Three Pastors and a Beer

Apologia Studios

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:01

All right. Ready to fight? No, shut up.

00:07

All right, so so let's talk so Should we force women to wax men's testicles?

00:21

Is this a trick question? I figure we start we'll start we'll start it the right way.

00:28

Absolutely not. Okay. So Why what's what's wrong?

00:34

If if is is there a standard that Ought to be held to by everybody

00:41

Because we're in a place with no. Okay. Well, yes or no. There should be an equal

00:47

By what standard is the question? Yeah, when when someone hangs out the shingle to set up a business

00:55

They they should be governed by biblical law and we should have expectations for them that are consistent with that but So no, of course, these women shouldn't be forced to do something like that But if you say no, then someone's going to say so do you think an owner of a diner in Birmingham, Alabama?

01:14

Had the right to say no to blacks or Jews, right? You're on Main Street.

01:19

It's a Establishment open to the public and no not you it should that's the first place.

01:26

They're going to go the answer is yes Should it should have the right to refuse service, right?

01:32

So the sign you've seen in many restaurants, we reserve the right to refuse service to absolutely anyone right is freedom of association

01:40

Right, right. So I would say yeah, if the if the business is privately a privately owned business

01:47

Then the proprietor has the right to make it a private club. He could be men's only it could be whatever

01:54

You know, whatever he wants and if he if he's a bigot then he's cutting his own throat

02:00

Because everybody's money is green. Yep, right, but you shouldn't have segregated

02:07

Public services, you know public libraries something that's paid for by public funds, right?

02:14

Then it should be Available to everyone that's everyone's a citizen every the city meets the criteria.

02:20

Yeah, we're all paying for it Yeah, we're all so basically the the problem was in you know,

02:26

Jim Crow in the Jim Crow South The the local establishment owner who wanted to serve blacks and whites together was prohibited by law

02:37

The problem was the government. Okay, it was there were a lot. It was Jim Crow laws And then we tried to solve it with more government with more government the government was the initial problem, right?

02:48

Right, right. So if you have a cosmopolitan City all kinds of people all kinds of languages the the petty bigotries are gonna break down and Merchants are gonna want to serve as many people as they can.

03:03

Yeah, and but if you start worshiping in the idol of the state You're just gonna get you're just at the end of that road is

03:11

These bikini wax ladies are being forced in British Columbia I are brought up before a human rights tribunal for refusing to Wax this guy's privates the same guy the fat dude in the dress, right?

03:27

Who's doing who's going around doing this? It has just applied to Langley BC City Council to have a 12 and over topless pool night at the city pool.

03:41

Is this real? This is totally weird I'm trying to talk and Which the actual official application form says that parents and caregivers will not be allowed on the premises because it will be safe and inclusive

04:01

Yeah, the official application says that parents and caregivers will not be Allowed on the premises because it will be safe and inclusive.

04:09

My suspicion is that this particular guy is hungry for attention Okay, so we're in a weird a weird way right now because we are seeing things take place on a

04:24

Rapid rapid pace. I mean to the to the degree that in 2019 you would never

04:30

I don't think you would have seen me maybe coming in 2000 that in 2019 We'd see the state punishing a woman for not wanting to handle a man's business

04:41

And that a man would be coming in there cross -dressing and that everybody would sort of be cheering him on like that's right

04:47

You're allowed to do that and it's right to force a woman to touch her genitals so We've lost our way in a big way.

04:55

So so the crate. Okay. Here's the weird thing about it Is that the people who came over to Canada and to the

05:01

United States of America early on had a particular world view? That was essentially Christian even if they weren't

05:07

Christian, right? And that was understood. It was respected. It was a standard above everybody every people sneer at cultural

05:14

Christianity Yeah, and yeah, it won't get you into heaven that it's deficient that way

05:20

Yeah, but there are tremendous blessings with cultural Christianity. It's a gift.

05:25

It's a gift. It's not a bad thing, right? It's a bad thing for someone who trusts in cultural Christianity to get him past the pearly gates.

05:33

That's a bad thing Soterio never happen, but It's not a bad thing if you want to live in a decent place with without perverts chasing your children, right?

05:44

It's a it's a calm. It's a it's a it's not even common grace It's halfway between common and special grace because it's part of the overflow of special grace

05:53

A vibrant church is salt and light and that affects the whole society it preserves the society

05:59

Yeah, and if it scatters darkness in the society, right and actually and then it actually makes The gospel flourish so it goes it's a blessing to The preaching of the gospel to be able to clear away

06:14

The gunk because the gunk always comes it tries to stifle and muffle the gospel, right?

06:20

I mean, that's why you know, Amazon is panning certain kinds of books and YouTube and Facebook certain, you know

06:26

So keywords keywords now Christian is apparently Google Ads will not allow that now is for one of the tags

06:33

Because it's it's not like you can actually have this empty secular spot. There's no space that's actually

06:39

Empty with no gods, right? There are always gods and the gods are always at war

06:45

Nope the god, you know the old the ancient gods never made peace all of the stories are about them getting mad at each other and then

06:52

You know and when you and when you argue for biblical morality biblical standards of morality

06:58

Sometimes the the cool kids within the Christian Church will sneer at you. Well, you just want to go back to the 1950s, right?

07:07

Well, Paul said we're pray for quiet and peaceable lives so that we can share the gospel right 50 sounds like a good

07:14

I'm down with that. Yeah, in other words That's it's not like that's the postmillennial paradise or or that's the way it's going to be right right before Jesus comes

07:23

That's right, but it's it sure beats what we've got going now Yeah, right and it's much closer to what we should be longing for working for According to Scripture than what we have now, right?

