Confession on Church Discipline

AD Robles

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Hello there, this is A .D. Robles, and you're listening to A .D. on Fight, Laugh, Feast Network.

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Alright, alright, well I've got a confession to make today. I've got a confession that I'm going to confess on the podcast today.

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But before I do, I just wanted to say this. If you've not considered becoming a Fight, Laugh, Feast Network club member, please consider doing so.

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Now, let's get to the confession. Because, you know, I've been every now and then accused of something.

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And I don't typically respond to the accusation. But I did want to address it here today. I've been accused of sometimes using inflammatory rhetoric.

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That's right. I've been accused of sometimes even using clickbaity type stuff. And I have to be honest,

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I definitely do engage in a little bit of that. Not all the time. Not all the time. I don't necessarily use inflammatory rhetoric when it's not appropriate.

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But I will admit that this past week and a half or so, I've used a term that I know was going to get people riled up.

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And I've done it intentionally. But it doesn't actually tell the whole story. But, you know, I assume we're all

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Christians here. We're believing all things, right? And so you would know what I was talking about. And this is the term excommunicate, right?

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Excommunicate. I've been saying for the last week and a half pretty aggressively. I've been saying this for a lot longer than a week and a half. But the last week and a half,

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I've been aggressively saying that I believe that people who support Democrats, people who vote

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Democrat, they put the lawn signs on their lawn. They donate to the Democratic National Convention.

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Those people, if they profess the name of Christ, should be excommunicated. That's what I've said. And I do believe that.

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But I believe that with qualifications. And my qualifications, of course, are assuming that the steps of church discipline have been taken.

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Church discipline starts with teaching. I believe that the Christian church ought to teach that it's a sin to support candidates that are promoting a platform that pretty much solely exists to spread evil.

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And we've talked a little bit about that this week. We went through some of the key tenets of the Democratic Party platform.

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And they make no bones about it. They say this is the evil we want to do. Now, they don't call it evil.

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Of course, they call it good. But it's definitively evil. They say this is what we want to do. And it's evil. And then they go and do it.

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Like if you look at their platform, which is their stated goals, it's pretty much evil across the board. There was a few exceptions we found the other day.

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Their stated goals are evil. Their recent accomplishments are evil. And their current activities are evil.

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There is no redeeming qualities to the Democratic Party platform. This is a party that exists solely to spread evil far and wide, perversion, dishonoring parents, murder.

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Not even murder is something that's sacred for them. No, they actually live to spread murder as well.

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Just look at the reaction to the Amy Coney Barrett nomination to see receipts on that. They want to spread evil.

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They tell you the evil that they want to spread. And then they go and they accomplish it. I think it's illegitimate, obviously, for a

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Christian to support a party that exists primarily to do evil. And I'm not only talking about the

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Democratic Party here. Like it would have been evil for Germans to support the Nazi Party back in Nazi Germany.

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That would have been evil. They should have been exercising church discipline there. The church should have been teaching against the

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Nazi Party at the time. Likewise, communists. The church should teach against the communist party as well.

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That's a sin to support and promote and to vote for communists. That's clearly a sin.

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And it's the same with the KKK. You know, David Duke, he ran for president back in the 80s. And I think he ran for senator more recently.

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I think in probably the 2010s, I think, if I'm not mistaken. And so clearly it would have been a sin for a

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Christian to put a David Duke sign on their lawn and to pay into his campaign and to vote for him.

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I think that's a clear sin, obviously. Like you can't disconnect your political activities from your activities.

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Like your political activities are part of your works, right? And so you can have evil works or good works, and politics plays right into that.

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There's no reason biblically to disconnect your politics from you. And so clearly

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I would say a Christian today, like let's say Richard Spencer was running for office. And Richard Spencer is a white supremacist, right?

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And he wouldn't call himself a white supremacist. But if you look at his policies, I mean he's pro -abortion because blacks are killing themselves.

