60. Gospel Treason, an Interview with Brad Bigney

Welcome back to For Freedom Podcast. We're excited to be here with you all the way in the new year of 2022. And so hopefully that your new year has been well and is very insightful and exciting going into January. I know that ours has. I know we've reflected on a lot of things in our family and our church. And so we are definitely excited about bringing to you this content today. With an interview. Before we get started with that, John, we were able to watch both of us at separate different times. The Spider-Man Far From Home. The Spider-Verse. No Way Home. No Way Home. Far From Home. Sorry. No Way Home. And very, very exciting there. What was your initial thoughts of being able to watch that? No spoilers here, John. But what was your initial thoughts? Possibly the greatest comic book movie of all time. See, John, he's out there on left field sometimes. Sometimes he wakes up and just starts saying things. I don't know if it was the greatest film of all time. No, I'm not going to go that far. We are officially, though, going to take issue with old Dave Velasquez of the 26 Letters podcast. You are completely wrong, sir. And you must repent of that blasphemy. Did you hear their bonus episode that he said the cartoon Into the Spider-Verse was better than No Way Home? Okay, I'm not going to take the animated Into the Spider-Verse movie. It was good. It was so good. And it was a great story. It was. But better than No Way Home? No, I don't think it's better. But I don't see how you... But he was saying No Way Home was garbage. Skip it. And I'm like... Yeah. Uh-uh. No. Over $1 billion? I don't know. But yeah. But great there. It was a super spreader event, James. It was. Sorry. Sorry. We'll have to edit that out. Nah, we don't edit in here on this podcast. We love. But John, how's things been going since our last episode that we recorded? Good. I think. Yeah. We are excited today, though, to have Pastor Brad Bigney on. He pastors in Kentucky, and he wrote a book several years ago called Gospel Treason, and it's a book about the idols of the heart. And so this book has been life transforming for myself, and I love the message that is in this. And so we wanted to talk to him about this. We wanted to get these ideas and this truth to you. One of the things I want to say in preface to this is that Pastor Bigney talks a little bit about the world of psychology in a fashion that I don't disagree with, but I know that there are many listeners that may hear what he has to say of our listeners that may hear what he has to say and then turn him off. And I'm going to challenge you not to do that, because let me say this. We have sort of geared our podcast in the direction of mental health, right? And helping those, you know, with bringing biblical counseling to the RFP community and to basically anyone, you know, just, you know, not even sort of singling in on that area, but just to anything. And while we believe in the doctrine of common grace, we've said that on an episode before, that unbelievers can observe helpful truths about the human condition for us to use, that we believe that the true answers that Christians need for life is found in the Bible. We call that the sufficiency of scripture. And I want to say this. If you are someone who would probably be upset or take offense at something that Pastor Brad is going to say in this episode that where he talks sort of in a negative fashion to integration of psychology or psychology in general. Let me say this. I think it's unhealthy to have an area where we cannot exercise discernment on it. We must be able to use it. And this may be something, James, that we do an episode on. We may need to do an episode on this. But the area of psychology or therapy or anything like that, we need, one of the things I've noticed within the RFP community is it seems that we cannot exercise discernment in that. We have to wholesale accept every bit of it. And I want to challenge you. Is that the way that it should be? I mean, one of the things that we, James and I have really liked about our friends over at the church split is they're not afraid to challenge just about anything. Yeah. And that's been encouraging to us because it is something that as believers, we need to exercise that discernment muscle. And I want you to hear me. I don't want you to hear what I'm not saying. I want you to hear what I'm saying. I think that this is something that if you've wholesale accepted this, I know because of the background that we've come to, it has completely rejected it. Let's start using some discernment and stop sort of accepting everything that comes out of that world as bright and perfect. Yeah. Well, I love what Jim Neuheiser says many, many times. If you listen to his training stuff, he says that the DSM manual for discerning different medical issues, it gives a great definition of things that can be wrong with the human body. It gives a poor, absolute, horribly anything of ways to fix it. Good definitions, but no practical helps. He said, so as a church, we can use those definitions to find what it is and then use scripture to give help. And that thing's always changing. Yeah. That's something that we have to understand. That's always changing. Yeah. Scripture doesn't. Scripture doesn't. Yeah. All right. We believe that God is a God who is wise enough to know that mankind was going to be facing mental issues and wise enough and good enough to give us a Bible that would speak into those things. And you may think that we're crazy. You may disagree with us wholeheartedly. I'm sorry that you do, but that's where we stand. Yeah. One last thing before we jump into this interview. We mentioned at the end of our last episode, we want to mention again this episode, we are moving to a biweekly format where we are delivering content less often, but with higher quality. We want to be stewards of our time and your time. And with our business of Seasons of Life with ministry and kids, it's just been difficult lately to produce quality content. And so we want to let you know that as time allows, we'll give as many episodes out as we can, but we are not going to stick to the strict every single week episode as we have in the past. It may be biweekly. If we're allowed to produce an episode every week, we will, but it still will be on Thursday. We'll still drop it on Thursday. But just so you're aware, it'll be as we deliver the content, we'll get it out to you guys. Absolutely. And without further ado, here is our interview with Pastor Brad Bigney, the author of the book, Gospel Treason. I do not mean to be mean. I do mean to be mad. You obey your pastor. If you ain't got the King James, you ain't got, hey, you don't have a King James. You don't have a Bible. I do not have a Bible. But you know, there's something about that local New Testament, independent from the middle, so when you separate a King James, I don't have a Bible. We can't. You don't have a damn reason. We don't have a preacher. We don't have a man. We don't have a Baptist church. I still believe if you're cold today and hell before I get my talents from a woman, I'm a preacher. The young preachers that do love God get pulled off in the cabin is, and I'll fight it. I'll fight it. I'll fight you in the parking lot over and I'll get personal with you. When you got dressed today, you dressed deity. This is the For Freedom podcast, a podcast that is part of the RFP network that seeks to bring freedom in Christ from the spiritual abuse of