I am James Hong and welcome to the Surpassing Value Podcast. The fuel and desire for this podcast was born out of a compulsion to flesh out what's been going on in the midst of an ocean of megaphones that may not actually withstand the test of scrutiny. As a signpost theologian, I will do my best to filter out the impurities and point people in the right direction.

This is another one of those episodes where the surpassing value meets brain community church. For this episode, I invited Pastor Peter Kim and Pastor Mark Lim to talk about this emerging trend called deconstructionism. If you don't know what it is, I explained it to some degree in the beginning of the recording, but to get us started, let me quote to you Brandon Briscoe, he's a pastor over at Midtown Baptist.

He writes this concerning deconstructionism, "In its most innocuous form, deconstruction may be promoted as a healthy reassessment of personal bias and ingrained denominational positions, but upon closer examination tends to institute new bias that is inherently critical to the concept of biblical certainty. The Christian deconstructionist approach is often exactly what Derrida intended it to be.

The employment of philosophy, liberal forms of literary criticism, scientific theory, historical record, and other human disciplines intended to scrutinize the literality of long held biblical teachings in order to replace them with more abstract and progressive perspectives. Christian deconstruction as a culture and methodology has become more than a re-examination.

It is a premeditated tearing down of biblical authority." For the rest of the episode, the pastors and I flesh out what this is, why it's dangerous, and try to expose the inherent deceptiveness of this phenomenon. Towards the end of the recording, I quote Spurgeon on this issue because I just found him to be so helpful.

I only quoted him once in the recording, but I found myself unable to resist the temptation from quoting him again, so I'll just do that right now. Before I do that, I want to read to you 2 Peter 1.10, and then I'll quote to you a portion of Spurgeon's commentary on that verse.

2 Peter 1.10 reads, "Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choice of you. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble." Spurgeon regarding that verse says this, "Come, then, here is the second point good advice. Make your calling and election sure.

Not towards God, for they are sure to him. Make them sure to yourself. Be quite certain of them. Be fully satisfied about them. In many of our dissenting places of worship, very great encouragement is held out to doubting. A person comes before the pastor and says, 'Oh, sir, I am so afraid I am not converted.

I tremble lest I should not be a child of God. Oh, I fear I am not one of the Lord's elect.' The pastor will put out his hands to him and say, 'Dear brother, you are all right so as long as you can doubt.' Now I hold that is altogether wrong.

Scripture never says, 'He that doubts shall be saved, but he that believes.' It may be true that the man is in a good state. It may be true that he needs a little comfort. But his doubts are not good things, nor ought we to encourage him in his doubts.

Our business is to encourage him out of his doubts and by the grace of God to urge him to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure, not to doubt it, but to be sure of it. Ah, I have heard some hypocritical doubters say, 'Oh, I have had such doubts whether I am the Lord's, and I have thought to myself, and so have I very great doubts about you.' I have heard some say they do tremble because they are afraid they are not the Lord's people, and the lazy fellows sit in their pews on Sunday and just listen to the sermon, but they never think of giving diligence.

They never do good, perhaps are inconsistent in their lives, and then talk about doubting. It is quite right they should doubt. It is well they should, and if they did not doubt, we might begin to doubt for them. Idle men have no right to assurance. The Scripture says, 'Give diligence to make your calling and election sure.' Full assurance is an excellent attainment.

It is profitable for a man to be certain in this life and absolutely sure of his own calling and election. But how can he be sure?" Remember this because as we delve into this discussion, you'll soon see the relevance. And I know I left off with a little bit of a cliffhanger, I'll answer Spurgeon's own question with Spurgeon at the end of the episode.

All right, so as stated, I am joined with Pastor Peter Kim and Pastor Mark Lim. I invited them here because I thought it would be helpful if we as a group collective fleshed out this phenomenon that's been going on for several years now called deconstructionism. It's been in the news a little bit more lately.

If you don't know the term, I'm sure you're familiar with Joshua Harris. Joshua Harris was a big-time celebrity pastor. He was affiliated with a huge church network that started in the East Coast, and he came out a couple years back saying that he wasn't a Christian, that he deconstructed his faith.

And that if there was another way to be a Christian, that he might actually be a Christian, but he was still just working on that, so to speak. I'm going to quote him in a little bit. But more recently, there was another Christian celebrity, his name is Kevin Max.

If you're familiar with the group DC Talk, he was part of that group. And he came out saying the same thing, that he is going through a stage in his life where he's deconstructing his faith. If you have a lot of Christian friends, and they're maybe talking about this, thinking about this, wondering about the legitimacy of this, our hope is that you will find this discussion helpful, if not just for learning about the topic, maybe you can minister to other people.

Maybe you're listening to this, and you're thinking to yourself, "How do I think of this? How do I sort through this? Is it biblical?" Et cetera. So that's what we want to cover in this podcast. Just to set things up, I want to read to you a quote by Joshua Harris.

He's the famous former celebrity pastor that I talked about in the beginning. But he said this, and I'm quoting him now, "Significant changes have taken place in both of us." Referring to him and his wife. He wrote, "The popular phrase for this is deconstruction. The biblical phrase is falling away.

By all the measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian. Many people tell me that there is a different way to practice faith, and I want to remain open to this, but I'm not there now." Again, this is a former celebrity pastor. This was a couple years back.

He was huge in the purity culture movement when I was in college, but that was him. There was a blog article concerning Kevin Max, I'm going to read to you portions of it. He's the other Christian celebrity pastor I just spoke about, but this is more recent. This was like last month.

The blog article goes to say this, "Grammy-winning vocalist Kevin Max, a member of the popular Christian band DC Talk, who has released music in multiple genres, revealed over the weekend that he considers himself to be an ex-vangelical." "Hello, my name is Kevin Max, and I'm an ex-vangelical," he tweeted Saturday, sparking a large response from many of his Christian followers.

Some praised the musician's post, claiming they were also ex-vangelicals, a term that has been used commonly in recent years to describe individuals who no longer identify as evangelicals. Others in social media stated that they had never heard the term, which has been associated with progressive Christians who have left evangelical Christianity due to theological or political reasons in recent years.

In response to a social media user who said Max no longer believed in Jesus, the Jesus Freak singer quipped, "Nope, didn't say that. Read text carefully." In another post, Max clarified that he still follows the "universal Christ." This is Kevin Max again. He says, "I have no idea how many people's blogs or podcasts are using that announcement for further division.

But I'm here for The Grace, and The Grace is capitalized," he assured. The musician added further detail on his Twitter thread. "For all those people using my post as plug-and-play for your own hot take or personal discourse, I offer the lyrics to an upcoming song of my new band, Astronauts' sad album, Adult Fears, titled, 'It's Okay.

I'm sorry for being obtuse or difficult, but it's a process I love.'" And then he goes on to kind of quote his lyrics. Later on in the same article, he goes on to say, "The overall movement is called deconstruction, meaning deconstructing one's faith and leaving the church. Many who are deconstructing have spoken out about their experiences getting hurt by people inside the church.

