Hey Heike. Hi there. We are in a heat wave here in northern Alberta. I heard. My word.
I was chatting to Dana yesterday in Canada and she was hot. Tell us what's happening.
Well, these are kind of temperatures that we're not used to. And I mean there were temperatures
like in people's, in the sun, 50. Now is that 50 degrees Fahrenheit? No, Celsius. 50 degrees Celsius. Yes. Crazy.
Yeah. I mean, I didn't have that. Some areas did. I had something like 38, 39, 40 in there. So I'm swimming.
Wow, that is intense. That's, yeah, that's hot. Michelle, how are you doing?
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.
Oh, very cool. Very cool. Now, whereabouts are you?
I'm on the Gold Coast in Australia. Oh, that's great. It's very nice to have had a bit of rainy.
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.
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.
And we are jumping in for Origins of the Gospel Part Two, which is going to be fun.
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.
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.
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.
So that's when we're going to start shifting some, shifting some of our deeper, deeper beliefs.
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?
Claudia, welcome.
So good.
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.
Welcome.
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.
So let's pray, feel free to go for it. We'll just take a few minutes and enjoy that.
Hello.
we say be exalted be exalted be exalted we lift your name on high be lifted up be lifted
up be lifted up we honor you jesus the world we welcome you to fly this way we give you
all the glory we give you all the honor we say fill this space flood this space
have this place oh have our lives laid down have our lives
laid down
we love you we honor you and bless you we say be lifted high
amen hey my verse of the day today from john 15 was john 15 11 i have told you these things
so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete or perfect
how amazing is that that jesus said i preached the gospel to you so that your joy could be perfect
right how good is that that the in jesus own words the purpose of the gospel is that your
joy would be complete this is this is the purpose of it in your life is that your joy would be
complete and and what type of joy is he says it's so that my joy may be in you and that your joy
may be complete so what type of joy are we talking about the purpose of the gospel is that the
the purpose of the gospel is that the fullness of divine joy bliss and ecstasy
would be incarnate in you that the fullness of the joy of the trinity would live
that's the purpose of the gospel isn't that a great
objective this is how you can tell that your theology is good is that divine bliss
has the word of joy the word of bliss has become flesh in you bliss has become flesh in you joy
has become flesh in you ecstasy has become flesh in you that's a good indication that you've
understood what jesus was talking about because that's why he's telling you isn't that just great
great news
i love that so papa just fresh joy for everyone thank you father
from a couple people just tell me what's been good what's been shifting as you've been doing
things thank you we're watching these on facebook as well
so if you've got comments on facebook feel free to get chatty
but be really cool for everyone just to take a moment now and um just here as well just
tell me what's happening with the hard things challenges what's been good what's been challenging
what's been shifting well i'm i'm um when i read the scriptures i'm seeing them through new eyes
right yeah i i'm reading that you know the gospel of john and i'm just blown away by things that i've
missed now it's just coming at me in a fresh new way that i've never experienced before
that's great how often do you normally pray in the
Spirit, what's that story been like for you in your journey?
Well, I mean, I've been praying in the Spirit for years,
but it kind of seems to ebb and flow,
like some days more than other days.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
But that commitment, though, you know,
like just creating the time...
Oh, mm-hmm, yeah, yeah.
Just making something sacred and creating the time.
Revelation is attracted to that.
Yes.
Yeah, every morning.
That's beautiful.
Cool. Vicki, what's happening?
Oh, just kind of the same thing.
I walk every morning.
I spend most of the time I'm walking, praying in the Spirit.
Great.
Great. And seeing good things happening,
what's been going on for you?
Oh, well, I've been doing some...
I do day trading as my job right now,
and so I've been having some good success.
Today was not great, but yesterday was pretty good.
So, yeah, I think that's going better for me.
Just like in general.
What trading are you doing?
I've been day trading.
So, stocks and that's been going really well.
Cool. That's fantastic.
Very, very cool.
All right, anyone else want to jump into something?
Before we... We'll be calling for another testimony
if someone's got something.
Otherwise, we'll go into the PowerPoint.
I'll give a quick testimony.
So, I've just found myself being...
When I've been consistent and just doing,
getting up immediately and starting with my hard things that I do,
and I found that when I wake up in the morning,
I immediately, before I even get up,
I immediately just go straight into tongues automatically.
So, I wake up speaking and sometimes in the night,
I'll wake up speaking in tongues.
So, I've also been praying in tongues for a while,
but I've just found the consistency and getting up immediately
and just stepping in and doing those hard things has been good.
Beautiful. Beautiful.
All right. Well, great stuff, Ben.
We are going to... I'm going to hit the screen share now
and we are jumping in to...
Oh, I'm going to have to stop the screen share first
because I'm just going to mute everyone.
And back to the screen share.
And...
Back to the screen share, but my PowerPoint is here.
Right. Where did you go, mate?
Funny how sometimes on a computer, it just goes,
ta-da, I'm out of here.
Okay.
So, I'm going to put a few pictures here.
So, we're asking where did our gospel come from?
Here's some interesting pictures for you to look at.
Who are these people? What's going on here?
Just a few pictures.
Just a few pictures here to kind of get you thinking about the gospel,
some key events, key people, key places.
There you go. I hope that was fun for you.
So, we are going to go to the UK.
Who would like to take a little trip with me to the UK?
Yes? All right.
Well, we are going to 19A, The Close, Lickfield, Staffordshire in the UK.
Now, if you put that address into Google Maps,
you can actually have a little look at where we're going, okay?
So, here's where we're going.
Here's another picture of where we're going, the cathedral.
Okay, we're off to the cathedral in Lickfield, Litchfield probably.
Jesus, as we spend this time together,
we just ask that you speak into our hearts
and that you would put your wisdom and your heart in us
and you would just fill us with your desires.
And we thank you for revelation.
We thank you for your guidance.
And we thank you for speaking deeply into our hearts about who you are.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
All right.
So, at the cathedral, there's this really interesting picture here, okay?
Well, it's some really amazing statues, beautifully done.
And it's the seven fathers, okay?
Okay, so the seven fathers, not the greatest picture,
but we've got from the left,
St. Augustine and then St. Jerome.
So St. Jerome is,
oh, well, actually, we'll see this as we go on.
Anyway, so we've got St. Augustine, St. Jerome,
St. Ambrose, St. Gregory, St. John Chrysostom,
St. Athanasius, and St. Basil, okay?
So there's some sainty guys
that they thought were really, really important.
One of the great church fathers, Oregon,
referred to by some as the father of theology,
is not here, he's not in this list.
And then my favorite guy as well, St. Patrick,
which they didn't put him in here, okay?
So these are the guys
that they called the seven church fathers.
There's a couple of guys who are awkwardly missing,
if that makes sense.
So if you can understand history,
but why aren't these guys there?
Because they're obviously significant church fathers.
So these guys are all important dudes.
Couple of guys who it's awkward that they're not there
in terms of history is St. Patrick.
He had more influence possibly on the world,
maybe not on theology,
but he had a huge impact on the world.
So he's not there.
But then when it comes to theology,
St. Oregon is missing.
