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#NoDespair2020
Maybe people in this audience can relate to this. I was talking to my brother the other day and he said to me, you know, Adam, I've been trying to figure this out. Like something went wrong with our programming.
We don't think in the ways that we were taught to think in elementary school and by the media and by the TV that we watched and the movies that we saw and stuff like that. Like what he was saying was like in 2020, it's become very obvious that there are certain people that are just, they're conditioned to respond a certain way to certain stimuli.
And there are other people that simply do not respond in the way that they were programmed to respond. Now, that doesn't mean that the programming hasn't had an effect on us. It certainly has. I know in my own life, there are ways that I think kind of just like reflect reflexively.
And I sometimes got to stop myself and why am I saying that? Why am I thinking that? Is that me or is that just things that I've been taught over the years? And I distinctly remember certain lessons from elementary school and from university even.
And I remember hearing the lessons and for some reason, just instantly thinking, even though I respected my teachers and I was a very compliant young boy, I was never in trouble or anything like that.
But I remember hearing some of these lessons and instantly thinking, no, I'm not gonna believe that. I'll write it on the test if I have to do it to pass the test, but that's not true. So I don't know what it was.
And I'm not saying that I'm like super smart or anything because I always joke around that I'm an idiot. I know I'm not an idiot, there's no question about it. So I know I'm not an idiot, but I know I'm not the smartest guy in the room either.
I'm not saying that I'm like a super intellect, but what I am saying is for some reason, I don't think the way that I was taught to think. I distinctly remember attempts to try to get me into some of these thought patterns and I just don't have them.
And I think a lot of people in this audience probably feel the same way. They see the NPCs, they see the sheep just going after whatever the media, whatever filth the media spoons to them. And for some reason we're not there and we only have the grace of God to thank for that, of course, but I think it's sometimes it's worth thinking about how this happened so that we can help other people to kind of break free from some of these thought patterns that are clearly unbiblical.
I was thinking about this today because I saw a thread, a short thread by a guy named Chuck DeGroat who I have never heard his name in my entire life before this morning. Apparently he's an author, a Christian counselor and he definitely seems to be connected to Big Eva.
I don't know that for a fact, but the people that he retweets and the people that respond to him and the people that retweet him, they're all the players, right? All the players at Big Eva. And I saw this story and I have some thoughts about the story when I saw it, but then I looked at the comments and the replies to this story and I just couldn't help but just be overwhelmed with just this feeling of, man, look at these people who've been programmed, like why are they responding this way?
This doesn't make any sense. And I think it's very instructive. So I'm gonna go through it and all of that kind of thing. So Chuck DeGroat says this, here's what the original two tweet thread says. It says, today, while a kidnapping plot was revealed related to the governor of Michigan, a pastor had his ministry hijacked by a powerful and wealthy contingent who threatened to leave bankrupting the church, not over the Trinity or worship styles, but over masks.
He's out. He shared Galatians 5 and 1 Corinthians 9 to no avail. Their imagination has not been shaped by St. Paul's self-giving notion of freedom, but American freedom. On round, not Jesus. Before he packed his office, he confessed his failure of discipleship to them.
He sacrificed his ego to repent. Now, I'll take you through some of the replies to this story. That's the whole story. That's all the detail that he gave. But the replies in general are like this. Oh my, I'm so grieved by this.
I'm so saddened to hear it. What have we come to, Lord help us. Where have we come? Politics in the church. Trump has revealed so much idolatry. That's generally what the comments were. And I didn't read the comments first, but that was definitely not my reaction.
Let me tell you what my reaction was when I read these tweets. The first thing I thought was, what actually happened here? Right, like, what actually happened here? Like, there's a lot missing. And in fact, I don't even know what side the pastor was on.
Like, if you just read the words, it's like the church split over masks, but what side was the pastor on? Do we even know? Was he pro-mask or anti-mask? He doesn't say. He doesn't say. He also, likewise, for some reason, he connects it to the kidnapping plot that some, I guess, we don't even really know too much about that story.
