("Best-of" from 9/11) Cursing the darkness is not Great Commission execution. (1)

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18. 1:23me to be his ambassador. Even in this dark moment. Let's not miss our moment. And now the Hamilton
19. 1:32Corner. Good evening everyone. Welcome to the Hamilton Corner here on American Family Radio.
20. 1:39I'm your host Abraham Hamilton the third joined by our produced extraordinaire, Mr. Jeff McIntosh,
21. 1:45the real Jay Mac. And we're ready to rock and roll with today's edition of the program.
22. 1:50as we are here, 25 years after the worst terrorist attack to ever occur on
23. 2:00American soil. I remember just like it was yesterday where I was when this
24. 2:05happened. I was coming out of my dorm room because I was in college at the
25. 2:11time and walking by the lobby, the lobby in my dorm room at my university had a
26. 2:18big screen TV in the lobby and I saw the news coverage and then saw the news
27. 2:28reporting the planes slamming into the towers and it's it's it's always been
28. 2:36something that has grieved me deeply but for some reason it's hitting me a bit
29. 2:43harder today looking at our nation I mean it's obvious that the locations that
30. 2:55were selected to attack the Pentagon and the World Trade Center towers were selected intentionally
31. 3:06to make a statement.
32. 3:08As to what they thought represented the United States of America and by they I mean the
33. 3:15Muslim terrorists.
34. 3:17And part of the reason why it's hitting me harder today is because on this day, the
35. 3:2625th year of memorial observance of that
36. 3:31Evil attack and I'm saying evil intentionally because
37. 3:35Islamic terrorism is is demonically inspired and I know that's not a politically correct thing to say but I'm gonna say it anyway because it's true and
38. 3:49There are some who
39. 3:52Seek or let me say it this way when you have terrorists who are
40. 3:57acting on
41. 4:00Muhammadan instruction, they engage in their acts of terrorism in an effort to
42. 4:07ultimately move toward having the world submit to Islam. That's their
43. 4:13ultimate objective. And I look at our nation then, you know, I remember, and some
44. 4:24of you will remember this because I was in college at the time, I would I would
45. 4:27fly often from back and forth from New Orleans to my college and and I
46. 4:32I remember my parents walking me to the gate.
47. 4:36Y'all remember that?
48. 4:36When you could actually walk to the gate in the airport
49. 4:42and you could pretty much park your car
50. 4:44right outside of the front of the airport,
51. 4:46take your keys, go inside and hang out with your family
52. 4:49literally until you board.
53. 4:50The family didn't have to have a boarding pass
54. 4:54or a ticket and just our entire way of life
55. 4:58has been adjusted now following that.
56. 5:01And as I am talking to you now, we have the things that have transpired in our nation
57. 5:06since then.
58. 5:09We have the Islamianist in New York City.
59. 5:12We have the squad in Congress that includes Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar.
60. 5:20We have Abdul Syed attempting to secure the US Senate, a seat in the US Senate from the
61. 5:28state of Michigan.
62. 5:29we have what's happened with the infusion of the transformation of the Twin Cities area
63. 5:36or significant portions of it into something similar to Mogadishu. In Minnesota, we have
64. 5:43the ascendancy of a Shiite Islamic population in Hamtramic and Dearborn, Michigan, with
65. 5:52Hamtramic being the first majority Muslim city in the United States of America, Dearborn,
66. 5:58increasingly, if not already achieving that status as a second.
67. 6:03And it is grieving to me because we have some children who have not even learned what transpired on September 11.
68. 6:16I mean, you just had legislation passed in the state of Texas to allow the radical idea that the trade tower attack was related to Islamic terrorism.
69. 6:28Like, that was a controversial thing to say, even though we know the motivation of the
70. 6:37terrorist attackers themselves and how in Gaza, there was massive celebrations on the streets
71. 6:48on September 11th. Candy was being distributed. Women were handing out cakes and pieces of cakes
72. 6:54and they celebrated as our fellow countrymen were murdered in that terrorist attack.
73. 7:01I'm heavy-hearted about this because, as I said a few moments ago, some have never even
74. 7:09learned what happened on September 11th and some have conveniently forgotten. And both of those,
75. 7:19in my estimation, reflect a sad, but sobering reality that they are features of what occurs
76. 7:29when people turn away from the Lord.
77. 7:33And so my hope and prayer for our nation is that we find our way back to the Lord in repentance
78. 7:42and faith.
79. 7:43Not saying that we don't have a remnant, praise God, I know there's a remnant in our nation.
80. 7:48But if our nation is going to be great, that greatness must be the result of us humbly submitting
81. 7:55ourselves and repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.
82. 8:01So the word of God we go, judge us chapter six.