Others have cited their rejection of biblical teaching on sexuality as a reason they are disassociating. Max has made a living as a vocalist in bands that promote Christian message, such as DC Talk, alongside bandmates Toby Mack and Michael Tate. He also sang for Audio Adrenaline. Max has been speaking out for some time about his resistance to a particular version of Christianity.

In an interview in December with Decent Christian Talk podcast, Max explained where he is on his journey in deconstructing. "I like to call it deconstruction, reconstruction," he said. "Any person that's really changing every day, which we do, you're going to deconstruct or you're going to reconstruct. So it's a combination of both of those things," he said.

"I've been deconstructing for decades. I've always been progressing, as you can say. And then sometimes I regress. But I think where I'm at right now is I've really gone on a journey to find out what I truly believe in by reading a lot, thinking a lot, keeping my eyes and ears open." The musician has always been vocal about his thoughts online.

While his comments online have been met with resistance, Max said he's always been a believer. "But I'm questioning a lot of things and I've got more questions than answers," he says. So it kind of goes on, the blog article kind of goes on, and then it concludes with this.

"I believe in a God of the universe and I believe that he can hear me. And that in itself is just plain kind of crazy. But if I believe that, then I truly believe that he cares about my progression and asking questions and wanting to know what is real and what isn't real," he ended.

"I don't think the God that I believe in is going to just all of a sudden ignore me because I don't believe every single thing that's written down somewhere." So that was a bit of a long setup, but if you're not familiar with deconstruction, I'm setting that up because I want you to be aware of what we're talking about, the backdrop of this.

I'll include the article that I've read from in the info section for the podcast, but I just kind of want to open it up. Pastor Peter, Pastor Mark, what do we make of all this? How do we think through this and how do we sort this out? Well, let me share briefly about when I first became a Christian, I started off from the get-go questioning everything because the Christianity that I experienced growing up, I hated because I saw a lot of just cultural Christianity.

I've met a lot of Christian, in the Korean community, Christian celebrities, mega church pastors and not seeing the genuineness of what they were preaching, at least from behind the curtain. And it wasn't until after I became a Christian I realized that the biblical Christianity I saw in Scripture didn't look anything like what I saw growing up.

And so that, right off the bat, caused me to question everything. What's biblical? What's right? What's wrong? And so, now, when I hear people saying that they're deconstructing or backsliding, however you want to call it, it seems like to me that they kind of committed to the cultural Christianity to begin with.

And maybe for the first time in their life, or maybe this was going on behind the scene and they were pretending in the front, and for the first time, taking a step back, realizing that their faith was not genuine. And so my concern with this movement is that the primary concern was themselves, like what they committed to, why they committed it to, if they had genuine faith or not had genuine faith.

But instead of turning that toward themselves and asking the question about what they genuinely believe, they turn it and then they're attacking the church and saying the reason why they are the way they are is because the church is the way it is. And so, not that everything that's happening in the church is right or wrong, but I think the attention really should be self-focused, you know, instead of making this a proclamation like oh, we need a movement, you know, to break away.

And rather running toward Scripture, you're running away from Scripture. And so that's where I see the danger. So asking yourself, you know, like is my faith genuine or not, I think that's a good question for them to have. But then for that to turn into, because my faith was not genuine, everybody's faith isn't genuine.

And I think that's where the danger lies. I think also for me, you know, we could talk about how to minister to somebody who is experiencing doubt, but even if somebody came to my office telling me that, the worst forms of deconstructions that are happening now and what you read from Joshua Harris, I would just give a fair warning like you have to be careful because you can end up deeply offending God.

When we talk about doubt just generally, are we not talking about doubt in either God's plan, God's church, or God himself? And if that's the case, then it could be very similar to the Exodus generation where he brings them out of Egypt, but they ask him where were you, why didn't you feed us, how come we don't have a leader, where is he?

And these questions, yes, perhaps on a human level you can understand, but you have to be careful because then you're completely forgetting God. And what's kind of eerie is even if you listen to the way that Kevin Max is talking, the beginning portion of a discussion where he's talking about his progression and his thoughts, that portion of it doesn't really involve God.

That's him thinking through his thoughts and then having a lack of consideration for the will of God, the thought of God, etc. So the danger with the worst forms of deconstruction actually is something that could be very deeply offensive to God. Yeah, you know, just kind of researching this topic before this podcast episode, what's interesting is that the term deconstructionism, and this is for the listener here, the term deconstructionism actually was coined by a philosopher.

And I remember this philosopher in college because I took a couple classes, but his name is Jacques Derrida. And what deconstructionism is, from the actual secular philosophical term, is Jacques Derrida, he is seeking to loose the meaning between text and what is actually being espoused. So if you go down that road, what you're essentially saying is that objective truth is unknowable.

And if objective truth is unknowable, well, we espouse the Bible to be objective truth. And so if you're saying the Bible is unknowable, that the text in the Bible is unknowable, then what you're saying is the Bible doesn't have authority because I don't know what the Bible says, you don't know what the Bible says, which is why I think Kevin Max can say things like, "Well, I still believe in God," or, "I still believe in the universal Christ." He can say these things.

And before, we understood if you didn't believe in the authority of the Bible, then we knew that you weren't a Christian. But the dangerous thing is you have people like Joshua Harris and Kevin Max who's saying, "Well, maybe there is a way I can still be Christian, but lose the authority of the Bible." And we're saying, "No, no, you can't." And I kind of want to bring this back, Pastor Peter, to what you talked about and you were kind of honing in on, is that we are in no way saying that you can't have questions or you shouldn't ask questions or that people who love God do not experience doubt in any way, shape, or form.

We are not saying that at all, and in fact, anyone that knows us knows we love questions because if you have questions and you ask, these are genuine questions, you come out more convicted about your faith because the Bible withstands scrutiny. There is no scrutiny that the Bible is scared of.

There are no questions that the Bible needs to hide behind, like how was the Bible formed? Can we trust the Bible? Things like this, there are great, great answers for. There's been plenty of material written about this. If there was anything, if there was any smoking gun that would reveal any falsity in the Bible, the way that the Bible's been attacked for the past thousands of years, and for the New Testament past 2,000 years, it would have been revealed.

But the New Testament, the Bible altogether, it outlives all its critics for a reason. It outlives all its critics for a reason. So we're going to keep talking about this, but I want to say that if you're listening to this podcast and you do not leave with the impression that somehow we are in any way espousing that asking questions is ungodly, we're not saying that at all.

Asking genuine questions and searching is great because your conviction comes out more refined and more strong. I had so many questions about the existence of God, all the usual questions about why does good God allow suffering, can we trust the Bible, what about evolution, what about dinosaurs, all these questions have long been answered.

