Welcome everyone to Family Talk. It's a ministry of the James Dobson Family Institute, supported by listeners just like you. I'm Dr. James Dobson and I'm thrilled that you've joined us.
Roger Marsh: Well, welcome to Family Talk, the broadcast division of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. I'm Roger Marsh. As you grow in your walk with the Lord, some days can be harder than others, especially here for us as Christians, when we are called to stand up for righteousness amidst a broken world. It's no easy task for sure, but with Jesus, we do not walk alone. Now on today's program, our guest, Pastor Paul Blair, will be sharing how we can keep up our spiritual strength and continue to fight for God's kingdom in our everyday lives. Pastor Blair is a former NFL football player who spent four seasons with the Chicago Bears. Currently, he serves as senior pastor at Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, Oklahoma.
Pastor Blair grew up in a pastor's home as a pastor's son and gave his life to Christ when he was six years old. Pastor Paul Blair is the president of Reclaiming America for Christ, and he's the founder of the Liberty Pastors Network and Liberty Pastor Training Camps. What you're about to hear is a presentation that Paul gave at a special event that occurred here at the Family Talk headquarters in Colorado Springs. So now let's join Pastor Paul Blair for his presentation right here on Family Talk.
Paul Blair: Well, good morning everyone. It is an honor to be here, Dr. Dobson, Shirley, thank you so much for the invitation. If I can get the slides up here, I'll introduce you to myself. Now for those of you a little football trivia, how many of you recognize the guy that's in the picture there with me? How many of you knew that Jimmy Johnson began his head coaching career at Oklahoma State University back in 1979? So JJ is actually who recruited me to play college football and of course he went on to, rumor has it, had a little bit of success at the University of Miami Hurricane, and then I don't know, some team called the Dallas Cowboys. I don't know. I try to keep up with them, but then I was drafted by the Chicago Bears, the defending world champion Chicago Bears, and had the privilege, as Bob said, of playing with some Hall of Famers and some legends.
Dick Buttkiss would travel with us on our games. He was working for WGN. Gayle Sayers would come by just to say hi to the guys and be around Hallis Hall. So that was really a privilege to be a part of that family. And then at the age of 37, I was called into ministry. And understand, my father was a bi-vocational pastor, so I love pastors. I walked an aisle and trusted Christ when I was six years old. I loved pastors. But having been a pastor's son, I saw what the work entailed and I never wanted to be a pastor. As a matter of fact, most days now I still don't want to be a pastor. That explains why I'm so bold in the pulpit.
I've been trying to get fired for 23 years, but they refuse to do so. But I'm a retired NFL football player. I had my own business in Oklahoma City and I was serving as a volunteer youth pastor in our youth ministry in our church at the time when God called me clearly. And at the age of 37, my wife and I, well, my wife gave me great counsel because I didn't want to be a pastor. She didn't want to be a pastor's wife. So we agreed on that deal. But she said, if God is calling, that's where we need to be because the safest place to be is in God's will. And of course, having my background, I've had an unusual opportunity to be around the country and participate in a number of different events, even got to teach about biblical economics that the pilgrims brought with them to the new world and biblical civil government on Glenn Beck's show with his chalkboard.
And those of you that know him know he is very selfishly greedy over his chalkboard. So I count that a privilege. As Bob said, detoured with throat cancer back in 2019. And that was not a pleasant journey, as many of you know. But I am now considered a cancer survivor and a good friend of mine came to work on our staff there five years ago, and we worked together with Liberty Church of Edmond and now a satellite branch in Liberty Orlando. But Bob mentioned I've got some good news. It tracks right what you've been hearing the last couple of days, but we are trying to respond to it as we have done. In fact, next week in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a week from today, we begin our last Liberty Pastors training camp of the year. We bring a hundred pastors at a time together with their wives into a luxury hotel and we hold them hostage there for three days.
We want them to have great fellowship, get to meet one another and love each other and have a second honeymoon. Because most pastors, only pastor churches that run around 75 to a hundred people. So most of them can't afford to come to a place like the Broadmoor or something like that. So we reward them. We want to be a blessing to them, but in return they give us 20 hours of their time for continuing education and we teach them to think biblically in areas of their life that seminary taught them not to think biblically. So we begin our camps with this question, and I'll start my remarks this Sunday morning with you with this same question, what part of your life is Jesus not the Lord over? The answer is obvious, ladies and gentlemen. He's supposed to be the Lord of all of our lives, therefore there should be nothing off limits in our preaching and disciple making at church.