And that's like, if you know church history,
if you can understand the theology
and the origins of the gospel,
Oregon not being there is really interesting, okay?
So we wanna just note,
it's a point of note,
why is Oregon not there in the seven church fathers?
Right, we'll carry on.
And we're gonna find out why he's not there.
So these three names,
St. Augustine, Oregon, and St. Athanasius,
are three of the most influential men
in the history of Christian theology.
So you got St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, and St. Oregon.
Well, Oregon's not a saint.
He wasn't a saint, but Oregon, okay?
To understand who these guys are
and the influence their thoughts had on history,
we have to go back a little bit further, okay?
So let's go all the way back
and you might recognize some of these people, okay?
So this is a picture by Akeana of Jesus.
So let's go back to Jesus.
So he was born approximately four years BC, funny, right?
So our system of accounting was developed
by a Catholic abbot named Dionysius in the sixth century,
and he actually got the date slightly wrong.
So AD, it stands for Anno Domini,
so the year of our Lord,
referring to the birth of Jesus,
but Jesus was actually born about four years before Christ.
So there was, nevermind that,
that's just a little bit of awkward history.
It doesn't change anything,
it just means that the guy that set up the calendar
just got it slightly wrong.
So there you go, funny things happen.
So Jesus' most trusted disciple was this guy, old John here,
having a little nap on the bosom of Jesus.
There you go, that's nice.
So John lives from AD, right?
AD means it's Anno Domini from the year of our Lord.
So John lived from 6 AD to around 100 AD.
So he's about 10 years younger than Jesus.
So this gives you a little bit of an idea
of how old the disciples were, okay?
You know, that were cruising with Jesus.
Jesus was 33, and 23 would have been old.
So when these guys were the guys rolling it out in acts,
you're talking some young boys, right?
Like 10 years younger.
Jesus was in the terms of like,
when the Pharisees and that are like putting them in prison,
they're just putting kids in prison.
You know, these are like 23-year-old kids
that are like, who are these kids that are causing problems?
Some of them, some people say that it's possible
that the disciples might have even just been teenagers,
some of them.
That's pretty wild, right?
That our world got flipped upside down.
These were not old men.
They were not people who had been around long time.
They are fresh, okay?
So John was fresh.
Anyway, you've got John, the beloved.
Now, John discipled a guy named Polycarp.
And according to St. Jerome,
John ordained Polycarp as the Bishop of Smyrna.
Hello, I'm Polycarp.
So he was born in 80 AD to 167 AD.
And he was martyred, he was bound and burned at the stake,
but when the fire did not touch him, he was stabbed to death.
So they tried to burn him alive and he didn't die,
so they stabbed him.
Take that!
Here's a little bit of him,
of what he said while he was being burned alive.
Then he placing his hands behind him,
or this is the account of it.
Then he, placing his hands behind him,
being bound to the stake like a noble,
ran out of a great flock for an offering,
a burnt sacrifice ready and acceptable to God,
looking up to him and said,
O Lord God Almighty,
the father of thy beloved and blessed son, Jesus Christ,
through whom we have received the knowledge of thee,
the God of angels and powers and of all creation
and of the whole race of the righteous,
who live in thy presence.
I bless thee for thou hast granted me this day and hour,
that I might receive a portion among the number of martyrs
in the cup of thy Christ unto resurrection of eternal life,
both of soul and body,
in the incorruptibility of the Holy Spirit.
May I be received among these in thy presence this day
as a rich and acceptable sacrifice,
as thou didst prepare and reveal it beforehand
and hast accomplished it.
Thou that art the faithful and true God,
for this cause, yeah,
and for all things, I praise thee.
I bless thee, I glorify thee
through the eternal and heavenly priest, Jesus Christ,
thy beloved son, through whom, with him
and the Holy Spirit be glory both now and forever
and for the ages to come.
Amen.
All right, so we've got,
I mean, I just think that's pretty cool, right?
That's pretty cool to have
just a record of what this guy said,
what Polycarp said as he's being martyred.
So, right.
So we're moving on from Polycarp.
So Polycarp, the next guy,
Polycarp died in 167, then comes Irenaeus.
So Irenaeus was born in the early second century
and died around 202 AD.
And as a young man,
Irenaeus used to listen to Polycarp preach,
and he was the bishop of Lugdunum in Gaul,
now Lyons in France.
So Irenaeus believed Jesus' redemptive work
in his incarnation.
He believed in Jesus' redemptive work in his incarnation,
his perfect life, death and resurrection
was a victory in Christ over all of God's enemies.
Here, Christ fought and was victorious
for he bound the strong man, liberated the weak,
and by destroying sin, endowed his creation with salvation.
All right.
So we're not gonna read this stuff here,
but basically the essence of this
is that Irenaeus is a Trinitarian, okay?
So if you remember back to last week's session,
last week's session and last week's session,
we covered the spectrum of Christian beliefs
around hell, around salvation.
We talked about all sorts of things, right?
So we had in our right hand last week,
so in our right hand,
you can't really see that,
but in our right hand, we had the really exclusive,
and on the left hand,
we had the really inclusive, didn't we?
So on the right hand,
the people that believe that hardly anyone gets saved,
and in the left hand,
we talked all the way through to people,
from really, really exclusive,
you had extreme Calvinism,
and then you had Minianism,
and then you had Trinitarianism,
and then you had apocatastasis,
so the restoration of all things,
which is Christian universalism.
And then we talked about one that's not a Christian belief,
and we said, this is not a Christian belief,
which is Unitarian Universalism,
which is a Christ of salvation, okay?
So what we're getting into now here
is where some of these thoughts came from
in terms of the early church fathers.
So Irenaeus, you can say that Irenaeus is a Trinitarian,
okay, in terms of where you put it in.
So Irenaeus is a Trinitarian,
and that's what we want to know there, okay?
So Irenaeus, just remember where Irenaeus
got his Trinitarian beliefs from.
Irenaeus was discipled by Polycarp,
Polycarp by John, John by Jesus,
and then after Irenaeus,
the next big guy that comes along is Athanasius, okay?
And Athanasius, who we see here,
is,
he's the.
the father of the Eastern Orthodox Church, okay? So the theological father of the Western Church
is Augustine and the father of the Eastern Orthodox Church is Athanasius, okay? So here we're
connecting, we're discovering Athanasius and we're discovering his roots, okay? So you can see it
goes Jesus, John, Polycarp, Irenaeus, Athanasius, okay? And these guys are all on the same train
theologically and they're all Trinitarians, okay? That's their thing, that's what
they're teaching, they're teaching Trinitarian theology, okay? So the modern Trinitarian movement
of today and also the Greek Orthodox movement which we are going to see shortly,
they all go back to Athanasius, Irenaeus, Polycarp, these are their heroes, making sense?
