Joshua Harris’ Rainbow Adventure, Religious Freedom, Critical Theory, and the Founders Trailer

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00:36

Well greetings welcome to the dividing line here we are again Still sort of trying to do the

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Colorado thing. I guess just Really haven't totally unpacked yet. I don't have time to because we're headed off to South Africa week from today actually a week and one hour from today, so Just just bring the bags out

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Take the stuff out put it back in basically is what we're looking at so Hard to really get into a rhythm or anything in that type of context

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But that's how it works. That's fitting right today either anyway Welcome to the program.

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I I don't think any of the thunderstorms outside are gonna hit us that might impact the electrical situation

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But there are some big there's some big thunderheads out there. They really really are We've got the monsoon going here in Phoenix Yesterday was cloudy all day long pretty weird, but we have important stuff to get to today and up in up in Colorado I addressed

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Hopefully in a helpful way a lot of people felt that it was the issue of apostasy in regards to the

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Joshua Harris situation He is just the current name Every year has its apostate

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Apostate is not an insult Bart Ehrman is an apostate. He made a profession of faith.

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He no longer makes a profession of faith and As a result it is a technical term that describes someone in that situation and But what's intriguing on a certain level is

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What sometimes when when people leave the faith

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Well, let's use this illustration how many times have you known someone who was raised in a

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Christian family and raised in the church and kept under the pressure of Gospel preaching

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Expectation discipline and then as soon as they leave home a

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Totally different person all of a sudden drinking and drugs and sex and They just run off into the world and a lot of people look at that and go well see just I Thought if you train train train child up and where you should go.

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I won't depart there from etc. Etc. Well That's only one proverb not dealing with the reality of Regeneration if they're followers of God, yeah

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But if they're not if they remain rebels in their heart, they're just biding their time until that pressure is taken off and then the explosion takes place and You know in God's mercy a lot of those folks find mercy later on in life

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Their lives have been scarred as a result and all the rest that type of stuff. But anyway We see it happen all the time

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I can think of a bunch of people raised in the church as soon as the the pressure comes off There you go

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And so did you see that oh Oh Gosh anyone who asks that question

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Obvious has no idea what soul scripture is and has never listened for a second to anything about someone just tweeted

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Show me the chapter in verse that says soul scripture in the Bible, you know only written entire books in the subject and When you get that kind of thing

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You're like you haven't you haven't read anything listen to anything how many debates have we done on soul scripture?

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I've lost count At least at least half a dozen with Roman Catholics and it comes up in almost every subject

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Yeah, anyway Sorry, I shouldn't have Twitter within such close proximity.

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It's actually Twitter What used to be over here and now it's over here. And so it's even even worse anyhow,

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I Suppose I can you know, this is this is this is the picture that I'm talking about here

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This is Joshua Harris at a gay pride Event His shirt says love is

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Great Britain, and he's got a rainbow colored donut there and some sort of a

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Frappe something. I don't know caramel something from Starbucks. I don't know what

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SB 7 is But it's probably something about homosexuality.

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I would imagine and There are other pictures hanging out with some known homosexuals.

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There are people openly speculating. Maybe he's going to become a homosexual I don't know. All I know is someone who

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Basically was involved in the purity culture and then Obviously because of his books because of What he made from his books

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There was a restraint for a certain period of time, but that restraint has now been removed

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Marriage has ended. He's come straight out and said by any standard I can I can think of I'm not a

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Christian and So all of a sudden he's running around at gay pride events How does something like that happen,

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I mean Understandable for someone to have doubts or questions But what this demonstrates is it's not so much about doubts and questions

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Once that restraint has been removed Then there in some in some instances not in all instances, but in some instances we do have this kind of a a

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Reaction and response. I'm not gonna predict What the future is gonna hold for him.

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I certainly would hope That God would have mercy but There's also the reality

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You know, it's it's sort of like we're in the book of Hebrews I preached on Hebrews 6 at Hope Chapel in Colorado Springs on Sunday and It wasn't

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Hebrews 6 1 through 4. It was Hebrews 6 about 9 to the end of the chapter

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Which is an exhortation it is a an expression of an expression of Confidence we are convinced of better things concerning your things which accompanies salvation

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That kind of thing and of course, that's that beautiful section we have an anchor within the veil where Jesus has gone as our forerunner into the holy place and The priesthood of Melchizedek is sort of a

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Preview of what's going to be coming up in the next couple of chapters. It's really really neat Anyway, and the sermons available.

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I'm the folks at Hope Chapel in Colorado Springs asked they could post it so if you wanted to listen to it, you could you could track that down, but The the the point is in the book of Hebrews You have strong warnings

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Directly in between strong passages of exhortation We are convinced of better things concerning you and that's because When you look out at the

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Christian congregation You don't know What fills the hearts of these people? you can't tell and so You have to warn and At the same time encourage

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At the same time recognize God's sovereign over all these things That's the now and the not yet of Christian ministry in a fallen fallen day in a fallen age and so I Sort of feel the same thing here.

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You have to warn people. I Mean if you if you make a profession and then you go out and do this type of thing

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There's gonna be great judgment. You've had great light But at the same time for the person who's constantly examining themselves

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You don't look to yourself you look to Christ and Of course the question we're all asking how can someone who ever really truly did that?

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Be running around these types of events now and saying these types of things doing these kinds of things

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It's sort of like Someone sent me a link. I only watched a few minutes of it but it was a

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Protestant visiting a Roman Catholic Church down in Australia somewhere I forgot which city it was and the reason

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I watched a few minutes of is because I've Been there done that got the t -shirt. I mean,

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I can't tell you how many people have dealt with over the years who? got enamored with Paltry little things.

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Oh, look at the architecture. It's wonderful and You know just all the pomp and circumstances and everybody can get dressed up and just just all sorts of stuff like this and That's when

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I go look if anyone can trade your belief in Justification and the imputed righteousness of Christ for that kind of stuff

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Then every word you ever said about it every song you ever said about it Every sermon you ever preached about it was nothing but hot air saving faith endures and a true faith in That kind of divine truth is going to abide

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And if it doesn't abide it was never worth the the air it took to utter the words

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That's just the reality so I Don't know when it was

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I used the term tsunami of apostasy, I think It was around the time with that one pastor

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Southern Baptist pastor whose son came out as Roman as homosexual and I said look

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We're gonna be seeing a tsunami of apostasy coming in our culture The surface level type of Christianity That we have become accustomed to Just it's not gonna last what our society is going to be throwing at it and So you're going to be seeing big names

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People you've heard people you've listened to and if you don't have your focus in the right place

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This is gonna be a really difficult time for you So I Wouldn't be overly surprised

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To see something coming up in the future in regards to Joshua Harris that would just I just can't believe this could happen well

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Believe it There is a there is a very sobering concept in Scripture in Paul And I think again,

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I think Paul's behind the book of Hebrews. I think it's Luke's writing, but it's Paul's theology. It's Paul's teaching So it's in both

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About being given over and There is no question that you know,

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Jesus speaks much of the judgment of Israel and what's What's part and parcel of that?

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the amount of light don't Take the amount of divine truth that you have access to lightly

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We will be judged on the basis of what we have seen What did

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Jesus say to Chorazin and Bethsaida if what Had been done in them had been done in Sodom and Gomorrah.

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They would have repented and ash and ashes and sackcloth the point being here were people who were

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God God takes very seriously when he and his grace makes revelation and then you

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Close your eyes to it. You say I hate it. I'm gonna reject it And that's a that's a strong word to every single one of us

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We have much revelation we have much revelation and We will be held accountable for that.

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We will be held accountable for that Just quickly. I wasn't going to talk about this but on the briefing this morning

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Dr. Mohler was talking about Gillette Five billion dollars.

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I can't even imagine that that number and Yet they're going well worth it.

