Welcome to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. We are a Bible-Believing Church located
in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. We are proudly part of the Christian Fellowship
Ministries with 3,000 churches around the world. We are a church focused on world evangelism,
discipleship and church planting. Here we will share recent sermons from P.H.S.A. Church
and other sermons from throughout our fellowship. I am Pastor David Bickford and I will be your
host for this podcast. I thank you for listening today and we hope these messages are a blessing
to you and bring you closer to God.
Hello and welcome back to the Potter's House Salmon Arm podcast. My name is David Bickford
and I am the pastor here in Salmon Arm. Today I have put together a message entitled, Don't
Leave Your Brain at the Door. A subheading would be, Standing in the Gap. What we are
going to do today is look at Romans 1 verses 18-25. If you are following along, that is
the verse of scripture that we are going to be using as our jumping off point today. You
can go ahead and turn there if you have your Bibles or you are following along with us.
When I was putting this message together a while back, I was reading the news and I came
across this article that says, If you can't read them, swear on them. This article is
really important for the day and age that we are living with today because when you
take yourself off the foundation of God, then you lose any semblance of morality in society.
You can argue that morality can be found in other cultures, but then that is fine. You
are going to have to explain how that morality came to be. What we see in many other cultures
is that their morality is very, very different from what we would consider to be right or
just. A perfect example of this is that we actually have more slavery today than we have
ever had in any other time in history. When you look to that, it becomes very dicey for
many people in society to really dig into that kind of a topic because it takes away
the narrative that we have heard in the Western world about how slavery is a Western European
and North American problem, specifically an American problem.
I was listening to something earlier today that really honed in on that idea that when
you really look at it, Western society is the first society in history that ever ended
up having on its own a moral dilemma with slavery in and of itself. That rationality
to the moral dilemma came from the great enlightenment that happened within Protestantism and the
explosion of the printing press and the Word of God coming through into society, specifically
in Western Europe and the colonies in the United States.
That is really just a high-level thing that I found very interesting. Putting this message
together is going to touch on some of those similar notes. This was from several months
back when I preached it here in Samanar. Either way, I think that there is a lot of stuff
happening in society today that is extremely relevant for us to understand as Christians
and how we are supposed to deal with society as it continually moves away from God. Yet,
we are still supposed to be heralds for the Word of God in the areas, towns, and places
we live in because we are really trying to bring people into the boat of salvation and
get them on board with the God's view of morality rather than just being blown to the wind of
all the different other morality choices that people will pull onto in society.
This article is called If You Can't Read Them, Swear on Them. This is an excerpt from that
article.
Karen Smith, re-elected school board president of Pennsylvania School District, was sworn
in this week on a stack of banned books. Instead of the traditional choice, the Bible, Smith's
husband carried a stack of various banned books for her to take her oath on, including
several with sexually explicit material. When asked to explain her choice of books, Smith
said, I'm not particularly religious. The Bible doesn't hold significant meaning for
me and given everything that has occurred in the last couple years, the banned books
they do mean something to me at this point. Smith has long opposed the efforts to ban
access to certain books and when they asked about the remaining books under review by
the school board, she said, they're definitely not going to be reviewed at this point.
So as we look at this as our jumping off point, as an illustration for this entire message,
you have to really just be amazed by the denouncement of the moral guide to Western society and
even prior way back to Judaism and as long as humanity has been around, there's been
this morality that comes from God. That means nothing but this pornography being kept in
elementary schools and middle schools and high schools, that's worthy and that has more
of a point or that tugs at her heartstrings more than thou shall not kill and thou shall
not commit adultery and thou shall not steal. So you've got these normal ideas of what is
moral and what is right and wrong, but none of that matters anymore because now we're
told that we are an enlightened people and that we are more educated and evolved than
people who were back in ancient times.
And so it's okay now to instead of taking your oath on the word of God, to take it on
the word of the explicit or the pornographer. A lot of these books that get banned right
now are currently only being banned in school because they are not appropriate for children.
