Is America under God's judgment?

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Welcome to Theology Throne Room!

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We, the Christian podcast community of podcasters, gather to discuss our theological differences with love and charity.

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This is a ministry of striving for eternity. Welcome to another

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Theology Throwdown. This is a podcast of the Christian podcast community. Any and all of our podcasters at the

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Christian podcast community are invited to participate in these Theology Throwdowns, and tonight we have a stellar sampling from our broader podcasting family, and they are going to introduce themselves momentarily.

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This show allows us to discuss different theological topics and their practical applications, always with grace and love.

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So, if you want to check out all of our previous Throwdowns, just visit ChristianParentingCommunity .org,

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click on the show page, and look for Theology Throwdown. Of course, while you're there, you will probably see the over 50 different Christian podcasts that are part of our community.

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I'm pretty sure that whatever your need or desire or question or passion, you will be able to find a podcast that deals with it.

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We have podcasts about marriage, family, and parenting. It also includes homeschooling. We have podcasts for women and others for men.

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A bunch of them for everybody. We have podcasts about theology, evangelism, apologetics, Christians and pop culture, sermons, and so many more.

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And you're going to meet some of our podcast hosts today. Let me first introduce today's topic in kind of a fun way.

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The individual who thought of this topic is with us tonight, and it also happens to be his first Theology Throwdown.

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Now, I'm kind of wondering if perhaps maybe that's a little bit of arrogance on his side, you know? Like, I'm not going to go unless they use my topic.

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But I have no doubt that's not true. Garrett, how are you doing, man? Thanks for being on the show. Thank you.

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It's really good to be here. It's exciting to be a part of this. And no, I wasn't waiting until you picked my topic.

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It's just that this time every month seems to be our busiest time, but I am really, really happy to be on a

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Theology Throwdown. Like you said, my name is Garrett Hampton. I am the producer of the Schoolhouse Rocked podcast, which is a podcast for homeschoolers that's hosted by my wife.

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And we're in our sixth season. I think we've been with the Christian podcast community for, like, three years now maybe, two or three years.

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And we've got a few over 500 episodes posted, and it's been a really great show to the glory of God.

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We've loved building up families. And tonight's really cool topic that I think is going to be a little bit divisive even and bring about some great debate is, is

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America under God's judgment, and is it too late to repent? And I think all of us can sense after the last three years of upheaval in culture and in the church that we're going through something consequential and huge.

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But the question is, is this the end for our nation? Is it the end for the church? And what is

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God doing right now? So I wanted to see what the community had to say about that, and I look forward to discussing.

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So that is our topic today. Is America under God's judgment? And if so, is it too late to repent?

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And of course, depending on your beliefs about this question, we may even have a chance to talk a little bit about end time stuff.

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Who knows? Now, some of you are wondering who this guy is and why I'm introducing the show instead of Andrew Rappaport.

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Well, Andrew has the sobering opportunity of attending a funeral tonight right now as we are recording this.

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It's for someone that he used to pastor. A fellow elder at his former church lost his wife, and that's the funeral

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Andrew is at tonight. So while you hear this, the funeral will be over, but still please pray for Andrew and pray for the family of this woman who has obviously been called by God to glorify him in her absence, which is never an easy thing to do for any of us.

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All right. Now, excuse me. So with Garrett's wonderful introduction, let's go ahead and introduce you to the rest of our panel tonight, our theological lineup.

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I'm going to ask each of the podcasters to introduce himself or herself and tell us a little bit about his or her podcast, so you can connect their voices to their names.

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By the way, you can also enjoy this show on YouTube where you get to see all of our delightful faces.

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So let's go ahead and start off the evening tonight with Pastor Dom. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and your podcast, and then we'll talk about the special friend you brought with you tonight.

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You're still muted there, Dom. He figured out how to turn it off, which was great. Now we just had to get it back on. And survey says we're almost connected.

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He'll get it. And when he gets it, oh, there's that voice. That's the voice we've been waiting to hear.

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Go ahead, Dom. That's me. That's me, Dominic. Okay. Anyway, Pastor Dominic Rimaldi, I host a

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Street Talk Theology here on the Christian Podcast Community. I got my fellow elder with me here from Desert Sky Baptist Church, Harlan Nielsen.

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And we're just here to enjoy the topic. We've seen the topic and we just, we try to get on.

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I try to get on everyone. So I'm happy to be here and honored to engage.

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Right, Harlan? You ready? Right. My age, you're never too old to learn. Amen. Now, if I, and I hope that, you know,

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Andrew doesn't get the idea that just because I'm here kind of leading this up, that everyone's going to start breaking the rules.

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Do we ever invite guests like friends onto the show with us? Is that how this works? Well, like, yeah,

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I told Andrew I was sick, having my fellow elder come and he said, no problem.

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But he's been, Harlan's been on before. I'm going to start inviting my friends. We're just going to hang out. It's going to be amazing. I love it.

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Harlan, thank you so much for joining us tonight. And next let's go to Eve. Good evening, everybody.

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I'm Eve Franklin and I am the cohost of the podcast. Are you just watching where we talk about the

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Christian worldview and as it relates to secular entertainment, we mostly talk about movies, but occasionally commercials or news or documentaries, just whatever interests us every month.

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We do one episode a month and we've been podcasting since 2009. And a proud member of the

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Christian podcast community. And if I'm not mistaken, one of the longest running theology throwdowners.

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If I'm right. Yeah, I've only missed one episode. That's right. That's right. And it was recently too. So sad she broke her streak, but man, she didn't give up.

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She's back and she's fighting. All right. We had a Garrett internet introduce himself. So we'll skip right over to Melissa.

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Thank you, Andrew. It's so, it's so hard.

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You don't look anything like him, but thank you. Yeah. So I'll introduce my podcast.

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It's thoroughly equipped and it's for women. Basically what we do is we take. The women's ministry.

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Books and conferences. And we look at their. We look at. Popular women teachers and we basically compare what they say, what they teach to scripture.

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My goal is to make sure that just women are. Deep in the word and understanding that it is sufficient to.

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Equip them for. All of good works, all of that. They need to do to. To know the

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Lord and to be a godly woman. So right now we are in the process of critiquing the if gathering.

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So that's kind of popular among women. I know. Men don't really know about the gathering, but it's just a really, really big.

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Women's conference that is held online. And so I take. The last couple of years, looking at their teachings and looking at the teachers that are presented there.

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And we would go over there. What they teach. Yeah. So it's an interesting one.

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It's been my whole season. This. This time. So. It's a really important topic.

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I mean, Aside from the fact that there are false teachers and whatnot out there, everyone has a platform these days and it takes discernment to be able to tell.

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If what people are saying, it has any biblical value. So praise God that you're doing that. Thank you.

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All right, Rebecca, your turn. Tell us all about you and your podcast. I love

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Rebecca's. Oh, go ahead, Rebecca. Yeah, I'm on muted now. Yes. My name is Rebecca.

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And I am the host of one little candle. And one little candle is a weekly podcast whose core mission is to equip and encourage believers.

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To live their lives as a light that God's called us to be. The podcast covers a wide variety of subjects, including cultural issues.

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I'd have to say my favorite probably, or my heart is for issues.

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The subject of LGBTQ. As a matter of fact, I just finished a three part series this past week with a guest co -host on the normalization of sexual immorality.

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So if anybody wants to check that out. Please do the name. One little candle is such because the points also is to, is to help people to realize that they have their corner of the world where they're at.

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And although they may be just one person, one small light, one little candle, they can in fact, make a difference.

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Very awesome. Amen. And yes, by power of God, we all can. All right, Keith, you are next, sir.

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Yeah, this is Keith helpfully from the quest for truth podcast, which I do with my co -host,

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Nathan Caldwell. And unfortunately I don't always make a lot of these, but sometimes I have a house full of kids or noise and background sounds that are hard to deal with.

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But Hey, here I am. Our podcast is deals with, as the name says, quest for truth. We seek for truth, the

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Bible, truth and in our world around us. And sometimes let's take a casual fun shots at worldviews.

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And sometimes we dig in deep and study the Bible. Awesome. And we do have the full house tonight.

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We just had our eighth guest join us. Stephen, why don't you tell us about yourself? Hey guys, my name is

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Stephen dew and I'm the host of the doctor matters podcast, where we talk about doctrine and how it matters.

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We talk about several different things and, and just kind of funnel that through a biblical lens. And I'm also a pastor in Northeast Arkansas.

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So I think this may be my first or second one I've ever done, but I'm glad to be here tonight and looking forward to the conversation.

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And if, if you go on YouTube and check this out, you'll see that Stephen has the, the perfect beard for a guy who does a podcast by that name.

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I mean, it's, it's like, it, it's starting to rival a Spurgeon. If I do say so myself, it's awesome. My name is

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Aaron Brewster. I am the podcast host for two different podcasts. One of them is called truth love parent, which as you can guess is all about marriage and family specifically parenting.

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My expertise, I suppose, if you can put it that way has been working with at -risk children and broken families.

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So I spent a lot of time really counseling as a biblical counselor, working with people like that.

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But really trying to help everyone else not get to that place, be a little more preemptive and preventative and, and trying to rear our children so that Lord willing we can avoid that, that consequence.

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Then my other podcast is called the celebration of God, where we talk about discipleship and worship worship, not just singing and things like that.

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We oftentimes think of in a church service, but really the broader definition of worship, that life is worship.

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Obedience is worship. In fact, disobedience is worship too. And it's just a question of what it is you're worshiping.

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So it's all about discipleship and how to worship God better this year than you did last year. And those are my two podcasts.

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And then Andrew Rappaport the gentleman who normally runs this and, and runs a striving for eternity as a number of podcasts as well.

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And you should definitely check him out and his podcast. Cause he's a super cool guy. I had to say that just because then he won't be mad at me.

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No. Well, you know, I wish I wish in fact, nevermind. I won't say Andrew, I love you.

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All right. So the, as, as Garrett so wonderfully said earlier, the topic of today's show is, is

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America under God's judgment? And if so, is it too late to repent? And Garrett thinks that this might be slightly controversial.

