Keep sharing good news without ads.
No description available
Well, thank you all for having me it is truly an honor to be here. Thank you to John and Nancy for hosting and in your home Seth a true friend brother. My brother John Laskin is here in the building. He was with me in Fullerton, California when The culmination of the story I'm about to tell.
So thank you brother for being here once again so I was recently at a large Christian University and they had a Guest speaker. He was a very famous well-known sports figure and he told some wonderful stories about Integrity.
He had the chance to buy a cheat sheet, but he didn't do it. He got inside information about a sneak play that another team was going to pull but he didn't use the information and the message that he gave was all about having integrity and We loved what he had to say.
In fact many of the students were deeply impacted by what he taught but there was just sort of a bad taste in my mouth. About what I listened to and the problem I had was it seemed that every single story he told Left him as the hero.
He was the moral hero of every story and it started to get a little bit distasteful. So when Seth asked me to come tell my story, I thought oh man I would much rather preach a passage of Scripture. I don't want to come across as I did something courageous and Because honestly, I was fumbling and bumbling and stumbling like I'll probably do here again today.
I did my best. I felt called to do it. But I also erred in many ways. I'm sure there were probably times when my rhetoric got too strong the language that I used. Were at times maybe over the top. My attitude was probably not perfect all the time.
But what's worse than a hero story where you make yourself the hero of every story is a victim narrative. Where whoa is me, you know, I'm such a victim. That can be equally nauseating probably worse right gag me with a spoon.
And in fact, that's like what the whole social justice movement is about. It's a victim narrative of how the world and everything is against you. So I want to guard against that and the scripture that came to mind.
As I was thinking about this talk today Comes from the book of Galatians and it's chapter 6 verse 1 Brothers if anyone is caught in any transgression. You who are spiritual? Should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.
Keep watch on yourself lest you to be tempted and I tried when I so I came into the free church. I wasn't born and raised like Seth has roots back to his great-grandparents. I was an inner-city missionary in Philadelphia for 12 years.
But I had moved my family out of one of the worst neighborhoods in America the Kensington section of Philly. You can watch Videos on it, but I didn't think it was a good thing to be raising my kids there.
So we moved to Mount Laurel one day I went for a jog in the neighborhood and Ran past this Mount Laurel evangelical free church and John was there at the time I touched the sign as I ran by and I started praying God bless this church and in that moment I got a text message that said would you ever be interested in preaching at the Mount Laurel evangelical free church?
And I said I'm literally praying for that church right now. And so I accepted it and that's how I got called to become a free church pastor. And when I got there in 2016, I Thought well, this is great.
I investigated investigate. I did my due diligence and realized the free church is solid man. Look at this statement of faith. I'm a hundred percent on board with this. So I was then into a new movement when in 2018 the wokeness started to come in like a flood in This verse Galatians 6 1 came to mind.
I Need to be gentle. I need to to approach this the right way and as I talked to my district superintendent and other people Involved in the movement. I didn't feel like the move the the needle was moving at all.
There was no correction happening. So there is also a time to take on a more prophetic voice. You see this in in Elijah you see Paul with some strong rhetoric in Galatians 512 John the Baptist Brutal Vipers Jesus and Matthew 23 there's a time to take on a more prophetic role and to speak strongly and So there came a point where I felt it was time to do that.
Now when did wokeness come into the Evangelical Free Church of America? It probably started much earlier than 2018. There was probably a drift in that direction, but as has been mentioned in 2018, the theology conference was about race and culture.
And this is where it was introduced.
Like.
Exactly as CRT is defined. Here's a definition of wokeness. It's kind of hard to pin down every system every structure and our churches were built on the backs of black and brown people. Because their skin was not white.
It's every system every structure and every means it's everywhere. There's a victim class here and that is black and brown people and those who are white are the oppressor group. But one thing I would like you to notice about that definition.
Every system every structure is built on the backs of black and brown people because their skin is not white. Is that you really can't prove that it even says and our churches. How can you prove that each church is built on the black on the backs of black and brown people?
It's there's no due process to that charge. It's something that is very difficult to investigate. So I heard this come out in 2018 and that was actually a direct quote from Jarvis Williams. From Southern Seminary.