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He wants to export them. He wants to have a white ethnostate and stuff like that. I would say it would be a sin for someone to support

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Richard Spencer's campaign for office. And I don't think that that's very controversial in most circles.

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But for some reason the Democratic Party gets a pass. And so I think that, yes,

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Democrats should be excommunicated from the church. But, of course, we need to follow the steps of church discipline.

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And that starts with teaching people against it, warning people against the sins that are out there, warning people.

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John the Baptist did this when he preached the gospel. He would tell people what they should do. He was talking to believers. He was talking to Jews.

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And he said, Jews, this is what you should do. Don't collect more than what you're supposed to do. Don't accuse people falsely.

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Don't steal from people. Give charity. Stuff like that. Let's look at the steps of church discipline because this is important, right?

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Like I'm not saying you should just excommunicate people without taking the steps because churches do do that, right?

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That's a corruption of church discipline. That's not church discipline. That's rather if you skip steps in the steps of church discipline, what you're actually doing is church retribution.

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You're doing church punishment, not church discipline. Discipline is primarily about teaching and correcting.

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It's a grace. And this is the thing. Like when you're teaching and disciplining your kids, it starts with teaching.

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You have to tell them what to do. And then you correct them when they don't do it. And like that's what discipline is.

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It's not just punishment. And so you can't skip the steps of church discipline. If you have a friend that sins against you and the first thing that you do is shun them, you're like a tax collector to me.

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I've got a person in my life who's done this. He thinks I've sinned against him. And I've asked him, hey, let's talk about this.

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I really want to talk about this. I'd really like to talk about this. He refused. And then I said, okay, let's talk about it with our elders.

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Let's all get together. If you don't want to talk to me privately, let's all get together and talk about it. He refused. And he told me in an email recently that to meet to him,

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I'm like a tax collector. He won't talk to me. That's not church discipline. That's not loving. That's actually church punishment.

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That's retribution. That's not what I'm talking about. Let's read the steps. This comes from Matthew 18.

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I want to talk about this really briefly because this is important. This is an important way to do church discipline and eventually excommunication.

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Here's what the words of our Lord are. Matthew 18, verse 15.

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If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private. If he listens to you, you've won your brother.

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But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed.

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If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a

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Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.

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Again, I say to you that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them.

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By my Father who is in heaven, for where two or three have gathered together in my name,

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I am there in their midst. And so you see there's a progression here. The ideal situation is if a brother sins, you go to him privately, you solve it.

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That's ideal, right? So at that point, their brother's been corrected. He admits it, and that's the end of it.

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And this has happened in my own life. I'm sure it's happened in your own life many, many, many times. This is as far as it goes.

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This is church discipline. This is church discipline. This is being corrected by—well, really, it's being corrected by God, but God's working through your brothers in Christ.

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This has happened to me. This has happened to me, and I'm sure it's happened to you. This is ideally how it works. Ideally, you don't sin at all, but if you do, this is how it ideally should work for a believer.

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But sometimes it doesn't work out that way, right? Sometimes it doesn't work out that way. And I've had an example in my life where a brother came to me, and it didn't work out that we were able to agree in private, and so we brought others involved, right?

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I brought a group of men from the church, including another pastor from another church, and we all talked about it, right?

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And this is the next step, right? So we all talk about it. Obviously, people that are not involved in the situation might be able to see it from a little bit more of a rational perspective.

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They can kind of squash the emotions a little bit so that they don't get tripped up by them and all that kind of stuff. And this is the next step of church discipline.

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And so hopefully, when a brother sins, if they don't listen to you, they'll listen to a group of people.

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And this exact thing happened in my own life where I, you know, me and this other guy couldn't agree on what the situation was and how to solve it, and so we brought in other people, and they figured it out.

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You know, it actually turns out you're not sinning, AD. You're not sinning in this. I might not agree with some of your tactics, but I don't consider it sin.

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I consider it a matter of opinion. And that's the second step, man, and that's the second ideal way.

