Pursuing the Enemy with CrossPolitic and Delano Squires

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May 19, 2022

The guys from CrossPolitic joined us in studio, together with Delano Squires, to talk gospel and law and culture. A wide-ranging discussion that we really hope will stir you up and encourage you! This was our first time working with so many guests so there is a bit of an echo that will have to be fixed before our next show.

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00:33: Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. You're not going to believe. You need to understand, the authorities in Moscow, Idaho, they have particular priorities.
00:48: And right now, their priority is to protect any tree, any light pole, and any telephone pole from stray stickers that might, in some way, be construed as insulting toward the city council.
01:05: And therefore, they are allowing dangerous people in and out of the city.
01:11: And in this case, out of the city, because the entire cross -politic crew escaped from Moscow and have landed in Phoenix.
01:22: And they're here in the big studio. With a plus one. With plus one, that's right.
01:28: I mean, they figured they weren't big enough. So they had to bring Delano in, just simply to sort of add to the gravitas, as we learned many, many years ago.
01:40: But hey, guys. What in the world are you guys doing in my studio? What's going on here? Well, there's some other orders that came in that we got from Moscow.
01:48: And it said, protect James White at all costs. And so. From what? Well, we'll talk about that after the show.
01:54: I haven't put any stickers on any telephone poles. We'll talk about that after the show. Yeah, WHO. Oh, yeah, yeah.
01:59: We do need help from that. It's all up to you. No, you guys are cross -politic liberty tool.
02:07: Tools of liberty, the five stones of true freedom. Why did you have to do five stones? Because that's, you know, people like five points of Calvinism and stuff like that.
02:16: Or, you know. We're Presbyterians. I mean, that should answer your question. Yeah, but five, you know.
02:22: I mean, I don't know. We almost did five C's. Oh, OK. Five tools instead. OK, cool. So is this the beginning or the end of your tour?
02:29: This is the last stop. We actually started in Texas in March, and then we went to Rapid City in April, and then now
02:36: Phoenix, here, and everything. So it's been a tour that we've tried to kind of put together.
02:43: And we thought last year we did a conference in Rapid City. And instead of doing a conference in the springtime, we decided to do a tour once a month and everything.
02:54: So that's what ended up happening. It's been pretty cool. So James, you're too big and popular to understand how this works.
02:59: You've been doing this for years. No, no, no. Everyone's afraid to have me do anything for them. So I just sort of, well, except you guys.
03:07: You guys are the only people left that will actually go, yeah, we'll survive it. We'll just. We've got
03:14: Doug, and so how can we get damaged anymore than having
03:19: Doug? Because he's constantly poking people in the eye with sticks and stuff like that. So, you know, you're the only guys that'll do that.
03:26: But you even put up with my daughter. Oh, we love you guys. That's the only reason you guys put up with me.
03:32: Well, that's true. She made you culpable. Yeah, that's right. Easy to absorb. You know, she's like, you know.
03:38: I'm just, I'm now just Summer's dad. She was the Dr. Pepper. You were the Scotch. That one's so, that's what we call a gay -bism.
03:47: OK, I know. Rich, edit, edit that. I've sat next to him a couple of times now, and it's always sort of scary.
03:55: I'm always sort of sitting there going, what is that? Just smiling on. That's what I try to do every time I'm up there.
04:01: Part of our plan with the tour has kind of been, you know, right now we started doing conferences in 2020, right at the shutdown.
04:07: That's a good time. God thought it was perfect. Well, I mean, we had,
04:13: I think we were probably the only in -person, mask -free conference in 2020.
04:18: Outside of the beginning of January. And we had almost 1 ,000 people there for our first conference in an indoor soccer arena.
04:27: Because we'd gotten kicked out of our other conference building three weeks before. And the only building that would take us,
04:33: I told the other building, I said, we'll pay your $1 ,000 fine a day. And they said, no, we can't do it. So I had to find a building that would take us, and we got this indoor soccer arena in 2020.
04:42: But, yeah, no, no. So the whole, when we did that, it was like, OK, that's great. We can bring everybody to one spot. But we started seeing that there was,
04:48: I have a friend named Darren Doan. He's like, people don't want to do the punk rock thing. They don't want to play at all the small arenas.
04:55: They want to play to all the back, wherever you can. Play in the alley, right? I'll play in the alley. I'll play in your backyard.
05:01: I'll play everywhere. It was always the same thing with hip hop. Like, OK, I can't sell my tapes here at the store?
05:07: OK, well, then I'll go inside of the Target parking lot with the truck of my car. Tapes, at that time, it was tapes.
05:14: Yeah, so it was these things. A -Trap? I remember. You know what it is. I still have my John Denver Christmas A -Trap.
05:20: You know what I'm going to say. You know what a tape is. Oh, I certainly do. So it's just basically doing that.
05:25: Instead of just doing one big conference at the end of the year, or maybe a summer conference and a winter conference, how about we just go and do the punk rock thing and play as many small places as we possibly can to help build the culture that's there, and help equip people there, and edify people in the smaller places, and fellowship there.
05:45: So the conference was pretty unique, what we do. We're probably one of the few Christian conferences that have beer and alcohol there.
05:52: You know, and are fine for a play area with kids in the middle of the conference area. And you try to project over the sound of the kids in the middle.
06:02: Believe me, I know how that works. And we sprinkle a little water. Hold on, yeah, right. You've got a little mistless system in your fingers.
06:07: We've got it, we've got it. Quick, quick. Before James gets here and dries them off. They think they're
06:12: Baptists, but we know they're not. So that's what the tour has been, is to try and do smaller places, tighter groups of people, more fellowship, more engagement with, instead of just being one time at the end of the year.
06:27: You know, it's interesting, because I hadn't thought about that, but that's a little bit like what I've been doing with my traveling, is one of the reasons that I'm doing it the way that I'm doing it is
06:37: I get to get into much smaller contexts where you can actually sit down and talk with people, and meet with the elders in a church, and the stories that you hear that you don't get to hear otherwise.
06:49: I mean, I was in, I'll tell you one story. I was in a little church somewhere in Montana.
06:55: It was on the way to you guys last July. It was for Grace Agenda.
07:02: Oh yeah. August, so July, you were in Montana. Right, right, right. So I was coming up from Colorado, and I went up through Montana, and I did the up and down to Moscow route.
07:13: And I'm in a little church. It's got a heat wave going. Remember how warm it was? It was really cool.
07:20: It was trying to be Arizona. It was attempting and not doing a good job at it, and smoky at the same time.
07:25: Y 'all were burning everything. Anyways, I'm speaking at a church.
07:31: They don't have AC. It's, you know, everyone's just doing this thing. Afterwards, this woman comes up to me, and we sit down in the front view, and she starts telling me a story about her son, who had,
07:47: I won't go into all the details, because I want to identify people, but make a long story short, her son had been deeply influenced by Alpha Omega Ministries, Apologia, so on and so forth, in a foreign country, had been brought to the
08:02: Lord through our ministry in another country, and when she mentioned to him that I was going to be speaking, you've got to go see it.
08:09: So here's a mom of someone I've never even met that the Lord used our ministry in this person's life.
08:16: How often do you get a chance to actually talk with people like that, and find out, you know, in the middle of Montana, some.
08:23: And so, a lot of people are like, well, yeah, but you flew 165 ,000 miles in 2019.
08:29: You taught in Samara, Russia, and Durban, South Africa, and I will miss my overseas friends if what
08:36: I'm thinking is coming is coming. But at the same time, what we're trying to do is, while we have the opportunity here, and who knows, we've got $10 gas coming pretty soon, you're pulling a fifth wheel, you don't get really good gas mileage.
08:51: But, you know, the idea is to see people face -to -face.
08:57: It's one thing to have that person, I think I see that person I know real well down there at the podium, I'm not really sure. It's totally different to sit down and break bread, and do that kind of thing.
09:08: And so we have this little map where churches have written in, and they've said, hey, if you're traveling, it's a
09:14: Tuesday night, and you're traveling through, and you've got time to spend an hour and a half with us.
09:20: We'll have you. We'll have you. We'll throw something together, and you can be dressed like this, because you have been driving all day, and, you know, you've got to get up the next morning and keep going and stuff.
09:31: We get it, and that's how we've been doing it. That's great. And it's - Underground railroad, that's what you're paving.