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So we'll see. And we're going to start with a question that's going to lead into that question.

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And I love to get the, your guys' response from this. What is, I mean, let me stop for a second.

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It was, it's been said oftentimes that we need to define our terms, right? If one person is thinking the judgment of God is one thing and someone else is thinking that the judgment of God is something completely different, it's gonna be very difficult for us to come to any understanding of that.

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So I'd love to hear from you guys, what your short answer is to what is the judgment of God? That's something that I think is gonna be desperately important.

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Now we've got Phil, Phil actually is just joining us as I was doing that intro. So Phil, as soon as you are ready to connect, you can jump in here and introduce yourself and your podcast.

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And I'll let you do that as soon as you unmute yourself. But everyone be thinking about your answer to broadly speaking, what is the judgment of God?

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Phil, go ahead. How are you doing? Phil Sessa from Stop and Think About It podcast. It's been quite some time since I've been able to join you on a

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Monday night and very interested in this topic tonight. So thank you for having me join with everybody.

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Oh yeah, we're looking forward to it. Andrew's gonna be so jealous, man. Our group is huge. Like see, Andrew, if you just weren't here more often, we'd have bigger groups.

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That's all there is to it. Andrew said it's gonna be, it's gonna be huge. That's what he said.

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Yeah, I believe it. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. So let's go ahead. If you want to jump on in here,

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I think, you know, you can unmute yourself. You can raise your hand, wave it like this. You can, there's a little digital hand that you can throw up.

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Who would like to start off by answering the question? What is the judgment of God? Melissa, she started to move her hand, but she's just scratching her nose.

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So I'm going to call on her. Go ahead, Keith. Yeah, so I have to raise my hand physically.

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I'll do the button. Your video is not on. I can't see your hand. Oh, really?

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Anyway, my thought on this is under certain senses.

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I mean, yes, America is under a judgment because under certain senses, we all are as a entity, a nation.

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I don't know that a entity, a government would be under judgment. Certainly God would use poor governors to judge the people within that government.

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And again, I would say America is probably more under judgment than not. So how do you define

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Keith? How do you define the judgment of God? Someone talks about God's judgment. What's the first thing that comes to your mind? Well, of God's wrath.

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He's, you know, he's no longer a blessing. He's now turning you over away from blessing, turning this back, so to speak.

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And I think that America is as compared to where America has been.

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I think America is receiving some of God's curses. You might say the lack of blessings.

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Now, Keith, you keep jumping ahead on me, man. Goodness. You just, you want to get to that. You want to get to that. Is America under God's judgment?

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But again, let's answer this question. Let's see if we can figure out what is God's judgment. I like what you were saying about the fact that, you know, when

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God stops blessing, consequences start coming into our lives. Probably a pretty good way of looking at judgment.

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Somebody else. How do you define God's judgment? Yeah. Yeah. How do you define God's judgment?

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Yes. How do you define God's judgment? What do you think,

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Pastor Dom? Yeah, well, judgment and wrath would be two different things, right? I mean, you know, people can be judged, but God's wrath is something that hopefully and prayerfully, no believers will go through.

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Sometimes believers will go under, you know, be under judgment. But, you know, as the nation of Israel was under judgment.

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So wrath and judgment I would see as two different entities of God. Whether or not

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America is under God's judgment or God's wrath is the topic for discussion, right? So, I mean, there is two type, you know, judgment is something and wrath is another thing.

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So we want to be careful to define terms rightly, right? I mean, so I'm interested to see, you know,

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I don't know the crux of the topic really yet. So I'm trying to see where it's going.

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So maybe it'd be better for Garrett to explain what he thinks, you know,

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America is under. And then maybe we can go off from there. Yeah. I'm sorry.

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That's okay. I think there are two extremes to this. I think for so long America did experience the blessing of God and the establishment of the nation.

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And I think the wrath of growth, rapid growth and outpouring of resources. And I think at the gentlest extreme of this, the judgment of God looks like the removal of his blessing.

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But I think the other extreme of this is the thing that I think we see rising up.

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And you see this biblically when a nation is under God's judgment, you see famine, pestilence, wars, unrest.

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And our nation for so long has been a Romans 1 nation where you see all the sins of Romans 1 embraced and approved of.

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And I think for so long, just to do one thing, we've murdered the innocent for so long that I think now it's foolishness to believe that God will look away.

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And I do think, unlike Pastor Dahm says, I do think that the nation may experience the wrath of God, whether or not believers do.

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And I think we've edged into that territory. I think that things have changed dramatically in the past few years.

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And now if you look at like the summer of love when Portland burned for 100 days straight,

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I think we've entered into a new age of unrest where we may actually be seeing some of God's wrath poured out in judgment for our wickedness.

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And notice all the qualifying terms I've used, I think, and we may be.

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So it'll be interesting to hear what everybody has to say. That's well said. Now, we can piggyback off that.

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That's well said. Thank you. So, Phil, what do you think? Well, I mean, I think that there are different kinds of wrath.

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In one sense, I think that there is the wrath of sowing and reaping that we reap what we sow.

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So in the same way that, you know, many people may be engaging in homosexuality and they come down with AIDS and monkey pox and other such things,

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I think that aspect is some of God's wrath. I certainly agree with Romans 118 that as man continues to live in wickedness, just kind of heaps

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God's displeasure and God's wrath presently upon the head.

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So I think there's both a present aspect that it's happening now and a future aspect that will kind of be like fully unleashed at a later time upon the return of Christ.

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So I think it's kind of a now and later type of wrath. And some people experience that in a tangible way, even now.

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And some will experience it later on as the Niagara fall of God's wrath as the dam just unleashes upon them.

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I'm glad you're, we're starting to get some good qualification in this. And this is why I asked the question. If God's judgment, obviously,

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I don't want to miscommunicate anything. God is sovereignly in control of all things, right?

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So in a way, God is never passive, right? But understand what I'm saying. In a certain way, there is the idea that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

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Is it God's judgment when I'm being unsafe on a rooftop and I fall? Well, I guess it all depends on how you look at it.

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So I think the consequences of sin, someone may say, well, that's the judgment of God.

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Somebody else may say, well, no, that's just the consequences of sin. Whereas they may see the judgment of God as being this very formal thing, condemnation to hell, for example, or the judgment that God passed on certain nations in the

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Old Testament. So there's a, there's a kind of an informal aspect of this. Are we going to say that the consequences of sin that God has promised since the beginning of sin,

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Genesis chapter three, that are going to come into this world? Is that what we're referring to when we refer to God's judgment?

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Because I think if that's the case, every single person here, we're going to agree that, yeah, well, of course God's judging

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America because there are people in America who are sinning and everyone who sins, us, people listening, everyone else is receiving

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God's judgment. However, I think to clarify and to say, well, no, there's a formal concept here.

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There's a, there's God judging a nation similar to the way he judged the nations of the past. There is something akin to final judgment that's going on here.

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That's where I think we might have some disagreement. So I think it's really important to clarify what we mean by this idea of judgment.

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I'd like to invite any of the ladies who haven't chimed in yet to do so. Yes, Rebecca.

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Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. Rebecca raised her hand. Eve was unmuted. I was torn. I didn't know what to do. Eve, go ahead and start. Well, you brought up an interesting point because I was thinking while we were defining judgment that one of the definitions would be to look at the

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Old Testament to see when God did judge. And some of the examples that we can pull out of the

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Old Testament are obviously the flood of Noah, where he judged the whole world for sin and only rescued eight people on the ark.

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And then there's the, the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah where he, he took Lot and his family out, but then wiped out

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Sodom and Gomorrah. And then we also have the story of Nineveh where Nineveh repented, but because Jonah took, you know, the message that they had to repent or they would be destroyed.

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But then, you know, a generation later, they went ahead and were destroyed because their repentance didn't last.

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Those are the kind of big judgments that we see in the Old Testament. And those all came as a result of everybody's sinning.

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And God took out the people who weren't sinning and he issued, you know, total destruction on these people.

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And I don't know that we have necessarily pinpointed a biblical example of that in the

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New Testament and beyond, but I can look at, you know, stories of like the Roman Empire.

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I think, you know, the argument could be made that what happened to the Roman Empire was, you know,

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God's judgment. It may not have been as extravagant as Sodom and Gomorrah, like raining brimstone from heaven, but God does judge modern cultures for their sin.

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And sometimes that judgment is not necessarily what we would consider biblical in proportion, but sometimes it is like the

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Romans 1, where, you know, he just gives us up to our sin.

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And those of us who are the remnant, the people within the sinning culture, have to stand firm.

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That's a good summation. Yeah, there is a difference between the Sodom and Gomorrah judgment and the flood judgment than perhaps what

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America may or may not be experiencing. Rebecca, please. Totally agree with what Eve just said, for sure.

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And this obviously is just my opinion because I can't speak for God in any of this. And I personally pray it's not too late for our nation.

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But my feeling is that we are indeed living in a Romans 1 world, and that what we're seeing happening around us in our society is stemming from looking at Romans 1, talking about how

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God gave them over, and then it lists the things that God gave them over to. And the widespread practice now that we're seeing, the acceptance, the celebration of the usurping of God's created order, and this sexual immorality that's progressed from bad to worse.

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And it's continuing to progress at a really frightening speed. And so for me, when

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I look around what I see in here, for me, it seems that God has said, have it your way.

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This is what you wanted. This has been going on for a while. And He is letting us have our way, and we are really feeling the consequences of God saying, have at it.

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Hey, Stephen and Melissa, you guys haven't had a chance to speak into this yet. For me, there's so much to think about, especially when you think about Sodom and Gomorrah and looking at exactly what the issues were there.

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I mean, rampant homosexuality and things like that. And then you look at our culture today. I mean, that is rampant as well.

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And not only homosexuality, you've got the killing of babies in droves.

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And you've just got so much wickedness going on in our world today that I wonder how much longer will it be until God does hand us over to complete destruction when we look back at Sodom and Gomorrah.

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And I even think about the temple in AD 70, you know, the judgment that came there.

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There's so much judgment throughout the Bible that we see because people turn their backs and that we still live in this

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Romans 1 world, right? So, you know, for me, I mean, I think that we are under some form of judgment by God.

