Did We Fail 2020? | Theocast

Hi, this is John, and today on Theocast, Justin and I are together in Knoxville. In the same place. And we're going to do a podcast on reflecting.

Essentially reflecting on 2020. That's right. We've been together today planning for 2021, Theocast-wise. And we thought, you know, why don't we reflect a little bit on 2020, things that we have learned as pastors, as Christians, as guys, husbands, dads, whatever, and hope that it'll be helpful to the listener.

It's a little bit random.

I will tell you that we dig in on, maybe you shouldn't hold on to your opinion as much as you think you should. Yeah, we do.

We do. Hopefully you'll be humbled by that as we have been, as we think about our own failures in those ways. And as we meander here, there, and everywhere, we hope that you find things that are applicable to your life, that are maybe poignant and can point things out in your life, but also encourage you as you think about living life in a fallen world and fighting your sin and trusting Christ and a pandemic and every other thing.

We hope it's helpful. So stay tuned for Reflections on 2020. Hey everyone, if you'd like to help support Theocast, you can do that by leaving us a review on iTunes and subscribing or on your favorite podcast app.

You can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. And we do have a Facebook group if you'd like to join the conversation. Thanks for listening.

Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed perspective. Our hosts today are together, live and in person. We have John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and myself, Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

But we sit here today in Knoxville, Tennessee, sort of in between the two cities, in between Nashville and Asheville, respectively. We are on site at Albright Grove Brewing Company. They've been very kind to us in allowing us to record a podcast in their space.

It's a pretty cool venue. So for any of you that live near Knoxville or make your way through here, come check them out. Again, we're appreciative to them. John and I have been spending time together today.

I mean, we've been enjoying one another's company. I guess that's fair to say. But we've been working. We've been reflecting on some things for Theocast, but mainly trying to plan for the future and thinking about 2021 as the new year is fast approaching.

We're sitting here today in the middle of December. And so we're making a lot of plans for not just the podcast, but things beyond the podcast, the scope of which is exciting for the two of us. And so it's been a really good day, an exciting day.

And as we reflect toward the future, we can't help but think, I shouldn't say reflect toward the future, as we think about the future and make plans, we can't help but reflect back on 2020 as we come to the end of this year.

And everybody knows that 2020 has been a year. But one of the things that we thought we might do today in recording a podcast, sitting here together over a beer, is to have a pretty easy conversation on the one hand, just a natural conversation about things that we have learned as pastors and as men in the year 2020.

And who knows where this is going to go? We've primed the pump a little bit and thrown out one or two things that we've each considered or learned this year. But hold on, friends, who knows?

Well, in general, it takes a lot to fluster me, to make me feel awkward, and put me in a circumstance where I just don't feel comfortable. There's not very many times that happens. And 2020 has shown me new heights of that.

I find myself in situations where I feel highly uncomfortable in front of unbelievable believers and believers alike, where normally I would never feel uncomfortable. I feel like my skin is crawling and I want to get out of circumstances or conversations.

Or you can feel where the conversation is about to lead by the questions that are being asked. And the conclusion I have come to about 2020 is that people are far more in love with their opinions than they probably should be, and their opinions tend to be almost on a biblical level.

Their thoughts about something come at it with such passion and such vigor that it just seems like we're talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Right, or the deity of Jesus, or something like that. No, you're right. We were using the phrase before we recorded, married to your opinions. And we were saying, yeah, people probably need to just go and get divorced from those things, because it is unhelpful.

You're right. I think 2020 has revealed how opinionated we all are. And some of our opinions are better than others, and some of our opinions are more or less informed than others. Right. But all of us, I think, would do well to take ourselves a little bit less seriously.

Right. I don't have a problem with people having an opinion. Me either. They are based on preference, history, taste, flavor, experience. But the key to what you just said is that people take themselves way too seriously as it's related to their opinion.

Speaking as a pastor, this is a conversation about two pastors who happen to be Christians, who struggle with sin, who struggle with their own pride and arrogance. And I realize as I sit back and listen, I was speaking with a CEO of a very large company yesterday over dinner, and he was saying that this last year, just even like on social media, it's so uncomfortable because you say and do the wrong thing.

You can literally blow up your life. It's true. It gets over. Yeah. Because of how you potentially mishandle COVID or racism or the election. Sure.

There have been so many things to divide over for Christians in the church this year, from COVID -19 and how to approach it, how to navigate it corporately, individually, whatever, masks and the whole nine yarns.