09:36: It's sort of, it's really, I'm really, really enjoying it, because I've never wanted to be the, you know,
09:43: I've spoken at some large conferences, but you'll notice there are a number of large conferences I've never spoken at. Yeah.
09:49: Because - Or been invited back to. Exactly, exactly. You know, you're exactly right. And there are reasons for that.
09:57: Really? Let's hear them. I hang with people like you, first of all. Oh my gosh. That's the main one.
10:04: You mean, well, did you just give us the you mean treatment? People like us? Yeah, like -
10:09: See how it feels now? See how it feels, right? Yeah, you know. Presbyterian?
10:15: No. It's worse than that. I hate to tell you this, but there are some Presbyterians that aren't very happy with you all either, so.
10:23: I've heard. Yeah, yeah. No, no, I think what I do scares people.
10:28: They see the debates, and they see debates in mosques, situations like that, and they figure this guy is, this guy is going into some really strange places, and I'm not really sure we necessarily want to have that kind of thing in our context, you know?
10:46: And so, but then I also, I don't fit into any, I don't fit into any box real neatly anymore, to be honest with you.
10:56: My own, right now, I'll be straight up front, my own people, many of them are wishing that I would go away, that you all would just adopt me, and I would never be heard of again.
11:07: We're trying. We're trying. Honestly. And in fact, because has the sweater vest dialogue that Doug and I did called
11:15: Doubting Thomas come out yet? Because I haven't seen it. I haven't heard from Jake or anything like that. But when
11:20: I was up there a few weeks ago, Doug and I recorded a sweater vest dialogue. Have you seen any of the sweater vest dialogues that Doug and I did?
11:27: I've seen one of them. Yeah, yeah. Don't ask us how we got the sweater vest thing going.
11:33: I have no idea. Because when we did that in July here in Phoenix, that's just pure torture, you know? But we did one on Thomism, the rise of Thomism right now in a lot of Reformed circles.
11:47: You guys in Presbyterian, on the Presbyterian side, and on the Reformed Baptist side. And a fundamental pushback against presuppositionalism.
11:58: There are a lot of people who last year would have said, oh yeah, Vantill, yay. They're now going, oh no,
12:04: Aquinas, Vantill bad. And they're calling themselves former Vantillians and former presuppositionalists.
12:10: Post -Vantillian. Post -Vantillian, yeah. There's a lot of strange stuff going on.
12:16: And so I just don't really fit in real well almost any place. And what's interesting though, and you guys know this,
12:24: I can have relationships with people that we have disagreements over. I mean,
12:29: Doug has literally not debated anyone as often as he's debated me. In written and live form.
12:36: And yet I love the guy. And we can, if you had happened to bomb the taco time.
12:42: In Moscow. In Moscow a few weeks ago, there's Doug and I sitting there chowing down on our crisp meat burritos just having a grand old time.
12:50: And people don't, I think that scares some people. Because they've heard things about somebody.
12:57: Sadly, because of social media, we judge people based upon what we've heard about them rather than what they've actually said or done.
13:05: Or the decades of life and ministry that they've put together. The consistency of their life.
13:10: Anything like that. I think this testifies to the soft Christianity that we're being curated in. No one wants the iron sharpens iron.
13:17: No one wants that iron rubbing against iron. No one wants the hard faith. No one wants the hard review.
13:22: But this is where people struggle to find a balance. Because you've got that.
13:28: You need to have the iron sharpens iron. You need to have the ability to be around others who have different perspectives so you can learn, they can learn.
13:36: Maybe you're both wrong and there's another direction you need to go in a certain area, a certain understanding.
13:42: But then on the other side, we've got so much compromise. And people just chucking the gospel under the bus.
13:52: Where's the balance point? Where's the balance point? And they'll watch you guys and you guys will be going after a certain topic when you went after the
14:03: PCA guy. Yeah, what was that? Two and a half, three years ago? Yeah, right at the beginning.
14:08: You know where I listened to you guys doing that? I don't remember. I was doing. I can't believe you remember this.
14:15: Factoid. Well, you know why? Because I remember exactly which hotel I was in, in London.
14:21: And so I'm listening in another context. It's interesting because you think of Moscow and United States, but you translate what you guys were saying to London.
14:36: And you need to understand the people in London are looking at you guys like, we could never have them say a word here because of the cultural explosion that would result from the boldness of our speech or just the plainness of our speech.
14:54: And so traveling has helped with that. And there's only certain churches overseas that would have me in because of that very reason.
15:04: Because there's a fear that you're gonna say stuff that you just need to understand in our culture, we can't say those things.
15:11: We can't talk about that kind of stuff. And so we wonder about Christianity in Finland or in Germany or in France and places like that.
15:21: And we wonder why isn't there more bold witness? And then you get there and you start realizing what the contexts are.
15:30: But the thing that's exciting is a lot of those folks, they're listening to us.
15:36: They're listening to you, they're listening to politics, they're listening to us, they're listening to Doug, they're listening to Paul Giotto's videos.
15:45: And they're hearing and they're going, man, that's right. And then they're left with the tough job of going, and how do
15:54: I communicate that within the context I'm in in a completely different culture?
16:02: We don't know how good we really have it. Let's be honest. Even despite everything that's going on, we still don't have to run anywhere near the filter that people in the
16:14: United Kingdom do. I mean, I've been on the unbelievable radio broadcast of Justin Briarley in London, I don't know, 16 times.
16:22: And I know Justin is always, his blood pressure, a little elevated.
16:31: I remember once we were doing a King James only show and it was only he and I in studio and then the
16:37: King James only guy was on the phone. And the look on Justin's face was, please, please, don't.
16:48: I know you could absolutely obliterate this guy, but please, for my sake. And I'm like, okay, okay, yeah.
16:54: It's not a situation where there needs to be obliteration. I get it, I understand. But still there is that cultural aspect.
17:03: And so in a sense today, you've got, I've got, you've got, all of us who have a platform have a responsibility to be thinking through,
17:16: I need to be faithful in saying what I need to say, but we're not just being heard by fellow
17:22: Americans. We're being heard in a much wider context. We noticed that when we were first starting and y 'all started tracking where people were.
17:32: Australia, Indonesia. Listening to us and like somebody in Turkey for a little while. We were like, who's in Turkey listening to us?
17:39: And then yeah, in the UK, a number of people in Australia and New Zealand. Well, that's what's been so amazing about like podcasting in a lot of ways.
17:47: It's like the Gutenberg Press 2 .0. It is. And where we can record in our little piano shop studios where we started off at was above a piano shop.
17:56: And we can record in this, you know, remodeled room above a piano shop and that audio is getting to Indonesia, Australia, all those places.
18:07: And God in his kindness is using it and everything. And sometimes
18:12: I had this guy walk up to me in Las Vegas. And again, this is one of those situations where I'm traveling through.
18:19: That's how I'm gonna get where I'm going. And so we just set up a thing with a relatively small church.
18:25: Got to know the elders there. They're young guys. They're listening to you. They're listening to Doug. They're listening to me.
18:32: We're really helping these folks. This guy comes up to me out of the blue and he's a young guy.
18:37: And he says, I have been listening to you my entire life. Now, when you get my age, you start hearing this more and more, you know.
18:50: He says, I've learned so much from you. I listened to your entire sermon series on Hebrew.
18:59: I did that a number of years ago. I did 85 sermons on Hebrew. He's from Uganda. And he wasn't the only one there.
19:09: So there are churches in Uganda that are so looking for that kind of stuff that we've been, that's why we know the people on the other side want to get total control of the net and of the ability to communicate because they know as long as we have the ability to get it out there, they can't stop it.
19:32: You know, Doc, it's really interesting when you talk about us and Apologia and kind of the boldness we have here in America.
19:40: It's funny because our opponents don't have to be or are not as chill.
19:49: They are bold. They are in your face. And they are screaming.
19:56: And so we come back with some pushback and all the people who are on the conservative or the
20:03: Christian side are kind of like. And it's like, wait a second. They just took a knife, slit your throat, stabbed you in the heart a few times, laughed over your body and peed on you.
20:13: Okay, and you're mad that we're seeing this. And you said, wait, wait, wait. Right. What are you doing?
20:19: Right, right. Yeah. Is that really Christ -like? What just happened here? You know, you're like, okay, let's help the guy out.
20:26: Let's try to give some aid and stop the situation and solve the problem. And then the people who should be with us gathered around to say, okay, that was wrong.
