesus is doing is connecting the ministry of his servants to the mission of God. Peter is going out with this message. Hey, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and Jesus is saying, Look, um, as people respond to Peter's message, so they are responding to Christ. And if they reject Peter's message, they're rejecting Christ. The disciples are sent out in this way. And as we'll see later, you know, whoever receives the disciples are receiving Christ, and whoever's receiving Christ is receiving the Father. But if you reject the message and the messengers, then you're also rejecting Christ, and you're also rejecting the Father. For that reason, we we can't jettison church in the in the name of, hey, I'm just a Jesus guy. Okay, forget church. Church is full of ravies. We can't have church. We just need Jesus. Let's let's forget all these fallen disciples. Let us just go back to the source and go back to Jesus. Actually, Jesus doesn't allow you to do that because the way he sets up ministry is actually to commission his message to his followers, and then his followers are meant to embody to some degree his message and proclaim his message, and he's building a family out like that. And you can't just jettison church in favor of Jesus. Can't, it doesn't work like that. This will have ramifications as we move on. Verse 20, then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah. And you know, if this is the first time you're you're encountering these verses, you're going, What? What Peter's just got it right. And Jesus says, Yeah, shut up about it. You know, shh, don't, it's the messianic secret. Don't tell people. Why is Jesus not going to tell why why does Jesus tell his disciples to keep stumm about this heavenly truth? Well, we'll see. Peter doesn't really get the kind of Christ that Jesus is. Because as soon as Jesus reveals the kind of Christ he is, as soon as he says, I am the down and out kind of Christ, I am the one who will die in ignominy and shame, in self-sacrifice for the sake of love, I will pour myself out. That's the kind of God that I am. As soon as Jesus reveals he's that kind of Christ, Peter's like, No, no, no, I'm not, I'm not in on this, I'm not in on this mission. And that's that's why Jesus says, look, if you just think that Jesus is the Christ and you you you you just have a Christian ministry, don't go preaching. Do not simply go preaching a Christ in the abstract. Unless you go the way of the cross, you should not have a ministry.
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SPEAKER_00That that has implications, doesn't it? As we as we as we think about all ministry in the name of Christ, you should shut up about Jesus if you are not walking the way of the cross. You might have a correct theology. You might know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. You might be able to tick all those theological boxes, but if you are not embracing the way of the cross, get out of ministry. Stop shooting your mouth off about Jesus because you will be you'll end up proclaiming a falsehood if you're not also embracing the way of Christ. It's important. You see, from that time on, Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. I am the Christ, and because I'm the Christ, I must suffer and I must die. And this is the most profound truth I know. I don't know a deeper truth than this. The way in which God reveals himself as a living God is through dying. I don't know a deeper truth than that. But it makes sense, right? The way in which the fountain of life is revealed is when you see him poured out with every drop of his blood. You've never seen anything more divine than the cross. And on that cross, as Jesus dies, he is revealing the living God, because here is a God who is so overflowing with life, he will not spare even a drop of blood. Here is the down and out God, the full of life God, the overflowing God, who therefore is down and out, who is therefore sacrificial, who is therefore a self-giving lover. And you don't know him if you don't know him like that. And you should not speak of him if you don't embrace that about Christ, about the living God. So Jesus says, Look, I'm I am the Christ, the Christ who must be crucified. How does Peter respond to that? Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. I love that. Peter began to rebuke the Lord of the universe. He just said, You're the second person of the Trinity, you're the Messiah, the Son of the Living God. But a word to the wise Jesus, I I And look how he began to rebuke Christ. He says, Never, Lord. I mean you couldn't you couldn't have two more contradictory words put side by side, could you? Never, Lord. No, no, if you're gonna say Lord, say yes and amen. You don't say never Lord. But Peter, he hates the way of the cross. He gets who Christ is, he hates the mission of Christ. At the moment, he does. Later he'll embrace it, and he'll embrace it all the way to the A crucifixion of his own, but right now he is not a theologian of the cross, okay? And he he refused, his flesh rises up against the down and out God. He says, Never, Lord, this