There's been politics in an election year. There's been a supercharged conversation about race and racism, no doubt. And I'm not against opinions at all. I mean, I'm a very opinionated person and I usually have about 17 reasons for every opinion that I have.

I mean, you could ask my wife if you don't believe me. I mean, if she listens to this episode, she would be amening this right now. I was saying, yeah, you guys have no idea what I live with. It's not necessarily that having opinions are bad, but I think we need to recalibrate our thinking and we need to rightly assess the importance of the things that we have opinions about.

And we need to do a little bit of triage. These things are primary things about which we cannot disagree, even in the church. There are secondary things that matter for us to be able to associate together.

And then there are other things, frankly, that we need to agree to disagree and we need to love one another in it. And I think 2020 has revealed the fact that we're not very good at doing that.

Well, I think what we do is we marry convictions and opinions. Yeah.

Well, we can't differentiate between the two. Right.

So we assume, and I've seen this, we're good-hearted. And one of the things that I'm going to just say this up front, I think the church has failed in shepherding and teaching people the difference between your opinion and biblical conviction.

And by biblical conviction, you would mean doctrine.

What I mean is the Bible says this is wrong. Okay. Yeah. Which is teaching. And this is right. Right. Yeah. And the Bible is very clear. Right. The Bible is very clear. This is wrong. This is right. And then on very complicated situations, we turn it into a theological issue when it really isn't.

It's an opinion issue. So I think 2020 has exposed the fact that we, and again, we're Christians who happen to be pastors, like you said earlier, but we're talking as two believers here. I think 2020 has revealed the fact that we do, in a just really unhelpful way, tend to over-spiritualize everything.

And we tend to make spiritual and moral issues out of things that are not inherently spiritual or moral. And so, for example, I think of the things that we've already brought up this year, or that have occurred this year, I think the pandemic is maybe the best illustration of that in terms of how we handle things as a church.

I know, I've had a number of conversations in my own context with people who are really, really wrecked in their own consciences over wearing a mask, or wearing a mask in a church service, or things like that.

And it's very clear that for these people who are sincere and mean to trust and follow Christ, and are not being angry or sinful in their disposition, are just mega, mega perplexed and troubled, and are concerned that they might be sinning by whether or not they wear a mask, or they may be harming corporate worship, or harming other people.

I mean, it becomes this spiritual concern, at least a moral concern in their minds. And I think one of my jobs as a pastor, one of my tasks as a pastor, I trust you feel this too, has been to try to set people free from that kind of thinking in 2020, to help them see, no, the wearing of a mask, for example, in a church service is not a spiritual issue.

It's not an issue of fidelity to Jesus, and it is not a moral issue. This is a common sense, love of neighbor consideration. And I think a lot of times people just need to hear their pastor say that so that they can be set free.

But that's one example of how we do turn things into a much bigger deal than they were ever meant to be. And I think you're right, the church has not helped people do that kind of evaluation in their minds, hearts, as to what's most important, what is spiritual, what is moral, and what is something else that we can make decisions about and feel freedom to make the best call we can and move forward with our lives, trusting Christ.

Jon Moffitt. Well, I know I'd say masks are just an example. The problem didn't happen because there became a mask mandate. The problem was already there. It just exposed it. So we're about to see a new round of issues with the whole vaccination.

And I'm really thankful that there are certain theological websites out there that are giving us science information on how to think about this. Justin Perdue. I'm really grateful for that.

I think we should just draw attention to every potentially divisive cultural issue that we can. That's what I think we should do.

I think it's good for the church. Jon Moffitt. But here's a great example of what happens when the church is not careful, or I would say, historically speaking, certain theological movements. I am legitimately getting questions from my church members who are covenantal, they love our church, they're part of the Reformed Church.

And they're saying, my parents or my siblings, my relatives legitimately think that taking this potential vaccination could be like taking the mark of the beast. And that's not a joke. They're saying they're legitimately afraid.

So, and I love my dispensational friends. I've got a lot of them who listened to this podcast. I've got great, great respect for them. And they would not, they would deny that. They would get on the microphone and say, no, that's not it.

But there's two things that breaks my heart about the pandemic and 2020 in general, and then there's something that makes me hopeful. What breaks my heart is that the church really is in a worse spot than we probably realize.

Like you don't understand, like for instance, a marriage, there's an underlining problem in it, and it's not exposed until there's pressure put upon it, and then the real state of the marriage comes out.