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Well worth it. And then what do they do? What do they follow that up with? another commercial with a

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Transgender boy, in other words a girl who's taking testosterone. So she's growing a beard so she has to Shave the beard with Gillette products and that's supposed to Yeah, it's making me want that's making me want to trade in my

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Harry's For for a Gillette blade now sure. Yeah sure is But I mentioned on Twitter the last things that this individual said was

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I am transitioning and Everybody around me is transitioning and I thought that was just Probably Unplanned But was just an incredible example of Exactly what they want.

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They want societal transformation. They want an utter destruction of That now despised thing that mankind has celebrated forever the gender binary

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The beautiful reality that men are men and women are women and I'm glad that that's where the division is

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It's a good thing and it's a proper thing And I Mean everything that we had we've been saying for years now

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Was behind this they're just now coming straight out and saying yep. That's what we want. That's where we're coming from You got it and it and it's like many people in church are like, oh well, okay maybe

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You know again We've just accepted the beauty of the gifts of God in the family in fathers and mothers and the man's role to protect the woman and and The nurturing role of the of the woman and raising the children and the beauty of the family and all the rest that we just we've just taken it for granted and Now it is under Open Unhidden assault

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Unhidden assault and we don't know what to do about and We don't seem overly concerned about it to be very honest with you

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It's so I don't know if I want to really go against the flow and the others it was it really worth it What about your children?

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What what about what about your grandchildren what kind of a world are they going to be facing? It seems to the question that not a lot of people are are asking unfortunately now

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Another thing, you know, dr. Mohler only has a certain amount of time. I get to expand on stuff

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I think sometimes he wishes I had the amount of time. He had the amount of time that I have but One of the

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Issues that was raised also today was the issue of religious liberty Well aside from I think yesterday day for yesterday was the

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California curriculum which is what was stunning I Mean, I'm sorry.

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I Begin to have the slightest respect for people who can't spell the

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English language, I Will have no respect for scholars who want to misspell history to make a political point

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I The whole idea that even words now, it's just my reality.

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There's no way around it when you think about it. I Fundamental purpose of any form of critical theory is to break down and destroy.

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So when you apply it to language Did any of you watch

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I should have queued this up Did any of you watch those clips for the

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Democratic Socialists? Were that How are they winning if that's not evidence of judgment

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I I Mean the first one that came out was you know

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You know this thing because we might have people that are triggered by sensory overload

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I mean, this is this is the biggest room of Freaked out snowflakes you've ever seen in your life.

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And so Now I know this is actually sign language for clapping because remember did you ever say a golden buzzer thing from?

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America's Got Talent is either Britain or America's Got Talent one of the two that had Simon on it and the deaf the girl had lost her hearing and yet she didn't want to give up her music and so she she would feel the beat through she would be barefoot on the floor so she could feel the beat and She played a ukulele and she had this beautiful song.

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She got a golden buzzer Simon gave it to her. It was it was awesome. It was great, but the her trans her

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Interpreter The people in the audience caught on that clapping in in sign language was this and so they all started doing this

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Well, that's great. But here you here You've got the Democratic Socialists and because there might be someone who gets sensory overload

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Not only do you you can't whisper there can't be any you know and and then you're everyone's doing this number and then finally someone says guys and This guy with red hair in a red dress, but it's a guy

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It's a transgender with flaming red hair and a red dress gets up and said Would we please stop using gendered language and it's just like Wow, you would think something like that would just die a natural death

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But it's it's not what was the one comment that was made about smell walking into a room and not

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Being too strong with your Smell I didn't catch that one.

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I didn't see it was every sense you can think of That was being addressed in this you can't do this.

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You can't oh, I know I know I get to that quiet room and smell too Strong, so you gotta be kidding me

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How are these people Eve? I don't It's judgment man, it's judgment.

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Um, well, this is a well What can I say, uh

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It's just I mean a lot of people just laughing at it, but that's that's our future the way we're going

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That's our future the way we're going. Those are the elites. Those are the people taking over the universities. It's Just stunning.

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It really really really is which Which leads me to again emphasize something that I think is vitally important and that I'm hearing in well, for example the the story of the

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The story of the California curriculum because that is going to be impacting

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I don't I understand I Understand the difficulties and the challenges

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I get it But and I understand that in all probability my prediction is

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Within 10 years Public education will be mandatory

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Look at the current crop of Democratic candidates and tell me that any one of them would hesitate

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For a half a second To sign a bill that would come out of a

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Pelosi Congress and a Schumer Senate That would end homeschooling and require compulsory public education of your children

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Just look at me and tell me that I don't believe you for a second. They do it in a heartbeat as Soon as you have a socialist president and a socialist

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Congress That's what they're gonna do because they know they have to start this indoctrination as young as possible now

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Will we survive that? That's where my German friends have been for decades

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Homeschooling is not allowed in Germany There are still Christians in Germany Has that had a deleterious effect upon the church?

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Yes, but are there Christian parents there who recognize That they now have to invest more time with their children as soon as school is done to try to undo the damage.

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Yes, that's how totalitarians work. I'm just telling you, as far as I can see, that's one of the first things they would do is exercise their totalitarian instincts.

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But if you have the freedom right now, I don't mean the economic freedom, I mean the legal freedom. Man, you've got to be educating your own children.

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I'm not cut out for that. Well, if God gave you kids, he'll get you through it. I mean, you look at this curriculum, that curriculum is going to be what goes in California, doesn't stay in California.

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That's the problem. It infects the entire left coast and the entire right coast, and then it starts percolating into the middle, and it'll be in Austin, Texas, and it'll be all over the place, and it's pure Marxism.

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We are falling to Marxism, because it took over the education system, we don't even remember what it was.

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The next generation doesn't even know what Marxism was, did, and don't care.

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They don't care. And so, how many times do we have to say it? You forget the lessons of the past, do them to repeat them, and the worst thing to be is a historian who knows the lessons of the past, you have to sit around and watch everybody do them to repeat them anyways.

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That's how it works. So, the curriculum stuff, did you notice, for example,

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Dr. Moe was talking about the glossary, the definition of social justice. Exactly what we've been saying is the functional definition of social justice all along, but my fellow

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Christians pushing this stuff, oh no, no, no, that's not what we mean, then why do they mean that?

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They mean forced equality of outcome, forced redistribution of wealth.

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And by the way, I saw somewhere on Facebook, and this is really good, I think this would work real well, if you want to teach your children why they do not want to be socialists, what you do is you get one of them, and you say, if you'll clean the bathroom really well,

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I will give you $10. And when they get done cleaning the bathroom, you give them, you hand them $10, and you say, okay, hold on a second, and then you take seven of it back, and go in the front room, and distribute it amongst their siblings who did nothing.

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And say, now you understand socialism. That's how it works.

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But they didn't do anything. Right. Doesn't matter. That's socialism. I thought that was a pretty good idea.

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People will vote one way until they actually start working and see how much money they earned and how much they never saw.

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That's a real practical thing. Anyway, so the Marxists are here.

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The definition that was given of capitalism, everything, the Marxists are here. The government is now

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God. The government is God. Was the government God behind the

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Iron Curtain? Bingo! Is the government God in China? Bingo! Is the government God in North Korea?

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Bingo! And now it's here. It's here. And this system cannot survive that.

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The system cannot survive. It will collapse. It will collapse in upon itself. The liberties and freedoms will go the way of Venezuela faster than you can shake a stick at.

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Anyway, the other thing related was the issue of religious liberty.

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And it was fascinating to recognize, and this is very important to keep in mind, in the debate which was in the

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Wall Street Journal, the discussion was between David French and a woman by the last name of Hamilton.

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And Hamilton redefined what religious liberty is.

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And this is what we're going to be facing. My understanding is she was a law clerk for Sandra Day O 'Connor. So that gives you an idea of where these totalitarian leftists are in the

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Supreme Court. They're complete ideologues. They detest the Constitution and the foundation upon which it was based.

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But basically, religious liberty is simply the government cannot force you to believe anything.

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Anyone who reads history knows that there were established religions in the

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United States when the Constitution was written. And the discussion was not to limit the state's rights to have established churches, but to say the federal government could not establish it.