Thanks a lot Russell for sending us this this teaching. No, Russell was opposing it there and we were taught this and then after Jarvis Williams introduced that you had a Ted's professor named Doug Sweeney list all of those who were victims supposedly of the police force from Michael Brown and however many others and The police force was impugned as being a system a structure that is racist in this country.
After that, we had John Perkins Talking about capitalism being the problem and how the state of Washington which is more socialistic is the better model than the Capitalistic system that he has some friends who are capitalists and then finally Carl Ellis spoke on what is called reading while black which is that Theology is inexorably influenced by race and they say that the reason that there are no White liberation theologies or white theology at the Christian bookstore is That all theology is white and so black liberation theology and all of this is a response to that.
Well 2018 this is I'm a new pastor in the movement and I realized that this is a severe incursion against the church. So I'm very concerned. But it wasn't till three years later.
That.
One of the key leaders of the movement tried to address critical race theory and in that speech, this is March 11th, 2021 He says he begins to cite the people that that were helpful in his mind. But one of them was Sam Albury who is same-sex attracted and that's kind of the essence of his ministry.
Another was Rebecca McLaughlin same problem. Another was Vaughn Roberts same problem Carl Ellis reading while black Samuel Perry and others Andrew Whitehead were approvingly quoted and I got the sense that even though he's opposing critical race theory He's not really understanding who it is.
That's pushing critical race theory later on. Rebecca McLaughlin Who I just mentioned would literally argue in the good faith debates that woke church is not a stepping stone to theological compromise and Yet she was held up as the one to refute critical race theory.
So this had been a building problem in my mind that critical race theory is indeed being taught at the free church. I was also very disturbed by this leaders teaching in March of 2021 that He said We don't have any rights or to quote.
I don't have any rights. They're Christ's and yet how many times have we heard over the course of the last year? That's my right. I'm gonna I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that. Who's the government?
No government's going to tell me what to do. We're going to snub our nose. Nobody's going to tell me to wear a mask and What this leader was saying is that the churches who spoke this way and refused to obey government lockdown orders and masking requirements.
We're really not understanding that we've relinquished our rights to Christ and we have no individual rights. Which of course is the category error because well, whereas we are submitted to the Lordship of Christ It's also true that Christ has given us individual rights.
That we need to stand upon it was very troubling to me because we were in New Jersey and our governor Phil Murphy had all of the churches locked down for 15 months and we were open under threat of Who knows what if we were in Canada?
It was imprisonment in New Jersey. It would have likely been many fines and Yet the key leader is chastising the pastors who are staying open in a context like that because we were asserting our rights.
So understand that when I wrote when I wrote woke free church, it was after many provocations. I Wrote the book and I think I tried to speak graciously. Tried to show love towards the leaders of the free church.
Affirming the great things that the free church stands for and expressing love. But here's why I say that the response was really a woke response. So I was on woke trial for woke free church. Wokeness does not believe in biblical justice.
It is a modification of justice. Social justice is a modification of justice and it doesn't involve due process. So the way my book was handled by the free church was actually a perfect example of wokeness.
The first thing that happened was a letter was sent from our district superintendent to the Eastern District pastors. Nothing had been said to me personally that they didn't like my book but rather the letter said that Jeff Wrote woke free church two months after his ordination a couple of months after his ordination, which wasn't true.
That Jeff intended to defame the key leaders of the movement which wasn't true. But interestingly enough, it said that Jeff did not practice Matthew 18. Which was ironic because they weren't practicing Matthew 18 and addressing me, but Seth thank you for the article you wrote on truth script it's called weaponizing Matthew 18 and What was happening here was it was an attempt to silence me or cancel me or get people not to listen to the book.
By accusing me of violating Matthew 18 now as the elders pastor John and the other elders of Cornerstone Church prayed about woke free church before it was ever launched we felt this was a Galatians to issue as Peter rebuked as Paul rebuked Peter in the presence of all.
He addressed a public teaching publicly. Wokeness and social justice and critical race theory Jarvis Williams teachings all of these things were introduced publicly. And so it required a public.
Confrontation and.
It was prophetic. It was a rebuke, but it was very direct speech. It wasn't intended to harm the people but to address the issue so that we could correct. Course. A couple months later, I went to the district conference and I heard another key leader who now is The board chairman for the EFCA.
