Canadian Pastor's Church Fenced & More

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00:00

Non -rockabodas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it!

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Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie? Or are you gonna bite? We're being delusional. Delusional?

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Delusional's okay in your worldview. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional.

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So you calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt. She hung up on me!

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Yes! What? What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.

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The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives.

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Don't go into the world and make homies. Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck.

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That's a joke, Pastor. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

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For many deceivers have gone out into the world. Those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh, such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.

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Watch yourselves so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ does not have

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God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

02:04

What's up, y 'all? Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. You can get more at ApologiaStudios .com.

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Bible studies in your church, these are whole seminary courses. And courses,

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I mean, even through the Book of Luke, you have courses through the Proverbs. You have courses in Christian history, courses in logic, and courses in apologetics, law of God, all that stuff.

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I mean, it's really one of the best Christian educations you can get. And it's going to be absolutely for free. So thank you to David Bonson and to the

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Bonson family for entrusting us with this. And we have the announcement, and that is that it is going to be available and launching.

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Now, when I say available and launching, what I mean is it takes some time to remaster 2 ,000 audio lectures and videos.

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We don't want to just put them up. We want to remaster them so we can magnify the audio, clear things up a bit, and also make the videos.

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We're going to put them in high definition and do some cool stuff with them. And so that's going to take some time. So everything we're going to be putting up, it's going to be put up sort of incrementally, piece by piece.

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And it's going to take a little bit of time. We're working on speeding that up, but we have everything built. The site is built and ready for launch.

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We're going to have two major courses dropping the day of the launch. So it'll be a blessing to anybody who's just getting into this.

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If you are just starting in the arena of defending the Christian faith, we're commanded to in 1 Peter 3, verse 15, to always be ready with an apologia, a reasoned defense of the faith for the hope that's within you.

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We're supposed to do it with gentleness and reverence. And if you're just getting into this, you're brand new, this is going to bless your life, not just in the area of apologetics.

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I mean, in everything, the way that you see the world, knowledge, truth, beauty, goodness, every corner of life, it'll bless you.

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So not just in defending the faith. That is really something I think that everyone should take as a Christian. It's this course on a biblical introduction to apologetics.

06:12

That's the first course. I think there's like 20 some odd lectures in there. And so that's a good start for those of you guys who have already done that.

06:18

Before with Bonson, and you want to get into some more advanced stuff, we got your back. We have,

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I believe it's the seminary level course in apologetics. I want to highly encourage everybody who's just getting into this, do not start with a seminary level course because it'll probably discourage you.

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Bonson leaves no stone unturned. And so it's some deep stuff. I would definitely start with that basic.

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For those of you guys, like I said, I've been doing this for a while. The seminary course will probably bless you. But you may even benefit when we get it up the mid -level course.

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So just get ready for that. And the date is April the 14th.

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We wanted to make it available, make it beautiful. We wanted to make sure you guys had access to stuff as we're putting it out there.

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So April 14th is the official release date for Bonson U. And you know the great thing about Bonson U at Apologia Studios is you're also going to have access to all the video content, which what

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I understand is not available anywhere else. So praise God. Did you mention the password reset?

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Sorry, I want to make sure we… I don't believe I did. So if you're already an All Access member, be watching for an email.

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It should come the 14th of April for a password reset. For security measures, we will need you to reset your password using the email address you received from the email.

10:55

So just be watching for that. That will just help us as we're revamping and re -releasing everything. Yeah, we've literally had a special team go in and just rebuild the website structure and code and things like that to make it just better for everybody, better for you, better for us.

11:11

And so all that's been working alongside preparing Bonson U. And so praise God.

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I mean, praise God. I can't tell you how humbling it is for both

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Luke and I. We planted Apologia Church. Elders laid hands on me, sent me. I laid hands on Pastor Luke.

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And we started this work at a drug rehab in Phoenix 11 years ago.

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And that's how we began. It was just a lot of broken people that had freshly come to Christ and people who were coming to Christ continually through that work at the hospital there.

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And if you would have told Luke and I back in 2009, that this is what the

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Lord would do by His grace and through His power and His gospel, I think there are certain aspects of what's happening right now that we probably wouldn't have believed you.

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How is that possibly going to happen? Even the benefit of having Dr. James White as one of our fellow pastors, having a ministry that saves so many thousands of children through end abortion now, and now we have four bills we've been working with in four different states to criminalize abortion in the month of April.

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That's where we're at right now. It's an incredible thing. It's humbling. And we have Bonson Yew to be able to bless the world with.

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Here's the deal. Look, I'll tell you the truth. I believe that if believers will digest the

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Bonson, his life work, his teaching, the world's going to change in dramatic ways because of the gospel.

12:41

You will get the most elite Christian education possible, and it's just a gift.

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And I'm humbled by it, and Luke and I are grateful to God for it, and grateful to all of you for being a part of this with us, because this is not our thing.

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We're a local church, yes. This is Apologia Church, yes, but we're part of the body of Christ. It's the kingdom of God, and everything you see that's happened through Apologia Studios hasn't happened because we have a large church.

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Luke and I ran by the skin of our teeth. I was saying this morning when we first planned to go to the church,

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I was borrowing people's vehicles, including Luke's. Luke and Cheryl went with a single vehicle because they let me use their vehicle.

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The yellow convertible bug. The yellow convertible bug for, I think, a year and a half, maybe more.

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We were looking for change behind the cushions, kind of a thing, to figure out where you're going to get the next meal for the day.

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Just so you know, everything that's happened here, we recognize is a gift from God. It's all to his glory, and it's because the body of Christ has joined together to participate in this work with us, so thank you.

13:45

Thank you. Now, you have something you want to say. Yeah, so I think that's a good opportunity then to mention the next rally we will be involved with in South Carolina, so that is

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Tuesday, May the 4th. May the 4th be with you. That's right.

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It's 7 a .m. Mountain Standard Time, so have fun with that one. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. It's 10 o 'clock

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Eastern. Oh, okay, okay, 10 o 'clock Eastern. I should be able to hang in there for the adjustment. So 10 o 'clock

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Eastern, again, Tuesday, May the 4th at the Capitol in South Carolina.

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Representative Jonathan Hill, we've been working with him. Columbia, South Carolina, right? Columbia, South Carolina, yes. We've been helping him, working with him, and doing similar bills that we did here in Arizona and Texas and Oklahoma.

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So please, we want everyone to come out to that that possibly can. Same sort of thing we've been doing. Pastor Jeff will be there speaking.

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I think Dennis is going, right? Dennis is coming, yeah. I don't know who else is. I don't know if Bradley is speaking or not as well.

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Anyways, if you're looking for that, please, we'll be sharing that. Please come out to that. If you're on the

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East Coast, you can. Yeah, so everyone, just to highlight this, this is an amazing time we're living in right now where we actually have bills going in for equal protection for all humans.

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That means the criminalization of abortion, not the regulation of it. This is unprecedented in terms of the last generation.

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We have some amazing, courageous men and heroes before us that have laid the foundations for this.

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In Oklahoma, it was first in Oklahoma with Russell Hunter and with Joseph Silk. So praise

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God for those men and everything they did there. This is all now snowballing.

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I need you to join us. So come out. We are flying out to Columbia, South Carolina. Dennis Sarfate is with us and Red State Reform and Abortion Now going there to work towards making this bill actually a thing, making justice in South Carolina a thing.

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So the thing you have to understand is that we have two enemies here. One is the pro -choice movement, and the other is the pro -life industry.

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I said pro -life industry on purpose because the industry itself is not interested in equal protection bills. They do not want to criminalize abortion.

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They are never going that direction with the methodology they've adopted nor with their worldview. So this has to be a movement of the church.

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I'm suggesting a third movement here, and that's the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church of the

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Living God. So we need Christians from all over the East Coast, all over the country to come join us in Columbia, South Carolina on that date.

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Come put your hand in my hand, shake my hand, and let's do this together. We need you there. So please participate with us.

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We need you at the rally. You need to let these legislators know that they have the support of the

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Christian church to bring equal protection for image bearers of God in the womb. Amen. I just shared it.

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Oh, perfect. I shared it on my page, and I shared it on the An Abortion Now site page. Excellent.

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All right, so let's get right into it, guys. Lots of things have been happening. Thank you for everyone who's joining us right now all over the world.

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Stay with us. We've got some important stuff to talk about. Here's what we're going to try to do today. We're going to talk about the Polish pastor that just wrecked the

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Canadian officials who came into his church building. I don't know anything about this

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Polish pastor, so I don't know. I can't tell you, like, well, this is what the guy thinks and believes.

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All I know is that he's a Polish pastor, and he wrecked these Canadian officials who tried to come into his church building.

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We're going to talk about James Coates' church, him being released from jail, and also, of course, the fence going around his church building by the

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Canadian government. We're going to talk a bit, just for a moment. It was one thing that I meant to talk about last week on the

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Theonomy episode with Dr. James White, and it was related to the Gospel Coalition article that was, to quote my friend, pathetic.

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It was just one aspect of it that I think demonstrates just how sloppy it was in terms of trying to address this issue.

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Not only does it contradict himself in the space of a few paragraphs, but he also demonstrates that he didn't spend a lot of time actually reading the resource that he actually quotes from.