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And the question I have for myself is how long until this thing is just completely wiped out and we're left in ashes, so to speak.

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I just can't help but think about the timing of this topic. I don't watch the

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Grammys, nor will I ever, I don't think. Better off because of that. Yeah, but I mean, you guys have and ladies have likely seen the social media posts today from last night.

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And I can't remember the guy's name, but he's a popular singer dressed up with all in red with his horns and all the people in red and they're bowing down to him.

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You know, they're on the stage and CBS saying we're ready to worship, things like that.

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I mean, if we're not under some form of judgment, then

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I would be highly surprised because there's rampant wickedness all around us. And unfortunately, this is another

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I'm just going to throw this kind of curveball in here. I was talking to my wife about this earlier, and she said, unfortunately, this isn't something that's just happening outside the church because there's many people in the church that don't care about holiness and they're living wicked lives as well.

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So unfortunately, we have to deal with it inside the local church.

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So this thing is bigger than I think any of us really think it is. So what

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I want to do is I want to get Melissa's thoughts on this. I want everyone to have a chance to speak into really how they understand and view the judgment of God.

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And then what we're going to do is I have another question for everybody that everyone has to answer.

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I'm going to do this a little bit different than Andrew. This is what he gets for putting me in charge. I'm not in charge, but, you know, giving me the reins,

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I guess. I have a question. Everyone's going to answer it with either a yes or no. And then we can just open it up, kick the door down and talk about the application specifically to whether or not

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America is under God's judgment. But Melissa, I'd love to hear your thoughts on God's judgment in general.

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She's got it. We're working on it. There it is. I don't know. It's like my keyboard is going in and out. Yeah, so immediately when you started asking about judgment and opposing it to wrath and looking at the distinctions,

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I immediately thought of where, you know, John 318, he says that whoever doesn't believe is already judged.

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So when I think of judgment, which I agree, we are under a judgment.

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And I do think we definitely see wrath. Right. I agree with the wrath on a nation and overall will be a culmination of a wrath on the whole world.

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When Jesus before Jesus returns. But, um, when

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I think about judgment, I think, you know, about the removal of the

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Holy Spirit, basically the removal of the word of God. And from there, you just get a trickling down of just sinful behavior.

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And that all starts with the church. So it all starts with where the church, how they exalt the word of God.

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Do they proclaim it? Is the gospel proclaimed? And, and what's the verse

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I'm thinking of where it begins in the house of God? Is it literally saying judgment?

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Andrew or Aaron, you would know. You're really good at that. Give me more.

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I don't know. I'm sorry. I can't think of what it is you're trying to say. Does somebody know? Is it judgment or is it actually judgment in the house of God?

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Yeah. If it starts with the house of God, how much worse would it be? Right. So that's what

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I was thinking. It's just a removal of the Holy Spirit among the churches and then a removal of the light among the nation.

31:09

All right, good. So the reason I asked that question is that honestly, for me, when I was thinking through this, and this is not something that I've studied in great detail, so I'm not speaking as any type of an authority, but I kind of struggled because I saw on one side the natural consequences that are part of life.

31:24

And then I also see that that judicial God declaring, you know, like he has prophesied this nation.

31:30

If you do this, you will be destroyed. It's a big biblical apocalyptic type of a thing. And then somewhere, you know, all the different things, the shades of gray in the middle.

31:39

I was having a hard time saying, you know, one way or another, yes or no.

31:45

Actually, I was having a hard time being able to pull from the scriptures and being able to answer today's question. So here's what we're going to do.

31:51

I'm going to start off. I'm going to ask. Before we move on, can I go ahead and read that scripture?

31:57

Because we keep referring to the Romans one, and I thought it might be good to just actually read that scripture.

32:03

Definitely. So the passage that we're referring to is Romans one, 18 through 25,

32:10

I believe, for God's wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

32:18

Since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen since the creation of the world being understood through what he has made.

32:33

As a result, people are without excuse, for though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude.

32:41

Instead, their thinking became worthless and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal

32:50

God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four -footed animals and reptiles.

32:55

Therefore, God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves.

33:02

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served what has been created instead of the creator who is praised forever.

33:10

Amen. And there's more beyond that, but I think that's enough. And then the 1 Peter 4 .17 passage says,

33:16

For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who did not obey the gospel of God?

33:25

Really very powerful. So, yeah, Dom, real quick, I'm going to come back to you.

33:31

Just a second, just to throw a red herring into this argument, right? No, just a little bit, that's all.

33:38

I'm not going to start no trouble. But, you know, like a lot of reformed guys today are post -mill guys, especially like, you know, you got a lot of the main guys like Dr.

33:47

White and stuff like that. So now if you're a post -mill guy, you think the world's going to get a lot better before it gets.

33:53

So now there's another red herring you throw into this, right? I mean, right,

33:58

Garrett, you're smiling, right? Yeah, I don't think, smells fishy. It's inevitable that this conversation goes to eschatology.

34:05

It has to. It has to, right? There's no way you can get out of it. Because if you're a post -mill guy, you feel this is going to get better at one point.

34:15

And obviously, and then there's the other. The biblical standpoint would differ. Oh, gloves are off, gloves are off.

34:23

I told you I just threw a red herring. I'm not looking to start a beef or anything like that. But anyway. So real quick,

34:30

I found this article, John Piper. I don't turn to Piper for everything, but he was really able to articulate this pretty well.

34:38

He says that there are at least five ways the Bible talks about God's judgment in general. Number one, in judgment,

34:43

God hands over the impenitent to hardening in this life. And he quotes Romans 1 .18. Number two, in judgment,

34:51

God punishes nations in history, both Israel and others. Number three, there will be a final judgment of all people at the end of history.

34:59

Number four, the death of Jesus was God's final punitive judgment on all who believe in Christ. And number five, individuals are sometimes judged in this life.

35:08

But for Christians, all judgments are disciplinary, not destructive. So with that said, what

35:13

I'd like everyone to do is this. Everyone unmute yourself so we can do this quickly. I'm basically just going to say your name.

35:19

And what I want you to do is give a one -word answer, yes or no, to the question, is

35:25

America under God's judgment? Now, when that's done, everyone's going to give a yes or no answer. Then I'm going to open it up, and we're going to jump in here.

35:33

And we're going to say, okay, well, this is why I answered that. And I think the best thing to do, obviously, because this is a theology throwdown, is to make sure we can support what we're saying from the

35:42

Scriptures. So I'd love to hear your yes or your no. And then once everyone is done through that, we'll hear how you justify that.

35:48

So everyone should be unmuted here. Rebecca, yes or no? Is America under God's judgment? Yes. Yes.

35:56

Garrett? Yes. Eve? Yes. Dominic? Yes. Harlan?

36:03

Harlan's agreeing with you? All right. Melissa? Yes. Keith? Yes. Stephen?

36:10

Yes. And Phil? Yes, sir. Man, I feel like I have to say no just to, like, you have a little bit of controversy tonight so we can have a discussion.

36:20

Okay, then no. Thanks, Keith. Appreciate that. Keith and I will stand in our negative affirmation.

36:28

Yeah, I guess for me, I would say, oh, I could go either way. I want to say no just from a –

36:34

I don't believe – and I'll start us off here. I don't believe that I can point to the Scripture and say that America is somehow in a special, unique way, as the nations are concerned, under the eye of God as receiving some special type of judicial punishment that every other person, every other nation isn't currently experiencing.

36:53

So to a large degree, I would argue that, yes, we are experiencing the natural consequences of our sin, which, yes,

37:00

I would also be fast to agree. I would be completely fine in saying that's part of God's judgment. His withholding blessing is part of his judgment.

37:06

His allowing us to destroy ourselves is part of his judgment. But on that Sodom and Gomorrah side,

37:13

I don't necessarily see it. I don't see that America is somehow in a special place.

37:20

Sodom and Gomorrah were chosen out of all the other cities around them. Obviously, the worldwide flood is a unique thing.

37:30

I don't think we can compare ourselves to that. So anyway, I guess I'll just kind of throw that in there, and I'd love to hear your guys' responses to me because you all agree.

37:37

So go ahead and gang up on me. But go ahead, raise your hand, and or just jump in. I'd love to hear how you're going to support what you're saying.

37:44

I'd love to jump off of that real quick because I'm going to agree with you to a certain extent that America isn't under a special judgment aside from maybe the rest of the world.

37:56

And this is part of why I wanted to have this conversation tonight is because it seems to me that we're at a unique time in history where there's not a pilgrim nation to go to.

38:08

And the reason I say that is because even America was formed as a refuge to, in a sense, the judgment of God.

38:17

The people of God had a place to go to start a new life and to avoid some sense of God's judgment.

38:24

And we're at a place in the world where we've been so good at exporting our culture that our culture is essentially mirrored throughout the rest of the world.

38:34

And I don't know that there's a pilgrim nation we could go to. So I don't believe America is necessarily under unique or special judgment.

38:42

I believe that the world is under some judgment because this Roman ones culture has so infiltrated the culture of every nation at this point.

38:52

Okay, good. Somebody else? What do you think, Dom? Yeah, I don't think

39:00

I, yeah, I think Garrett's right. I mean, I'm not saying we're under a special judgment. I mean, God's got a remnant, obviously, in any type of judgment or wrath.

39:11

I mean, there's always a remnant. I just believe that according to Romans 1, we are really close to that area, especially with the homosexuality, the same -sex marriages, the gender, the abortion.

39:26

I mean, there's a lot of stuff going on, but that doesn't, I mean, there's other nations doing this, but we live in America, so we got to deal with where we're at right now.

39:35

So I don't think it's a special judgment. I agree with Garrett, but I think there's definitely a judgment on America.

39:41

There's judgment on any nation that's practicing ungodly principles like we are at a rapid pace, especially with, you know, and I don't want to get political with the administration we have now and things of that nature, the lies.

39:55

I mean, so special judgment, no, but judgment, whether it's a temporal judgment, whether there's going to be repentance, only

40:05

God knows. I mean, but I don't think we're, I think we're just being judged because the majority of our nation is sinners.

