They Never Want You to Count the Cost

Hello there, this is A .D. Robles, and you're listening to A .D. on the

Fight Laugh Feast Network. You know,

I've had this cup for like 15 years. It's one of those GNC sort of, you know, protein powder mixing cups.

I don't drink that stuff anymore, but I used to, and I lost the little top where you mix the protein powder.

Now I just use it for water or whatever, but it's the kind of guy I am. I've had this cup for 15, there's no sentimental value for it.

I just never found a need to buy another one. I have glasses and stuff like that.

Once I got married, like, you know, obviously my wife wanted like real stuff like glasses, so we got it.

But when I was single, this is basically all I had. Anyway, I wanted to jump right into it today.

The verse that I have chosen for today's podcast is Proverbs 14, verse 12.

Proverbs 14, verse 12 says this, There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

There's a way that seems right to a man, but it leads to death, essentially, is what this is saying.

And this is so true. I mean, there's just so much of this going on right now.

People promote stuff that it's just, it is so unhealthy. It will destroy lives.

It'll destroy physical lives, but also spiritual lives. And people are promoting this stuff as if it's a good thing.

And part of it is because there's a lot of evil people out there. I don't think we should discount that.

When somebody promotes something, that actually will hurt. And you know it will hurt, and it takes a few seconds to think about how it's going to hurt.

Like, for example, shutting down the economy last year. I knew that was, everyone who had a brain should have known that would hurt people, especially poor people.

And some people did it, you know, out of stupidity. And there is some stupidity out there.

We don't want to discount that. But I think the powers that be, though, we're doing it because they're evil. And I think that that's something that I've come to terms with in 2021.

You know, Doug Wilson likes to say, well, you know, don't ascribe to evil intent things that can be ascribed to stupidity.

I kind of disagree with him. I'm not going to lie. I disagree with Doug Wilson on that. I think that that is not a perspective that I embrace anymore.

I think there's a lot more evil people out there than we'd like to think. And so, anyway, you know, what

I want to talk about today is just sort of, we need to encourage pastors today, because I've heard it from a few different sources, probably five at this point, that the

COVID stuff, if you can believe it, in December 2021, after everything we know about coronavirus, after everything we know about vaccines, after everything we know about masks and how they don't work and all this stuff, there are churches that are now putting the pressure on the pastors again to cave to the

Great Reset, again, to shut down their churches, to require masks, to require vaccines.

The pressure is on pastors again. I know it's hard to believe, but it's true.

And so I just, we need to encourage these pastors, because I think a lot of pastors now know how to handle this kind of thing.

A lot of pastors that didn't know in March 2020 what to do now have researched the

Bible, and they know what God requires, and they know what they need to do, what they're required to do, what

God would have them do. And now they know, and so they need to have courage, because it's not a matter of not knowing anymore.

I'm not talking about the Great Reset pastors. I have no concern for what the Great Reset pastors are doing.

I have no control over them. They serve a different master, and so I can't point them to Scripture and expect them to accept it, because they simply don't care what the

Bible says about these things. What I am talking about are those who were, you know, fence -sitting for a while, didn't quite know what to do.

Maybe they were scared. They need your love and support, because a lot of the pastors right now are going to stand firm, and they're going to have to face, you know, potential church splits.

I heard of one church that is—there's a lot of risk. There's a lot of risk of split, because the pastor prayed a prayer in which he said that, you know, we should not live in fear of COVID.

I mean, the most obviously true statement you can ever make—you should not be living your life in fear,

Christian. You should be trusting in the Lord. You shouldn't have anxiety over what's to come tomorrow.

Tomorrow will worry about itself. This is just straight -up Jesus' teaching, right? And people are taking offense to it and are probably going to eventually leave the church, because he's not going along with the

Great Reset agenda of fear. There are a lot of pastors that will go along with the

Great Reset agenda of fear, because it has good optics. Oh, it's just loving. I love my neighbors who are terrified of COVID, so I want to welcome them here.

And so, in order to welcome them here, we're going to act terrified, too. And chances are, a lot of them are terrified—these pastors are terrified of COVID, because the

TV told them to be terrified of COVID. And so, there's a way that seems right to a man. That seems right, you know?

