I'm (Not) Dreaming of a Woke Christmas

Well, good afternoon, and welcome to The Dividing Line.

I'm Rob Bernanski, sitting in for Dr. James White today. And it is great to be back here with you again this afternoon.

And it's also great to be able, in this studio, which is so filled with Star Trek memorabilia, it's a wonderful privilege of mine not only to be with you, but to share my

Darth Vader cup with you all to bring a little bit of Star Wars into The Dividing Line studio on this

Tuesday afternoon. So for all of you Star Wars fans out there who, and I don't want to debate

James on whether Star Trek or Star Wars is better. Obviously Star Wars is better, but I think

James would beat me in the debate even though he takes the wrong side on that issue. But for all the

Star Wars fans here, Darth Vader, the Darth Vader cup is here to at least give you one episode of The Dividing Line with some

Star Wars memorabilia. I want to thank those of you who sent me emails and sent messages from last week's program, the encouraging notes, and some of you sent me some questions about some of the things that I shared, especially about masks.

And I thought I'd answer a couple of those here on the show this afternoon. Gentleman named

Aaron sent me a question and he said one question that he and his friends had was, how are you getting away with not wearing a mask into stores?

Are you just depending on your wife to do all the shopping or what is the secret?

And my wife, she appreciates this time in this sense because she says when

I go shopping with her to the grocery store, her grocery budget gets ruined because I buy all kinds of things that were not on the list and that she thinks

I probably shouldn't be eating anyways. So she is perfectly fine to take over all of the shopping and so she does most of the shopping anyways.

I don't typically do any shopping. I do, if I go to the store, I don't wear a mask and if they ask me not to come in, then that's fine.

I don't need to go in if they don't want me to come in. But there's, most stores don't enforce that.

Most stores haven't said anything to me about it. Best Buy is the only place I've been that did not let me in and I didn't even want to go in.

I ordered curbside pickup and they couldn't figure out how to get my phone case out to my car.

So I went up to the door and they said, well, you can't come in. And I said, I don't want to come in. I just want you to come out and bring me the phone case.

And so eventually they figured it out and got that out to me. But a lot of these places have the curbside pickup now and you don't have to go in.

I did convince my wife to let me go shopping with her to Costco one time because my wife wears a shield.

She doesn't want to cause a scene and so she wears a plastic shield and it's clear.

You can't see it. It's just connected by this little chin strap and so she didn't want me to walk in with her because she didn't want there to be a scene if I walked in without a mask on and she's wearing the shield.

And I had to go to the Tire Center at Costco. So I said, that's fine. I'll go to the Tire Center and then I'll just meet you in there in a few minutes.

So I went into the Tire Center and it was packed and I thought, I'm not waiting in this line. So I figured it had been enough time and she was probably in Costco at that point.

And so I went into Costco and as I'm walking in without my mask on,

I look over to my left and my wife is being lectured by the little old lady there at the door, checking masks and memberships because the lady couldn't see the shield.

Her vision must not have been good enough to see the shield. So I walk in. Nobody says anything to me and my wife, who's wanting to avoid the scene, is off to the side and being talked to by the lady in Costco there because she thought she tried to walk in without a mask.

And so that was pretty funny. And she says to me, you walk in without a mask. Nobody says anything to you. I have the shield and I get pulled over.

But I went into Costco the other day and bought a Christmas tree and they've cracked down on masks,

I guess, but nobody said anything to me about it. And there's restaurants that don't care.

I'll go eat at those places. And our grocery stores here, for the most part, don't care. But like I said,

I don't do a whole lot of shopping because my wife, she does a great job at making sure the groceries stay stocked and takes care of that.

But you know, if you have to go shopping, then you can do that. And you know, I just say, you know,

I'd rather fight with somebody about the gospel of Jesus Christ and whether or not

I should be allowed in their store with a mask on. So if they don't want me to shop there, you know, that's fine. I can get whatever

I need somewhere else and move on. Another question that I got, somebody asked about masks and 1

Corinthians 8. Caroline sent me an email asking me about this. And comparing not wearing a mask to, you know, provoking those whose consciences were sensitive to eating meat, sacrifice to idols.

And she asked, can the church now call it a sin not to wear a mask?

And you know, the context of 1 Corinthians 8 is very different than what we're dealing with here.

This is somebody who, if they see you eating meat, sacrifice to idols, is going to be tempted to engage in idolatrous worship, something that is in their past that is clearly sinful.

And wearing a mask is different than that. You know, I suppose a case could be made.

I haven't heard it made yet, but a case may be able to be made that if somebody was convinced in their conscience that they needed to wear a mask and you not wearing one would cause them to sin and not wear one and ignore their conscience, then potentially, you know, it might be the biblical thing to do, to wear one around them so that they're not provoked to sin.

But most of the time, the people that get upset with you for not wearing a mask are not tempted not to wear one.

They're not weaker brothers. They are being judgmental and critical. So that really doesn't apply.

And I would refer Caroline, anybody else who has that question to the Institute of the Christian Religion. And if you read

Calvin's chapter on justification, he goes over justification by faith alone. And then immediately, the next chapter is on Christian freedom.

And he talks about the importance of Christian liberty and maintaining that to uphold the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

And he makes the argument that if you capitulate on Christian liberty, you are essentially giving up the doctrine of justification and becoming legalistic.

And he talks in that chapter about how if there is a legitimate weaker brother,

Calvin says we should go out of our way to ensure, to guard that brother's conscience.

But if it isn't a weaker brother, if it is, as Calvin calls it, a

Pharisee, somebody who wants to impose their standard on you and has no temptation whatsoever to do the thing that they're, to break their own conscience, and they're just trying to bind your conscience with their laws,

Calvin says that Christian liberty would indicate that we must, in front of the

Pharisee, do the very thing they forbid us from doing. And so, you know, in that situation, if somebody is going as far as to say you not wearing a mask is sin,

Calvin would argue in Institutes that you have an obligation not to wear one, not to wear one, to preserve

Christian liberty. And you know, it's interesting, that question came, and then the same day that we had the program last week, and I don't know if it was before the program or after the program that this article came out, but the

Gospel Coalition published an article saying are masks a conscience issue?