40:15

I mean, but the remnant's going to be protected by God's grace. Right, Stephen? I mean, that's what

40:21

I think, Pastor Stephen. That's where I'm going with that. Yeah, I would agree, and as I'm listening to you guys talk,

40:30

I can't help but think about the plagues in Exodus and how you have one and then another and another, and it seemingly gets worse and worse and worse, and within that there are a couple of things, a couple of times where God's people didn't feel the effects of those, but there are other times when they did.

40:47

So I think that although we're not under kind of like this all -out ferocious judgment right now, it almost seems like it's growing, if you will, and even in that, we as Christians, although a remnant, we still feel the squeeze from this.

41:07

We still feel we're up against a culture that hates

41:14

God, and they're doing whatever they can to suppress the church, to suppress the truth, and we're just coming up against what

41:24

I think is probably a separate conversation. We're getting closer and closer to a real persecution, and I think it all has to do with, and I'm just going to say this, and then

41:35

I'll be quiet again, but it has to do with this growing wickedness, not only in our nation, but as I already mentioned, a worldly thing, that Christianity is trying to be squeezed out, but in that I think too it's because we have allowed bad theology in the pulpits for years, and we have as believers not stood up against the wickedness.

42:03

We've allowed it, and now what you see people doing is the remnant starting to stand up against it, and that's where I think not only are we feeling the squeeze of the judgment, but we're also going to start feeling the persecution at some point, whatever that looks like, but I think it all comes back to, like we've been saying,

42:22

Romans 1, the wickedness, and so yeah, I think we're in kind of a growing judgment, if you'll allow me to say it that way.

42:31

I want to pull the ladies in here real quick, but just right before you do, Romans 1's keep being brought up, right?

42:39

The question is, is America under God's judgment? And so here's a question I just want to get your guys' understanding on, because I have to admit there's a little bit of a short circuit in my brain.

42:48

I agree 100 % Romans 1. Those people who have done those things are going to suffer those consequences as an act of judgment from God, right?

42:55

But the question on the table, is America under God's judgment? I have to ask this and make it personal. Is Aaron Brewster under God's judgment as an

43:04

American because homosexuality and abortion and all the transgender awfulness is going on in this country?

43:13

Because I'm part of America, right? Is Aaron Brewster under God's judgment because this is being promoted in our country?

43:21

That's a question I think that any American listening to this is going to have, because if we're saying, yes,

43:27

America's under God's judgment, everybody or just some people, now things have been said about a remnant, things have been said about, you know, as Stephen brought up, you know, sometimes the nation of Israel felt some of those plagues.

43:39

So was that Eve? Who was that? Who was going to jump in here? One of the ladies. Yeah, I was trying to jump in. I actually have a slightly different take on this.

43:48

I don't believe America is under special judgment. I believe the world is under judgment for sin, and it's the same judgment around.

43:57

Typically, what I kind of go back to is the original promise to Israel is,

44:04

I will bless those who bless you, and he who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

44:11

And the U .S. has had a history of standing with Israel. And I think that because we have stood with Israel, I think

44:22

God blessed us to some degree, even despite, you know, the sin that has always been in our country.

44:29

I mean, we were slaveholders. We did all kinds of things in the early 1900s.

44:36

Sin has always been in this country. So it's not like we're – it may be a little bit more public, and it may be a little bit more blatant, but the sin has always been there.

44:46

So we can't say that this country has always been, you know, like the – what was it

44:51

Reagan called us? The shining beacon on the hill or whatever. That was not what America was or ever has been.

44:59

We have a lot of nasty things in our past, and we've never been sinless.

45:05

So to think that we're under special judgment now because of the prevalence of sin in our culture, even though it's always been there, it's just more blatant now.

45:14

I kind of agree with Aaron is that we're not under specific judgment as a people because of that.

45:24

It's because we need to honor Israel and what God is doing through Israel and the person of Jesus.

45:31

And quite honestly, if you look at what happened to the church in Rome during the worst persecution you can possibly think of, where Christians were being rounded up and fed to lions and tarred and lit on fire as light in gardens.

45:51

And what we see happening to the church today in China where persecution is around every corner, the underground churches never know when they might get raided and their pastors taken to prison.

46:02

The church thrives under persecution. And here in the

46:08

States, the church has become very complacent because we've never been persecuted. And we

46:13

I think, you know, that just kind of weeds out the chaff from the wheat.

46:19

You know, when persecution happens, the people who are in it as a country club just to have it easy, decide they don't want to be

46:26

Christians anymore because it's not easy anymore. And so I think if that's the kind of judgment you're talking about where the remnant will arise and stand up, and that's actually good kind of judgment because it cleanses the church and it helps the true believer stand firm and trust in God.

46:43

So that's not necessarily a bad thing. So to the question of does this does

46:50

America being under judgment imply that we as individuals are under judgment? I think it's just a general question of what do you consider to be judgment?

47:01

We go back to that original question. And is and what is actually the reason for it?

47:07

Because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And we only have release from judgment through a personal relationship with Christ.

47:15

Countries cannot be saved. Only people can. But countries can be destroyed under God's wrath.

47:25

That's a good point too, Garrett. Phil, what were you going to say? So I'm hearing kind of a dispensational theology and maybe some people share that view.

47:37

Although not all do. I'll be one of those who don't share that view because obviously it was only believing

47:44

Israel that they were talking about. And obviously there's only one people of God. Israel is a nation, is a wicked nation.

47:52

They have much sin. We might be losing

48:00

Phil there. Am I back?

48:08

Yeah, for right now you are, yeah. Okay, sorry. I think to think that judgment for America is based upon our hand of blessing, so to speak, upon Israel because we continue to do wickedness.

48:27

But they also continue to do wickedness as well. And I mean, is their wickedness any more righteous than our wickedness?

48:36

I don't think so. Because it was only believing Israel that received the blessing of Abraham, if you will.

48:43

And not all of Israel because not all of Israel was Israel. And so there's one people of God.

48:49

Obviously not two peoples of God. And there's only one church.

48:55

And so we are all the church, whether Jew or Gentile, we are the church. And so I can't imagine that this is all contingent upon how we treat

49:07

Israel. Because Israel just as wicked as we are. They have a lot of the same sin that we do.

49:16

So there's, I want to, by the way, well said. And I have to say I'm one of those dispensational type of guys for sure.

49:22

I definitely tend to fall on that particular side of the conversation. But that could take us down a massive rabbit hole,

49:29

Andrew or Garrett never intended. But Garrett, you mentioned that God does destroy whole nations.

49:36

And he has. He has destroyed whole nations. But what's interesting, go back, we mentioned Sodom and Gomorrah a lot of times. God had a conversation with Abraham right before he destroyed

49:44

Sodom. And basically said, hey, basically tell me. Tell me if I should spare Sodom and Gomorrah. Give me a number.

49:50

How many righteous people have to be down there for me to spare it? And Abraham, as we know the story, kept giving a lower and lower number.

49:59

But I think the reality that we see in those situations is that in those cases, everybody in that city, everybody in that nation was condemned.

50:09

God sent the nation of Israel all throughout Canaan. Everyone was condemned.

50:15

Everyone was to die in the flood. Everyone but eight died. Nineveh, the whole idea was that Nineveh was going to be obliterated.

50:24

But the reality was that because Nineveh as a group repented, they weren't, as was mentioned earlier.

50:32

So again, I go back to the question at hand. Is America under God's judgment? Is God judging

50:38

America in a way that is systemic? It is holistic. Everyone in America is feeling it.

50:44

And if that's not the case, if it's not the case where everyone in America is feeling that cumulative wrath of God, then can we say that God is judging

50:54

America? Or would it be more appropriate to say that God is judging the sinners in America? What do you guys think?

50:59

I think we are. Sorry. We all went in there. Keith, go ahead. You've been so patient.

51:05

Go ahead, Keith. I'll let you jump in. Then Rebecca will be next. That wasn't Keith. Who was that? This is

51:10

Keith. Oh, go ahead. I can answer if someone else can too. I'm sorry.

51:15

I just didn't see who jumped in. What was that male voice I missed? I heard somebody else. But I can answer real quick if you want.

51:23

Go ahead, Keith and Rebecca and then Garrett. As mentioned, there's a growing punishment.

51:33

I think what we're doing is we're storing up sins to be punished.

51:39

Might be one way to look at it or to express that. And maybe the full punishment has not arrived, but we certainly are pushing our luck, so to speak, with God.

51:54

As a nation, we keep doing more and more things. And I think as Pastor Don pointed out, there is a remnant.

52:04

And I think that's what is currently the saving grace of the nation, is the shrinking remnant of Christians who remain faithful to God.

52:19

Because, of course, through God's grace, we are considered righteous, through Christ's righteousness, not our righteousness.

52:25

So as long as there are believing Christians, I think, just like with Sodom and Gomorrah, it came down to five or ten, and the ark was eight.

52:37

As long as there's even a handful of Christians, God will withhold that exorcising the punishment, which

52:45

I would maybe classify that as God's wrath. But the thing is, whenever it comes down to that point,

52:53

God did get his remnant out of there. So as long as we have believing

52:58

Christians, the point of the wrath hasn't come yet. We're definitely building up a treasury of sins to be punished.

53:08

Okay, Rebecca? Yeah, I was just thinking, sin doesn't happen in a vacuum, and so other people's sin affects the righteous as well.

53:19

But I'm thinking about, who was it, Ezekiel, that was carried off to Babylon when Israel was judged and they were exiled?

53:28

So I know that the sinfulness, the judgment of a nation, can affect those that are living in it, including the righteous.

53:37

I feel like what's happening with America in particular, and maybe because America has for so long touted and claimed to be founded upon the biblical principles, the principles of God, that if we were under God's judgment, that maybe it would be a little more quote -unquote harsh for us because of that.

54:03

But I just look around and I see all the moral— Eve, I think, had mentioned that we've always had sin, and that's very true.

54:12

But the difference now seems to be that it's very much celebrated and glorified, the sin that we're seeing.

