You know , for those who are watching again and you are possibly thinking about other religions many years ago there was a Parliament of World Religions in Chicago 5,000 delegates meeting in the Palmer House to discuss can we unify the religions of the world ? I attended every day . I hobnobbed with people from different cultures and different backgrounds , but I went where all of the literature was and I went looking for a sinless Savior . I remember the first ones I went to , if I remember correctly , are the Buddhists , and I said you know , I'm a sinner and I need a sinless Savior to save me . Do you have one ? No , I went to Islam . No , you know , muhammad was our prophet , but he never claimed sinlessness . I went to Baha'i .
Speaker 1To everyone who's listening . They need to understand that there's only one person who is qualified to be called a savior to save us from our sins . This is not a social justice . Jesus though Jesus did many good things , but he's not the Jesus of popular culture , and when we see him in the book of Revelation and he returns as judge , it is terrifying . So what you have said is so critical for people to understand is that we have different conceptions of God , but we always have to go back to the Bible for what the Bible reveals about God .
Speaker 2Ray , you're known for a lot of things , but one thing you've probably never been called is a professional . Would you like to describe what you were just doing over here with my water bottle ?
Speaker 3Yeah , I was trying to put water in your cup and it spilled a little bit . Why did it spill ?
Speaker 2Because you were holding your hand over the top and in spite of me saying no thank you , he continued to pour it . Just all over the place .
Speaker 4Well , he did the same over here , and he spilt it everywhere over here , but I cleaned it up .
Speaker 3That's the sign of a professional .
Speaker 2And then , what did you do with the napkin Blew ?
Speaker 3your nose . We're going on podcast .
Speaker 2A true professional . Thank you , ray . Thank you . Today we have a guest with us , pastor Erwin . We are so excited , thankful and blessed to have you here For our listeners who have not heard of you before . First off , how dare you listener ? But secondly , pastor Irwin's a pastor of Moody Church in Chicago from 1980 to 2016 . 36 years I do have a question about that . But before that , you've written possibly just as many books as Ray . Do you know how many books you've written , pastor Irwin ?
Speaker 1Actually , I think that the website says 70 , but I have to say that some are smaller and so I don't know if that's a correct number exactly , but God has given me the privilege of doing quite a bit of writing , and Ray probably has experienced this as well . Some of us , we think that we have the gift of writing , but few people have the gift of reading .
Speaker 2And what you have to do is to be able to put the two together . So , yes , well , that's impressive . Mark and I collectively haven't written more than 70 words , so the fact that you have 70 books is really impressive . Your most recent book , the Eclipse of God , our nation's Disastrous Search for a More Inclusive Deity and what we Must Do About it and that last part is no small thing . It's one thing to talk about it , it's another thing to do something about it , which we are all about that . But before we get into your book , I have a question for you . How would you describe the first three years of ministry work as a pastor in comparison to the last three years ? I have to imagine culture and conversations and preaching and the necessities of pastoring was very different from 1980 to 2016 . How would you describe that ?
Speaker 1Not only that , oscar , but I was actually the pastor of a Baptist church before I came to Moody Church , so I've been in the ministry many years . It is an entirely different culture . Let me mention several things that have radically changed . Number one is the very purpose of the church . When I was pastoring way back in 1980 , the emphasis was on the church being a body to come to learn , to worship together , to go out into the world . And then what you had is the seeker-sensitive movement , which may be winding down I'm not sure exactly , but where the philosophy of the church was very different and in some instances at least , without being judgmental , I think it turned into some kind of an entertainment to be able to bring other people who were relatively not interested in the gospel into the church . So that's one difference . And , by the way , even today , churches continue to be culturally relevant in such a way that they give the culture whatever the culture wants .
Speaker 1But number two , technology . I mean this changed everything when you stop to think of it in the days before the internet . Now , of course , everything's online and that has huge implications for our children and so forth , and I'm really burdened for the next generation because too many of the kids . They spend all of their time on youtube . I remember a mother said to me somebody should have told me that before I gave a cell phone to my daughter , I might as well have given her her first shot of heroin . So you have all that flowing into the culture .
Speaker 1And then the other thing , which was totally unpredicted , though possibly should have been predicted , is the great sexual revolution . Now , of course , when I was ministering , we knew that we had the advance of homosexual marriages and relationships , but transgenderism was absolutely unheard of . And today you have all of these streams that are coming against us , and they are powerful streams , and the church needs to know how to handle them . What do we do ? How do we minister ? How do we show people a better way ? All of that is happening , and so we live in a culture that is very , very diverse , very different than the one in which , when I began to pastor , well , oscar , shouldn't we mention the elephant that's not in the room ?