Okay, so Athanasius, he died in 373 AD defending the gospel against false teachers who denied
the son's eternal divinity. So this defense led to the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity
confirmed at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. In his Treatise on the Incarnation, Athanasius
wrote the following, thus by taking a body like our own because all our bodies were liable to
the corruption of death, he surrendered his body to death in the place of all and offered it to
the father. This he did out of sheer love for us so that in his death all might die. This he did
that he might turn again to incorruption, men who had turned back to corruption and make them alive
through death by the appropriation of his body and by the grace of his resurrection. So what he's
talking about there is that this was for all people. We aren't going to read all of this but
this is just some of his writings. I'll give you this, which book shall I give you?
I'll just give you this quick summary, okay? So Athanasius and Irenaeus emphasize that the
incarnation, when the son of God became a human being, affected all humanity, okay? God chose to
save humanity through the birth, life, sacrificial death, and resurrection of the incarnate son.
This is the essence of the gospel understood by the early church and revealed in the scriptures.
So they had a really strong... I'll read you this bit. What then was God to do? What else
could he possibly do, being God, but renew his image in mankind so that through it men might
once more come to know him? And how could this be done save by the coming of the very
image of himself, our savior, Jesus Christ? I'll read one more little bit. The word of God came
in his own person because it was he alone, the image of the father, who could recreate man after
the image. Thus it happened that two opposite marvels took place at once. The death of all was
consummated in the Lord's body, yet because the word was in it, death and corruption were in the
same act utterly abolished. Death there had to be, and death for all, so that the Jew of all might be
paid. Okay, so he is talking about how Jesus, in the incarnation... Let me just try and summarize
this too while we're at the same time trying to race along. But a massive theme for all of these
guys is the incarnation, okay? So the incarnation is not talking about flowers, which some of our
Dutch friends might like the sound of incarnations, but not talking about flowers. We are talking
about the word coming as flesh. And so also the incarnation is that Jesus didn't just come
as an example for us, but he came as us. Okay, so the Greek Orthodox and the Trinitarian
perspective is very strongly that Jesus came as humanity, right? That all humanity was
invited in him. When you talk about all humanity was in him, there's a dynamic of
the vicarious nature of Christ. So say vicarious nature, vicarious nature. So when it says the
death of all was consummated in the Lord...
of body. He's talking about Jesus represented all of humanity, didn't just represent him but we were
all in him. So this dynamic of the incarnation, this dynamic of the vicarious nature of Christ,
that all humanity was in Christ in his life, all humanity was in Christ in his death,
all humanity was in Christ in his resurrection, and all humanity is in Christ. So that's this huge,
huge theological infrastructure and foundational dynamic of Trinitarian thought, is that all
humanity is in Christ, okay? Right, let's jump along. So here's a really interesting part of
the story, is that Mark, right, so we've got Mark, Mark the disciple, when he went to preach
the gospel he went to Alexandria in Egypt. Ta-da! Here's Mark the evangelist. So he died in 68 AD
but where he went to preach the gospel was in Alexandria and they had great success in
Alexandria in preaching the gospel. It blew up, okay? So Alexandria, it just, it blew up
and according to Saint Jerome, Mark the apostle founded a training school in Alexandria
that really grew and grew and got a lot of momentum. And we're going to talk about this
training school a bit, okay? So just think about this, the training school in Alexandria.
Let's, let's kind of talk about this a bit. So Alexandria, it was the metropolis of Egypt,
so it's the flowering seed, it's the massive seed of commerce, of Greek and Jewish learning,
it's got the greatest library of the ancient world is there, and it was destined to become
one of the great centers of Christianity. So the rival in terms of, you know, the only other thing
that compared in the Christian world to Alexandria and how massive Alexandria and the church movement,
the Christian movement, it was in Alexandria, the only place that compared was Antioch, okay? So
when persecution broke out against everyone in Jerusalem, majority of the Christians fled to
Antioch, okay? So Antioch became the biggest hub in the world of Christian presence, Christian
training, Christian influence, it was Antioch. But then Alexandria grew so much that it rivaled
Antioch, okay? So you've got to understand, Antioch, sorry, in Alexandria is a huge move of God
and a huge movement of Christians in Alexandria. So
we'll move on there, but that's the important part, right? The important part to grab there
is that Alexandria has this massive, massive training school. So let me read a little bit
about the training school. The school became the oldest center for sacred scientists, for sacred
sciences in the history of Christianity. So at the school they taught sciences, they taught the very
first system of Christian theology and allegorical method of biblical exegesis was devised there.
It was the most, so this is, this is a historian that states this, his name's
Dom D. Rees, he said, the most renowned intellectual institution in the early Christian
world was undoubtedly the catechetical school of Alexandria, and its primary concern was the study
of the Bible, giving its name to an influential tradition of scriptural interpretation,
the preoccupation of this school of exegesis was to discover everywhere the spiritual sense
underlying, underlying the written word of scripture. Can you just mute yourself there,
please, team? If you're not muted at all, let me just see if I can mute you. I can't mute you while
I'm in a screen share like this. So when they're there at the school in Alexandria, they could
study science, they could study theology, they could study anything, right? They could study
psychology. It was just, it was massive, okay? So you're going to think it's like a full-on
university that they've got there. It's one of the greatest Christian institutions and training
institutions in the whole world. So it's a big deal, okay, what we're talking about.
it's a big deal. Let me just read something about it, we're going to talk about Oregon
in a moment as well, and this is what one of the students said about being under the charge
of Oregon, okay, he says, I just want to make sure I get it right here,
to be under the intellectual charge of Oregon, says Gregory, was like living in a garden
where fruits of the mind sprang up without toil, to be happy with gladness by the happy occupants,
he truly was a paradise to us, after the likeness of the paradise of God, to leave him was
similar to the experience of Adam after the fall, few
teachers have ever won so remarkable a testimonial from their pupils, so
Oregon, right, we're just touching base on Oregon now, because Oregon was a key player
in the catechetical school in Alexandria, okay, this is all going to kind of string together
in a moment, you're going to start seeing the significance of why I'm giving you this context,
okay, so just hang in there for a moment, because this is going to be a real big deal,
so the catechetical school of Alexandria was the oldest one, so it just means training school,
okay, you know, biblical training school, Jerome records that the Christian school of Alexandria
was founded by Mark himself, and the first appointed manager appointed by Mark was Saint
Justice, who later became the 6th Bishop of Alexandria, okay, so this here is just a list
of all the deans, okay, so from 62 AD to 118 AD, you had Justice, and then you had Eumenius come in
for like another decade, and then Marcianus for like 20 something years, and then Pantaneus from
81 to 90, then Clement of Alexandria from 190 to 202, then Oregon from 203 to roughly around 230,
so Oregon was the dean or the principal of the school for nearly 30 years, okay, one of the
longest standing deans ever, so it's nearly 30 years, and then you've got Phogos in the 3rd
century, and then Pyrrhos in the 4th century, and Achilles in the 4th century, and Peter in the 4th
century, and then Serapion, Macarius, and Didymus the blind, that's kind of cool, they had a blind
guy there as well, so what you're seeing there is you're seeing that this is going, this is a school
that's going for centuries, not just like 10-20 years, this is nearly, you're talking nearly,
you know, three centuries worth of heritage, and being one of the most, you know, one of the
most influential leading places of Christian education in the world for centuries, okay, so
it's not a small school, it's a big deal, it's one of the most recognized Christian educational
institutes for centuries, okay, and the school, you know, it didn't just do theological subjects,
it did Christian philosophy, the Bible, science, mathematics, Greek and Roman literature, logic,
and the arts, they were all taught, so, and even 15 centuries before they had Braille, right,
blind students were using, were there studying at the school, and they had to develop their own
kind of wood carving techniques to read and write, so they had like their own Braille system
created for blind students at the school as well, so it's pretty hardcore, you know, when you've gone
to the effort, you've got so many students that you go to the effort to create your own
Braille system for your blind students, it's a pretty big deal, okay, so here we go, this is
Panteneus, and he took charge around 200 AD, so he died around 200 AD, he was a dean at the school
from 181 AD, so let's just check out some of these guys, this is, Panteneus was followed by Clement
of Alexandria, and then Oregon came in, okay, so Oregon, you have to think, you have to understand
that this guy is polarizing, one of the most polarizing church leaders that has ever lived
is this guy Oregon, okay, you've got to understand that Oregon is a man of extreme intensity,
he is completely sold out, he's so, and he's polarizing, okay, he does not pull punches,
he is not shy, he will go all, and you're going to see in a minute.