54:23

And it's not just, obviously, it's sexual immorality, but we're having more and more problems, even when we see the anger that came out when

54:30

Roe v. Wade was reversed, and the hate and the determination of even our leaders, our leaders in this nation to want to make even more wide -open abortion policies, allowing people to even easier access and to bear down the opposite direction in order to murder the children.

54:55

So I feel like it's just we're in a state of judgment where there's just going to be— the moral decay is going to keep happening.

55:02

And because of the church's cowering in fear in a lot of ways, that we are caught up in it, you know.

55:11

But as Eve did, had a good point, that that can be a blessing because churches and the

55:18

Word of God does thrive under persecution. I do like her point when she said that, yeah.

55:25

Yeah, that's true. By God's grace, when the world around us is— when we're persecuted and the world around us is receiving judgment,

55:33

God always does an amazing thing in His people. Garrett, you were going to chime in here. Yeah, I think it's important to remember we are in a sense under God's judgment, even us in this room, even us in the church.

55:45

And the question is how far will that judgment go and how much wrath will we experience?

55:51

But if we look at biblically, I know you've tried to justify this conversation over and over and said, well, are we specifically under judgment?

56:00

I don't see how biblically that would play out. A couple of things come up. During the reign of Ahab and Jezebel, there was a faithful remnant in Israel that was still experiencing the drought and famine of God's judgment because of the wickedness of Israel.

56:19

America, just because we're not specifically named in the Bible, doesn't mean we can't take illustration from what's there.

56:27

And I think that it's important to look at those illustrative lessons and apply it appropriately.

56:34

And, you know, I think about the last three years specifically and how much the church has suffered.

56:40

First, we were run away from our churches and we saw pastors wimp out and do all sorts of wickedness in fear of the government.

56:50

And the church suffered during that. And righteous Christians who wouldn't have cowered suffered because of that.

56:57

You've seen Christians who have lost their jobs because they've taken a standabout against experimental medical treatments during this time of wrath.

57:07

And what I think is clear is that we are experiencing judgment, and it is because of the growing wickedness in our nation.

57:15

And what's terrifying is it seems the judgment is growing. I don't mean to be the big black cloud guy that brings the negativity to the conversation, but I think one thing is really clear is if we look at church history, recent church history, especially in America, we have seen that the church has gone further and further left.

57:36

We've seen whole denominations go off the rails. We've seen denominations split over the issues of wickedness that are causing

57:45

God's judgment. And now the largest conservative Christian denomination in the country is right in the throes of dealing with those issues.

57:53

And so I think it is very clear that the church is experiencing that. And even though our families may be a part of that remnant, and our families may be trying to preserve our own righteousness and holiness, there's no way we escape the pain of judgment that's being experienced.

58:12

I think you bring up some good points. And I can't say that I necessarily disagree with what you're saying, because there's a lot of biblical truth to what you're saying.

58:24

And by the way, just so everyone knows, Paul Washer and John MacArthur both answered yes, America is under God's judgment.

58:30

But I think these are just important questions to ask because, so for example, you brought up what the church experienced because of the decisions that the government made.

58:41

Theology Throwdown had a great episode on that. But no doubt there were

58:46

Christians who were saying, oh, you know, COVID is God's judgment on this world.

58:52

COVID is God's judgment on America. This is where a lot of people start saying things like, oh, look, such and such happened.

58:58

This is the end times, right? And so is it possible that we can sometimes go too far where everything, everything negative that happens in our life is automatically attributed to God's judgment?

59:09

When in actuality, no, you just stubbed your toe, sir. The Lord's not returning because you stubbed your toe, you know, that type of a thing.

59:15

Because I think sometimes it's easy for us to point at these big things and to say, well, that's

59:22

God's judgment. I sometimes sit back and I wonder, is that appropriate? Is it appropriate to do that? I, with COVID, I personally,

59:30

I don't think that was part of God's judgment, but I did see a warning perhaps with COVID and an opportunity that I think society in general missed.

59:42

When I think of how things that we normally idolize were kind of taken away from us briefly, people were thrown together in their homes with their families, with their children, had a lot of time to maybe reflect or repent and change, especially when they were in fear of their health or whatever.

01:00:01

But it seems that when we came out of it, we were still not running toward God, but running the opposite direction.

01:00:10

And I feel like it was a missed opportunity in many ways when COVID came along.

01:00:18

Steven, what are you thinking, man? I waited for you to take a drink, obviously.

01:00:24

I had to wait for you to take a drink to ask that question. Sorry. Man, I'm thinking a lot.

01:00:31

Everybody's laid out some great points. But I do think what you said,

01:00:37

I couldn't help but think this way, is can we swing the pendulum too far one way? And the answer is absolutely yes.

01:00:45

The sky is falling for a lot of people. This is the end. And it's a lot like Christians who say, well, the devil made me do it.

01:00:53

No, that's your sin, and that's your consequence for your sin. The devil didn't make you do it.

01:00:58

You gave into your own desire. So I'll just be honest. I'm kind of sitting here in the middle of a yes and no.

01:01:06

The more I listen to people speak is yes and no.

01:01:12

And I'm just trying to think through these things that you guys are saying. Definitely sinners are being judged by their consequences or their consequences are causing this.

01:01:23

And then I can't help but think of some things that Proverbs says, talking about when good kings rule, the people are happy.

01:01:30

And when evil kings rule, people complain. So I think it's easy to look at our administration and complain about that.

01:01:40

But that may not necessarily be God's judgment. It could be a time of sanctification for the saints.

01:01:46

So I really have a lot of thoughts right now that I'm just trying to put together. You guys are really making it hard for me to stick to my yes right now.

01:01:56

I was just thinking that we're all talking about sinners and the faithful being punished along with those who deserve judgment.

01:02:07

And I'm thinking, what's the opposite? If we believe that America is being judged, when was

01:02:16

America being blessed and why? That's a great question. My ancestors came over on the

01:02:24

Mayflower. And we may have had that conversation earlier. My daughter is in her freshman year of college, and she's writing a paper about William Brewster, one of the elders of the

01:02:38

Mayflower colony. He came over here. I mean, these people came over here because they wanted to worship

01:02:43

God as the scriptures said he was to be worshiped. And you could argue during that time that that was a time that if God were going to be blessing his people, man oh man,

01:02:55

Plymouth Colony and the Pilgrims, those are the people to bless. But any of us with a cursory knowledge of what those people experienced coming to America, what they experienced that first year in America, could they not have looked at that situation and said, we are being judged of God?

01:03:13

And so I guess to your question, Eve, and to the question of everybody who has experienced some hardship, it's really easy to see that and to say, well, this is

01:03:23

God judging me. I made a bad choice. And this is God giving me those consequences or whatever the case may be.

01:03:29

But then sometimes we see situations and we sit back and we go, biblically speaking, we say, no, that's not how that works.

01:03:36

God is not upset with me today and he's punishing me, or God is punishing a believer because he made a bad choice.

01:03:43

The consequences of our sin definitely come into our lives. But this is not a situation where, you know,

01:03:48

I yell at my wife and tomorrow I get into a car wreck because, well, Aaron, that's what you get for yelling at your wife.

01:03:54

Right? So it's so easy to swing to those extremes where we remove

01:04:00

God, the idea of God's wrath and God's judgment completely from the picture, which is irresponsible and sinful because the

01:04:05

Bible is very clear that God is wrathful and there is judgment, but then going to the other side as well. So, you know, when is there a time when

01:04:12

America was blessed? Well, we might point to the revivals, right?

01:04:18

But you know what? There was still plague and there was still famine going on then too. So that's a tough question.

01:04:25

Melissa, what do you think? She's going, she's going, ah, still, still on mute.

01:04:33

I don't know why it's not working. I use the keyboard. Yeah. I was just thinking, I hate to say the use the word judgment when it comes to God's people, because,

01:04:44

I mean, I keep going back to, you know, the verse where Jesus says, if you don't believe you're already judged.

01:04:51

And we are believers, we're judged. I think part of judgment on the nation does involve like a separation of those who are in Christ and those who aren't.

01:05:07

And it just becomes more and more visible, especially in the church. And I think that's kind of what that verse is talking about.

01:05:14

Because in first Peter, he's talking about persecution. And this is something that we're going to have to deal with.

01:05:20

And we are starting to really see. And, but persecution is disciplining from the

01:05:29

Lord. It's not judgment per se on his church. It's a way he builds them up and he purifies them and he makes them, he sanctifies them.

01:05:45

And so while we all talk about end times and this nation going down the drains and the sin behavior that we see, his church is going to be disciplined through it.

01:06:02

And I think we are starting to see that by men actually starting to stand up and speak the truth.

01:06:08

And, you know, women talk about the homeschool movement, you know, that is one of the signs

01:06:15

I think of the church starting to go back to the word and be committed and be iron sharpening iron and building up the church even more like he was saying to also the persecution that comes, you know, it, the church thrives in it.

01:06:37

And so while I don't want to use the words judgment against the church, I do want to,

01:06:43

I would rather hear, you know, it's a discipline or it's a strengthening or it's a purifying of those who are believers.

01:06:54

And before anybody else jumps in, we do have someone else who has just joined us. Matt Slick has just jumped in on here and he's in the hot seat because I'm going to ask him a question.

01:07:05

Actually, Matt, if you just, just so everyone knows, introduce yourself and your podcast. Well, let's see.

01:07:12

Matt Slick founder and director of carm .org, the Christian apologetics research ministry sites had over 150 million visitors than radio 18 years, written a few books and do debates and stuff like that.

01:07:25

So I don't know if that's a good intro or not. Oh, fantastic. Slick and quick. Nice. My real name is slick.

01:07:31

So some people think it's a joke, but it's my real name. That's awesome. As you know, the question on the table right now is

01:07:38

America under God's judgment. And we'd love to hear your thoughts. Yes, it is.

01:07:44

Obviously the doctrine called federal headship, which a lot of people don't understand. And they should is that when the leaders represent the country, even if the leaders are bad and the country will suffer.

01:07:54

And so judgment in the old Testament came upon varying peoples because of their leadership. And so if we don't get the leaders out of where they need to be, then our country is going to fail.