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This had nothing to do with beliefs. It had everything to do with worship. It had everything to do with the practice demanded by your

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Christian religious beliefs in society. This is a necessary redefinition to get rid of the freedom to worship as you please and to have your religious beliefs impact any aspect of your life.

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So the government can take the ultimate role of authority and tell you how you are to behave, tell you how you are to live.

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In the privacy of your own home, you can think what you want as long as your thinking does not impact how you behave.

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Sound familiar? Winston? 1984? Here it is again.

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It's like they are using it as a guidebook. But these are real people teaching in real institutions of higher learning, and this is what we're facing.

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This is what we're facing. Now, what's fascinating to me is any

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Christian should automatically recognize how this is a frontal attack upon their faith because there is no way you can read the

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New Testament and look at terms such as aletheia, truth, pisteuo, to believe, pisteuion would be the infinitive form, and not recognize the inherent actions necessary in utilization of these terms.

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What I mean is truth is something you do. You believe in the truth and you act on the basis of the truth.

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The idea that you can make the bifurcation that Caesar is now demanding, you can put your beliefs over here, but when you come out amongst the rest of us, you cannot act in light of your beliefs, which means they are saying the government can tell you what to believe because your beliefs determine how you're going to act.

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I mean, that's obvious. It was a complete canard to do what

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Hamilton was doing, but that's what we face today. That's the issue.

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And so, for Christians, we have to be straight up and honest. The issue will constantly be begging of God by his spirit, being involved in the church where this is discussed, having fellow believers who can give you guidance, and learning to draw the necessary lines between faithfulness to Jesus as kurios, and subjection to established governing authorities as far as that is possible for a

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Christian to do. Where's the line?

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How do you draw that line? What are the consistent principles? You can't just do it because one day you get up and you're fed up with what somebody says on Facebook and say,

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I'm going to do this. No. You have to, when you're brought before the magistrate, you have to be able to give a consistent testimony to the magistrate, which means you have to have put thought into this.

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And every church should be thinking about this. Every church should be talking about this. It's not the time to have an emergency meeting once the pastor's in the huskau, because the police have shown up and dragged him off for some type of alleged hate crime, for something he preached in the pulpit.

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Now's not the time to do it. That's not the time to be doing it. Now's the time to be doing it. Now's when we've got to think these things through.

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Now when we have the time, where are we going to draw that line? What cost are we willing to pay?

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Because this is moving fast. This is moving very, very fast.

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And I mean, honestly, I was going to bring this up, but I forgot to do it.

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I had not even heard the term white nationalist until the

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Charlottesville thing. That's when it all of a sudden, poof. How does something just go poof?

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How does it all of a sudden just appear? And now it's in all the rhetoric. And now if you actually think that the

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United States government, in the Constitution anyways, is superior to the government of Venezuela, then you're a nationalist.

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And if you happen to not be a person of color, now you're a white nationalist. And that's the most evil thing on the planet to be, and you need to repent of it immediately.

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Had that happened in two years? Or was it three years? I don't know. Short period of time.

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It couldn't have been three years because Trump was president. So it was early on.

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So it's been two years, maybe a little over two years. How did that become a sin in the church? Once you understand critical theory, once you understand its fundamental incoherence and its fundamental destructiveness to the ability to speak, two years next week, yeah.

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Its fundamental destructiveness to your ability to reason, to speak, to express, to differ, anything.

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You'll understand. That's why there was reason to be concerned about resolution number nine.

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There is reason to recognize that if you're listening to these debates that are taking place, and I couldn't listen to all of them, but I was able to listen while driving.

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Once you have an idea of what the academy is all about with critical theory, whether it's race theory or gender theory or theological theory, whatever it might be, just put whatever you want between the

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C and the T. You understand everything these people are saying. You understand why they're arguing the things, why they're saying the crazy things that they say.

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You really get it. And you, the thing is, you should understand that this whole system has no place for the

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Christian God. When you understand its systems of oppression and oppressed, never any redemption, never any end game.

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You're always stuck in the same cycle in critical theory. It doesn't matter if you're not a person of color, you are an oppressor, you will always be an oppressor.

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Even when you try your best to be an ally, there is no forgiveness. There is no end game. You will always be in the position of the oppressor, the evil one, the one that has to now be suppressed so as to bring about justice, which isn't biblical justice.

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There's no place for God to raise up one person and exalt one person and give one person power and give one person wealth.

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God's not allowed to do that in critical theory because there is no God to do it. It's a very Darwinian perspective on the world.

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There's no place for providence. There's no place for Christian blessing. No place for blessing.

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None. If you are a part of a particular group, you can't count your blessings.

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If you're oppressed, it is against the system to count your blessings. You are sinning against your oppression if you experience

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Christian contentment in this system. There is no place for theology.

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There is no place for a Christian anthropology. There is no place for personal responsibility. There is no place to be held accountable for your attitudes.

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Your attitudes are irrelevant. You're either part of the oppressed or the oppressors. Your attitude doesn't matter.

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There's no grounds for judgment. There is no final day of judgment. So, to see people playing with this battery acid in the church, you just go, don't you see what this stuff is?

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Don't you see what it's going to do? You can't wed this with Christian theology and call it good.

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They're mutually exclusive. And when you hear the rhetoric and you see the insanity, when you see the confusion that transgenderism brings and then the clash between homosexuality and transgenderism and all this stuff, it makes sense for the

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Christian world, but you need to understand it flows from a totally anti -Christian worldview.

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You cannot just bring this in and go, well, let's just take a look. This is sort of interesting to look at.

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No. It's acid. I remember in college,

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I never really liked the labs all that much. I preferred class over the labs, but you had to have these labs and especially chemistry and stuff like that.

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And sometimes you had to deal with some pretty nasty acids. I remember there was 12 molar

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HCL. That's right. 12 molar HCL. You did not put it on your molars. I assure you of that. That is a measurement of its acidity.

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And man, you had to mask up and glove up and everything because this stuff would just eat almost anything.

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You had to take it very, very seriously. We're living in a day to day where there are actually people that are saying that stuff like scientific method, logic, rationality, these are colonial ways of keeping oppressed people down and we should throw these things off.

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I hope they don't do that and play around with 12 molar HCL because it's going to eat your fingers off one way or the other.

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And I do not want to get into a plane designed by someone who thinks that logic, rationality, the rules of logic and reason and science and things like that, that that's tools of the oppressor and they're going to throw that off because that baby ain't going to fly.

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Literally, it isn't going to fly. Is there something you were... Well, I was just going to point out...

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Have you connected the microphone thing directly to your camera now?

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It just automatically pops on or do you have to do both at the same time? No, I have to hit two buttons at the same time. That's complicated. Yeah, it's very complicated.

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Imagine what one of those people would have to do if... I think you're oppressing somebody when you turn it off. I am and I'm happy to oppress people without any problem whatsoever.

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But it occurs to me that someone who thinks like that is going to find out that if they think that's oppressive, wait until they start going hungry because they're going to go hungry real fast.

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Oh, yeah, of course they are. Of course they are. No question about it.

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But until that happens, they can live in a fantasy world, I guess. So I'm sorry,

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Michelle. Did you see that one? I would have been okay going the rest of my life without knowing this commercial existed.

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It's been out for weeks, though. It didn't make nearly the splash until I heard about it this morning.

41:35

And it's sad. I mean, I commented about it on Facebook. I feel for this young lady who's just been destroyed.

41:42

And I hold that woman's parents and this society accountable for the destruction of her entire gender identity.

41:57

It's horrible. Anyway, okay, so what do we do about all this?

42:05

I mean, what do we do in the church?

42:13

What do we do in our society? I'm concerned about what my grandkids are going to face.

42:18

I'm concerned about what my great grandkids are going to face, what the church is going to be up against.

42:28

I've mentioned before there are a few topics that are less joy -providing than this one.

