(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) Thank you very much. First Corinthians chapter one is talking about wisdom, wisdom of this world, the first Corinthians chapter one that you see that the people in the church of Corinth, they were having a little bit of a problem. They were putting a little bit too much emphasis on men in the church and they were, you know, some people were saying that they had a favorite preacher, favorite teacher or whatever. This morning we're going to use this and look at verse number 20 of first Corinthians chapter one. We're going to use this chapter to start a brand new series where we talk about the wisdom of this world or the wise of this world. I want to take specific examples in this sermon series and explain to you how God confounds the wise. Look at verse number 20 of first Corinthians chapter one. The Bible says, where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? I'm going to show you in this series how all of these people, very specific people we will talk about in this series are, they are, they are, they're considered wise in this world, but I'll show you how when we look at them through the light of the Bible that they're really very foolish. They're very foolish people. This morning I'm going to start this series with a man named Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson. I don't know how many of you have, have listened to Jordan Peterson or know who he is. He's very popular today. He's a, he's a Canadian clinical psychologist is I guess what his profession would be. He used to be a clinical psychologist. Now he's, he's a, he was born in 1962 so he's 59, 60 years old. He's a bestselling author now. He's a very famous speaker. His speaking events demand tens of thousands of dollars and people all over the world listen to him. He's a very, very popular social media influencer. He's on YouTube all over the place. Many people want to interview him and get his thoughts on things. So let's look at Jordan Peterson this morning and see what we can learn from the Bible about this man. Now before, I'm going to give you three, we're going to look at him in three separate points this morning, but before we get into those three separate points, turn to second Timothy chapter two. I first need to give you a couple, a lesson at the beginning before we can, we can really get into these three points of Jordan Peterson. I want to give you some things to look for with people like this. People that we would consider, you know, or would consider themselves or others would consider intellectuals today. Look at second Timothy chapter two and look at verse number 24. The Bible says the second Timothy chapter two and verse number 24, the Bible says, and the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach patient. And then it continues on talking about qualifications for a pastor here, a pastor, someone who is to be a spiritual teacher, to lead a church is to be able to, is at one of the qualifications is this idea that they should be apt to teach, apt to teach now, of course, to teach spiritual things in the case of a pastor, but apt the word APT means, you know, you know, predisposed or inclined, meaning you have a talent for it. You know, you're good at it. Look, not everybody's good at teaching. Turn to first Corinthians chapter 12. I've met some brilliant people in my life, but they couldn't teach anything to anybody. They're brilliant. They can do brilliant things. They can build brilliant things. They can design, you know, very complex systems and things, but they can't explain it to anybody. They just have no teaching ability. And guess what? That's okay. That's okay. Cause not everybody is going to have the same talents. Look at first Corinthians chapter 12, look at verse number four, look what Paul says here. He says, now there are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit Paul is talking about within the church, which in within, you know, God's people, you know, within God's family, there's going to be people that have, that are apt to have different talents in different areas. It's the same spirit, capital S we're all saved. Look, we're all the children of God, but we have different talents. Some people are just better at things than other people. Look at verse number five. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord, look, not everybody's the pastor and not everybody has to be the pastor. There are diversities of operations, but it's the same God with which worketh all in all. There's many different things that go into the operation of a church. There's the cleaning, there's the administration, there's the accounting. There's the, the bulletins, there's the, the social media aspect of it. There's many different things, but it's all working towards the same thing. It's the same Lord, same spirit, but the manifestation verse seven of the spirit is given to every man to profit with all. For to one is given the spirit of the word of wisdom to another, the word of knowledge by the same spirit, to another faith by the same spirit, to another, the gifts of healing by the same spirit, to another, the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another diverse kinds of tongues, that's languages, to another, the interpretation of tongues, again, languages. Verse number 11, but all these worketh that one and the self same spirit dividing to every man severally as he will look. Everybody is not going to be good at the same things, but that's the whole point of a church is that not everybody's the ear, not everybody's the eye, not everybody's the arm. Everybody has different things. The point is, is that to be a pastor, to be a spiritual leader, you should have the talent of teaching. You should be able to teach. Otherwise you're not going to be a very, it's, it's one of the qualifications that a pastor, a Bishop and elder needs to have. So all that to say this, there are good teachers and there are bad teachers. You say, what is the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher? So hopefully the moms here, since the kids in the room are homeschooled, hopefully the moms are good teachers. You want to be a good teachers. Now here's what good teachers do. Good teachers take complicated things and they make them very easy to understand. That's what a good teacher will do. Okay. A bad teacher will do the opposite. A bad teacher will take something that is very simple and make it very complicated. Okay. Let me give you an example. All right. Let me give you an example. I have some oranges here. They're not to throw at you. I was just joking about that. So the oranges here on the table. So let's say that you have kids in school and they have mathematical problems that are word problems. I really didn't like these