When Your Evangelical Heroes Let You Down

AD Robles

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there. This is ad Robles and you're listening to ad on the Fight Laugh Feast Network.

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All right, well, kind of a different episode today. But before we jump in, I wanted to just say this.

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Robles. R -O -B -L -E -S. God bless you. Let's jump into this today because a number of you reached out to me.

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Probably I got, I don't know, maybe 15 emails and they're all roughly say the same thing. Although everybody has their own unique perspective.

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The emails that I've been getting have been expressing a little bit of anxiety and a little bit of not despair, but just sort of like a discombobulation.

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You know what I mean? People are feeling a little discombobulated right now. And basically the emails, what they say is some version of this.

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So maybe you are one of the ones who sent the email, some version of this. It's like, well, what do I do? Because there's all these people that I've respected greatly.

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And over the, over the years, I've read their books. I've gotten so much value out of their books and their insights into the gospel of Jesus Christ and all of these things.

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And now all of a sudden, AD, I agree with you. They're just out to lunch on justice.

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They're out to lunch on race issues. They're out to lunch on all this stuff and in a very damaging way.

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And so how do I, how do I deal with that? And some of you even reach out to me, you know, wondering, how do

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I find a church? Because you know, every church in your area is very, very woke, in other words.

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And so what do I do? And you and you ask for my advice. And, and this kind of reminded me of something that I kind of dealt with in the past as well.

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There was a time in my church, I used to be a pastor. And, and there was a conflict that the the other elder in the church thought

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I was sinning. And I didn't. And I understood what his what his accusations were.

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I understood his perspective, I think pretty well. But I just didn't agree that it was a sin.

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And so we talked about it for a while, and we couldn't come to an agreement. And so what we did, this elder, he followed the steps of church discipline.

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So he brought two other men to talk with us. So we talked it out with people that weren't as emotionally invested in the conflict to hopefully see clearly where we couldn't.

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And you know, thank God that I actually wasn't in the wrong, according to these brothers, I don't think I was in the wrong.

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And they agreed, they said, I wasn't in the wrong, maybe they didn't agree with my tone necessarily. But that's a judgment call.

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And they understood that. And the other elder was not pleased with that, with that result.

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And I'll never forget this, I'll never forget how I felt, because he looked at me in the eye, and he said, and he was pretty angry.

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And he said that, that it was very easy to do what I do online, he said that he could just go online right now and blast everybody, you know, that's popular and say how wrong they are on this and that and how right

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I am. And, and it's easy. And it would be fun. He told me I'll never forget when he said that it would be it'll be fun.

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And, you know, I'm not a crier. It's just not how I'm made up. It's just not my personality. But I had some tears in my eyes when he said that, because I responded and I explained to him that this is not easy.

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You know what I mean? This is not easy, because, you know, I owe an eternal weight of gratitude to some of these men,

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Matt Chandler, Tim Keller, you know, to a certain extent, Paul Tripp, you know, some of these men that I talked to Al Mohler, people that I criticize when it comes to justice and some of this stuff.

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These are people that I've gained so much from their writing, so much from their insights, so much from their podcasts, their videos, their content in general.

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And to see them go off the rails on this. It's troubling. It's not easy to do.

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It's not easy to do and it's an it's emotionally taxing at times. And if my email inbox this week is any indication, there's a lot of you that feel the same way.

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You're like, what do I do? Because on the one hand, I loved Tim Keller's book on the prodigal son.

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I loved Tim Keller's book on the reasons for God. I loved his preaching when I was an early

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Christian and my church loves this stuff. And so now to see them go so off the rails, and it's not in just kind of like an oopsie kind of way, this stuff is really damaging that, you know, the people that email me, they'll say this, and I agree this stuff about race and justice and mixing up mercy and justice.

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I mean, it really speaks to the heart of the gospel. If you mess this up enough, you've walked away from the faith.

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You see, like if our charity and our mercy, it's actually owed to the poor, like they have a claim on it.

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You can take that logic. And if you go far enough, all of a sudden we have a claim to God's mercy.

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And we just simply do not, we don't, God doesn't owe us anything. And if you jack that up too much, you've got a real problem.

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You can walk away from the faith with this stuff. Like I'm not joking. This is not I look, I joke around on my channel,

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I have a good time. And I can understand why people might think that, you know, maybe this is easy for me, you know, but I assure you that it is not.

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It's not fun to see someone that I owe my understanding of the gospel to speak so wrongly about race and issues of justice, things that are so central to the message of the

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Bible. I agree with the social justice warriors that justice is central to the message of the Bible, but not the way they say, not the way they say.

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And so that's a real problem. And so what do I do? Right? What do I do? And the thing is, like, people have reached out to me, some, some of them are struggling to find a church and some of them are, are just, you know, some people reach out to me, and they're in a bit of a faith crisis.

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Like, how does this work? How does this? How does this happen? I mean, why are they doing this? People ask me that all the time.