42:39

I hate politics. I've always hated politics. I'm not a particularly political person. It doesn't mean

42:44

I don't have political views. But especially inter -church politics is oppressive to me.

42:56

If you want something that's oppressive, we'll use that in the biblical term. It is joy -stealing, depressing, heart -injuring, relationship -destroying.

43:13

It takes a massive amount of energy and investment. It needs to be done because we are looking at a tremendous danger to the church, proclamation of the gospel, freedom to speak the truth.

43:32

But that doesn't change the fact that it's ugly. We have to answer the question, is this happening for primarily political or spiritual reasons?

43:52

There is no question that there are people profiting by this. There is no question that there are political motivations behind this.

44:00

There is no question that there is money from inside and outside the United States seeking to fundamentally change the

44:09

American culture. All of those things are true. But as a

44:14

Christian, I have to look at this and I have to look at the fact that when we just celebrated the 75th anniversary of the

44:27

Normandy invasion, or at least commemorated it. I'm not sure that's something you'd celebrate, though in a sense it was a celebration of the beginning of the end of the

44:37

Nazi occupation of Europe. And I'd love to see if they have them available.

44:45

I haven't looked. I keep forgetting to look. But I wonder if on eBay someplace there are people selling copies of the

44:54

New Testaments that were distributed to the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy that had a letter from the president recommending to them the reading of those pages.

45:12

I've seen one of those before. And 75 years later, that could never happen and would be considered a horrible act of government imposition of narrow -minded, bigoted religion.

45:33

Because that New Testament says things about homosexuality and everything else.

45:40

And it was distributed to all the soldiers. How could they have done something like that? Well, 75 years seems like a long time to a lot of people, but if you study history, 75 years is a blink of an eye.

45:56

I have to believe, on the basis of biblical teachings concerning how

46:05

God has dealt with nations in the past, that we as a people in the

46:10

United States and Western culture as a whole have had such blessing of light and truth that to sin against it as we have, to turn against it with malice aforethought, to specifically and knowingly reject

46:34

God's standards, must bring God's judgment. What we're seeing today is self -destructive.

46:43

No society can possibly survive the kind of insanity that allows for 10 -year -old cross -dressing boys to be allowed to publicly dance in front of homosexuals.

47:02

The mutilation of male and female bodies at 8 years old on the altar of the insanity of transgenderism.

47:14

The murder of tens of millions of innocent babies at the very time when we know the most about their humanity and their development, more than any other time in world history.

47:31

What can explain this? What can explain? Look, after the shootings this weekend, it's been pointed out that more people die every weekend.

47:45

I mean, sometimes Chicago, not as bad, but during the summer, that's

47:52

Chicago every weekend. You put Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles together and it eclipses everything by far.

48:00

But nothing is said about it. Nobody cares. Not in the media, because there's no agenda to push.

48:07

But because of these shootings, the level of de -civilization in our public discourse was stunning.

48:19

The behavior of people, the language that was—did you notice that the

48:25

Democratic candidates like the F -bomb, that they love to swear in public, especially at the president?

48:37

Where did civility go at all? The layer of civility that holds this whole thing together is rather thin, and it's getting real close to breaking apart.

48:51

And I look at that, and I go, that's the judgment of God. And so, what is the only thing that can change it?

48:59

It ain't politics. It's not going to be a political solution. It's not going to be, we've got to desperately hold on the

49:07

White House, and we've got to get the Supreme Court justices in there, and then you've got to get the House back in the—

49:14

That's not going to—I'm sorry, that is—I'm simply giving you my opinion.

49:21

As a Christian minister, I don't see that as our hope. I don't see that as our hope.

49:29

And certainly when we talk about the Church, certainly when we talk about the Church, it cannot be that our hope is to be found in who holds what positions.

49:42

And in maneuvering to get this person out and that person in, and I've got some dirt on that person over there, and well, then maybe he'll talk to that person over there.

49:55

And all the political machinations and maneuverings in the

50:02

Church, where I thought we're supposed to relate to one another on a completely different level.

50:11

But we can't trust everybody in the Church. That's right. That's right. Paul undoubtedly at one point in time trusted

50:20

Demas, and he had the argument about John Mark with Barnabas, and they went their separate ways.

50:32

It seems even the apostles struggled with the fact that in this life, people are going to disappoint you.

50:41

And I would imagine that Paul was quite hurt when people went into apostasy.

50:47

I mean, he was left alone in Rome. I'm alone. All these people who for all these decades have been looking to me as an apostle and listening to me preaching, and they've seen the miracles, and I'm alone.

51:01

I'm alone. It seems to me that from a political perspective, we are a bit hamstrung.

51:14

We are under responsibility to act and behave in certain ways that are not the most politically advantageous.

51:25

I have to accept the confession of faith in Christ that someone else makes when it's a credible profession.

51:38

And that means I have to treat them as a brother, even if they have different views than I do.

51:43

And they may take advantage of that. Yep. That's right. But you won't get to where you go.

51:52

You need to go. You won't make the political points you make. Yep. That's right.

51:59

Have you seen what the Church has gone through at the hands of the world down through the entire history of the Church? And have you seen what has happened to the

52:06

Church when it adopted politics as its mechanism? Look at the

52:12

Borgia Popes. Is that where we want to go? They were good at politics.

52:20

And we look back at them and say, not even slightly Christian. The temptation to grab hold of the methodologies of the

52:31

Church, of the state, of politics, of the world. Do we trust that Christ will build his kingdom as he wishes?

52:43

Man, right now that's tough. Right now that's tough. You look at what's going on with nuclear proliferation, genetic manipulation.

52:53

Oh my goodness. But I just keep reminding myself if I lived in 1348, almost anywhere in Europe, I would have had more reason to think it's over.

53:09

Christ isn't on his throne. There's going to be no future. We're all dying. That was when the Black Plague was sweeping through.

53:17

So I have to try to keep that kind of perspective, but the point is as a

53:25

Christian, I know I am going to be in a weaker position in politics because I cannot bow the knee to Caesar and I cannot use

53:35

Caesar's methodologies. And I have to accept that there are going to be people on the other side of important issues that in heaven

53:45

I may be closer to them than to anybody here on earth. I have to live in that reality.

53:55

And it's not comfortable and it's not easy. And I'll be taken advantage of and I'll have people attacking me unfairly.

54:06

And you know what I've got to do in every one of those situations? I might need to read the Psalter. Because the psalmist went through that over and over and over again.

54:15

And you know what he did? He cast himself in the Lord. Lord, you hear what they're saying. You see how

54:20

I've been betrayed. Vindicate me. And sometimes there are some psalms where the vindication didn't come in this life.

54:29

Vindication didn't come in this life. So how much do we really trust? How much do we really want to see that day come that's going to reveal everything?

54:39

How much do we really trust that's going to happen? I'm asking myself a lot of these questions, folks.

54:46

I really am. Just being brutally honest with you. Do I think the social justice movement is one of the greatest dangers we've ever faced?

54:57

Yep. Do I see it dividing the church? Yep. Do I think critical theory is demonic in its impact upon the church, upon ethics, morality?

55:07

Yep. Sure do. Seeing it all around me. But what

55:12

I'm also seeing is that those of us that see that we're turning to cannibals.

55:20

We're eating our own. We're eating our own. If you don't do it the way

55:28

I think it needs to be done, you're now one of my political enemies too. We can't do that.

55:36

But that person over there isn't acting as quickly or that person over there,

55:42

I don't like how they're doing. Leave them to the Lord. You are not the

55:47

Lord. You're not the Holy Spirit and you can't judge those things. Speak the truth.

55:53

Speak it clearly. Warn and leave it to the Lord to make those words come alive or not in the hearts of other people.

56:04

Folks, I've thought about this for years. You've heard me say it for years. A sound, united, discerning church is a blessing on any nation.

56:16

And if this nation is under the judgment of God and he's removing his blessings from this nation, then what we're called to do is to remain faithful where God has called us to serve, even if that is to our detriment and our damage.

