THE HERE I STAND THEOLOGY PODCAST Interview w/ Gabe Rench from CrossPolitic

Here I Stand Theology

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Welcome to the Here I Stand Theology Podcast. We are a podcast dedicated to the pointed and spirited debate of biblical doctrine.

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We are pumped about being here today. We have a special guest host with us today, a pastor from just up the road.

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His name is Aaron Case. Let's go ahead and bring Aaron in and let him tell you all a little bit about himself.

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Yeah, it's good to be here, Claude. Thank you for having me. It's good to be with you, of course. Yeah, my name is

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Pastor Aaron Case. I'm a pastor here in Seymour, Tennessee. I'm just thankful that the

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Lord has brought Claude and myself together. He's just been a blessing to me, and I'm so thankful for this podcast and just all the truth that comes out of it and just who

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Claude is. So this is a special time for me to get to hang out. Any time we get together is good, and so we praise

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God for that. I'm just thankful for Reformata Church and for this podcast and just everything it stands for.

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So, Aaron, I would echo the sentiments, of course. We're not here to shower each other with praise, but I truly do.

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I love Aaron. I appreciate him and his ministry, his work. He is pastor at Eden Chapel Baptist Church.

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That's in Seymour. If you're looking for a great church, solid biblical doctrine, great preaching, go to Eden Chapel.

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Praise God. Thank you, brother. All right. So, Aaron, we have a very special guest on with us today.

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Yes, sir. Most of our audience should know who he is, should know the podcast that he's from and the group of men that he works with and goes to church with there in Idaho.

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We have with us Gabe Rensch today. But before we bring Gabe in here,

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I want to read you very quickly his bio. So, Gabe Rensch was born in the promised land.

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Thank you, Jesus. He was born in the promised land. That is Texas.

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Six states later, he's now in Moscow, Idaho. He is now in Moscow, Idaho.

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I'm going to move you to the center screen there, Gabe. He graduated from the University of Idaho. He also attended

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Greyfriars Hall, the pastoral training program at Christ Church. Gabe is a media and marketing consultant.

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He is the co -founder of the Fight, Laugh, Feast Network and one of the hosts of the CrossPolitik TV show and podcast.

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Now, in case you don't know, CrossPolitik stands for Christ over politics.

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They mix the taboo formula of faith, culture, and politics in order to bring clarity, the clarity of the gospel, into model

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America. So, Gabe, as you come into our audience here, there's a couple of things we want to do for you.

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First of all, there was a gang waiting for you. You can't see that, but that's a standing ovation.

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We watched the podcast in video form. I want you to notice, I'm not sure if it was, but it looked like it was

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Oprah Winfrey right in the front in that standing ovation leading us to the video. That's funny.

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So, one last thing here. I know you only get a sound bite of it, but we're going to play you in with this.

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Yes, sir. Clap it.

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That's great. That's great. The rabbit rushed around the brush, deep in the heart of Texas.

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All right. That's fun. Hey, it's so great to be on with you today,

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Toby. I'm sorry. We look very similar.

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It's weird. We saw Knox there back in the back. Yeah, but are you going to ask the question,

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Claude? The very important question before we get into everything. So, Gabe, we want to set the stage with a very important question here, right off the bat.

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Right off the bat, we want to ask this question. It's really to get you and our audience focused in on who you are.

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Okay. So, my question is this first thing. Let's say, for example, if you,

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Toby, and Knox had to arm wrestle, who would win? I don't know.

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I can't be against my pastor. And then, at the same time,

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I can't be against Knox because he makes me look good on TV.

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I think I would lose. Just not you, you would say.

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Just not me. I'm pretty sure, though, there's not a biblical injunction against arm wrestling your pastor or arm wrestling your friend.

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No, there's not. He just has to work with them, though, yeah. My guess would be actually Knox because he's got all that leverage.

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He's got the short arms and leverage. That's a key. And maybe an add -on, a latter part of that.

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So, if you saw that one of them were winning when you were arm wrestling them, would you kick one of them in the shin underneath the table to gain advantage?

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I'm a pretty competitive guy. There you go. That's what I was looking for. You play basketball, right? You play basketball.

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Yeah, that's right. I play basketball. I might step on their toe. I don't know. Talk a little trash. Yeah, there you go.

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Well, if you wouldn't mind, just tell us a little bit and tell the audience about how CrossPolitik got started.

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How did it begin? Yeah. So, in 2016, actually, it goes back to 2015.

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CrossPolitik started in 2016, but in 2015, I was looking at my church, kind of scanning my church and looking at the gifts.

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If people know my community well, they know Pastor Doug Wilson, and they know Canon Press. We have a really good preaching ministry here, teaching ministry,

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Canon Press, book writing, author ministry, a lot of blogging around here.

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So, we got all these gifts that I don't really have. So, I was kind of looking around at my church and like, where could

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I maybe contribute? Where could I help? I serve as a deacon at my church, but I had some more desires beyond that.

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And I looked around, and I was like, well, no one's doing radio. And so, my initial dive into this was actually just to try to get into the radio business and just do my own radio show.

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And kind of through research and through various, I applied to, like, our local, what,

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NPR news radio stations here. And, of course, when I put Jesus Lord over the show title,

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I would never hear back from them. I'd call these local stations. I'd call these local stations. They'd be like, oh, we got all sorts of hours.

