Welcome to the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Darkness is not an affirmative force. It simply reoccupies the space vacated by the light.
>> Joseph Parker: This is the, Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: It should be uncomfortable for a believer to live as a hypocrite, delivering people.
>> Joseph Parker: Out of the bondage of mainstream media and the philosophies of this world.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: God has called you and me to be his ambassadors, even in this dark moment. Let's not miss our moment.
>> Joseph Parker: And now, the corner.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Good evening everyone. Welcome to the Hamilton Corner. Abraham Hamilton III is my name. Joined by produce extraordinaire to my left, the real J. Mack, ladies and gentlemen, and at home base, Mr. Bobby. And we are ready to rock and roll with today's edition of the program.
We're broadcasting from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association's National Leaders Conference
You know, I should mention I hadn't mentioned this yet. well, first let me say we're broadcasting again day two from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association's National Leaders Conference here in Denton, Texas. Beautiful Denton, Texas. And we're having an amazing time here. It's great, to be here meeting, with people, conversing with people, sharing what God is doing all across the country, in the movement really of families taking the responsibility, leadership and directing the hearts and minds of our own children. What I was going to say that I hadn't mentioned yet and I need to mention is that coming up this October, October 17th through the 19th, I will be returning to Farmerville, Louisiana. This will be our second time there, where we will participate in a family conference being hosted at Darbone Church of Christ, located at 1148 Sterlington highway in Farmerville, Louisiana, zip code 71241. I'll, say that again. Darbone Church of Christ, 1148 Sterlington Highway, Farmerville, Louisiana. will be there October 17th through the 19th. Lord willing, that is the plan to be there. So if you are in the area or willing to come to the area, you are welcome to do so. I was told that I can invite you, so you are welcome to come. The last time that I was there, there were people who came not only from the local church, but from the entire area. and so we will be returning there this fall, October 17th through the 19th.
Many of you are making your transition from part time jobs to full time jobs
All right, at this very moment, many of you who are listening are making your transition right now. Many of you, if not most of you, are making your transition from your part time jobs where you generate an income, to your full time jobs where you cultivate an outcome. And as you do so, I want to remind you to do so with intentionality, recognizing the primacy that God places on family and Welcoming that primacy to guide and govern how you engage in your home. I see some people asking me some questions. Did I hear information about, Pastor Vodi Bauckham? I'm trying to verify. so yes, I have heard about that, but I'm not sure, not certain just yet if this is 100% accurate. Trying to verify that. It's going to be challenging to do while I'm on the air. But yes, I wanted you to know that. But as we are at this very moment, as I mentioned, considering the transition from your part time jobs where you generate an income to your full time jobs where you cultivate an outcome. And I say it in that fashion, intentionally, in an effort to recalibrate our thinking because the world works overtime, overtime to get us to think that everything else is important except what happens in our home.
We cede cultivation of the mind for our children to the state
And actually, there'll be more, you could expect more conversation about this, this whole idea to where we cede cultivation of the mind for our children to the state. Actually, it's a relatively recent idea because as Dr. Brian Ray said yesterday, throughout the whole of human history, the majority of our experience as mankind has been that families take the lead in cultivating the minds and hearts of their children. You know, but this idea that this should be ceded to the state is actually one of the other things postulated by, not surprisingly, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in the Communist Manifesto to make children children of the state. And so we shouldn't be surprised that we have this, this proliferation of kind of a nihilistic worldview where there is no meaning when we have children who have been indoctrinated for multiple generations at this juncture, with the idea that there's nothing sacred about human life, there is no intentionality behind mankind's existence. We are just a random amalgamation of a, you know, gaseous explosion. I won't say how nothing exploded, y'.
>> Heidi St. John: All.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: When y' all figure that out, let me know. There was nothing, but it exploded somehow. All right? and then some magic that, water appeared on a rock and then vemu. Some kind of way proteins and I mean, just. It's just absurd. But when you have that idea foisted upon the American, the American people repeatedly, generationally, there's inevitable consequence of that. There is a degradation of the sanctity of human life. So, we. The only way forward is for us to reverse that. And frankly, we've discipled our way into the mess that we're in. The only way to reverse it is to disciple our way out of it.