20:35: That shouldn't have been done. Prosecute that person. Are afraid of presenting the standard in that situation.
20:45: And it's like, you know, we're not radical. You know, we're not radical. We're just responding to what has happened.
20:53: It's a weird position to be in. Right. I always think of, I bring this up from time to time, but the book of Acts just is,
21:01: I think, a standing rebuke to a lot of what modern Christianity looks like. But you have, by my count, 14 public disturbances in the book of Acts.
21:11: One after another. Including stonings. Yeah, right. Just in passing. Minor and major. Yeah, 14 public disturbances.
21:19: And in 13 of the 14, it's like Luke anticipates our response, which is like, oh no.
21:27: What's the headline gonna be? You know, Moscow man convicted of putting stickers on poles.
21:35: And the modern evangelical impulse of, oh, it's gonna be bad for our witness. And in 13 of those 14 instances,
21:42: Luke follows up with, and 3 ,000 were baptized. And the believers were greatly encouraged.
21:49: Many leading women of the city believed. And it's like, 13 of the 14 times, and it's like Luke's saying, look, this is how the gospel goes forth.
21:56: This is how you win. Is the gospel collides with unbelief. There's a public disturbance.
22:02: And you know, Paul's like one of those guys where it's like, there's gonna be a mob. And Paul's like, you promise? Like, you mean there's gonna be a huge crowd?
22:10: Where? Right there. Can I preach? Hold on, I know you're gonna take me back to jail, but can I preach to them for just a minute?
22:17: But Christians need to think of this as when you have the, you know, somebody gets knocked down. Like, that's the point at which you then, you love your enemy.
22:25: That's the point at which you tell the truth. You preach the gospel. And it's not cringe, you know, wince, oh no, there's been conflict.
22:32: I mean, that's the very moment which the gospel shines. Yeah, no twice about it. But we have that opportunity now, and in so many different ways.
22:39: Oh my goodness. I remember years ago, I started giving the phrase, when
22:45: I would ever hear a young person say, I'm bored. My response to them all was always, I haven't been bored since 1978.
22:51: There is no reason to be bored in this world. As a Christian, you have so much that you can and should be doing.
22:59: And you can always tell the people in your church. We all know, you guys are involved in church leadership.
23:05: The people that do the most are gonna be the people that you have to invest the least time into.
23:11: And the people that you have to invest the least time into are gonna be the people who complain and whine the most and aren't actually getting anything accomplished anyway.
23:16: So that's just how it works in the church. And so the people that are active and are serving, and they don't need you to be chasing them around, giving them a pat on the back constantly, they're the people that just make your life wonderful and worthwhile.
23:30: And it's the other folks that end up spending, sucking 20 hours out of your day.
23:37: But anyway, the point being, there's so much, no matter what your gifting is. I mean, not everyone's gifted to do apologetics or debates or cultural commentary or whatever.
23:49: But yesterday, I happened to pop by a summer's house. She had asked me, we have a homeschool thing right over here in the courtyard over here.
23:56: I mean, homeschooling has exploded so fast recently that there's now a whole place over here where they make homeschooling materials available.
24:05: It used to be just me and Rich's vehicles in the parking lot. And now - And the car thieves. And the car thieves, yeah.
24:12: And - It was underground. But now, all those cars out there are pretty much just people with the homeschool stuff.
24:20: Interesting. She had asked me, do you have, could you go over and find out if they have this? And so I went over and got what she needed.
24:27: So I popped by, she was doing her book club thing with Sheologen. And I just think of, she's homeschooling, she's doing all this kind of stuff.
24:40: We can be so active every single day in building the kingdom and it doesn't have to be the super fancy stuff.
24:46: It's raising up those kids and giving them the foundation. But they need to know.
24:52: So you guys have, I wanted to read this. You guys have a completely mispronounced
24:58: Greek name school up in Moscow. Which I - Logos. I absolutely refuse to mispronounce.
25:06: Logos. Logos. Yeah, believe me, that's a slight mispronunciation.
25:13: Those are two Omicrons, they cannot be pronounced in different ways. It has to be the Logos or Logos. But anyway,
25:19: I'll probably never be allowed to preach there again. Y 'all can continue to use our school, but he can't preach there.
25:28: I've already done that. We're not Baptists, we're Presbyterians. We're way more older. Anyway. We have a show called
25:34: Cross -Politic. I mean, it's like we make up, we like to make up our own words or say our words the way we want to say them.
25:41: So Logos. German would be, if you know anything about German, any of you guys speak any German? Germans love to make new words by just simply cramming all sorts of pre -existing words together into one really, really, really, really big, long paragraph -sized word.
25:55: And that's a lot of fun to do. Anyway, in the news right now is, this morning,
26:03: Al Mohler talked about this because it's in Louisville, Kentucky. I had seen this on the news,
26:09: I don't know, a couple days ago, maybe Monday. A Christian school, and it's a
26:17: Christian school that is very clear and open about being a Christian school. So in other words, you have to sign stuff that, here's a statement of faith, and here's what's expected of students.
26:26: This is what we believe about human sexuality and marriage. I mean, it's not like they're hiding any of this stuff or left it confusing or anything like that.
26:33: They're very, very open about it. In a middle school, so I guess this would be like seventh, eighth grade, somewhere around there, here's the assignment.
26:42: It's a screenshot of the assignment, okay? This is Worldview's essay on what are humans unit.
26:51: So it's discussing, what are human beings? What's humanity? Here's the essay.
26:58: Write a letter to a friend of your same gender who is struggling with homosexuality.
27:05: Assume that you have known this friend since kindergarten, and you go to the same church, and that you have been pretty good friends over the years until now.
27:15: This friend is your same age. The aim of your letter should be to lovingly and compassionately speak true to the person you're talking to in a way that does not approve of any sin.
27:27: Instead, now in all caps, try to persuade them of the goodness of God's design for them.
27:38: In at least eight sentences, that's really short, try to show, authors go, eight sentences, that's not even an introduction.
27:46: In at least eight sentences, try to show the friend from the Bible reason and your personal friendship, and then there's three sub points, that God's design for them is good, that homosexuality will not bring them satisfaction, and that you love them even though you don't approve of their lifestyle.
28:04: Now, I'll be honest with you, whoever wrote this up covered all their bases. They really did.
28:10: How do you criticize that? But the explosion. They will find a way.
28:16: Oh, they have. Just trying to find, because I wanted to find the actual thing. I mean,
28:21: I have Moeller's discussion of it, which had most of that stuff in there, but I wanted to find the actual assignment, and I had to weed through story after story after story of astonishing detestation of the fact that anyone could ever even think to ask someone to do something like this, part of it being because someone, who knows who, has claimed that they have a student in the class that has been bothered, that has been troubled by this assignment.
28:57: Is there nothing else at that school that they're troubled by? There has to be a whole lot going on there, and we all know it, but the amazing cultural response is truly astonishing, because I'm old enough to go, when
29:11: I was in school, it would have been the exact opposite. That is, if anybody had done the reverse of this and had tried to do something positive about homosexuality in the public schools,
29:24: I was not Christian in school. What year was that? Sorry, I'm just. Well, I would have started middle school in 1975.
29:36: Okay. Okay. And so, I come out of a fundamentalist background, but it was a fundamentalist background where you bought into the myth of neutrality, so there was no concept of the conflict between the
29:55: Christian worldview and the state. The state was a neutral actor that would never bother us about anything, so you never even thought along those lines at all.
30:05: And you had a complete division. You had your secular life and how you thought about things over there, and then your
30:12: Christian life and how you thought about things over there, and the two didn't really meet. Okay, so.
30:18: There's two things I appreciate about this assignment. One is that it's a good way to clean house.
30:23: It sounds like there was a kid that was bothered about the assignment in the school, and so that's a good way to kind of. I'm not sure that's what they were looking for.
30:32: It worked that way. Yeah, and this could identify some people that you might need to minister to a little more.
30:38: Yeah, true. In other words, and secondly, I mean, what a great assignment for the kids to understand and not see that reaction.
30:44: They should bring all that reaction that happened in the world into that classroom. They should. Because they need to see there's no argument happening.
30:51: It's just screaming. It's just screaming, and it goes back to that. The leftists are allowed to throw down, heel, stab, and pee on people, but the conservatives aren't.
31:03: But we're not trying to either. And to show these eighth graders, hey, this is what it means to follow Jesus, and this is how the world responds is irrational, and that's a great assignment given the context of what's going on.
