Aug. 1, 2024

Absolute Surrender

Absolute Surrender

A discussion about the history of the concept, absolute surrender

Spreaker Apple Podcasts Spotify PocketCasts Amazon Music Overcast Audible Castro iHeartRadio Castbox Podchaser TuneIn Deezer Pandora RadioPublic Podcast Addict RSS Feed YouTube Fountain PlayerFM Goodpods Podverse Podyssey Breaker Podurama Audacy JioSaavn
Spreaker podcast player icon Spreaker Spreaker Apple Podcasts podcast player icon Apple Podcasts Apple Podcasts Spotify podcast player icon Spotify Spotify PocketCasts podcast player icon PocketCasts PocketCasts Amazon Music podcast player icon Amazon Music Amazon Music Overcast podcast player icon Overcast Overcast Audible podcast player icon Audible Audible Castro podcast player icon Castro Castro iHeartRadio podcast player icon iHeartRadio iHeartRadio Castbox podcast player icon Castbox Castbox Podchaser podcast player icon Podchaser Podchaser TuneIn podcast player icon TuneIn TuneIn Deezer podcast player icon Deezer Deezer Pandora podcast player icon Pandora Pandora RadioPublic podcast player icon RadioPublic RadioPublic Podcast Addict podcast player icon Podcast Addict Podcast Addict RSS Feed podcast player icon RSS Feed RSS Feed YouTube podcast player icon YouTube YouTube Fountain podcast player icon Fountain Fountain PlayerFM podcast player icon PlayerFM PlayerFM Goodpods podcast player icon Goodpods Goodpods Podverse podcast player icon Podverse Podverse Podyssey podcast player icon Podyssey Podyssey Breaker podcast player icon Breaker Breaker Podurama podcast player icon Podurama Podurama Audacy podcast player icon Audacy Audacy JioSaavn podcast player icon JioSaavn JioSaavn

A discussion about the history of the concept, absolute surrender

WEBVTT

1
00:00:02.359 --> 00:00:06.080
Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is

2
00:00:06.120 --> 00:00:13.759
the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central Good Evening everyone.

3
00:00:13.960 --> 00:00:17.359
It is Wednesday, July the thirty first, twenty twenty four.

4
00:00:17.800 --> 00:00:21.239
It is currently eight forty nine pm Central Time, and

5
00:00:21.359 --> 00:00:25.000
I am coming to you live from the Theology Central

6
00:00:25.039 --> 00:00:31.000
studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. I guess the

7
00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:34.119
first thing I need to do is I probably need

8
00:00:34.159 --> 00:00:38.560
to apologize for the broadcast earlier today. It was not

9
00:00:39.560 --> 00:00:43.119
very good. And to even add to the fact that

10
00:00:43.159 --> 00:00:46.880
it wasn't very good, it was over one hour long.

11
00:00:47.039 --> 00:00:49.240
So it's one thing when it's not very good, but

12
00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:51.920
it's fifteen minutes, it's one thing. If it's not very

13
00:00:51.960 --> 00:00:55.320
good and it's twenty minutes, it's something totally different. When

14
00:00:55.359 --> 00:00:58.119
it's not very good and it's over an hour. It

15
00:00:58.479 --> 00:01:02.079
just I don't know. I don't really know where I

16
00:01:03.119 --> 00:01:06.400
don't really know where I went wrong. Maybe I had

17
00:01:06.840 --> 00:01:09.519
too many ideas I was trying. I think I put

18
00:01:09.560 --> 00:01:13.200
all the ideas together. I can't really articulate exactly what

19
00:01:13.359 --> 00:01:15.719
went wrong, but I just feel like it did not

20
00:01:15.840 --> 00:01:18.560
go right. I just feel like it it didn't go right.

21
00:01:18.920 --> 00:01:21.799
But what I'm going to do is I am going

22
00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:24.719
to borrow from the last one and build upon it

23
00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:29.519
and hopefully maybe take something that wasn't great and try

24
00:01:29.519 --> 00:01:33.040
to turn it into something positive. That's what I'm going

25
00:01:33.079 --> 00:01:34.959
to try to do. But before we do that, a

26
00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:39.719
couple of things. A couple of things. First, my daughter

27
00:01:40.159 --> 00:01:44.400
sent me this little meme about I don't know. She's

28
00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:49.120
always sending me memes constantly, memes TikTok's YouTube, well usually

29
00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:53.000
tiktoks more than YouTube videos, okay, news stories, just all

30
00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:55.959
the time. She will send them to me in the morning,

31
00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:59.400
in the afternoon, late at night, midnight, one in the morning,

32
00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:01.000
two in the morning, three in the morning, four in

33
00:02:01.040 --> 00:02:04.280
the morning. She doesn't care. She will send me stuff.

34
00:02:04.319 --> 00:02:06.719
So in some and most time most of the time,

35
00:02:06.719 --> 00:02:09.159
I'm appreciative. Sometimes I'm like, it's three in the morning,

36
00:02:11.199 --> 00:02:13.599
why are you contacting me about a meme? Okay or

37
00:02:13.639 --> 00:02:17.039
a TikTok video? But I digress. But she sent this

38
00:02:17.080 --> 00:02:20.479
to me. I find it hilarious. I know it's going

39
00:02:20.560 --> 00:02:25.199
to offend many of you, but I still find it hilarious.

40
00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:31.800
Here's the meme. American Christians whenever a three thousand year

41
00:02:31.840 --> 00:02:37.919
old ancient Grecian competition comprised of athletes from one hundred

42
00:02:37.919 --> 00:02:42.439
and eighty four countries practicing approximately ten thousand religions, has

43
00:02:42.479 --> 00:02:48.039
an opening ceremony that isn't specifically catered to them. And

44
00:02:48.080 --> 00:02:54.319
I took that personally, that's funny, American Christians. Whenever a

45
00:02:54.360 --> 00:02:58.120
three thousand year old, ancient Grecian competition comprise of athletes

46
00:02:58.159 --> 00:03:02.319
from one hundred and eighty four countries practicing approximately ten

47
00:03:02.360 --> 00:03:06.360
thousand religions, has an opening ceremony that isn't specifically catered

48
00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:09.560
to them, and what do American Christians do? We take

49
00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:12.599
it personally. We say we're being persecuted. We say it's

50
00:03:12.599 --> 00:03:15.240
an attack upon our faith, and we get offended, and

51
00:03:15.280 --> 00:03:17.439
we get angry, and we get mad, and we want

52
00:03:17.439 --> 00:03:23.759
to boycott something and someone it's it's it's a three

53
00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:29.520
thousand year old Grecian competition comprised of athletes from one

54
00:03:29.599 --> 00:03:33.840
hundred and eighty four countries practicing thousands of different religions.

55
00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:37.080
But but bu buh buh buh wait wait wait wait wait,

56
00:03:37.319 --> 00:03:41.120
we we get upset because it's not catered to our

57
00:03:41.280 --> 00:03:46.719
specific likes and our specific faith. Sometimes I really do

58
00:03:46.800 --> 00:03:49.759
believe that Christians seem to think that the whole world,

59
00:03:50.080 --> 00:03:53.280
that the whole world should cater to their every want,

60
00:03:53.319 --> 00:03:57.599
their every need, They're every demand, their every their their conviction,

61
00:03:58.080 --> 00:04:01.520
their feelings. It should thing should just make the world

62
00:04:01.599 --> 00:04:05.199
better for them. And I hate when I almost have

63
00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:07.919
to speak of Christians as being separate from me, but

64
00:04:08.199 --> 00:04:10.759
I don't. That's a Christian world in which I do

65
00:04:10.800 --> 00:04:13.840
not understand. So I found that kind of funny. You

66
00:04:13.919 --> 00:04:17.800
probably found that offensive. But that's okay, that's okay, all right,

67
00:04:17.839 --> 00:04:21.120
But that's not what we're here to talk about. We're

68
00:04:21.120 --> 00:04:23.040
here to talk about something else that's going to be

69
00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:26.680
somewhat controversial and that Christians have been arguing about for

70
00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:35.879
well about two thousand years. You're ready, You're ready. Okay.

71
00:04:36.199 --> 00:04:39.879
So earlier today I had right here in my hands

72
00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:44.639
the sort of the Lord newspaper, and the sort of

73
00:04:44.680 --> 00:04:49.000
the Lord Newspaper got me thinking really a lot about

74
00:04:49.160 --> 00:04:53.879
my my Christian journey, my spiritual journey, and how there

75
00:04:53.920 --> 00:04:57.160
have been well, very specific times in my Christian life.

76
00:04:57.439 --> 00:05:01.120
I think now I'm kind of inflicted of where I'm

77
00:05:01.199 --> 00:05:03.279
at now in my journey. I feel like I don't

78
00:05:03.319 --> 00:05:06.120
really know where I'm at currently in my spiritual journey.

79
00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:08.079
But there was a time when, as a young Christian,

80
00:05:08.120 --> 00:05:10.279
I just know that I knew that I wanted to

81
00:05:10.279 --> 00:05:13.120
be used by God. I wanted to do great things

82
00:05:13.160 --> 00:05:15.519
for God, and I understood the way to know that

83
00:05:15.560 --> 00:05:17.439
if I was being used by God and doing great

84
00:05:17.519 --> 00:05:20.199
things for God, that it would manifest itself in really

85
00:05:20.279 --> 00:05:23.160
visible ways by the number of people I was ministering to,

86
00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:25.879
or the size of the church I was pastoring, or

87
00:05:25.879 --> 00:05:28.360
the number of people listening to my teaching, or the

88
00:05:28.439 --> 00:05:31.279
number of people downloading my podcasts, et cetera, et cetera,

89
00:05:31.319 --> 00:05:34.600
et cetera, et cetera. Even though I would tell you

90
00:05:34.920 --> 00:05:37.560
numbers is not the most important thing. Even though I

91
00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:39.800
would tell you numbers is not the way you judge things,

92
00:05:39.879 --> 00:05:42.600
there was still a part of that, And looking back,

93
00:05:42.639 --> 00:05:44.439
I kind of question if if a lot of me

94
00:05:44.560 --> 00:05:46.560
wanting to be used by God and do great things

95
00:05:46.560 --> 00:05:48.959
for God was more about me than it was about God.

96
00:05:49.120 --> 00:05:52.360
And we discussed all of that. But as I was

97
00:05:52.399 --> 00:05:55.279
reading the sort of the Lord this issue from July

98
00:05:55.360 --> 00:05:58.160
the nineteenth, I was just really thinking about a lot

99
00:05:58.199 --> 00:06:01.480
of those questions, because it's they have an article right

100
00:06:01.480 --> 00:06:04.560
here about that. It's the sort of the Lord's ninetieth year.

