WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:18.000 Hey Heike. Hi there. We are in a heat wave here in northern Alberta. I heard. My word. 2 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:35.000 I was chatting to Dana yesterday in Canada and she was hot. Tell us what's happening. 3 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:45.000 Well, these are kind of temperatures that we're not used to. And I mean there were temperatures 4 00:00:45.000 --> 00:01:01.000 like in people's, in the sun, 50. Now is that 50 degrees Fahrenheit? No, Celsius. 50 degrees Celsius. Yes. Crazy. 5 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:14.000 Yeah. I mean, I didn't have that. Some areas did. I had something like 38, 39, 40 in there. So I'm swimming. 6 00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:24.000 Wow, that is intense. That's, yeah, that's hot. Michelle, how are you doing? 7 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:37.000 I'm good, thank you. We've had a nice downpour of rain here, so it's been beautiful, refreshing and just went out for a nice walk after all the rain. 8 00:01:37.000 --> 00:01:42.000 Oh, very cool. Very cool. Now, whereabouts are you? 9 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:49.000 I'm on the Gold Coast in Australia. Oh, that's great. It's very nice to have had a bit of rainy. 10 00:01:49.000 --> 00:02:03.000 Oh, that's lovely. Oh, fantastic. Right. Well, we're just about to get into this. I'm doing the classic check on the tech. 11 00:02:03.000 --> 00:02:14.000 Okay, so Ron is listening in, I think. We've got a few, a couple on Facebook as well. So hi, Facebook people. Good to have you joining us. 12 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:20.000 And we are jumping in for Origins of the Gospel Part Two, which is going to be fun. 13 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:31.000 So I'm going to, in a minute, I will be changing over to PowerPoints and we'll be getting in on some of the history, which is going to be fun. 14 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:48.000 And then next week, we are going to, we're going to have a fun week next week. Next week, we'll be getting into cleansing the imagination and deep repentance. 15 00:02:48.000 --> 00:02:57.000 So yeah, we're going to be, that's going to be fun, fun stuff. So activations next week, activations for cleansing the imagination and deep repentance. 16 00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:03.000 So that's when we're going to start shifting some, shifting some of our deeper, deeper beliefs. 17 00:03:03.000 --> 00:03:14.000 But in the meantime, who's been enjoying tending to the soil? Hey, how's it been going for you guys on your daily hard things? 18 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:23.000 Claudia, welcome. 19 00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:27.000 So good. 20 00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:37.000 Cool. Well, how about we just take a few minutes right now, let's just take a few minutes to pray in the spirit, and then we will jump into the session. 21 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:42.000 Welcome. 22 00:03:42.000 --> 00:03:59.000 Okay. All right. So yeah, let's just take a few minutes now, we're going to pray in the spirit, and then we're going to jump into the session on origins of the gospel, and we're going to go way back in time, and it'll be, we'll be hitting the PowerPoints for this session. 23 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:06.000 So let's pray, feel free to go for it. We'll just take a few minutes and enjoy that. 24 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:35.000 Hello. 25 00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:38.000 Hello. 26 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:41.000 Hello. 27 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:44.000 Hello. 28 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:47.000 Hello. 29 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:50.000 Hello. 30 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:53.000 Hello. 31 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:56.000 Hello. 32 00:04:56.000 --> 00:04:59.000 Hello. 33 00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:19.520 we say be exalted be exalted be exalted we lift your name on high be lifted up be lifted 34 00:06:19.520 --> 00:06:27.840 up be lifted up we honor you jesus the world we welcome you to fly this way we give you 35 00:06:27.840 --> 00:06:33.200 all the glory we give you all the honor we say fill this space flood this space 36 00:06:33.200 --> 00:06:38.800 have this place oh have our lives laid down have our lives 37 00:06:38.800 --> 00:06:50.480 laid down 38 00:06:50.480 --> 00:07:02.480 we love you we honor you and bless you we say be lifted high 39 00:07:02.480 --> 00:07:15.600 amen hey my verse of the day today from john 15 was john 15 11 i have told you these things 40 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:21.040 so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete or perfect 41 00:07:23.200 --> 00:07:28.960 how amazing is that that jesus said i preached the gospel to you so that your joy could be perfect 42 00:07:29.840 --> 00:07:34.400 right how good is that that the in jesus own words the purpose of the gospel is that your 43 00:07:34.400 --> 00:07:41.040 joy would be complete this is this is the purpose of it in your life is that your joy would be 44 00:07:41.040 --> 00:07:46.880 complete and and what type of joy is he says it's so that my joy may be in you and that your joy 45 00:07:46.880 --> 00:07:52.000 may be complete so what type of joy are we talking about the purpose of the gospel is that the 46 00:07:52.560 --> 00:07:59.040 the purpose of the gospel is that the fullness of divine joy bliss and ecstasy 47 00:07:59.040 --> 00:08:06.720 would be incarnate in you that the fullness of the joy of the trinity would live 48 00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:10.560 that's the purpose of the gospel isn't that a great 49 00:08:11.520 --> 00:08:17.840 objective this is how you can tell that your theology is good is that divine bliss 50 00:08:18.800 --> 00:08:28.080 has the word of joy the word of bliss has become flesh in you bliss has become flesh in you joy 51 00:08:28.080 --> 00:08:32.799 has become flesh in you ecstasy has become flesh in you that's a good indication that you've 52 00:08:32.799 --> 00:08:37.039 understood what jesus was talking about because that's why he's telling you isn't that just great 53 00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:37.600 great news 54 00:08:40.159 --> 00:08:46.400 i love that so papa just fresh joy for everyone thank you father 55 00:08:58.240 --> 00:09:02.640 from a couple people just tell me what's been good what's been shifting as you've been doing 56 00:09:02.880 --> 00:09:09.280 things thank you we're watching these on facebook as well 57 00:09:12.480 --> 00:09:16.160 so if you've got comments on facebook feel free to get chatty 58 00:09:17.040 --> 00:09:22.560 but be really cool for everyone just to take a moment now and um just here as well just 59 00:09:22.560 --> 00:09:26.400 tell me what's happening with the hard things challenges what's been good what's been challenging 60 00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:37.360 what's been shifting well i'm i'm um when i read the scriptures i'm seeing them through new eyes 61 00:09:40.160 --> 00:09:47.760 right yeah i i'm reading that you know the gospel of john and i'm just blown away by things that i've 62 00:09:48.640 --> 00:09:56.560 missed now it's just coming at me in a fresh new way that i've never experienced before 63 00:09:57.200 --> 00:09:59.760 that's great how often do you normally pray in the 64 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:05.000 Spirit, what's that story been like for you in your journey? 65 00:10:05.000 --> 00:10:09.760 Well, I mean, I've been praying in the Spirit for years, 66 00:10:09.760 --> 00:10:14.920 but it kind of seems to ebb and flow, 67 00:10:14.920 --> 00:10:18.720 like some days more than other days. 68 00:10:18.720 --> 00:10:20.800 Yeah, yeah, for sure. 69 00:10:20.800 --> 00:10:22.320 Yeah. 70 00:10:22.320 --> 00:10:24.840 But that commitment, though, you know, 71 00:10:24.840 --> 00:10:26.320 like just creating the time... 72 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:29.360 Oh, mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. 73 00:10:29.360 --> 00:10:32.400 Just making something sacred and creating the time. 74 00:10:32.400 --> 00:10:34.960 Revelation is attracted to that. 75 00:10:34.960 --> 00:10:36.760 Yes. 76 00:10:36.760 --> 00:10:38.880 Yeah, every morning. 77 00:10:38.880 --> 00:10:40.400 That's beautiful. 78 00:10:40.400 --> 00:10:43.400 Cool. Vicki, what's happening? 79 00:10:43.400 --> 00:10:46.000 Oh, just kind of the same thing. 80 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:47.880 I walk every morning. 81 00:10:47.880 --> 00:10:52.080 I spend most of the time I'm walking, praying in the Spirit. 82 00:10:52.080 --> 00:10:54.080 Great. 83 00:10:54.080 --> 00:10:56.320 Great. And seeing good things happening, 84 00:10:56.320 --> 00:10:59.320 what's been going on for you? 85 00:10:59.320 --> 00:11:01.920 Oh, well, I've been doing some... 86 00:11:01.920 --> 00:11:05.680 I do day trading as my job right now, 87 00:11:05.680 --> 00:11:10.080 and so I've been having some good success. 88 00:11:10.080 --> 00:11:13.840 Today was not great, but yesterday was pretty good. 89 00:11:13.840 --> 00:11:17.840 So, yeah, I think that's going better for me. 90 00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:19.360 Just like in general. 91 00:11:19.360 --> 00:11:22.880 What trading are you doing? 92 00:11:22.880 --> 00:11:25.400 I've been day trading. 93 00:11:25.400 --> 00:11:33.080 So, stocks and that's been going really well. 94 00:11:33.080 --> 00:11:36.520 Cool. That's fantastic. 95 00:11:36.520 --> 00:11:38.360 Very, very cool. 96 00:11:38.360 --> 00:11:40.160 All right, anyone else want to jump into something? 97 00:11:40.160 --> 00:11:42.320 Before we... We'll be calling for another testimony 98 00:11:42.320 --> 00:11:43.320 if someone's got something. 99 00:11:43.320 --> 00:11:46.320 Otherwise, we'll go into the PowerPoint. 100 00:11:50.120 --> 00:11:52.040 I'll give a quick testimony. 101 00:11:52.040 --> 00:11:55.360 So, I've just found myself being... 102 00:11:55.360 --> 00:11:58.080 When I've been consistent and just doing, 103 00:11:58.080 --> 00:12:02.360 getting up immediately and starting with my hard things that I do, 104 00:12:02.360 --> 00:12:05.240 and I found that when I wake up in the morning, 105 00:12:05.240 --> 00:12:08.600 I immediately, before I even get up, 106 00:12:08.600 --> 00:12:12.320 I immediately just go straight into tongues automatically. 107 00:12:12.320 --> 00:12:16.080 So, I wake up speaking and sometimes in the night, 108 00:12:16.080 --> 00:12:17.960 I'll wake up speaking in tongues. 109 00:12:17.960 --> 00:12:21.920 So, I've also been praying in tongues for a while, 110 00:12:21.920 --> 00:12:25.560 but I've just found the consistency and getting up immediately 111 00:12:25.560 --> 00:12:30.280 and just stepping in and doing those hard things has been good. 112 00:12:30.280 --> 00:12:32.160 Beautiful. Beautiful. 113 00:12:32.160 --> 00:12:34.160 All right. Well, great stuff, Ben. 114 00:12:34.160 --> 00:12:37.160 We are going to... I'm going to hit the screen share now 115 00:12:37.160 --> 00:12:41.920 and we are jumping in to... 116 00:12:41.920 --> 00:12:44.320 Oh, I'm going to have to stop the screen share first 117 00:12:44.320 --> 00:12:49.120 because I'm just going to mute everyone. 118 00:12:49.160 --> 00:12:53.160 And back to the screen share. 119 00:12:55.320 --> 00:12:57.320 And... 120 00:13:00.880 --> 00:13:04.160 Back to the screen share, but my PowerPoint is here. 121 00:13:07.960 --> 00:13:09.960 Right. Where did you go, mate? 122 00:13:10.960 --> 00:13:12.960 Funny how sometimes on a computer, it just goes, 123 00:13:12.960 --> 00:13:14.960 ta-da, I'm out of here. 124 00:13:14.960 --> 00:13:16.960 Okay. 125 00:13:16.960 --> 00:13:20.560 So, I'm going to put a few pictures here. 126 00:13:20.560 --> 00:13:23.960 So, we're asking where did our gospel come from? 127 00:13:23.960 --> 00:13:27.560 Here's some interesting pictures for you to look at. 128 00:13:27.560 --> 00:13:30.560 Who are these people? What's going on here? 129 00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:36.960 Just a few pictures. 130 00:13:37.960 --> 00:13:42.960 Just a few pictures here to kind of get you thinking about the gospel, 131 00:13:42.960 --> 00:13:45.960 some key events, key people, key places. 132 00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:48.960 There you go. I hope that was fun for you. 133 00:13:48.960 --> 00:13:52.960 So, we are going to go to the UK. 134 00:13:52.960 --> 00:13:55.960 Who would like to take a little trip with me to the UK? 135 00:13:55.960 --> 00:13:57.960 Yes? All right. 136 00:13:57.960 --> 00:14:04.960 Well, we are going to 19A, The Close, Lickfield, Staffordshire in the UK. 137 00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:08.960 Now, if you put that address into Google Maps, 138 00:14:08.960 --> 00:14:11.960 you can actually have a little look at where we're going, okay? 139 00:14:11.960 --> 00:14:14.960 So, here's where we're going. 140 00:14:14.960 --> 00:14:17.960 Here's another picture of where we're going, the cathedral. 141 00:14:17.960 --> 00:14:21.960 Okay, we're off to the cathedral in Lickfield, Litchfield probably. 142 00:14:21.960 --> 00:14:24.960 Jesus, as we spend this time together, 143 00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:27.960 we just ask that you speak into our hearts 144 00:14:27.960 --> 00:14:32.960 and that you would put your wisdom and your heart in us 145 00:14:32.960 --> 00:14:36.960 and you would just fill us with your desires. 