83. 8:04Judge us chapter six verses 11 through 14.
84. 8:10This portion of scripture is where the angel of the Lord
85. 8:14encounters Gideon as the scripture bears out.
86. 8:18Gideon did not yet know the Lord
87. 8:20when he was intentionally encountered there.
88. 8:23But this encounter began the development
89. 8:26of Gideon's personal relationship with Yahweh.
90. 8:29And this is what the text says.
91. 8:30Judge us chapter six verse 11.
92. 8:33It says, now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the
93. 8:36terabents at Ophra, which belonged to Joash the Abizarite.
94. 8:43While his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press
95. 8:46to hide it from the Midianites.
96. 8:48And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him,
97. 8:52the Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.
98. 8:56And Gideon said to him, please, my Lord, or please, sir,
99. 9:01if the Lord, and most of your Bible you'll see Lord is in all caps there, right?
100. 9:09If the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all
101. 9:20His wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us saying, did not the Lord
102. 9:28bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the
103. 9:34hand of Midian. As I mentioned, Gideon did not yet know the Lord himself in personal relationship
104. 9:42at this juncture at this stage of his life. But I want you to notice something here. Gideon poses
105. 9:52a question to the angel of the Lord. That question is, was several questions. The first was, if the
106. 10:00Lord is with us, why then has all this happened? Because this is at a time when the Midianites were
107. 10:06pressing the Israelites. But then the second question was, and where are all the Lord's
108. 10:11wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us saying, did not the Lord bring us up out of Egypt?
109. 10:23That second question is what I want to present to you for consideration, because you'll notice
110. 10:27it was not that Gideon was unaware of the testimonies of Yahweh provided to him
111. 10:36by his father's plural.
112. 10:39And I will remind you reading later on in this chapter,
113. 10:42you'll find that as this encounter is transpiring,
114. 10:45Gideon's own dad, Joash, the Abiza right,
115. 10:49has altered to bail and the astral pole in his front yard
116. 10:55at this very junction.
117. 10:56So in Gideon says that where all of YAH was wonderful deeds
118. 11:00that our fathers recounted to us,
119. 11:03he's including the ancestral heritage in Israel.
120. 11:09In other words, with Gideon is saying he's heard all of these stories about God, these stories.
121. 11:19But God's going to tell you something hearing about God's historical record is not synonymous
122. 11:25with walking with the Lord yourself, serving him yourself, worshiping him yourself.
123. 11:34This passage of scripture really struck me in preparation for today's show because in many
124. 11:39Anyways, people talk about America being a Christian nation.
125. 11:42And is it that we have a critical mass of Christians in America?
126. 11:51Or is it that we've just, we've heard and recounted the stories our fathers have told
127. 11:56us in other generations?
128. 12:00In this example from the scripture, Gideon is saying, yeah, we've heard about Yahweh and
129. 12:06who he is and what he does.
130. 12:09But we at though, I don't see that.
131. 12:12I don't see it.
132. 12:13I don't see it.
133. 12:14I don't see it happening now.
134. 12:15I mean, I'm searching a week behind a wine press.
135. 12:18Pops has the ashrapole in the front yard, you know.
136. 12:22I heard about it, but what does that mean to me?
137. 12:25And my concern is that we're in a similar place
138. 12:27in our nation in the sense that we haven't got,
139. 12:30we trust on our Federal Reserve notes,
140. 12:33you know, and God we trust is our national motto.
141. 12:35We have a First Amendment that allows for religious freedom
142. 12:39to which I often consider what is religious freedom
143. 12:42if we truly believe what the scripture says,
144. 12:44only one name unto heaven by which men must be saved, which means if that is true, the
145. 12:52claim to the way of salvation is exclusive. Well, that means in an environment where religious
146. 13:01freedom is available and people are placing their trust in a name other than the name of Jesus Christ,
147. 13:09then they are believing errantly in that errant disposition as John 3 17 says well
148. 13:19they're condemned already I know this isn't this isn't comfortable you know for
149. 13:27the syncretists among us you know for the is funny Oprah Winfrey's name is
150. 13:34taken from this phrase her mom misspelled Oprah and Orpa from the book of Ruth
151. 13:42the name of Oprah.
152. 13:44But she's the one that was one of the most prominent figures
153. 13:49to popularize that there are many ways to God.
154. 13:51Well, that sounds enticing in soothing
155. 13:57until you contrast that with what Jesus said.
156. 13:59Jesus said he is the way, not the way.
157. 14:02So if we pound our fist to the table
158. 14:10and lynch our wagons, so to speak to religious freedom,
159. 14:13are we lynching our wagons to a disposition that says,
160. 14:15says, well, yeah, you're free to believe your way or say it better to reject Jesus and in
161. 14:21your route to eternal damnation.
