Looking at 2020 - Liars and Cowards and Slaves

So, you know, people talk about how bad of a year 2020 was and all that kind of stuff.

And I actually have a slightly different perspective. It's definitely been a challenge for many people and I don't want to downplay that.

But 2020 has been a very good year if you wanted to figure out, you know, what the direction of your favorite institution is or who's who, you know, in the church in the

United States. I think that a lot of revelation has happened as far as who can you trust in the foxhole with you and who is going to just, you know, turn you over to the authorities, maybe even literally.

So 2020 has been a good year for that. And so I want to talk about that in this video. Yeah, I think that there's a changing of the guard that's being revealed right now.

And I think that it's very, it's a very discombobulating feeling for many

Christians who have gotten used to being so comfortable that there's just certain people that they can trust.

And then, you know, it's not that they turn their brains off or anything like that, but they just are kind of above reproach almost.

You don't really even question what they say. And I think that 2020 has revealed that to be just false almost across the board.

So many people reach out to me and the feeling that a lot of people express is a feeling of discombobulation, a feeling of like,

I don't know who's who anymore. And I think that that's actually not quite accurate. I think you actually do know who's who more than you used to, but it's very disturbing to you.

And that's why you're saying you don't know who's who. You actually do know it's just, it's very surprising and you're not sure how to feel about it and stuff like that.

You know, the people that taught you to be radical for Christ and to stand up for the Lord and stuff like this, where we have a radical faith, we can't live the normal life and stuff like that are also shutting down their churches just because the government asked them to.

It's just like unbelievable. Like, if you would have asked anybody, you know, in 2019, if a church would shut down just because the government said so, you would have been looked at like you're crazy.

I mean, no, we have a radical faith. We must obey God rather than men. Like, if there's anything that the church would stand for, it would be the

Lord's Day on Sunday, gathering with the saints on Sunday, and then a very kind of non -threatening virus comes out that, of course, the powers that be are pumping us full of anxiety over and stuff like that.

They're exaggerating the effects of, excuse me, and we just comply instantly.

Yeah, we're shut down. I'll never forget this. This is where I was doing content about the coronavirus like pretty much everybody else, but you know,

I was having a lot of fun with it. I was pretending to be in my bunker and stuff like that. I watched some of my old content recently, and I was having a lot of fun with it, but then there was one video

I did where I said that I was shook, and I wasn't lying. Like, I was shook when

I did this video because I forget who it was, but it was someone associated with Warhorn Media, which to me had always been a very trusted source, and this person was celebrating the idea that a pastor would be arrested for having church on Sunday when the government told them not to have church on Sunday.

He was, like, thrilled that it was happening and throwing his support behind it and all of that kind of thing, and I couldn't believe it.

Like, I just couldn't believe the mindset. Now, at the time, it was like a charismatic, sort of like heretical type guy, and people were saying, well, he's a heretic.

Why are you defending him? I'm like, I'm not defending his heresy, obviously, and he obviously wasn't threatened to be arrested because of his heresy.

He was threatened to be arrested because he was having church. The government didn't care what his theology was.

The government didn't care that he was charismatic. All the government cared about was what they weren't being listened to.

They weren't being obeyed, and they weren't shutting down church the way they had been told.

And so the fact that Christians, many Christians, supported such a thing was absolutely foreign to me, and it was very discombobulating.

But what we've seen in 2020 is that there are certain people that will do absolutely any kind of mental gymnastics they have to do to not rock the boat.

There are people that literally think that if the government tells you to do anything, you just ask how they want it done, and you do it.

And that's not how it is. That's not how it is. Non -tenant from, he's the creative director of It's Good to Be a

Man, he tweeted this out, and I retweeted it. I completely agree with him, by the way, just to not, spoiler alert,

I don't disagree with this. He said, if your church is following mask and distancing mandates to, quote, be able to meet, your church is in principle a state church.

You might as well be going to an official church of the Chinese Communist Party, either your elders see this by now or they don't, so it's time to get out.

Now, obviously, there's a little bit of hyperbole about the China Communist Party, but I actually don't think it's too farfetched, because it's really, it's the same kind of mandates, it's just more extreme or less extreme.

Because here's the reality, if you wear a mask and socially distance at church, that's fine.

If you think that that's the right thing to do, I'm not hardcore like Matt Williams, I'm way more squished than him on this.

I think that's totally fine if you want to do that. But the key to this tweet is the quote, to be able to meet, to be allowed to meet.

So you're saying, I got to follow whatever the government says in order to be allowed to meet. You see, that's the difference.

That's the dividing line. Because nobody gives us permission to meet as a church, except for God, all authority comes from God.

And so the authority to meet as a church is given to the church, it's given to the people, not to the government, not to the civil governing authority, the civil governing authority is there to punish evildoers, and to promote what is good not to decide whether or not the church meets on Sunday, or how often it meets or if they're allowed to sing or if they're allowed to take communion or none of that kind of stuff that doesn't belong to the government.

Right. And so, so non tenant here saying, if you think that you have to comply with the government in order to be able to be allowed to have permission to worship, then you have a state church in principle.

And I completely agree. I completely agree with that. Again, that's not making a comment on the necessity of wearing masks and stuff like that, which, to be honest, even if I was going to make a comment on that, that would only strengthen the case, because it doesn't seem like the science is settled at all for any of this kind of stuff.

And so that's the reality. But what you get is pushback from people that are just like, no, no, no, how dare you?

It's the same thing as a fire code. It's the same thing as this and that. And it's like, well, like, you know, this is the point, though, like, elders in the church have to look at the scripture and judge all things by scripture.

So you're going to say it's the same thing as a fire code. Okay, let's play that game. You want to get stupid?

Let's get stupid. In the Bible, does the government give the authority to enforce fire codes on the churches as well?