Speaker 3no , we're excited . Yeah , easy is not hosting today , oscar's hosting , because Easy's in Florida , he's in .
Speaker 4Orlando hosting the Bible Bee . That's right . We miss him .
Speaker 2We miss him dearly , and let me just apologize now , because I don't have nearly as many voices as Easy does .
Speaker 3And you're quite sane .
Speaker 2And I'm usually more sane . I'm not always more sane , but I'm usually more sane . No , I'm not always more sane , but I'm usually more sane . No , I'm kidding , he'll fire me if he heard me say that the other thing is for once , because Easy's not here . We were on time .
Speaker 3Hey , look at that Boy that's gonna open a can of worms . We're gonna finish early .
Speaker 1Pastor .
Speaker 3Easy is an absolute fanatic for being on time Absolutely , Except If he's a second late . It's just anathema .
Speaker 2He loses his salvation . Yes , that's right . So , Pastor Irwin , what motivated you to write this ?
Speaker 1book . I wrote the Eclipse of God because of various reasons in our culture , but a number of years ago the Economist had an article the Economist magazine in England and the online version was Nearer my God to me . In fact I have a chapter in the book on that . And the whole idea was this God is becoming more liberal . He's becoming as liberal as we are . He's approving of same-sex marriage he is . And then it said this Nobody believes in the smitey almighty of the Old Testament . So I have in here a discussion of the smitey almighty , where I discuss the killing of the Canaanites and all and the stoning in the Old Testament . And then one of the longest chapters is is God more tolerant than he used to be ? Is it safer to sin under grace than it was under law to be ? Is it safer to sin under grace than it was under law ? So these are the kinds of issues . And then the rest of the book is to show how God is absolutely necessary and that's why it is being advertised as a book on apologetics , though it really has to do with understanding the culture and so forth . But here's the point I show how God is necessary for truth . This is huge because I try to explain to parents why is it that when you send your kids to college , they come back and , lo and behold , they don't think the same way as you do . Wow , why ? Well , there are changes in the way in which truth is seen . And then how God is necessary for things such as morality . And then law . Oh , I'd love to talk about that , how that civil rights , for example , has to be based on the creation story and ask me about that , because I want to get into that . And then the last chapter , which I think raises some eyebrows , is returning to the law , excuse me , returning to the God of grace and wrath , not the God of unconditional love . And the point that I make in the book is that we are constantly creating God in our image so that we can have a sin-friendly God . And there are two doctrines , ray , that destroy any church . One is the essential goodness of man and the other is the existence of a tolerant , nonjudgmental deity . So it's an attempt to help people to understand the culture . There's something else I should have mentioned about it . At the beginning , I show how darkness has come , because we're talking about the eclipse of God .
Speaker 1Nietzsche , a philosopher , as all of us know a philosopher in Germany . He said God is dead . And then he said cannot you hear the noise of the gravediggers who have buried God ? I looked at that and I said I wonder who he would be referring to . It would have been someone who lived in the 1800s .
Speaker 1I discussed the influence of Karl Marx , darwin , which is absolutely huge because he said Darwin said that the baboon is our grandfather . We came up through the animal world Boy . Does that have implications ? We have no argument against abortion and infanticide and so forth because we do it with animals . And then the last person is actually Freud and his view of sexuality being the highest pleasure . Very quickly , and then I'm going to return it back to you . Marx rebelled against God as ruler . Darwin rebelled against God as creator . Freud , he rebelled against God as lawgiver . And Nietzsche actually has a funeral for God . I mean , you want to give him a good burial . He has In one of his books he has somebody going into the cathedrals of Europe and saying the cathedrals of Europe have become the tombs of God and a requiem for God is given . And if you go to Europe today , nietzsche was right , mark yeah , mark , you know it's interesting .
Speaker 2He brings up a really good point , which is that there are so many people who you've been having discussions for years now about people who try to move the line on truth , that truth is malleable , that we can define truth in ourselves . But now we even see that . To Pastor Irwin's point , we even see that with people who claim to believe in God , that God is somehow malleable , that His laws are malleable . How do you approach somebody like that ?
Speaker 4Well , listen , a customized God cannot confront sin . I mean , let's start there . If he does confront sin , he's not going to confront all of our sin . He's not going to confront , perhaps , the blasphemy that I'm going to sit through while I watch a movie because I'm okay with that , or he's not going to confront the sexuality inside that movie because the plot is too good and I need to get through the whole movie , right ? So we begin to customize a God after us , and it's the breaking of the second commandment .
