Dr. James Dobson: Well, hello everyone. I'm James Dobson and you're listening to Family Talk, a listener supported ministry. In fact, thank you so much for being part of that support for James Dobson Family Institute.
Roger Marsh: Well, Welcome back to Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. If you were with us on yesterday's program, we heard the first part of a powerful presentation given by Pastor Paul Blair. On today's program, Pastor Blair continues by sharing with us that we should reflect our Christian values in how we live our everyday lives. Pastor Paul Blair is a former NFL football player. He was a part of the Chicago Bears teams at the 1980s. Currently, he's the senior pastor at Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma. Pastor Blair grew up as a pastor's son and eventually gave his life to Christ when he was just six years of age.
He currently serves as the president of Reclaiming America for Christ and is the founder of the Liberty Pastors Network and Liberty Pastor Training Camps. And the presentation you're about to hear was given at a special event that took place here at our Family Talk headquarters in Colorado Springs near the end of last year. So, let's rejoin Pastor Paul Blair for the conclusion of this powerful presentation right here on Family Talk.
Paul Blair: Ladies and gentlemen, God is not impressed with how pretty we look on Sunday mornings. God wants to see the reality of our love for Him with our obedience. Remember what Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." With our obedience and following Him 168 hours out of the week. That's 24/7. Now, it's what James was emphasizing. Go ahead talk about your faith, here and let me show you my faith. Now, here's where our pastors have that come to Jesus moment. The Great Commission tells us to go into all the world and make disciples. It doesn't say make church members. Doesn't say make professors of faith. It doesn't say make people repeat the sinner's prayer. By the way, I grew up Southern Baptist and Infinite Baptist. I was weaned. I could give you the Roman Road before I could say Jack and Jill. I said, "Well, I'm not decrying the importance of thy, but that's not what we've been called to do." We've been called to make disciples, and what do we do? How do we make a disciple? We teach that convert to observe all things whatsoever the Lord has commanded us. Now folks, Ephesians, we will often misappropriate, Christians, often misappropriate verses that really weren't intended for us. We have books of devotionals where God made a promise to David and we take it because it sounds good and it's encouraging and we'll put it in a little something and we'll apply it to us.
Sometimes that's good, sometimes it's really not a correct exegesis of Scripture. But understand that Ephesians is clearly written to the New Testament Church. So, everything here is directly to us and my responsibility as a pastor is one, I'm supposed to be an evangelist. Boy, you better believe it. In fact, I have a little booklet of anybody if you want it. It's a wonderful book. We've had great success with this in college campuses, just 24 pages. It's a heavy track, heavily influenced. In fact, Frank Turek did the editing for me, Frank Turek, Josh McDowell, but it's called Not Blind Faith: Verifiable Evidence that God Exists and Rose from the Dead. We have found this to be a real plus. Hey, we are huge on evangelism. I required my church members about a month ago to write out their testimonies. I wanted a copy of it.
Reason being is I wanted them to consider whether they actually had one and if they didn't, then we needed to talk. But evangelism, of course, "what does a profit, a man, if he should gain the whole world but lose his own soul." But notice we're also called to pastor. You know what that word means? Shepherd. I want to protect my flock. You know what? I want to have strong, healthy families. I want the men in our church to have good jobs where they can provide for their wives and children. I want them to be free from illness.
And then notice the last one. Teachers. What is that? To make disciples. That's what we are called to do as pastors for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Now for those who say, and I've heard many people say, "What about my pastor?" My pastor says, "Well, I just preached the gospel." Well, I know what he's referencing. He's referencing the apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:1-8. But let me point out a couple of things here to you. The missionary, the apostle Paul, knew a little bit about preaching the gospel. Consider the subjects that Paul also talked about in discipling these new congregations as he was teaching from what we would call the Old Testament, and he would write epistles or letters answering questions of faith and practice as now you had Jews and Gentiles sing together throughout the known world at the time, worshiping the God of Israel and his Messiah for a gentile coming in with a bacon sandwich.
Well, that was offensive to some of the Jews, so they didn't understand because they really hadn't interacted great. So that's what they were dealing with at these epistles. But look at everything that Paul dealt with. Obviously evangelism. Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah, but he also talked about proper government. Paul talked about taxes. He talked about proper sexuality. He taught about sexual sin, homosexual sin, marriage, circumcision, church discipline, work and work ethic, integrity as business owners, charity, church, organization care for widows and orphans, handling disputes in the congregation, pride, humility and forgiveness, gossip, cultural issues such as dress, hairstyles, clean and unclean foods, proper doctrine, eschatology and all sorts of things. So, these pastors need to recognize that Paul wrote a lot more than just 1 Corinthians 15: 1-8. If you say, "I want to be just like the apostle Paul and preach the gospel," well then amen. So, do I.