We'll go along to get along. Yeah, it's just a mask, so wear it. You know, we've got to have our mask brothers in here, too.

And it's like, you know, it seems right to a man, but in the end, it doesn't do anyone any good, and it leads to death.

I mean, this is the kind of—the tyranny is out of control right now, and so every time you capitulate to it, it makes it harder and harder the next time.

And people have this fantasy where they think that, oh, I'm going to take a stand for Christ. I'm going to be the one that when they kick me to you, they're going to put me on the gallows, and they're going to say, deny

Christ, or we're going to hang you. I'm going to be the one to say, You're denying

Christ with every moment of your life. You think you're going to do it when you're facing certain death? That's a fantasy.

That cultural capital thing of Jonathan Lehman is one of the biggest fantasies I've ever heard of.

Well, we've got to save our cultural capital for when it matters. No, no, no. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says when you're faithful with a little thing, you'll be faithful with a big thing.

It doesn't say you save up your cultural capital for the little things so that you have enough capital to be faithful with the big things.

People are fooling themselves. They're fooling themselves to think that they would not deny

Christ. You deny Christ all the time when you shut down your church. That denied Christ. When you shut down your church because Caesar told you to, you denied

Christ right there. You're going to deny Christ every step of the way, all the way until the end. That's how it works.

But there's a way that seems right unto a man. It seems loving at the time. And the thing is, for a

Christian—and the woke stuff is the same thing, right? The woke stuff, it's poison to blacks and minorities.

This whole woke movement, right? This whole idea of looking at yourself as a victim and as your problems are basically caused by everybody else except for you, right?

If you're black and you're poor, all your problems are the white men. It's the white men.

It's them white men. It's like that's poison to the soul of blacks and Latinos. No, no.

If you're black and if you're Latino, I have the courage to tell you what you need to hear. You're the biggest problem in your life.

And so you need to repent of your sins because you've sinned against a holy God. You've sinned against a

God who created you. He gave you life. He gave you everything you need, and you've sinned against Him. That's your biggest problem.

And so basically you need to repent of your sins. Repent of your sins. Stop worrying about everybody else.

Worry about yourself. See, I have the courage to tell you that, but that doesn't sound loving. That doesn't sound good and right.

There's a way that seems right unto a man, but the end leads to death. Look, if you try to make it seem like the black man's problem and the

Latino's problem is somebody else and not your own sin against God, that's your biggest problem. It's somebody else who did something to you, not your sin against God.

If that's how you try, you might seem loving to a man to act that way, but it will destroy the very people you pretend to love and you don't love them.

I know you don't, because the Scripture tells me you don't. You lie into them. You just lie into them.

But the woke stuff seems right to a man, and it sells well. It'll get people to listen to you.

It has the optics of love, but it's just destruction. It's just hatred. There's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is death.

And it's not just in the church. This is something that's in politics as well. I was talking about inflation this week, right?

And what's going to happen, and this is something that has happened before, and I've heard people teach on the historical precedence of this, but it's also starting to happen now.

You can see it in slow motion. What's going to happen is because of the government's policies and just the constant money creation, the counterfeiting that goes on right now, they constantly create new money out of thin air.

It drives all the prices up. And then what they're going to say is they're going to say, well, you know, it's not that.

It's actually the greedy capitalists. See, they're trying to price gouge you. They're trying to price gouge you, and so what we're going to do is we're going to take swift and decisive action.

We're not going to let them raise the prices. We're not going to let them.

There's a way that seems right unto a man. You see, this is the thing. They can sell that to idiots, right?

They can sell that to idiots because idiots think that the government is God and can control everything, right? So yeah, the government can stop them from raising my prices, those evil capitalists.

Well, then I'll be able to afford it. I'll be able to afford the stuff, but here's what happens, right?

So when the government says you can't raise the price above a certain amount, if it costs more to make that good than that certain amount, then the company just doesn't make it.

Nobody's going to produce a good at a loss. That's not how it works, right? Nobody's in business to lose money. And so if the margin isn't there, they're just going to stop making it.