when I was a kid. You know, you have math and you're, you're, you're reading a paragraph of something that happens and you're trying to do a math problem from that. That's very confusing for a child to start learning something like that. So let me give you one of these. So kids pay attention. Okay. Family integrated church. Here we go. All right. Jack has seven oranges. Or how about this? Pastor Jared has seven oranges. He gives Jill or he gives Ms. Heidi some amount of oranges and then he eats one orange and, and he has three oranges left. How many oranges did he give to Ms. Heidi? And you're like, what? That's so confusing. If you just read that or just hear that right away. But one good thing that a mom or a good teacher could do is she could just put oranges out on the table and she could say, okay, pastor Jared had seven oranges here. There. Let's just take an accounting of the oranges. Let's take an accounting. Pastor Jared started with seven oranges and let's account where all the oranges went. He ended up with three oranges. So we know that three, he ended up with at the end if we just work it backwards and he ate one of them himself. So there's another one. And we know that just deducing from just the orange, the object lesson here, we know he must've given his wife three oranges. See, it's very simple. Or you could just make it like really complicated. Just be like, look, it's seven equals three plus one plus X. Why can't you understand this? Right. But this is a good way to start making a complicated thing simple. And then you can move into those more complicated things. That's what a good teacher would do. Okay. Now let me take the oranges down before I get, I'm tempted to throw them at someone. Another example of this is I used to work at a, I used to work at the biggest, one of the coolest places I've ever worked in my life. I used to work at the biggest coal fired power plant in the entire Midwest. And as engineers at the power plant, we were required to give tours of the power plant to groups of people. Now these groups of people would be anywhere from farmers to junior high kids. We would have to give a tour of this power plant. Now here's what I could have done when I gave a tour of the power plant. I could have walked people through the plant and I could have been like, look, what you're seeing here is a thermodynamic Rankin cycle. You know, is what's happening here. It's not an ideal Rankin cycle because of the, you know, the, the irreversibility is an inherent components caused by the fluid friction and heat loss due to the surroundings in the boiler pipes, in the valves, the working fluid. This is how it works. The working fluid is pumped from a low to high pressure. You know, it's, it starts, it's dry, saturated vapor as it expands its way through the turbine. It's it's, it gets wet and subsaturated as it enters the condenser and turns that into a liquid through the condenser. Then the process, this process repeats itself and everybody would be like, what in the world are you talking about? Or I could just explain, here's what we do. We burn coal, we boil water, we make steam, we shoot steam through a turbine, the turbine turns a generator and makes electricity. That's how I could explain things. So a good teacher will explain things in that way. Okay. So look, turn to Colossians chapter two. You say, why do people do this? Why would people speak in a way that just confuses people, that just, that just makes people not understand what they're talking about? Well, the Bible actually tells us why this is. Let's look at it. Look at Colossians chapter two and verse number eight, and there's a reason that I preached through Colossians chapter two, verse one through seven on Wednesday, and I stopped at verse number eight. So here's number eight right here, verse eight. This is why people speak this way. Number one, they're bad teachers if they speak in a way that no one can understand. Look at verse number eight. The Bible says, beware lest any man spoil you. That means fool you, trick you, through philosophy and vain deceit. So you need to underline those two words, vain deceit right there, because that is the answer to why people speak this way. After the tradition of men, this is, it means this is not what God wants people to do. This is what men want to do after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. Okay. So the Bible here is saying, don't let people trick you or fool you by vain deceit. You know what vain deceit is? Number one, it's bad teaching. It's bad teaching. But if I sit here and I speak to you in a way that is trying to make something that is complicated, even more complicated, or what's even worse, trying to take something that's simple and make it complicated, you know what I'm trying to do? Instead of teach you something, I'm trying to show you how smart I am and it's vanity. It's vain. If I don't care, see look, good teaching is giving to others. Good teaching is imparting knowledge on somebody else. I want you to walk away from this plant tour knowing what we're doing here, knowing how, you know, at least a general idea of how this machine works instead of just wanting you to walk away being like, man, that, that guy was smart. I have no idea what he was talking about. That does nothing for anybody except who? Me. It's vanity. It's vain deceit. It's just people who are out to show you how smart they are. And I put smart in quotes, especially with the topic that we're going to talk about this way. They're not out there to make you smart. It's really about who it benefits, folks. Look back at Colossians. So Colossians chapter two in verse number eight is selfish is what it is. A true leader or a true teacher, I'm sorry, is selfless. They want to teach others. They want to impart their wisdom on other people. Now, let me give you some signs of this. Let me give some signs of this. You can recognize this. These types of people, these people that practice vain deceit, because there's some people in this world today that are very famous and they're very good at this and they're very good at this. First of all, they never directly answer questions. That's a first sign right there. They use words. There's another one. They use words that are largely irrelevant. Sometimes they make up words and phrases. They literally make up words and phrases and or, or they just use words that they know. And I'm going to show you that with Jordan Peterson that they know you won't understand. They use words that they know that their audience will not understand at all. Here's another one. People that are telling you their IQ score. That's a big red flag right there. If you have somebody that is constantly like advertising their IQ score, Jordan Peterson, it's maddening. I listened to so many