I would argue they're not appropriate for anybody, but the reality is that federal educators
should not be putting pornographic material at school and I don't think anybody really
can argue that unless you have certain proclivities for it. So anyway, let's jump into our text
in Romans 18 through 25. So this portion of scripture is called God's wrath on the unrighteous
and in verse 18, it jumps off and says, for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the
truth for what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for
his invisible attributes, namely his internal power and divine nature have been clearly
perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. So they
are without excuse for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give
thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened
claiming to be wise. They became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for
images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. And therefore God gave
them up into the lusts of their own, of their hearts to have purity to the dishonoring of
their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped
and serve the creatures rather than the creator who is blessed forever. Amen. So let's just
pray dear Lord God, I pray that this message will go out and convict hearts. The whole
point of every message is that it brings people closer to God and lets them know that you
love them. You love them enough that you sent your son Jesus to die for their sins and that
there is always redemption found in Christ. If people will only turn and repent of their
sins and accept you as their Lord and father. So Lord help them to come to that conclusion,
Lord God by the Holy Spirit in Jesus name, amen. So today's society is becoming less
tied to rationality and more tied to an overt overly complex and irrational dogma beliefs.
This set of beliefs goes by several different names. Several of these you've probably heard
some of these you haven't. You know, D E and I, diversity, equity, inclusion, social
justice, critical race theory, et cetera. Most of these ideas come out of the same root
of secular humanism, which can masquerade off the times of socialist, communist or Marxism.
The ideas are a tool that is used to divide up the groups of people by the way of victim
classes, race, creed, sex, or sexual orientation, you name it. The goal is to penalize certain
groups in favor of other groups. This kind of philosophy is very dangerous and has had
horrifying results all throughout human history. The filifying of one group over another is
something that governments and politicians have done for eons. In the book of Esther,
we see Hammond's hate for the Jews take hold of him. His mission in life became one of
vengeance and wrath against a certain group of people. We can take a look at the American
and Canadian history and we see the wickedness perpetrated against those of African Irish
and First Nation descent. The desire to categorize groups so that they can be put at odds with
each other in a useful tool for those who desire to consolidate power under themselves.
A lot of people don't realize this, and I put in there specifically the Irish along
with African and First Nations because a lot of people don't understand that at one point
in the colonies, there were more Irish slaves. They would call them indentured servants,
but they would be indentured servants with no escape. They would never be able to escape
from their indentured nature. But there are some that speculate that the Irish slaves
or indentured servants could have outnumbered the African slaves in the colonies in certain
parts in history. So again, this becomes a tool to put people into camps and put people
at odds with themselves. And they do this with a goal of consolidating power for themselves.
So this has become front page news since the terrorist attacks on Israel by Hamas. This
event has caused much of the West to boil over with old hatreds coming to the surface,
the worst of human nature rushing out on the streets of Australia, England, Canada, the
United States, the glorification of murder, rape, and even calls for genocide. We've all
seen the flags being flown, but worse than that is the pontification from our leaders
and politically, our leaders politically and from the so-called academic elite.
So this brings me to my first point, which is mankind's ungodliness. When we look at
our text specifically verses 21 through 23, we see an inference to our calling. Honoring
God as God has given him thanks is our primary duty to God in view of who he is. In verse
21, it says, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to
him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming
to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling
mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. So when the people reject the truth,
it becomes increasingly difficult for them to recognize and receive the truth.
So here's an excerpt from a recent article written by Andrew Sullivan about the recent
congressional hearings. And this is regarding the spike of antisemitism that we're still
seeing on our elite college campuses. So the day the Empress's clothes fell off, did the
congressional hearing finally expose the scandal of the Ivy League? It may be too much to expect
that congressional hearings this week starring the three presidents of Harvard, MIT and Penn
will wake people up to the toxic collapse of America's once great Ivy League. But I can
hope, can't I? In the immortal words of Hitch, peace be unto him, as you listen to these
people, you see how far termites have spread and how long and well they have dined.
The mediocrities smirked, finessed and condescended in stone walls. Take a good look at them.
These are the people who now select our elites and they select them as they select every
single member of the faculty and every student by actively discriminating against members
of certain privileged groups and privileges and quotes and aggressively favoring other
again air quotes marginalized ones. These were themselves appointed in exactly the same
way from DEI approved pools of candidates as a Harvard Dean, Claudine Gay, that Gay's top priority was making more progress on diversity, intensifying the already systemic race, sex, gender discrimination that defines the place.