I mean, I would say no, it does not. And so why don't we roll back both of those things? So the way to solve abdicating your responsibility to the government as a church is not to abdicate more responsibility to the government as a church.

Rather, it's to finally just say, I refuse consent to all of this nonsense. If we're going to meet as a church, we're going to meet as a church because that authority comes from God.

And so the reality is that there's been a dividing line that's developing right now in the church.

And there are certain people that are saying, look, I want to be respectful. I want to, you know, submit to my authorities.

I want to be smart about things. But the reality is we know we've been lied to since March, and we're continuing to be lied to.

And even if we weren't being lied to, the Bible is very clear on who has the authority to decide how often they worship, how they worship, and things like that.

And it's God alone who has that authority. And he gave the responsibility to carry that stuff out to the church, not to the civil governing authority.

They have a separate job, and we need to recognize that kind of thing. There are people who understand that, and then there are people who do not understand that.

And the people who do not understand that cannot be trusted to follow Christ when it gets harder than it is right now.

Because here's the reality. People say, well, when the government tells me to not obey

Christ, then I'll disobey. Well, they're already doing that. When you don't meet because the government said so, they're already telling you to not obey

Christ. The time to fight is now, and if you don't fight now, in other words, if you don't fight to worship

Christ now on Sundays, and you're celebrating when pastors get fined or arrested for having worship on Sunday, if that's you right now, what reason does anybody have to trust you to obey when it gets harder than a virus that you're likely to survive?

Whatever the percentage is, you're highly likely to survive this virus. And so it's like, this is like the minimal possible pressure that could have been put on the church, and you're folding now.

So why should I trust you when the pressure is higher? It makes no sense. That's not how it works. You got to practice obedience when it's easier.

You know what I mean? You got to practice obedience when it's easier. What does the Bible say? Well, you know, you've shown yourself to be faithful with a little,

I'll put you in charge of much. That's how it works. It's like, you know, like we have parable, we have teaching about this, right?

Like, this is how it works. You show yourself faithful in the little things, and then you do the big things.

And that's, that's how it works. And so if you've not shown yourself faithful, and you've had your church closed since March, and you're still closed for God only knows what reason, there's no reason for anyone to follow you in the very complex and challenging situations that we're likely to find ourselves in in 2020, whether or not

Biden is president or not, like, it doesn't matter, like if Biden's a president or Trump's president for four more years,

I don't think anybody has the thought that 2021 2022 is just going to be way easier than 2020.

There's some people that think that they're like, Oh, I can't wait for 2020 to be over like yours aren't magical, right? Like 2021 is not guaranteed to be easier than 2020.

In fact, I would argue that all indications are it's going to be much more difficult. And so that's, that's the truth.

And so the point is, like, like, don't, don't deny reality, right?

Don't deny reality, because there are places that you've gone for information.

In the secular world, we've got Fox News, for example, we've, we've typically gone there for information.

In the in the religious world, we've got gospel coalition, we've got er, LC, we've got certain famous, you know, conference speakers, authors and stuff like that.

And we're just so used to like, like, we just have this, it's, it's, it's a habit of going to them for information that you can trust.

And in the last few months, we've realized that we actually can't trust many of these sources.

I mean, Fox News has been a disaster. And I would argue they've been a disaster for a lot longer than this year.

But it's most people have realized that at this point, I mean, gospel coalition,

I mean, this is this is government authorized propaganda for Christians. That's what the gospel coalition is.

Many people are realizing that I'm not going to aim to defend that in this video. I've got hundreds of videos about this topic, about how what you'll get from gospel coalition is the

Christianized version of government propaganda. That's what it is. er, LC is the same way.

And it's no surprise that these people are like that. I mean, look, they're taking millions and millions of dollars of stimulus funds and forgivable loans from the government that have all kinds of strings attached to them.

And of course, you know, about the the dark money that's going into a lot of these organizations as well.

Of course, that comes with strings attached to them. And so we recognize that there are don't don't deny what you your eyes see and what you know is true.

Just because you're used to going to gospel coalition to get trusted information or Fox News or whatever, doesn't mean that you have to continue to do that.

When somebody shows themselves to be untrustworthy, then don't trust them. I mean, it's just very simple.

And the small things are untrustworthy. Why would you trust them with the big things? It makes no sense. And so that can be very discombobulated.

That can be very discombobulated for many people. What are these official sources are, are just screwing me over?

Well, okay. And I recognize that because I felt discombobulated in that way this year as well.

But there's no use in denying it. There's no use in denying what you know to be true.

If you if you continue, if you know that Fox News is trustworthy, is untrustworthy, and yet you continue to consume the fear and the panic and the anxiety and the despair that they peddle, then that's on you.

And I would argue that you have a duty before the Lord to reject obvious nonsense.

No despair. None of that nonsense. A judge report showed itself to be fear mongers earlier in the year.

And I, I canceled them from my own feed and never look back. I check it out every now and then just to see the nonsense that they're spewing.

And it's just nonstop at this point. The nonsense is nonstop. So that's, that's all

I have to say. I mean, there's probably a lot of you that are feeling discombobulated right now. People that, that you know, that you've trusted.

I'm not saying you can't trust them in anything. But what I have, what I am saying is that you cannot deny reality when people are, are committed to falsehoods and panic and anxiety and all of that kind of stuff.

And you can see that, you know, if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck. And so stop treating it like something else.

That's just my advice to you. As we head into 2021, take the lessons you learned from 2020 and apply them to your lives.

And you will be much more successful than if you do otherwise. It's much, it might be more comfortable to continue to believe lies and liars, but it's not going to do you any good.

So I would argue that 2020 as discombobulating as it is, it can be very helpful to you going into the future because you can operate in reality, even if many, many, many people refuse to do that.