The majority of the New Testament is written in Koine Greek
Now, that being said, let's turn to the word of God. I've been chewing on this and I've been in sessions during the conference listening and, and 2nd Timothy, chapter 3, verses 16 and 17. A very familiar passage of Scripture. 2nd Timothy, chapter three, verses 16 and 17. The apostle Paul is writing to Timothy, and he comes to this portion after making the observation, that evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived, deceived. But it says to Timothy, you continue in what you have known as you have been familiar with the sacred writings from your youth. And then Paul writes this. All scripture, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. I'm going to read that again. All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. The Apostle Paul, when he employs the term that's translated as the phrase translated as inspired by God, he, he uses the Greek phrase Theo neustos. This was the first time in any Grecian literature that this phrase appeared. All right? And if you're familiar with world history, you know the reason why the majority of the New Testament is written in Koine Greek is because the successors to the global superpower status from the Babylonians, from the Israelites, frankly, then to the Babylonians and then to the Medes and the Medo Persians into the Persians. Then you had the Greeks under Alexander the Great. The Romans were successors in interest, if you will, to the empire that preceded them. That was the Grecian Empire. Well, as Alexander the Great sought to conquer the entire known world, he likewise spread the Greek language as the dominant language of the Grecian Empire. So when you have, the Roman Empire, you had some Latin speakers, but you had more prevalent Greek, Koine Greek speakers didn't even then you had Latin speakers in the Roman Empire at this time. Which is why, the majority of the, the New Testament is written in Koine Greek.
What would our lives look like if we took the word of God seriously
But the thing that, that I want to present for your consideration today is what would our lives look like if we took the word of God seriously? What would our lives look like if we took the word of God seriously? Now, I want to be clear about something. I am not accusing anyone in this audience of not taking the word of God seriously. Because for many of you, you might say my Life would look the way it is because I take the Word of God seriously there. I'm sure there are others who are listening and. Or watching right now who would have to say m. Do I really take the Word of God seriously? And what I mean by taking the word of God seriously, I mean, is the Word of God practically our ultimate authority? Is the Word of God our ultimate authority? In practice, you know, there's some conversation. And sometimes when we get into the realm of apologetics, there is sometimes. and Dr. Rathbun was just talking about this in one session. an effort in worldview circles is called evidentialism. To where we say, well, let me see if there's some external physical evidence that will tell me whether or not the word of God is true, instead of using the word of God in the reverse. No, no, no. Let me look at the Word of God to see whether or not what you're submitting to me as physical evidence is actually true. What we may not recognize that we're doing in the former example is that we're subjecting the authority of God's word to man's capacity to make, you know, factual. Not factual, let me say it better to make naturalistic observations, discoveries, and then interpret them. And so we subject the authority of God's word to the interpretation of the naturalistic discovery. I don't think anybody intends this, but that is, in effect, what happens. And no matter how much we might try to do so, the reality of regeneration is a spiritual phenomenon. It's a spiritual phenomenon. What I'm driving at is that all too often, all too often, professing believers attempt to ingratiate ourselves to the world around us. You know, to make ourselves seem acceptable, if not even cool, to the world around us, making ourselves uncomfortable with the idea that God has called us to be peculiar. If we truly believed that the Word of God was authoritative, what would our lives look like? What would the witness of the body of Christ look like? If we took God's Word seriously? If, practically speaking, the Word of God was our ultimate authority, how would that affect our engagement? I've seen a lot of people attempt to kind of create this, frankly, a, false dichotomy with saying that, well, it's either preach the gospel or engage civically. That's just a false. That's a false dichotomy. Guys like you have to rewind the tape. Who's the one that established our nation as a constitutional republic with democratic features? It wasn't me. It wasn't you. You know, people tell me I'm an old soul, but I don't date back to 1776. And I might have had, like one of those old milk cartons, an expiration date before now if I did. But God did that, I'm a beneficiary of it and an inheritor of it. And if, again, if you believe the word of God, which you should, Acts 17 explains that God in his divine foreknowledge, determined the boundaries of our habitation. And when we would live in the land in which we would live, God determined that. You think God is surprised that we have a constitutional republic of democratic features? You think God would expect any less the believers in our day than what he expected of the apostle Paul to use his Roman citizenship to advance the gospel so that we have the concluding, thought from his Epistle to the Philippians. When Paul writes, the saints of the Lord Jesus Christ greet you, including those among Caesar's household. You don't have saints in Caesar's household. If Paul, as a native born Roman citizen, fully aware of the appellate laws in the system of justice, utilized them in the face of an illegal criminal prosecution in order to exercise the ultimate efficacy of his appellate capacity as a Roman citizen for no purpose other than to get the gospel into Caesar's household, you think God expects anything different from us in that regard? The thing that I didn't expect this to become like a tagline for the show, but it became that is that darkness is not an affirmative force. It merely reoccupies the space that vacated by the light. That's simply the truth. The more those who profess to be children of light voluntarily absent ourselves, we are leaving room for the ubiquity of darkness. And so, simply put, I'm just tired of it. If we truly believe the word of God, as many of us profess to do, and even offering intellectual assent to it, but if we really took God's word seriously, what would our lives look like? What would our communities look like? What would our families look like? Instead of kind of gazing in the sky as Paul, as Jesus confronted the apostles in Matthew 28? Why don't we be about our Father's business, starting right in our own homes and in our own communities and in our own counties, and build outwardly from there, living locally, because God has comprised his body the way he's designed it, with there being one body but many members. He doesn't want us to be identical clones of one another. He wants us to be disciples of his and operating within the vein that he has called us to. It is high time for us to be about our Father's business.