07:36

Anthony Esalen who's one of my favorite living papists? Has a great book called defending marriage

07:45

And it's kind of a natural law argument for the sanctity of Christian marriage and in there and that book one of the most striking chapters had to do with how homosexuality has destroyed male friendship and destroyed boyhood

07:59

Right. Yeah, like there were so back to your 19th like in places He waxes a little bit romantic, right and he could be accused of being kind of romantic about the 1950s

08:09

But he's he's talking about back in the day when a bunch of boys could go down to the swimming hole and splash around You know, maybe half naked or all the way naked whatever and nobody thought a thing about it

08:19

They were just being boys and now if a bunch of boys went down and stripped down and swam in the in the lake

08:25

Everybody be freaking out And and then men just being friends Like it's it's it's got it's actually infected

08:33

The good gifts of God Boyhood and friendship right because now everything's infected with that suspicion and it's infected inside the church exactly and that's what

08:43

I think the the Old Testament uses a word that has now sort of Kind of got

08:49

TNT attached to it the word abomination Which you know you hear that, you know from the the crazy street preacher or the straight, you know fire

08:57

It's been a fundamental separated Baptist. Yeah, there you go, you know abomination But actually the word itself just meant that it fundamentally it defiled the land

09:08

It meant that it had this kind of sin has a way of infecting not just it's not it's not easily

09:14

Isolatable these kinds of sins defile everything they infect they get in the water. They're in the air.

09:20

They're like pollution No, you know, that's an about like if you want a good biblical analogy, it's like pollution It's pollution and so it affects everyone and so somebody says well, why do you why do you care?

09:29

Why do you care what two guys do in their privacy of their own home? well

09:35

There's one sense of which I don't But it's another sense in which because the Bible says that what they're doing can't stay there, right?

09:42

It bleeds out it smokes out and it's coming and it's coming for us. Yeah, why do you care?

09:48

Why do you care if there's a hole in the hull of the ship if it's not in your stateroom? All right, so What I wanted to kind of take aim at here is the fact that we have a problem with not

10:07

Not understanding that this is wrong immoral. It's polluting. It's destructive that there's something wrong

10:14

We know I'm saying generally brother. Thanks brother Generally broadly as Christian Church, we know

10:22

This is wrong pastors watching you drink two beers We know something's wrong

10:30

Evangelical pastors know something's wrong. We look at a story of a woman being abused by the

10:36

Canadian state Because she won't touch a man who's dressed like a woman down there

10:43

We say ooh, that's that's not right and we see what's happening, you know, United States of America generally broadly sexually

10:50

With abortion you name it. We know something's wrong, but we're not we're not

10:57

Courageous enough to actually say something publicly. We're very comfortable now, of course,

11:02

I'm giving generalization here They're faithful men more faithful men than me out there doing good work but the question is in terms of a general cultural problem of Christians, we're not very courageous.

11:13

We're kind of cowardly Why? Like I'm gonna take take aim at what's the what are the reasons for it?

11:20

Like shouldn't we be? Shouldn't we be the kind of people that actually stand up and say something and are willing to get thrown into jail or take a beating

11:27

For Jesus or is that wrong? Should we actually just love people and be gracious about it?

11:34

well, we should love them, but we need to love them in the truth and and because we Know the the whole the whole of the ship problem

11:42

That's that's that is a great illustration of how all of us are affected by their sin But the fact of the matter is is these people have nooses around their necks

11:51

So that it's it's awful and horrible what they're doing to other people But they're also doing it to themselves and if you love them you you want to tell them that you want to try to do

12:00

Your best within the law of God To protect them from themselves Because they're trying to harm if somebody says

12:07

I've got a gun and I'm gonna take my own life You call the cops you you call someone you say you do everything you possibly can to help them not take their own life right and all of this sexual perversion is

12:17

Is sexual suicide? It's actual. It's actually slow -motion suicide and we ought to try to stop them

12:24

I would divide the Christian Church into two broad categories and then one of them into two categories then again

12:30

Okay, so that we have millions of evangelical Christians in the United States and all this is happening

12:37

With millions of us around right, right. So what's what's with that?

12:44

I'm not talking about precise percentages, but say one half of this group are just poorly taught that They're not taught the whole counsel of God their preachers

12:56

Talk either talk about a rapture that's gonna take us all out of here or just Jesus in your heart go to heaven

13:02

We need to die, you know, it's it's superficial 2 ,000 miles wide and two inches deep.

13:10

Yeah, right So there's there's that problem poorly taught Christians and they watch these things in the news and they say man, that's a shame

13:17

But they don't know how to connect any dots because no one's ever shown shown them So those are the

13:24

Christians who don't know what's going on. They know what's going on, but they don't know why they you know, it's

13:31

Just there's a famine of the Word of God. Okay. Okay, then the other side The Christian there are

13:37

Christians who do see what's going on. They do see how bad it is They do see what a threat it is and they are affected either by threats or bribes

13:50

Okay, yeah, so you've got a nice house you've got you've got a great profession your profession your career is going

13:57

Swimmingly, you've got your kids in a good Christian school everything's Don't rock the boat, right, right.

14:05

It's an implicit threat. It's it that's a yeah, that's the bribe side, right? Yeah, but but with every bribe comes the threat it comes the threat.

14:11

Yeah, we're We're and you start seeing people, you know

14:18

Humble cake bakers in Colorado having to go to the Supreme Court Over refusal to bake a cake right and how much is this gonna cost?

14:28

Is this gonna cost? my Sacred honor what's this gonna cost?

14:36

And so that's the that's the threat so the Christians who do have a notion of what the bad guys are doing are either bribed or threatened and Then there are a few combatants who are out there and the secularists want to make an example of every combatant

14:55

To that to reinforce The threat side how and I was I would say you already alluded to this the poorly taught but also

15:02

I think it applies across The board I would point to pastors. Yeah, I would say that pastors and elders have failed their flocks

15:10

There are wonderful and glorious examples counter -examples wonderful and glorious faithful men and But I think by and large

15:21

American what you know North American pulpits are full of men who have compromised and They're they're the chief culprits because we're the ones that are supposed to set the example for the flock.