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Had he done so, he wouldn't have made the comment that he made. So we're going to deal with that. Then also—and I just surprised

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Luke with this as Luke walked in. He's never heard it. Yeah, I haven't seen it. He hasn't heard it, and we thought it would be best that he doesn't hear it.

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We did a recent episode on the non -Christian cult leader, Sean McCraney.

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When we call him a non -Christian cult leader, what we mean is there's a classic definition, a

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Christian definition, of what a cult is. It's any movement or group led by a person or a group of people that attempts to essentially borrow or co -opt

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Christian terminology. They say they're Christian. They're part of the Christian church and Christian movement in history, and yet they deny the essentials of the

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Christian faith. That is the standard Christian definition of the cults, and you can even see that in Kingdom of the

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Cults, the premier work on the subject in The Last Generation by Dr. Walter Martin, who's now with the

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Lord. At any rate, there is a—we mentioned last week.

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I think—was it last week we did the episode? Two weeks ago. Two weeks ago. We mentioned that we had wanted to do something on Sean McCraney for a while, and I was reminded of it because I was contacted by somebody who has a website called

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CheckMyChurch .com, and as I mentioned when we first talked about this, I was like, oh, that's interesting.

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CheckMyChurch. You can have a solid resource of what do these churches believe. We actually have links we send to people. When they say, is there a church in my area, we say, well, here's a link with some solid approved churches that are—

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Just for the record, it's founders .org, and I will send them to CREC because I get that email or message all the time.

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Yeah, and so I'm like, okay, CheckMyChurch. And then as I'm reading it, I realize that CheckMyChurch is actually operated by,

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I guess, a couple, Sarah and her husband. Sorry, please forgive me. I forget his name.

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I think it was Joe, and please forgive me. But I realized as I read it, as they're telling their story, that they're actually part of Sean McCraney's group, his organization in Utah, which is called

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Campus Church. And I thought to myself, well, this is interesting. So that would be a good segue into a conversation about Sean McCraney with Jason Wallace, but also

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I brought up, incidentally, it's because of CheckMyChurch. So we did bring up some points there.

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It is interesting somebody running an organization to check Christian churches out who is herself not part of the Christian church.

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Yeah, exactly. So that was her main point there. Yeah. I'm going to play through a discussion she had with Sean McCraney after our show.

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So guys, stay tuned for that because we're going to engage a bit with the comments, and I'm going to demonstrate as we engage with these comments,

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Pastor Luke, that CheckMyChurch .com is led by someone who doesn't have a lot of discernment or,

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I think, ability to assess information properly, and I'll just leave it at that because you haven't seen it yet.

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No, I haven't. I haven't told you what's in it. Okay. So you're going to have the same experience as Pastor Luke.

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It's funny. One of the questions she asked, or she didn't ask, I should say, is do you believe in a triune

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God? That wasn't one of the questions she asked. No, it wasn't in there. It's interesting. Yeah, very interesting. So, yeah, so we're going to talk about that.

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Let's get to it. All right. So first things first, I'm going to play for you guys. If you haven't seen it yet, I'm surprised how many people hadn't seen it.

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This is the clip. Polish pastor chases cops out of church on Easter weekend. Get out, you

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Nazis. Here we go. Please get out. Get out of this property immediately.

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Get out. Get out of this property immediately. Out. I don't want to hear anything.

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Out of this property immediately. I don't want to hear a word. Out. Out. Out of this property immediately until you come back with a warrant.

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Out. Out. Out. Out. Out. Out of this property immediately.

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Out. Immediately go out and don't come back. I don't want to talk to you.

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Not a word. Out of this property. Out of this property immediately. Out. I don't care what you have to say.

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Out. Out. Out of this property, you Nazis. Out. Out.

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Gestapo is not allowed here. Immediately, Gestapo is not allowed.

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Out. Out. Do you understand English? Get out of this property.

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Go. So go. Go. And don't come back without a warrant. Out, Nazi.

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Out. Out. You understand? Nazis are not welcome here.

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Out. And don't come back without a warrant. Do not come back without a warrant.

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You understand that? You're not welcome here. Nazis are not welcome here. Gestapo is not welcome here.

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Do not come back, you Nazi psychopaths. Unbelievable, sick, evil people.

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Intimidating people in a church during the Passover. You Gestapo Nazi communists, fascists.

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Don't you dare coming back here. Can you imagine those psychopaths?

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Passover, the holiest Christian festival in a year, and they're coming to intimidate

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Christians during the holiest festival? Unbelievable. What is wrong with those sick psychopaths?

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It's beyond me. So there you go. That's, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, and again, in case you missed it earlier, we're not endorsing his theology.

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We don't know what his theology is. The point is he had courage and was brave and was awesome, and we need more pastors to be like that.

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Well, I was going to ask for your assessment. Thank you. That's exactly what I was going to ask. So it is interesting, and it's a sad state of affairs because if you haven't read

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Mission of God by Dr. Joe Boots, make sure you get a copy of that for you and your family. It'll bless your life.

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I know it blessed Pastor James tremendously. He was in love with that book. That book actually details a bit, too, even about Canada's own history and the historical foundation of Christian foundation of society, the law of God is supreme, and submission to Christ's lordship and authority first and foremost, even for government, even for government.

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And now we have, of course, the erosion of all those things through a hostile worldview. We have, of course, neo -Marxism, hardcore

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Marxism. We have all of this socialism that leads to Marxism that's so infected Canada and the

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United States of America, and, of course, all over Europe. And so we're in a place right now where you have this kind of thing taking place.

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And, you know, when this whole thing happened, I won't say the word because then we'll get throttled by YouTube or we'll get fact -checked or something like that, but when it came, people were told, you know, we have the two weeks to slow the spread and everything else.

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Now we're going into year two, and we're into year two now. And we're in a place now where we have

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Canadian government shutting down churches, Canadian government imprisoning faithful ministers of the gospel like James Coates, who, praise

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God, has been released for opening the church for worship. And so that's where we're at.

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Things have dramatically transformed now over the last year and into the second year, and it ought to be concerning for all of us.

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And the good thing, Pastor Luke, I think, and I think you and I have talked about this, the great thing about where we're at right now, what this has revealed is it's revealed the theology of the churches.

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It's revealed what people believe and what they don't understand. Historically, Christians understood the distinction between the roles of the church and the state.

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Christians understood the domain of the church and the domain of the state proper, and they lived accordingly.

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And we live in a time where there are many pastors who have been trained in seminaries, and they've never even studied this issue of the church and the state and the role of the church and the state.

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And so they don't know how to respond, and so they haven't been trained. And I was just thinking about this last night.

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The problem in America today, and of course globally, when you see a lot of these things happening in what were once Christian societies, or at least in the atmosphere, the problem is the pulpit.

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Exactly right. The problem is the pulpit. You fix the pulpit, put courageous men, and men who act like men, you'll understand why

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I'm saying that later, and put men who know the Word of God and care about the

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Word of God and are willing to lay their lives down for Christ and his gospel, you put them in those pulpits, and society and culture transforms.

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So the professing believers who are congregating are being led by people in pulpits, and if those pulpits aren't strong, and those men don't know

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God, and if they're not courageous, if they don't act like men, then it trickles down into the congregation, and you just have a culture full of Christian nincompoops.

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People that are ultimately useless. And I think what we need to talk about is the pulpit.

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Yeah. Sorry, that made me laugh. I'm still laughing, but it's my job. Nincompoops.

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So I'm actually getting ready to teach Chapter 8 from Mission of God called,

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I think it's called Sin at My Right Hand, but it's all about the spheres of government and the state becoming the

27:45

Messiah, essentially the state becoming God, and that's what you're starting to see in Canada. They have supreme authority.

27:51

Right. And that's what we mean by separation of church and state is the civil government has its own sphere of government, the church has its own sphere of government.

28:00

They're separate and unique, and they shouldn't overlap onto one another, but that's exactly what's going on up there, and I think we're going to touch on it later, but this is exactly why that article we mentioned last week, which we're going to talk about again today, is why theonomy does matter because it addresses issues like this, issues of justice and ethics and morality and spheres of government, and so, yeah.

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It becomes the, well, it is, but for the person, the objective standard by which you measure the government's faithfulness or unfaithfulness, and of course the church's faithfulness or unfaithfulness, and I think one of the great things for me that I'm excited about, and I know we're both excited about this, is that this conversation with the gospel coalition and theonomy where they're trying to denigrate the law of God for modern society that's abiding validity today.

28:50

They're trying to denigrate it, and they need to go that direction because Christians, many Christians, are waking up to the fact that, wait a minute, the word of God talks about this.

28:57

We actually have answers. Yours are all subjective, and they're just your personal opinion. You guys are just sort of creating this as you go.

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It's all totally arbitrary, but God's actually spoken to this now, so Christians are waking up to the idea that, wow,

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God's spoken to this. Historically, the church understood this in many, many times and places, and so it's a good thing.

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I mean, an article like this, you almost approach it like, well, that was really poorly done, but you're like, this is exciting.

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It's good. This was written because there are enough believers right now who are, and to use a popular term, woke enough.

29:31

They're awake, no longer sleeping on this issue, and that'd be a good way to actually describe that.

