0:00:00 - 0:00:28 I'd like to address the many, well meaning people out there who are spending time making videos or writing things to help encourage people to dig deeper into the Lord's doctrines into the gospel, to live the gospel more fully, to encourage people to make changes in their lives or to draw attention to 0:00:27 - 0:00:56 or away from things that they think are particularly helpful or harmful, including doctrinal issues and who have not themselves repent it. So there are many well meaning people out there who think that they have this strong desire in their heart to help others come closer to God. But what they're trying 0:00:55 - 0:01:21 to do is bring other people closer to the Lord than they are themselves. They are just blind people leading other blind people. Now that's gonna sound ju judgmental and I, I don't mean it to be that way. I I'm really trying to say something helpful here. Um I'm not, I'm not going to try to directly address 0:01:20 - 0:01:44 the particular things that you're preaching about. But what I do wanna do is persuade you to focus your time and your energy on your own repentance. And to see that is something more important than anything else you could say or do anything else you could say or do I, I've told the story on here before 0:01:43 - 0:02:05 of a man I met who was deeply affected by this interaction. But he told me he, he happened to be a prophet that's not particularly important for the story, but it just goes to show you what's possible when you truly turn your life over to God. And his story started as a great example of what a train 0:02:04 - 0:02:25 wreck your life is going to be until you do. Even if you say that you believe in God, this man, he he was not married, he had no kids, but he, he worked in some sort of uh factory type of job. And he frequently interacted with people from all walks of life who worked with him. And he was a professed 0:02:25 - 0:02:48 Christian. But he was a very staunch racist. And he told me with, with shame in his voice. He told me honestly about how, how much he just hated black people. He's a white guy and he hated black people. And he said he'd constantly get in fights at work and he ended up getting fired because he got in 0:02:47 - 0:03:14 a fist fight with a guy. And the, the disagreement had something to do with the fact that, that, that, you know, he was a, he was a racist and so he was so, so um so disgusted by this. He said, how can I be a Christian if I don't love all of God's Children? He basically abandoned his entire life and 0:03:14 - 0:03:34 went out into the woods and he said I am going to fast and pray until I am no longer a racist until I feel the love of God for all of his Children. And he did it and it took a while, folks, it took a while. Um, he was out there for a long time. This wasn't a day and it wasn't a week. His entire life 0:03:33 - 0:03:59 came to a grinding halt and he endured a lot of um deprivation out there in the woods. And um, he said that there was a, there came the time when he was free of this and then God used him in ways that he could not possibly have used him while he still had this hatred for um not just blacks, but people 0:03:59 - 0:04:22 who were not white. And he, he called him to go minister among those people which he did so with, with the fullness of, of love in his heart. This kind of intensity, it's seen as an oddity in modern Christianity or an option, an oddity or an option. And it's neither, it's neither anywhere you look in 0:04:22 - 0:04:44 the scriptures. What you're going to find is that the power of God cours with sacrifice and that sacrifice. It can't just be any old thing. It has to be what God has asked you to do. It has to be the sacrifice that he has ordained. And you see people all over the scriptures paying an enormous price to 0:04:44 - 0:05:07 give away all their sins, to know God and to fully pick up his purpose in their lives. It's not a, it's not a question of swapping out one or two things or, oh, I like this part of the gospel. I'm going to make this my mission. It's a total submission to God. and that's what repentance requires. And 0:05:07 - 0:05:29 so if we haven't figured that out yet, there is nothing more important than figuring that out. Now, maybe you're not single and maybe you can't put your whole life on hold. Maybe there are people who rely on you. And now that requires an even greater sacrifice because you have less uh basically less 0:05:28 - 0:05:52 resources that are fully within your prerogative to, to leverage for this. And you still have to do it when you have your waking or I'm sorry, every, every waking moment that's not committed to your duties to others, you need to allocate to turning your heart to God until it's there until nothing else 0:05:52 - 0:06:18 impedes the channel between you. So, um when I see people out there and they're just investing massive amounts of time and effort in sharing the ideas they have about the gospel when they are still living in sin. I mean, there are some churches that have gotten into a lot of hot water because of the 0:06:18 - 0:06:35 way they've spent their resources whether that's, you know, mega churches or this or that, they're different examples of this. Again, I'm not trying to point any fingers in this video. Um, but they've gotten in trouble because they say they have all this money and they're not spending it on the poor 0:06:35 - 0:06:55 , they're building really big fancy buildings. Sometimes they're tearing down perfectly functional buildings to build even nicer buildings anyway. And you look at that and that's nothing compared to the waste of a person who claims to know God and claims to love God. But then spends their resources in 0:06:55 - 0:07:25 um talking about gospel