Defending Calvinism: Unconditional Election

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When the scribes and Pharisees asked our Lord about the greatest commandment, He replied, You shall love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.

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So, why do we hear some of today's most prominent pastors saying things like this? It had everything to do with how we talk about the

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Bible, and specifically, or along with that, what we point to as the foundation of faith, which for most

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Christians, unfortunately, is the Bible. We need to do better.

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We need to love God with all our hearts, and stand unashamedly on the rock of His Word. We need to love the

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Lord with all of our souls, and respond to the worldview issues of our day with the wisdom and discernment that comes only from Him.

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We need to love the Lord with our minds, and understand the calling of God's people in every area of life in God's world.

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We need to love the Lord our God with all our strength, and face the work of building a life -giving, God -honoring culture.

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Join us for 10 days at the Runner Academy for Cultural Leadership, as we consider how the gospel influences all of life and culture, and the role that we have to play in applying foundational

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Christian thinking to every area of life. Non -rockabotas must stop.

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I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it! Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?

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We're being delusional. Delusional? Yeah. Delusional is okay in your worldview. I'm an animal.

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You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay.

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It doesn't really hurt. Is he hung up on me? Yes! What? What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.

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The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Right. Don't go into the world and make homies.

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Right. Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke,

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Pastor. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

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I can assure you we will never be the same again. Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.

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I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

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Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

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But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. That was

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Matthew 5, everybody. Sermon on the Mount, actually. Sermon on the Mount. Some Christians don't like to put that on the walls.

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We're gonna hear today. Oh, that's right. As we're responding to some nonsense on the old MSNBC. Welcome back, everybody, to Apologia Radio.

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This is the gospel heard around the world. That is Luke the Bear. I'm Jeff, the Kalman Ninja, and we are so excited about today's show.

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We're going to be interacting with some nonsense on MSNBC, which doesn't sound surprising probably to most of our audience.

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But this particular nonsense was about the Lord of glory himself and his teaching. So we're excited to talk to you guys today about this.

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We have one, we have a new Academy coming up very soon. It is on eschatology and time stuff.

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It is on the Great Tribulation. The Lord talked about it in Mark 13, Luke 21, Matthew 24. And it,

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I think, hopefully will be a great blessing to you, verse by verse through those texts, the

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Great Tribulation. And so that's coming very, very soon. The whole series is basically done.

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It's just a couple more things I have to record. But we have, I think, about six right now ready to go. We also just got word today from someone very special or yesterday from someone very special that we are going to hopefully also be getting a series on the book of Revelation up at the

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Academy. That's what we're working on. And we also got some stuff on covenant theology. There's all kinds of cool stuff. Someone that may or may not have written a commentary on a certain book.

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Well, yes, we'll announce it when I get the full confirmation. But lots of stuff. The point is...

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We'll be waiting a while. Yeah, no, it's in the works, actually. So lots of stuff there.

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Okay, so all that to say, everybody go there, get blessed, get equipped. And I'm going to be playing a clip today.

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I told you, this is like Luke and I's favorite debate that Bonson did. It's one of my favorites for sure. Dr. Greg Bonson did a debate on gun control, and it's just so much fun.

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It's just this guy, he's debating. He's got this like thick Southern accent, and it's just delicious to listen to someone with such an amazing accent get utterly demolished with Scripture.

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But we're going to be playing a clip from that today from Dr. Greg Bonson, one of the many things he did to bless the church. And that leads me to telling you, if you haven't signed up for your free

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So it's Dr. Greg Bonson's entire life's work. It's his seminary lectures, his teachings from church, his public debates, all that stuff.

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So much is there. And if you haven't gotten it yet, you are missing out, I'm telling you, from one of the greatest teachers and philosophers and apologists in the history of the

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Christian church. And so that is what is up with that. That's going on at ApologiaStudios .com.

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If you would, everybody go. And I'm just saying this quickly to be a part of this with us. We've got a busy next couple months.

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If you want to know how to be a part of this with us, other than all Access, to be praying for us as a church and the work that we have going on across the country right now, we've got, you've heard us say, about 18 prospective commitments and bills even that are already in right now across the states with bills of equal protection.

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And by the way, that's going to be a subject of today's show. It's to some degree, this guy on MSNBC arguing against the

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Bible and the issue of abortion, saying the Bible doesn't mention it. And he goes off about a bill in South Carolina that was going to criminalize abortion, which we're like, hmm.

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I'm very familiar with that bill. Very familiar with that bill. We know a lot about that one. So at any rate, you can be praying for us because it is overwhelming and it's a lot of work to get all these states with activity and getting the church notified and helping the guys where they have put the bills in themselves and us supporting them, providing them back up.

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And then there's certain bills that we were able to get in. And so it's like, you know, it's kind of our baby. We're trying to get other people to help us with.

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So there's a lot going on this first session and we need your prayers and we also need your financial support. So if you would go to endabortionnow .com,

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give there, donate there to help us to meet our budget goals so we can accomplish all of this.

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And so lives are being saved. We can equip your church to do exactly what our church is doing. We don't want anything from your church.

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We don't want any financial support from your church. We don't want any money. We don't want anything from you. We just want to give you the training and equip you and give you all the resources to do what we're doing to save lives.

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And again, all that's possible because of everyone who gives through End Abortion Now to make all that possible.

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So that is what's going on. There's the update, everybody. And Zach's actually missing today because he's in Georgia doing some work for EAN.

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That's right. So Zach is with Pastor Brian Gunter and the guys, Matt Brock and all the guys.

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I saw Matt was doing some stuff there too. Yeah, Conover is in Georgia right now speaking, trying to get the troops rallied and the churches rallied around the bill that we have with Emery Dunahoo, the

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Bill of Equal Protection in Georgia. We've got to get it out of just kind of hanging there and get it into committee and be heard.

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So be in prayer for that, that it would get heard and be in prayer for all the work being done there. He has a great

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Southern Georgia name, doesn't he? Dunahoo? Emery Dunahoo. Good guy.

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Loves the Lord and believes we should obey God rather than men. That's one of the things that stuck with me when I sat at his house and talked with him about the

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Bill of Equal Protection. Actually, it was kind of cool. It was like in the country outside. We were sitting outside.

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You drinking like a mint julep? In the trees, a little moonshine, a little mint julep moonshine.

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Good dude. So everybody, we are going to have an interesting year this year.

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I was just having a conversation before we went live today about one of our most interesting years.

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Oh man, I'm getting hot in here. Now I'm getting hot. I'm good. Arizona's weather right now is kind of crazy.

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It is weird. What was I saying? Crazy year ahead. Oh, crazy year ahead.

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Yes, yes. So 2016 was a really crazy year for us. That was the election between Trump and Hillary Clinton.

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And man, we was just content for days. It was just like Bernie Sanders was promoting socialism. Yeah, so we're going to have an interesting year,

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I imagine. Lots to talk about. And we want to make sure that we are available as a resource to bless the church and the world with a

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Christian worldview response to all that's going on. Actually, we tried to do that January 6th, years ago.

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We were like, we want to be on the ground there. Some crazy stuff was going on. We were like, we want to offer a Christian worldview response to all this stuff because all this media is there, like right -wing media stuff.

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But who is there speaking about it explicitly according to the word of God and everything else. And so we were on the ground that day when all that crazy stuff popped off.

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And we weren't actually there. Although I did have the FBI contact me because they saw that we were there.

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We were in the general area. I was like, guys, wrong crowd. You're not talking to the right people.

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Did you watch my video? Yeah, I was like, watch the video and see how we condemned it as it was going on. And I'll give you all the links that you need for that.

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I was listening to Doug Wilson this morning. He said this year's election. He's like, if you thought

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January 6th was bad, this year's election is going to make that look like an

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Easter Sunday. Yeah, an Easter Sunday. So it's going to be an interesting year. We have to look forward to a lot of commentary.

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And we want to provide a Christian response to all this stuff, not a neutral response to all this stuff. So, by the way, see this?

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That's actually fantastic. And I just wanted to mention, you heard me say last week, if you're focusing on, I'm going to get healthy and try to reboot my system, and you decide to do something like this for, say, the first six months of the year, you could go the route of the

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Luke, you want to throw something in before we get right into the MSNBC nonsense? Sure. I was going to say, too, that apparently it'll help you detox.

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Yeah. I learned. That's a good point. It's a long story. But yeah, I've been dealing with some health stuff that I've been detoxing from and didn't realize it because of the

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NAD patch. Detoxing is good. It is good. It can be painful. It can be, as I experienced this last weekend.

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So yeah, let me... Well, I'll just go ahead and I'll just talk about the old best part of waking up is pre -sipping your cup.

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Best part of waking up is pre -sipping your cup. You know that you were like 80s, 90s.

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Oh, for sure. Because of that, of that little jingle. Exactly right. I heard that a couple times a day.

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All the young -ins are like, I don't know what you're talking about. They don't even know what we're talking about. They're like, that's a really cool jingle. Did you come up with that? They're not worthy. I love this label.

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It's got a lamb with this crown right to Christ flag and it says, taking dominion one sip at a time.