shall never happen to you. You see what he's trying to do? He's trying to protect the mission, the ministry, the brand. It's like Jesus, we got a good thing going on here, okay? The crowds are really building. You you you've got a base, you've got a platform, right? You've got a seat at the table, Jesus. Don't go to the cross. Don't be a loser, right? You need to build your platform and from a position of strength, then you can do good. And Jesus is having none of that. What does Jesus say? Jesus turned and said to Peter, get behind me, Satan. Isn't that fascinating? You know, like three verses earlier, he's like, You're a mouthpiece of heaven. And now he's saying, You're a spokesman for hell. Why? How does he go from a mouthpiece of heaven to a spokesman for hell? Through a failure to embrace the way of the cross. He might even proclaim Christian truth. But it would be better that he proclaimed nothing until he learns the way of the cross. Are there implications for our modern ministries? I think absolutely there are. Get behind me, Satan. You're a stumbling block to me. You don't have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns. The human concerns are the concerns of the flesh, to go up and in, right? To to build and climb and ascend and scratch and take and get on top. Those are human concerns. And we might think that that's what God's like. We might think God's quite into power games, right? He's the most powerful, so surely he must be into power games. He's totally not. He's totally into pouring out power for the sake of those without it. And actually, our human concerns end up to be satanic. It is satanic to name the name of Jesus and not embrace the way of the cross. It is satanic. And notice how Jesus, like, he doesn't put like caveats in here. You know, he doesn't say, look, now you're not satanic in every way, shape, and form, Peter. And I'm not saying that you're hell fodder. And I'm, you know, he doesn't. He says, look, to the the degree to which the shoe fits, okay, you are in this moment a mouthpiece of Satan. This is this is how Jesus deals with Peter. Peter thinks that Jesus should protect the brand, protect the ministry, don't go the way of the cross. It would be it would be better for the kingdom in the long run, right? And Jesus is like, no, get behind me, Satan. I'm going the way of the cross, I'm going the way of self-sacrifice, of giving up control and pouring out for the sake of the weak and the needy. Then Jesus said to his disciples, Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life for me will find it. Absolutely foundational Christian truth. To live well, you gotta die well. And if you cling on to your life, you'll lose it. If you pour your life out, that's real living. That's real life. It's the life that Jesus pioneered, and now if we are coming after him, united to him by his spirit, then we walk his way, giving up, sacrificing, suffering for the other. Jesus was willing to be counted the scum of the earth, dying a death on the rubbish, rubbish heap outside of Jerusalem. He says, Come my way, not the way of status and reputation and power and control, the way of self-giving love. Will you come? There's no other way. If you go the other way to try to cling on to your life, it will run through your fingers like sand through the hourglass, down and it's gone, right? If you try to save your life, you'll lose it. If you lose your life, you'll find it. If you try to save your ministry, you lose it. If you lose your ministry for Jesus, you find it. And you think, oh, you're just having a go at Az IM. No, I'm preaching to myself. I'm preaching, I'm preaching to speak life. We must die. We must die. We must pour our lives out. And we we can't climb and scratch and take and get on top and employ the powers of the flesh to get God's job done. Jesus is not interested. He says, shut up about it. If you're not going to embrace the way of the cross, don't be in ministry. Even though you've got true things to say about me. He says, Don't be in ministry. Embrace the way of the cross. I I don't think when I say Az I Am Global needs root and branch reform or shut its doors. I'm not saying that they should die and speak life should live. I'm not saying that anyone within Az that I am should should die and Glenn Scrivener should live. Glenn Scrivener should die. Every day. You know, it's so interesting that John the Baptist in John 3, verse 30, he says, I must decrease, so Christ must increase. I think we pervert that, don't we? We we think, especially those in ministry, we think I must increase so that Christ will increase. Yeah? I like, you know, he's he's lucky to have me. But if I can build up my platform, I'll use it for you, Jesus. So I must increase, so you must, so you can increase a bit more, Jesus. How about we do it that way? John's like, no, I must I must decrease. So Christ must increase. That's the pattern, that's the way. It's the way of witness. You know, I I don't need to tell any apologists that the word for witness in the New Testament is the word martyr. I don't need to tell any apologist that, you know that. Because