His name is Bill right now. I guess we're naming names, so I guess I'll go all in. I Think I've done that before anyway when John when you uh when you had me on the podcast. Thank you for that because that allowed me to get this information out as well.
Bill right L stood up in front of the the Eastern District, and he said that. You have progressives on the left. And you have conservatives on the right and each are trying to be biblical biblically faithful.
The conservatives love life. And we're trying to uphold life in the image of God in a baby in the womb and it's right and biblical to do that. But for some who are left-leaning abortion might be a needed option.
Because of certain societal factors and so what we need in the church is political diversity. Ideological diversity. You should have. He's in Washington DC so you should have some Democrat staffers in your church next to Republican staffers and.
The idea is diversity is a good thing no longer. Just talking about the color of skin which is sort of the diversity equity inclusion movement, but now extending out to ideological.
Diversity and.
I listened to this teaching and my spirit was was provoked and Afterwards he asked for questions, and he took a question-and-answer time and I sat there with my hand up and After a couple other people were called on I was the third and I said at what point Do we not accept the legitimacy of a political party.
The Nazi Party? murdered six million people under their party platform. Well, it was really Adolf Hitler who did that. And The Nazis of course are easy to condemn, but how about a party that in their platform is?
Advocating for the killing of children and 60 million babies have been aborted since Roe vs. Wade. Is there ever a point like what would be the line? Where we would separate from a political party and say it's no longer a Christian thing to do To support this political party or work as a staffer to promote what they do.
Well how would you think he answered that he said are you Jeff?
Yeah.
I'm Jeff. He said well. I tried to write you. I said I never got an email. And he said well actually I was copied on a thread and we'll talk about this later your your question is completely against the tenor Of this presentation, and we're going to move on.
And I said all right, so I sat down. I thought that was the end of it until I got a phone call a couple weeks later that he had gone to the Board of Ministerial standing and said that Jeff created quite a disturbance at the Eastern District Conference and See here's what wokeness does what rather than standing face-to-face man-to-man and addressing an issue Rather than addressing it listen truth does not mind being questioned if you have truth.
You can stand and defend what you believe. Proverbs 1817 one man seems right until another comes and examines him questions. Let's see if this teaching is actually biblical will it stand the test? Well instead of this he went to the Board of Ministerial standing and reported that I've now caused a disturbance by asking question and He still upheld this this when I talked to him over zoom that I had created a disturbance.
And he said I was yelling and pointing fingers and and all of these things which the witnesses say never happened. And I said how about you release the tape because you recorded that session, and I've asked that for two years now.
How about we see the tape of how I asked that question in any case? Bombs begins to view me now as like this wrecking ball this this villain who's against the Denomination when in fact I am trying to bring the denomination back to biblical Center to what the Bible teaches.
So now the next the third of five moments in in what's really been a woke trial. It's what I call my my diet of worms. I I emailed Kevin comp line, and I said hey Bill Rydell is telling bombs that I'm creating quite a disturbance, but really I didn't do that.
That's that's a libel. And I only found out about it because they accidentally sent the zoom link to somebody who's kind of a woke free pastor who heard him say it. Kevin comp line said I'll set up a meeting and He did.
He sent some district board of ministerial standing members to Mount Laurel, New Jersey to talk with me to listen to what I have to say and It wasn't all district bombs people. It was the superintendent.
It was a guy from another area of retired pastor and So I bought dad's deli had sandwiches and all these things and I was ready. I had my book woke free church, and I laid them out at all the seats at the table these were five men.
And I was excited that we were gonna finally talk about the issues of what's going on in the free church. But it was nothing of the sort when the men came in one of them was Whereas we had met two hours privately before and he was very friendly.
I I really thought he was a great guy. He turned into an attack dog. He just laid into me about writing this book. Of all the men who were there some of them admitted they had never read woke free church.
So I don't know what they were there to examine if they hadn't read it. But most tellingly of all I asked that pastor John Laskin could sit in the room. He's my associate pastor, and he's been free church guy since 99 and ordained with with the licensing Through the free church, and they said no it'll just be us.
Thank you, and it wasn't recorded either. I Had no idea that this would be later considered a trial that I was actually on trial. But for these few hours they laid into me. I tried to speak. I tried to open the book in fact I opened the book and showed the places where I affirm One of the key leaders Greg Strand about how he did such a great job in writing The statement of faith and how he helped me on my ordination thesis and how he's been a great leader in our movement however when he platformed these men like Williams and Ellis and Sweeney and Perkins and others.