01:08:05

In fact, I've been researching on societal decay now for weeks and weeks. And our country's in trouble.

01:08:12

I personally believe it's going to fail. I believe there's going to be a major economic collapse. That's just my opinion.

01:08:18

Christianity is under heavy attack. The Christian church is weak. It's wussified. Men are wussified.

01:08:23

I go on and on and on. It's a lot of problems. And we need to stand up as men and be willing to count the costs.

01:08:29

And the women behind us need to be willing to let us count that cost because a woman, a wife can say, no, don't do that.

01:08:36

Don't do that. Not blaming women. They're just saying that's part of the dynamic. And men's got to go out there and risk.

01:08:42

And sometimes it can cost a great deal. And the wives need to know that the ultimate thing is the glory of God, the furthering of the kingdom and working against the decay of our society because Satan wants to get in and destroy this country, destroy it because if America falls, all the rest of the nations are going to fall, making way for the antichrist.

01:09:00

So we've got to get out there and do what we can. And everybody's got to work together. I could talk about this for quite a bit, but I'm going fast and stuff.

01:09:09

Yeah. And you just joined us. So you had to get, you had to catch up. All right. So Steven, is he, is he dragging you to one side or the other?

01:09:18

Yeah, I think I'm going to stay firm on. Yes. All right.

01:09:24

I'm staying firm on. Yes. Yes. And I think, well, earlier we went and we asked everyone yes or no is

01:09:31

America under God's judgment. Everyone said, yes, just to be a potstir. I said, no. And, but we've had some, we've had some discussion as like, so for example, one of the questions that was asked is as I Aaron Brewster, are all of us we currently experiencing

01:09:43

God's judgment because America is under judgment. How does that work out? What does that look like? I'd love to have your thoughts on that.

01:09:48

And as we had this conversation, you know, some of us were like, oh, you know, I was, I was pretty, pretty certain that yes,

01:09:54

God is judging America, but now it's like, well, now maybe it's better to say that God is judging the sinners in America, but not necessarily the entire nation.

01:10:03

What do you think Matt? He's judging the entire nation cost of living is going up.

01:10:09

Put it this way. Let me back up and I'll show you something. When God said, let there be light. There was light.

01:10:15

God spoke. The nature of truth is that which corresponds to the mind of God. That was just revealed by God.

01:10:20

The first thing that Satan did was say, did God really say? So he cast doubt on the nature of truth itself, which is grounded in the heart mind soul of the ubiquitous God.

01:10:31

So what is happening is when you don't have truth, everybody will do what's right in our own eyes. They'll redefine marriage.

01:10:37

They'll redefine righteousness. They'll redefine freedom. They'll redefine gender. They'll redefine he, she, they're going to redefine everything.

01:10:44

So they don't have absolutes. They're going to go into moral relativism. When they have moral relativism, then everything's going to collapse.

01:10:51

This is what's happening in our country. The solution is to point to Jesus Christ, to point, not just to God, but to Jesus.

01:10:58

He died on the cross, rose from the dead. Three days later, he did that. We need to point to Jesus, what he has done, who he is and the men in the

01:11:06

Christian community. I'm not going to make any friends here. I believe that the Christian community is as, as men have failed miserably.

01:11:13

Most pastors and elders don't teach, but crap. Sorry, but that's, what's what I've seen. I can't see it.

01:11:18

A lot of them teach crap. And we men need to, we need to, that's true. You know, first, first Quentin 1613,

01:11:26

I think it is. Let me say, I can find it, but Paul gives an admonition, admonition about men.

01:11:32

I'll show you guys something here. Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

01:11:39

That's what Paul's admonition is to us. Now, when Adam and Eve were in the garden, they both sinned. She sinned first, but sin entered the world through Adam, Romans 5, 12.

01:11:48

When they were hiding, the pre -incarnate Christ came and said to the man, where are you?

01:11:55

He didn't say Eve, what have you done? He didn't say Adam and Eve, what have you done? He said to the man, where are you? Sin entered the world through one man.

01:12:02

We men are the ones who have the final responsibility. We're the captains of our ships. And when the captain goes to bed, he has a great first mate, the ship sinks, he's in trouble.

01:12:14

This is how it is. We Christian men need to know this. Christian women need to know it. And we need to stand up and fight, need to fight.

01:12:21

I'm one of the few Christians who says, get up and fight. Jesus said, Luke 22, 36, by a sword.

01:12:27

And I could go on and on and on. This stuff pisses me, sorry, pisses me off. I'm a fighter. Let's stand up as men and get arrested.

01:12:35

Let's stand up as men and risk our lives. Let's stand up as men and fight for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

01:12:41

He said, pick up your cross and follow after me daily. If you don't do that, you're not worthy of me. All right.

01:12:47

Anyone want to either, either echo that or, and, or respond to it? Oh, I think you got him scared,

01:12:54

Matt. Melissa. Actually, hold on one second. I was going to say, go ahead,

01:13:01

Dom, but Dom's giving it to you, Melissa. Go ahead. Okay. I was going to say, I love that.

01:13:07

He's emphasized federal headship. And absolutely men in the church need to step up and I, women have to, to, to fight as well by submitting and, and raising up godly children.

01:13:24

And that's how we do it. And that is getting into this fight, raising godly children to know the word of God and raise, helping their husbands raise godly men and godly women.

01:13:38

Melissa, you just got a fist bump from Matt Slick. Well done. I like hearing that. I like hearing that seriously.

01:13:44

That is good stuff. When I teach on the theology of marriage, sorry guys, I just, I've got so full of information.

01:13:50

This is what I do for a living, you know, and, but I teach on the theology of marriage. I start with the doctrine of the

01:13:55

Trinity, the ontological and economic Trinity. It goes down into the marriage. And I say, when I do marriage counseling, I say, you each need to know your roles in your place.

01:14:03

Woman, you got to know your place, man, you got to know your place. If you don't like it, there's a door, but here's what the word of God says.

01:14:10

I believe that we need to stand on the word of God. I believe this. It's so powerful. Jesus is so great that what we do is already what he wants us to do.

01:14:20

Go make disciples of all nations. That means we take risks. It means we go out there and we do what we got to do and means

01:14:27

God's going to bless us. He may bless us with persecution. He may bless us with, you know, a lot easier stuff, but he'll bless us.

01:14:36

And we men need to start putting our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ and his cross and take it off of our situation and our security.

01:14:44

We need to start moving forward. When men move, things happen. 12 male disciples.

01:14:52

That's who God chose. And he chose them to go forward. And we men need to know this.

01:14:59

We men need to be told this because after all masculinity is toxic and it's evil and patriarchy needs to be destroyed.

01:15:08

And so we sit and listen to it on TV and sometimes in the church. Hey man, get in touch with your feminine side.

01:15:16

I don't have a feminine side. What are you talking about? You know, so.

01:15:22

All right, Pastor Dom, you were going to say something. What's up? I'd like to know what kind of expresso that Matt's drinking, man.

01:15:29

What? I said I'd like to know what kind of expresso you're drinking, buddy. Good job. You know,

01:15:36

I think that first of all, I think that the judgment that's coming on the world should separate the people of God and people, the people of God should step up.

01:15:49

I think Echo and Matt. But, you know, these things you have to, you know, like I said, those things are easier said than done.

01:15:57

I mean, they have to be something that's coordinated, something that's, that's just, just saying it is good, but it's gotta be a coordinated effort to do that.

01:16:08

I mean, the people of God have always done those things. I mean, they, you can't be scattered with it.

01:16:16

You have to be coordinated in it. And if you got to go to prison,

01:16:22

I've been in federal prison. I did many years in prison. It's not too bad. He was being ministered to actually.

01:16:34

Okay. All right. That's what I got saved. But I'm saying, I think in anything like this, it's, it's gotta be, you know, the, the elective

01:16:42

God, the people of God have to coordinate things. You just can't, you just can't kind of talk to move the air around where, cause it's gotta be coordinated effort.

01:16:51

I think I believe that. Well, I got an idea. I've been talking about my radio show. Periodically.

01:16:57

I think we got something that we could do. If there was an organization, someone who had money and intelligence who could do this, arrange it.

01:17:07

I'm already working 60 hour weeks. You just canceled me out with the money and intelligence. But what if there was an organization, say we, we joined it.

01:17:19

You got to pay $10 a month and you are in it. And what happens is you're on a newsletter list.

01:17:26

Someone has to coordinate all this. The money will be used to pay the salary of the guy or guys who's running this.

01:17:33

Okay. And they got to be good. Godly people, male and female. And the idea is to have the money, the fund of it, of it used for legal actions for defense and attack legally.

01:17:46

And so you coordinate. So for example, like on say pick a date,

01:17:53

September 1st and on September 1st, let's say it's a Monday or whatever day particulars can be worked on.

01:17:59

Everybody with the last name that starts with an A goes to their state Capitol or if they're too far away from the state

01:18:05

Capitol, you go to a designated area that's chosen. Like, you know, if you're in Southern California, you go to LA or whatever it is.

01:18:13

And everybody shows up with say, for example, signs that lead to a website we want our country back .com

01:18:20

or whatever it is. And if thousands of people do this in every state at the same time, all over, it's going to be an inundation.

01:18:35

The next day, the people whose last name starts with a B goes out and does the same thing.

01:18:40

And you divide it up to three weeks or whatever it is for A through Z. And you do this every single day without causing problems.

01:18:48

You work out the particulars all over the country. If pastors were behind it and the

01:18:54

Christians were behind it, people get arrested. You can survive it and you move forward.

01:19:00

That's just one idea that needs to be done. One of them, a coordinated effort that needs to be done.

01:19:07

Let me tell you something. In every war America's been in, except for one their

01:19:13

POWs always escaped. The Korean war is the only one, this is what I read, where no

01:19:19

POW, American POW escaped. And the reason was because the Korean, North Koreans were smart.

01:19:25

They simply watched the people and they looked at the leaders. They found out who would rise up as a leader.

01:19:31

They just took them out, put them over here. The sheep had no head. They were unorganized.