dying well is the best kind of witness to Christ, the suffering servant. Of course it is. Dying well, losing well, giving up well, giving away well. Martyrdom is the way of witness. But it's it doesn't come naturally, it doesn't come naturally to the flesh. Of course it doesn't. But especially, especially parachurch ministries. Okay, there's there's there's no there's no promise in scripture. We've just seen a promise from Jesus that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. There is no such promise attached to parachurch ministry. And I I say this all the time at Speak Life. We have no right to exist. To the degree that we serve the church and are doing a job in reaching the world and helping Christians and helping the church to face the world and reach out with the good news of Jesus, to the degree that we're we're a servant in that sense, then okay, there's there's an argument for our existence. But if there's not, shut us down. And if there are systems and structures in place which turn our witness into perversity, then I would expect brothers and sisters in Christ to raise their voices and to shut speak life tomorrow. I would expect that. We all must die. All of us. That's my big point for this video. Let me just run through these four traps and the four truths that I'm learning. Okay. Um traps, all of these traps are actually half truths, and and they're taken from scriptural truth, but I'm finding them when it comes to the matter of the Ravi Zacharias scandals to be twisted into being traps and being um incredibly unhelpful. Have you come across these as people have uh spoken about the scandals? Um first thing people say, well judge not, judge not, you're being judgy, Glenn. Don't judge. Um and I'm like, Well, have you continued to read that verse? Um Matthew chapter seven, do not judge, or you two will be judged in the same way, for in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. So Jesus is not banning all judgments, or or else, you know, he should ban his own judgments. He he's telling us what to do. And those who quote Jesus to me, they're also judging. All right? Everyone's using discernment. You have to. But this is this is not a blanket ban on all judgment or all discernments. It is a call for a high standard of integrity when you do so and and calling out hypocrisy. Because verse three, why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to the to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye when all the time there's a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite. First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you'll see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. Do you see the goal? The goal is to remove the pl the speck from your brother's eye. But absolutely, it's got to come, it's got to come home. And you've got to take it to heart. And, you know, we're we're doing that at Speak Life. I hope you're doing it wherever you are. I'm doing it personally in terms of um how am I betraying some of the sins of Amnon and and of David and of Jonadab and of Absalom and of the anonymous servants, and yeah. Um take the plank out of your own eyes. So that we help each other. We got to help each other. It's not a blanket ban against discernment. It can't be a blanket ban against discernment because Jesus goes on to say, there are false teachers around, and you must discern who they are by their fruit. By their fruit you will know them. He's calling us to judge. And he's especially calling us to judge false teachers who bear false fruit. He's explicitly telling us to judge in that in that sense. So here's a trap, the whole judge not thing. Here's another trap. People say, Ah, all sin is sin. All sin is sin. Who can say I I can't tell you the number of comments I've had on that video and on other things that we've done on social media, people say, um, well, you know, all sin is sin, and Ravi did his thing, but you've got your own sins, and so let's let's just all deal with the Lord personally and privately. Um look, I I I hope you I hope you know that all sin is not sin, isn't is not the same in in many regards. In many regards. You know that an impure thought is not the same as a genocide. I hope you know that. Here's here's here's the truth that we need to hold on to. There is no sin so slight that it does not require the blood of Christ to forgive it. That's true. And there is no sin so great that the blood of Christ cannot forgive it, right? But between those two markers, there's a heck of a lot of gradation. And you can you can see that by reading the Old Testament. The Old Testament law had all sorts of grades of sins and all sorts of grades of punishment. It's you know you won't you know there wasn't the same punishment for every single crime in the in the Old Testament. Of course there wasn't. It's not that all sin is sin, and it's and it's not it's not that impure thoughts are the same thing as, you know, buying a massage parlor to traffic women for sex, okay? You can call that sort of stuff out. It's okay. And then people say, well, don't cast stones, you know, let the