>> Joseph Parker: A, discipleship minute with Joseph Parker. Here are seven ways to use the Word of God Every day, daily. We can read it, hear it, believe it, speak it, obey it, pray it, and meditate on it. All of these uses are related, but none of them are quite the same. You can read the word of God but not hear it. You can read the word of God but not choose to obey it. You can believe the word of God but not choose to pray it, etc. We'd be wise to strive to use the Word of God in our lives in all seven ways daily. The written Word of God is a book of faith. From Genesis to Revelation, we are called to hear, believe, and obey the word of God. If we hear the word of God but don't obey it, we deceive ourselves. As James, chapter one, verse 22 lets us know, the word of God is a book full of truth, yet truth is always meant to be learned and applied. M Shining light into the darkness. This is the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
Hamilton Corner welcomes Heidi St. John back to the show
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Welcome back to the Hamilton Corner. I, I, I mentioned earlier, I was trying to confirm whether or not this was true before I said anything but is true. V. Bacham has passed, away. I saw the information first shared by his ministry on his ministries page. I don't know anything about the cause or anything at this juncture. it just says there was a medical emergency of some sort, and he was 56 years old. this is tough, to learn, while on the air, not really having much time to process it. I was just saying I didn't even introduce my guest yet, just, in our men's group. Last week, before I came to. No, yeah, it was last week before I came to the HSLDA conference. we were referring to his book, what He Must Be if He Wants to Marry My Daughter. we were talking to our men in our local assembly about the role of a father in the romantic pursuits of our children and our sons and our daughters. And, that's one of the areas where I've gleaned a lot of wisdom from Vodie Bauckham, from, from Voddie Bakkem and m. Some of the books he's written. And my, it's hard to even process this while being m live on the air. I have here, not in studio, but I'm in one of the conference rooms at the hotel where the conference is going on. And to My right is my dear friend, a sister in the Lord, who is an author of 10 books, including Becoming Mom Strong, how to fight with all that's in you for your family and your faith. her podcast, the Heidi St. John show, or podcast whichever one you prefer, has been downloaded over 24 million times and counting. I feel like the Lord brought our path, allowed me to cross paths with her and her wonderful husband Jay, at a particular. At a specific time in my life and my wife's lives. My wife's life. And I'm honored to have you on the show with me, Heidi. Look, I haven't even turned my mic the right way because I don't like looking at the camera when I have guests to talk to. it is, jolting quite a bit jolting after having witnessed what happened to Charlie Kirk in front of the whole country and his memorial service Sunday. And then to get this news, this news today about Vodi Bakken passing away. it's quite stirring. But welcome to the Hamilton corner again.
>> Heidi St. John: You know what? it's good to see you. I mean, it's always a delight. This is hard. Yeah, I don't, I mean, both you and I kind of get in the news at the same time. And I was in my studio when I got the news about Charlie. I was recording then, and it. You're right. It is. It. It's difficult to process on the air, for sure, but I imagine that, you know, people listening today are feeling the same thing.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Yeah. Yeah.
>> Heidi St. John: What a loss for the kingdom. What a loss.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Yeah. before you and I had conversed about having you to come on, to just talk about where the body of Christ is. Some people know you and I share, sit on the board for HSLDA together. how we've been in board meetings and a board meeting this week, in that regard, and the first thing you said when I saw you was, what a time to be alive for the kingdom of God. That's the first thing you said. See, you know, I was listening, but I was, what a time to be alive for the kingdom of God. I say, yeah, you know, you never know who's listening. I listen. And I remember, when you share that expression, and because I know you, I know that that observation hasn't changed because of this information. but what percolates in your heart and in your mind and really in your core when you say, what a time it is to be alive now.
