Question and Answer - 1/23/2022

0:53And if we have time at the end, I'll certainly open up the floor to questions. Typically, the way the Q ⁇ As work, it's nice to get questions ahead of time, just to organize some of the thoughts, even if it's 20 minutes ahead of time. It's good to have a little time. But any time you want, there's Q ⁇ A forms on the back in the foyer. You can take those and write down a question. Whatever the it doesn't have to be uh a question specifically about anything I'm talking about. It could be a a Bible question, it could be a church question, you know, a any kind of question that you feel uh you'd like to answer, you can write that out and put it in the offering box. And as I accumulate enough of them, I have a question and answer tonight. Uh, well, I've got some good questions tonight, uh, and I'm gonna do my best to get through them. The first one uh deals with polygamy. Uh question goes like this: if polygamy is wrong, as I indicated last week, why did God allow it in the Old Testament?

2:25Good question. Good question. Well, it's clear, and you can go back to Genesis chapter 2, 24, verse 24, that polygamy is indeed a perversion of God's design. God's design in Genesis 2, 24, you know, he is Adam has awakened from his sleep, the rib. Which came out of him has become the woman, and he has brought the woman to the man, and as not just union, but reunion. Now the lump of clay is complete. He took the rib, made it into a woman, and so now that lump of clay that he began with is now brought back together. It's one lump of clay. Not just union, but reunion. He separated it for a while, brought it back together, same material, same essence. Not a different soil, not a different...

3:39But Adam says, this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. And then in verse 24, we read these words, For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. One flesh. One, they two. And Jesus is the one who reaffirms this, as I pointed out last week in Mark 10.

4:13They too shall become one flesh. So when he says two, he forbids polygamy. When he says one, he forbids divorce. Mark 10 is about divorce. But certainly, polygamy is a perversion of God's design. And yet it's carried out through the Old Testament. And sometimes God is silent on the issue, and that has led many to think that, okay, well, polygamy must not be wrong, or God would have addressed it. Well, God permitted a lot of things to go on.

4:54But you see the trajectory. In Genesis chapter 4, it's one of Cain's descendants. You remember Cain, he killed his brother Abel. Well, one of his descendants named Lamech, in chapter 4 and verse 19, took to himself two wives, the name of the one. So he takes himself two wives. He just, out of the blue, out of the text, two wives. But this is a brutal man. This is a man, and look at if you read in verse 23, it's a lot like his grandpappy, Cain.

5:39Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, listen to my voice, you wives of Lamech. Give heed to my speech, for I have killed a man for wounding me, and a boy for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech 77fold. So here's a brutal, somebody heard him: a boy struck. Him and he kills. He's a murderer and he's a perverted man. This is the first time you see polygamy come on the scene. He has declared rebellion against God's standard that has laid down and led really all the Canites into a life of polygamy. But it doesn't. You come to Abram. I mean, you'd see polygamy happening in the Old Testament, but one thing you can deduce fairly quickly, it's not a blessed institution. It certainly isn't, right? You know, Abram, chapter 16, couldn't have any children, right? Abraham can't have any children. And so what happens?

6:53Sarai gets the idea. Okay, I'll tell you what we can do. I know God has promised a child, but let's just take matters into our own hands. And let me give you my maid, my servant. And so in chapter 3, I mean, in chapter 16, verse 3, after Abram had lived 10 years in the land of Canaan, Abram's wife, Sarai, took Hagar, the Egyptian, her maid, and gave her to her husband, Abram, as his wife. Well, you know what comes out of that union? Ishmael, Ishmael, a problem for the nation of Israel ever since. Ishmael, Ishmael. And yes, God has compassion on Hagar. He has compassion on Ishmael. But this is the trajectory man is going. And let me tell you, the last thing you want in your life is these efforts where you create Ishmaels. When you take matters into your own hands and you do things in the flesh, according to the flesh, thinking through the flesh, and you create an Ishmael.

8:04And so it's not a blessed union. You keep going. And of the patriarchs, you know, Isaac's the one that seems to have the right union with Rebekah, right? And you don't see it. But then you get to Jacob, and wow, he has really, he has children by four women. And the one thing you can say about this family is it's severely dysfunctional, right? I mean, you don't have, I mean, the rivalry, the challenges. I mean, it's just, I was reading an article about some of the Native Americans and some of the tribes. Polygamy was practiced and just how that destroyed, or just how that impacted these cultures.