29:36

These people are, these new theonomists are woke. They're awake, but in a good way, not in the racist way.

29:43

Woke -ism today from Marxist class conflict ideology is nothing more than racism dressed up in white robes, and that's truly what it is.

29:57

I was gonna say that. I mean, that article, obviously, we talked about last week, but that makes an argument for natural law as opposed to God's law.

30:06

My question for the author of that article is, how would natural law respond to this?

30:12

How would natural law deal with the government coming in and shutting down churches and arresting pastors?

30:18

Because natural law, from a biblical perspective, makes sense when you say natural law is embedded in mankind, but how do you know they're operating on the basis of that God -given natural law from the objective standard and revelation of God?

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You can't say, well, just natural law, because there are tribes today who are formed, organized, who still eat one another.

30:40

There's natural law operating for you. Do I know that it's wrong to eat another human being?

30:46

Yes, why? Because I have the objective revelation of God in Scripture that tells you, no, that's not natural law operating in an appropriate fashion.

30:54

Okay, so just quickly, I wanted to show you a quick news clip of what took place yesterday at Grace Life Church in Alberta after health officials quote, physically closed the facility.

31:09

So this, of course, is the church that's been in the news as of late, led by one of the pastors,

31:14

James Coates, a solid man of God, and praise God for his faithfulness. So Pastor James, if you're watching this, we're grateful for you.

31:22

We've prayed for you, and we praise God for you and your stand. Stay consistent, brother. You're doing exactly the right thing, the

31:28

Christ -honoring and God -glorifying thing. James Coates was arrested because he refused to stop opening and preaching and all the rest, and he spent,

31:37

I think, a little over a month in jail. I think so, yeah. He was released, and he was only recently released,

31:42

I guess about a week and a half ago, if I'm remembering correctly. And yesterday, the Canadian officials put a fence around the building to block off access, and here is that report.

31:58

We are following some breaking news this morning just west of the city. RCMP are on scene, and crews are putting fences up around Grace Life Church.

32:06

Our Kim Smith joins us live now with the latest. Yeah, hi,

32:12

Aaron and Vinesh. Yeah, I'm here outside Grace Life Church. AHS is confirming that it has blocked access to the church, by putting fencing around.

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RCMP are also on scene here, providing support to AHS workers.

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Now, we know that there are supporters on scene here from Grace Life Church.

32:33

More and more cars are showing up, parking along the strip. Grace Life Church and parishioners have defied health orders for months now by not wearing masks, not distancing.

32:46

Our global news cameras have seen people hugging outside of the church. We also know that Pastor James Coates of Grace Life Church has spent time behind bars as well recently.

32:59

So, again, we'll be following this story throughout the day, finding out exactly... Oh, we saw them hugging one another.

33:09

I just want to say, if you're in Canada, we have people that are saying they're from Alberta. If you're in Canada, please share this.

33:16

It was interesting when a lot of this broke. I know here in the States, a lot of people were sharing it and sharing it.

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And then I'm talking to friends I have that live in Alberta, and they're like, I didn't even know about this. And I think it's being suppressed within Canada somehow.

33:31

So, if you're in Canada, please share this so that people in your nation know what's going on. And just so you know, too,

33:36

I know this comes up at times. They're like, well, you know, it's not following health orders. Well, the church has the right, under its jurisdiction and sphere, to assess whether the government is operating according to biblical wisdom and the biblical rules of liberty and order.

33:54

And so, if the church says, in a case like this, you know, the data does not support what you're doing, and if I submit to you on this,

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I'm going to have to submit to you two or three times a year with all the different viruses we're going to have to contend with. You don't have control over the church in this way.

34:08

This is an inappropriate use of your power and authority. And so we reject it. You know, if the church cites the number of scientific articles that show that masks are actually in many ways harmful, and that they don't actually mitigate the spread of COVID.

34:23

You've got, you know, a major study done with the Marine Corps. I think everybody should go look that up. Look up the COVID study done with the

34:28

Marine Corps. It's fascinating. And if the church officials, the church government, says, no, we reject that.

34:36

We have the freedom to worship God. We're commanded to worship God. If they continue to do that and the government comes in and says, no, you're going to obey our law, and we'll close you down, that is, brothers and sisters, persecution.

34:47

For what? Your Christian beliefs. Your beliefs as a Christian and the Lordship of Jesus Christ over the

34:52

Lordship of Caesar. This is persecution. Yes, it is. Now, I know, of course, people say, oh, it was just, you know, worse persecution elsewhere.

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That's fine. It's still the P word. Persecution is what it is. I understand. I know there's a difference between having a fence put around a church building and having your toes broken and fingers broken in a vice.

35:11

I get that. I understand that's a different kind of persecution. It's still persecution. And it still should be resisted by every faithful pastor when these men try to close these buildings.

35:22

People say, well, you know, the church is a people, not a building. I get that, but the church meets there. They paid for it.

35:27

It's their property. They own it. And God's fundamental law says what?

35:34

You shall not steal. That means that private property is actually a thing that God values.

35:39

And this does not belong to the government. It's not their property. They don't have a right to shut it down. And so this is, in fact, a sin against God, and these government officials are going to answer for it.

35:48

So praise God for James Coates. Brother Coates, thank you so much for all that you're doing, and thank you to all the leadership there for leading and for caring for your people through this process.

35:57

Brothers and sisters in Canada, rise up, preach the gospel, resist Caesar where he attempts to subvert the authority of Jesus Christ.

36:05

Amen. Anything else you want to say on that? No, I think that's it. Okay. So I want to get into just a quick response.

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This isn't going to be a long thing on this, but I wanted to address this. The article from The Gospel Coalition on Theonomy.

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Now, for those of you guys that are new to this discussion, it's important. It is in the wheelhouse of the discussion we just had regarding the government coming in and actually trying to subvert the authority of the church in Canada and in other places, of course, as well.

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But this discussion is in that wheelhouse because theos, namos, means God's law. Every Christian is supposed to be a theonomist to some degree.

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You're supposed to believe in not autonomy, self -law, but God's law. The theonomist says what many

36:50

Christians have said historically, that God's law is the ultimate standard. It's the principium. It really is sola scriptura applied and defended in this realm.

36:59

God has spoken, and that settles it. And so what we would say is, is if God has spoken to any issue in Scripture in terms of morality, ethics, that's the standard.

37:08

That's what you look to. You see in our New Testament, they assume the abiding validity of all the law of God, except where they give you divine revelation, where there's a change in administration or a different way of doing something.

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So, for example, I bring this up a lot because I think it is a powerful point to be made. You see the Ten Commandments assumed as abiding and valid throughout the

37:29

New Testament after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. You also see the Apostle Paul referring to animal husbandry law and applying the general equity of that principle today after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

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That's animal husbandry. What's that got to do with anything today in the New Covenant? Well, don't muzzle the ox while it treads.

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The labor is worthy of his wages. Or how about when it says you shall not receive an accusation against an elder unless it's on the basis of two to three witnesses.

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That's from the judicial law of how you're supposed to actually handle these things in the court. All that is abiding throughout the

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New Testament. So where you see changes like in the Holiness Code, you have explicit references where God says here's why you don't do that shadow anymore because that was pointing to Christ.

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You're no longer having to go and offer a sacrifice in temple, having an earthly priest go in there once a year.

38:23

Why? Because it's all fulfilled so you don't do that anymore. The Mixed Fibers and Holiness Code, the dietary restrictions were meant to be training wheels for the

38:30

Jews that taught them stuff about holiness and pointed them to Christ. We don't do those anymore. Why?

38:35

Because we have the abiding presence of the Spirit of God and the Torah written within us. But the law of God is good.

38:43

Psalm 119, I think, is a good psalm to sing in the New Covenant. And what's interesting here, if you look at this article from the

38:49

Gospel Coalition, we're just going to address this point here. First, he mentions here in the article, quote, the abiding validity of the law in exhaustive detail is a chapter title in Bonson's book that captures theonomy's use of the law.

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So here's the deal. The author of this article, he's aware of Dr.

39:12

Greg Bonson's book on theonomy because he's quoting from it. So he knows the book exists.

39:20

Hopefully he has it on his shelf. And he's quoting from the book itself. I want to just put a mark on that, okay?

39:27

As he writes in the preface to the second edition of Theonomy in Christian Ethics, quote, the civil precepts of the Old Testament standing judicial laws are a model of perfect social justice for all cultures, even in the punishment of criminals.

39:39

Though the jurisdictions, this is the author now, okay, this is not him quoting Bonson. These are his words.

39:45

He knows theonomy in Christian Ethics exists. He quotes from it. And he says now, though the jurisdictions of church and government remain separate in theonomy, both are under God's authority for civil righteousness, which is enclosed in the

40:01

Old Testament. Thus, the Old Testament penology, that system of punishment, remains especially relevant to solve moral and criminal wrongdoings today.

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I want you just to note this here. Though the jurisdictions of church and government remain separate in theonomy, both are under God's authority for civil righteousness.

40:21

So he is aware of theonomy in Christian Ethics. He quotes from it. And then the author himself says, though the jurisdictions of church and government remain separate in theonomy, both are under God's authority for civil righteousness.