15:34

Yeah, it's follow us We're supposed to follow Christ's example and then and we're supposed to lay our lives down first for our flocks

15:41

That's what a faithful shepherd does. But we're the chief. We're the chief culprits We're the ones that we love our own lives too.

15:47

Dearly. We love our own reputations too Dearly our own friendships too dearly and we're not we're we're not willing to do that And so no wonder the sheep are not willing to do that.

15:56

Yep learning it from us, right? Yeah, so you mentioned they make an example of the combatants, right?

16:02

So how do the secularists make an example of the combatants? Oh, they vilify they slander they

16:09

Wind up in court they the person's reputation is trashed Things and and we are constrained we have to tell the truth, but they're under no such constraint, right?

16:20

they can they can lie their heads off right and So they can say that you you support

16:29

Pedophilia you support covering up child child abuse you support

16:35

Misogyny in the church, you know when you're racist you're a racist you're If some guy is beaten up is why you want the church to be

16:44

Protected from the authority, you know, right? Those are all sorts of slanders that they'll just throw anything that sticks, right?

16:51

And they just repeated ad nauseam and that's just the that's just the words, you know later on We're getting to the point where if he continues to preach through the day

17:01

Leviticus anyway Right, then he we're getting to the point where he will be arrested and there will be in charge with hate crimes right now

17:10

It's all Right now it's all verbal so it California recently with legislation going into effect where they'd like to Essentially the wording was something to the effect of like we'd like to encourage

17:24

Encourage encourage pastors and social workers and counselors not to tell people that homosexuality is a sin

17:31

And that's it's just an encouragement We just just my smile suggestion pretty soon.

17:37

They're going to encourage us with fines Right said King here Tapping his scepter

17:44

Just encouraging Okay, so All right.

17:50

So with what's in front of us now do And I'm trying to make this as simple as possible if we had five hours we could extend this but do we do we approach the culture the way that it is with all the destruction with all of the

18:03

Pollution do we do this in a soft -boiled way? Slowly as graciously as possible or is there a moment to stand up and tear your garment in the middle of the streets?

18:14

And to say the hard things that cause a riot what I'm saying is do we take the truth?

18:21

Now mind you of course, I understand we have to say speak the truth in love be gracious Don't don't make this about ego, you know

18:29

Don't just try to say things that are hurtful because you enjoy it that's sinful stop doing that But I'm talking about do we actually give 110 proof?

18:38

Gospel and truth proclamation in a culture like this when you make it about the truth When do you tap into your inner

18:44

John the Baptist? Yes, like when do we just make it about the truth and say? This is the standard

18:50

Jesus is the king. He has the authority right now here and that's the message We're bringing to you like is it isn't it always time for that?

18:58

But in particular isn't now the time for that. I think that time is Little teeny in the rearview mirror.

19:04

Okay. Yes, right I think we're way past the point where I think we just need to Uncork.

19:12

Okay, right now all of it. That doesn't mean uncork in every setting in every city

19:18

I don't I don't believe that a preacher who's thundering the word should go to his churches

19:24

Tuesday night Bible ladies You know ladies Right, of course, yeah,

19:32

I don't think it's not one -size -fits -all right but in terms of is is 2019 the right time for an unvarnished declaration of all of God's truth.

19:42

Should we unload the whole truck? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, somebody should be unloading the whole truck Somewhere somehow.

19:49

Yes. Okay. Yeah absolutely, and I would agree with that not not every single moment is a

19:55

Megaphone moment, right? But but the unvarnished truth of God is

20:00

I mean all across the gamut So the whole body of Christ is called to be able to give an answer for the hope that's in them always be ready and Pastors are to proclaim it and be this the tip of the spear

20:12

So should we should be the ones where they're particularly mad at us We want to be if they're gonna aim let them aim at us at the pastors come at us

20:20

Yeah, because we're the ones making a ruckus, but it's all across the whole gamut It's being it's the unvarnished truth and telling the unvarnished truth to your children

20:31

Faithfully teaching them faithfully not in there. It's it's primarily just instruction son.

20:37

Do you see that daughter? Do you see that you see what's going on there? This is what this is talking about in Proverbs This is in Romans.

20:43

Do you see that? I mean, that's just the unvarnished truth there and it's a part of this is equipping your family So that when you're the tip of the spear and you're the head of the family and that sort of thing

20:52

What happens to you is gonna happen to them right and they and they have to be prepared there's a couple of stories one is

21:01

One of John Knox's daughters was married to a preacher who had had to go abroad

21:06

And then his doctor told him he should go back to England for his health And so the daughter came back and petitioned the king for the right for her husband

21:16

John Welch to come back he was a fiery preacher and The king said

21:22

John Welch and whose daughter are you John Knox's daughter? He said the devil never made such a match as that And she said well we didn't ask his permission

21:34

And then he said well he could that John Welch could come back to England if he agreed not to preach anymore

21:42

Right, and she lifted up her apron and said by your leave. I'd rather have his head here. Oh Yeah, so Whoa, yeah, you know,

21:51

I like her And okay. Yeah, that's not John Knox's daughter. And then

21:56

I read an account of a Preacher who was making a hard decision in Eastern Europe under the

22:03

Communists And he told his wife, you know that if I do this, it could mean

22:08

Prison and you won't have a husband and she said I don't need a coward for a husband. Yeah Yeah So, yeah, so don't underestimate when you're giving the whole varnished unrunner's truth to your daughter, right?

22:25

That's someone's wife and mother one day and you want them to have that kind of backbone that kind of courage

22:33

And Jesus and Jesus says particularly in the in the times that we're living in Yeah when people slander you and despitefully use you and say all manner of false things about you and and heave the dead cats at you and They do all this.

22:45

Yeah, and Jesus says that's the moment when you should go around the corner and do a little jig He he said rejoice and be exceedingly glad throw a party throw a party.