162. 14:23I'm not saying that we need to challenge that constitutional framework.
163. 14:28I'm digging deeper into the theological reality.
164. 14:31Now, Jesus said there's only one way.
165. 14:36Gideon represents an example of a people who had historical exposure to the ways, word,
166. 14:45works of God that did not extend to a current relationship.
167. 14:52Just because, as Gideon says this, the Father told him about, told him about Yahweh, doesn't
168. 15:03mean getting to him.
169. 15:06Doesn't mean that he's individual, by and large at this stage in the scripture.
170. 15:10We're walking in relationship with him.
171. 15:14My prayer for myself, thanks be to God that the Lord has saved me.
172. 15:21Thank you, Lord.
173. 15:23My prayer for my fellow countrymen is that we turn to the Christ in faith and repentance
174. 15:33and faith because a robust military booming stock market, societal freedoms, those things
175. 15:44do not make a nation great.
176. 15:47As the Lord said, as the Matthew recorded in Matthew 633, what is the prophet of man?
177. 15:51to gain the whole world, yet lose his soul.
178. 15:56The Word of God must be taken seriously
179. 15:58if we're going to have a great nation.
180. 16:02Are you ready to put your faith in action
181. 16:04to impact our culture?
182. 16:06For the first time in decades, younger generations
183. 16:08are becoming more open to Jesus Christ
184. 16:10and living out their faith.
185. 16:12On Friday, October 2, believers of all ages
186. 16:14will gather in Rogers, Arkansas
187. 16:16for counteract USA's two-day resolve to stand conference
188. 16:20to learn how to stand for the truth of God's Word.
189. 16:23There's not a moment to lose.
190. 16:24Visit counteractusa.org to learn more and register.
191. 16:28That's counteractusa.org.
192. 16:37Shiting light into the darkness.
193. 16:39This is the Hamilton Corner, an American family radio.
194. 16:43Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner, Abraham Hamilton III
195. 16:46here and I'm delighted to have back on the program again,
196. 16:49the host of the provocative new podcast.
197. 16:53The Renton Rathbund show a podcast for parents
198. 16:55with over 25 years of experience as a college professor
199. 16:59in both secular and Christian institutions.
200. 17:01Dr. Rathman is a renowned, I'm sorry expert in apologetics,
201. 17:06sharing insights on biblical worldview training
202. 17:08across the nation.
203. 17:09He frequently appears on various podcasts,
204. 17:12radio shows and television programs throughout our nation
205. 17:16and he has a litany of degrees,
206. 17:18then I'm not going through all your degrees,
207. 17:20but you got a lot of them.
208. 17:22But I'm grateful that you have submitted your intellectual capacity, your life, your devotion
209. 17:28to the Lord.
210. 17:29And I'll tell you, meaning the audience here, one of the things I appreciate the most is
211. 17:34that you know you have people who will profess to be Christians, but when you meet them, not
212. 17:38so sure.
213. 17:39Well, I'm grateful that that's not the case with Dr. Rathman because one of the things I
214. 17:43personally appreciate is your humility and transparency, you know, to where you're not, you not only
215. 17:48celebrate the Goliath decapitations, but you're willing to share, man.
216. 17:52Hey, listen, these are the war wounds, these are the scars, and if this can help you, I'm
217. 17:56willing to show you all of them.
218. 17:58So I'm grateful for that.
219. 18:00Thank you for joining me here on the program again, Dr. Rathbun.
220. 18:03Thanks for having me.
221. 18:04It's good to be here.
222. 18:05Yes, sir.
223. 18:06Well, I want to have this conversation with you.
224. 18:08I told you a little bit about it already because we are in a weird place in our country.
225. 18:13we are 25 years after 9-11, yet Islam seems to be on the rise in our nation.
226. 18:20We also have, there was a time when there were people who kind of were Marxist, but they
227. 18:25wouldn't say it out loud.
228. 18:26They wouldn't say it out loud.
229. 18:27But now you have people loudly, you know, pounding their chest.
230. 18:31We are Marxist and we are here.
231. 18:33And then you also have this effort to cultivate a form of kind of political conservatism, but
232. 18:41it's godless.
233. 18:42With all of those things, it's very easy to want to highlight and to despise the darkness.
234. 18:51But there has to be something available to us beyond merely identifying what's wrong.
235. 18:55There has to be the ability to present an affirmative vision for what we need to pursue.
