A. R. Bernard Ministries

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Really, the real ar Bernard is on Instagram.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Did you say that real Rabernard is on Instagram to
be six get the al Airbernardista in Instagram. You mean
every other Thursday at three pm Eastern time, we can
catch the real ar Bernard live on Instagram.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Yes, join ar Bernard on Instagram live every other Thursday
at three pm.

Speaker 4 (00:25):
Eastern Crisis for us is not a negative, It is
a positive. Crisis is not a negative for us is
a positive because it forces you to grow.

Speaker 5 (00:41):
Welcome to aar Bernard Ministries. You were about to hear
from ar Bernard, one of today's most influential voices in ministry,
a best selling author and charismatic teacher of spirit led truth.
Today's thought provoking message and captivating word will empower you spiritually,
inform you intellectually, and motivate you with renewed stress to
stand boldly in your purpose and live out your faith

(01:03):
in today's ever changing culture. Tune in and join us
now for a ar Bernard.

Speaker 4 (01:09):
Crisis for us is not a negative, It is a positive.
Crisis is not a negative for us. It's a positive
because it forces you to grow. Einstein said, you cannot
solve a problem. At the same level at which it
was created. So problems force you to go to another

(01:31):
level in order to create and solve the problem that
you're in, or should I say, solve the problem that
you're in, right turn your neighbors say, neighbor, crisis is good,
pastor you don't understand that crisis is good for us.
So as we get into this whole thing about you know,

(01:56):
the controversy around tithing law, grace, obligationation versus option, and
me the big picture, Jesus said to Peter and his disciples.
He says, on this rock, I will build my church.

(02:17):
How many remember that in Matthew sixteen eighteen, I will
build my Church. So Jesus is building something right in
human society for the last two thousand years. He's gathering
people to follow him, to commit to him, to submit
to his lordship, and begin to live their lives according
to the Kingdom of God. I will build my church.

(02:38):
The word church means called out ones, an assembly of
people from the world to follow him, to walk in
fellowship with him, to surrender their lives to him and
walk in fellowship with him. I'm gonna say that again,
to surrender their lives to him and walk in fellowship
with it. I'm going to say that again, to render

(03:00):
their lives to him and walk in fellowship with him.
Did you all get that? This is what we're called to.
We're called to surrender our lives to Jesus, He becomes
lord of our lives right, and walk in fellowship with him.
Our success, our prosperity, our joy, our happiness. Everything else

(03:21):
is a byproduct of walking in fellowship with him and
living a surrendered life. You get that. That's why he
said all these things will be added to you. That
means it's a byproduct. So we don't have to pursue
these things. We attract them by the person's we become

(03:42):
by walking in fellowship with Jesus. You cannot walk in
fellowship with Jesus and not be changed. It affects your mind,
the way you think. It affects your motivations, It affects
your desires, it affects your emotions, It affects you physically
in every way. Living a life surrendered to his lordship

(04:07):
and walking in fellowship with him changes who you are
as a person. How many have experienced that change? Amen?
So all the other stuff is a byproduct success, prosperity.
All of that is a byproduct of surrendering to his
lordship and walking in fellowship with him. Hello Loujah. So

(04:31):
you begin to be shaped and influenced in a way
that attracts the things that others are chasing behind. He said,
the gentiles are seeking these things where they're gonna eat,
what they're gonna wear, you know, their health, and they're
concerned about all of that, and that's a genuine concern.
And in fact, Jesus said, your heavenly father knows you

(04:51):
have need of these things. So there's some things that
are not desired their needs, and he understands that. But
what he trying to do is get us to line
up with him, and all of these things will be
byproducts they'll come to our lives. So he said, I
will build my church. But then he says, and the

(05:13):
gates of Hell will not prevail against it, which means
that he's going to build in an environment that will
be antithetical and antagonistic to what he's trying to do.
There's going to be resistance. The case of Hell will
not prevail against the church. So there's going to be

(05:37):
opposition to this church that Jesus is building, and there
will be opposition to all of those who ally themselves
with Jesus. That be you, that be Us. Got it.
It's not like the devil is going to sit by
and say go for it, Jesus. No, you read in