146 00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:38.960 And we thank you for revelation. 147 00:14:38.960 --> 00:14:40.960 We thank you for your guidance. 148 00:14:40.960 --> 00:14:46.960 And we thank you for speaking deeply into our hearts about who you are. 149 00:14:46.960 --> 00:14:48.960 In Jesus' name, Amen. 150 00:14:48.960 --> 00:14:49.960 All right. 151 00:14:49.960 --> 00:14:53.960 So, at the cathedral, there's this really interesting picture here, okay? 152 00:14:53.960 --> 00:14:57.960 Well, it's some really amazing statues, beautifully done. 153 00:14:57.960 --> 00:14:59.960 And it's the seven fathers, okay? 154 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.600 Okay, so the seven fathers, not the greatest picture, 155 00:15:04.600 --> 00:15:06.400 but we've got from the left, 156 00:15:06.400 --> 00:15:10.000 St. Augustine and then St. Jerome. 157 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:12.400 So St. Jerome is, 158 00:15:12.400 --> 00:15:14.920 oh, well, actually, we'll see this as we go on. 159 00:15:14.920 --> 00:15:16.960 Anyway, so we've got St. Augustine, St. Jerome, 160 00:15:16.960 --> 00:15:20.520 St. Ambrose, St. Gregory, St. John Chrysostom, 161 00:15:20.520 --> 00:15:23.040 St. Athanasius, and St. Basil, okay? 162 00:15:23.040 --> 00:15:25.560 So there's some sainty guys 163 00:15:25.560 --> 00:15:28.480 that they thought were really, really important. 164 00:15:28.480 --> 00:15:31.440 One of the great church fathers, Oregon, 165 00:15:31.440 --> 00:15:33.440 referred to by some as the father of theology, 166 00:15:33.440 --> 00:15:36.360 is not here, he's not in this list. 167 00:15:36.360 --> 00:15:39.640 And then my favorite guy as well, St. Patrick, 168 00:15:39.640 --> 00:15:41.560 which they didn't put him in here, okay? 169 00:15:41.560 --> 00:15:42.960 So these are the guys 170 00:15:42.960 --> 00:15:45.200 that they called the seven church fathers. 171 00:15:45.200 --> 00:15:49.560 There's a couple of guys who are awkwardly missing, 172 00:15:50.640 --> 00:15:52.120 if that makes sense. 173 00:15:52.120 --> 00:15:54.200 So if you can understand history, 174 00:15:54.200 --> 00:15:55.640 but why aren't these guys there? 175 00:15:55.640 --> 00:16:00.640 Because they're obviously significant church fathers. 176 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:02.920 So these guys are all important dudes. 177 00:16:02.920 --> 00:16:05.560 Couple of guys who it's awkward that they're not there 178 00:16:05.560 --> 00:16:08.640 in terms of history is St. Patrick. 179 00:16:08.640 --> 00:16:12.120 He had more influence possibly on the world, 180 00:16:12.120 --> 00:16:13.520 maybe not on theology, 181 00:16:13.520 --> 00:16:16.320 but he had a huge impact on the world. 182 00:16:16.320 --> 00:16:17.440 So he's not there. 183 00:16:17.440 --> 00:16:20.680 But then when it comes to theology, 184 00:16:20.680 --> 00:16:23.520 St. Oregon is missing. 185 00:16:23.520 --> 00:16:26.480 And that's like, if you know church history, 186 00:16:26.480 --> 00:16:28.760 if you can understand the theology 187 00:16:28.760 --> 00:16:30.760 and the origins of the gospel, 188 00:16:30.760 --> 00:16:33.560 Oregon not being there is really interesting, okay? 189 00:16:33.560 --> 00:16:34.920 So we wanna just note, 190 00:16:34.920 --> 00:16:35.920 it's a point of note, 191 00:16:35.920 --> 00:16:40.920 why is Oregon not there in the seven church fathers? 192 00:16:40.920 --> 00:16:42.120 Right, we'll carry on. 193 00:16:43.280 --> 00:16:45.640 And we're gonna find out why he's not there. 194 00:16:45.640 --> 00:16:47.240 So these three names, 195 00:16:47.240 --> 00:16:50.520 St. Augustine, Oregon, and St. Athanasius, 196 00:16:50.520 --> 00:16:52.560 are three of the most influential men 197 00:16:52.560 --> 00:16:54.800 in the history of Christian theology. 198 00:16:54.800 --> 00:16:59.800 So you got St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, and St. Oregon. 199 00:17:00.240 --> 00:17:01.880 Well, Oregon's not a saint. 200 00:17:02.880 --> 00:17:06.680 He wasn't a saint, but Oregon, okay? 201 00:17:06.680 --> 00:17:08.400 To understand who these guys are 202 00:17:08.400 --> 00:17:10.400 and the influence their thoughts had on history, 203 00:17:10.400 --> 00:17:12.839 we have to go back a little bit further, okay? 204 00:17:12.839 --> 00:17:16.880 So let's go all the way back 205 00:17:16.880 --> 00:17:20.720 and you might recognize some of these people, okay? 206 00:17:20.720 --> 00:17:23.760 So this is a picture by Akeana of Jesus. 207 00:17:23.760 --> 00:17:25.800 So let's go back to Jesus. 208 00:17:25.800 --> 00:17:30.800 So he was born approximately four years BC, funny, right? 209 00:17:31.840 --> 00:17:35.040 So our system of accounting was developed 210 00:17:35.040 --> 00:17:39.440 by a Catholic abbot named Dionysius in the sixth century, 211 00:17:39.440 --> 00:17:42.520 and he actually got the date slightly wrong. 212 00:17:42.520 --> 00:17:45.160 So AD, it stands for Anno Domini, 213 00:17:45.160 --> 00:17:46.960 so the year of our Lord, 214 00:17:46.960 --> 00:17:48.480 referring to the birth of Jesus, 215 00:17:48.520 --> 00:17:53.520 but Jesus was actually born about four years before Christ. 216 00:17:55.920 --> 00:17:59.240 So there was, nevermind that, 217 00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:01.280 that's just a little bit of awkward history. 218 00:18:01.280 --> 00:18:02.320 It doesn't change anything, 219 00:18:02.320 --> 00:18:05.040 it just means that the guy that set up the calendar 220 00:18:05.040 --> 00:18:07.160 just got it slightly wrong. 221 00:18:07.160 --> 00:18:09.360 So there you go, funny things happen. 222 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:13.960 So Jesus' most trusted disciple was this guy, old John here, 223 00:18:13.960 --> 00:18:18.600 having a little nap on the bosom of Jesus. 224 00:18:18.600 --> 00:18:19.520 There you go, that's nice. 225 00:18:19.520 --> 00:18:23.720 So John lives from AD, right? 226 00:18:23.720 --> 00:18:26.320 AD means it's Anno Domini from the year of our Lord. 227 00:18:26.320 --> 00:18:31.320 So John lived from 6 AD to around 100 AD. 228 00:18:35.880 --> 00:18:40.880 So he's about 10 years younger than Jesus. 229 00:18:41.640 --> 00:18:44.120 So this gives you a little bit of an idea 230 00:18:44.120 --> 00:18:46.960 of how old the disciples were, okay? 231 00:18:46.960 --> 00:18:49.080 You know, that were cruising with Jesus. 232 00:18:49.080 --> 00:18:54.080 Jesus was 33, and 23 would have been old. 233 00:18:56.880 --> 00:19:01.880 So when these guys were the guys rolling it out in acts, 234 00:19:02.360 --> 00:19:06.000 you're talking some young boys, right? 235 00:19:06.000 --> 00:19:07.240 Like 10 years younger. 236 00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:09.840 Jesus was in the terms of like, 237 00:19:09.840 --> 00:19:14.840 when the Pharisees and that are like putting them in prison, 238 00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:17.360 they're just putting kids in prison. 239 00:19:17.360 --> 00:19:19.200 You know, these are like 23-year-old kids 240 00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:21.840 that are like, who are these kids that are causing problems? 241 00:19:21.840 --> 00:19:24.200 Some of them, some people say that it's possible 242 00:19:24.200 --> 00:19:28.840 that the disciples might have even just been teenagers, 243 00:19:28.840 --> 00:19:30.400 some of them. 244 00:19:30.400 --> 00:19:31.480 That's pretty wild, right? 245 00:19:31.480 --> 00:19:33.600 That our world got flipped upside down. 246 00:19:33.600 --> 00:19:34.840 These were not old men. 247 00:19:34.880 --> 00:19:37.440 They were not people who had been around long time. 248 00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:38.560 They are fresh, okay? 249 00:19:38.560 --> 00:19:39.920 So John was fresh. 250 00:19:41.600 --> 00:19:43.360 Anyway, you've got John, the beloved. 251 00:19:43.360 --> 00:19:45.520 Now, John discipled a guy named Polycarp. 252 00:19:45.520 --> 00:19:47.680 And according to St. Jerome, 253 00:19:47.680 --> 00:19:51.920 John ordained Polycarp as the Bishop of Smyrna. 254 00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:53.600 Hello, I'm Polycarp. 255 00:19:54.960 --> 00:19:59.960 So he was born in 80 AD to 167 AD. 256 00:20:00.000 --> 00:20:03.640 And he was martyred, he was bound and burned at the stake, 257 00:20:03.640 --> 00:20:06.560 but when the fire did not touch him, he was stabbed to death. 258 00:20:06.560 --> 00:20:08.880 So they tried to burn him alive and he didn't die, 259 00:20:08.880 --> 00:20:10.640 so they stabbed him. 260 00:20:10.640 --> 00:20:11.480 Take that! 261 00:20:13.160 --> 00:20:14.160 Here's a little bit of him, 262 00:20:14.160 --> 00:20:17.280 of what he said while he was being burned alive. 263 00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:21.160 Then he placing his hands behind him, 264 00:20:21.160 --> 00:20:24.440 or this is the account of it. 265 00:20:24.440 --> 00:20:27.000 Then he, placing his hands behind him, 266 00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:29.040 being bound to the stake like a noble, 267 00:20:29.080 --> 00:20:32.320 ran out of a great flock for an offering, 268 00:20:32.320 --> 00:20:35.240 a burnt sacrifice ready and acceptable to God, 269 00:20:35.240 --> 00:20:36.360 looking up to him and said, 270 00:20:36.360 --> 00:20:38.760 O Lord God Almighty, 271 00:20:38.760 --> 00:20:42.080 the father of thy beloved and blessed son, Jesus Christ, 272 00:20:42.080 --> 00:20:44.360 through whom we have received the knowledge of thee, 273 00:20:44.360 --> 00:20:47.080 the God of angels and powers and of all creation 274 00:20:47.080 --> 00:20:50.120 and of the whole race of the righteous, 275 00:20:50.120 --> 00:20:51.400 who live in thy presence. 276 00:20:51.400 --> 00:20:55.760 I bless thee for thou hast granted me this day and hour, 277 00:20:55.760 --> 00:20:59.000 that I might receive a portion among the number of martyrs 278 00:20:59.960 --> 00:21:03.840 in the cup of thy Christ unto resurrection of eternal life, 279 00:21:03.840 --> 00:21:05.160 both of soul and body, 280 00:21:05.160 --> 00:21:07.520 in the incorruptibility of the Holy Spirit. 281 00:21:07.520 --> 00:21:11.280 May I be received among these in thy presence this day 282 00:21:11.280 --> 00:21:13.920 as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, 283 00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:17.400 as thou didst prepare and reveal it beforehand 284 00:21:17.400 --> 00:21:19.520 and hast accomplished it. 285 00:21:19.520 --> 00:21:22.640 Thou that art the faithful and true God, 286 00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:24.680 for this cause, yeah, 287 00:21:24.680 --> 00:21:27.440 and for all things, I praise thee. 288 00:21:27.480 --> 00:21:29.560 I bless thee, I glorify thee 289 00:21:29.560 --> 00:21:33.000 through the eternal and heavenly priest, Jesus Christ, 290 00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:36.480 thy beloved son, through whom, with him 291 00:21:36.480 --> 00:21:40.080 and the Holy Spirit be glory both now and forever 292 00:21:40.080 --> 00:21:41.760 and for the ages to come. 293 00:21:41.760 --> 00:21:42.600 Amen. 294 00:21:43.880 --> 00:21:48.880 All right, so we've got, 295 00:21:49.720 --> 00:21:51.720 I mean, I just think that's pretty cool, right? 296 00:21:51.720 --> 00:21:53.600 That's pretty cool to have 297 00:21:54.600 --> 00:21:59.600 just a record of what this guy said, 298 00:22:00.280 --> 00:22:02.960 what Polycarp said as he's being martyred. 299 00:22:02.960 --> 00:22:06.600 So, right. 300 00:22:06.600 --> 00:22:08.120 So we're moving on from Polycarp. 301 00:22:08.120 --> 00:22:10.600 So Polycarp, the next guy, 302 00:22:10.600 --> 00:22:13.800 Polycarp died in 167, then comes Irenaeus. 303 00:22:13.800 --> 00:22:17.360 So Irenaeus was born in the early second century 304 00:22:17.360 --> 00:22:19.520 and died around 202 AD. 305 00:22:19.520 --> 00:22:20.440 And as a young man, 306 00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:22.800 Irenaeus used to listen to Polycarp preach, 307 00:22:22.840 --> 00:22:25.480 and he was the bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul, 308 00:22:25.480 --> 00:22:26.760 now Lyons in France. 309 00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:33.240 So Irenaeus believed Jesus' redemptive work 310 00:22:33.240 --> 00:22:34.960 in his incarnation. 311 00:22:34.960 --> 00:22:38.280 He believed in Jesus' redemptive work in his incarnation, 312 00:22:38.280 --> 00:22:40.120 his perfect life, death and resurrection 313 00:22:40.120 --> 00:22:42.760 was a victory in Christ over all of God's enemies. 314 00:22:42.760 --> 00:22:45.640 Here, Christ fought and was victorious 315 00:22:45.640 --> 00:22:48.040 for he bound the strong man, liberated the weak, 316 00:22:48.040 --> 00:22:53.040 and by destroying sin, endowed his creation with salvation. 317 00:22:53.520 --> 00:22:54.360 All right. 318 00:22:54.360 --> 00:22:59.000 So we're not gonna read this stuff here, 319 00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:03.080 but basically the essence of this 320 00:23:03.080 --> 00:23:05.440 is that Irenaeus is a Trinitarian, okay? 321 00:23:05.440 --> 00:23:10.440 So if you remember back to last week's session, 322 00:23:11.920 --> 00:23:16.920 last week's session and last week's session, 323 00:23:17.920 --> 00:23:20.920 we covered the spectrum of Christian beliefs 324 00:23:20.920 --> 00:23:23.040 around hell, around salvation. 325 00:23:23.040 --> 00:23:24.520 We talked about all sorts of things, right? 