It's like, I guess some anarchists decided that they were gonna kidnap the governor or something, and the FBI was involved in some way. And it's very unclear exactly what even happened with that, but somehow he's connecting a plot to kill the governor, or to kidnap the governor of Michigan with a church kind of getting rid of their pastor because of masks.
And he certainly seems to make the pastor out to be the good guy. He's as pure as the driven snow. He was sacrificing his ego to repent because of the failure that he didn't give his disciples, his congregation doesn't believe how he believes, and so he's failed.
And so it's just a very weird story because we don't even actually know what happened at all. Like, we don't even almost know what happened, but it's intended to solicit a certain kind of response. It's intended to solicit a sort of, woe is me, discouragement over masks.
And it seemed clear to me that the pastor was probably pro-mask, just the way that he wrote this thread, but it's not clear. In fact, the whole workings of this are not clear. He also, the words that he uses, they're very carefully selected.
His ministry was hijacked. His ministry was hijacked. The pastor, it was the pastor's ministry, and it was hijacked by a powerful and wealthy contingent. And if you notice, what is he doing here? He's connecting the powerful and wealth, power and wealth with those anarchists that were gonna kidnap the governor.
So the anarchists were evil. They were gonna kidnap the governor. Look, if they were gonna kidnap the governor, yes, that is evil. Kidnapping is a death penalty offense. So these anarchists are gonna kidnap the governor, and he's connecting that with wealth and power amongst Christians.
And the governor, likewise, the victim in this case, the governor is gonna be connected to the pastor. So you see, every word in this tweet, he doesn't give you a lot of information, but every word is carefully selected in order to get a sort of a response from you.
Wealth, bad. Power, bad. Governor, well, good. It's the pastor. It's the innocent pastor who was so humble that he sacrificed his own ego to apologize and to repent to his congregation. Even though he did nothing wrong, he was repenting to his congregation.
What an example, right? And so I'm just, just the way that this story has been framed, like there's really only one response that makes sense for a Christian. And that response is we need more information, right?
We don't have enough here. What was he saying about the masks? We're supposed to imply and assume a lot of things here, but what was he saying about the masks? Because here's the thing, like the details actually do matter, right?
The scripture says that we're not supposed to just accept a report. Like we actually have to see and confirm and two or more witnesses and all that kind of stuff, especially if we're gonna be accusing people of sinning, which Chuck is definitely doing here.
We need to get all the facts straight, right? We need to get all the facts. Did this powerful and wealthy contingent secretly undermine him or did they go to him? And did they say, hey man, like here's my problem with what you're doing.
And then when he didn't repent, they took a couple more people with them and then all that. Did they go through the steps of church discipline? Was this actually a true and right division or was it a hijacking?
Do you see what I'm saying? So that word hijacking is doing a lot of work there, but do we actually know if he's characterized the word hijacking correctly? No, we don't. No, we don't. But you see when your mind is programmed to respond a certain way, well, the details actually don't matter.
The details actually don't matter. Look at some of the responses that I saw here. These are interesting. So by the way, I retweeted this. So we got a lot of negative responses now, but before it was overwhelmingly, oh my goodness.
Sorry, sorry. Here's one. Words fail me. What has become of us? Chuck here doesn't understand the first thing about what happened, but yet words fail him and he knows that the congregation was wrong. He knows.
Here's Larry. Unfortunately, this is nothing new. Churches often now to pressure from large givers, we have lost the will to listen to God or the pastors he put in authority over us. So Larry, again, doesn't know the first thing about what's happened here, but he knows that the congregation was doing something nefarious.
They were not listening to God. Notice, no details have been shared. He just knows though. He knows. He's responding reflexively. This is a reflex for him. Here he goes. He goes, here's Rich Stearns. He's a blue check mark.
President Emeritus of World Vision. So this is a player. This is why I think that this guy, Chuck is probably a connected guy. He's a made guy. Maybe he's not a friend of ours, but maybe he's a friend of yours kind of thing.
You know what I'm saying? Rich Stearns says, to punish pastors for trying to protect the vulnerable in their congregations is deplorable. True followers of Christ uplift and support their pastors. Politics is destroying the church.
Notice, notice he doesn't have any more details than any of us. And he's saying that all the pastor was doing was trying to protect the vulnerable and it's deplorable for people to oppose that. And true followers uplift Christ and pastors.