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So he understands, because he's read theonomy apparently, that the jurisdictions of church and government remain separate.

40:40

Now, you don't have to go far in the article. Just go ahead and take a look. I'll scroll a little bit. Theonomy is not the solution, is his conclusion.

40:51

And here's what he says. He says, in sum, the error of theonomy is that its hermeneutic stretches beyond the

40:56

Bible's understanding of its own authority. Wow. From this mistake in hermeneutic comes serious distortions with drastic consequences for the church's role in fallen political order.

41:08

Here we go. Theonomy is a facile hermeneutic that channels an eschatology of triumph historically undesirable and instrumentalizes religion.

41:17

And here it is. Watch. Blurs church -state relationships.

41:24

Now, wait a second. He just said here, in theonomy, the jurisdictions of church and government remain separate.

41:32

Yeah. And then down here he says, theonomy blurs church -state relationships. I think we've been pretty clear about that.

41:39

That's within space of, I think, two or three paragraphs. So here's the question to the author. Which is it?

41:46

Which is it? Because you state that theonomy says that these are distinct spheres. They're different.

41:52

They have different functions. And then you say that it blurs the church -state relationship. And further, and this is,

41:59

I hope for the author, this should be the, I should have done better. Just having integrity as a

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Christian and saying, I quoted from the book. I have the book. I should have done better. Because, see, anybody who's read

42:12

Theonomy and Christian Ethics, which you quoted from in the article, knows that in chapter 20,

42:19

Dr. Bonson goes through great pains in exhaustive detail.

42:26

It is almost, honestly, it's stunning to some degree.

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When you read it, you go, how does a single person know this much? You had a large brain.

42:38

Bonson's like that in many ways. But you read it and you go, how does a single person know this much?

42:45

Because it is actually, in terms of its scope, it's dramatic.

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But in chapter 20, and this would be good too for your course, your classroom, it goes right along with it.

42:56

It's this little section here. This is what he says when he talks about the jurisdiction of the church and the state and the role of the magistrate of the state and all those things.

43:03

He says this. Again, he quoted from the article. He knows the book exists. Had he read this, he would have never made this comment.

43:12

So also did the duties and regulations differ between the ecclesiastical and executive realms of the Israelite state.

43:19

I'm reading this off Kindle, so I can't tell you exactly the page number here. It's a Kindle thing. So it's in chapter 20 of the, that's where it starts.

43:27

It says, the king tended to administration, justice, war, safety, foreign affairs, and commerce. While the priests were busy with consecration, the holy place, and courts, ceremonial cleanliness, sacrifices, cultic observances, and the like.

43:41

Nowhere are the priests given rights like those of the king to take a general levy and appoint officers thereunto.

43:47

He quotes a bunch of Bible texts. To take over property or oversee estates. He quotes some

43:52

Bible texts there. To lay levies on property owners and to tax agricultural and animal husbandry. A lot of texts there.

43:58

To constitute the highest court of legal appeal. Some more texts. To require forced labor or use conscription.

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More texts. However, the king was very certainly limited in his activities by the law of God.

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More texts. Consequently, and here it is. Are you ready? Brothers and sisters, listen.

44:16

In terms of engaging with an argument, we have to have enough integrity. We've always been to do better with this. All of us have enough integrity when we're examining an opponent's position to accurately represent your opponent's position and not strawman them.

44:32

Because, listen. When you strawman an opponent's position, you're not winning any arguments and you're not winning any people to the truth.

44:40

Right? Because you are, in fact, not telling the truth. So here's what it says. Consequently, he could not carry out the functions of a priest.

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The king couldn't carry out the function of a priest. So church, state, is what Bonson is talking about here.

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When the king takes it upon himself to ordain priests, they are idolatrous priests that need to be put down.

45:00

2 Kings 23, 5. When the king presumes to offer sacrifices to God, he's condemned. Saul offers sacrifice against the command of God and thus must suffer the termination of his kingdom.

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1 Samuel 13, 9 -15. Uzziah trespassed the Lord's commandment and offered incense upon the altar and for this he was struck with leprosy.

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2 Chronicles 26, 16 -21. When Jeroboam offers sacrifice at the new altar, he is judged by God and stricken.

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1 Kings 12, 32 -13, 5. And when Ahaz offers sacrifice upon the altar, it is the altar made after the pattern of an altar in Damascus, the altar to a pagan god.

45:36

2 Kings 16, 12. So here's the point. Brother, if you ever get to see this, you quoted from Theonomy and Christian Ethics and you said,

45:48

Theonomists see a distinction between a church and the state. Those are two different spheres. And then you say the error in Theonomy is that it blurs church -state distinctions and relationships.

45:59

That's a major error. But in the very book you quoted, Bonson actually says, no, when the church and state was, when that line was blurred in the

46:08

Old Testament, God even actually gave somebody leprosy for it. Exactly. So where's this argument coming from?

46:16

The church -state relationship blurred? I think James made a good point on the last episode we talked about this. What you're arguing against is sacramentalism.

46:25

Sacramentalism. You're not arguing against Theonomy. So maybe update the article. Fix the article.

46:32

And maybe change the argument to, I think sacramentalism is wrong. And I think that's a problem. And we'd say, great, let me help you with that article.

46:39

Because yes, I don't want governors getting leprosy. So yes.

46:45

But in terms of an article and actually addressing the arguments of your opponent, you didn't. And that's what

46:51

I've found oftentimes over the years as you really engage in this discussion about the abiding validity of the law of God, the goodness of God's law today, is that when people sort of resist this conversation or this position, they do it on the basis of oftentimes ignorance or strawmanning.

47:08

They're not actually engaging with your position. So for example, you're a theonomist. You think the law of God applies today?

47:13

So why are you eating bacon? It's like, do we really have to address that argument?

47:20

Yes, we do, unfortunately. Unfortunately. But there are volumes and volumes and volumes of books on this, both recent and historically.

47:29

This is not a theological novum. This is in many ways something you'll see throughout the entire history of the

47:35

Christian church. Anywhere the church went and won the nation with the gospel, it wasn't a question what the standard was, what everyone should be appealing to.

47:45

It wasn't a question. That's not saying in church history there's been a utopia anywhere where people don't make mistakes and sin.

47:50

Of course it is. It's a sinful world. Christ is sanctifying his church. But the point is that this is a position that's pretty well laid out.

47:59

And it's honestly, it's discouraging to see from the

48:04

Gospel Coalition, an article that is so poorly written in terms of an assessment of a position.

48:11

Look, there's plenty of free access today to understand this position well. And like I said, when you quote from the book that literally has an entire section that refutes your next point, it's a problem.

48:24

Yeah, I would encourage anyone, especially this author, to, I mean, obviously he quoted one of our sources here, but he didn't read all of it.

48:35

But my point is, study more of the writings coming from Theonemus and not from the opponents of Theonomy because clearly that's where a lot of that came from,

48:46

I think. Yeah, no, I agree with you. And one of the things that's always inspired me about my spiritual father in the faith, our mentor and teacher, and now our fellow elder, one of the things that he taught me early on through his practice and just how he did things was that if he was going to engage a position, he had to have integrity as a man of God and as a

49:09

Christian, not to lie about his opponents, not to abuse his opponents, and to know their position better than they do.

49:16

And so when he is dealing with a Roman Catholic, he goes to Roman Catholic original sources. He reads their materials.

49:22

He reads their arguments. And when he decided to finally go into his engagement with Islam, he dove in to reading all their materials and reading the best of their apologists and knowing their things.

49:37

So when he engaged with them, he was engaging with them, not a caricature of them, but he was engaging them.

49:44

And that's been something that's always been a challenge to me is to make sure that you honor God and your opponent enough to make sure that you're engaging their position.

49:53

Which brings us to the next subject. Oh boy. A person that makes it very difficult to engage their position because it's constantly shifting and changing, and they often act like this stuff doesn't matter anyways.

50:06

Nobody can know. Nobody can know. It's one of the things. We're not going to get to address it today, but there was a short, almost irrelevant conversation that McCraney had with two young men on his show.

50:21

And there's not much to engage with. Maybe we will. I didn't find anything in there that was worth... No, there wasn't any substance to address.

50:28

No substance. But it's one of the things that sort of seems to be the theme is like, you know, we just can't really know.

50:35

Nobody knows. And so how you define Jesus, does it really matter? I mean, you say you believe in Jesus and He's the only way to salvation.

50:42

What's wrong with that? Isn't that Christian? Well, Mormons say that. Yeah, which Jesus? Jehovah's Witnesses say that.

50:49

You realize, of course, that Muslims say they believe in Jesus, right? But is that the Jesus you believe in, the one who's actually not divine in the flesh, who did not die for the sins of God's people?

51:00

But they say that's Jesus. Or the Mormons who believe that Jesus is Lucifer's brother, one

51:06

God among many gods, spirit offspring of Heavenly Father, one of His goddess wives, that Jesus?

51:13

They'll tell you. If you asked a Mormon missionary right now driving down the street, you say, hey, you believe that Jesus is necessary for salvation?