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So look, plan C is a group of people confront you and figure it out. Plan B is you figure it out, you and your brother alone.

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Plan A is just to don't sin. That's the ideal situation, right? And that's church discipline, right? So you start with teaching them the right thing, the ways they should go.

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That's part and parcel of church discipline, proper teaching. And then you go through the steps.

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If a brother sins, you go to him privately. If they don't listen, you take some groups. And then only then do you take it to the elders of the church, right?

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And that's hopefully they listen to the church. That's the next step. That's plan D, right?

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They listen to the church. They say the church comes to you and says, you can't do this sin anymore. You can't do this anymore.

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Look, repent. Admit you were wrong and stop doing it. If you don't listen then, that's when you're excommunicated.

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You can no longer be part of this body. We've taught you. You've been confronted three times, and you're still not listening.

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You're still intending to do evil. That means you have to leave. We have no reason to affirm your salvation.

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Notice, it doesn't mean that you're not saved. It doesn't mean that you're not saved. But the church has no reason to comfort you in that way.

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Because here's the thing. There's a lot of comfort in Christ, right? Like we believe the gospel, right? And so it's not like we lose our salvation if we commit a sin.

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No, we don't. You see, God loves us. And God says that this process of discipline, it's love, man.

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It's an expression of care. It's an expression that you're one of God's sons, right?

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Because if you read the book of Proverbs, this is Proverbs 3, verse 12. It says this.

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For whom the Lord loves, he corrects. For whom the

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Lord loves, he corrects. Just as a father, the son in whom he delights.

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So the way that you discipline your children, you know, you teach them the right things. And then you correct them when they make a mistake.

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And you don't disown them, but you love them. That's an expression of love. Discipline is an expression of love.

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It's a grace from God. And God is working through his body, the church. And so when somebody comes to you and says,

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Hey, man, you've sinned against me. You have to turn off the part of you that says,

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Oh, my goodness, I'm being attacked. And then turn on the part of you that says, This is a grace from God.

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Let me listen to this. It doesn't mean that you're going to agree with every person who said they sinned against you. But understand that that process is a grace from God.

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That means God loves you, right? So it's not like you sin once and then you're gone. No, the steps of church discipline are designed in such a way that they're an expression of grace from God.

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That's love from God. Notice in this chapter here, in this passage from Matthew 18, all it says is if your brother sins, right?

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If your brother sins, it doesn't disconnect certain kinds of sins. Like this is the problem.

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Like I've been in a few conversations this week. Probably four or five conversations and three deep conversations where I say that Democrats should be voting

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Democrat as a sin because the party exists only to spread evil. And so to try to empower a party that wants to and intends to and then accomplishes evil, that's evil in and of itself.

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You're part of it. You're participating in it. It works for the KKK and it works for the Democratic Party. So I'll say that and then

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I'll say, and so we should start the steps of church discipline for those who sin in that way. A lot of people say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, because, because, no, we should actually instead do church discipline on gluttons and adulterers and people who hate their brothers in their heart.

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And the thing is, like, I'm like, yeah, all of those things, right? But the idea is when they push back that way is that somehow political sinning is separate, is disconnected.

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It's different than personal sinning. And I don't see any reason to think so. There's no reason in Matthew 18 to think so.

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Matthew 18 doesn't make any distinction. It doesn't say that if, well, if it's a political sin, then it's okay.

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But if it's a private sin, then you go to him. If it's a certain kind of sin or style of sin, then you start the steps of church discipline.

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No, it doesn't say that. It doesn't say that. It just says if your brother sins. And so, you know, that kind of pushback that tries to disconnect political sinning from personal sinning, it doesn't work.

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I mean, at least in Matthew 18, it doesn't work. Maybe there's another reason why people might think that that's the case.

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I don't think that there is another reason like that, but I'm open to hearing people's opinions on that.

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And so when you respond in that way, well, it's like, no, no, no, we can't do that. You're almost just scoffing at the idea of church discipline at all.