So we want to make sure that there isn't a conflation, that you don't leave this podcast thinking, well, asking questions will somehow lead to ungodliness. And I think that's part of the confusion is that it's playing on this idea of asking questions as being genuine, but then conflating it with some noble task of rejecting the Bible.

Yeah, I think that's a very good point. And the reason why we're here isn't because young Christians or non-believers are asking good questions. The reason why we're here is people who have had the title of leadership, who are answering these questions while saying they themselves doubt. So that's the problem.

People that young Christians are going to, who they looked up to and assumed that they were spiritual leaders, are saying things that you wouldn't expect spiritual leaders to say. Because in one sense, they're representing God, saying God says this and the Bible says this and we believe this. And then at the same breath saying, I actually never believed any of that and I'm testing all of that.

So the problem is not that there's questioning. The problem is that maybe the people who have been in leadership should not have been there to begin with. We live in this celebrity culture where if they're gifted and talented, there's no filter in bringing people into ministry. And all of a sudden they have a large following and so they feel the pressure to live up to this calling of leadership.

Not this calling of we want to represent God properly, but to live up to the expectation of the gathering of people that they've stood in front of. And so for years they've had doubts, but they were never able to address these doubts because they had to live up to the expectations of these people.

But they came to a breaking point where they couldn't live up to that anymore. And whether it was a moral failing or whether they just felt like a hypocrite or they weren't growing, whatever it was, they came to a crisis of faith and now for the first time they're revealing where they've probably been all this time.

So the real problem is they probably shouldn't have been in leadership to begin with. They should have stayed where they were, asking those good questions and sort of kept on learning. And then come to a point where they may have realized, "Man, I don't believe this," and walk away from their faith.

And if that's what happened, we wouldn't be here now. It's because these celebrity pastors have taken on that role that behind the scene they probably shouldn't have been there to begin with. So that says a lot about our Christian culture. Yeah, talking about that Christian culture, I do think we live in a generation of fear.

A lot of people make their decisions based on fear. But what's really interesting is one of the great fears of this generation is they're going to commit to something they don't like. And when you talk about the kind of revelation of what's indicative of this Christian culture, a lot of people who are commenting about deconstruction, they'll say a lot of it starts from they've entered the church and what they don't like is a doctrinal stance against LGBTQ.

Or they went into the church and what they didn't like is the conflict they had with somebody. What they didn't like is the culture of the church. Something like that, right? So at that point, you're not actually even asking, "Is what we're doing worthwhile principally? Or is this biblical according to the will of God?" The question being asked is, "Can I live with this?

Can I be in the church and actually live like this? How am I supposed to survive in here like this?" And so deconstruction becomes a selecting, a choosing of what will I be willing to accept? And what's really interesting to me is a senior editor of Gospel Coalition, Brett McCracken, he said, "If you go down that route of trying to analyze what do I like, what I don't like, then you do end up in a world of mysticism." Earlier you're talking about actually detaching certain elements of meaning from truth and not having a stronghold or foundation of biblical authority.

But that's potentially what will result is if you're making decisions based on your fears or your emotions of what you'll accept, you'll kind of get to his, you know, kind of a massive statement of, "You know what? I'm actually always going to be progressing. I don't think I'll ever stop." Because you're then now contingent upon what you feel you can accept in the moment in time.

Yeah, you know, that's, yeah, that's good. You know, I was going through, you know, some, I was reading different blogs, actually speaking to different people while I was trying to research about this issue. And what's interesting was there's a blog article by this guy named Keith Giles. And he talks about the six pillars of religious deconstruction.

And these are the pillars he lists. So he writes, "The first pillar of Christian deconstruction is the Bible," right? And then he says in this blog article, he says this, "This is odd, since one would assume that the foundation of the Christian faith would be Christ. But that's not the case, unfortunately.

For most evangelical Christians, especially, the Bible is their authority, and they will gladly affirm this if you're uncertain about it. Because Christians tend to base their faith in the Bible, they also feel the need to overstate its importance, making it the linchpin for everything they hold dear. Therefore, once you start to doubt their claims that the Bible is inerrant and infallible, the rest of your faith is soon to crumble." And it's not very hard to prove that the Bible is indeed filled with errors, mistakes, contradictions between prophets.

And he goes on to talk about how the Bible is incorrect and is not trustworthy. But there's other pillars right there to begin with. But you see how, in terms of deconstruction, where this is headed to is not just doubt, it's not just a re-examination of one's faith, but as we've been talking about, it leads you to believe that you can be a Christian and doubt what the Bible says.

And that is somehow virtuous, right? Now obviously, this blog article is massively incorrect, it's just patently false, when it says the Bible is filled with errors. Anyone that has actually studied the Bible should be able to see that. And I remember as a young Christian thinking this exact same thought, "How can I trust the Bible?

How can I trust the Bible if it's old?" And that's a completely different podcast, but I went through that journey thinking, "Oh my gosh, just magnifying God because I can indeed trust the Bible." And again, deconstructionism, from what I've been reading and from just the people I've been talking to, the issue is, people begin to believe that you can hold to this idea that the Bible is false and still be a Christian.

Before, those two concepts were dissimilar. If you didn't believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, in the infallibility of the Bible, then you knew you weren't a Christian. That is actually a better place. That is actually a much better place because you know who you are as opposed to, "Well, you know what?

I can believe the Bible is false and still be a Christian, and everything is okay." So the problem with that logic is, for not hundreds, thousands of years, Christianity was based on belief of the Word of God in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Once you reject that, it becomes relativism.

So you define whatever you want to define as Christianity. So if a Hindu says, "I'm a Christian because I believe Jesus, and this is the Jesus that I believe." So the Jehovah's Witnesses are also Christian, then you have the Mormons, they're also Christian. Who's to say they're not? If the basis in which Christianity is based on, you reject that as being unreliable.

So you're basically saying that you're going to define from this point on what Christianity is to you, and you have no right to question anybody else, LGBTQ, whatever they want it to be. The problem is, once you've rejected the Bible, you've rejected Christianity. You've rejected Christianity. So if that was your stance, my question is, what was your motive in coming into ministry?

If you question the reliability of Scripture, what were you trying to do to influence other people? What were you thinking when you were preparing sermons? What were you doing when you were evangelizing? So basically you're saying that you've lived a double life, and no one forced you, twisted your arm to go into ministry.

And all of a sudden you wake up and say, "Okay, now I've changed my mind. Now I want to be a leader leading the other way." What is your motive? So is it truth that's driving you, or is it whatever agenda that you've had? But the basis on which you've founded your whole life on, you're throwing it away, and then now you're saying, "I'm going to go the other way, now follow me the other way also." So that's the inconsistency and hypocrisy that I see in all of this.

And so if you say, "I don't trust the Bible," you're being honest. That's what you believe. And you should just say, "I'm going to go the other path." But to say that everything about Christianity is wrong because now you don't have confidence, to me that's disingenuous. It makes me question what motivated you to be into ministry to begin with if you didn't have that confidence all along.