326 00:23:24.520 --> 00:23:27.880 So we had in our right hand last week, 327 00:23:32.000 --> 00:23:33.680 so in our right hand, 328 00:23:33.680 --> 00:23:34.520 you can't really see that, 329 00:23:34.520 --> 00:23:39.440 but in our right hand, we had the really exclusive, 330 00:23:39.440 --> 00:23:40.280 and on the left hand, 331 00:23:40.280 --> 00:23:41.800 we had the really inclusive, didn't we? 332 00:23:41.800 --> 00:23:42.640 So on the right hand, 333 00:23:42.640 --> 00:23:44.800 the people that believe that hardly anyone gets saved, 334 00:23:44.840 --> 00:23:46.160 and in the left hand, 335 00:23:46.160 --> 00:23:49.400 we talked all the way through to people, 336 00:23:49.400 --> 00:23:52.200 from really, really exclusive, 337 00:23:52.200 --> 00:23:54.280 you had extreme Calvinism, 338 00:23:54.280 --> 00:23:59.200 and then you had Minianism, 339 00:23:59.200 --> 00:24:00.920 and then you had Trinitarianism, 340 00:24:00.920 --> 00:24:02.600 and then you had apocatastasis, 341 00:24:02.600 --> 00:24:04.000 so the restoration of all things, 342 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:06.560 which is Christian universalism. 343 00:24:06.560 --> 00:24:11.560 And then we talked about one that's not a Christian belief, 344 00:24:11.880 --> 00:24:13.280 and we said, this is not a Christian belief, 345 00:24:13.280 --> 00:24:15.840 which is Unitarian Universalism, 346 00:24:15.840 --> 00:24:17.360 which is a Christ of salvation, okay? 347 00:24:17.360 --> 00:24:19.240 So what we're getting into now here 348 00:24:19.240 --> 00:24:22.280 is where some of these thoughts came from 349 00:24:22.280 --> 00:24:24.200 in terms of the early church fathers. 350 00:24:24.200 --> 00:24:29.200 So Irenaeus, you can say that Irenaeus is a Trinitarian, 351 00:24:29.280 --> 00:24:30.880 okay, in terms of where you put it in. 352 00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:33.360 So Irenaeus is a Trinitarian, 353 00:24:34.960 --> 00:24:36.520 and that's what we want to know there, okay? 354 00:24:36.520 --> 00:24:38.640 So Irenaeus, just remember where Irenaeus 355 00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:41.600 got his Trinitarian beliefs from. 356 00:24:41.640 --> 00:24:45.280 Irenaeus was discipled by Polycarp, 357 00:24:45.280 --> 00:24:48.360 Polycarp by John, John by Jesus, 358 00:24:48.360 --> 00:24:49.880 and then after Irenaeus, 359 00:24:49.880 --> 00:24:53.240 the next big guy that comes along is Athanasius, okay? 360 00:24:53.240 --> 00:24:56.040 And Athanasius, who we see here, 361 00:24:56.040 --> 00:24:56.880 is, 362 00:24:59.600 --> 00:25:00.440 he's the. 363 00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:08.720 the father of the Eastern Orthodox Church, okay? So the theological father of the Western Church 364 00:25:08.720 --> 00:25:17.200 is Augustine and the father of the Eastern Orthodox Church is Athanasius, okay? So here we're 365 00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:22.720 connecting, we're discovering Athanasius and we're discovering his roots, okay? So you can see it 366 00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:30.480 goes Jesus, John, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Athanasius, okay? And these guys are all on the same train 367 00:25:30.480 --> 00:25:35.440 theologically and they're all Trinitarians, okay? That's their thing, that's what 368 00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:41.600 they're teaching, they're teaching Trinitarian theology, okay? So the modern Trinitarian movement 369 00:25:41.600 --> 00:25:50.720 of today and also the Greek Orthodox movement which we are going to see shortly, 370 00:25:50.720 --> 00:25:58.400 they all go back to Athanasius, Irenaeus, Polycarp, these are their heroes, making sense? 371 00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:08.080 Okay, so Athanasius, he died in 373 AD defending the gospel against false teachers who denied 372 00:26:08.720 --> 00:26:15.840 the son's eternal divinity. So this defense led to the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity 373 00:26:15.840 --> 00:26:22.480 confirmed at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. In his Treatise on the Incarnation, Athanasius 374 00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:29.600 wrote the following, thus by taking a body like our own because all our bodies were liable to 375 00:26:29.600 --> 00:26:35.920 the corruption of death, he surrendered his body to death in the place of all and offered it to 376 00:26:36.480 --> 00:26:43.600 the father. This he did out of sheer love for us so that in his death all might die. This he did 377 00:26:43.600 --> 00:26:50.960 that he might turn again to incorruption, men who had turned back to corruption and make them alive 378 00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:57.600 through death by the appropriation of his body and by the grace of his resurrection. So what he's 379 00:26:57.600 --> 00:27:05.440 talking about there is that this was for all people. We aren't going to read all of this but 380 00:27:05.440 --> 00:27:11.760 this is just some of his writings. I'll give you this, which book shall I give you? 381 00:27:24.240 --> 00:27:28.400 I'll just give you this quick summary, okay? So Athanasius and Irenaeus emphasize that the 382 00:27:28.960 --> 00:27:37.120 incarnation, when the son of God became a human being, affected all humanity, okay? God chose to 383 00:27:37.120 --> 00:27:44.560 save humanity through the birth, life, sacrificial death, and resurrection of the incarnate son. 384 00:27:44.560 --> 00:27:48.720 This is the essence of the gospel understood by the early church and revealed in the scriptures. 385 00:27:48.720 --> 00:27:57.360 So they had a really strong... I'll read you this bit. What then was God to do? What else 386 00:27:57.360 --> 00:28:04.320 could he possibly do, being God, but renew his image in mankind so that through it men might 387 00:28:04.320 --> 00:28:10.400 once more come to know him? And how could this be done save by the coming of the very 388 00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:17.600 image of himself, our savior, Jesus Christ? I'll read one more little bit. The word of God came 389 00:28:17.600 --> 00:28:25.040 in his own person because it was he alone, the image of the father, who could recreate man after 390 00:28:25.040 --> 00:28:30.720 the image. Thus it happened that two opposite marvels took place at once. The death of all was 391 00:28:30.720 --> 00:28:36.960 consummated in the Lord's body, yet because the word was in it, death and corruption were in the 392 00:28:36.960 --> 00:28:44.400 same act utterly abolished. Death there had to be, and death for all, so that the Jew of all might be 393 00:28:44.400 --> 00:28:54.320 paid. Okay, so he is talking about how Jesus, in the incarnation... Let me just try and summarize 394 00:28:54.320 --> 00:29:01.440 this too while we're at the same time trying to race along. But a massive theme for all of these 395 00:29:01.440 --> 00:29:07.840 guys is the incarnation, okay? So the incarnation is not talking about flowers, which some of our 396 00:29:08.960 --> 00:29:14.000 Dutch friends might like the sound of incarnations, but not talking about flowers. We are talking 397 00:29:14.000 --> 00:29:21.760 about the word coming as flesh. And so also the incarnation is that Jesus didn't just come 398 00:29:21.760 --> 00:29:32.480 as an example for us, but he came as us. Okay, so the Greek Orthodox and the Trinitarian 399 00:29:32.480 --> 00:29:42.880 perspective is very strongly that Jesus came as humanity, right? That all humanity was 400 00:29:42.880 --> 00:29:49.600 invited in him. When you talk about all humanity was in him, there's a dynamic of 401 00:29:49.600 --> 00:29:57.840 the vicarious nature of Christ. So say vicarious nature, vicarious nature. So when it says the 402 00:29:57.840 --> 00:29:59.920 death of all was consummated in the Lord... 403 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:10.240 of body. He's talking about Jesus represented all of humanity, didn't just represent him but we were 404 00:30:10.240 --> 00:30:17.920 all in him. So this dynamic of the incarnation, this dynamic of the vicarious nature of Christ, 405 00:30:17.920 --> 00:30:23.760 that all humanity was in Christ in his life, all humanity was in Christ in his death, 406 00:30:23.760 --> 00:30:30.720 all humanity was in Christ in his resurrection, and all humanity is in Christ. So that's this huge, 407 00:30:30.720 --> 00:30:44.480 huge theological infrastructure and foundational dynamic of Trinitarian thought, is that all 408 00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:53.840 humanity is in Christ, okay? Right, let's jump along. So here's a really interesting part of 409 00:30:54.640 --> 00:31:03.040 the story, is that Mark, right, so we've got Mark, Mark the disciple, when he went to preach 410 00:31:03.040 --> 00:31:13.520 the gospel he went to Alexandria in Egypt. Ta-da! Here's Mark the evangelist. So he died in 68 AD 411 00:31:13.520 --> 00:31:20.880 but where he went to preach the gospel was in Alexandria and they had great success in 412 00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:26.160 Alexandria in preaching the gospel. It blew up, okay? So Alexandria, it just, it blew up 413 00:31:27.120 --> 00:31:34.960 and according to Saint Jerome, Mark the apostle founded a training school in Alexandria 414 00:31:34.960 --> 00:31:43.280 that really grew and grew and got a lot of momentum. And we're going to talk about this 415 00:31:43.280 --> 00:31:47.040 training school a bit, okay? So just think about this, the training school in Alexandria. 416 00:31:48.160 --> 00:31:54.560 Let's, let's kind of talk about this a bit. So Alexandria, it was the metropolis of Egypt, 417 00:31:54.560 --> 00:32:01.840 so it's the flowering seed, it's the massive seed of commerce, of Greek and Jewish learning, 418 00:32:01.840 --> 00:32:07.840 it's got the greatest library of the ancient world is there, and it was destined to become 419 00:32:07.840 --> 00:32:13.600 one of the great centers of Christianity. So the rival in terms of, you know, the only other thing 420 00:32:13.600 --> 00:32:19.040 that compared in the Christian world to Alexandria and how massive Alexandria and the church movement, 421 00:32:19.040 --> 00:32:23.840 the Christian movement, it was in Alexandria, the only place that compared was Antioch, okay? So 422 00:32:25.360 --> 00:32:32.400 when persecution broke out against everyone in Jerusalem, majority of the Christians fled to 423 00:32:32.400 --> 00:32:40.000 Antioch, okay? So Antioch became the biggest hub in the world of Christian presence, Christian 424 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:47.200 training, Christian influence, it was Antioch. But then Alexandria grew so much that it rivaled 425 00:32:47.200 --> 00:32:52.400 Antioch, okay? So you've got to understand, Antioch, sorry, in Alexandria is a huge move of God 426 00:32:53.280 --> 00:33:01.120 and a huge movement of Christians in Alexandria. So 427 00:33:08.720 --> 00:33:12.960 we'll move on there, but that's the important part, right? The important part to grab there 428 00:33:12.960 --> 00:33:17.600 is that Alexandria has this massive, massive training school. So let me read a little bit 429 00:33:17.600 --> 00:33:23.280 about the training school. The school became the oldest center for sacred scientists, for sacred 430 00:33:23.280 --> 00:33:29.920 sciences in the history of Christianity. So at the school they taught sciences, they taught the very 431 00:33:29.920 --> 00:33:37.440 first system of Christian theology and allegorical method of biblical exegesis was devised there. 432 00:33:38.000 --> 00:33:46.000 It was the most, so this is, this is a historian that states this, his name's 433 00:33:46.000 --> 00:33:51.920 Dom D. Rees, he said, the most renowned intellectual institution in the early Christian 434 00:33:52.560 --> 00:34:00.400 world was undoubtedly the catechetical school of Alexandria, and its primary concern was the study 435 00:34:00.400 --> 00:34:06.800 of the Bible, giving its name to an influential tradition of scriptural interpretation, 436 00:34:06.880 --> 00:34:12.560 the preoccupation of this school of exegesis was to discover everywhere the spiritual sense 437 00:34:12.560 --> 00:34:18.400 underlying, underlying the written word of scripture. Can you just mute yourself there, 438 00:34:18.400 --> 00:34:24.320 please, team? If you're not muted at all, let me just see if I can mute you. I can't mute you while 439 00:34:24.320 --> 00:34:32.239 I'm in a screen share like this. So when they're there at the school in Alexandria, they could 440 00:34:32.239 --> 00:34:39.920 study science, they could study theology, they could study anything, right? They could study 441 00:34:42.159 --> 00:34:48.400 psychology. It was just, it was massive, okay? So you're going to think it's like a full-on 442 00:34:48.400 --> 00:34:53.360 university that they've got there. It's one of the greatest Christian institutions and training 443 00:34:53.360 --> 00:34:59.840 institutions in the whole world. So it's a big deal, okay, what we're talking about. 