one who is without sin throw the first stone. Now, as I said in my last video, when I mentioned John 8, I I don't think Jesus is just saying, um, you know, whoever whoever has not looked with lust upon a woman in a moment of madness, um, you know, whoever is not guilty of that kind of sin can cast the first stone. Largely because I don't think he can presume that his audience in John chapter 8 were there in Matthew chapter 5, when he talks about, you know, that kind of truth about sin. When he says, let him who is without sin cast the first stone, I I think I think he's presuming, and and he knows, obviously, as the Lord, that the kind of sinners that they are really do approximate adultery in a very tangible sense. And the whole thing about don't cast stones, I think we we need a distinction between sins that disqualify you for ministry and and the rest. There are all sorts of gradations of sins, and there are sins that disqualify a public representative of Christ from being a public representative of Christ. Okay? There is a line to draw, and I'm not just inventing a category of mortal and venial sin at that stage. I'm just pointing you to New Testament truths. There are there are things that disqualify you from public ministry, and to point them out is not to cast stones. And then here's another trap. Um and this is the most well-meaning, I think. And and the most well-meaning is is to simply say this goes to show you cannot trust anyone except Jesus. It's just Christ alone. And these scandals, they just they just show us that we can't trust any anyone except Jesus. And look, there is a kind of a truth to that in that um, yeah, there is no one without sin. And there is only one person who, if you dig and dig and dig and dig, you will find no dirt on. And isn't that glorious about Jesus? It's absolutely wonderful. We we have a saviour of such purity and and uniqueness. That is true. But I don't think we want to be heard to be saying, never look at the church, only look at Christ. Because then it becomes so easy to throw the church under the bus and just say, Yeah, the church is a hot mess, just cling to Jesus. Well, that would just leave you in a very dangerous position where it's just, you know, Jesus and me with my own personal copy of the Bible, you know, sitting on the edge of the bed, reading, you know, reading the Bible by myself, listening to my favorite worship music on the radio. Um, Jesus and me spirituality is not the way out of this. We do need each other. We need each other precisely because we're we're all sinners and we need to help each other. We need to walk together in the light. Okay? And there's a great danger that when we say, don't look at the disciples, you can't trust them. It's Christ alone. Um, there's there's a real danger there because it throws church under the bus. It means we won't do the hard work of trying to establish our local expressions of church as the places of justice and righteousness that they ought to be, as the safe places that they ought to be. And there are millions of safe churches, right? There are the there are places where people can come and experience some of the grace and teaching and healing of Jesus and and and know that they will not be prey to some predator. But we won't do the hard work of establishing that and of and of seeking to make the reforms that we need if we just say, Oh, yeah, churches, churches will never be safe places because they're full of sinners, and so we just look to look to Christ. That's not actually the way that Jesus wants the mission to run. You know, Jesus says, Um, in Matthew chapter 10, verse 40, he says to the disciples, look, anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Um, Jesus actually puts his words into his people, and he puts his life into his people, that our life and our words might be an expression of Jesus out to the world. And in a in one sense, you know, you you are the Bible that your your friends will read when they won't read the black and white Bible, when when they won't read the the you know this. There is that sense, right? In which Jesus has Jesus has not just downloaded theological truths into the minds of the lost in order to save them. He's building a family in which he puts his words and his life into us, and this is the way the church grows, and so we can't just divorce Jesus from the church. He is as close as the head is to the body. Yes, he is uniquely pure. Yes, he is uniquely trustworthy, but we can't divorce head from body. As we've seen in Matthew 16, you know, Jesus gives to Peter, and on the confession, on that pet trying confession of Christ the Lord's, then those in that tradition of making such a pet trying confession, they are given the keys of the kingdom. And whatever is bound on earth is bound in heaven, whatever is loosed on earth was is loosed in heaven. Um, what happens in church matters. You can't just throw it under the bus and say it's just you and Jesus. Same thing at the end of John's gospel. Jesus says, Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, I am sending you guys out. And with that