236. 19:01In light of that, how do you distill all of those competing forces that are vying for
237. 19:06devotion and affection and attention that would dare rival the truth with the capital
238. 19:11Well, we're I'm a pastor here in town in South Carolina and sorry I left that out I should have mentioned that because I knew that
239. 19:21Well, we're we're starting the book of John and took us a year to get through Ephesians
240. 19:29So I don't know John's 21 chapters was might be longer
241. 19:33to get a yes we have six chapters man come on I'm just kidding I understand that very well yeah
242. 19:41well John starts off with Christ of course at the very beginning Christ right
243. 19:50and he's not just with God in this intimate you know relationship with the
244. 19:55Father but he is God and he made all things and in him is life and the life
245. 20:01is the light. And from then on you have this theme of light. And you know the
246. 20:08darkness can't and the if you look at the Greek there it could be you know
247. 20:13couldn't comprehend it. You know kind of but the idea of the Greek there is to
248. 20:19grasp or to try and master it. And so another way to look at that is that the
249. 20:24darkness could not master the light, could not overcome it. And that is, that's important,
250. 20:32because if we just, if we just concentrate on the darkness and say how terrible the darkness is,
251. 20:39what we, what we're losing is the whole point of Christ and the Father loving us so much that He
252. 20:46gives us Christ, that we're not seeing what the light is about. And what the light is about,
253. 20:54It's about the truth, but we got to be careful that we don't think of the truth as we do in 2026.
254. 21:02Oftentimes, we think of the truth in 2026 as the right facts, right? The right data. And so,
255. 21:09you know, AI might have some good data, but we got to be careful. We got to have the right data.
256. 21:14And everything's come down to data points. Christ did not come into the world to give us the right
257. 21:20data points. He came to give us the light. And what does that mean? Well, it means that he is able
258. 21:28to give us an understanding of the reality context we live in and the reality future we are to have
259. 21:38and the reality now. What is the reality? And so even with John using the word
260. 21:46logos for Christ. In the beginning was the word, the Greek word there is logos. That
261. 21:53word was used and John knew that, especially by the Greeks. The logos was what
262. 22:00is the underlining reality that holds all this stuff together and you had
263. 22:06philosophers everywhere trying to guess what's the underlining thing. If we could
264. 22:12just figure out the thing. Maybe it's water. Maybe it's fire. Maybe it's, you know, logic itself.
265. 22:18And you had all these people coming up with these ideas. But John says, no, the underlining thing
266. 22:24that's holding all this together, that is reality itself is the light. And what's the light? It's
267. 22:30Christ. And so I, I fear and I just got back from a conference, you know, we get back from a
268. 22:36conference here all psyched up. But I fear that we talk about how to be good people, we
269. 22:43talk about what's wrong with the world. But our vision rarely includes the light of the
270. 22:51world, which is Christ. We know Christ is there, we know Christ is important, but our vision
271. 22:59for our children, our vision for our churches,
272. 23:02is it, is our vision Christ?
273. 23:06And how do we distill that, I think,
274. 23:09is gonna be the real question?
275. 23:13Man, I'm thinking so many different things
276. 23:15because, you know, Romans talks about the earth
277. 23:19groaning and quaking anticipation of the revelation
278. 23:21of the sons of God and what it seems,
279. 23:27what seems to be happening within our nation,
280. 23:31around the world, certainly in different ways,
281. 23:32but specifically in our countries
282. 23:34that people are trying to grapple with
283. 23:37their perception of life and reality,
284. 23:40their perception of loss,
285. 23:41there's lots of conversations about affordability
286. 23:45and arguments, yeah, boomer,
287. 23:47and I'm young and all of these other kinds of things.
288. 23:54At the expense though, of what you just described,
289. 23:57But what is true?
290. 23:59You know, we have a nation that has a historical reality of the application of biblical truth
291. 24:08in various ways.
292. 24:09But I was reading before you came on from the book of Judges to where Gideon, when he first
293. 24:14encounters the angel of the Lord, he says, well, where is Yahweh?
294. 24:18And all of these wonderful works and deeds that our fathers told us about.
295. 24:23You know, so it's not like getting was unaware of descriptions of Yahweh historically, but they were not synonymous with him having an anchor and confidence in truth.
296. 24:34And their, I say, relationship rooted in him currently is what we're facing similar to that in some sense in that we have this historical notions, these things back way, way, way, way back, you know, 250 years, you know, but they're not current currently being
297. 24:53grasped as truth and a proper valuation as to what truly we should value in a society.
298. 25:02Yeah, we, you know, when you look at, you brought up Romans, Romans really does give us
299. 25:07an insight into what this is all about. You see, Christ is the light for all mankind. So,
300. 25:15everyone has this notion of the truth. Everybody does. Romans 1 is clear about this.
301. 25:22So it says that everyone knows who God is.
302. 25:26They know that he created all this stuff.
303. 25:28They know it.