So I think the real state of people's faith and their theological training and their view of the church and their view of love for one another is coming to the top because of the pressure that we're feeling.

Well, and one initial reaction, and then maybe another thought alongside it. Initial reaction one, praise God. Christ is our righteousness, you know, and we're not saved by our sound theology, we're saved by Christ.

I mean, praise be to his name. But I think, you know, one of the things that I have tried to discuss with people in having this conversation about not spiritualizing something or not moralizing something that isn't inherently spiritual or moral is to help people understand that motivations do matter on the one hand.

So the objective reality of wearing a mask in a church service is not a sin, and it's not a moral issue. Now, if we were being purely motivated out of fear, fear of man, or if we were just really, really, literally bowing the knee to the government in unhelpful ways, letting them dictate to us the practices of our faith, of course, those things would be cause for concern, but that's not what we're dealing with.

It's not what people are encountering in their local churches week after week. I think maybe pivoting slightly to this, we were talking about this earlier, something that I think 2020 has revealed to us individually about ourselves, but is something that we've also seen in others, is I think we're all far more selfish than we would ever care to admit.

And we are very much attached to comfort and our own comfort. And when those things are upset, when things don't go the way that I want them to go, when my rhythms are disrupted, and when I now am not able to do the things that I just want to do, whether those are good or bad things is almost irrelevant.

But when I can't do what I want to do, man, I don't handle it well.

Somehow we've equated Christian liberty with personal liberty, and then what I mean by that, for someone who may not understand what I mean... Christian liberty means that we were underneath the tyranny of sin, we were a prisoner, and we've been set free from that through the power of the Spirit.

And we are no Master of our life is now Christ. We are slaves to Christ, and that's a beautiful thing. And in Him, we are free. And so we will not allow... Paul says in Colossians, don't allow anybody to basically put you back underneath slavery.

Exactly. And he says the same thing in Galatians 5 .1.

We take that, and we then turn it into American freedoms, and we can't let the government...and people think I'm crazy, but I'm not. I've seen people do this. I've seen... You're a little crazy, Joe. Well, if you've been listening to Theocast, at any amount of time, everybody knows I'm crazy.

Crazy about...whatever, I'm going to let that one go. But I'm going to try and say this in a thoughtful way. I appreciate what America is, what America stands for. I do not... I'm proud of I'm proud of...

What we are trying to do, but how we have accomplished it, we're sinners, right? There is no nation under the sun that has ever done anything on a moral level that is pure in the eyes of God.

So if you want to point... America included. Yeah, if you want to point to a nation and say they've done it right, you're wrong, they don't exist, right? But somehow we have then said our American freedoms are the same as basically when the government...

Our Christian liberty. The government is encroaching on our Christian liberties, and I'm saying if you understand when Paul wrote Romans and what they were going underneath, it's nothing what we're going under.

So one way that I might say it is that libertarianism is not in the Bible. No. Right? Just Mean, I've said this before too. I'm not trying to open up a can of anything here, but it's not that I see capitalism in the Bible or something like that either.

But yeah, I think there's been a tremendous confusion, and I've seen this in our local context and with Christians in our area. There's a tremendous confusion, like you're saying, in Christian liberty and the Christian faith and libertarian thinking from a political perspective, and those two things are not one and the same.

And it's unhelpful when we sort of blur those lines and blend those categories for sure.

And hopefully you hear the tone of what we're trying to accomplish here. We just kind of want to almost hold up a mirror and say, hey, step back a moment and reflect on, am I looking at this from a personal preference?

And have I stamped it with the Bible, or am I truly allowing God's Word to govern how I'm interacting here? Because I will tell you, the Bible is going to call you more to set down your own preferences a whole lot faster than they are for you to pick them up and defend them.

Word, brother.

I know this is a podcast that we talked about recording next year, how the energy in pietism is always focused inward on me, but the energy in the biblical Christian organization is always focused outward on neighbor.

I think that we would all do well to remember that too. What we need to be pouring ourselves into is into our brothers and sisters in the faith and to those in close proximity to us whom we are called to love and serve.

If we would get over ourselves on the one hand and take up the theology of the cross, that we are called to die to ourselves and love others and serve others, we would do far better. Jon Moffitt. It's interesting to love someone.

