Christianity and False Comfort Pt 2

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. You can be honest, Come on, you can be honest. Are you a little worried about what I'm going to say? Are you a little scared? Are you a little concerned? Are you thinking, well, I'll listen one more time and then I'm never listening to that podcast again. Are you having some of those thoughts, having some of those feelings because of our last live broadcast. Well, I can understand why you may feel that way, and I can't promise you you're going to feel any different when this broadcast is over. But I can say this, I think my feelings, my emotions may be a little bit different. So maybe maybe this won't be quite as startling or shocking or offensive or triggering. I don't know the exact words. Maybe this one will come across in a much more rational way, maybe not so emotional. Only time will tell, and we'll get to that right after I do this. Good evening everyone. It is Saturday, November sixteenth, twenty twenty four. It is currently seven forty nine pm Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas, and

1:35 in this studio. I guess I'm kind of having Do we call it a crisis of faith? Do we call it a not necessarily a nervous breakdown, a spiritual breakdown? I don't know, but I definitely have kind of reached a breaking point. And I never foresaw myself being here, but here I am. Let me try to explain what's going on, trying to blame where we are. I put forth, if you listen to the last live broadcast, you'll hear kind of my emotions and they come out strong. I mean at one point. I mean I think people will just say you were yelling and you were screaming. I probably was because I just don't know what to say or do anymore. In fact, the last live broadcast begins with kind of a dramatic pause to kind of symbolize I don't even know if I should be or should be talking, or even what I should say if I decide to talk. It's like I was just kind of frozen for a second, because it really kind of captures what I'm struggling with, and I don't think most people are going to understand my struggle. I think to most people, they're just not gonna get it. They're gonna think, well, he's being overly dramatic, it's not that big a deal, who really cares whatever. I think everyone's gonna just be very dismissive and just kind of say, well, that's just him.

2:59 He'll get a it and within a couple of weeks it'll all be forgotten. Maybe that's true. Maybe that's true. I doubt it because I've been struggling with these issues in some ways. My entire Christian life is just sometimes things reach a breaking point, a tipping point, and so here we are. So here is kind of what has happened. I'll just briefly review and kind of get us on the same page. Since this is Part two. One of the reasons I'm doing Part two now, I will go ahead and just explain this. It's Saturday evening, right, It's Saturday evening. That means it won't be long before I will wake up, put on some clothes, take a shower, put on some clothes, get ready, drive to Victory Baptist Church, and be standing behind the pulpit, ready to preach. Dealing with things related to Isaiah Chapter forty, verse one, and of course the entire section of Isaiah forty to Isaiah fifty five. But our primary focus will be Isaiah chapter forty, verse one, if we can actually even get to the verse tomorrow. But there's gonna be a lot of things going to discuss. So in my mind, if you heard the last lie broadcasting, you heard my emotion. The best thing I can do is try to bring some of that emotion, some of those issues I was discussing to somewhat of a conclusion so that tomorrow I can at least be, you know, a step beyond it. Right. Maybe, I mean some of the things I'm going to be saying tomorrow is going to be very I mean, there's going to be overlap lap, there's going to be a connection.

4:31 But maybe I can move forward. I'm trying to because of this situation I find I feel like I have found myself in now. I feel like I just got to dig myself out, and it seems like the more I look or the more I study, the deeper the hole gets, and I'm not getting out of the hole, I'm going deeper into the hole. So I feel like I need to bring this to some kind of conclusion so that I can stand behind the pulpit and be somewhat effective, because if you're very emotional about something, then it hijacks the entire entire sermon. So that's what I'm going to attempt to do. But here's what's been happening. You know. December twenty twenty three, I put forth the challenge for everyone to download the sermons two point oh app and we were going to do the Sermons two point oh app sermon challenge right every single day, you were going to listen to our random sermon on the sermon's two point oh app and then you were going to write it down, write down kind of basically a summary of what you learned in the sermon, and you were going to have one sermon for each day of twenty twenty four. That was the goal. And I don't know where a lot of you, definitely, I can't say a lot some of you I know have been very dedicated to following through others. I don't know how many people actually participated, but we did that, and the more I listened, the more frustrated I became, because sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon after sermon, even many that

