I Was Wrong - Roasting AD on Immigration and Refugees - Birthday Special!

Birthday Special and Support Options

Well, all right. Well, all right. Happy November 20th, everybody. Happy November 20th. November 20th is a very special day. Very important day. At least it is for me. It was the day that I was born. So today is my birthday so what I figured we'd do is What better thing to do on someone's birthday than to roast them, right?

Let's roast AD Robles. Yeah, that's right. Let's let's roast AD, you know back when he was known as Adam Robles. He didn't go by AD just yet and back in the day, you know, I Might say that I was a bit of a blogger.

Yeah a little bit of a blogger. I wrote for a blog that was fairly well read and I had a few articles that I wouldn't say they went viral. But they were very well read and I wasn't really that serious of a blogger though maybe I wrote like 10 articles for this this blog and This one was about immigration and what I figured we'd do is we'd we'd roast it a little bit because my my views have Evolved over time.

Let's say They're they're significantly more nuanced than they used to be. I very much oversimplified the issue in this article. And it's really hard to put myself in that headspace of why I did this.

Why did I do this. Because I feel like I should have known better but Let me we'll go into that in just a minute before we begin some have asked how to support My work on YouTube if they don't want to go through patreon, you can definitely go through patreon.

I am so grateful for my patrons and and I do owe everyone a Q &A and I'm gonna get to that I promise I will. But anyway, so if you do want to support My work and not go through patreon. We can certainly do PayPal.

There's other ways to support the work I do here and what better day to do that than on my birthday. I'll gladly use my birthday as a way to get some extra funding for the work that I do. But I hope you find it helpful.

I really do and if you do support me regularly or occasionally I'm so grateful. I got a huge gift in the mail just the other day. Thank you so much for the person who did that. It really means a lot to my family.

We're actually planning on moving to New Hampshire very soon. So That is going to help big-time. Anyway, so Thank you for your support. I hope you find this helpful. Now. Let's get to the roast. Here is the article.

Early Article on Refugees and the Love Your Neighbor Argument

I wrote this I don't know. Maybe five years ago five ten years ago something like that. It's called whatever happened to heaping burning coals and what I love about this is one of those cringe things.

You know when ever look at stuff you wrote a long time ago or even like that Facebook features. It might as well just be called the cringe feature where it shows you something you posted like, you know Six years ago or something like that, man.

It's hard. Oh, it's hard to read but let's read this. All right, here's what I said back then. Recently the controversy regarding what to do what to do with refugees in the Middle East has been raging on social media.

Given our current political season. It's not surprising that pundits talking heads and candidates on both sides are posturing using the issue. What has been more surprising to me is the controversy has even made its way to Christian blogs and message message boards.

Boards with honest believers on both sides. Disagreeing on what should be done. I believe the moral law of God is clear on the church's responsibility to help refugees. This article is specifically in response to a certain line of thinking in arguments against the civil government of the United States.

Helping to shelter Middle Eastern refugees. This line of thinking could be applied to many different circumstances. Let me stop the article right there. I actually still believe this. I think that the law of God is very clear about what to do with refugees.

But the problem is though that the law of God was very clear of what to do with refugees and immigration and stuff like that the in in the context of a of a theonomic theocratic society where you know.

Presumably you're obeying all of God's law and the reality is the United States is not that. The United States breaks God's law a lot of different ways. And so when you are when you have a government that is sinning a lot like ours is let's just be honest.

It's not sinning as much as it could be but it's sinning a lot. That really muddies the waters and it makes it very difficult to sort of you know rule in a very pure kind of way. I'll explain what I mean in a minute.

But once you start sinning all of a sudden now you have these decisions to make where there's really no good option. But rather there's degrees of bad options in order to make up for the sin that you already did.

We'll talk about that in a moment. Let me get back to the article. The argument is basically that if we bring refugees to the United States, it could be bad and dangerous for Americans. This is because we will have to pay to take care of them and this would strain our already precarious financial situation.

Further some of the refugees could actually be enemies in disguise that seek to bring violence to our streets. I have heard both of these arguments from fellow believers. Now let's step out of the article for a second prepare for the cringe guys.

This is the cringe. Here's what I said. The Lord of the universe says you shall love your neighbor as yourself. End quote man. That's embarrassing. I've criticized people for using that exact verse to mean all kinds of things that it doesn't mean and.