hours of this guy to try to write this sermon, but there's, there's one interview where he's being interviewed and somebody asks him, the interviewer asked him, well, what is your IQ score? And he just, he never directly answers the question, not right away anyway, but he humbly tells his audience, he's like, well, you know, it's not as high as it used to be. It's not as high as it used to be because the brain, you know, and then he goes into this long diatribe about how the brain loses IQ over time. What is my IQ? It's less than it used to be because it declines as you age, you know, quite a lot. So you start getting stupider from an IQ perspective at about 22 or 23. You know, as your intelligence increases, the scatter between the different subtypes of intelligence, such as there are, increases. And so I'm not overwhelmingly intelligent from a quantitative perspective. I'm rarely in a situation where I feel like I'm at a disadvantage verbally, but that's certainly not the case quantitatively. I feel at a disadvantage very frequently, quantitatively. I don't know what my IQ is. I had it tested at one point. It's in excess of 150, but I don't know exactly where it led. So he humbly tells the audience that he's in the 99.9th percentile of all people on the planet. All right. Humbly. It's not as high as it used to be, right? But here's the thing. Go back to Colossians chapter two, look at verse number 18. Look at verse number 18. The Bible says this, it says, let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility. You know what that's saying? You know what that's saying? It's like, how does the Bible know people are going to like this are going to exist? Isn't that something? And worshiping of angels intruding into those things, which he had not seen vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind. The Bible here, Paul is warning these people, he's saying, look, there's going to be people that are just full of vain deceit. And they're going to look, they're going to feign. They're going to fake humility. They're going to try to come to you and fake humility, just like, well, how's, what is your IQ score? It's not as high as it used to be. And then like five seconds later, he tells you that he's basically the smartest person, you know, ever, right. But here's the thing. This is a huge red flag when people feign humility to you. Now, as far as IQ numbers go, I think maybe it's possibly, as far as like what, how, what someone will accomplish in their life, it may be possibly relevant to some degree, but here's the thing. The IQ tests themselves, this is just my opinion on IQ tests. The IQ tests themselves are something that you can practice and get better at first of all. So I mean that right there, meaning base intelligence is something that you can improve upon. Turn to Proverbs chapter nine, but guess what? This actually matches what the Bible says too. This actually matches what the Bible says. Look at Proverbs chapter nine in verse number 10, Proverbs chapter nine and verse number 10. So there's what the world would call, you know, this, this IQ score or this base intelligence or whatever you want to call it. The Bible calls this wisdom. All right. And it's a different thing that the Bible is talking about and it has different components other than just some test matching shapes and numbers and things like that. Look at Proverbs chapter nine and verse number 10. The Bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding. So here's the thing, folks, notice how it says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. If you have an IQ score that has you so vain and puffed up that you will never fear the Lord, we start to see the problem with people like Jordan Peterson. But those are just some things I want you to look for when it's people that are talking to you and they're trying to just talk in language that they know people, their audience doesn't understand. They feign humility, but then they really are telling you how smart they are. You just have to raise, you know, a red flag with these, with these these types of people. So look, IQ may be at least one factor as far as, you know, someone's success and things like that. But the X factor is Proverbs chapter nine is telling us here is, you know, it's your, your wisdom is directly proportional to your fear of the Lord. Your real wisdom. Okay. And I'm going to show you this in this series because none of these people that we're going to talk about have a fear of the Lord. And even look, you know, I, as much as I've listened to Jordan Peterson in the last few weeks, I highly doubt that his IQ score would be that number, but it doesn't, it's irrelevant is what I'm getting at. It's irrelevant what his IQ score is. Look, there is a spiritual component to real intelligence or what the Bible would call wisdom. Okay. Meaning a truly intelligent person actually, and here's the thing, a truly intelligent person, a truly wise person in the Bible teaches us, we'll have some results in their life. They'll have actual results. They'll have what the Bible calls fruit. Turn to Proverbs chapter 11, flip over to Proverbs chapter 11. Look at Proverbs chapter 11 and look at verse number three, 30, sorry. Look at verse number 30. The Bible says in Proverbs 11, 30, the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he that win its souls is wise. If you walk that statement backwards, you realize that a wise person, a truly wise person, according to the book of Proverbs, which is someone that fears the Lord will look, they will have fruit in their lives. They will be a soul winner in their lives. Their life, what it's saying is their life will profit other people. Their life will make a difference in the eternal destination of others and that is a fruitful life. And look, if you follow the Bible, you will also have physical results in your life. If you follow how the Bible says you're supposed to work and how the Bible says you're supposed to study and how the Bible says you're supposed to support your family, look, you will have accomplishments. You will have accomplishments in your job and your trade and your skills. All these things will happen because of the fear of the Lord, because of what the Bible tells you you should be doing in your life. So let's, all that being said, let's look at the philosophy and vain deceit of Jordan Peterson. I want to look at three different areas tonight or this, this morning. I'm sorry. I want to look at the confusion of Jordan Peterson. I'm going to use his own quotes from these interviews. I want to show you, you know, the danger of this man. Look, he's politically conservative. This is, this is the problem. This is the problem is Christians will say, Oh, well he's conservative or he's right wing. And you know, a lot