6:04 I reviewed, you heard much. Sometimes my frustration live on the air started leading me to say something like this, Christianity constantly offers nothing more than fraudulent promises, false comfort, shallow peace, and an illusion of hope. It is nothing more than a lie, a sham, and leaves people confused and broken. Now I know, to hear me say that, that comes around immediately people get offended and they're already typing another email. I've already got plenty today. It's good, you don't need to send another. I understand that nobody likes to hear that. Now, I did say in the last live broadcast. Probably I shouldn't use the word Christianity because people will misunderstand when I say Christianity, there I mean Churchianity. I mean the corporate church, the visible church, the institution, not the truths of Christianity. I believe the true biblical truths of Christianity does not do that. But Christianity, this is what we call Christianity, this institutionalized, corporate type of thing. It constantly offers nothing more than fraudulent promises, false comfort, shallow piece, and it offers an illusion of hope.

7:32 It is nothing more than a lie, a sham, and it leaves people confused and broken. Now why would I be led to that, because in sermon after sermon after sermon, two things occurred. One thing we talked about it over and over and over in twenty twenty four is that Christianity seems incapable, unable to actually deal with the reality of sin within Christianity, the reality of sin within the lives of Christians, because we constantly give this fraudulent hope, this fraudulent comfort, this illusion that when you became saved, dont to done practically, you become a new creature. Whole things are passed away, and basically you're with basically without sin, you can say no to sin and yes to God, and basically you can be perfect. Well, I mean, actually you can't be perfect, so we so sell it that way.

8:26 But the reality is sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, sin, And if anyone looks at the law of God and even remotely honest, you know you're in a perpetual state of sin. Because God's law demands perfection, You're never perfect. You're in a perpetual state of sin. And then somehow we convince ourselves even though we're in a perpetual state of sin, we convince ourselves that we're not actually in a perpetual state of sin. And then we can look at other people and say, but look at the sin they commit, even though we're in a perpetual state of sin, we deny it. We pick up rocks to throw at other people who are in a perpetual state of sin because the sin they committed in their perpetual state of sin is supposedly worse than the sin that I commit, and I a perpetual si date of sin, and it's just it's just lunacy. It's ridiculous. It's just so nonsensical, illogical, circular reasoning, and it makes you want to scream. And we dealt with that, and we're still not done dealing with that. But over and over and over and over, this moralistic denial of the reality of what we are, so sermon after sermon would create this situation where it just demonstrate Christianity cannot truly deal with the reality of sin, not excusing sin, saying that we have to be able to deal with the reality of it, all right. And so because that happened over and over and over. I believe that Christianity is not really dealing with the issue.

9:42 It's just offering nothing more than a fraudulent promise. It's offering nothing more than a false comfort. It's offering nothing more than shallow peace. It's offering nothing more than an illusion of hope. That's why, because in that area, that's what it does. And then the second thing these sermons did over and over and over, over and over and over and over, is it misapplied scripture that clearly was about other people to us. Hijack the scripture and make it about us, taking promises that were not for us, claiming those promises somehow for us, even though the reality would demonstrate these promises and these things are not happening. And then this led that the last month or so, three passages of scripture has become very well, it kind of becomes symbolic of all this that has happened. In twenty twenty four Isaiah chapter forty, verse one, where we read comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God all right, and we saw sermon after sermon where pastors go to that comfort. Still it from the original people make it all about us, and it's just I mean, that's just a hermeneutical train wreck. It's a travesty. It's it's spiritual malpractice because you can't take that comfort and just apply it to everyone. It has a very specific hists historical context, as we have been talking about, not to get into it everything there. Then we found ourselves in Deuteronomy thirty two to ten. Once again, here are promises being made what God has done, but forget the

11:13 original people, forget the original context, make it about what God has done for us. And once again I feel like, and you're taking things that very much are about Israel and promises that were very tangible, material, physical, and then we try to apply that to ourselves. And while we see all the problems, then Hebrew six thirteen through twenty, even though the passage begins with God making promises to Abraham, we somehow insert ourselves again and make it all about us. So those are the three passages. So we're kind of working on that. I'm doing a series on Isaiah forty through fifty five. First by verse. We've got an entire series for that. In this series, I'm going to entitle Christianity false comfort, false comfort, and Christianity something along those lines.