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Please, please propose a show to us. And so, they would never get back to me.

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And so, I started researching podcasts. I think it was about three or four radio stations I submitted show proposal ideas to, and all of them at some level were saying, yeah, we got availability and never got back.

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So, I started looking into podcasts and, you know, found some good examples like Apologia and found some other good examples of podcasts that I wanted to, you know, that I said, okay, this could work.

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This could be a good medium for declaring the Lordship of Christ over all of life.

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And then, so, I even started doing my own interviews all by myself. I interviewed Chief Justice Roy Moore before he got defrocked from the bench in Alabama.

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It was a great time with him. He's, you know, very articulate. Interviewed a couple others on my own and started kind of learning about myself in this process and where my gifts lie or were at.

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And I realized I don't think I could carry an audience by myself for an hour. And so, that's when

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I was like, well, I need a co -host. I need someone to help. And so, I tapped

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Pastor Toby. And Toby was instant easy to talk into doing this. He's like, oh, yeah,

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I'm in. Let's do it. And then, it took about four months to talk

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Knox into joining us. If you know any of Knox's backstory, he produced

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Todd Frill, The Wretched for seven years. He had been in the business for a long time. So, he knew what it took to go somewhere.

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And me and Toby were just thinking, hey, we're just going to hang out and talk on the mic with each other. You know, that's all we're going to do. But Knox knew what it would take to go somewhere.

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And he knew how long of a process it would take to get to be an established show that people would actually listen to.

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And so, Knox, I think, at first just said no. Like I asked him, he said, no, I don't want anything to do with it.

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Leave me alone. Don't call me about this ever again. He was actually really nice about it. And so, me and Toby, you know, in our planning process, we realized we really did want a third person.

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Knox was a good fit for that. So, we kind of went back to him and brought, this time we brought Knox into Toby's office, the pastor's office.

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And if you know the weight of what it means for a black man to walk into pastor's office, it's a heavy process for them.

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And so, Knox came into pastor's office. And so, we basically, I mean, we spent the first 30 minutes, 45 minutes just talking about the show concept, what we want to do.

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And we all had a really good dialogue. I mean, it just became really natural really quick.

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And so, when Knox, after Knox talking to us for 45 minutes, I think he started being convinced

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I need to participate, I need to do this. It was just such a natural fit for all three of us. So, Knox decided to start

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CrossPolitik with us. And we wanted to start CrossPolitik specifically because the church, we don't think the church has done a very good job, at least in my generation.

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I'm 42 years old. So, at least in my generation has done a very good job discipling at the church and how to think about politics.

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All the Christian discipleship about politics has been happening outside the church, either through like the moral majority in the 80s or through, you know, some sort of weird conservatism with Rush Limbaugh, you know,

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Glenn Beck, all these guys kind of became like the political pastors for the conservative movement.

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And Christians were not hearing about discipleship of politics from the pulpit. And so, that's why we specifically started

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CrossPolitik because we wanted to kind of, we want to declare the worship of Jesus Christ over everything, politics, family, life, culture, sports, you know, every topic.

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And particularly, I think politics was really lacking discipleship. So, that's why we wanted to hit that specific issue and topic.

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And we hope to do it for the rest of our lives as God gives us time and ability to do what we're doing with CrossPolitik.

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So, that's how CrossPolitik started. It dropped. Its first episode dropped in September 2016, and I still have not mustered the courage to go listen to the first couple episodes.

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Oh, are you serious? You've not listened to them? I've not re -listened to them. I can't do it yet.

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Someday. Someday you'll do it. I remember you all saying, though, previously, a year or two ago, about folks that you're all bringing onto the network, throw away the first five episodes that you do and pretend like they don't exist, right?

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Something to that effect. And we did do that. So, those episodes were after we threw away the first five episodes.

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Oh. We did. Yep. So, would you say, I mean, just in our experience as well, have you noticed that it just seems like most of the church, honestly, just kind of unplugs from the whole politic area?

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You know, it's like the church is here. We get out of the church, then it's the world. And it's like these whole designations where we're not really proclaiming

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Christ's Lordship. Have you seen that throughout your ministry for the most part? Yeah. And I think there's a number of factors that are playing into that,

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I believe. But I think kind of one of the basic factors playing into that is that the church kind of has certain

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Bible verses that they're embarrassed of. And so, if you're embarrassed about certain texts, if you're nervous about what certain texts say and the implications of what it means to follow

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Jesus because of those texts, then I think there's going to be certain topics in the world, out in the world, that you're going to be hesitant to apply the

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Bible to. Like, for example. Well, I mean, gosh,

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I mean, there's a number of texts. You know, homosexuality, the text on homosexuality, the church is very hesitant to talk about homosexuality.

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Bible verses on headship and submission. The church is very hesitant. I mean, every time

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I hear a sermon on Ephesians chapter 5, I feel like the pastor spends the first 20 minutes apologizing for the text, but then says, but this is what it says, husbands, you're the leader of the family kind of thing.

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And then I think, I mean, this is a hard one,

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I think, for people to swallow. Our Baptist brothers tend to view this a little differently. So I think there's some room there, but not very much.

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Faithful children, pastors with faithful children. I mean, how many PK children have a name for themselves because there is a problem there?