Speaker 4Obviously , right , we would never , as Ray says , we would never create a God with our hands , with wood or with stone , but we do it with our imaginations , right ? So here's a scripture Psalm 50 , verse 21, . You thought that I was one like yourself , but now I rebuke you and I lay the charge before you . Or , as AW Pink said , when men allow themselves to fashion God in their own image , they find themselves worshiping a God who cannot save . So we erect a God who does not exist . We call out to God who cannot hear us and a God who cannot see us . So there's no strange thing when we begin to say god , where are you in the times of difficulty ? He cannot save , he cannot hear , he cannot feel what we're going through . But god was altogether different . You know , when we start talking about , is god the same god of the old testament as he is in the new testament ? Because the god of the new testament is the god of grace , isn't he ray ?
Speaker 3boy , there's enough scripture to make your hair stand in permanently . In the new testament that shows that god doesn't change . The book of Romans we store up wrath and anguish is coming to those who continue in sin . In the book of Hebrews and the book of Revelation and Jude and Peter all those scriptures that show that God hasn't changed . He's a God of wrath against sin in the Old Testament . He's a God of wrath against sin in the New Testament and the expression of God's righteousness was revealed in the cross . That's the extreme he went to to justify his righteousness .
Speaker 4And you often pull out Ananias and Sapphira .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 3God killed a husband and wife because they told one lie and he usually reached out to steady the ark . God killed him because God is holy and righteous . He killed a man in Genesis 8 because he didn't like what he did sexually , and that God hasn't changed , and that's the God we must face on judgment day . So my advice to someone who doesn't fear God is go to Texas , sit through a lightning storm , and that'll put the fear of God in you .
Speaker 2Yeah , it's funny because I'm specifically remembering a quote by DA Carson which he says you know , we often think the God of the Old Testament is somehow more wrathful and the God of New Testament is loving and kind . And he says if you pay close enough attention , it's actually as though God is ratcheting up the dial on both his love and his wrath . In the New Testament and he makes the point in the Old Testament his wrath was put on display through death , and in the New Testament his wrath is put on display primarily through the preaching of eternal punishment . In the Old Testament his love is on display and his patience towards people . In the New Testament , his love is on display through the sacrifice of his son on a cross .
Speaker 2And so both the wrath and the love of God are ratcheted up in the New Testament , but we only like to focus on the love
of God . It seems as though we are creating God in our own image . What does that mean For somebody who's never heard that phrase before ? Never put it in context , pastor Erwin , I'd love for you to help us understand . What does it mean to create God in our own image ?
Speaker 1Well , very simply , what it means is that God exists the way I think he does , so that really , the God that we believe in is a domesticated deity . He is one with us in the sense that he agrees with me about everything . This is why the Apostle Paul says so accurately that there are going to be false teachers and they are going to teach theology according to their own desires . So we live in an age in which theology is desire-driven . I want to have a God that is tolerant . I want to have a God that accepts me the way I am , and , of course , we see that oftentimes in the New Age movement , where people believe that their self-consciousness is God . And to all those who are listening to us today , I want to remind them of what happens when you believe in the false god , a god that is self-created . There is a passage in Isaiah that says this that those who believe in false religions and I want people to be able to grasp this imagery they are like someone who goes to bed hungry . He dreams he is eating , but when he wakes up he's hungry still . They go to bed hungry . He dreams he is eating , but when he wakes up he's hungry still . Ooh , that's good . They go to bed thirsty , they dream that they are drinking , but they wake up thirsty still . Wow , that's so good . And to those who are listening today , I want them to understand that there is a God , the God of the Bible , who has to be approached through Jesus Christ , our Lord , and he is a transforming God in the sense that he is eminently holy , he hates sin in ways that we don't understand even , but that also he is gracious and merciful . And I do want to put a footnote to what you said , ray , about the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New . Think of Hebrews . It says if under Moses , under two or three witnesses , people were stoned of , how much greater punishment shall they be thought worthy who have trodden underfoot the blood of Christ ? And we've already emphasized the point . But when you go into the book of Revelation , you discover judgments that are so terrifying , they are way beyond anything mentioned or described in the Old Testament . So , to all those who are listening , we have to confront God the way he is and not the way in which we want him to be . I like to think that when God spoke to Moses , he said I am , that I am and I'm not who you think I am or who you want me to be . Now , if there are people listening and they say well , you know , my self-consciousness is God , this is what we find in society , as you well know , because you gentlemen do apologetics , I'm into spirituality , but I don't believe anything specific . Now , what you are really saying is , if you still believe in God , that this God is a figment of my imagination and I'm perfectly comfortable with it , and whatever I believe , God believes . Look in the mirror , because what you see is your own God and that God is unable to save . He's unable to take away sin . You know , for those who are watching again and you are possibly thinking about other religions , many years ago there was a Parliament of World Religions in Chicago 5,000 delegates meeting in the Palmer House to discuss can we unify the religions of the world ? I attended .