legalism in the independent fundamental Baptist movement. Now here are your hosts, John Holyfield and James Sayfret. And so fundamentalism is designed to unpack the idea of authority from scripture. The problem with that is that that's not the defining principle in scripture. It is a part of scripture, but the defining principle in scripture is love. And now I'm not saying that all men who sit under that teaching will become abusive, but what I'm saying is the ones who are abusive will be drawn to that sort of teaching. I don't want to give people just a list of things they can start doing differently until they have a heart out of which they're going to be doing those things differently. Bitterness is different from hurt. I would say that hurt or even abuse does not have to result in bitterness. Well, we have got with us today, Pastor Brad Bidney with the ACBC counseling certification. And we are excited about having him talk with us and go through some great thoughts of a book that he wrote. And I'm going to give an intro to him and open it up so that he can give us some thoughts there. But Brad Bidney is an ordained minister of the Evangelical Free Church of America. He's a graduate of both Columbia Bible College and Columbia Biblical Seminary of South Carolina. He has a BS in Bible teaching along with the Master of Divinity. He's a certified biblical counselor with ACBC and is involved with counseling ministry in his church, as well as teaching in other conferences and training centers across the nation. He's an author of the book, Gospel Treason, Betraying the Gospel with Hidden Idols. He's been serving as a senior pastor of Grace Fellowship Church since 1996. And I've had the pleasure of hearing him a couple of times at the last two conferences that me and John went to. And very, very excited about Pastor Brad Bidney here. Pastor Brad, we welcome you to our show. And if we want to give some introductory thoughts of who you are and let our listeners know about you. Sure. Well, it's great to join you guys. I love the opportunity to speak and encourage the broader body of Christ. But the main thing that I would want them to hear leading into our time is I love the local church. I love the church. I think regardless of the criticisms and regardless of where our culture is, even some tribes of Christians, I still believe that God is going to change our world and build his kingdom through the church. And so this that we're going to talk about today was critical for me. I grew up in good churches that were Bible teaching, Bible believing. We still hold to all of scripture kind of churches. But I always felt like something was missing. You know, when you get saved at seven, it's not like you need to repent of cocaine or pornography yet. And so you can't have as much of an awareness of, but how do I change? As I got older and faced the normal struggles of life and my flesh, even as a Christian, I really didn't feel like I was hearing enough help on, but how do I change? And I'm a big fan of scripture memory even. And I found that if you just take a Bible verse and match it with your sin, find yourself a verse that says, well, don't do that. Don't get angry. Don't. It didn't work. Now I'm still doing what I was doing. And I get to feel guilty because I know I shouldn't because I memorized a verse that says don't. And what I would find eventually is I found myself settling in. And that's what I've heard now. I've been a pastor 35 years. I've been counseling 30. And here's how it sounds. Well, Pastor Brad, I guess that's just who I am. I'm just an angry man or I'm just a gossipy woman or whatever. And I don't believe the Bible teaches that. I think there's much more hope and help. And so that's what the book is about. And that's what one of my passions is about, helping people become more like Christ. Yeah. So I'm excited. This is a book, Gospel Treason, Betraying the Gospel with Hidden Idols. And I don't know if you say this. I haven't got to this part in the book, if you've said it in the book. But I've been listening also to the sermons that you preached on the subject. And you say it here in that. And you talk about how in your life this seems to be three awakenings in your life. Your salvation. Your understanding of the sovereignty. The bigness of God's sovereignty. And then this teaching, this aspect of idols. And I was telling, when you said that, it hit me because I said, oh. And I think that if I, I would say that, but I said I would have four. My four would be, yes, salvation. The understanding of the vastness of God's sovereignty. The recognition of legalism in my life. And then, you know, when I started coming across this material. And so, as a counselor myself, I've been sort of implementing this, like, in just about every situation that I've been working with here thus far. And so, I guess I would ask you this, sort of, why write the book? I think that's the question we have with any book. Like, why write the book? What is the purpose behind getting this out to people? Right. And so that you'd know, I know, especially today with, with internet, Wi-Fi, social media, keyboard, platforming, branding. It just seems like everybody in the world wants to write. And guess what? I don't. I hate it. So, it makes it all the more remarkable when you ask me why. I did not wake up wanting to write. I love to speak. I love to talk. I love to counsel. I love to lead a small group. I love to interact with people. But here's what happened, John. To the glory of God. I've been a pastor here a long time. I've preached a lot of sermon series. But I have never, ever gotten the response that I got on this series. Not just from my local church. It rocked them. But see, it rocked me. When I learned these truths, it so changed my life. And it changed the course of my ministry and the, and the kind of the model that I was going by about how you change. I was receiving emails from all over the nation saying, not just saying, hey, great sermon series. You know, every pastor hears a lot of that at the front door through an email. I had never heard so many times, this changed my life. Or this is what had been missing. Or I was so stuck. And it's not like I just heard it at the beginning. I hear it relentlessly today. A guy was at our church Sunday. I'm preaching through Luke. And he grabs me. He's my age. He's in his late 50s. And he's like, oh my goodness. My job. I live in Indianapolis. I'm here temporarily doing a job with flight training and yada, yada, yada. He's like, your book, Gospel Treason. And here's what's so exciting to me. I see people getting help in areas that the book doesn't even really straight on talk about. He said, your book was finally what got me free from porn. Think about how many guys and women are stuck in porn. And just accountability, just, you know, covenant eyes doesn't work. Because if you just put up fences and the heart doesn't change and you don't know why you are turning to porn, you will plow over those fences. You will lie to your accountability partner. You will find a workaround. You will deceive your wife and deceive yourself if the heart doesn't. I'm encouraged. There are addiction ministries. I've never even been addicted to any kind of drug or alcohol. Multiple biblical addiction ministries have reached out to me and said, we use your book with our guys and women through the program. Because what I'm finding is this is exactly what I thought. I wasn't hooked on cocaine, but I could not figure out why do I get angry so quickly? Or