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How many pastors have unfaithful children in their house or raised unfaithful children and are still in the pulpit? We've basically interpreted that verse to have no implications on pastoral qualifications because if he's in the house, he's not an unbeliever.

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If he's acting up, he's not really an unbeliever. He's still in the house, but then he leaves the house, and it's obvious he's not an unbeliever anymore.

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And then we say, well, he's of age. He's of his own age. So at no point does faithful children really play into the qualifications of an elder or pastor in our church.

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And so we're dealing with, I mean, women in military, women in leadership.

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I mean, you go down, the laundry list is long. And now you can add to that plagiarism.

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Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's been a mess. I mean,

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I don't know what's going to happen with that. I'm not sure if anything is because it's such a political mess.

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But how in the world someone survives that, I do not know. Right. Yeah. Well, I mean, this just goes to show you that the church can't even deal with their own politics well.

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It should be easy to deal with. I mean, when you plagiarize a sermon, I mean, you're doing a number of things there.

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And it is connected, I think, to the moral ability of the pastor to deliver God's word on Sunday.

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I think you should step down. I don't think it's not that hard to me to make that decision.

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But you're right, it's political. And I think the other layer to the Southern Baptist Convention is you have factions that are vying for power.

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And so that's why they would rather have the power with the plagiarism than lose the power.

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So that's what they've chosen. Bad road. Sweep it up under the rug. Yeah. When there's so many other sins involved, there's theft, there's lying.

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I mean, it goes on and on. Deception. Plus, what does it say for the man that's supposed to be shepherding that flock?

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The man that's supposed to be looking out for the souls of the men, the women, the boys, and the girls that he's overseeing.

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It shows a lack of concern and a lack of care for them. Well, and what was amazing was, if you actually take time to look at the sermon, there are illustrations that J .D.

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Greer had used himself, you know, as personal. And Ed Litton used them as if they were his.

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Like, I don't know how I could stand up and take a message you wrote,

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Gabe, and tell it as if I lived it. I mean, that is the ultimate deception to take the pulpit and to use it that way.

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Even Greer, though, even Greer was lying about his personal experience in that. If you've looked into that, he was taking,

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I can't remember who it was. I think it was Paul Tripp. Yeah, Paul Tripp. A story Paul Tripp told and making it his own.

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And of course, he claims he's been in the same spot, felt the same emotions and all that stuff. So I'm happy to listen to his explanation and just say, okay, until I have more evidence,

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I won't think otherwise. But the plagiarism thing, I mean, you're this pastor, supposed to be cooking and preparing meals for your congregation, and you're calling up Domino's to bring the pizza.

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Yep. Exactly. So what would you say, Gabe, motivates you guys to just keep pressing on with the tough issues that are coming up almost daily?

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What motivates you guys to just keep going and being faithful? Man, I'll never forget.

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So I grew up in the PCA church, Presbyterian church, had a pretty good foundation, but my heart wasn't really,

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I was always a Christian, but I wasn't all out for Christ really until I came to Moscow.

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When I came to Moscow, God just put all this theology into my heart.

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I had all this kind of knowledge in my head, and it wasn't even that coherent of a biblical worldview, but just sitting under the pastor or the teaching of Pastor Wilson really assembled a lot of the parts for me and put some meat on my bones.

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And one of the things he said that was so simple, this is back in like 2002, 2003, one of the things that he said was resolve to never have a problem

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Bible verse. Resolve to never have a verse that you have to apologize for. Now, you might not know how to understand the whole

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Bible. Some of Paul's writings were pretty tough, as Peter said. So there's some verses in the

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Old Testament that are pretty tough to understand, but don't apologize for it. Maybe you don't quite know exactly what the

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Bible says or what that verse is saying, but at least don't be embarrassed of it and don't apologize for it.

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And that for me was really helpful just to anchor my teeth into that principle.

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So when something does happen or some unbeliever brings up a crazy Bible verse that is crazy,

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I'm not embarrassed of it. I'm like, yeah, God said that. He put in his word. I need to figure out what it says, but I'm not going to apologize to an unbeliever about it.

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That's for sure. And so when we know that we're standing and so that applies to kind of cross politic and all the controversies we've been kind of wrapped up into or all the fights we've been in.

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Well, I hope every step of the way I'm standing on God's word and I'm not embarrassed of God's word.

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I'm not apologizing for it. I'm leaning into it. And we're seeing the evangelical world just is kind of getting embarrassed of the

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Bible. They have to deal with verses on homosexuality. And now you have the transgender movement and now you have this big movement based on feelings and you hate people if you don't accept them for who they are, you know, kind of thing.

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So standing on the word of God, you know, it really is a blessing and a protection. And so I don't think we don't really cross politic.

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We don't really, I think, consider the calculation of what the world would think.

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And what we do is we want to consider what does the Bible say and then let the chips fall where they may because that's where I'm going.

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Well, that comes through in basically everything you do. And I have to say

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I know for myself and many folks at our church, you guys are such an encouragement, you know, to stand.

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And I mean, my goodness, when you guys had the guy on from Revoice. Greg Johnson.

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Yeah, man. I mean, you could cut the tension with a knife and there you are. I mean, you know,

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Toby's there just giving him the gospel and just, I mean, for people who are age,

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I'm exactly your age. And so I relate in this way, you know, feelings have become our guide rather than sacred scripture.