101
00:06:04.800 --> 00:06:07.319
Ninety years they've been putting out this paper. The first

102
00:06:07.319 --> 00:06:12.759
one was September the twenty eighth, nineteen thirty four. And

103
00:06:12.839 --> 00:06:14.480
all of these years they've been putting out this paper.

104
00:06:15.079 --> 00:06:17.319
You could say that they've been used by God. They've

105
00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:20.959
done great things for God, and they have something. There's

106
00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:24.079
something tangible, there's something, a way to measure it. Ninety

107
00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:27.240
years of putting out this paper and all the testimonial

108
00:06:27.399 --> 00:06:31.160
testimonials about how amazing it has been. I think that

109
00:06:31.839 --> 00:06:37.319
that is a very at least it's convicting to me

110
00:06:37.519 --> 00:06:39.480
because I'm like, well, so what do I have to

111
00:06:39.519 --> 00:06:42.120
show for what if I accomplished that type of thing?

112
00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:45.240
So I was just thinking about that. And also in

113
00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:50.839
this issue there was an article why God used D. L. Moody.

114
00:06:52.439 --> 00:06:56.079
Why God used D. L. Moody, And they have kind

115
00:06:56.079 --> 00:07:00.759
of the famous it's the famous quote or someone says

116
00:07:00.800 --> 00:07:03.240
to D. L. Moody the world is yet to see.

117
00:07:03.240 --> 00:07:06.199
And I'm paraphrasing this because they have the quote a

118
00:07:06.199 --> 00:07:09.360
little different than the way it's typically sighted, but it

119
00:07:09.480 --> 00:07:12.439
goes something along like this. This is a loose paraphrase

120
00:07:12.600 --> 00:07:14.839
that someone said to D. L. Moody, The world is

121
00:07:14.920 --> 00:07:18.439
yet to see what God can do with someone who

122
00:07:18.519 --> 00:07:22.120
is completely and holy His, who is completely surrendered to him,

123
00:07:22.360 --> 00:07:26.000
and D. L. Moody famously supposedly said, I will be

124
00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:28.920
that man. I want to be that man. I want

125
00:07:28.920 --> 00:07:30.680
the world to be able to see what God can

126
00:07:30.800 --> 00:07:33.920
do with someone who's fully and completely his And I

127
00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:37.199
want to be that man. And the argument always goes

128
00:07:37.240 --> 00:07:39.600
is D. L. Moody was that man. If we ever

129
00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:42.040
need to know what it looks like, if we ever

130
00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:43.879
need to know what God can do with a man

131
00:07:43.920 --> 00:07:47.439
who is completely surrendered to God, who fully is his,

132
00:07:47.839 --> 00:07:52.480
D L. Moody is that example. So it's a powerful story.

133
00:07:52.519 --> 00:07:57.519
I've heard the story in Bible college, seminary, Bible institutes, church,

134
00:07:57.759 --> 00:07:59.959
and every single time I'm like, and I have said this,

135
00:08:00.600 --> 00:08:02.120
I want to be that man. I want to be

136
00:08:02.199 --> 00:08:04.680
like that. And what does it look like? What does

137
00:08:04.720 --> 00:08:08.439
that look like? How do you? How? How do we

138
00:08:08.519 --> 00:08:13.360
accomplish that? How do I become completely God? How do

139
00:08:13.439 --> 00:08:16.360
I become completely God's not become God? How do I

140
00:08:16.399 --> 00:08:19.920
become God's God? How do I fully surrender myself to

141
00:08:19.959 --> 00:08:24.240
God so that God fully has everything? I am trying

142
00:08:24.279 --> 00:08:26.399
to see that correctly. I know someone can take that

143
00:08:26.439 --> 00:08:28.600
out of context and that make me sound like a heretic.

144
00:08:28.879 --> 00:08:31.680
Not that I become God. How can I become God's

145
00:08:32.200 --> 00:08:36.200
in a sense of belonging to him, God's possession, fully

146
00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:40.639
surrendered to him. And remember this article had this statement

147
00:08:40.679 --> 00:08:43.159
about one of the reasons D. L. Moody, you know,

148
00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:45.399
was able to be used by God because he was

149
00:08:45.440 --> 00:08:49.440
fully surrendered. And remember it had this statement, if I

150
00:08:49.480 --> 00:08:53.399
can find it, the first thing that accounts for God's

151
00:08:53.480 --> 00:08:56.039
using D. L. Moody so mightily was that he was

152
00:08:56.120 --> 00:08:59.639
fully surrendered man. Every ounce of that two hundred and

153
00:08:59.639 --> 00:09:07.000
eighty body of his wholly belonged to God. That D. L.

154
00:09:07.120 --> 00:09:11.200
Moody wholly belonged to God was wholly his. He belonged

155
00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:17.279
to God. He was God's possession, God owned every part

156
00:09:17.399 --> 00:09:21.159
of him was surrendered. Therefore, the world could see what

157
00:09:21.320 --> 00:09:26.080
God could do with a man who fully belonged to him.

158
00:09:26.360 --> 00:09:28.759
And so we did a little reading about what does

159
00:09:28.799 --> 00:09:33.120
it mean to be absolutely surrendered to God? What does

160
00:09:33.159 --> 00:09:35.559
it actually look like? What does it actually mean? Now

161
00:09:35.559 --> 00:09:38.120
the article went on to say, well, it doesn't mean

162
00:09:38.159 --> 00:09:40.480
he was perfect, but it means and they went on

163
00:09:40.519 --> 00:09:43.320
to basically say that dal Moody's will was God's will

164
00:09:43.559 --> 00:09:46.279
and that it was surrendered to him, and so basically

165
00:09:46.279 --> 00:09:48.279
you're like, well, then how is he? How is he

166
00:09:48.360 --> 00:09:50.960
not perfect? And it was just a little bit of

167
00:09:50.960 --> 00:09:57.039
the typical Christian double speak. So when that was over,

168
00:09:57.159 --> 00:09:59.799
I you know, the whole you know, the whole episode

169
00:09:59.840 --> 00:10:01.840
was really good. I was kind of disappointed in it,

170
00:10:02.799 --> 00:10:04.480
just like now I'm going to be disappointed at this

171
00:10:04.519 --> 00:10:07.120
one because I made a heretical statement, even though I

172
00:10:07.120 --> 00:10:10.080
wasn't trying to make a heretical statement. Okay, nobody's trying

173
00:10:10.120 --> 00:10:12.480
to be God, but we're trying to become, in a sense,

174
00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:16.000
God's possession. But then you can argue, are we already

175
00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:18.399
God's possession? All right, we can have that discussion. But

176
00:10:18.399 --> 00:10:20.840
the point is I stated it incorrectly. Hopefully I've now

177
00:10:20.840 --> 00:10:23.440
corrected it at a number of times. But the point is,

178
00:10:25.039 --> 00:10:27.759
what does it mean to be absolutely surrendered? Now? When

179
00:10:27.799 --> 00:10:30.200
the broadcast was over, I'm just going to be honest

180
00:10:30.240 --> 00:10:32.399
with you, I didn't really want to think about it.

181
00:10:32.759 --> 00:10:35.360
I didn't really care. I was like, it was garbage,

182
00:10:35.759 --> 00:10:39.000
it was trash. Probably shouldn't even upload it. Let's just

183
00:10:39.039 --> 00:10:42.840
move on. But then I received an email. Let me

184
00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:45.080
see if I can give you the time of the email.

185
00:10:45.960 --> 00:10:51.080
What time was this email? I've got fifty thousand things

186
00:10:51.120 --> 00:10:55.039
open here, all right, it's a little bit of hyperbole,

187
00:10:55.120 --> 00:10:59.600
but not many, all right, not much. Let's see here

188
00:11:01.720 --> 00:11:06.120
and look here for what time the email was. I'm

189
00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:11.440
looking at two thirty pm and it's just the subject

190
00:11:11.480 --> 00:11:15.559
line as sermon challenge. And they sent me a link

191
00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:20.240
to a sermon called are you fully Surrendered to Christ?

192
00:11:21.120 --> 00:11:26.960
And then the person wrote under it just starting work, work, work, work, work,

193
00:11:27.080 --> 00:11:31.799
work work, And I had to laugh because they decided

194
00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:35.120
to go look for a sermon on well being surrendered

195
00:11:35.159 --> 00:11:38.000
to Christ, our absolute surrender. And I thought, well, that's awesome,

196
00:11:38.039 --> 00:11:41.720
all right, I even though my hour of talking wasn't

197
00:11:41.840 --> 00:11:44.720
very good. They immediately used the sermon's two point oh

198
00:11:44.960 --> 00:11:47.759
app following the sermon's two point oh app challenge, and

199
00:11:47.799 --> 00:11:50.240
went and looked for sermons on being surrendered to Christ.

200
00:11:50.399 --> 00:11:52.279
And the first one they found, the way they describe

201
00:11:52.320 --> 00:11:54.759
it is it's just work, work, work, work. You gotta

202
00:11:54.799 --> 00:11:56.240
do this and this and this and this and this

203
00:11:56.279 --> 00:11:59.120
and this and this. Now it's weird because do you

204
00:11:59.200 --> 00:12:02.480
do it to become surrendered, Like you have to do

205
00:12:02.559 --> 00:12:05.600
something to be surrendered? Or do you do these things

206
00:12:05.639 --> 00:12:08.720
because you are surrendered? So then how do you become surrendered?

207
00:12:08.759 --> 00:12:11.279
Because I have seen the same thing. What does it

208
00:12:11.360 --> 00:12:15.080
mean to be fully surrendered? Well, to become fully surrendered,

209
00:12:15.120 --> 00:12:16.919
you have to do this, this, and this. I'm like, well,

210
00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:19.360
wait a minute, am I doing it to be surrendered?

211
00:12:19.879 --> 00:12:22.519
Or do I do that because I'm surrendered? Well, you

212
00:12:22.559 --> 00:12:24.799
do it because you're surrendered. Well, then how do I

213
00:12:24.879 --> 00:12:28.159
become surrendered? Well, you do it to be surrendered, and

214
00:12:28.200 --> 00:12:30.639
then you do it because you are surrendered. Well, if

215
00:12:30.639 --> 00:12:33.639
I'm doing it before I'm surrendered to become surrendered, then

216
00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:36.799
then doing it is not a result of being surrendered,

217
00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:39.559
because I was doing it before I was surrendered. So

218
00:12:40.080 --> 00:12:42.399
what does it mean to be surrendered? How do I

219
00:12:42.559 --> 00:12:46.440
surrender myself? What do I have? And almost inevitably is

220
00:12:46.480 --> 00:12:47.960
like you got to do this, you got to do this,

221
00:12:48.080 --> 00:12:50.840
And it's like, so I'm doing it without being surrendered.