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Go check it out. Luke's done some new shirt designs and there's some good stuff there for you guys. Yes, sir.

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All right. So MSNBC. So, you know, we are at a point in history in the

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West where evangelicals in our light, if that word even has any meaning anymore, evangelical used to mean something.

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And now, you know, it's such a broad term. And what does it really mean? Who's a part of that? Where evangelicals have really lost a lot of light in the culture.

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And I think, of course, we can give a number of reasons why the problem is primarily, I believe, in the pulpit itself.

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It comes from the pulpit first and it comes down to the people of God. So a bad pulpit will bleed into the people.

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And so we have a bad view of the law. You're going to see in a moment here that this guy is capitalizing on that bad view of the law.

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Christians today have an unbiblical and, in many ways, an anti -historical perspective of the law of God and culture and society.

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We think the law of God is not relevant today. We don't think it has any abiding validity or relevance under the

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New Covenant. We think the law of God is defunct and over, and we don't really appeal to it anymore.

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You've got particular views of the law, like New Covenant theology, that says we're not under the law at all. We don't really appeal to that at all.

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We just look at the law of Christ, whatever that means. And we've got cowardice in the pulpit, cowardice in the pews.

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We have privatized the Christian faith and ecclesiastetized the

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Bible itself. It's a hard word to say. Joe Boot made that up, right? And it's true. We privatized the

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Christian faith, and it's for my little heart and between my little ears and behind my little eyes.

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And we've ecclesiastetized the Bible to the degree that it's a church book and it has nothing to say to the world. And so with that, men like this capitalize on the unbiblical perspective of the law, the unbiblical perspective of God's standards of justice.

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And we have this fictional portrayal of a Jesus that sort of stands alone, disconnected from biblical history and biblical law.

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And then, of course, you know, okay, look, one way to identify it is many of you guys may have seen my radio debate discussion with Andy Stanley years ago.

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And that was a tough debate to do because I think I had to be on with him at like 4 a .m.

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our time because it was London where Justin Briley was. And so, you know, Stanley had an advantage, and he got a little more sleep than me.

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But so it was kind of just a weird time to do the debate and discussion. But you guys remember the discussion and debate.

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It focused upon Andy Stanley arguing and teaching and preaching and I think writing on the—he did write on the issue—that we need to unhitch the

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Christian faith from the Old Testament. And he was talking about the law of God is not abiding and relevant, and it's irrelevant to us today.

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It's not necessary for us to appeal to or obey that law. We're under a different law under the New Covenants. And, you know, of course, all of us were troubled then of like, we know exactly where this is going to lead.

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And now you see exactly where it's led with Andy Stanley and the whole discussion of homosexuality and gay couples and all the rest.

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And so this is a really important discussion to have. I'm just trying to lay a foundation here for you. And I read

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Matthew 5, 17 -19 at the beginning of the episode. That's Jesus' perspective of the law. Do not even begin to think that I've come to abolish the law of the prophets.

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I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. It's going to be an important part of responding to some of this nonsense.

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What's amazing, real quick, is I never caught this, honestly, until today when you were reading it. Jesus doesn't even say in like, if you don't teach anything.

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I love that he says, whoever relaxes. And I looked up that word. I was like, I wonder what that is in Greek.

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Loose, untie, or release. Untie. One might say unhitch.

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I never caught that until just while you're reading it. And I was like, huh. That's good. What do you know? Yeah. And the strength of the statement is more in the

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Greek. It says in verse 17 of chapter 5 of Matthew, it says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law of the prophets.

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It's in the Greek, it's me namasete. And it's don't even begin to think. Don't let it enter into your mind.

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So he doesn't say to the people there, he doesn't say stop thinking. He says, don't even start.

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Don't let it enter your mind. Don't even begin to entertain the thought that I've come to abolish the law of the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.

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So that's Jesus' perspective of the law. And that's going to be important here as we move through this.

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So here we go. MSNBC. I would love to leave behind right -wing fundamentalists and Christian nationalists who use

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Jesus, whose birth we celebrate, as a prop while legislating and fighting against his actual teachings.

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There's a lot of right -wing brothers and sisters in this country who identify as Christian and they care about the manger and the crucifix and they ignore the 30 years of teaching.

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Well, actually, three years of teaching he did in between. Jesus is not an ally of the

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Republican Party. There is no overlap between Jesus and the policies of Donald Trump. In South Carolina, they tried to have a bill this year calling for the death penalty for abortion.

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We're so pro -life, we'll kill you. That's where we're at right now. That's Stephen Wright. I would kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

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Seeing the Pope this week enraged these right -wing Christians so much because he acted like Jesus in blessing gay unions.

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Jesus is not anti -immigrant. He commands people to welcome the stranger. He never mentions abortion. The Bible never condemns abortion.

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We've had two generations of Christians in this country who have been groomed to believe criminalizing abortion is something to do with what

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Jesus talked about. Christ was a peaceful, radical, nonviolent revolutionary. Never mentioned gay people.

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He commanded you to pay your taxes, to welcome the stranger. Individuals and nations must care for the poor and sick in Matthew 25.

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He who lives by the sword must die by the sword, Luke 22. There's a reason why these right -wingers never try to put the

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Sermon on the Mount on walls in classrooms. Thank God somebody read the Bible. Wow, just before Jesus's birthday, you're delivering.

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Listen, I'm the child of a next son and a next Franciscan. And if you want to criminalize abortion and put people in jail because you're so Christian when

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Jesus never mentioned abortion, but you support the death penalty, which Christ actually opposed, the rest of us, a lot of men wrote the books, but if you support those things, then the rest of us aren't obliged to take your claims of Christian piety seriously anymore.

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And the media is to blame because the media loves a bad guy and has made the Falwells and the Robertsons pass for what

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Christianity is for a generation. It's time to take the Bible back from the hypocrites and thugs.

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This is just like a big old steamy pot of gumbo of just false statements and little comments and indefensible comments.

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Clearly men wrote that one. Unjustified. Come on. Yeah. So I wanted to play the whole thing.

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It's not very long. I want to play the whole thing for us. And then let's go back and let's unpack parts and pieces of it.

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It's important for us to know our Bibles. It's important for us to know the Word of God. It's important for us to know the law of God and to come against...

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I mean, this guy is not like top shelf contender, you know, sort of thing. He's, you know, I wouldn't put him, you know, very far above, you know, bottom shelf stuff.

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But, you know, he makes a lot of wild claims. Here's the question to challenge you with. Could you defend the biblical message and Jesus' teaching against a guy who says things like that?

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Are you looking for the unfounded or unjustified claims that he's making? He just goes through them so quickly.

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Are you able to respond to the major elements of his claims about Jesus and his teachings?

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And do you have a coherent enough worldview and system? And do you understand the

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Word of God and the law of God well enough to be able to actually say, no, actually you're incorrect because Exodus and Leviticus and Matthew and Romans or Acts 25 all say this.

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Would you be able to defend yourself live on MSNBC with a guy like that? And I'm not saying all of us need to be like the expert philosopher or apologist.

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I'm not saying that. I'm saying all of us need to be ready. 1 Peter 3 15, you know, the charter verse of Christian apologetics, the verse about setting

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Christ apart as Lord, as holy, and to always be ready to give a reasoned offense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that's within you.

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Yeah, do it with gentleness and reverence. Are you ready to respond to things like that? Because, you know, this is the wave coming against the

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Christian faith. They think, these leftists, these liberals, these godless unbelievers, they think that they understand.

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They think that they have a system that answers all these problems, when in fact they don't. They don't.

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It's all arbitrary. It's all subjective. It all changes over time. They use words like justice and social justice, but with no real grounding or foundation underneath that.

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And we need to have an answer. And what I said at the beginning, I'll circle back to it. The challenge that we are facing today is so many evangelicals in the

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West today have no right understanding of the law of God and culture and society, no understanding of the law of God and his standards of justice.

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What does God say about this crime or that crime? And we've disconnected the new covenant itself from all the blessings of all the covenants that go before it.

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I mean, that's not Paul's perspective in Ephesians, when he talks about Jews and Gentiles now together in one body.

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He says the Gentiles were once far off and they were strangers, aliens to God's covenants and his promises.

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He says, but in Christ, now you've been brought near to the covenants, plural of the promise, which means if we've been brought near to those covenants, we actually receive the benefits and the blessings of those covenants.

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And one of those blessings and benefits is, according to Moses, Deuteronomy 4, that God gave this law to the people of God so much.

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It was so much of a blessing that it was supposed to be something that the unbelieving world looked in at and said, wow, look at this justice.

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Look at this justice. Look at this nation that has a God so near to them. And look at this righteousness and this justice.

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The law of God is supposed to be light to the world, to bless the world with justice and righteousness and all the rest.

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But we've just abandoned that today in the Christian faith and evangelicalism. We don't see the law of God as even abiding or relevant necessary to appeal to any longer.

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And along comes Loki. I was thinking the same thing.

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I thought the exact same thing, but I wasn't going to say it. Loki justice. The old man

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Loki. Yeah. He's aged a little. He's from the new series coming out. It's called Left Men.