That he was leading us in a woke direction, and he needs to repent and turn back. I showed page numbers, and I said guys show me in the book where I've misrepresented that I misquote anybody at any point.
Show me where my attitude was wrong, and they refused to open the book and refused to look inside. So in my diet of verms it was not a trial based on truth. Jesus and John 18 23 answers if what I said is wrong.
Bear witness about the wrong, but what if but what if what I said is right? Why do you strike me? And the question was what did I write or what have I said that was wrong? Open and show me a quote, and I will repent if I if I have erred.
No witness no recording and so it goes on the fourth of five moments trial by zoom.
Deuteronomy.
1917 to 18 says then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord Before the priests and the judges who are in the office in those days then judges shall inquire diligently.
About.
Two three months after my diet of worms. I got a letter from the free church and It charged it was a letter of accusation and official charges that I was now charged with Christian nationalism. Okay, no definition given to what that was Attitude.
I can understand where they got that maybe I I have at times been Self-righteous or Arrogant in some way or overstated my case or used too strong of language at some point. Although I don't know where I've done that.
I I might have done that. The third charge was influence and I thought yeah, I'm trying to influence like like the way salt influences meat or light influences the visibility in the room. Pastors are trying to influence and I am trying to influence but evidently they felt like well because it's been a difficult Road and the influence has been negative to some some of that agenda.
That this was a charge and the last was misrepresentation. And so from the time I got this letter until my trial by zoom about six months later. I Kept emailing the board. Asking for evidence of what they said.
Misrepresentation, please. Give me one page number of anything. I've said One quotation of a misrepresentation of anybody so that I can repent if that's the case. Attitude show me how I should have behaved differently.
Tell me what you mean by influence. Tell me what you mean by Christian nationalism. Well, they answered about Christian nationalism that that I supposedly claimed to be a Christian nationalist in my diet of worms which I never had done and So I emailed the person who was there and said can you clarify this and he just didn't answer the email.
So I emailed one of the other witnesses. Also from Sparta, New Jersey. I said you were there. Can you chime in here that I didn't claim to be a Christian nationalist. He refused to answer the email. Months go by and eventually they'll say, okay, we'll take that one off the table.
Well, thank you. That one's off the table, but the other charges remained. Just before the trial. They asked me to fly out to Minneapolis to meet with with the Board of Ministerial Standing and I said, yes.
Thank you. This is what I've wanted all along the scripture says even the custom of the Romans acts 25. Verse 16 is to meet face to face. I would love to come sit. I've wanted to talk. No one's been willing to talk about the actual issues all along and then finally a couple days later, they said actually we're going to rescind that offer and Instead you will appear by zoom in three days.
For the meeting of bombs or else we will find you guilty of these charges. And so I said, all right, I guess it's zoom or nothing. I'll do this zoom call and We did it was a 90-minute scolding. The guy who was sort of the diversity equity inclusion officer of the movement who would write so many of the articles about trips to Montgomery and all these things.
His name was Alejandro Mendes. He lectured me for about 15 minutes about why his woke book was better than my woke free book and. Okay, but here's another principle. The first was truth doesn't mind being questioned.
The second is time and truth walk hand in hand. Time and truth walk hand in hand. This particular person who had lectured me would later be removed from the movement without us being told why we just got an email.
That he's no longer with the free church, which had been the case with the previous diversity equity inclusion Officer Alvin Sanders who wrote bridging the diversity gap. That book was filled with critical race theory.
But he didn't last long in the free church and neither did this other.
Because.
Wokeness doesn't stand the test of time. Who was it Russell that you said that it destroys whatever it touches. It brings division. It brings conflict. Well It had been said by this bombs group that examined me that pastor Jeff.
His family must be in disarray. His church must be in disarray. Because of his extreme stubborn stubborn arrogance and his burgeoning form of racism. Everything must be falling apart. The truth of the matter as John could let you know is the church has never been thriving.
More more people coming to faith and being baptized and discipled. My family is thriving by God's blessing in every way. And Yet they stooped to that level of attacking my family and attacking the church in order to discredit.