just how intensely sold out he is for the gospel. And this is what Oregon wrote, he said,
I want to be a man of the church. I do not want to be called by the name of some founder of a
heresy, but by the name of Christ and to bear that name, which is blessed on the earth. It is my
desire and deed as in spirit, both to be and to be called a Christian. All right. So that's his
dream. It's just, I just, I'm all about Jesus. So Oregon was born in Alexandria to Christian
parents and they supported him to study the Christian scriptures. In 202 AD, when he was a
teenager, his father was martyred under the reign of emperor Septimius Servius. Now, if you remember
back to some of the teachings, if you've joined with us for the teachings that we did in the
Raising Royalty Masterclass group, the Open Heaven Intensive, you'll possibly remember that
we talked through some of the early church history and the persecutions that broke out while Oregon's
father was martyred in one of those persecutions. Okay. Actually, Oregon was going to run out there
to be martyred with his father, but his mom hid his clothes so that he had no clothes.
So he didn't run out and get killed. Oregon laid down his life in pursuit for Christ. He made
great sacrifice to dedicate himself to a life abandoned to Christ and to following his calling.
He remained single his whole life and at one point he sold his entire library and used the money to
support himself as he dedicated his days to training disciples and his nights to studying
the Bible. So this is all he wanted. Everything that he had, he laid down for the gospel.
One other interesting thing, and I'll just check. Okay. So one of the funny story about Oregon,
and I dropped this hint for some of you a little while ago, he was so passionate about preaching
the gospel that there was a season in his life that the only people that he could reach were these
influential ladies. So he had an open door to preach to them, but people said, no, you can't
go and preach to a bunch of ladies. You're just going in there so you can have sex with them.
And he's like, no, I'm not. And so there was a dispute about his intentions where he was actually
going there to preach the gospel or if he was actually trying to just have sex with these
ladies that he was preaching to. So he's like, well, to show you that I'm serious, he cut off
his own testicles. So that kind of gives you an idea of his priorities in life around the gospel
for him, his life and cause and mission and everything about his life was for the gospel.
He's like, no, I'm on the planet for the gospel. I'm not going to try and preach to these women
for any other. I've got no other agenda except the gospel and let me prove it. So there you go.
That's what I mean. So you kind of get now how intense he is for Jesus.
That's pretty intense. He's the only person I've ever heard of in world history. I've never heard of anyone else
ever. He may be the only person with that testimony in world history who cut off his own
testicles in order to preach the gospel. But that's how intense this guy is. No cost is too high
to be able to be preaching the gospel. So Oregon led the school in Alexandria
and he was also traveling extensively as well. So in a decision that was full of controversy
that much of the church refused to agree with, Bishop Demetrius excommunicated Oregon
and he left Alexandria in 233 AD. So by this point, he's been the dean of the school for nearly
three decades. And he gets excommunicated by this Bishop Demetrius and he moved to Caesarea
and was welcomed by the churches in that region and ministered throughout Palestine,
Arabia, Phoenicia, and Greece. So the church was really, really split by the fact that
Bishop Demetrius had just excommunicated Oregon, one of the most loved
teachers, preachers of the gospel in the world. And so the church was really split by the fact
of what Demetrius had just done. But anyway, so Oregon left there and then Palestine, Arabia,
Phoenicia, Greece, a whole bunch of the world still had like open arms. Like, no, we will have
Oregon. Like, what are you? Are you crazy? You're kicking out the greatest teacher of our time.
they're like wow this is crazy so the greatest teacher of their time the guy who'd been leading
the you know one of the most prestigious christian um uh training institutions in the world got
excommunicated by bishop demetrius but so much of the rest of the world was like oh my gosh wow
like you guys are meant to get rid of getting rid of him and so they opened their arms and welcomed
him all around the world um in 250 a.d emperor decius ordered that everyone in the empire
must get a vaccine no no sorry he said um he ordered that everyone in the empire must
sacrifice to roman gods and the emperor and the uh and the emperor so everyone had to go and make
a sacrifice to the emperor and to the roman gods and get a certificate saying that they'd done that
that uh they had um you know worshipped the emperor and worshipped these roman gods and if
you didn't worship and if you didn't get your certificate if you weren't compliant then you
were imprisoned and tortured um so oregon was imprisoned he was tortured for uh a long time
and eventually he died from the wounds not in prison he was released the the persecution ended
and he was released but he never recovered from the wounds from the torture and after
several years he actually died from those wounds um so
right now now we're going to get into one of the things that
was really widespread teaching for those early um early disciples
and like i said last week i'm not trying to teach you what to think i'm just trying to teach you how
to think i'm just giving you information like hey this is just the story of the church okay i'm not
i'm not going to tell you anything except that this is the history this is our origins this is
where we came from this is our story when it comes to theology i'm really happy for you just
to be on your own you know be on your journey um with god and with the scriptures wrestling with
this the church has been wrestling with all these things for you know a couple of thousand years so
you can you can wrestle with it too you are you are big enough uh to wrestle with this stuff yourself
um just be aware that you're part of a conversation that's been going on for thousands of years
so here we go this is the controversy and this is why augustine was uh sorry why
oregon was kicked out um it was uh to do with apocatastasis okay but it wasn't just to do with
his theology okay you've got to understand that oregon was kicked out excommunicated by
by the bishop not just because of his theology but because he was so polarizing okay you guys
understand that there's a difference right when someone's polarizing um and people don't like them
because of who they are versus um what they believe right it's just like i just i just don't
like that guy i don't care that other people think the same thing it's just that guy's the guy
i've got a problem so it's kind of like that with oregon there was people that just had a problem
with oregon and not just his theology okay so you just have to understand that um the controversy
was oregon himself he's so intense that he's going to cut off his own testicles he's going to be
martyred like this guy's radical and so some people just had an issue with him just because of who he
is so you've got the controversy which is apocatastasis and that is the greek word so
say apocatastasis i kind of sometimes remember it by thinking a pocket of stacy's so apocatastasis
is the restoration of all things um and apocatastasis trend uh so yeah you've got the rest
restoration or the restitution of all things so oregon along with a number of the previous
and the following leaders of the training school in alexandria believed that ultimately god was
good and his discipline was rooted in the desire for repentance and transformation
as opposed to simply punishing for punishment's sake they believed that all god's judgments were
redemptive in nature they were the leading scholars of their day and some of the great
fathers of church history they believed that hell would last for aeons or ages or or an age
or an aeon in greek um which is how which is a word
translated as eternity, aeons.
