• indoubt Podcast
  • ·
  • March 13, 2023

Ep. 006:TOO LEGIT TO QUIT w/ Brent Smith

With Brent Smith, , , and Andrew Marcus

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A big debate about the Bible is that it is just a story. That it is basically writings that only contain symbolism or allegorical writings. Were Adam and Eve real people? Or are they just a symbol of humanity? What about Noah and the ark? Did Jonah really live in the belly of a fish for three days before God made the fish puke him out? Don’t even get started on the book of Revelation!! Join Andrew Marcus with pastor Brent Smith from Riverside Calvary Chapel as they unpack how the Scriptures can be trusted as absolute truth.

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Andrew Marcus:

Hey, welcome to THE INDOUBT SHOW, Andrew Marcus here. Hope you’re doing well. We have an awesome show for you today. We have Brent Smith all the way from Riverside Calvary Chapel in Langley, British Columbia. He’s going to be in the house today. We’re talking about the inerrancy of scripture, how it is absolutely without error, and so we hope you enjoy the show. We also want to let you know that we have a book that is free this month. It’s called Good News. You can go to indoubt.ca. The promo code is GN23, and you can get this book for free for the month of March only. Check it out. We hope it’s a good resource for you. It talks about why is the good news so good, and just unpacks the gospel. We hope it’s a great resource for you. Whether you’re a seasoned believer or you’re exploring for the first time, this book is for you. Indoubt.ca, check it out. Enjoy the show.

Okay, so we have the man, the myth, the legend in the house. Pastor Brent Smith. Brent, how are you, man?

Brent Smith:

I’m doing great. It is really good to be here with you, Andrew. Myth… None of those things are true. Maybe a myth. I don’t know. I’m very elusive. I’m very elusive. Yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

I’m so pumped you’re here, man. This is such an honour for us.

Brent Smith:

Really good to be here with you.

Andrew Marcus:

I’ve been attending your church for the past six months.

Brent Smith:

Wow.

Andrew Marcus:

And I just have to say I’ve just been so blessed and it’s just been such a healing time for me.

Brent Smith:

Right on.

Andrew Marcus:

I can unpack a little bit of my story another time, but I’m just honoured you’re here and I’m grateful for your ministry.

Brent Smith:

Thank you.

Andrew Marcus:

For those of us who are listening on the podcast or watching right now on YouTube, some people might not know you and we want them to know you because you are, again, the man, the myth, the legend. Tell us a little bit about your story, how you kind of got involved in ministry. Take us back.

Brent Smith:

Sure.

Andrew Marcus:

We don’t have to go way, well, you know what? Let’s go way back.

Brent Smith:

Yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

What was your first word?

Brent Smith:

Oh, man. Oh, my first word probably…

Andrew Marcus:

Do you know?

Brent Smith:

No idea.

Andrew Marcus:

You don’t know?

Brent Smith:

No idea.

Andrew Marcus:

Okay.

Brent Smith:

No idea. It’s probably…

Andrew Marcus:

Probably “Jesus.” I’m assuming…

Brent Smith:

I think everybody’s first word is “mine.”

Andrew Marcus:

“Mine.”

Brent Smith:

Just revealing our sin nature right there.

Andrew Marcus:

Yes, a hundred percent. I thought my boy was the most innocent. I’m like, “This guy doesn’t sin,” and now I’m like, “Okay, it’s very clear.”

Brent Smith:

No, it’s very, very clear. Oh my goodness. We see it very early on, don’t we?

Andrew Marcus:

Very early.

Brent Smith:

Oh, boy.

Andrew Marcus:

Take us back. Take us through your history of ministry and where you are now.

Brent Smith:

Cool. Yeah. I grew up in the Vancouver area and thankfully grew up in a Christian home where church was very important, and coming and learning of God and worshiping him together was very important. I was very fortunate to grow up in a home and to have great people around me in my life in that church that poured in and discipled me. And I had a great network of Christian friends from the church. Man, I just thanked the Lord it was very protective in a sense. But, you know we’ve seen a lot of people that grew up in those environments that end up turning away, being disillusioned. I think we’ll talk a bit about that too. But, I’m very thankful for the grace of God that just kept me close to him, and by no means did I live a perfect life. Lots of ups and downs but never-

Andrew Marcus:

Were you a wild guy?