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And the truth is, I don't really know. I can think of a number of reasons why someone might do this.

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I think influence is one of them and maintaining a platform is another one. I think, sadly, I think money is a motivator for many people, power definitely is.

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And it's like, what do I do when people are using their platform that they built on the gospel of Jesus Christ, in order to make money?

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And not in a legitimate way, like it take taking money from Caesar, like and taking money from the pagans in order to say pagan things like, there's nothing wrong with making money.

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Don't get don't get me wrong. But to say wrong things about the Word of God, to deemphasize things that are very clear, like, you know,

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LGBT and stuff like that, and to overemphasize things that are not even in there, like, like, that's really jacked up.

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That's taking the Lord's name in vain, for the purposes of money or power or influence or something like that.

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Marcus Pittman said something funny about John MacArthur being on like the all the Fox News shows and all the main podcasts and stuff.

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And it's like, look, you guys are selling your souls to get on these platforms to get on cable news and stuff like that.

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All you had to do was remain faithful. All you had to do was remain faithful. And let me tell you, maybe maybe this passage will help you because I honestly,

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I don't know why some of these people are doing it. I'm sure some of them think they're doing the right thing. But there's definitely some snakes out there, no question about it.

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But I often think about this passage. And I'll give you one other piece of advice after this. But this is this is the passage

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I often think about Philippians chapter one, starting in verse 12. And this is

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Paul talking about his afflictions, his imprisonment and stuff like that. Listen to what Paul says about people.

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Back then, there's nothing new under the sun, my friends, there's nothing new under the sun.

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Paul says this. Now, I want you to know brothers, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole

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Imperial Guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ. Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the

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Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly. To be sure, listen to this, ready?

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To be sure. Some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill.

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These preach out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.

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The others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely thinking that they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment.

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And listen to what Paul says about that. People are preaching Christ out of selfish ambition.

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There are no doubt social justice warriors doing that exact thing right now, preaching

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Christ out of envy, rivalry, and selfish ambition. Look at what Paul says about those men.

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He says, what does it matter? Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true,

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Christ is proclaimed. And in this, I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice because I know this will lead to my salvation through your prayers and help from the

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Holy from the spirit of Jesus Christ. My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always with all courage,

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Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by death or by life. That's no despair, baby.

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That's no despair 2020. There is no despair in the apostle Paul. He says, look, if Tim Keller, if Al Mohler, if Matt Chandler, if they preach

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Christ and him crucified, but they do it for selfish ambition. And so the message is a little bit twisted here and there and stuff like that.

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What does it matter if they're proclaiming Christ? I do not doubt that Tim Keller preaches a correct gospel.

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He probably twisted in some ways. I'm not saying that it's perfect. I'm saying that he preaches a correct gospel that if you put your faith in the

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Lord, Jesus Christ, if you, if you repent from your sins, and you recognize that Christ died for the sins of his people, and you put your faith in him and you, and you seek to follow him and he's your

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Lord, and he's your savior, that you will be saved if you believe that gospel. And so you can only believe this and the apostle

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Paul only believe this is because he believed in the sovereignty of God. He believed in God's sovereign plan for himself, but also his sovereign plan for his people.

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Let me give you an example of the kind of thing that I think about when I read this passage and I see this woke church stuff.

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If you notice, if you notice that, you know, when it comes to the conservative church, right?

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Some churches have remained open throughout this pandemic, and some have closed. There's no question about it. There's legitimate ministries that many of them have, have stayed open.

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I would say probably most of them have stayed open. And then some have closed. And we're not going to argue about that right now.

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That's not really the point of this. But if you look at the woke church, right, if you look at the wokest of the woke churches, pretty much down to the man, they've all closed down, right?

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They've all closed down and their people, the ones that are wanting to worship, usually they're the ones that that aren't that woke, you know, they're still going to a woke church, but they're not that woke themselves.

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They're having to look for other places to go other places to worship. And so I've heard many reports from conservative pastors that have stayed open throughout this whole thing that their, their numbers are swelling.

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People are coming to their worship service. Why? Well, just because they're open. You know what I mean? That's pretty much the only reason that they weren't church hopping, they weren't shopping or looking or anything like that, but their woke church shut down.

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And again, I'm not saying I'm not talking about the legitimacy of shutting down or not shutting down right here. That's not the point of this message.

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But the facts are that if you had a Venn diagram of woke churches and churches that closed down, there would be a big percentage of those work churches in the, in the circle of those churches who's closed down.

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There's no question about that. And so God in his sovereignty has used this pandemic and the decision making process for church, whether to stay open or whether to close to,

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I think, shrink down the number of congregants that are legitimate, conservative

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Christians who know the truth, who love the truth, who love the word of God, to now consider maybe

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I should leave my woke church, not because of the woke stuff, but because they have no other choice. So you see, this is

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God's sovereignty at work. And even if that wasn't happening, and even if I'm wrong on that, my read on that is just anecdotal, and it's not really happening in the numbers that I think it might be.