Jesus is not just the Lord of Sunday morning. Jesus is the Lord of our families. As Dr. Dobson and Shirley know, He's the Lord of education. He's the Lord of our work habits. He's the Lord of our work ethics, all of you business owners. He's the Lord of our sex lives. He's the Lord of how we handle money in the realm of economics. He is the Lord of our politics. Jesus is Lord of all. So why is it that we compartmentalize our lives? Why do we believe that there are subjects that can't be talked about in church? Well, I'm going to explain that to you this morning, and let me just say this. Your pastor has been trained to think this way, and Eric Metaxas was right when what he said last night, this concept is a lie straight from the pit of hell that the church has bought, hook, line, and sinker.
Now, let me explain. There's no question that early on the church at Pentecost was 100% Jewish. They had a Jewish worldview with a great knowledge of the Old Testament. As a matter of fact, ironically, Andy Stanley, the only Bible that the New Testament church had for about two decades was what we called the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the Bible that Jesus would've used to teach the disciples and those on the road to Emmaus, how it all spoke about him. That's the Bible that the apostle Paul would've been debating over in Jewish synagogues throughout Asia and Europe. The Tanakh was the only Bible for the New Testament church for about two decades. As a matter of fact, the question of the early church was not about baptism or the work of the Holy Spirit. The question among the early church was about circumcision. Christianity was treated as just another sect of Judaism by the Romans. At the time of Jesus, there were 24 sects, S-E-C-T-S, or I would say denominations, among Judaism.
You're familiar with many of them. There were the Pharisees, there were the Sadducees, there were the Essenes, there were the Herodians, and now you had this new group called the Nazarenes all gathering together under the umbrella of the temple in Jerusalem. Christianity was Jewish to its very core. In fact, the question was not whether a Jew could become a Christian. It was whether a Gentile could become a Christian. But as the church grew into Asia and Europe and after the destruction of Jerusalem, let me tell you, I love Eric Metaxas. I'll be honest with you, I've never read any of his books. I just know the work that he does, and we've spoken at many events together, but I've never really met him. We visited for a little bit in the gym yesterday and I shared this little bit with him, but he is spot on with all of his conclusions and all that he's deduced from what he's observed, but he doesn't know about this point.
But as the church grew exponentially through across Asia after the destruction of the temple at Jerusalem, after the Hebrew apostles died off, with John being the last living apostle, the Greek line of thought affected the thinking of the church. In fact, much of the New Testament addresses the error of gnosticism as the apostles warned against this heresy in their many epistles. Now I understand what this Greek line of thought was. The Greeks viewed the world in two compartments or two spheres. There was the spiritual world and there was the material world. The spiritual was good and could be redeemed, but the material world was inherently irredeemably wicked. Well, this led to the logical conclusion, but heresy in the early church, that Christ could not have actually come in the flesh. How could he which is holy, become a part of this irredeemable, unholy material world?
So they had a number of theories. Some theorized that Jesus was actually a phantom spirit, wasn't really there. If he was walking along the seashore, he wouldn't leave Prince in the sand because he was just his phantom spirit. Others theorized that the spirit of the Messiah came upon this man, Jesus of Nazareth at his baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, and then departed the body of this man Jesus of Nazareth as he hung on the cross. But either way, they came to the conclusion that the word had not become flesh and given His life as a substitutionary sacrifice for us, that his blood had not been poured out for our atonement, that the resurrection did not. He wasn't actually raised from the dead declaring our justification. So obviously this gnostic thought was heresy, theologically, but it was also ungodly in practice. In fact, they were pushing the concept that you can sin all you want to in your body as long as your spirit was pure.
That's what John was addressing in 1 John and addressing that error head on. But again, this led to the compartmentalization between the spiritual world and the material world, and we have adopted the same mindset in modern day America as we have compartmentalized Christianity, much like a picnic plate. We keep our Christianity in its proper place, but we don't dare let Christianity spill over and influence any other sphere of our lives. That obviously is our secular life and the spiritual realm doesn't belong there. Christianity has become something that we do on Sunday morning, but we don't let our church thing interfere with real life in the material world. We have our spiritual life.
I thought it was amazing, Eric mentioned this last night and I said, he's either reading my material or I'm reading his, I don't know who it is, but we have our spiritual life where we place all of our sacred things that we can talk about in church. By the way, this box is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Then we have reality, which is our physical life, which is reserved for secular thinking and we can't talk about those things in church. But the Hebraic mindset, ladies and gentlemen, was they understood that God created the material world and the spiritual world. Therefore, Rabbi Apostle Paul said, whatever you do, you are to do to the glory of God. Paul again said, glorify God in your body, i.e. the material world, and in your spirit, the spirit's world, as they both belong to God.