They believed that aeons would last for,
they would be ages, not without end.
So that they were aeons or ages,
but would not be without end.
They believed that all of humanity, fallen angels,
and even the devil would eventually
be reconciled to the father.
This caused a massive theological division in the church.
Many of the church fathers stood with Oregon
in the belief in the restoration of all things,
while many others labeled him a heretic.
Historically, Christian leaders in the East,
okay, we're gonna talk about the East in a little bit,
in the East were more accepting of Oregon
than Christian leaders in the West.
Enemies of Oregon also began to put
a lot of false labels on him
and claimed that he taught things that he hadn't,
to the point that in the Western church,
the man known as the father of theology,
who laid down his life for Christ,
is viewed as a heretic
and his teachings are not considered Christian.
Okay, track them with me, all right?
So there's a lot of backstory going on here,
like all of this is backstory to our lives and our city.
So I hope you are tracking with me.
Okay, I think I might skip here.
I'll read you one,
this is one quote from Clement of Alexandria.
He was another one of the deans,
the principals of the school in Alexandria.
And he said,
for all things are ordered both universally
and in particular by the Lord of the universe
with a view to the salvation of the universe.
But needful corrections by the goodness
of the great overseeing judge,
through the attendant angels,
through various prior judgments,
through the final judgment,
compel even those who have become more callous to repent.
All right, just gonna move on now.
That's Clement of Alexandria.
So,
apocastasis, did we cover that?
Yes, cool.
So,
here's just one little point to note
that should be just considered, okay?
In terms of, you guys are getting
an in-depth history lesson here.
So Oregon did have some other beliefs as well
that were some of the reasons
why he was labeled a heretic.
It's not just his belief in the restoration of all things.
It's what I'm trying to make clearly communicate to you.
It wasn't just his belief or teaching
of apocastasis or the restitution,
the restoration of all things
that got him labeled a heretic, okay?
There's a couple of other things
that he taught that people had an issue with at the time,
and also the personality, a strong personality.
So, here we go.
Look at this.
So here's a list as well of some of the other church fathers
who've taught apocastasis,
and no one has been upset, okay?
So these guys, these are just all lists
of real significant people who have,
at one time or another, taught the restoration,
the restitution of all things.
So you've got Clement, Oregon, Didymus, St. Anthony,
St. Pamphilus, Bardasian, Methodius, St. Macrina,
St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Evagrius Ponticus,
Diodorus of Tarsus, Theodorus of Mopsustia,
St. John of Jerusalem, Rufinius.
All of these guys have had, at some point or another,
a part to play in the process of teaching apocastasis.
So, here we go.
St. Augustine of Hippo comes on the scene, okay?
So 354 AD to 430 AD.
So St. Augustine comes on the scene
after all the persecutions, right?
So St. Augustine never has to go through any persecution
or anything like that.
He's gonna have it easy.
He had quite a dodgy, wild life
before he became a Christian.
He was studying all like Plato
and their kind of Greek philosophies
and Greek gods and things like that.
So that's kind of the world that he came from
with a lot of those Greek mindsets, really, in his thinking.
And then here he is, St. Augustine of Hippo.
Augustine. And he was in Algeria. Who would have thought? Algeria is not really a hot spot right
now, but back in the day, Algeria was quite a big deal, especially in the Christian world. So
you've got Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo, and Hippo is in Algeria, and he was a real, real big
deal. Augustine probably, and we've looked at Augustine a bit already, so you kind of know a
bit about Augustine if you've been following the teachings, but he's in the western church,
he was a hero. In the eastern church, he was a heretic. So one thing that I've learned for sure
in studying church history and church theology is that it doesn't really matter what you believe,
right? Everybody is somebody's heretic. That's what you're going to find. It doesn't, like,
if you are trying to choose the safe line that no one will be upset with you for believing this,
there is none, right? It doesn't matter what perspective you hold, someone disagrees with
you in the church. And that's what you can see when you look at church history, you can see,
oh wow, there is some Christian father somewhere that agrees, that disagrees with everything that
you believe. And there's Christian fathers that, you know, like, there's a spectrum of belief,
okay? So it doesn't matter where you are in that spectrum, someone's going to hate what you think,
hate what you believe, someone's going to think you're a heretic. So at the end of the day,
you just have to choose what you want to burn for, right? So we've got Augustine,
we're going to race through Augustine. So yeah, he became a Christian, a bit of a wild background,
and then when he did become a Christian, he was pretty dodgy, really. Like, he was happy to use
force to torture or persecute or move on other Christians. He would bribe people, anyone who
wasn't in alignment with his thinking or in agreement with how he did things, he would
work hard to get them called heretics, or to get them kicked out, or to influence popes or someone
to have them violently removed. So one big group that he had a big problem with was the Donatists,
and he was kind of intimidated by the Donatists. The Donatists really came out of, you know,
after the persecutions came, what happened was people like Oregon died by the stack loads.
They got put in prison, they got tortured, they got martyred, because they wouldn't worship
the emperor, okay? So because they wouldn't worship the emperor, they got martyred, persecuted,
tortured, put in prison, but then a whole bunch of them were like, oh no, we'll worship the emperor,
and so they got off scot-free, right? They had no pressure, and then after the persecution wound up,
all of those people started coming back to church, and the people who had lost friends, family,
being killed themselves, and were like, oh my gosh, like, we paid a price, and now here's all
these people who wouldn't sacrifice anything for Jesus coming back into the church,
and what they thought, what they felt like, is like, no, this is not okay, and then
not only that, but some of those people who wouldn't even stand for Jesus, they started
getting made bishops, and they started getting made leaders in the church, and so all these people who
hadn't, you know, who'd been through all the suffering that they'd been through because
they refused to worship Roman gods and worship the emperor, they were like, no, we're not keen on this,
we want, that's not pure, you know, you're not, you're putting people in there who sold Jesus out,
you're putting them in leadership, so they created their own group, and that was the group, the
Donatists, and that was the group that Augustine attacked brutally, he did everything that he could
to, you know, to create the context where they would have be militarily oppressed, so just
to kind of give you an idea, right, of where he's at, you oppress Augustine, you cross Augustine,
and you get in big trouble, he will go after you, he will do whatever he has to, he will,
you know, like, he will bribe popes, he will bribe people, he will, it doesn't matter, okay, so you kind
of get the idea, he's got some cool ideas, and some cool stuff that he does, but what you kind
of see in Augustine of, like, this willingness to
persecute your enemies, right?