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The fact are the woke church right now, they're shut down. They're shut down.

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They're not, their pastors aren't abusing them from the pulpit anymore. Your woke pastor isn't getting on that pulpit in the name of Christ, taking the

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Lord's name in vain, abusing white people from the pulpit anymore. God shut that down.

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He shut that down. And so I can rejoice, even in the woke church right now, because God is working his plan through these pastors who are preaching a twisted version of justice, a pagan version of justice.

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And so many of them are replacing the truth of Christ with lies from the devil. But that's being shut down right now.

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Yeah, they're still online, they're still tweeting, and they're still doing their video conferences and stuff like that. But they're not doing it from the pulpit.

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They're not abusing Christ's pulpit anymore. And so I can rejoice in that.

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I can rejoice in that. And so I think brothers, if you're if you're frustrated, or you don't know what to do, and you're not sure how to square this with what you understood about these men or about the gospel, just look at what

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Paul did in this is there's nothing new under the sun, this kind of thing was going on before.

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In the book of Philippians, Paul says, what does it matter? What does it matter?

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Because I know that this will lead to my salvation. I know my hope is that I won't be ashamed of anything, but that Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

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This is the essence of no despair, because Paul knew what we all need to consider.

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And that is, whatever Tim Keller does, whatever Matt Chandler does, whatever these big celebrity megachurch pastors decide that they need to do in order to stay relevant in order to to contextualize things to death in order to get their platforms that they so desire, whatever they decide to do.

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That doesn't matter for you. You honor Christ, you honor

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Christ. So what does it matter? We're not looking, we don't we don't follow the word of Tim Keller.

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You know what I mean? We don't follow the word of Matt Chandler, or Al Mohler, or any of these guys, we don't follow the book of Gospel Coalition.

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And so I know it's I'm not I'm not downplaying the discombobulated feeling that you might be feeling. I'm not downplaying that because that's real.

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You know, I, I feel that myself. But it's a reminder for me.

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And for for all of you, maybe of who do you follow? Whose word do you honor?

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Whose word do you heed? Is it Tim? Is it

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Matt? Is it the Gospel Coalition Executive Council? Or is it the

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Word of God? Is it the fact that the sheep hear his voice? I know them and they follow me.

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I think we all need that reminder. So whatever reasons Matt Chandler and Al Mohler and these guys are, are preaching

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Christ, whatever the motivations are there, because I think we're starting to see some of the motivations. Guys like Russell Moore, it's becoming very clear guys like Jamar Tisby, it's becoming very clear what their motivations are.

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You know what I mean? Some people think like you can't judge motivations. Yeah, I think you can. I mean, the Bible says that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

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So when you see the mouth speaking, you know what's going on that heart, maybe not perfectly, but but you can identify things, right?

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You can start to understand that kind of stuff. So whatever the motivations are, you honor

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God. This is the essence of no despair. This is what I'm talking about. When I say no despair, this attitude that Paul says he's sitting in a prison cell, right?

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He's sitting in a prison cell, but he trusts the sovereignty of God. And so what does he say about these people that are preaching

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Christ out of selfish ambition out of out of rivalry out of conceit and envy and all these evil motivations of the heart

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Paul seemed to think he could he could read somebody's heart, right? What does he say about it?

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Because he believes in that sovereignty of God. He says, what does it matter? Because whether in life or in death, whether the woke church wins and and and joins the the pagans in rounding up the real

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Christians and putting them in prison, I'm sure there's plenty of people right now that want john MacArthur to be arrested.

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Plenty of Christians right now want john MacArthur to be arrested. Make no mistake, you'll find people calling for that kind of thing.

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I remember people calling for my arrest. If I were to go to church, and when the government said we shouldn't go to church, like they were saying, if you did it,

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I'd turn you in. So there will be Christians that that'll join the lynch mob, right?

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What does Paul say? Because he trusts in the sovereignty of God? What does he say? He says, what does it matter? Whether in my life, or my death,

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Christ will be highly honored in me. No despair, baby. No despair.

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And so I hope that helps you, man. I hope it helps all of you who reached out to me for advice and what to do and how to square this.

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You've been so impacted by these people. So helped by these people, all of this kind of thing. I hope that helps you.

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This is a passage just so you know, guys that I read and think about every other day, at least sometimes every day.

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I think about this all the time. Because I, to be honest, naturally do not have this disposition.

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I don't have this attitude of Paul's. I get frustrated, I get filled with anxiety, I get,

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I get, I start to think maybe I've gone nuts, right? That's what I start to think. But not

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Paul. He says, Yeah, I know they're full of envy, conceit and rivalry and selfish ambition.

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What does it matter? I'm going to honor Christ. No despair, baby.

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No despair. Anyway, I hope this podcast was helpful. God bless.

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Don't forget to tune in next week on Thursday for ad on the fight laugh Feast Network.