This is about Harvard. Thanks to the recent Supreme Court case, the energetic discrimination
against Asian American candidates for admissions at Harvard is no longer in doubt, but countless
other candidates for admission have little to no chance, regardless of their grades,
their extracurriculars, because they belong to the wrong race, sex, sexual orientation
and gender identity. As soon as students are admitted under this identity framework, they
are taught its core precepts that the truth, air quotes, or in Harvard's now ironic motto
veritas, which is supposed to be truth, is a function not of logic or reason or of open,
free, robust debate and dialogue, let alone of the Western civilization, but of an inimical
and evil power structure rooted in identity that needs to be dismantled first. Identity
first, truth second, because the truth is rooted in identity and cannot exist out of
it. So this article can be a little like wordy at times, but what I want you to pull from
this is that there is this breaking down into groups so that then that way they can say
that each group has their own truth and only certain groups have the truth that is more
powerful than other truths. So in hearings, president gay actually said with a straight
face that we embrace a commitment to free expression, even of the views that are objectionable,
offensive and hateful. This is the president whose university mandates all students attend
title nine training sessions where they are told that fat phobia and cis heterosexism
are forms of violence and that using the wrong pronouns constitutes abuse. This is the same
president who engineered the ouster of law professor Ronald Sullivan, simply because
he represented a client of whom gay and students rightfully but irrelevant, irrelevantly disapproved
Harvey Weinstein. This is the same president who watched a brilliant and popular professor
Carol Hoeven be effectively handed out of her position after a public shaming campaign
by one of her department's DENI enforcers and a mob of teaching fellows because Hoeven
dared to state on television that biological sex is binary. This is the president of the
university where a ground total of 1.46% of the faculty call themselves conservatives
and 82% call themselves liberals or very liberal. This is the president of the university, which
ranked 248th out of 248 colleges this year on free speech and Penn was 247th according
to the foundation for individual rights expression. Harvard is a place where free expression goes
to die. So here we have the university at Harvard and we see a dramatic decline from
what it used to be because whenever human wisdom sets itself above God, the result is
soon seen in human foolishness. And we're when at the time of this recording, we're
in the month that is just full, full of people putting themselves above God. They celebrate
it in Christianity, we're called to live humbly in service to our Lord and into our fellow
man. But this month is told we're told to elevate our proclivities above everything
else. It means even more than what God says. So mythology and ideology have resulted from
man's need to identify some power greater than himself and his refusal to acknowledge
God as that power. Men and women have elevated themselves to the position of God. We see
this similarly played out in Daniel 2 38 and three one and 523. In our day, humanism has
replaced the worship of individual human leaders in most developed countries. This tragic purpose
of human god making continues and is very alive in our own day. And Paul's words have
as much relevance for people who have made money or sex or fame their gods as for those
who carved idols out of wood and stone. So the tragedy of Harvard, Yale and Princeton
is that they were originally meant to lift up and edify the things of God. They were
meant to be institutions for training ministers and leaders that held reverence for God. But
now they and many others are nothing but a shadow of what they were. They hold power,
yes, but is not power in the sense of heavenly power, but rather the power to destroy. This
brings us to the next point, which is social justice dogma. What is happening in our society?