>> Heidi St. John: For the kingdom, well, there's a shaking. There's a shaking happening My, friend and yours, Ken Ham. I was actually recording just a few minutes ago with my friend Andrew Putewa down in my room doing a show for, my podcast. And as soon as we got done recording, I checked my course Blowing up. And Ken was just saying how sad he was. And I think we're all still reeling from the shocking public execution of Charlie Kirk, who was silenced for the crime of telling the truth. And now Vodi's voice is gone. And you have to wonder. I mean, we trust in the sovereignty of God, right? God is doing something. And there's a shaking happening and a quickening, I think. And that's kind of what I meant when I saw you ahead of that board meeting, you know, to say, what a time to be a Christian. What a time to be, a steward of the gospel message.
Abraham Beiren: Dr. Dobson gone home to be with Lord
And we've lost some incredible voices this year. Dr. Dobson gone home to be with Lord. He was a friend of mine.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Yeah.
>> Heidi St. John: And,
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Yeah, yeah. I didn't know Dr. Dobson personally, but I've been a beneficiary of a lot of the things he's done. Some people know, Some people may not be aware, but he is a part of the pioneering voices who established the Family Research Council. some people know that I'm an allied attorney with Alliance Defending Freedom. He was one of the pioneering voices.
>> Heidi St. John: He was a lion. He was a lion for the Lord. And to me, that these voices, that these men have been called home. It's telling me, Abraham, that the baton is being passed and rapidly, and we need to be ready. We need to be ready to pick it up and run with it. And, I think the time for our silence in the church, you know, I ran for Congress in 2022. I have a. And largely this came from my friendship with Dr. Dobson, who endorsed my run for Congress. He came out, and we've been. We've been transferred 20. Over. Over 20 years. And. Sorry, I'm emotional. and he said to me one of the very first times I ever met him in person to record his show. Dr. Dobson, of course, ahead of his time. And so was Charlie Kirk, and so was Vodi, I think, in many ways. And Dr. Dobson said, if the Lord ever gives you the opportunity, you. If he ever blesses you with the, ability, minister to the family, because it will be the family that's under attack. And we never could have imagined that we'd be having conversations in the culture that were. In which we were discussing what a woman was like. You could not have Imagined how far we would fall. And I think largely because. And I hope this wakes people up. I think largely because God's people have abandoned the public square. We just abandoned it. We left it to very few people. There are very few, Dr. Dobson's very few Vodi Bachems. Very few people over the course of the last 30 years have had the courage, and that's really what it takes, have had the courage to stand for what we know is right in the word of God in the public arena. Instead, we've relegated ourselves to the safety of our churches, and we're paying a terrible price for it. And to see voices like Charlie Kirk now, I mean, that is so shocking. It tells me that the Lord is saying, all right, it's your turn. Yeah, you know, step up.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Even when you say, relegating ourselves to the safety of our churches, if you keep up with Dr. George Barnard's research, and I know you do, our church is not really safe. If you want your children reared in the nurturing admonition of the Lord. When he talks about the paucity of a biblical worldview amongst, children's ministry leaders and frankly, even pastors, it's a scary phenomenon. And one of the things I attempt to assert repeatedly, there's a reason why, we have the warning that we have in Deuteronomy 8. I think there are lots of people who might identify, you know, demonic activity. Like in my hometown, I'm from New Orleans, you know, you have, you know, Congo Square, you have voodoo shamans. I've personally been praying in, In Jackson Square and having people say, get out of here. We can't see when you're here. I've experienced that. but then on the opposite side, I think that many of professing members of the body of Christ in our nation have not been able to or have not exercised appropriate discernment because they don't recognize demonic activity if it manifests in a different way. So in Deuteronomy 8, you have Moses warning and preparing the second generation wilderness Israelites to say, hey, yo, yo, yo, yo. Be careful when you've eaten and your tummies are full. Be careful when you have your flocks and your herds and they're multiplying. Be careful when you're silver and your gold and they multiply, because then you have the tendency to forget the Lord God.
>> Heidi St. John: Yeah, for sure.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: And I think what you're describing is that in our nation we've had freedoms that humankind and previous generations couldn't even Dream of the very idea of being a citizen as opposed to a subject is a rarity in the scope of human history. But I think it kind of seduced us into kind of, as a result of a siren song, into a comfortable negligence. That is a negligence that manifests itself by a lack of discernment. But it's induced by a comfort. Because you very rarely have somebody praying, you know, when they have crises afoot. Very, very rarely have people failing to pray when their tummies are rumbling. But very often you can see that. And frankly, Satan doesn't care if he can get you to forget God. He'll do it through, you know, tragedy and disappointment in that regard, or if I can make you comfortable to cause you to forget God. And I think in our nation there's been a lack of discernment on that end. And that comfortable negligence has kind of in many ways caused us to lose our. Our sharpened edge of discernment. That in many ways we've agreed with the Father of lies to allow the public square to be not only populated, but dominated by people who hate Christ.