Speaker 1Every day I hobnobbed with people from different cultures and different backgrounds , but I went where all of the literature was and I went looking for a sinless Savior . I remember the first ones I went to , if I remember correctly , are the Buddhists , and I said you know , I'm a sinner and I need a sinless Savior to save me . Do you have one . No , I went to Islam . No , you know Muhammad was our prophet , but he never claimed sinlessness . I went to Baha'i , to everyone who's listening . They need to understand that there's only one person who is qualified to be called a savior to save us from our sins . This is not a social justice . Jesus though . Jesus did many good things , but he's not the Jesus of popular culture , and when we see him in the book of Revelation and he returns as judge , it is terrifying . So what you have said is so critical for people to understand is that we have different conceptions of God , but we always have to go back to the Bible for what the Bible reveals about God .
Speaker 2Mark , so often you hear someone say something like I could never follow a God who doesn't X , who doesn't accept LGBTQ , who would kill his own son , who would disagree with X . What do you ? How do you interact with that ?
Speaker 4Yeah , and to carry that on . People say you know , god is the God of the Bible , is a jealous God . Oh , pity , pity little God . You know , listen , you want God to be a jealous God . You want God to come along and say I know what your greatest need is , which is myself . And then for God to hold back himself to the greatest need of what mankind needs and to not give it would be a terrible God . But how loving and how kind is God to come along and say I know what your greatest need is , which is myself , and I'm going to give you what you don't deserve . Grace God's unmerited favor to the infinitely ill deserving getting what you don't deserve .
Speaker 4But more than not getting a thing , but getting a person . And that person is not just a ticket out of hell and into heaven , but we've been called into having a relationship with a God who knows how to make sunsets and butterfly brains right . I mean , it absolutely blows our brain to think about who God is , what he's capable of doing and of all the things that he could do , he's chosen to put his attention and his affection upon mankind right . As Sproul said , god was not bored .
Speaker 4At 7 am on a Tuesday morning , several thousands of years ago , and said you know what I think I'm going to make man ? No , god possesses an attribute called aseity right , that he is self-sufficient , self-reliant , not in need of anyone or anything . Yet before the foundation of the world , he chose us , conformed us , predestined us and allowed us to come into relationship with him . So what does humanity do ? Humanity comes along and says I don't want to have anything to do with him . Well , of course you're not searching after light because you love darkness . Right ? And what do you say ? You often give an analogy between a bank robber and a police officer that a bank robber's not seeking after a police officer .
Speaker 3Why is that ? Yeah , but it's not original because of his guilt .
Speaker 2What I'm blown away is the thought of butterflies having brains . I was just going to say Pastor Erwin , in case you don't know , that's also Mark's nickname for .
Speaker 4Ray Butterfly Brain .
Speaker 3Butterfly Brain , say that 10 times fast . Yeah , it's Toy Boat , toy Boat .
Speaker 2That's right , you know . What's interesting is I heard someone once describe it like this in regards to creating God in our own image . Ultimately , what we want is a God who never disagrees with us , and it reminded this person of the old book .
Speaker 3How to Train your Memory .
Speaker 2Yeah , Stepford Wives . So in the book Stepford Wives , these men create these wives , these robotic wives that serve their every need . They never disagree with them . They're home all the time , everything's clean . When they come home , there's never any arguments , and at first these men think that they've created heaven on earth . They're at first enjoying it . But as time and chapters move on , what they realize is that they are alone , that they're not experiencing true relationship , that they cannot be known or loved , and they long for an actual relationship with a real woman .
Speaker 2In that same way , if you are pretending like there is some God out there that has never disagreed with you , that agrees with everything you say , that affirms everything you do , you are not worshiping God . You are worshiping a Stepford God . You've created an in-your-own image . You are worshiping a Stepford God . You've created an in-your-own image and , like you said , pastor Erwin , one day you will wake up from that dream thirsty and hungry for the true , living God . And of course , that's the beauty of the gospel Ray . I think a lot of the times . The reason why people head in that direction is something Pastor Erwin said earlier , which is we like to narrow the gap between God and man , the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man . Do you see that ?