01:19:37

They couldn't do anything. We need to have something like this. It needs to be promoted on radio.

01:19:42

It needs to be promoted on Christian TV. On websites, we get people going. I'll tell you, it would make a difference.

01:19:49

That's just one of the things that can be done in a national effort like that. So I want to use this idea.

01:19:55

I want to springboard here because we only actually gotten to one half of Garrett's original question.

01:20:01

The original question was, is America under God's judgment? And I believe we all agree to one degree or another, 100%.

01:20:06

Yes. America is under God's judgment. So then the second question is, is it too late for America to repent?

01:20:14

That's a yes or no, but I'd also like to hear what that looks like. If it's not too,

01:20:19

I mean, if it is too late, the answer's yes, it's too late. Oh, well, I'm sorry. My dog is deciding to shake her collar.

01:20:27

If it is too late. Oh, well, but if it's not too late, then the question has to be, well, how do we repent?

01:20:33

Who's going to take that one on? Actually, Garrett, you posed the question. I'll let you jump in here. Sure. Yeah. I'd love to.

01:20:39

Can I jump back just for a second and say, I really think that this question is important and the answer is equally important.

01:20:47

But if you look at Revelation, one of the reoccurring themes is stay awake, stay awake.

01:20:54

We read, blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear and keep what is written in it for the time is near.

01:21:03

And then in Revelation 16, it says, behold, I'm coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on that he may not go about naked and be exposed and seen exposed.

01:21:17

And this is why this matters is because whether or not we come to perfect conclusions, part of our job is to think biblically and just be awake.

01:21:26

But I also think that's part of the solution. And here's what I think. National movements are great, right?

01:21:34

We see the walk, uh, March for life and it's had a great effect. And it took 40 some years just to get row overturned and then row overturns and state by state by state, they begin to codify abortion in their state contents, constitutions and in their legislatures.

01:21:51

And so there's only so much that a national political movement can do. There's only so much pressure that we can put on policy to affect change.

01:22:02

Here's the difference. Melissa mentioned this early on when she talked about homeschooling and I'm going to tell you what

01:22:08

I've been, what I've become convinced of over the years, we have seen that revolution and revival is going to start in the family and it's going to be led by dads.

01:22:20

For years, my family has attended homeschool conventions because we work in the industry and, and we've filmed the homeschool world and we've shared that with the world.

01:22:29

And the one thing that makes me most excited is going to a state homeschool convention and being with 4 ,000 people who are all walking in the same direction.

01:22:42

And that direction is this. We as a family are going to serve the Lord together to his glory.

01:22:48

And it's being led by dads. And I'll tell you that the church itself,

01:22:54

I believe is really truly being sifted right now. And part of the reason is because for so long, parents have turned over the responsibility of discipling the hearts of their kids to the state and to a state that hates the church and hates the family and even hates our

01:23:11

American way of life for whatever that's worth, right? The way we turn that around is by fighting it at the ground level.

01:23:19

It has to start with dad saying, as for me and my house, we're going to serve the

01:23:24

Lord and I'm going to sit down day by day and open up the word to them. And I'm going to leave my family into a deeper understanding of him and his word.

01:23:33

And that's really where it starts and grows from there. It's, it's not going to be a revival in the churches unless there's a revival in the home first.

01:23:43

I think in a very big way that we were talking about, the national judgment happens because of the individuals within the nation being judged that the revival and repentance is going to come the same way.

01:23:55

We do see, I think, you know, Garrett, you had brought up in your email to or in your comment on our social media group that the book of Jonah, you know, right.

01:24:05

And we do see kind of these, these national acts of repentance, but as was mentioned by Eve later in today's earlier in today's show,

01:24:13

Nineveh was later destroyed because to a large degree that repentance was not true.

01:24:19

So true repentance can't happen on a national level unless it first happens in the hearts of each individual who makes up that nation.

01:24:28

And so this is why I think it's really important that we have this conversation here at the end, because there's a lot of doom and gloom. There's a lot of end time stuff.

01:24:35

There's a lot of fire, brimstone and floods. Well, praise God, there won't be another flood, but it just the next judgment and the end times is going to come with fire.

01:24:43

Right. And so there's a lot of that. Oh no, what are we going to do? You know, I'm an American. Am I going to experience the judgment of God?

01:24:49

And you know, well, how does it all work? But praise God that there is hope. There is hope in Jesus Christ for forgiveness, for repentance.

01:24:58

And that's what we want to, let's talk a little bit more about that. What does it look like for Garrett was mentioning the families.

01:25:04

What does it look like for the churches? What does it look like for the Christian ministries? What does it look like for other believers and small groups of believers to, to have the correct response in light of their own sin?

01:25:17

But then how do we help America, other Americans repent? Well, I, if I may,

01:25:28

I, you know, one of the, one of the things too that I think Garrett was saying behind the scenes, I was trying to listen.

01:25:34

You got to have the correct theology too, because you have a lot of, you have a lot of people that may be coming together, but you got to make sure our theology is, is correct too.

01:25:47

That's important. And I think Garrett, you were trying to hint to that. I mean, cause just coming together, we got to make sure that we got the doctrines correct.

01:25:56

We got to make sure we're following the things of God because God can only bless when we are doing things biblically, correct.

01:26:05

There's a lot of movements today, but they're done in, in, in the light of, of, you know, we,

01:26:12

I can sit here till tomorrow to name about some of the things, but we got to make sure what we're teaching at home, wherever the grassroots, wherever the grassroots issues are going to start, we got to make sure we're doing what sound doctrine and biblical and sound biblical theology, because God's not going to bless it unless we're doing it in that fashion.

01:26:34

Garrett, am I right? I mean, that's, I think that you were hinting. Yeah, certainly. And I think that's why I, why

01:26:40

I specified that I do believe our nation and even the church is under, under judgment is because for so long, the church at large has been fast and loose with God's word.

01:26:52

You know, there's such a desire to tickle the ears of congregations. My family moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma area about two years ago.

01:27:01

And this, this area illustrates this in a very specific way. This is a very churched area.

01:27:08

There are hundreds of churches here. And yet the major flavor of doctrine being taught here is the prosperity gospel.

01:27:17

There are hundreds of gigantic prosperity gospel churches. Well, God's not going to bless a church that comes together and preaches a false gospel that tickles the ears of the people.

01:27:28

And unfortunately we've seen over the years a growth in, in aberrant theology and within the church at large.

01:27:36

And so now when we're talking about the church, even we have to be careful to specify a faithful remnant in the church that believes biblically and has a proper biblical foundation and worldview.

01:27:50

Yeah. We've seen a lot of what I have heard. The society seems to want to bring

01:27:59

God down lower and society higher to where we can meet someplace in the middle and we can all be on the same page.

01:28:06

And that's horribly, horribly tragic to the holiness of God. We're really doing him a disservice with that.

01:28:14

And that's what's happening a lot. And what I can see is going on with a lot, but you know, I, just to put in a comment about abortion, for example,

01:28:23

I've had people tell me, I don't believe in abortion. I wouldn't have an abortion. I'm a

01:28:28

Christian, but I don't think we have the right to prime that down other people's throats either. And which party did you vote for?

01:28:35

I voted. And I don't want to get political here. I voted for the democratic party. You cannot tell me that you can be firm in your belief as far as what abortion is and what the scripture tells us and vote for somebody that goes along with the things that are happening right now, but they feel comfortable in that.

01:28:52

So that's where they're at. Yeah. One of the things we've forgotten as a church is that we don't define what's right and wrong.

01:28:59

I watched Matt, the guy on the daily wire who did the, what is a woman,

01:29:05

Matt Walsh, try to answer this question from another interviewer. Joe Rogan actually asked him what's wrong with gay marriage.

01:29:14

How does that, how does that destroy traditional marriage? And Matt Walsh tried to argue from logic or tried to argue from the, the protection of families or the protection of children.

01:29:25

And the proper answer is, well, here's the thing. We don't define what marriage is.

01:29:30

God in his word does and his definition is perfect. And we have no right to try and undo what he has done or to dig under that foundation.

01:29:40

And so it's, it's imperative that as Christians, we not only understand what the word of God says and apply that to our daily lives, but then when we're tested, we rely on it and we trust that God is strong enough and good enough and holy enough and sovereign enough to defend himself.

01:29:59

But at the same time, we also understand that just like the world hated Jesus, they're going to hate us and they're going to hate us for the same thing.

01:30:08

When we stand on God's word and when we trust in him and when we rely on him for our morality and define it by his standards, we cast guilt on the rest of the world and it will cause us to be hated.

01:30:23

Repentance is always has to start with the fundamental reality that God's truth is what gets to define how we're to live every single time.

01:30:32

I'm glad you guys brought that up. I think with the pro -life movement, the biggest problem with the pro -life movement is pro -life people.

01:30:39

They're not actually against abortion. 100%. They have these, what about this?

01:30:45

And what about that? Don't tell other people, but they're not 100 % against abortion in all its forms.

01:30:52

And so, you know, the scriptures are clear and I think we've all said it well. We don't get to define or we can't go and change

01:31:01

God's blueprints. He defined the family. He defined gender. He defined marriage.

01:31:07

He's the architect of all these things. And we have no access in the throne room to change the architect's blueprints at all.

01:31:16

We can't get our hands on it. And so we're wrong. And I mean, Romans one is upon us for even attempting to do such things.

01:31:26

And any church that acquiesces to that as well is, I mean, I guess you would say it's not a church whatsoever.

01:31:33

And I think we see so many that profess to be the church are joining hands with the world and the world is making disciples of many in the church rather than the church going out into the world and making disciples of the world, of the ethnicities of the world.

01:31:49

And so I really liked Matt. I have to tip my hat to, I really appreciate the aspect of the federal headship.

01:31:57

I think that that is key. And I think we do see that among our leaders. And I think we're getting the leaders we deserve.

01:32:04

I, you know, regardless of the fact that if we thought the election was stolen and, and, and, you know, dead, more dead people voted for Democrats that are alive and all those kinds of things.

01:32:15

But I mean, from, from quote unquote, preachers like Osteen and prosperity preachers around,

01:32:23

I think God is giving us over to what we want. Now, of course, he will always protect his church.