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And so when we can see examples of godly men who are not apologetic towards the scriptures, but instead stand upon them, that encourages a whole generation.

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And I just, I mean, I know you, you get that at the conference and you get that. I'm sure you get some encouragement, but I just want you to know that your, your reach goes everywhere and you are a blessing to many brother.

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Thank you. And we've said this on the show before. Courage begets courage.

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And, and that, I mean, first, our foundation for courage is found in the scriptures found in Jesus going and dying on the cross for our sins.

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You know, the courage, courage from Christ, courage from God's word really does beget more courage.

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And then when you see, you know, like James coats or pastor Tim Stevens, just stand up.

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I mean, like, how courageous do you feel when you see that brother go into jail on your behalf, on, on the, on the behalf of Christ's body?

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Like that's, that's very encouraging. And it's really plants courage into other believers as they watch this, this man of God take a, take a huge stand.

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So when I, I'll never forget that moment when Toby on that show told Greg, Hey, you need to repent and not host this conference.

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You need to shut that conference down and, you know, just sitting there next to Toby and I'll get another little,

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I'm a, I'm a yeah. I'm bragging on Toby a little bit. When I got arrested last year for singing

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Psalms and protesting and exercising my first amendment rights, which is still crazy to say, when

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I got arrested last year, I'm, you know, got handcuffs on I'm fixing to go in the back of a cop car.

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And Toby walks over to the police officers and just starts rebuking them. Like, like,

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I'll never forget that moment because most pastors would probably have been apologizing.

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Hey, we'll work this out later. Don't worry, Gabe. You know, well, you know, officers, we appreciate your service here on the streets.

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Thanks for everything you're doing. We want to back the blue. And you know, Like what a blessing to know your pastor has your back.

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Like I can't imagine what that's done for you. You know, personally, I mean, obviously, you know, you love them already, but just to see the proof in the pudding, when you, when you're, when you need your pastor, he totally stood up for you.

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Like what a blessing. Well, I know, I know going to go into that gel that night. I, you know,

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I didn't think I was going to be in there for 36 days like James Coates was. So I wasn't, I didn't, you know, suffer for the kingdom in any sort of extent like James or pastor

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Stevens have, but I knew going even in that moment, the way pastor Toby was talking,

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I was going to be okay. I was going to be backed up and my family's going to be taken care of. My wife was going to be called, you know, all those things.

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It was very, just that small little kind of rebuke that Toby was doing with the police officers was just had enormous effect.

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Praise the Lord. I mean, I think, I mean, you, one thing else that before you, before you go on,

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I've got to just say this, but like another thing that I appreciate that I've, that I've heard in your responses, the beauty of the way

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Doug paints a Christian worldview that reaches in every area of life.

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Like, you know, I heard about, you know, when you were talking about how your views grew, that's what it's done for us too.

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Like, you know, when you grow up and just playing Baptist life, you know, this is, this is this container where you put church, you know, this is how you act here, this is how you act here.

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But he has shown many, and I can't imagine what a blessing it is to sit under him. You know, just the fact that Christ does deserve

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Lordship. He has purchased that Lordship in every area of life. Yeah. That decompartmentalizing

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Christianity, that's a term I've thought of for throughout the years. That's so important because our, as Christians, we're not just, we don't just affect our family.

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We affect the people we work with. We affect the people that we go to school with. We affect the people we go to Walmart with.

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We affect everybody and our choices and our decisions that we make on a day to day basis have eternal value.

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But so few people consider that. So few. All right.

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So speaking of, so, you know, you, you, you, you were posing all those challenging scriptures that, you know,

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Christians are veer away from and themes and topics, speaking of challenging topics.

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So y 'all are going to be doing a, uh, having another conference, right? Fat Life Feast Conference.

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So real quick here, we're going to play the promo that we made, uh, for the conference.

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And when we come back, Gabe, if you would, uh, just give us the, uh, the why that, uh, of the politics of sex.

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Sound good? Very good. All right, let's play the promo. Completely un -American.

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It's like they wanted you to be the obvious guy on this show.

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It's just that you're not familiar with it. You know, I play with grandchildren. Before we got to school, there was a crossing guard in the infirmary.

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My brother and I are going, move! They're looking very...

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And I think he's looking as though they've been off to a bit of a smoke start. Ah, here it is.

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Party in my head. Yeah, so the sexual revolution was an explosive, explosive revolution.

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It was not simply a rearrangement of the furniture. Thank you,

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Jesus! That's a great beat you had there.

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Thanks for putting that together. Hey, you're welcome. You're welcome. Thanks for letting us use it. Yeah. So, why the politics of sex,

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Gabe? Yeah, so, um, sex applies and matters in every area of our lives.

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I mean, just from, you know, me being here, because my parents, right, to what happens out in the world.

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You know, now my parents had me through covenantal marriage, faithful marriage.

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They raised me in the knowledge and fear of the Lord, and then now I'm having kids with my wife, and we're raising our kids in the knowledge and fear of the

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Lord. So, it's just very practical in what it means to the world.

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And Christians have forgotten it. In some sense, for Christians to take over, you know,

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Knoxville, all you've got to do is have faithful kids. It should technically, you know, of course,

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God's blessing needs to be upon it, all that stuff. A work of salvation needs to be happening in your children's life. But just, you know, if you think about it, if parents are faithfully raising their kids, well, the world doesn't really have kids.