Brent Smith:

I was.

Andrew Marcus:

Were you? Oh, I guess-

Brent Smith:

Well, you know what? Wild in, I think, a sanctified Christian way…

Andrew Marcus:

Hallelujah.

Brent Smith:

… where it was… Yeah. We pushed the envelope on things. Me and my buddies, growing up. We did a lot of stuff that we’re not going to get into on this show here, but we always thought, “We’re not doing this. We’re not doing that.” These things were excusable in a sense. Right?

Andrew Marcus:

That’s so funny.

Brent Smith:

And I still like to push the envelope. I’ve got a wife now that kind of keeps me at bay, which is helpful. It’s a good balance there. But, I like to be a little wild in a good, fun way. I grew up in that environment, and I felt, I just really sensed the Lord had his hand on my life and was calling me into the ministry from a young age, from my teen years. I just believed through different events that the Lord was leading me to commit my life full time to him in ministry. And so, I knew when I finished high school… Thankfully, I finished high school, barely. And so, when I finished high school, I was going to go off to Bible school and get some training and education and really just devote my life to ministry and serving the Lord.

Now, for me, I never had any real desire to be a lead pastor, a senior pastor somewhere. I was like, “I’m going to be a youth pastor till I’m 70. That’s going to be my calling and I’m just going to hang out.” And that’s part of that, I think, wild fun side where I was like, “I’m just going to be with the youth, man. That’s where I fit.” And that was kind of really my leaning. And again, through different events, the Lord just began to direct my life, and here I am now, planted a church here in Langley 21 years ago and a lead pastor, and that’s something I never really thought would be my story. But, here I am and loving it, and just thankful for all that God’s been doing. That’s kind of in a nutshell.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, 21 years at that. Wow. Have you always been at that location or did you move around?

Brent Smith:

No, yeah. We actually started in a home, in a living room of a home, just doing a Sunday morning gathering in Bible study and worship. And so, we’re having a little church service right there. And then, we moved into a community center, and then into a school that we rented the gym for a number of years, and then have been in our present location now coming up to 10 years now.

Andrew Marcus:

Ten years. Wow.

Brent Smith:

Yeah. It’s been a journey and different steps along the way, and it’s just been exciting to see God’s goodness all through it and just his hand in leading and directing, and providing, and just blessing the church. And it’s been just a real privilege to serve him and be a part of his church here.

Andrew Marcus:

It’s amazing, man. You still have the youthful vibes.

Brent Smith:

Hey.

Andrew Marcus:

The youth pastor vibes, which I’m not saying that in a negative way. That’s obviously amazing. We were just talking to someone the other day about a youth ministry, and since you’re the wild kind, I wonder when you did youth ministry. Did you have the crazy icebreaker games that are just insane?

Brent Smith:

Oh, yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

Okay. You would be that guy?

Brent Smith:

We did all that.

Andrew Marcus:

You would be that guy?

Brent Smith:

Oh yeah, for sure. For sure, man. We would have fun and-

Andrew Marcus:

I just could never handle that stuff. It’s too much.

Brent Smith:

Some of it goes beyond.

Andrew Marcus:

Oh, yeah.

Brent Smith:

There’s some things where I’m like, oh man, I couldn’t quite go there.

Andrew Marcus:

But, you gave the stamp of approval for some wild stuffs?

Brent Smith:

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Still do.

Andrew Marcus:

Can you think some of the ones that were just crazy?

Brent Smith:

Oh, boy. Always like food challenges where you’re eating some grotesque kind of stuff.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, those are the worst ones.

Brent Smith:

See, those are the ones you’re like, “No, not for me.”

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah.