why am I not more gentle? Or why my areas where I struggled to get unstuck, it was the same problem. I call it the sin beneath the sin. You still haven't gotten a hold of what does the heart want. So sorry, that's a long answer. But it took me five years to write the thing. I was like, oh, because I'm still pastoring a local church, counseling, leading a small group. I had five young kids. So I was just pulling away with snatches of time to do this. And by God's grace, it's coming up on a 10-year anniversary. So July 2022, it'll be 10 years old. But I just returned from Denver this past weekend. And I did a gospel treason conference where I teach on Friday night and Saturday, unpacking this subject. And I just get a phenomenal response. Usually a church that invites me has already headed down that path a little bit and has gotten excited about how can we help our people really change. Usually there's one or two or three people in the church whose lives were dramatically helped. And so they've already been waving the book around and saying, hey, we need to learn more of this. And I've just been very, very encouraged. It changed my life. It's still changing my life. And it seems to be doing the same for others. Yeah, and I think the thing that I love about it is because, like you talked about some of those big issues, you know, addictions, ministries, and things like that can utilize it. But I think one of the things that really jumped out to me was one of the cultures we have in America's churches is that those that necessarily aren't enslaved to an addiction, going to church, are faithful, tend to think, I'm good. Right. But yet we're not recognizing those problems that we deal with at home that nobody really sees the way that we respond. And it's like this one just sort of like, no, no, no, no. You're a sinner. You have things that you still need to repent of. And so maybe I know this wasn't actually in there, but I've heard you tell a little bit about the story. Would you tell a little bit of sort of, you know, the your your marriage situation that brought you to sort of this realization? Yeah. So, you know, nobody wakes up and decides to dig into typically a theological issue. It's always so much better when it was not done in the ivory tower, but it was in the trenches of real life. You know, I think about Jerry Bridges. I'm so grateful for his trusting God, even when life hurts book. Unbelievable book on the sovereignty of God. But he wrote that over a period of 10 years where he was going through some intense suffering. Well, similar, you know, I was busy as can be in seminary in my final year of the MDF. I'm working landscaping. We live in a trailer. I'm a youth pastor and music guy. I've got two young kids. I wasn't looking to dig into a new topic, but I had a marriage. And I think this is a dirty, dirty little secret among Christians. You can have a horrible marriage behind the scenes. You may not be hitting each other. You may not be dropping the F bomb, but it is so far from what God designed when it when he talks about in Ephesians 532 it being a billboard that puts on display the love of Christ for his church. And we were talking past each other incessant. I know so many couples do. I would say what I would say. She would say what she would say. I would say it louder. She would cry. We would retreat to our own corners and we would do it all over again in a few days. But we would show up at church smiling and, you know, we could still function and appropriately so. But we both looked at each other and said, I remember one night said, is this as good as it gets? Because this is pretty awful. You know, you grow up in the church and you're told, don't have sex, marry a Christian. Wait, be a virgin. Don't have sex, marry a Christian. As if that is the only thing you need to know. And those are two good. Those are two wise comments. But oh, my goodness. Two sinners still just came together under the same roof. And sin is going to be pushed to the surface. And most Christians don't know what to do with it when it starts getting exposed. So we reached out for help to two Christian counselors. And I'm sorry to say it was not helpful. It just wasn't. I'm not saying there's no Christian counselor. And I hope the listeners know. I think there's a distinction between biblical counseling and Christian counseling. It's sad as life progresses, you almost have to come up with new terms to clarify what you mean, because the prior term has lost significance. So I believe we've had psychology in our country long enough that Christian counseling typically means now I was trained in secular psychology and I happen to be a Christian doing counseling. But the model they have and the motive they have and the approach and the diagnosis and sadly, often the solutions do not differ from the world. So when I say biblical counseling, I don't mean it's just on your desk as an ornament and you might open with prayer. You're using it. We're going to let the Bible be our model for how would you diagnose the problem and what would the solution look like. And oh, my goodness, I've just seen lives dramatically change. So we we bumped around frustrated and finally sat down with a biblical counselor and we didn't have money. You know, I was only making 10,000 a year with no health care and he was trying to do this for a living. So he gave us half off twenty five dollars a session and we were getting child care, too, on top of that. But I'm telling you what he asked questions. He drew out the heart and he went after he helped me to see things about myself I'd never seen on a heart level. He didn't just say, stop this, start that. Here's a Bible verse. Call me in the morning. That's what some people think biblical counseling is. And it gets that's the straw man they set up when they want to criticize it as it's not deep enough. It doesn't get after the real issues of life. No, good biblical counseling absolutely gets after the issues of life because it goes after the heart. And who knows the heart better than God? And God is all about change and saying, I mean, we're in the change business. The Church of Jesus Christ is in the change business. That's what sanctification is all about. And so I was so helped in six sessions that I said, oh, my goodness, where did you learn to do this? I'm in my final year of the MDiv and I don't know how to do this. And I started sitting in with him with permission from his clients. And I watched him work with a bulimic woman, an angry Christian school principal and a man that was hitting his wife. And he's using the Bible and he's asking questions and he's really helping people change. And I was like, that was just short of me coming here to plant this church. So I thought when I get to Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, I want to plant the kind of church that does this. I was already reformed. So I love the sovereignty of God. I love big, big God preaching and salvation by grace alone, through faith alone and Christ alone, plus nothing. But then I added this piece because people still show up messed up and stuck. Now I'd love to be that church. So my goal has been to help our small group leaders, deacons, elders, godly men and women all know how to do this. I call it, wouldn't you like to know how to help a real person with a real problem using your Bible? Because if you call it counseling, so many Christians would say, oh, I'm no counselor. And so I've got I've been here 26 years now. It was me in my basement doing this