How can the wise become so foolish? Or is this the whole point? When we look back at
the illustration I used in the beginning, we see a problem in our society. When a person
freely declares that the Bible holds no significant meaning for them, it is fair to ask them what
exactly does. So in this case, we don't need to wonder, as Mrs. Smith made clear where
her affections lie. When men reject God, they don't embrace nothing. They always replace
the veneration and worship of the Lord with the worship of something else. And that something
else can best be described as weak and worthless elemental things, which enslave us, inevitably
damaging those under their leadership and leading to great judgment. In Galatians 4
9 it says, but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can
you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves
you want to be once more? In Jeremiah 23 1 through 2 it says, woe to the shepherds who
destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord. Therefore, thus says the
Lord the God of Israel concerning the shepherds who care for my people. You have scattered
my flock and have driven them away and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will
attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. In Matthew 18 6 it says, but whoever
causes one of these little ones who believes in me to sin, it would be better for him to
have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the
sea. This verse in particular, it sticks out to me today because not too long ago there
was a YouTuber and I can't remember the name, so I'll just leave it alone. But like they
produce children's content on YouTube, very popular. And it came out in support of the
of some alternative lifestyles. And the rationale for wanting to support these other lifestyles
was that it was all about love and how Jesus teaches love. And this person proclaims some
faith in the Bible and Christianity. And it's remarkable to me that they didn't think of
this verse that says that here you have an unblemished lamb, a young child. And when
you bring in sinful beliefs and sinful natures and you present it as as equal to the things
of God, now you are leading these children into sin. And this is what most of society
is doing these days when they confuse God's love to the emotion of love that we think
of it as today. Because love is an action. So if you really love someone, you would love
them enough to lead them to the Lord. You would love them enough to prompt them or to
try to bring the gospel to them so they'd be convicted to turn from their sin and to
turn to life in Christ. But anyway, let's get back on track here. So we see similar
situations with the events that happened at the congressional hearing. This the presidents
of Harvard, UPenn and MIT testified on Capitol Hill about increasing anti-Semitism on their
campuses, a problem affecting higher education institutions nationwide. During the hearings,
the university leaders acknowledged the rise of Islamophobia and other forms of hate and
pledged to address them. The Republican-led House committee grilled the administrators
on topics such as ideological diversity and foreign university funding. The hearing shed
light on the challenges universities face in balancing free speech and student safety
with university leaders defending their policies and actions since the October 7 attacks on
Israel. The hearing also highlighted broader issues such as the difficulties faced by universities
in navigating the balance between free speech and student safety. The inability of these
three college presidents to answer any simple questions without qualifications illustrates
that it wasn't just during Isaiah's day that the Lord brought judgment to the land by making
the wisdom of wise men perish and the discernment of their discerning men to be concealed. The
foolishness in responses given by these three university presidents to Representative Stefanik
is so impossibly inept and wrong, and the outcry against it has been so dismissive and
ignorant that it's seemingly impossible to believe. As Representative Stefanik said to
them, this is the easiest question to answer yes to that they will ever be asked in a congressional
hearing. When watching those who profess to be wise become fools, Romans 1, 22, it is
good to remember that the foolishness of fools is deceit or folly, Proverbs 14, 8. And not
simply ignorance. The wicked have no rules. They make a mockery of justice and the mouth
of the wicked spreads iniquity. So what is being said on these college campuses was the
direct call for genocide of the Jewish people by pro-Palestinian Hamas protesters. The college
presidents refused to state that the statement of genocide was a breach of the school's code
of conduct. The same schools that will penalize, expel, and destroy others when they disagree
with their agenda are now saying free speech is free speech. When it is the annihilation
and genocide and killing of Jews, it's okay. When you are making someone feel bad when
you say, you know, losing weight is better for your health. Well, that's fat phobia and
we need to punish you for it. You see how crazy this is because if you love someone,
you want them to be healthy and you want to espouse ways to live a healthy life. That's
not hate. That's love. That's love and action as long as you do it in a kind, empathetic
way. But the call for genocide or the murder of an entire race, that's not free speech.