304. 25:30The problem is they're suppressing it
305. 25:32with their own unrighteousness.
306. 25:33They hate it.
307. 25:34So it's not ignorance.
308. 25:36It's this hatred for the reality that they know is there,
309. 25:40which is God made this.
310. 25:42You're accountable to him.
311. 25:44And that's why in Romans 1, it's very clear,
312. 25:48there's no one that has an excuse.
313. 25:50excuse everyone in hell is absolutely guilty. If I can put it this way, there is no one in
314. 25:57hell that says if I just knew everyone knows everybody. And here's the problem and let me
315. 26:06make it more clear I think this way. One of the most evil feats of skill I think that
316. 26:16Satan has cast upon us is he has messed with even the church's view of reality.
317. 26:24This is how we view reality. We view reality as okay, well, I'm living with a bunch of problems.
318. 26:31I have my family that I'm trying to deal with. I have a job I'm trying to deal with. And of
319. 26:36course, yes, Sunday we come on Sunday and yes, I love Jesus. Jesus is a part of my life.
320. 26:45The light is a part of my otherwise reality that I'm sure of.
321. 26:52So I'm sure that I have problems in my life.
322. 26:56I'm sure of what I can see with my eyes.
323. 26:59I'm sure of all the issues that are going on.
324. 27:04That's what I'm sure of.
325. 27:06And Jesus becomes this part of my life that I'm kind of sure of.
326. 27:11I have faith and he's there as part.
327. 27:16And that is the big lie that Jesus is part of your life.
328. 27:21Christ is our life.
329. 27:24In fact, in him is life and that life is the light.
330. 27:30And so what we have is this delusion we have that Christ has come and joined us in this reality.
331. 27:41And the truth is we have been created into the reality Christ made.
332. 27:47And so the reality is there's these principalities and powers we can't see.
333. 27:53The reality is there is a God we can't see and the only things that we can know about
334. 27:58God are through Christ.
335. 28:00And so he is everything about reality.
336. 28:04is nothing that God adds to reality, God is the reality that we live in in Christ.
337. 28:13And so I think we have tried to segment things, and that has been the big lie that we've accepted,
338. 28:21not that we every single part of our life is in Christ.
339. 28:26We have not accepted that.
340. 28:29So what would be the practical outworking of that segmented, even compartmentalized approach
341. 28:38that would probably be accompanied by a kind of a self-soothing salve that results from
342. 28:45my consistent church attendance?
343. 28:48Yeah.
344. 28:49And you know, I make a distinction between churchy entity and Christianity, which I think
345. 28:55this would apply to that we sometimes can conflate
346. 28:59church familiarity with that with actually being in Christ.
347. 29:05So what would be the practical outworkings
348. 29:07of that segmented type of compartmentalized approach?
349. 29:11Well, it's great.
350. 29:12As scripture gives us an outline,
351. 29:15doesn't say to find time to pray.
352. 29:17It says to pray without ceasing.
353. 29:19It doesn't say that worship is to be exclusive to a Sunday.
354. 29:26It requires us to worship at home with our family.
355. 29:29It requires us to worship in our work.
356. 29:32It requires us to worship at all times our God.
357. 29:36And so that means work changes,
358. 29:39what we do with our family changes.
359. 29:42And this is another thing.
360. 29:44I think we believe that we are here for the job that we have in life.
361. 29:51And then on the weekends, we have a little break with church.
362. 29:56And I think we need to reverse that.
363. 29:59That church is the centerpiece of our life.
364. 30:04And we work so that we can support that centerpiece.
365. 30:10Is that, think about, and this is Americans, right?
366. 30:15Americans are so practical.
367. 30:17We are so practical that we think, well, we got to make a living, we got to make money,
368. 30:24we got to relax, we got to have a TV, we got to do these things, and then we add the church,
369. 30:31and we add a prayer here and there, or we'll add some Bible reading.
370. 30:36And we don't realize that the truth came into the world, took on flesh.
371. 30:46And the truth was again, not segments of our life.
372. 30:49The truth was the real.
373. 30:52If I can put it that way.
374. 30:53And what's the real?
375. 30:54The real is my family isn't here for me merely to enjoy.
376. 30:59My family is here that I might, if I'm a man, head of my home is to lead them into worship.
377. 31:06My work is here so that I can support this very important centerpiece of my life, which
378. 31:11is the church.
379. 31:13Praying is not something I do when I'm worried about something merely.
380. 31:18Prayer is the constant thing I'm doing because I know the reality isn't that I'm just getting
381. 31:25in a car going to work.
382. 31:26The reality is I am fighting principalities and powers.
383. 31:32I am in a world where everything is Christ.