9:00Never could really get a cohesive unit together. Makes sense. I mean, if men have many women in their lives, you can be sure there is going to be trouble in the home. And trouble. But you keep going. I mean, you see the trajectory in Deuteronomy after calling the children of Israel out of Exodus and saying, okay, I'm putting you on a trajectory of walking with me. One of the things he says is in Deuteronomy 17, 17 is, look, the king should not be multiplying wives. So you see this trajectory that the leader is to be moving, certainly, to be monogamous. If you want to read and obey, of course, you come in. You've got, again, you've got David.

10:00But certainly by the time you come to the New Testament, monogamy is a picture of Christ and his church, the union, the deepness. It's actually an infant picture of heaven, God and man together. And so when you come to the New Testament, you see this trajectory, this movement, and Jesus affirms. He says, look, the reason Moses allowed. You to divorce is because of the hardness of your hearts. And I would put polygamy in that same category: that it was a perversion from the beginning, and God allowed it. But he allowed a lot of sin, but he was calling people out, movement out of that to the standard of Christ-likeness, who is very devoted to his one wife.

11:03And so, when you come to the New Testament, one of the criteria for those who are to lead the church to oversee the pastors are to be husbands of one wife. David did not meet that qualification. David could not be a pastor of a New Testament church. And not just to be the husband of one wife, but to be above reproach as the husband of one wife. There should be no question about fidelity. And so, yes, when one goes to the Old Testament and you start seeing the polygamy and you see this painful silence that God isn't just addressing it at every corner, you might come away with the conclusion: well, this is prescriptive. It's okay. No, he's not prescribing it. Old Testament is description. It describes what's happened, not necessarily putting the thumbs up on it. It's telling you, and that's what I love about the Bible, is it just throws it all out there. But as you work your way through, you see God is moving, started with the standard of monogamy, oneness, and a beauty in that relationship, which from out of that blessed union would come children, everyone on earth.

12:43It's to be a blessed institution. So, any questions or thoughts on that? I go to question two. It's a good question. That was question one. Let's go to question two. Do I refer to a person by his or her preferred pronoun? Well, I think a lot of you know what that question is getting at. What do we do when somebody now, how many of you had a class at AM or around where the class has started out? We'll say, well, what's your preferred genders?

13:31Okay, so this is something that's happening, right? Blen and A and M. Let's go around. What do you do? How do you refer to that person? Somebody who is a man wants you to call him a missus or a she. My answer is very simple. Only when it agrees with the gender God gave them at birth. So if a man's preferred gender is he, go with it. If a man's preferred gender is she, you cannot go with it.

14:27And let me explain why. One thing that God makes very clear in Exodus 20, 16, you shall not bear false witness. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. But Proverbs 6, 16 drives this a little more at home. There are six things which the Lord hates. Yes, seven which are an abomination to him. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brethren.

15:24To call somebody a female who you know is a male is to bear false witness. And friends, that is against our religion explicitly. And this applies in several, in many areas in this whole gender LGBTQ world, ideology, world that we're living in. We should rid ourselves of any testimony that would be construed, that would be false witness. In other words, we shouldn't talk in terms of a sex change. There is no such thing as a sex change.

16:18Only somebody who goes through surgical procedures. There is no such thing as a sex change. So we should not use that to speak in those. Terms is to bear false witness. Last week I used Bruce Caitlin Jenner as an example, and not to be uncharitable at all, but he has put himself out there in the public's eye, celebrating. Media is celebrating what he has done, even running for office now. And so, so, but when Bruce changes his name to Caitlin, should I call him Caitlin? Well, honestly, I really don't have the same pain of conscience. Okay, if you want to be called by a girl's name, you can be called by a girl's name.

17:20And I'm sure there's going to be a lot of different opinions on this across the board. If a person wants me to call him Picklebreath, if that's the name you want to go with, that doesn't cause me a crisis. Picklebreath, that's what you want to go with. But the moment Bruce Caitlin Jenner wants me or mandates or requires of me to call him a female, a she, a her, now he's asking me to bear false witness. That I cannot do.

18:04And friends, this is in your backyard now. And it is coming your way more forceful than ever before. Jobs are going to be on the line. And I would just say, as you think ahead, be shrewd as a serpent and harmless as a dove. Don't go along with the lies of society. That's not what bearers of truth do. But we are called to be at peace as much as it depends upon us. I'm not going to take a person to task if he wants to be called a, if Bruce Caitlin Jenner wants me to call him Caitlin, you know, well, I don't have the paying. I'm not going to try to be at odds with him.