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Left Men. Anyway. The Anti -Avenger. You know, you've got the whole pagan

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God thing in Marvel, and you've got the whole pagan guy thing here, Left Men. Anyway.

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So, look, let's do it this way because I want to make sure we get to as much scripture as I possibly can.

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Let's leap right into going backwards and responding piece by piece. Some of the stuff he says, we're going to agree with, actually.

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In the first few seconds here, you'll see. I would love to leave behind right -wing fundamentalists and Christian nationalists who use

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Jesus, whose birth we celebrate, as a prop while legislating and fighting against his actual teachings.

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Agreed. But I don't mean it in the way that you mean it.

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Right -wing conservative Republican legislators or talking heads that appeal to Jesus and they actually oppose the teachings of Jesus in terms of legislation or justice and culture and society and all the rest.

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See, I would agree with that. Now, he thinks that he's just broadly putting everybody into the category of these

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Christians in the West that, you know, prop Jesus up, but they just deny his teachings. Well, he means that Jesus supported gay mirage, that Jesus supports abortion and, you know, homosexual unions, and that's what he means.

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And Jesus opposed the death penalty. I mean, Jesus actually willingly let his life down for sins.

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And I mean, there's so much. But what he wants to deny is, like, biblical revelation and just create a

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Jesus of his own liking. But I agree. I agree. And look, if there's something that Luke and I have learned, we've learned a lot over almost going on 15 years of a church plant, and then before that, years before that.

28:15

We've learned a lot. We've learned a lot. And one of the things that has been, let's just say, really challenging for us to work through in the last couple of years, as we've been trying to testify the gospel and the word of God to, like, legislators across the country, is, you know, being around legislators across the country that profess to be

28:36

Christian and profess to believe the word of God and to stand in the word of God. It is frustrating. And I agree with the sentiment, not in the way he says it.

28:45

These people who would prop the Bible up and Jesus up, but actually they oppose his teachings.

28:51

They don't actually believe what Jesus believed or the law taught about certain things. They don't really support the message of the

28:57

Christian worldview. You know, Jesus is sort of a placeholder for them on their voting ballot.

29:04

Like, you know, I'm the Christian guy, vote for me. But they don't actually even have a coherent biblical worldview to understand, well, what does the law of God say regarding this?

29:13

If we're going to talk about justice, like, well, what does the word of God say? That's my standard. It's God's standards are the standards of what is just and right in society.

29:21

So I agree with the sentiment. People that prop up Jesus, it's a

29:28

Christian facade. It's like, you know, I've got the message of Jesus written all over me, but behind all that, I don't really,

29:34

I'm not committed to any of this stuff. I don't really believe that Jesus has authority and lordship in the legislature.

29:39

I don't believe that I can bring my Christian faith into that arena and press the crown rights of Jesus Christ there.

29:46

And so, yeah, we've been challenged by that. Yeah. Just two quick points. One, we actually saw this originally just to make the point you were making a second ago from,

29:56

I think it was a new evangelicals or something, right? Yeah. On TikTok. Yeah. On TikTok, which if you're calling yourself an evangelical and you're on TikTok, you're probably, that's another conversation.

30:07

He's like, he's like drinking his coffee. He's like, no, no. And then like plays the video and we're like, yeah,

30:12

I should have used notes. Should have used notes. But that's the point. It's like these, there's like these Christians that are like, yeah, this guy knows what he's talking about.

30:19

But the second thing was we've talked, we did talk about this a bunch and we did the Christian nationals shows at the end of the year.

30:26

But as you can see, anyone that says that gay mirage is wrong or opposes abortion, anyone that supports

30:35

Donald Trump, like he basically just defines like you're a Christian nationalist. He throws everyone into that camp.

30:41

And that's, that's the language that the left is now trying to use. And so that's why some Christians are saying they're like allergic to the term because they're like, uh,

30:49

I'm not a Christian nationalist. So if, if basically what he's saying is if you're an Orthodox Christian and you hold the scriptures, then you're a

30:57

Christian nationalist. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I look, I'm going to go ahead and you know, if you're going to be just and use equal, equal weights and equal stones, then you have to be willing to acknowledge certain things where this guy says our problems.

31:11

And again, I don't mean it in the way he means it, but like when we went to DC years ago, I can't even believe someone reminded me that like COVID was four years ago and we're still talking about it today, but, but I, but it was, it was a

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January 6th, 2020 when we were there at DC to, to report from the ground.

31:33

And we also wanted to tell people all about all the stuff we're doing for here. And that's kind of, we wanted to be there as a Christian witness there, but also tell everyone what was going on.

31:40

And, uh, but one of the things that was frustrating guys, it was frustrating and it just seemed like so much filthy idolatry was,

31:49

I mean, there were so many people there. It was insane. Our streaming stuff and our phones wouldn't work.

31:55

Um, now people would, because people said conspiracy, like they purposely, you know, shut down, um, the towers there and made it difficult for traffic.

32:03

So people couldn't communicate live stream and everything else. But there was no using your phone at all. Um, it was just no chance.

32:11

We were a little nervous over here. Did I ever tell you that? No, because we like couldn't get ahold of you guys. Cause we're watching live and then like all this stuff's going down and you know, like riots allegedly and like, and then like, we couldn't get ahold of any of you guys.

32:23

And we were like, um, are you guys, it was crazy. It was seriously crazy.

32:28

But okay. So the part that was actually, it got a little intense and scary was there were so many people there at the beginning white house lawn facing white house lawn that it was like shoulder to shoulder and people were getting kind of aggressive cause you couldn't move.

32:42

You could barely breathe out there cause it was just so tight and there's so many people packed in. It was very dangerous to be honest with you to have that many people so close with like not a lot of organization.

32:50

But the frustrating thing was the idolatrous nature of so much of the stuff out there.

32:57

The signs like, like equating Trump to Jesus, Trump as savior,

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Trump as Messiah for America kind of a thing. You had all these pictures that were conflating like Donald Trump and Jesus Christ.

33:12

And it was so much just filthy idolatry. It was, it was abhorrent.

33:18

And, um, but yeah, like when we were able to make it out of there, we had to run back to the hotel to grab something.

33:24

And like, uh, it was just a couple minutes away from the Capitol. We were coming back and we were, we were about five minutes away from the

33:32

Capitol when we just started hearing boom, boom, boom, like the earth shaking kind of stuff.

33:37

We're like, what is going on? Is there like an attack or something? And it was actually the police, uh, uh,

33:44

I don't know, doing whatever they're doing with bombs, pepper bombs or whatever. Like boom, boom, boom. And, um, so when we showed up, like we, we, we come up and we're in the parking lots away from the

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Capitol and people are like pouring water in their eyes and everything else. And we stayed back and we confront, we condemn the whole thing.

33:59

Like, that's not how you do it. But anyway, it was so idolatrous and I absolutely hated it.

34:06

If it made my stomach turn, because listen, these people that are holding up these like conflated images of like Donald Trump and Jesus Christ, these people profess faith in Jesus.

34:17

And it's gross. It's seriously gross. It's offensive to God. It should be offensive to us.

34:23

It's gross. Like, you know, I hate, I hated the, and I feel it like I feel what this guy feels in the terms of like the, the woman with the

34:31

American flag jumpsuit and, uh, you know, the blonde hair, the, the bright red lipstick and like the, the, the, the, you know, make

34:40

America great again hat. And she's, she's talking more about Trump than she is about Jesus. But like she, you know, she professes to be

34:47

Christian. It's look, it's gross. It's, it's gross to, to conflate

34:52

Trump and Jesus. It's gross to profess faith in Jesus, but not to actually follow his teachings, right?

34:58

Not to stand for his teachings. Now, again, I don't mean what he means. He means he wants the leftist

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Jesus. He wants the Marxist Jesus, the social justice, Jesus. He wants all of that. He wants the Jesus disconnected from history and scripture, but I get it.

35:13

I completely get it. There's a lot of right -wing brothers and sisters in this country who identify as Christian and they care about the manger and the crucifix and they ignore the 30 years of teaching.

35:25

33. Well, actually three years of teaching. He did. Actually, it's a three and a half years, but we're not going to quibble.

35:32

I like how the one guy's like, no, it's 33, you jerk. Oh, actually it's three. Actually it's three and a half.

35:37

But who's quibbling? I actually would want to quibble over that because if you read Daniel chapter nine, Jesus's ministry is supposed to be three and a half years.

35:46

So, you know, it's just, it's one of those things. We're going to be in between. Jesus is not an ally of the

35:54

Republican party. There is no overlap. Again, you know,

36:00

I don't mean what he means in this respect, but I think in principle, there's something to be said here from our perspective.

36:12

When you look at the Republican party today, so many profess faith in Jesus, but they live in a cowardly way.

36:20

They won't stand on the word of God. They won't appeal to the lordship of Christ or the word of God as the standard for the decisions that they're making.

36:31

There is so much compromise in the Republican party. People will say like, you know,

36:36

Rhino, like Republican in name only kind of thing. Could we call it like a Chino, like Christian in name only?

36:43

I don't know. That's the problem. The beef that I have is I don't have any affinity to it. Sorry.