384. 31:35So if I'm going to listen to a talking head, and that talking head might be very, very conservative
385. 31:44and say things just the right way and the conservative way, we know we really love.
386. 31:50But he doesn't believe in Christ as God.
387. 31:54Well, that's a small issue.
388. 31:58The big issue is that he really has his eye on Marxism.
389. 32:03And of course, I'm talking about the talking heads that everyone loves like Ben Shapiro,
390. 32:09you know, the, the blaze TV, you know, all the different things that we have, we have come
391. 32:16to see as precious, we have come to see being Republican as precious or being conservative
392. 32:24in the, in America as precious.
393. 32:27And we see Christ as an add on.
394. 32:30In fact, oftentimes we have to steer Christ
395. 32:32towards our conservatism,
396. 32:35instead of accepting the truth of Christ
397. 32:38that may clash with our conservatism,
398. 32:42might, will always clash with the left,
399. 32:45but may not always be popular
400. 32:48and may not always have to,
401. 32:51may not always drive us to what makes us feel best
402. 32:54when we're frustrated.
403. 32:56And I think that, you know, we do not want to live in a world where the light has come into the world.
404. 33:04And that light is to give us the true reality and context we're supposed to live in.
405. 33:11We want other people to tell us that.
406. 33:15Well, the music is disrespectful, so we have to come to a break.
407. 33:19But what it seems like you're describing is a normalization and a comfortability with that
408. 33:25age old word
409. 33:27Idolatry
410. 33:32Building a strong biblical worldview can help our kids understand Christian values that are currently under attack and the best time to start building
411. 33:40Their worldview is now
412. 33:42Activate kids as an in-depth worldview training course to help kids stand on the truth of God's word each unit includes
413. 33:48video lessons, student workbook, parent leader guide, games, crafts and memory
414. 33:53verses, activate kids as designed for kids six to twelve and it's available at
415. 33:58activatekids.afa.net. The Hamilton Quarter podcast and one-minute common
416. 34:09territories are available at afr.net back to the Hamilton Quarter on American
417. 34:15Family Radio. Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner, Abraham Hamilton the third year.
418. 34:20Dr. Rinton Rathbun is my guest and before we went to the break, I asked him a question
419. 34:26as to what would be the practical outworking of having this segmented and compartmentalized
420. 34:31view and approach to Christ and his description really, really made me think of, as I said
421. 34:39it right before we got to the break of the age old biblical notion of idolatry.
422. 34:46idolatry is not merely bowing down in front of statutes or worshiping relics, but ascribing
423. 34:55devotion and commitment and veneration to anything other than Christ that would should be directed
424. 35:02to Christ and Christ alone.
425. 35:04And I say alone intentionally because Old Testament depiction of that idolatry is that the people
426. 35:10of God didn't really completely renounce and denounce Yahweh worship, but they simply added
427. 35:18to their concept of devotion a little bit of Baal and Asherah and the things that the
428. 35:25Canaanites and the others did and put them all in one big pot and approached.
429. 35:31Like Aaron said all the way back, oh, here's what behold, this is your God that delivered
430. 35:37Jew from Egypt, you know, but the description you provided is, I believe, accurately provided,
431. 35:47and it is a modern 21st century depiction of the biblical notion of idolatry. Is that an
432. 35:54oversimplification of what you just described?
433. 35:57No, that is right on. If you look at Colossians chapter 3 verse 5, boy, it was written in the
434. 36:08and I believe specifically for Americans.
435. 36:12Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you?
436. 36:17This is the constant mantra
437. 36:21of both old and New Testament.
438. 36:24This constant mantra of stop believing
439. 36:27in the stuff of the world.
440. 36:31There's someone that made all that.
441. 36:33That's the one.
442. 36:34Keep your eyes on the one that made it,
443. 36:36not the stuff.
444. 36:38I mean, that is Colossians five,
445. 36:42put to death therefore, what is earthly in you.
446. 36:45Sexual immorality, impurity, passion,
447. 36:50evil desire and covetousness, which is idolatry.
448. 36:56Now, I know a lot of that sounded like,
449. 36:58well, I don't, I'm not dealing with those things.
450. 37:02But when you think of your passions,
451. 37:05See, this is, you know, obviously we start thinking about what is, you know, what is it
452. 37:11that's, you know, do I have sexual issues and things like that?
453. 37:15But that, that word there is what is it that you are fully focused on as this is what life
454. 37:24is about.
455. 37:26You know, we, you see guys on, you know, talking heads that have their own podcasts, hundreds
456. 37:33of thousands of subscribers who have made an idol out of their skin where they have they
457. 37:41have revolted over the the what they think is the tedium of this racial back and forth
458. 37:50of everything and so now they're going to take it back.