31:14: I think almost every Christian school in the states should glom onto this immediately and go, okay, this is what we're facing.
31:24: This is what's coming for us. There's nowhere to hide from this. And pastors should know what they're gonna be preaching on next
31:31: Sunday. They should see this and be like, okay, I know what the Lord has given me to preach on this Sunday. Honestly, that assignment probably should go to some pastors, because I'm not sure.
31:42: Not the eighth graders. You wanna know their answer. But to your point, a couple things that come to mind immediately.
31:49: One, I think that is an excellent exercise in apologetics for kids that age. As I said, there are a lot of self -professed believers who could not answer that in eight sentences.
32:00: The other thing I'll say is this. If the government schools and the secular schools were as open with respect to their theology as that Christian school is with theirs, we may be in a very different place, because if those schools put in their statement of faith, we believe that there are multiple genders.
32:21: None of us can say how many specifically, but definitely more than two. We believe in sexual fluidity.
32:27: We believe in so on. Just go down the line and then tell parents, sign off on it.
32:33: Then you would have a lot fewer parents up in arms. That's one. And as you said, it would allow a lot of parents to do the same thing that you were saying, which is say, you know what?
32:44: This does not conform to my worldview, even if they're not Christian. I don't want my third grader, fourth grader, eighth grader being indoctrinated into this particular lifestyle.
32:55: Again, if you get school leadership, say it's 10 people, you ask them, how many genders are there?
33:01: Put it on your slip, fold it up, and put it in. You're gonna get 10 different answers. So I think one of the reasons that you see so many parents pushing back is because what the world has been doing, what the government schools have been doing, and even some private schools, is they've been operating in darkness and in secret.
33:19: And when it comes to light, this is the reaction that we're getting. So I would appreciate it more if they just said, look, this is what we believe.
33:27: You know, your kid will be read to by a drag queen at some point in the next three years. And if you're down with it, sign here.
33:33: Well, how many public school homework assignments have we seen in the last year or two?
33:40: There's a assignment I think came out of Canada, one of the public schools out of Canada, where it was a homework assignment telling a third grader to go home and basically masturbate.
33:49: Experience yourself. It was a homework assignment, writing it down, detailing, you know, that kind of stuff. And of course, all the gender fluidity homework assignments that come out, and they're freaking out about this?
33:59: Right. Well, they're freaking out about this because they believe that realm of quote -unquote public education is the temple from which they're producing their next crop of priests.
34:11: That's right. And that's why it lives of TikTok. You know, all they do is just simply reproduce what these people are actually saying.
34:18: In their own mouth. With their own mouth. And I don't know about you, but I try to avoid any libs of TikTok material before about noon each day.
34:29: Because that's pretty much the end of the day. It's just like, oh, of course. No, how can this possibly be?
34:36: I mean, again, I'm the old guy at the table, and I think back to my grandmother. There is no way on earth she could ever, ever, ever have imagined this nation doing the things.
34:50: You never even thought about this stuff. It never even crossed my mind. But unfortunately, though, I mean, you go back to the neutrality point that you made earlier.
34:57: I mean, that's part of the problem, though, is that for decades, you had piles of Christians who thought it was possible to be neutral.
35:06: They weren't neutral even then. I mean, we started talking about statement of faith for government schools.
35:13: I mean, decades before the sexuality stuff went nuts, the statement of faith would have said something like, we believe that everything that came into being came into being by accident, random chance, through violence, survival of the fittest, which means anything can become anything.
35:31: And if you kill and crush and destroy, probably that means you're winning. I mean, the worldview of Darwinism was accepted in government schools decades before, even while everyone was still tucking their shirts in and maybe even saying prayers at public school, the worldview had shifted.
35:48: And I mean, when you accept Darwinism into your heart, I mean, you already lost.
35:54: You already lost the whole thing. And it's a direct consequent of that to say, of course, there can be as many genders as you want.
36:01: Why are you gonna say there's only two? You fake it? Didn't you see that beautiful guitar duet by the
36:11: BioLogos guys yesterday? It was Francis Collins and Phil Vichert.
36:19: Veggie Joe, Veggie. No. It was horrible. Oh, no. You haven't seen this? Oh, I, it was -
36:25: Can you pull it up? I don't think I'm allowed to. I'm not saying - Eldridge said, can you be an angel in front of me?
36:35: Then you wouldn't be a video. But it was all about how, you know,
36:40: God has a brain and, you know, we, the Bible's not, the faith and science go together.
36:48: You just have to read more BioLogos. This is the same Francis Collins, of course, who approved the use of fetal experimentation.
36:59: Apparently also the same Francis Collins who also approved the work that they were doing on the viruses.
37:06: But he's a kind Christian man. That's what we've been told all along. And so you see you're being radical again.
37:13: See what happens when you're radical? Seriously, that's the kind of pushback that you get when you try to point out that someone at Grace Agenda last year spoke on Darwinism.
37:27: Gordon Wilson? Dr. Wilson? Probably. It was me. Come on, guys. Thanks a lot. That was never me.
37:33: It was Doby or Dr. Wilson or...
37:39: It's worse. It's worse. It hurts worse when you can see that coming.
37:45: Oh, man. You know, if I had the chance to rewind that, I would've gotten the answer right.
37:51: Yeah. You know. Yeah, well, somebody spoke about it because you're exactly right.
37:56: That's, there is a, well, let me, where I wanted to go with this connects to that.
38:04: And that is that part of this issue was, well, there's a student who has been offended. There's a student who has been bothered by this.
38:13: Christian, confessing student, I assume. Evidently, I mean, well, let's be honest. There are a lot of Christian schools that have a lot of students that are, they're there because their parents are hoping that the school will do what they're not doing at home.
38:26: Sure, absolutely. Let's just be honest. What did you sign up for? A lot of Christian schools, been there, done that, got the t -shirt.
38:33: Though I do have to, I do, and I hope he sees this. This was, where we are right now was the school that I taught at.
38:43: It was just one year, and in fact, my first day of class was September 11th, 2001. So we came to school, and I remember looking at these students and saying, your entire futures have been fundamentally changed by what has happened.
39:00: Well, I remember it very, very clearly, but I had a student in my Bible, I taught a Bible class, and I had a student, and his name was
39:09: Tony, and man, he was, it was so hard. You know, when you're trying to do
39:15: Bible, and you just know you've got students that are just, they're a million miles away, and one day,
39:23: I remember I was talking about something I thought was really important, and I could tell he had snuck earbuds into his ears, and he's sitting back there listening to his
39:33: CD player, and I stole the CD player from him. He put it on,
39:39: I guess there's some way you could like, lock it or something. It took me a while to figure out how to get it to play so I could hear what it, and it was, what was that horrible, really vile rapper's name?
39:49: He was, I mean, just. Delano's like, Father, where you wanna start from? Alphabetically? That's really terrible,
39:55: Delano. He was a white guy. Eminem.
40:01: Okay. There's a lyrics there now. Yeah, right. I'm sorry, Eminem. It was an Eminem CD, and the track that it was on was something about doing bad things, mother, mother, and all this kind of stuff.
40:13: I lost it. Every kid in that class remembers the day that James White lost it.
40:21: Did Bad Bodhi come out of you? Bad White came out. Bad Bodhi came out of me, and I'm telling these kids, you don't understand what's coming at you, and talking about world, and all the rest of it, they remember it.
40:36: Well, that kid, I sort of lost track of him for a while. He ended up in the Marines.
40:42: In fact, he ended up as a Marines explosive ordnance specialist in Iraq, disarming bombs, okay?
40:51: And years later, he comes back, and guess what day he remembers most clearly, and it had this huge impact.
41:00: And now, on Facebook, we communicate. He's a believer, and he's been through all this stuff.
41:07: And so, when you're in a Christian school, and you run into a situation like that, and I was just like, please, this is purgatory.
41:15: It really, really, really is. But then, decades later, you go, wow, the
41:20: Lord knew what he was doing? I couldn't see it at the time. I couldn't see it at the time. But it also tells you, don't hang back.
41:28: I let them have it that day. I told them straight up what they needed to hear, and it took a while, but it got good.
41:36: It takes eyes of faith to see that, and to see this is an opportunity, and a heightened opportunity.