And so what's going to happen? Well, we're going to have even more shortages than we do right now because there's a way that seems right to a man, but in the end, it leads to death.

People will die because of price setting. And so that's the play. They're going to start saying, we're going to set prices.

We're in it for the little guy. Well, it's the little guy that's going to suffer because there's not going to be enough stuff because it's not going to be profitable to make that stuff.

And so the government's going to screw. This happens all over the place. There's a way that seems right and loving, and it's got the right tone.

Elizabeth Warren's going to get out there, and she's going to be like, oh, it's those capitalists. And people are going to be fawning over Elizabeth Warren because she's got just the right tone, kind of sounds like Russell Moore if you think about it.

And they're going to be fawning, but it's going to lead to death. And my opinion is that Elizabeth Warren is one of these evil people.

She knows what it's going to lead to, but she wants power, and she knows that if she tells people the right things, she can have power.

And so she's willing to sacrifice lives in order to stay in power. That's who she is.

And a lot of these leaders in BEGIVA, I believe, are the same way. They'll sacrifice the truth.

They'll sacrifice their flocks. They'll sacrifice your family, my family, all to remain that one that gets called by CNN and writes the book deals, writes a couple books a year, gets those paychecks and, look, it might not be a ton of money.

This is something that people always say. They say, oh, yeah, I'm doing it for the money because I have a lot of money.

It's like, yeah, well, you might be poor, Mr. BEGIVA author guy. I'm not saying you're rich or poor. You might be poor.

But the thing is you can still be greedy and lying for money and not get a lot of it.

You see what I'm saying? Because that's actually what the Bible says. The Bible actually talks about this. It talks about Israel, one of the times when they rejected

Christ, and God actually mocks them and says, look, you're actually worse than a prostitute because a prostitute at least gets paid for her dirty deeds.

You don't get paid. You're doing the deed, and you're paying them. You know what I mean? You're giving the john the money.

That's how God mocks his people when they turn from him because they're so degraded. They're so evil that they don't even get anything out of it.

So, yeah, you could be lying in books for a living and not make a lot of money. That's still deplorable.

That's still evil. You know what I mean? That's not an argument that you're poor. Anyway, that was a little bit of a sidetrack, all of that kind of thing.

The bottom line, I think the bottom line with the ways that seem right to men but the end leads to death, it's that what's happening with those ways that seem right to men is that they're not considering the cost.

It's all benefits, no cost. I remember saying this a year and a half ago when Russell Moore was saying, oh, you just want your 401K to be saved.

We've got to save grandma. Shut down the economy. Like a moron, he was talking like this. And what

I said at the time was that, yeah, that sounds nice to a child because a child doesn't understand costs.

The child doesn't consider what the costs are. All he sees is the benefit. So you're like, okay, so let's just say hypothetically this is the worst pandemic since sliced bread, which at the time

I said, let's just give you that part of the argument. We can't do that anymore. We know too much. But at the time I said, let's just give you that.

This is going to kill a lot of people. Okay. So you're acting as if shutting down the economy only has benefits.

We save lives. But that's actually not the case because it also has costs to shut down the economy.

Don't be a child. See, you can excuse a child for not thinking about the cost. When we go to the grocery store and my kid wants a candy bar, he's not considering that the candy bar costs money.

He just wants the candy bar because he just sees the benefit of the delicious chocolate. But he doesn't see what you have to pay in order to get the candy bar.

So in his mind, it's like, well, why can't I just have everything I want? Why can't I just have every toy? Why can't I have it?

Because he doesn't understand cost. And same with Russell Moore. Shutting down the economy has costs. And actually, when you break it down, the costs are lives.

In fact, the costs are lives of the poorest among us because it's the poorest among us that are living on the margins.

It's the poorest among us that when they don't have a paycheck, it's a big deal. You see what I'm saying?

If they miss one paycheck, it's a huge deal in their lives. It's the poorest among us that will suffer.

And people will starve. And people will die because of the economic shutdown. And we see this in the hospitals too.

You shut down the hospitals for everyone that doesn't have COVID, and people will die. It's not all benefits.

It's also the costs. And the thing is, this is not just like boring economics because it is true.