51:20

Yes. Is He the only way to salvation? Yes. Okay, I guess we're done. We're good. We're Christian. No, not according to the

51:26

Apostle John. In 2 John, I read at the beginning of the episode, the Apostle John says in the first century context dealing with the issue of Gnosticism, that there are many deceivers that have gone on in the world.

51:37

People deny that Jesus has come in the flesh. They were denying an aspect of Christ's nature.

51:44

They're using His name. They're using His name. And John says, if you don't abide in the teaching of Christ, you don't have

51:52

God. And in terms of not allowing them into your house, because they met in house churches at the beginning of the

51:57

Christian church's history, they met in house churches for worship and gathering on the Lord's Day. And the command is, you don't even let them in.

52:06

Don't let the deceivers come into your church and disrupt your church, disrupt the gathering. But note what

52:12

John says there. The Apostle himself, and I think he's probably a reliable witness on this, because he did know

52:18

Jesus, and I think he would know what Jesus wanted. He said if anyone doesn't abide in the doctrine of Christ, he does not have

52:23

God. And so what comes out from Sean McCraney's organization is sort of this, sort of mishmash, and you don't believe what you want, and if you come in here, you know, we're not going to challenge it.

52:37

You're allowed to believe anything you want about Jesus. So if I believe Jesus is the great lizard, is that okay?

52:44

In McCraney's non -Christian cult, Jesus Christ is the great lizard? Am I allowed to believe that there?

52:50

That he was just one lizard created in a whole pantheon of lizards? He's a lizard godman?

52:56

Am I really allowed to believe that, Sean? You know, it's one of the things that you see often from Sean. It's like, you can believe whatever you want.

53:02

I'm not the leader here. I'm nothing here. Well, you know what? You call yourself campus church. Yeah. And if you don't care about what people believe about God, then can

53:11

I just say, Sean, you're a terrible pastor. You're a terrible leader. Because if you don't care what people say about Jesus, then you are a far cry from what

53:20

Jesus said about himself or what any of the apostles said about Jesus. The apostle Paul in the first century is the one that says in 2

53:26

Corinthians 11 that he's worried about the church in Corinth that they'd be willing to believe another

53:32

Jesus, another gospel, another spirit. He says, you might even put up with these people. He's worried about them.

53:38

Or how about the apostle Paul in Galatians where the gospel is so clearly defined that he's able to declare an anathema on anybody who even perverts a point that seems so small.

53:50

He says, Christ has become of no benefit to you. Whosoever of you attempts to be justified by law, you've fallen from grace.

53:57

Apparently, historic Christianity can tell you who God is and what the gospel is.

54:02

But Sean McCraney and his group there don't believe that ultimately God can be known, understood.

54:10

It's all up for grabs. What do you think? How's the spirit leading you? Let me tell you this. McCraney denies sola scriptura.

54:18

I think he says, and forgive me here, Sean, if I use the wrong word here, sola spiritus is what he advocates for.

54:26

I saw a video. Unless things have changed since you did this before. A denial of sola scriptura. By the way, they deny inerrancy as well.

54:34

Denial of sola scriptura. Sola spiritus. Here's the deal. You can say all you want. And cults do this all the time.

54:40

The spirit led me to this. But you get five people in a room together, right? They all say they know

54:45

Jesus. They're all from different religious movements that have a different version of Jesus, a different way to God, different texts added, all the rest.

54:51

They all think the spirit is leading them, Sean. All of them. How do you know the spirit is leading somebody?

54:59

Peter says, holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

55:04

That is the origin of revelation of God. And the Holy Spirit of God doesn't speak out of both sides of his mouth,

55:10

Sean. I think you should know that's coming from Mormonism. You would think so. Have them burning in their bosoms.

55:17

That feels good to them, right? And I've experienced this. The way that you know that somebody is truly operating on the basis of the spirit of God is that their testimony and their teaching is actually consistent with this revelation.

55:32

Because this revelation, according to Peter, came from the spirit of God. And so, it's an important discussion to have

55:40

Sean and Sarah from Check My Church had a conversation after our show.

55:48

And let me just say, if you didn't get that show, our show, go watch it so you can hear what we said. Here's what

55:54

I want to suggest. Do I need a cough button? Here's what I want to suggest.

56:00

No Christian church should submit to a church watchdog group that is run by somebody who is part of an anti -Trinitarian, non -Christian cult.

56:12

A person who is hostile to the Christian church at large. No church has any responsibility at all to respond to a person who is a member of a cult group like this.

56:24

This group she's a part of, led by Sean McCraney, is a church that denies the essentials of the faith.

56:31

It denies who God is. Here's the deal. What's the big deal? How we define

56:36

God, whether it's Trinity. I believe in somewhat of a triunity, even though I'm a modalist, sort of a thing.

56:42

Just mashing everything together. People are like, you really can't know. On this fundamental question, who is

56:49

God? Look, is that up for grabs? Really? Is that up for grabs in the

56:55

McCraney cult? That who God is is totally up for grabs? That really is an irrelevant question.

57:01

Because, you know, Luke and I all the time celebrate the fact, all of our pastors celebrate the fact that a lot of our greatest heroes and our friends in the ministry are not

57:10

Reformed Baptists. They're Presbyterians. I've got Anglicans in history that I think are giants.

57:17

I'm like, I will never, never be a man like that. That guy, he was light years ahead of me spiritually.

57:24

And these people are like heroes of the faith. And there are issues where we just celebrate. You know what? Those are just small disagreements.

57:30

They're on the side. They're irrelevant. I'm not doing it. I'm not having a fight with brothers and sisters in that. I'm not going to make that something that divides us.

57:37

But how about this? Can we at least say it matters the God we worship? That's fair.

57:44

Just that? Can we at least say that it matters that we know the right God? Apparently it mattered throughout the

57:50

Older Testament and throughout the New Testament. It mattered a lot to Jesus. It mattered a lot to the apostles.

57:57

It should matter to us. And no Christian church has any obligation to essentially submit to a church watchdog group that is run by somebody that defies historical orthodoxy and biblical truth.

58:16

And ecclesiology. And ecclesiology. That's kind of a joke. And it's important.

58:22

And I want you to say this. Are you ready? I want you to know this. Especially aspiring men and women who want to serve

58:29

Christ with their lives. I think Luke and I would want to share a whole episode on this point. You need to be prepared in ministry.

58:35

If you're going to be faithful in ministry, you have to be prepared to deal with the slander and the gossip.

58:42

It was tried on Jesus. They called him a drunkard and a glutton. Was he?

58:48

No, but that was the word going around about Jesus that he was a drunk and he was a glutton. The apostle

58:53

Paul was slandered. Slander is a tool that the enemy always tries to use. He has...

58:58

I love this saying. It's as old as the hills. It's a tactic and strategy that's as old as the hills. And if you get into ministry, you need to know you're going to be slandered.

59:06

You will. And I think your anchor is this, what Peter says about Jesus. When he was being reviled on the cross, he did not revile in return or he did not utter any threats, but he kept entrusting himself to him who judges righteously.

59:17

Right now, if you go on the internet and you look up Jeff Durbin, you'll find... What am

59:23

I? I'm a demon... I'm a demon -possessed homosexual was one of the things.

59:28

I'm demon -possessed because I had some seizures. As soon as the seizures happened, like two, three days later, people were like, oh, he's demon -possessed and he was fighting with the firefighters.

59:37

No, he didn't. And, you know, maybe it would help them today.

59:43

They might pull the videos down if they learned from the medical reports it was environmental and not a demon. We found the culprit and it wasn't a demon, thankfully.

59:53

It didn't matter to these people though. It's slander. He's a homosexual, never been homosexual, five kids, three grandkids, and ew.

01:00:03

And what else? We secretly record conversations of members and we threaten them to share it publicly.

01:00:10

Has that ever happened in Apologia? Never happened. I don't even know. What are some of the other slanders?

01:00:16

That you have an arrest record. Oh, what was the one that said, like, my name?

01:00:22

The same name as you that's been arrested for stealing money or something. Yeah, yeah.

01:00:27

People just assume that's you. Right. Oh, Geoff Durbin, there you go. Oh, wait, no, what was the one, the recent one?

01:00:35

We own vacation houses in Ireland, New Zealand, and Hawaii.

01:00:40

And Hawaii. We own vacation houses. Ministry. Why didn't you tell me about this? Is that where you've been going on the weekends?

01:00:48

Yeah, right. Just, you know, trust me, that trip to New Zealand is not worth it unless you're there for like a month.

01:00:54

It's not worth it. It's totally not worth it. There's so much slander and lies, and here's the thing, you can go on the internet and pretend to be a private investigator and go look up slanderous reports and stories even made by anonymous sources, and if you spread those stories, here's the deal, you're going to be spreading lies, you'll be spreading gossip, you'll be spreading slander, and here's the deal, you'll be judged by God for it.

01:01:17

You'll have to answer for it. And how do we feel about that, an apology at church? We entrust ourselves to the one

01:01:23

Him who judges righteously. We know the truth. And I'm not worried about someone that says that I'm a demon -possessed homosexual or whatever the stories are.

01:01:32

Whatever you want to throw on there. It's slander as a tool of the enemy. Here's the deal, if the enemy can't kill you, he'll try to destroy your reputation.

01:01:40

That's right. If the enemy can't kill you, he will try to destroy your reputation. And with that...