If they, like theological enemies,
if someone disagrees with you theologically,
you know, this mindset that it's okay to persecute them,
it's okay to, you know,
have them murdered or martyred or whatever.
That mindset, it was like a seed in Augustine,
but when it came to Calvin, it was a full-blown tree.
Like Calvin would just,
he was killing people all over the place.
So Augustine, he really gets multiplied
when it comes to Luther and Calvin, especially Calvin.
Calvin is just Augustine all over.
So we won't read this.
The gist here of what we're gonna talk about now
is that there was a split between the Catholic church
in the early days before there was ever the Reformation.
So most people talk about the Reformation in the 1500s.
There was actually a church split
that split the Catholic church dramatically
way, way, way back.
And so we're gonna talk about that now
and where that came from.
So Augustine was really the catalyst of a split
that took place about 500 years after he died.
So you've got guys like Oregon
and a whole bunch of the church love them,
Athanasius, Irenaeus, all these guys, right?
So you've got all the guys going back to Polycarp
all the way through those amazing fathers of the church,
everyone up until Augustine teaching,
what is primarily teaching Trinitarianism, right?
And then Augustine comes in the scene
and he starts teaching completely different gospel.
And his main points that he sees,
these are the main points of the gospel,
which like these are his main points,
original sin, redefining baptism, predestination,
irresistible grace, there's no free will,
especially in regard to salvation, those things.
So Augustine's main points,
those were the very reasons that the Orthodox,
the Eastern Orthodox church didn't like him,
didn't agree with him,
wouldn't jump on board with what he was doing, okay?
So it wasn't side issues that were the issue for Augustine,
it was his very core theology, they hated all of it.
And they said, we won't have any part of that.
You're a total heretic.
Our core theology is complete heresy,
and we don't want anything to do with it.
So what you had happening is,
when Augustine came on the scene,
his teaching split the church there.
And so you had the Western Eastern,
sorry, the Eastern Orthodox side of things.
They didn't become the Eastern church officially
until the split that happened
about 500 years after Augustine,
but they were drawing battle lines, in a sense,
of allegiance to the early church fathers.
So anyone who was loyal to the early church fathers
was basically on the Eastern side,
and anyone who was loyal to Augustine
was on the Western side.
That's kind of how it went.
And Augustine's theology was so influential,
and his influence grew so dramatically
that someone could just say, Augustine Dixon,
which is Augustine says,
and if it was something that Augustine said,
no one would argue it.
They're like, okay, now Augustine believes that?
Sweet.
So actually what you have is,
Augustine became way more influential than the Bible,
because it wasn't the Bible that was actually being taught.
It was Augustine's interpretation of the Bible.
Now, Augustine couldn't even read Greek.
So Augustine's friend, Jerome,
was the guy that translated from Greek to Latin
so that Augustine could read it.
His friend, Jerome, was the guy who was the translator.
Okay, so Jerome.
But Jerome was just as dodgy as Augustine.
You know, like they would side up together
to persecute people.
So even this guy who's an amazing church historian,
he's definitely a church father.
He had so much history that he recorded,
and we owe so much to Jerome,
and he was a translator of the Bible.
So it's called the Vulgate,
which is the translation from Greek into Latin.
Jerome did that.
But Jerome, you know, was quite an orphan.
So all Augustine's teaching,
anytime he wanted to get to the Greek,
he couldn't go to the Blue Letter Bible.
He had to go to Jerome and ask Jerome,
what does this Greek word mean?
And so everything that he got,
he got from Jerome,
who was a guy who didn't really even know the father.
Okay, so and then Augustine, who can't read Greek,
becomes the single most.
influential voice in the Western Church. He's teaching all of this stuff, but he's not even
connected to the original Greek meanings of the words. Everything is kind of Chinese whispers
through Jerome. And then his influence just goes astronomical. And then for the Western Church,
they all, like for centuries, just start aligning with Augustine, Augustine, Augustine, Augustine.
Okay, sweet. Moving along. Augustine and Jerome had plenty of battles with people.
It was Augustine and Jerome that started teaching that if you were married, you were a second class
citizen. So if you have ever been taught in church or heard that sex is evil, sex is bad,
it goes back to these guys. Interestingly, or might be interesting for you or not.
So here's something, because I've just written this book, The Seven Sacred Pathways to Intimacy.
And one of the things, we've got a whole thing there on sex. So we talk about all sorts of
sexual dysfunctions in terms of just physical things. But in terms of physical things that
sex therapists, doctors, and medical practitioners deal with a lot is 10 to 15% of women will never
have an orgasm. You know, that's just that's just what you'll hear from medical people. And then
one of the main causes of why they say that never happens to people is the religious conditioning
that they're given. And that they're taught that sex is evil, sex is bad, and all of these things,
and it shuts people down forever. So if you're ever wondering where that sex is evil, sex is bad,
priests are a higher class. If you get married, you're a second class citizen,
where did that come from? Came from Jerome and Augustine. Jerome's the guy that translated
from Greek. So Jerome and Augustine buddies, fixing all sorts of crazy stuff like that.
So there you go, a little bit of interesting side there for you. This context here is about
Augustine sent a bride once of 80 stallions to an emperor in order to get one of his enemies
labeled a heretic. So there's a guy that is teaching something different to Augustine,
and Augustine feels insecure. So he sends a bride, he partners up with another friend, and they
bribe an emperor to have a really good guy labeled a heretic. Okay, so you kind of get a little bit
of a picture there. Okay, so this is now we're touching based on the East-West split or the
East-West schism. This happened in 1054, so over 500 years after Augustine, the East-West schism,
and that East-West schism, it splits the... Before this, the Roman church hadn't had a...
The Catholic church hadn't had a major split, but it had some smaller things,
like some smaller breakaways like the Donatus group, but the word Catholic means universal.
So before this, there really was just one main church, and you had a few smaller groups coming
off, but this was the first time there'd ever been a main split. So East-West schism happens,
boom, 1054, and it is a huge split. It's not just a little thing, like it's split
theologically, financially, politically, militarily, wars were fought, language,
the Greeks obviously kept Greeks, you know, the East, which is the Greek Orthodox church,
they kept the Greek, the West, they went with Latin, it split everything. Okay, so
boom, massive split happens, and then the next big thing on the church scene
happens in 1517, which is the Reformation. Okay, so you have the Reformation,
where John Calvin and Martin Luther, they split away again from the...
they split away from the Roman Catholic church, boom, but when they split away,
they don't actually change that much in terms of theology. They change the systems,
they change what church looks like a bit, they change theology a bit, but at the heart of it,
there's still Augustine all over it, and so we won't get into it too much, but, you know,
whatever Augustine did in terms of bloodshed, Calvin did it 10 times worse.
Burning, there's one story of a guy, Michael Servetus, right, Michael Servetus,
oh, hang on, Michael Servetus was a guy that was a, was a,
was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a, was a,
the theological opponent of John Calvin and he said hey I want to talk this through I want to
chat theology I'm going to come and see you in Geneva and John Calvin said if you come here I'll
have you burnt alive. He went to the church anyway just to hear John Calvin preach and they arrested
him and then they burnt him alive. How crazy is that? The guy wanted to chat about theology and
Calvin's like okay let's chat about theology and he burns him alive.