22:55

Yeah, if things are finally going our way That's the thing though that Christians don't get though is it is that actually so, you know

23:05

Martin Luther's great him a mighty fortress is our God one little word shall fell them

23:12

One little word so all these Christians and we have the gospel and the gospel is more powerful than all they've got

23:19

Everything they've got is a lot of nothing all this perversion It's just confusion and nothing and we have the sure word of God and so so when it actually connects and the and the mobs go berserk and we

23:32

Rejoice because that's progress and one of the things that Christians have forgotten is what it feels like to win

23:39

We think that winning is getting you know, having a tidy, you know Family picture and getting in the newspaper because you're a nice pastor.

23:48

I must be winning. I have a good testimony People respect me in my community, but that's made if that's the case then

23:54

Paul was a complete loser But but the but the book of Acts is the story of the gospel triumphant and it's the victory of the gospel in city after city

24:07

City after city riot after riot controversy after controversy beating after beating imprisonment after imprisonment and Luke because he knows our tendency actually includes

24:17

After almost every single one of them and the believers are greatly Encouraged and many were numbered added to their number and many leading women of the city believed right because you're thinking

24:26

This is this is tragic. It's just going so bad We rejoice and we should just rejoice regardless of whether we see it see it see the win or not

24:34

We should rejoice because Jesus says to rejoice But I think we should rejoice in faith believing I think God's giving us this right

24:40

When they when they heave the dead cats another another favorite story of mine is in the Korean War After the

24:46

Chinese came into the war. There was a Marine Detachment that was completely surrounded by the

24:51

Chinese and the Marine general who was with them Looked around at the Chinese in every direction.

24:57

He said well, they can't get away now I've been thinking about the same the same thing with the way that the

25:06

Chinese faithful Chinese Church has been recently persecuted early early rain church master

25:12

Wang as Presbyterian faithful Presbyterian minister And if you've seen him on YouTube or on Facebook and preached a number of just faithful sermons

25:21

Leading up to his arrest and to this day is still arrested held being held without charge and And but he was was preaching knowing they're coming for me and he was saying it openly

25:35

They're probably they're coming. They're probably come and he didn't back down There had police officers soldiers in their worship gatherings trying to intimidate them

25:43

He refused to be intimidated preached the gospel to the soldiers who are sitting there in their worship gathering

25:48

Telling his people don't back down. They're gonna come for me Don't back down and then as they begin doing raids and arresting people

25:55

Mitt most of them they kept just for a few days and then released I think it's a scare tactic and and I've seen pictures and heard reports that as they come out of the prisons

26:05

They take they sing hymns together Him like just like they do exactly what Jesus says they sing hymns worship

26:11

Jesus and they take pictures of themselves in front of the police stations as Tokens of like we're winning.

26:18

Yeah, like what what a glory to suffer for Christ And the thing to point out about that is that it is absolutely unconquerable

26:24

Absolutely, you can't you cannot the common all the communists in the world. Yeah cannot conquer that right?

26:29

Yeah, and if they start killing them, then we've won Right because the blood of the martyrs always wins

26:35

But but that's the thing is we need to we need to recover a sense of what it feels like to win And it's and it's it's gonna be more of that kind of thing, but it's learning to rejoice in the suffering rejoice

26:46

Yeah, we have there are many Christians around the world who are willing to die for Jesus. They just don't think of it as winning

26:54

Right, yeah, I think of it. Well, I'm willing to lose for Jesus right and that the love is admirable

26:59

But we need to be we need to work through this No, this is God's instrument right for bringing

27:06

North American Christian the North American Christian Church back to faithfulness If this is the this is what's going to do it if we have to die

27:14

We have and nothing else would do it in many ways Yeah And I was gonna say is I think so much of it too is I think we also have this it's it's like the you know

27:20

Everybody wants to save the world, but no one wants to help mom do the dishes, you know that that whole sort of mantra It's like most

27:26

Christians many Christians want to die for Jesus are willing to die for Jesus Don't know what it means But also don't know what dying how to practice dying for Jesus how to start dying for Jesus in the little things

27:36

Okay So the way you thought I mean so you start laying your life down by you know Laying your life down for your wife and for your kids by working hard by confessing your sins

27:45

Right by you know by stop stop looking at porn by By saying

27:50

I'm sorry. I can't I can't wear that rainbow flag You might lose your job. Well, I'm sorry. I can't

27:55

I can't do that. I'm a Christian I'm not gonna put incense in your on your altar, you know, my my kids are not gonna you know

28:02

But just you know, not gonna miss church on Sundays for soccer You know, we're you know, there's all kinds of little ways in that are just they're little things and what you're what are you risking?

28:12

Well, they'll think I'm a weirdo. They'll think I'm a bigot. I might lose my friends I might not get invited to the next party.

28:18

Oh good. So you mean you get to die a little right for Jesus? And then the practice ritual the Rick the practice ritual death is every night when you go to bed, that's right, right so you should be tired and and I mean

28:32

God, I'm 66 which means a good third of that over 20 years. I've been conked out 20 years.

28:42

Yeah, I think it was well spent Why did

28:48

God do that? Yeah, what what is that for? Well, I think it's to remind us the church liturgically we're dying that we're dying

28:56

We're supposed to spend it We're to leave it all in any given day Leave it all on the court and then you lie down and die

29:04

Yeah, and then God raises you up and you do it again and you practice that and he's assuring you

29:09

He's assuring you every morning when you wake up again, there's breath in your lungs. He's assuring you look I'm gonna do that I'm gonna keep doing that.

29:15

Yeah, and even when you die, I'm gonna do it again, right? You can do this with your wife you can do this for your kids you can do this in your business

29:21

You can do this with your neighbors. I'm the God who raises the dead. Jesus is alive. Do you trust me?

29:29

So We hold to a particular perspective of the future that called the right one.