I do this a lot in marriage counseling. I do this a lot in pre-marriage counseling. We tend to love people the way we think they should be loved. I think you should feel this from me, and if you don't, then you're in the wrong because you didn't accept my love.

Actually, if the person isn't feeling loved, maybe you should rethink what you're doing.

Justin Perdue. Maybe you should rethink them and try to understand them. Exactly.

Typically, to love someone well, you actually do have to die to yourself. You have to be humble and you have to suppress preference. When I first got married to my wife, I didn't understand how many preferences I had, and I clearly didn't see how many she had.

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You're talking about the thing that's sort of underneath so many fights in marriage is this issue of preferences and the way that individuals tick, and an unwillingness, frankly, to Compromise. Compromise and an unwillingness to do the hard work of trying to understand another person.

Laying your own preferences aside and saying, no, I'm going to do what's good for him, what's good for her.

We project, for instance, if I had a brother in Christ tell me, or a sister who said they were a Democrat, we immediately project upon them and assume things about them instead of hearing them out.

Brother, I'm glad you said that. I aim to make this my posture, and I'm going to go ahead and say that I think we all should aim to make something like this our posture. When we hear something like that, you're right.

In the conservative, reformed world, to say, yeah, I voted Democrat is, I think in some context, a shocking statement. Rather than immediately concluding a bunch of things about that individual, we would be far better served and the church would profit if our posture was, okay, let me humbly seek to understand my brother or sister who just made that statement.

Let me see if I can listen to them well enough and take seriously enough their concerns. It's not just that they're made in the image of God and I need to take them seriously. I need to legitimately listen and take their concerns seriously enough that I could then articulate what they're saying and make good arguments for them.

And if I've done that, okay, now I can respond and think and reason with you about, here's why I maybe made a different choice, and here's my first, second, and third reason. We would be helped by those kinds of conversations.

Rather than immediately jumping to these really reductionistic, unhelpful conclusions where we really do just write people off and we don't seek to understand them.

And to be clear, if this may be your first time listening to Theocast, to love someone is not to excuse sin. It's like, for instance, when the Father says to us as children, I love you unconditionally.

That's because all that God cannot love about us, or I should say cannot accept about us, has been taken care of in Christ. So when I say you love someone, that doesn't mean you have to wash over any sin if it's a sin issue.

For instance, we had this conversation a couple episodes ago. If someone's absolutely demanding for me to accept their position on, let's say, sexuality, and if I don't accept their position, they won't feel loved.

Or that abortion is good or something.

Jon Moffitt So to love someone does not mean I have to fully agree with them, but it also means that on certain areas that are not... This is why I said it's so important in the beginning, the difference between preference and doctrine.

Is this a doctrinal issue or is this a preference issue that I can set aside? Justin Perdue Right.

We don't need to rehash old things in talking about politics, but I think the assumption should be made. You should assume good of your brothers and sisters. So if somebody were to say to you, for example, I did vote Democratic and you understand that the Democratic Party platform is pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQ, etc., you should not immediately assume that that person was voting for that candidate because of those things, but they were voting that way in spite of those things.

Again, I think to assume well of one another is something that we should do and then we should seek to understand each other. You're exactly right that what we are not advocating for is to just dismiss sin or act like it's not a big deal or to try to call something that's wrong right.

That's not what we mean, and I think that needs to be cleared up immediately. We talk a lot about grace on this podcast, and we get shot at on occasion as being hyper-grace guys, and I don't have time to get upset about how that's a misnomer and you can't overemphasize grace biblically, but I think what exists out there commonly in the church is a misunderstanding of what grace is.

Some people think that grace is a methodology in which we call things that are wrong right. No. Grace exists because there is real wrong. I think we talked about this recently in one of our episodes on sin.

Grace exists because there is real wrong and we all do it, and we are in need of something that we don't have, namely righteousness, and we only can receive that through the unmerited favor, the grace of God applied to us by the mechanism of faith as we look to Christ who has done these things for us.

I just want to be clear on that.

Justin Perdue I think it's a huge point, though. Grace covers our sins, but it does not excuse them. Justin Perdue. And it doesn't make them right.

Jon Moffitt No, absolutely. Justin Perdue I get upset when people talk like this. Jon Moffitt I know you do. Justin Perdue It really does. It works me out. Jon Moffitt I know it does.

We've done a lot of criticism, so I want to help you think through some of this. What is the goal? Me, you, and Jimmy all have opinions about a lot of things, right? Justin Perdue. True. Jon Moffitt. How churches should be run.