222
00:12:51.159 --> 00:12:53.080
It sounds like if I'm doing all of that, I

223
00:12:53.159 --> 00:12:57.279
am surrendered. It's like this circular reasoning that almost makes

224
00:12:57.320 --> 00:13:00.480
you want to scream. But when I saw I'm like,

225
00:13:00.519 --> 00:13:02.639
you know what, maybe I should review that. I'm like, well,

226
00:13:02.639 --> 00:13:05.360
I don't necessarily want to do a sermon review. So

227
00:13:05.399 --> 00:13:06.799
then I was like, well, what do I do? What

228
00:13:06.840 --> 00:13:08.559
do I do? What do I do? You know what,

229
00:13:08.600 --> 00:13:10.399
It's Wednesday night. You know, I'm just gonna move on

230
00:13:10.840 --> 00:13:13.039
if people got a million things to listen to and

231
00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:14.840
then well, then I found out that tomorrow is going

232
00:13:14.879 --> 00:13:16.440
to be all messed up, so I probably won't be

233
00:13:16.440 --> 00:13:19.519
able to record. I don't know about Friday. Saturday is

234
00:13:19.519 --> 00:13:22.039
pretty much not going to happen. So I'm like, well,

235
00:13:23.320 --> 00:13:28.159
let me do something. So here we are. So what

236
00:13:28.200 --> 00:13:29.960
are we going to do? Well, here's what we're going

237
00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:35.080
to do. We're going to look at the history of

238
00:13:35.159 --> 00:13:46.039
the concept of absolute surrender. In Christianity, the concept of

239
00:13:46.240 --> 00:13:54.759
absolute surrender refers to the total submission and yielding of

240
00:13:54.919 --> 00:14:03.720
one's will to God. God's will becomes your will, your

241
00:14:03.799 --> 00:14:10.039
will disappears, your desire disappears. Ever, you become God's in

242
00:14:10.039 --> 00:14:12.559
the sense you belong to God. Right. I know I

243
00:14:12.600 --> 00:14:14.120
keep saying it that way we should probably not the

244
00:14:14.120 --> 00:14:16.399
most articulate way, but I'm saying it because I'm really

245
00:14:16.399 --> 00:14:19.480
trying to stress, like You're now God's possession. You belong

246
00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:22.960
to him everything about you. Your will is now his will,

247
00:14:23.720 --> 00:14:26.679
your desire is his desire, your thoughts are his thoughts.

248
00:14:27.559 --> 00:14:32.559
You've become fully surrendered to Him. And this has a

249
00:14:32.879 --> 00:14:36.039
been a very much a teaching within Christianity now almost inevitably.

250
00:14:36.200 --> 00:14:39.200
This is where you get the Christian double speak surrender

251
00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:41.440
yourselves fully to God. I mean, you're not going to

252
00:14:41.480 --> 00:14:43.519
be perfect, You're still going to sin. Well, I don't

253
00:14:43.519 --> 00:14:46.879
know how I can still sin if I'm fully surrendered

254
00:14:46.919 --> 00:14:49.879
and it makes no sense to me, but okay, But

255
00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:54.480
it refers to the idea of total submission and yielding

256
00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:58.919
of one's will to God. Throughout Church history, this concept

257
00:14:58.960 --> 00:15:04.000
has been understood inmphasize in various ways by different Christian

258
00:15:04.039 --> 00:15:08.519
traditions and theologians. Are you ready to take a trip

259
00:15:08.679 --> 00:15:12.360
through church history and see how this has been understood.

260
00:15:13.639 --> 00:15:19.279
Let's go to the Early Church fathers first to fourth century.

261
00:15:19.840 --> 00:15:23.639
The early Church fathers first to fourth century. How did

262
00:15:23.720 --> 00:15:31.840
they understand this idea of absolute surrender to God? Martyrdom

263
00:15:31.960 --> 00:15:38.559
and confession. The early Christians viewed martyrdom as the ultimate

264
00:15:38.679 --> 00:15:42.679
form of surrender, giving their lives for their faith. When

265
00:15:42.679 --> 00:15:46.240
they talked about absolute surrendering yourself to God, you were

266
00:15:46.279 --> 00:15:48.759
then giving yourself as a martyr. You were being martyred,

267
00:15:48.879 --> 00:15:52.360
you were being killed for your faith. That was absolute surrender.

268
00:15:54.600 --> 00:15:58.919
Confession of faith was an unwavering commitment to Christ. Even

269
00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:03.159
under persecution, were seen as acts of absolute surrender. So

270
00:16:03.440 --> 00:16:06.480
when you were being persecuted or you're being tortured, if

271
00:16:06.480 --> 00:16:09.519
you continue to confess your faith in the light of

272
00:16:09.519 --> 00:16:13.519
that persecution and suffering that persecution, that was absolute surrender.

273
00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:16.960
And if you suffered and you continue to confess your faith,

274
00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:19.679
you did not recant, you did not give up in

275
00:16:19.720 --> 00:16:22.600
a sense, that was absolute surrender. And if you went

276
00:16:22.679 --> 00:16:24.759
all the way to the point of being martyred, then

277
00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:30.440
well that was a continuation of that absolute surrender. So

278
00:16:30.559 --> 00:16:33.080
in the early Church between the first and fourth century,

279
00:16:33.279 --> 00:16:38.519
basically absolute surrender was absolute surrender. You surrendered your physical

280
00:16:38.600 --> 00:16:46.840
well being, your safety, your health. You endured pain, suffering, torture, imprisonment, starvation, stoning,

281
00:16:47.399 --> 00:16:53.840
being killed, dying as your ultimate surrender. That's absolute surrender.

282
00:16:56.039 --> 00:17:01.399
That's absolute surrender. Well, obviously, as once secution began to

283
00:17:02.600 --> 00:17:08.319
go away and Christianity becomes more legal and becomes to dominate. Well,

284
00:17:08.319 --> 00:17:11.279
then you're not going to talk of absolute surrender that way, right,

285
00:17:11.319 --> 00:17:13.920
I mean because that I can't talk about absolute surrender

286
00:17:13.920 --> 00:17:16.200
because hey, you, I would have to tell you to

287
00:17:16.240 --> 00:17:18.799
go find someplace so that you can be killed, because

288
00:17:18.799 --> 00:17:21.359
there would be no real like it's not it doesn't

289
00:17:21.400 --> 00:17:24.920
become practical anymore. There's there's no real application to that.

290
00:17:25.640 --> 00:17:28.240
So then things are going to begin to change. So

291
00:17:28.720 --> 00:17:31.039
you have right there in the between the first and

292
00:17:31.079 --> 00:17:33.599
fourth century, there's there's a period in the first and

293
00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:37.960
fourth century that absolute surrender means meant martyrdom and confessing

294
00:17:38.000 --> 00:17:40.640
your faith even in the midst of being persecuted and

295
00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:45.400
tortured for your faith. Right, but also as as you

296
00:17:45.519 --> 00:17:47.720
move through the first, second, and third centuries, you get

297
00:17:47.759 --> 00:17:50.440
later as you move forth into the fourth century, then

298
00:17:50.480 --> 00:17:52.759
it kind of started changing a little bit, and it

299
00:17:52.799 --> 00:17:58.559
started turning into the idea of monasticism. You had different

300
00:17:59.119 --> 00:18:03.119
figures who would who emerged in church history who emphasized

301
00:18:03.400 --> 00:18:08.200
withdraw from worldly life and complete devotion to prayer and

302
00:18:08.319 --> 00:18:13.920
ascetic practices. The desert father sought to live a life

303
00:18:13.960 --> 00:18:16.920
of purity and total dedication to God. So then the

304
00:18:16.960 --> 00:18:20.240
idea was okay, it's not about dying and confessing your

305
00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:23.440
faith where you're being tortured. Now, the idea is, hey,

306
00:18:23.559 --> 00:18:26.400
if you're going to absolutely surrender to God, then you

307
00:18:26.519 --> 00:18:30.480
leave the world, You leave all You leave these worldly pursuits,

308
00:18:30.559 --> 00:18:33.039
you leave the idea of a wife and kids and

309
00:18:33.079 --> 00:18:36.039
a job, or you leave all of that and you

310
00:18:36.119 --> 00:18:40.119
go and place yourself inside a monastery where you can

311
00:18:40.200 --> 00:18:46.079
dedicate yourself to prayer. You can dedicate yourself to surrendering

312
00:18:46.160 --> 00:18:51.319
all of you to suffering hardship because you won't look

313
00:18:51.359 --> 00:18:55.920
for comfort. You fast, you pray, you read, you worship,

314
00:18:56.559 --> 00:19:00.799
that's your life. You truly surrender everything you have to

315
00:19:00.839 --> 00:19:04.480
God by joining a monastery. So that kind of gets

316
00:19:04.519 --> 00:19:09.400
us between the first and fourth century martyrdom and confession

317
00:19:10.319 --> 00:19:14.799
and then monasticism. Now this brings us to the Medievil

318
00:19:14.920 --> 00:19:19.400
Christianity between the fifth and fifteenth century. Between five the

319
00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:26.880
fifth and fifteenth century. Now, during the Medievil Christianity, all right,

320
00:19:26.920 --> 00:19:31.480
so we had monasticism. So we had martyrdom and confession

321
00:19:31.680 --> 00:19:35.240
and monasticism in the first to fourth century. Once we

322
00:19:35.279 --> 00:19:38.079
get to the fifth to fifteenth century, we have really

323
00:19:38.119 --> 00:19:40.519
a couple of a number of things that happened. We

324
00:19:40.559 --> 00:19:44.839
have the rise of mysticism. You had the rise of mysticism. Now,

325
00:19:44.880 --> 00:19:50.200
mystics spoke of a mystical union with God achieved through

326
00:19:50.279 --> 00:19:55.200
complete surrender and contemplation. The concept of divine love and

327
00:19:55.279 --> 00:19:59.880
being wholly consumed by God's presence was central. This becomes

328
00:19:59.880 --> 00:20:04.200
a very mystical idea where you you push and you

329
00:20:04.279 --> 00:20:08.160
surrender until you reach some kind of mystical union with God.