19:05And I don't want to be ugly. But he needs to know he is still a man. And if those bearers of truth cease to proclaim the truth, but go along with the lie, there is no hope for. Him or for the truth to prevail in society. And so in this whole gender LGBTQ ideology world that we're living in, don't let them push you into bearing false witness. We cannot go along with the lie. Any thoughts or questions on that?

20:01Yes? But just a thought. I did have this in one of my classrooms, and I kind of went on with what you did, but I wasn't sure if that was a compromise to you where I just called that person by their name instead of by their pronouns, just because it was a little bit taxy, but I just kept saying, oh, well, Caitlin this or Caitlin that, or it was a generated jones, so it wasn't so much of a problem, but instead of using she or he, we just went out of our way and just called them by their name. I don't know is that considerably a compromise?

20:33Well, no, I I think everyone's going to have to deal with this. I don't I don't I don't see it as compromise, but you know, I mean you have to resolve in your mind that you're not that you're not bearing false witness. And at least this is where this is how I put it together. We cannot bear a false witness. And Yeah, there's a lot of names that mean different. I mean, you know, I might just say Jenner.

21:09Try to avoid the, as much as it depends on me, I don't want to engage a, I want to be at peace with somebody who, but at the same token, I cannot give them, I can't go along with a lie. And so, yeah, you sort that out. And in some instances, it might just say, look, Bruce, let me call you to who you are and what you have to deal with. Usually when somebody changes names, I mean, they're trying to get away from something.

21:42There's something. But I mean, certainly if there's an invitation, I mean, if a person wants to discuss and is open to conversation, then yeah, I think you talk more aggressively about these issues. If somebody is absolutely hostile, then in a spirit of keeping the peace, it's like, yeah, I'm not going to call you. I'm not going to unnecessarily inflame you, but I cannot and will not bear false witness. Or you just apply this through this whole thing. There's male and there's female.

22:30Don't get me in the middle with, well, there's another 70 genders in the middle in between. No, there's male and female, and that's what I bear witness to. Good thought. And we're all sorting through this. I mean, there's probably a lot of conversation going on out there, and maybe there'll be some thoughts that come up that may make me rethink some of this, but I certainly can boil it down to you cannot bear false witness. You cannot go along with the lie and let that play itself out.

23:16Well, good. Anyone else? Question three. Can you clarify by what is meant by conversion therapy? What is a biblical method of conversion therapy that we should accept, and what are some non-biblical methods of conversion therapy that we should reject? That looks like three questions to me. What's that? One question. That's right. That's right. What is meant by conversion therapy? Well, I think the most current definition of conversion therapy should come from Canada's Bill C4. They've already defined this. This is the operating. I mean, there may be people, this is what's difficult about the subject, is talking about conversion therapy. It's like, well, what's conversion therapy in one person's mind is very different from a conversion therapy in somebody else's mind, and who's the authority to start bringing some kind of definition, what is really meant? Well, I think the operating definition is what Canada's Bill C4 just put out. That is what is law. That is what legislators are looking at. That's the language that was chosen. And that's where the criminal code is based. So I think whatever definitions there may have been, this really is the current operating working definition.

25:00And this is what it says: conversion of therapy. It's a practice, a treatment, or a service. So that's pretty practice, treatment, or a service. That covers just about everything that happens in just about everything. Certainly what happens in church life, certainly what happens in counseling life. But it's a practice, a treatment, or a service designed to change a person's sexual orientation to heterosexual. So to move a person from homosexual to heterosexual. And so inevitably, this is going to impact the church. When we call somebody to a biblical morality, to a biblical sexuality, we're talking heterosexual union, one man, one woman, in the confines of life. But that fits under this umbrella. If one is having homosexual tendencies or in that lifestyle, yes, the biblical message is to come out and inevitably either be celibate or enter into a marriage union which is heterosexual. So inevitably this is going to apply to the message of the gospel. A practice, treatment, or service designed to change a person's gender identity to cisgender. You know what cisgender means? Male, female, right? So if a person is male and wants to identify as a female, anything designed to change that or to educate. To clarify the two genders. And that's just identity to one or the other.