459. 37:53They've made an idol out of some eschatology that they like and now they are you know the
460. 37:59So the wights, the sins of the whites weren't as bad as the sins of any other culture that's
461. 38:05out there.
462. 38:07And you have that kind of thing.
463. 38:08But then you have people that also are in their passions, what they care about, what they
464. 38:15focus on is what is really important to me, what makes this whole world go.
465. 38:22And it usually goes into some politics.
466. 38:25And they take on a modern day Pharisee, and I know I'm using words that are charged, but
467. 38:35you look at Ben Shapiro and you see a guy that is a modern day Pharisee, and the modern
468. 38:44day Pharisee is like the Pharisee of the past.
469. 38:46They are very conservative, culturally conservative people that say Christ is not God.
470. 38:54If they are saying that Christ is not God, any solution you have to the problems they're
471. 39:00bringing up quite articulately and well said.
472. 39:03And I, you know, I like Ben Shapiro, but no matter how articulate the problems that he
473. 39:09is developing in our nation are, as a Pharisee, the, the answer will never be the light of
474. 39:16the world.
475. 39:17You will never say the answer is Jesus Christ.
476. 39:21Because he cannot.
477. 39:23He does not believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
478. 39:27The light that came into the world.
479. 39:29He is part of the darkness that wants to overcome it.
480. 39:33Even though it is a conservative overcoming, he wants to overcome it in some other way.
481. 39:41And I think if you start looking at things like that, there are talking heads that will
482. 39:46no longer really be attractive to you any longer.
483. 39:50When you look at Glenn Beck, who can articulate things so well, that makes me think, yeah,
484. 39:58that is the problem.
485. 39:59That is the problem.
486. 40:00But Jesus Christ is not a created being who lived on this earth and lived a good enough
487. 40:05life that he got to be a God too, just like you, if you live a good life.
488. 40:11Mormonism is evil.
489. 40:12It's an evil, horrible view of the world that makes God less.
490. 40:19I can put it that way.
491. 40:21And we fall for it and I'll tell you,
492. 40:25if we start thinking this way,
493. 40:27we will be a people run by our passions.
494. 40:31And what does James, chapter four,
495. 40:34tell us about people whose passions have been pushing them?
496. 40:39Well, they become very quarrelsome even within the church.
497. 40:42Their passions become so strong that they are desires,
498. 40:47even when they come to the Lord to ask for stuff,
499. 40:49those desires, those passions they have,
500. 40:52they're gonna ask wrongly because they wanna ask
501. 40:54according to their desires what they think,
502. 40:56what they think is gonna fix this world.
503. 40:59And what does James call them in James 4-4?
504. 41:02You adulterous people.
505. 41:04You do not know,
506. 41:06you do you not know that friendship with the world
507. 41:10is enmity with God.
508. 41:12and we would say, I am not friends with the world.
509. 41:15I'm a conservative.
510. 41:17That's what we would say.
511. 41:19But friendship with the world is saying,
512. 41:22even though they can articulate the darkness well,
513. 41:25the answer to the darkness is in Christ.
514. 41:30And if they deny that you're Christ,
515. 41:33if they say your Christ is something, your Christ is not,
516. 41:37that is not just an issue over here
517. 41:41that I know that and I'll keep that in mind as I listen to these guys.
518. 41:44It's everything because what they're doing is they're articulating the darkness
519. 41:50and that's great.
520. 41:51But the answer is more important than the articulation of the darkness.
521. 41:56The answer to all that is Jesus Christ.
522. 41:59And if we, as those who are supposed to be in the light,
523. 42:04can't bear witness of the light because we have listened to talking heads that deny the light,
524. 42:11We are going to be friends with the world.
525. 42:13Oh man.
526. 42:17What you're saying is so stirring, so stirring because I don't think anybody has intentionally
527. 42:26done this.
528. 42:27But I think many of us have unintentionally aggrandized, just to say it plainly, the creation at the
529. 42:36expense of the Creator.
530. 42:39the practical result of that is a normalization
531. 42:45of a diminished view of Christ,
532. 42:47to where Christ is not all,
533. 42:50where we're willing to sing about Him on Sundays,
534. 42:52but He doesn't govern Monday through Saturday.
535. 42:56And I remember being a young boy having preachers,
536. 43:02my pastor would talk about that.
537. 43:04But, and sometimes we would reduce that concept
538. 43:08to like behaviorally, you know, to where you'll behaviorally be devoted to Christ on Sunday,
539. 43:14but Monday through Saturday, your behavior is not. But what you're talking about is a bit
540. 43:20elevated beyond mere behavior, but dare I say worldview, the way that the world is viewed
541. 43:28is from a posture even amongst many Christians where Christ is diminished. So we end up tangling
542. 43:37jousting, if you will, on an earthly plane with no concept of the preeminence of Christ
543. 43:48and how that preeminence should be brought to bear in our real world.