330
00:20:08.640 --> 00:20:13.400
You you become wholly consumed by His divine love and

331
00:20:13.440 --> 00:20:17.319
you and and that just it's almost some mystical thing

332
00:20:17.359 --> 00:20:21.319
that's hard to define, but everything else in the world

333
00:20:21.480 --> 00:20:28.440
just disappears because you're now captured in this rapturous mystical

334
00:20:28.960 --> 00:20:33.359
union and divine love that that you're just it's almost

335
00:20:33.359 --> 00:20:43.119
an experiential emotional concept. This is mysticism. So you have,

336
00:20:43.400 --> 00:20:46.359
you had so if you think about it, so you had.

337
00:20:46.720 --> 00:20:49.119
If you go to the early Church between the first

338
00:20:49.160 --> 00:20:52.880
and fourth century, you have the martyrdom and confession, very practical.

339
00:20:53.119 --> 00:20:57.319
It's pain suffering. Obviously you're you are surrendering. Then it

340
00:20:57.400 --> 00:20:59.720
kind of turns into something more practical. Will join a

341
00:20:59.759 --> 00:21:03.039
mind because now you're really giving yourself to the things

342
00:21:03.039 --> 00:21:08.319
of God. Well, then when you get to medieval Christianity, Well, okay,

343
00:21:08.680 --> 00:21:11.599
is there a way to achieve this without joining a monastery? Okay, Well,

344
00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:16.319
it's a mystical thing. It's a mystical things. It's being

345
00:21:16.400 --> 00:21:22.559
consumed in a sense by God's presence, by being consumed

346
00:21:22.599 --> 00:21:26.599
by his divine love. It becomes becomes something much harder

347
00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:30.359
to define meaning. Well, then there's a lot of vagueness.

348
00:21:30.359 --> 00:21:32.839
There in a lot of different ways to describe it.

349
00:21:34.759 --> 00:21:37.880
But during this same period, between the fifth and fifteenth century,

350
00:21:38.039 --> 00:21:41.160
the monastic world was still there. So then this was

351
00:21:41.200 --> 00:21:46.279
called monastic orders. Monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience

352
00:21:46.279 --> 00:21:50.359
were seen as forms of absolute surrender. Saint Benedict's rule

353
00:21:50.400 --> 00:21:54.160
emphasized obedience and submission to the abbot as a way

354
00:21:54.200 --> 00:21:57.480
to surrender to God. So now the monastic life took

355
00:21:57.519 --> 00:22:01.519
on a greater form. There were no rules, there were

356
00:22:01.599 --> 00:22:05.640
things you could do, vowels you could take, and it

357
00:22:05.680 --> 00:22:10.880
became you could argue much more strict, much more difficult

358
00:22:11.960 --> 00:22:15.079
to really see if your surrender is real, not so

359
00:22:15.160 --> 00:22:20.880
much a mystical thing, very practical, very structured, very strict.

360
00:22:22.400 --> 00:22:26.640
So you still had to kind of the different concepts happening.

361
00:22:29.400 --> 00:22:33.240
So that gets us from the early Church father first

362
00:22:33.279 --> 00:22:38.759
to fourth century, they have martyrdom and confession monasticism. Then

363
00:22:38.799 --> 00:22:41.960
we have Medieval Christianity fifth to the fifteenth century, which

364
00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:46.119
gives us mysticism and monastic orders. Now that gets us

365
00:22:46.160 --> 00:22:50.359
to the Reformation and post Reformation from the sixteenth and

366
00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:56.160
seventeenth century. Now, when you look at the Protestant Reformers,

367
00:22:56.440 --> 00:23:01.680
this idea of absolute surrender to God, it evolves again.

368
00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:05.279
All right, it begins to change. And we know who's

369
00:23:05.319 --> 00:23:07.319
gonna be at the forefront of this. It's gonna be

370
00:23:07.359 --> 00:23:14.839
one Martin Luther. Martin Luther, Right, we're gonna We're gonna

371
00:23:14.880 --> 00:23:17.400
know a little bit the way he's going to take

372
00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:21.599
because he's got he's a monk, he's Catholic, some of

373
00:23:21.599 --> 00:23:24.160
the Catholic ideas he's gonna be pushing back on the

374
00:23:24.160 --> 00:23:29.759
Look look what he says. Martin Luther emphasized faith and

375
00:23:29.839 --> 00:23:36.319
trust in God's grace overworks, viewing surrender as trusting entirely

376
00:23:36.680 --> 00:23:44.880
in God's salvation. So what is absolute surrender? That's where

377
00:23:44.920 --> 00:23:48.200
you know, you surrender yourself to God's grace and you

378
00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:51.519
give up on works, you give up on doing this,

379
00:23:51.640 --> 00:23:55.319
and doing that, and doing this. If I absolutely surrender,

380
00:23:55.559 --> 00:23:59.240
then I surrender myself completely to God's grace. Hey, I

381
00:23:59.279 --> 00:24:03.000
can't do this. I have to rely on imputed righteousness.

382
00:24:03.079 --> 00:24:05.680
I have to rely on the word. I surrender myself

383
00:24:05.799 --> 00:24:08.480
to an imputed righteousness. I surrender myself to the work

384
00:24:08.519 --> 00:24:13.839
of Christ. I can't do anything. I surrender completely. Absolute

385
00:24:13.920 --> 00:24:17.400
surrender is giving up on works, giving up on human effort,

386
00:24:17.559 --> 00:24:20.759
giving up on my own, giving up my self righteousness,

387
00:24:20.799 --> 00:24:24.599
and throwing myself completely upon the grace of God. That

388
00:24:24.759 --> 00:24:30.440
is true absolute surrender. More in the luther perspective, Now

389
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:35.400
Luther's perspective, let's just be honest, it doesn't. It loses.

390
00:24:35.640 --> 00:24:40.519
It loses ultimately within Christendom, the idea of absolute surrender

391
00:24:40.559 --> 00:24:43.680
is lost because just think about that. Luther emphasized that

392
00:24:46.559 --> 00:24:49.519
in the ninetieth year of the Sort of the Lord newspaper,

393
00:24:50.440 --> 00:24:53.680
which obviously the Sort of the Lord is not Catholic.

394
00:24:53.920 --> 00:24:56.640
It comes now they would say there, they would probably

395
00:24:56.640 --> 00:24:59.160
try to claim some connection with the Anabaptist and try

396
00:25:00.039 --> 00:25:02.440
we won't get into how they would try to classify themselves,

397
00:25:02.440 --> 00:25:05.200
but clearly not on the Catholic side. You think, and

398
00:25:05.240 --> 00:25:07.519
they would say that they believe in salvation by grace alone,

399
00:25:07.559 --> 00:25:09.680
through faith alone, because of Christ alone. But how did

400
00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:15.279
they promote absolute surrender? Absolute surrender was nothing about throwing

401
00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:19.640
yourself upon God's grace. Absolute surrender was the idea of

402
00:25:19.720 --> 00:25:23.720
basically surrendering every part of yourself to God so that

403
00:25:23.799 --> 00:25:26.960
you serve him completely. It's all about what you do,

404
00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:31.960
not what about what Christ did, but what you do, literally,

405
00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:38.799
demonstrating that Luther's concept lost. Luther's concept was rejected by

406
00:25:38.799 --> 00:25:41.839
the majority of Christians, and it's rejected even to this day.

407
00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:45.440
Even though they tell you they believe in salvation by

408
00:25:45.440 --> 00:25:47.279
grace alone, through faith alone, because of Christ alone, when

409
00:25:47.319 --> 00:25:50.559
it comes to absolute surrender, they don't understand it the

410
00:25:50.599 --> 00:25:55.359
way Luther did. You want absolute surrender, then absolutely surrender

411
00:25:55.400 --> 00:25:58.319
yourself to God's grace and to imputed righteousness, not to

412
00:25:58.400 --> 00:26:00.920
anything you can do. I know that's not like, well,

413
00:26:00.960 --> 00:26:03.119
wait a minute, then, how do we have how do

414
00:26:03.279 --> 00:26:06.240
we There's nothing practical I can do about that. I can't.

415
00:26:06.519 --> 00:26:10.319
I can't, I can't create a you know, seventeen points

416
00:26:10.319 --> 00:26:12.039
that you need to put into practice and give you

417
00:26:12.119 --> 00:26:16.799
applicable No, that takes away everything that we do in Christianity,

418
00:26:16.799 --> 00:26:18.880
where it's do this, do this, don't do this, do this,

419
00:26:18.920 --> 00:26:26.319
and don't do this now. John Calvin, he spoke of

420
00:26:26.480 --> 00:26:31.480
predestination and the sovereignty of God, with absolute surrender seen

421
00:26:31.519 --> 00:26:36.880
and acknowledging God's supreme control over life. So from Calvin's perspective, okay,

422
00:26:37.279 --> 00:26:40.240
how he saw it is, if you truly want absolute surrender,

423
00:26:40.279 --> 00:26:44.319
then you absolutely surrender to God's sovereign control over your life.

424
00:26:44.359 --> 00:26:47.200
You surrender that God is the one who's working all

425
00:26:47.240 --> 00:26:51.720
things out according to his eternal decrees, and all things

426
00:26:51.720 --> 00:26:54.160
are happening because of his eternal decrease, and he's working

427
00:26:54.160 --> 00:26:57.359
it out through his divine providence, and you just kind

428
00:26:57.359 --> 00:27:02.359
of surrender yourself to that a little still, that's different

429
00:27:02.400 --> 00:27:06.480
from Luther. Luther it was about surrendering yourself to God's

430
00:27:06.480 --> 00:27:12.880
grace for salvation and trusting in grace, not in works. Now.

431
00:27:12.880 --> 00:27:15.599
The Anabaptist, now this is all happening. Between the sixteenth

432
00:27:15.640 --> 00:27:21.599
and seventeenth century, the Anabaptist emphasized discipleship and a radical

433
00:27:21.799 --> 00:27:26.519
following of Christ, including nonviolence and separation from the world.

434
00:27:26.799 --> 00:27:30.519
Absolute surrender was expressed through communal living and commitment to

435
00:27:30.640 --> 00:27:34.960
Jesus teaching. So the Anabaptist now it turns into actions

436
00:27:35.319 --> 00:27:38.119
what you do. And please note they have that separation

437
00:27:38.240 --> 00:27:41.559
from the world concept. This is kind of the monastic idea,

438
00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:44.319
but now taking on a different form. Now this is

439
00:27:44.359 --> 00:27:47.039
where you don't go join a monastery. You're living in

440
00:27:47.079 --> 00:27:49.759
the world, but separate yourself from the world. But please

441
00:27:49.759 --> 00:27:53.440
note the Anabaptist also had a non violent pacifist kind

442
00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:57.519
of idea as well. They didn't always follow that we

443
00:27:57.599 --> 00:27:59.680
can talk about what happened in Germany, but we won't

444
00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:02.960
go there, all right, So and then you had communal living,

445
00:28:03.279 --> 00:28:05.599
so in a sense you kind of created your own

446
00:28:05.640 --> 00:28:10.799
form of a monastery. So that concept never completely goes away.