When in total I was given the evidence against me for this trial it was 44 words. The bombs chair emailed me when he finally answered. He said alright. Here's the evidence against you. Christian nationalism your book attitude.
The meeting with the pastors and your book. They didn't even write in sentences. It was just sentence fragments without any evidence of the charges. That were against me. 2nd Corinthians 13 1 Paul offered very different ways of prosecuting cases and charges.
Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. So this trial was was none of that. The evidence was not offered and my defense was against 44 words of disjointed English. So needless to say.
This bombs group who examined me over zoom. After saying that I would be allowed to come and then reneging on that offer they found me guilty of attitude and influence and.
Misrepresentation.
So I was looking around in the bylaws of the free church saying is this really how the free church was organized is it? an authoritarian top-down situation now or wasn't this always a Congregationalist movement and I found in the bylaws of the EFCA that the Board of Ministerial standing is accountable to the conference to the the people the delegates of The free church and so I appealed This ruling to the conference and that brings me to the last stage of this controversy, which gets even more dramatic and strange.
They do grant that I would be able to go before the national conference in Fullerton, California Just of June of 2023. So John and I fly out to Fullerton. I'm hoping for an opportunity for to be heard.
I Was told the night before that I would be given three minutes. Three minutes. Which I was willing to take but I wasn't Willing to use that to try to establish a case because it didn't seem like a possible thing to do.
When the Fullerton trial unfolded it went like this the bombs leader read this statement against me and He fumbled and stumbled and the moderator had to correct some things that he said. But finally the charge was leveled and I was given my time to speak and I'll share with you in a minute what I said there but Deuteronomy chapter 21 verse 19 says That a trial should be brought to the elders of his city At the gate of the place Where he lives.
Now obviously, we're not Israel. This isn't a theocracy. And so the application of Old Testament law to New Testament To a New Testament age is a little bit different. The Westminster Confession talks about understanding the general equity of the law and how each civil or ceremonial law has an has an application that informs us how we are to live and Even if it's not a direct one-to-one correspondence.
There's a general equity. There's there's something that we learn from it. One of the things that Deuteronomy chapter 21 verse 19 would teach us is that if you want a character witness You should go to the elders of the person in his city and ask those people.
But the first witness to stand up against me in Fullerton, California was a megachurch pastor and I call this particular moment the college roommate. I never knew I had. Because he stood up as if he was my old college roommate and he told the room that I have known Jeff a long time.
And.
He had quite a cadence in his voice. He's a very good communicator extremely he had a he had a The ability to control his emotions and he sounded very somber. I've known him a long time in truth. We had spoken twice.
Once at the district conference. He had given a teaching and I had come up afterwards and asked him his about his advice. About a family in our church that had gone kind of kovat crazy and they were mad about us not masking and carrying on that way and This leader had told me you know what you should just fall on your sword do your best to you know Admit you're wrong and and and and take take it that way and I had just thanked him for his advice.
Appreciated the conversation and that was it. It was like just nothing. The other conversation was about a three-hour conversation at his office where we talked about race and culture and all kinds of Issues that way after which he thanked me.
He said oh, I didn't even realize how long we had been talking. We have emails afterwards appreciating the conversation. And I thought that we were friends in that sense. There's a very important verse Psalm 55 21.
His speech was smooth as butter yet war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil yet. They were drawn swords. This man speaking at Fullerton Talked about me as if we were age-old friends, and he said but you know as much as it breaks my heart I warned him once.
I warned him twice, and then I had to practice Titus chapter 3 Have nothing more to do with him be sure he is warped and sinful and self-condemned. I Had to distance myself because of this arrogance.
He doesn't listen. He's unwilling and You could hear the moans in the room, and I appreciate having these faces look at me that are like sympathizing. Because it was the exact opposite one year ago almost to the month was last June.
The room just moved with what this man said and I could tell this room was lost. Many other witnesses from from bombs and others got up and spoke that way and then they they called it. So now what did I say?
Well.
The night before When the man told me the the moderator told me you're gonna get three minutes to speak. I stayed up most of the night praying, and I knew the Lord would give me words in the moment. The Holy Spirit will teach you when you're brought before Kings.
He'll teach you what to say. So I'm crafting ideas in my mind. I'm making notes in my phone. What do I say. And John and I prayed together and talked about how? Listen. You can do your best to defend yourself, or you can maintain this more prophetic posture.