Brent Smith:

I heard of one youth group where they would take ice cream, somebody would take ice cream, and then they would drop that ice cream from their mouth in another person’s mouth and see how far they could go. See that, no, that wasn’t mine. I didn’t do that.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s terrible.

Brent Smith:

That’s, no, that’s over the top.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s terrible.

Brent Smith:

That’s terrible.

Andrew Marcus:

I would stop going that.

Brent Smith:

Yeah, I would too. I don’t blame you. That’s why I never did those ones.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s so funny.

Brent Smith:

But, definitely, we did some fun stuffs.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s amazing, man. Well, honestly, again, I’m just so honored that you’re here and honored to be a part of your church community, and it’s been such a gift. I notice on Sundays that you preach verse by verse.

Brent Smith:

Yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

Has that always been the case? What’s your up… Have you been always doing that?

Brent Smith:

Sure. That’s always been the case with us at this church here at Riverside Cavalry Chapel, and that’s kind of a real distinctive of Cavalry Chapel churches which I didn’t grow up in. I grew up in a denominational church that didn’t teach the Bible verse by verse. Every Sunday was the pastor getting up and say, Let’s turn to so and so and we’d open up the Bible and read a verse or two, and then you’d kind of put the Bible aside and you’d hear a nice sermon for 25, 30 minutes. And then, at the end, you’re kind of wondering, “What did that have to do with the verse we read?” Right?

Andrew Marcus:

Right.

Brent Smith:

And it was kind of disjointed. And next week, we’d be somewhere else flipping here and flipping there. And it was kind of very disjointed. And then, when I was in Young Adults at the church I grew up at, we had a Young Adult pastor that really began to see the value of expositional teaching and he’s teaching through verse by verse. I remember him saying one night in our young adults group. He said, “We’re going to just begin to teach through the Bible verse by verse.” And I was sitting there as a young guy going, “Okay. Isn’t it what we always do? What are you making a big deal about this?” And we started Matthew one where it’s the genealogy of Jesus and he says, “We’re going to go through the book of Matthew. And where we end tonight, we’re going to pick it up next week in that spot.” And we started in the genealogy of Jesus. Typically, you’re going to be like, “Let’s just skip over all these names. We’ll just move on to the good stuff.”

Andrew Marcus:

Can’t even pronounce half of them.

Brent Smith:

Right. We started working through the genealogy and we started identifying who these people were and why that’s important. How does that apply to us? And I was sitting there with my Bible open and I was following and tracking, and I’m seeing how the Bible was speaking to me personally. And I was like, “This is gold.” The first night we did that, it was just revolutionary to me and I was transformed. I’m like, “This is exciting. This is good.” And it began to set my heart on just a new passion for the word of God. And in my own devotional time, which was very much like Sunday morning “Let’s flip here. Let’s flip there,” in my devotional time now, I saw the value of reading through a book verse by verse and taking time, and really knowing now that the word is applicable, it’s relevant, it’s going to speak to me.

And so, I knew as we started going through in our Young Adults’ time the book of Matthew verse by verse, I just began to have the word immersed in my heart like never before. And I knew that when I was going to be active in ministry, whatever that was going to be, I wanted to teach the word of God and I wanted to give the word of God, because I saw how that changed my life. And then, eventually, my life, we eventually got plugged in with the Calvary Chapel Church, a new church plant down across the border in the States. And again, my wife and I just sitting under the teaching of God’s word, the faithful teaching verse by verse of God’s word. We just began to see our lives grow in the Lord and mature. And we knew it was just the power of God’s word.

As Hebrews 4:12 says that “the word of God is living and powerful, it’s sharper than any two-edged sword. It’s discerning the thoughts and the intents of the heart. It pierces right in between the soul and spirit,” it says. I just love how it has an active work in our lives. We’ve seen the effect of that. We’ve seen the power of it, and we continue to see it as we teach the word of God, and we see people just being transformed by not what I’ve got to say but by what the word of God says to them. I haven’t grown up with that, but it’s been a good part of my life for the last half of my life now. And we’ve seen the value and the power of it. We love it.