And so I thought, well, that was timely in light of the discussion that we had last week about masks.

And you know, he says in this article that navigating the mask conversation can seem like walking on ice, thin ice with roller skates, and perhaps blindfolded.

And he says, part of the issue relates to the fact that public officials have sent mixed messages about masks.

And we've talked about that last time. There was a time when some health officials questioned the effectiveness of face coverings, but now most support their usefulness.

And again, that's a mixed bag. John MacArthur on Sunday just cited a document that 10 ,000 medical professionals have signed encouraging us to change the policies on how we're responding to COVID with lockdowns and masks and all that.

And so there are certainly public officials that are calling for face masks, but there's thousands and thousands of medical experts that are saying the exact opposite of that.

And many states have mask mandates for public worship gatherings. I'm not qualified to offer a defining medical word on masks, but I want to offer some thoughts on the implications for Christians who refuse to wear a mask because they say it violates their conscience.

All right. And then there's this long discussion of what the conscience is.

And then it gets to the real meat of the issue, is wearing a mask a matter of conscience?

And he says no, because one, masks are not fundamentally a moral issue.

And he compares a COVID mask to wearing an NFL helmet or a welder using a welding mask.

Obviously, these are very different situations. They're not real comparisons that are two things that are alike.

And of course, as we talked about prior to March and prior to all of the government intervention and these mandates, a mask was nobody even talked about masks because people wore them when they needed to and then they didn't other times.

And so if you played football, you wore a mask. If you were a welder, you wore a mask and they weren't moral issues, but they've become a moral issue.

So he's sidestepping that issue. Then he says this is not how the conscience works. If you want to walk outside, go to the supermarket, go to the library, et cetera, you need to put on a mask.

If someone maintains based on conscience that they won't wear a mask to come to church, but then they wear a mask to buy groceries, they would be inconsistent.

Well, that's not necessarily inconsistent because you may have a conscience violation that says the government doesn't have the right to tell you how to worship.

And going to the grocery store is not worshiping. And so there's a legitimate Christian argument that could be made that says

I can submit to a government decree in the sphere of the government, which would be the grocery store, but I'm not going to submit to an illegitimate government decree that governs the worship of the people of God.

And so the conscience very well could consistently say, I can wear it to the grocery store, but I'm not going to wear it to church.

There's no inconsistency with that. And then he says it causes disobedience to the clear teaching of scripture.

So I didn't realize scripture had any clear teaching about masks. Well, he's going to go into some other areas that are tangentially related.

He talks about gathering for worship and the church is commanded to gather for worship, which is very interesting coming from the

Gospel Coalition and Nine Marks and all of those folks who for months told us not to gather for worship, but now all of a sudden it's a mandate where we must gather for worship.

And so speaking of inconsistency, I think we see one right here in the Gospel Coalition. A believer should make every effort to prioritize the

Lord's Day gathering. I remember when John MacArthur got criticized severely by these folks for saying that very thing.

No biblical understanding of conscience would support forsaking this assembly. I can't even believe really that this paragraph is in this article.

I mean, just the lack of self -awareness of the things they've been saying about the gathering is staggering.

But no biblical understanding of conscience would support forsaking this assembly. Was that true six months ago?

So, yeah, Christians should gather for worship. That's why we didn't ever stop gathering at Desert Hills.

And that's why we continue to meet and gather. I think the real question for the Gospel Coalition and those who are writing these types of things is why did you?

Why did you? If there's no good conscience reason. Submission to the authorities.

Christians are commanded to submit to and honor the governing authorities and failure to do so is a sin against God.

Disobedience to the government is reserved for when the Christian is commanded to do something God forbids or forbid something

God commands. And of course, again, we talked about this Romans 13 taken out of context. The government does not have absolute authority, tyrannical authority over its citizens as long as it doesn't violate an explicit command of Scripture.

The government has a certain limited sphere of authority. And so this is a misunderstanding of Romans 13.

Submission to the elders. And again, this is a misunderstanding of the elders authority. Do the elders of the church have the authority to impose restrictions on gatherings that Christ has not imposed?

Can the elders of the church require you to wear a hazmat suit to come to worship?

Can they require you to wear a clown suit to come to worship? Well, no, they can't require that because Christ hasn't commanded it.

And he says the solution, if you disagree with your elders on wearing a mask, the solution would be to either submit to the leadership of the church or find a church where they could worship according to their convictions and joyfully submit to the elders of that church.

And I would say, yeah, do that. Find elders who aren't going beyond the word of God and leave the church that you're in that is requiring you to do something that Christ doesn't command.

And find elders who are following the word of God and not adding to it or taking away from it.

And so you're not violating your conscience there. If you tell elders who are going beyond scripture and lording their authority over you that you're not going to submit to that.

You're going to go to another church where the elders understand biblical authority. Love for neighbor is commanded.

Of course, this is going to come up and says for many, wearing a mask is one reasonable way to love other people and protect them.

But I know people that medically are not able to wear a mask. So do we love them? I know people who were told they couldn't come to church because their doctor told them not to wear a mask and their church told them they weren't allowed to attend without wearing a mask.

Where's love for that neighbor? Love for neighbor has to be a two way street. Love for neighbor can't be used as a club to beat people into submission to obey your preferences.

And that's what this article is arguing that it is. Christians love requires a willingness to follow

Jesus and set ourselves aside. That's a two way street. We all need to do that. It's not just one side of the argument that needs to do that.

Every Christian needs to be willing to set themselves aside. Wisdom toward outsiders.

And here they talk about churches that have become super spreaders in the community. That is very rare. I don't remember what the number is lately, but the last time

I checked the Arizona Department of Health Services, I think there were a total of three. COVID cases directly linked to a religious gathering.

And so that's an insignificant number, really, in the scope of how many. I mean, that's tiny.

So three is virtually statistically zero. And so, you know, wisdom toward outsiders, again, wisdom toward outsiders falls within a biblical paradigm, not by what the outsiders tell us is wise or think is wise, but based on what

Scripture tells us and wise. And the article ends by saying, I do not believe that conscience is a valid reason for refusing to wear a mask to church.