Roger Marsh: You're listening to Family Talk, and I'm Roger Marsh just jumping in here for a brief moment. We are listening to a presentation from Pastor Paul Blair about how important it is to make Jesus the Lord over every part of our lives. Paul Blair is a former NFL football player and the founder of the Liberty Pastors Network, which offers training camps for pastors to be encouraged to boldly lead and protect the church. And this presentation was given at a special event that occurred here at the Family Talk headquarters in Colorado Springs late last year. Okay, now let's return to Pastor Paul Blair's presentation right here on Family Talk.
Paul Blair: So salvation and subsequent lordship was understood in the Hebrew mentality. You cannot separate them. Let me give you another example. I was sitting next to a wonderful gentleman, I think Craig, the other night. We were talking on our opening night and he brought up the Shema. The Shema is the John 3:16 of Judaism, Deuteronomy 6:4. Shema Yisrael, Hear O' Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, the Lord your God, Adonai Eḥad, the Lord is one. Hear O' Israel, the Lord your God. The Lord is one. This is the passage of Scripture that they put on the masseuses that they hang on the doorpost. This is the passage of Scripture that's inside the Teflon when they put their prayer boxes on their foreheads and on their hands. This is the fundamental. It's a rededication of life twice a day. It's a pledge of allegiance done twice a day in the morning and evening.
But understand, in biblical Hebrew, there are only about 7,000 words. In modern day American English, we have about 100,000 words that we use. So when you're studying the Bible and you go back and you look in the Hebrew and whether you speak Hebrew or not, you all have Hebrew lexicons. So you can with a little effort do this, but you have to understand that the words there have a broader and deeper meaning than what we might first conclude reading it from an English or from a Western mind. So it's important that we look at the passages in context. So this word Shema, to hear, hear O' Israel, literally means when you look at the lexicon, Shema means to hear. But you know what the Hebrew word for obey is? Take a guess. Shema. Shema was understood among the Hebrews to hear is to obey.
You have read it in your King James Bible, He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear, know what it's saying is that if you have an ear to hear, then do what I'm telling you to do. So there was no controversy between James and Paul from a Jewish theological perspective, although we have wasted volumes of ink debating this conflict that didn't really exist. They were both addressing two sides of the same coin. The Apostle Paul was emphasizing the fact that it is faith alone that produces our salvation, and James is emphasizing that true faith will produce works. So the natural result of one falling to his knees to call upon the resurrected Christ as his personal savior is to recognize that he is in fact the Lord of your life. In other words, to put it simply, the confession of our faith should match the expression of our faith.
We should be consistent. Now, don't misunderstand a word that I'm saying. We are not saved because of a transformed life, but a transformed life is the natural result of one being saved. In fact, I put it like this. The new birth is a prayer of faith, is a heart's confession that's based upon the revelation that Jesus is the Lord and that results in a transformation. Just as Thomas doubted, he said, "I don't believe it. I saw his dead body. There's no way that guy's alive. I'll not believe unless he stands right here and I can put my fingers in the nail prints in his hand." A week later he shows up, says, "Thomas, go ahead." Thomas, when coming face to face with a resurrected Christ, hit his knees and cried out, "My Lord and my God." That is the Jesus moment. The apostle Paul on the road to Damascus going to persecute Christians came face to face with a resurrected Christ and permanently transformed his life.
That is a Jesus moment. Now, I love this page. I'm going to put up here because it doesn't come from a Christian website. This actually comes from a Jewish website, but it analyzes the difference between the Greek thinking pestis, which means faith, and the Hebraic meaning emunah, which means faith. It says this; emunah is more than belief that certain statements about God are true. It is a belief in God, trust and reliance upon God, all of which call forth behavior consistent with that trust and reliance. So our expression of faith should be consistent with our confession of faith. Now, consider as an example. If you happen to be a member of a church that's not active and your pastor says, "Oh, we shouldn't talk about those things. That's part of the secular world." Consider this list of charges and it's rather exhaustive. I may have missed a couple, but this is pretty exhaustive.
If you go through all of the books of prophecy in the Old Testament and you compiled a list of charges of the things that God was upset with Israel and Judah over, I want you to think in your mind as I go down each of these point by point very quickly, whether you would consider this a spiritual issue or a secular issue, whether this is something your pastor would talk about in church or if you are a pastor, is this something that you would consider talking about in church? Okay, things that God was upset with, they were dishonest in business. Is that spiritual or secular? Yeah, it is. Actually, it's both. So that's a trick question. They ignored the sabbatical year of release. That's an economic issue. That's a personhood issue. They used unjust weights and measures. By the way, when we just simply inflate the amount of dollars in the money supply, that is an example of ungodly, unjust weights and measures.