And I do think, and maybe we could talk about this later, that obviously there are different degrees of doubt, and we're in some ways obviously addressing the worst form of the deconstruction where there is this high-level skepticism to what the scripture says, and a base belief that to just wholeheartedly commit to the scriptures and say it's all true and inerrant is foolish.

But within that, I do think there is a ton of the motivation behind it is not new, it's age-old which is self-justification. People falsely assumed that God would accept my "righteous" behavior as Meredith so that he would accept me because that's how we operate. And so they assume, "Oh, of course God would accept me because I'm majority good." False.

But even if you read the way that Kevin Max talks, it's like, "Oh, God would take my doubts. He would hear me out," and what you do is you constantly project who you would be unto God even though he's already told you what he's like. He demands perfection. He demands faith.

And what you have in this desire is to self-justify. And people have done it different ways. But now in the worst form of deconstruction, you just completely flip it upside down. My doubt rather than it being a cause of concern or something needed to be addressed, it becomes good.

Jesus will say to us, "Why do you not believe what I said? You have a little faith. Why did you doubt?" But instead we say, "No, no. Trust me. This is good. This is a necessary part of what I need to do." And you flip the definitions and typically those definitions then now become determined by what I would do.

And I think that's why earlier I was saying highly potential you can offend God because you start projecting unto him how you would do it. You start projecting unto him how he should be. And I think it again is a really dangerous path. Yeah, you know, I want to just read 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 10 here because it's pertinent to our discussion.

But Peter says this, Apostle Peter says, "Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choice of you. For as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble." Verse 11 says, "For in this way, the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you." So the admonition in Scripture, the admonition in Scripture is to make all the more diligent and certain about his calling and choice of us.

The virtue in somehow rejecting doctrines that sincere Bible-believing Christians have had for centuries, that somehow that's virtuous, that somehow that's what God desires, that's completely false. As you can see even just from the one passage I read. And when you think about how the Word of God, because this is an attack on the Word of God.

It's very simple here. People like to think that there's this idea of neutrality, am I in charge or is God in charge? Let's start from the middle. Let me tell it to you right now. Neutrality is a myth. Neutrality is an absolute myth. There's no such thing as neutrality.

This is the law of non-contradiction, the law of the excluded middle. I mean, go ahead and look that up. There really is no neutrality in the way we envision it. Either God is God or we are God. It's one or the other. And God has spoken to us through his Word.

That's the way he has revealed himself to us in a very specific way. We can know about God through what we see, however, if we want to know about salvation, we go to the Scriptures. So once you lose the authority of the Scriptures, you lose the authority of God subjectively in your life.

And at that point, you erect an idol. And that idol is yourself. And you're saying, "Well, this is the right way to interpret reality. This is the right way to interpret morality. This is the right way to even interpret God." But Peter here, in 2 Peter 1, verse 10, he's saying, "Therefore, brothers and sisters, be all the more diligent to make certain about his calling and choice of you." So I think part of that is asking questions.

You have a genuine question about how the Bible was formed, because I did, and I got them all answered. You have a genuine question about church history and how Christians have survived through all these years and why we can hold to these certain doctrines? Good, because I had those same questions and I looked into it.

Do you have a question about evolution? Good. I had that same question and I looked into it. Every single question about whether it's good and evil, whether it's empirical data, whatever it is, my questions have all been answered. And us three of us, we're skeptics, but naturally we're skeptics.

But we're also convicted about the authority of Scripture, which is why we're here. But this conviction is absolutely born through genuine questions. My point is there is a distinction that needs to be made between genuine questions that need to be asked and what deconstructionism is positing and what deconstructionism is proposing.

So if you're talking to your friends and they're going through this phase, there is this kind of push to not merely ask questions, but to go beyond that and to actually believe that you can be a Christian and disregard the claims of Scripture. Yeah, let me say this because I'm approaching this, or at least from what I'm seeing, there's been issues with Christianity, again, way before even before I became a Christian.

And yeah, I mean, I'm not a fan of modern day Christianity myself. I think the church is sick. I think the way that people come into ministry, what's being taught and been being practiced and almost sometimes like circus kind of atmosphere that churches have in order to draw people to the church.

All of this stuff is stuff that I have a problem with. So the fact that we are deconstructing or examining or questioning in and of itself is not a bad thing, but the fact that it's coming from leaders who are not only questioning certain fundamental things that really should have been asked to begin with, one, do I really believe this God?

Two, do I believe that the Bible is inerrant? Like this is God's word given to me. And if you had doubt in these two fundamental questions, you shouldn't have been in ministry. Why would somebody who doubts the law go into the legal field? Why would somebody who doubts medicine go into the medical field?

It doesn't make sense. Like I don't trust Western medicine, but I'm going to give 13 years of my life studying this and then at the end of it and saying, I don't know if I would practice this. So right off the bat, they probably shouldn't have gone into ministry, right?

But here's the other part. Christianity is not something that you just learn objectively. There is a subjective aspect where God opens your eyes and you see the glory of Christ. But the Bible makes it very clear where God says, you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

No one casually sees God. No one kind of like tests the waters and then God shows up and begging you to come to the other side. God says to make up your mind. If you are going to worship God, worship him. If you're going to worship the world, worship the world.

But according to scripture, whether you believe it or not, we've offended God. And so the first question that a non-believer asks is, do I believe that? Do I believe what he says about my state? And so once you make that decision, you repent of your sins and then you search him with all your heart.

And that's what causes you to see an increasing evidence of God's glory, which increases your faith. But the problem that we have now is we have a generation or a cultural Christianity where even in the leadership, they're not diligently seeking God. They're dabbling with the world, concerned about everything else that everybody else is concerned about, and they're objectively thinking that they're going to read a book or they're going to find something and something's going to cause them to open their eyes.

So almost kind of like demanding God to prove himself, even as they are claiming that they know God. And so after a while, they don't encounter God, not because God is not revealing himself, but because they maybe have never committed themselves to fully seek after God. And then instead of questioning where they are, they start questioning God because God didn't jump when he asked them to jump, when they thought like, "Oh, come," and he didn't come.

So maybe it's not real. Not realizing maybe where they are is not where God wants them to be to begin with. And the problem is if this was happening with people at church, we would counsel them to encourage them to continue to seek, continue to ask. But we're not talking about people in the church who are asking.

They're not, and they're not asking questions right now. They're making a statement. They're not saying like, "I doubt, you know, like I really need to know. I really, like somebody answer my question." They're not asking that. They're saying, "I have all the answers and here's my latest answer," which contradicts everything I said before, right?

So I think at the minimum, they need to be self-aware and take a step back and say, "Maybe I shouldn't have been a leader to begin with," you know what I mean? Instead of blaming all of Christianity and the Bible and everything else, that maybe their faith was never in the place where they should have been leading.

