Sharing the Gospel in the Wrong Way - Purity 1454

Welcome to the MT for Christ 247 podcast. I'm M.t. Clark, and this is today's photo. To see today's photo, go to mtforchrist.com or follow me, M.t. Clark, on Facebook or Twitter, or watch us on YouTube. Good morning. Today's photo of a winding stairway somewhere on the rocky coast of South Australia comes to us from Dave Vaughan Photography, who shared this scene on social media back on January 23rd, 2023. Well, it's Wednesday, and as we approach the midweek summit, I am doing my best not to spiral into a bout of depression over my latest mistake, which in hindsight is something, uh, obviously something I should not have not done. Uh, my ministry is a ministry of encouragement as I seek to share with others what I have come to know about living by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit. In my sharing, I often share the things I've learned from other ministries and other faithful men and women of God. One of the things I say as part of every message I post is the disclaimer where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk, to demonstrate the fact that the wisdom I'm passing along is not necessarily my own. I share the things I've learned that I believe will be helpful to others and do my best to give credit to where credit is due. I'm not perfect, and sometimes I will share things without knowing the original source of the material that I share. Uh, for instance, I often share photos from unquote unquote unknown Facebook friends, not because I don't want to credit them, but because I simply can't recall who I borrowed the photos from. The principle of fair use and my intention to give credit to where credit is due if I should learn of the original source after the fact allows me to share my friends' beautiful images that give glory to God without anxiety. I have stated in the blog in the past that if you are my Facebook friend, you are giving your implied consent for me to use your photos on the blog to give God glory. I made this statement after years of sharing friends' photos when one of my former, former Facebook friends didn't appreciate me using their work, even though I gave them credit. Since then, I am operating on the principles of fair use, implied consent, and the idea that the Lord has need of it. And I share photos of unknown Facebook friends with the assurance that I will photo credit them on the blog after the fact. However, um, yesterday I realized that my tendency to rather ask forgiveness than to seek permission when it comes to sharing things was used by the enemy to deceive me into believing that if I can do it, it must be okay, or that if other people on YouTube are doing it, it must be okay. I was deceived and I was wrong. A couple of weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago, John MacArthur's Grace to You ministry began sharing a series called Exposing the Campaign for Immorality, where the ministry got— began sharing old messages where John MacArthur spoke about political or moral issues with a biblical commentary. I agreed wholeheartedly with what MacArthur's preaching, uh, was saying and was delighted to discover that I was able to download, uh, the video to these messages for free. However, because I didn't— because I don't speak on tough issues that M.t. Clark was preaching about, I felt compelled to share his messages. And unfortunately, in my zeal to support his series, I didn't think about the morality of sharing his messages on YouTube without express permission. Although Grace to You was generously sharing the video for download, they were, they were not extending their permission to upload it. Uh, I didn't think, and I wasn't trying to be sneaky, I shared the first, you know, the first two videos in this series publicly and made a playlist to them where in the information I made it clear that I was sharing them in support of Grace to You's campaign in order to possibly reach people who who needed to hear it. I thought what I was doing was a service to God's kingdom, and maybe it was, but just because I had good intentions didn't make sharing someone else's work right. So after a couple of weeks of thousands of people tuning in to these messages on YouTube, someone from Grace To You must have noticed and contacted YouTube to complain. The videos were taken down, and I received a copyright strike on my account to wake me up to the fact that what I did was not right. And I wish I could say that was my only mistake, but I can't. After MacArthur's videos got so many views, I felt encouraged to share other videos of Christian theologians that I had in my personal library and had put those on YouTube too. I shared a lot of videos from Ligonier Ministries because I know how much those teachings had taught me in my faith walk, and I thought that because I could, because I could do it, it was okay to do it and that I was just sharing good Christian teaching. Through my copyright strike yesterday, I realized that I had made a serious error in judgment and immediately took down all the videos I had uploaded. I have asked the Lord to forgive me.

I think that's—

yeah, I have asked the Lord to forgive me, and I have faith that I am forgiven, and I repent of the foolishness and promise of my foolishness and promise never to do that again. In my ministry of encouragement, I seek to operate within the bounds of fair use and give credit to where credit is due. I apologize to anyone who may have subscribed to my YouTube channel thinking that my channel had permission to share John MacArthur or Ligonier Ministry videos. I understand completely if you choose to unsubscribe and ask for your forgiveness. My intention was only to share the gospel and good Christian preaching and teaching, but now realize that you can You can even share the gospel in the wrong way. I encourage you to subscribe to Grace to You and Ligonier Ministries on YouTube to view preaching and teaching from those ministries.

Um, and you know, I was a little overzealous to, to share it.

And my walk as born— as a born-again Christian since 2010, I've often learned through trial and error, and this is just my latest faux pas. I will endeavor to learn from my mistakes and do what is right. And all my dealings going forward. With that said, today's Bible verses do come to us from The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling by John G. Gruis. Um, this morning's meditation verses come from the section in that book, uh, from, from the forg— you know, on the— from the section on the forgiveness of sins.

How about that?

And today's Bible verses are Nehemiah 1:6 and 7. From the New American Standard Bible. The word of God says, let your ear now be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant, which I am praying before you now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel, your servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel, which we have sinned against you.

I and my father's house have sinned. We are—

have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments nor the statutes nor the ordinances which you commanded your servant Moses.

Today's verses fall under the 28th point of our Counseling Reference Guide's resource section on the forgiveness of sins, and that 28th point is: Nehemiah wept and confessed the sins of God's people.