(06:00):
Revelations he actually went after that church, and he's still
after it right now. So Jesus is building a church,
the Kingdom of God, the Lordship of Christ active, the
Holy Spirit, active at work in human society. But there
will be resistance against it. He said to his disciples,

(06:21):
go into all the world and preach the gospel. Bring
the good news the world. There in the Greek is cosmos,
which means the social order, the social order. Enter the
social order and speak to it the good news of
the Lordship of Christ and the Kingdom of God. You

(06:46):
got that amen. In other words, influence the world. Influence
it spiritually, morally, politically, socially and economically, network politically does
stand in there. How we do it? That's the question, right.
But he wants us to influence. So if there's this

(07:09):
entity called the Church, which there is in the world
that Jesus is building, and he and this is his
instrument in the world, of his grace and his truth.
And he states that there will be resistance, but that
resistance will not prevail. Did he say the case of
hell will not prevail. So this resistance will not prevail,
but there will be resistance. Then the devil wants to

(07:33):
make sure that this institution that Jesus is building to
influence the world in a direction other than the way
the devil would like to take it to. All right,
he's going to resist that. How will he resist it?
He will try his best to weaken the institution, to

(07:55):
weaken its influence spiritually, to weaken its in influence morally,
to weaken its influence socially, to weaken its influence politically,
to weaken its influence economically. Are you all hearing me?
He's going to look to undermine this institution that is

(08:19):
the carrier of God's grace and truth to transform society
and offer them a way of salvation. So how's he
going to do it. He's going to do it through scandal,
and the church will experience and has experienced scandal over
the last two thousand years, bringing its leaders into scandal,

(08:40):
the church as a whole of scandal. And how many
know that the church has been rocked with scandal throughout
the last two thousand years, in fact, for the last
twenty years, how about the last two years? So if
the devil can bring scandal to the church, he weakens

(09:02):
its moral influence because people are not going to point
to all the wonderful things that the church has done
and all the people who have not been in scandal.
The world is going to point to the scandalous. They're
gonna point to the scandals. Come on, are you with it?
So if there's ten people who have leaders who have
done well and led life and leadership in the church

(09:24):
without scandal, and one gets into scandal, what is the
world going to point to? Because what's the objective of
the devil to weaken the church's influence spiritually morally? So
the devil will use scandal right and then, and you know,
the newspapers, the media, they love scandal the moment one

(09:46):
of us leaders do something wrong and now it's on
social media and it goes around the world in seconds,
and then it's memorialized for replay, and it's played over
and over and over again. In fact, it's celebrated for
how many views, So it's memorialized. Scandal to weaken the

(10:12):
church's moral influence. Amen infighting, infighting within the institution itself,
doctrinal confusion, where you have the church at odds within
itself over certain doctrinal issues. We've gone through this, I
mean a major there was a Reformation, and then all

(10:34):
of the things that came out of that, and and
and and the branches that brands out of that, and
and and then people choosing size. No, you got to
baptize in this name. No, you got to baptize in
those three you got No, it's the Sabbath there, No,
I many understand what I'm talking about here. And I
can go on and on and on and on, and

(10:55):
we've seen it. We've seen it. Scandal, infighting, doctor confusion, compromise, compromise.
I don't need to get into. I'm not going to
get into all of this political idolatry where politics takes
the place of God and we worship political parties instead

(11:16):
of God. Are y'all with me? And we are to
exert political influence, but not to commit political idolatry. And
I will tell you we've seen it in the last
five years in our nation. It's not the first time,
but it's been very pronounced. I will tell you as

(11:36):
I sit back, I said, I've never seen such collective
denial of the obvious, never seen it assimilation into the culture,
without distinction from the culture, being in the world, but
not of it. Instead, we're in and of it. Disempowerment,

(12:03):
and this is where we create controversies around how the
church is supported. Are you with me? Yeah? So, look,
human nature is this. You give people options, They're going
to opt out. When it comes to money. If you
keep people options, they're going to opt out. Come on.

(12:26):
If the assurance package is too expensive, I'll opt out.
So I'm not surprised that the devil from time to
time we'll try to disrupt how the church is resourced
in order to do its work, because like any other organization,
the church needs money to function. These money to function.