And that's what the apostle Paul was doing as he was preaching. The whole counsel of God. Acts 11 tells us that those disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. And that term disciple or Christian both mean follower of Christ. So, a Christian means the disciple of Christ or a follower of Christ. The last time when I was in Israel, if you haven't been able to tell, I do a lot of study on the Jewish roots of Christianity. Jesus didn't just show up in a vacuum. These topics that he's talking about in the gospels were long debated Jewish debates. So, if you don't know the context, you might not come to the right conclusion of what the Lord was talking about to a bunch of first century Jews in every passage. We were in Israel and it was the last day. For those of you that have been, oftentimes you go to the empty tomb on the last day and you'll be around the Temple mount and we were. We were in the old city of the Jewish Quarter and we had stopped for a rest, some of the tour group wanted to use the bathroom, grab a bottle of water. And one of our tour group asked our guide, Isaac a question.
He said, "Why do the Jews dress so differently now?" First of all, if you've never been to Israel, you need to go. If there's ever peace again this side of the rapture, but I would recommend it if you get the chance. But they don't all dress differently. I mean visiting Israel's like visiting another American state. They're very much like we are. You've got some that dress up, some that wear jeans. You've got some that are very religious, some that aren't very religious, so it's much like visiting another state. But what this question was about was the ultra-Orthodox, primarily what we call the Hasidic Jews as they're always dressed in an obvious black suit and white shirt, but many of them dress with distinct differences. Some wear big hats, some wear small hats, some wear knicker type pants and long socks, some wear long pants all the way down to the shoes.
Some wear long coats, some wear short coats. Now, as many times as I've been to Israel, as much study I've done about the Jewish heritage, I assumed that I knew the answer to this, but I didn't. And the answer will astound you. Isaac said that "They wear their clothes the way their particular rabbi wears his clothes. They wear their hats and try to imitate their rabbi and his choice. They wear their socks the way their rabbi wears his." In other words, their goal was to become like their rabbi in thought, mannerism and behavior. Now, a Jewish rabbi didn't hand his students a syllabus on the first day of class, they were commanded to follow me or walk with me. Does that strike any chords from your memory of studying the synoptic gospels? In fact, one author likened the maturity of a disciple to be measured by the amount of dust that he accumulated on his clothing from following his rabbi so closely as he watched, imitate and listen, learned and applied his teaching. Now, the Hebrew word for walk is halak and it means more than simply taking a stroll.
That's what John was talking about in 1 John 1 when he said, "If a person walks in darkness, then he doesn't know me. But if he is of me, he walks in the light." That's your overall pattern of life as one that would honor and glorify God. And a rabbi's interpretation of the Torah is the Halakha or how to walk in accordance to God's Word. Now, if you haven't heard a thing that I've said, listen to this next paragraph. In America we have redefined what it means to live by faith. We believe that living by faith means that we make an empty profession or recite an empty creed that we don't actually understand. Then we proceed to live our lives the way we want to live our lives, justifying our behavior in light of the world's wisdom. And then when we absolutely make a mess out of things, we get out of our knees and ask God to fix it. That is not living by faith, that is in fact testing God. Now listen to this sentence. This is most important obviously as a pastor, I am passionate about prayer.
Prayer is a privilege that we have as part of God's family, but we need to quit trying to pray our way out of situations that we have behaved ourselves into. That will sink in on your drive out of Colorado Springs later and you'll realize just how impactful that was. We need to do a better job of discipling our church members. Now, the apostle Paul preached a trilogy of messages from Habakkuk 2:5. In Romans, he emphasized the justification by faith. In Hebrews, he emphasized the faith in the faith hall of fame in Hebrews 11, but in Galatians, he emphasized the justified shall live their life in accordance to faith. In Romans 10:17, the same Apostle says, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." So, living by faith means that we listen to what our Lord is telling us in His word and we obey it and then we apply it to our lives. Because God's ways are far above our ways, "His thoughts are above our ways. As the heavens are above the earth, so are His ways above ours and His thoughts above ours."
Roger Marsh: Roger Marsh here just jumping in for a brief moment on the special edition of Family Talk. We are listening to a presentation from Pastor Paul Blair, former NFL Football player and founder of the Liberty Pastors Network. Today we are listening to part two of his presentation that was given at a special event here at the Family Talk headquarters in Colorado Springs at the end of last year. Pastor Blair is going to continue now sharing more about how important it's to make Jesus the Lord over every part of our lives. So, let's return for the conclusion of Pastor Paul Blair's presentation right here on this special edition of Family Talk.