01:01:46

Okay. Are you ready? I'm ready. Okay. Here we go. I promised I would behave myself. Yes. Okay.

01:01:51

So here we go. This is Sarah from Check My Church. And by the way, Sarah, talking about you being attacked and all the rest,

01:01:58

Sarah, look, you entered into this arena, and we're critiquing not only your theological position, but your methodology.

01:02:07

So we need to be willing to put away the sad sap and I'm being vilified and all the things that might be suggested here, and just, let's stick to the facts.

01:02:19

Here's what you say that you're doing, and here is a display of some of your methodology. So here we go.

01:02:26

Learned. Okay. I don't know how in -depth you want to get before we go to our topic B, but what have you learned generally from this experience?

01:02:35

Because even though it's been 50 to 100 churches, that's really a lot for the amount of work that's taken. What have you generally seen in the positive and in the negative about organized religion?

01:02:47

Well, the positive, I'll just get out of the way, because it'll be brief. Oh, people will get so mad at this.

01:02:57

That's a real knee slapper. She's so dead on. She's so dead on.

01:03:03

Isn't it interesting, just at the beginning, these kind of comments about, what have you learned about religious theology, organized religion?

01:03:12

So what do you suggest? Disorganized religion? I'd say that's, from what

01:03:18

I can tell from Sean McCraney's non -Christian cult coming out of Utah, that's what it looks like. Yeah.

01:03:23

It looks quite a lot like unorganized religion, because it looks like a lot of subjectivity and arbitrariness, a rejection of God's standards and his word in terms of theological issues, who is

01:03:35

God, what is the gospel, what's our future, all the rest, but also in terms of church order, church government. All that's thrown to the side to focus on the spirit and what

01:03:45

I feel. And this is how I see things. And so, this is general attitude of sort of hostility towards, let's just call it what it is, the organized church.

01:03:56

There's an attitude of hostility. So Sarah, I think here, displays sort of what, you know, works well with Sean and his group, sort of a hostility towards organized religion.

01:04:10

There are still some really good churches out there. There are. They're just really hard to find.

01:04:18

And I've found, I think, the group of people that are able to find them.

01:04:25

On social media, I'm in all these spiritual abuse groups, these people that come out of abusive churches and cults, and they all came together on social media.

01:04:38

And so, when you go in there, and people ask this question all the time in these groups, is there a church that doesn't do this, this, this, this, and this?

01:04:47

And I'm thinking, in my head, based on my experiences, not really, but everyone will answer, yeah, my church, mine, mine.

01:04:56

And I'm like, oh my God. They all have congregated online. So there are churches out there that are financially transparent, that are not abusive, that are not tyrannical, that are not obsessed with controlling your life, and that just kind of let you do you.

01:05:15

Wow. Because that's what a faithful shepherd does. That's what a faithful does.

01:05:22

Just do you. Just do you, babe. Just do you. Is that really the role of a shepherd? No. To let you do you?

01:05:29

Now, the idea of lording it over people, one of the things that we train men with at Apologia Church is that shepherds have no right to lord it over people.

01:05:37

Right. There are issues that we just say, that's none of my business. Right. That's between you and the Lord. I'll give you biblical wisdom, but I'm not being involved there because that's not my business at all.

01:05:45

You can't lord it over people. Spiritual abuse is a real thing and it needs to be rejected. By the way, one of the ways you can effectively mitigate against the issue of spiritual abuse is by believing in Sola Scriptura.

01:05:58

Exactly right. Because, what do we say at every membership meeting we have? We say...

01:06:04

A lot of things. A lot of things. About pastors. We have a spiritual authority as shepherds of the church, but we are not permitted to lord it over you.

01:06:12

Exactly right. You are not permitted to believe anything or accept anything from us that is not in accordance with the scriptures.

01:06:18

Exactly. We make it clear. Exactly. We are pastors, but we're your brothers. This is the body of Christ. We have a role here, and so do you.

01:06:26

The word of God is the supreme authority in this church, not the leadership of this church. Again, one of the ways you can effectively mitigate against spiritual abuse is by avoiding subjectivity.

01:06:38

The way to do that is with Sola Scriptura, the objective standard. One of the things you might want to be concerned with is being a part of a group that rejects

01:06:46

Sola Scriptura as this is the standard, the ultimate authority, for a number of reasons.

01:06:51

Here's more. Are you blaming those names and putting them in a special place?

01:06:58

I have a list so long of churches that I need to write reports on. But you've got to vet them.

01:07:04

Yes. Yeah. Because congregates can be blind. Oh yeah. I mean, you look up any church online and it's five star reviews all around.

01:07:12

So everyone's going to say this, but these people that I find, they will actually say, our church tells you whatever you want to know about the finances.

01:07:22

It doesn't matter what it is. They do it every year. They give us a report. We see it. Everybody in the church knows about it.

01:07:28

You don't even have to be a member. They will specify things like this, and I'll be like, wow, if that's true, that's great.

01:07:34

Okay. So on that subject to start, there are churches that I don't think you'd recommend, in fact, you haven't recommended, that you've studied, that will have apparent financial transparency.

01:07:47

Yeah. But nevertheless, there are abuses going on with finance and with other things behind the facade.

01:07:56

Yeah. That's got to get difficult. It is. And that's where the investigating really comes in.

01:08:02

Because even if they show you this report, it could be a totally fraudulent report, and you would have no idea, unless you know what they're doing with the money behind the scenes.

01:08:14

And so I'm learning. I'm learning how to research things, and I don't know how much

01:08:21

I'm allowed to talk about what I know. If it's going to expose you in any way, don't talk about it.

01:08:28

It's just, they're teaching me ways that I can research things without any help at all from these churches to find things out.

01:08:37

So one of the things that you would get, and just in terms of assessing something like this, what

01:08:42

I would say to someone like Sarah if she were at our church and said, hey, I'm starting this thing, this is what I'm doing. I'm going to write reports on this group or this person over here, and I don't even need to hear them respond.

01:08:52

I would say, hold up. The Bible says something about that. Hold up.

01:08:58

Wait a minute. I would say, the Proverbs teach us one person's case sounds true until another one comes to examine him.

01:09:05

So if you're just investigating without talking to primary sources and asking the accused, and you're spreading rumors and things like that.

01:09:14

From disgruntled ex -church members. Or something like that, then you're sinning because one person's case sounds true until another one comes to examine him.

01:09:24

And so, onward. Are you ready? Ready. This is where it goes. Okay. Here we go. It's been, man, it's been interesting to say the least.

01:09:32

You are a threat. You are a huge threat. Hence why people are losing their minds on the internet and coming after.

01:09:41

And let's talk about that. By the way, before we do it. Just real fast.

01:09:47

There are some churches that I'm not gonna get into. Would you, I think, I suspect you're talking about us.

01:09:55

Losing our minds and coming after her. I think that would be a definition of what we've been

01:10:02

I think we've been pretty gracious. Yeah, just examining what you're about and what you're doing and also knowing where you've come from and those sorts of things and coming after you.

01:10:11

Let's remember, Sarah, try to have some integrity here. It's you that's coming after churches.

01:10:18

You're a member of a church watchdog group while you are not yourself a part of the body of Christ.

01:10:24

You're part of a movement that denies all biblical and historical Christian orthodoxy.

01:10:29

You are coming after churches while you yourself are part of a non -Christian cult. And so when you have a church like us that has a platform where we can respond to some of the things that are necessary to respond to here, you can't then start saying people are losing their minds and they're coming after me.

01:10:47

Nope, Sarah, people are allowed to respond to your activities and the sorts of things that you're up to.

01:10:53

And so I just wanted to address that. I think it's important to do so. To it with Sarah that she has gone after and she's had difficulty with.

01:11:03

And they're very large, very powerful in the state. But I want to make something clear as we now enter into this discussion to wrap up our show.

01:11:13

Do I have any control over, and I guess any cult member would say no you don't when you do, but is there any influence

01:11:22

I have over your and Joe's life about how you raise your kids, ever giving money to us, what you do with your free time, your sexual sin life, what you believe, your doctrines, your practice?

01:11:37

Have I ever said you should follow me? I am the right one. I receive revelation from God. You have been with us forever.

01:11:44

Have I ever given any of that? Literally none of it. And yet I'm called the cult leader.

01:11:49

Yeah. Well, he's just a really bad leader. If you call yourself a

01:11:55

Christian, you're a really bad leader. No, you shouldn't have any control over your members' lives or lording it over them in areas that are just absolutely outside of your jurisdiction.

01:12:03

No, no, no. That would be abusive. Spiritual abuse, again, is a thing, but you can thwart that with the

01:12:09

Word of God as a foundation. But you brought up the issue of sexual sin. That matters.

01:12:17

Somebody says they're part of the body of Christ. They're supposed to be overseers, shepherds, who are entrusted with the care of the flock of God, who will have to give an answer to God for how they've done it.

01:12:28

It's a terrifying thing. But if we read the Scriptures in 1 Corinthians 5, the

01:12:35

Apostle Paul deals with an issue of sexual immorality within the body. It is actually reported there is sexual immorality among you and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans.

01:12:44

For a man has a father's wife and you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn?