Let me say that differently. We have opinions about things that are non-theological, and we have very strong opinions on those. When it comes to being able to unify in a family, my wife and I have had to make compromises on our preferences because someone has to compromise, otherwise there can't be unity.

You can't have two people wanting to go in two opposite directions and assuming that you're going to walk step and step. Justin Perdue. Keep going. How is it that we as believers can demonstrate mercy?

Let me go back to Ephesians chapter 4. It says, I think you can hold your opinion and even have a meaningful conversation with someone when it is presented with meekness and patience and gentleness. That does not mean passive.

That doesn't mean passionless. Jon Moffitt. It doesn't mean weak. Justin Perdue. And it doesn't mean weak. Meekness is not weakness. It means that you are being generous and kind and patient towards the person to whom you are engaging.

Unfortunately, Justin, you and I have talked about this. There are churches who are just absolutely splitting right down the middle. It breaks my heart because the mission of the church should be one of unity so that the gospel can advance, so that sinners can find the light of Christ, and what's happening is that the world is unfortunately looking at the church very confused at the moment, saying, this seems like they are more passionate about something other than who they say they are, which is Jesus.

Justin Perdue. I know I have to be careful how I say this too, but I think you're right. I think that in many situations, in many church contexts, 2020 has been something with everything contained therein has been an occasion to expose perhaps the fact that our unity in the church doesn't run as deep as we would have thought.

I think you have seen that many Christians are very happy and very ready maybe not happy, that's unfair but are very ready to divide over things that are, honestly, Jon, tertiary issues of theological consideration at best.

So tertiary, just to be clear, there's primary, secondary, and tertiary. So we're talking kind of peripheral stuff, and there's a confusion of categories that exist for many, but people seem ready to divorce themselves and divide from a local church context where they seemed otherwise happy and content to be because of these considerations, and that's a sadness, I agree with you.

I think, Jon, the prescription for what ails us is to continue to herald Christ and His finished work and His righteousness in the place of sinners and to rally people around Jesus. There's a lot of things that we can get people geeked up about that are pretty good, but there's only one thing that's great and ultimate, and that is Christ and what He's done for us.

Obviously, we've got to have doctrinal solidarity and there needs to be a confession that we would adhere to, and we've got to agree about stuff to have a church together, but I think as pastors, we need to take it very seriously, and as Christians who are members of local churches, we need to take it seriously that we are unified around Christ and around doctrine that really is clearly derived straight from Scripture, and we are willing to charitably disagree about other stuff to demonstrate where our unities actually lie.

I'll say personally, I'm fine to boast in what the Lord Jesus Christ has done by His local congregation that I am mega encouraged by the saints of Covenant Baptist Church and the unity that clearly seems to exist in our congregation.

I'm thankful for that, and that is certainly not because of me, it's because of what the Lord has done. I trust you would say the same thing and have even to me today that in the midst of a year where this is not true in a lot of congregations, I'm very thankful that we are unified around the Lord Jesus Christ and are seeking imperfectly but sincerely to love each other and understand each other.

Jon Moffitt.

So one other observation, which we've mentioned this a little bit, but there's an additional thought I've had on this from other podcasts. I've never really been involved with politics very much. You probably more than me, probably just from conversations we've had, and I realized I.

Needed to be a little bit more aware. Do you mean just thinking and talking about them?

Jon Moffitt. Yeah, just politics in general, and I know your time up at Capitol Hill probably influenced that. I've always liked history. This year I definitely engaged way more in politics than I have in the past, just so I could learn how to shepherd my church better and make good decisions based upon what I think is about to come down the pipeline.

One of the things I discovered was, and there's a lot of reasons why, and this is probably a whole other podcast, but unfortunately it really makes me sad that a lot of Christians put trust in governmental systems for their protection and their spiritual journeys going forward.

If America doesn't do things this way, then this is what's going to happen to the church. Now listen, I am in no shape or form wanting to be underneath a persecuted state. I just don't.

I don't want to. Brother, we should not wish that upon ourselves and we shouldn't pray for that. We should pray that we can live quiet, peaceful, and godly lives.

But we should also not live in fear because God's church is not dictated by any human being in the history of man. God's church will always go forward because it's God's church. Justin Perdue. What I see in this division is that people have taken their political views and basically said, if you vote for this candidate or if you hold these perspectives, then you are going to put the church in harm or in a compromising position.