29:36

Yeah called the right one That's a millennial is is his yeah is historic We can show

29:41

Giants of the faith holding to it and some of your favorite Christians in history Believe what we believe about the present and the future

29:48

We believe that Jesus is reigning now that he's king of kings and we mean that Today and then he has all authority in heaven and here right now in this space right now

29:57

Jesus is the boss of Donald Trump, right? So and we believe about the future that Jesus is gonna put every enemy under his feet before he returns

30:11

For the final enemy and that is death once and right So when we go into whatever culture or nation that we are facing that God puts in front of us we're coming with a message of a single

30:23

King a single source of salvation a single way to salvation and Ultimately a single standard of truth and this truth is for everybody, right?

30:33

This is what everyone has to hold to so when we go say to the legislature today as Christians And by the way, we ought to yeah, especially pastors go talk to your legislature yeah, and Love them pray for them, but point them to Jesus and ask them to kindly come quietly.

30:51

Yeah, right So might as well. Yeah, you might you may as well before that's right.

30:56

He's the boss and you should come quietly so The question I have is let's say you talk about the issue of abortion

31:05

Christians over the last decade have actually really changed the nature of the conversation in America With an abortion now

31:13

We've been able through God's grace and what he's raised up over 400 local churches across the United States and Australia Canada North northern and southern

31:22

Ireland now in Scotland actually some stuff happening right now. We're talking to churches there So they're going out to actually go to the front lines where they're doing the killing and they're saying that they're telling the truth

31:31

They're saying this is murder. You can come to Christ for salvation and we'll help you. That's the simple That's the simplicity of the message.

31:36

Please don't murder your baby You can come to Christ for salvation and we're gonna help you like let us do that very simple

31:42

Yeah, not hard to do. Go go ahead. Go ahead. Go do it The other thing we're doing is going to the legislature and it's not happening across the country and we're saying

31:50

Please stop killing babies. Do your duty uphold justice come to Jesus and we'll support you.

31:55

We'll help you So that's happening now and now we have now the opposition we talked about this yesterday.

32:01

Yeah worried. They're using words like They're gonna ban abortion. They're gonna criminalize abortion, right?

32:08

They're and they're using words like murder themselves, right? They know where the fight is taking place because Christians have now been kind of in getting into that fights telling the truth, right?

32:17

So I guess I'd like to hear you guys talk for a minute about the issue say of abortion and Christians telling the truth

32:22

You were talking yesterday about Even the mindset of a lot of popular conservative talking heads is that well, we can't make it about Jesus Like you can't make this about obeying

32:33

Jesus. You can't make this about Christian language like we want salvation, but no

32:39

Savior. That's exactly right So that the popular pro -life movement and conservative talking heads and even big men and women we respect highly a great deal would would say don't all the

32:51

Jesus talk and all the you know, Repent and believe in Jesus stuff is you know, not appropriate for the public square

32:57

Like let's keep that in the church and in the public square. Can we just use? What kind of sounds

33:03

Christian family values Yes Like can we do something like ought we to actually use explicit terminology when we fight these cultural battles?

33:10

Like if somebody says yeah, you know Doug, you know, why why are you saying male and female and that that's the thing?

33:19

It's not because of Jesus right? Like what would you say you would say I say well, it's either Jesus or Darwin Yeah, so basically you cannot you cannot sustain of a clear vision of the distinction between the male and female

33:40

Created he them right, right. So we're we're made in the image of God Christ is the reestablishment the fall

33:49

Mardin vandalized the image of God didn't destroy it. So Adam and Eve or Christ is the reestablishment of the image of God Created the image of God chapters 1 & 2 then the fall in chapter 3 and then in Genesis 9 after the flood

34:04

God Requires capital punishment for the taking of a life, right? Because man is made in the image of God, right?

34:12

So that's centuries after the fall. So we see that the image of God is still Intact like the ruins of a great

34:19

Cathedral. Yeah, the Cathedral collapsed You can still tell the footprint you can tell it is a Cathedral.

34:25

Yeah, but the stones are all over the place so but it's still enough of the image of God there to be respected and you

34:33

But it's nonsense to talk about the image of the unknown God Which God which

34:39

God what are you talking about? Right? So if we want to why should I protect? Why should we be pro -life?

34:45

Why should we protect human life because these are image bearers There you go That's it

34:50

If they're not image bearers if we have to leave the God part out or the Jesus part out we have no argument, right?

34:58

Right. No, right. Why can't why can't we take their life? Why can't we take their life? It's just proto because if even even if we say it's human guys the

35:08

Darwinist goes Great. That's one more random result of evolutionary processes.

35:14

Yeah human. What does human mean? So the probe the probe works make a distinction which is consistent given their world view between human and Person the personhood of the baby and the humanness of the baby, right?

35:28

They were any trained Biologists will say sure. Well, it's human. The child is human, right?

35:33

It's human, but being human doesn't doesn't confer personhood status If there is no

35:39

God in heaven if Jesus is not at his right hand Then who's in charge of conferring personally, right?

35:45

Well, the Supreme Court the Supreme Court effectively effectively becomes the supreme being. Yeah, and and if they say

35:54

Deficient mentally deficient children are not persons Right, or the elderly who have advanced dementia are not persons.

36:03

They used to be persons, but they're not persons now Right, so their lives can be taken their lives can be taken.

36:08

Yes, they're human, but they're not persons The only way to fight off that distinction is if their image bear

36:16

How long are they bearing the image of God? When did they start bearing the image of God and when did they stop bearing right

36:21

God? And I want to argue that the image of God is even born past death, which is why we accord burial dignity

36:31

You know that very good. Yeah, right. That's right So we we respect it as long as there's something anywhere near to respect

36:38

And if you take Jesus out you have none of it all you've got is humanity and you're appealing to humanity in a world that grants it and then

36:49

Reserves to themselves the right to confer personhood as a distinct category. That's right The the other thing that I think that Christians sometimes missing all this as they're going

36:59

I think we we do need to go to our magistrates. We need to go to our city councils We need to talk to the judges and the police officers and our neighbors we need to we need to go to the mall and explain this and explain that this is

37:13

You know, there's a God in heaven and this matters to all of us, but Doug you actually reminded me of a quote from Francis Schaeffer Not too long ago about is it something like the problem with a lot of modern

37:24

Christians is they think in fragments? Instead of thinking in holes, right? Is that right? Yeah And I think that's really just like that was is absolutely right.