Andrew Marcus:

It’s amazing, man. My wife and I, we were going through, we had this really intense spiritual attack at our house. It was a few years ago. And I remember we woke up and we were screaming “Jesus” as loud as we could. We were terrified. And the first thing my wife said is, “Get the Bible. Just open it. Just open it and read it.”

Brent Smith:

That’s it.

Andrew Marcus:

And so, we turned on all the lights, grabbed the Bible, opened it. I don’t even care if it’s so and so, we got so and so, we got so and so, we got so and so. It’s the sword. This is what I’m going to use. And so, we opened, and thankfully it was Ephesians. I would’ve read the genealogy but…

Brent Smith:

There you go.

Andrew Marcus:

… you know?

Brent Smith:

It would’ve taken longer.

Andrew Marcus:

It would’ve taken longer to fight. Yeah. Anyways, it is everything about… So, even this last Sunday… At your church, we’re starting II Corinthians, and we were going through verse one and I’m like, “Okay, how are we going to have a 30-minute message on like, ‘I, the Apostle Paul, the grace and…’?” I’m like, “Okay, how are we going to do this?” But, it was amazing just pointing out like the God of all comfort, certain things. We talked about that in an earlier segment.

Brent Smith:

We need to hear that, don’t we? Right?

Andrew Marcus:

Man, it’s just-

Brent Smith:

God of all comfort comforts us in all our tribulations.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, but people will just read through the intro of II Corinthians and just get to the good stuff.

Brent Smith:

Yeah, exactly.

Andrew Marcus:

But it’s like, man, right off the top you pointed out some stuff that you just missed if you don’t read word for word. And man, every word just nourishes us.

Brent Smith:

And I love II Timothy 3:16. Everybody likes to quote that verse. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God. It’s profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and training of righteousness.” But then, we kind of skip verse 17, the next verse, which says, “That the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” And that’s it. It’s the word of God that we need that’s going to grow us, that’s going to mature us, since that idea of being complete is going to mature us that we might be thoroughly equipped for every good work. That’s what’s equipping us. That’s what we love to do at church is to say, “Let’s equip God’s people so they can continue on to live these lives as an example in the world being equipped and being used of God.” That’s what we love to do.

Andrew Marcus:

It’s huge, man. It’s huge. And I wonder, thinking of the young people who are listening right now or watching, there’s a lot of people who doubt like, “How do we actually trust that it is 100% truth?” I’ve heard all kinds of situations. It’s symbolism or it’s allegory, or… And of course, there’s different genres of literature within the entire Bible.

Brent Smith:

Of course. Absolutely.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s true. But, it gets dangerous when you start thinking of symbolism. I’ve heard people say, “Oh, Adam and Eve are not actually real people. They just represent humanity. It’s just a symbol of the beginning of time.” Talk about the inerrancy, which is that it is without error. It’s without error. What do we say to the doubter?

Brent Smith:

Yeah. I get a kick out of it when people love to say, “Well, the Bible’s full of contradictions.” And you say, “Oh, can you show me one?” “Oh, well, that’s what I’ve heard. You’re putting me on the spot. I just heard it somewhere.” People love to use these kinds of arguments to just put the Bible aside. And yeah, like you say, the Bible does have different forms of writing and poetry, and allegory, and Jesus spoke in parables that was giving a story. But, the idea is that these all have very important meaning behind it. And so, yeah, we take the Bible literally, but we know too that there’s certain writings and allegories that we obviously don’t say that this is… When God says, “I’m going to bear you up on wings of an eagle,” it’s not like we’re going to all see ourselves flying through the sky. That would be cool, right? It’s like, “Hey, I can’t wait for that to happen,” but we don’t…

Andrew Marcus:

I’m in to it but I’m afraid of height though.

Brent Smith:

Oh, yeah?