So I guess they can't disagree or anything like that. True followers of Christ just have to listen to their pastors as if they were a cult leader, I guess. Politics is destroying the church. You tell me, what about this story?
Brought politics into it. He made an assertion about American freedom and on Ron, but he didn't give us any details to even almost corroborate that. So politics is destroying the church. Rich Stearns, what about this story proves that?
See, this is a reflexive response. It's politics, that's the problem. Oh man, the lust for power among American evangelicals is outrageous, Lord, save us. So we don't know the first thing about what happened and yet we know the congregation or the rich and powerful have a lust for power.
They're rich, so clearly they have a lust for power. That's what happened here. So again, we don't know the first thing about what happened here. And yet people are responding as if they know exactly what happened here.
Here's a woman. I'm so sorry, but to those who wonder if there's a place left for pastors who preach the whole word of God, I say yes. I'm on the pastoral search committee replacing a retiring 30 year pastor.
We're looking for someone who will engage the culture, not just bow to it. Please stay. And so you see, you understand like this is just amazing. I saw two responses at first. Like I said, now there's a lot more kind of pushback here than there was when I first saw this.
But when I first saw this, there was two responses, two that looked good. And again, when I say good, I don't mean that they agreed with me. I mean that like, we actually need more. We don't know what happened here.
Let me just find those responses for you. Here's, because I retweeted them, both of them. There was this guy who responded to his story. What did he do? Did he not take proper precautions or did he take too many?
So this guy noticed what I noticed. He's like, yeah, you're saying that the conflict was over masks, but like on what side? We actually don't know anything about that. So like, why don't we get more information and then we can decide whether it's Trump's fault.
I mean, that sounds like that's reasonable, right? And here's someone named Hal. Hal says this, I feel like I'm missing a piece of context to understand what's happening in this tweet. What does the kidnapping have to do with anything?
And was it like one wealthy person said, I'm leaving if you make us wear masks and then everybody followed suit? Great question. Like we're missing all the context. It's not like just one piece of context.
We're missing the entire story, but yet somehow Chuck knows he can make you respond a certain way by just using certain words and certain comparisons without giving you any information. You can't check his facts, but what he knows is he can make you lament.
I don't lament this Chuck because I don't even know what happened here. How could I lament this if I don't know what happened here? Because here's the thing, I could easily understand a viewpoint here that makes it actually opposite, right?
Because I don't know any of the details. I could easily understand a viewpoint that makes this opposite because here's the reality. The scripture gives the pastor no authority to add elements to worship, right?
Because Chuck has framed this. No, no, they didn't get rid of the pastor over the Trinity or worship styles, but over masks. I submit to you that if you require a certain piece of clothing to decide whether somebody's clean or unclean for worship on Sunday, then you actually are adding to the worship of God.
You are adding to the worship of God. We are not allowed to add pieces of clothing that scientifically probably don't do anything, even if they did do something, we're not allowed to add to what God requires for worship.
So the pastor is not allowed to decide who's clean or unclean based on unbiblical parameters. And so what if these wealthy, powerful, money hungry bigots, they're probably bigots too. That's, I mean, let's just be honest about that.
They're probably bigots too. That's what he wants you to think, Chuck. What if they pleaded with their pastor? And they said, pastor, this is a big deal. This is a big deal, brother, because the scripture doesn't allow you to do what you're doing.
It doesn't allow you to require certain pieces of clothing or protective gear in order to come to the table of the Lord. Brother, don't do this. Please don't do this. And the pastor said, well, you know, gotta love our neighbor and Brian Stelter told me this.
And what if they said, brother, please don't do this. And they waited weeks and they waited weeks and they said, brother, please don't do this. I can't do this. I can't consent to this. This is not in the scripture.
This is not in the Bible, brother, please don't do this.
And the pastor was like, well, you know, gospel coalition said, well, Brett McCracken.
And they waited weeks and they said, pastor, please don't do this. I can't worship where people are requiring a certain piece of protective gear in order to come to the table. Brother, please don't do this.
And the pastor said, well, you know, you're all seeing Russell Moore's.