12:04 I'm gonna we're gonna be dealing with the whole idea of false comfort in a general sense and kind of a specific and then we'll do some work on those passages of scripture to try to bring all of this to some kind of conclusion. Now a later or earlier today, I had to laugh because I finished that broadcast and you could hear how frustrated I was. Then I started getting emails that only made things worse, right, So then I was like, okay, well I had to go somewhere. So I grabbed the iPad, downloaded some sermons, random sermons from the sermon's two point o app, started driving, made it about ten minutes down the road, and all of a sudden, what do I hear some pastor preaching from Nehemiah and making it all about guess who you and me, you and me, you and me us us us us us, And I'm like, just forget about the original people that it was just I just don't get it. I don't think think really, I don't think. Look, and that kind of preaching is what people want. That gets the numbers, the downloads, the streams, the popularity, the fame, They make money, They have jobs, they get to speak at conferences. That's what people simply want. And anything else, I mean, there's got to be room for something else. But it's just so maddening. So here's what we did. In the last live broadcast. I mentioned two passages in the Book of Jeremiah.

13:29 Two verses Jeremiah six fourteen. They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people, slightly, saying peace peace when there is no peace. Jeremiah has words to the false prophets, to the priests, to the religious leaders who are running around for wrong motives, offering peace to people where there is no peace. Jeremiah was giving them a word of judgment, a word of warning, and those and the religious leaders were like, Jeremiah is wrong. Everything's going to be okay, nothing to worry about. And well, then Babylonian captivity came. So we read Jeremiah six fourteen and Jeremiah eight to eleven, which says the exact same thing.

14:15 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly. They offered they offered some kind of healing, but it's a slight healing, saying piece piece when there is no peace. They gave them a shallow, fraudulent comfort. The healing was only slight because it wouldn't deal with the reality. And when a Christianity becomes detached with reality, then you begin giving people fraudulent hope and lies, and it just it's just an illusion. And most Christians are happy to live in the lie. Most Christians are happy to live in the illusion and feel like, oh, comfort and great. But they it's all just make believe, and sooner or later, for at least a minority, the reality of life overwhelms the illusion and they just give up and they don't know what to do. Others live in the illusion. It's kind of like Plato's allegory of the cave.

15:12 Some people are more than happy to sit in the cave and look at the images being thrown onto the cave wall. They're just they're more than happy to look at the images. They don't care where it's coming from. They don't care if it's real. They don't care if it's true. Just give me nice little images to make me feel better. Go to church and just show me some images on the screen make me feel better. I don't care about truth, I don't care about accuracy. I don't care about harmoneutics. But there's always that minority that says, wait a minute, where's where's the images coming from? Wait where? Wait, there's an where there's light out there, And they get up and they walk out of the cave because they got to figure out why, where, how? Who? What? Well? Guess what that minority when they start they decide they're going to look into the face of reality. They get slapped and they're like, wait a minute, those images on the wall, that that's not the truth, that's just a that's an image, that's a shadow, that's not No. What we need is outside of the cave. But it's bright and it's maybe filled with pain and confusion, but we gotta have and to me, we gotta have a Christianity that can exist outside of the cave, not tucked away in a cave somewhere where we're all make believe in pretending.