Jeff Dobson: The church needs to take a hard look inward
So with the shaking that you mentioned and your observation, and I think it's right when the Lord is saying, okay, what are you going to do now? What do you think is necessary for the church to be able to rightly discern and respond to the moment that we're in now?
>> Heidi St. John: Well, I think the first thing we got to do is take a good hard look inward. you know, we hear calls for revival, and certainly I hope that that's the moment that we're in. I hope there is a revival. I don't think we're going to know for several months. but we need to look inward. You know, revivals do not come without repentance. And it's so it's looking in inward and saying, like David did, father, search me. Try me. Is there anything in my life that doesn't bring you glory? Is there any area of my life that I haven't yielded to you? You know, and I think we need to be very careful and very honest. You know, what are the things we're listening to? What are things we're allowing ourselves to see, you know, in the. In the privacy of our. Of our own hearts, Our relationship just with the Lord where no one else is watching? Are we crippling our own ability to be ambassadors of the message of the gospel because we just can't get a handle on that. That glass of wine we're having or the third glass of wine, or we can't get a handle on the pornography that's on the computer or whatever it is. These, these, these, these sins that really are, have gripped many a, lot of the church in private. And it cripples us and we don't realize it. And I think we have, we have opportunity to become the men and women that God would have us be and live lives that are yielded to him. I think one of the things that was so, amazing about. I mean, I'm thinking, I mean, you can't help but draw the parallel. I mean, I'm doing this in real time, obviously, but I can't help but draw the parallel between Dr. Whose focus was on raising, children in godly homes and marriage and the importance and the sanctity of marriage and the sanctity of human life, which is also the message of Charlie Kirk in many ways. One of the last things that he said was get married, you know, follow the Lord, have a bunch of kids. Right? And Voddie had the same message. These were three men of different generations. Vodi's my age. M. Charlie Kirk was my daughter's age, and Dr. Dobson was old enough to be my father. So now you've seen three ambassadors from three different generations taken home to be with the Lord. And, in my, spirit, I just hear the Lord say, are you listening? Are you listening? And the amount of. I, hate to say this, but the amount of cowardice that we have seen in our pulpits in recent years, in many ways has led us to this point. It's a cowardice unwillingness to confront sin. We got churches, we got pastors saying that sin is not even a thing. Right. boy, I just, I pray the Lord brings us back personally and then corporately, because there's work to be done. There's work to be done.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Yeah, you describe it, and I want to welcome you, if you are inclined to do so, to kind of unpack, unpack it even more. What you're talking about kind of personal pet sins. because I think we unfortunately fail to recognize how, ah, personal bondage hinders the efficacy of our witness. And I know we're getting close to a break here. About what, two minutes, Jeff. to a break here, but I guess we'll start it here. If we need to carry it over into the next segment, we will.
Heidi St. John: Personal bondage can hinder your public witness
some may not understand how the prevalence of personal bondage will actually hinder your public witness. Would you mind just delving into that a little bit more?
>> Heidi St. John: Well, it's rooted then in hypocrisy. Right? I mean, and how many times, how many times have you seen, a pastor taken out because of, let's say, it's adultery. It's almost always that, right? Very rarely do you hear somebody, you know, that guy lost his job because he was embezzling money. You know, it's almost always a sexual sin that started somewhere. It started with one thought that eventually was multitude of thoughts and eventually manifest itself in action and physical action usually. Well, the same thing is true in our homes with our children. The same thing is true in, in the way that we, we've become, I think, desensitized in our churches. This is absolutely true in the Pacific Northwest where, you know, alcohol, which used to be, and I'm not saying alcohol is a sin, so nobody needs to get mad at me, but we know for sure that the drunkenness is the sin. Right? But what I mean is we've accepted things that were previously unacceptable and we've allowed it to sort of saturate the church. And this is completely true. I mean, I'm from the Pacific Northwest, I live just outside of Portland, Oregon. And I can tell you our Christianity is soft. And it is soft because in the private places of our homes, we haven't yielded those things which the Lord is asking us to yield. And I think it's cost us dearly.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: You're listening to the Hamilton Corner. my guest is Heidi St. John, host of the Heidi St. John podcast, Pioneer planter of, firmly planted homeschool resource resource center. I apologize for the herky jerkiness of my speech at the moment because we're just reeling from the news that is just really breaking now. Vodie Bauckham passing away at 56 years old. he's been a blessing to many. I actually worshiped at his church one time before he moved to Zambia. and he has had an impact on the body of Christ around the world, frankly.