he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven. And you think, Jesus, you're putting far too much trust in the church. It sounds so dangerous, doesn't it? But here's what I think is even more dangerous. What's even more dangerous is to divorce Christian faith from an embodied life with the church. That would be even more dangerous. If it's just you sitting on the edge of end of your bed having some Jesus feelings, just you and him. Um at the end of the day, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. We need one another, actually. And as dangerous as it is for Jesus to entrust his life and words to the church, it's even more dangerous for us to entrust it just to ourselves. So we can't throw church under the bus. We mustn't throw church under the bus. And for every rebuke we give to false expressions of church, we must spend ten times as much time establishing the church as the safe place that it's meant to be. So let that be my appeal to you. It's not a case of judge not, it's not a case of all sin is sin. It's not a case of don't cast stones, it's not a case of don't look at disciples, just look at Christ. It's it's not that. There are some deeper truths. But here, here are here are four truths that I'm I'm learning. And as I bring this to a close, learning truths from this is really hard. Because what every one of us is tempted to do is to believe the hobby horse that we were all already riding before we learnt about Ravi. And one of the great dangers is it's what happens with every crisis. With every crisis, people say, ah, this just goes to show, and then you know, they finish the sentence, this just goes to show what I've always believed. Right? And that's just a universal truth, isn't it? Whenever a crisis hits, it's all ah, I guess I'm justified in what I've always believed. And I just urge us to be very suspicious of that. If if if this horror, if the rap, if the Ravi horror has just confirmed you in what you've already already thought, I'd just be suspicious of that. Because I just read stuff, you know, you know, some of the comments on the videos are like, ah, it's be it's because Ravi is a Protestant. That's that's that's that's where this leads, you know, as as though Protestants have a monopoly on this kind of evil, you know, or or somebody said, or other people have said, Ravi's not reformed enough. He needs to have my kind of theology. Or other people have said, you know, it's about quiet times. If he just had quiet times, he wouldn't have flown to Bangkok with his masseuse. Or and that was the hobby horse you were riding before you learnt about Ravi. And surprise, surprise, now you're just enlisting the Ravi, you know, chaos in order to go on riding the hobby horse that you've always already had. Be suspicious. Be suspicious. If this if this just confirms you in all the beliefs that you've already had. Um because here here's something that I don't think I would have have named so um so distinctly a year ago. Okay, systemic sin is real. It is real. And when you look at 2 Samuel 13 and when you say that it takes an entire perverse kingdom in order to abuse Tamar, the scriptures are screaming that truth at us. And let us not buy into the myth of this Western individualism that just says it's just me and Jesus. Okay. Um the baptismal liturgy of turning away from um sin, the world, and the devil. Um that is so vital to lay a hold of. Sin, the world, and the devil. The problems with this world are multi-layered. And yes, there is a problem with my individual sin, and I must never give myself a free pass on that. Yeah? And I must never just blame the systems, okay? Yeah, it's sin, but it's also the world. And there are also structures in place, six, sick and twisted structures in place, where people get caught up in them. There is the world, and there's the devil. There is a supernatural evil as well, and we do well to think in that multi-layered way. Let's, you know, and what happens in the culture wars is you just get one side saying it's all about individual sin and let's just guard our own personal hearts, and you get the other side saying, no, it's all just about systems, right? And if we just tear down the systems, we will well then what? If we just tear down the system, then what? You know, me in my purity just gets released out onto the world? I don't think so. It's both. It's both the individual and the corporate, it's it's both sin and the world and the devil. And the devil's having a field day when he sees us debating. I think sin is just personal. No, I think sin is entirely systemic. I say it's both, and and I don't think. I would have banged that drum so loudly this time last year. And I th and I think this scandal is teaching me that. So let's learn new things. And and it's it's not that it's not that the world is teaching me something that the Bible didn't teach me. It's that it's all over the scriptures, and I'm waking up to it. Systemic sin is real. Inflating credentials is deadly. It is so deadly. You know, it's it is a cautionary tale that the first stories to break about Ravi were about inflating his credentials. He