16:25 So what happens to Christians? What happens? What are the consequences? What are the consequences, maybe the unintended consequences of giving people false comfort to day? Well, the last part I gave you a number of them. Number one. It leads to disillusionment and loss of faith. It leads to disillusionment and loss of faith because when promises of guaranteed healing, prosperity, deliverance, God's gonna do this. God's gonna do this. God's gonna do this. God's gonna do this. God's going to do this.

17:06 When they fail to materialize, people will feel betrayed by God or the Church, or by God and the church. This leads to cynicism, doubt, or even abandonment of the faith completely. So it leads to disillusionment and loss of faith. Number two, it leads to spiritual complacency. False comfort lulls people into a false sense of security. Hey, everything is good everything when reality no, things are not good. Hey guys, Jeremiah's time. Hey guys, those false prophets are telling you everything's okay. Let me tell you things are not okay. Babylonian captivity is coming, judgment, death and destruction is coming.

17:48 You need to wake up. Number three, It leaves people unprepared for trials. When people are taught that faith will shield them from they're ill equipped to endure hardship, leading to confusion and despair when they get punched in the face by reality. You're not prepared for trials. Christianity should be preparing you by saying, Hey, here is God, here is spiritual reality. But guess what in our reality? Guess what the reality is in your life, in my life, pain, suffering, death, sin, failure.

18:29 We got to be prepared for reality. Number four. It leads to an erosion of biblical understanding. When you have pastors misusing scripture to offer false hope, it undermines people's ability to understand the Bible correctly. It fosters a shallow, selective approach to scripture, where promises are taken out of context and harder truths are ignored. And that's what we see in Isaiah forty, Deuteronomy thirty two, Hebrew six. Let's not deal with the facts. Us I deal with the truth. Let's not deal with the text. Number five leads to a mistrust of church leadership. When pastors repeatedly offer empty assurance, people begin to lose trust in their leadership. This can lead to divisions within the church or cause individuals to leave organize religion all together. Number six, It perpetuates and it spreads false theology. False teaching about God's promises spreads, leading to widespread misunderstranding standing of core doctrines like suffering and the nature of God. This creates a cycle where new preachers and believers adopt and propagate the same old errors.

19:41 It just never stops. See what's this false comfort starts? People just keep buying into it, and it just perpetuates these fraudulent ideas. And then one person takes it, they share it with another person. One pastor shares it, another pastor picks it, and it just continues. And that's what Christianity has turned into, the never ending perpetualuation of this wrong idea about a false comfort, false hope, and all of it is just it's just false. It leads to a neglect of genuine spiritual needs. And we see this when you give this basic idea that basically, when you give the basic idea that basically, I know that sounds redundant.

20:25 When you give this idea that, hey, whenever you become a Christian, basically your sinful nature is gone. You mean, you basically are without sin. Your heart's change, your nature's changed, You're now a new creature. Everything all the oldest gone, everything is new practically, but you can do it well, then it basically what Christianity gets reduced to is now work, do work, do good, do good, do good, do good, because you've got to do good to prove that you've truly been changed. And if you don't do good enough, well, then you prove that you're not changed. Therefore you're going to go to hell. And guess what gets destroyed? A proper understanding of law and gospel, because what you're supposed to do constantly compare yourself to the law and realize, no matter how much you do, no matter how hard you try, you're in a perpetual state of sin, which should drive you to the foot of the cross and rely on the imputed righteousness and understand that you're not being saved, and you were not saved by an infused righteousness, see the true spiritual need. It becomes neglected because of this fraudulent hope and fraudulent teaching. Number eight, and this is the one I got really emotional about, really upset about.

21:35 It leads to harmful emotional and mental issues. It leads to emotional and mental issues in people. In some ways, I feel like I've been suffering this my entire Christian life because I constantly be like, wait a minute, we say all of this, but what about this? And what about this? And what about this? And what about this? And what about this? And what about this? And what about this? And what about this? And my questions just get me in trouble. When you offer false comfort, you leave people emotionally devastated when reality doesn't align with the promises that they wrongly give you. You end up having feelings of guilt, feelings of inadequacy. They often arise when people are told they lack faith or obedience as the reason to their unfulfilled hopes. Hey it's your fault that things are not working out, or you're told basically, hey, you're a new creature ahld, things are pass away, all things have become new. Okay, great, but you're gonna you keep sinning? Why do you keep sinning? Why? I don't know why I keep saying? You said, I'm a brand new creature, the oldest gone. There shouldn't be any sin.