Yet and and it's so easy to do because it's such a great verse and it's such an important verse, right? You shall love your neighbor as yourself. We need to remember that that's that's that's a commandment.

From God we have to do this. But just because I'm able to quote you shall love your neighbor as yourself does not mean that every piece of meaning I want to attach to that is thoroughly biblical, you know, you understand what I'm saying?

So I just committed the same thing the same problem that I've ripped. I Don't know how many people at this point. But I could think of at least a few of the top of my head. David Platt for one. Eric Mason for two.

Matt Chandler for three. I mean like this is this is what I ripped them on. They use this verse as if it's a catch-all for every progressive idea that you could possibly have and it's not like that. You know what?

I mean? Oh, man, this is awful. I wrote it. I've got to own it. I've got to own it. I continue he says. He also expresses many times as moral law the requirement of his people to show compassion to the sojourner and the foreigner.

There is no stipulation given that we only have to do good if we have enough extra for ourselves. Rather our primary example of love is Self-sacrificial. We love because Christ first loved us. This isn't just a nice verse to say at a wedding.

It's a demonstration that the church's example of love is not easy. The church's example of love will cost us dearly it cost the father the son. But Christ commands us to pick us up up our cross and die.

So if helping refugees will cost the people of the United States financial security as if such a thing even existed then so be it. What will cost us more dear Christian giving up our security for the sake of the sojourner or?

Disobeying God's clear commandments. So so that's that's that's my premise here. This is a very simple thing. That's what it was what I said back in the day. So if just because it's gonna cost us financially Doesn't mean we shouldn't take care of the sojourner and in a sense that's right I mean got Christ's love is example of love is Self-sacrificial and we are commanded to give to the poor right and it doesn't matter if we're super rich or like medium income or Poor we have to take care of those who can't take care of themselves.

That's our that's that's our charge as Christians, right? And so if it means that we can't have as much stuff as we want. Well, then so be it. But here's the here's the rub though the rub though is that that it's not a matter of really of giving of Charity, you know what I mean?

Because if somebody were saying, you know Christians shouldn't even be charitable towards refugees and sojourners and things like that well, that would be easy to sort of to sort of refute right, but this is a matter of of Socialist policies welfare stealing in other words, right?

And so, you know that the problem is this is why it's not as simple of an issue as it could be right, this is why it's not as simple of an issue as it could be because if if a foreigner comes here an immigrant a refugee whatever it is a Foreigner comes here.

They have all kinds of entitlements that they're entitled to having come here. Right, and the reality is that those entitlements were stolen from your neighbor. They were stolen from you and your neighbor.

Right, and so this is not really just a matter of simple charity. This is a matter of Thou shall not steal. So if we're going to love our neighbor as ourself like I Asserted in this article, which we definitely should.

That means all our neighbors. Not just the refugee not just the sojourner, but also the native-born. It's the same law God says God says that you have one law. One for the native-born one for the sojourner and you have to you know, apply that law either way.

So what what are we doing when we invite an immigrant here or so a refugee here? And we give them a whole bunch of stuff that we stole from our neighbor. Well, not only are we saying we don't love you neighbor to our neighbor, but we're also involving these immigrants in Theft which just piles in on top of them.

So it's it's not loving even to the sojourner to give them stolen goods. It's not it's not good to incentivize immigrants to come here so they can join us in our stealing party. Just because we're having a stealing bonanza over here doesn't mean we should invite others to come and join in.

That's actually not loving them very well not loving them very well. So here's the thing like if we didn't have a welfare state like if we were thoroughly biblical right in this in our government. We didn't have a welfare state.

We weren't engaged in socialism stealing parties and all this kind of nonsense. Right if we were engaged we had a thoroughly biblical government. Then I would say okay. So immigrant immigration should be fairly open.

Sojourning should be fairly open all this kind of stuff because that's what the Bible commands and There would be no incentive for them to come join our theft party over here. There would be no incentive for them to come get free stuff that actually isn't free.

We just stole it from our neighbors over here. And so the people who came here would be true refugees people that really wanted Protection people that that were really running from. From situations that were bad and things like that and you see God says yes.

We should have compassion on those people. We should have compassion on those people, but we don't want to incentivize them through free Stolen goods to come over here and join our theft party. That's wrong on so many levels.