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They might have two kids, if that. If they don't have kids, they're aborting their kids.

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You know, like it should just be a pretty easy numbers game for Christians to take over Knoxville or Moscow, Idaho.

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So, we need to reestablish kind of a practical vision of what it means, of what faithful covenantal marriages look like.

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In addition to that, the negative uses of sex, the sinful uses of sex have ramifications all over the world, right?

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I mean, from homosexuality to transgenderism to, you know, the world's view of sex is fruitless.

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Homosexuality is 100 % fruitless. Transgenderism is 100 % fruitless. They cannot take over the world.

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And so, we need to recover the politics of sex. Sex is inherently political.

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What happens in your bedroom will come out in the streets, either through faithful children or unfruitfulness. So, that's why the politics of sex conference,

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I think, is so important to what is going on in our current cultural context. So, what are some of the topics that's going to be addressed at the conference?

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Yeah. So, Pastor Toby, he's going to kick off the conference on Friday morning. So, we kick off all our conferences with beer and psalm sings and punch for the kids and stuff like that.

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That's Thursday night. And then, it's a great time learning to sing psalms, learning to sing with the church, with the people of God, and eating food and drinking beer and punch for the kids.

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It's a blast. But Friday morning, the conference will kick off with Pastor Toby's talk. It's called Molotov Family, you know,

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Molotov Cocktail. And the family really is a nuclear explosion. And, you know, how we view the family with that idea in mind, that your family should be an explosion of faithfulness to the world.

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So, Molotov Family is really – that's a great title. We had some other titles that we can't make public.

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No problem. You're going to be announcing some of them, right, as you get closer, I think? Yeah. Voti is next.

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He's coming on after Toby. And his topic is critical sex theory, how to keep Marx and Freud out of your bedroom.

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And that – we're trying to – you know, Voti's lane that he's been in this last year has been critical race theory.

31:43

And we wanted to get him out of that lane. But we thought critical sex theory is a great way to kind of tie everything together.

31:51

He's been doing this last year. But really hit a new lane with talking about sex and family and so forth.

31:56

He's the man. He's a good one. Like a loop on the interstate. Bring it around town. When I texted

32:02

Voti that topic, he just – all he sent me was a laugh emoji. He didn't even know what to say. He's like, all right,

32:09

I guess I'm doing it. Yeah, exactly. And then we got Doug TenNapel. I don't know if you guys know who

32:14

Doug TenNapel is. He's kind of a – he's an artist. Earthworm Jim.

32:20

He invented Earthworm Jim, a number of video games, a number of anime. He's a real intelligent

32:28

Christian artist. And so he's going to talk about lies and the prophetic poet. Art is full of lies.

32:36

Art has impacted everything. I'm probably summarizing his talk wrongly based on what he's going to do.

32:41

But we've been lied to consistently in our culture. And in the last year, the lies are just mounting like crazy with everything, how we understand the pandemic to how we understand voter

32:55

ID is racist somehow. So lies and the prophetic poet, really excited about Doug TenNapel.

33:03

He's just got a great angle on things and really interesting. And then we've got Greg Bonson –

33:08

David Bonson, not Greg. His dad's Greg. David Bonson coming in to talk about – apparently.

33:16

So the first conference we had him speak at, his talk was punk rock something.

33:23

Something punk rock. And this conference, we're having him speak on punk rock economics. So every conference we're going to have him talk at is going to have something to do with punk rock.

33:32

So punk rock, home economics, the family is the foundation for all economic activity.

33:42

And the family is just Molotov family. It's such a powerful means of how

33:48

God calls Christians to take over the world through family, through the gospel, through family.

33:55

And so economics has everything to do with that. So it's going to be really good. And then lastly, Pastor Wilson is going to come and talk about gay pulpits, the politics of sodomy, feminism, and unfaithful children.

34:08

It's that unfaithful children I talked about earlier in elders and pastors in the church and everything.

34:14

So that's the first day. The second day, we're doing what we call SWAT talks, strategic weapons and tactics talks.

34:21

And the goal is we got two or three people are going to be on stage with various backgrounds, but we're pairing the topics, pairing the presenters in a way where we really want the topics to have a lot of meat and ground -level application for our people.

34:35

We want people to come to these kind of conferences. We want them to feel overwhelmed, encouraged, and excited about how to go home and impact their local cities and churches.

34:44

And so the SWAT talks are kind of geared towards that. We have Sheologians talking about feminism. We have my friend

34:50

Rob, Zach Lautenschlager, and Dennis Sofartzi talking about All People Matter.

34:57

But it's a very interesting way of talking about that issue because it's talking about right now we're experiencing a demographic decline in our country and in the world in a lot of ways because we aren't having enough babies to…

35:10

Eventually, we're going to hit a moment where we aren't going to have enough babies here in America to be able to keep our own demographic presence here in the

35:19

United States. And we're going to have to import in, you know, other cultures, import in other people to be able to maintain the demographic presence that we need based off our tax burden, based off our military, all that stuff.

35:30

So we have a real problem here in the U .S. with kind of what we call a sans -demic. And, of course, abortion is connected to that, and then political strategies are all connected to that.

35:38

So really excited for Rob, Zach, and Dennis on that. So that's a number of SWAT talks, a number of interesting angles for Saturday morning.