36:52

Guys, I told you I'm going on no sleep. So you're going to get like punchy Jeff over the next few months until the twins start sleeping through the night.

37:01

I was up last night late feeding babies. Um, look, I don't have any affinity or devotion to the

37:09

Republican party and Christians need to knock that off. That's not supposed to be our ultimate team, right?

37:17

Like if you've got a Republican party candidate, that's just a solid believer, is uncompromised, stands on the word of God, and that's his party.

37:23

Great. That's your guy. And like, you can support him. You can pray for him and bless him and do whatever you want to do. But like my commitment,

37:29

I think our commitment shouldn't be to the Republican party. It should be to the principles of the word of God.

37:36

It should be to Jesus. Our allegiance should be first and foremost to Jesus. Look, I don't care like what party you say you're a part of.

37:43

Like I want to see, do you stand for Christ? Are you pressing the crown rights of Jesus Christ? You're standing for the word of God and his law and his statutes and justice.

37:50

That's what I care about. And of course, this guy's saying, you know, he's got nothing to do with the Republican party.

37:55

I'd say, you know, in many respects, I totally would agree with you. What you see guys doing today, they're a part of the Republican party, how they reason their standard of authority is not

38:05

Christian. It's not historically Christian. It's not biblical. And so, yeah, I'd say Jesus is, they're not in Jesus team there.

38:11

But of course, again, that's not what he means. But in principle, I get it. I totally get it.

38:17

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38:27

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38:59

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39:05

If CBS ever comes to your door, you can just say, talk to my lawyer, and you don't have to deal with them. Talk to my lawyer. Talk to my lawyer.

39:11

Saul Goodman. Saul Goodman. Oh, man, what if he was real? Yeah. We were just saying today, we know someone that could use you.

39:18

Yeah, he's the lawyer you'd want. What you want is a criminal lawyer. Sorry.

39:24

Sorry, guys. I told you I'm going to be punchy. No sleep. This is Jeff with no sleep. My sense of humor gets elevated when

39:31

I'm exhausted. Yeah, it's true. And then let's save that one. Can we save that one for just a minute?

39:36

Oh, sure. I can save it, yeah. Just a minute. Absolutely. I might have you do that one on my bathroom break. Sorry. Done. All right.

39:42

We'll schedule it. All right. So let's keep going now. Now we're going to get into actually responding to some actual claims that this man is making.

39:49

The claims. Here we go. Between Jesus and the policies of Donald Trump in South Carolina, they tried to have a bill this year calling for the death penalty for abortion.

39:58

We know about that bill. Hey, praise God. Very familiar. Praise God for your work with us, with End Abortion Now, and all the people that we're working with that helped with that bill in South Carolina.

40:10

And he's actually misrepresenting. The bill is just a bill of equal protection.

40:15

And all it does is it provides equality for all humans in the state of South Carolina. So much for social justice, right?

40:23

Here's a bill in South Carolina that would have simply said, you're human from fertilization, and all humans in South Carolina deserve to be equally protected.

40:31

You opposed to that? Man, I thought Jesus taught us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

40:38

Isn't that what Jesus actually taught? Love your neighbor as you love yourself. And that's what the bill in South Carolina was.

40:45

It was the bill to love your neighbor as you love yourself. It was equal protection for all humans from fertilization.

40:51

Now, of course, if you unjustly take the life of a human being, different states have different laws right now.

40:57

Of course, I believe we need to get back to the law of the word of God in terms of what it's just if there is someone who actually unjustifiably kills somebody.

41:03

However, it's not the case that in this union, if a bill of equal protection goes in to a state where there is no capital punishment, it is not the case that they would get capital punishment.

41:13

They would just go into their homicide code. And that's all the bill did in South Carolina is it just simply said, equal protection from fertilization, all humans, equal ground, equally protected.

41:25

Now, that goes right into the homicide code. So there's going to be differing degrees, as is the case with all homicides and different categories of punishments and all the rest for particular states.

41:37

But this man really has a problem with the fact that there was a bill in South Carolina. And again, thank you all for your work together with us to make that possible, where people would get the death penalty for abortion.

41:49

Well, you know, that just brings up the question, like, should we protect the life of all humans equally?

41:57

And what should the penalty be if somebody takes a life of another human being in an unjustified manner? Should we just make it up?

42:03

Should it sort of be whimsical and olly olly oxen free? What do you think? What do you think? And changing, shifting standards over time?

42:10

Like, what should the actual just penalty be for murder? Or in particular, if a mother murders her child, what should we do?

42:19

Well, we need to go to the scriptures to find that out. But, Moore? I'll go ahead and say it now. I don't know if I should say it now or after the next thing he says.

42:26

But like, this point is maddening to me at a number of levels. One, because of what you just mentioned.

42:38

Two, because... Two. Two. Because he's gonna say, well,

42:44

Jesus didn't support the death penalty. But he's mad that we're trying to stop the murder of people and neighbors.

42:51

And it's like, but Jesus is okay with that. He's okay with that form of murder, but not the death penalty.

42:58

I'm so glad you caught that. We'll just go ahead and talk about that now. It makes me want to punch something really hard.

43:03

These leftists... Punch the precept. These leftists will constantly argue against the death penalty, right?

43:10

And they're arguing against that. You want people to die for murdering their children in the womb. And it's like, okay, hold on now.

43:17

I believe rapists and kidnappers and enslavers and murderers deserve capital punishment.

43:23

I believe it because the word of God says that. But you believe, sir, you believe that the child deserves the death penalty.

43:31

Right. That's exactly the point. Everybody misses that in the conversation. He tries to make the Christian feel so bad that you guys want the death penalty for murder.

43:39

And he's like, but we should have abortion. And we should kill the most innocent defenseless among us. It's like, bro, you are not standing on solid ground.

43:47

You don't have the high ground. You're below the ground. You're in the grave. You are dead.

43:52

You are not in the high ground in this. And that needs to be called down. Like Pastor Luke said, every time it happens is you call it down.

44:01

You say you believe in the death penalty for innocent pre -born human beings. I believe in the death penalty for those who would go so far as to degrade what it means to be human and take the life of another human being who is innocent.

44:17

I think Jesus has the high ground here. He really, really truly does. We're so pro -life, we'll kill you.

44:25

That's where we're at right now. I can't. This rhetoric is, but you know, hey, it's effective.

44:34

It's effective for a non -thinking society. A society that hasn't been taught to think and can't think in categories and just wants to appeal to emotion.

44:43

It's like, you know, it's low key, good argumentation. Did you say low key on purpose?

44:49

Oh, I wasn't sure if you did. That was well done. Yeah. Thank you. But yeah, I mean, again, you can even get into the difference between kill and murder if you want.

44:56

Well, let's do it real fast. We're so pro -life that we'll kill you.

45:02

Okay, listen, the pro -life establishment and the pro -life industry, we are not with.

45:07

They are inconsistent. They are unchristian. They are compromised. They believe that, and this is the fact, if you guys haven't seen it yet, please, please, please see and share the

45:18

Fatal Flaw mini documentary we dropped right after Thanksgiving. It's right here on this channel, the Fatal Flaw. Go watch it.

45:23

The pro -life industry believes that women who take the life of their child in the womb in an unjustified manner, they believe that they are not guilty.

45:33

They are equally victims with their children, and they should never, ever see criminal penalties for murdering their child in the womb.

45:39

So they want immunity for women to kill their children in the womb, and they want them to be able to do it with impunity, without punishment.

45:47

Now, if you think I'm telling tales out of the schoolyard, you need to go watch the Fatal Flaw.

45:53

What I'm saying to you is fact. They say it with their own mouths. They are proud of it. They put it in legislation.

45:59

And if you're shocked as a Christian hearing that, that the pro -life establishment believes that and does that, then you need to get on board with the

46:07

Christians across this nation who are working to effectively preach the gospel in the midst of this Holocaust. But the pro -life establishment,

46:18

I'm not going to defend. But the idea of for life, like they're so pro -life they'll kill you.

46:26

Well, let's just, let's be honest. What you're talking about is the Christian worldview, where Christians will say you can't kill the babies, but you can definitely kill the murderer.

46:35

Well, I wonder if the Bible talks about that. Let's go to it. In Exodus chapter 20, anyone know what's famous about Exodus 20?

46:45

Exodus 20 is the Ten Commandments, right? In Exodus 20, in verse 13, it says, you shall not murder.

46:53

Now the word there is ratzak. It's a Hebrew word. And the semantic domain of the word has to do with murder.

47:00

So some translations today will say like, you should not kill. But the semantic domain of the word talks about unjustified taking of human life.

47:07

You shall not murder. Now, this guy's like, you're so pro -life that they'll kill you. Well, that's because the biblical worldview recognizes the distinction between innocent human life and somebody who's a murderer who is actually guilty.

47:18

You protect and preserve innocent human life, but you prosecute and you convict and you punish the murderer.

47:28

And it's in the very same text. So the preservation of human life is throughout the scriptures, but the text says, you shall not murder.

47:36

But then check this out. As you go over to the next chapter in chapter 21, verse 12, so it's one chapter later.