all by myself, but having leaders sit in. And now, by God's grace, we have 70 people doing biblical counseling for free. And we have a we have a biblical counseling training center and people can come. And oh, my goodness, they do. The request for counseling have doubled two years in a row, hundreds and hundreds. And and lost people come who've already used up their insurance and didn't get help. And it's an opportunity to share the gospel and give biblical solutions. So quite exciting. That's awesome. I love the thought that you said the the sin beneath the sin. Yeah, because so many times we try to deal with the what everybody can see. That's right. To the heart of the issue. OK, so a lot of our a lot of our audience, people that are listening to us, they come from a place of a lot of legalism. So they leave that and they think that they've lost or they've left legalism. And I think for a lot of them, you know, they're happy. They're they're you know, and really who James and I are speaking to are people that have left legalism and legalistic communities, but they haven't left the faith or they haven't left Jesus. Yeah. And and so I think the the danger, though, and I and some of the things that I see and in those lives that I've worked with is that while they will openly denounce legalism and they can they can identify those those blatant examples of legalism. I think the habits that have been trained to them on how to deal with issues and hard issues is still a very legalistic concept. So I guess the way I framed the question was, why is legalism bankrupt in dealing with our core issues? Yeah, I by God's grace, I was not at any point in my growing up exposed to intense legalism, but I know all about it because I've been in the business as a pastor of trying to help people and come alongside and shepherd them. And oh, my goodness, I have found the reason I use that term so strongly bankrupt. I have found that the people who most cannot change are those that are locked into legalism, because if you think about it, legalism makes it all about you and the Bible makes it absolutely. Now, they're not aware of that. Yeah, they think they're being so biblical, but they have to be helped to see that their their their mindset is list. Give me a list. Tell me what to do. And I'll work so hard. And these are the same people that would die on the hill of salvation by grace alone. But then they don't realize they think they're going to improve themselves and grow and do all those right things. My my book for them is the book of Galatians. I mean, basically, it's not like, you know, you don't find yourself saying, I wish we had somewhere in the Bible that address this. God is so good. The whole book of Galatians says, have you lost your mind? Paul uses some of his strongest language in the book of Galatians. I mean, actually, well, I'll spare it since it's on the radio. But, you know, he mentions reproductive organs in a very flashy, abrupt way. They need to cut themselves off. Like, have you been bewitched? Who led you astray? I gave you Jesus. And now you've moved back and think that you can move on in the Christian life in your own effort. And that so the whole book is about it's by grace from start to finish. And that is something that I have to address with my counselees relentlessly. Just two weeks ago, right here in my office, my go to verse where I where I break it down for them. And you can see the lights go on is first Corinthians 1510. But by the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace towards me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all. Yet not I, but the grace of God, which see when someone is stuck and trying to change. One of their top questions for me is, so do I have to do it or does God do it, Pastor Brad? And I'm always like, yes. And what I believe the Bible teaches is you do have to put forth effort. Go to Peter. He says, make every effort. But it's a grace empowered effort. So I like I'll draw it on the board and I'll show them. Notice Paul starts with grace. By the grace of God, I am what I am. And if he had put a period there, it would be that whole bumper sticker. Let go and let God that I also hate because the Bible doesn't teach that. It's not just let go, let God. It's all grace. You don't have to do anything. And then in the middle, he says, I take that grace and it's not in vain. So God's given me grace and I don't let it sit there. I lay a hold of that grace and then I put forth effort by the grace of God he's giving me. And then lest you get confused, he comes back again and says, yet not I, but the grace of God. So I always say to my counselees, it's two graces for every effort. He bookends our effort with grace. He starts with grace and he comes back to grace. And the lights tend to go on. Because change is hard. It's very hard. People didn't come in because something small is going on in their life. And so that's why I found that legalism is so bankrupt. Because here's the other thing it's bumping up against. Legalism is just, I mean, just packed full of pride. And God says in James 4, he resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. So pride will actually cut you off from the grace of God. And you can't actually do what God calls us to do without his grace. And so if you're legalistic and self-righteous, you get no grace. Therefore, you have little power to change. That's why it's so serious, this issue. You are bankrupt on the things you need most. Grace. When you are legalistic or self-righteous. That's great. And, you know, me and John, we've actually started, I think we're three episodes in on Galatians. And we've done chapter by chapter on the podcast. Just giving hope, giving help. Yep. Talking through the issues of each chapter. Yeah. And really giving, we've got a lot of great feedback from our audience of, hey, I've been looking for something like this. I'm thankful that you did it. Yeah. But we've definitely been helped by that. Good for you. When we look at this issue of idols, and you talked about at the very beginning, identifying these idols. How can we identify idols in our heart? How are we able to really dig down to the issue and find out what is the problem that is in our heart? Yeah. I must say, this absolutely is not an easy, superficial issue. But it is worth the effort. And so I get people that write me. Yes, people write and say, my life has been changed. They also write and say, I took your book and I threw it against the wall. I had an older gentleman last year that was in ministry 40 years as a missionary and a pastor. He said, I wanted to throw it in the yard and mow over it with the mower. But I'm reading it for the third time now. And again, he's older than me. He's 10 years older than me. And he has regrets. And he said, this could have helped me in so many of my relationships and the way I did ministry, the way it impacted my kids that are now adults. He was so filled with regrets. So he was being facetious. You know, he's like, I hate it because it's so painful. But he loves it. He just wrote me again last week and said, I've pulled it back out. I'm starting to read it again. And so it's not easy. Trust me, because the Bible actually teaches in Jeremiah 79, the heart is deceitfully wicked and who can know it. Good news. Verse 10. I, the Lord, search the heart. But you don't know your own heart. And so to get after this, my favorite prayer that I give my counselees and that I use with my own heart, I'm still startled by me sometimes. So I hope you know this. It's not like, oh, man, I killed my idols and now I live free. That's not how you want to think about this, just like you shouldn't think about that with pride. Am I actively killing pride as quickly as I see it? And am I intentionally cultivating humility on a daily basis? I would put it this way. You want an awareness of idolatry so that you can be vigilant and fight on the right level. And so a great prayer is Psalm 139, verse 23 and 24. Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Test me and see if there be any anxious way in me and lead me. So I always laugh when I say to people, one of the number one complaints I get as a pastor is prayer doesn't work. Prayer doesn't work. Prayer doesn't work. And people try to use it as a name it, claim it, blab it, grab it. You know, if I ask in the right way, I put God in a headlock and I get what I want. And no, it doesn't work like that. But I always say, oh, my goodness, there's a prayer he would love for you to ask. He's leaning over the heavenly saying, ask me. I would love to tell you. Show me what I'm not seeing about me, God. Show me my own heart. Instead of pointing fingers and, you know, we always think the problem is someone around us. She makes me so. He just makes me so. Ha. And if you say, God, what is going on in my heart that I'm unaware of? So pray and ask God to show your heart is one of the best things you can do. And but since we're so unaware, I would say humble yourself and invite someone else to speak into your life. I have found that we are so hesitant to do that, especially in America. We have such an independent. I'm an American. It's just me and Jesus with my podcast, my worship music, my Bible devotionals. If God's going to do anything, I just need him to speak directly to me. Guess what? God loves to use other people around you. If you would. I say, make it easy. Put out the welcome mat and say, hey, what is it that you're seeing about me that I'm not seeing? What would you want to tell me that maybe I haven't been noticing? And when I say those things, most people look at me like you're kidding me. You're crazy. I would never do that. Well, if you want to grow, you should. So make it easy for people to speak into your life. Put out the welcome mat because you don't see you as you think you are. Others see you and God sees you in a very different way. And then I would say, don't waste your suffering. Very Vicki and I were suffering. It was intense pain that drove us to a point of crying out and saying, what is it we don't understand? Man, suffering pushes the heart to the surface. I call it, I put it this way. Heat pushes heart up. And so, you know, Matthew 15, Jesus said, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So, no, you can't see the heart, but you can hear what's coming out of the mouth. And so often suffering is a great time, whether it's unemployment or prostate cancer or a rebellious child or a broken relationship or a shattered dream or hope. Those times are not times you want to be unaware of your own heart. Don't just grin. Don't just, you know, bite the bullet and get through it. Say, God, what would you teach me through this? Because it is a great time to learn about your heart in ways that you wouldn't normally know in peaceful times. Yeah, it's amazing to me, like, as you get into this subject and you start getting into this aspect of the heart issue, it's amazing to me how we've missed it for so long. Because when you think about how much the Bible, not even just the New Testament, but how much the Bible screams about the issues of your heart, the issues of your heart, the issues of your heart. You know, even Jesus talking about, you know, if you've looked at someone, you've committed adultery in your heart. If you hate your brother, you've murdered them in your heart. And the emphasis right there, but it seems like in our cultures, in evangelical culture, it just seems like we've missed the boat so big with that. Yeah, I mean, when you head down this path, it was all, but it's so typical of us as humans. I remember when I was introduced to the doctrines of grace in 1986. I'm a youth pastor with a full head of hair sitting in the front row. So I've just come on staff. I kid you not, my lead pastor begins to preach about the sovereignty of God. And I mean, he's showing it from scripture and it rocked my world. And I remember sitting there thinking, oh, my goodness, I won't be able to be on staff here if I don't believe this. And so I took my 1983 New King James Bible that the Bible College had just given us. Thomas Nelson landed on campus and gave us all a free copy. And I said, you know what? I don't care about any other book. He was waving around R.C. Sproul, Chosen by God and A.W. Pink, Sovereignty of God. And they're all good. I've read them all now. But I said, you know what? If the Bible doesn't teach this, I'm not buying into it. And I went from Genesis to Revelation with highlighters marking it. And all I could say was, how have I not seen this before? It's everywhere. Well, that's why I call this also a third awakening in my life. How did I not know this? You see how the scriptures are all designed to go after the heart. Proverbs 4.23, guard your heart with all diligence for out of it flows the issues of life. He's not saying try to control your emotions. That's what we think. We use heart with synonymous with emotions in our American culture. In the Old Testament, God meant the control center, the motives, why you get up, why you do what you do, what you build your world around, what you worship and prize and treasure and defend and protect and promote. That's the heart. And so where your heart goes, your life goes. Then you think about 2 Corinthians 10.5, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. And even I think it's funny, our culture loves, they think you're being truly authentic and it will lead to the best place. And they'll say, well, one thing I know, I can't really tell you. I can't help you with this decision, but follow your heart. And I just want to vomit. No, don't follow your heart. The Bible says, be cautious of your own heart. You know, there's a verse in Proverbs that actually says, tell your heart where to go. Tell it where to go. You push your heart towards what you're seeing. The Bible says you don't follow your heart. And usually what they mean is follow your feelings. What's your gut instinct? Well, guess what? We're still sinners. You have this body of flesh to contend. Your gut instinct is often way off, but it feels so powerful and so right. So, yeah, I think it's funny. Once you get stirred by this and you start reading, looking for it, you'll see it's a theme. You will see the Bible has a grand theme of idolatry and the heart being a key issue. My two go-to passages, one Old Testament and one New Testament that capture it well. The old is Ezekiel 14, 1-8, where God is talking to the people of God and is talking to Ezekiel, the prophet. And he says three times in verses 1-8, Ezekiel 14, these people have set up their idols in their heart. And then three times he says, which causes them to stumble into iniquity. See, what people, I always say idols blind you and bind you. They cause you to not see what you should. I watch people chase after sin, and it's like they can't even see how it's destroying their family, destroying friendships, destroying the kids. But they want what they want, and they believe it's right because they want it and they deserve it. And I'm talking about Christians. I'm