And not only are they stealing from us, but we are stealing from our children and our grandchildren simply by putting digits into a computer. There's nothing about what the Federal Reserve or our government is doing right now with this deficit spending that is in accordance with biblical principles of civil government or economics. They removed landmarks. They didn't recognize private property rights. Ticked God off. They bribed judges, leaders fed off of the flocks rather than caring for them. They were disrespectful to their parents and elders. They didn't care for their family. God had designed it where we were to take care of our children when they were young and when we were old, our children were to take care of us. They lived for revelry and drunken parties. They murdered their children. Religion became big business.
They were no longer ashamed of immorality, even celebrating homosexuality and paraded and reveled in their debauchery. Things that common sense and God said were evil, they called good. Things that experienced common sense and God called good, they called evil. They were proud and arrogant. Their court system became corrupt. The government was corrupt. They denied and abandoned God. And when Jeremiah would come to the temple and face the people of Jerusalem and say, repent, they would point to the temple and say, "What are you talking about? We're God's people. We go to church on Sundays." 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, that's what James was emphasizing. You go ahead and talk about your faith here. 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. Doesn't say make church members, doesn't say make professors of faith. Doesn't say make people repeat the sinner's prayer. By the way, I grew up Southern Baptist and Independent Baptist, I was weaned. I could give you the Roman Road before I could say Jack and Jill. Well, I'm not decrying the importance of the, 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. 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 Turk 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 the prophet of man, if he should gain the whole world but lose his own soul?
Roger Marsh: Well, what a powerful presentation from Pastor Paul Blair today here on Family Talk. Friend, if you missed any part of what Pastor Blair was sharing with us today, remember you can easily listen again to today's program simply by visiting drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. Again, that's drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. And while you're there, be sure you also learn more about Pastor Paul Blair and his ministry at Fairview Baptist Church. And remember to join us again tomorrow when you'll hear part two of this powerful presentation.
As Christians, we know that God will allow for the testing of our faith. He'll allow us to experience pain and frustration, and quite frankly, we may never understand the tragic circumstances that He allows in our lives, this side of eternity. However, when these times arise, it is important 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 particular season of struggle right now. Our team here at the JDFI has prepared a free 10-day email series for you.
We call it When God Doesn't Make Sense, and it's based on Dr. Dobson's book featuring that same title. After you sign up, you'll begin receiving messages from Dr. Dobson that explore the depths of hardship and examine its purpose. Our prayer for you is that after you spend a few moments each day reading this wisdom that Dr. prepares for you, you'll be strengthened in your faith, and you'll also learn why the dark valleys can bring life's greatest blessing, and that is a closer walk with the Lord.
Now to sign up, remember it's absolutely free. All you have to do is go to drjamesdobson.org/when-god-doesnt-make-sense-series. And just a reminder, there's no apostrophe in the word doesn't. Again, drjamesdobson.org/when-god-doesnt-make-sense-series. Keep in mind if you're interested in receiving a copy of the book that Dr. wrote on that same subject, you can go to our website at drjamesdobson.org/familytalk. Well, I'm Roger Marsh, and from all of us here at the JDFI, thanks so much for making us a part of your day. Be sure to join us again tomorrow right here for another edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.
Dr. James Dobson: Many of us spend a lot of time trying to gain the respect of others, but the truth is, the person we most need respect from is ourselves. Fiona Campbell of Great Britain so longed for the admiration of others that she spent 11 years walking around the world. Her goal was to make it into the Guinness Book of Records. Her long journey came to an end in October of 1994 at the northern tip of Scotland before thousands of cheering fans. It was Fiona's finest day. At last, she found the admiration she craved, but her heart was heavy because she knew she had cheated. While walking across the United States, she became weary and accepted a ride for 1,000 miles. In the months to come, the shame of having cheated drove her to drugs and alcohol. She even considered suicide.
To appease her conscience, she made the trip to America and finished the 1,000-mile stretch in secret, but even that didn't help. So she called the Guinness office and asked that her name be removed from the record book, and then she publicly apologized. The lesson Fiona learned is a timeless one. It's possible to live without the admiration of others. What we can't live without is self-respect. One more thought. Isn't it interesting that Fiona is most respected for having the courage to admit or mistake and make it right?
Roger Marsh: To hear more, visit our broadcast page at drjamesdobson.org.