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In fact, the gay pastor Greg Johnson was doing that. He was just kind of scoffing at the idea of discipline.

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And I was in a conversation today with Kurt Kennedy, and he was like, what about 1

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John 4 and this and that? And basically he's trying to catch me in an inconsistency where it's like I don't think that church discipline applies to me.

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In fact, he said you sin more every day than the person. This is what he told me. He said you sin more every day than the once a year, once every four years person who votes for Democrat.

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First of all, it's not true because that person also sins in their daily lives as well. It's not just like sin once when they vote

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Democrat. But even if it were true, I completely concede the point.

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I would never deny that. Of course, any one of my sins, whether it's a sin online, whether it's a sin in my private life, or whether it's a sin in the public square, it doesn't matter.

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They're all, you know, something that you could start the steps of church discipline with me. If I've sinned against you, you can come to me.

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If I've tweeted something sinful against you, you can come to me. That's absolutely true.

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The steps of church discipline apply to that as well. I would never want to deny that. In fact,

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I take that so seriously that I've got my own pastor as well as other pastors. And I've said to them, you know, guys, like keep an eye out on what

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I do. If I cross the line, tell me because I want to receive that as a grace from God.

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And people have done this before. And I haven't always agreed. I haven't always agreed, but sometimes

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I have. And I take that as a grace from God. So when somebody says, hey, AD, you're in sin for XYZ reasons, that's a grace from God.

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I have to see it that way. Sometimes it's hard in the moment to see it that way. It looks like an attack, a personal attack.

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But you need to see it as a grace from God because God says it's a grace from God. He says that he corrects those he loves, and he corrects people oftentimes through his body, the church.

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And we need to understand that. And so a lot of the other pushback

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I've gotten from excommunicating Democrats or at least starting the steps of church discipline with Democrats is like, well, that'll never work.

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All that'll do is make them more angry. And I can understand why someone might think that.

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But to me, it doesn't matter because the thing about church discipline is that it's a commandment from God. So it's not like God says, do

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Matthew 18 if you think it'll work, right? If you think it'll work, then do

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Matthew 18. It's not how he puts it. He says, just do this. If your brother sins, do this.

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And so whether you think it'll work or not is kind of irrelevant. And in fact, it doesn't matter if it works or not according to your standard because it works because God says it works.

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It works for his purposes, maybe not our purposes, but it works for his purposes. Here's the result that I think would happen if we started excommunicating

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Democrats. In other words, if we started Matthew 18 with people who support Democrats in the church, this is what

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I think would happen. I think most people would be like, you know what?

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You're right. I think most people would repent of their sins of supporting Democrats if their pastors came to them and laid out the case for why it's a sin to vote for a party that is intending to spread evil and then going and doing it.

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Why that's a sin. I think that a lot of believers anyway would repent immediately. If they didn't,

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I think that more so they would if it was brought to the whole church. You see, and that's the thing. Like we're talking about believers here.

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I care about people that God cares about, right? And so I want the church to represent the true believers as much as possible.

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I think true believers would repent of their sin because that's what I believe true believers do. Now, I think there would be a portion of true believers that would probably get excommunicated, right?

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You see, that actually is working as intended as well. You see, you might say, well, you're going to excommunicate true believers in Christ.

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And I say, so be it because you know who else did that? Paul the apostle did that.

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We all love 1 and 2 Corinthians because you see a beautiful picture of maintaining the purity of the church and then humility and bringing someone back in love.

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The person who was having sex with his mother -in -law. Paul says, hand him over for the destruction of his flesh.

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Hand him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. This is so evil. This is something that pagans don't even do.

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So he was obviously maintaining the purity of the church. And then in 2 Corinthians, it talks about how much sorrow this man had and how much he had repented.

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And what does Paul say? He says, bring him back. Bring him back. You see, even excommunication is a grace from God.