37:34

And so one of the things that is really so it's Incredibly exciting and Exhilarating to see what you're talking about this resurgence in pro -life activism

37:46

I think a lot of the major marches and protests and the gospel presence at abortion mills and Speaking to magistrates.

37:54

I mean, it's just heightened It's spiked significantly and the one thing that I would add to it all an urge on all of them is don't

38:02

Miss the forest through the trees Which is keep up the good work, but also remember that there's a culture that created

38:09

There's a culture of death and the culture that wants to murder babies is the same culture that is trying to tear down Christian marriage

38:17

Identifying male and female as image bearers and a banned proclamation of the gospel

38:22

It's all connected together. And so it's it I think it's important that we have a faithful witness about abortion

38:28

Yeah, and we call we call for the end of it entirely entirely But at the same time we also have to recognize that the same

38:36

City Council's are also Beginning to institute hate speech and it's you know laws and say, you know

38:44

You can identify as male female or whatever you and we have to see that that same thing is a piece of the exact same

38:51

Culture of death. It's a it's a sexual suicide and sexual suicide entails killing your babies

38:58

And so I think I think helping Keep all of it together so that I mean I mean obviously if you're if you're proclaiming the gospel to your city officials

39:07

You're sharing gospel and you're proclaiming the lordship of Jesus That has to include that he has the right then to define what is male and female

39:14

If Jesus is Lord, then that he says what is male and female if Jesus is

39:20

Lord He declares what a marriage is who cares what Obergefell said? Jesus says that a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh mark 10 that's that's

39:31

Jesus speaking. That's marriage. Not not two men. Not two women. Not three men not, you know, whatever and But I think we want to get back to this is the point that you made earlier

39:42

Doug is we want to proclaim the gospel We want to proclaim a full orb gospel Genesis to Revelation the entire

39:48

Revelation of God needs to be proclaimed and so we need to get back to our Bibles and make sure we understand that even as We stand in the gap and we plead for the lives of the unborn that are getting taken every day, right?

40:00

So you gave a one of my favorite messages about how Jesus picked fights. Yes. Okay So I'd like you to think about how to sort of summarize that our talk

40:10

Just give it give me give me a give me a punch and understand it because we're talking about going into the culture now into The public square and fighting.

40:16

Yeah for for the truth with the gospel for people's souls And so I want to know how to do that How do we how do we do it because you guys

40:25

I think you did a great job of explaining It's not always the same. I can't go to the women's Bible study on Tuesday Stand up on a chair and just start going in But I can stand outside of the abortion mill where I have 15 seconds from car door to door where the mother's gonna kill her

40:39

Child I can be a little more direct and straightforward. Please don't murder your child today.

40:44

I don't know your name Yeah, I don't know where you've come from But I know you're about to kill your baby and so I can

40:50

I can say there please don't murder your baby today Yes to a complete stranger and I could be very bold You need to repent come to Christ for life and forgiveness.

40:58

I'll help you. Please don't Destroy your child today So there is a proper context and there's a proper context that I'm standing downtown in New York City in front of the

41:08

Stonewall Inn And I'm being surrounded by men who were throwing things at me. I could speak a little differently to them, too.

41:15

Yeah So there's a way in which we have to actually approach So how did Jesus pick fights and also is it appropriate to start a riot for Jesus?

41:23

I'll be answer one than two I say no don't start riots on purpose

41:30

Okay One time there was a riot in Perth in the Reformation Perth Scotland and Knox referred to that rascal multitude

41:38

It was it was the rioters were on his side, but he he still said that rascal multitude but it's these things are oftentimes not stage managed by the

41:50

Leaders I just I just saw something in Luke 22 that I I was reading in Phillips New Testament And the way he phrased something brought me up short and I went and checked it in other

42:01

Translations in Luke 22 the first verse it talks about the the Jews plotting to arrest

42:07

Jesus secretly because they feared the people and I'd always taken it they they thought if we have to figure out a way to arrest

42:16

Jesus in a way that won't set the people off And so we have to arrest him in a way that the people don't riot

42:26

But this reading and it makes sense to me this reading is they arrested Jesus because they thought the people were gonna riot anyway

42:34

Huh, right. Okay. So in other words, they they we need to take this Jesus character out because Jerusalem's a powder keg

42:45

Right because it's very clear. We need to arrest Jesus because we fear the people

42:50

As opposed to we need to arrest Jesus in a way that takes the people into account Which is how

42:56

I used to take well what that means is that there were people in Jerusalem who are on Jesus side?

43:03

Who did not display his? Right, right so and often his own trained disciples didn't have his balance after three years with them

43:15

Peter Peter lops off Malchus's ear and you know, right Apparently wasn't listening at the

43:21

Sermon on the Mount There were there were places where some people clearly didn't get the memo and a lot of Israel loved

43:32

Jesus and loved John the Baptist Right and and Jesus asked him

43:38

So was John the Baptist baptism for men or from heaven and they did went back and did a calculation Well, we can't if if we say from heaven and he's gonna say why didn't you get baptized?

43:47

Why didn't you believe him? And if we say for men, they feared the people because all these godly saintly followers of Jesus would

43:58

So so oftentimes we have to take into account the fact that we are Grabbing a grizzly bear by the ears.

44:07

Yeah Okay, so it's not just a matter of you going to face the Magistrate or you going to face down the riot cops

44:14

Are you going to face down the cult leader? You know, it's not just a stage thing.