Paul Blair: So Christians, our families should look different. Our marriages should be different. Our work ethic among employees should be second to none at your workplace. Our integrity as business owners should be exemplary. Our sexual proclivities should reflect the lordship of Jesus. How we handle money should reflect the lordship of Jesus. If pastors only understood, we complain about our tithes and offerings, and yet our congregation is full of people living in houses they can't afford driving cars they can't afford so they can impress neighbors they don't even like. What does the Bible tell us? The Bible tells us to work hard. Bible says to budget, Bible says to save. Bible says to invest. Bible also says that the borrower becomes a slave to the lender, but we don't teach about biblical economics. So, I have Bob McEwen, Bob's a treasure in our pastor's camps introduces this thought concept to pastors, and let me also add, our politics should reflect the lordship of Jesus Christ.
Now, another quick exegesis, of Ephesians, which was written clearly to us after a laundry list of sexual sins and other things that were tied to idolatry that they were warned not to participate in. Paul summed it up with this. He said, "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." So, church have no part of or you can actually accurately translate that. Don't be a party of unfruitful works of darkness, and we aren't even giving the option for just coming out from among them and being separate. We're supposed to expose them and then stand against them. Now, I want to introduce you to a treasure in my life. This is my grandson, Roman, in January of 2021. This is my grandson, Roman in March of 2021. Now listen to what I'm saying.
You may actually be saved, but you're not following Jesus in your politics if you are a party to a platform that endorses baby murder, to Molech, Baal, Ashtoreth, the LGBT, trans butchery of our children and the LGBT agenda that promotes theft and covetousness and communism, you aren't following God in your politics. You may actually be born again, but you've never been discipled to where you know to follow God even in this realm of politics. That's what it means, ladies and gentlemen, to live by faith. We're going to glorify God in all that we do. Too often I hear people try to quote Proverbs 3:5 as an Old Testament verse for Romans 8:28. It's not. Read what it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don't lean on your own wisdom. Acknowledge the Lord in all your ways because He will direct your paths." That's a biblical worldview. Lord, what are your marching orders for me in this area of life?
How should I function as a husband? What is my job as a dad? How should I treat the world as an employee? How should I function as a business owner? Lord, what would you have me to do? 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scriptures given by inspiration is God and it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." A disciple of Jesus who one who walks with Jesus day by day studies this teaching of the truth and applies his instruction to life since He is the Lord of all. Now, here's where the problem lies. You guys know the guy in the middle, the guy in the right, George Barna in the middle, a well-known statistician for Christian topics. The guy the left is Richard Land, former head of ERLC. The guy left to him is Sam Rohrer from American Pastors Network in Pennsylvania. Of course, David Barton is to the right of George and that is me at almost 300 pounds prior to cancer. It looks like a dad taking his children to the zoo, doesn't it?
But George did some in-depth study of people, Christians and pastors, and he didn't just ask them, what is your worldview? Are you a secularist or a Bible guy? Well, of course everybody would answer, "I'm a biblical worldview." He actually tested them, gave them a significant number of questions. Then based upon their answers, determined what their worldview was among America. In 2021, only 6% of Americans have a biblical worldview. Now, folks understand that our Constitution was wrote only for a moral or Christian and religious people. That the truths that we function under according to Thomas Jefferson is the laws of nature and nature's God. That is basically Protestant biblical understanding of Scripture. Only 6% of Americans have a biblical worldview, and here's why that is. He tested over a thousand pastors. Only one third of pastors have a biblical worldview. Folks, how can a pastor make disciples when he hasn't even properly been discipled?
And that's why our country looks the way it does. We have accepted and believed in the church this lie of dualism. We have compartmentalized our lives between the secular and the sacred. May actually be truly born again, but we think like Darwinian socialists as that is the doctrine that's taught in modern public education and modern university. And we haven't made disciples in our churches. We haven't taught people believers to observe all things whatsoever. The Lord has taught us. Very quickly, this is what we teach our pastors. Ecclesiastes says, "There's nothing new under the sun." And quite frankly, everything we face today has been around for 6,000 years of humanity's sinfulness. We may have air conditioning and indoor plumbing, but the same old sin issue, the same old bodies. And God has divided responsibility for every issue and assigned it to one of four realms of government begins with self-government.
Genesis 1, Adam had one command. Don't eat of the tree of the garden in the middle of the garden. Then we have family, government. By the way, self-government, you decide if you should wear a mask or not. By the way, self-government only you can decide whether you trust Christ or not. Nobody else can make that decision for you. Family government, one of the areas that was entrusted to moms and dads, education. Moms and dads, train up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. So, why is it that we all as Christians take our children down to the kindergarten at the age of five, drop them off, then we pick them up when they graduate, university of 21 and we wonder why they become atheistic postmodernists? Of course they're going to, that's what they've been taught. Then we've got this realm of church government.