of people say, well, I even think he's Christian. We'll look at that this morning, but look, here's the thing. He's passing. You say, you say, why are you being so hard on this guy? Here's why. He is passing himself off as a spiritual teacher. That's why. Turn to second Peter chapter two. He is passing. I have, I've read this quote so many times over the last couple of weeks. He's claimed to be the most influential Bible interpreter in the world today. I'm going to show you like this morning, like he is clearly never read the Bible. Never. Turn to second Peter chapter two in verse number one. Here's why we're going to focus on Jordan Peterson this morning. The Bible says this, it says, but there were false prophets also amongst the people, even as there should be false teachers amongst you who privilege shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. You know, one of the miracles of the Bible is that there's never ever been a book that's been written that applies to every single person throughout history at all times. And this, this verse right here is an example of that. It's saying, look, there will be false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers amongst you. The Bible says there will be false teachers amongst you, amongst us now, yesterday, last year, 20 years ago. This is true. There's false teachers. Turn to second Timothy chapter five, turn to second Timothy chapter three. I'm sorry. In verse number five, second Timothy chapter three, verse number five. The Bible gives us detail about what these people will be looking at in second Peter chapter two. It says these people, they, they want money. They're after they're, they're there to feed their own bellies. They're greedy. They're doing this because they they're greedy and they're covetous and they want money. And we'll get second Timothy chapter three. Look at verse number five. The Bible gives us another description of these people. It says, look, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof from such turn away. If there is a verse in the Bible that describes Jordan Peterson, it's that right there. They have a form of godliness. Look, these people, these people, they talk about spiritual things. You think they they'll claim the Bible is a good thing. Is the Bible? Yes, the Bible is a great and wonderful book and they claim to be spiritual, but they deny the power. And I'm going to show you that this morning. It sounds good. Jordan Peterson likes Jesus. Christians today will say, Christians today will say, now let's look at the first question this morning on Jordan Peterson. Does Jordan Peterson believe in God? Let's just start with that very basic question. Remember what I said? They never directly answer a question. These people you have to just raise red flags with. He's asked, he's like, do you believe in God in an interview? And here's what he says. Jordan, I've actually heard you ask this question a number of times, and I don't think I've ever heard you give a definitive answer. I don't like the question. I don't know. Exactly. There's something wrong. There's something wrong that I can't put my finger on, on, on, on triumphantly declaiming my belief in one manner or another. I act as if God exists and that I'm terrified that he might. I don't like the question. Let me, let me, let me just break that down for you. If you ask somebody if they believe in God and they say, I don't like the question, the answer is no. They don't believe in God. Look, that is an easy yes or no question. Do you believe in God? Your belief is yours alone. No one can change your belief. No one can coerce your belief. No one can force you to believe something. Asking someone, do you believe in God? And they say, I don't like the question. And then he goes on this long, you know, diatribe and he says, I act as though God exists and I'm terrified that he might, you know, this, this, this is how this man speaks. Look, here's another thing. If you see a church, if you see a church or a church website that doesn't have a doctrinal statement, doesn't have a belief statement, it's because they don't believe the gospel. That's why it's because they have a false belief. It's the same reason. If they won't answer direct questions, we were just talking to somebody a few days ago, you know, that was talking about churches that they went to and they say they would visit churches and they would try to, they're trying to figure out what the pastor believed and they can just never get it out of them. Never figure it out because they don't like the question because they don't believe. That's why there is no gray area here. Turn to Matthew chapter 12. So on this idea of does God exist or do you believe God exists a very basic question. He tries to take a gray area, but God has no gray. God has no gray. And look, here's the thing. It's not even original because you know, his, his, his YouTube video on this says, you know, I'm not an atheist anymore. Guess what? There's hardly any atheists. An atheist is someone that says, I know that there's no God. You know what he is? He's just another agnostic. He's just another agnostic because most people, and even at the door, if you find somebody that says they're an atheist, it's very likely that they're an agnostic because it takes a very arrogant person to say, even though, even though there's all this knowledge in the world, and most people will admit that they just know just a tiny little sliver of that full knowledge. Most people will not admit that, yeah, it's not possible that in all the knowledge that I don't know, that there could be proof of a God that exists. Most people will not say that only the most arrogant person would say, I know that God doesn't exist. Those people that even say they're atheists are actually agnostic. They just don't know. You know, it's, it would be a very foolish, arrogant person that says, I know God doesn't exist. I mean, those people are out there, but they're the, they're the slim minority. So Jordan Peterson is just another agnostic. This is not unique. He's just trying to take this middle ground, but little does he know, and this shows you how little he knows about the Bible because look, the agnostic is like, well, I have neither faith nor disbelief. Well, wrong because if you lack faith, it, that is disbelief. According to God, look at Matthew 12, verse number 30, Matthew 12 and verse number 30, the Bible says, he that is not with me is against me. And he that gathers not with me, scattereth abroad. God says, if you don't know you're against me, look, God's an extremist folks. He's either over here or you're over here. There's no like trying to have one foot on each island of, of, of faith and disbelief that does not work with the Lord. Because if you don't have that belief