56:40

If you say otherwise, show me from Scripture. Show me from Scripture where we're supposed to do it differently.

56:46

Where I have the right, because of the political situation of my day, to treat other

56:53

Christians differently. So, this is a tough day.

57:04

It's a tough situation. And I can only tell you what I'm convinced of. I can only tell you that I just simply can't buy into the importing of the politics of personal destruction into the

57:20

Christian church. If the other side does that and they are doing that, are you saying we can't fight back?

57:33

Yeah, in the same way we can't. We've got to turn the other cheek. Leave it to the

57:39

Lord. But they'll win. Well, whether they're going to win or not is not up to you and me.

57:46

I believe in a sovereign God. I believe he's going to work out his divine decree. I don't know how that's going to work out in our situation.

57:53

I don't know what the future's going to hold. But I can't change

57:58

God's sovereign decree by adopting the methodologies of the other side.

58:05

Do I see the other side using politics and using unfair attacks?

58:11

Yep, I do. I do. Does that mean some of them may not be Christians? Yeah. But I don't get to judge that.

58:19

I don't get to judge that. That's not my role. It's not my place. I'm not going to arrogantly say this is...

58:32

You know, if they are professing the same gospel, I'm going to push them on being consistent at that point.

58:41

But I can't force them to dialogue with me. I can't force them to debate me. And I've got to leave it in the

58:49

Lord's hands. But that's not enough. What do you mean it's not enough?

58:54

It isn't salvation. If you're Reformed, you're leaving the salvation of everybody in the Lord's hands. You obediently proclaim the message, and you trust the

59:03

Lord by His Spirit to make that come alive in the hearts of His elect people. Do you trust Him to do that? You can't trust

59:08

Him with this other stuff? That's what I'm saying to myself.

59:13

You can't trust Him with this other stuff? What did

59:19

Paul say about going to court with other Christians? Just let yourself be defrauded.

59:25

This life isn't long enough to bring dishonor to Christ's name by going in front of the unbelievers.

59:31

Let yourself be defrauded. What are you going to lose? You might lose your house. You might lose your reputation. Is the

59:38

Lord not enough for all of that? Man, there's a lot of people just chafing right now.

59:46

Show me where I'm wrong. Show me where I'm wrong. There's a reason why the phrase,

59:55

Machen's warrior children came into existence. So, we have to stop cannibalizing each other.

01:00:06

And if there are people out there who are clearly opposed to this sudden lurch to the left, but they're not moving as fast as you, or they still think that this person over there or that person over there is okay, but you think they're not, man, you're going to end up on an island by yourself.

01:00:37

Leave them to the Lord. Pray for them. I mean, I just really honestly have to ask, most of us that are involved in this battle, how much time have we spent truly praying?

01:00:48

Not only about it, and I don't mean praying in precatory prayers either. Break the teeth of my enemies.

01:00:58

That's pretty easy to do. But actually praying for the people that are on our side, that claim to be

01:01:07

Christians. Lord, open their eyes. And Lord, if I'm not seeing something, open my eyes.

01:01:15

But let us live in peace with one another as we stand for the truth. Let us make sure we're drawing the lines in the right place.

01:01:23

Lord, please deliver us from cannibalism. Let us not destroy one another, but the stakes are too high.

01:01:37

Jesus knows what the stakes are. And he calls us to fidelity. He calls us to faithfulness.

01:01:44

He calls us to not compromise, but he also calls us to seek to be at peace with all the brethren.

01:01:51

And until you're ready to become the person that decides who is and who is not brethren, that does put you at a disadvantage.

01:01:59

And that day, that great day, will show that you did what you did out of obedience to Christ's command.

01:02:12

And if it cost you, don't you think he can recompense you?

01:02:18

But it may not be in this life. It may not be in this life. So speaking of those lines, along those lines, a week ago, two weeks ago this coming

01:02:30

Friday, we did a program from Colorado. And while I was driving up to Colorado, the

01:02:39

Founders trailer dropped. And I didn't get to be a part of all the that took place.

01:02:46

Like I said, at that time, I heard about it at a gas station in Grand Junction, Colorado, I think is where I heard about all the controversy that was coming out and everything else.

01:03:00

I remember, and I can see the picture in my mind, in 2006?

01:03:09

That debate in Lynchburg was supposed to be 2006, if I recall correctly, with the

01:03:14

Canner brothers. And of course, it didn't happen.

01:03:21

We've learned all about the backstory since then and who pulled the plug on it and the whole nine yards and how they covered it over.

01:03:30

And it was pure politics then, too. But some of you may recall that we did a conference.

01:03:38

And I think that was the same year that I debated Spong, wasn't it? Because it seems like the same room. Yeah, the room reminds me of them.

01:03:48

And one of the sessions that we did in that conference before we did a cruise,

01:03:54

I think it was in Tampa, Orlando. Okay, whatever, it's in Florida. See, that's the problem with Florida.

01:04:00

They have no mountains. So you never know where you are. Same thing with Texas. That's why I couldn't live in either one of them.

01:04:06

Because if Orlando had different mountains than Tampa, then I'd know which one I was in. But that's the problem.

01:04:11

Anyway, that's how I realized where I am. Just look at the mountains. Tom Askel and I did a session.

01:04:22

And we recorded it. It's still available. I think it's still available. Basically, what we would have said to the

01:04:30

Liberty students that we didn't get to say because they sabotaged the debate.

01:04:38

And I remember very, very clearly how

01:04:45

Tom Askel wanted to make sure not only that every answer he gave that evening was gracious, but there was no aggression.

01:05:01

On Tom's part at all. I was by far the stronger.

01:05:07

I was using the stronger language between me and Tom. I was the more aggressive between me and Tom.

01:05:20

And that was in the back of my mind as I analyzed, as I watched the trailer.

01:05:29

This is Founders. I'm thinking Tom, maybe

01:05:35

Jared, putting this together. And I'm just thinking, what would

01:05:44

Tom do? What would Tom's purposes be here? And my full assumption is critical theory, social justice.

01:05:56

This is what's coming in. That's what Resolution 9 was all about. That's what it's all about.

01:06:03

So why distract from that? Why let anything get in the way of dealing with the real key issue, and that is the need to warn, first,

01:06:17

Southern Baptist churches, but other churches beyond that context, that this intersectionality thingy is not just some tool.

01:06:31

And that's why I thought it was just absolutely insane. There wasn't anything purple to that. Fuzzed out. I didn't even know who it was.

01:06:38

That's crazy. Because I'm thinking, Tom's doing this. Shortly after that program, and I talked about a bunch of stuff.

01:06:50

I spent about five, six minutes on why I thought that was just insane. Shortly after that,

01:06:57

I started getting information about the fact that Tom wasn't the one doing that.

01:07:03

There were other people involved. And once I got in touch with them, then

01:07:10

I started learning all sorts of things that I knew nothing about at all. At all.

01:07:18

So, I start finding out about what was going on at the convention.

01:07:28

I wasn't at the convention. And when we had Tom Buck on to talk about it, none of this came up in that conversation.

01:07:38

But evidently, there was a bunch of conversation going on about the lawsuit that I only heard about a few days ago.

01:07:48

You, yesterday? Let's see. Lawsuit involving Matt Chandler's church.

01:07:54

And it took, it was yesterday, the day before yesterday, before I had any clarity as to timeline, who was involved with what.

01:08:03

No earthly idea what any of this was about. And wouldn't have gotten any idea from that clip, from the trailer either, to be perfectly honest with you.

01:08:11

That's the other part of it. But evidently, there is a lawsuit going on.

01:08:19

There's a Boz Chvijan, who I know nothing about. And, he has some group that does sex abuse cases that Rachel Denhollander has said good things about.

01:08:37

I've heard about, I've heard it said that they're, you know, hooked up in some way.

01:08:42

I don't know. But that's what I've heard. And that there's another group,

01:08:49

Ministry Safe, that was the group that, evidently there was some problem in Matt Chandler's church.