And that's really what's causing this problem because it's confusing a lot of young Christians. We thought they were mature, and that's what mature Christians look like. No, that is not what mature Christians look like, and that's where the confusion is coming from. I'm really glad you mentioned that about definition of what is actually mature faith, you know.

In this generation, I think there is a lot of confusion because some people maybe wrongly assume that you literally have to wait 10 years after receiving some kind of doctorate degree or something like that in a highly intellectualized faith. But I definitely want to just, you know, for anybody listening who's just feeling like, "Oh yeah, there are a lot of voices in this generation.

Our Lord commended childlike faith." Even in the discussion of critical thinking, am I the fool to say, "My God is my Father. He loves me, so everything He says, I trust Him." Am I the fool for saying that? No, that's commended as mature faith. And so to think that perhaps in a maybe well-intended but sloppily applied thought that to be real is to be more mature, to be like constantly expounding every doubt you have or to expose since everybody experiences this, since this is the communal experience, like this is to be more glorified, that goes against how Jesus is defining more mature faith.

So I didn't, I don't like it when, yes, leaders of this day are trying to project that actually doubting your, the resurrection of Jesus or doubting the existence of God or doubting the church, which is Christ's bride, is somehow more mature, right? The definition always has been, no, your ability to take God's Word and fully trust and then take His character into account and therefore fully invest yourself into what He has said and prove it to be true by the commitments of your life, that's maturity.

But they're flipping it on its head and that's again very dangerous. Yeah, you know, if I can just read some passages here, look at what Scripture says about Scripture. Psalm 119, 105, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." And we, 2 Peter 119, "And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place." Deconstructionism doesn't view the Word of God as a lamp.

It doesn't view the Word of God as something you should pay attention to as a lamp shining in a dark place. Second Timothy 3, 16, 17, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." Second Timothy 3, 15, right before that it says, "The sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation." Deuteronomy 6, 4, "Hear, O Israel." "Hear, O Israel," that, that, "Hear, O Israel," what?

"The Word of God." So we see that, you know, an attack on the Word of God is an attack on God himself. When you attack the Word of God, you are going to make someone else God, either yourself or some other idol you see in the culture. Now, if you're honest about that, that's one thing.

But if you see cognitively, okay, how that makes sense, my concern is people who tear down the authority of the Word of God cognitively don't even see that. And kind of just what Pastor Peter, Pastor Mark have been talking about, it kind of starts with the leaders, right? I mean, the Word of God says all this, but quite frankly, younger Christians don't know what the Word of God says.

So when people who are in positions of leadership say, "Oh, this is actually what the Word of God says." Now, you might not verbally, explicitly articulate it in that way, but when you express any, when you cast a light that the scriptures are not worthy to be trusted, you get into all kinds of trouble.

And what's interesting here is that in that same blog post article, "The Six Pillars of Religious Deconstruction" by Keith Giles, the second, the first pillar is getting rid of the authority of the Bible. And then after that, everything else just crumbles, right? You stop believing in hell. You stop believing in penal substitution or atonement.

You cannot reconcile suffering in the world with a good and holy God. You stop believing, you have a weird form of eschatology. And ultimately here, the sixth pillar that he writes is you ultimately leave the church. You ultimately just leave the church because, you know, the church at that point, you know, any sound Bible teaching church, if you don't agree with that, you're going to kind of view that as "abuse." They keep saying that the Bible is authoritative and it's abusing me, right?

It's abusing me so it's unhealthy to be here because they're ramming this unhealthy thought that I can trust everything in the Bible and then you ultimately leave. And I think now kind of moving into the idea, you talked about failure and leadership. There is a sense when leadership has to prepare the congregation to be strong for the hardships ahead, the suffering ahead that they'll experience.

And again, I can point to the theme, there's a, you know, a lot of people who talk about people who fall into deconstruction because of experience where maybe they had real scenarios where they were hurt or pained very deeply, but there's a sense in which the church or again leadership didn't prepare them to think about that kind of suffering in their lives in a godly fashion, right?

Perhaps to expect nothing more than blessings from God when scripture very clearly asks this question, "Shall I accept only blessing and not calamity from the Lord?" Or even to think through the New Testament where it talks about looking at the various trials that we will face and receiving it with hope, joy, strength in Christ because we're living that life of faith, right?

So it's sad to me that individuals who do experience genuine suffering are kind of relegated to wonder, like throw their hands up and wonder, "How can I be strong like this?" And it is sad, even more sad if those individuals are looking to leaders for strength and their leadership rather than trying to strengthen their faith and bolster their faith, they're just agreeing with them.

You're right, I don't know either, right? That to me is a sad state of affairs. So scripture commands all brethren, whether you're a leader or not, it says, "Take care brethren that there not be in any of you an evil unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God, but encourage one another day by day as long as it is called today so that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin," right?

And I think we have to really ask the question again, how am I actually ministering and causing an individual who is perhaps experiencing a level of doubt and causing them to be strengthened as opposed to just simply validating all the woes and maybe even angst and complaints that they may have.

Again, I think there's a large conflation between, "Oh, there's critical thinking and genuine questions." Actually, if I read the articles from the leaders that are coming out online, they're just complaining about the church, they're complaining about their lives and complaining about the cars that God dealt them, and they're throwing their hands up like, "Which ones are we willing to accept or not?" And we can't conflate the two.

Yeah, I mean, in some sense, again, I can't read their mind and their heart, but it's hard to see the genuineness in some of the things that they're saying because it's kind of like, again, people may not like this, but like what Russell Moore did, he was the head of the ethics committee in the Southern Baptist and then he resigns and then he goes to - basically, he takes his hand off and then now he's ripping on everybody that he basically led.

To me, it's so disingenuous because you are in a position where that would have - if they did a - if all of these things that you're saying, how these people were swept, you know, sexual misconduct under the rug, you would have been the most guilty because you were the leader there, you know, and then you come out and then you say, "Look what they're doing." And I see the same thing with like, you guys were leaders.

And so you influenced some of the culture that you are ripping on. And for you to come out and say, "Look at those people," instead of saying, "I was wrong," right? Even though we may disagree with you, at least you can say, "I was wrong. I had doubts and I didn't deal with it for all these years.

And so now I'm going to deal with the doubts that I should have dealt with years ago." Instead of saying that and being humble about it, you come out and saying, "Now that I'm out, I want to tell you all the things that are wrong with them." It's really hard to see that as a genuine wrestling with their faith, you know, because of the way that they're coming out and saying that.

It's kind of like you had one platform that didn't work out, now you're seeking another platform. And again, I can't read their heart, but it's from a distance. It's hard not to see it that way unless I see otherwise. Because how can you be in charge of the ethics community and then resign and then rip on the ethics community that you are in charge of?