This, by the way, is where charity falls under. And then we've got civil government, proper and improper civil government. Civil government responsibility in any passage of Scripture, whether it's Genesis 9, when Noah got off the boat to anything that Paul wrote to Timothy or Peter wrote to the dispersed or Paul wrote to the church in Rome, the purpose of civil government is to punish evil and to protect the good that we may live peaceably in all godliness. When a government becomes evil, that is a perversion. Just as a father can become perverted or a mother can become perverted, and we aren't supposed to have unlimited submission to perversion. The Hebrew midwives in Exodus 1 told the Pharaoh, "No." Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego told Nebuchadnezzar, "No." There are times if civil government is wrong in promoting ungodliness. The response from Governor DeSantis as it should have been many times these last three years in Florida was no, praise the Lord for proper civil government.
But I invite you all to visit our website. Everything that we teach these pastors is there and it's free. You go to the dropdown menu, you can access all of our video trainings, Bob's teaching. It's all there. We have PDF notes. We have study questions. You can use this for small group. All of it's there. Again, we have transcripts in English and Spanish. By the way we're revising this, updating it, and then we deal with tough subjects. Hey, we were talking about the Black Lives Matter riots in the middle of the Black Lives Matter riots. We were talking what Black liberation theology is. We talked about this COVID and all this nonsense. We have all this materials right there at your fingertips if you would like it. And with those remarks, God bless you. It's a privilege to be here.
Roger Marsh: Well, that was Paul Blair wrapping up his powerful presentation here on Family Talk, and we pray that his words have encouraged you to stand boldly in your faith each and every day. Now, if you missed any part of this two day presentation, remember you can listen again by visiting our website at drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. Again, that's drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. As we go through hard times in life and we all do, it can be easy to get weighed down with all the problems that may arise when you're going through those tough circumstances, especially uncomfortable circumstances may even seem out of your control. And that's when you need to remember the words of 1 Peter 5: 7. The New International Version reads it this way, "Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you." We know that God will in fact test our faith.
That's a given, but He will also allow us to experience pain and frustration, and we might never understand the tragic circumstances that He allows this side of eternity. And yet we know Scripture tells us all things can work together for our good, for those who love God and are called according to His purposes. That's why it's important during these difficult times to lean into our faith. And here at the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, we want to walk alongside you. If you're going through a tough circumstance right now, we have some encouragement to share with you in the form of our free 10-day email series. We call it When God Doesn't Make Sense. And as you might imagine, if that title sounds familiar, these principles are based on Dr. Dobson's book featuring that same name. Once you sign up, you'll receive messages that explore the depths of hardship and examine its purpose.
All you have to do is spend a couple of minutes every day reading the wisdom of Dr. Dobson and you'll find that your faith is strengthened. Now, to sign up, it's easy to do, it's free. Just go to drjamesdobson.org/when-god-doesnt-make-sense, there's no apostrophe necessary in the word doesn't. Again, drjamesdobson.org/when-god-doesnt-make-sense-series. And remember, it's also easy to order a copy of Dr. Dobson's book featuring that same title. Simply go to drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. Well, I'm Roger Marsh, and on behalf of everyone here at the JDFI, thank you so much for making family talk a part of your day. Be sure to join us again next time right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk.
Announcer: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
Dr. James Dobson: Several years ago I attended a wedding ceremony at a beautiful garden setting and came away with some thoughts on child rearing.
Roger Marsh: Here's Dr. James Dobson with Family Talk.
Dr. James Dobson: My thoughts drifted on that day after the minister had instructed the groom to kiss the bride and approximately 150 colorful helium filled balloons were released into the blue California sky. Within a few seconds the balloons were scattered across the heavens. Some rising hundreds of feet overhead and others cruising toward the horizon. A few balloons struggled to clear the upper branches of the trees while the showoffs became mere pinpoints of color on their journey to the sky. How interesting, I thought, and how symbolic of children. Let's face it, some boys and girls seem to be born with more helium than others. They catch all the right breezes and they soar effortlessly to the heights. Others wobble down dangerously close to the trees. Their frantic folks run underneath, huffing and puffing to keep them airborne. It is an exhausting experience. I want to offer a word of encouragement specifically to the parents of those low-flying kids. Sometimes the child who has the greatest trouble off the ground eventually soars to the highest heights. That's why I urge you as parents not to look too quickly for the person your child will become.
Roger Marsh: To get involved, go to drjamesdobson.org.