>> Joseph Parker: The Hamilton Corner podcast and one minute commentaries are available at afr.net back to the Hamilton Corner on American Family Radio.
Abraham Hamilton III talks about personal compromise and bondage in public witness
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Welcome back to the Hamilton corner, Abraham Hamilton III. Here my guest is my friend Heidi St. John, and we're both, both frankly processing in real time the news of, Pastor Voddie Bakam's death that we basically just learned to confirm together. just before coming on the air, I saw something about it and you can appreciate trying to verify before saying anything about it publicly. It's hard to do while you're on the air and talking and all of that. But it has been confirmed and we were having a conversation before the break about how personal compromise and bondage ends up having a direct and deleterious impact on a public witness. And I'm often reminded, especially in this line of conversation, about, you know, Daniel's friends, you know, Daniel before the lion's den and his friends before the fiery furnace and refer, to them as boys, but they were only boys. In chapter one of the book of Daniel, they refer to as Yaled in Hebrew. but before you get to the fiery furnace, in order to truly understand that, you have to go back and understand the 10 day table of testing. It was the resolve and the, devotion to Yahweh in anonymity that sets the foundation for them to be able to stand before the fiery furnace that by the time Nebuchadnezzar says, okay, I'm, hot at you guys, but if you're ready to compromise now, then all is well. Bygones will be bygones. We let it roll. And as the scripture bears it out, they respond. We're not careful to answer you in this moment. We don't have to wonder what we're going to do. We know our God is able to deliver us from you, and even if he doesn't, we still won't bow. That kind of resolve isn't developed on the fly. You know, you don't hit game winners during the game. You hit game winners because you've been hitting game winners in practice when there were no lights, camera in action, you know, and so it is. What is developed and cultivated in anonymity is what the Lord draws from when you have the public moments, public showing up moments. And but, and you were rightly pointing out that that public bondage has a direct and deleterious effect. I mean, simply put, why don't we have more pastors talking about pornography in churches? You want to be honest? Because you have too many pastors that's bound in pornography. Let's just, let's just keep it all the way real, keep it a buck. That's why, why don't you have more pastors talking about sexual perversion and adultery and divorce? We got too many pastors that are bound to sexual version and divorced. Let's just be honest. That's the truth. And it is not until the body of Christ has our arms around the necessity to revere the holiness of God. Which is why I started the show the way I did. If we truly believe the word of God was authoritative, how would our lives be shaped?
Heidi: You made a point about the necessity of discernment
You were making a point Heidi, during the break about the necessity of discernment, if this is not a moment for discernment, I don't know what is a moment for discernment. M. What were you attempting to. What were you saying before, during the break to me about discernment and how we need it in this time?
>> Heidi St. John: Yeah. Well, you and I were talking at dinner, the other night at the board dinner, that, there's a lot of talk happening right now on the Internet and lots of other places. People with public platforms spouting every kind of, you know, conspiracy, you know, theory known to man about every kind of thing, and God's people going down rabbit hole after rabbit hole after rabbit hole. And, we were talking about Spurgeon the other night. It was Spurgeon who said that discernment was not knowing the difference between right and wrong. Discernment is knowing the difference between right and almost right.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: That's right.
>> Heidi St. John: And it matters because the right and almost right is the difference between saved and not saved.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: M Hm.