01:12:50

Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For though absent in body, I am present in spirit.

01:12:55

And as of present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the

01:13:02

Lord Jesus and my spirit is present with the power of the Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to save him from the destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the

01:13:11

Lord. Here it is. And by the way, I think this is highly appropriate to mention when this sort of thing is expressed this way.

01:13:17

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be new lump as you really are unleavened.

01:13:26

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexual immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.

01:13:35

But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one.

01:13:46

So the apostle Paul, under divine inspiration, actually says when there's sexual sin to this degree, obviously unrepented of, the apostle

01:13:53

Paul talks about discipline and putting the person out of the church. Apparently that's not a thing in Sean McCraney's church.

01:14:00

You don't care about your body like the apostle Paul cared about first the church in Corinth, that there was sexual immorality that was unrepented of, that was among them, that they were boasting in it.

01:14:12

Boasting in what? Like, oh, just gracious community. You know, we have grace and liberty and freedom.

01:14:17

Like, we're not going to make a big deal over that. He's like, you're boasting about this. It's not good. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

01:14:23

And so the apostle Paul says you are to actually have that person in their discipline and cast them out of the church. But I guess in McCraney's group, sexual sin is all permitted.

01:14:32

You do you, baby boo. You just do you. That's what it sounds like. Yeah. So here we go. And the other churches which are considered free and good, have you found that they will do those things?

01:14:45

Absolutely. Yeah. And let's just give an example. Okay. Jeff Durbin's church.

01:14:51

Oh boy. Apologia Church. They have ministry involvement outlines.

01:14:57

You can go on their website and look this up yourself. They have standards. I wrote that. Thanks. That you have to live up to in order to be involved in ministry at their church.

01:15:07

And literally, one of the standards is you cannot be a coward. And if you're going to be in this ministry, act like a man.

01:15:17

Does that include women? Obviously not. That kind of thing is absolutely insane.

01:15:27

I think so. All right. I mean, doesn't the Bible say that to act like a man? I wonder if Scripture...

01:15:34

There's so many things to say to this right now. I wonder if Scripture says so. So it's interesting that the

01:15:42

Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 2 chapter 16, the Apostle Paul in 1

01:15:48

Corinthians chapter 16, after he directs the churches about the collection they are to take on the first day of the week when the church gathered on the

01:15:56

Lord's Day, he says in 1 Corinthians 16 chapter 13, he says, Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men.

01:16:06

Be strong. Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men.

01:16:14

Be strong. Isn't that insane? That is insane. That's totally insane.

01:16:21

Isn't that insane? I also say... There's more to say. Go ahead. I'm just going to say the point she's making is it's not to be involved in ministry if you want to be a pastor.

01:16:31

It's in the context of that. Thank you. And so I want everyone to see this. So you can pull it up on the screen here,

01:16:37

Isaac. What she's referring to is our ministry guidelines on our website. Now, why would we put something like this on our website should be the question that you ask.

01:16:45

Why would something like this be on the website? Well, we'll give you the background because some of it is actually in the opening paragraph here.

01:16:52

If you read it, you'll see. Thank you for your desire to be a part of the work God is doing through Apology at Church. We sincerely praise

01:16:57

God for every opportunity which has blessed us to expand Christ's kingdom here on earth through the work of the gospel. It greatly encourages us to know that others desire to do the same.

01:17:05

We frequently receive requests from faithful brothers and sisters to join with Apology at Church in this work, whether here in Arizona or in other states or in even other countries.

01:17:14

Receiving the number of requests that we have has required us to put together a formal and official procedural plan for these inquiries.

01:17:21

You will never see us hire leadership from outside of Apologia but only raise up from within.

01:17:29

This is something we are incredibly intentional about and take very seriously. Please take a few minutes to prayerfully consider the following processes we have put into place.

01:17:37

Here's why this was written. We have had over the years, praise God, a number of people who have been so impacted by our ministry and even pastors who have been so impacted by the teaching ministry of Apologia Church, praise

01:17:47

God for that, all to his glory, that they've said, hey, I want to move out and possibly plant a church with Apologia Church.

01:17:56

I want to move out and I want to be a pastor with Apologia Church. I'm a pastor now, I want to be a pastor at your church.

01:18:01

And so what we've had actually happen, and this has actually been sad for us, it really has, we have had probably a half a dozen people, individuals or families move to Arizona without notifying us.

01:18:15

They move out. We even had a large family once move out. This man was so impacted by our ministry, he just said, pack up, we're leaving, we're going to Arizona.

01:18:23

He didn't have a job. They didn't have a place to live. He's got a wife and kids.

01:18:30

And then there was a serious issue. Now they're with us and we're like, oh my goodness, where are these kids going to stay? This guy doesn't have, he didn't have a plan.

01:18:38

And so we want to mitigate against those situations. We don't want people to do something like that with their family, put their family at risk.

01:18:44

And when we have men write to us or call us and say, I'm a pastor or I desire to be a pastor, we want people to know what we require of ourselves to raise up men for ministry.

01:18:59

The issue here, if you read it, it's about becoming a leader or an elder within a church. Church planting is in the text here.

01:19:07

Luke, you wanted to say something? No, I think I already said what I wanted to say to that. Okay, so first, let's look at the very scary, cultish procedure of Apology of Church here.

01:19:17

Number one, the very first and foundational thing requires that you become a member of Apology of Church in Arizona under the guidance, care, and accountability of the founding elders.

01:19:23

If you are in another state or country, this would be moving to Arizona. This would allow us to get to know and watch you and would allow us to get to know us and learn how we operate as a church body.

01:19:31

if you need to move to Arizona, we ask that you visit here at least once and have a formal meeting with at least one of the elders. We also request that you have a job, housing, and transportation established prior to your move.

01:19:41

Why? Because we love people and we don't want to see them suffer. Yeah. We want to make sure that people can just move out here and not have a job, not have a place to live, and to really struggle.

01:19:51

We've seen that happen and we love people enough to try to stop that from happening. And in terms of coming here and becoming a member of Apology of Church, if you are a person saying,

01:20:00

I'm a pastor, I want to plant a church with Apology of Church, well, it would be good to know you and for you to know us.

01:20:06

Yeah. I don't think that's asking a lot. You know, it would be good for you to know us and for us to know you and to know your life.

01:20:14

And, you know, a lot of people have a very good veneer and a facade around them and it just takes a little bit of time and digging to figure out, hey, something's not quite right here.

01:20:23

Number two, once you are a member of Apology of Church, there is the issue here of requiring a minimum of two years to watch you grow and to grow with you as the body of Christ.

01:20:32

This probationary period will ultimately serve as a ministry task to see if you truly want to multiply the work being done here and also to allow us to decide whether or not you are someone that we can trust with this task.

01:20:41

It is important to know that moving here and becoming a member of Apology of Church in no way serves as a guarantee of moving forward together in ministry.

01:20:47

So, what's the point with that one? We want you to have a period where we can watch your life to see if you're a consistent believer with integrity and if you're a person who's truly called to the ministry.

01:20:59

We don't want somebody who is a self -professing, self -ordained pastor like Sean McCraney.

01:21:07

A person who says, you know, I really feel like a pastor. I feel like I can really lead God's people. I don't need anybody to lay hands on me like the scriptures show and teach as a general practice of the church, laying on of hands and establishing local churches, those sorts of things.

01:21:20

I feel like a pastor. I feel like, you know, I feel called. I don't need somebody else to tell me I'm called or they see it in me.

01:21:26

We'd like to be able to do what the New Testament shows as a practice, that there's a laying on of hands.

01:21:32

There's an acknowledgement of the person's gifts, their qualifications, their skills, and so that probationary period is to let the person know coming to Apologia Church, if you want to be a pastor one day, if you feel called to that, we want to follow the biblical model to make that happen.

01:21:48

Now, the scriptures actually show this, but this is being mocked. Yeah. That we would have a probationary period for somebody that wants to be a pastor over people's souls, a pastor who has care over people's souls.

01:22:04

We are pastors and know how serious that is, and so we take that very seriously for someone who says they want to become an elder or a pastor, same thing, one day.

01:22:13

Here it is, number four. If you're looking to be raised up as an elder, it's important that you know we have very specific things we're looking for in potential elders.

01:22:19

First, we want you to take initiative. You should consistently be the first one there and the last to leave, always asking for things to do.

01:22:25

Why? Because you are sacrificing for the body as a pastor. We should never have to ask you to help with menial tasks.

01:22:32

You should never be afraid to get your hands dirty, bleed, sweat, and cry. Secondly, we need to know that you are scared to death to teach from the pulpit.

01:22:39

In other words, you honor this book. You're not just trying very hard to get in front of people to teach them.

01:22:45

Let not many of you be teachers or you will incur the stricter judgment.

01:22:54

That's the point there. You should have a healthy fear of dishonoring Christ during worship. Asking us for pulpit time is an immediate red flag and an instant strike against you.

01:23:03

Why? Because we've had people come to Apologia Church in the past who have actually said, Hi, nice to meet you.

01:23:10

If you ever need me to teach from your pulpit, I'd be happy to. When we don't even know them. We don't even know them.

01:23:16

We see that as that may be a problem. It might be attention seeking. That might be a problem. We don't want anybody to ever get ready to be spiritually abused by a person who just wants authority over people in their lives.