27:08That's a loaded statement. To change a person's gender expression so that it conforms to the sex assigned to the person at birth. So make sure you start, if you tell my boys, grow up, act like men. Well, if I've got a one who sees himself differently, then that is a practice, a treatment, or a service. But it goes on, the definition goes quite long. To repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behavior. So don't, there is no practice of repressing or reducing sexual attraction, or to repress a person's non-cisgender identity, or repress or reduce a person's gender expression that does not conform to the sex assigned to the person at birth. This is some very broad language. To reduce, to repress, or reduce a person's gender expression?

28:22It used to be funny when you have a bunch of girls and some little brothers, sometimes little brothers. End up getting dressed in a tutu and they get strung through the house and they go running through. And that's part of life with sisters, right? And to say, take that tutu off, repress that is to either repress or to reduce. And so certainly there's a broad spectrum here, broad language, and that isn't excluding biblical conversion from it or church ministries. In fact, much of the conversation is dealing with counseling settings and church life. Counseling, Christian counseling, and church.

29:30But all of this just underscores the war that's been going on in the American Psychiatric Association for basically my whole life, about 50 years. You can see this war played out in the language of the DSM. How many of you are familiar with the DSM? Okay, quite a few. So the DSM is the diagnostic and statistical. Manual of mental disorders. It's kind of like the psychiatric Bible. It's like you want to know what schizophrenia is about, you want to know about any kind of mental disorder. You go to this publication of the American Psychiatric Association. And for the length, for the large history of America, homosexuality was listed as a mental disorder. Let me read to you some of the just this development. You can see how this changes. Now, in 1952 is when the first DSM formally comes out, but there are a lot of precursors to that.

30:50For example, in 1935, one of the precursors to the DSM classified homosexuality as a pathological sexuality under the category of a psychopathic personality. Now, that's 1935. You come to 1952 when the American Psychiatric Association first publishes this DSM. Homosexuality was classified as a sexual deviation under the larger umbrella of the sociopathic personality disorder. Disturbance. And it was put up next to the list included homosexuality, transvestitism, pedophilia, fetishism, sexual sadism. All these were part of this sociopathic personality disturbance. And that's where homosexuality was placed. That's 1952. In 1968, they come to the DSM-2. We're now on DSM-5. But in the DSM-2, published in 1968, they made it very clear, doubled down, made it very clear that homosexuality and the other, they added some other ones, masochism, voyeurism, and all kinds of other perversions, and along there with homosexuality. And all of this was labeled as a clear mental disorder. It's 1968, the year after I was born. So you can see this movement, that's this, well, coming to 1974. So it's right after this 1968 that you get this gay rights activist and organizing, and really they take on the American Psychiatric Association. They start influencing the American Psychiatric Association, and this shows up in the language of the DSM too. And in 1974, homosexuality, this is a board of trustees that makes these decisions and changes the language.

33:21They renamed the code homosexuality as a sexual orientation disturbance. And they added a note that said, by itself, homosexuality does not constitute a psychiatric disorder. So now we've moved out of the psychiatric disorder. And so you can see this is a major victory for the gay rights activists. They're redefining. And if they're ever going to be accepted mainline, they had to do something with this DSM-4 that labeled homosexuality as a sociopathic. And by the way, that's not where the Bible goes.

34:06It calls it sin. And so you can see that most of American history, homosexuality has been thought of as a mental disorder. And so, and how much reliance we have on this American psychiatric. Association for, but look how fluid it is. Look at the change that has happened just in my lifetime. What's it going to be in another 50 years? It really kind of makes you wonder: okay, do we have anything solid here? If the Bible for the psychiatric American put out by the American Psychiatric Association changes that much and can be that huge of a swing. And now the APA is supporting legislation against conversion therapy. And so now they've gone from being the ones to label it, call it in the secular world a disorder, and now they're going to, now they're supporting legislation that would ban that. Well, that's a pretty dramatic shift.

35:33So let me read the, go back to that question. That's what conversion therapy is. Now, let me read the follow-up question again, because there's a couple other questions. What is a biblical method of conversion therapy that we should accept? Well, I don't know if we should even use that term. The Bible doesn't. Use the term conversion therapy. It's just conversion. You must be born again. Be repenting of your sin. Be turning to God. That's the language of conversion. Conversion is a, I think of it as a coin, two-sided coin. On the one hand, you have repentance, on the other hand, you have belief. You must be turning away from something, you must be turning to something. So what is a biblical method of conversion that we should accept? Whether it applies to anybody who's sexually immoral or anybody that's in sin of any kind, what is the, so I would rephrase this: what is a biblical method of conversion that we should accept? And I would say we should accept all methods of biblical conversion, whether that's through the spoken word, teaching, counseling, persuading, print. However, the gospel is published, we should accept conversion by those same means.