>> Heidi St. John: The right and almost right is the difference between a faithful life and a life that, doesn't live up to the potential that God would have had. I was thinking as you were talking about, these men who passed away, one Another thing they had in common is that they live faithful to their wives. Faithful to their wives. Neither of these, three men that we've just talked about were ever broiled in, some sort of, you know, a moment in which they were released from their marriage vows that someone accused them of something salacious. They were faithful men, faithful men representing three different generations. And that is what God is asking us to do. And we have to. I was saying, you know, when we talk about discernment, these men had discernment, another thing that they had in common. And discernment comes from being close to and walking with the Lord, being in his word, so that you are sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit. And, we've always told our children, you know, Jay and I have seven children. Six of them are grown now. And we've always told our children, look, we want you to be able to be so close to the Lord that when he speaks, you hear his voice above all the other voices that are going to call out to you in the culture today, above all the other voices, above all the influencers on social media about all the people that are spouting all manner of absurdity into the culture. You need to get along with the Lord. And if you're not yet used to hearing his voice, you won't know what he wants you to do. Jesus said, my sheep, hear my voice and follow me. And that is where discernment comes from. It comes from listening to the Holy Spirit.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: I immediately. What immediately came to mind as you were Talking is Romans 12:1 and 2. The scripture plainly says this. Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies, a living sac, living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. What Paul is explaining, and it's important for us to understand he's communicating this to believers in Rome, that our capacity to discern the will of God is directly related to the degree to which we refuse to conform to this world. To say it more simply, the more worldly we are, the less discernment we will have. When you have people objecting to notions like holiness as if it's an archaic idea, these are people who do not understand the Scripture and do not know the heart of God because holiness is necessary for a believer to have discernment. But when you have this kind of cultural, practical syncretism happening, and notice I said culturally and practically, because you have some people who might be able to articulate proper theology but don't have proper practice, their practice diverges away from Scripture. And very often you have this phenomenon because it is worldliness driving the conversation. That's what you get instead of what must I do to be saved? How much can I do and still be saved? How close to the line can I get and still be saved? And what we don't recognize, we are injuring our own souls because we blunt our capacity for discernment. It has a direct and correlative, correlate, correlative effect. It's instructive for us, and I want you to respond to this, that Paul writes this to the Church in Rome about the necessity of discernment. He likewise writes to the Church of Colossae, hey, I'm writing to you so that you wouldn't be beguiled. That beguilement begins in verse 4. By the time you get to verse 8, it metastasizes into full blown captivity. I was writing so that no one can take you captive through empty humanistic philosophy, elementary deceit. The potential for that captivity is being worn to believers. And when I'm talking about captivity, Satan's strategy is two pronged. Keep you from the gospel if possible. If he cannot do that, the second prong of your strategy is to limit your effectiveness as a believer.
>> Heidi St. John: Right back to personal holiness.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: That's right.
>> Heidi St. John: Right back to personal holiness. He actually, you know, the apostles, so clearly, you know, the warning was very, very specific. A time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will bend their. They will bend their hearts to whatever their itching ears want to hear. And we've lived now, generations of Christians who have done that, and we've ceded so much territory to the enemy. When someone says to me that they're, that they either don't care about holiness or that's an antiquated word or it offends them or whatever, they think it's kind of stuffy and stuck up or whatever, it tells me that they don't understand the stakes and they do not understand the battle that we are raging. This is a spiritual battle, and spiritual battles require spiritual weapons. And we have a generation of people who want to engage in a fight that is spiritual in nature, and they can't wield a spiritual weapon. And we will never take ground until we learn to wield the spiritual weapons. Our weapons are not the weapons of this world. They are prayer, and they are the knowledge of the word of God walking in right relationship with God. This is what gives us power in the Holy Spirit so that we can listen to the word of God, discern what he's saying, and then walk out in obedience what he wants us to do. If we can't hear his voice, we can't walk in obedience. And we have an entire generation of Christians, many of them in our churches today, many pastors from behind the pulpit who are literally slaves to the world because they're not walking in accordance with the Spirit, because their hearts and minds have been blunted either by unconfessed sin or by cowardice. And as you rightly pointed out, you know, the last chapter of the Book of Revelation, when the sins are being listed, this is ultimately what's going to do it. You guys are going to the lake of fire forever and ever. This is the second death, the one that you're never going to come back from. You think, oh, witchcraft's at the top of the list. Idolatry's at the top of this. Adultery. No, it's cowardice. It's cowardice. And we're living in a generation of cowardly Christians. And I think now with the death of our brother Vodi, and I've Spoken opposite him many times over the years. I've shared the stage with him and, incredible man of God. And as I'm watching the chess pieces change, I am reminded that I have one opportunity to live out this life in obedience to the Lord. And none of us knows when we're going to go home. None of us knows when we're going to go home. And man, I hope, I really do. I hope that as Christians, we remember that God didn't give us a spirit of fear, power, love, and a sound mind. And think about this a lot. Abraham in. In Covid. What happened to the church when we succumbed to the spirit of fear? We lost our love, we lost our power, and we lost our soundness of mind. Why? Because we didn't have the discernment to notice the difference between right and almost right. And this is the time for that. And I think it's an opportunity for God to get a hold of his people, those who want to listen, because he's calling us back and the voice is getting louder.