41:44: And maybe, in the moment, you're frustrated or upset, but I hope it's the same thing with this
41:52: Christian school in Kentucky. I mean, I hope the administration and the board there is thinking, oh, goody. I hope they're not freaking out.
41:59: I haven't seen any response from them. It's time for me to control the narrative. But I hope that they're thinking, this means God wants to bless our school.
42:06: They ought to be doubling down. They ought to be saying, actually, we do these worldview studies every single year, and here's how to sign up.
42:13: Right, exactly. They ought to be running an ad campaign on this. Put it on Facebook, put it on Twitter.
42:19: Yep, we do these worldview tests because we believe in human sexuality. We believe God created the heavens and the earth, male and female, and Jesus died, rose again, to make everything new.
42:28: They should just be jumping on this and lean into it. Don't be tentative.
42:34: Don't say, ah, yeah, but we try to be really nice. As soon as you do that, they smell blood in the water, and the sharks are gonna come.
42:40: That's the tendency, though, that Christians have here in the United States, and we are much better at it than in much of the rest of Western Europe and stuff like that, except maybe a few bold folks in Poland and Hungary that are sort of going, hey, guys, you're crazy.
43:01: Give us a buzz on you guys. I know some of those guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Part of what
43:07: Pastor Toby's talking about is the idea of pursuit. We don't have that in Christianity. We don't think about pursuit.
43:14: We only have thought about defense. Even our apologetic is based off just defense, but it's actually pursuit for the other person.
43:21: We're going to get you, right? We are coming into the jaws of hell and bringing you out, my dude. That's the whole point of the assignment.
43:27: So if they mean the assignment. That's right. That's why it's so good. You mean that Christ can deliver this friend from that sin.
43:35: That's right. So you mean that, right? And then when they scream and howl and so on, you think, oh, Christ wants to give us even more.
43:41: That's right. Christ wants to give us even more. And it only takes a few people to stand up. Right now, the light's on them and they need to make that stand.
43:47: There's a scene. You guys ever seen Battle of Los Angeles? No. You gotta watch it.
43:52: It's one of my favorite films. It's an old film. I don't watch movies. I'm a Christian. Oh, okay. Except for Francis Collins.
43:58: Right, exactly. That's an old movie. That was not in the movie. That wasn't even a good movie. Give it a minute.
44:04: Disney's gonna use it. But one of the parts at the end of the movie is there's this older guy who is kind of beat down, but he's still a good soldier.
44:12: A lot of people die. They get to the end of the movie. They're successful. They win this battle. And everybody sets down their armor, their gun, and people start eating.
44:22: And he grabs another magazine. And he starts loading it. And they all start looking at him.
44:28: He puts it in his case. Grabs a grenade. Another person says, we're not done. They all start getting up one after the other and start handing each other ammo and handing each other gear.
44:39: And they start getting ready to go back out. And the general says, what are you guys doing? He's like, sir, we already had lunch. And they get back out there.
44:46: And so one person, though, a group of people who are good fighters and good Christians, one person had to know to pursue.
44:53: And that one person caused the whole platoon to stand up and get ready to engage. And so my point is that pursuit is contagious.
45:02: Having a backbone is contagious. And so this goes back to the beginning of the conversation we were having earlier with other
45:08: Christians around the world who were looking like, wow, we couldn't do that here. It's contagious.
45:13: It's gonna bleed out. And if you're not doing that, then it won't ever reach that point where they start engaging as well.
45:18: And the other side knows that. And the other side knows that. That's why you look on Twitter right now.
45:24: They're pursuing them. And they are pursuing them like ants. Yeah, the line goes all over the place, dude.
45:30: Like, yeah, go ahead, I'm sorry. No, I mean, I think you all raised some excellent points. I'll say this.
45:35: This may sound strange to some listeners, but one person who
45:40: I think has been extremely influential in the way I think about pursuit is
45:46: Dr. Ibram Kendi. I'm gonna tell you why. I would say, I mean, not a scholarship because fourth rate is too high of a praise for him, but I would say he is the most consistent, sort of courageous evangelist of his faith that we have in the country right now.
46:07: He takes his anti -racism faith, right? And he really does appropriate words that are said about Christ for his theory, right?
46:17: Racism is death and anti -racism is life. He takes that into every single level of government.
46:24: K through 12 education, college education. As someone who says that capitalism is sort of the evil twin of racism, he's still getting paid 20, 30, $40 ,000 to speak for 45 minutes.
46:38: He does it unapologetically. He can't even define his terms without circular logic.
46:45: But he says, you know what? I have no shame. These people can't shame me. I just won't talk to them. Then I look at Christians and many of us take the exact wrong lesson.
46:54: We glom on to his theories, but don't understand his ways because when it comes time for us to speak the truth, the truth that we say we believe about the
47:03: Bible, then we start to get timid and it's a death by a thousand caveats.
47:08: Maybe, I'm not sure. And for me, seeing him operate, I'm saying if Kennedy can operate in a public square pushing a false gospel,
47:18: I certainly can show up with the real thing. So that's why it doesn't matter where I go, who
47:23: I talk to, what the issue is. If the Bible is speaking on it and speaks on everything, obviously more specifically to some things than others, but I'm bringing the word with me and I refuse to put down my sword.
47:39: And I heard this from Pastor Doug, I think it was either last week or the week before on Blog and Mayblog, when he talked about the way that the world uses shame.
47:48: And I think that is the thing that many Christians are most afraid of, is being shamed by people who hate our worldview, they hate our
47:58: God, they hate our lifestyle. And that's one of the reasons that so many of us are afraid to speak is because we don't want to be shamed.
48:05: Now, we don't mind being shamed or criticized by the maggot folks, right? That's not a problem, we'd rather not.
48:13: But when it comes to the Atlantic readers and it comes to the elites, then it's, oh no,
48:18: I can't say that because that would damage my witnesses. I'm like, no, say it. Say it with your chest stuck out.
48:24: And once, hearing him say that really made it crystallized to me, but I said, once you, when you get to the point where you don't care what they say about you, it's like the opening scene of Django Unchained.
48:36: Go off the cape, you're free. So now you can, it's like, okay, you're gonna hate me anyway, so let's get it.
48:42: If I was the principal of the school, the next day you go out and do a press release and speak to everybody and get as much media as you can there and say,
48:51: Jesus is king, this is our school, this homework assignment is a really good homework assignment for our kids.
48:57: And the next homework assignment, or the kids are gonna write to the new White House press secretary and present the gospel to her and tell her to repent of her homosexuality.
49:09: And then the third assignment this week is they're gonna write to President Obama. O -Biden.
49:15: O -Biden. Which is pretty much, come on, man. I know. That's real.
49:20: And they're gonna present the gospel to him to repent of his support of abortion and his idolatry for Catholicism.
49:27: See, Rich got me, I said he gotta go to Joe Clark, he knows what I'm talking about. You know what I'm talking about. I don't know what Joe Clark. So from Lino and me, he gets, yeah, yeah, thank you, he gets this school that has been, used to be a great school, it's a phenomenal school.
49:38: He leaves and he comes back as the principal and the school is fighting drugs and all kinds of stuff going on.
49:43: So he changed the doors and started to walk around the hallway with the bat and the press come and say, oh, this guy's got a bat, he's running around the hallway, he's changed the doors.
49:52: He comes out on the front steps and says, y 'all call me Batman then. That's what you call, and it's like, you know, he's not taking any of this mess, none of the shame.
50:02: I'm the principal, press conference, call me Batman. Let me show you, this is what we believe, this is what we hold to.
50:08: That's right, that's right. We've got to understand, Lino brought up Doug's talk about shame.
50:15: I heard, I was thinking about the exact same thing. I was going to bring it up as well. Because it's used,
50:20: I remember so clearly when, remember back when California had Proposition 8?
50:26: This seems like lifetimes ago. Can you imagine that today? Think of how things have changed.
50:33: But, you know, Prop 8, say no to hate and all the rest of this kind of stuff. But I remember clearly videos of them standing around chanting, shame, shame, shame on anyone who would vote for that proposition.
50:47: And I thought about then, and it's something we have to recognize, and Doug specifically mentioned it in that Blog of May blog article.
50:54: And that is, shame is dependent upon how you understand who you are.
51:02: And shame has to come, you have to be ashamed in front of someone. And the old way was, you are first and foremost ashamed in front of your creator because of what you have done.
51:15: You recognize that you have been created to be something and you have fallen short of that.