47:45

We call it chapters, but it was just a running narrative and dialogue. In 21 -12, it says, whoever strikes a man so that he dies, shall be put to death.

47:54

Okay, so is there contradiction in the word of God there? Or is there two categories? The word of God, the law of God, these are the very words of God.

48:01

All scripture is theanoustos. It is breathed out by God. That's what Paul says. Inspired apostle. He says in,

48:09

Moses says in the law, he says, you shall not kill. You should not murder. And then a chapter later, it says, whoever strikes a man so that he dies shall be put to death.

48:17

It says, verse 14, but if a man willfully attacks another to kill him by cunning, you shall take him from the altar that he may die.

48:26

Whoever strikes his father or his mother shall be put to death. Whoever steals a man and sells him and anyone found in possession of him shall be put to death.

48:34

I wonder, I wonder what this gentleman would say about that verse in 2116 of Exodus.

48:44

It says that man stealing and enslaving somebody.

48:50

Kidnapping somebody, enslaving them, selling them is something that's worthy of the death penalty. I wonder if he likes that.

48:56

I bet he does. I wonder if he would have liked that, which the, of course, abolitionists during the time of slavery, the

49:02

Christian abolitionists were saying to the culture at large is like, look, if we're Christians, God says what these people are engaging in, in kidnapping and enslaving people is death penalty.

49:12

These people deserve, according to God, God's standards of justice, they deserve to die for what they're doing. This is an abomination. I wonder how he feels about that.

49:19

But the point is this, is they're so pro -life, they'll kill you. Because we can think in categories. We are for the preservation and the protection of human life, innocent human life.

49:29

But this is a fallen world, and God has clearly spoken about if you are guilty of unjustified taking of life, if you're guilty of rape, if you are guilty of kidnapping and enslaving, you deserve the death penalty.

49:42

Now, these are the words of God. I wonder if this man believes these are the words of God. See, that's a real question to press on a guy like this when he wants to pontificate on the air and act like he knows what he's talking about, and the

49:52

Bible this, and the Bible that, and Jesus, and all this stuff. I wonder if you just ask the man, are these the very words of God?

50:00

Did God speak this? Because God says you should not murder, and then he says, actually, if somebody does murder, you take their life.

50:06

Don't kill someone, but if they do, kill them. That's what scripture says. He claims to be Catholic at the end, right? I think he says he was raised by a nun and a

50:13

Franciscan, I think he said. I think it'd be interesting to sit in front of this man and to ask him that question.

50:21

Do you believe these are the very words of God that we must obey? Because God says somebody takes life unjustly, the just penalty is a death penalty.

50:29

And by the way, can I just go ahead and add this to the mix? Jesus took the death penalty for who?

50:38

Sinners. So apparently God believes the death penalty is necessary for ultimate violations of his law.

50:44

For true justice. Because Jesus, this peaceful, nonviolent revolutionary that you speak of, he's the one that died on a cross because God laid on him the iniquity of us all,

50:56

Isaiah 53. So apparently God does believe in the death penalty and that it's actually owed to us.

51:02

The wages of sin is death. And Jesus takes death on the cross for sinners. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

51:10

The Father gives to Jesus our guilt and our shame. We get his righteousness, but he goes to that cross to take a death. We deserve to die.

51:17

So apparently God, the God of the Bible, does believe in the death penalty because he gave it to Jesus for me. And Acts 25, post -cross, post -resurrection, post -ascension, it's important to say that because this is new covenant fully enforced now.

51:31

The message of Jesus is out and about now. It is going around the world. Jesus is on his throne. The Apostle Paul says in Acts 25, a fairly reliable source, he says that if he's done anything worthy of death, he doesn't object to dying.

51:45

Now he says that in trial. He says that when he's facing charges. He says, if I've done anything worthy of dying, then I don't object to dying.

51:52

So apparently the Apostle Paul, who actually knows the law very, very well, trained under Gamaliel, as to the law of Pharisee, all that stuff, he knows the law of God.

52:01

And he says, look, if I've done something deserving or worthy of death, I don't object to dying. So according to the Apostle Paul, a more reliable source than this gentleman coming 2 ,000 years later, he says there are things that are worthy of death in a court context.

52:16

And he says, and if it's the case that I've done something like that, he says, then I don't object to dying because that's the just and the righteous thing that should happen.

52:23

This man can't think in categories. Well, and tell me who has the higher view of life here, right?

52:29

So we're saying you murder someone in the womb. You deserve to die. You rape someone. You deserve to die.

52:35

You kidnap someone. Go down the list. You deserve to die. He's saying, oh, if you murder a baby in the womb, that's a good thing.

52:43

If you rape someone, you murder someone, we're just going to throw you in jail. You don't deserve to die.

52:49

You don't deserve to die, but we're going to make you live like an animal in the cage the rest of your life. And the taxpayers have to pay for it.

52:54

And there's no real justice. Everyone gets punished for his crime. So who has the higher view of life here? I'd say it's Jesus.

53:00

I would say it's Scrooge. Yeah, I'd agree with you on that. That's Stephen Wright. I would kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

53:05

Sing the Pope this week. What an awful joke, by the way. What an awful joke.

53:12

I missed it. He just gets done talking about pro -life. Where's our pro -life? We're going to kill you. And they're talking about the death penalty and all that.

53:18

And then he goes, I would kill for a Nobel Peace Prize. Of all the time to make that joke, bro, that's not the appropriate time.

53:26

Brother, read the room. Read the room, bro. Here we go.

53:32

Christian so much because he acted like Jesus in blessing gay unions. What? This is interesting.

53:39

This keeps getting better. It's very interesting. So let's talk about that for a minute. Yeah, by the way, we are, this is going to be, it's going to take us some time to get through because it's going to be a bit spotty in terms of it's not going to be one string because Pastor James is doing a lot of work.

53:53

We're doing a lot of work. And so there'll be times where we have to skip weekends. But Pastor James, Dr. James White and I are doing a series on Roman Catholicism.

54:01

It starts this Sunday at Apologia Church. And it's going to be sort of weaving from that series back to Proverbs, you know, depending on timing.

54:09

So we'll be kind of doing two series at Apologia over the next year simultaneously. And we're doing a

54:16

Roman Catholicism. But we do, of course, need to talk about the fact that the Pope was involved in this whole controversy of blessing these same -sex unions and all the rest.

54:25

And he's like, yeah, and people are vilifying the Pope because he did what Jesus would do in blessing gay unions. And it's like, what?

54:32

Just throw it out there. What? When would Jesus have blessed gay unions?

54:40

I read at the beginning of the program today, Jesus' perspective of the law of God, and that's in the

54:46

Sermon on the Mount. That's going to be an important thing in a moment you're going to hear. Jesus says in Matthew 5, 17 through 19, don't even begin to think that I've come to destroy the law of the prophets.

54:54

It did not come to destroy them, but to fulfill them. And so his view of the law is don't think I came to abolish it.

55:00

So what was Jesus' view of the law of God? He upholds it. He says, if you relax even the least, if you teach people, you'll be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

55:08

But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Teaches what? Does what? The known law.

55:16

The known law. And Jesus says, I didn't come to abolish it, but to fulfill it. And isn't it interesting that throughout the

55:22

New Testament, you see the apostles just assuming the abiding validity of the law of God throughout the

55:28

New Testament. They just assume it. They just, you know, animal husbandry law. Don't muzzle the ox while it treads the grain. Animal husbandry, that applies under the

55:35

New Covenant. Don't receive an accusation against an elder unless it's in the base of two to three witnesses. Where's that from?

55:42

God's judicial standards. You should love your neighbor as you love yourself. That's from Leviticus. Children, obey your parents and the

55:49

Lord, Ephesians chapter 5. That's the Ten Commandments. All this taking place post -cross, post -resurrection, post -ascension.

55:55

Just the assumption of continuity. So the perspective of Jesus and the apostles is that the law of God is abiding and relevant today, which would mean that Jesus would never, ever, ever, if he did, he'd be a false

56:06

Messiah. He would never, ever, ever relax the law or teach people to disobey the law, which means that Jesus would not violate what

56:14

God already said about same -sex unions. And that is, God says, toevah, toevah, abomination.

56:24

And so actually, Jesus did speak on the issue of homosexuality. He did. He did. By actually upholding the

56:32

Mosaic standards in God's law. He upheld the law, word of God. And so would Jesus bless same -sex unions?

56:40

There's no such thing. There's no such thing according to the law of God. In Matthew chapter 19,

56:46

Jesus gives you his perspective of marriage, where Jesus is being challenged. They're essentially asking

56:53

Jesus to throw his hat in the ring on the controversy that was happening in that day.

56:58

And it was the controversy between two schools of thought about marriage. And it was Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai.

57:04

And there was the Hillelite marriage controversy versus the Shammai marriage controversy. The Hillelite marriage controversy had so relaxed the law of God, it said, look, there's like biblical standards for divorce.

57:18

Like the Hillelites would have said that. Like God gives you a means to get a justifiable divorce.