Christians should save the conscience for conscience issues. Instead, call this what it is, civil disobedience.

Now, there's a couple of things about this ending. First of all, this is such a weak, pathetic ending to an article.

When he says instead, call this what it is, you know what word I expect to find at that end? If you're going to stand up for this article, if you're going to put yourself behind this is sin.

Let's call this what it is. If you think it's violating Scripture, then it's not civil disobedience, it's sin. And so here is somebody coming out and, you know, banging the drum and masks aren't a conscience issue, but they're not willing to stand behind that.

They're not willing to come out and say it's sin, it's civil disobedience. And what's confusing to me about that is that I thought civil disobedience was virtuous.

I thought that's what the Gospel Coalition was all about, because here we have two of these guys from the

Gospel Coalition back in June. Maybe you remember this, David Platt and Ron Burns.

You probably know him better as Thabiti Anyabwile, but his real name is Ron Burns. And here they are breaking quarantine orders and rallying for these

BLM causes against racism and against police brutality.

And isn't this civil disobedience, Gospel Coalition? I thought you supported this.

And so shouldn't, I don't know, that article is very confusing to me. And, you know, we find here that this is such a rich paragraph in this article just before the march,

Anyabwile, also known as Ron Burns, preached virtually to his congregation.

He preached virtually. Well, why didn't he? I mean, if you're going to go to a march, if you're okay being so, look at all these people.

I mean, there is no social distancing going on in this photo. Look at how close these people are.

If you're okay with this civil disobedience, and if you don't need any of the social distancing,

I mean, some of them have masks on, but, you know, but a lot of the people that would probably go to Ron's church anyways would wear masks.

So why are you preaching virtually? And then why all this civil disobedience?

And so we have these articles here, you know, are masks a conscience issue? You know what? Masks are a conscience issue.

And as we said last time, I don't have a problem if people wear masks. There's people in my life that I know and love, and they're convicted in their conscience.

They need to wear a mask in obedience to the government mandate, and I fully support them following that conviction.

I have no issue with that. We don't need to even discuss it. They wear their mask, and I don't, and we love one another, and we recognize it's a difference of conscience.

It's not something to divide our fellowship. But you have these articles that want to add to the law of God, want to burden you with something that is unbiblical and force you to do something that Christ has not commanded.

And there's just the hypocrisy in it and the weakness of it. It's not sin.

It's civil disobedience. And civil disobedience is actually virtuous if you're marching for a leftist progressive cause after you've preached virtually to your church that you're not letting meet in person because it's ostensibly too dangerous, although it's not too dangerous to go out and march for one of these leftist causes.

So, you know, I believe it was Ronald Reagan who said the scariest nine words in English language are,

I'm from the government and I'm here to help. And so now we've got these mask mandates. And a friend of mine sent me this from Wichita, from Sedgwick County.

Mask fatigue is a real thing. And the government has solved a problem, so they think, by mandating masks.

But now we've got this problem of mask fatigue that is plaguing society. And did you know, this is from Sedgwick County.

This is a government document here. Did you know improper breathing while wearing a mask can cause anxiety, headaches, increased heart rate, dizziness, and tiredness?

Combat mask fatigue by taking quality breaths. And, you know, prior to 2020,

I knew how to breathe. It was, it was amazing. I did not have, no, the government did not have to teach me how to breathe prior to this year.

But apparently now, because of the government saving us all from COVID with masks, now the government has to teach us all how to breathe.

And so, and so Sedgwick County has taken that responsibility and, and you've got to do this, these five quality breaths before you put on your mask, immediately after putting your mask on.

That, I don't know, that seems dangerous because that's a lot of carbon dioxide that you're just going to be breathing right back in after putting your mask on.

And then again, after taking your mask off and, you know, it reminds me of what Jesus said to the

Pharisees, you load men down with heavy burdens and you yourselves are unwilling to lift a finger.

How many of these government officials are going around without masks on? Meanwhile, they're making everyone wear a mask and now they make you, you know, they're telling you now you've got to go through a whole process just to put your mask on and take it off.

And, and then of course take mask breaks. When safe? Well, when's that?

When, when is it, when is it safe? I thought we were supposed to be wearing our masks all the time. I mean, in the car, out in public and at our home gatherings when, when we have more than three people and, and, and those types of things.

And so, and so, you know, here's, this is, this is what it's come to.

This is, this is where we are. We're now as a society, we don't even know how to breathe. The government, we have become so incompetent and so dependent on the government that we have to have a document now to, to help us learn how to breathe.

And so that's, that's masks. Masks, you know, cause anxiety and stress and all of these things.

And, and I think, you know, as, as believers, there's a, there's a lot of misinformation. There's a lot of deception.

Deception, by the way, is, is far more deadly than disease. And, and there's a lot of deception that's going around about this.

And one of the reasons I don't wear a mask is, I think it's important for me with the way

I view this to stand up against this deception and say, no, this is, this is just simply a narrative that isn't true.

And we're not going to give into that. And again, like I said, it's a conscience issue. And if you believe that you should wear a mask, then by all means, wear your mask to the glory of God and, and just allow people like me not to do the same thing to the glory of God as well.

All right. So it is, it is the Christmas season. And I don't know about you.

It is, it is my favorite time of year. And just like everything else in life though, the, there are people out there who are trying to ruin

Christmas and not surprisingly, I suppose some of them come from the

Gospel Coalition yet again, because we are now, we can't, we can't celebrate Christmas anymore without bringing in wokeness to it.

We have to make space for a multicultural Christmas.

And this article is, is so riddled with guilting people for enjoying

Christmas. It's really, it's, it's sad. The story of Christmas, it begins, takes place in the first century and not a single character is

Caucasian. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Right away, race injected into the

Christmas story. I think there were some Gentiles in the story and in Matthew 1.

And so that's the distinction that the Bible makes, by the way, you won't read about Caucasians in scripture, you'll read about Jews and Gentiles and other things like that.

But, you know, being biblical isn't, isn't the goal here of an article like this.

Yet the American evangelical celebration of Christmas can have a distinctly vanilla flavor.