in God, it's disbelief to the Lord. There's no gray area. And here's another thing he says, he's like, I like to act and this tells you what his doctrine is. By the way, I like to act as if there is a God. So what's his doctrine works. I mean, look, he's just another works-based heretic. It's not even original. You know, once you dig down into it, it's not even original because by acting as if there's a God, you know, while claiming to be the superior Bible interpreter, it shows that he has no understanding of the gospel, which is by the way, the simplest thing in the Bible. Isn't this funny? What good is having an IQ of 150 if you can't understand the simplest thing in the book? Can I trade that in for a candy bar or something? Something that's actually worth something, but look, here's the thing, if, and this is a beautiful proof, Jordan Peterson is a beautiful proof of, if salvation was by works, think about this for a second. If salvation was by works, then Jordan Peterson's philosophy would be acceptable. Isn't that interesting? Because look, as long as he's good, as long as he's good enough. God doesn't matter. Isn't that funny? Isn't that a great proof of why God has the gospel designed the way it is? Because if you could earn your way to heaven, God wouldn't even matter. People like this show the brilliance of God. They show the brilliance of the gospel because I wouldn't even have to believe in God. If I thought I could get myself to heaven because really I'm the most important one in the equation. It's just beautiful. It's the most beautiful thing about the gospel. It disproves this logic. Turn to Ephesians chapter two. Let me give you a really complicated verse in the Bible that the most, I mean the most influential Bible scholar in the world today has somehow missed. Turn to Ephesians chapter two, Ephesians chapter two. So I act, I don't like the question, do you believe in God? I just like to act as though he might exist. And I'm terrified that he might. So he's trying to act. He's trying to do works as if God might exist. Okay? Cause he's not sure. Look at Ephesians chapter two. Look at verse number eight. For by grace are you saved through faith and not of yourselves. Meaning it doesn't matter how you act. It is the gift of God, a gift. That's very complicated. A gift. When you have a birthday party for your two year old, it is so, the most, the hardest part of the birthday party is explaining to them what a gift is because it's so complicated for them to understand. No, it's very simple. And then verse number nine, the most complex verse in the entire Bible. Not of works. Not of works. But it's super interesting. And now looking at Jordan Peterson, we see how important the last part of this verse is. Not of works. Why? Why not? Blessed any man should boast. You know what that means? It can't be of works. God would never have it be of works because all men would do is use it for vain deceit. All they would do is just point everything at themselves and just, it would just all become about vanity. And guess what? Then God wouldn't even matter. I mean, Jesus dying on the cross wouldn't even matter if it was about you. Not of works. He doesn't understand the simplest thing in the Bible. What good is 150 plus IQ? Turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 11. You see, folks, the gospel is simple and people like this are trying to complicate a simple thing. What do bad teachers do? They take something simple and they make it complicated for themselves. They don't care about you. Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Look at verse number 3. But I fear, Paul is saying, I'm worried about you. But I fear, lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety. Look this subtlety is always from Satan. God is black and white. God is very clear. The subtlety is always from Satan. So your mind should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. You see, the gospel is the most simple thing in the Bible. Look, there's some things in the Bible that are complicated. End times prophecy stuff, things that we look through the glass darkly, things that God just doesn't want us to understand the whole thing. How to get to heaven? Simple. Jesus dying for your sins and trusting only on him. Simple. It's being sealed by the Holy Spirit, not being able to lose that gift once you get it. Very simple. Very simple. It's just by believing or trusting on his son. Turn to James chapter two, James chapter two, look, it is believing that Christ was God in the flesh, lived a perfect life and died for the sins of the world. Believing that record and trusting in that alone, that simple. Look at James chapter two and verse 19, James chapter two and verse 19. So it's much more than just believing in God, by the way, to get saved. You must believe the record of his son, of who Jesus was, that he died for you and trust on that. Okay. But look at James two, 19. Look at James two, 19. We're just talking about Peterson's answer to the question. Do you believe in God that he couldn't answer? But look at verse number 19 of James two, believe us that there is one God thou doest well. The devils also believe and tremble. Peterson can't even get to the point of the devils. You see, he can't even get to the point where he can say, I believe that God exists. Forget about the son. Forget about Christ dying on the cross. Forget about trusting on that Christ. Look, he can't even get past step one. He's confused. He's confounded. What does he believe about the Bible? How about this? He gave an interview on the Joe Rogan experience. Joe Rogan is next, by the way. He gave an interview on the Joe Rogan experience in January, just, just a couple of weeks ago. He said, this is what he says about the Bible. And when he starts out talking about the Bible, this is what he says. He literally says, I just figured this out this week. And then he talks about these things that he believes about the Bible. So the world's, um, you know, most renowned Bible scholar just figured out a lot of things about the Bible, like, you know, a couple of weeks ago. So I just walked through the museum of the Bible in Washington. That was very cool. It's a very cool museum. So the structure, that's what the Bible provides. Yeah, that's what I figured out. I just figured this out this week. So it was a cool, it was a cool thing to walk through because it's, it's chronological. They have one floor, which is the history of the Bible, but it's not exactly that. It's really what it is, is the history of the book. Now, in many ways, the first book was the Bible. That's not true, like at all. I mean, literally, because at one point there was only one book. That's not true. Like, as far as our Western culture is concerned, there was a one book and for a