claimed to be a department head at a seminary that had no departments. He claimed to be a Cambridge student, he claimed to be an Oxford professor, he claimed to be Dr. Zacharias in an inappropriate way, and he was inflating his credentials. But is not is not that the way of ministry in the twenty-first century? Is that not the way of building a platform? Isn't that not the way of the flesh? That is rampant, absolutely rampant in evangelicalism. It's rampant globally in all sorts of expressions, and it expresses itself differently. You know, you can be a rock star in the US and a Christian, and like that's just laughable in the UK where where I am. But there are other ways of going the way of the flesh and being credentialed, yes. Oh yes. What what what college were you at at Oxford? Oh yeah, I think we overlapped, yeah. You know, like and there is the inflating of credentials. There is the there is this way of the flesh that invests in a persona out there that is different from the reality in here, and in that breach, every sin is able to fester. And yeah. How am I inflating credentials? You know, last week I sent out an email saying, hey, we had our Valentine's Day video, and there was a free book offer for interested inquiries. If they wanted to find out more about the true love story, they can get my book, and you know. And so I emailed people after the video campaign, and I and I said, um, dozens of people have responded to you know the the offer of a of a free book. Now, yes, how many people actually responded? Yes. Yes, that's right, 24. Exactly. Bang on the money, just just 24. Right? Um, I was just I was just on the right side of telling the truth. I was telling the truth about it, but but uh that's the tiniest example of what what I'm always tempted to do, always to infra inflate my credentials. And why where are we we ministering from? Are we ministering from a kind of an up and in sense of the flesh and building our own platforms for the sake of Jesus? Or is it is it dying to self, dropping the mask, letting the light shine in? It feels mortifying. I use that word advisedly, it feels excruciating to minister out of weakness, but that's the way of the cross. And if you're not going the way of the cross, get out of ministry. Loyalty is to the truth. This is a this is a big, this is the third truth. Loyalty is to the truth. Um there's a few things teaching us this. One is why is it that it was an atheist, Steve Boffman, who was like banging on the door and kicking up a stink and saying, guys, look at the look at the credentials, inflation, look at look at this scandal, and then look at the Laureane scandal. And why why did it take someone from outside the church to be a prophet to the church? Well, because we should be far more loyal to the truth than we are to our tribe. It's a massive truth in the Bible. It goes all the way through the Bible. Look at Jeremiah, you know. Um you had you had these tribalists who were trusting in the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. We are definitionally God's people, right? Therefore, all those baddies out there, like the Babylonians, right? They are by definition telling us lies, aren't they? They are by definition doing Satan's work, aren't they? Actually, no. The Babylonians are doing God's work. The Israelites needed to be judged. They needed to be mortified, they needed to be needed to be brought to nothing. And their loyalty ought not to have been to the tribe but to the truth. So we need to have a theology that actually that there are people on the outside of the church who are far more righteous than we are, who are prophetic towards the church, and who might well be the mouthpiece of God while we cling to our tribes. And isn't that a judgment upon us? So loyalty is to the truth, not to our tribe, but also um loyalty is to the truth, not to a leader. Right? Now, this is not to say we we are suspicious of every single leader. You you couldn't you couldn't have church life, you couldn't have family life, you couldn't have life without trust. Um but it needs to be more than allegiance to you and the desires of your flesh. It needs to be an allegiance to a truth that is higher than what your flesh desires, so that I can be I can be more loyal to you by questioning you about your phone usage. By asking, well, can I have a look at the you know when when the allegations were made that Ravi was involved in this sexting, um like the loyalty was to the truth. And no matter how angry he gets, we need to see your phone, Ravi. And this is not us being disloyal to you, it's it's it is to be loyal to a higher truth, and it is therefore to be loyal to you in commitment to a higher truth. It's to hand you hold you to a higher standard. We we must not be simply loyal to tribes, we might just not not just be simply loyal to leaders. And here's something I'm really learning is if an allegation is brought about a leader, now there's all sorts of scriptures to look into, and we can look into those. Um But my default my default um sense of trust is oh well I'll I'll trust the public leader because I see