01:08:58

And Ministry Safe, they hired Ministry Safe. But they're being sued by the other group, and I'm not sure why.

01:09:04

And no one I've heard can tell me exact, why is this, what's going on? Why is this lawsuit taking place?

01:09:12

So, what happens is, Rachel Denhollander makes all these comments about mistakes that have been made at Matt Chandler's church, and I guess he wasn't even going to be there.

01:09:24

I guess he flew in, within 24 hours. Yeah, he was on sabbatical.

01:09:31

And responded, point by point, to the accusation. So this was what, yeah,

01:09:37

I guess if I had been there, I would have heard about all this. But the point is, as the interviews are taking place, this keeps coming up in the interviews.

01:09:48

I had no idea. I had no idea. So what happens is, starting, when was it?

01:09:56

I think Toby Sumter's blog article was, uh,

01:10:04

Wednesday? Of last week? I'm just trying to remember. I read it on my phone, at the

01:10:13

Echo Lake Lodge, while eating chicken strips after climbing

01:10:19

Mount Evans by myself, solo, to get over the absolute terror of heights.

01:10:25

It was chicken strips time. It was chicken strips time, yeah. I just love

01:10:32

Echo Lake Lodge. Anyway, so that would have been, I did that on Thursday, so that would have, I think it would have come out the day before, so I think it was

01:10:39

Wednesday. So Toby Sumter comes out, Doug Wilson was saying some things, and before all of this, what

01:10:48

I had found out was the editing was done by Chocolate Knox. Now, let me be very, no, it doesn't matter how clear

01:11:00

I am about this, some of you are only going to hear some of my words, and then I'm just going to go and then others are going to hear the other words, and then

01:11:09

I'm going to go. There's no way to win on this one, no matter how hard I try. I talked on the phone with Chocolate Knox Monday, let's say

01:11:24

Wednesday, Monday, and the reality is, he said to me,

01:11:33

Dr. Wyatt, I'm still going to love you, even if you want to punch me in the nose. And I'm like,

01:11:40

Knox, I'm going to love you too, and I may still try to punch you in the nose, we'll see. This is a situation where I'm going to try to transcend social media, because social media doesn't do real well with Christian brotherhood, okay?

01:12:04

So, I'm going to lose a lot of friends when

01:12:11

I say and see, I'm already getting people saying, no, you're not right about that,

01:12:18

I'm sure there are 47 ,000 little details here, there, and everywhere. That's the whole problem.

01:12:27

So much of this stuff is political, well, then there's this thing over here, and then there's that thing over there, and some of these folks,

01:12:32

I don't even know, I don't even know what's up.

01:12:41

Yeah, well, I've got people saying, you know, info isn't right, but it doesn't say anything about it.

01:12:49

Anyways, I'm not even sure what that is all about.

01:12:56

Yeah, I do need to stay on track. I really appreciated

01:13:05

Knox's attitude, we talked about this, and we're perfectly fine to say we disagree with one another about this particular issue, and that is whether that should have been inserted or not.

01:13:20

And I've been straight up front in saying, look, maybe there are issues to be addressed here, but I don't see how they're related to actually communicating anything about the social justice movement or critical theory.

01:13:38

I've heard the attempts to make the connection, and they seem exceptionally strained to me.

01:13:45

I don't see how any one video called a Synodoc or whatever you want that is any shorter than the last

01:13:55

Avengers movie could ever possibly—I didn't see the last Avengers movie, I just heard it was really long—could ever possibly meaningfully set the stage in talking about the conservative resurgence of the

01:14:08

Southern Mass Convention or anything like that, meaningfully define social justice, cultural

01:14:17

Marxism, intersectionality, all the rest of that type of stuff, and then somehow provide a

01:14:24

Biblical response to all those things that would be meaningful mainly to Southern Baptists—this is a

01:14:29

Founders production— and at the same time somehow wed all of that to a discussion of sex abuse scandals and differing methodologies focused upon church or victim or whatever else, which seems to be the big brouhaha in the comments that I've heard, how do you connect all that stuff together?

01:14:53

And what I said was 99 .9 % of the energy that could have been produced by the trailer was wasted on something that's not going to end up being in the video at all.

01:15:09

So all the stuff— is there reason to be dealing with the other subjects out there?

01:15:18

Is there reason to ask the question, should Christians be suing other Christians over methodologies or whatever all that thing is?

01:15:30

Sure, there's— yeah, but that's not what this video was about. At least that's not what it presented itself to be.

01:15:37

And by the way, I know the title is By What Standard?

01:15:45

The reality is you could raise any subject and tie it to that title. You could raise any controversial subject in the church today and connect it to that title.

01:15:57

So I get it that in the minds of some, oh, it makes perfect sense.

01:16:03

Let's tie this all together. From my perspective, if you had asked me, I would have said, you're nuts.

01:16:09

I did say you're nuts. I said it's insane to address this issue in this context, in this way.

01:16:19

And especially— I mean, I would say if you're going to insert it, then you don't blur it.

01:16:25

You don't do it for 1 .5 seconds and you put enough in there to actually make a point. I mean, if you're going to go there, then go there.

01:16:32

It was the fact that you didn't go there and make a point that created the whole problem in the first place.

01:16:40

So I'm not saying that anyone is untouchable. There is, by what standard?

01:16:46

Biblical standard. And so you can be a victim of all sorts of things that doesn't make you an infallible interpreter of scripture and doesn't make you untouchable.

01:16:53

I get all of that. No question about it. But it just never even crossed my mind.

01:17:02

When I saw it, I don't know who that is. And the vast majority of other people don't know who it is.

01:17:08

And even if they did, the only thing they knew in that context would not have given them any context to understand what the issue was.

01:17:17

And so, well, it's been pushed back. Well, the trailers aren't supposed to do all that stuff. Well, look what it did. Look what it's done.

01:17:25

And by the way, let me say this. I'm very thankful.

01:17:32

I can't imagine how difficult this time has been for Tom Askel. There was a death in the family and all the rest of this stuff.

01:17:40

But the pressure must be just absurd. And I pray for his health, spiritual and physical.

01:17:50

But Founders has been damaged by this. And I really appreciate that when a number of the board members resigned over this, that Tom allowed them to write their reasons out and posted them.

01:18:07

And I don't appreciate that there have been people who attacked them for having the convictions of that.

01:18:13

This is the cannibalism I'm talking about. It goes both directions. We can't do this. We've got to stop this. I mean,

01:18:19

I respect those men for taking the stand. And they did. And I respect Tom for posting openly their own explanations.

01:18:29

I mean, how many groups would do that? Not many. Not many.

01:18:35

So, I love Chocolate Knox. I love Toby Sumter. I love the

01:18:43

CrossPolitik guys. We had them on. We did not fully agree.

01:18:49

We clearly don't fully agree on paedo -baptism. We don't agree on the issues related to the debate that Doug and I had.

01:19:00

Nature of the Covenant. Issues like that. Doug and I have done multiple debates now on the textual issue.

01:19:08

Would love to do more in the future. But some of you have lost your minds.

01:19:13

Every time I have said, Wow, did you hear what Doug Wilson said? Nailed that one right there. There is a level of maturity

01:19:21

I'm calling for that allows us to disagree with one another while still professing our love for one another and being thankful that the

01:19:31

Lord uses a bunch of really messed up people to accomplish His purposes in this world, myself included.

01:19:40

So, I screwed up. I was totally wrong. Didn't know what the background was.

01:19:46

Couldn't have known what the background was. And there were a lot of other people that had the exact same conclusions.

01:19:54

But let me say something to those of you just crowing about that. Did you have the information

01:20:01

I didn't have? Did you know about the lawsuit stuff and stuff like that that was going on?

01:20:11

And if you didn't, then I still have to ask a question that I asked two weeks ago. Why automatically assume the worst?

01:20:20

Why automatically jump to those conclusions? I mean, sometimes conspiracy theorists get it right, but most of the time they don't.