Speaker 3Yes , it's nothing new . Idolatry is so self-delusional . It's one step down from the stupidity of atheism . But it's nothing new because you look in the Old Testament , that's all Israel was into idolatry . They would reform , they'd get right with God and then suddenly it would creep in . They'd make God in their own image to accommodate their own sins . So that's the reason we created God to suit ourselves is because it accommodates sin . And what you've got to do is give them the thunderings and lightnings of Mount Sinai , put the fear of God in them and say God holds you accountable . You know God , as it says in Romans . You don't know God personally , but you know the God that's revealed himself in scripture , because you've got a conscience . You know he demands moral responsibility .
Speaker 1And you know , Ray , I've seen your videos and the thing that I like is that you help people to understand that we have to go to Mount Sinai before we can go to Mount Zion . In other words , one of the problems that we have in the church today are people are getting saved and they don't even know what they are being saved from , and so they're thinking they're only being helped and they don't realize that God doesn't just help you . God transforms you , he changes your desires , he gives you a brand new sense of values and attitude and loves . God births within us a love for himself that we don't have .
I remember preaching out in the open . I had a bullhorn , and this was set up in Chicago , with a number of different people being able to preach , and you had people heckling you . I loved it . I mean , I know I mean people shouting while you're preaching , but I mentioned that at the age of 14 , I came to saving faith in Jesus Christ because I realized I was a sinner . Well , afterwards , a woman came and said what big sin did you commit at the age of 14 that made you realize you were a sinner ? And , Ray , you'd be proud of my answer . I said I broke the first commandment . Thou shalt love the Lord , thy God , with all thy heart , with all thy soul and with all thy mind . Now , the point is this that God births , within those who are his , a love for him , and we grow in that . So we're not talking about a God who just helps us . It's not a God like if you're walking along and you fall into a pit , God doesn't come and just throw you a rope and say , okay , hang on , and I'm going to pull you out . In Christ , God came into that pit and he lifts us out because we don't even have the power to hold on to the rope . So it's all about God , it's all about his grace . Now we're talking to people right now who are , I assume , are on different trajectories in terms of their spiritual interests .
Speaker 1I heard this illustration , which really speaks to the need of the modern person let's suppose that you were in a city and you were lost and you had a compass and the compass told you there's north , there's south . You could figure it out , you could know whether or not you're making progress in one direction or another . But what if there was a magnet in your backpack , so that the compass always pointed toward you , which is , of course , another idolatry of our day . You know where you can do anything you want to do oh really , but anyway . So the compass always points towards you . You have no idea whether or not you're making progress , you don't know which direction you're going , but the compass is always pointing toward you . What we have in the scripture is we have a compass that shows us where true north is . We find out who God is , though of course , we don't understand him at all in his totality , but we know who he is . We know that and then we recognize that we are really great sinners .
Speaker 1The reason , as I mentioned when you introduced the book the Eclipse of God , the last chapter returning to the God of wrath and grace , not the God of unconditional love is because I show that human nature is more evil than most people realize . For example , is it inhuman to mistreat children , to drug them , to sexualize them and all the horrors that have taken place ? Well , you might say , yeah , that's inhuman , but it's being done right now all around the world . All of these things that are so evil and the seeds of sin are in every human heart , and then what you have in our society is this People actually think that they deserve grace . It wouldn't be grace . It wouldn't be grace if they deserved it . That's right . So I give examples of undeserved grace , including Nazis who came to faith in Jesus Christ . Because I wanted people to understand , we used to sing a song . I don't know if you men know it , but somewhere in that song it says the vilest offender who truly believes that moment from Jesus a pardon receives Beautiful song .
Speaker 1So people have to understand to be kept from the wrath of God we need to receive the grace of God , but that grace is totally , completely undeserved .
Speaker 2Pastor Irwin used a phrase earlier called the . He said , the essential goodness of man . Mark , I was having this conversation with this young guy outside of the X Games and he said I think people are generally good . And he gave me this , this idea , which is a very common idea out there right now , which is that , like the reason we sin is because of external circumstances , social structures , situations that that pull us towards evil , but actually the heart of man is generally good . What do you do with somebody like that ?
Speaker 1You point out that that's exactly what Karl Marx taught . Marx taught that you change the environment , you change the man . Lift the oppression , break up the family , because the family is a unit of oppression . Men oppress their wives , parents oppress their children . Take them to church . God is the ultimate oppressor . So you get rid of all that and , lo and behold , people will live without laws . They'll just get along beautifully . People will wake up every morning excited to work for the state . And that , of course , is such a demonic doctrine because it misleads so many people . So they judge themselves in relationship to somebody else . I'm not a murderer , I'm not this , I'm not that . So I think the answer is to take them to the Sermon on the Mount , where Jesus pointed out that the heart , the heart , is what God sees . The most important part of us is the part that we never see , but that god sees , and that all the seeds of that sin is in our hearts .