57:25

God hates divorce, but we live in a fallen world. And it is true that Mosaic legislation provided for a divorce.

57:32

You had to have a certificate of divorce. And so what the Hillelites did is they said, okay, so any cause. As long as you give a certificate of divorce, they manipulated the whole situation and said, as long as there's a cause and it's not just for no reason, then certificate of divorce and any cause divorces.

57:50

So they asked Jesus there to throw your hat in the ring on this controversy. Jesus, where are you at? Is it lawful for someone to divorce his wife for any cause?

58:00

Matthew 19. And so Jesus responds. And it's clear in Jesus' response to the question that Jesus holds to the conservative school and the school that says it must be a biblically justifiable divorce.

58:16

And in doing so, in responding to the Hillelite marriage controversy of any cause divorces,

58:21

Jesus appeals to the scriptures and he says, have you not read that from the beginning,

58:27

God made them male and female? So according to Jesus, he holds to Genesis as a literal historical narrative.

58:36

And he says, from the beginning, he made them male and female. So apparently Jesus doesn't believe in this neo -Darwinian model of human history where we've evolved from bacteria to fish to where we're at today, from African apes to philosophers.

58:53

Jesus didn't hold to that because he said from the beginning, God made them male and female. And he says that they're to leave father and mother.

59:00

Wait, what is that? You've got a set of a mother, father, and you've got a male, female.

59:05

So you leave a mother, father set organization, society, and you make now a new world, a new culture, a new society, a new sphere.

59:17

And you have male and female becoming one flesh. So actually Jesus wouldn't bless same -sex unions because he held to the law of God.

59:24

Well, that's not even, that's not even a biblical term. There's no, like union, right?

59:32

So for anyone to go, God, Jesus would bless. That's not even, that's like a new, newly created term.

59:39

And like that doesn't, that didn't even exist. That wasn't a thing. Like it was marriage between a man and woman. This whole idea of like, well, there are same -sex unions.

59:47

Like that's no wrong. Yeah, that's right. Okay. There's more. There's so much more. Jesus is not anti -immigrant.

59:54

He commands people to welcome the stranger. He never mentions abortion. The Bible never. Ah, so much, so much.

01:00:00

He just says, you get one, you get one. Oppressing immigrants and strangers, we should never do.

01:00:08

Okay, let's, let's, let's do that. So abortion and immigrants and strangers, right? The Bible has a lot to say.

01:00:15

And isn't it amazing just the arbitrary nature of where this guy pulls from? He doesn't want to appeal to the law, word of God and God's judicial standards and mosaic legislation when it comes to the death penalty.

01:00:28

Dismiss, ignore, not relevant, right? I don't want to talk about those things. Like God's explicitly saying, like, he takes your life, kill him, right?

01:00:35

Judicially, not mob justice, but court case, cross -examination, you know, you get the penalty of, of that.

01:00:43

He doesn't want to see any of that. He certainly doesn't want to look at Leviticus 19. He doesn't want to look at, like, man should not lie with a man.

01:00:49

He said, I was with a woman. That's to evade, it's an abomination. He didn't want any of that. But what does he want? He wants to find out the, oh, the orphans, widows, strangers text from God's word.

01:00:59

Cause those, I look, the word there is stranger. That'll pull on their heartstrings.

01:01:04

These guys flooding across the border right here. These guys all pouring in with no commitment to this nation, no commitment to our law, no commitment to our history, no understanding, no covenant being made, just pour across and pop up and set up.

01:01:15

He's like, but they're strangers. You gotta love them. I'm like, yeah, you know, uphold their dignity. They're in the image of God, care for them, love them.

01:01:22

But the real question in that case, and this is not a Republican party thing. It's a biblical standard.

01:01:28

According to scripture, like cities had walls, cities had borders. Like you delineate, like, this is, this is my property.

01:01:35

This is my people. This is where we are. This is what we believe. Here's the word of God we stand on.

01:01:41

These are the standards of justice. If you think that under God's law, you were allowed to just mosey on into Israel and set up shop and start worshiping pagan gods on Israel's ground and not being in covenant with that nation and being willing to come underneath the laws of that nation.

01:01:56

If you think that was allowed and what was meant by like welcoming the stranger, you don't know your Bible. They did not believe that pagans were allowed to simply come in and start living according to their own laws and being laws unto themselves and not being in covenant with Israel and being willing to come underneath Israel's covering and under the law of Israel.

01:02:16

Yeah. Care for the widows, orphans, strangers. Amen. I love those verses.

01:02:21

That's the law word of God. That's what we're doing when we're trying to stop abortion, by the way, is caring for the fatherless children, those who have no protector, no provider above them.

01:02:31

That's actually why we're doing it. But when you think about this thing about strangers, isn't it amazing the arbitrary appeal to the law of God about strangers and talking about immigration?

01:02:41

And it's like, you like those verses, huh? What do you think about the verses about homosexuality and Toivah and unequal weights and measures and the death penalty and all those things?

01:02:49

How come you ignore those? You ignore them because it's convenient for you to ignore them because you want to create a Jesus of your own understanding.

01:02:56

You want another Jesus, another gospel, another spirit. That's the truth. But we move on.

01:03:04

It never condemns abortion. We've had... There's so much. It never condemns abortion.

01:03:10

Okay, well, that's interesting because you can't, on the one hand, appeal to scripture as authoritative when it comes to the stranger and then ignore the scriptures that are authoritative when it comes to life, human life, the image of God.

01:03:24

Where do we need to go? We go to Psalm 139. You can go to, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

01:03:31

God knits us together in a mother's womb. You can go to Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

01:03:36

That clearly speaks to the fact that God has a creative purpose in humanity and in people where he knows them before he forms them in the womb.

01:03:45

And it is God himself that forms human beings in the womb. The biblical worldview is that human beings are made in the imago dei, in the image of God.

01:03:55

And so we have value, we have dignity, we have worth because we're made in the image of the true and living

01:04:02

God. What separates humanity from all of the beasts of the field?

01:04:07

What separates humanity from the creatures in the sea? What separates humanity from the stars in the sky and the rocks and the mountains and all those things?

01:04:15

What separates humanity from all those other created things is that we are in the imago and we are in the imago dei from our mother's womb.

01:04:27

He knits us together in a mother's womb. That means that the creation of a human being is special interest by God.

01:04:33

He does this. He knits us together. He forms us in our mother's womb. And we, of course, must point out this man's ignorance.

01:04:43

When he talks about the Bible, doesn't talk about this. We have to point out the abject ignorance.

01:04:49

You know, we can go many places with this in terms of God's standards, judicial standards, equal weights and measures show no partiality and justice.

01:04:57

There's so many texts on that, we would just be here all day ad nauseum. But when you go to like Proverbs, equal justice, equal scales, no partiality, that should be enough.

01:05:08

Is what's in the womb human? Without question. Biblically, God forms us in our mother's womb. Scientifically, no question.

01:05:16

Biologically speaking, there is no doubt from the moment of fertilization. You are human from fertilization.

01:05:22

And so equal weights and measures. Don't use two stones. Don't have one stone for one, a different stone for another.

01:05:28

And don't show partiality and judgment. God calls that an abomination. That is something that God is opposed to.

01:05:34

But you also have examples. And again, we can do this for a long time, but Exodus 21, 22 through 25 is a good one.

01:05:42

Here's a case law example. Interesting. It says when men get in a fight and hit a pregnant woman so that her children are born prematurely, but there is no injury, the one who hit her must be fined as the woman's husband demands from him.

01:05:54

And he must pay according to judicial assessment. Okay, so we're talking about, you know, life wasn't ended.

01:06:03

Now it's going to be taken out a different route. If there is an injury, then you must give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, bruise for bruise, wound for wound.

01:06:15

What's that? That is equal justice. You must meet the crime with a punishment that is equal to it.

01:06:22

That's the point in terms of God's judicial standards. That avoids, by the way, what you've seen in history many times where it's like, hey, you know, you steal some bread, you lose your hand.

01:06:30

What? What? That's unjust. That's wrong. That destroys the world.

01:06:37

That is completely wrong. But what God says is it must be equal. So life for life, wound for wound, burn for burn, wound for—so that's

01:06:45

God's standard. So the point is, here's an example of case law in judicial legislation,

01:06:52

Mosaic legislation, Exodus 21, 22 through 25, where you've got a woman who, because of this fight that occurs, their children are born or the child is born prematurely.

01:07:04

If the child dies, it would be the death penalty. If you cause the death of another human being, you deserve to die.

01:07:12

So there is the word of God long before the time of Jesus upholding the value and dignity of human life there.

01:07:19

And so very important text to appeal to there. But we should move on.

01:07:28

Let me— Two generations of Christians in this country who have been groomed to believe criminalizing abortion is something to do with what

01:07:36

Jesus talked about. Yeah. Actually, Jesus talked about the kingdom of God.

01:07:44

Jesus talked—as a matter of fact, in Matthew's gospel, Matthew chapter 4, when

01:07:49

Jesus comes out of the trial and temptation in the wilderness, the first thing out of Jesus' mouth is, repent for the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is at hand.