22:47 Everything is brand new. You're doing something wrong. You're probably not even saying well again, it just leads you to what I gotta do, what I got to do to prove that I'm safing? Okay? Why are these problems happening? Is that my fault and he just It just leads to all kinds of mental issues and then you try to try to figure out, well, wait a minute, you said that God promised this, this, this, this, and this, Well, how come this is happening and this is happening and this is happening that seems to go against his promises? Is God wrong? Did I do something wrong? Who is the whole thing not true? Now this leads to the rest number nine. It encourages a self centered faith, This fraudulent comfort, These false promises lead to a self centered faith.

23:42 Preaching false hope often centers on personal benefit rather than God's glory or his broader purpose. This fosters a very like, almost like a consumer transaction view of faith where people where we fall hell of God only for what they think he can get he will do for us. It becomes this very self centered faith. And let me just expand on it. It becomes self centered because now you go to the Bible and you just immediately see you you you, you you you you, you see yourself. You move the other people out and you insert yourself. That's become self centered and then it's all about, well, God is going to do this for me, and God's going to do this for me. And God's going to do this for me, and so it's almost like, Okay, well, if I have faith, God's going to do all of these things for me, and I get all of these things, even though those promises are not even really for you, and you don't even show up in the text, but you've inserted yourself into the text. So this then turns into guess what, it all becomes about you? You, you, you you. He becomes this this never ending, self serving, self promoting, self seeing, selfish, self centered. It becomes we become narcissistic, t actual hijackers. As I have said, it becomes self centered. It's a faith based preoccupied with self.

25:09 It's about go to the Bible, find me, Go to the Bible, find me, and put myself there even if I'm not there. That's number nine. It encourages a self centered faith. Number ten creates division among believers. When some people have unmet expectations. It can create division between those who cling to the false promises and those who challenge them. See those who cling to the false promises, those who cling to the false hope, those who cling to the illusion they get very upset when someone challenges all of that.

25:57 When someone says no, no, not for us, no, noh, stop claiming that No, they get very upset and it creates division. And I witnessed that division today in my emails because people don't like me to challenge this. People don't know No, no, how dare you? How dare you say that past? How dare you do that? Well, I'm just trying to help you stop with the fraudulent hope and the false comfort that do you want comfort based off lies or do you want comfort rooted in truth? Criticism of false hope may be dismissed as a lack of faith. See, if you criticize the false hope, you criticize the fraudulent promises, you criticize the illusion of hope offered by Churchianity, you're going to be dismissed as you don't have faith. I know that because I got it in my email. It creates tension within the church. Christians don't want it, They don't like it. They don't because they want to stay inside the cave looking at the images on the wall. That's what they that's what they don't want to go outside the cave. Into the bright sunlight and be confronted with reality. We want to live in this little, fraudulent, made up world and nobody wants to deal with Wait a minute, okay, Sue, So how do I understand that there is a God. He's omniscient,

27:28 he's omnipresent, he's omnipotent. Yet this many people die a year from this, And people did this, and children get molested and women get sexually assaulted it and people starve to death, and people die here, and people this and this and that, and this sin happens, and this hit happens, and this and go on to all and you're like, well, wait a minute, I have a hard time reconciling reality with these things. I will join the club. But it's better than going hide inside your cave and pretending that, oh, God's going to do this for us, and go Odd's going to do that. Yeah, Borrowing passages of scripture in many cases that are for Israel, and what God is doing for them is based off a covenant promise that he would do those things, where we don't have those same promises. Next, it dilutes the gospel when you emphasize temporal promises health, wealth, comfort, it overshadows the eternal hope of salvation in Christ. See for us our promises. We're blessed with all spiritual blessings in high places. Our promises are spiritual now, the tangible, material, physical promises are for eternity.