01:23:30

And so, to ensure this, I'm sorry, third, you should have the gift of teaching. To ensure this, we'll put you into the teaching rotation for advanced theological teaching.

01:23:38

That's to watch them. Can they teach? Do they have the gift of teaching? And lastly, here it is. This is what they really don't like.

01:23:44

It is crucial that you are courageous. We will not raise up cowards. We will watch you to make sure that during trials and public evangelism or in everyday events of life, you act like a man.

01:23:57

That you do not faint in the day of adversity. So insane. And hey, that's a shocker.

01:24:06

That's a real shocker. I mean, Paul used that language. It's throughout the Bible. Yeah. Be courageous. Act like men.

01:24:13

Those sorts of things. You know, cowards go into the lake of fire. Yeah. But don't say that.

01:24:18

Yeah. And in particular, don't say it to men who think that they're called to be pastors of churches.

01:24:24

Right. We're setting the standard saying cowardice is a sin for pastors. It's one of the reasons we're in the trouble we are now in the

01:24:30

West. We have a lot of cowardly people behind the pulpits and we have people that need to act like men. If you're going to lead the church, you have to be a man.

01:24:39

That's what scripture teaches, by the way. And you need to be someone who acts like a man and is courageous. And by the way, can

01:24:46

I just say this? Here's something to throw in the loop here. When Paul said that, that was read before the church.

01:24:54

So it was said actually to men and women. Act like men. Because what do men act like? Courageous.

01:25:00

Right? They act like men. Yeah, exactly right. It was said to both men and women. So that is interesting.

01:25:06

But that's shocking. It's crazy. But what this shows is something important here. Here you have a non -Christian cultic group that denies all biblical and historic orthodoxy.

01:25:18

You have a woman who has created herself as a church watchdog organization who is herself not part of the orthodox

01:25:26

Christian faith or biblical Christian faith. And she already shows at the start here in examination that she doesn't have the kind of discernment skills that would benefit her in a church watchdog organization.

01:25:39

Right. Because she was so shocked to go to our website and see that we told men who wanted to be pastors that they needed to be courageous men and act like men and not be cowards.

01:25:50

Don't be malicoy. Yeah, malicoy. What she did was is she spun it in such a way as to say there's actually ministry guidelines for anybody who wants to be...

01:26:00

They actually have ministry guidelines. But in context, what is it about? Leadership.

01:26:07

Elders. Pastors. And so, what's the issue? I don't know.

01:26:13

Why would this be vilified? Why would the elders of Apologia Church be vilified over saying you need to be responsible, take care of your family before you come out, have a job, have a place to live?

01:26:27

Wouldn't it be spiritually abusive to not do that? I would think so. That we need to watch you and see you around other people and there needs to be accountability so we see your life to see if you are not a spiritually abusive person?

01:26:39

Right. That we want to make sure that you have the gift of teaching because it's one of the qualifications of an elder that you have to be able to teach.

01:26:48

I mean... And that we want to make sure you understand that we are raising up men as pastors who are not cowards and act like men.

01:26:56

That gets spun by someone who has such a lack of discernment that she doesn't understand the context or the reasoning and they would actually mock, because they're mocking the statement, act like men.

01:27:09

Scripture. Which you got from the Apostle Paul. But it's a mockery and here's why.

01:27:15

Sean McCraney doesn't know his Bible. No. Sarah apparently doesn't know her Bible. Apparently not. And the problem here is you have two people pontificating on the air, acting like they know what they're talking about, when in reality they don't.

01:27:28

Yeah. They don't know the Scriptures. They don't know the Word of God. They don't know the faith. And again, they pontificate on the air and they're pretending as if they do.

01:27:38

Right. And again, I think that if this isn't any indication of Sarah's discernment skills,

01:27:45

I think we have a problem. Sarah, let me say this to you with love. First of all, I pray that you escape from the non -Christian cult that you're in.

01:27:54

But here's what I'm going to say to you with encouragement. Take this, hopefully it does help as a challenge.

01:28:00

Do better. Do better. Have integrity. Obey biblical wisdom. Like even to the degree of when you're slandering all these churches, one person's case sounds true until another one comes to examine them.

01:28:14

Just because someone says something doesn't make it true. As a matter of fact, it's interesting, the biblical standard is don't receive an accusation unless it's on the basis of two to three witnesses.

01:28:23

Two to three independent lines of witness, right? There's that theos nomos again. Yeah. It doesn't mean, it doesn't mean that just because two or three people are saying something, it's true.

01:28:34

Biblical law actually says when you have the standard for witnesses, there needs to be cross -examination to see if the witnesses are, ready, lying.

01:28:42

Yeah. To see if the witnesses are lying. And big shocker, everybody, we live in a fallen world, people lie.

01:28:49

People lie. And you might actually have churches that you're vilifying who have disgruntled, disciplined people who have hurt a host of other people who are upset about being disciplined and so they say nasty things about their old church.

01:29:04

It's kind of, it's kind of the old, the old thing, right? Criminals never really think the cops are doing right by them.

01:29:11

Right? And so if you have a person, for example, we had to do discipline on somebody for adultery.

01:29:19

We've had to do those sorts of things in the past. You know, when we disciplined those people for the church, those people didn't have nice things to say about us.

01:29:27

No. They were saying bad things. We had to discipline a woman once who was someone who we truly loved, still love, who was hurting a number of women in our church.

01:29:36

She was gossiping about a number of women and we brought a group of those women together into a room to address the issue and to bring reconciliation and healing.

01:29:44

And we had an instance where she actually confessed sin. She said she was sorry to all the women. She was in tears. And then guess what?

01:29:50

About a month and a half later, she started it all again. The slandering and the gossip and all the rest. When we brought this woman before the church because she refused to repent over the issue of all that she was doing to hurt people with gossip, do you think she was saying nice things about us afterwards?

01:30:05

No. No. Unfortunately, no. That's what tends to happen when you obey the biblical model of church discipline.

01:30:11

If a person is confronted, you bring two to three witnesses, they refuse to repent, you bring them before the church, and then you do what?

01:30:18

You put them out of the church in hopes of what? That they'll repent and come back. But that doesn't matter to Sean because those commandments about church order, church discipline, those things, none of it matters because Jesus already returned, the resurrection is done, all that, it doesn't matter now.

01:30:34

All that stuff's irrelevant. So what does matter now is how Sean feels about it. Or better yet, how do you feel about it?

01:30:41

Well, I want someone to be brave, so what's wrong with you do you in that situation?

01:30:46

That's the thing, Sarah, let Luke do him. Let him do him, right? See, when you abandon sola scriptura and the inerrancy of the word of God, this is what you get, total subjectivity, right?

01:30:56

It's autonomy, self -law. It's what I say, right? It's how I feel. This is how

01:31:02

I feel the Spirit teaching me. Again, you only know what the Spirit's teaching you if it's in accordance with what the

01:31:09

Spirit gave. So hopefully this episode has been helpful to everybody. We really hope that it has been helpful.

01:31:15

We want it to be a blessing. Normally we wouldn't engage in things like this, and I think we have a long history of this, except this is dealing with a non -Christian cult.

01:31:23

And so I think it's good. And especially since someone like Sean McCraney used to be somebody that professed the faith and was helping

01:31:30

Mormons come out of Mormonism who has now fallen into apostasy. It matters. It matters. I want to just bring this up as a final word here.

01:31:37

I know we're going long today, but it does matter. Nobody's making any accusations here about Sean McCraney and how he treats people in his organization.

01:31:47

No, I don't know. Maybe he seems like a real sweet guy. I'd probably actually enjoy going out to have a dinner and a beer with the guy in terms of like he seems like a nice guy.

01:31:57

Nobody's making an accusation about his abusive nature over his members, those sorts of things. You can make those allegations about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and all the rest, but I don't know

01:32:07

Sean McCraney. So no allegations are being made here about how the man treats his wife or his kids or his church.

01:32:12

Not at all. Our critique is about the man's theology. It's about the man's soteriology.

01:32:18

It's about the man's eschatology. And ecclesiology. And his ecclesiology. And the other ologies that we get thrown around. And all the other ologies.

01:32:25

So when we say that Sean McCraney is a leader of a non -Christian cult, it's not alleging that he is an overpowering, abusive cult leader who controls people's lives.

01:32:35

Nobody here has made that allegation. Maybe somebody has. It's not coming from us.

01:32:40

I wouldn't make that allegation because I'd be lying. I don't know. And I have no reason to believe anything like that.

01:32:46

Like that's true. Our critique is about the man's unorthodoxy. Our critique is about the man's fundamental denials of what is essential to the

01:32:57

Christian faith. Like I said at the beginning here, can we at least have this? We at least have to have the right God?

01:33:03

Let's start there. Can we just have that? We've got to have the right God. We're not worshipping a false God. Can that at least matter to us from what

01:33:10

I've seen from Sean as of late and even the two young men he had on the show with him? That we just can't know.

01:33:16

Yeah. We just can't know. That was their attitude. And so that matters a lot and I think it's important for us to be aware of that.

01:33:24

Brothers and sisters, thank you so much for watching us. Blessed to have this time with you today.