01:07:58

The rule of God is at hand. And so, yes, Jesus has something to say as Lord, the one,

01:08:06

Matthew 28, 18 through 20, that has all authority in heaven and on earth. He has something to say in the area of morality, justice, and legislation.

01:08:15

Why? Because he's King of kings and Lord of lords, because Jesus is the one with all authority.

01:08:21

So does Jesus have something to say to people who would unjustly take the life of another human being?

01:08:27

Yes, he does. He certainly does. Because he has all authority, he's the one we have to look to in terms of, what does

01:08:33

God say about this? And so, yeah, God has a lot to say. We've already read a couple today of what

01:08:38

God says about the issue of unjust taking of human life. You deserve capital punishment. But the point is, is you cannot take innocent human life.

01:08:46

That's what the Bible teaches. And, of course, Romans chapter 13 very clearly says that the

01:08:51

God -ordained role of government is to be the servant of the true God. They must be

01:08:57

God's servants, and they are to wield the sword of justice and to punish the wrongdoers, the evildoers.

01:09:03

That's what God's word says. So does God, does Jesus have something to say about people who take innocent human life?

01:09:09

Yeah, he'll have something to say in eternity, in terms of lake of fire, and he has something to say today.

01:09:15

And I just want to just throw this out to whet your appetites. If you look at the scriptures, one of many, but Isaiah 42 says something clearly about the servant of the

01:09:25

Lord who's coming, who does care about justice in the earth. It says that he will not grow faint or weary until he's established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his

01:09:35

Torah. They wait for his law. So the one with all authority is going to establish justice in the earth, and he's not going to grow faint or weary until he's done so, and the coastlands are waiting for his

01:09:45

Torah. They're waiting for his law. That's a biblical perspective of the Messiah. That's a biblical perspective of Jesus. Something.

01:09:52

Oh, man, there's just... We got more. Yeah, keep going. I lost my thought there.

01:09:57

Christ was a peaceful, radical, nonviolent revolutionary, never mentioned gay people. He commanded you to pay your taxes.

01:10:04

Oh, I know what I was going to say. Before you get to that, sorry. I'm sure, I'm assuming from what this guy is saying,

01:10:10

I'm assuming if you said, asked him about the Great Commission, he'd be like, oh yeah, Great Commission, absolutely. And then of course, you know, there's so many lines of thinking and go, but you know, the question then is, well, what about where Christ said, teach all that I've commanded?

01:10:24

You know, so then he's going to say, of course, well, he didn't teach that in the New Testament, you know, and then it's like, well, then, well, is

01:10:31

Jesus God? Then that's, and that's just like, I'm saying that. So if someone encounters this kind of line of thinking, it's like, you just really got to press and get to the bottom of who's actually speaking here, because he might even disagree with some of the stuff that Paul said that you just brought up.

01:10:48

Oh yeah. Oh, for sure. Oh, I bet he would. Yeah. So it's just, it only matters when it's convenient, like you mentioned earlier, when it supports something that he wants.

01:10:58

Arbitrary commitments. Yeah, exactly. For sure. Let's hear this again. Never mentioned gay people. He commanded you to pay.

01:11:05

All right. So he was a peaceful, what'd he say? He a peaceful, non -violent revolutionary.

01:11:12

I'm not even going to deal with that right now, but he never mentions gay people. Well, you know, let me give you another one. Another thing that Jesus never explicitly mentions.

01:11:19

Jesus never explicitly mentions bestiality. Yep. Doesn't do it.

01:11:26

So is that permitted now? Because we're arguing now with an argument from silence.

01:11:32

No, Jesus actually went farther than in his own ministry, teaching about homosexuality and everything else.

01:11:41

He talks about sexual immorality. Jesus talks about how God designed the world with male and female and leaving father, mother.

01:11:48

He defines what marriage is, but he didn't mention bestiality. So does that mean that like, it's up for grabs now?

01:11:54

Like if you want to engage in that kind of sexual activity, you can do so? No. But what Jesus did do is uphold the law of God and say, do not even begin to think that I've come to abolish it.

01:12:04

I've come to fulfill it. And he actually taught that if you teach people to relax, even the least of these, you'll be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

01:12:11

And so that's what Jesus' view of the law is. So now I take the law and I say, what's the law say? This is

01:12:16

Jesus' perspective. His perspective is Moses' perspective. His perspective is the perspective of Leviticus that says you should not lie with a man as you do with a woman.

01:12:26

That's what scripture says. But let's go farther than that. The teaching ministry of Jesus is a three and a half year teaching ministry, but then we also have the outpouring of the

01:12:35

Holy Spirit and we have inspired apostles who gave us inspired revelation. And in that inspired revelation, we have

01:12:41

Romans one, where it says, everybody knows the true God. The problem is that we suppress the truth of God and unrighteousness.

01:12:47

We switch God for idols. And it says, therefore, God gave them over to what? To degrading passions, to degrading passions.

01:12:57

That's how scripture talks about what this man is talking about. Scripture calls them degrading passions, men with men and women with women, degrading passions.

01:13:08

They are perverting the creative purpose of God in their own lives because they don't want

01:13:14

God in their thinking. They don't want to think about Him. They don't want to know Him. And so God hands them over to do what they should never do, and they flip creation on its head.

01:13:24

And so does scripture talk about homosexuality? One hundred percent. It doesn't talk about gay mirage, because there is no such thing.

01:13:33

Pay your taxes to welcome a stranger. Individual. Okay. Pay your taxes.

01:13:39

Yeah. There's nothing in scripture opposed in any, to any degree to just taxation.

01:13:46

However, is there a degree of unjust taxation where it's coercion and it's theft? Yeah, that you can make a very strong argument for.

01:13:54

And all I would do today is just to point you to a very interesting section from 1 Samuel chapter eight.

01:13:59

I actually just preached on this. I'm reminded. I just did it this last Sunday. In 1 Samuel chapter eight, the people of Israel get punished, essentially, because they want, they're jealous of all the pagan nations around them, right?

01:14:11

They want to be like them. We want a king, like a physical king, like that guy that rules over us. We want a king like that.

01:14:17

And so this is offensive to God because God says, they're not opposing you. They're opposing me.

01:14:23

And I'm their king, but they want an earthly king. Okay. He gives them an earthly king as a punishment.

01:14:31

God has always been their king. And by the way, that's kind of one of the parts that's amazing with the heart of the gospel is this is where God becomes king over his people in the world.

01:14:40

He was always their king, but they were like, we're going to have a guy sitting right there in front of us. And it's like, God's your king.

01:14:45

But God actually says something in punishment to Israel. He says, look, here's what's going to happen. You're going to get this guy you want, and he's going to take your children to war.

01:14:53

And he is going to take a tenth of all your stuff. And what's interesting about that is it's a passage of judgment.

01:15:03

You're going to get what you want, and here's the punishment that's going to come from it. But one of the punishments is that the king is going to think with such audacity that he has a right to the tithe.

01:15:12

That's a punishment. According to 1 Samuel, it's a punishment from God when the governing authority thinks that he is worthy of 10 % of your income, 10 % of your stuff, that it will be a punishment from God if your government thinks that they're entitled to the tithe amount, 10%.

01:15:30

How much are we taxed today in this nation? I don't know. It seems to be a little higher than 10%.

01:15:37

And God calls that judgment. So if we want to keep Jesus' view of the law,

01:15:43

I think we need to ask the question of like, what did Jesus mean when he talked about paying taxes?

01:15:49

Yeah, Jesus wants the government to get funded. Jesus wants us to have just taxation. But is there such a thing as unjust taxation, or is it unlimited taxation?

01:15:58

And Jesus is like, that's fine. You can take all their stuff. That whole law about you should not steal, it doesn't matter when the government's doing it.

01:16:07

When the government does it, it's a good thing. Is that what Jesus would say? I don't think that's what Jesus would say.

01:16:12

I'm willing to bet he's one of these guys that's going to fight for lower tax rates for the poor and higher for the rich.

01:16:18

Yeah. Theft is not theft if it comes with a black robe and a fancy pen. Fools and nations must care for the poor and sick in Matthew 25.

01:16:27

He who lives by the sword must die by the sword, Luke 22. Oh, that's so bad.

01:16:35

That's so bad. Oh, that's bad. I hope you have an answer to that. And listen, if you don't have an answer to that, there is a sermon we did somewhere in the last couple of years,

01:16:46

Jesus, weapons and war, I think is the title of it.

01:16:52

If you look up my name on YouTube and just type in like, Jeff Durbin, Jesus, weapons, war, something like that.

01:16:59

It's a sermon I did where I really go through the scriptures and unpack what is the biblical perspective of self -defense and weapons.

01:17:06

And I hope that'll be a blessing to you because I also deal with this particular text here. Actually, I dealt with it when I went and finished with the

01:17:13

Matthew series as well. But let me, let's do this.

01:17:19

Are we way over time? We're way over time. Oh, goodness. I don't even know where we're at, to be honest. Let me do this.

01:17:25

Let me do this. Let me just point you to, those sermons will give you a larger explication of this point.

01:17:35

But isn't it interesting that he proof texts the passage from Luke that he proof texts the passage is those who live by the sword will die by the sword.