Andrew Marcus:

But, at the same time…

Brent Smith:

I’ll be there for you, man. I’ll hold you. I’ll hold you. But yeah, we don’t look at that and we read that going, “Man, I can’t wait till that happens for me where I’m going to be flying on the winds of an eagle.” We know that he’s using a picture to really explain the heart of the Father, that he’s going to uphold us and sustain us. That’s the idea. We see that there’s literal meaning behind it, even though we don’t imagine that’s what it’s going to be. The Bible is to be taken literally where you see it being spoken in that way and much of it certainly is, but we don’t explain away the Bible based on allegory and things. And so, for people that are kind of doubting, like you asked, doubting if the Bible is real… Is it literal? We can see many things that have proven the Bible time and time again. Right?

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah.

Brent Smith:

We see it in archeological evidence where there are many people that will… For example, Pilate, where they start to look through historical writings. We don’t have no record of a Pilate and the Bible talks about this guy, Pilate, ruling over Judea. “This can’t be true. Bible’s false. There it is.” Just disprove the Bible. And suddenly, they discovered the Pilate stone that’s got inscription of a Pilate in there. It’s like kind of backtracking all these critics of the Bible going, “Oh, okay, well, that just disproved that.” Archeological evidence gives a lot of great backing for the Bible.

Fulfilled prophecy. Another big one where the Bible has written so many things of what was to come hundreds of years before. Just coming through Christmas, we talked a lot about Bethlehem and here’s Micah 5:2 prophesying that this ruler’s going to come from Bethlehem, which was at the time a very insignificant town. Nobody’s going to think that God’s going to bring a ruler out of Bethlehem. And then, sure enough, here’s Jesus born in Bethlehem. And that was prophesied 700 years before Christ came.

We see many examples of fulfilled prophecy, just the continuity of scripture written by over 40 authors and over a 1500-year span, and yet we see the continuity of the message that there’s no contradiction, that’s all pointing towards Jesus. You put 30 people together in a room that witnessed the same accent, you’re going to get all different kinds of reports and views towards that. And yet, here we got the Bible with over 40 authors writing with that same common… We see how the Bible has just shown itself and proven itself. We see manuscript evidence of it.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah, which is huge.

Brent Smith:

It’s huge. And it’s funny because we’ll have people that will take writings from history that was written hundreds and hundreds of years after the event happened with only a couple manuscripts and we’ll take that as gospel truth…

Andrew Marcus:

That’s true.

Brent Smith:

… but the Bible that has thousands of manuscript evidence for it…

Andrew Marcus:

At a shorter time.

Brent Smith:

And a shorter time, exactly. And people trying to disprove it so. It doesn’t make sense to try to discredit, disprove the Bible. The Bible has proven itself time and time again. And we just need to recede that and go, “Man, this is God’s living word that he’s given us to bring life to us.” Like Peter said when Jesus in John six is asking them after a hard teaching, “Are you guys ready to go?” And Peter says, “Where else shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.” I just love God’s word and I know that this is his heart to us, and this is something to be accepted as complete truth.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. It’s amazing, man. And I feel like a lot of young people will think, “Okay, well, there’s no technology so how was it passed on from person to person to person?” You think of when we play the telephone game. I always change the entire, like when you have to whisper and go around the room and see the message at the end?

Brent Smith:

Right. Exactly.

Andrew Marcus:

And there’s people like us, “I’m sure we’re the ones who are changing the story.” So, they’re probably like, “How do we know? How do we know the story’s passed on?” But like you’re talking about, the unity and the continuity from beginning to the end of 40 authors all kind of saying the same, all go the same trajectory.

Brent Smith:

And if you want to change a part of it, which some people will say, “Oh, that’s been changed,” well, then you’ve got to go back and change all those other manuscripts and find each one and begin to change to adjust to that new change that’s happened. And that just is a huge domino effect that is almost impossible to do, to change everything. We can see going back in all these different evidences… Dead Sea Scrolls was a huge find in revealing what we have of scripture matches exactly with even older manuscripts. It’s been a lot of that that’s just, again, proven the Bible time and time again. Now, Jesus himself comes on the scene and he talked about Adam and Eve, and he begins to allude to the Genesis record in Genesis one, that God made them male and female in referencing Adam and Eve. He doesn’t refer to them as just kind of a symbol of the human race. He talks about that. He talks about…

Andrew Marcus:

That they’re people. He talks like they’re people.