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I'm not concerned with excommunicating pagans. And there is a certain percentage of Christians, professing

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Christians, that are planning on voting Democrat in this upcoming elections that are reprobate.

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They're pagans. They're doing what pagans do. Of course, they want to spread evil far and wide because they're pagans.

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But there are another percentage. And I think this is a majority. Brothers, hear me saying this. I think it's the majority of professing

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Christians that are planning on voting Democrat in the upcoming election that if their pastors had the balls to actually do what is required in Matthew 18.

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This is required in Matthew 18. There's no way around this. You show me what you think gets you an excuse to not church discipline political sins.

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I'll consider it. But nobody's done it yet. Nobody's done it yet. I don't think they can.

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I don't think they can. I'm not arrogant enough to say they definitely can't. But I haven't seen any arguments forthcoming.

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What I've seen is a lot of deflection and a lot of insults and a lot of sidestepping and stuff like that.

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I haven't seen anyone up to the challenge that says, you know what? Matthew 18 doesn't apply to political sins.

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But here's the thing, though. Even excommunication is a grace from God. 1

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Corinthians and 2 Corinthians proves it. And so what I think we need to do, guys, you want to turn the tide in the culture war?

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Let's start in the church. Let's start actually excommunicating people for their sins, both private and political, if they don't repent.

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But I think Christians do repent because I think that's what Christians do. They're repenting constantly. Real Christians repent.

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It's a life of repentance. You're repenting all the time from serving and worshiping these idols that you make in your own heart.

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Calvin was talking about this. The human heart's an idol factory. And we repent daily. That's what

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I think would happen, man. I think if pastors found their balls and were able to apply

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Matthew 18 to politics, we would have much more powerful church than we have right now.

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Because people would be taught. They would be confronting each other. They would be repenting of their sin.

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But instead what we do is we cuddle and snuggle people along in their sin.

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When Greg Johnson was scoffing at the very idea of church discipline, he was basically saying, no, we want to comfort people.

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This is a safe space. The church is not a safe space. It is for people who repent. But for people who don't repent, they are handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

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And even that is a grace for those who are Christ's. Because those who are Christ's will be excommunicated.

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And they might even form liberal churches where they can do all their liberal things. But eventually those that are Christ's will come to their senses.

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And they'll say, wow, these liberals don't care about me. They comfort and cuddle me in my sin.

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And my sin is vile. I'm not concerned with the reprobates. They need to leave the church for other reasons because they need to be handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

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They need to have the gospel preached to them. So either they can repent or that their sins can be compounded.

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I'm concerned with the body of Christ. We must start the steps of church discipline with people who insist on supporting and empowering a political party that exists purely to do evil.

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I hope you found this video helpful. I don't think there's any way around this. Look, I respect this audience very much.

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I respect this audience very much. If you can explain to me why Matthew 18 would not apply to political sins like voting for David Duke in the

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KKK or voting for Joe Biden because he's intending to spread evil far and wide. Far more evil, by the way, than the

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KKK could ever have dreamed of. So the Democratic Party is actually worse. If you can explain to me why

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Matthew 18 would not apply to political sins, I'd be glad to hear you out.

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So far, I have not heard anything. I haven't heard anyone even attempt to make the case. The strongest case that people have made for me is like, well, but black people overwhelmingly support

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Democrats. So what are you saying? Black people can't be saved? No, I'm saying that we should call black people to repentance the same way we call every person to repentance.

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They're not special. They're not special. They have to repent of their sins as well. And unless you want to pretend like you love them and instead really actually hate them,

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I would suggest that you apply Matthew 18 to black people the same way you would apply Matthew 18 to white people.

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Because you should love them the same way that you treat the way that you love white people.

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In fact, God loves them the same way that he loves white people. And so discipline and correction and reproof and yes, even excommunication is a grace from God for his people, regardless of their skin color.

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Let's start acting like it. I hope you found this podcast helpful. God bless. Don't forget to tune in next week on Thursday for AD on the