Speaker 4That's good mark , it sounds like lord of the flies , doesn't it we're ? With no leader , nobody in charge , our judge is 17 . 6 obviously comes to mind in the midst of that . You know , matthew henry , that corruption , it runs in our blood . Joseph Alain said that man would kill God all over again if he could just get to him . That's interesting . Or Jonathan Edwards he says that God sees nothing in man to turn his heart , but he sees plenty in man to turn his stomach . And when we begin to realize that , the absolute , total depravity of man , that it requires an outside , transcendent source in order to change us , you know , the Bible says that most men will each proclaim his own goodness . Of course we're good when we compare ourselves to Ray .
Speaker 3I've not heard that one , mark . Let me just touch on something . The challenge I've given out for many years is when someone says man is basically good , I say let's have an experiment Take your wallet out , drop it on the ground , go for a walk , come back an hour later . They won't do it Right Because they know someone's going to pick their wallet up and run .
Speaker 2That's good . Yeah , well , let me ask you this , ray , follow up on that . How do you help people then recapture a high view of God ? Because we recognize that they have a high view of man , but they also don't have a high enough view of God .
Speaker 3Yeah , you just open up Scripture , open up the Sermon on the Mount . The Bible says of the Messiah he will magnify the law and make it honorable . And when you open up that law , it's just part of God's character and his nature . He revealed himself to Moses through that law and that law resonates within the conscience of man , puts the fear of God in his heart , and that's what's needed in today's society . We're a society that has no fear of God before our eyes .
Speaker 2Mark , you said something earlier that was really good , which is , man would kill God all over again if he got to them . It's funny because I think about people who I talk to on the streets . You know , I was having that conversation with that guy in Peru and he started talking about the fact that we were looking at an altar that used to sacrifice babies on , and at first he excused it his way . He's like well , you know , you have to understand that the Peruvians , they believed that a baby was the purest form of anything and that's why they'd sacrifice babies .
Speaker 3So here's your tour guide .
Speaker 2This is my tour guide almost trying to rationalize the sacrificing of babies , and somebody today might be like boy human beings would never do that . They've progressed , mark . How is that not true ?
Speaker 4Well , I see that right . We see that all throughout the Old Testament , right . I get the atheists , these skeptics , these agnostics who come to us and say listen , the God of the Old Testament commanded genocide . The Jewish people are to kill all the candidates . Not only that , but the women and the suckling babes and the pregnant women . God would command the Jewish people to kill the pregnant women .
Speaker 4And at that point I tend to bring up well , how do you feel about abortion ? Well , I think it's a woman's right to choose , choose what . So it's okay for man to choose , but God , who's the arbiter of the law , the creator of man , cannot choose to do what he wants to do with his creation . And I'm not conceding to the fact that what they're saying is actually true , but I'm just demonstrating the fact that what they're saying is so self-refuting , which obviously all atheism is , because there's nobody in charge . Nobody's right , they will say . And when they say nobody's right , I tend to respond with well , are you right that nobody's right ? Because if you are right that nobody's right , well then you're wrong about nobody being right , because you claim to be right and that's just not right . I agree fully . So , augustine , or ?
Speaker 1is it Augustine ? Is it Augustine or is it Augustine ? It depends on the emphasis that you want to put on his name .
Speaker 3Well put .
Speaker 4Augustine said , we must be shaped by God , not attempt to shape him . So we have to be shaped by God , and if we're going to be shaped by God , we need to be conformed into his image . And the only way we're going to do that is when we go through God's Word . God's Word goes through us , that we approach God's Word and we say search me and try me , see if there be any wicked way in me , lead me in the way everlasting . I'm yours , you're the potter , I'm the clay . Mold me as you see fit .
Speaker 4And the moment you do that , it becomes uncomfortable for sure , because you are calling upon God to do whatever he needs to do to glorify Himself through you as a human being in this short period of life called time . So what is God going to do to glorify Himself ? Whatever he needs to do . But wise is the individual who comes along and says my life is not my own , I've been bought with a price and what lies before me is a stewardship from the owner for the owner . Whatever you must do , because I want eternity over time .
We live in a world that is destined for decay , johnny Erickson Todd has said and if this world is destined for decay . There will be a day where we no longer have deadest and disease , Death and dandruff right .
Speaker 4But that day's coming . But this isn't our home , so we don't allow our roots to grow deep here , and the only way we can do that is if we become not just hearers but doers of God's word , whatever God says . That is enough .