Nativity scenes have a white baby Jesus, holiday feasts are filled with Anglo -American foods, and church services feature only

European hymns. So now next time you go to the nativity scene, you can't enjoy that anymore.

While you're having your holiday feast and eating your Christmas cookies, you're going to feel guilty now because it's an

Anglo -American food. And, and when you're at church for that Christmas Eve service, if you are blessed enough to go to a church that's actually going to have a

Christmas Eve service, you're going to be now wondering, well, who wrote these songs and where do they come from?

And you're going to feel guilty if you don't have enough diversity in your, in your hymns. And so, you know, this wokeness, it ruins everything.

And now they're trying to, to steal Christmas, to ruin Christmas. Of course, people of European descent can and should integrate their specific ethnic expressions into their

Christmas celebrations. We appreciate the permission to do that. But many non -white

Christians in the United States struggle with the lack of diverse Christmas celebrations, wondering if there's space for them to celebrate what they can perceive as a white holiday.

Growing up, we had Christmas celebrations every year. And we had people from all over the world and from every ethnicity come to our house for Christmas Eve.

And I don't ever remember thinking or hearing that this was a white holiday.

I remember Christmas being, and it still is, being bashed as being a

Christian holiday. Um, but being a white holiday is not something that I've ever heard associated with Christmas until, uh, until the woke monster got hungry and hadn't devoured

Christmas yet and decided it was going to come for Christmas next. My family is, uh, is an interracial family and the non -white, uh, parts of my family, they've never said, you know, this, uh, this really feels like a white holiday.

Um, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't think that's ever entered their minds, but, uh, thank you

Gospel Coalition for now, uh, making us have to think about wokeness, even as we enjoy a

Christmas cookie and a cup of hot chocolate. Hot chocolate. Is that from Europe? Rich, is that, does chocolate come from Europe?

I don't think so. South America or something, right?

I mean, so is that, are we diverse enough if we have hot chocolate at our, uh, at our, at our

Christmas Eve celebration now? It's exploited. Okay. It's exploited. Okay.

So we can't, it has to be fair trade. Hot chocolate has to be fair trade for us to be woke enough.

All right. And, uh, and then there's all of these, uh, fresh perspectives and different ways of celebrating

Christmas around the world. And you know what? I, I actually think that's interesting. I actually, I think it is interesting to read about how other cultures celebrate

Christmas, not under the banner of wokeness, but just under the banner of, I think different cultures are interesting because I like to learn about new things and different things.

And if this article were written as, hey, here's some really cool traditions that people around the world have about Christmas and wanted to share this with you,

I would say this was, that's pretty neat. You know, there's some pretty interesting stuff in here, but, but when it is brought to this type of, uh, of guilt and, and shame and, you know, you can't eat your

Christmas dinner anymore without feeling guilty because of the type of food you're having.

I mean, that is, this is what happens. This is, uh, this is what is happening in our culture. Christmas gets ruined, uh, by social justice and wokeness.

And, uh, you know, every, we've seen how it has attacked everything in our society. Uh, you know,

I think, uh, I think one of the, the, the funniest parts of this article though, is one of the celebrations where they suggest that we should fast during Christmas because Mary was probably so overwhelmed that she fasted.

And, and I don't know, the lady who wrote this, I don't know if she's ever been pregnant, but I can tell you that, uh, uh, for all of our children, fasting has never been on the list of my pregnant wife's things to do, you know, so that's not typically what you see pregnant women doing.

But, um, but you know, here, here we have yet another example of how, um, you know, unbiblical paradigms come in and ruin everything.

And it's, it's happening across the, the culture. Uh, news story this morning, a

Minnesota resident received this passive aggressive letter saying their Christmas lights promote systemic biases against our neighbors.

And, uh, and this is, uh, what the letter says. The idea of twinkling colorful lights are a reminder of divisions that continue to run through our society, a reminder of systemic biases against our neighbors who don't celebrate

Christmas or who can't afford to put up lights of their own. Christmas lights now are a sign of oppression.

It's not just your, your food or your hymns or, uh, you know, the other ways that you celebrate

Christmas. It is now, uh, or your white baby Jesus in the nativity scene. Now it is, uh, your

Christmas lights that you put on your house. Uh, you know, my family, one of our favorite things to do is to go out and look at Christmas lights, drive around and look at Christmas lights.

And, um, you know, it never occurred to me that I was out celebrating a symbol of systemic oppression, uh, for people, you know,

I've never gone to one of these houses. You know, you've seen these houses that show up on TV shows and, and they just have hundreds of thousands of lights.

And I've never gone to one of those houses and said, well, I just feel so terrible now because I only put three strands of light at my house.

And this just reminds me of, of how inept I am at, uh, at decorating my exterior, uh, for Christmas.

And, uh, you know, you go out and you enjoy these things, but, uh, this leftist culture, it ruins everything.

It ruins everything that it touches. Yeah, Rich. I was going to say, every time I go to that house,

I'm really happy to go to that house. I love going to that house. Especially given that better him than me.

Yeah. And you don't have to clean it up either. No, you do not have to spend months putting it together. I certainly don't have to spend all that money doing it.

Better him than me. I, I enjoy it. Yeah. And, you know, if you don't celebrate Christmas, um, you know, if you, if you, if you're not a follower of Christ, uh,

I hope that the Christmas lights, God will use that to remind you that Jesus is the light of the world and that you need to repent and put your faith in Jesus Christ.

And, uh, and so, you know, as a Christian, I make no apologies for that. If you're not a Christian and you're offended by my

Christianity, uh, well, you know, I, okay, you know, the, the gospel is an offense to unbelievers.

And so if my Christianity offends you, I sort of expect that. Um, you know,

I, I remember, uh, John MacArthur, when I was at, uh, the master's seminary said, you know, the, the unbeliever has been living his whole life as an offense against a holy

God. And so if the gospel offends, let it offend. And, uh, you know,

I know that Christmas lights aren't the gospel, but if what you're associating Christmas lights with is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you're offended by that, you should probably be more worried about the fact of how offended

God is by you than how offended you are by someone's Christmas lights, because that is a whole lot larger of a problem for you than the fact that somebody puts some twinkling lights up on the roof and a frosty, the snowman in their front yard.