28:41 When we get a new body, new heaven, new earth, no more pain, and we're suffering, no more death, no more tears. But we want to constantly rip down and bring it. We want to take the promises of the Old Testament that's made to Israel about provision, protection and all that. We want to bring that and apply it to us. Now. It doesn't really work, and it makes us overshadow, overshadow, and it dilutes our focus on the spiritual promises. This begins to distort the Gospel, reducing it to a tool for personal gain rather than a message of redemption and reconciliation with God. That's number eleven, number twelve. It can lead to endjustice towards the vulnerable. False promises often exploit those who are already vulnerable, such as the sick, grieving, or financially struggling, by offering them solutions that never come.

29:34 This can lead to further despair and financial loss. When people invest time, money or resources and to false assurances. It's unjust. It takes people who are vulnerable, people who are fragile, and you promise them all kinds of stuff and then it doesn't ever truly come about, and they're left broken and disillusioned and they don't know what to do, or they just find themselves dead. Now, this is why I oh the charismatic world right promising healing and problem all that doesn't come to pass. I could tell all the stories I've told a million times. I'm not going to do that tonight. But the same thing, when someone has broken over their sin, they're vulnerable, they feel guilt, they'll feel shame, they feel humiliated, whatever the case may be, and they're longing for hope and forgiveness, and you give them the forgiveness. But then the hope you tell them is, hey, now that you're a Christian, dun dun da done, You're never going to do this again. You're never going to do this again because you're a new creature. Old things are passed away, everything's being new. You've been set free. Yeah, and then then when that go will wait a minute, I keep sinning saying, sinning, Well, you'll probably not saved.

30:41 You destroy them. You pray on their vulnerability and their weakness, only to toss them out later. Number thirteen. It encourages pride and self righteousness. Those who seemingly experience the so called fulfillment of these false promises may feel superior to those who do not, fostering pride and a judgmental spirit. This creates a toxic environment where struggles or failure is viewed as an evidence of a lack of faith. Become prideful, well, because you think every scriptures about you. It becomes self righteous, thinking, well, God's doing this for me. Yeah, because you're convincing yourself in many cases of the fulfillment of promises that are false and fraudulent, but then you think you're better than other people. Number fourteen. It weakens evangelism. It weakens our evangelistic efforts. Non believers often see through the false promises, and they view the church as insincere and manipulative. See

32:16 people in the church can't see through the false promises, they're blinded by it, but many on the outside look at and go false promise, lie, lie, lie lie. People are being manipulated, They're being used. This undermines the credibility of the church and the gospel message. You hurt evangelism because the world sees through it. They hear all the promises that we claim and are like, whatever, whatever, it's just garbage. How many times young people go off to church camp. I never when I was a teenager, I refused to go to church camp. I saw all the game that was played. Kids go, they're manipulated, sold all kinds of things. They come back thinking everything, and then sooner or later they crash, they burn, and I'm just like, look, how oft how how long you're gonna play this game?

33:13 You go, you get emotionally manipulated, You come back thinking you're gonna you know, you're gonna rush hell with a water gun, and six weeks later you're broken and just just right back to the same place you were last time. And then next summer you get all go to chairs champ, get all emotional again. Get you're getting manipulated, you're getting used, You're getting played. Number fifteen. So, not only is it leads to weakening or hurting evangelistic efforts, it fails to provide true comfort. False comfort ultimately fails because it is not grounded in the truth of God's word or his eternal promises, or in reality. True comfort, which acknowledges suffering while pointing to God's sovereignty and eternal plan, is neglected in favor of temporary, shallow assurance based off the misapplication, misinterpretation, and hijacking of the text of scripture. You can't get true comfort if you're stealing others comfort, you're misusing the text.