Speaker 2We salute marching forward , pastor , when you mentioned the seeker-friendly church , something you experienced before in the past and I think a lot of the problem here is that so many people who claim to be Christian , they come to a saving faith , apparently , and they see the value and justification . I prayed my prayer , I got baptized at 15 , 17 , 21 , whatever the case but then they never pursue sanctification , discipleship to understand the holiness of God , to pursue the holiness of God in their own lives and allow it to affect themselves . How important is discipleship in the process of individuals just coming to understand the beauty of God ?
Speaker 1Hugely important . But first of all I want to comment on the beginning of your question . What's happening today in evangelicalism and I don't want to be too judgmental about it is oftentimes there are messages on the love of God which may even be correct , but what is missing is balance . What is missing is the judgment and the holiness of God . So we all tend toward doctrines that we very much like and everybody likes the love of God , which , by the way , is totally misunderstood . Love , you know , today we hear love is love . Love can be evil . When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden , they didn't stop loving , they just started to love the wrong things Lovers of pleasure , lovers of self , lovers of money .
Speaker 1But in answer to your question , is it possible to receive Christ as Savior , genuinely , savingly believe and not grow ? I think it is under certain circumstances , and that's where I think we just need to say that God is judge . But when you read the New Testament very quickly , you come to the conclusion that God saves us in order to change us . So there should be a development within the Christian , and this is what discipleship is all about . Right , it is a growing recognition of our sinfulness , but also a growing recognition of God's incredible grace and his power and a growing desire to serve him , and , of course , all that is part of the discipleship process to bring us from point A to point B , so I don't know if I've answered your question exactly , but Well you touched on something that I really like , which is you probably were intentionally doing this which is Augustine's view of sin , which is a disordering of loves .
Speaker 2He said the chief problem with man is that we have a disordered love . We love the wrong thing at the wrong time , in the wrong way , and there are two loves .
Speaker 1Love of self to the exclusion of the love of God .
Speaker 2Love of God to the exclusion of the self , of the self . That's exactly right . And so what he says is the power of the gospel through the Holy Spirit is that God begins to rearrange our love so that we love him chiefly , so that we love others before we love ourselves , and in the midst of him doing , or the way in which , the conduit in which God means to do that is , through the context of the local church , to be discipled , to be known , to have our hearts shaped . You mentioned earlier the idea of our hearts sort of being like this compass where it's pointing to self , and maybe the reshaping of our loves is allowing God to redirect that , that compass , to true North , which is himself . Mark , how do you ? You know someone's listened to that right now and maybe they're being pricked with conviction . Like I do have a high view of myself , I tend to not let God disagree with me . What do I do next ?
Speaker 4Well , the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom , right , john Bunyan ? He said to fear God is to have a heart that is sensitive to both his kindness and his severity . That we have , ray . Who was it that said we fear man so much because we fear God so little ? What a wonderful quote , right and name . Somebody needs to If you find yourself inside of a place right where you .
Speaker 4I think it was Vance Havner who said when you find yourself on your back , the safest place is to look up . And sometimes God puts us on our back so that we look up , right that we come to the end of ourselves . The world says , well , hold on , tie a knot right , just hang in there , it'll be a better day tomorrow . But the idea is that we have been designed within our DNA to be overwhelmed , so that we trust in a God who doesn't change right ? So when you find yourself going through a situation where you're just sick and you're tired , and you're tired and you're sick , and you're sick of being tired and you're tired of being sick , what needs to happen ?
Speaker 2is you turn ?
Speaker 4to God . I mean , where else are you going to go ? Because everything else is insanity . Right ? God is the only sane situation and position . And I'm trying to think of it was R Kent Hughes . When R Kent Hughes said the reason why he's written 22 commentaries on the Bible is because he didn't write it for anybody else . He was just studying God's Word , because he knew that we lived in a Photoshopped world and for him the Bible , the Word of God , became his ultimate sanity . That's so good . When you are left to yourself , you will absolutely go insane , and one of the first signs of God's wrath that God pours down upon a people is for God just to step back , because these people will implode , because you were not designed to live in this world without God . And when God withdraws himself , what you are left with is chaos , right ? And that was the scripture that we kind of quoted a little bit earlier Judges 17.6, . When there was no leader or ruler in Israel , every man did that which was right in his own eyes . That is insanity , right ?
Speaker 2So good Ray is wrath and grace opposed to one another ?
Speaker 3No , no , Jesus came to bring us the grace of God , but to fulfill God's law . So equity is satisfied through the cross . Pastor , I've got a question for you your last chapter of your book . Could you tell us about it ?