35:46

And then we're going to do a live show with Voddie Barkum and Pastor Wilson on Saturday afternoon. That'll wrap up the whole live cross -politics show.

35:54

That'll wrap up the whole conference and everything. And then we're going to end with a big dinner, big Sabbath feast on Saturday. We got a bunch of food trucks pulling up on Saturday night, and everyone will have, hopefully, a good time eating food and hanging out together.

36:07

Awesome. Amen. Yeah. I think this is obviously much needed, and the topic is…

36:16

I mean, it couldn't come at a better time. I just think, personally, when I do premarital counseling, when

36:22

I'm talking to young couples, there's so many wrongheaded ideas of sex.

36:30

I've always got to fight. There's the parents who have been very rule -based, and the kids are afraid of what that means.

36:41

And then there's also the others who just don't understand the gift that it is. When I tell them that it's our spiritual worship, when it's done in the correct context, that it honors

36:52

God and that we're to be fruitful and multiply, it's almost like their eyes open big because they've had this distorted view to where sex has been used to sell a cheeseburger their whole life.

37:04

You know what I mean? Or they've been ashamed, and they're so afraid of it. So it's been… I'm just going to say

37:10

I can't imagine how well -timed this is, and I think it's going to be a blessing for the body. Yeah, they've been basically taught that sex, even though it's desired, it's ugly, but sex is beautiful, according to the

37:23

Scripture. Well, and one of the things, I don't know how you guys practice at your church, but one of the things that we do at our church is we have a family -integrated worship service where we have the toddlers in there.

37:34

We don't have a nursery, really, at our church. We have a room where mothers or fathers might need to go if their kid gets a little loud.

37:41

We have family -integrated worship, and our conferences are geared that way, and it's super important.

37:47

Even on the hard topics like politics of sex, we want the whole family to be there. We want parents to be discussing this with their kids.

37:54

We want what better place for the kids to learn about sex through their parents.

38:01

And so we want to create a family -integrated conference in such a way that it encourages. So we've had a lot of parents ask, hey, can

38:07

I bring my kid? It's like it's all – there's no XXX stuff going.

38:12

It might be PG -13, but you need to explain that to your kids anyways. And so I think you're exactly right.

38:22

I want my kids to grow up in a culture where it's like, man, we've just been talking about the biblical worldview of sex my whole life, and it is what it is.

38:30

Yeah. All right. All right. So thank you for sharing about that real quick here.

38:37

Let's take another about a one -minute break, and we'll come back.

38:42

We'll close our time together. You've got about 10, 15 more minutes. Are we good? 10 to 15 more minutes?

38:49

Yes, sir. All right. I will go ahead and play this, and then we'll be right back. Yeah. Yeah.

39:12

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

39:40

Yeah. So we are back. And this wouldn't be a complete episode if we didn't interview you all and talk to CrossPolitik, talk to Gabe Branch, talk to Chuck Knox, talk to Toby Sumter, talk about Doug Wilson.

39:55

It wouldn't be complete unless we bring up post -millennialism, right? So important.

40:01

That's right. So let's talk about why the post -millennial view of eschatology is the correct view for Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists, as well as all other denominations.

40:15

So can you speak to that, Gabe? Just name it and claim it. Well, because practically speaking, everything that God has set us out to do is a post -mill command.

40:29

So when God calls us to be fruitful and multiply and have children, we do that because we're actually post -mill in practice.

40:38

When God calls us to plant churches, disciple the nations, to go door -to -door with evangelism, we're doing all that because we're actually post -mill in practice.

40:48

We believe the promises of God. We believe that the meek will inherit the earth, and so we go and disciple the nations.

40:56

God promises the meek will inherit the earth. So what is that? That's post -mill. And when we raise our kids and acknowledge and fear the

41:05

Lord, when we disciple our children, we're doing that because we believe the promises of God and we believe that the gospel is effective not only in my children's hearts but in this world.

41:14

And so when God commanded or when God promised Abraham that your descendants would be like the sand on the seashore, if Abraham came back today, what do you think?

41:25

Do you think he would be post -mill? He had one child. And look at there's about 2 billion

41:33

Christians here on this world now. Think of Paul when he's talking.

41:43

He's spreading the gospel throughout all of Judea, Samaria, and beyond.

41:50

And then if he came back today, hands down he'd be post -mill.

41:57

I'm from Texas originally, and there's a church on every corner of the street practically in Texas.

42:03

It's like Starbucks. And if Paul's walking and seeing all these synagogues all over the place, all these churches all over the place, he would not be thinking like, oh, man, we're losing.

42:17

We need to just get our frozen chosen and get out of here. No, he would be looking at all these churches.

42:23

Yeah, man's fallen. I think the church is not doing very well right now. I think we're definitely in decline for sure.

42:30

But if you trace from when Jesus died and looked at how many

42:36

Christians there are now, Jesus left this earth, but there's maybe a couple hundred Christians on this earth when Jesus left, and then look at now, we would say that's a post -mill vision of the gospel.

42:45

There's billions of Christians on earth now. And God's word is being fulfilled before our eyes over this historical context.

42:54

Yep. And I would go so far as to even challenge the statement that you made, the condition of the church.

43:00

It's that probably I think there's a distinction that needs to be made there. The true church is perfect.

43:07

It's in perfect health. It's the false church. It's those who are placating a false god of their own imagination that is really, really facing the issues.