talking about self-professing Christians that are locked onto something. And it's scary. And I'm so grateful that the Bible tells us what's going on. If you just keep saying, but wait a minute, don't do that. Don't do that. You have to help them think, why do you want that so bad? What are you saying to yourself? Why do you feel entitled? Why are you turning here? And why won't you let up? And then my New Testament passage is James 4, 1-3. Where do wars and fights come from among you? It's not talking about one nation going against the nation. It's talking about people. And the only thing I need to tell you is we all look at the last 18 months. Can people go to war? Huh. Can God's people go to war with each other? Huh. I'll spare you the details. But yikes. Where do wars and fights come from among you over mask or vaccination or religious letters? Yee-hee. Is it not your desires for pleasure that war and your members you want and cannot have? You covet. You murder. You would kill somebody sometimes. That's how much you're. And then here's funny. He addresses prayer. You ask and do not receive because you ask with wrong motives. God, change her. God, get him out of my way. God, give me. Those two passages, I think, really inform us on heart issues and why there's so much conflict with us and people around us. Yeah. So much there. I think some of those listeners may have just been triggered with that James 4, 3, because I can't tell you how many soul winning, I'm going to use an IFB term, soul winning meetings that I've been in where they would preface going out saying, we don't have, we're not winning souls because we're not asking. The Bible says if you don't have, you don't have because you do not ask. You know, a total taking out of context that to manipulate people and make them feel bad because they come back and don't have anybody. But, you know, I think about the James 4, you talk about that. And James, if you have something you want to add, but I'm going to go off script, just talk a little bit here. You know, I was, you talk about that conflict with people. I was talking to even someone that I'm working with now, you know, the issue that they have struggling within them. I said, where's your conflict? And we were looking at that passage. I said, where's your conflict at? And he said, well, my conflict is within myself. And I said, yeah. I said, you know, what did Paul say? Paul said, the things I want to do, I know I should do. I don't, the things that I don't want to do, I do. I said, so that conflict is, you're facing that conflict within yourself because you're looking at something that you're not supposed to be looking at and you know you shouldn't. And so we worked at it from that aspect. Because what that passage is teaching is there is an internal personal war long before there's an external horizontal war with anyone around you. And that's why we should learn to, it's so funny how our first thought is, what's wrong with her? Wow, what just happened right now? Our first thought according to scripture should be, what is going on with me? What is going on in my heart maybe I was unaware of? Because, wow, didn't I react like, ooh, why'd that make me so upset, so fearful, so angry? Start with me. Yeah. I'm going to go off script. Just one thing. Let's sort of give a pushback or a devil's advocate here. They may be listening to what you're saying, Pastor Brad, and say, you know, I get what you're saying. I understand the issues in my heart. But you're talking about idols. I mean, I worship God. I'm not really like worshiping this thing. What would you say to somebody giving you that type of pushback? Yeah. My answer would be you're blurring the lines between justification and sanctification. I get it. Yes. Ultimately, you've bowed the knee to Jesus Christ. I believe you cannot lose your salvation. But news alert, sanctification is a process. And when you look at the scriptures, you'll see every letter to the churches in the New Testament, they were a mess. And you may not be you may not like that term worship. Maybe you're saving that for simply ideally. You know, I would push the same way. Ideally, according to a book of Ephesians, we are seated in the heavenlies right now with Christ. Guess what? That's your positional. I wake up every day in the trenches with a real wife and some kids and coworkers. So the Bible is trying to help you know, how does this positional truth begin to translate into everyday life? And I believe that we are guilty of in everyday life beginning to shift. And if you don't, you know, if there's a listener that doesn't prefer the word worship. No, I worship Jesus every day. OK, let's call it something else. You drift and begin to want something else more than worshiping Jesus. Let's let's be real. All day long. You're not like, oh, it'd be the same with like the two great commands when Matthew 22. When he said, love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Well, do you think you do that every second of the day? So the violation of the first great commandment is what we're actually bumping up against. There are these moments, yea, verily, hours, yea, verily, sadly, days in a row where believers do not live out the great commandment. They have begun to worship and put their strength and their mind towards something else. If they didn't, they wouldn't end up where they were. Believers wouldn't commit adultery. Believers wouldn't be bound up in porn. Believers wouldn't be raging with anger and can't figure out how to stop. Believers can commit heinous sins. So I believe it shows their heart had stopped worshiping Jesus in that moment. Don't hear me saying you lost your salvation. So that's what we're talking about. Think about how the writer of Hebrews in chapter two said, you've got to not drift, drift. And I love it's a word in the Greek that means to unloose the ropes of a ship at the dock, and the ship just begins to drift. And he's talking to believers. So there's the tendency, I believe, that believers, if we don't stay intentional, worshiping him, feeding our hearts, reading his word, filled with the spirit, we drift. We drift towards other things. So that's what idolatry is about. Right. And I think it's something about getting honest with how prone just we are as created beings to—I mean, we're created to worship. How prone we are to have those worship desires be captured by something. Right. At the very heart, idolatry is nothing more than misplaced worship. It's misplaced worship. So because we are by design being created in the image of God, and we were designed to be image bearers, and we were designed to live for his glory. Therefore, we just, if we're not worshiping the right thing, we begin to worship and exalt and build our worlds around something else. I love the quote from G.K. Chesterton. He said, when people cease to worship God, it's not that they'll worship nothing. They'll worship anything. Yeah. And so Christians can be shocked sometimes that the conflict you have in your marriage is that that woman has built her world around the kids. And marriage is supposed to be primary, and she has shifted. And it's like, no, no, I'm a mother. I'm a mother. That's all I am. And mother is great. But it was never meant to be the only thing. It was never meant to consume your entire identity. And so then that's why it's so painful when a kid goes off the rails and she's not just sad. Here's my operative word. She's devastated. Can't even get out of bed. Doesn't want to do VBS anymore. Doesn't