Brent Smith:

He talks about Jonah being a real figure. A lot of people will like to say, “Come on, this guy’s swallowed by a fish and spit out three days later?” It’s like, “Come on, guys, give me a break. That’s such fable.”

Andrew Marcus:

Do you think it’s because we try to wrap our heads around things to make sense for us?

Brent Smith:

Absolutely.

Andrew Marcus:

And if we can’t, then we just disqualify it?

Brent Smith:

Absolutely.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. That’s a danger.

Brent Smith:

That’s a problem. And we do that a lot in things where we try to explain God. We try to figure out God, and yet we do so with finite minds and he’s infinite. And I love what Warren Wiersbe said. “If God were small enough for us to figure out, he wouldn’t be big enough for us to worship.” And there’s times good where we have to just simply hold in kind of mystery the greatness and the majesty of God. But, that causes me all the more to go, “God, you are awesome. Nothing is impossible for you.” And we accept that.

Andrew Marcus:

That’s beautiful, man. That’s such a good reminder, because I think oftentimes I just hear people just trying to make sense of it all.

Brent Smith:

Sure. Yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

And even when you look at technology, and we’ve talked about stuff like that at church before too, where we’re just trying to make sense of everything, of creation, of creating babies, or even MAID. We’re ending life and we’re starting life. There’s just so many things that we’re just trying to almost be God over because we just don’t understand when you get to the foundation of it. I feel like God is amazing and we can’t fully understand, but we trust. I guess that’s where the faith aspect comes in.

Brent Smith:

Exactly. And that’s it, right? I mean, it’s all given to us right here in God’s word. The question is, are you going to believe it or not? Are you going to try to explain it away based on the things that you see or based on what God says? And that’s why Hebrews 11 says that without faith, it’s impossible to please God. And we need to come to him by faith.

Andrew Marcus:

Talk about this idea of preaching verse by verse, because I feel like that would be very challenging. Because, I feel like there’s a lot of scripture that would kind of be cultural swear words these days.

Brent Smith:

Oh, boy. You know it.

Andrew Marcus:

And I’ve seen you a couple of weeks where you were a little bit, you’re sweating.

Brent Smith:

You saw me sweating.

Andrew Marcus:

I saw you sweating.

Brent Smith:

Actually, yeah.

Andrew Marcus:

I sit in the front row. I like to get… I’m in the spit zone.

Brent Smith:

The spit zone, man. We supply face shields. It’s all good.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. But, that’s really hard. How do we encourage young people? Because, we’re seeing the world and the news and all kinds of stuff just bombarding us with truth and the way we should believe the way we should think, which is very contradictory to the word. How do we encourage young people to say, “Hey, this is still relevant?” Everyone’s just kind of writing it off as this is old news. What would you say to someone to encourage them like, “Hey, this is actually more relevant now than ever before really”?

Brent Smith:

Absolutely. It is. Yeah. I think we need to let people know that God’s ways are always best. And you hope that where we’ve seen the slide in culture and the absurdity that we see going on in culture, that people… Now, people have been disillusioned with the word of God. I pray that people are becoming more and more disillusioned with the world, and the way that the world is going to where they come back and realize, “You know what? God did have it right all along and His ways are best.” And so, yeah, we sweat it out sometimes in some of those passages that we know.

Andrew Marcus:

This is going to be uncomfortable.

Brent Smith:

It’s going to be uncomfortable. It’s not going to be at times politically correct. But again, I pray and trust that people are going to come in and simply see truth being spoken and realize, man, there is a better way than what we’re being told according to the world and where the culture is going to where people just say, “I’ve had enough of where things are going.” And that’s sadly what we see happening a lot in churches, is that we’re trying to appease culture. We’re trying to come alongside in a loving way, which obviously we want to do…

Andrew Marcus:

Yes.

