- 00:00
- This is Herschel York. No, not the compliant black guy over here with his shoes off.
- 00:07
- Rather, it's this white guy that looks like Colonel Sanders on his knees who tweeted out, I will never forget this.
- 00:14
- Even in an act of service, I guess it's all about him. But anyway, you might not know who he is, but he said the stupidest thing that I have heard in the year 2020, which in this year is saying something.
- 00:35
- Yeah, so here it is. You know, let me just say at the outset that there's really two ways to read this tweet.
- 00:44
- You can read it as a serious tweet, or you can read it as a joke, which we all know that jokes always have an element of seriousness to them.
- 00:53
- That's what makes them funny. I'll give you an example. This is a joke that I wrote. Not a very good one, but you can instantly see the serious point that I'm making with this obvious joke.
- 01:03
- Here's what it said. It said, once I get the vaccine, then, then I will be clean and can worship
- 01:10
- God with the assembly. Exclamation point. Now, this is a joke.
- 01:15
- You might not think it's funny. You might think it's funny. Who knows? But the point of the joke is that many people are treating the vaccine as if that's the thing that will allow you to worship
- 01:27
- God with God's people. But obviously, that's a very idolatrous way to look at the vaccine because there's nothing in the scripture that says that if you're healthy, you must have a vaccine in order to, you know, chemicals shot up into your body or antibodies in your body in order to worship with the assembly on the
- 01:47
- Lord's day. That would be called, that's called adding something to the worship of God. We can't require someone be vaccinated in order to worship
- 01:56
- God at our local church on a Sunday. But many people are treating the vaccine as if that's the final thing that they need to be clean enough for worship.
- 02:05
- People are doing the same thing with masks as well. That's one of the reasons why I'm not for mandatory masking at church.
- 02:12
- I feel like if somebody wants to wear a mask, I'm not going to give them that hard of a time. You know, I don't think it's necessary, but if someone wants to wear a mask for whatever reason, they're in a vulnerable category or they're just, you know, think it's the right thing to do, fine.
- 02:24
- I'm okay with people wearing masks if that's what they choose. But adding the requirement of a mask at the
- 02:32
- Lord's service on Sunday, at the Lord's assembly, at the Lord's table, and all of that kind of thing, that is not allowed.
- 02:38
- We can't add extra layers of how to be clean to worship God. And many people are treating masks and vaccines as if they are our savior.
- 02:50
- And so that's what this joke is about. You might have laughed when you saw this, or maybe you think I'm an idiot. Either way, though, you recognize that I'm telling a joke, but it's got a serious point to it.
- 03:00
- That's what makes a joke funny. There's always an element of truth in the joke.
- 03:06
- Now, here is Herschel York's joke, because I want to give him the benefit of the doubt, and I want to assume that this is not serious, really, but it's an attempt at humor.
- 03:19
- Here's what he says. Moses had to deal with anti -brassers who refused to look at the brazen serpent in the wilderness.
- 03:33
- And I have to say that this is so stupid that I can't even believe that it was uttered by any
- 03:41
- Christian, much less Herschel York, who is the dean of the
- 03:47
- School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Apparently, he's a pastor as well.
- 03:56
- Like, this man teaches your children when you send them— I guess they're not children anymore, they're adults.
- 04:02
- But this man teaches your brethren on how to be a pastor. This man teaches how to preach.
- 04:09
- This man teaches about theology. And here is his tweet.
- 04:16
- Moses had to deal with the anti -brassers who refused to look at the brazen serpent in the wilderness.
- 04:25
- Now, you might not be familiar with this story. This comes from Numbers 21. I hope you are familiar with this story, because our
- 04:32
- Lord actually references this in regards to himself. And so, guys, when
- 04:37
- I make a joke that people are treating vaccines as if they're the Savior, and it's almost in a very idolatrous way, that's a serious point that I'm making, and Herschel York does exactly that.
- 04:48
- Here's the story from Numbers 21. The people of Israel are complaining again, and all of that kind of stuff.
- 04:55
- And so what does God do because of their complaints? Well, it says this.
- 05:00
- The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, and much people of Israel died.
- 05:08
- So God sends serpents amongst the people, and they start biting the
- 05:14
- Israelites, and the Israelites start dying. Therefore, the people came to Moses and said,
- 05:20
- We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against thee. Pray unto the
- 05:25
- Lord that he might take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people, so the people begged for mercy.
- 05:31
- They realized, man, these serpents are because we were complaining against God. These serpents are because we sinned against God.
- 05:39
- That's why God sent these fiery serpents among us, and they're killing us. So Moses, please pray for us.
- 05:46
- We repent. They're feeling bad about what they had done, and they're scared of these serpents, right? And so here's what the
- 05:53
- Lord says to Moses to do. He says, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole, and it shall come to pass that everyone that has bitten, when he looks upon it, will live.
- 06:04
- And so God tells Moses, and presumably Moses tells the people, I'm going to make this fiery serpent image.
- 06:12
- It's going to be made of brass, and I'm going to put it on a pole. And so when you get bitten by a fiery serpent, look at the brass serpent, and you'll live.
- 06:21
- You won't die if you look upon this brass serpent. So Moses tells the people that, right?
- 06:29
- And so this is what Herschel Yark is referring to. He's saying that people that didn't look at the serpent were anti -brassers, and he's trying to connect that to anti -vaxxers, right?
- 06:42
- And so anti -brassers are the people who didn't look at the serpent in obedience to God. They died anyway, and somehow this is connected to anti -vaxxers who are suspicious of the mRNA vaccine or for whatever reason, choose not to vaccinate themselves or their children.