I mean, you have to weigh the costs and the benefits of everything. We negotiate this every moment of our lives, the costs and the benefits.

But this is not just boring economics. This is straight from the Bible. You know, Jesus said that if you're going to follow him, even following Christ, like the thing that is the easiest decision anyone's ever made, you follow

Christ, you have eternal life, you live with Christ and with his people forever in a new heavens, in a new earth, a place without sin, without tears.

Like it's the easiest decisions and that would be worth anything. Even Jesus says, count the costs because there is a cost.

Now you'd have to be an idiot not to say that this benefit isn't worth the cost, right? Obviously, eternal life and living with the

Lord and living in the new heavens and new earth, that's worth anything, including your life. But he says, count the cost because there is a cost to following Christ.

You have to look at the cost, look at the benefits and make your decision. And so we need to act as if every good sounding idea, whether it's price controls, whether it's the woke stuff, whether it's feminism, oh, we got to accept

LGBT, all that stuff. There's a way that seems right to a man because the man is just looking at the benefits.

He's not counting the cost. You see, when we soften our words on LGBT in the church, right?

We soften, oh, it's just moral brokenness. And it's just, by the way, the Bible whispers about it.

It's like, that sounds great. Oh, you're going to get church. You're going to get LGBT people in your church. I don't think you actually are, but maybe you do.

You get some LGBT people in church. But the thing is, if they never repent of their sins, that's a way that seems right to a man but leads to death.

When you soften your words, you're counting the benefits of softening your words and softening your stances against sin.

But you're not counting the costs. The cost is the lives of the people you claim to love.

I don't think you actually do love them. I think you like the power that it gets you to be one of those ex -evangelicals or one of those reasonable

Christians. That gets you the applause and the acclamation. Acclamation, is that the right word?

I don't think that's the right word. That gets you the love of the world when you do essentially the things they want.

You sprinkle a little Jesus on it, yeah, maybe. But you do essentially what they want you to do. That puts you in positions to be that Christian.

I'm not like those other Christians. I'm not like them. I'm not like those bigots that you know about.

I'm the one you can come to and I'll write the article for you and you can get the wisdom. They like that kind of thing because they're only counting the benefits.

They're not counting the cost. I think a lot of these guys, the cost will end up being their souls.

And that's not worth it. It's not worth it. So the bottom line is this, like right now pastors need your prayers.

They're being challenged. They're being pressured again on COVID. I know it's hard to believe. It's 2021. We know what this is now, but they're being pressured again.

I just, you know, I think we should all pray for these pastors, these ones that know what's right now and are trying to do it, but they're going to start feeling the pressure.

They need our love and support. Help them if you can. Encourage them. Let them know that they're doing the right thing.

You know what I mean? And obviously, you know, they need to do the right thing anyway because it's what God requires, but God has a body and the body is useful for these kinds of things.

So encourage them. The woke stuff, all the just politics in general, this is everywhere.

You got to watch out for this. Watch out when somebody's trying to sell you something and they're only telling you about the benefits and they're not telling you what the cost is.

Or if they're pretending that there is no cost, that's something in politics they often do. They say, oh, we're going to do this bill and it's paid for.

It's written into the bill. It's paid. There's no cost. And basically like politics and Big Eva right now, it can be summed up like this.

Oh, we're definitely going to get a free lunch this time. It's a free lunch. That's what it is. That's what it is.

There's no free lunch and there's always costs. Even when Jesus said, follow me, he told you because the

Bible is realistic. This is not pie in the sky stuff. Jesus Christ knows what life is like, right?

Jesus Christ knows. He became, he's a God man. He's God. He became flesh.

He lived on earth. And he's a man right now sitting at the right hand of the father. He's been through it and he knows what you know.

He knows a lot more than you know, but he knows what you're going through. He knows the issues and he knows that there's a cost associated with following him.

And many people will make the idiotic decision that it's not worth the cost to follow

Christ. But it is. It is. You could be alone. You could be, you could lose your job.

You could have, you know, your family can reject you, all this kind of stuff. And it's still worth the cost.

Anyway, I hope you found this podcast helpful. God bless. Don't forget to tune in next week on Thursday for AD on the