And so, uh, you know, again, as, uh, as, as believers, I think we just have to push back against all of this, uh, these things that are coming into our culture and trying to, uh, suck the joy out of, uh, walking with Christ, suck the joy just out of life.

You know, it says, uh, Paul said to Timothy that God created all good things to enjoy, that God wants us to have joy and enjoy the things he's made, enjoy his creation and enjoy our families, enjoy our friends, enjoy being together with other believers and churches.

And here we have, uh, everywhere we turn, all of these things are under attack. And the joy is trying to be sucked out of all of these things.

And it's not surprising then when we find a study like this, uh, that came out yesterday from Gallup that the, uh, that the mental health rating of Americans is now at a 20 year low, a 20 year low.

And my wife said, well, what happened 20 years ago that could have been as bad as, uh, as, as this year?

I don't know. You know, we hadn't got to 9 -11 yet. Maybe everyone was, uh, uh, recovering from Y2K panic back then.

I don't, I don't know what was causing people to be so distressed 20 years ago. Um, but we're at the lowest point in two decades, according to a, uh, a new

Gallup poll, uh, and, uh, 76 % of American adults say they have a healthy mental and emotional wellbeing compared to 85 % in 2019.

So we've dropped 9%. Only 34 % of Americans say their mental health is excellent.

Down from 42 % last year, uh, 18 % said it's fair.

5 % said it's poor. And, uh, typically it runs between 81 and 89%.

Um, oh, well here we find that they've conducted this survey since 2001. So 20 years ago, no one knew what their mental health was.

Collectively. And so it's just that the, it's the lowest it's ever been since they started running, uh, this survey.

And, uh, they, they find some interesting, uh, interesting facts as to why some of these, um, changes have happened.

And it says those, um, who seldom or never attend religious services have the lowest excellent rating, the lowest excellent rating.

And, and so they, they're Gallup, which is not a Christian organization, you know, but they can draw the connection between, uh, gathering for worship and, uh, and mental health.

Well, you know, what's been shut down all year? You know, it's, it's the church.

What have people been doing? They've been, uh, home. They haven't been going to worship. Many, many people haven't been at all.

And, uh, and so is it, uh, is it surprising that mental health is on the decline?

Not at all. How does politics factor into this? I thought this was interesting. It says Republicans saw the greatest drop in the excellent mental health category, dropping from 56 to 41.

Independents also dropped double digits from 44 to 32, while Democrats who reported 30 % in 2019 saw only a single point drop.

And, uh, you know, you look at that, you go, well, look at that. The Democrats, uh, you know, the leftists, they only went down one point this year, you know, the, the pan, but, but look where they started.

I mean, they don't have that, that far to go. You know, they're already down to 30 % and Republicans, you know, people on the, on generally on the right conservatives, 56 % mental health, uh, rating going into this year compared to 30%.

So Democrats have closed the gap, uh, to 12 % on the mental health side of things. And, uh, you know,

I think about the old saying, misery loves company. And I don't know, but you see how that's, uh, that's happened this year.

It's gone from people's mental health is, is plummeting. It's still, uh, the

Democrats are still the most mentally unhealthy people in the United States of America, according to Gallup at 29%, um, uh, excellent mental health compared to 32 % independence and 41 % of Republicans.

But, uh, but this is, uh, uh, you know, this is a real serious issue. Uh, we're seeing this happen, uh, across, uh, the nation.

And, uh, you know, the, uh, the real pandemic in the church seems to be anxiety.

It seems to be anxiety. It doesn't, uh, you know, I mean, COVID is real. I understand that COVID has, you know, a lot of people have died, uh, because of COVID.

And I'm not trying to make light of that or minimize that. I understand that there's a real virus and there's a real disease out there that has damaged people's lives and people have died from that.

But, um, uh, but the real pandemic that is causing damage at a massive scale is, uh, is anxiety.

It's this whole, uh, this issue here of, uh, of mental wellbeing. And, uh, and we see that with the churches, uh, not meeting and fellowship being put on hold and all of those things, people are, they're suffering.

Uh, they're suffering spiritually. They're suffering mentally. They're, uh, they're dealing with anxiety.

And, uh, and, you know, it's interesting because as believers, we have the answer to that.

We have the answer to that. And, um, you know, we see, uh, we see in scripture and we, we talked about this at Desert Hills a couple of weeks ago, but in Ephesians chapter three, verse eight,

Paul says that, uh, it was given to him the task to preach to the Gentiles, the unfathomable riches of Christ.

And, uh, and we see in, uh, in our faith, in the word of God, that there are unlimited resources for us as believers.

And so when we look around at the world and the anxiety and the declining mental health and all of those things, none of that should surprise us.

When we have a year like we've had, where everything has been thrown upside down, we look at, at the, at the way the world is going to handle that.

And yeah, they're going to, they're going to struggle with that. They're going to not know how to handle that.

The, the drug abuse, the alcohol, and all of these things are going to increase, uh, because of all the added stress.

But as believers, we have unfathomable riches in Christ.

We have unfathomable riches and, uh, unlimited resources to deal with whatever problem, whatever pandemic, whatever issue comes up.

And, uh, and the real issue here, I think, as we think about this as believers, when we want to deal with anxiety, we think about mental health and all of those things is, do we really believe in the sufficiency of Christ and in the sufficiency of the

Word of God? Do we believe that Christ has unsearchable, unfathomable riches for us?

And, uh, and one of the areas that is addressed in, in, uh, 2 Corinthians 8 about worry is the resources that we have.

And, uh, these resources that we have in Christ and, uh, I'm sorry, it's in 2 Corinthians 9 verse 8, not in 2

Corinthians 8. It says, and God is able to make all grace abound to you so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.

You know, where does, uh, where does anxiety and, uh, and where does worry come from?

Well, the, the word worry could be defined as to be apprehensive or to be anxious, uh, to be unduly concerned about something.

And, uh, and we get, uh, the idea of, of a sinful worry of being unduly concerned.

You know, we may have legitimate concerns about somebody's wellbeing or a legitimate concern about some issue that, that is there, but there's a point at which a concern becomes controlling.