37:09Another question is: what are some non-biblical methods of conversion therapy that we should reject? Well, we should reject any idea of conversion that does not conform to Scripture. Scripture seeks to influence. Not force. We're not to seek to force a person to do anything he or she doesn't want to do. All we can do is set the truth before a person in a loving manner. And don't think that sometimes a loving manner doesn't involve a little collision sometimes.

37:52I learned that from my grandmother. She really loved me. But boy, we collided sometimes. Now, I think there is where some of the conversion therapy horrors of old are spoken of. It's the ice pick lobotomy or shock treatment or any other antiquated forms of conversion therapy obviously should be rejected by anyone. But I want to keep in mind, and you see all these extremes when people are talking about conversion therapy, certainly those who are in the LGBTQ movement, and when they're talking about it, you can get some really extreme cases, and those extreme cases become the norm. And I don't take issue. I'm not saying that some of these extreme things didn't happen, but I do know that sometimes things are. Played up more. But regardless, I can assure you: if someone's treating somebody with an ice pick to treat their homosexuality, yeah, that should be obviously rejected. But keep in mind, these are not biblical.

39:20That thought doesn't come out of Scripture. That comes out of a secular world. And it's the secular world that saw this as a sociopathic disorder. That language doesn't come from Scripture. It's just sin. Whatever your desire is that does not conform to Christ's standard, you're to turn away from. And so the Bible has always been gracious to sinners of the worst kind. And so our message is always that. And I know that's a lot on the topic, but anybody want to say anything or add to that?

40:33Yeah. Very good. The underlying assumption is a person cannot change their gender identity or a person cannot change their sexual orientation. And that is that is published. That is like the axiom. We start with and really, if you want to go back, I'm glad you pointed that out. You go back to the continental divide. You've got the American, or you just you've got the whole school of thought that says no, a person cannot change their sexual orientation. And yet you have the scripture that says, oh yes, you're to walk away from those and embrace Christ-likeness. And so you have to ask, who's going to be the authority? And this is built upon an assumption that is not biblical in the first place.

41:35Body else? Yes, sir. You know, whether it's conversion therapy or parenting our children, any any time we demand a modification of behavior, no matter how good we may think it is, when it's avoided by the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit, what good is it to make someone conform to a certain behavior if they're still Yeah, yeah, no, and I think in our parenting, we talk about that a lot. There's one thing about behavior modification, and there's another thing about changing a heart. And you change a heart by setting the truth before them, saying, here's God's standard. And let God's truth do its work. That's what opens, that's what awakens. And so there are so many sinful desires here tonight. I mean, just there's so many different things, we all have different, but we all have been called to one same place, and that's to be followers of Christ. So wherever our background is, we're moving in that direction if you're in Christ. And if you're not in Christ, the invitation is to you tonight.

42:52He didn't put you on this world to just go your own way and destroy. You can tell he has created a beautiful world. And he wants a desire with you and with me. And that you're going to find your purpose in walking with him and following him. Well, good. Question three. Question four. What do you think about the part in Jews? Where Jude talked about the book of Enoch. So I guess we're moving out of the category.

43:37Hard left turn, right? Here we go. What do you think about the part in Jude where Jude talked about the book of Enoch? And I think we're talking about Jude 14. That's a good question. Jude 14. It was about these men, all these false prophets who have crept in unaware and whose black darkness is reserved forever, false prophets, teachers. It was about these men that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds, which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which the ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

44:40What do you think about the part? Well, I think the question is probably getting to, okay, is the book of Enoch, is Jude referring to the book of Enoch as authoritative scripture? Is there an authority? In other words, the King James Bible, I've got a 1611 King James Bible, and in that, a facsimile, and in that is the Apocrypha. There's apocryphal books, Intertestamental Period, Maccabees and others, Tobit, and it's about the size of the New Testament, the Apocrypha. And so some have thought, well, there are other books other than the 66 books of the Bible.

45:40And so what do I think about Enoch? And a lot of people will point to these two verses and say, see, the New Testament writers referenced other scripture other than the 66 books, or Old Testament books. And a couple answers to that. Number one, Enoch isn't part of the Apocrypha. It's a pseudepigraphal book. So it doesn't even categorize, it's not even questioned. The pseudepigrapha never really was seen as scripture until late, maybe. The Apocrypha was kind of more the candidate. It.