01:17:48

But he doesn't give any context of what was going on then. Why did

01:17:54

Jesus say that? Because isn't it interesting that Peter has a sword? Where'd he get the sword from?

01:18:01

I never asked that question. Peter has a sword. He found it laying there. Yeah. Peter has a sword.

01:18:09

And let me just, I had the verse pulled up here. Where'd I had it? This is, how did they even skip to this?

01:18:15

That's such a good point. Peter has a sword when he lops off this guy's ear and Jesus heals the ear.

01:18:21

Those who live by the sword will die by the sword, because that wasn't the point of that mission. They weren't supposed to be fighting this military battle against all these people.

01:18:29

You live by the sword, you're going to die by the sword. There's consequences for that kind of physical action. And that's not what Jesus is doing there. That's not what

01:18:35

Jesus came for there. But isn't it interesting that Peter had a sword? Why did

01:18:41

Peter have a sword? Because Jesus told his people to go buy a sword.

01:18:48

He told them, like right before that, Jesus says, go buy a sword. And they found one. We got one.

01:18:53

He goes, that'll do. That's where the sword came from. But Jesus wasn't asking them to use their sword there to defend him.

01:18:59

He came for that ministry. But Jesus does give them the principle of self -defense and actually having a weapon of warfare for self -defense.

01:19:07

And it's not the only place Scripture talks about weapons of warfare and the people of God being able to use weapons. I'll give you this example.

01:19:13

This is a write -up. And I'm going to just give you guys the reference. After this, go to apologiastudios .com,

01:19:22

BonsonU, and go and get the Bonson gun debate. I think it's also on YouTube as well.

01:19:29

It is on YouTube as well. You can get it there. But I also want you to get your BonsonU account to go over there so you can get everything, not just get scattered parts and pieces.

01:19:38

But there's a great debate between Dr. Greg Bonson and another gentleman— name escapes me at the moment— on the issue of gun control, the gun debate.

01:19:47

And this is a great write -up about the debate. There's just one point here. I'm going to read this. It's summarizing

01:19:52

Bonson's argument in his opening statements. Having proposed the pragmatic reasons against gun control, he then takes us directly to the

01:19:59

Word of God as his ultimate authority on this matter. He mentions Exodus 22 -2, killing a thief found breaking and entering.

01:20:05

Judges 15, the story of Samson killing many Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. Luke 11 -21, when a strong man is armed, keeps his palace, his goods are in peace.

01:20:15

Nehemiah 4, the builders of the wall arm themselves. Luke 22 -36, where Jesus told his disciples to buy a sword.

01:20:21

The point is that Scripture has many places where it talks about self -defense, the right to self -defense, and the preservation of human life, and using weapons.

01:20:30

And let's not forget that my right to a deadly weapon to defend myself and my family is a

01:20:38

God -given right. It is not something the government gave me. I'm not doing it by permission.

01:20:44

God, according to his Word, gives me the principle of self -defense and preservation of human life.

01:20:50

And of course, guns and the whole topic of gun control. Yeah. Very important. He wasn't carrying a sword to open his mail.

01:20:57

Let's just say that. Buy a sword so you can cut some butter. Speaking of blades, now would be a really great time to mention

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01:22:02

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01:22:36

So someone can't just easily pull off or it can't fall off. It's fantastic. And it has a little thing you can start a fire in the wilderness with a flint thing.

01:22:44

That's just fantastic. So yeah, pick one of those up. Look, I know that we're going into the after show in a second here, but I don't want to leave this detached from the episode for everyone who just watches it online.

01:22:57

So I'm going to play a portion of the discussion between the debate between Dr.

01:23:04

Greg Bonson on the gun control debate. This is wet your appetite to come to BonsonU at ApologiaStudios .com

01:23:11

to get these debates and this teaching. So here is after rebuttals.

01:23:18

This is another rebuttal. Bonson is explaining Christian perspective and the role of government in punishing and gun control.

01:23:26

Absolutely. That's the way I feel about it as well. And the fact of the matter is the scriptures present a different way of dealing with deterring violence among people in a society.

01:23:41

In the first place, the scriptures require that the civil magistrate apply very stiff penal sanctions to those who violate the standards of justice that are found in God's word.

01:23:53

As Ecclesiastes 8 .11 says, Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is emboldened in them to do evil.

01:24:03

In Proverbs 29, we're told that the king gives stability to the land by justice. But in Proverbs 28, we're told the wicked do not understand justice.

01:24:13

When kings follow after justice, according to Proverbs 20, verse 8, they will disperse evil.

01:24:21

And in Hebrews 2, verse 2, we're told that the justice of God's penal sanctions is irrevocable.

01:24:29

Perfect justice is found in what God says you do in response to criminals.

01:24:35

And the fact of the matter is we don't do that in our country. We don't live up to the law's provision,

01:24:41

God's law's provision for dealing with violent people in our country. It should not surprise us, therefore, that we have the kinds of problems that we do.

01:24:49

The Bible says when we follow God's law that people will see and hear and fear to do such things.

01:24:56

That doesn't mean you're going to get rid of all crime. The law's not, you know, intended to do that. But if you want to, in some sense, turn back the rates and the ratio of violence in our country, then what we ought to be talking about here is not the state intruding into the rights of individuals, but the state doing what it is supposed to do according to God's word.

01:25:17

Moreover, it's crucial for us, and this is a second point in terms of Dr. Atwood's call for us to look at the scriptures.

01:25:25

It is crucial for us to understand that the state has to be delimited in the authority that it has to intrude into the lives of its people.

01:25:33

If we do not have any restraint upon the state doing that, the state becomes a monster, or as Revelation the 13th chapter says, a beast.

01:25:42

It becomes a beast thinking it can intrude anywhere it wants based on its own thinking and upon its own law.

01:25:49

Man, Bonson was a gift. So, Bonson's point there in the gun control debate, he makes some fantastic biblical points in terms of God's standards for self -defense and weapons and warfare and just war and all that stuff.

01:26:03

He also makes the point in cross -examination that the first and foremost thing is for us to spread the peaceable kingdom of Christ to the proclamation of the gospel.

01:26:11

We need to be better at preaching the gospel. That's how we're going to change the world. But then he makes the point that God's standards in terms of how to handle this is that you have the state wield the sword of justice against those who would actually harm human life, and you make sure that there is real just standards of punishment.

01:26:30

So, Ecclesiastes chapter 8, when the sentence of an evil deed is not punished speedily, the hearts of men are emboldened to do evil.

01:26:38

And so, people are emboldened to do more evil when their justice isn't actually applied and applied speedily.

01:26:45

And so, Bonson's point is, look, you want to deal with the problem of people murdering other people and harming people, they need to have just standards and stiff standards and penalties for that.

01:26:55

Like, for example, capital punishment. You murder somebody, you lose your life. And so, that's his point.

01:27:01

You're not going to solve the problem of the human heart and weapons by removing weapons from innocent people who are using them to defend themselves.

01:27:10

And that's just clear. I mean, all the statistics prove that. It's just clear. And so, Bonson's point is that the gun control debate is solved with God's standards of justice, not by victimizing the innocent so they can't defend themselves.

01:27:23

And he makes the point also, again, that I made, and I've gotten it not from myself, but I've been taught well by good men, that the right to self -defense and weapons is a

01:27:35

God -given right. It is not given to me by the government. I do not need their permission.

01:27:41

And that is what our founders said. Hey, they never, 2001, it's been a long time since they've done that.

01:27:49

All right, guys. So, we are going to go into the After Show at Apologia Studios.

01:27:54

If you guys are all access, you can just hop over there. We're going to finish the rest of what this guy says and the mess that it is over there and then continue the discussion in the

01:28:02

After Show, the Apologia Radio After Show. But for now, I want to thank Wally West for your super chat.

01:28:07

Jeff and Luke, my pastor, last year told me how destructive Calvinism is, but I had never heard of it.

01:28:15

So, I studied the Bible and came to the sweet biblical truths of the doctrines of grace. All right. Praise the

01:28:20

Lord. All glory to God. Now, I'm a theonomist, post -millennial Maranatha. All right.

01:28:26

Okay. All right. Praise the Lord, Wally. Thank you for that blessing, man. I'm so glad God's used the content to bless you and to change your life.

01:28:34

We are honored and grateful, honestly, to be doing what we're doing. And I can't thank you enough for the super chat and blessing us.

01:28:45

Everybody, if you would, please go to endabortionnow .com to give there towards our annual budget need.

01:28:51

We have so much going on. Pray for the states that we're working in. Pray for all the churches that are out, even today, out saving lives.

01:28:58

Pray for this ministry. We hope to give you guys some really, really great content very, very soon. We plan to do a lot more outreach videos and on the street evangelism.

01:29:07

And again, we've got some great academies going to Apologia Studios. Ooh, what was that?

01:29:12

There you go. All right. Thank you guys for watching. Meet us over in the after show right now. ApologiaStudios .com.

01:29:18

Thank you all so very much for all you do for us, all your prayers and all your partnership. That's Luke DeBear. Peace out.