And I decided to come in in prophet mode and And not to cause harm, but thinking it's ridiculous to try to defend myself in three minutes. I'm gonna tell him what I think and so here's what I said. I said.
The sisters of perpetual indulgence are a completely blasphemous Christ hating group.
Who?
Dance naked on crosses to mock Christianity and the Los Angeles Dodgers have honored them and Given them a platform and given them this this recognition just a couple weeks ago. And when I got to this conference The pastor moderating here who was the leader from Fullerton was wearing a Los Angeles Dodgers outfit.
The Sunday before and he invited all the pastors. Hey, let's go to the Los Angeles Dodgers game well, all of the conservatives at this point are boycotting the Dodgers. And these this is not a word-for-word what I said, but I'm just doing my best to recall it from recollection here.
And I said listen, I think it's totally free if a pastor wants to go to the Dodgers game. They can do that and he even made a joke. He said you want to know two things. You know what Jesus and the Dodgers have in common?
They're both higher than the angels. And the joke was met, you know, the Anaheim Angels and I was just groaning thinking, you know. Not at this time, right? So here's what I said. You're free to go. It's a free movement.
If somebody's conviction is they can go to the game. That's good. And if it's not your conviction and you think that Christian should stand against it, that's good, too. But when the leader of this movement is standing before us before us trying to get us all to go to the Dodgers game.
You're trying to pull the movement in a certain direction and it's away from the fundamentalists. I think I use your language here. I said it seems that the free church is always willing to nuance or Pull to the left, but if you have someone like me to the right of you you punch, right?
What's happening here at the free church? This is yet another example with the Dodgers of pulling the movement left. And then I said with regard to my trial there there was no due process. There was no effort to even treat me as a brother.
Where is the love for a brother if you think I've fallen into sin and remember we began with Galatians 6 1 if you think My book was transgression. Be careful that you yourself are not tempted because you're not teach you're not treating me by the law of love and so this was my appeal and Sadly the final result Was kind of telling 411 people voted To condemn to uphold the stripping of my ordination.
My ordination was lost. Well, it's held in trust for disciplinary reasons and 29 men Voted in support of me for 11 to 29 93 against. So I could look at that in one of two ways one it could be that the people who like to go to that particular conference Might be tending more towards the social justice side in the first place.
Or it could be that the movement is is gone the free church is just gone woke and anybody who tries to fight against it is You know beating their head against the wall. You could look at it like that.
My belief is that the average free church free church person in Iowa and Ames, Iowa or in Nebraska or in Texas or in New Jersey or in Pennsylvania is not woke. I Don't believe that they are and I don't believe that they want the woke leadership.
Certain ones who are woke to pull the movement in that direction. That's how I I'm looking at it. And I think the evidence is bearing out that even though I kind of got tarred and feathered I Believe that the free church actually is correcting course away from the woke movement.
The diversity equity inclusion guy he's gone. It doesn't seem that he's been replaced. They wrote a series of affirmations and denials in which they denied critical race theory denied wokeness. Denied social justice, which is language that they used to treasure.
However, it was with some equivocation and the language was not as as strong as I would have liked it to been however. It was at least moving in the right direction. The articles about trips to Montgomery and all of the the woke agenda coming from the free church office in Minneapolis Used to be an open faucet.
Now it's more like a drip from The same faucet. I'm not sure what the new president is going to do in the free church, but I'll tell you this. He was one of two men who came up to me after that trial and encouraged me.
His name is Carlton Harris the old president is out now Carlton Harris is in and He came up to me and I we spoke for probably 20 minutes. We're both Dallas seminary guys. I have hope that it will be a new day of small beginnings for the free church.
I Don't think that the problem is gone. Why would it be there hasn't really been repentance? No one's ever owned that what was introduced in 2018 was was sinfully wrong. I Think there have been people that said yeah, we probably shouldn't have platform Jarvis Williams.
We probably shouldn't have gone with Carl Ellis, but there hasn't been Repentance for introducing diversity equity inclusion into the movement. But sometimes these battles are messy. Sometimes the victory isn't just obvious.