44:20

It's huge blocks of people Right and many of the people on your side

44:26

Aren't going to have it all together That's right, right. There were a bunch of people on the

44:32

Lord's side who didn't have it all together Right, I don't think Jesus would have said, you know, throw another bottle

44:39

Throw another rock. I don't think Jesus was an instigator of riots actively, but his presence and his teaching and his charisma was a riot kit in the in the making right so When Christians pick fights you mentioned that yeah how

45:00

Jesus pick fights. That's one of the things we have to take into account This who's gonna pile in on your side that in in unhelpful ways

45:08

Who's gonna pile in on your side in moderately helpful ways? Who's going to be he's talking about me about that So so Jesus Very he does what he

45:33

Oftentimes what he does in picking fights is he is culling the multitude following him the way

45:40

Gideon did Yeah, okay So fitting him out fitting him out So Gideon had them all go down to the stream and drink different ways and he said okay

45:49

Keep these guys who knelt and lapped it up instead of the people who went down like a dog So the person who goes down like a dog in his drinks is not a trains he's not a disciplined soldier the one who stays on the alert while he's drinking is

46:06

Okay, keep that one. He only had 300 of those. Yeah, so Gideon calls him out and then God brings the victory with that handful

46:15

Jesus has mobs following him and consistently he does things to To disrupt the mob action, yeah

46:24

Right. So in John's in John 6 and in John 8 There's one one of those places

46:30

Jesus said certain things to the Jews who had believed in him Yeah, right one of the fights he picks is with the people who had already signed on Right, right, and he makes it hard.

46:42

He he makes it difficult and he started unless you eat my body and He makes it difficult he puts obstacles in the way of easy believism

46:56

He right, right, right. It's also requiring holiness Yeah, he wants his he wants those who are really gonna follow him all the way

47:03

It's not just that you're on board with his program It's that his program is in some way has been internalized and that and you're you there's a there's a deeper

47:14

Getting it than getting it. I Don't always I very rarely quote

47:20

John Dewey with approval. Yeah Yeah, that's right, but there was one thing he said that I loved and it was

47:29

Lord deliver me from my disciples Right, right because there will be

47:36

And yeah that were to were to take that into account were to thin it out and make it difficult

47:44

As we can shrewdly right we pick fights sometimes than the Pharisees and the bad guys other times with the fights

47:50

We pick our are with people who are ostensibly signed up with us We make an issue out of that in order to make it a more disciplined tightened

48:01

Cohort that we're dealing with and and you have to you know, it's a judge on the fly what situation

48:08

You know, you're you're in and so when you pick the fight it ought to be not personalities

48:16

Not I'm irritated. I'm feeling a peckish and didn't have lunch. And so I snapped at somebody, right?

48:22

It's it should be a deliberate move and a play that you're that you can offer up to God and ask him to bless

48:29

All right for what for what we're about to receive we give thanks. Yeah, right God this is gonna be a saloon brawl.

48:36

It's gonna get ugly and we're gonna make mistakes in it And would you please bless it, right?

48:44

Few things to throw in I was thinking of Elijah and Obadiah in Kings have really they're both picking fights

48:53

But they're picking different kinds of fights which kind of goes circles back to different men I think we'll have different gifts different opportunities and Wisdom discerns that so remember

49:03

Elijah was the you know, he was the Troubler of Israel so called by Ahab He was the man that Ahab blamed for everything and you know, he did make it not rain for three years

49:18

But remember that when when Elijah says and he goes to Obadiah who'd been hiding

49:23

How many was it like 300? Prophets of the Lord in the cave in the caves and Obadiah is in Ahab's court

49:32

Like how could how could somebody exist in Ahab and Jezebel's court as a godly man?

49:37

Well Obadiah was he did it eking it out and and he knew and you but it was he really was picking a fight though Okay, and when

49:45

Elijah says go to him and tell him but I need to see him today He says he's gonna kill me He's gonna kill me because he'll know that I'm I know you and that we've talked and Elijah sure doesn't go

49:55

I promise you He won't kill you. You'll be fine. But I would say that's two different styles of picking fights

50:01

The problem is that some people say I'm the Obadiah, but they're risking nothing, right?

50:06

So I'm the kind of Obadiah that hides no profit Planning to hide profits at some point someday

50:14

But so that's a that should be a gut check though is to say okay So if you think you're the Obadiah, what have you risked?

50:21

What would it what you could you lose your job because I mean what would have happened my team? Yeah, and and that would be a good test to say

50:27

Okay Then if you if you have you really have to something then you really are picking a God, you know You very well could be picking a godly fight

50:33

Even if it's not the straight -on one like Elijah does maybe you're being subversive in how you're writing articles

50:39

Maybe you're being subversive and how you're picking You know families for adoption and your adoption

50:45

Agency, you know, maybe you know, maybe there's various ways in which you're you're being subversive And you're risking things that would be a certain kind of picking the fight the other thing

50:54

I was thinking of is this is not exactly picking fights, but it ties into all this is a

51:01

Guy a friend of mine that acquaintance of mine is a was a pastor for many years I believe in Boulder, Colorado named rich blood so and he

51:11

At some point decided that all the the major leaders of city stuff

51:19

Needed a pastor boulders like a very ungodly place very godless churchless, you know secular liberal place

51:26

I hear and and he just decided well these people need a pastor and So he just started calling up and emailing, you know, chief of police fire chief

51:36

City Council members mayor Judges anybody and everybody that was a leader of something

51:43

I think the like the president of the local hospital and all the major public services and Just said

51:50

I'm a pastor and I was wondering if we could get together with you and pray for you and he just Started doing that and many of them took him up on the offer and he would do it repeatedly

52:00

He would go back to them again. And how's it going? What can I pray for and and he developed real? Relationships with a number of these leaders in the city of Boulder Where actually when something bad would happen in Boulder, sometimes they would call him

52:14

Like he kind of became like this self -appointed honorary chaplain. Yeah of a number of these The city and and or sometimes he'd hear in the news about something terrible that had happened

52:24

Maybe to their family or something that happened, you know in the police force Oh my god, he would he could call them up He had he had a rapport with them and they knew that he wasn't just there to get something

52:33

Right, he was he was actually there to minister to them now the thing I think that's a that's a fantastic thing

52:39

And I would say so long as you also are speaking the truth. Yeah, it can't just be I'm on this kind of nice friend

52:45

It also has to be the kind of thing where I legitimately care for you and because I care for you I've got to tell you this is a real major issue in our city.