46:31So, number one, the book of Enoch is not part of the Apocrypha anyway. But my answer is: I think that the source of inspiration of the thought in Jude came through Jude and not through Enoch. So, even if he's citing Enoch, the book of Enoch, and he's picking up lines from something Enoch or somebody wrote that Enoch, or allegedly said, then the inspiration isn't. He is using, it's Jude who's under the influence of the Holy Spirit and writing down.

47:21It's not a statement by Jude saying, I believe Enoch wrote inspired scripture. Let me make this a little more clear. Like Jude. Can you see that? Okay. There's a good debate whether or not Jude is even quoting Enoch. And I'll show you what I mean. There's Enoch. Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all. I think I'll go this way because I think when I'm watching on the live stream, the screen's over here. So I'm going to look this way.

48:14Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all. So Enoch 1:9 says, For he comes with his ten thousands and his holy ones to enact judgment against all. So there's some similarities there, but if you, if you, it's a very loosey-goosey quote just to begin with, if he is quoting it. And maybe there is some indication that he got the thought from here. But the more you look at it, it's very different. And then the second, and to convict all the ungodly of their ungodly deeds, which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. That's Jude. And look at, he will destroy everyone who is ungodly and reproach all flesh concerning all works of the ungodly, the things they did impiously, the harsh words that they spoke, and all that ungodly sinners spoke against him. This is nowhere like a New Testament writer citing an Old Testament passage. I mean, this is so loose. And I mean, there's some thoughts that are generally the same, yes.

49:31But the words are significantly different. So I would say that there's a good debate whether you could even say Jude is really relying on Enoch here, or a written testament of Enoch here. But certainly, regardless, it's Jude who is under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who's writing, who the Holy Spirit is guiding him to this thought, and he is writing it down. But you remember Acts 17, 28 and 29. You remember Paul cites a poet, a pagan's poet, right? Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. You remember he's talking, they had made this statue to the unknown God, and Paul steps up and lets, that's my preaching cue. Let me tell you about the unknown God. And he goes on, and he goes on, and he gets to the point, he says, For in him we live and move and exist. And even as some of your own poets have said, for we also are his children.

50:46So he cites one of their poets. But he certainly isn't giving any indication that he believes that their poet is a herald of anything. Inerrant truth. But he is drawing upon something that one of their poets said, said, Look, yes, this, what I'm saying, goes along with what your own poets are saying. And he goes on to say, yeah, being then the children of God, so he's in agreement. There's something that the poet says that Paul is in agreement. He's using it under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Paul is using that as an illustration, as a way to make his point.

51:31And so he's saying, being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone or an image formed by the art and thought of man. But the point I'm making here is just like Jude is citing, even if he is citing Enoch there, he's doing so in a manner very similar. Paul citing, I think I remember the poet's name, but I slipped my mind, or who it might have been.

52:09But it's kind of on the same vein. So what do I think about the part in Jude where Jude talked about the book of Enoch? Well, I think that the source of inspiration of the thought came. Through Jude, and Jude is not declaring or probably even thinking that the writing or whatever he's referring to is another form of inerrant speech. By the way, this is about the only place you have in the New Testament where there's even a question, and it's not Apocrypha that's being cited.

52:54This is the only place where there is possibility of a quotation coming outside of the Old Testament, the Jewish canon of Scripture. There seemed to be great disagreement, I mean great agreement between Jesus and his opponents about the extent of the canon. They cite the Scripture some 230 times, and never once do they cite the Apocryphal book, nor do they cite any pseudepigraphal book, unless this is a reference. And if this is a reference, this is the only case, and there is certainly they are not citing it as an authoritative source of inerrant speech. So there's this is the only exception if it's even an exception, and I would make the case that I don't even think it's an exception. I don't think he's quoting a written document like that.

54:00But even if he was, I think we have the scripture clear. There is a great agreement and what the Old Testament was. So, any questions on that one? Good questions. I love these questions. Anybody else? We've got a couple minutes. And if there aren't any questions, we can go. All right, well, let's go. Heavenly Father, thank you for another wonderful day of being together as the body of Christ. We thank you for the truth that you give us. We thank you for the friends, the fellowship, the brothers and sisters that we have within this body. And thank you and go with us now. Please bless and protect your church. Bless the body. Bless each individual who is here and joining us. Bless everyone, we pray, and give us a week of walking in your way and glorifying you and knowing you better. In Jesus' name, amen.