Brent Smith:

… but we’re missing truth. We’re trying to put truth aside because we’re trying to be loving. And Paul says, “No, we need to speak the truth in love.” And when we do that, we’re going to see people that are going to be won over. I don’t think we’re going to win people over by just love without truth. And that’s where the church has often gone. And I think we’re seeing people now that are looking for answers. They’re looking for something different because they see where culture and the world is going and they’re going to be ready to receive what is true. And right now, we have an age where, again, everybody’s got their own truth, right?

Andrew Marcus:

Yes.

Brent Smith:

And that’s always the battle. But, we know what the real truth is, and that’s what we want to give out. And we’re going to pray and trust that people’s hearts are going to be won over by that.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. It’s amazing, man. I think it’s so important now more than ever. Like you said, “There’s just so many truths out there.”

Brent Smith:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Andrew Marcus:

And so, how do we encourage people to say, “Hey, you just got to get to the truth. There’s one truth”?

Brent Smith:

There’s one truth. And people don’t like to hear that.

Andrew Marcus:

No.

Brent Smith:

And yet, we can’t-

Andrew Marcus:

But, that means their truth is false.

Brent Smith:

It is.

Andrew Marcus:

And no one wants to hear that.

Brent Smith:

Yeah. And we also, as Christians and as the church, can’t be afraid to give out that truth and think, “Well, we don’t want to offend people.” Jesus offended people a lot but he also won people over by the truth. Those people that were disillusioned by sin, disillusioned by where they were at, they saw something different in Jesus. They saw a guy that came along and was ready to uphold what was right and true. We can’t be afraid to offend. We don’t want to purposely go out and offend people.

Andrew Marcus:

Of course. Of course. Yeah.

Brent Smith:

But, we understand that the truth today is going to offend some. That’s why I want to give it lovingly and in care. But, we also know that there’ll be many that’ll say, “Man, I’ve been disillusioned by where I’ve been, what I’m seeing in the world. I need something different.” And that’s right here, found in God’s word.

Andrew Marcus:

Yeah. Grace and truth is such an important balance.

Brent Smith:

Absolutely.

Andrew Marcus:

But, the word says, “The truth will set you free.”

Brent Smith:

Set you free. Amen.

Andrew Marcus:

It’s important.

Brent Smith:

That’s it.

Andrew Marcus:

It’s important. Well, I really appreciate you, man. I appreciate your time today.

Brent Smith:

Likewise.

Andrew Marcus:

It’s a good reminder for us to just be rooted, to be grounded in truth, that we could trust it.

Brent Smith:

Amen.

Andrew Marcus:

That it is cohesive. It’s the word of God and so I just encourage you today to just be in your word. Thank you so much, Pastor Brent, for being with us today.

Brent Smith:

Thanks, Andrew. Love it.

Andrew Marcus:

I’ll see you Sunday.

Brent Smith:

It has been great. Sounds good. I look forward to it.

Andrew Marcus:

Awesome.

Brent Smith:

All right.

Andrew Marcus:

Awesome. Have a great day.

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today. For more great content, check out THE INDOUBT SHOW on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, or wherever you stream your podcast. We hope you enjoyed it today. Feel free to check out indoubt.ca. We have some great resources available to you. Have an awesome day.

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ID_Show_Ep006

Who's Our Guest?

Brent Smith

Brent Smith is the lead pastor of Riverside Calvary Chapel, a church he planted in 2002 in Langley, British Columbia. He’s been in full time pastoral ministry since 1995 and has had the joy of being a part of church plants locally and internationally. He has a heart for people to be equipped through the Word and going forth with the gospel. Brent and his wife Michelle have 4 children (2 of them married) and one grandson.
ID_Show_Ep006

Who's Our Guest?

Brent Smith

Brent Smith is the lead pastor of Riverside Calvary Chapel, a church he planted in 2002 in Langley, British Columbia. He’s been in full time pastoral ministry since 1995 and has had the joy of being a part of church plants locally and internationally. He has a heart for people to be equipped through the Word and going forth with the gospel. Brent and his wife Michelle have 4 children (2 of them married) and one grandson.