(12:52):
So if that can be disrupted, if that can be weakened,
it weakens the church's influence, It weakens the just power
within the society. So I'm looking at the bigger picture
at what's at stake here and what happens, especially in
a society that's already critical of the church. So when

(13:16):
I see all of these doctrinal confusions that are created
because someone decides that they're going to go in another direction.
You know, I got a problem with this, especially as
a leader, because these has said something. He gave a
powable about about wheat and tear. How many how many

(13:39):
read that parable? Right? So in Matthew thirteen, the wheat
and the tear, right, the good seed is the wheat,
bad seed is a tear. The devil sold the tear,
and the son of Man sold the wheat. So what
do the angels come? And when they see this, right,
and they see the weeds growing next to the wheat,

(14:00):
they have a very practical solution. Let's pull up the weeds.
Let's get let's weed this garden, get it out of here.
That's the prophetic, because the prophetic says, this is the truth,
this is a situation, let's deal with it. But the
pastoral looks beyond that, and the pastoral says, wait a minute,

(14:20):
if we pull up the weeds at the same time,
we may end up pulling up the weeds, so we
better let them grow together. In other words, whenever you,
especially as a leader with a voice, think of responding
to something because of what's going on in your own
personal world and life, you've got to think about the

(14:41):
impact that it's going to have on everybody. So when
you de weed your own life doesn't mean that you
not have to de weed the rest of the world.
Allen's is the key to life. Amen. So with that
that being said, let's go to the text Malachi chapter three,

(15:04):
verse eight. I'm reading from the New King James Bible,
Old Version translation Malachi three eight, a text that we've
known all the Pointer referred a little bit to it,
and it says Old Testament right, And it says, will
a man rob God? Are you there? Will a man

(15:26):
rob God? Yet you have robbed me? But you say,
in what way have you? We robbed you? In ties
and offerings? You are cursed with a curse. Well you're
not just cursed. You curse with a curse, for you
have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring all the
ties into the storehouse. Bring what all right? You've robbed

(15:50):
me with what ties and offering? You are cursed with
a curse, for you have robbed me, even this whole nation.
Bring all the ties into the storehouse, that there may
be food in my house. So the tithes and offerings
are to support the house of God and the work
of God. And try me now. And it's with a

(16:10):
promise that if you engage in it, you're gonna be blessed.
It's not just a blanket law or obligation. There's a
promise associated with it. And try me now in this,
says the Lord of Oaks. If I will not open
for you the windows of heaven, and I like that.

(16:35):
Can you imagine if you open the door, if we
can't handle a window, if there won't be room enough
to receive him opening a window to us, I'll open
for you the windows of heaven and pour you out,

(16:58):
pour out for you such blessing that there will not
be room enough to receive it. There's more to the promise.
And I will rebuke the devourer what comes to steel
your blessing for your sake, so that he will not

(17:20):
destroy your productivity, the fruit of your ground, nor shall
the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,
says the Lord of Hosts. And all nations will call
you bless for you shall be a delightful land, says
the Lord of Hosts. Now, I don't know about you,

(17:41):
but I like promises like that. Boy, So if I
invest this is the return on my investment. I'm gonna
get your increase and your protection. Now there will be
those who say, well, that's for the nation of Israel.
I'm glad you said that, because Jesus gave me an opportunity.

(18:04):
So the idea is that tithing is not under the
New Testament Covenant of grace. It's under the Old Testament
covenant of the law. Well, Jesus spoke about tithing. And
when he spoke about it, and I shared with you
last week Matthew twenty three, twenty three, he affirmed the tithe.