What? This is one of you know a guy heralded as one of the greatest church fathers in the world
and here he is burning people alive and people have not like not an issue right he's not
considered a heretic for burning people alive there's no like people aren't going oh hey that's
an issue no they're not doing that right no problem with that um we're we're all okay with
burning people alive that's fine um so just racing through this now after the reformation
Europe went into war for centuries millions of people died um through the wars that just
raged through Europe for centuries the next big guy on the scene is Jacobus Arminius so
just a little while after reformation Jacobus Arminius he was uh Calvinist and then he was
like hang on a minute I'm not in with all this predestination stuff he came out from that
predestination stuff basically said people have free will to choose you know if they're going to
receive Jesus or not they've got free will so you can kind of see that spectrum of belief coming in
here again right so on this end you've got extreme Calvinism and then you've got um Arminianism
coming in here and then you've got Trinitarianism we're going to see that in a second so this guy
here um and so basically after that right so from 1560 through to just a few years ago
for 500 years basically the status quo didn't really change very much in the church a few
reformations um definitely some revivals some outpourings some great awakenings those things
all happened but theologically things didn't really get shaken up very much so you still
had in the church you still had people like you know and we still do to this day that Calvinism
is huge millions of people around the world fully engaged in Calvinism um
and then you had our man here um Jacobus Arminius so you had Calvinism and Arminianism but what you
have to understand is that even Arminius here and Arminianism still takes a lot of its image of God
from Augustine um and then you've got this guy here Karl Barth okay so it's not until
uh the early 19 you know through the 1920s really that Karl Barth comes on the scene
and Karl Barth was a German um theologian and basically what he did is he went and reconnected
with the roots of the church in the Orthodox the Greek Orthodox world
so remember Augustine's theology cut everyone off from Oregon cut everyone off from Athanasius
cut everyone off from Irenaeus cut everyone off from Polycarp cut everyone off from all
the teaching of the early church fathers right that's what Augustine cost everyone
which is it was all the teaching of the early church fathers was basically outlawed
so you've got you know hundreds of years of teaching of Christian theology Augustine comes
on the scene and he's like no no we're not having any of that can you understand how big a deal that
is he's like no no we're not having any of that and then when the east west split happens the
western church is no longer connected to to any of those early church fathers Irenaeus Athanasius
you know those guys the the roots Oregon it's all cut out there's no access to it anymore
but the the eastern Orthodox church they still maintain those guys as their fathers so they still
held their teaching they never walked away from it ever they haven't ever had a time where they
walked away from that so what Karl Barth did in the 1920s is he went and connected with all the
eastern Orthodox history with all their beliefs which is Trinitarianism and he's like oh my gosh
this has been missing for centuries and he started to bring it back to the western world because the
western world had no connection with it so it was
Thanks to this guy, Karl Barth, that we basically rediscovered the goodness of God.
And so you got Karl Barth here on that spectrum of belief, you know, like as the Trinitarians,
and then the next one along is Oregon. So I'm going to end the screen share here, I think.
End screen share there. That is a whole bunch of info for you guys. Let me check in on Facebook
as well. Just see if he's there in Facebook world. Okay, so a few comments here.
All right. Okay, so cool to see you guys on Facebook world, checking in there,
watching your comments. Lovely to have you guys as well. So there you go. Now you've got some
history on the church. One thing that I wanted to say is that when it came to the Catechetical
School in Alexandria, right, for centuries, it wasn't just Oregon that taught the restoration
of all things there, okay? They taught that there most of the way through. Most of the deans taught
their students the restoration of all things there. And it was, you know, three kind of
different stages in terms of restoration of all things that people believed there, which was
all humanity gets restored, or it was all humanity and the fallen angels get restored.
And then you had guys like Oregon who aggressively taught that all humanity,
all the fallen angels and the devil himself get restored and reconciled back to God. So
I'm not saying believe this or believe that, but in terms of the Bible, and you go, what about
this scripture? What about that scripture? One thing you have to understand is that there's
probably no one who put out more Christian literature than Oregon. He was one of the most
prolific writers in history, and one of the people that understood the Bible better than anyone
else inside or outside. That's all he did with his life is just devoted to it. So
I want to kind of wrap this up and close this up because, you know, in our last session, part one,
we talked all about how, and I think the reason that I'm kind of emphasizing a little bit Oregon
right now is not necessarily because I'm saying you need to believe Oregon or you need to listen
to Oregon. I'm not doing that. The reason is probably a little bit of an emphasis on Oregon
right now is because you've heard everyone else's story. You haven't heard about the
Catechetical School of Alexandria. Most people haven't heard about that anyway. Most people
haven't heard that the restoration of all things was the mainstream Christian teaching for centuries.
Most people haven't heard that, you know, some of the most famous people in church history taught
that the devil would be reconciled to God as well. Okay, so I'm not saying you need to believe
that. All I'm saying is this is what they taught, and it's historically part of the conversation
that we haven't been a part of. It's, you know, it's like a heritage that we've been disconnected
from, and the reason we got disconnected from it was because of Augustine's ruthless punishment
of anyone who disagreed with his perspective. He got them labeled heretics. He got them run out
of town. He got the military involved. He did whatever it took to crush their voices, to
eliminate them. The Donatists as a movement after Augustine was done didn't exist. They, you know,
they just kind of fizzled out, and they weren't bad people. Remember, they were the Puritans.
They were the ones that were like, hey, let's not, you know, let's be really pure. Let's be extra
holy. They were like hardcore holiness people, and that's who he attacked. So, just wanted to
kind of give you context of where our gospel has come from. Like, that's this message is the origins
of the gospel, where it came from, what the story was, where it really, you know, all happened,
you know, where it was coming from. So, then I guess...