ideas instead of first living them themselves. So now let me go through what I imagine will be um push back against this. So suppose your, your thing is that you rant and rail against some doctrinal idea that you say is false, even harmful, even harmful. And you'll find there 0:07:25 - 0:07:46 are entire youtube channels dedicated to this sort of thing. Entire books have been written. People spend every waking moment uh in causes such as this and they say that they're doing it at a service to God. Well, uh first off, just because you think something serves God doesn't mean it does. He warned 0:07:46 - 0:08:08 his disciples at the close of the New Testament Testament narrative that they would be persecuted and people would kill them thinking that they were serving God in doing so. But how do you know if you're in line with what God would want you to do or not in terms of these sorts of things. Well, it's really 0:08:07 - 0:08:34 easy because step one is, do you still sin? Do you still sin? We'll get to some scriptures that, that back that up. But ok, so you found an idea that you think is vile, it's harmful. It's a truth that needs to be uncovered. Great. So live according to that in your own private life and then worry about 0:08:33 - 0:08:58 everything that where you're misaligned with God. The next step is not push it on to other people and try to persuade them to do it too. You see, uh there are things in life where if you're struggling with a burden, the the best thing you can do is help another with the same burden. So if you're suffering 0:08:58 - 0:09:14 , for example, if you're suffering, one of the best things that you can do is go find someone else that's suffering. And even if they're suffering less than you do whatever you can to help them and you'll feel better. It's a magical thing. You will feel your burden getting lighter as you lighten the 0:09:14 - 0:09:36 burden of another. That is not the way it works with sin. If you're living in sin, if you cannot say everything in my life that I do is exactly what I sincerely believe Jesus would do in my place, you don't have any spare capacity to go try to fix the sins of other people, what you assume are the sins 0:09:36 - 0:10:01 of other people. You have no capacity for that and we'll get into why in a second. Focus on yourself first. Fix yourself first. It's like if a plane's going down, you gotta get the oxygen mask on yourself first because if you're passed out, you will not be able to help anyone. If you cannot say, I only 0:10:00 - 0:10:23 do what I believe Jesus would do in my place, then no one should listen to you on any gospel topic. No one should care at all what your opinion is on what is right and wrong and this isn't my opinion. It's in the scriptures. Mosiah 2314. Trust no one to be your teacher nor your minister except he be 0:10:22 - 0:10:43 a man of God walking in his ways and keeping his commandments. You see, we can only obtain through another, what another already has. And if the best you have to offer is, yeah, I'm still a sinner, but I've got a better idea about this one idea than you do. Well, I'm sorry, just keep moving on. I want 0:10:43 - 0:11:06 someone who solved the puzzle, not someone who thinks they might have one puzzle piece. Satan gets you distracted with this. It takes you off the game board because you get locked into this hamster wheel of being obsessed about something that might not even matter. It might be completely wrong or even 0:11:05 - 0:11:30 if it isn't wrong and it does matter it probably matters a lot less than whatever it is, is actually preventing you from repenting whatever that obstruction is that is what is way more important for you and what will be way more important for everyone else. So, instead of that, what you do is you pick 0:11:30 - 0:11:53 up these hobby topics and you say, well, I'm gonna talk about this and I'm gonna study this and I'm gonna spend 100 and 50 hours looking into this because, um, I like it and it's enticing to me. And if I share it, I can find other people who are enticed by it too. The lie is that you're helping people 0:11:52 - 0:12:12 with that because whoever you find in that way either already believes what you're saying. And now they just like you because you're reaffirming what they already believe, which that's not improvement that's staying the same or they were just a little millimeter off from figuring that out for themselves 0:12:11 - 0:12:37 . So, scooping up people who find that their cognitive dissonance is alleviated by your confidence in what they already believe. That's not a good thing. That's not God's work. So, before you choose to be a crusader for something that you think is the righteousness of others. Be a crusader for your own 0:12:37 - 0:13:01 righteousness before you try to share the word first, obtain it for yourself live. It first don't bother preaching beyond what you actually live. And that doesn't just mean that one idea that you found that you're really excited about that, that magically you have to change nothing in your life to adopt 0:13:01 - 0:13:23 . Right? Of course, don't, don't say like, well, that's what I'm sharing and I do live that. No, I'm saying the whole shebang folks. If you can't say what I do is what God would do in my place. As far as I understand all the time. You have no business preaching the gospel in God's own estimate. His own 0:13:23 - 0:13:49 estimation, his own measurement. You are unqualified to preach the gospel. You're not worthy of the holy ghost and you cannot preach by the power of the holy ghost in your state. You have to be without sin first. So one of the problems here is that if you're not born again, if you're not sinless, you 0:13:49 - 0:14:12 cannot even see the kingdom of God that Jesus