That's wrong. It's morally wrong to incentivize immigrants and refugees to come here to get their share of free stuff that we actually just stole from. Our neighbor. I think it was I think it was Milton Friedman who said you can you can have a welfare state or you can Have open immigration, but you can't have both.

Well, you could have both but your country is going to be ruined and it's morally incorrect and it's not compassionate. And it's not loving your neighbor. We gotta we got to get over this idea of partiality, right?

Like if God says to love your neighbor, he doesn't say that in a partial way. Oftentimes when we hear love your neighbor as yourself, we hear we'll love your poor neighbor. Love your black neighbor. Love your immigrant neighbor.

Love, you know, and yes, that's true. But you can't love them in place of your native-born neighbor. You can't love a black person in place of a white person. Like you have to love everybody. It's there's no partiality with God and because we want to be like God and you know.

We want to act like God won't be holy as he's holy. There can't be partiality in the way we show love to our neighbor as yourself. So what's so cringe about me saying love your neighbor as yourself here?

What I'm actually saying in this article is love your immigrant neighbor. More than your native-born neighbor and that's not what God said. That's not what God said. You shall not show partiality and we cannot use love your neighbor as yourself as a partial commandment.

Because that's that's the opposite. That's the exact opposite. Okay, so that's the financial issue. What about the safety issue? Right? What about the safety issue? Here's what my article says. So what if these refugees are terrorists in disguise.

What if they come planning to cause violence in the streets. What if. If they do this then the civil government as a servant of God will execute justice according to their crime. They should not be treated more leniently nor more harshly for their crime because the God of the universe says.

You shall have the same rule for the sojourner and for the native for I am the Lord your God. But even if these refugees are potential enemies the God of the universe has declared what the church is supposed to advocate for and execute.

Quote. If your enemy is hungry give him bread to eat and if he is thirsty give him water to drink. Pretty simple if your enemy asks for help help them. This doesn't mean you set aside justice. It doesn't mean you let them hurt your family.

This doesn't mean you break other commandments of God in order to help them. All it means is you should help your enemies when they ask for help. So if God commands us to help people who are actual enemies, what does this mean?

We should do for people who are only potential enemies now. Let me step out of the article for a second here again. This is not necessarily wrong, right? But it kind of oversimplifies things because yes, it's true.

We should love our enemies. We should feed our enemies if he's hungry, we should give him water if he's thirsty. But this doesn't mean we're stupid either right like if somebody was outside of my house and they had raggedy clothing on you know, and and he has family with him and and he he says to me Hey, you know, we we don't have any food.

Can you help us? And I turned them away. Yeah. Obviously, I'm breaking the commands of God I should help this guy and the fact is he could be just trying to fool me, right? He could be trying to fool me and and he has his family there to trick me.

He could really be just trying to invade my house. That's true. But but the fact that he just could be doesn't mean that I shouldn't help him. However, it also doesn't mean that I shouldn't check it out, right?

So like let's say I saw let's just say something again. So a guy came to my house raggedy clothing. He's there with his family. That would be very unusual in my neighborhood for that to happen, right?

So you'd you'd it would be okay. For me to say hold on a second, sir I'm done I'm gonna help you. But I want to just check a few things out first and I go to the vet my backyard my back door and make sure there's Nobody else out there go to my side door.

Make sure there's nobody else out there. Maybe I'll maybe I'll get out my firearm my sidearm and and have it on me just in case because it's a very unusual event. So that's fine. Like I I can feed him and be smart at the same time.

Not to mention the fact that God commanded this stuff about feeding your enemies and things like that. But at the same time when he had them build Jerusalem, he had them build a big wall around it, right?

He had them build protection and it's okay to protect yourself and you could you can defend your borders at the same time as you're Loving your enemies. This is not all or nothing here. This is not all or nothing here again when we ask Someone to love your neighbor as yourself.

We're not just talking about the poor neighbor the refugee neighbor the neighbor that doesn't look like you. We're talking about them too, but we're also talking about the neighbor that looks like you.

There's no partiality with God, right? This is the big thing that my article misses and I think this is the big thing that a lot of social Justicey articles miss now. I was never a social justice warrior, but this article is quite social justice II.

It uses the same tactics in other words. This is the big thing that they miss right? We have to obey love your neighbor as yourself in a non impartial way. We cannot show partiality to the rich nor the poor.