Bodie: Apostle Paul writes to Timothy about wide door for ministry
>> Abraham Hamilton III: I m referred to you yesterday, on the show to begin the program, when the Apostle Paul was writing to Timothy again, unsurprisingly, and he said that the Lord has opened to me a wide door for effective ministry. Then he said this and their many adversaries. The presence of adversaries did not cause the Apostle Paul to recalibrate his perception of the door for effective service being wide. The presence of adversaries did not detract from his observation. And it goes right to your saying. The scripture similarly says that the righteous are as bold as lions. Paul writes to Timothy, the scripture, you quote a second Timothy 1:7. For God is not giving you a spirit of fear. And the Greek word there is delia, which is a pejorative. Like, basically, he's saying, God ain't make you no punk. That's literally what he's saying. He said, God ain't make you no punk. Because Paul is writing to Timothy from the Roman prison, that is his execution is imminent. This is one of the last epistles we have from Paul.
>> Heidi St. John: Yeah, his life is being poured out, literally.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: And so it's easy to talk. Yeah, I'm, in the Lord's army. Yes, sir. When. When no bullets are fly.
>> Heidi St. John: Right.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: But it's another thing when you know the Apostle Paul is writing to Timothy. Tim. He's like, yeah, everything was sweet when I was made an elder, but now I'm getting jail mail from you. You know, if anybody's ever gotten a letter from prison, you know, it's jail mail, you know. And Paul writes in that fashion because he's encouraging Timothy to fan into a flame the gift that God has given him because he had been intimidated. Faith doesn't cause us to ignore the opposition nor the risk. It persists in light of it. And one of the things that I challenge myself with, an endeavor to ascribe to, and I would encourage others with, is living from eternity downward instead of allowing our temporal circumstances to dictate our perception. No, if heaven is our home, and we know that, you know, to be absent from the bodies, to be present with the Lord, don't want anybody to suffer. And I can't help but think about Bridget and their nine children, Vodi Bauckham's wife and their.
>> Heidi St. John: Well, you think about. I mean, Bodie's been around for a long time, and I think some people may miss the fact that he was only 56 years old. Yeah, that's. That's sitting on me right now. I'm 55 and my husband's 57. We just do not know when the Lord's going to call us home. And as far as Bridget was concerned, they had many, many, many more years together. And I just think, boy, guys, women, love your husbands, love your husbands. You know, husbands, love your wives. As Christ loved the church, we. We have these relationships that are so precious. Earthside, God gives those to us, and I think we can take a look. I hope that we do and make sure our priorities are in order. These three men had their life priorities in order, right? And we know them from God's word. Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength. This is what happens between me and the Lord. And God's a God of abundance. Out of an overflow of what happens in the private place in my heart between me and the Lord, I then pour into my husband, not into my children. I pour them into my husband because that's the primary relationship in our home. Out of an overflow of what God does between me and my husband of 36 years, I then pour into our children. And out of an overflow of a healthy home, then we pour into the community around us.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Amen.
>> Heidi St. John: And we see it kind of backwards throughout, many people who are in the public eye right now, Christians who are in the public eye, we've got to get this right. We've got to get this right. And these three men who've been taken home now within months of each other, they got it right. They got it right.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: We have about A minute or so left. And I want to toss this to you because somebody will be listening to us now who might. Who might be reeling under the weight of conviction and saying, man, guys, y' all are talking well, but my life is just a complete wreck. We serve a God of grace. If you still have breath in your lungs, it's not over. Is that an overstatement? Or never?
>> Heidi St. John: No, never. Too late. As long as you got. Because. Because of God's great mercy. Amen. Nothing that we can do. It's nothing that we've ever done. Right? It's the Lord who's saying, come back to me. I love. I love the cry of the Scriptures. You are there for, my ambassadors, like we are ambassadors, as if he's making his appeal through us. Come back to me.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Amen.
>> Heidi St. John: This is the Lord of Heaven's armies. This is his heart for his people. It's never too late. And what would happen, Abraham, if God's people, if everyone who's, like, a marginalized Christian people living in the margins of Christianity right now, we're listening to this, and they can hear the Lord saying, come back to me.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Amen.
>> Heidi St. John: come back to me. I've got work for you to do. Let's go.
>> Abraham Hamilton III: Amen. If you are listening to this show, I want you to know for a fact that it's not a coincidence that it is a product of God's divine providence and his grace, that you've heard not just what we've said, but you've heard what God is saying to you, appealing to you. My challenge and encouragement to you is to heed that. None of us knows how many more breaths we have. Let's take full advantage of this moment that God has given us for his glory. Let's leave it all on the floor for the king.
>> Heidi St. John: The views and opinions expressed in this broadcast may not necessarily reflect those of the American Family association or American Family Radio.