447
00:28:10.920 --> 00:28:14.599
You know why the monastic kind of monastery concept never

448
00:28:14.720 --> 00:28:17.359
goes away because if you it's one thing to say

449
00:28:17.559 --> 00:28:21.359
I'm absolutely surrendered to God. Well, you're sitting in the pew,

450
00:28:21.400 --> 00:28:22.759
and then you get up and you will get in

451
00:28:22.799 --> 00:28:25.440
your car that you're making, you know, hundreds of dollars

452
00:28:25.519 --> 00:28:27.920
a month car payment on, and you're paying insurance on,

453
00:28:28.160 --> 00:28:30.119
and go to a house where you're paying a mortgage on,

454
00:28:30.319 --> 00:28:32.160
and then you go to your job, and then you

455
00:28:32.200 --> 00:28:34.240
do this, and you do entertainment, you have hobbies, you

456
00:28:34.279 --> 00:28:36.359
go on family vacations, and you do this, and you

457
00:28:36.400 --> 00:28:38.000
do that, you do this, and you do this, and

458
00:28:38.039 --> 00:28:39.720
you do that, and you get together and you have

459
00:28:39.839 --> 00:28:42.319
you play some sports, and you do this for physical fitness.

460
00:28:42.359 --> 00:28:44.960
And you're like, but I'm completely surrendered to God. And

461
00:28:44.960 --> 00:28:46.640
some people are like, hey, it sounds like you just

462
00:28:46.680 --> 00:28:49.319
live life like everyone else. So you got to do

463
00:28:49.440 --> 00:28:51.920
something drastic to be surrendered to God. So that's why

464
00:28:51.920 --> 00:28:54.000
it always turns into do this and do this, and

465
00:28:54.039 --> 00:28:56.799
do this and do this, and ultimately it leads to, well,

466
00:28:56.839 --> 00:28:58.680
you got to just drop out of all of that

467
00:28:58.880 --> 00:29:01.599
and surrender yourself to God and just make your life

468
00:29:01.599 --> 00:29:09.039
about serving God. Now we get so. So we've gone

469
00:29:09.079 --> 00:29:14.039
through the Early Church Fathers first to fourth century. We've

470
00:29:14.039 --> 00:29:17.480
looked at the Medieval Christianity fifth to fifteenth century. We've

471
00:29:17.480 --> 00:29:22.359
looked at the Reformation and Post Reformation sixteenth to seventeenth

472
00:29:22.440 --> 00:29:25.799
century that was the Protestant reformers of the Anabaptist Now

473
00:29:25.839 --> 00:29:31.480
we move to the seventeenth and eighteenth century Puritanism and Pietism.

474
00:29:31.519 --> 00:29:36.119
Puritism and Pietism. Now the Puritans focused on personal holiness

475
00:29:36.400 --> 00:29:40.960
and a moral rigor as forms of surrender to God's will.

476
00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:43.079
So once again, it's what you do. What you do

477
00:29:43.559 --> 00:29:45.960
if you truly to surrender to God means you've got

478
00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:47.359
to do this and this and this. But then the

479
00:29:47.480 --> 00:29:50.200
argument would be, you do this because you surrender to God.

480
00:29:50.319 --> 00:29:54.240
So now it becomes really kind of more convoluted. This

481
00:29:54.279 --> 00:30:00.960
emphasized self examination, repentance, and living according to scripture. Obey

482
00:30:01.039 --> 00:30:03.559
scripture if you want to truly surrender to God, obey

483
00:30:03.599 --> 00:30:06.119
everything in the Word, which then goes back to see

484
00:30:06.200 --> 00:30:09.200
Luther's ideas at this point are already abandoned. Luther is

485
00:30:09.240 --> 00:30:13.240
already lost. Like Luther from a human perspective, was an

486
00:30:13.319 --> 00:30:17.599
abysmal failure because his concepts are already gone. This is

487
00:30:17.680 --> 00:30:21.119
not focusing, This is not a proper distinction between law

488
00:30:21.160 --> 00:30:24.440
and gospel. Law and gospel is already destroyed by this point,

489
00:30:24.640 --> 00:30:27.240
because now it's works works, works, works, and the idea

490
00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:30.480
that you can obey all the scriptures, which then destroys

491
00:30:30.519 --> 00:30:33.319
the meaning of law. It's just a mess. At this point.

492
00:30:33.759 --> 00:30:38.559
The Pietists stressed a heartfelt, experiential faith and personal relationship

493
00:30:38.559 --> 00:30:41.599
with God. Surrender was seen in a life of devotion, prayer,

494
00:30:41.680 --> 00:30:46.119
and active love towards others. So again you see it's

495
00:30:46.279 --> 00:30:50.400
doing doing again. Which comes first? Do you do in

496
00:30:50.519 --> 00:30:53.680
order to surrender or do you do because you've surrendered?

497
00:30:53.839 --> 00:30:56.319
And if if you do it because you've surrendered, then

498
00:30:56.319 --> 00:30:58.160
how do you get to the surrender part? Do you

499
00:30:58.160 --> 00:31:00.359
get to the surrender part by doing? Do you get

500
00:31:00.359 --> 00:31:02.519
to the surrender part by just saying you surrender? Well

501
00:31:02.559 --> 00:31:05.119
everyone knows you can't just say I surrender and you're surrendered.

502
00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:06.960
Then you have to say I surrender and you really

503
00:31:07.000 --> 00:31:08.839
mean it. Typically you have to do things in order

504
00:31:08.880 --> 00:31:13.160
to surrender. Oh, then it becomes all convoluted. So there's

505
00:31:13.240 --> 00:31:19.039
the seventeenth and eighteenth century Puritanism and Pietism. Now we

506
00:31:19.119 --> 00:31:23.880
come to the modern evangelical and holiness movements of the

507
00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:29.839
nineteenth and twentieth century. Modern evangelicalism and the holiness movement

508
00:31:29.880 --> 00:31:34.640
in the nineteenth to twentieth century. The holiness movement, figures

509
00:31:34.720 --> 00:31:39.759
like John Wesley and others spoke of entire sanctification are

510
00:31:39.880 --> 00:31:43.960
Christian perfection, where believers fully surrender to the Holy Spirit.

511
00:31:44.440 --> 00:31:47.640
They emphasize the need for a deeper hang on. They

512
00:31:47.640 --> 00:31:51.440
emphasized a second work of grace that purifies and empowers

513
00:31:51.480 --> 00:31:55.240
believers for holy living. Now this idea of the Holiness

514
00:31:55.240 --> 00:31:59.559
movement or entire sanctification became the idea that looks, you

515
00:31:59.559 --> 00:32:01.759
can be a Christian, but you need to reach this

516
00:32:02.200 --> 00:32:05.960
entire sanctification because once you do, you basically can become perfect.

517
00:32:06.119 --> 00:32:09.720
You can become perfect because you can be entirely sanctified,

518
00:32:09.880 --> 00:32:12.720
You can be completely surrendered to the Holy Spirit. And

519
00:32:12.759 --> 00:32:15.799
now you will have you will have power to live

520
00:32:16.160 --> 00:32:21.839
according to the law. Again, it's all about doing see

521
00:32:21.920 --> 00:32:25.839
Luther's idea. Luther's idea lasted for about five seconds, and

522
00:32:25.880 --> 00:32:29.359
for the most part, it was rejected by most of Christianity.

523
00:32:29.480 --> 00:32:32.640
Why was it rejected by most of Christianity Because Christianity

524
00:32:32.759 --> 00:32:35.559
is a law based religion. It is not a gospel

525
00:32:35.559 --> 00:32:38.440
based religion. Anyone who says it's a gospel based religion

526
00:32:38.559 --> 00:32:41.079
has never studied church history. Over and over and over.

527
00:32:41.240 --> 00:32:44.680
We talk a big game about gospel, gospel, gospel, and

528
00:32:44.759 --> 00:32:50.079
everything we do is law, law, law, law, works, works, works, works, works, works, works, works.

529
00:32:50.359 --> 00:32:54.079
We are a works based religion and I'm so sick

530
00:32:54.119 --> 00:32:56.920
and tired of people saying no other religions are works based,

531
00:32:57.039 --> 00:33:00.839
not Christianity. No, the difference with Christianity. As we lie,

532
00:33:01.200 --> 00:33:04.039
we sell you that Christianity is by grace alone, to

533
00:33:04.160 --> 00:33:06.480
faith alone, because of Christ alone, and then five seconds

534
00:33:06.519 --> 00:33:08.799
later we throw that away and we're like, now, slap

535
00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:10.960
you in the face and say, wake up, boy, it's

536
00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:13.880
time to work. Work, work, work, work, work, work, work,

537
00:33:13.920 --> 00:33:20.319
and if you don't work enough, you're not even saved.

538
00:33:22.240 --> 00:33:24.920
The Holiness movement took at this idea that hey, all

539
00:33:24.960 --> 00:33:27.079
you got to do is get this entire symclification. If

540
00:33:27.119 --> 00:33:30.400
you'll completely surrender, then boom, you can get to perfection.

541
00:33:33.680 --> 00:33:39.200
It's it's just ridiculous. Then you had the Keswick movement,

542
00:33:39.440 --> 00:33:42.559
which promoted the victorious Christian life through complete surrender to

543
00:33:42.640 --> 00:33:45.440
Christ emphasizes the need for a deeper spiritual life and

544
00:33:45.480 --> 00:33:48.599
reliance on the Holy Spirit. Basically the same idea. If

545
00:33:48.640 --> 00:33:50.559
you just if you'll just surrender and rely on the

546
00:33:50.559 --> 00:33:54.119
Holy Spirit, tondun du dah, you get power and now

547
00:33:54.160 --> 00:33:56.400
you can do it. You can obey the law, you

548
00:33:56.440 --> 00:33:58.720
can say notice it, you can do it. And again,

549
00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:01.400
all of these, all all of these movements come along

550
00:34:01.440 --> 00:34:03.279
promising that you can do it, you can do it,

551
00:34:03.480 --> 00:34:06.160
and they all make all the claims, and then inevitably

552
00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:09.079
it just proves that over and over and over, No,

553
00:34:09.239 --> 00:34:12.320
you can't. You're still going to sin. Nobody's going to

554
00:34:12.360 --> 00:34:15.320
be perfect. You're going to sin because nobody can keep

555
00:34:15.320 --> 00:34:17.840
the law. You can't keep it before salvation, you cannot

556
00:34:17.920 --> 00:34:21.000
keep it after salvation. Salvation is the coming to the

557
00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:24.039
realization that you can never keep the law, but Christ did.