51:23: Once you believe you are a cosmic accident, then shame can only be an artificial construct of whatever you choose to make your ultimate authority.
51:37: And so for Christians, we should be very clear to our kids in homeschool, in Christian schools, whatever it is, there is a reason to avoid shaming yourself before God and before His people.
51:54: But the reason for that is you're made in His image and you have made covenant with Him by saying,
52:03: I believe in Jesus Christ. I am a disciple of Jesus Christ. And so there is reason for us to experience shame when we know in our hearts that we have taken what
52:15: God has given to us and we've wasted it and so on and so forth. But what we need to be able to do is explain to other people what shames them because they're made in the image of God too.
52:25: I don't know if you guys saw it because it just came out yesterday, but Paul and Gia posted a video yesterday, Jeff and Luke out in Louisiana on a university campus.
52:37: And you listen, and it's not the only one that does this, obviously, but that was just the most recent one. You listen to these young people.
52:44: And my heart breaks for them, first of all. My heart breaks for young people today that have been raised in secularism.
52:51: Their transcendent value has been stolen from them. They've been robbed. There is something good and right about being the creature of God and learning to think in a clear and logical fashion in honor of your
53:11: God and recognizing that you live in this world that he has made and you're thinking God's thoughts after him. It's so elevating and so...
53:19: They don't have any of that. They don't have any of that. It's been stolen from them. And the boldness that Jeff had to be able to take their words, because they're still made in the image of God.
53:32: Let any person talk long enough and they are going to hand you all the rope that you need to tie them up with a bow in their incoherence and their inconsistency.
53:41: I think they're handing you that rope to rescue them personally. Yeah, well, tie them up so they won't continue going the direction they're going.
53:48: Drag me out of here! Right, exactly. Right, so, but they don't have that. And to hear them just shaming themselves, defaming themselves by the words that they were using and the absurdities that they were coming to.
54:04: It's just so sad to see. Our people should be prepared. Assignments like this are good.
54:10: It shouldn't just be the middle schoolers. It should be the pastors and it should be being done everywhere.
54:18: Ask the teachers. To give an answer. You know, people say, oh, don't give any thought because that's talking about persecution in a specific context.
54:27: Thinking through how you're going to respond to specific accusations. And we know exactly what they're going to be today.
54:33: None of us have any excuse. They all went to the same catechism class. Right. They all say the same things.
54:39: They did. There's no reason for us to be going, ah, I never really thought about that before. What do you mean? It's around you all the time.
54:46: We need to be prepared. And then we need to explain to other people why they should be ashamed at saying the things that they're saying.
54:57: Yes. When that woman, yesterday, I don't know what she was being examined for, but that guy, he used the same argumentation that we use all the time, where you go from the two -year -old to the six -month -old.
55:12: Oh, this is in the congressional hearing? Congressional hearing. And then asks her, because she's, I actually looked her up online, and she spent her entire life promoting abortion.
55:23: That's all she's ever done. I mean, that is her world. Was that Amy Everett? Yes, yes.
55:28: And so when she is asked, can you logically explain to me the difference in being here and being eight inches over here?
55:40: She has no response. This is a woman who, her entire education is this field, and she has no response, because there is no response.
55:49: It's an irrational worldview. And there should be shame associated with that. There really should be.
55:55: But the other side, hey, if you have a secular worldview, why should Stardust, why should fizzing chemicals ever worry about being ashamed?
56:03: Right after the SCOTUS leak of the draft opinion by Alito, potentially overturning
56:11: Roe, and the protests, I think it was outside of the Supreme Court, you guys saw the one sign, maybe with the,
56:17: I think it was a woman that said, I wish my mom had aborted me. Yes, yes. I remember that. A younger girl.
56:22: I mean, talk about the shaming. It's sort of like, it's completely self -destructive, self, just maligning, and so on.
56:33: And yeah, I think, yeah, your heart goes out to them. But that is the logical end of the whole worldview, of that whole religion.
56:43: It really is. I would have rather been aborted. And it destroys everything, too. So she's dishonoring her parents in that same moment.
56:50: She's, you know, dishonoring everything. All of humanity is gone. She has no parents. Right, right, yeah.
56:56: The very term parent doesn't have any meaning with this one. Right, that's exactly right. Humanity, this is what we're gonna talk about tonight.
57:04: Part of what's been robbed from people are being human. And so what they're getting, the way they're acting, and what they're believing, this false theology, is they're becoming zombies.
57:13: You know, Amy, one of the most interesting things, I'm sure that she's a believer of her worldview, the secular worldview.
57:19: But she's also a hostage. When you watch her answer it, she knows she can't,
57:25: I've heard you talk about this a lot before. These people know their catechism, and they know what they can't answer.
57:31: Correct. This is like the, The red dot on the forehead. The girl that just got confirmed for the new
57:38: Supreme Court. Yeah, yeah, yeah. you need to find a woman. Contagious. Contagious. Contagious, yeah.
57:43: Like, same thing. You just see the red dot. There's a red dot there. Be careful. Be careful what you say. Right, and so they know what they can and can't say.
57:51: And they're also believers. She knows. One of the things that we can always go to is that although they knew
57:57: God. Mm -hmm, yeah, yeah. So we know that she knows.
58:02: And that's why we're shocked, because we know that she knows this. But we also see the red dot on her head.
58:09: And she feels the heat of that. And so she's choosing to reject. And that's back to the power of shame again.
58:15: There's a whole shaming culture on the left, too. It's like, you better step out of it. Keep in the narrative.
58:21: Protect our backs. We got a plan. And don't you dare step outside that.
58:26: One of the things that I've been working through, especially since shame is such a big thing, is trying to teach my kids the right type of shame.
58:33: So I don't let my children shame each other to do things.
58:39: You shall not move when they use shame to get you to do something. Won't somebody feel bad for this?
58:46: No, no, no, no, no. You're not using shame to get somebody to do the dishes. Manipulate. Because it's manipulation.
58:52: You only use shame when someone has defied God's standard. God made you.
58:58: He made you in his image. You are not modeling the Imago Dei. And then what you do with that shame is you tell that person how to get rid of it.
59:08: You don't use shame to manipulate them to get to do something. You show them where to take their shame. So you need to repent, because you're not modeling what
59:18: God has designed you for. So take that shame to the feet of the cross, to the foot of the cross, and then go do the thing you need to go do.
59:27: And so there is a shame there, but they're using the shame in order to manipulate you and part of the reason it works is because we use shame to disciple and raise our own kids, to get them to do things around the house.
59:39: How do you think that makes me feel? Right. There is waiting for this. Do not say that.
59:45: Right, exactly. And so, but they're primed for a certain type of shame. And I want my kids to have a certain shield up for one shame and then a soft heart for the other.
59:56: Right, right, right. And so - That's a hard balance. Yeah, yeah. It is a hard balance. But we are not out here floating in space.
01:00:04: We have hard standards from a loving God who gives us laws so that we become like him.
01:00:09: These laws make us more human. They don't attract from that. And another area this comes up, because you know, with this identity obsessed culture, it's gender, sexuality, and race.
01:00:22: Those are the two main idols. I'm thinking about all of the pastors who spent 2020 trying to get their congregants, black, white,
01:00:34: Chinese, or Candy Stripe, to utter the three magic words. Black Lives Matter.
01:00:40: Right? And if you don't say this, you're complicit in racism, so on and so on and so forth. And then again, two years later, as I knew, as many people knew that it would, it comes out like this is a complete scantastic organization.
01:00:53: Yeah. Right, where the founders are paying the father of their children. I didn't even know she had a baby daddy, but that's a different question.
01:01:00: That's a whole different thing. But anyone who, again, if you're a
01:01:07: Christian, you have a biblical worldview, and you have this organization here, and your
01:01:12: Bible here, you need to know which one is the ruler and which one is the crooked stick. So if you go to an organization's website and they say they're against police brutality and all this other stuff, and they don't mention police brutality, violence, boy, man, any of those words, but they do mention that they're trans -affirming, they're against the nuclear family, they're queer -affirming, they're woman -centered, you should start to ask yourself, what is this organization actually for?
01:01:39: And what am I promoting in my church if I tell the people who come there that they have to support this?
01:01:48: And to me, that is a reason, I hope many of these elders, these leaders, these theologians come to a place of repentance and say, you know what?