It's a slug. It's it's a long March, it's a long battle and you get beat up and you have to keep fighting and keep fighting. So I don't know what the future of the free church will be but I'm gonna tell you right now I'm actually very hopeful that we've turned the corner against wokeness.
I don't know what's to come, but one of the things I'd like to say and I obviously I know they're all listening right now if not live, but they'll a lot of the leaders will listen later and hear this and They're trying to decide right now if they're gonna throw cornerstone church out too because their pastor is such a problem.
We're from cornerstone in New Jersey. I would like to say to them now is the time to repent.
Of.
The woke social justice movement that overtook us in 2018. Now is the time to start? Upholding biblical justice and Listen, we have to love our enemies that I'm preaching to myself as much as to each of you.
One of the things that happens when you can see I think what happened is as soon as my book was published certain people decided that I was an enemy and Therefore did not deserve due process. But the Bible says love your enemies and in Galatians chapter 5 verse 14. It says that The law is summed up in a word to love your neighbor.
Love and law go together due process is a part of love and these principles of biblical justice Deuteronomy 19 2nd Corinthians 13 1. That must be given to an enemy as well as to a friend. Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth Paul said?
Well, if I have if I've become an enemy of the free church by speaking the truth. It's still incumbent on the free church to treat me with love and to give me due process in a trial in the same way I need to be loving towards the free church and Forgiving and willing to turn the other cheek and say, all right all this stuff that's happened.
Let's move forward. Let's repent. Let's confess and let's move forward together. And I would bet there's a pastor here. Who you've had someone in your church? Stand against the movement. Or you will somebody just won't be on board with your new direction.
Something that you say or do and your temptation will be to just say you know What this guy is the problem and you bring the hammer on him? Guess what that person who opposes you or that woman in the church who's saying things that are disagreeable?
They deserve due process which is love biblical justice. So what happened to the free church in my case, I believe is that They didn't execute Due process against me in trying me because they had already found me guilty in their minds they didn't even feel the need to do it and Every one of us as pastors and as leaders and churches are prone to the same kind of thinking.
But if I could bring any word today, it would be Galatians chapter 6 verse 1 brothers. If anyone is caught in any transgression You who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself Lest you to be tempted.
Let's not fall into that same kind of trap. Let's be willing to show grace. Let's be willing to forgive. Let's be willing to move forward and let's give due process To even those who oppose us because biblical justice are the principles we've heard today.
Proverbs 24 11 says rescue those who are being taken away to death to stand for the unborn. To stand for life, that's a biblical justice issue. We have to do that Biblical justice it will be the path forward for the free church.
Can I pray? Father, thank you so much for this opportunity Lord. I've held on to your word for years in Isaiah 54 where it says No weapon formed against you shall prosper Lord. I've clung to that. I believe that That you would give me opportunity To be vindicated in a sense to refute every tongue that rises against you.
I've clung to the scripture Lord. I want to thank you for this church Eureka Baptist Church and for pastor Seth. Because when he heard about this case he investigated the evidence and he listened to even members of bombs and sat down and heard both sides Proverbs 18 17 and then came to a just conclusion and I thank you for a brother like that.
I thank you for this opportunity to give my side of the story Lord. I give you glory for that. But Lord whatever happens to me whether my ordination is taken away forever whether our church is kicked out Of the free church, whatever happens Lord God I want to pray in Jesus name for the free church for the good and flourishing the future of the Evangelical free church of America.
I pray Lord that you would bless this movement. I pray that you would empower Carlton Harris To be a man of God who stands upon biblical justice that everything he does would be by the Word of God. Give him strength Lord to say what needs to be said and if there are things that he needs to learn Lord I pray that you would teach him teach him your word and help him to do what's right and Lord I pray for unity that you would help us now to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace that moving Forward there would be a new day.
Lord we pray that the free church would remain focused on the gospel but also biblical justice. That the free church would take a strong loud stand for the unborn. That the free church would stand for little children who would be mutilated at the hands of progressive leftists.
That the free church would stand for capitalist economics and not the socialism that's being introduced on the college campuses. That the free church would be a light in a dark culture. Lord let the free church be salt that preserves this culture.
Lord we pray even for those that have considered me an enemy and even people that I've named here Lord I pray for their good. I pray that you would bless them and not curse them. That you would grant them repentance and Lord bring us all to you the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
We pray in Jesus name. Amen.