Today's Bible verses show a servant leader's heart as he offers up prayers for his people. The Israelites' sins grieved, uh, the heart, uh, of Nehemiah. And in his prayers, he adds his own personal failings with those of his people, knowing that even though he hadn't committed the sins that his brothers did, he was not beyond reproach. Uh, the more we walk with God, the more we become sensitive to our sins and the sins of others. Nehemiah's story reveals to us that, that even when we seek to honor God and do his kingdom work on the earth, that we can have huge blind spots to the wrong we are doing or to our failure to be obedient to God's word.

Thus, when we become aware of our sins, we should go to the Lord to ask forgiveness and to seek his help to repent.

As always, we encourage everyone to go to mtforchrist.com, where we always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist our brothers and sisters in Christ With our walk today, we continue sharing from According to Your Word: Morning and Evening Through the New Testament from Stephen F. Alford.

And in Alford's devotional, he prompts us to read a chapter of scripture.

Today's chapter is Hebrews 9, and from Hebrews 9, uh, he shares a portion of verse 22 which says, without shedding of blood there is no remission. And Stephen Alford writes God is holy. He is of purer eyes than to behold evil. If he is then to vindicate his holiness, he must punish sin and punish it with death, for the wages of sin is death, and the soul who sins shall die. God is also love, and while he hates sin, he loves the sinner.

He made men for his pleasure, and his delights were always with the sons of men.

The question arises, how are these aspects of God's nature going to be reconciled?

The answer that reverberates through the courts of heaven is that before the foundation of the world, God's well-beloved Son replied, 'Here I am, send me.' And so he came and bore his own body, uh, in his own body our sin upon the tree.

His shed blood satisfied God and provided remission for sins.

And Stephen Alford ends by praying, Hallelujah, what a Savior! Amen. And, um, yeah, God, God is holy, and God is, uh, God is loving.

And to reconcile his love for us and his requirements of righteousness. He had to make a way where there was no way.

Uh, we couldn't— we are— we, we're easily deceived, and we can, we, we can sin without even trying. Um, we not only can we sin by doing what is wrong, we also sin when we, uh, fail to do what is right. And with that You know, mankind was hopeless. So God had to make a way, and his way was Jesus through the remission of sins through blood. And that was the blood of Jesus that was given for our transgressions. And it was only because of Jesus and our putting our faith in his work that we can be forgiven.

And so very sensitive to that today.

I'm very happy to have God's forgiveness. And, um, you know, we learn from our mistakes and we go forward.

And, um, when we do that, we, we end up surrendering to God.

And so we ask the question, have you fully surrendered to God? Um, if so, you know, uh, if so, that's great. Um, we encourage you to do that all the time. And to be careful what you do. Even if you have good intentions, the enemy can lead you to do something that's not right. And when we discover our mistake, we just have to go to the Lord, ask for forgiveness, and, uh, you know, seek to follow him after that. And, um, when you follow him, he'll lead you into things, and he'll lead you into good things, uh, like ministry. And, um, in my case, I was—

I am blessed to be able to lead— celebrate for the Freedom Support Group at Starpoint Church on Wednesday nights at 6:30.

Um, that's tonight. Uh, so if you're in the Capital District tonight and would like to join us for Christian recovery and discipleship, um, go to Starpoint Church at 6:30 and we'll be there. We're in the K through 3rd grade classroom on the right side of the church. And, um, if you'd like to give us a heads up that you're coming, go to the Starpoint Church website and look up support groups and register for Celebrate Freedom.

Uh, and that's what we offer for the people in Upstate New York. However, we also believe that you can find or increase your freedom in Christ by joining one of our podcast classes on YouTube.

Um, we have playlists that are my teaching, uh, on Neil Anderson's work for The Bondage Breaker, Victory Over the Darkness, and Steve Goss and his work on Freedom in Christ, and my very own Celebrate Freedom Discipleship class or course. Um, we, we believe that these, these resources can help you. We put our teaching on it and our spin on it, our commentary on it, and we present them, uh, for you on YouTube to help you with your walk. And we hope you can learn from those, uh, from those teachings and those resources. And, um, they were, they were instrumental in my transformation. Obviously, I'm still growing and learning and work in progress, but, uh, we believe that, uh, the, the teaching that Neil Anderson presents in his books, uh, is very, very helpful to, uh, help you to realize your freedom in Christ.

Anyway, um, and wait, and we, as always, it's Empty for Christ, and we ask the question You know, are you empty for Christ too?

And emptying yourself is just a matter of making room available for the Holy Spirit to move in your life. And so when we, we encourage you to do that, and if you are empty for Christ, that's great. Keep walking and talking with God. If not, it's just, you know, coming back in line with the Lord just requires a prayer, ask, ask to, uh, have him reveal himself to you. Put your faith in Jesus, ask for forgiveness, and ask him for to guide you in the way you should go. And, uh, do that in prayer. And that's why we pray every day, like now.

Lord God, Heavenly Father, thank you for another day in your kingdom.

Lord, we thank you for your forgiveness, as, uh, we often do things wrong, and we sometimes do it with good intentions and sometimes without good intentions. We need your forgiveness all the same, one way or the other, and we're happy to have it through our faith in Jesus Christ. And we're helping— we're asking for you to guide us today. We're asking for you to bless anyone who's reading or listening to today's message or watching it on YouTube, and that you come alongside them and their prayer requests and their walk of faith, Lord, to help them.

And Lord, uh, we need your help too, obviously.

Um, so we ask for your forgiveness and ask for you to bring us, bring us to where you want to lead us, Lord. Uh, open our eyes to what you want us to see and lead us in the way we should go, because all we want to do is represent you and your kingdom, Lord, and share your gospel. Uh, but we want to do that in a way that's, that, that's, that gives you glory and that is beyond reproach. So help us to to learn from the mistakes of the past and to move forward with you and, uh, victory and joy in the future. Lord, we thank you, we praise you, we love you, and we pray all these things in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.