558
00:34:24.199 --> 00:34:28.039
And then surrendering yourself to the finished work of Christ

559
00:34:28.199 --> 00:34:31.400
and surrendering yourself to His righteousness that's imputed to your

560
00:34:31.400 --> 00:34:38.599
account by faith alone. That's true absolute surrender. So then

561
00:34:38.639 --> 00:34:40.679
we go to the twenty first century, which is the

562
00:34:40.719 --> 00:34:44.880
contemporary understandings. The contemporary understandings really now this kind of

563
00:34:44.880 --> 00:34:49.920
comes into these parts. Charismatic and Pentecostal movements stress the

564
00:34:49.960 --> 00:34:52.320
importance of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and living

565
00:34:52.320 --> 00:34:56.119
a spirit led life. Absolute surrender involves yielding to the

566
00:34:56.159 --> 00:34:58.239
guidance and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Now, the first

567
00:34:58.280 --> 00:35:04.119
time I met well, I met Charismatics or Pentecostals prior

568
00:35:04.159 --> 00:35:07.079
to my conversion, right before I became a Christian, and

569
00:35:07.079 --> 00:35:09.360
I've talked about it before. These were girls who I

570
00:35:09.400 --> 00:35:11.159
went to school with they got picked on all the time.

571
00:35:11.159 --> 00:35:13.239
There were Pentecostal that had to wear skirts, you know,

572
00:35:13.639 --> 00:35:15.800
way down below their knee. They didn't wear any makeup,

573
00:35:15.840 --> 00:35:17.760
their hair was long, and then would get picked on.

574
00:35:17.840 --> 00:35:20.079
So typically I would try to stand up for them,

575
00:35:20.519 --> 00:35:23.440
not because I cared about their religion, just because anyone

576
00:35:23.440 --> 00:35:26.159
who wanted to do something different I had their back.

577
00:35:26.320 --> 00:35:28.519
Dress any way you want, do what you want, don't

578
00:35:28.519 --> 00:35:32.599
listen to anybody else, don't follow anybody else. Be unique, right,

579
00:35:32.719 --> 00:35:35.599
I love that, So I defended them. Now, once I

580
00:35:35.639 --> 00:35:40.480
became a Christian, these Pentecostal girls would constantly challenge me that, hey,

581
00:35:40.679 --> 00:35:43.960
you need the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And see,

582
00:35:44.039 --> 00:35:45.880
you need to be baptized in the name of Jesus,

583
00:35:45.960 --> 00:35:48.039
because being baptized in the name of the Father, Son

584
00:35:48.079 --> 00:35:49.840
and the Holy Spirit, it's like a blank check. It's

585
00:35:49.840 --> 00:35:52.679
not signed, but you need it signed by Jesus. And

586
00:35:52.760 --> 00:35:54.559
what you need to do is you need the baptism

587
00:35:54.599 --> 00:35:56.119
of the Holy Spirit. And you'll know you've received it

588
00:35:56.159 --> 00:35:58.079
by speaking in tongues. And if you do this, then

589
00:35:58.119 --> 00:36:01.480
you'll get power. You'll get power. You'll get power, and

590
00:36:01.960 --> 00:36:04.719
then you can be all perfect. Well, you know, we'll

591
00:36:04.760 --> 00:36:12.000
come to find out those Pentecostal girls, if they had power,

592
00:36:12.599 --> 00:36:15.400
they were engaged in the same level of fornication as

593
00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:20.519
the atheist girls. So the speaking in tongues did not

594
00:36:20.559 --> 00:36:23.719
give them any extra power, but they claimed it all right,

595
00:36:24.079 --> 00:36:27.480
because well that's the way, that's the way it always works.

596
00:36:27.559 --> 00:36:30.719
Christianity talks a big game, but when you finally look inside,

597
00:36:31.000 --> 00:36:34.039
we're never any better than anybody else. Okay, So there's

598
00:36:34.079 --> 00:36:37.639
the charismatic Pentecostal movement. You know how I feel about that.

599
00:36:37.880 --> 00:36:41.760
I reject the charismatic movement. I reject the Pentecostal movement utter.

600
00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:44.639
I think it's uttered trash. I think it's uttered garbage.

601
00:36:44.679 --> 00:36:47.360
I think it's a cancer upon Christianity. And anyone who

602
00:36:47.400 --> 00:36:52.239
buys into their nonsense can literally you are denying actual

603
00:36:52.320 --> 00:36:54.920
reality in front of you, right, So then you have

604
00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:58.880
spiritual formation. That's the second part of the contemporary understanding.

605
00:37:00.159 --> 00:37:03.400
Emphasize this practice like prayer, fasting, meditation, and means of

606
00:37:03.400 --> 00:37:07.079
surrending to God's transformative work, influenced by both ancient monastic

607
00:37:07.119 --> 00:37:12.400
practices and modern psychological insights. So spiritual formation basically borrows

608
00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:15.039
from the monastic world kind of mixes it with a

609
00:37:15.039 --> 00:37:19.400
little psychology, and then you bring back some of the rituals,

610
00:37:19.440 --> 00:37:22.760
some of the you know, some of those concepts, maybe

611
00:37:22.920 --> 00:37:27.679
contemplative prayer, the liturgy of the hours, you know, liturgy,

612
00:37:28.199 --> 00:37:30.840
some of this, and then well, you try to do

613
00:37:30.880 --> 00:37:33.559
these things so that you can fully surrender to God.

614
00:37:35.880 --> 00:37:42.039
So the understanding of absolute surrender and Christianity has evolved

615
00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:48.840
and has taken various forms throughout Church history, from martyrdom

616
00:37:49.880 --> 00:37:56.119
and monastic withdrawal to mystical union, from Reformation trust in

617
00:37:56.159 --> 00:37:59.480
God's sovereignty to the puritan moral rigor, from the holiness

618
00:37:59.480 --> 00:38:03.440
of entire scification to the experiential depth of contemporary spiritual formation.

619
00:38:03.840 --> 00:38:08.920
The essence remains remains a complete yielding to God's will

620
00:38:09.159 --> 00:38:13.360
and purposes. Every tradition brings a unique perspective, reflecting the

621
00:38:13.679 --> 00:38:16.519
diverse ways Christians have sought to live out their faith

622
00:38:16.760 --> 00:38:20.239
and total devotion to God. Now what drove me crazy

623
00:38:20.280 --> 00:38:23.360
about that summary is the summary completely left out what

624
00:38:25.840 --> 00:38:32.800
Luther's perspective. In that summary, Luther is completely ignored. Even

625
00:38:32.840 --> 00:38:35.960
when it mentions the Reformation, it mentions Calvin's view, it

626
00:38:36.079 --> 00:38:42.480
completely ignores Luther. If you want to know absolute surrender,

627
00:38:42.559 --> 00:38:46.440
ladies and gentlemen. Absolute surrender is where you surrender everything

628
00:38:46.639 --> 00:38:53.760
you are trusting in to God's grace. You surrender your righteousness,

629
00:38:53.880 --> 00:38:57.719
your self righteousness, your works, your efforts. You say none

630
00:38:57.760 --> 00:39:00.519
of that. I come to Christ. I surrender myself to

631
00:39:00.599 --> 00:39:05.599
His work, his righteousness, and Him alone. That is absolute surrender.

632
00:39:05.800 --> 00:39:09.239
All of this other stuff is ridiculous. It's made up,

633
00:39:09.480 --> 00:39:12.840
it's fictional, and I think it's all and I'm gonna

634
00:39:12.840 --> 00:39:15.440
be so. I'm gonna be even more bold. It's harmful,

635
00:39:15.679 --> 00:39:20.639
and it's psychologically damaging and scarring, and I bought into

636
00:39:20.679 --> 00:39:22.599
it a good portion of my Christian life. Oh, I'm

637
00:39:22.639 --> 00:39:25.639
gonna absolutely I'm gonna absolutely surrender. See, I want to

638
00:39:25.679 --> 00:39:28.400
be like D. L. Moody. I'm gonna absolutely surrender. And

639
00:39:28.440 --> 00:39:31.440
whenever they tell the stories of the men who supposedly

640
00:39:31.480 --> 00:39:34.679
absolutely surrender to God, we always basically make them sound

641
00:39:34.760 --> 00:39:37.320
like they were sinless, just like this article about D. L.

642
00:39:37.400 --> 00:39:42.320
Moody does. So it creates this idea that, see, if

643
00:39:42.320 --> 00:39:44.840
I can absolutely surrender to God, I'll basically be sinless,

644
00:39:44.880 --> 00:39:47.719
I'll basically be perfect. You have to start pretending, you

645
00:39:47.760 --> 00:39:50.280
have to start denying, you have to start acting like

646
00:39:50.360 --> 00:39:54.480
something you're not, and you give all these people these expectations,

647
00:39:54.599 --> 00:39:57.639
and people who really care, and people who can't just

648
00:39:57.760 --> 00:40:01.039
pretend that they're too honest with themselves, too honest about

649
00:40:01.039 --> 00:40:06.119
their internal struggles. They start cracking, They break under the pressure.

650
00:40:05.880 --> 00:40:10.280
They start losing that you could argue, they begin to deconstruct.

651
00:40:10.280 --> 00:40:12.639
They you may even begin to lose their faith because

652
00:40:12.639 --> 00:40:14.599
they start questioning if any of this is real or

653
00:40:14.639 --> 00:40:17.920
if any of this works, because everyone else is off pretending.

654
00:40:18.400 --> 00:40:20.559
Those who can say, wait a minute, why are we pretending.