444 00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:06.960 it's a big deal. Let me just read something about it, we're going to talk about Oregon 445 00:35:06.960 --> 00:35:15.280 in a moment as well, and this is what one of the students said about being under the charge 446 00:35:15.280 --> 00:35:24.800 of Oregon, okay, he says, I just want to make sure I get it right here, 447 00:35:24.800 --> 00:35:32.480 to be under the intellectual charge of Oregon, says Gregory, was like living in a garden 448 00:35:32.480 --> 00:35:39.360 where fruits of the mind sprang up without toil, to be happy with gladness by the happy occupants, 449 00:35:39.360 --> 00:35:46.640 he truly was a paradise to us, after the likeness of the paradise of God, to leave him was 450 00:35:48.640 --> 00:35:52.160 similar to the experience of Adam after the fall, few 451 00:35:52.160 --> 00:35:59.360 teachers have ever won so remarkable a testimonial from their pupils, so 452 00:36:00.240 --> 00:36:05.120 Oregon, right, we're just touching base on Oregon now, because Oregon was a key player 453 00:36:05.120 --> 00:36:12.080 in the catechetical school in Alexandria, okay, this is all going to kind of string together 454 00:36:12.080 --> 00:36:16.640 in a moment, you're going to start seeing the significance of why I'm giving you this context, 455 00:36:16.640 --> 00:36:22.000 okay, so just hang in there for a moment, because this is going to be a real big deal, 456 00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:27.200 so the catechetical school of Alexandria was the oldest one, so it just means training school, 457 00:36:27.200 --> 00:36:34.080 okay, you know, biblical training school, Jerome records that the Christian school of Alexandria 458 00:36:34.080 --> 00:36:39.280 was founded by Mark himself, and the first appointed manager appointed by Mark was Saint 459 00:36:39.280 --> 00:36:45.040 Justice, who later became the 6th Bishop of Alexandria, okay, so this here is just a list 460 00:36:45.040 --> 00:36:54.880 of all the deans, okay, so from 62 AD to 118 AD, you had Justice, and then you had Eumenius come in 461 00:36:54.880 --> 00:37:01.760 for like another decade, and then Marcianus for like 20 something years, and then Pantaneus from 462 00:37:01.760 --> 00:37:12.640 81 to 90, then Clement of Alexandria from 190 to 202, then Oregon from 203 to roughly around 230, 463 00:37:12.640 --> 00:37:19.120 so Oregon was the dean or the principal of the school for nearly 30 years, okay, one of the 464 00:37:19.120 --> 00:37:26.320 longest standing deans ever, so it's nearly 30 years, and then you've got Phogos in the 3rd 465 00:37:26.320 --> 00:37:30.800 century, and then Pyrrhos in the 4th century, and Achilles in the 4th century, and Peter in the 4th 466 00:37:30.800 --> 00:37:37.680 century, and then Serapion, Macarius, and Didymus the blind, that's kind of cool, they had a blind 467 00:37:37.680 --> 00:37:44.080 guy there as well, so what you're seeing there is you're seeing that this is going, this is a school 468 00:37:44.080 --> 00:37:49.600 that's going for centuries, not just like 10-20 years, this is nearly, you're talking nearly, 469 00:37:49.600 --> 00:37:56.480 you know, three centuries worth of heritage, and being one of the most, you know, one of the 470 00:37:56.480 --> 00:38:03.280 most influential leading places of Christian education in the world for centuries, okay, so 471 00:38:03.360 --> 00:38:11.120 it's not a small school, it's a big deal, it's one of the most recognized Christian educational 472 00:38:11.120 --> 00:38:17.200 institutes for centuries, okay, and the school, you know, it didn't just do theological subjects, 473 00:38:17.200 --> 00:38:22.800 it did Christian philosophy, the Bible, science, mathematics, Greek and Roman literature, logic, 474 00:38:22.800 --> 00:38:32.400 and the arts, they were all taught, so, and even 15 centuries before they had Braille, right, 475 00:38:32.400 --> 00:38:38.160 blind students were using, were there studying at the school, and they had to develop their own 476 00:38:38.160 --> 00:38:43.600 kind of wood carving techniques to read and write, so they had like their own Braille system 477 00:38:43.600 --> 00:38:49.360 created for blind students at the school as well, so it's pretty hardcore, you know, when you've gone 478 00:38:49.360 --> 00:38:54.560 to the effort, you've got so many students that you go to the effort to create your own 479 00:38:54.560 --> 00:39:03.840 Braille system for your blind students, it's a pretty big deal, okay, so here we go, this is 480 00:39:05.440 --> 00:39:17.520 Panteneus, and he took charge around 200 AD, so he died around 200 AD, he was a dean at the school 481 00:39:17.600 --> 00:39:25.760 from 181 AD, so let's just check out some of these guys, this is, Panteneus was followed by Clement 482 00:39:25.760 --> 00:39:32.720 of Alexandria, and then Oregon came in, okay, so Oregon, you have to think, you have to understand 483 00:39:32.720 --> 00:39:40.320 that this guy is polarizing, one of the most polarizing church leaders that has ever lived 484 00:39:40.320 --> 00:39:47.280 is this guy Oregon, okay, you've got to understand that Oregon is a man of extreme intensity, 485 00:39:47.600 --> 00:39:55.280 he is completely sold out, he's so, and he's polarizing, okay, he does not pull punches, 486 00:39:56.320 --> 00:39:59.840 he is not shy, he will go all, and you're going to see in a minute. 487 00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:08.240 just how intensely sold out he is for the gospel. And this is what Oregon wrote, he said, 488 00:40:08.240 --> 00:40:13.280 I want to be a man of the church. I do not want to be called by the name of some founder of a 489 00:40:13.280 --> 00:40:18.640 heresy, but by the name of Christ and to bear that name, which is blessed on the earth. It is my 490 00:40:18.640 --> 00:40:26.160 desire and deed as in spirit, both to be and to be called a Christian. All right. So that's his 491 00:40:26.160 --> 00:40:31.760 dream. It's just, I just, I'm all about Jesus. So Oregon was born in Alexandria to Christian 492 00:40:31.760 --> 00:40:37.920 parents and they supported him to study the Christian scriptures. In 202 AD, when he was a 493 00:40:37.920 --> 00:40:44.640 teenager, his father was martyred under the reign of emperor Septimius Servius. Now, if you remember 494 00:40:44.640 --> 00:40:50.000 back to some of the teachings, if you've joined with us for the teachings that we did in the 495 00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:57.200 Raising Royalty Masterclass group, the Open Heaven Intensive, you'll possibly remember that 496 00:40:57.200 --> 00:41:02.880 we talked through some of the early church history and the persecutions that broke out while Oregon's 497 00:41:02.880 --> 00:41:09.520 father was martyred in one of those persecutions. Okay. Actually, Oregon was going to run out there 498 00:41:09.520 --> 00:41:14.400 to be martyred with his father, but his mom hid his clothes so that he had no clothes. 499 00:41:15.040 --> 00:41:23.200 So he didn't run out and get killed. Oregon laid down his life in pursuit for Christ. He made 500 00:41:23.200 --> 00:41:29.680 great sacrifice to dedicate himself to a life abandoned to Christ and to following his calling. 501 00:41:29.680 --> 00:41:36.000 He remained single his whole life and at one point he sold his entire library and used the money to 502 00:41:36.000 --> 00:41:41.200 support himself as he dedicated his days to training disciples and his nights to studying 503 00:41:41.200 --> 00:41:46.400 the Bible. So this is all he wanted. Everything that he had, he laid down for the gospel. 504 00:41:52.800 --> 00:41:59.280 One other interesting thing, and I'll just check. Okay. So one of the funny story about Oregon, 505 00:41:59.280 --> 00:42:04.960 and I dropped this hint for some of you a little while ago, he was so passionate about preaching 506 00:42:04.960 --> 00:42:09.680 the gospel that there was a season in his life that the only people that he could reach were these 507 00:42:09.760 --> 00:42:14.000 influential ladies. So he had an open door to preach to them, but people said, no, you can't 508 00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:20.080 go and preach to a bunch of ladies. You're just going in there so you can have sex with them. 509 00:42:20.080 --> 00:42:25.280 And he's like, no, I'm not. And so there was a dispute about his intentions where he was actually 510 00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:30.000 going there to preach the gospel or if he was actually trying to just have sex with these 511 00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:36.560 ladies that he was preaching to. So he's like, well, to show you that I'm serious, he cut off 512 00:42:36.560 --> 00:42:45.120 his own testicles. So that kind of gives you an idea of his priorities in life around the gospel 513 00:42:45.680 --> 00:42:52.800 for him, his life and cause and mission and everything about his life was for the gospel. 514 00:42:52.800 --> 00:42:58.960 He's like, no, I'm on the planet for the gospel. I'm not going to try and preach to these women 515 00:42:58.960 --> 00:43:05.440 for any other. I've got no other agenda except the gospel and let me prove it. So there you go. 516 00:43:05.440 --> 00:43:08.880 That's what I mean. So you kind of get now how intense he is for Jesus. 517 00:43:10.640 --> 00:43:16.000 That's pretty intense. He's the only person I've ever heard of in world history. I've never heard of anyone else 518 00:43:16.000 --> 00:43:21.200 ever. He may be the only person with that testimony in world history who cut off his own 519 00:43:21.200 --> 00:43:28.000 testicles in order to preach the gospel. But that's how intense this guy is. No cost is too high 520 00:43:28.080 --> 00:43:35.360 to be able to be preaching the gospel. So Oregon led the school in Alexandria 521 00:43:36.640 --> 00:43:45.200 and he was also traveling extensively as well. So in a decision that was full of controversy 522 00:43:45.200 --> 00:43:52.640 that much of the church refused to agree with, Bishop Demetrius excommunicated Oregon 523 00:43:53.280 --> 00:44:01.360 and he left Alexandria in 233 AD. So by this point, he's been the dean of the school for nearly 524 00:44:02.080 --> 00:44:12.240 three decades. And he gets excommunicated by this Bishop Demetrius and he moved to Caesarea 525 00:44:12.800 --> 00:44:17.360 and was welcomed by the churches in that region and ministered throughout Palestine, 526 00:44:17.360 --> 00:44:24.320 Arabia, Phoenicia, and Greece. So the church was really, really split by the fact that 527 00:44:25.040 --> 00:44:31.200 Bishop Demetrius had just excommunicated Oregon, one of the most loved 528 00:44:33.840 --> 00:44:41.440 teachers, preachers of the gospel in the world. And so the church was really split by the fact 529 00:44:41.440 --> 00:44:49.360 of what Demetrius had just done. But anyway, so Oregon left there and then Palestine, Arabia, 530 00:44:49.360 --> 00:44:53.680 Phoenicia, Greece, a whole bunch of the world still had like open arms. Like, no, we will have 531 00:44:53.680 --> 00:44:59.760 Oregon. Like, what are you? Are you crazy? You're kicking out the greatest teacher of our time. 532 00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:05.360 they're like wow this is crazy so the greatest teacher of their time the guy who'd been leading 533 00:45:05.360 --> 00:45:13.440 the you know one of the most prestigious christian um uh training institutions in the world got 534 00:45:13.440 --> 00:45:19.280 excommunicated by bishop demetrius but so much of the rest of the world was like oh my gosh wow 535 00:45:19.280 --> 00:45:23.280 like you guys are meant to get rid of getting rid of him and so they opened their arms and welcomed 536 00:45:23.280 --> 00:45:29.520 him all around the world um in 250 a.d emperor decius ordered that everyone in the empire 537 00:45:30.400 --> 00:45:38.880 must get a vaccine no no sorry he said um he ordered that everyone in the empire must 538 00:45:38.880 --> 00:45:45.680 sacrifice to roman gods and the emperor and the uh and the emperor so everyone had to go and make 539 00:45:45.680 --> 00:45:51.200 a sacrifice to the emperor and to the roman gods and get a certificate saying that they'd done that 540 00:45:51.200 --> 00:45:58.400 that uh they had um you know worshipped the emperor and worshipped these roman gods and if 541 00:45:58.400 --> 00:46:02.960 you didn't worship and if you didn't get your certificate if you weren't compliant then you 542 00:46:02.960 --> 00:46:10.560 were imprisoned and tortured um so oregon was imprisoned he was tortured for uh a long time 543 00:46:11.440 --> 00:46:18.160 and eventually he died from the wounds not in prison he was released the the persecution ended 544 00:46:18.160 --> 00:46:24.640 and he was released but he never recovered from the wounds from the torture and after 545 00:46:24.640 --> 00:46:31.360 several years he actually died from those wounds um so 546 00:46:36.240 --> 00:46:42.160 right now now we're going to get into one of the things that 547 00:46:42.400 --> 00:46:50.720 was really widespread teaching for those early um early disciples 548 00:46:52.800 --> 00:46:59.200 and like i said last week i'm not trying to teach you what to think i'm just trying to teach you how 549 00:46:59.200 --> 00:47:03.920 to think i'm just giving you information like hey this is just the story of the church okay i'm not 550 00:47:03.920 --> 00:47:08.480 i'm not going to tell you anything except that this is the history this is our origins this is 551 00:47:08.480 --> 00:47:17.920 where we came from this is our story when it comes to theology i'm really happy for you just 552 00:47:17.920 --> 00:47:23.280 to be on your own you know be on your journey um with god and with the scriptures wrestling with 553 00:47:23.280 --> 00:47:28.080 this the church has been wrestling with all these things for you know a couple of thousand years so 554 00:47:28.080 --> 00:47:35.360 you can you can wrestle with it too you are you are big enough uh to wrestle with this stuff yourself 555 00:47:36.240 --> 00:47:41.440 um just be aware that you're part of a conversation that's been going on for thousands of years 556 00:47:42.960 --> 00:47:51.120 so here we go this is the controversy and this is why augustine was uh sorry why 557 00:47:51.120 --> 00:47:58.720 oregon was kicked out um it was uh to do with apocatastasis okay but it wasn't just to do with 558 00:47:59.680 --> 00:48:08.400 his theology okay you've got to understand that oregon was kicked out excommunicated by 559 00:48:08.400 --> 00:48:15.440 by the bishop not just because of his theology but because he was so polarizing okay you guys 560 00:48:15.440 --> 00:48:21.280 understand that there's a difference right when someone's polarizing um and people don't like them 561 00:48:21.280 --> 00:48:26.560 because of who they are versus um what they believe right it's just like i just i just don't 562 00:48:26.560 --> 00:48:30.880 like that guy i don't care that other people think the same thing it's just that guy's the guy 563 00:48:30.880 --> 00:48:36.000 i've got a problem so it's kind of like that with oregon there was people that just had a problem 564 00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:43.200 with oregon and not just his theology okay so you just have to understand that um the controversy 565 00:48:43.200 --> 00:48:48.000 was oregon himself he's so intense that he's going to cut off his own testicles he's going to be 566 00:48:48.000 --> 00:48:53.040 martyred like this guy's radical and so some people just had an issue with him just because of who he 567 00:48:53.680 --> 00:48:58.800 is so you've got the controversy which is apocatastasis and that is the greek word so 568 00:48:58.800 --> 00:49:06.240 say apocatastasis i kind of sometimes remember it by thinking a pocket of stacy's so apocatastasis 569 00:49:06.240 --> 00:49:15.360 is the restoration of all things um and apocatastasis trend uh so yeah you've got the rest 570 00:49:15.360 --> 00:49:21.440 restoration or the restitution of all things so oregon along with a number of the previous 571 00:49:21.440 --> 00:49:29.040 and the following leaders of the training school in alexandria believed that ultimately god was 572 00:49:29.040 --> 00:49:34.480 good and his discipline was rooted in the desire for repentance and transformation 573 00:49:35.120 --> 00:49:41.760 as opposed to simply punishing for punishment's sake they believed that all god's judgments were 574 00:49:41.760 --> 00:49:47.200 redemptive in nature they were the leading scholars of their day and some of the great 575 00:49:47.200 --> 00:49:55.440 fathers of church history they believed that hell would last for aeons or ages or or an age 576 00:49:55.440 --> 00:49:59.840 or an aeon in greek um which is how which is a word 577 00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:01.600 translated as eternity, aeons. 578 00:50:01.600 --> 00:50:04.920 They believed that aeons would last for, 579 00:50:04.920 --> 00:50:08.440 they would be ages, not without end. 580 00:50:08.440 --> 00:50:11.520 So that they were aeons or ages, 581 00:50:11.520 --> 00:50:13.160 but would not be without end. 582 00:50:13.160 --> 00:50:15.640 They believed that all of humanity, fallen angels, 583 00:50:15.640 --> 00:50:17.240 and even the devil would eventually 584 00:50:17.240 --> 00:50:18.880 be reconciled to the father. 585 00:50:20.420 --> 00:50:24.260 This caused a massive theological division in the church. 586 00:50:24.260 --> 00:50:26.880 Many of the church fathers stood with Oregon 587 00:50:26.880 --> 00:50:29.800 in the belief in the restoration of all things, 588 00:50:29.800 --> 00:50:32.660 while many others labeled him a heretic. 589 00:50:33.760 --> 00:50:37.000 Historically, Christian leaders in the East, 590 00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:39.760 okay, we're gonna talk about the East in a little bit, 591 00:50:39.760 --> 00:50:42.360 in the East were more accepting of Oregon 592 00:50:42.360 --> 00:50:44.600 than Christian leaders in the West. 593 00:50:44.600 --> 00:50:47.480 Enemies of Oregon also began to put 594 00:50:47.480 --> 00:50:49.080 a lot of false labels on him 595 00:50:49.080 --> 00:50:52.040 and claimed that he taught things that he hadn't, 596 00:50:52.040 --> 00:50:54.320 to the point that in the Western church, 597 00:50:54.320 --> 00:50:56.940 the man known as the father of theology, 598 00:50:56.940 --> 00:50:59.380 who laid down his life for Christ, 599 00:50:59.900 --> 00:51:01.580 is viewed as a heretic 600 00:51:01.580 --> 00:51:04.780 and his teachings are not considered Christian. 601 00:51:07.300 --> 00:51:09.300 Okay, track them with me, all right? 602 00:51:09.300 --> 00:51:11.860 So there's a lot of backstory going on here, 603 00:51:11.860 --> 00:51:15.260 like all of this is backstory to our lives and our city. 604 00:51:17.700 --> 00:51:19.620 So I hope you are tracking with me. 605 00:51:19.620 --> 00:51:22.200 Okay, I think I might skip here. 606 00:51:35.140 --> 00:51:36.780 I'll read you one, 607 00:51:36.780 --> 00:51:39.580 this is one quote from Clement of Alexandria. 608 00:51:39.580 --> 00:51:42.300 He was another one of the deans, 609 00:51:42.300 --> 00:51:45.860 the principals of the school in Alexandria. 610 00:51:45.860 --> 00:51:46.700 And he said, 611 00:51:46.820 --> 00:51:49.580 for all things are ordered both universally 612 00:51:49.580 --> 00:51:52.740 and in particular by the Lord of the universe 613 00:51:52.740 --> 00:51:56.540 with a view to the salvation of the universe. 614 00:51:56.540 --> 00:51:58.660 But needful corrections by the goodness 615 00:51:58.660 --> 00:52:00.600 of the great overseeing judge, 616 00:52:00.600 --> 00:52:02.020 through the attendant angels, 617 00:52:02.020 --> 00:52:04.840 through various prior judgments, 618 00:52:04.840 --> 00:52:06.380 through the final judgment, 619 00:52:06.380 --> 00:52:11.180 compel even those who have become more callous to repent. 620 00:52:13.400 --> 00:52:16.540 All right, just gonna move on now. 621 00:52:17.380 --> 00:52:18.660 That's Clement of Alexandria. 622 00:52:18.660 --> 00:52:19.480 So, 623 00:52:26.060 --> 00:52:28.640 apocastasis, did we cover that? 624 00:52:30.660 --> 00:52:33.220 Yes, cool. 625 00:52:36.500 --> 00:52:37.340 So, 626 00:52:39.180 --> 00:52:41.860 here's just one little point to note 627 00:52:41.860 --> 00:52:46.300 that should be just considered, okay? 628 00:52:47.060 --> 00:52:49.420 In terms of, you guys are getting 629 00:52:49.420 --> 00:52:51.660 an in-depth history lesson here. 630 00:52:51.660 --> 00:52:54.300 So Oregon did have some other beliefs as well 631 00:52:54.300 --> 00:52:57.500 that were some of the reasons 632 00:52:57.500 --> 00:52:58.700 why he was labeled a heretic. 633 00:52:58.700 --> 00:53:01.500 It's not just his belief in the restoration of all things. 634 00:53:01.500 --> 00:53:04.060 It's what I'm trying to make clearly communicate to you. 635 00:53:04.060 --> 00:53:06.340 It wasn't just his belief or teaching 636 00:53:06.340 --> 00:53:08.980 of apocastasis or the restitution, 637 00:53:08.980 --> 00:53:10.620 the restoration of all things 638 00:53:10.620 --> 00:53:12.660 that got him labeled a heretic, okay? 639 00:53:12.660 --> 00:53:13.980 There's a couple of other things 640 00:53:14.340 --> 00:53:18.500 that he taught that people had an issue with at the time, 641 00:53:18.500 --> 00:53:21.420 and also the personality, a strong personality. 642 00:53:21.420 --> 00:53:23.020 So, here we go. 643 00:53:23.020 --> 00:53:23.860 Look at this. 644 00:53:23.860 --> 00:53:26.220 So here's a list as well of some of the other church fathers 645 00:53:26.220 --> 00:53:27.820 who've taught apocastasis, 646 00:53:27.820 --> 00:53:30.580 and no one has been upset, okay? 647 00:53:30.580 --> 00:53:33.560 So these guys, these are just all lists 648 00:53:33.560 --> 00:53:36.060 of real significant people who have, 649 00:53:37.140 --> 00:53:40.180 at one time or another, taught the restoration, 650 00:53:40.180 --> 00:53:41.300 the restitution of all things. 651 00:53:41.300 --> 00:53:44.300 So you've got Clement, Oregon, Didymus, St. Anthony, 652 00:53:44.300 --> 00:53:49.300 St. Pamphilus, Bardasian, Methodius, St. Macrina, 653 00:53:50.740 --> 00:53:54.780 St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Evagrius Ponticus, 654 00:53:54.780 --> 00:53:58.300 Diodorus of Tarsus, Theodorus of Mopsustia, 655 00:53:58.300 --> 00:54:00.460 St. John of Jerusalem, Rufinius. 656 00:54:02.300 --> 00:54:06.460 All of these guys have had, at some point or another, 657 00:54:06.460 --> 00:54:11.140 a part to play in the process of teaching apocastasis. 658 00:54:11.980 --> 00:54:16.540 So, here we go. 659 00:54:16.540 --> 00:54:19.060 St. Augustine of Hippo comes on the scene, okay? 660 00:54:19.060 --> 00:54:22.420 So 354 AD to 430 AD. 661 00:54:22.420 --> 00:54:24.540 So St. Augustine comes on the scene 662 00:54:24.540 --> 00:54:26.380 after all the persecutions, right? 663 00:54:26.380 --> 00:54:29.420 So St. Augustine never has to go through any persecution 664 00:54:29.420 --> 00:54:30.420 or anything like that. 665 00:54:30.420 --> 00:54:31.820 He's gonna have it easy. 666 00:54:31.820 --> 00:54:34.980 He had quite a dodgy, wild life 667 00:54:36.100 --> 00:54:38.100 before he became a Christian. 668 00:54:38.100 --> 00:54:41.020 He was studying all like Plato 669 00:54:41.020 --> 00:54:45.900 and their kind of Greek philosophies 670 00:54:45.900 --> 00:54:47.380 and Greek gods and things like that. 671 00:54:47.380 --> 00:54:49.940 So that's kind of the world that he came from 672 00:54:49.940 --> 00:54:54.820 with a lot of those Greek mindsets, really, in his thinking. 673 00:54:56.940 --> 00:55:01.940 And then here he is, St. Augustine of Hippo. 674 00:55:00.000 --> 00:55:07.440 Augustine. And he was in Algeria. Who would have thought? Algeria is not really a hot spot right 675 00:55:07.440 --> 00:55:14.160 now, but back in the day, Algeria was quite a big deal, especially in the Christian world. So 676 00:55:15.360 --> 00:55:23.040 you've got Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, and Hippo is in Algeria, and he was a real, real big 677 00:55:23.040 --> 00:55:31.040 deal. Augustine probably, and we've looked at Augustine a bit already, so you kind of know a 678 00:55:31.040 --> 00:55:37.440 bit about Augustine if you've been following the teachings, but he's in the western church, 679 00:55:37.440 --> 00:55:43.840 he was a hero. In the eastern church, he was a heretic. So one thing that I've learned for sure 680 00:55:43.840 --> 00:55:50.880 in studying church history and church theology is that it doesn't really matter what you believe, 681 00:55:51.200 --> 00:55:57.840 right? Everybody is somebody's heretic. That's what you're going to find. It doesn't, like, 682 00:55:57.840 --> 00:56:02.320 if you are trying to choose the safe line that no one will be upset with you for believing this, 683 00:56:02.320 --> 00:56:06.800 there is none, right? It doesn't matter what perspective you hold, someone disagrees with 684 00:56:06.800 --> 00:56:11.040 you in the church. And that's what you can see when you look at church history, you can see, 685 00:56:11.040 --> 00:56:16.800 oh wow, there is some Christian father somewhere that agrees, that disagrees with everything that 686 00:56:16.800 --> 00:56:25.360 you believe. And there's Christian fathers that, you know, like, there's a spectrum of belief, 687 00:56:25.360 --> 00:56:30.400 okay? So it doesn't matter where you are in that spectrum, someone's going to hate what you think, 688 00:56:30.400 --> 00:56:34.880 hate what you believe, someone's going to think you're a heretic. So at the end of the day, 689 00:56:34.880 --> 00:56:38.400 you just have to choose what you want to burn for, right? So we've got Augustine, 690 00:56:38.400 --> 00:56:46.560 we're going to race through Augustine. So yeah, he became a Christian, a bit of a wild background, 691 00:56:47.040 --> 00:56:55.840 and then when he did become a Christian, he was pretty dodgy, really. Like, he was happy to use 692 00:56:57.440 --> 00:57:05.360 force to torture or persecute or move on other Christians. He would bribe people, anyone who 693 00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:11.440 wasn't in alignment with his thinking or in agreement with how he did things, he would 694 00:57:11.440 --> 00:57:19.040 work hard to get them called heretics, or to get them kicked out, or to influence popes or someone 695 00:57:19.040 --> 00:57:27.040 to have them violently removed. So one big group that he had a big problem with was the Donatists, 696 00:57:27.040 --> 00:57:33.760 and he was kind of intimidated by the Donatists. The Donatists really came out of, you know, 697 00:57:33.760 --> 00:57:43.680 after the persecutions came, what happened was people like Oregon died by the stack loads. 698 00:57:43.680 --> 00:57:51.120 They got put in prison, they got tortured, they got martyred, because they wouldn't worship 699 00:57:53.040 --> 00:57:59.920 the emperor, okay? So because they wouldn't worship the emperor, they got martyred, persecuted, 700 00:57:59.920 --> 00:58:06.560 tortured, put in prison, but then a whole bunch of them were like, oh no, we'll worship the emperor, 701 00:58:06.560 --> 00:58:12.960 and so they got off scot-free, right? They had no pressure, and then after the persecution wound up, 702 00:58:15.200 --> 00:58:22.720 all of those people started coming back to church, and the people who had lost friends, family, 703 00:58:23.440 --> 00:58:29.280 being killed themselves, and were like, oh my gosh, like, we paid a price, and now here's all 704 00:58:29.280 --> 00:58:34.080 these people who wouldn't sacrifice anything for Jesus coming back into the church, 705 00:58:35.600 --> 00:58:40.960 and what they thought, what they felt like, is like, no, this is not okay, and then 706 00:58:40.960 --> 00:58:45.760 not only that, but some of those people who wouldn't even stand for Jesus, they started 707 00:58:45.760 --> 00:58:51.360 getting made bishops, and they started getting made leaders in the church, and so all these people who 708 00:58:51.360 --> 00:58:56.720 hadn't, you know, who'd been through all the suffering that they'd been through because 709 00:58:56.720 --> 00:59:02.880 they refused to worship Roman gods and worship the emperor, they were like, no, we're not keen on this, 710 00:59:02.880 --> 00:59:07.840 we want, that's not pure, you know, you're not, you're putting people in there who sold Jesus out, 711 00:59:07.840 --> 00:59:11.520 you're putting them in leadership, so they created their own group, and that was the group, the 712 00:59:11.520 --> 00:59:20.240 Donatists, and that was the group that Augustine attacked brutally, he did everything that he could 713 00:59:20.240 --> 00:59:28.320 to, you know, to create the context where they would have be militarily oppressed, so just 714 00:59:28.320 --> 00:59:34.000 to kind of give you an idea, right, of where he's at, you oppress Augustine, you cross Augustine, 715 00:59:34.000 --> 00:59:39.680 and you get in big trouble, he will go after you, he will do whatever he has to, he will, 716 00:59:39.680 --> 00:59:45.200 you know, like, he will bribe popes, he will bribe people, he will, it doesn't matter, okay, so you kind 717 00:59:45.200 --> 00:59:53.920 of get the idea, he's got some cool ideas, and some cool stuff that he does, but what you kind 718 00:59:53.920 --> 00:59:59.360 of see in Augustine of, like, this willingness to 719 01:00:00.000 --> 01:00:04.440 persecute your enemies, right? 