544. 43:53Oh, man.
545. 43:55And it comes down to what you find attractive.
546. 43:59I mean, you know, we, Satan is very smart, if I can put it that way.
547. 44:07He's smart because he knows if I can make the evil, evil enough, where you have the LGBTQ
548. 44:14community trying to, trying to go after our children to the point where that's what they're
549. 44:21saying. They're literally saying we are going after your children. There is a reason why
550. 44:25the, the United Methodist church has doubled down on this whole thing and they have trannies
551. 44:32coming in and speaking to kids, to the children. I mean, all of this is satanic stuff. It's so
552. 44:40evil. It's so awful that when you hear someone say, yes, that is awful. You're like, yeah, that guy,
553. 44:49that guy agrees with me that it's awful. I mean, that's what makes this topic that you're bringing
554. 44:55up so important. You're bringing up the topic that even though people are able to articulate the
555. 45:01the darkness well, that makes us attracted to them because they're able to say, that's
556. 45:08the problem.
557. 45:09That's the issue.
558. 45:10And we're attracted to them immediately because someone is saying it.
559. 45:16But then what we find ourselves attracted to are people that don't even believe in Christ.
560. 45:25Jordan Peterson, does he articulate the darkness?
561. 45:29Yes, does he believe that Jesus Christ is Lord?
562. 45:33Not yet.
563. 45:35I mean, if that's coming, we're still waiting.
564. 45:38And we have all these guys and we remain attracted to them as they begin to articulate
565. 45:47the answer to all this.
566. 45:50And that is what really scares me because we, as we're listening, we should find ourselves
567. 45:55less and less attracted to their message as they spew out what the answer is. Christ did
568. 46:02not come into the world so that we could have a better life as Americans with freedom for
569. 46:09all. That is not why Christ came into the world. Christ came into the world because we
570. 46:15were all damned. If I can put it that way, just without hope in the world. That's how
571. 46:22How Abedians put it.
572. 46:24You were cast off.
573. 46:27All of you Gentiles were cast off.
574. 46:29You didn't have hope in the world.
575. 46:32But God, who was rich in mercy with his great love, with which he loved us, made us alive
576. 46:39together, not just with a magic wand.
577. 46:43He didn't make us alive together just because he snapped his fingers.
578. 46:49He made us alive together with Christ.
579. 46:52And that is not just an interesting part of our historical view of Christianity.
580. 46:59That is everything to reality.
581. 47:02If I can put it this way, a few months ago, I had a dream.
582. 47:11And as you know, my brother died a little over about a year and a half ago.
583. 47:16And I had this dream that he was still alive.
584. 47:20And in the dream, it was normal that he was still alive and that he was, you know, doing
585. 47:26that funny stuff he always did.
586. 47:28He was always funny and he always made me laugh.
587. 47:30And I remember thinking that, ah, I need to call him because of, you know, I just, I had
588. 47:37a memory of him and I need to call him and I just got to remember to call him tomorrow
589. 47:40morning and then I wake up.
590. 47:43I wake up and if you've ever had this experience, reality starts flooding in.
591. 47:50Yeah, I'm not gonna contact him. He's gone and
592. 47:54the reality of it's been a year and a half since he's been gone and the reality of
593. 48:01You know, I I won't see him again on this side of heaven and all of that floods in
594. 48:09we all want to live in a dream where
595. 48:13we get to ignore the light and
596. 48:16And we want to be able to have a set world that we get to decorate ourselves like a dream.
597. 48:25And we think that the Lord is going to ruin all that.
598. 48:30See, when I woke up, what I remembered was that as opposed to when I knew him before he died, when he was healthy, he did not know the Lord.
599. 48:42and that darkness inside my heart of,
600. 48:46I always worried about that and was scared about that.
601. 48:49When I woke up, the reality of his death reminded me
602. 48:53that towards the end of his life, he came to know the Lord.
603. 48:56And so, you know, reality does come with pain and difficulty,
604. 49:03but it comes with great mercy.
605. 49:06And we keep trying to decorate a worldview
606. 49:10that we think is going to be the answer to everything.
607. 49:14We think we can turn to Tucker Carlson for the answer to everything,
608. 49:18or Meghan Kelly for the answer to everything.
609. 49:20But I am telling you, these are the talking heads whose solutions are not Christ.
610. 49:27And we have got to let the light be the light and be the truth.
611. 49:33With all that it comes with, the truth has got to be the centerpiece of our hearts and
612. 49:39minds.
613. 49:41The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of
614. 49:46the American Family Association or American Family Radio.