Yeah, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Yeah, and so as I think about that, man, I think about like, there may be people who actually are struggling with doubt, you know, and then scripture says, "Be merciful to those who doubt." First Thessalonians talks about, "There are the unruly who need to be exhorted, but then there are the fainthearted who need to be encouraged," right?

But my encouragement then would be, if you're doubting, then don't be a defensive doubter, right? So if I give this example, there are a lot of people who, in this busy generation where people are working late, have lots of responsibility, they're fainthearted and they're growing weary. But then they read scripture and scripture commands them, "Do not grow faint and weary hearted," right?

So you have two options. One is to say, "Man, I'm fainthearted and weary and you're just going to tell me don't do it?" Right? And you get defensive. Like, "You don't understand how much I have on my plate. You don't understand the experiences that I had. You don't understand the pressures that I go through." Or you can be humble and receive the exhortation and say, "You know what?

I am weary right now. I'm fatigued," right? You could have a humble reception where there's a greater brokenness, that if I have doubt, then now it's a raise of concern. "Why do I have this doubt? What did I expect that perhaps need to be corrected in terms of my expectation, right?

What false belief that I actually have, not they have, but what false belief that I have that I need to correct now? Why am I actually feeling so discouraged?" That should be the question. And that Pastor Peter, that's what you're getting at. It's like, if you're really introspective on yourself, then now you're actually surrendering and submitting more to the exhortation of the scripture as opposed to being defensive about it.

It's like, "Don't tell me I'm wrong. I'm right." You can't come to the table like that and then expect God to somehow listen to that kind of heart. You can't be a defensive doubter. Yeah. And you know, as I think about the convergence of celebrity Christian culture and within that kind of reality, the existence of, you know, faint-hearted Christians who need encouragement.

And when I see the faint-hearted Christians who need encouragement get caught up and get misled, it's hard. It's sad. It's hard to deal with that because, you know, as shepherds, you have to love someone enough that you are willing to endure saying the truth, even if it means they dislike you or hate you.

Because you love them enough to tell them the truth. You have to endure that. But if you're not willing to endure that, and you'd rather say some type of nicety, you really hate their soul. You must really hate them. It's the strangest thing to me. And you know, Pastor Peter, you bring up Russell Moore, I mean, you know, anyone that, me personally, anyone that knows, I've had huge issues with, I can name a lot of people, but one person in particular, me personally, is Tim Keller.

And I'm sure he personally loves the Lord, but I've been very disappointed with many of the things that he's been saying. Over the years, I've been disappointed with T4G and Gospel Coalition. I've been disappointed. Now, I'm not saying that it's all bad or anything like that, but I've been disappointed.

And the reason, again, the reason we're disappointed is because we hate to see the young Christians, the faint-hearted Christians, get caught up in this and, you know, ultimately walk away from their faith. Now, of course, we understand that God is sovereign and that the ones who will persevere will persevere, but we work in the convergence of that.

I don't believe in the sovereignty of God and not evangelize because, well, whoever's going to be saved is going to be saved. I believe in the sovereignty of God, and that makes me work harder because I'm more confident of who's in control, you know? And so, man, I'm going to hold myself back.

I can just burst like a dam when I think about that aspect of it. - Yeah, I mean, even within our church, we have different level of maturity, different level of faith, and different level of commitment to the church. We have people who are coming to church who are not members of the church.

They may be Christians, but they haven't committed, and we don't know if they're Christians because we don't know them, right? And so, they may have doubts, they may be questioning inerrancy, and then they may hear certain things and say, "Oh, I don't belong in this church because I don't believe what they believe," right?

That's expected. That's expected in that crowd. That's why we have membership. So, when you become a member, we make sure that, do you genuinely believe? Have you genuinely confessed? Because we wouldn't baptize you, right? And you wouldn't want to be baptized. So, we want to make sure that the membership in the church are from genuine Christians.

And to be a genuine Christian, you have to believe the Word of God is the Word of God. If you don't believe that, then your faith is not based on anything other than, "I was taught this, and I choose to believe this, I choose not to believe this." So, what you believe, there's no boundaries.

You're just regurgitating something that you heard. So, one of the first things as a member in the church, and even as members, you may have different degrees of faith. So, we would expect, like you're searching, you've made a decision that, "I believe it's the Word of God," and you're genuinely saying, "I believe.

Help my unbelief. I want to grow in my faith." We expect that from that group. And then within the church, you have people who are mature, right? Who can defend the faith. They're still growing, they still have questions, but they're more mature than an average believer in the church, and that's why they're leading certain things.

In the eldership of the church, in the pastoral, like when we go through ordination, we assume all of that. Because we've gone through the gauntlet through all of that. All of that is assumed. We don't come into the leadership meeting asking, "Are we committed to this church? Do I actually believe what you're telling me?

Like how can I trust you?" You know, "Is the Bible really real?" We don't expect that because we're committed to expound this, to teach this. We're committed to plant churches, make sacrifices, and then teach other people, answer other people's questions. But the fact that you have people who are in leadership, that they're not church hoppers, they're not just members of the church, they're not small group leaders, and they're not even just regular elders.

These guys are people who put themselves in a position where they're writing books, going on tours, and then telling people in the thousands that you ought to believe all of this. And then to say, "I've changed my mind. In fact, not only did I change my mind, the right thing to do for everybody else is to do exactly what I'm doing." That's the problem.

If they were church visitors, if they were even just brand new Christians, we could be patient. You know, we try to answer questions like, "Oh, what is your doubt? Where is that coming from? Why do you doubt the Word of God?" But you sold yourself as a leader, you know, that you probably shouldn't have been there.

And so really, to be honest, there is no credibility in what you're saying because you contradicted everything that you propagated yourself with your mouth. And then you say, "I doubted all of that." So how do we know what you're saying is true now? How do we know that? So the content of what you say really is irrelevant, you know what I mean?

Even if it has merit, it's irrelevant because you've contradicted yourself. I think the natural thing that a thinking person would do is to step out of the spotlight and to deal with your doubt. And if you find yourself to reject the Word of God, then move away from your faith.

Become what you think you are, you know? But stop trying to lead, you know what I mean? By definition of what you're saying, you can't lead because you rejected what Christianity stands for. So to me, this is very personal. This is not just objectively, you know, something's going on subject that I committed in my life.

This is the God that I serve, that I love, that I'm willing to give my life for. And for other people who are standing on a pulpit like I'm standing on and to reject the God that I love and to say that now that the guy that I know, he's the real God.

You are deceiving yourself and you are deceiving others and you are the wolf that the Bible talks about that is trying to lead people astray from God. And that is personally, again, it's very offensive. And that's why we're doing this podcast because there is no gray area here. This is not, this is not an in-house debate.

Absolutely. Yeah. And as you think, as we think through that, I mean, it's eerie how far and wide that chasm is between those who would affirm this process of deconstruction versus for us, we're saying God's grace to us has been to give us this truth, the revelation of the gospel.