want to host a small group. Doesn't want to have sex with her husband. Why? This was my whole world. This was my whole world. And you watch people do it with their vocation. You know, work is good, but God never intended for our entire world and being and identity and sense of worth to be wrapped up in our vocation. Because then when they let you go or you get displaced or passed by, you're not just sad. You're devastated and can't go on. So often what gets Christians in trouble is it's good things that they've tried to turn into God things. Because here's the pushback I'll get. Well, Pastor Brad, all I want is a godly marriage. All I want are kids that are following the Lord. I know. I would love to have five kids following the Lord, too. The question becomes, what do you do when you don't get it? Are you willing to sin now? Because he calls us. Our motivation is supposed to be to live for the glory of God, even when I now have a health limitation. Even when the stock market tanked and my retirement isn't what I thought it was going to be. Even when one of my four kids isn't living the way I thought and it breaks my heart. Even when my job let me go and on and on I could go. So these are the things that typically get Christians in trouble. And it affects their being. And I always say to people, sometimes the pushback I get, guys, is, well, you know what? That's my heart. And so this isn't impacting anybody but me if I don't want to deal with this. Oh, there couldn't be a more untrue statement. Those that are impacted most by your heart's idolatry are actually those that live closest to you that you say you love the most. They are experiencing the brunt of your idolatry and misplaced worship. Because we bring expectations to the people around us that are more than they can bear when we're not finding our identity and our real hope and joy in Christ. Then we expect to get it from other people and it crushes them. Yeah, and I think that goes back to what you were saying earlier, why this is so hard. Some people aren't ready for it because, I mean, think about that for a second. I don't know if this question about identifying idols is original with you, but what would your life be like if God removed that from your life? And you think about a parent with a child. That happens in this world of suffering. Sometimes children die before the parents. They go before the parents. And those are hard questions to deal with. And I think if that just struck a nerve with you, I think what's helped me with that aspect is the Puritans' writings. Because those are people that got it. I mean, they lived it. They struggled with those things and came out on the other side with what Pastor Brad's talking about here. Yeah, and I think that I'm glad you brought up the Puritans because too often people just think they were great theologians. And they were. They were great pastors. And so often we think that something new is being done. Like, oh, there's a revival of biblical counseling. And thank you, God used Jay Adams in 1973 to kind of fire the first shot and say, what has happened to the church? Why have we given this ground over to the secular thinking? But the Puritans had already been thinking this way. I have a book that's about 1,200 pages long by Richard Baxter called The Christian Directory, where he gives how you could use unbelievable numbers of scripture to help people with all kinds of issues. Because Richard Baxter would visit every member's home every year because he was all about soul care. How are you doing? He wanted to see them grow and change and become more like Jesus. So this is not a new thought about, hey, can you use your Bible to help real people with real problems? We're just coming back to what has been done in the past. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's so important. And so time is getting away from us. So we're going to jump to our last question. We want to end all of our interviews, especially when we're talking about a topic as gospel treason, as some practical helps, some application. Someone who maybe is listening and saying, man, I've went through this. I've struggled with my pride. I've struggled with my anger. I've struggled with these things. How can we give some practical help of saying there is this help? There is this hope. Yeah. What are some ways we can do that? Okay. Because for any listener that's been pricked or convicted or stirred, oh, my goodness, I would just want to say, yes, wow. You know, this is like just a 45-minute, 60-minute conversation. There's so much more you need to think through. And so here would be my next step advice. I kind of already touched it, but I want to say it again. One of the best things you could do is invite someone else to think this through with you. Humble yourself. Don't just sit and stew all by yourself. God gave us each other. I believe there's a reason. We need each other in the Church of Jesus Christ. So I hope this doesn't sound self-serving, but I have a free study guide that goes with gospel treason. You can go to my website, bradbigney.com, and you can download a free study guide. A guy in my church wrote it, and it's excellent. It's what we used for all our groups to go through the book when it first came out. I hear from people all over the nation that say, I use your book with my counselees, and I use the study guide, and it is so helping them. Of course, you can self-counsel, and God can meet you by His Holy Spirit. But you might think, reach out to a good friend and say, hey, this was a new deal to me, and I'm kind of excited, but I'm kind of ticked, and I'm kind of convicted, and I'm kind of confused. I don't know where this might head, but would you go there with me? Would you be interested in going through this study with me? Find a friend that would say, yeah, I'll read the book with you, and let's go through the study guide. The other thing you might consider if you're like, this is new to me, and I'm sort of interested, but I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced. I need to hear more. Same way at my website. There are nine messages, nine videos. When I preached this for my church family in 2012, it's all free, so you might sit down. I was just eating dinner with a family in Denver, one of the elders in the church there, and he said, I was just going to get online to listen for 10 minutes to make sure you're not a heretic once they told me that you were coming. And he laughed, and I kid you not, they had me over for lasagna. He's 10 years older than me. He said, this was so timely. He said, my wife and I listened to all nine messages, and it has changed and rocked my world because they're going through something hard with an adult daughter that's cutting them off and yada, yada, yada. But he said, for the first time, you helped me to consider I can't control her, but what is going on in my heart? He said, we couldn't stop. He said, we watched all nine, and I'm going through your book for the second time. So sometimes people are more an audio learner than reading. So there you go. You've got nine video messages that you can consider. And then I would want to close with this. When you say practical, what next? This is so hard, and this can be so dark and discouraging to dig into your own heart. I would say be careful. Do not let this be the only thing you're thinking and doing. In other words, there's a reason God gave us the Bible he gave us. So much of the Bible is indicative. Here's who God is and what he's done. And now in light of