Jon Moffitt. Which may be very true. Justin Perdue. Well, it could make things different than they are now. But I don't ever think you can put the church in a compromising position because the world cannot dictate the advancement of the church because that is wrought by the Spirit of God, not by any human organization.

Jon Moffitt. Amen, brother.

Just as I said earlier, we ought never pray for persecution. We ought never pray for trials. God does ordain those things, but we are to pray for peace and those kinds of things to reign. And we would never sign up for persecution or never sign up for trials, but if it does come our way, the Lord will use it, and the Lord has grown his church through suffering for 2 ,000 years.

That is clear as day, and we will endure and we will press on. I'm happy to say this, even over the airwaves like this. I took some heat for some of the things that I wrote around the election, encouraging charity and stuff like this, and at the same time I want to be really clear.

Our elders have led our church to try to, in a good way, submit to the authority that we're under, in a Romans 13 way. And at the same time, our elders right now, we live in a state where restrictions are being tightened back down, and we have been very clear with our congregation that we have no plans of stopping gathering.

And we will be responsible, but we're going to continue to meet. We do not understand that at this point we are at the place of civil disobedience, but it may come to that. If it does, we will try to reflect well and think about all related concerns, but we want the people to know that the assembly is not going anywhere.

The Lord Jesus Christ will build his church. I'm with you on that. Justin Perdue. And that's what I was kind of gigging at. Justin Perdue. And we're just going to keep trusting him and being responsible, and we're going to keep meeting.

Justin Perdue. We're not going to be governed by fear. Justin Perdue. 2 Peter says you're going to suffer. Don't add to it through your stupidity of sin.

You also don't be surprised when you encounter sufferings of various kinds, as though something strange is happening to you. Justin Perdue. That's right.

All of that to say is that part of what Theocast is designed for and really what this conversation is where I want to lead it to for the next few minutes is that... Justin Perdue I have one other thought, but anyway, I'm not going to try to derail your train.

Justin Perdue No, well, you can throw it in there. Well, I'm sure it'll be great. Debatable. Justin Perdue My encouragement to the person who lives in this constant state of fear, that there's anxiety upon them that the government's going to collapse in on us and Christ's work is going to stop.

Justin Perdue Yeah, it won't. Justin Perdue Right, and I just don't want you to say, well, great, John, you have that confidence, but I want you to understand from a historical standpoint. We look at the church in the New Testament, and we read about the persecutions there.

Justin Perdue I mean, read the book of Acts. Justin Perdue Right. They were underneath tremendous amounts of persecution, and God...

And the Lord grew their number by 5 ,000 that day, right?

Justin Perdue. Yeah, and even when Peter's in prison, and they're all praying, and Peter shows up at the door, and they're like, what are you doing here? It's like, you were praying for me to be set free.

My encouragement is that what we're doing, which is emphasizing the finished work of Christ, finding people who are exhausted by sin, leading them to find rest in Jesus, finding people who are exhausted by the evangelical train, pulling them off, and leading them to trust in Christ, all of that is only going to increase in advance, because that's the promise that God gives us.

Justin Perdue. Amen, brother. Yeah, well said. Justin Perdue. So vote responsibly, live responsibly, but put your hope in something that obviously is not founded on a government.

Justin Perdue Brother, the government is nobody's Savior, and it is a poor one.

Justin Perdue. Right, and I don't want to say that in a condescending way. I want you to hear me saying the Bible actually does speak to this, that our foundation is so solid in Christ that we could be all...

Actually, you look at persecuted countries right now, and Christianity is exploding. Justin Perdue. It's thriving.

Justin Perdue. Well, look in the West, and we don't need to go into a history lesson here, but in the West, where there have been more personal freedoms and liberty and the like, you see that Christianity is largely on the decline in terms of biblical robust Christianity.

Justin Perdue. Oh man, where it used to thrive. Justin Perdue. In Europe in general, but in particular, I mean, you think of places like the UK, and you think about America. I mean, yeah, Christianity is not doing well in terms of a robust confessional biblical Christianity in terms of numerical growth, but in other areas of the world where there is not as much liberty, not as much freedom.

Think about sub-Saharan Africa. Think about China. My gosh, the church is growing like crazy. We need not fear about the growth of the church, and as you said very well, brother, put our hope in something that is solid rock, that is not ebbing and flowing, but that is never changing, and that's the faithfulness of God.