52:52

But the thing that striking about that process is Legislators City Council members people who are heads of things like that.

53:00

Yeah are like pastors So 99 % of all the people who come in To a pastor's office are doing so in order to have the pile his pile bigger when they leave

53:13

Right, right. They want something they want them to do something. They want them to read something. They want them to fix that something they want to have a complaint they have a complaint problem a fuss or a

53:22

Difficulty and of course a parishioner who has a real problem. That's what they should do the shepherd should care for the sheep, but right but that's that's the

53:31

Pastors role. Well the chief of police and you know, all of these people they're in the same position, right?

53:38

So somebody can a lone pastor comes in and hey, you got a big pile of stuff there And anything I can take away and pray about, you know, can

53:45

I make your pile smaller? It's like that person's You know that person is gonna remember

53:54

Who did that? Votie Bachum told us a story about when he was pastoring in Houston and their church at some point decided to just start praying for the

54:01

City Council members of Houston and And so every Sunday a particular City Council person was on their prayer list and they'd pray for them

54:08

And then they would periodically periodically send them a card and they pass it around the church and the church would a bunch of people

54:14

In the church would sign it You know praying for you, you know, thank you for your service to our city and they do this for all the

54:19

City Council members So, you know even the ones that were diametrically opposed to them and they would send the card to them and they occasionally would get replies

54:25

Back where people would say nobody's ever said they're praying for me ever And they got that sometimes from people that they were like on the very opposite extreme from them politically

54:36

Last thing I was gonna say on this in terms of riots starting riots I'll tell you about the time me and Doug started a riot.

54:42

Well, not really. It wasn't a real riot, but But it goes along with everything.

54:48

I would say everything that Doug already said I agree with completely and cautions and qualifications and and so on and at the same time

54:57

I would say Look at the book of Acts Paul goes out. He proclaims the gospel and he knows it's flammable, right?

55:03

He knows that he knows it's flammable. He knows it's gonna start fires and And I can I remember one particular fall.

55:10

I it's been a few years now but for a number of years I went out to the University of Idaho and would do some open -air preaching and Pastor Doug did it years ago when

55:19

I was still in my diapers and But but I was doing it for a few years and and then one fall

55:26

I think you went out with me a handful of times and and but one particular fall

55:31

I remember going out and you know, just starting up in the commons area and And this one fella just come

55:39

I didn't I got didn't get further than hi My name is Pastor Toby and it was you know I just got you know launched into and he he's a you know, a philosophy major, right, you know, so, you know explains

55:51

How these things go and he's mad and he's got a chip on his shoulder about Christianity and he's calling me every name in the

55:57

Book. Well, but what happens? Well this crowd Develops and you know,

56:03

I might my modus operandi is always what's your name? You know, can I get a first -name basis? Can we get coffee together?

56:09

Can I take you out for lunch? You know this kind of I'm not telling you my name And so we went on for a little while.

56:14

He went off and well that fall I would go out every Friday at lunch. It was it was my routine and from time to time

56:20

Doug would come and And but but it it kind of he that same guy showed up almost every

56:29

Friday on schedule And it was you know times over and it was sometimes just me and him whatever but I think one of the last times we went out that fall

56:38

Doug came with me and we we sometimes would ask each other questions. We would sometimes

56:45

We would cut we would explain what we were doing to the people who would say we're gonna ask each other questions That maybe you're thinking and so we just kind of as a way of trying to open it up and and but this guy shows up right on schedule, he's throwing every name of the book and And a crowd starts gathering around.

57:00

Well, then another heckler shows up a younger kid, you know 17 freshmen easily and Just was

57:07

I mean the one guy was mad This guy was really nasty and he was particularly nasty to Doug just he was just mocking him

57:14

It was just it was just mockery. It was nasty and and you know, we kind of Say something but the crowd was the biggest crowd

57:22

I can remember being out there. I think there was Easily over a hundred students in that in the crowd, maybe a couple hundred

57:30

All gathered around and for 30 -40 minutes. They're just asking every question in the book

57:35

But what does the Bible say about this? What does the Bible say about this? What is the Bible and and And it was it was glorious It was glorious.

57:44

I mean how many how many how many pastors have a college campus, you know, a couple hundred students asking every question they can think of of the pastors in their town and It happened because a couple people were really mad at us and yelled at us

57:59

It wasn't a real riot at the end of it The first guy who had been heckling me all fall long comes up and says hi.

58:07

My name is Justin And and then says sorry about that other guy And we went out and we went out for lunch you went out for me with me and I but I tell that story because It was one of the it clicked in that moment

58:28

Also after that particular instance that that man who heckled me all fall long was one of God's biggest gifts

58:36

Yeah, because every time he came and heckled a bunch of people would say what was this about? What's going on here?

58:42

And I read and I you know I pray for him still because we met a few times and he had some really hard questions and and as far as I know

58:49

It doesn't know the Lord But I also know that God gave me him because of all the other students that got to listen to the gospel

58:55

Proclaimed for an entire fall at the University of Idaho one year and and and so, you know, yeah, are we

59:02

Are we trying to start riots? No, are we trying to proclaim the gospel and are we afraid of riots?

59:08

No, I'm not afraid of riots and and when the riot breaks out, you know I you know Sometimes your friends might need to drag you back like they did with Paul sometimes no, no, no

59:16

But I want to see what's all right. He's not speaking up Opportunity here

59:29

That's awesome. That's been great guys Thank you. Yeah, cheers Cheers, let's go win.