We cannot show partiality to put people that look like us nor people who don't look like us. We cannot show partiality to the native-born or the refugee. That's important. That's important to really drive that through your skull because so often when we hear love your neighbor as yourself.

It's used in a context that essentially means love your poor neighbor more than your rich neighbor and that is false. That's false. Let me finish this article. Here's what I said back then. But Proverbs 25 21 goes further in verse 22 Quote you will heap burning coals on his head and the Lord will reward you.

So not only does God command us to feed our enemies if they ask us for help. Which should be enough for every believer to welcome refugees in our country. Cringe. But it also tells us the result of this will be a reward from God dear church.

Where does our fear come from? Why would we fear a curse for doing the exact thing that God promises a blessing for whatever happened to heaping burning coals? Anyway I'm a decent writer. Not that great a good way to end this article here, but I say it's cringe because.

Deuteronomy 23, the Assembly, and Citizenship

Because here's the thing guys like like we have to understand this and if I could go back And talk to old ad I would a young ad I guess I should say here's what I would tell him. You're trying to oversimplify something that is not that simple.

Let me talk to you about a Great passage of Scripture, right? This is Deuteronomy 23 verse 7. Listen to what verse 7 says, right? It says you shall not abhor an Edomite for he is your brother. You shall not abhor an Egyptian because you were a sojourner in his land.

Children born to them in the third generation may enter the assembly of the Lord. So, you know, we're not supposed to hate people just because there are enemies right not just because you know, they we've had Relationships with them in the past that have been less than savory, right?

We're not supposed to hate people. It's a very this is very you could see a social justice warrior quoting this verse, right? But what you have to do though again is you can't over oversimplify things so look at the rest of Deuteronomy 23.

So let's start at verse 1 instead of verse 7 for a second. Listen to this he says. No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord. No one born of a forbidden union may enter the assembly of the Lord even to the tenth generation.

None of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord. No, Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord even to the tenth generation. None of them may enter the assembly of the Lord forever.

Because they did not meet you with bread and with water on the way when you came out of Egypt and because they hired against You Balaam the son of Baor from Pethor of Mesopotamia to curse you. But the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam instead the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the Lord your God loved you you shall not seek their peace or their prosperity all your days forever and.

Then it says you shall not abhor and eat of might for he is your brother. So listen to this for a second here the same God who said love your neighbor as yourself. The same God that says we should have Compassion on the sojourner the same God that says all of these things.

Also in the law Restricted certain people from enter entering the assembly. What is that? What does it mean to enter the assembly? What does it mean to enter the assembly? That's the question. This is our Jay rush Dooney on this situation here Says this he says there is no reason to doubt that eunuchs Bastard Ammonites and Moabites regularly became believers and were faithful worshipers of God.

The congregation has the assembly in other words has reference to the whole nation in its governmental function as God's covenant people. G Ernest Wright defined it as the whole organized Commonwealth as it assembled officially for various purposes particularly worship.

So what is the same here? What is the same? There's a difference between someone who's a native born in a random sojourner and there's a difference between someone who's in the assembly who's in the congregation and Someone who's not and that's totally fine.

It's okay to have difference differences in rights and privileges. Even as you're supposed to treat the sojourner with respect compassion fairness and part and and without partiality according to the same law and.

Borders, Welfare, and Open Immigration

So so here's the reality guys. This is this is what we need to understand here. I think is that Having compassion on the sojourner and and and and and and and being open to to taking care of the sojourner being open Immigration wise in other words saying people can come to our land.

Does not mean that that they have to have all the same rights as a u .s Citizen and and and that was true even in God's time because obviously in God's time. What am I talking about in Israel's time? Because obviously the same God who said love your neighbor as yourself.

Allowed for a distinction to be made between someone who was a worshiper who was a believer, but not in the assembly of God there's nothing wrong with having a state with borders and and and and and Citizenship that actually means something.

So so so here's an example of how I could envision this playing out. You have a sojourner you have a refugee that that comes to our land first for legitimate reasons. First of all number one, they don't get to any you know free stuff, right?

They don't get to participate in our and our stealing parties, right? Because because ideally we would have no stealing parties, but but we do have them right now, right? We do have welfare and all this kind of junk.