him. He seems like a good guy. He's a good guy doing a good work. Right, and my and my loyalty becomes to that. He's a good guy doing a good work. Well, well, that's what he lets you see. But here's somebody else saying something different. And like, what are the prior probabilities that we are assigning to these two witnesses? This this witness is a leader, this this witness is entirely powerless, but is alleging some serious sins from this person. What what are the prior probabilities of these two people telling the truth? And I think I have been far too I I've set leaders far too much like this and said, well, the prior probability um must be high because I I know them. I well, at least I saw them speaking on YouTube once, you know. And and so we assign a prior probability way up here, and we assign really low prior probabilities for people bringing allegations of serious abuse. The trouble is, those who are bringing serious allegations of of abuse are so incredibly brave and have to surmount so many different hurdles just to even get a hearing, just to even broach the subject, that the probability that these are false allegations is low. And the probability that you know this leader just because you've seen him preach, the probability that he should be trusted just because you see him preach, no, that is not why you should assign him any kind of prior probability of him telling the truth. It's got to be far more like this. We've got to listen to these allegations. We've got to say, okay, and now, leader, for the sake of the truth, because I'm not going to be loyal just to your leadership, I'm going to be loyal to the truth. I need to have a look at your phone. I need to have a look at these emails. You need you need to open up. And we need to look into this. And if they'd done that to Ravi, then there would have been three years of abuse saved. Loyalty is to the truth. And then just the final truth: we all must die. We all must die. My flesh says self-protection, self-promotion, control. The way of the spirit is down and out because it's the way of Christ. It's the way of going out to the last and the least and the lost to lose your reputation. To lose that sense of control, to pour yourself out, to die. I am called to die every day. So Rabbi Zacharias International Ministries, you're called to die well. I don't know what I don't pretend to know what that will look like. But if there are those on the outside of your organization calling you to die, take it in the spirit in which it's given. I don't say it because I don't have sympathy for the people of integrity within this organization. It doesn't mean I don't have tremendous sympathy for the family members who have found themselves in the position of being executives in this ministry. What a what a place to find yourself. For that sake. For that reason, I I think root and branch reform or shut it down. But it's not that you should die and I should live. It's that we both can die. We both will die in Jesus and through Jesus. And here's my final word. Look, Az I am, you you go around the world persuading people and trying to persuade millions of people of the truth of the resurrection. You know how you know how you show that you believe in the resurrection? You know how I show that I believe in the resurrection? Is that I die. And I lay myself before the Lord's, and I I stop trying to get things done by the flesh. And I say, you can take this from me. And whatever you want to raise up, you raise up. I trust you. I'm simply going to pour my life out. I'm simply going to lose my life. And I trust in the resurrection enough that the God of righteousness will raise up what is good, what is fruitful. And he will leave in the grave what is not. So show the world that you believe in resurrection. Die well. All of us. All of us must die well. Let's open up before the Lord. Drop the mask. Live in community. Allow people to ask those questions because they're loyal to a higher truth than just my ego. Let's let people ask those questions. Let's get into those conversations. Let's walk in the light as Christ is in the light, and the blood of Jesus purifies us from all sin. God bless you guys. We've got some videos coming up. The videos coming up will be Sam Albury next. So he has been an Azerayam insider for many years, and he will share his story, I think, tomorrow. And then next week we've got Becca Legg, and she is going to talk to us about how churches can be better at responding to abuse that surfaces in church life. And she's from Restored Ministries, and she's got some real wisdom to share with us about how we can respond to allegations and how we can protect people so that we can be the safest place on earth that we are meant to be. God bless you guys, and I'll see you again next time. Well, that'll do us on the Speak Life Podcast for this week. I hope you've enjoyed that episode. And if you have any questions or comments or feedback, please email us at infospeaklife.org.uk. 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Well, that'll do us for this episode. See you next time on the Speak Life Podcast.