while, literally there was only one book and that book was the Bible. That's also wrong. It isn't that. And then he says this, and so it isn't that the Bible is true. It's that the Bible is the precondition for the manifestation of truth, which makes it way more true than just true. It's a whole different kind of true, but you have to just stop at that first one. He says it isn't that the Bible is true. So he's saying all these silly, complex things that mean nothing. Look, he says things like the meaning of words is coded in the relationship of the words to one another. And the postmodernists make that case that all meaning is derived from the relationship between words. Well, some words are dependent on other words. Some ideas are dependent on other ideas. The more ideas are dependent on a given idea, the more fundamental that idea is. That's a definition of fundamental. Which is not a completely wrong thought, but it's just a silly way of saying a definition of fundamental. Look, he's saying all these things with basically, if you just boil down the entire few paragraphs he talks about the Bible, what he's saying is, I don't believe the Bible is true. That's what he's saying. You got Joe Rogan over there, he's saying all this stuff like, the more fundamental an idea is, the more it builds on other ideas and the more that's the definition of fundamental. Joe Rogan is like, whoa, bro, you know, whoa, he's got this look on his face like, I have no idea what he just said, whoa. Look, what he's saying is that the Bible, what he's really getting at, if you look at the verses together, he's saying the Bible is just a definition of truth. You see that? He's saying it's a definition. It's the same thing as his belief, it's the same answer as do you believe in God? He doesn't believe it. He says it's just a perception of truth. That's what he means. Look, folks, all this gobbledygook is not going to work with the Lord. I don't know what to tell you. The Bible, look, the Bible is true or it's not. There is an absolute truth. But these people like this, they're saying, look, if it's not true, think about it. If the Bible is not absolutely true, there's no way it could influence truth. How could it influence truth if it's not true itself? It can't influence truth. But see, they redefine words. He's redefining what truth is, is what he's doing. He's redefining truth from an absolute truth to whatever you perceive at that moment in time to be true. This is a psychology thing. He's redefining this. Then he just goes off and he hijacks all God's morals. And that's what he teaches in all his little seminars and all these things. Look here, God exists or he doesn't, folks. The Bible is true or it's not. Both cannot be true. The cat is either alive in the box or it's not. It can't be both at the same time. Our perception, this is the trick, our perception does not change truth. Does that make sense? Our perception of what's true doesn't change what's true. You say, well, what does he believe about Jesus? This gets even better. This is a little easier to see through this one, but it's basically, it's more of the same. It's more of the same. Look what he says about Jesus. He says, I appreciate the symbolic significance of the ideal human being. So what he's saying is, is I appreciate what that could mean for the morality of man if there was a perfect person that never made a mistake, is what he's saying. Look, he doesn't believe Jesus was real and he certainly doesn't believe that Jesus was God. I don't even know if he understands that Jesus claimed to be God. I found nothing that showed that, but look on just the belief, on just the belief of Jesus's existence as a person in history. This is what he says. This is what he says. He says, you know, he was asked when he was asked, did Jesus exist? Look, very straightforward question. Do you believe a person that, you know, Jesus of Nazareth exists? Not was he God in the flesh, not was he perfect, not did he die for the sins of the world. Do you believe the historical figure existed? This is what he says. You can debate about whether or not he actually lived and whether there's credible objective evidence for that. But it doesn't matter in some sense because this, well, it does, but there's a sense in which it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. That's all it does. There's a sense in which it doesn't matter. You know how, you know, what would happen to me as an engineer, if I spoke like this, I would be fired if I spoke like this, what, how do we build that? Well, you don't, you do, it's five, it's 10, it's 12, it's seven. This is what he's doing. And people were just like, Whoa. And he speaks like this. Well, it doesn't matter. It does. You just, and I'm just like, what's with the, what's going on here. This is not looking, if you watch these interviews, you will start to see that this is not a stable person. This is not someone who is all here. Here's some more quotes on Jesus Christ. It you know, first of all, he says, does he answer the question directly? Let's use our test. When asked, does Jesus exist? It doesn't matter. Well, it does. There's a sense in which it doesn't matter. So what you have in the figure of Christ is an actual person who actually lived plus a myth. And in some sense, Christ is the union of those two things. The problem is, is I probably believe that, but I don't know, I don't, I'm amazed at my own beliefs. And I don't understand it like, because I've seen sometimes the objective world and the narrative world touch. Here's the narrative. And then there's the objective. And then he starts crying. He starts crying. He's like, dude, sometimes the objective world and the narrative world, you know what he's talking about? The narrative world. He's talking about the account of the Bible. You know what objective reality is? Here's what he's talking about objective. This pulpit is Brown. That's an objective reality. We can all see that it's Brown. This pulpit is wood. That's an objective reality. The narrative is a book or something describing the pulpit. Now, if the narrative said this pulpit is made of plastic and it's red, then the narrative would not match the objective. But he just goes into this long diatribe about, you know, the narrative and, and the objective and all this just after from, do you believe Jesus existed? This is what starts the whole thing. And then he goes into this thing, he starts crying. Then he says, you know, sometimes the narrative and the objective, they, they, they touch. And I'm like, what in the world is like, they coincide. And then he says, then he makes up a, I'm pretty sure he made up this phrase. He's like, you know, that's union synchronicity. And I've seen that many times in my own life. And so in some sense, I