01:20:29

So, why... I was operating on the assumption of what I knew, not only of the context, but of Tom Askell and what

01:20:39

I expected from Tom Askell. I was wrong that he was that involved. I didn't have all the chatter about the lawsuit stuff and everything else that goes along with that.

01:20:51

And even if I had, I still would have if I had been asked, and I told Chocolate Mox this, if you had asked me,

01:20:56

I would have told you you're nuts. Don't do it. Because look what it's resulted in. So, it's been removed.

01:21:08

You have the statement from founders, not only about that, but about the resignations.

01:21:14

And so the real question now becomes, where do we go from here? Is there some way to in some fashion ask that we affirm those who make a profession of faith in the

01:21:37

Lord Jesus Christ, preach his gospel, believe his word, and recognize that the enemy is a concept and a system that guts the

01:21:56

Christian worldview. And there are even Christians who've been deceived by it.

01:22:03

How are we going to snatch them out of the fire? Or are we going to spend all of our time beating each other up while they burn the fire?

01:22:12

How do we do it? It's going to take grace. It's going to take us being willing to not look down on brothers because we think we're right.

01:22:27

We think our methodology is right. We think we need to do it this way. Well, if the

01:22:34

Spirit of God doesn't lead everybody else to that same conclusion, then what are we going to do? Are we going to continue the cannibalization?

01:22:43

Or do we make the strongest case we can, plead, clothe our exhortation to our brothers and sisters with love and mercy and grace?

01:22:56

Or do you just whip out the nine mil and start shooting? Amongst believers, that's just not an option for us.

01:23:06

We will be destroyed. We've got to operate within the only context that's been given to us, and that's grace.

01:23:17

That's grace. It's not an easy line to draw.

01:23:23

It's not an easy line to draw. And so, once again, love everybody that's been involved with this.

01:23:40

Can I say that I deeply appreciate the contributions to the promotion of the gospel that have come from many different people?

01:23:54

Can I say that I appreciate that Thabiti Anyabwili has stood with me in years past and spoken the gospel plainly in regards to Muslims?

01:24:06

Can I say that anymore? Without being shot out the window?

01:24:15

Can I be thankful for what he's done for the kingdom while still disagreeing strongly with the developments that I've seen?

01:24:27

Do I have to say that Thabiti is not a Christian anymore? Can I debate

01:24:33

Doug Wilson and go, Man, I've never heard anyone write the way he writes. He has tremendous insights.

01:24:40

That doesn't mean I agree with him on everything, but can I be thankful for what he's done for the cross -politics guys?

01:24:48

Can I be thankful for anybody in the Southern Mass Convention without getting them in big trouble? Can I be thankful for Al Mohler?

01:24:57

Can I pray for Danny Akin? Yeah, even Danny Akin? Can I pray for him? I shook his hand recently.

01:25:05

He says he's a fellow believer. How do I deal with that if I adopt the idea that I have to have the same attitude toward any one of those individuals that I would if I was a

01:25:20

Republican congressman shaking hands with Nancy Pelosi? We all know why they shake hands, but we all know what they're thinking.

01:25:28

If we do that, our souls will be eaten out of our bodies. I just have to ask everybody, being real honest here, how much damage are you taking in your soul right now in our culture because of the attitude you have toward other believers?

01:25:57

Only you can answer that question, honestly. Only you can. I can't look into your heart, but can you look at me and honestly say, you know what?

01:26:07

I'm closer to the Lord than I've ever been, and I have more love for the brethren than I've ever had, and I have more desire of holiness than I ever have.

01:26:16

Because the folks, I'm telling you, maybe I'm just weak, and some of you are going to say that I am. Fine. But I think there's a lot of people, like me, who if we just step back for a second and ask the question, has this advanced my sanctification, my being more like Jesus, or do

01:26:43

I wake up in the morning thinking about this before I think about anything else? Is it the first thing on my plate?

01:26:49

Is it the main thing that my energy is focused on? And what's been the result in your relationship with your wife, your husband, your children, your fellow believers at church?

01:27:03

How about your relationship at church at all? What about it?

01:27:15

What's the cost? What will the cost be? Christ is in control of His church.

01:27:23

He calls us to proclaim His lordship. I am not for a second saying that we should compromise on any of that.

01:27:31

But I'm saying I can't think of a time in my public ministry where we have needed more wisdom.

01:27:39

And I don't think social media has helped us with wisdom. I think the fact that we respond to things far too quickly, and we have to, because politically, there's only a certain window open, you see.

01:27:55

But in the olden days, time was allowed to pass. Reflection, conversation with more mature believers changed everything.

01:28:07

It changed everything. It's so easy at the keyboard to dismiss the brotherhood.

01:28:18

You can't experience, okay, I'll take that back. You can't experience a certain level of brotherhood electronically.

01:28:24

Yeah. But that's not the natural way. You need to be able to look in people's eyes.

01:28:31

There needs to be that connection. And so,

01:28:36

I'm going to say what sounds utterly contradictory. I stand firmly for the truth of Scripture that is utterly denied by critical theory and the social justice movement.

01:28:56

I see it as destructive. I will argue against it. I will continue to argue against it.

01:29:02

I will continue to say that the unity and oneness of the body of Christ is not to be found in those methodologies.

01:29:10

It comes from a recognition of our one standing as one people in the one imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, looking only to the cross and to nothing else.

01:29:20

I will stand for that. I will defend that to my last breath, God willing.

01:29:28

But at that very same time, I simply refuse to destroy my own soul by setting myself up as judge, jury, and executioner of others.

01:29:43

And I will exhort my brothers and sisters who I believe have been infected with a horrible perspective, with a horrible idea.

01:29:59

But I'm not going to make it something that says anybody would believe that must be an unbeliever, must be lying to me.

01:30:09

I'm going to leave that to the Lord. And so I'm going to be praying as a believer for a bunch of people.

01:30:19

And those people don't necessarily have the exact same perspectives. But I believe they're

01:30:27

Christians. And I want to see unity. Not a false unity.

01:30:33

A unity born out of a common commitment to divine truth. And so I'm going to pray for and be thankful for more men than many of my friends would want me to be thankful for and pray for.

01:30:54

And so yeah, I'm thankful for Doug Wilson and Toby Sumter and Chocolate Knox.

01:31:04

They're not shocked that I think this was a real bad move. Because I've disagreed with them on other things, too.

01:31:14

We're big enough to love each other. I'm thankful for Albert Moeller.

01:31:20

And you may not like what directions he goes or the speed he goes or anything else, but I'm thankful for him.

01:31:28

I've learned so much from him. You might say, you're being naive.

01:31:35

I think we're called to trust and then leave the rest to our

01:31:43

Lord. Leave the rest to our Lord. I am thankful for Tom Askell and Founders and Jared and Sovereign Nations and I'm Tom Buck knows that he is a troublemaker from Texas that I love deeply and is one of the best brothers

01:32:10

I've got. Obviously, deeply thankful for my fellow elders at Apologia and they have more close connection to Toby and the other folks up there than I've ever had.

01:32:31

But we had a long discussion about this and I said, look, guys, I've got to say what

01:32:38

I've got to say and I'm going to say I love I'm going to be praying and we need to have unity and there needs to be some way.

01:32:49

Look, I've got to recognize if judgment's coming God may not see fit to heal these rifts so we just have to remain faithful in the midst of it.

01:33:01

Have to remain faithful in the midst of it. But I am calling for those of us who are standing on this side that we've got to stop the cannibalism.

01:33:12

We've got to stop beating each other because cannibals tend to sort of lose their own souls in the process.

01:33:21

I don't want us to win a political victory and lose our souls in the process and I'm concerned that that's going to happen.

01:33:31

So, to everybody on our side, let the other side rage.

01:33:39

Be slow in your response. Be prayerful in your response.

01:33:46

Can you imagine how different social media would be if you spent if you made the amount of time that you spend arguing with people one half the amount of time you spend praying for people online.