(18:28):
He didn't nullify it. He affirmed it. It's like the
issue of the Sabbath. He clarified the Sabbath. He said,
the Sabbath was Man. Was not made for the Sabbath,
but the Sabbath was made for man. In other words,
it is not a legalistic day to be worshiped. It
is a principle to be practiced. So there is there

(18:51):
is something called hermonutics. How many of you were in
the Spiritual Warfare class mc hands, not Spiritual warfare students. Okay, good,
there is something call hermeneutics. You're familiar with the word.
Those of you in the class familiar with the word hermenudic.
It is simply the principles of interpretation, how you interpret something.
That's very important. It is not just biblical hermeneutic, but

(19:15):
historical hermitity. Hermanutic is how you interpret whatever it is
that you're trying to interpret. Well, we're talking about biblical hermeneutics,
principles of interpretation, and we need laws. We need rules
that guide us. Amen. We live in a universe of
law governed by a system of order, so we need

(19:36):
rules when we're interpreting scripture. Otherwise we can just take
something out of contact and run with it. We can
put two verses together and come up with a whole
idea and then preach it, preach it to practice it.
Like here's a verse right and Judas left and hung him.

(20:01):
There's another verse, go down and do Likewise, I'm gonna
put those two together. I'll have you drinking kool aid.
There are principles. They're guiding principles when it comes to

(20:22):
biblical interpretation, because there is what the text says and
what the text means, and what the text means is
not always obvious. We have to dig deeper. Amen. How
many review from spiritual Warfare class, remember this? How many

(20:47):
remember the tax slip? How many if you remember that
from spiritual warfare class? Raise your hand? Let me see
if you were paying attention in class? All right, half
of you. I put together a simple framework when it
comes to biblical interpretation. How do you interpret the Bible?
It begins with you first have to understand the purpose
of the whole Bible, right, the purpose of that book,

(21:13):
the purpose of that chapter, So you break it down.
Purpose is critical because if you don't understand the purpose
of the thing, you're going to abuse it. Amen. The theme,
what's the theme? What is the constant message that's seeking
to be communicated? The theme? Audience? Who's the audience, who's

(21:36):
it addressing? Who's being spoken to? Context? What's the context?
The context is important because you just can't you know
how many times do you hear this, Well, this is
what you said, Yeah, but you took it out of context,
which means you extracted it from its surroundings, which is
important to understand what I meant by what I said.

(22:00):
So purpose, theme, audience, context, language, the prejudices that we
bring supportive texts. So if you have one thing right
that a text says in terms of a subject. You've

(22:20):
got to find other texts, other scriptures to support that.
You can't just have one by itself. And then you're
gonna build a whole doctrine or an ideology around one verse.
So all of these things are important. You need a
framework if you're gonna interpret the scripture. You're going to

(22:40):
read the text, You've got to think about all of
this to guide you in coming up with your interpretation.
How you understand that.

Speaker 6 (22:51):
In appreciation, we'd like to offer you the special opportunity
to receive a. Ar Bernard's best selling book, Or Things
Women Want from a Man, This practical guide organized in
a four part system from men and women who genuinely
seek to improve their lives and relationships. The book is
the result of the personal wisdom learned from ar Bernard's
forty five years of marriage and thirty eight years of counseling,

(23:12):
and is our gift to you for any donation of
twenty five dollars or more. You won't want to miss
the life changing insights shared in aar Bernard's best selling book.

Speaker 5 (23:20):
Aar Bernard is the founder and pastor of the Christian
Cultural Center, one of the fastest growing churches in America
thanks to your prayers and financial support. Spiritual leader ar
Bernard educates, empowers and inspires millions of people worldwide via
his radio, TV and online ministries. Visit our website at
Aarbernard dot com.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Extra Extra read all about it The Anointed teachings of
Pastor ar Bernard, among them audacious power and basic training,
teaching us.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
To navigate the intersection of faith and culture.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
CDs are just seven dollars, DVDs ten dollars, and downloads
as little as four ninety nine. Order them now at
Arbernard dot com or go to cccinfo dot org.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
The Anointed Teachings of Faster Arbernard. Get yours today, Today, Today, Today.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Listen Up. Available are the must have teachings of Arbernard,
teaching us to navigate the intersection of faith and culture,
with messages such as pain must have a purpose, reset
your mindset, and strategies for spiritual responsibility. Don't delay. Get
your blessing today. Go to Arbernard dot com or cccinfo

(24:36):
dot org. CDs seven dollars, DVDs ten dollars and downloads
just four ninety nine. Again to order, go to Aarbernard
dot com or cccinfo dot org.