said this in John 33. He said verily verily, I say to thee, except a man be born again. He cannot see the kingdom of God. So I said at the outset, you are literally a blind person seeking to lead the blind. You. You maybe what you're guessing is true maybe 0:14:11 - 0:14:29 . But odds are because it's a, it's worse than a uniform probability over all possible options because there's this thing called human nature which you have not overcome. If you haven't been born again, you're still sinning, you're probably not throwing the dart at the center of the board. There's this 0:14:29 - 0:14:50 gravity to something else. But even if you are, even if what you're preaching is exactly true. You lack the worthiness to preach it by the power of the Holy Ghost. And therefore the only people you're gonna convince are people who aren't learning by the Holy Ghost. And that doesn't help anybody. Luke 0:14:50 - 0:15:17 chapter six, we get into this even more uh deeply. He says, why beholds thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye but perceives not the beam that is in thine own eye. And what he's referring to is the fact that that in, in attacking certain tenants uh or addressing certain ideas. See, see this language 0:15:16 - 0:15:38 . One reason you excuse yourself from condemnation under these passages is you say, well, I'm not doing that. I'm just trying to help people. I'm not judging people. I'm just trying to help them learn the truth. Well, but you are all truth is a judge, all of it. Everything you preach is an argument that 0:15:38 - 0:16:03 what you think about it is better than what others think about it. It's more correct and complete. And so um the problem here is is that you aren't noticing that this thing that you think is the biggest deal that there is, is necessarily way smaller than the fact that you're still living in sin. That's 0:16:03 - 0:16:27 the beam folks. Why beholds thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye. So why are you obsessing about this idea? Whatever it is or this set of ideas when you literally have a beam in your eye, that that's kind of important to take care of and you can't see clearly while that's in it. He continues either 0:16:27 - 0:16:46 how canst thou see, excuse me, say to thy brother, brother, let me pull out that mote, the mote that is in thine eye. When thou thyself beholds not the beam that is in thine own eye. In other words, should anybody trust you in your evaluation of what needs to change when somehow you've missed the fact 0:16:46 - 0:17:09 that you're still living in sin and you're not doing anything about it and you regard anything else to be more important. No, they should not. He says thou hypocrite because you are literally not living what you believe, what you say, you believe cast out first the beam out of thine own eye and then 0:17:09 - 0:17:30 shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye. For a good tree, bringeth not forth, corrupt fruit. Neither doth a corrupt tree, bring forth good fruit. That's from Luke six. One of the ways you could excuse yourself from all this is to say, well, no one's perfect. Only Jesus 0:17:30 - 0:17:59 is perfect. So yeah, I mean, I'm living in sin but I try and that's as good as we can get. No, no, a lack of examples does not prove something false just because you don't think that there are people out there who don't live in sin doesn't mean that it's impossible to live without sin. First off, the 0:17:59 - 0:18:18 scriptures make a very solid argument for the fact that it is possible to live without sin. They specifically enumerate a whole bunch of people whose names, you know, who achieved this. If you want those examples, you can read a book I wrote called Repentance uh Robert Smith. You can find it on Amazon 0:18:17 - 0:18:45 , you can find it on the blog upward thought.blogspot.com. So there are people out there. OK? I am, I am one of these people I can say I do not do anything except what I sincerely believe Jesus would do in my place. And this is in effect all the time and it's been that way for a long time. OK? So you 0:18:45 - 0:19:13 can do it too. You can do it too. And until you do, you have no business preaching the gospel, you cannot achieve what you want to do through that mechanism until you come to him yourself. So if you want to help others learn and live the truth, great, that's wonderful. And we might disagree on what that 0:19:13 - 0:19:43 truth is. That's fine. That's totally fine. Whatever you believe it to be first live it yourself. Now, is it just a brief argument about this? Consider the difference in the power between saying I know God, I talk with him every day. He visits me. He answers every single question I ask him and this is 0:19:42 - 0:20:04 how he explained it to me when I asked him about this thing. And here are all the examples he gave me, think of the power of that. And by the way, I keep all of his commandments all the time versus, yeah, I'm a sinner. We're all sinners. But I did this 150 hour study on this topic and I'm persuaded that 0:20:04 - 0:20:21 I've learned more academically than anyone else has on this topic. Even though I have access to all the same resources they do. And they've spent a heck, some of them have spent a heck of a lot more time on it than me. But you should believe me, trust me. So if you really want to help people, then first 0:20:21 - 0:20:42 seek first to obtain his word, learn and live it and then declare it. And you say, well, I have learned it. OK. Step two is live it and only three is declared you're jumping straight to the end. And that's why there's all this contention. There's all this contention because the world's persuaded that 0:20:42 - 0:21:05 the Christian world that it's just one man's word