That's a direct threat. And you're not allowed to do direct threats like that under the veil
of free speech. And what love are you showing to your Jewish brothers and sisters if you're
willfully allowing actual terroristic threats to come against them? Your action of love
is to allow them to be truly victimized. It's a very interesting conundrum, but again, the
whys become foolish. This brings me to my final point, my close, our response. Well,
the congresswoman from New York herself, a graduate of Harvard University was excellent
in her questioning. It would have been great to see her pivot her questioning using the
words all women, all blacks, all homosexuals, all whites, all faculty, faculty, and all
college presidents instead of all Jews to see if their it depends on context answer
would have remained. Because that's the way the college professors answered back. It was
is calling for genocide. Okay, well, it depends on the context. Just calling for the lynching
of a black person, the stoning of a transgender student constitute harassment, because that's
what they were doing to the Jewish students. That the answer would have been a sharp, clear
and fast. Yes, this is what it should have been. Context does not excuse evil, but evil
character will hide behind context. And Ezekiel 2230, it says, and I sought for a man among
them who should build up the wall and stand in the breach before me for the land, that
I should not destroy it, but I found none. Now is the time to stand in the gap and speak
out against foolishness being propagated by elitist progressives. In Ephesians 511, take
no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. Silence amid foolishness
is the support of foolishness and support of foolishness is sin. As Edmund Burke said,
all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. The last time
good men were silent when the call for genocide of Jews was unaddressed, it wasn't long before
the world was at war. So we need to remember to speak now before millions and millions
of others have to suffer because of our silence. And this is not a political call. This is
a call to Christ. In Jeremiah 117, it says, but you dress yourself for work, arise and
say to them, everything that I command you, do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay
you for them. D and I and all of these critical theories run up against so much of what the
Bible instructs for life. Like forsaking sin instead of excusing it, our primary identity
being in Christ and denouncing partiality. Beware of the world which excesses over power
without paying any mind to the all-powerful God. We will find peace with each other when
we speak the peace given God, or when we seek the peace given God, not when we seek to put
others in their place because of past injustices inflicted on us. God will hold men accountable
and we need to leave room for his wrath, rather than responding to our oppressors with oppression
of our own. Good men make good policies and eradicate systems that promote injustice
rather than invent new ones. Martin Luther King once observed there are some instances
where a law is just on its face, but unjust in its application. D and I laws may sound
good on their face, but they fall flat on their face when they are confronted with the
better way revealed in God's word. We have to remain vigilant as watchmen in our society,
holding on to the truth that is the word of God that is why it is so important to read
your Bible regularly and to be active with your faith both in church, your body, and
society. We are called to stand in the gap. You can think of it in a different way. We
must be alert like a lifeguard. We have to be able to point out unsafe behavior and also
be ready to jump into action in order to bring life saving therapy. Our world is a fallen
one, but we need to be the light. We are called to be the light. In Matthew 5, 14-16 says,
you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people
light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand and it gives light to all in the
house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good
works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
So as I finish, mankind is ungodly, but that is why Christ died for us. Social justice
is not just if it is not godly. We are called to live according to God's justice. Our response
is one born out of love to our God. We desire to see people brought to salvation in Christ
and unity in the body of Christ. We do not make excuses for sin, but rather we seek redemption
and salvation through the repentance of sin. The acknowledgement of Jesus Christ is our
Messiah. This world will pass away, but until Jesus comes, we have a calling and obligation
to keep our eyes focused on God, to be wise, to be discerning, and to not check our brains
at the door. So if I could have every head bowed, every
eye closed real quickly as I finish this up, I want to give an invitation. If this message
has impacted you and you know you are not right with God, you have an opportunity right
now to get your heart right. And you can simply do that. If you signify that with an uplifted
hand, God sees that. He sees your hand. I can't see it. It's a podcast. But if you
rose your hand and you meant it, I want you to repeat after me, Dear Lord God, I know
that I'm a sinner, but I know that you sent your Son Jesus Christ and that He died for
my sins. I repent of my sins and I accept Him as my Lord and Savior. In Jesus' name,
amen. That simple prayer brings you from death into life. It's just like what the thief on
the cross said. He recognized who he was and he recognized who Jesus was. That's all it
is. Now moving forward past that, get a Bible,
start reading it. The book of John is a great place to start. Find a Bible believing church
and lock in to serve. Go in humbly with the desire to serve. If you're in Samanar, please
come out and meet with us. We're just above the BMO now downtown. If you're not, we have
3,500 churches globally. The contact information is in the show notes. Reach out. Let me know
you prayed this prayer and that you're going to find a church and I'll help you do so.
The whole purpose of this podcast is just to get the gospel message out more and more
and more. It's just one little part of what we're doing here in Samanar and what we do
as a fellowship as a whole. I just want to thank everybody who's listening. If these
messages mean something to you, I'd really appreciate it if you liked, subscribed, and
shared the podcast. It really does help us grow and help us get this out to more people.
With that, I just want to again thank you for listening. I can't wait for you to come
back next time. God bless.
Thank you for listening to the PHSA.
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