01:34:07

What kind of change would that make? It'd be huge, wouldn't it? We've got to admit it'd be huge.

01:34:16

And are we really so convinced of our own importance that we would think that that lost time would somehow mean the turning of the tide?

01:34:26

Who are we trusting? Where do we think the real power here is? I don't know.

01:34:36

I don't know, but I'm I hope you can tell I'm really concerned about what I'm seeing. So, for all my critics,

01:34:45

I faceplanted two weeks ago Friday. So for all of you who say James White never says he was wrong,

01:34:51

I didn't know. I didn't have the background. Still don't have all the background. Doesn't change the fact that I feel like it was a really unwise move and it's caused major damage.

01:35:03

It's caused major damage. That, I don't think, is really even arguable. But having said all that, may

01:35:12

I please exhort everyone, just because you disagree with somebody, if they're a fellow believer, you've got no grounds to hate them.

01:35:22

You've got no grounds to hate them. And you critics, you've got no grounds to hate me. Unless you're just simply going to dismiss me as a

01:35:28

Christian, and some of you do that. And I'm not going to return that favor. I can't do it.

01:35:35

Leave it up to the Lord. He has a way of making all these things work out.

01:35:41

And in fact, the reality is that great day is going to demonstrate. It's going to demonstrate.

01:35:48

So, I'm going to leave it. Time is going to bring out the facts.

01:35:57

Maybe not in this life, but eventually. The only thing

01:36:02

I can control, folks, is my motives. I need to have the right motivation.

01:36:09

And I'm going to continue to demonstrate biblically that critical theories impact upon who

01:36:25

God is, who man is, relationship, gospel, is absolutely destructive.

01:36:30

Must warn against it. Must warn against it. But if you can't do that graciously, what good are you going to do?

01:36:40

What good are you going to do? So, there you go. I'm sure there's all sorts of other stuff that I was supposed to say, or could have said, or probably should have said better.

01:36:51

But, there you go. If you, like me, are simply tired of the soul drain, take some time off.

01:37:08

Take some time off. Go ride a mountain. Or do what

01:37:14

I did. Go get stuck on the side of a mountain in an abject state of terror.

01:37:22

Because that's what happened to me. I lived my nightmare a week ago

01:37:30

Monday. I lived my nightmare on the side of a mountain, on my feet and my hands crawling along rocks.

01:37:41

If you could have seen the seven -year -old little boy at the top of the

01:37:46

Washington Monument when my parents first took me up there. The windows, have you seen those little slits?

01:37:52

They're this big. You could not shove somebody out of that if you tried. I was plastered against the inside wall.

01:38:00

I could not even get up to that window. Get me back in that elevator. Get me out of here. That's...

01:38:06

When we came down the Apache Trail at 11, my parents took me up the

01:38:12

Apache Trail. I was on the floorboard of the car. I couldn't look out the windows. So what happened was my friends took me up that not knowing how absolutely terrified

01:38:26

I am of heights. And they had to watch me go through my nightmare for an hour.

01:38:34

But I decided that night I can't let that stand.

01:38:40

So without telling them, I only told Kenny. KG, you know who

01:38:46

I'm talking about. I changed all my plans for Thursday. I didn't tell them. I slept early in the morning, drove up there, and I did it solo by myself.

01:38:57

In an hour less than I did it before. And beat it. Now does that mean I'm going to start doing free solos up Yosemite?

01:39:06

No. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But I beat it.

01:39:12

And I just couldn't let it stand. I had to. That's what I did. So maybe that's what you need to do.

01:39:18

Because I'll be honest with you, during the toughest part of that climb, I was not thinking about any of this. It was completely out of my mind.

01:39:27

Was there something you wanted to add? Oh, gotta get the

01:39:35

Rich Cam up. The only thing that I wanted to add to the portion about Tom and Founders was, and I was one of them who were going, this is b -roll.

01:39:45

Because I could not find any rational explanation for any of it. like you pointed out, the comments that I'm seeing are vicious, and they are merciless, on both sides.

01:40:02

Yes. And they are, from everything I could see, all based on speculation. And I'm trying to back everybody away from the cliff and go, no, this has got to be b -roll.

01:40:14

Come on. Let's... Nobody wanted to have anything to do with it. And people have said there was bad communication.

01:40:23

There was. There was. There was no question about it. You find out after the fact, of like, oh, who, what?

01:40:30

Right. I never in my wildest dreams would have put those two groups together. At all. But for that, at the same time,

01:40:39

I go, you know, when you're in battle, and we are in a heavy...

01:40:44

Sometimes there's friendly fire. duty battle here, and the guy on the front line makes a big mistake.

01:40:51

And he starts doing something that nobody else back in the back, it doesn't make any sense.

01:40:59

And in this situation, I look back over the last few weeks, and I see a whole lot of friendly fire going into the back of Founders.

01:41:10

And Tom. And for all the mistakes that they've faced up to,

01:41:16

I exhorted on Twitter late last week of, come on, folks, let's take a look at the fact that, you know what?

01:41:26

One of our own is down. And in a lot of ways, they stumbled, and now we've complicated it by shooting at them.

01:41:34

And at what point do we stop ourselves and help them up? Well, and not only that, it just, for me, it has detracted, distracted from what they wanted to do.

01:41:48

Well, yeah, I think the enemy got a big -time foothold here. Yeah. In all of this, because guess what?

01:41:54

We've got this major enemy coming at us in all kinds of different forms, but all of it is

01:42:01

CRT. And this took every bit of our attention away from that battle and away from that focus.

01:42:12

And in that regard, they won. And that's where you go.

01:42:18

You're forced to do only one thing. You've got to step back and regroup. And that's what we had to do. Well, yeah, and I'm saying we need to regroup, but there needs to be more than one person in the group.

01:42:29

Well, absolutely, and that's really ultimately it. So that grace and love thing, yeah.

01:42:36

Well, you don't when you regroup, you regroup. You don't scatter. And everybody goes their own way.

01:42:43

You've got to regroup and get focused again as a group. Yeah. And that's what you're doing here.

01:42:49

Well, there you go. We went real long because I knew that, and like I said, there was probably

01:42:56

I think I mentioned on Facebook, you know, I've been thinking about this for days, and there was probably 20 statements that I came up with on bike rides or runs or whatever that thought this would be really good, and it just went...

01:43:12

So just let me reiterate as we close off. Let's stop cannibalizing one another.

01:43:21

The issues are real. Chocolate Knox, love you too. Toby, you know, we disagree on the wisdom of that insertion.

01:43:29

We disagree on textual issues too. Still love you. We can still, you know, we ought to plan a program sometime in the near future just to demonstrate that we can disagree about these things and still love one another.

01:43:48

Pray that all of us, the best that any one of us can do is to act in such a way that when we stand before our

01:44:03

Lord, He who knows the hearts will know that we did the best we could with the knowledge we had in a faithful fashion in His service.

01:44:19

And that we did desire to create peace with the brethren. We desired to live with fellow believers in a way that demonstrated the love of Christ amongst us as much as it depended upon us.

01:44:37

And that's a tough phrase. And that's a tough call. And not everyone's going to do it the same way as everyone else.

01:44:45

I understand that. That's why I love my Presbyterian brothers, though we have such a strong disagreement on baptism.

01:44:52

You would think we could get it all figured out, but that's the world we live in. That's where we are right now.

01:45:01

And so there. There's a summary. I better stop there because it's 345.

01:45:08

So I do not have any earthly idea what the future schedule looks like.

01:45:13

What? Well, I leave Wednesday for South Africa. So Tuesday looks good.

01:45:19

Please remember South Africa. I've got multiple debates, all sorts of presentations and stuff.

01:45:25

Some actually related this, so at least there's some crossover at that point, but others not related at all.

01:45:31

And so straight back into the work. So thanks to all those who've made it possible for me to get down there.

01:45:39

And then we've got trips after that. Australia, London, all sorts of stuff coming up this fall.