720 01:00:04.440 --> 01:00:06.080 If they, like theological enemies, 721 01:00:06.080 --> 01:00:08.680 if someone disagrees with you theologically, 722 01:00:08.680 --> 01:00:11.680 you know, this mindset that it's okay to persecute them, 723 01:00:11.680 --> 01:00:13.960 it's okay to, you know, 724 01:00:13.960 --> 01:00:17.240 have them murdered or martyred or whatever. 725 01:00:17.240 --> 01:00:20.720 That mindset, it was like a seed in Augustine, 726 01:00:20.720 --> 01:00:24.200 but when it came to Calvin, it was a full-blown tree. 727 01:00:24.200 --> 01:00:25.400 Like Calvin would just, 728 01:00:25.400 --> 01:00:27.840 he was killing people all over the place. 729 01:00:27.840 --> 01:00:32.560 So Augustine, he really gets multiplied 730 01:00:32.560 --> 01:00:35.240 when it comes to Luther and Calvin, especially Calvin. 731 01:00:35.240 --> 01:00:38.080 Calvin is just Augustine all over. 732 01:00:38.080 --> 01:00:40.880 So we won't read this. 733 01:00:43.720 --> 01:00:46.960 The gist here of what we're gonna talk about now 734 01:00:46.960 --> 01:00:51.160 is that there was a split between the Catholic church 735 01:00:51.160 --> 01:00:55.520 in the early days before there was ever the Reformation. 736 01:00:55.520 --> 01:00:58.480 So most people talk about the Reformation in the 1500s. 737 01:00:58.480 --> 01:01:00.120 There was actually a church split 738 01:01:00.120 --> 01:01:03.120 that split the Catholic church dramatically 739 01:01:06.200 --> 01:01:07.400 way, way, way back. 740 01:01:07.400 --> 01:01:09.160 And so we're gonna talk about that now 741 01:01:09.160 --> 01:01:10.480 and where that came from. 742 01:01:10.480 --> 01:01:15.480 So Augustine was really the catalyst of a split 743 01:01:15.800 --> 01:01:18.920 that took place about 500 years after he died. 744 01:01:18.920 --> 01:01:20.800 So you've got guys like Oregon 745 01:01:20.800 --> 01:01:22.600 and a whole bunch of the church love them, 746 01:01:22.600 --> 01:01:25.040 Athanasius, Irenaeus, all these guys, right? 747 01:01:25.040 --> 01:01:27.720 So you've got all the guys going back to Polycarp 748 01:01:27.720 --> 01:01:32.120 all the way through those amazing fathers of the church, 749 01:01:32.120 --> 01:01:34.760 everyone up until Augustine teaching, 750 01:01:34.760 --> 01:01:39.200 what is primarily teaching Trinitarianism, right? 751 01:01:39.200 --> 01:01:40.880 And then Augustine comes in the scene 752 01:01:40.880 --> 01:01:44.440 and he starts teaching completely different gospel. 753 01:01:44.440 --> 01:01:46.360 And his main points that he sees, 754 01:01:46.360 --> 01:01:48.880 these are the main points of the gospel, 755 01:01:48.880 --> 01:01:50.720 which like these are his main points, 756 01:01:50.720 --> 01:01:54.800 original sin, redefining baptism, predestination, 757 01:01:55.560 --> 01:01:57.400 irresistible grace, there's no free will, 758 01:01:57.400 --> 01:02:02.320 especially in regard to salvation, those things. 759 01:02:02.320 --> 01:02:04.840 So Augustine's main points, 760 01:02:04.840 --> 01:02:08.000 those were the very reasons that the Orthodox, 761 01:02:08.000 --> 01:02:10.440 the Eastern Orthodox church didn't like him, 762 01:02:10.440 --> 01:02:11.360 didn't agree with him, 763 01:02:11.360 --> 01:02:13.760 wouldn't jump on board with what he was doing, okay? 764 01:02:13.760 --> 01:02:17.400 So it wasn't side issues that were the issue for Augustine, 765 01:02:17.400 --> 01:02:20.600 it was his very core theology, they hated all of it. 766 01:02:20.600 --> 01:02:22.320 And they said, we won't have any part of that. 767 01:02:22.320 --> 01:02:23.880 You're a total heretic. 768 01:02:23.920 --> 01:02:26.200 Our core theology is complete heresy, 769 01:02:26.200 --> 01:02:28.120 and we don't want anything to do with it. 770 01:02:28.120 --> 01:02:30.640 So what you had happening is, 771 01:02:30.640 --> 01:02:32.880 when Augustine came on the scene, 772 01:02:32.880 --> 01:02:37.880 his teaching split the church there. 773 01:02:39.240 --> 01:02:41.480 And so you had the Western Eastern, 774 01:02:41.480 --> 01:02:44.520 sorry, the Eastern Orthodox side of things. 775 01:02:44.520 --> 01:02:47.480 They didn't become the Eastern church officially 776 01:02:47.480 --> 01:02:49.640 until the split that happened 777 01:02:49.640 --> 01:02:51.880 about 500 years after Augustine, 778 01:02:51.880 --> 01:02:55.600 but they were drawing battle lines, in a sense, 779 01:02:55.600 --> 01:02:58.360 of allegiance to the early church fathers. 780 01:02:58.360 --> 01:03:02.000 So anyone who was loyal to the early church fathers 781 01:03:02.000 --> 01:03:04.880 was basically on the Eastern side, 782 01:03:04.880 --> 01:03:06.600 and anyone who was loyal to Augustine 783 01:03:06.600 --> 01:03:08.000 was on the Western side. 784 01:03:08.000 --> 01:03:12.080 That's kind of how it went. 785 01:03:12.920 --> 01:03:16.320 And Augustine's theology was so influential, 786 01:03:16.320 --> 01:03:20.320 and his influence grew so dramatically 787 01:03:20.320 --> 01:03:24.040 that someone could just say, Augustine Dixon, 788 01:03:24.040 --> 01:03:25.680 which is Augustine says, 789 01:03:25.680 --> 01:03:28.120 and if it was something that Augustine said, 790 01:03:28.120 --> 01:03:29.200 no one would argue it. 791 01:03:29.200 --> 01:03:30.840 They're like, okay, now Augustine believes that? 792 01:03:30.840 --> 01:03:31.680 Sweet. 793 01:03:31.680 --> 01:03:33.000 So actually what you have is, 794 01:03:34.320 --> 01:03:37.600 Augustine became way more influential than the Bible, 795 01:03:38.760 --> 01:03:43.760 because it wasn't the Bible that was actually being taught. 796 01:03:45.640 --> 01:03:48.280 It was Augustine's interpretation of the Bible. 797 01:03:48.280 --> 01:03:50.360 Now, Augustine couldn't even read Greek. 798 01:03:51.280 --> 01:03:53.680 So Augustine's friend, Jerome, 799 01:03:53.680 --> 01:03:58.680 was the guy that translated from Greek to Latin 800 01:04:01.360 --> 01:04:03.000 so that Augustine could read it. 801 01:04:04.080 --> 01:04:06.360 His friend, Jerome, was the guy who was the translator. 802 01:04:06.360 --> 01:04:07.600 Okay, so Jerome. 803 01:04:07.600 --> 01:04:10.880 But Jerome was just as dodgy as Augustine. 804 01:04:10.880 --> 01:04:13.120 You know, like they would side up together 805 01:04:13.120 --> 01:04:14.760 to persecute people. 806 01:04:14.760 --> 01:04:18.240 So even this guy who's an amazing church historian, 807 01:04:19.080 --> 01:04:19.920 he's definitely a church father. 808 01:04:19.920 --> 01:04:22.360 He had so much history that he recorded, 809 01:04:22.360 --> 01:04:24.240 and we owe so much to Jerome, 810 01:04:24.240 --> 01:04:26.840 and he was a translator of the Bible. 811 01:04:26.840 --> 01:04:28.120 So it's called the Vulgate, 812 01:04:28.120 --> 01:04:30.760 which is the translation from Greek into Latin. 813 01:04:30.760 --> 01:04:32.240 Jerome did that. 814 01:04:32.240 --> 01:04:36.120 But Jerome, you know, was quite an orphan. 815 01:04:37.200 --> 01:04:41.440 So all Augustine's teaching, 816 01:04:41.440 --> 01:04:42.920 anytime he wanted to get to the Greek, 817 01:04:42.920 --> 01:04:44.400 he couldn't go to the Blue Letter Bible. 818 01:04:44.400 --> 01:04:47.480 He had to go to Jerome and ask Jerome, 819 01:04:47.520 --> 01:04:49.240 what does this Greek word mean? 820 01:04:49.240 --> 01:04:50.600 And so everything that he got, 821 01:04:50.600 --> 01:04:51.600 he got from Jerome, 822 01:04:51.600 --> 01:04:54.440 who was a guy who didn't really even know the father. 823 01:04:56.040 --> 01:04:59.120 Okay, so and then Augustine, who can't read Greek, 824 01:04:59.120 --> 01:05:00.320 becomes the single most. 825 01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:04.640 influential voice in the Western Church. He's teaching all of this stuff, but he's not even 826 01:05:04.640 --> 01:05:11.360 connected to the original Greek meanings of the words. Everything is kind of Chinese whispers 827 01:05:11.360 --> 01:05:19.920 through Jerome. And then his influence just goes astronomical. And then for the Western Church, 828 01:05:19.920 --> 01:05:24.320 they all, like for centuries, just start aligning with Augustine, Augustine, Augustine, Augustine. 829 01:05:24.320 --> 01:05:31.360 Okay, sweet. Moving along. Augustine and Jerome had plenty of battles with people. 830 01:05:31.360 --> 01:05:38.400 It was Augustine and Jerome that started teaching that if you were married, you were a second class 831 01:05:38.400 --> 01:05:44.480 citizen. So if you have ever been taught in church or heard that sex is evil, sex is bad, 832 01:05:44.480 --> 01:05:51.680 it goes back to these guys. Interestingly, or might be interesting for you or not. 833 01:05:52.240 --> 01:05:56.080 So here's something, because I've just written this book, The Seven Sacred Pathways to Intimacy. 834 01:05:56.880 --> 01:06:02.080 And one of the things, we've got a whole thing there on sex. So we talk about all sorts of 835 01:06:02.080 --> 01:06:08.800 sexual dysfunctions in terms of just physical things. But in terms of physical things that 836 01:06:08.800 --> 01:06:17.440 sex therapists, doctors, and medical practitioners deal with a lot is 10 to 15% of women will never 837 01:06:18.240 --> 01:06:24.720 have an orgasm. You know, that's just that's just what you'll hear from medical people. And then 838 01:06:24.720 --> 01:06:30.800 one of the main causes of why they say that never happens to people is the religious conditioning 839 01:06:30.800 --> 01:06:36.720 that they're given. And that they're taught that sex is evil, sex is bad, and all of these things, 840 01:06:36.720 --> 01:06:40.880 and it shuts people down forever. So if you're ever wondering where that sex is evil, sex is bad, 841 01:06:42.080 --> 01:06:46.160 priests are a higher class. If you get married, you're a second class citizen, 842 01:06:46.160 --> 01:06:51.680 where did that come from? Came from Jerome and Augustine. Jerome's the guy that translated 843 01:06:51.680 --> 01:06:57.200 from Greek. So Jerome and Augustine buddies, fixing all sorts of crazy stuff like that. 844 01:06:57.200 --> 01:07:04.720 So there you go, a little bit of interesting side there for you. This context here is about 845 01:07:05.280 --> 01:07:11.280 Augustine sent a bride once of 80 stallions to an emperor in order to get one of his enemies 846 01:07:11.280 --> 01:07:20.160 labeled a heretic. So there's a guy that is teaching something different to Augustine, 847 01:07:20.160 --> 01:07:25.600 and Augustine feels insecure. So he sends a bride, he partners up with another friend, and they 848 01:07:26.640 --> 01:07:35.360 bribe an emperor to have a really good guy labeled a heretic. Okay, so you kind of get a little bit 849 01:07:35.360 --> 01:07:43.200 of a picture there. Okay, so this is now we're touching based on the East-West split or the 850 01:07:43.200 --> 01:07:52.320 East-West schism. This happened in 1054, so over 500 years after Augustine, the East-West schism, 851 01:07:52.320 --> 01:08:00.480 and that East-West schism, it splits the... Before this, the Roman church hadn't had a... 852 01:08:00.480 --> 01:08:04.080 The Catholic church hadn't had a major split, but it had some smaller things, 853 01:08:04.080 --> 01:08:08.800 like some smaller breakaways like the Donatus group, but the word Catholic means universal. 854 01:08:08.800 --> 01:08:14.640 So before this, there really was just one main church, and you had a few smaller groups coming 855 01:08:14.640 --> 01:08:21.359 off, but this was the first time there'd ever been a main split. So East-West schism happens, 856 01:08:21.359 --> 01:08:29.760 boom, 1054, and it is a huge split. It's not just a little thing, like it's split 857 01:08:30.399 --> 01:08:37.520 theologically, financially, politically, militarily, wars were fought, language, 858 01:08:38.080 --> 01:08:44.319 the Greeks obviously kept Greeks, you know, the East, which is the Greek Orthodox church, 859 01:08:44.319 --> 01:08:50.720 they kept the Greek, the West, they went with Latin, it split everything. Okay, so 860 01:08:51.680 --> 01:08:56.960 boom, massive split happens, and then the next big thing on the church scene 861 01:08:58.640 --> 01:09:05.120 happens in 1517, which is the Reformation. Okay, so you have the Reformation, 862 01:09:05.120 --> 01:09:10.560 where John Calvin and Martin Luther, they split away again from the... 863 01:09:10.880 --> 01:09:20.000 they split away from the Roman Catholic church, boom, but when they split away, 864 01:09:20.960 --> 01:09:25.279 they don't actually change that much in terms of theology. They change the systems, 865 01:09:25.279 --> 01:09:30.000 they change what church looks like a bit, they change theology a bit, but at the heart of it, 866 01:09:30.000 --> 01:09:36.160 there's still Augustine all over it, and so we won't get into it too much, but, you know, 867 01:09:36.319 --> 01:09:41.120 whatever Augustine did in terms of bloodshed, Calvin did it 10 times worse. 