01:01:58: We tried to bind your conscience. We were wrong, right? First, we should first repent to a loving and forgiving
01:02:07: God, because we tried to accomplish reconciliation outside of what the scripture, the pathway the scripture has already given us.
01:02:17: But I mean, for me, I try not to gloat and say, I told you guys, scammers, but it was easy to see.
01:02:26: But again, when you put on the lenses of culture and you set aside your
01:02:31: Bible, you're always gonna end up in these types of situations. And again, it's shaming with the race stuff, because it's like, and whether it's there have been real racial sins or not, again, it's a hook to manipulate you.
01:02:50: But biblical shame is always driving you to the cross. Biblical shame for real sin, it's sin that you can define in the
01:02:57: Bible, not this vague sense of, I just feel bad. That's from the devil.
01:03:02: For things that you did. Yeah, things that you did, that you can do something about, that you can repent of, take it to the cross, be forgiven, be cleansed, and walk free, walk free.
01:03:13: If it doesn't end in walking free with your head held high and that chest out, you talked about that earlier, why can't the
01:03:19: Christian church stick his chest out? In a godly way. Part of it is because it's covered in shame.
01:03:24: Well, you gotta remember the whole point of the shame is to make you ashamed of the gospel. Because the gospel, this is a scandal.
01:03:31: That's where the scandal is. Because you look at it and it's like, Paul is saying, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ because the power of God is salvation.
01:03:38: So part of what they really want is for you not to believe that your sins can really be forgiven and there's no ties left on you.
01:03:48: And it's finished. No, no, it can't be that scandalous, right? No, no, you should be ashamed of that, that a slave and a slave master can actually be in fellowship with the other and be forgiven of their sins, both of them, right?
01:04:00: What? No, in church? No, it's not possible. The beauty of the gospel is a scandal and that's the thing they want you to be ashamed of, true freedom.
01:04:10: And that's the thing we gotta say, no, no, no. Here's a real freedom right here. You can have your sins forgiven, not held against you and live in fellowship with people that you once had animosity with, right?
01:04:23: Without anybody feeling like that, you know, hey, this is owed to me and this is how long it's owed to me.
01:04:29: You guys were telling me the story of a friend of ours earlier who met a woman who was divorced and leaves this woman to the
01:04:38: Lord, marries her, adopts her three kids and then starts discipling her ex -husband.
01:04:45: Who then comes to the Lord and now joins their church. Wow. Like that's what the gospel does.
01:04:50: But here's the thing, here's the thing. When the gospel does that, because it's the power of God and the salvation, it puts statism out of business.
01:04:58: Because statism wants to be the eternal savior. That's why you have to have eternal guilt and eternal shame because you gotta have another government program.
01:05:06: Right. You gotta give us some more money, bring your offering in the form of taxes. But there can never be any redemption. And there can never be any redemption because if there were redemption, then we'd be out of business.
01:05:14: And that's what Jesus came to do. I mean, he came to put 95 % of the state out of business.
01:05:20: You can have a sword and you can punish evildoers. That's it. No government, that's it.
01:05:25: And that's the reality of the new kingdom is that there's actually true forgiveness. So that's why you see this war, not just in churches, but all the way up to the civil side of it because it's a kingdom fight, right?
01:05:36: And we're saying the economy of the new kingdom is forgiveness. So, tell me, what's going on tonight?
01:05:45: We just talked about it. That's basically it. That's basically it. A lot of it. We're just gonna replay this tonight.
01:05:53: Well, a lot of the reason why I think it's - But Jeff's not here, so that doesn't - Okay, that's true. A lot of the reason why we started
01:05:59: Cross Politics is because we believe the church was not discipling its people on how to apply the Bible to politics and culture.
01:06:05: I mean, like, actually - I mean, these kind of conversations - Yes, absolutely. These kind of conversations. Actually, how to apply it. And so the church has lost a lot of its own liberty, not just through -
01:06:16: We've lost a lot of civil liberties, but we've also lost our ability to have, I think, liberating conversations, liberating gospel conversations, but liberating conversations where we disagree heavily in the church and we still love each other.
01:06:29: Amen. And so we wanted to kind of talk about the five stones of true freedom, of true liberty, and we're gonna be very specific and very, hopefully, kind of map out what it means to look like, to be a church, and to be a people, and to be a family who have freedom over the next 50 years because we're in trouble.
01:06:47: So often, I think conservatives - One of the things we want to talk about is the fact that conservatives, conservative
01:06:52: Christians, are frequently, constantly on their heels, only reacting. The left knows they can keep us distracted constantly because they'll do things like this.
01:07:00: They'll bring out a perfectly normal middle school Christian school assignment. Like, it's totally normal.
01:07:05: And they're gonna freak out and try to distract a bunch of Christians and usually get them to bump off a little bit.
01:07:11: They'll soften it, they'll kind of apologize. We want to be winsome, whatever it is. And it's distracting, and it's distracting from the real work of the kingdom.
01:07:22: And what we want to try to do is recenter the conversation and say, actually, we got work to do.
01:07:28: Jesus gave us instructions. We need to disciple the nations. We need to teach them everything that he taught.
01:07:33: And we've picked out five things. We're calling it the five stones of freedom, five stones of liberty, that we think are at the top of the list of things that Jesus has given us to do.
01:07:43: And as we're faithful in those things, it builds Christian culture. And we have to be faithful at that.
01:07:50: And there's a certain part of, there's a place to answer the fool. You know, there is a place. And we talk about it, and we answer the fool.
01:07:56: But there's a certain part of you that also needs to not be bothered. Let their hair just be on fire.
01:08:02: Yeah, let the left shriek and scream. And we have to be busy with what
01:08:07: God's told us to do in building Christian culture. Now, I know where this place is.
01:08:12: Well, I've not been there, but I looked it up. And I'm like, oh, I ride my bike by there. At least I used to.
01:08:18: It's sad. I used to ride out there all the time. And it's a good distance from here. So that would be about a 100 kilometer round trip out there.
01:08:26: What's a kilometer? Okay, it would be a 62 mile round trip.
01:08:32: Oh, okay, okay. I was gonna give you a punch for that. You ride your bike for 62 miles?
01:08:38: So anyway, it's a nice area out there. The only reason I haven't been out there for quite some time, it's sad.
01:08:46: Phoenix, our mayor, is a World Economic Forum, like Trudeau graduate type thing.
01:08:54: And so, I've ridden literally thousands of miles along the
01:09:01: Arizona Canal. That's how I can get out to places where I can get on the safer roads to get farther out and things like that.
01:09:06: I can't do it anymore. Tent cities, all the underpasses are filled with drug addicts and needles, and they smell of sewers, and they don't clean them out anymore.
01:09:18: Years ago, they used to go through there and clean people out, and they don't do it anymore because our mayor, our mayor is part of Let's Destroy the
01:09:27: City. So I haven't been out there for probably about two years now. But it's a beautiful part of the valley, and it's actually slightly cooler than down here.
01:09:36: A little bit higher up than we are here. And so, are people still able to come?
01:09:43: Yeah, they can go to fightlifebeats .com, click on shop, and they can still buy tickets. 20 bucks.
01:09:50: Yeah, because Jeff and I are sort of like, what are we doing? We're like, I don't know. We like it that way.
01:09:56: Delano, do you know what you're doing? You don't know what you're doing, do you, Delano? He has no idea. He's just jumping through it. He's jumping through it.
01:10:02: I was like, get in the seat, man. Get in the seat right there. You just hang with Jeff and I, because we're clueless. No. We're going to have a good time.
01:10:10: No, that's for sure. And that'll be in just a matter of hours, actually. Is it 7 o 'clock?
01:10:15: Yeah, 7 o 'clock. I know this is about this podcast, but there's going to be plenty of beer, wine, and...
01:10:21: We're going to have some food there, too, right? We're going to have some food. We're going to have some food. We're going to sing some songs, right? We're going to sing some songs, yeah. Beer and songs are the things we like to do.
01:10:26: And I have some whiskey for us on the stage. Oh, that's great. Delano, you don't do whiskey, do you? You don't do...
01:10:31: Yeah, perhaps. He's like, no one's in my cup. If I recall, on Man Rampant, there was a bottle over there, and Doug did partake, and you'll notice that...
01:10:45: You never sip? I, no, I didn't. And primarily because I just didn't like the taste of it.