And we hold on to that dear life, like that's everything, you know. And then now as we're sitting here together thinking through this, you're right, it is personal in the sense because, again, like you said, James and Pastor Peter, like we're shepherding people and we're trying to counsel people who do sometimes struggle with the assurance of their salvation.

What has God given us to battle those moments and to rise out of those situations? He's given us in this generation, his precious truth that will stand the test of time and last forever. He's given us the spirit of God to illuminate that word to us. And so the only source that we have, the main, like the power of God and Jesus, you know, in his day, he would rebuke the people and say, "You didn't read the scripture, neither do you know the power of God." If you go down this path of deconstruction, you're going to miss it just like the previous generations.

Yeah. You know, in a culture where it is anathema to say anything negative, I want to read Ephesians 5.11 here says this, "And do not participate in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead even expose them." Let me read that again. Ephesians 5.11 says, "And do not participate in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead even expose them." So when you hear the pastors here talking about why this is personal to them, you have to understand that these are pastors who week in and week out are meeting with people, praying with people, praying that they will grow in their faith and not fall away from the faith, but grow in their faith.

So then when you see out in the culture, not just some fringe group here, but a phenomenon of where it is virtuous to lose your faith, to scale back on it, and at the ultimate end of it to disbelieve in the authority, to not believe in the authority of God, and to somehow even maintain that you are a Christian, that's incredibly deceptive.

And again, it's one thing to be on your way to hell and to know it. That is infinitely better, because at least you know you're on the way to hell. There's hope for you. But if you're on the road to hell and you believe you're on the way to heaven, that is exponentially worse, because you don't even know which way you're going.

So for the listener here, when you hear the pastors say that this is personal to them, I really want you to kind of put yourself in their situation. How they're meeting with people of various ages, but people who are struggling to know God, and then all of a sudden you hear out in this Christian culture that you can be a Christian and not have the authority of God in your life.

The authority of the Bible is the authority of God, to not have that in your life. How dastardly that is to hear that. It's already been an hour here. We're approaching 58 minutes. I'm looking at it. We can go on and on and on, but that's not realistic. I just want any closing comments, Pastor Peter, Pastor Mark?

I just want to reiterate what Pastor Mark said in the beginning. My frustration is not with young Christians who have questions, because our church is filled with people who have a lot of questions. They're in the beginning process of growing in their faith. How do you answer these questions?

And this is all part of sanctification. My frustration is with people who claim to be leaders, and they are not. By definition, they are not. A leader is somebody that others look to because they're ahead of you. They're ahead of you in faith. They're ahead of you in their walk with God.

But when somebody who is ahead of you are saying things, and clearly, by definition, they're not ahead of you. They're maybe even behind you, but yet they refuse to get off the spotlight. Those are the people that I want to give warning to. And so I want to encourage, and again, we're doing this for our church members, and don't be afraid to come and ask questions, just like what Elder James said, even inerrancy.

How are you going to be confident about inerrancy, about the church, why we do certain things, why we preach certain things, what the Bible says, if you don't ask. The Bible welcomes questions, right? But don't go from that to, "Now I'm going to lead the church." Don't be asking those questions and then be frustrated that you're not given leadership.

Because by definition, that's not where you ought to be. So again, I just want to reiterate, we welcome questions. Those of you who are doubting in your faith, to come and search, seek, ask, knock. And Jesus said that he won't answer, he'll open the door. And so that still stands, and we welcome that.

And that would only strengthen the church. - Yeah, and you know, just real quick, ask us questions about anything, whether it's inerrancy or evolution or philosophy. I mean, anything, and there's no subject that is off limits. I just want to just add that real briefly. Two things for me, riding off of the topic of leadership.

For us as leaders here, there's going to be a tension. For us too, we're leading, but we have to be humble with it. How do you accomplish that? Is I make sure that what I am speaking comes from the authority of the scripture, therefore it's not me, right? But the problem that I see with this movement of deconstruction, a lot of times they'll ask, sometimes within articles and conversations, they'll say, "Well, scripture says certain things like if you're doubting, you're double-minded, that the unbelieving heart is evil," all that kind of thing.

But even me as a pastor, I doubt, and therefore now it's okay. And what you see is a legitimization based on you as a leader, right? I've mentioned that because a good Christian leader speaks on behalf of God to the people, saying this is what the word of God says to you so that you would find life in it, right?

In Christ. The idea there is, but what I see in this movement is, I think it's being popularized because some of the leaders more so say things that people can maybe resonate with, and they're more so speaking on behalf of the people, saying, "Yeah, that's our struggle too." He's articulating what I'm feeling, right?

That only goes so far. It's so short, right? Just like if a pastor gets up in the pulpit and say, "You know what? I'm just like you. I struggle with porn. I struggle with porn this week." You're not going to say, "Oh, even leaders struggle with porn, so it's okay." You wouldn't do that.

You say, "He shouldn't be leading." But why does a pastor come up and say, "I doubt all of these things." Oh, he's a pastor. Even the pastor does, so this is okay. We should apply the same consistent standard in all areas, right? So we wouldn't think, "Oh, I committed adultery." I happen to be, "Oh, pastors commit adultery too, so that's okay.

That's not okay. They shouldn't be in that position." And then my second point, sorry, I'm going a little long here. My second point is, my greatest admonition to Christians thinking about this deconstruction thing is, there has been an age-old sinful pattern where we pick and choose what we like about God and his church.

This movement to me is no different. Don't call picking and choosing just general doubt or critical thinking. Again, there's different forms, and we've already acknowledged there's different degrees by which people come to situations where they're doubting or they're hurting and they have experiences. But what's being promulgated upon some of these articles and these Christian leaders, they are picking and choosing, and we dare not do that with God, right?

And that's the biggest warning and caution, you can't pick and choose and have it on your terms. You know, I want to kind of just end with a quote by Spurgeon. He says a lot of great things on this topic, but this is a shorter quote, but this is Charles Spurgeon in "The Clue of the Maze." Charles Spurgeon in "The Clue of the Maze," he says this, quote, "Doubt dims and chills the day.

A fog is over all things, and men move like Egypt's ancients when they felt the darkness. Oh, that this mist would lift. The best we can hope is that the present gloom may pass away right speedily and that the cloud may leave a dew behind to nourish a more intelligent and unquestioning faith.

In this clammy skepticism, no race but the punies can be nurtured. Men who are greatly good are hillborn and love the fresh air of the mountains of truth." The paragraphs of this little book are not supposed to be an argument. It was not my aim to convince an opponent, but to assist a friend.

How I have personally threaded the labyrinth of life thus far may be of helpful interest to some other soul which just now is in a maze. I hope that by these pages some true heart may be assisted to fight his doubts and gather strength. Let no man's heart fail him, for the prevalent skepticisms are but specters of the mind.