868 01:09:42.240 --> 01:09:49.200 Burning, there's one story of a guy, Michael Servetus, right, Michael Servetus, 869 01:09:51.200 --> 01:09:57.040 oh, hang on, Michael Servetus was a guy that was a, was a, 870 01:09:57.040 --> 01:10:04.160 was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, 871 01:10:00.000 --> 01:10:04.640 the theological opponent of John Calvin and he said hey I want to talk this through I want to 872 01:10:04.640 --> 01:10:09.200 chat theology I'm going to come and see you in Geneva and John Calvin said if you come here I'll 873 01:10:09.200 --> 01:10:14.720 have you burnt alive. He went to the church anyway just to hear John Calvin preach and they arrested 874 01:10:14.720 --> 01:10:23.920 him and then they burnt him alive. How crazy is that? The guy wanted to chat about theology and 875 01:10:23.920 --> 01:10:27.440 Calvin's like okay let's chat about theology and he burns him alive. 876 01:10:31.040 --> 01:10:36.560 What? This is one of you know a guy heralded as one of the greatest church fathers in the world 877 01:10:36.560 --> 01:10:42.400 and here he is burning people alive and people have not like not an issue right he's not 878 01:10:42.400 --> 01:10:47.360 considered a heretic for burning people alive there's no like people aren't going oh hey that's 879 01:10:47.360 --> 01:10:53.200 an issue no they're not doing that right no problem with that um we're we're all okay with 880 01:10:53.200 --> 01:11:04.080 burning people alive that's fine um so just racing through this now after the reformation 881 01:11:04.080 --> 01:11:10.800 Europe went into war for centuries millions of people died um through the wars that just 882 01:11:10.800 --> 01:11:17.840 raged through Europe for centuries the next big guy on the scene is Jacobus Arminius so 883 01:11:17.840 --> 01:11:25.120 just a little while after reformation Jacobus Arminius he was uh Calvinist and then he was 884 01:11:25.120 --> 01:11:30.000 like hang on a minute I'm not in with all this predestination stuff he came out from that 885 01:11:30.000 --> 01:11:34.800 predestination stuff basically said people have free will to choose you know if they're going to 886 01:11:34.800 --> 01:11:39.920 receive Jesus or not they've got free will so you can kind of see that spectrum of belief coming in 887 01:11:39.920 --> 01:11:46.160 here again right so on this end you've got extreme Calvinism and then you've got um Arminianism 888 01:11:46.160 --> 01:11:50.960 coming in here and then you've got Trinitarianism we're going to see that in a second so this guy 889 01:11:50.960 --> 01:12:03.280 here um and so basically after that right so from 1560 through to just a few years ago 890 01:12:04.720 --> 01:12:11.440 for 500 years basically the status quo didn't really change very much in the church a few 891 01:12:11.440 --> 01:12:18.160 reformations um definitely some revivals some outpourings some great awakenings those things 892 01:12:18.160 --> 01:12:23.760 all happened but theologically things didn't really get shaken up very much so you still 893 01:12:23.760 --> 01:12:30.640 had in the church you still had people like you know and we still do to this day that Calvinism 894 01:12:30.640 --> 01:12:36.400 is huge millions of people around the world fully engaged in Calvinism um 895 01:12:36.720 --> 01:12:45.120 and then you had our man here um Jacobus Arminius so you had Calvinism and Arminianism but what you 896 01:12:45.120 --> 01:12:53.280 have to understand is that even Arminius here and Arminianism still takes a lot of its image of God 897 01:12:54.160 --> 01:13:05.360 from Augustine um and then you've got this guy here Karl Barth okay so it's not until 898 01:13:06.160 --> 01:13:12.080 uh the early 19 you know through the 1920s really that Karl Barth comes on the scene 899 01:13:12.080 --> 01:13:20.000 and Karl Barth was a German um theologian and basically what he did is he went and reconnected 900 01:13:20.000 --> 01:13:26.000 with the roots of the church in the Orthodox the Greek Orthodox world 901 01:13:26.000 --> 01:13:39.920 so remember Augustine's theology cut everyone off from Oregon cut everyone off from Athanasius 902 01:13:39.920 --> 01:13:44.080 cut everyone off from Irenaeus cut everyone off from Polycarp cut everyone off from all 903 01:13:44.080 --> 01:13:48.800 the teaching of the early church fathers right that's what Augustine cost everyone 904 01:13:48.800 --> 01:13:53.760 which is it was all the teaching of the early church fathers was basically outlawed 905 01:13:54.320 --> 01:14:02.000 so you've got you know hundreds of years of teaching of Christian theology Augustine comes 906 01:14:02.000 --> 01:14:07.040 on the scene and he's like no no we're not having any of that can you understand how big a deal that 907 01:14:07.040 --> 01:14:13.120 is he's like no no we're not having any of that and then when the east west split happens the 908 01:14:13.120 --> 01:14:21.200 western church is no longer connected to to any of those early church fathers Irenaeus Athanasius 909 01:14:21.200 --> 01:14:26.960 you know those guys the the roots Oregon it's all cut out there's no access to it anymore 910 01:14:26.960 --> 01:14:33.280 but the the eastern Orthodox church they still maintain those guys as their fathers so they still 911 01:14:33.280 --> 01:14:38.880 held their teaching they never walked away from it ever they haven't ever had a time where they 912 01:14:38.880 --> 01:14:45.120 walked away from that so what Karl Barth did in the 1920s is he went and connected with all the 913 01:14:45.120 --> 01:14:51.760 eastern Orthodox history with all their beliefs which is Trinitarianism and he's like oh my gosh 914 01:14:51.760 --> 01:14:57.600 this has been missing for centuries and he started to bring it back to the western world because the 915 01:14:57.600 --> 01:14:59.760 western world had no connection with it so it was 916 01:15:00.000 --> 01:15:05.920 Thanks to this guy, Karl Barth, that we basically rediscovered the goodness of God. 917 01:15:08.320 --> 01:15:17.600 And so you got Karl Barth here on that spectrum of belief, you know, like as the Trinitarians, 918 01:15:17.600 --> 01:15:21.840 and then the next one along is Oregon. So I'm going to end the screen share here, I think. 919 01:15:21.840 --> 01:15:34.320 End screen share there. That is a whole bunch of info for you guys. Let me check in on Facebook 920 01:15:34.720 --> 01:15:50.160 as well. Just see if he's there in Facebook world. Okay, so a few comments here. 921 01:15:50.160 --> 01:16:04.400 All right. Okay, so cool to see you guys on Facebook world, checking in there, 922 01:16:04.400 --> 01:16:13.360 watching your comments. Lovely to have you guys as well. So there you go. Now you've got some 923 01:16:13.360 --> 01:16:24.080 history on the church. One thing that I wanted to say is that when it came to the Catechetical 924 01:16:24.080 --> 01:16:32.800 School in Alexandria, right, for centuries, it wasn't just Oregon that taught the restoration 925 01:16:32.800 --> 01:16:38.080 of all things there, okay? They taught that there most of the way through. Most of the deans taught 926 01:16:38.080 --> 01:16:46.320 their students the restoration of all things there. And it was, you know, three kind of 927 01:16:46.320 --> 01:16:50.720 different stages in terms of restoration of all things that people believed there, which was 928 01:16:51.440 --> 01:17:00.640 all humanity gets restored, or it was all humanity and the fallen angels get restored. 929 01:17:00.640 --> 01:17:06.960 And then you had guys like Oregon who aggressively taught that all humanity, 930 01:17:08.160 --> 01:17:14.160 all the fallen angels and the devil himself get restored and reconciled back to God. So 931 01:17:15.200 --> 01:17:20.240 I'm not saying believe this or believe that, but in terms of the Bible, and you go, what about 932 01:17:20.240 --> 01:17:24.480 this scripture? What about that scripture? One thing you have to understand is that there's 933 01:17:24.480 --> 01:17:32.000 probably no one who put out more Christian literature than Oregon. He was one of the most 934 01:17:32.000 --> 01:17:42.160 prolific writers in history, and one of the people that understood the Bible better than anyone 935 01:17:42.160 --> 01:17:47.440 else inside or outside. That's all he did with his life is just devoted to it. So 936 01:17:47.440 --> 01:17:58.480 I want to kind of wrap this up and close this up because, you know, in our last session, part one, 937 01:17:58.480 --> 01:18:06.960 we talked all about how, and I think the reason that I'm kind of emphasizing a little bit Oregon 938 01:18:06.960 --> 01:18:12.880 right now is not necessarily because I'm saying you need to believe Oregon or you need to listen 939 01:18:12.880 --> 01:18:16.720 to Oregon. I'm not doing that. The reason is probably a little bit of an emphasis on Oregon 940 01:18:16.720 --> 01:18:24.000 right now is because you've heard everyone else's story. You haven't heard about the 941 01:18:24.000 --> 01:18:28.000 Catechetical School of Alexandria. Most people haven't heard about that anyway. Most people 942 01:18:28.000 --> 01:18:34.720 haven't heard that the restoration of all things was the mainstream Christian teaching for centuries. 943 01:18:35.360 --> 01:18:42.400 Most people haven't heard that, you know, some of the most famous people in church history taught 944 01:18:42.400 --> 01:18:46.880 that the devil would be reconciled to God as well. Okay, so I'm not saying you need to believe 945 01:18:46.880 --> 01:18:54.480 that. All I'm saying is this is what they taught, and it's historically part of the conversation 946 01:18:54.480 --> 01:19:00.400 that we haven't been a part of. It's, you know, it's like a heritage that we've been disconnected 947 01:19:00.400 --> 01:19:07.120 from, and the reason we got disconnected from it was because of Augustine's ruthless punishment 948 01:19:07.200 --> 01:19:12.320 of anyone who disagreed with his perspective. He got them labeled heretics. He got them run out 949 01:19:12.320 --> 01:19:18.640 of town. He got the military involved. He did whatever it took to crush their voices, to 950 01:19:18.640 --> 01:19:24.560 eliminate them. The Donatists as a movement after Augustine was done didn't exist. They, you know, 951 01:19:24.560 --> 01:19:29.920 they just kind of fizzled out, and they weren't bad people. Remember, they were the Puritans. 952 01:19:29.920 --> 01:19:34.880 They were the ones that were like, hey, let's not, you know, let's be really pure. Let's be extra 953 01:19:34.880 --> 01:19:42.240 holy. They were like hardcore holiness people, and that's who he attacked. So, just wanted to 954 01:19:42.240 --> 01:19:48.640 kind of give you context of where our gospel has come from. Like, that's this message is the origins 955 01:19:48.640 --> 01:19:53.200 of the gospel, where it came from, what the story was, where it really, you know, all happened, 956 01:19:53.200 --> 01:19:59.840 you know, where it was coming from. So, then I guess... 957 01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:05.360 for all of us we still have to wrestle with this and juggle with this and go oh what does this mean 958 01:20:05.360 --> 01:20:12.640 for me about how I interpret um scriptures all of that you've got lots and lots of wrestling to do 959 01:20:12.640 --> 01:20:17.440 with those things where do you go where do you kind of find some solid ground in the midst of 960 01:20:17.440 --> 01:20:24.960 all of it and here's the thing to me that is the most important and practical and influential piece 961 01:20:25.840 --> 01:20:30.800 to it in terms of you can study all of this stuff as much as you like and learn as much 962 01:20:30.800 --> 01:20:36.640 history as you like and really what's the point you know I find it interesting but what's the 963 01:20:37.280 --> 01:20:42.640 what's the the spiritual point where will it produce fruit in your life how will it produce 964 01:20:42.640 --> 01:20:49.520 the divine life in you the thing that is the most important is our image of God right that's 965 01:20:49.520 --> 01:20:55.840 the thing that's the most important at the end of the day all of this revolves around the father 966 01:20:55.840 --> 01:21:03.360 who do we believe the father is and the problem that I have and like a serious problem that I have 967 01:21:03.360 --> 01:21:10.320 is that people will go and call out a guy like Oregon and say you're a total heretic right the 968 01:21:10.320 --> 01:21:15.840 problem I have is there's no balance right there's no balance there's no balance in this historical 969 01:21:15.840 --> 01:21:21.520 conversation right because no one goes around calling Calvin out as a heretic for killing people 970 01:21:22.560 --> 01:21:26.880 I'm like whoa what the heck is going on here why aren't people calling Calvin out 971 01:21:26.880 --> 01:21:31.680 for killing people no one's doing it no one's calling him out as a heretic and saying 972 01:21:32.480 --> 01:21:37.680 we don't kill people I see hiking yeah just jump in on that 973 01:21:38.160 --> 01:21:46.000 you know you've talked about Calvin before and I mean I I I didn't know that he did these things 974 01:21:46.640 --> 01:21:54.160 so I actually happened to you know bring this up to a number of people in church leadership 975 01:21:55.280 --> 01:22:01.440 and they were they were talking about Calvin and they were talking about Calvin and they were 976 01:22:01.680 --> 01:22:11.360 people in church leadership and they were aware of it but they were like making excuses for him 977 01:22:12.000 --> 01:22:16.720 like you know it was just the time they lived and that's and I said no no no