against another. But that's not the way it's meant to work as we live the gospel and actually live it. The fruits flow through. And you can say, well, wh what's the value of this belief? You have? Well, when all hell broke loose in my life, I didn't struggle 0:21:05 - 0:21:26 , I didn't flail around. I had the strength of the Lord and peace. It's like, ok, well, that's, that's pretty persuasive. Right. That, that sounds like that's pretty solid. But if you say, well, I mean, we're all just aiming for this and it's every man for himself, but maybe this is a better idea than 0:21:26 - 0:21:43 anyone else's. But I don't really know because there's no real way to test it unless you go through hell and you manage to survive. And I haven't done that. I mean, I, I don't even, I get, I get overcome just when someone's mad at me or I have a bad day at work or I feel particularly lonely or I really 0:21:43 - 0:22:09 , really desire this bad thing. So who cares what you think? Seriously? Who cares what you think until you fix yourself? If, if you don't have power with God to overcome the things that you face, meaning your sins, the temptations that currently overcome you. How can you help someone else overcome their 0:22:09 - 0:22:30 sin? How can you help orient them to a God that you do not know? Because how can you know a master who you haven't served? You can't, you're just saying like I think he's around there somewhere. I don't really know. But trust me though. I know better than other people. So I'm gonna make a whole youtube 0:22:29 - 0:22:52 channel where I just rant and rave about this one idea. So you think you're doing good, you're not doing good at best. You are giving people yet another way to run on a hamster wheel and never draw nearer to God. You're ever learning, but you're never coming to a knowledge of the truth because you're 0:22:52 - 0:23:19 not actually improving, you're not actually improving. You're just on this crusade to take down the beliefs of other people when you don't live the gospel yourself by your own admission. So, as we approach our own lives, so pulling back from public ministry for a second, look at your own life, what's 0:23:18 - 0:23:41 the most grievous sin in your life? That's what you need to work on. That's what needs to suck in all your spare time and all your spare energy. Until you address that. Then you go to the next one, then you go to the next one and eventually you figure out that transcendent submission to God. If I asked 0:23:40 - 0:24:01 you, what's the most egregious sin in your life? I seriously doubt it's that you need to make a channel to tell the whole world about your ideas on some gospel topic. I seriously doubt that's the thing. That's the biggest obstruction between you and God right now. Am I wrong? So let me help you see what 0:24:01 - 0:24:22 you're actually doing and why you're doing it. What you're actually doing is you already know what the next step towards God is in your life. You know what it is. He always reveals it to us. You've swatted that aside or given it lip service and you know the scriptures about uh giving lip service to God 0:24:22 - 0:24:39 . But your hearts are far from him. You've swatted that aside or you're giving it lip service while as a pie chart, like you're spending this much of your attention on this and the rest of the pie is, and I've got this public ministry where we're going over all kinds of things and we have conferences 0:24:38 - 0:25:05 or we, you know, whatever, you know, whatever we got these highly processed videos that are wonderful and we're just, we got a whole community. What you're trying to do it is you're trying to seek relief from the guilt you have knowing that you're disobeying God and you do that through offering this 0:25:04 - 0:25:27 sacrifice that God has not asked from you. You're ignoring what he has asked and giving him something else instead and thinking that if you make it big enough, he'll accept it instead, he'll swap them out like the old Indiana Jones trick and just like in Indiana Jones, you got a giant stone rolling towards 0:25:27 - 0:25:52 you, which is gonna be his judgment. Look at the scriptures and see how that went for everyone who tried to offer him a sacrifice. He did not command while not giving him what he did see what happened to solve. For, for instance, this is just another form of pharisee Pharisees. If you reread Matthew 0:25:52 - 0:26:18 23 from 5 to 9, here's, here's a, a paraphrase. This isn't what it says, but here's a paraphrase. They don't do what they do to please God, but they do it so that all men will see and praise them. They excessively indulge in every meaningless sign of outward obedience. But they won't make even the slightest 0:26:18 - 0:26:44 change to actually become better. People don't take anyone to be your example or teach unless he's actually more like God than you always remember that the worth of anyone, most especially religious leaders and teachers is in how much they help, you know, and become more like God. Now, you can't be like 0:26:44 - 0:27:09 this unless you actually repent from your sins. Unless you stop sinning and start living like Jesus would in your place. Only then do you have any business having any kind of confidence whatsoever that your idea about anything matters as, as far as the gospel goes, give the sacrifice, God has required 0:27:08 - 0:27:36 a broken heart and a contrite spirit. You can fill the symbolic temple with the blood of as many animals as you want. If your heart isn't broken and your spirit isn't contrite. All you're doing is heaping God's judgment on you his punitive judgment by mocking him. That's what you're doing. So fix yourself 0:27:36 - 0:27:43 and preach nothing but repentance first living it yourself.