43:20

The true church of Jesus Christ, of course, you know it. And that's the post -mill view. We are so certain of the gospel and because of what

43:29

Jesus said, that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. And probably the heart and the root of I would say a good, solid post -millennial view is just the basic understanding above all else that Jesus Christ is

43:51

Lord. Not that he will be, but that he is Lord. Well, I think in the same way that I said earlier to resolve to have no problem passages in the

44:03

Bible, that was what my pastor taught me when I first got here. I credit him for that.

44:11

I don't credit Ed Litton for that quote. Have no problem passages in the

44:16

Bible. In the same way, we need to resolve to believe God's promises. I feel like we as the church have been gun -shy on God's promises in a way that it's hindering us.

44:30

We got a rock in our shoe. We're walking down the street with a rock in our shoe. And we need to get that rock out of our shoe and give fully trust in God and what he's doing in this world and that his way is the right way.

44:42

His way is the way the knowledge is going to spread like the waters cover the sea. Exactly. Well, and the problem is we've discipled the world with that rock in our shoe rather than having a full gospel view of the world and the way it should operate

45:03

We've discipled them, and we've discipled them well. That church is secondary. That fellowship doesn't really matter.

45:10

Purity, Puritanism, that kind of idea is old school. So it's going to take some work.

45:17

But the thing that was so attractive to me, even when I was wrestling, I think everyone comes out of the oven pre -meal.

45:25

I just think that's how you start. When you start listening to Pastor Doug. It's part of the fall of man, basically.

45:34

His original sin. But the thing that I loved is, again, just how

45:43

Christ's lordship affects everything. I remember telling my fellow elders when we're kind of wrestling through eschatology,

45:52

I don't know if I can work through all these things with post -meal, but it's just the most fun.

45:59

I just love it. It just encourages me. You know what I mean? It just makes me want to attack.

46:04

I want it to be true. Exactly. I don't even know if I can work it out, but I'm going to be this.

46:15

It's just like all the truths of the scripture. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. It's like the doctrines.

46:20

Yeah, the doctrines of grace, so on and so forth. Once it's there, it's there.

46:30

You have to be a full -on, stubborn, mule -headed individual, whether you're a man, woman, boy, or girl, to look at the futurist perspective in the premillennial view and say, that's what the

46:52

Bible's saying? You can't do that. No, and it's sad because what you see is eschatology matters because you see people who are like, why rearrange chairs on a ship that's going down?

47:05

It's so defeatist when Christ's kingdom is nothing but victory.

47:12

Exactly. I think Knox, we haven't quite came up with, Knox is doing a

47:18

SWAT talk with Gary DeMar and possibly a couple others. Probably one of the working titles we've been kicking around is the eschatology of sex.

47:33

Just include sex in there. Yeah, exactly. Eschatology is really practical.

47:42

What we view about the future, well, that has, I think Charles Spurgeon said, if I knew the

47:49

Lord was going to come back tomorrow, I would plant a tree today. In other words, we're supposed to be faithful where we're at right now, regardless of what might happen tomorrow.

48:03

If Jesus comes back tomorrow, we don't know the day and hour, but if Jesus comes back, well, that shouldn't have any bearing on what

48:09

I'm doing here on Tuesday afternoon. I should be planting a tree. I should be faithful because my God, my commander's given me orders and I need to be a faithful soldier right here, right now.

48:20

And so we've actually allowed our eschatology to even impact on how we view

48:26

God's commands here and now in our lives. And Christians, and this is why the family has gotten so much in the background of how the

48:33

Christians should be viewing the church in the world, is because what the church is doing, because they're premium theology, they just want to get and rescue whoever they can, pull them in before Jesus returns, as opposed to raising children for 18 years.

48:49

That's a long time. That's a lot of work. You don't see fruit in that until 30 years old.

48:58

And so instead of doing the hard work of raising family, we've allowed our eschatology to put us in the path of least resistance that most men tend to veer off in.

49:10

They tend to veer off that way anyways, but then you give them a theological reason to do it and no wonder we are where we're at.

49:17

Well, with also eschatology, we think of something else that you guys proclaim intertwined with Jesus's lordship over all things.

49:30

So why would you say in regards to theonomy, why does that matter?

49:36

Why does a view like that matter and how can it affect the church if it's adopted correctly?

49:44

Yeah. Now, I understand theonomy has that word, that terminology has some baggage with it and use that baggage as wrapped up in people's character and a movement's character, and I understand that.

50:00

But I would say put all that aside, put the people baggage aside from the word theonomy and just look at it in the sense of when we talk about theonomy, all we're doing is talking about God's law,

50:13

Theonomos, God's law. And so God's law,

50:19

David talks about God's law in Psalm 119 is just a blessing, like a blessing to him.

50:26

And it's a blessing because what other law would we want to live under? Would we want to live under man's law?

50:33

No. God's law is a blessing. It's a protection. It's justice for the good and for those who are doing wickedness.

50:45

So now I'm happy to have discussions. Okay, how do we apply the

50:51

Old Testament in light of Jesus's resurrection? That's a legitimate discussion. You know, there's some good arguments and conversations to have around that.