655
00:40:20.800 --> 00:40:23.119
Let's be honest with ourselves. And then people look at

656
00:40:23.119 --> 00:40:26.000
them like, well, you're honest with yourself because obviously you're

657
00:40:26.039 --> 00:40:27.719
not safe, because if you're really saved, you would be

658
00:40:27.760 --> 00:40:29.400
like the rest of us, and like the rest of

659
00:40:29.440 --> 00:40:33.400
you are lying hypocrites who just won't admit the sin

660
00:40:33.760 --> 00:40:40.960
that is inside of you. Absolute surrender is surrendering to

661
00:40:41.039 --> 00:40:44.599
God's grace for salvation. I don't see all of these

662
00:40:44.639 --> 00:40:48.559
other concepts I think are contrary to reality. They're impossible

663
00:40:48.840 --> 00:40:52.159
because if you have to me a correct understanding of

664
00:40:52.239 --> 00:40:55.440
law and gospel, all of these require. Absolute surrender is

665
00:40:55.440 --> 00:40:59.440
basically obedience to the law. We cannot do that. Therefore,

666
00:40:59.440 --> 00:41:02.599
we're never going to be absolutely surrendered, because we're always

667
00:41:02.639 --> 00:41:04.719
going to be in violation of God's law in some

668
00:41:04.760 --> 00:41:15.920
way shape form, perpetually. Now throughout church history, there have

669
00:41:16.000 --> 00:41:21.199
been some books written that really have driven this concept

670
00:41:21.239 --> 00:41:27.159
of absolute surrender and have so basically are responsible for

671
00:41:27.199 --> 00:41:30.639
putting some of these ideas into the minds, into the world,

672
00:41:30.760 --> 00:41:33.639
into the culture of Christianity. We obviously know the most

673
00:41:33.639 --> 00:41:35.880
famous book, or I think one of the most famous books,

674
00:41:35.960 --> 00:41:39.159
Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray, which was written in eighteen

675
00:41:39.239 --> 00:41:42.719
ninety seven. This classic devotional book by Andrew Murray is

676
00:41:42.719 --> 00:41:45.519
perhaps the most well known and influential work on the topic.

677
00:41:45.960 --> 00:41:48.559
Murray was a South African pastor and writer, and emphasized

678
00:41:48.559 --> 00:41:50.920
the importance of yielding fully to God and allowing the

679
00:41:50.920 --> 00:41:54.519
Holy Spirit to work through the believer. Surrender is the

680
00:41:54.599 --> 00:41:57.199
key to a victorious Christian life, the role of the

681
00:41:57.199 --> 00:42:03.159
Holy Spirit, practical steps to achieving wildly read in evangelical

682
00:42:03.159 --> 00:42:06.199
and holiness circles. Murray's book has inspired countless Christians to

683
00:42:06.199 --> 00:42:08.760
seek a deeper, more surrendered walk with God. It remains

684
00:42:08.760 --> 00:42:13.000
a staple and Christian devotional literature. Yeah it is the book.

685
00:42:14.360 --> 00:42:16.840
I remember, we've looked at it before in different podcast

686
00:42:16.880 --> 00:42:19.239
episodes and it's like, do this and do this. Wait

687
00:42:19.239 --> 00:42:21.000
a minute, Am I doing it to surrender? Or am

688
00:42:21.039 --> 00:42:24.159
I doing it because I surrender. It's circular reasoning at

689
00:42:24.199 --> 00:42:28.400
its worst. And the idea is like, you're living your

690
00:42:28.480 --> 00:42:31.239
Christian life, but you know what, you really can't have victory,

691
00:42:31.400 --> 00:42:34.360
You really can't have power until you surrender. But if

692
00:42:34.360 --> 00:42:38.400
you surrender, dun, dun da dun, now you become super Christian.

693
00:42:38.960 --> 00:42:44.440
Now you can do it. Now, you can do everything now.

694
00:42:44.519 --> 00:42:48.440
Charles Stanley was a big promoter of Andrew Murray's Absolute

695
00:42:48.480 --> 00:42:51.000
Surrender and he always his testimony you tell the story

696
00:42:51.119 --> 00:42:53.519
that he was, I think a pastor and his just life,

697
00:42:53.559 --> 00:42:57.480
his spiritual life was just empty and weak, and it

698
00:42:57.639 --> 00:43:00.760
was problems and struggle and he didn't know what was wrong.

699
00:43:00.800 --> 00:43:04.719
And finally he discovered the concept absolute surrender, and then

700
00:43:04.760 --> 00:43:07.039
his ministry turned around, and you know he now he

701
00:43:07.039 --> 00:43:11.199
becomes this famous world known pastor all because he absolutely surrendered.

702
00:43:11.280 --> 00:43:14.400
He absolutely well, his marriage fell apart and he got

703
00:43:14.400 --> 00:43:28.039
a divorce, but he absolutely surrendered. The next book is

704
00:43:28.159 --> 00:43:31.480
Absolute Surrender by im Bounds. This was written in the

705
00:43:31.559 --> 00:43:35.079
nineteenth century. Now. Ian Bound's known primarily for his writings

706
00:43:35.119 --> 00:43:37.480
on prayer, also addressed the theme of absolute surrender in

707
00:43:37.519 --> 00:43:41.679
his works, his tea. His teaching. His teaching focus on

708
00:43:41.719 --> 00:43:44.079
the power of prayer and the necessity of a surrendered

709
00:43:44.119 --> 00:43:47.280
life to effective prayer. The link between surrender and powerful

710
00:43:47.280 --> 00:43:50.079
prayer is important of holiness dependence on the Holy Spirit.

711
00:43:50.400 --> 00:43:53.960
Bounds writing also had a significant influence on pastors, evangelists,

712
00:43:54.000 --> 00:43:57.000
and prayer warriors, encouraging the lead lives of total dedication

713
00:43:57.119 --> 00:44:02.760
to God. And I've got Ian Bound's book, The Complete Work,

714
00:44:03.440 --> 00:44:08.639
and it's like, if you completely surrender, if you completely surrender,

715
00:44:09.159 --> 00:44:12.159
you know, basically you'll be praying about fifteen hours a day. Okay,

716
00:44:12.440 --> 00:44:19.679
So well yeah, those so Absolute Surrender by Ian Bounds,

717
00:44:19.760 --> 00:44:21.800
you can look for that one. I kind of know

718
00:44:21.880 --> 00:44:24.639
the concepts more in his work The Complete Works on Prayer,

719
00:44:25.039 --> 00:44:27.800
because that concept shows up there as well. But Absolute

720
00:44:27.880 --> 00:44:31.119
Surrender by Andrew Murray is the most famous work. So

721
00:44:31.199 --> 00:44:34.519
you may if you read it, you'll hear if you

722
00:44:34.599 --> 00:44:38.360
read the Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray. Trust me, when

723
00:44:38.440 --> 00:44:40.239
you go listen to sermons, you'll be like, well that

724
00:44:42.039 --> 00:44:44.840
Andrew Murray's concepts are alive and well, and sermon after

725
00:44:44.880 --> 00:44:47.400
sermon after sermon after sermon, and it's gonna be do this,

726
00:44:47.480 --> 00:44:49.320
do this, do this, do this, do this, do this,

727
00:44:49.360 --> 00:44:51.000
do this, do this. It's gonna be all the things

728
00:44:51.039 --> 00:44:57.280
you're supposed to do, all right? Then? Absolute surrender by

729
00:44:57.400 --> 00:45:01.199
Samuel Logan Bringley. Because how you say his name or

730
00:45:01.280 --> 00:45:05.719
Bringle b r E n g l e. So Absolute

731
00:45:05.719 --> 00:45:09.519
surrender by Samuel L. Samuel, I'm sorry, let me read

732
00:45:09.559 --> 00:45:13.320
this again. Absolute surrender. I really can speak correctly tonight.

733
00:45:13.360 --> 00:45:16.199
I know I've probably messed up so much, all right,

734
00:45:16.199 --> 00:45:19.440
but I think I feel like I've messed up more

735
00:45:19.440 --> 00:45:22.800
words than I probably have. But okay. Absolute surrender by

736
00:45:22.960 --> 00:45:29.719
Samuel Logan Bringle b r E n g l E,

737
00:45:30.199 --> 00:45:34.239
b r E n g l e. Absolute Surrender by

738
00:45:34.320 --> 00:45:39.559
Samuel Logan b r E n g l E earliest

739
00:45:39.679 --> 00:45:44.039
twentieth century. And let me just say clearly, I don't

740
00:45:44.079 --> 00:45:48.519
know anything about this book, nothing about number three zero.

741
00:45:48.760 --> 00:45:50.519
I know number one and two. I don't have a

742
00:45:50.559 --> 00:45:53.599
clue about number three. Samuel Logan Bringle, I guess is

743
00:45:53.599 --> 00:45:55.639
how you say his name? B r E n g

744
00:45:55.880 --> 00:45:58.239
l E was a commissioner in the Salvation Army. He

745
00:45:58.280 --> 00:46:02.199
wrote extensively on holiness and the deeper Christian life. His

746
00:46:02.280 --> 00:46:05.960
works often explored the concepts of absolute surrender as essential

747
00:46:05.960 --> 00:46:09.239
for sanctification. If you want to be sanctified, if you want,

748
00:46:09.440 --> 00:46:12.639
you have to absolutely surrender. Well, then is it? Does

749
00:46:12.719 --> 00:46:15.760
sanctification bring us to absolutely surrenders? Does absolute surrender bring

750
00:46:15.880 --> 00:46:18.880
us to sanctification? Am I doing the sanctification? Oh? It

751
00:46:18.920 --> 00:46:22.039
gets all convoluted and confusing, all right. The key things

752
00:46:22.079 --> 00:46:25.960
holiness sanctification are the experience of the Holy spirits fullness.

753
00:46:26.400 --> 00:46:29.480
His works have been particularly influential within the Salvation Army

754
00:46:29.599 --> 00:46:33.199
and the broader holiness movement, emphasizing a life wholly dedicated

755
00:46:33.199 --> 00:46:35.559
to God. I have never heard of that book. I

756
00:46:35.559 --> 00:46:39.280
have never been very I don't know a lot about

757
00:46:39.280 --> 00:46:41.960
the Salvation Army, never really had many dealings with it.

758
00:46:42.079 --> 00:46:44.519
So there you go. Then the next book is The

759
00:46:44.559 --> 00:46:50.039
Cavalry Road by Roy Hessen or Hessian. I don't know

760
00:46:50.039 --> 00:46:52.440
how you would say his last name, H. S. S

761
00:46:52.639 --> 00:46:57.760
io N. The Calvary Road by Roy H. E. S.

762
00:46:58.079 --> 00:47:02.360
S io N. This is from eighteen fifty, although not

763
00:47:02.599 --> 00:47:07.480
titled Absolute Surrender. Roy Hessians The Calvary Road is often

764
00:47:07.480 --> 00:47:09.960
associated with the theme due to its focus on total

765
00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:13.159
surrender to Christ. He was a British evangelist and it

766
00:47:13.199 --> 00:47:16.519
presents a path to revival through brokenness and humility. The

767
00:47:16.599 --> 00:47:19.960
key themes are brokenness, humility, continuous repentance, and the power

768
00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:22.679
of the Cross. The Calvary Road has been influential in

769
00:47:22.719 --> 00:47:26.320
revival movements, encouraging believers to embrace a life of brokenness

770
00:47:26.360 --> 00:47:31.760
and total surrender to Christ. All right, that's roy h.