believe it's undeniable, you know, synchronicity is a psychological term. Okay. So people that, that see like divine coincidences, like here, here's synchronicity from the psychological standpoint. Okay. Union synchronicity. I could find nothing. I'm pretty sure he made that up. All right. But synchronicity is like, oh, I'm walking to work and I'm about to get in on the bus and I drop a quarter and I pick up a quarter and I missed the bus and then the bus like gets hit by an airplane. So like, that was a meaningful moment that someone stepped in or something, you know, supernatural happened or whatever to stop me from getting on that bus. Look, Christians will like go into this type of stuff too. Christians will be like, oh, God told me the, you know, you know, whatever, you know, God told me that, you know, I shouldn't go soul winning today or something, you know, baby Christians will get caught up in these types of things. This is why you need to know the Bible because look, if you have somebody telling you something to do, that's like a sin or stopping you from doing what God actually wants you to do in the Bible. But this is how God talks to us right here. If God is speaking to you audibly, please come see me. But God, you know, all these things, baby Christians will do this where they start to see all these like coincidences, they're starting to lead them. Guess what? That is not the, that's not the Lord. That's not the Lord leading you from stopping soul winning or, you know, you know, taking your kids to church or whatever, doing things that are just very clearly in the Bible, right? God is not going to contradict himself in your life. And it's funny because he brings up this synchronicity idea and secular psychology says this, and it starts to make a lot of sense. It says experiencing overabundance. This is from psychology's definition of synchronicity. Experiencing an overabundance of meaningful coincidences is a characteristic of the earliest stage of schizophrenia. Guess who is diagnosed with schizophrenia? Jordan Peterson. Guess who has struggled with drug abuse and depression, even to the point of being suicidal in his life? Jordan Peterson. You say, Oh man, you're being mean, but guess what? He's spiritually, he's teaching someone spiritually. He's being a spiritual teacher. He is lying about the Bible. But he's been diagnosed with synchronous, I mean, not synchronous schizophrenia. I mean, he'll claim it was a misdiagnosis, but the point is, the point is there. So look, when he sits there and he gives this long diatribe about how the narrative and the objective, do you believe in Jesus? Well, it depends on you're talking about the narrative or the objective and I believe this. Here's what he's saying. I don't believe the Bible is true. That's what he's saying. That's a simple way of explaining. If you listen to that interview, all he is saying is that he doesn't believe the Bible is true. Something crazy happens in the interview. Listen to this. The interview continues and he says, Sometimes the objective world and the narrative world touch. You know, that's Jungian synchronicity. And I've seen that many times in my own life. And so in some sense, I believe it's undeniable. You know, we have a narrative sense of the world. For me, that's been the world of morality. That's the world that tells us how to act. It's real. Like we treat it like it's real. It's not the objective world, but the narrative and the objective world touch. And the ultimate example of that in principle is supposed to be Christ. But I don't know what to, that seems to me oddly plausible, but I still don't know what to make of it. It's too, partly because it's too terrifying a reality to fully believe. I don't even know what would happen to you if you fully believed it. He trips over the gospel in his own narrative. I don't even know what would happen to you if you fully believed that the narrative and the objective were the same. He trips, he accidentally stumbles over the gospel in his own confusing monologue. Look at 1st John chapter five. Let me answer that for you, Jordan Peterson, because the Bible has the very direct answer. Look at verse 11, 1st John chapter five. Look, the Bible says, and this is the record. Hey, that's the narrative. That's the narrative. This is the record that God had given to us, eternal life. And this life is in his son. There's your narrative right there. Look at verse 12. He that hath the son hath life, and he that not the son of God hath not life. Very simple. These things, here it is, look, look very carefully. These things have I written, the narrative, folks, on you that believe on the name of the son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life and that you may believe on the name of the son of God. You know what would happen if you believed that the narrative and the objective, that the record of Jesus Christ was true. You know what would happen? You would get eternal life. He trips over the gospel and then keeps walking. It's vain deceit. It's vain deceit. So number one, people that tell you how smart they are, look out for these people. You know, the IQ numbers, the speaking in terms that many times they just make up, look, are purposely ambiguous, not answering questions directly. You've got to watch out for these people. They're bad teachers and they speak like this to teach nothing but to bring glory to themselves. And here's why they're confused. Turn to first Corinthians chapter one, turn to first Corinthians chapter one, first Corinthians chapter one, look at verse number 26, first Corinthians chapter one. Look at verse number 26, first Corinthians chapter one, verse number 26. The Bible says, look, if they're so smart, you got to ask yourself this question. If they're so smart, why can't they understand the Bible? Why can't they understand the simple things of the Bible? The Bible says this, it says for you see your calling brethren that not many wise men after the flesh. You know what that means? That means people that the world thinks are smart. Wise men after the flesh, after the views of this world, not many mighty, not many noble are called. That means there's not many people who are wise according to the world and according to themselves that are going to get saved. That's what it means. It says, but God had chosen, look, we're not Calvinists here. It's talking about these are the people whose hearts are right to accept the gospel. It's people that are not vain, people that are not boasters, people that are not thinking they're the smartest person in the world, but God had chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. You know what that says? That's saying that these people who are so smart, it's like they won't get off step one. Look, this guy, it's not