It becomes dominating in our lives and it becomes undue. We become obsessed with it. It begins to inhibit our, our, our ability to function, our ability to reason, our ability to relate to others, uh, maybe even our ability to speak, uh, and, uh, and, and worry is this fearful undue concern over something contingent, something in the future.

And, uh, and one of the things that, uh, that sometimes people have trouble distinguishing is the, the sin of worry and, uh, the temptation to worry and the physiology of worrying.

And, uh, and we have to be able to, uh, to discern some of these things so we can navigate anxiety biblically and appropriately.

Uh, you know, there's the, the sin of worrying, which is where you look at, at your circumstances and you look at the future and you are impaired.

You, because of your fear, you are overcome with fear about what may happen and it is dominating your life or it is impacting, um, you know, how you're able to function in, in your relationship and your relationship with the

Lord and your relationships with others. And, uh, and you have crossed that line. You are unduly concerned.

There's also the temptation to worry, which isn't a worry itself, but where you may have thoughts of,

I don't know what's going to happen. You know, what if I, I get a coronavirus or what if, you know,

I get cancer or what if I'd ever get married or what if any, you know, any of these things that people may be concerned about.

You may be tempted to worry about those things and have to deal with that temptation with the Word of God without crossing over into sin.

Uh, but then there's also the, the physical effects of it, the physiology of it. And there's the physical feelings of anxiety.

And, um, you know, a lot of times anxiety kind of seems like it sneaks up on people. And, uh, you know, you don't necessarily expect it and, and, uh, it's easy to feel like a helpless victim of anxiety.

And, uh, and, and sometimes that's the, the physical effects of worrying. Um, you know, you, you can be believing in the

Word of God and trusting in God and your heart is in the right place, but your adrenaline goes, you know, there, there are, especially if you've lived in a pattern of worry, you've lived in a pattern of anxiety for a while.

Um, some of those physical effects aren't going to, uh, to go away right away.

And, uh, you know, I think about it, um, you know, by comparison with the, the sin of, of gluttony, um, you know, if you are a, a glutton, you know, you, if you overeat, that's a sin.

If you are at the buffet and your mouth starts watering, but you say, you know what, I'm not going to give into that temptation.

That's a temptation. And then there's the physical effects of gluttony, which, you know, may take months or, or longer to, to deal with the, the physical effects of that and to, to get in shape.

And there's a sense in which worry is, is the same. You know, you can be indulging these fears and you can be living in these fears.

Uh, you can have these thoughts pop into your head that you just have to deal with because there are temptations to worry. And then there may be some physical effects that linger if you've, uh, if you've been worrying, but what is, uh, what is worrying?

It's, it's when you look at the future and you don't know what's going to happen and you are concerned about it and, and you're unduly concerned.

And, and you're making decisions, uh, based on these contingencies out of fear. And, uh, and, and you're living in a way that is self -protecting or overprotective of, of others.

You know, you might think of the overprotective parent who is worrying about the safety of their child. There's a reasonable level of concern that any parent should have for their child, but there's a, there's a place at which it becomes unreasonable.

It becomes anxious and, uh, and worrying. And here, you know, it says in 2

Corinthians, it's 9, 8, it's, it's really kind of the antidote to worry. God is able to make all grace abound to you so that always having all sufficiency in everything you may have an abundance for every good deed.

And this is such an exhaustive promise of God. You'll have all grace abound to you.

And this will happen always. And so you don't have to worry that at some point in the future,

God isn't going to provide grace that you need, because if you are in Christ, you will always have the grace that you need.

He says, so that always having all sufficiency, God is going to supply everything.

You will never lack something that you need at any point in time, because God's grace is constantly poured out in your life, in everything.

So, you know, there's no area of life where this doesn't apply. There's no need you have that won't be met at any time in any area of life,

Paul says. And he says, you may have an abundance for every good deed. And you notice how he goes from all sufficiency to having an abundance, having an abundance.

It's not just that you end up having enough. It's that God supplies what you need and more than you need.

And he says, for every good deed. And here's the real issue with worry that I see.

What causes people to worry? Well, Jesus gave us the response to worry in Matthew 6, right?

He said, don't worry about any of these things. Don't be anxious about anything, but seek first the kingdom of God. And all these things will be added to you.

And we understand that. He said, seek first the kingdom of God. But what does that mean?

What does it mean to seek first the kingdom of God? How can we live as believers so that our lives are a defense of our faith?

Our lives become an apologetic that says that Christ has unfathomable, unsearchable riches for us.

And we believe that. We rely on that. We draw strength from that.

How do we live like that? We seek first the kingdom of God. What does that mean? Well, this is the key in 2

Corinthians 9, 8 to what that means. It's an abundance for every good deed.

It's not an abundance for every deed, but for every good deed, for everything that God has called you to do in your life.

And so what ends up happening, the reason that mental health declines, the reason that people become anxious is because they end up having desires for things other than doing every good deed that God has for them to do.

They want something else from God. They don't just want the provisions they need to do the will of God.

They want the provisions that they need to do their own well and have life the way they want it.

And so, you know, you think about the anxiety that comes because of COVID -19 and all of the things surrounding that.

What is it that makes somebody anxious about losing their health to COVID -19?

I mean, if you're an unbeliever, of course you're going to be anxious about that because this is all you have.

But for the believer, you have life in Christ. To depart and be with Christ is far better.

And so what is it that makes you anxious as you think about, you know, what if I catch COVID -19?

And, you know, it's the idea that, well, I want my health. But when we look at 2

Corinthians 9, 8, we look at Jesus' statement in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6. What is it that we should be seeking?

Well, we should be seeking the kingdom of God. We should be seeking to do every good deed that God has for us, knowing that God is going to give us everything that we need at every moment that we need it, and even in abundance, to do every good deed that he wants us to do.

And if that's true, if God has these unfathomable riches in Christ for me, so that everything that God has created me to do and has put me on this planet to do,

I'm going to have what I need to get those things done. I don't need to be worried because I can be faithful regardless of my circumstances.

And it's interesting that Paul wrote that in Ephesians 3 about the unsearchable riches of Christ from a prison cell.