So we do have that right now. So refugees come. They don't get to participate in that right? They don't get to vote for goodness sake the idea that the that that some of these these people should be get to vote that's absolutely preposterous and you cannot point to the to anything in the scripture anything the law of God that says that that should be the case because.

Not no eminite. No Moabite was ever allowed in the assembly never allowed to participate in the government. You don't just because you love your enemy and feed them and take care of their physical needs does not mean you give them the right To vote to destroy your country.

There's nothing incompatible with having a sovereign nation. With borders, there's nothing incompatible between that and protecting those borders, right? There's nothing incompatible with that and having compassion on sojourners.

Nothing and so immigration while I do think in a perfect sort of Republic where we had we were honoring God and everything. We weren't having stealing parties together and we weren't having welfare and all this kind of stuff in a perfect area.

Yes, we should have fairly open immigration. But that doesn't mean we turn the keys to the kingdom over to random people who are coming from the outside that there's nothing in The Bible that says you need to do that nothing.

That would be preposterous and even in God's law there was a there was an exclusion of some from you know, quote-unquote full citizenship. Right, some people could not enter the assembly of the Lord.

Eunuchs could not enter the assembly of the Lord. People born in in Inter-religious marriages could not enter the assembly of the Lord. They couldn't do it. And If you notice here, it says that Egyptians and Edomites they can enter the assembly of the Lord after three generations.

And so you come here you don't get to vote just because you come here your second generation doesn't get to vote. But the idea is that there's some kind of an assimilation going on. There's some kind of assimilation to honoring God's law.

Respecting God's law being a worshipper being essentially to the point where you become almost like a native-born and then you can enter the assembly of the Lord. But then there are certain people that God says cannot ever and when it says to the 10th generation.

That means like basically never that's what that's what that's essentially meaning. And so we have to understand that that that this idea of open immigration. I'm not opposed to it necessarily. But there's nothing in that idea that says that we should be turning over the keys of the kingdom to to to a bunch of Pagans right nothing in it, right?

So so so here's the thing like like people that are concerned with the demographic shift and Sort of the idea that a lot of foreigners are more open to socialism than you know. And will essentially drive us into socialism.

These are legitimate concerns. I mean God even had concerns like this when he excluded certain people From the assembly all together. And at the same this is the same God that said we should have compassion on the sojourner.

This is the same God that said we should take care of our enemies Material needs and things like that if they need help. This is the same God and so my article here tries to oversimplify this whole issue.

It's not that simple. It's not that simple. Look if we're gonna if we're gonna switch, you know, the United States into a Society that honors God and seeks to apply the general equity of God's civil law and we're gonna do it in Toto and And all that.

Yeah, we can talk about opening up those borders a little bit. Absolutely, but we're gonna do it in Toto. We're not gonna cherry-pick. We're not gonna say love your neighbor as yourself. I guess you can have welfare.

We're not gonna do that. That's clown style, right? That's clown style an old lady used to do that. So maybe old lady was a clown. I don't know. I don't know what that means. Anyway, I felt like this video is a little bit complicated.

It's hard to roast yourself. It's hard to roast yourself. So maybe that's why I hope it was helpful and I'm sure that there's gonna be more episodes on this issue of immigration in my new nuanced view of this because I'm sure that there are things I can clarify and expand upon and things like that and obviously I'm still thinking and learning and developing and evolving my My understanding of this issue.

But I think that at the very least this Video will show you that this is not as simple as a lot of people want to make it. It's just not. It's just not you know, and and so Thanks for watching. I appreciate it.

Hope you have a great November 20th. I hope I do as well. Hope this is helpful. God bless. I don't know about you guys, but I thought younger ad was much more winsome. Much more winsome. I just I wish we could go back to that time and he wasn't he was going along with it.

He wasn't rocking the boat so much. He was only Giving approved takes on everything wish we could go back to that. He was a winsome November hero, oh I don't know about hero, but he certainly wasn't as smooth as he is right now.

I wonder why he did it was he just trying to be liked or maybe he just really did believe this stuff. It's hard it's hard to say really. And I can be hard if you put yourself back in a mindset that you haven't had for a long time six years ten years Ago, whatever it was.

It can be hard to decide. Why did he do it? I do know one thing that younger ad was traveling in circles that were much more approved in Big Eva. Anyway, I hope you found this video smooth and helpful.

God bless.