that he believes in God and he believes that Jesus existed, but he just doesn't believe that Jesus was God and died for our sins. Look, he can't get past the point where the devils are. He can't get to the point where he admits there's just one God. He can't get to, he's confounded. God has confounded him and have chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. Turn to first Corinthians chapter two and look at verse 14. He said, why? He's so smart. Why can't he understand the Bible? Why can't he just read the Bible and just clearly see how simple the gospel is? Here's why. Look at verse 14. The Bible says, but the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. Look, you have to have your heart in the right place. You can't be a proud person filled with pride. And then you need to have someone who's spiritually discerned, you know, tell you. That's why we go out and we preach the gospel as saved people. We go out and we explain the gospel to people from the word of God. So look, God stops these wise people in their tracks is what I'm trying to get you. This is why the Jordan Petersons, the Einsteins, the other people we're going to talk about in this series, they'll never unlock any real truth in their life. Think about that. They will sit there. They will never do anything real. They will sit there and they will spin their wheels on the very first questions. And it's more, you know, like this, the secular intelligence, these IQ numbers is something that's just creates vanity in people. And then God just confounds them because of their vanity and they just get stuck and he'll spend the, he'll spend the rest of his life pondering on whether the objective and the narrative and what truth and what perceptive, you know, what perceived truth he believes at that time. And just basically where a normal person would just accept it, a normal person would just accept the gospel. You know? Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, how many times have you given the gospel to somebody? They're like, yeah, that actually makes perfect sense because it does. And then they will begin to grow that person that accepts the gospel. They will begin to grow. They will begin to learn the Bible. They will get into church. They will get baptized. They'll begin to walk in newness of life and they'll have a profitable Christian life. This will never happen with these people. You say, you know, that's, that's the whole point of our life to be profitable to other people now that we're saved. Instead of just being stuck on stage one of our existence, we can go forward and we can build people. We can be fruitful. We can build things. We can have a, we can invent things. We can unlock God's universe in our lives. So you say, you know, why be so hard on this guy? Why bring up all the problems that he's had in his life? Because here's the problem. Here's the problem. He's a leader. He's claiming to be a spiritual leader and he is leading people astray. And guess what? I am jealous for the Lord. I am jealous for the word of God. And like the Bible has very specific qualifications for a spiritual leader, for a pastor, you know, it's some schizophrenic drug addict who's battling severe depression and has been suicidal in his life. Somebody like this should not stand up and teach anyone the Bible. This is someone that would need to be saved and fall under a pastor. But unfortunately, because of the preeminence that people like this want and because of their vanity, they will, they will, they'll likely never get saved as long as they stay in that condition. So look, here's the thing from reading all these things about him. The first thing is this, he's a fake, he's a charlatan. I don't believe he's ever read the Bible. That's one of the most amazing things about the Bible to me because no one would do this with any other book. He's literally going out and giving speeches and giving, you know, lyceums and all these things and writing books, just like hijacking ideas and morality out of the Bible. But you can clearly say that he's never read it. He doesn't understand it. He's like a carny guessing people's weight. He's like a snake oil salesman who just like rips people off. He's just, he's really good at it. He's like a fortune teller. He's and as far as his intelligence, he's only intelligent enough from what I can see to be a very good con man. Because guess what? It's pretty easy to con a society about a book that that society has never read. There's never been a time in the history of the United States where less people knew more about the Bible than today. So somebody can stand up and they can say all these ridiculous things about the Bible and people are just like, Oh, sounds pretty good because they've never read it themselves. Their children toss to and fro, even, even save people if they have no idea what the Bible says and all of these things, I mean, like they could just be taken in by these people. This is why Paul is warning people in Colossians chapter two, he's like, Hey, he's like, you got to know the Bible. He's like, you got to know all these things that these people, they're going to get you, they're going to get you through their subtlety, but look, and here's the last thing about him. He's unoriginal. He's unoriginal through all his swelling words and his made up phrases. He's, he's just another guy that's working his way to heaven. That's it. Except in his case, he's working his way to heaven just in case it exists. I mean, heaven and hell are real, whether you perceive that they are real or not, and this is what he doesn't understand. And because why, why do you say that? How can I say that? Because the narrative says so, because the Bible says, so this guy is going to, he's not only going to split hell wide open, but he's going to drag a lot of others there with him. That's why, you know, trying to straddle this middle ground, we have to recognize this. God described this in the narrative that you're either with me or you're against God. And that's why God demands, look, God's, the gospel is extreme. God demands full trust. It's not like I can believe in Jesus pretty much over here and then I can put some over in Buddha just to make sure I'm good there. And then I'll put some one foot in Muhammad over here and I'll be like this guy, like, I got all my bases covered here. No, God's like, no, I get everything. He's like, you fully trust on me? It's no good. It just works. He's unoriginal. He's just another guy teaching works with a bunch of fancy words and things that don't make any sense. And we have to recognize these things as Christians. We call them out and save people who get drawn in by this type of stuff. Let's bow our heads and have a word with them. Let's bow our heads and have a word with them.