And it didn't bother Paul that he was in prison because Paul understood that he was able to be faithful to what

God called him to do, whether he was traveling the Roman Empire on missionary journeys, planting churches and preaching the gospel, or whether he was in a prison cell preaching the gospel to the

Roman guards. The issue for Paul was not liberty and a desire to be somewhere besides prison, although, of course, as a human being, being in prison was no fun.

But his desire was not comfort. It wasn't to be healthy.

It wasn't to avoid shipwrecks. I mean, you'd have never done, Paul would have never done the things that he did if his desire in life was to be healthy, to be comfortable, to be popular, not to be shipwrecked, not to be arrested.

All of the things that he did, he did them for one reason and one reason only, because he wanted to glorify

Christ by being faithful. And so one of the reasons that believers today are struggling so much with anxiety is because this

COVID -19 issue has taken our eyes off the real purpose for why we're here, which is to glorify

God by being faithful. And the issue should be, what are we pursuing?

Well, it's faithfulness to Christ. And it's not making sure that we stay healthy.

It's not any of these other things. It's not making sure that we keep our job or whatever we might desire to do.

I want to be faithful. I want to do every good work that God has called me to do, that he has created me to do.

And if that's my mission in life, I want to do what God calls me to do, what he's created me to do, if that is my overriding desire.

And then I look at Christ and Christ has unlimited resources for me.

And he has promised me that throughout my entire life, until the day that I die and go be with him, he is going to give me everything

I need, every moment that I need it. And I will have an abundance to do that. I don't need to be worried.

What would I be wringing my hands about? What would I be anxious over? If something happens in the future that is not what

I would want in my flesh, I mean, that's going to be difficult because I am a sinful man who is still dealing with the flesh and battling my own will and seeking to submit to the will of God in my own life.

So those things will be difficult, but ultimately I don't have to worry about them because God is going to be faithful to provide what

I need to be faithful to what he has called me to do in my life. And so, you know, as we look at these studies that talk about mental health declining, one of the ways that we can shine for Christ, that we can be an example that stands out from the world is by setting our focus on being faithful.

And, you know, when somebody says, well, why is it that you are being hospitable to someone in the middle of what is being called a pandemic?

Why is that? Because my goal isn't primarily to be healthy. It's to be faithful.

And God calls me to be hospitable. He calls me to care for other people. He calls me to love other people.

He calls me to serve my brothers and sisters in Christ. And as believers, what gives us a good testimony to the world?

What is wise is seeking to be faithful to Christ above everything else in life.

And so we have an opportunity. We have an opportunity to stand out as people who are not pursuing primarily temporal objectives, but who are pursuing faithfulness to Jesus Christ, trusting that he will provide what we need.

So when somebody says, you know, hey, there's all of this chaos going on in the world. How is it that you're not worried about it?

Well, because God is going to supply abundantly everything I need to do, everything he wants me to do. And really my heart's desire is just to do that.

And so there's no reason for me to be worried about it because he isn't going to forsake me and he isn't going to leave me to depend on my own resources for the things that I need.

And so hopefully that's helpful as you think about moving forward. You know,

I know even with different things going on in the country politically with the election and all of that, there are

Christians that are nervous, Christians that are anxious about what the future holds, and they're worried about, you know, what's going to happen to the country.

And, you know, if certain people get into office and certain elections don't turn out in certain ways, and we don't know.

You know, the Lord knows. But here's what we do know, that no matter who's in the White House, no matter who controls the

Senate or who's on the Supreme Court, our desire is the same thing. It's to be faithful, to be faithful.

And God, our resources are not dependent on the government. And that's a major testimony to the world right there, that we are not depending on the government for our resources.

We depend on the living God for our resources. And it doesn't matter what the government is doing.

God is going to supply what we need. That doesn't mean it's going to be fun or comfortable. I'm sure, you know, Paul wrote from prison. It wasn't fun and comfortable for him there, but God still provided what he needed to be faithful to the end.

And when Paul got to the end of his life in 2 Timothy, you see the fruit of that, of that presence of the

Lord with him and the joy that he had as he looked forward to being with the

Lord in glory. Even though he was going to be executed for his faith, there was an unshakable joy that he had, an unshakable optimism as he looked to the future.

You know, he didn't say to Timothy, you know, it's all, you know, it's all over. They're going to kill me.

And you know, and there's a good chance they're going to kill you too, Timothy, and it's over. He told Timothy, you know, take what you have, pass it on to faithful men who are going to pass it on to others, because this gospel that we believe, it's never going to be destroyed.

And they can do what they want, but ultimately Christ is going to have the victory over it. And so be faithful, teach and preach the word, make that your objective,

Timothy, to be faithful to the Lord and the Lord will take care of all of these other things. So hopefully as you get ready for Christmas and New Year's, just some thoughts about worry.

Maybe you've got some people in your life that are wringing their hands and they're nervous and they're anxious, and maybe you can share that with them.

And we talk about that more at length in the last couple of messages at Desert Hills Bible Church.

And so if you can check those out on our YouTube channel, if you want, and subscribe to that channel as well for sermons and other video content that we produce.

Desert Hills Bible Church on YouTube, encourage you to go check that out or share those with somebody maybe who's really wrestling with anxiety right now.

And according to the surveys and the studies, that's a lot of people right now are really dealing with that issue.

One other item that I wanted to mention, I just got a copy of the new

American Standard Bible 2020 edition. And I don't know how many of you have seen this, but it just,

I use Accordance Bible software and I got an email from them last week saying it was available for download.

And so as soon as I saw that, I thought I have to get a copy of that and find out what what did they do in the

NASB 2020. And, you know, I do have to say there's some things that I like about the translation.

And in Ephesians, for example, what I'm preaching through now in Ephesians 3 .8

and 3 .9 specifically, here up on the screen, you can see the 1995

NASB right here. It says, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery, which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things.

And I read that to the church on Sunday in the service and then had to explain what that means because the wording of that in English is very complex and not very clear.

And you can see the NASB 2020 has smoothed it out a little bit. It says to enlighten all people as to what the plan of the mystery is.

And that's a little bit easier to understand. And I like that. I think that's an improvement.