01:10:52: That's all right. That's all right. I'm Post Mill. You'll go into it. Seven o 'clock, yeah, yeah. So seven o 'clock,
01:10:58: Raining Grace Ranch. Yes. From my perspective, it's right at the beginning of...
01:11:03: There's a road. What's the name of that road? There's the D. Anyways, it's a nine -mile hill that goes out toward the
01:11:13: Rio Verde River. I can't remember the road. And it's right at the tip of my tongue.
01:11:19: And anyways, no, no, no. My big recollection of that is
01:11:25: I was in a bike race back in the 90s down that hill, and there was a whole pack right on my tail, and we're doing like 35 miles per hour on bikes.
01:11:35: And we got down to the bottom, and we turned right, and about 10 yards later, my front tire exploded.
01:11:45: Now, of course, we had slowed down because we're now going around the corner, but if that had gone on that hill with about 20 guys behind me doing 35 miles per hour, it would have been really, really ugly.
01:11:58: But yeah, that area out there used to be wide open, just desert, and it unfortunately is...
01:12:04: That's why I don't ride bicycles. Really? I'm just kidding. I'm sure that's the primary reason, yeah.
01:12:11: Have you guys noticed that every geographical point of reference is a bicycle?
01:12:18: Yeah. Yeah. On a bike. I know. I know. And we're all supposed to know.
01:12:23: Oh, yeah. Is there a way to ride on a bike across the Atlantic? Yeah. I've ridden 152 ,000 miles.
01:12:30: Oh, my goodness. So, yeah. Why? That's when
01:12:37: I was listening to books, and books, and books, and books, and debates, and debates, and debates, and that's how
01:12:44: I do my prep, is on the back of it. Now, unfortunately, it's inside my house more, but a lot safer, you know?
01:12:54: So, I'm pressing on. Don't go as fast as I used to, but if you all would like to do a live cross -politics show,
01:13:04: I think it's August 20th. I'm doing the triple bypass bike ride, and it's from...
01:13:11: You have surgery? And a bike ride? At the same time. They do the surgery while you're riding.
01:13:17: Wow. Actually, it is, you go over three passes, which is why it's called the triple bypass.
01:13:24: You go over, the first one is Juniper Pass, which is 11 ,100 feet above sea level.
01:13:32: Is it here in Arizona? It's in Colorado. You go from Evergreen, Colorado to Avon, Colorado. So, you ride 120 miles in one day, and you climb 10 ,500 feet during that ride.
01:13:45: The lowest you ever are is 7 ,500 feet above sea level. And the highest is
01:13:52: Loveland Pass at 11 ,990. It's about 12 ,000 feet above sea level. I've driven through there.
01:13:58: It's beautiful. It's some of the most beautiful places on earth. So, if you guys would like to come along, and we can do interviews at the top of each pass, and you can be there.
01:14:10: We can get a motorcycle and follow him. Dave is on the back with a camera. Yeah, yeah. The only thing on my back is an oxygen tank.
01:14:17: That's all I need. Yeah. Yeah. I actually went into hypothermia coming down the first one a couple of years ago.
01:14:25: Wow. I mean, I was shaking so much, I could not control the bike. Wow. And that was dangerous. And they've moved it a month back now, so it's gonna be about 10 degrees colder than it was initially because of COVID.
01:14:37: And I don't know why that has anything to do with it, but I'm a little nervous about it. I'll be honest. I'm getting older.
01:14:43: I don't ride as fast as I used to, but I'm still gonna try to get through it. So, y 'all come on out.
01:14:49: Y 'all come on out and meet me at the end. That would be the only time you'd have a chance to beat me at the
01:14:55: PaedoBaptism. Yeah. Wait, I mean. I mean, he was just like blazing hypothermia.
01:15:01: He's like, I don't know what I'm doing. Why is there a baby in my head? I just burned 4 ,500 calories in 120 miles.
01:15:07: That's your only shot. You know what? So, you know we're going to a daily show now, right? Cross Politics is gonna be starting
01:15:13: May 30th. So, it might be really fun to say, where is Dr. Whitehead? That's right. If you wanna work that out, we'll work it out where I can use this and come in via Zoom, and I'll be holding it up, and here'll be this beautiful vista of mountains behind me.
01:15:30: Let's do that. That sounds like fun. I'll be in my helmet and my sunglasses, and yeah, we'll do the -
01:15:36: We'll take bets on where's he gonna be at, and yeah. I will be doing so much riding between now and then that that would work.
01:15:41: Let's do it. That would really work. Could you use that trip to raise money for Cross Politics? I could use that trip to raise money for Cross Politics.
01:15:47: That is true. Rich is over there going, now wait a minute here. This is getting confusing.
01:15:55: Anyways. Guys, we've gone an hour and 15 minutes. Wow. Thank you. It's hard to realize that, but.
01:16:01: Thanks for having us. Thank you, man. It's been great to have you all here to sort of, like I said,
01:16:09: I think this is, have we had? Well, I know we've never had this many microphones, but have we had anybody else in here with me, or has it always been on the screen?
01:16:22: That's right, that's right, that's right, that's right. I don't know if you guys saw the two deacons from Apologia that did the debate with the
01:16:27: Mormons. I did, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oscar and Daniel, they did a great job. It's so exciting to see.
01:16:32: You hosted that debate? Yeah, I moderated the debate. It's so great to see the next generation coming up.
01:16:39: That's awesome. And especially Oscar, I don't know if you saw it, but he's a former black Hebrew Israelite. Yeah.
01:16:45: And it was my debate with Elder Rakah that got he and his wife going, what was that?
01:16:53: And that was what started the process. Yeah, that debate rocked the black
01:16:59: Hebrew Israelite world. It really, really did. And I didn't even, I was just like, literally
01:17:05: I was going to ride on Mount Lemmon, and I was listening to Elder Rakah doing a debate with somebody else.
01:17:12: And I'm like, that argumentation really stinks. Oh my goodness. Come on, let's do it.
01:17:19: And that's how it got set up. Again, that's just the testimony, though, to the willingness to just stand.
01:17:26: The willingness to tell the truth, to not be ashamed of the gospel, will not be ashamed of the truth, and then God uses it.
01:17:32: And I think that's a, you know, thank you for your faithfulness. I think that's a wonderful example to all of us.
01:17:37: And just stand firm, put your chest out, trust in Jesus. It's been great to be working with you guys.
01:17:44: Great to be up in Moscow. Doug did say that the next time he and I are finally gonna do the textual stuff that we've been talking about for a while.
01:17:54: In fact, at Sabbath dinner, he and I spent, I don't know how much time.
01:17:59: Everybody just sort of gathered around. We started sort of, it wasn't a mini debate, but it was just a discussion about what's going on and stuff like that.
01:18:05: Pulling all the pieces out. Yeah, yeah. And it was really, really an enjoyable time, it really was.
01:18:12: Did you hear that I brought my solar scope up? Yeah. You told us, you told us. I heard, yeah, yeah.
01:18:17: I think you might have told us on. Well, but I had it for Sabbath dinner, too. So all the kids are running out.
01:18:23: We're literally looking at the surface of the sun. Wow. And it's, not too many people have solar scopes.
01:18:30: In fact, I have one. It's here, it's in the other room. That's what I want to see the surface of the sun. One of my favorite pictures of Trump is him looking up at the solar eclipse.
01:18:42: He can do that, not everybody can do that. He can look at the eclipse. Yeah, it's important to have a hydrogen alpha solar scope to do that appropriately.
01:18:52: But yeah, it was so much fun, Doug. Because I brought it up for the Canon guys, basically. And I just brought everybody out of the
01:18:59: Canon and they weren't getting any work done because we're staring at the sun. How did you come to my city and bring all this stuff for the
01:19:05: Canon guy? Well. You know what I'm saying? Well, didn't I? You came on the show,
01:19:10: I mean, but that's good, I guess. You didn't bring me no gifts. I even took it over to Doug's house. See, you know what I'm saying? Nah, he ain't come to my house.
01:19:19: I told him we'd go hang out at Taco Time. You was hanging with Marcus at Taco Time. I wasn't hanging out at Taco Time. Marcus!
01:19:24: Marcus? All right, yeah, Marcus. I'm sorry. That was funny.
01:19:30: Anyway. That was funny. Hey guys, thanks a lot for being on. It has been a blast. And we will see you all guys this evening.
01:19:35: Thanks everyone for watching The Dividing Line today, wherever the camera is over here, whatever. Thanks Rich for making it all work.