771
00:47:31.920 --> 00:47:36.840
E Ssion is called the Calvary Road. Written in nineteen

772
00:47:37.559 --> 00:47:40.800
fifty another one that takes this idea. This is going

773
00:47:40.840 --> 00:47:45.719
more with the idea of brokenness, humility and repentance as

774
00:47:45.760 --> 00:47:49.679
some way of absolute surrender. Now we come to number five,

775
00:47:51.360 --> 00:47:59.079
My All for Him, My All for Him, nineteen sixty seven.

776
00:48:00.119 --> 00:48:02.199
And I am never going to get this last name right,

777
00:48:02.320 --> 00:48:09.519
but here we go. Basilia Schlink, Basilia Schlink, b A

778
00:48:09.920 --> 00:48:13.559
s I l e A Basilia. That's how I'm going

779
00:48:13.559 --> 00:48:16.280
to say it. B A s I l e A

780
00:48:16.840 --> 00:48:21.800
Schlink s c h l I n K Basilia Schlink.

781
00:48:21.880 --> 00:48:24.519
I know it's a name, so it's probably pronounced completely different.

782
00:48:24.559 --> 00:48:28.800
And I apologize. Nineteen sixty seven. I don't know anything

783
00:48:28.800 --> 00:48:32.719
about this book. I know this though Basilia Schlink was

784
00:48:32.760 --> 00:48:37.440
a Lutheran nun and founder of the evangelical Sisterhood of Mary,

785
00:48:37.960 --> 00:48:41.360
wrote about living a life of complete surrender to Jesus.

786
00:48:41.639 --> 00:48:44.440
Her book, My All for Him embodies to principles of

787
00:48:44.519 --> 00:48:49.159
absolute surrender, the key themes love and devotion to Jesus, repentance,

788
00:48:49.159 --> 00:48:53.679
and community community living. The writings have been particularly impactful

789
00:48:53.719 --> 00:48:57.679
within Lutheran and Evangelical communities, promoting a life of deeper

790
00:48:57.679 --> 00:49:00.559
commitment to Christ. I was a Lutheran, never heard of

791
00:49:00.559 --> 00:49:03.480
this book in any way, shape or form. Never heard

792
00:49:03.519 --> 00:49:06.159
of it, have no understanding of it, and I can't

793
00:49:06.159 --> 00:49:10.239
give you any thing about it but My All for Him.

794
00:49:11.159 --> 00:49:15.480
So those are different books from different traditions, different theological streams.

795
00:49:15.880 --> 00:49:18.519
Of course, I don't think her book really captures the

796
00:49:19.039 --> 00:49:22.199
I mean, it's nineteen sixty seven. It doesn't give you

797
00:49:22.239 --> 00:49:28.079
the historical Lutheran view. These books, though different in stall

798
00:49:28.159 --> 00:49:32.639
and emphasizes a emphasis and different emphasis, share a common

799
00:49:32.639 --> 00:49:35.239
theme of calling believers to a deeper level of commitment

800
00:49:35.239 --> 00:49:38.599
and surrender to God. Andrew Murray's Absolute Surrender remains the

801
00:49:38.599 --> 00:49:42.320
most widely recognized and influential book among them, but each

802
00:49:42.360 --> 00:49:46.519
author has contributed a uniquely to the understanding and practice

803
00:49:46.559 --> 00:49:55.559
of absolute surrender in the Christian life. So here's my conclusion.

804
00:49:55.920 --> 00:50:03.639
When people talk about absolutely surrendering yourself Christ, that means surrendering,

805
00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:11.559
surrendering yourself completely to God's grace for salvation, surrendering yourself

806
00:50:11.559 --> 00:50:14.159
to the finished work of Christ, giving up your work,

807
00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.199
giving up your righteousness, surrendering it to Christ, and trusting

808
00:50:19.320 --> 00:50:22.880
fully in His imputed righteousness, and not trusting in anything

809
00:50:22.960 --> 00:50:25.719
you do, can do, will do, should do, or shouldn't do,

810
00:50:29.079 --> 00:50:33.320
because nothing else makes any sense to me, even though

811
00:50:33.360 --> 00:50:37.199
I spent most of my Christian life with Oh, if

812
00:50:37.239 --> 00:50:40.000
I surrender myself, if I can surrender myself, then God

813
00:50:40.039 --> 00:50:42.440
will use me and God will do great things. And

814
00:50:42.480 --> 00:50:44.079
if I do, but I gotta do this, and I

815
00:50:44.079 --> 00:50:46.280
gotta do this, okay. And while other people were talking

816
00:50:46.280 --> 00:50:49.079
about supposedly being absolutely surrendered, you can look at their

817
00:50:49.119 --> 00:50:51.719
lives and go, how can you convince yourself that you're

818
00:50:52.079 --> 00:50:54.440
practicing it when you're not? Because I know I'm not.

819
00:50:54.760 --> 00:50:57.559
You're not well. And the more you really are honest

820
00:50:57.599 --> 00:51:00.599
with yourself, you're like woo, no no one, and no.

821
00:51:01.159 --> 00:51:07.239
Christ absolutely surrendered himself to the Father. He surrendered himself

822
00:51:07.280 --> 00:51:09.239
not to his will, but to the Father's will in

823
00:51:09.320 --> 00:51:21.920
the incarnational relationship. But for us, I don't know. So

824
00:51:22.039 --> 00:51:25.960
I reject almost how anyone teaches on the subject. I

825
00:51:26.000 --> 00:51:28.039
reject all of it. Now you can, if you would like,

826
00:51:28.079 --> 00:51:29.679
you can get on the sermon's two point oh app

827
00:51:29.679 --> 00:51:33.559
and look up for sermons on absolute surrender. And I

828
00:51:33.559 --> 00:51:36.199
think they're all going to take very much a works

829
00:51:36.239 --> 00:51:41.679
based approach to it. I've given you a completely opposite one.

830
00:51:43.039 --> 00:51:44.639
But those are books that you may want to look

831
00:51:44.719 --> 00:51:47.519
up and read, just because if the more you read

832
00:51:47.599 --> 00:51:50.800
these books and know about these things, the more you

833
00:51:50.840 --> 00:51:54.400
can identify them when they show up in sermons at

834
00:51:54.440 --> 00:51:58.960
your church. Because trust me, the concept of absolute surrender

835
00:52:00.280 --> 00:52:03.000
up in your church at some point, probably every year,

836
00:52:03.079 --> 00:52:06.039
probably multiple times a year, if not continually, even though

837
00:52:06.079 --> 00:52:09.440
it may be not clearly articulated, but the concept is there,

838
00:52:09.599 --> 00:52:12.159
and it's almost always a pro ninety nine percent of

839
00:52:12.239 --> 00:52:14.440
the time, it's going to be works, works, works, more

840
00:52:14.480 --> 00:52:17.760
works and works and works and works and works and

841
00:52:17.800 --> 00:52:26.159
works and works. There. You have it, all right, I'm

842
00:52:26.199 --> 00:52:30.559
going to stop that was fifty two minutes, fifty almost

843
00:52:30.599 --> 00:52:33.960
fifty three minutes. I feel like I still have not

844
00:52:34.000 --> 00:52:36.599
been able to pull all of my thoughts together perfectly.

845
00:52:38.719 --> 00:52:45.239
Hopefully hopefully I've said Hopefully I've said something correct. I

846
00:52:45.320 --> 00:52:48.199
hope so, I hope so. But we'll see. I'm going

847
00:52:48.280 --> 00:52:55.159
to stop right there. We'll talk more, because there's a

848
00:52:55.239 --> 00:52:59.760
lot of concepts here that's really bothering me. Maybe in

849
00:52:59.800 --> 00:53:02.280
the out maybe the first hour of the earlier broadcast today,

850
00:53:02.320 --> 00:53:04.800
you kind of caught on to just some of my

851
00:53:04.920 --> 00:53:08.360
struggles with how and even this bothers me because I

852
00:53:08.400 --> 00:53:12.519
was so wrongly taught and all this pressure was placed

853
00:53:12.599 --> 00:53:15.800
upon me and live a life of failure, of filling

854
00:53:15.880 --> 00:53:19.360
a life of failure, of shame, of discouragement, of disappointment,

855
00:53:19.440 --> 00:53:21.480
instead of just finding peace in the finished work of

856
00:53:21.559 --> 00:53:32.559
Jesus Christ. I'm also bothered by how we are told

857
00:53:32.599 --> 00:53:34.320
about living our life for God so we can be

858
00:53:34.400 --> 00:53:37.920
used by God. And then that concept of being used

859
00:53:37.920 --> 00:53:46.079
by God almost articulated as judged by very fleshly means

860
00:53:46.119 --> 00:53:50.920
and judging success, even though we say we don't judge

861
00:53:50.920 --> 00:53:54.440
things by those fleshly means, and we sometimes condemn big

862
00:53:54.519 --> 00:53:56.559
churches saying, well, the only reason they're big is because

863
00:53:56.559 --> 00:53:59.199
these fleshly means. At the same time, we look down

864
00:53:59.239 --> 00:54:01.320
on small works. If they're if the church is getting

865
00:54:01.320 --> 00:54:03.960
smaller and smaller and smaller, and fewer people are listening

866
00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:06.880
and fewer people are giving, then we're like, well, God's

867
00:54:06.920 --> 00:54:09.760
obviously done with that ministry. God is not in that ministry.

868
00:54:09.800 --> 00:54:12.760
The Holy Spirit's not moving. That ministry is dead. They

869
00:54:12.840 --> 00:54:15.599
just need to give up and go away. And it's like, well,

870
00:54:15.599 --> 00:54:17.880
how do we wait? And then we looked earlier in

871
00:54:17.920 --> 00:54:19.599
the first hour, Well, wait a minute. You know it

872
00:54:19.599 --> 00:54:24.679
doesn't you don't always judge it that way. But then

873
00:54:24.679 --> 00:54:27.480
what does that mean? I don't I don't really know.

874
00:54:31.800 --> 00:54:33.840
I just know that everything I've ever been taught about

875
00:54:33.840 --> 00:54:40.239
absolute surrender has been absolutely wrong. You can tell me

876
00:54:40.280 --> 00:54:43.079
what you think news. I f it Yahoo dot com. News,

877
00:54:43.280 --> 00:54:45.920
I f a Yahoo dot com. That's news. I f

878
00:54:46.039 --> 00:54:48.639
Yahoo dot com. Thanks for listening, everyone, Have a great evening.

879
00:54:48.719 --> 00:54:50.119
God bless