34:43 I'm going to go through all of these again. False comfort, false hope, false all these things that we've referenced leads to disillusionment, disillusionment and a loss of faith. It can lead to spiritual complacency. It can lead to being unprepared for trials. It can lead to an erosion of biblical understanding. It can lead to mistrust of church leadership. It can perpetuate false theology. It can lead to neglect of genuine spiritual needs. It can be harmful. It can lead to harm.

35:23 It can lead to emotional and mental harm. Let's stay it that way. It can lead to emotional and mental harm. Number nine, It encourages a self centered faith. Number ten. It leads to division among believers. Number eleven. It dilutes the gospel number twelve. It leads to injustice towards the vulnerable. Number thirteen. It encourages pride and self righteousness. Number fourteen. It weakens evangelistic efforts. Number fifteen. It fails to provide true comfort, false hope, false peace. False comfort offered by preachers may seem appealing in the short term, but it results in significant spiritual, emotional, and relational harm. The long term consequences damage individual faith, the credibility of the church, the integrity of the Gospel. True hope and comfort must be rooted in the full counsel of God's Word, including both the hard truths and the eternal promises found in Christ, and the reality that you live every single day. You don't create a fraudulent reality to escape the harsh reality.

36:55 This falses. All of this false stuff has got to stop now. I want to go and do some work in Jeremiah, just to show you how prevalent this false assurance and false promises were in the Book of Jeremiah. But I'm not because I just all I really wanted to do tonight was just at least finish all of the negative consequences intended or unintended of false hope, false peace, false comfort that's being provided by pastors and sermon after sermon after sermon, because they just seem to think that they can do whatever they want with the word of God.

37:49 I don't know what else to say other than you should consider all fifteen of those points, and whenever you hear a you should ask yourself, is this false hope, false peace, false comfort? Is this stealing promises? Is this hijacking scripture? Now? I know it's almost impossible to see it, because you've been so in it the language use. You just accept it. You never go wait, what exactly does that mean? Now? I did that much calmer. I don't know.

38:35 I don't know if that's helpful. Maybe I should have maintained the same emotional temperature, the emotional level. But I think that hearing it two different ways, maybe maybe that will make some kind of a difference. I don't know, But just think of all the sermons we heard in Isaiah forty verse one, comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. And guess what who got thrown out my people? In their context Babylonian captivity. Isaiah thirty nine sets up the context they everyone got thrown out and we inserted ourselves inserted ourselves Deuteronomy thirty two. We inserted ourselves Hebrew six.

39:20 Remember I did a message on whose anchor their anchor? Or our anchor, our anchor, their anchor. Well, we completely eliminate the people That Hebrews was written to people facing the siege, capture, and destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in seventy a d. Was written to them somewhere between sixty five sixty seven sixty eight a d. They were about to face one of the most horrific thing. Look at the history. Over a million people died, some reverted to cannibalism, Horrible things occurred. They needed an anchor, They needed hope, they needed promise, and many of that that much of that hope and promise was very much rooted. And the fact that Israel was given specific promises that well give gives them hope even today that sooner or later they will be regathered to the land will be restored.

40:07 We'll be saying all of those things that we've discussed. But of course, why why worry about the original recipients, Why we don't care about them? Now? Am I saying none of these passages have application to us? It's it's application without inserting ourselves into it's making sure that the application is consistent with what the text actually says and not what we're just reading into the text. But those are the consequences of false hope, Those are the consequensequences of false promises. Those are the consequences, and those consequences are horrific. That means what that This is just not me just having you know, my little pet peeve ranting and raving. This is me saying real people are being really hurt by it, and I don't know if the church will ever admit the hurt that it's been. That's been done. All right, I'll stop there. Thanks for listening, everyone, have a great night. Hopefully tomorrow you'll have a great day at church. Hopefully church will be positive for you. Hopefully, hopefully the Word of God will be handled carefully accurately, without hijacking it, misapplying it, and inserting us where we don't belong and offering you false comfort, false peace, false hope,

41:38 because that only leads to negative consequences. Thanks for listening, God bless