Speaker 1Yeah , the last chapter is returning to the God of grace and wrath , not the God of unconditional love . The popular culture says this God loves me unconditionally . The way in which that is translated is in the minds of people I'm sleeping with my girlfriend , but God loves me unconditionally . Therefore , he approves of what I'm doing unconditionally . So in this way , as I've mentioned earlier , we have domesticated God . But if you believe that God is loving everyone unconditionally , you are denying the wrath of God , which is mentioned throughout scripture in horrifying detail . And we must recognize that all those who are in Christ are loved unconditionally .
Speaker 117th chapter of the book of John Thou hast loved them even as thou hast loved me , and thou lovest me from before the foundation of the world . So , but for the person that is outside of Christ , god loves the world . He sent his son , john 3 , 16 , to die for the world . But to presume , therefore , that God loves me unconditionally is wrong , obviously , because you have all of these statements of judgments and then you have an eternal hell . So people need to understand that God is love but , as we've emphasized , he's also wrath . He is both and , in answer to your question , if I understood it correctly , that's the marvelous thing about grace . It's a scandal . It is a scandal and since it is a scandal , I'm going to comment on the scandal . Recently I was in Germany and I gave a lecture on Christian nationalism in Hitler's stadium where he was . You know , he used to have his big rallies and then we went over to the courthouse where 21 Nazis were tried .
Speaker 1And that's in Nuremberg . Nuremberg , yes , room 600 . Fascinating stuff that we have to skip here because of lack of time . But here's the point During those trials , the American government sent a chaplain to the prison who could speak German . He was a very conservative chaplain and he befriended these . Now some people said , don't shake hands with him . He did . Here's an interesting thing for everyone listening to ponder when he had services , they could quote the Lord's Prayer , they could quote Scripture . So they were brought up in the church , but obviously something went terribly wrong . But here's the point he believes that six and possibly seven of these received Christ as Savior .
Speaker 1Shocking , this is a scandal . You mentioned a scandal . I'll tell you a scandal . For example , ribbentrop , who was Hitler's foreign minister the first to be hung Before he dies I commit my soul to the Lord , jesus Christ , who shed his blood on the cross for my sins . And he says to the chaplain I'll see you later .
Speaker 1Now for those who find this to be absolutely scandalous and I'm picking up on your word I want them to understand something god says I think so much of what jesus christ did on the cross and his marvelous sacrifice for sins that I can forgive a naz Nazi who believes and trusts him . But I can't forgive a good , sane , decent , tax-paying citizen who doesn't believe on him . It is the scandal of grace . So what I try to do in that chapter is to help people to understand both the wrath of God , which is all throughout the Bible , but also to leave marveling with incredible incredulity , the grace of God . And then , after I give a brief lecture there , I'm going to quote what I quoted there and I'll see whether or not I'm able to quote it .
Speaker 1It's the song Marvelous grace of our loving Lord , grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt , yonder on Calvary's mount , outpoured there where the blood of the lamb was spilled . Dark is the stain that we cannot hide . Who can avail to wash it away ? Look , there is flowing a crimson tide it away . Look , there is flowing a crimson tide , whiter than snow you can be today . Amazing grace .
Speaker 2Wow , amen . Well , I love man
. I want to go back to something you said , mark , that he both you guys , really putting it two together which is the scandal of the cross is that we see the fulfillment of the love of God and the fulfillment of the wrath of God at the same place and at the same time . Why is it ? The fulfillment of the wrath of God is because , for all the talk of gnashing of teeth and fire and brimstone and a lake of fire , what do we understand about the worst of the wrath of God ? When Jesus experienced its peak , that cup being poured out on him , he said my God , my God , why have you forsaken me ? The wrath of God can be summarized in God turning his face from you . That is how much desperate need and desire you are of his grace . And yet the beauty and the scandal of the cross is also where you see , the greatest fulfillment of that love is in that . Right after that , jesus said forgive them , they know not what they do . He takes on the fullness of the wrath of God so that you can receive the fullness of his grace . That is this great scandal .
Speaker 2Pastor Erwin , thank you so much for joining us today . We're so excited about your book the Eclipse of God which I understand it to be number one in the category of apologetics in Amazon right now amazoncom . So praise God for that . If you guys would like , you can get a copy there . Pastor Erwin , how else can people connect with you if they want to hear more of you ?
Speaker 1Oh , they can go to moodymediaorg . Moodymediaorg . There are blogs there , podcasts , sermons and so forth . Moodymediaorg .
Speaker 2Well , that's it for today , guys . Here's my best easy impression . Thank you , friends , for joining us on the Living Waters podcast , where we have no idea what we're doing .
Speaker 3I'm sorry , Pastor .
Speaker 1I forgive you .