You also notice there's a textual difference. And so, here's the

Greek New Testament, the fifth UBS version of the Greek New Testament. And the word all, which is right here in verse 9, to enlighten all people is here in the

Greek New Testament in brackets, which indicates it's disputed as to whether it belongs in the original text of Ephesians or not.

And you notice in the 1995 edition, it says, and to bring to light what is the administration and that word all is omitted, but in the 2020 edition, they've included it.

And so, a little adjustment there. And it does seem like Pontos all is a good reading because Paul is talking about in the context that he's preaching to the

Gentiles. There's a lot of good manuscript support for it. And so, I think it's a good inclusion in the update.

But there's a number of things that are going on in this update that are unhelpful.

And when you look at the Lachman Foundation's website, you can see one of the impetuses for the reason they've updated the

NASB is to transition to gender accurate language. Gender accurate language.

And so, what they've done here is they've said it's not gender neutral because when the context calls for a specific masculine or feminine term, they don't use a gender neutral term instead in the

NASB 2020. And any additions, like when it says brothers, and they add and sisters, they put it in italics to indicate that that's not in the original text.

And I think that that's at least good that they're letting you know that they're adding to what the text says.

This is not what is written by the Apostle Paul and inspired by the Holy Spirit. This was added by the

New American Standard Bible editors. But when they talk about the current challenge, it says the inclusive meaning of some gender specific words used in traditional biblical translations is no longer accepted as inclusive to many of today's readers.

And then again, they're no longer regarded as common or are on their way to being phased out completely.

They've lost their inclusive meaning. And so, they want to update this to current trends in the

English language. And I have a real concern about this because one of the faulty assumptions that's being made here by the

Lachman Foundation and the translators is that the current changes to the English language are non -theological and organic.

And if we look at what has happened to the English language, even just since I was in high school 25 years ago, the changes that have happened are not organic.

They have been forced upon the English language. They're not things that just naturally occurred as people spoke.

Language does change because people come up with new idioms. They use phrases in a different way. There's new technology that emerges.

25 years ago, nobody knew what an iPhone was. So, there's new elements to language that come out naturally over time.

These are organic changes that happen to the language. But then there are changes that are forced from without.

And if you don't get in line with these changes, you become pushed out of the academy.

You're out of the guild. And the kind of changes that the NASB are talking about are the kinds of changes that have come in and they've been forced on the

English language. They haven't happened just organically. And they're not atheological because these changes are meant to promote a progressive agenda that is hostile to the word of God.

They're meant to promote an agenda of feminism and homosexuality and transgenderism and all of these other things that scripture calls an abomination before the

Lord. And so, we look at these changes and we want to speak in a way that accurately communicates to people that speak

English. But there's a point at which we also need to say your language has been co -opted by the left.

It's been co -opted by progressives. It's been co -opted by people who want to undermine scripture.

And when you take scripture and you conform it to a system that its entire intention is to destroy scripture, your translation is going to end up undoing what it's attempting to achieve, which is communicate the word of God accurately.

And there's a few examples of this that are given by somebody who reviewed this.

And I actually thought that these changes were helpful. And, you know, it says in Romans 5 .12.

Here's an example of the NAS 2020. Now, here the word men in Greek is translated as mankind.

And if we go to Romans 5 .12, we can see that here.

You know, it says just as through one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin, so death spread to all men in the 1995

NASB. You can see the highlight over here, mankind, and here death spread to all men.

It's the plural. You can see that down at the bottom, the masculine accusative plural of men.

And the NASB 2020 translators, what they're doing here is they are interpreting anthropos to mean mankind.

Now, the question is in Romans 5 .12, does Paul have a reason why he would use a masculine pronoun specifically?

That is a question that I think interpreters need to answer, not translators.

Translators have no business going in and monkeying around with the text. The text says all men.

And I would argue that that's intentional, that Paul does not mean mankind because there is within scripture, the teaching of male headship and that men have an accountability to be leaders.

And this sin has, it went from one man to all men so that it affects everybody.

But the fact that men are singled out raises the level of accountability on men.

And not on women. Did women become sinners? Yes. Did death spread to women?

Yes. But that's not Paul's point, I would argue, in Romans 5 .12. His point is that through one man, all men, because Adam was the head of the human race and now all of the heads have this sin that has spread to them through the one man who was the original head.

And so when you begin to accommodate the culture, what is happening in Romans 5 .12? Well, male headship is being undermined.

I don't know the motives of the NASB 2020 translators.

I don't know that they're trying to undermine male headship and male accountability before God for being leaders of their families and leaders of society.

But they've done that. They've done that by removing the masculine term there and replacing it with a term that is more generic.

And we see this, you know, as they do this throughout the translation.

You know, Genesis 6 .5, Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of mankind was great on the earth.

Again, yes, every person is certainly involved in that. And yet there's a sense in which

God holds the fathers and the men responsible as leaders. And we need men today who will stand up and be men, men who will stand up and take accountability, take responsibility.

And our Bible translation should at least allow for the interpretation

I've offered as a potential possibility of what the author intended when they wrote that rather than closing that off by making you think that something else is in the text besides a masculine noun or pronoun.

And so, you know, what is happening here is language has been co -opted.

It has been co -opted by people who are contrary and opposed to the Word of God. And now we have a translation that is, you know, 1995

NASB is my favorite Bible translation for reading and studying. And it's been co -opted by the left and by a progressive movement to conform it to language changes that are forced, that aren't legitimate in our culture.

And that we, you know, you're forced to do this or you are basically put out of the academy, put out of the guild.

And so, you know, as you're looking at this, if you use the NASB 1995 edition, you know, the 2021 might be an interesting purchase just to be able to compare and just to have another translation to have on the shelf.

I wouldn't recommend it as a Bible that you read from or study because it's going to obscure some of the things that are there that you may want to look into more.

And the translators really should leave that option open to you by translating as accurately as they can based on what is in the original text.

Well, I think James is going to be back later this week. You guys targeting the next dividing line on Friday.

And so we hope that you'll come back and join James for that. It's been a real pleasure and an honor to be able to sit in this seat and share some of these thoughts with you over the last couple of days.

And thank you for watching and for your feedback and God bless you. Have a Merry Christmas and a