that, here's what he's called us to do. What we're digging into right now is what he's called us to do. And it can feel dark and painful and arduous and discouraging. So make sure you keep reading places like Ephesians 1 to 3. That's one run-on sentence of what God has done for us to know that he's for you. You're not trying to earn his favor by repenting of idols. You have his favor in Christ. You have a robe of righteousness. You have no condemnation. That's if you know him. If you don't know him, I'd invite you to come to Christ and be born again. But I'm talking to believers. Don't go dark on me. Just do not forget who you are in Christ. You're not trying to earn his favor by repenting of idols. He would love to see you experience greater freedom. And you could serve him more effectively and perhaps help someone else as you repent. But he loves you today. You have his favor and the righteousness of Christ today. So don't lose. I don't know who it was that said it. It wasn't original to me. It was one of those old guys. It might have been McLaren. For every look itself, take 10 looks at Christ. On this whole thing of idols of the heart, just maybe read all four Gospels while you're doing this. Make sure you don't lose sight of Jesus. Yeah. And I think that's so important. You know, we've recently in our own little movement that me and John are a part of right now, we've had a friend of ours that has renounced his faith because he's looked at the negative of the world and the negative of sin that has an effect on Christians and pastors. And he's just said, I'm stepping away because there was not that balance. And I think he even said himself, there's not that balance that, you know, I was so consumed. And so I just, I can't trust anything. And we've got to have that balance in our life. And I think that's why the scripture is even so balanced in our writings. You know, he's balanced in his writings. And so we need to be balanced as well in our approach and our view. So, John, what's your closing thoughts before we wrap this thing up? No, Pastor Brad said something about being self-serving. I don't think it's self-serving at all because I'm someone who does a lot of, you know, spends a lot of time researching and diving into Christian resources and, you know, trying to make those available. And he offers pretty much everything for free. And that doesn't happen a lot. And I know that you buy the book. The book, though, comes from a publisher. So they have to charge for it, right? Yeah, I mean, here's what people don't realize. They don't even give it to me free. I get an author discount and I pay $8 for each one of my own. So they're in it to make some money. Sorry. Right. So I'm going to we're going to link the book to the show notes. I highly recommend the book. And like he said, if you're a audio audible learner or a video kinesthetic learner where you think you could pick up more by listening to it, I tend to think that books are always reading is the best way to go. But I understand that that's that's a struggle with some. But get it. Listen to it and let this sort of take hold of your life. And I know that for some that this is going to leave you sort of with a lot of questions. You're going to have a lot more questions. So feel free to reach out to us. And Pastor Brad, is if there's where's a way that they can find your resources and and sort of reach out anyway that way? The best way to to get all the stuff I've even even I've even got some of the handouts that that I use in counseling to try to help someone identify idols and write a repentance plan. And it's all at one place, not my church website, but my website. If you go to www.bradbigney.com, no dots, no dashes in my name. And it's all there. I've got book recommendations. I've got a sermon series. I've got a video series. I've got the study guide. I've got handouts. Everything's right there. That's the best place to go if you want to do some more thinking and learn more. Yeah. Pastor Brad, I'll say this, too. He doesn't just have materials on this subject. He has, I think, a series he did on anxiety. And he also has a lot of great, great materials on marriage relationships. So if those are interests, you check them out. Pastor Brad, I can't thank you enough for making the time for two nobodies, you know, to a small podcast. I really appreciate it. And I, you know, it's just something that I've sort of one of those bucket list things because you've really become one of my favorite writers and favorite speakers. Well, the only correction I would want, I'm so grateful for what you've said, except we just had a marvelous time of three nobodies making much of somebody. Jesus Christ. Amen. So I'm just thrilled that he would use me to any degree. And it's just still a joy. But I have this constant awareness that I can do nothing. He's the vine. I'm the branch. But I love being a little branch that gets a little feedback that I've helped somebody. So thank you guys for the opportunity. Yes, sir. Well, James, what'd you think about that? That was some good stuff, wasn't it? Man, it was so good. I took so many notes. One thing I do want to mention, if you didn't catch it, I asked him after the show, if he could, and I may have at the very end, but I think I did after the show, but it was a Richard Baxter's Practical Works, a Christian directory. You can find those on Amazon. I've already got them in my cart to buy. And so if you want some of those great works from a Puritan back in the 1600s that dealt with some of the same things we're dealing with now, it was a huge help for me when he said that. And so it was a resource that I grabbed onto when he said it. But man, just being able to go through, and we're going to link his website. He's got tons of material, tons of information to help you and to help your spiritual growth, even to run a Bible study through the Gospel Treason, or to use that as a help. Those are great resources. It's free. It's free. Things that are free are awesome, especially when you're on tight budget. And so use those tools to your advantage to help disciple and to grow young men and women, or even older men and women that are just struggling with legalism. This is a great asset, a great help to help you out. So tons of help there. John, what was your thoughts? Yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned the thing about the Puritans. I'll recommend this to anybody that listens to those pastors. The Reformed Pastor by Richard Baxter is great. And if you're not Reformed, they'll just shrug that book off because the Reformed part of the title is not referring to Reformed theology. It's talking about reforming your heart back to God. So it's not like a book about being a Calvinist pastor. That's not what it's about at all. Although Richard Baxter was, that's not what the book is about. It's about being a pastor that is reformed in your life to Christ. And so, yeah, one of my top five recommended books of all time is the Mortification of Sin by John Owen, another Puritan. Love, love, love that book. But that's where we're going to head out today. And we hope that we'll see you again next time on another episode. But until then, until next time, to God, not the pastor, be the glory. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom podcast. To find more content like this, please visit RFPNetwork.org. To find more podcasts like this one, resources, and meetups to encourage you on your journey. Thank you.

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