no no 978 01:22:17.760 --> 01:22:26.560 I said if this man intimate would had intimately known God there's no way he would have done that 979 01:22:27.360 --> 01:22:36.640 I mean that makes him suspect in my mind why would I believe what he says 980 01:22:38.480 --> 01:22:46.720 yeah anyway that's what I'm trying to bring out for everyone in this just in this conversation 981 01:22:47.520 --> 01:22:57.520 is that um there hasn't been balance right there hasn't been balance in the conversation 982 01:22:57.520 --> 01:23:03.840 where people like not just Oregon I mean it's fine if you want to say say we said Oregon was 983 01:23:03.840 --> 01:23:08.720 a heretic no it doesn't really bother me they say we said okay you can't trust anything the Oregon 984 01:23:08.720 --> 01:23:13.040 says that doesn't really bother me at all if you say that but then there's all these other church 985 01:23:13.040 --> 01:23:20.400 leaders you know fathers of the faith faith that also taught these things and they were taught it 986 01:23:20.400 --> 01:23:24.640 they were called out as heretics but their silence there's no voice to them in terms of 987 01:23:24.640 --> 01:23:32.080 the historical account there's no voice but who does get a voice who gets a voice is Augustine 988 01:23:32.080 --> 01:23:37.600 who gets a voice is Calvin and we and these are the places that we're predominantly like 989 01:23:37.600 --> 01:23:41.920 and the other people that get a voice in terms of our image of hell and things like that you know 990 01:23:41.920 --> 01:23:46.960 is the catholic kind of purgatory type people that were telling us that you know you they could 991 01:23:47.680 --> 01:23:52.720 get your relatives out of hell for a good deal you know if you made a big enough offering they 992 01:23:52.720 --> 01:23:56.720 could get your relatives out and you know like you know something like a decade's time or something 993 01:23:56.720 --> 01:24:01.520 we'll have this sorted you know so it was kind of crazy I'm just what I'm looking at is the balance 994 01:24:01.520 --> 01:24:08.560 of who had has a voice who doesn't have a voice and to me it's crazy that a guy who was martyred 995 01:24:08.560 --> 01:24:13.600 for the gospel is called out as a heretic whereas a guy who goes around killing people 996 01:24:14.320 --> 01:24:19.520 is just gets a free pass he's like oh no he's the most wonderful theologian we've ever had 997 01:24:19.520 --> 01:24:25.680 and he obviously like you called out he obviously didn't know the father there's no way you can be 998 01:24:25.680 --> 01:24:30.480 walking with an intimacy with Jesus and think it's a great thing to be here to 10 year old kid for 999 01:24:30.480 --> 01:24:37.600 fighting with your parents it's not a it's not going to happen so when it comes to us wrestling 1000 01:24:37.600 --> 01:24:41.840 with all these things we're going to wrestle with them that's fine just just that you you don't have 1001 01:24:41.840 --> 01:24:48.320 to rush to come to a conclusion on on these things you can have an open book you can have a Bible you 1002 01:24:48.320 --> 01:24:54.240 can study it I've probably studied every word that I've ever been able to find that has relation to 1003 01:24:54.240 --> 01:24:59.600 this Indian context of the Bible I've looked at every word that speaks about hell and things like 1004 01:24:59.600 --> 01:24:59.840 that 1005 01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:03.840 And I definitely believe in hell as well, in case people were wondering, 1006 01:25:03.840 --> 01:25:05.440 like, oh, am I teaching? 1007 01:25:05.440 --> 01:25:08.120 And like I said, I'm not teaching the Oregon stuff. 1008 01:25:08.120 --> 01:25:10.080 I'm not teaching anything here. 1009 01:25:10.080 --> 01:25:12.320 All I'm saying is this was the conversation, 1010 01:25:12.320 --> 01:25:14.400 and we have to wrestle with the conversation, 1011 01:25:14.400 --> 01:25:15.600 go power up, where are we at? 1012 01:25:15.600 --> 01:25:17.120 But in the midst of the wrestling, 1013 01:25:17.120 --> 01:25:20.120 you know, your wrestling might take you 10 years. 1014 01:25:20.120 --> 01:25:22.480 You're like, I've been wrestling for a decade, 1015 01:25:22.480 --> 01:25:24.560 and I'll keep on journeying with it. 1016 01:25:24.560 --> 01:25:27.000 So don't be under pressure to try to, like, 1017 01:25:27.000 --> 01:25:31.200 come to your conclusions immediately around everything. 1018 01:25:31.200 --> 01:25:34.600 You can wrestle, you can journey, you can learn. 1019 01:25:34.600 --> 01:25:35.440 That's cool. 1020 01:25:35.440 --> 01:25:38.480 But the thing that you want to get set in place real quick 1021 01:25:38.480 --> 01:25:43.480 is that your identity, okay? 1022 01:25:44.080 --> 01:25:47.520 That's something that you don't have to wrestle with for years. 1023 01:25:49.200 --> 01:25:51.880 It is all kind of connected though, right? 1024 01:25:51.880 --> 01:25:55.400 You don't have to wrestle with your identity for years. 1025 01:25:55.440 --> 01:25:56.920 Obviously, it's a process, 1026 01:25:56.920 --> 01:25:59.160 but you know, without a shadow of a doubt, 1027 01:25:59.160 --> 01:26:03.440 that Jesus is not just an example for you, 1028 01:26:03.440 --> 01:26:04.680 but he's an example of you. 1029 01:26:04.680 --> 01:26:07.320 You're made in the image of God. 1030 01:26:07.320 --> 01:26:08.640 That's what Jesus came to do. 1031 01:26:08.640 --> 01:26:11.760 Jesus came to reveal the Father to us, okay? 1032 01:26:11.760 --> 01:26:15.240 And that's so critical because our image of our identity 1033 01:26:15.240 --> 01:26:17.400 comes from our image of the Father. 1034 01:26:17.400 --> 01:26:19.400 And that's why, that's the real reason 1035 01:26:19.400 --> 01:26:21.120 why I've taken these two sessions 1036 01:26:21.120 --> 01:26:24.080 to just explore people's perspective on how, 1037 01:26:24.080 --> 01:26:27.240 because when it comes to your deep beliefs, 1038 01:26:27.240 --> 01:26:31.680 your subconscious, unconscious beliefs about God, 1039 01:26:31.680 --> 01:26:36.320 they're always intertwined with your belief about hell. 1040 01:26:36.320 --> 01:26:40.120 So do you believe like it was taught by Calvin 1041 01:26:40.120 --> 01:26:43.320 that, you know, the majority of humanity 1042 01:26:43.320 --> 01:26:47.520 was predestined by God to suffer unspeakable, 1043 01:26:47.520 --> 01:26:49.520 unending torment in hell, 1044 01:26:49.520 --> 01:26:52.120 and that the suffering of those people 1045 01:26:52.120 --> 01:26:53.760 is what brings God pleasure? 1046 01:26:55.720 --> 01:26:59.480 So, right, if that's your picture of hell, right? 1047 01:26:59.480 --> 01:27:01.680 And I'm not saying there is no hell, I believe in hell, 1048 01:27:01.680 --> 01:27:03.160 but I'm saying your picture of hell, 1049 01:27:03.160 --> 01:27:04.680 your understanding of hell, 1050 01:27:04.680 --> 01:27:08.320 your concept around hell is direct, 1051 01:27:08.320 --> 01:27:10.920 it's gonna be, it's gonna really connect in 1052 01:27:10.920 --> 01:27:13.040 with your image of God. 1053 01:27:13.040 --> 01:27:16.040 So when you're in your image of God, 1054 01:27:16.040 --> 01:27:17.960 there's nothing that's gonna shape your identity 1055 01:27:17.960 --> 01:27:19.080 more than your image of God. 1056 01:27:19.080 --> 01:27:21.360 So if you don't wrestle with hell, 1057 01:27:21.360 --> 01:27:24.760 there'll be this unexplored dynamic to God. 1058 01:27:24.760 --> 01:27:26.200 And like Calvin teaches, 1059 01:27:26.200 --> 01:27:29.360 they actually teach there's a dark side to God. 1060 01:27:29.360 --> 01:27:30.400 What? 1061 01:27:30.400 --> 01:27:31.560 There's a dark side to God? 1062 01:27:31.560 --> 01:27:35.520 Yeah, there is no dark side to God 1063 01:27:35.520 --> 01:27:39.160 that you have to be worried about, all right? 1064 01:27:39.160 --> 01:27:43.760 So that's kind of really what this two sessions 1065 01:27:43.760 --> 01:27:47.440 has been about, is about being able to help people 1066 01:27:47.480 --> 01:27:51.960 let go of a picture of hell that is, 1067 01:27:51.960 --> 01:27:54.400 coming from Calvinism, coming from Catholicism, 1068 01:27:54.400 --> 01:27:57.320 coming from Augustine, a picture of hell 1069 01:27:57.320 --> 01:28:02.320 that is really, really like more a picture of a, 1070 01:28:04.720 --> 01:28:09.720 to me, it's like a psychotic torturer maniac. 1071 01:28:13.920 --> 01:28:17.360 That's what I would associate the concept of someone, 1072 01:28:18.280 --> 01:28:20.600 like the picture that they paint of how God 1073 01:28:21.840 --> 01:28:24.280 is connected with hell and like how he, 1074 01:28:24.280 --> 01:28:25.480 this is that concept, right? 1075 01:28:25.480 --> 01:28:28.920 Isn't it, it's bizarre that God would predestine 1076 01:28:28.920 --> 01:28:31.080 the majority of his own children to suffer 1077 01:28:31.080 --> 01:28:33.960 unending, unspeakable torment at his own hands 1078 01:28:33.960 --> 01:28:36.160 and that is what would give him pleasure. 1079 01:28:36.160 --> 01:28:39.920 To me, that is sadistic chaos, 1080 01:28:39.920 --> 01:28:43.120 but there's a dynamic for so many people 1081 01:28:43.120 --> 01:28:45.240 that subconsciously, unconsciously, 1082 01:28:45.280 --> 01:28:49.120 this image of hell is fused together 1083 01:28:49.120 --> 01:28:52.480 with the image of God and they cannot let it go 1084 01:28:52.480 --> 01:28:54.320 and because they cannot let it go, 1085 01:28:54.320 --> 01:28:57.880 they can't step into their identity. 1086 01:28:57.880 --> 01:29:00.280 They can't step into oneness with God. 1087 01:29:00.280 --> 01:29:04.280 They can't step into being exclusively defined by God. 1088 01:29:04.280 --> 01:29:07.440 There's still always an unhealthy fear of God. 1089 01:29:07.440 --> 01:29:10.600 It's messed up until we break that fusion 1090 01:29:10.600 --> 01:29:14.240 with a distorted image of hell. 1091 01:29:14.240 --> 01:29:15.840 So that's been the idea 1092 01:29:15.840 --> 01:29:20.600 and I hope that this has been helpful chats for you guys 1093 01:29:20.600 --> 01:29:23.480 and I think we're gonna wrap it up there. 1094 01:29:23.480 --> 01:29:26.440 I'm gonna pray and then our next session, 1095 01:29:26.440 --> 01:29:30.720 next Wednesday in the masterclass, 1096 01:29:30.720 --> 01:29:32.320 our next session, next Wednesday 1097 01:29:32.320 --> 01:29:35.120 in the Open Heaven Masterclass is going to be 1098 01:29:37.200 --> 01:29:38.960 cleansing your imagination. 1099 01:29:38.960 --> 01:29:42.000 So it's gonna be activations on cleansing your imagination 1100 01:29:42.000 --> 01:29:44.080 and deep repentance, okay? 1101 01:29:44.920 --> 01:29:48.040 So how do we shift those unconscious, subconscious beliefs 1102 01:29:48.040 --> 01:29:50.440 that we have that are actually controlling 1103 01:29:50.440 --> 01:29:52.520 everything that we do? 1104 01:29:52.520 --> 01:29:54.720 So going deeper than just our conscious mind, 1105 01:29:54.720 --> 01:29:58.280 going right deep into the unconscious subconscious realm 1106 01:29:58.280 --> 01:30:00.120 and shifting those. 1107 01:30:00.000 --> 01:30:07.280 beliefs in order to actually be able to step into oneness with God. Sound good? 1108 01:30:07.280 --> 01:30:13.560 And then on Friday, Alana and I, good news, late last night Alana and I finished 1109 01:30:13.560 --> 01:30:20.040 editing the Seven Sacred Pathways to Intimacy book, which is crazy. Today we 1110 01:30:20.040 --> 01:30:25.580 have been writing the workbook for couples and we'll aim to finish the 1111 01:30:25.580 --> 01:30:30.140 workbook for couples tonight and we're also doing a workbook for singles so that 1112 01:30:30.140 --> 01:30:35.380 will be done soon. So we actually just got the first draft of the book back 1113 01:30:35.380 --> 01:30:39.780 from the designer today because we got it to them late last night so they could 1114 01:30:39.780 --> 01:30:43.020 work on it all night so we could get it back today so we could send edits back to them. 1115 01:30:43.020 --> 01:30:48.980 So that is really close and in 10 a.m. Friday New Zealand time we will be 1116 01:30:48.980 --> 01:30:53.740 doing our next session on the Seven Sacred Pathways so that's gonna be fun too. 1117 01:30:53.740 --> 01:31:02.540 Sound good? Cool, all right, yeah, let's pray and then we'll wrap it up there. 1118 01:31:02.540 --> 01:31:09.260 Papa, just want to say wow, you're amazing, we love everything about you, we know 1119 01:31:09.260 --> 01:31:19.140 this has been a big, weighty session with lots of information but, Jesus, we want 1120 01:31:19.140 --> 01:31:22.860 to bring it all back to you, we want to bring it all back to oneness, we want to 1121 01:31:22.860 --> 01:31:27.700 bring it all back to you, Jesus, and we just want to ask Jesus that you would give us 1122 01:31:27.700 --> 01:31:35.100 eyes to see you. Jesus, what we're asking is that you would give us eyes to see 1123 01:31:35.100 --> 01:31:43.500 the Father. Jesus, what we're asking is that you would help us discover reality, 1124 01:31:43.500 --> 01:31:49.620 the reality of who you are, the truth of who you are. Jesus, we're asking that you 1125 01:31:49.700 --> 01:31:57.700 would help us come home back to the Father. So, Holy Spirit, we ask for fresh 1126 01:31:57.700 --> 01:32:03.380 revelation of the Father like never before. We ask that as you pour out your love 1127 01:32:03.380 --> 01:32:09.980 over us, in your glory over us, in revelation of your word over us, we ask 1128 01:32:09.980 --> 01:32:16.460 that as we come into this place, you will give us clarity and confidence and 1129 01:32:16.460 --> 01:32:23.940 understanding of who you are and that we are exclusively made and defined in 1130 01:32:23.940 --> 01:32:28.140 your image. In your beautiful name, Jesus. Amen. 1131 01:32:28.140 --> 01:32:35.140 Okay, love you heaps, fam. That's us for today. Bless you. We'll see you later. Bye-bye.