- 07:01
- And so I have to say, like, Herschel Yark certainly seems to be saying that to not get the vaccine is a lack of faith of some kind.
- 07:14
- And I don't get it. I just, honestly, I just don't get it. That's really stupid.
- 07:20
- You see, the people who didn't look, first of all, there's a couple things here. The people who didn't look at the serpent, right?
- 07:27
- They were already bitten. So they were sick. They were going to die. They knew that.
- 07:32
- And they refused to look at the serpent in rebellion against God.
- 07:38
- How in any way is this similar to vaccination, which means that when you get the vaccine, you're not sick, actually.
- 07:45
- You're actually not sick at all. What you're trying to do is potentially prevent yourself from getting sick, but does choosing not to get the vaccine in this situation where there's a 99 .5
- 07:58
- and depending on who you are, a much higher percentage chance that you're not going to die anyway. God already made your immune system capable of handling the coronavirus.
- 08:08
- And so if you decide, well, you know, this is an experimental vaccine. It's very new. They haven't had time to properly study it yet.
- 08:15
- We don't know the long -term effects. In fact, nobody knows the long -term effects because it's so brand new. I'm just going to wait on this one.
- 08:22
- I'm not an anti -vaxxer, but I'm not going to get this vaccine because it doesn't really make sense. I'm going to probably survive this anyway.
- 08:30
- I'm not going to just take any experimental treatment that someone offers me. I have a will here and it has nothing to do with a lack of faith.
- 08:38
- And you're not even sick anyway. I was talking to my brother about this yesterday. I was like, if I was sick, let's say,
- 08:46
- God forbid, I had cancer or something and I was going to die or something like that. And the doctor says, hey, well, we've got this experimental treatment for your disease.
- 08:57
- And it could help you, but it's very experimental. At that point,
- 09:02
- I might try it because I've got nothing to lose. I'm going to die anyway. So it's like, well, let's try this out. But in this situation, you're not sick.
- 09:10
- It's not that deadly for most people. And it's experimental. And so it's like, well,
- 09:15
- I could see why someone might want to get this vaccine anyway, but I'm not there.
- 09:21
- What does that have to do with the lack of faith that Moses had to deal with, with the anti -brassers, which is just such a crazy anachronism, obviously.
- 09:30
- It has nothing to do... One has nothing to do with... They're nothing alike. Nothing alike. And so why even say this?
- 09:37
- Well, he does it to mock anti -vaxxers and to make them feel less than him. He's the great intellectual mind,
- 09:44
- Herschel York, and you're just one of those idiot conspiracy theorists that think that all vaccines are of the devil or something like that.
- 09:53
- This is the elitism that I talk about on this channel all day long. Herschel York has said, this is the most
- 09:59
- Big Eva thing you could possibly say about vaccines. It abuses a text of scripture, which
- 10:04
- Big Eva often does. It gives you a completely authorized and approved message, propaganda, just like Big Eva always does.
- 10:11
- And it sets up ranks of Christians. You've got the elites, and you've got the people that go with the flow, with the culture, and then you've got the moron, peon, idiot, backwoods conspiracy theorist,
- 10:22
- Trump supporters, probably. You know what I mean? So this is just so preposterous in almost every way.
- 10:29
- But even more than that, it's actually blasphemous as well. Because when I saw this,
- 10:34
- I thought to myself, did not Christ reference this as something that pointed forward to himself?
- 10:41
- And I knew that that's something that did happen, but this was such a brazen sort of joke that I second -guessed myself.
- 10:49
- Like, Big Eva got me to second -guess myself. I was like, man, maybe I don't understand the Bible as well as I think
- 10:55
- I do. So I googled a trusted source, which is Ligonier, probably the only
- 11:00
- Big Eva institution that is somewhat trustworthy left. And sure enough, I found it.
- 11:06
- I was right. I wasn't wrong. I shouldn't have second -guessed myself. The Lord refers to this story in Israel's judgment in the wilderness as recorded in Numbers 21, 4 through 9 to set up his message.
- 11:21
- Here's when he does that. He says, Jesus... I'm sorry. He says in John 3, This is the mouth of God who's saying this.
- 11:43
- And so you see, when I made this joke, which you might not have thought was that funny about how people are treating the vaccine in an idolatrous kind of a way, it wasn't so much of a joke.
- 11:59
- It was a serious point because Herschel York, when he connects the brazen serpent in the wilderness with the anti -brassers, which is the anti -vaxxers, that is idolatrous.
- 12:11
- It just is. It might be a joke, but it's an idolatrous joke. This is completely ridiculous.
- 12:17
- And so I think that this is the stupidest thing that I've heard in 2020. And this is a year that saw such gems as Dr.
- 12:26
- Fauci in the, hey, I don't think we should ever shake hands again because of coronavirus, but you could still hook up on your dating app and Tinder and stuff like that.
- 12:36
- I mean, I thought that nothing would top that, but here's Herschel York. Everything's on a sliding scale, obviously.
- 12:42
- I expect much more from Herschel York than I do Dr. Fauci. And so maybe this isn't as stupid if everything was even, but on a sliding scale, on a weighted scale,
- 12:53
- I think Herschel's statement is by far stupider. And so we'll see. I mean, we've got 15 more days in the year.
- 13:01
- Someone else could top him, but for right now, Herschel York, and he's very proud of this. He's number one.
- 13:08
- The stupidest tweet in 2020. Let me read it again. Moses had to deal with the anti -brassers who refused to look at the brazen serpent in the wilderness.