51:00

But what I want to anchor my principle in, my principle is that God's law applies to my whole life and with the right time come, someday, hopefully,

51:13

Lord willing, God's law would apply to the city of Moscow. You know, eventually in my post -mill world, theonomy,

51:21

God's law will matter to Moscow, Idaho, to the mayor, to the cops, to the chief of police, and that law will be the biggest blessing for our political structure.

51:35

Yeah. Because God's law is a blessing. Exactly. And the challenge does come,

51:41

I think, for a lot of folks, and I would have to say probably for all of us from time to time, is that the general equity, the application of the general equity there, that's where I think a lot of folks have that problem and have that challenge.

51:59

And, you know, it would be good for folks to just actually, you had mentioned the rock and the shoe and all that.

52:06

And in Chesterton in Orthodoxy, I think it's chapter four of Orthodoxy, he makes a reference and a comment about, you know, how people think and how they act.

52:16

And the rock and the shoe is a good thing because it spurs us to keep going. Right? We get the rock out of our shoe and we keep going rather than thinking, oh,

52:24

I've got a rock in my shoe and I'm just going to stop where I'm at right now. How do I know

52:30

I'm being faithful to God? Well, I read his Bible. Right. You know, how do

52:35

I know I'm obeying God as I read his Bible? How do I know what sins I need to confess and seek forgiveness of?

52:42

I read his Bible. And so I think a lot of Christians, in principle, if this conversation, once you strip out a lot of the baggage, a lot of the people baggage, a lot of the movement baggage and everything,

52:55

I think the conversation is really practical and really helpful and really good for Christians to be having these conversations because we're getting into,

53:04

I mean, there's no way to solve the social justice problem without God's law. Amen. You can't do it.

53:09

And this is why a lot of Christians are getting all their tongues tied and getting all stuck on how to sort through this problem because they aren't really defaulting.

53:18

They aren't really leaning. Their standard is not God's law. And so they're getting caught up in kind of this social justice movement because they don't have a way of sorting through reparations or sorting through racism or sorting through, you know, systems that have been problems in the past and even presently.

53:36

Well, it's a fear of man over the fear of the Lord, right? Like, it just seems like it's taken over.

53:42

So in regards to all of that, all that we've spoke about, all that your ministry is about, all you're about, your church, everything.

53:50

What advice, Gabe, would you give the church and also specifically fathers?

53:58

Like, what would you say as an encouragement to fathers maybe who fell or just need some encouragement or, you know, direction?

54:08

What would you say? What's a word that you would give? Yeah. You know, lamentations. God's mercy is new every morning.

54:14

Amen. And God's forgiveness is new every morning.

54:20

God's grace is new every morning. So, you know, as a father, when you're coming to a realization that, man, maybe

54:26

I should be doing a better job discipling my family or maybe I've dropped the ball on how I've loved my wife or led her or, you know, whatever convictions maybe

54:34

God's stirring in your heart, confess it and, you know, rest in God's mercies that are new every morning and then obey.

54:41

You know, don't wallow in your sin. Don't wallow in your guilt. Give that over to God. Some sins are big, which require a lot of work here on Earth to deal with and gain trust and so forth.

54:54

But, you know, set about working and giving every day over to the

55:01

Lord, giving all your works, everything that you're doing and offering it up to God and let him use you with your gifts and your abilities and where he has you at.

55:10

You know, not everyone's called to be a pastor. Not everyone's called to start a podcast. Not everyone's, you know, called to, you know, lead a conference or whatever.

55:18

But, you know, we need to recover. Christians need to recover the beauty of God's simple calling in their own lives with the gifts that God has given them and knowing that the kingdom is being worked out through you and where you're at and where God has you.

55:32

But that can't happen unless if you're living in sin, well, you got that rock in your shoe.

55:39

If you're living in sin, you aren't going to be able to do this well. And so confess your sin.

55:46

God is faithful and just to forgive and let that culture of grace resonate in your family and come out in what you do

55:55

Monday through Saturday. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, Gabe, we want to thank you again for being with us.

56:05

We're going to close here. Aaron's going to share the gospel in a minute and a half.

56:11

Oh, man. All right. And we're going to close out. But after Aaron shares the gospel here,

56:17

Gabe, we'll play our outro. And if you don't mind, kind of hang on for just a minute and we'll stop the recording and we'll say our goodbyes after that.

56:25

Is that okay? You got it. All right. So, Aaron, you go right ahead and share the gospel, brother. Yes, sir.

56:32

Well, obviously, we've talked a lot tonight about the brokenness of our world.

56:37

And I think all of us see it, no matter if we're in church, if we've never been in church in our entire lives.

56:46

There's never been a time of depression and hurt like we've been going through now. And there's an emptiness in our world.

56:54

And the church has the answer. And then our prayer as pastors is that the world would turn to Jesus Christ.

57:04

I thank God that He sent His Son into this world with the sovereign plan to not simply throw out a potentiality, but to come into this world to save His sheep, to call

57:20

His children to Himself. And I would just encourage everyone, under the sound of our voices, to turn to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sin.

57:32

Turn and experience His Lordship through the forgiveness of sin that can only come through the cross of Jesus Christ.

57:39

Because He rose again to bring us victory so that we would not simply wait for a coming hope, but we can live today in that hope, sharing the gospel with others, sharing the good news that there is hope alone in the name of Jesus.

57:55

So what I would encourage all of us to do is to trust in Him, turn from our sin, and find the only freedom that there truly is, and that's by faith in Jesus Christ.