for all of us we still have to wrestle with this and juggle with this and go oh what does this mean
for me about how I interpret um scriptures all of that you've got lots and lots of wrestling to do
with those things where do you go where do you kind of find some solid ground in the midst of
all of it and here's the thing to me that is the most important and practical and influential piece
to it in terms of you can study all of this stuff as much as you like and learn as much
history as you like and really what's the point you know I find it interesting but what's the
what's the the spiritual point where will it produce fruit in your life how will it produce
the divine life in you the thing that is the most important is our image of God right that's
the thing that's the most important at the end of the day all of this revolves around the father
who do we believe the father is and the problem that I have and like a serious problem that I have
is that people will go and call out a guy like Oregon and say you're a total heretic right the
problem I have is there's no balance right there's no balance there's no balance in this historical
conversation right because no one goes around calling Calvin out as a heretic for killing people
I'm like whoa what the heck is going on here why aren't people calling Calvin out
for killing people no one's doing it no one's calling him out as a heretic and saying
we don't kill people I see hiking yeah just jump in on that
you know you've talked about Calvin before and I mean I I I didn't know that he did these things
so I actually happened to you know bring this up to a number of people in church leadership
and they were they were talking about Calvin and they were talking about Calvin and they were
people in church leadership and they were aware of it but they were like making excuses for him
like you know it was just the time they lived and that's and I said no no no no no
I said if this man intimate would had intimately known God there's no way he would have done that
I mean that makes him suspect in my mind why would I believe what he says
yeah anyway that's what I'm trying to bring out for everyone in this just in this conversation
is that um there hasn't been balance right there hasn't been balance in the conversation
where people like not just Oregon I mean it's fine if you want to say say we said Oregon was
a heretic no it doesn't really bother me they say we said okay you can't trust anything the Oregon
says that doesn't really bother me at all if you say that but then there's all these other church
leaders you know fathers of the faith faith that also taught these things and they were taught it
they were called out as heretics but their silence there's no voice to them in terms of
the historical account there's no voice but who does get a voice who gets a voice is Augustine
who gets a voice is Calvin and we and these are the places that we're predominantly like
and the other people that get a voice in terms of our image of hell and things like that you know
is the catholic kind of purgatory type people that were telling us that you know you they could
get your relatives out of hell for a good deal you know if you made a big enough offering they
could get your relatives out and you know like you know something like a decade's time or something
we'll have this sorted you know so it was kind of crazy I'm just what I'm looking at is the balance
of who had has a voice who doesn't have a voice and to me it's crazy that a guy who was martyred
for the gospel is called out as a heretic whereas a guy who goes around killing people
is just gets a free pass he's like oh no he's the most wonderful theologian we've ever had
and he obviously like you called out he obviously didn't know the father there's no way you can be
walking with an intimacy with Jesus and think it's a great thing to be here to 10 year old kid for
fighting with your parents it's not a it's not going to happen so when it comes to us wrestling
with all these things we're going to wrestle with them that's fine just just that you you don't have
to rush to come to a conclusion on on these things you can have an open book you can have a Bible you
can study it I've probably studied every word that I've ever been able to find that has relation to
this Indian context of the Bible I've looked at every word that speaks about hell and things like
that
And I definitely believe in hell as well, in case people were wondering,
like, oh, am I teaching?
And like I said, I'm not teaching the Oregon stuff.
I'm not teaching anything here.
All I'm saying is this was the conversation,
and we have to wrestle with the conversation,
go power up, where are we at?
But in the midst of the wrestling,
you know, your wrestling might take you 10 years.
You're like, I've been wrestling for a decade,
and I'll keep on journeying with it.
So don't be under pressure to try to, like,
come to your conclusions immediately around everything.
You can wrestle, you can journey, you can learn.
That's cool.
But the thing that you want to get set in place real quick
is that your identity, okay?
That's something that you don't have to wrestle with for years.
It is all kind of connected though, right?
You don't have to wrestle with your identity for years.
Obviously, it's a process,
but you know, without a shadow of a doubt,
that Jesus is not just an example for you,
but he's an example of you.
You're made in the image of God.
That's what Jesus came to do.
Jesus came to reveal the Father to us, okay?
And that's so critical because our image of our identity
comes from our image of the Father.
And that's why, that's the real reason
why I've taken these two sessions
to just explore people's perspective on how,
because when it comes to your deep beliefs,
your subconscious, unconscious beliefs about God,
they're always intertwined with your belief about hell.
So do you believe like it was taught by Calvin
that, you know, the majority of humanity
was predestined by God to suffer unspeakable,
unending torment in hell,
and that the suffering of those people
is what brings God pleasure?
So, right, if that's your picture of hell, right?
And I'm not saying there is no hell, I believe in hell,
but I'm saying your picture of hell,
your understanding of hell,
your concept around hell is direct,
it's gonna be, it's gonna really connect in
with your image of God.
So when you're in your image of God,
there's nothing that's gonna shape your identity
more than your image of God.
So if you don't wrestle with hell,
there'll be this unexplored dynamic to God.
And like Calvin teaches,
they actually teach there's a dark side to God.
What?
There's a dark side to God?
Yeah, there is no dark side to God
that you have to be worried about, all right?
So that's kind of really what this two sessions
has been about, is about being able to help people
let go of a picture of hell that is,
coming from Calvinism, coming from Catholicism,
coming from Augustine, a picture of hell
that is really, really like more a picture of a,
to me, it's like a psychotic torturer maniac.
That's what I would associate the concept of someone,
like the picture that they paint of how God
is connected with hell and like how he,
this is that concept, right?
Isn't it, it's bizarre that God would predestine
the majority of his own children to suffer
unending, unspeakable torment at his own hands
and that is what would give him pleasure.
To me, that is sadistic chaos,
but there's a dynamic for so many people
that subconsciously, unconsciously,
this image of hell is fused together
with the image of God and they cannot let it go
and because they cannot let it go,
they can't step into their identity.
They can't step into oneness with God.
They can't step into being exclusively defined by God.
There's still always an unhealthy fear of God.
It's messed up until we break that fusion
with a distorted image of hell.
So that's been the idea
and I hope that this has been helpful chats for you guys
and I think we're gonna wrap it up there.
I'm gonna pray and then our next session,
next Wednesday in the masterclass,
our next session, next Wednesday
in the Open Heaven Masterclass is going to be
cleansing your imagination.
So it's gonna be activations on cleansing your imagination
and deep repentance, okay?
So how do we shift those unconscious, subconscious beliefs
that we have that are actually controlling
everything that we do?
So going deeper than just our conscious mind,
going right deep into the unconscious subconscious realm
and shifting those.
beliefs in order to actually be able to step into oneness with God. Sound good?
And then on Friday, Alana and I, good news, late last night Alana and I finished
editing the Seven Sacred Pathways to Intimacy book, which is crazy. Today we
have been writing the workbook for couples and we'll aim to finish the
workbook for couples tonight and we're also doing a workbook for singles so that
will be done soon. So we actually just got the first draft of the book back
from the designer today because we got it to them late last night so they could
work on it all night so we could get it back today so we could send edits back to them.
So that is really close and in 10 a.m. Friday New Zealand time we will be
doing our next session on the Seven Sacred Pathways so that's gonna be fun too.
Sound good? Cool, all right, yeah, let's pray and then we'll wrap it up there.
Papa, just want to say wow, you're amazing, we love everything about you, we know
this has been a big, weighty session with lots of information but, Jesus, we want
to bring it all back to you, we want to bring it all back to oneness, we want to
bring it all back to you, Jesus, and we just want to ask Jesus that you would give us
eyes to see you. Jesus, what we're asking is that you would give us eyes to see
the Father. Jesus, what we're asking is that you would help us discover reality,
the reality of who you are, the truth of who you are. Jesus, we're asking that you
would help us come home back to the Father. So, Holy Spirit, we ask for fresh
revelation of the Father like never before. We ask that as you pour out your love
over us, in your glory over us, in revelation of your word over us, we ask
that as we come into this place, you will give us clarity and confidence and
understanding of who you are and that we are exclusively made and defined in
your image. In your beautiful name, Jesus. Amen.
Okay, love you heaps, fam. That's us for today. Bless you. We'll see you later. Bye-bye.