Face them, and they fly. A great poet let fall the expression "honest doubt." How greedily it was clutched at. Modern unbelief is so short of the quality that it sees the label, and in season and out of season, it has advertised itself as "honest doubt." It was in dire need of a character.

Feeble as our voice may be, we lift it on behalf of honest faith. That's in The Clue of the Maze by Charles Spurgeon. There's a lot more quotes here. I'm not going to quote them now because then that'll be an hour long. But if you think about that, what Spurgeon is saying was doubt was in such need of character.

So some poet just said let's call it honest. And we view doubt on this pedestal when faith, when faith should be viewed on the pedestal. Yeah. So Pastor Mark, can you kind of close us in prayer? Sure. Yeah. That's great. Heavenly Father, our faith comes down to you, Lord.

It's you that you have initiated your grace by sending to us your Son, sending to us your truth, and we receive it with grateful hands, Lord. I pray, Father God, that we would truly be immersed in that love, that we would recognize that the biblical authority is not just simply an intellectual exercise, but you revealing yourself through the Scripture.

That is to us mercy and grace. And I pray, Father God, that rather than look at it with suspicion, rather than look at it with doubt, help us, Father God, to fully trust you. I pray, Father God, that we actually would hang on every word. I pray, Father God, that we would truly bank our entire lives, our future, our livelihood, our well-being, whether mental, heart, or more, that we would truly be devoted to you.

I pray for anybody who is struggling because ultimately we struggle with the things that we see with our eyes and experience with our flesh. But I pray, Father God, that you would provide growth and faith. More love to you, Lord. We thank you in Christ's name. Amen. Amen. All right, guys, we will see you soon.

As you could probably tell, my podcast equipment for group settings is a little less than my solo gig. I bring that up because as I was listening to that last portion of the recording, I was worried it might have been a little marred from the background noise, and it does appear that more background noise was picked up than I had hoped for.

You're going to have to forgive me for that since we were recording at church and people were getting ready for an event, and they had no idea we were recording. But in any case, as I promised to answer Spurgeon with Spurgeon, here he is, "How then, says Spurgeon, am I to make my calling and election sure?

Why, thus, if you would get out of a doubting state, get out of an idle state, if you would get out of a trembling state, get out of an indifferent, lukewarm state, for lukewarmness and doubting and laziness and trembling very naturally go hand in hand, if you would enjoy the eminent grace of the full assurance of faith under the blessed Spirit's influence and assistance, do what the Scripture tells you, give diligence to make your calling and election sure.

Wherein shall you be diligent? Note how the Scripture has given us a list. Be diligent in your faith. Take care that your faith is that of the right kind, that it is not a creed but a credence, that it is not a mere belief of doctrine but a reception of doctrine into your heart and the practical light of the doctrine in your soul.

Take care that your faith results from necessity, that you believe in Christ because you have nothing else to believe in. Take care it is simple faith, hanging alone on Christ, without any other dependence but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And when you have given diligence about that, give diligence next to your courage, labor to get virtue, plead with God that He would give you the face of a lion, that you may never be afraid of any enemy, however much he may jeer or threaten you, but that you may, with a consciousness of right, go on boldly trusting in God.

And having, by the help of the Holy Spirit, obtained that, study well the Scriptures and get knowledge. For knowledge of doctrine will tend very much to confirm your faith. Try to understand God's Word. Get a sensible spiritual idea of it. Get if you can, a system of divinity out of God's Bible.

Put the doctrines together. Get real theological knowledge founded upon the infallible Word. Get a knowledge of that science which is most despised, but which is the most necessary of all, the science of Christ and of Him crucified, and of the great doctrines of grace. And when you have done this, add to your knowledge temperance.

Take heed to your body. Be temperate there. Take heed to your soul. Be temperate there. Be not drunken with pride. Be not lifted up with self-confidence. Be temperate. Be not harsh towards your friends, nor bitter to your enemies. Get temperance of lips, temperance of life, temperance of heart, temperance of thought.

Be not passionate. Be not carried away by every wind of doctrine. Get temperance, and then add to it, by God's Holy Spirit, patience. Ask Him to give you that patience which endures infliction, which, when it is tried, shall come forth as gold. Array yourself with patience, that you may not murmur in your sickness, that you may not curse God in your losses, nor be depressed in your afflictions.

Pray without ceasing, until the Holy Spirit has nerved you with patience to endure unto the end. And when you have that, get godliness. Godliness is something more than religion. The most religious men may be the most godless men, and sometimes a godly man may seem to be irreligious. Let me just explain that seeming paradox.

A real religious man is a man who sighs after sacraments, attends churches and chapels, and is outwardly good, but goes not farther. A godly man is a man who does not look so much to the dress as to the person. He looks not to the outward form, but to the inward and spiritual grace.

He is a godly man as well as attentive to religion. Some men, however, are godly and to a great extent despise form. They may be godly without some degree of religion. But a man cannot be fully righteous without being godly in the true meaning of each of these words, though not in the general vulgar sense of them.

Add to your patience an eye to God. Live in His sight. Dwell close to Him. Then to that, add brotherly love. Be loving towards all the members of Christ's church. Have a love to all the saints of every denomination. And then add to that charity which opens its arms to all men and loves them.

And when you have got all these, then you will know your calling and election. And just in proportion, as you practice these heavenly rules of life in this heavenly manner, will you come to know that you were called and that you are elect. But by no other means can you attain to a knowledge of that except by the witness of the Spirit, bearing witness with your spirit that you were born of God, and then witnessing in your conscience that you were not what you were, but are a new man in Christ Jesus, and are therefore called and elected." That was Charles Spurgeon.

Now before I end, I want to give into temptation one last time. This is a lot shorter, okay? But I want to leave you with some more Charles Spurgeon. This is regarding unbelief, and he states this elsewhere in the Clue of the Maze. In the Clue of the Maze, Spurgeon states, "How is it that no such trophy has ever been raised to the honor of unbelief?

Will the poet of infidelity and the historian of skepticism yet appear? If so, what will be their record? Working righteousness and obtaining promises are rather out of the line of doubt, and it is not likely to endure much suffering to obtain a better resurrection, for it sneers at the mention of such a thing.

The eulogist of doubt would have to content himself with lower achievements. But what would they be? What hospitals or orphanages has doubt erected? What missions to cannibal tribes has infidelity sustained? What fallen women or profligate men has skepticism acclaimed and new created? Sing, muse, if such a theme, so dark, so wrong, may find a muse to grace it with a song.

The Milton of this subject may well turn out to be like him whom Gray describes in his elegy as mute and glorious. By their fruits ye shall know them. What are the precious outcomings of modern thought, which is the alias for new-fashioned unbelief? We hear the shouts of the craftsmen as they repeat their cry, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians!" But where are the holy and happy results of the advanced criticism which is so busily undermining the foundations of faith?

Thanks for making it to the end. I'll continue to try to make the journey worth it. To him be honor, glory, and eternal dominion. Amen. (upbeat music)