And they brought people with them and they begged him, please, pastor, don't do this. We love you, you're adding to the scripture, don't do this. It's dangerous what you're doing, don't do this. It's dangerous to give the civil governing authority, this kind of authority over the church.
Please don't do this, brother. And then finally, after weeks, after weeks, they said, brother, we have to leave. And I know this means that the church is gonna blow up, but we have to go. We cannot consent to this anymore.
And then the pastor leaves and does his passive aggressive. I don't have an ego, but I'm so sorry that I made you so stupid. I'm so sorry that I taught you in such a way you don't understand the Bible.
And then Chuck here writes this piece. It's easy to understand how that could happen. I'm not saying it did. It could be just as nefarious as Chuck is saying, but we don't have a freaking clue, do we?
You know how I know it could happen that way? Because I get messages after messages after messages. What do I do, man? My church isn't meeting still. I love my church, I love my pastor. What do I do? My church is still having Zoom church after everything we know about how non-scary this disease is.
After everything we found out, my church is still not meeting 80. What do I do? I told every person the same thing, like you should leave your church as a last resort, as a last resort. But if you're not, if you're neglecting the assembly of saints, man, you need that, brother.
You need that. The scripture says you need that. It's important. It was important last year during flu season. It's important this year during flu season. Like we need that. So you have to find another church.
I know that there's emotions there and they don't want to leave their church and they're just feeling like they're lost, like discombobulated. All of a sudden, all these nine marks guys that told me how important church was, they're saying, well, yeah, but you don't see an end.
Love your neighbor. You only have a 99 .97 chance of survival. Yeah, yeah, I'd go to church for the Lord, but I'd go to jail for the Lord, but I can't go to church for the Lord. Chuck DeGroat though, he doesn't care about any of that stuff because I knew before I even looked into him, when I clicked his profile, I knew exactly what it would look like.
It would have Breonna Taylor. It would have Black Lives Matter. Oh, and what do you know? He's selling a book about narcissism all while he's calling this narcissism. Couple of tweets later. Narcissism has taken a turn I could not have imagined even a year ago.
I'm about as low as I've been in some time. Lord help us. Why don't you grow a pair, Chuck? Oh, lament, lament. Says sell more books, how about that? Yeah, he's selling a book about narcissism and he spins a yarn and then he calls it narcissism.
What a shocker. What a shocker. You look at the people that he retweets. It's the usual suspects that you might expect. It's Duke Quan. It's, you know, let me stop. Let me stop. The sad part is that the people that have responded to this threat are programmed to respond in the ways that they've responded because there's nothing in the story, nothing in the story that he offered that makes you think that it was politics first, nothing in the story that makes you think that it's people who don't care about their neighbor, nothing in the story that makes you think this is Trump's fault.
But all of those responses, he knew what he was doing. He knew that he would get them. He knew he could virtue signal by dragging a church through the mud without providing any details, without even the worry that anyone would say, yeah, but what about the two or more witnesses?
What actually happened here? You're not even telling us anything about what happened here. He knew that he just wasn't risking that because he's speaking to people who are programmed. He's speaking to people that just have a reflex response to this kind of thing.
Watch out for people like this. Watch out for people like this because this story that he told, this story that Chuck told, trying to capitalize on the plot to kidnap the governor so that he can drag regular Christians through the mud with no evidence.
Big Eva loves doing this. They love it. They love it. And I bet you people are gonna complain that I did a video about how this amazing brother in Christ and all that kind of stuff. Well, that's too freaking bad.
You know that? It's just too bad because Gospel Coalition has this strategy, right? Where they rip people constantly. They rip regular people in the pews constantly. They're racist. They're bigots. They hate the poor.
They hate the elderly. They hate this. They're all for money. They do that constantly. They hit you and hit you and hit you and hit you. And you don't even respond. You don't do anything. You just shake your head and you're just like, ah, again.
And then you do respond once. You hit back. And then Big Eva's like, ah, ah, how could you? How could you hurt a brother in Christ like this? This is a game they've been playing for years. Guess what?
Sometimes we're gonna hit back and we hit a lot harder than you do. Deal with it. Anyway, I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.