01:32:28

There is a remnant among the people of God and he saved Noah. He saved his people in Egypt and so on and so forth.

01:32:36

But I really appreciate that federal headship point that you made. Yeah. I like,

01:32:43

I like everything. I like everything that Matt had said as well. And what Melissa had thrown in there too.

01:32:49

But the bottom line being that we need to start with not being ashamed of the gospel, which is pretty much what everybody's been saying.

01:32:57

And, and, you know, in a different way, but that as righteous people living in a nation that is under judgment, much like Ezekiel, who was living in a nation under judgment, was exiled as Christians.

01:33:09

We're going to feel the squeeze, but as Melissa said, we will be purified in the process.

01:33:19

And that always has to be part of it. Yeah. That has to be part of it because that's the whole point. Melissa beautifully said it earlier.

01:33:25

The, the, the point of discipline, the reason that consequences come into my life is to purify me.

01:33:32

The reason that I'm persecuted, the reason that trials and testing has come into my life is to, that I may grow in my faith and be more steadfast, be a brighter light and be salty or salt.

01:33:42

So the question, is it too late for America to repent? Is it safe to assume that we would all say, no, it's never too late to repent.

01:33:53

The scriptures are clear that, you know, in the vast majority of cases, it really comes down to a singular decision.

01:34:00

Am I going to trust what God said and submit to it? Turn from my wicked ways and follow him. That doesn't mean that all of America or all centers or all the rest of the world is going to repent.

01:34:12

We know that that's not true. Broad is the way that leads to destruction. But the question is, is it too late?

01:34:18

Well, no, not for God's elect. Not for his people for sure. So then what does that, again, what does that look like?

01:34:25

You know, can we, and I think we've all come to the agreement that it involves us heroically in a

01:34:31

Christ honoring strong way, preaching the truth and that it really, we need to get back to the revival of the idea that we

01:34:38

Christians need to stop hiding under rocks and hiding under bushels and get out there and be that, that salt and that light that God has commanded us to be.

01:34:47

What else do you guys think though? One little candle. Yeah, exactly. Be that one little candle. Exactly. Rebecca, where'd you come up with that great picture?

01:34:54

I don't know. Eve, what are you thinking? Love to hear your thoughts on this. I'm just listening.

01:35:04

But you listen and you think so, so intently and so, and so calculatedly. No, I I'm still going back to the, in my thought to the question

01:35:15

I asked earlier, it, if we're under judgment, when were we under blessing? And, and I, and I, I think back to each generation, you know, we, we had the civil war and then we had a world war one and world war two and, and we've always had hardships and disasters.

01:35:34

And it's like, everybody's now, you know, the, the secular culture, every time there's a hurricane or a tornado or out of season freeze or whatever, they're always screaming global warming or climate change or whatever.

01:35:47

But if we look back historically, those things have always happened. It's just, and there've been severe hurricanes in the past.

01:35:54

There's been severe flooding in the past. We've always had judgment coming and going. And do

01:35:59

I believe that America is under judgment? Yes, I do. But I, I still don't, I still don't quite understand where we're coming at with the idea that, that God blesses nations.

01:36:13

I think that America has always been under judgment and, and what peace and prosperity that we have had in the

01:36:23

U .S. has only served to make the church as Matt, I think it was

01:36:28

Matt said, wussified. We've become wusses because we've lived in so much peace and prosperity that we're no longer know how to stand against adversity and, and represent

01:36:39

Christ under hardship. And so I don't, that's my thoughts. See, even that's why

01:36:45

I asked that. Well, there you go. What are your, what are your thoughts? What are your responses? Oh, Garrett, you're off muted and then you muted yourself.

01:36:55

Oh, there we go. Sorry. There is a biblical response to this. And that's to look at what

01:37:00

Christ says and realize that it's not a silly conversation as well. Jesus answered them and said, this is

01:37:08

Matthew chapter 24 verses four, see that no one leads you astray for many, many will come in my name saying

01:37:15

I am the Christ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars.

01:37:22

See that you are not alarmed for this must take place, but this is not the end yet.

01:37:28

And, and what Christ is saying here is keep your head about you, but remember what is in the rest of the scripture where we're told to keep awake.

01:37:37

And what Christ does here in this, in this story is really important. When the disciples come to him and asked him, ask him when are all these things going to take place?

01:37:48

He doesn't say to them, Oh guys, you are so silly. And he doesn't jump ahead to verse 36 and say, but concerning the day or the hour, no one knows not even the angels of heaven nor the son, but only the father and then dismiss them.

01:38:04

But he goes on to answer their question. And he says to them later from the fig tree, learn its lesson.

01:38:11

What he's telling them is to watch as soon as it's branch comes tender and puts out its leaves, you know, the summer is near.

01:38:18

And, and I think it's interesting to understand that one, he didn't give them a date or a time, but he did say to consider the matters and keep your eyes open and watch what seasons are changing and what's coming.

01:38:30

And at the same time, keep your heads about you. So that wars and rumors of wars, oftentimes it's kicked around when we start talking about end times, right?

01:38:41

When the tribulation and things like that. So we knew it was going to come up. It's we've been touching on it a little bit here and there.

01:38:47

I'll, I'll start this off just by saying that, you know, a lot of people try to look at to revelation in the book of Daniel to, to see, you know, what does this image represent?

01:38:58

What is this? This word picture over here represent is that literals I figured all that kind of stuff. And some people like to see

01:39:05

America somehow the nation of America somehow in these end times prophecies.

01:39:12

I tend to believe on the other side that America is not there. And in fact, you would think that if America existed, right.

01:39:19

That perhaps they would play a pretty significant role in what we see. That's going to be transpiring during the end times given, you know, at least who we used to be the hyper power that we used to be militarily.

01:39:30

I would not be surprised if at all, because of God's judgment or the just destroying ourselves from the inside out because of our own wicked, sinful choices that by the time, you know, that the antichrist is coming and so on and so forth that America is no longer a player.

01:39:45

Now we've been absorbed into some other world power. That's my personal thought. You know, is it too late for America to repent?

01:39:51

No, but eventually it will be when everyone who hasn't repented receives the, the, the just desserts of their choices.

01:39:58

But what do you guys think as this, from an eschatological standpoint, where is

01:40:04

America and their repentance or their judgment play into all of that? What do you think? Well, to kind of put it briefly, the answer we know is not to repent.

01:40:15

And what I think of is an old Testament times, God sent dozens of prophets, maybe hundreds of prophets because they were sent to warn the people, you know,

01:40:28

God loves you. He wants you back. They had it within them to have repented.

01:40:34

Of course they didn't as history points out, but God extended that there.

01:40:41

And I think God extends that to us today individually and as a nation, Hey, I want you back time to repent.

01:40:49

Now the problem is the reality wake up call is will people repent?

01:40:54

Probably not by and large. I honestly pray that they do, but the sad fact is they, they probably won't because as you said, there's not really a big mention of America and the scripture in time theology.

01:41:10

And I am of a belief that America will cease to exist as a nation. And I think that may just be the thing that kicks off all the cataclysmic thing as you read about it in revelation, but that's strictly my opinion and I'm willing to change that idea.

01:41:28

But that's what I, what I kind of think of when I think of I'm optimistic about their repentance.

01:41:36

I'm based on a track record of history and human nature. I'm kind of practical and saying, it's not going to happen, but just like with personal repentance, when does a person repent?

01:41:51

Well, usually it comes after conviction, the Holy spirit, sometimes only a little bit.

01:41:56

Sometimes it takes some pretty heavy influence of the Holy spirit as you might find yourself in jail.

01:42:05

When have you come to grips with that? You may find yourself, you know, the bottom of a bottle or the end of a needle or wherever you happen to be.

01:42:15

And some people have some pretty hard rock bottom experiences before they experience that. And then they finally repent.

01:42:22

Some people reach that and they're still shaking a fist at God. I think as long as you have breath in your lungs and you're alive, you it's not too late ever.

01:42:34

But some people don't, won't take that. They'll still rebel to the dying breath.

01:42:41

Yeah, go ahead, Matt. Yeah. I'm a pessimistic on millennial list. And so I, I teach what's called depressed catology for real.

01:42:50

I teach it and I show people how bad it's going to get. And I say, this is part of the apostasy that you're under right now. we're going to be in the second Thessalonians two and the third it says there's going to be an apostasy and the apostasy is coming.

01:43:00

Now the Roman Catholic church is already apostate. It's a, it's a false church. Eastern Orthodoxy is. The Christian Protestant church is moving towards apostasy.

01:43:09

And when I speak in groups and things like this, I ask test questions and show people how they're humanistic and their philosophy inside of Christianity.

01:43:17

And I say, this is part of the apostasy that you're under right now. Shocks the crud out of people, but it's true.

01:43:23

So what we're going to, I forget who it was who said, America isn't going to be around.

01:43:29

America is going to fail. Now that's not an absolute because it could be that the

01:43:35

Christian men will rise up with this country and push back the rapture 150, 200 years, get more people saved.

01:43:40

I don't know how it all works. But the thing is, we need to be worrying about our present time. We know it's going to get bad.

01:43:46

We know that there's going to be a third of mankind wiped out. Go to Revelation 8, 9, 10, all that. We know it's going to get bad.

01:43:53

And we know that we're going to probably be beheaded, which means probably Islam's going to have a humongous increase because that's what they do.

01:44:01

And we as Christians, particularly as Christian pastors, I'm an ex -pastor, need to preach the cross and Jesus Christ crucified and what it means.

01:44:12

When I witness, I teach three things, law, gospel, and the cost.

01:44:18

Most everybody preaches the gospel. And then the second most preach the law and the gospel and nobody preaches the cost because we need to know what the cost is.

01:44:28

If we're not going to be aware of the cost, then how are we going to get people to follow in line and follow

01:44:34

Christ? Because the persecution is what purifies a church. And the church in America right now is impure.

01:44:41

And I'm not judging it. And we know that the Christian church is weak. And how do we know it's weak?

01:44:47

Because look what's happening in society. We know it's impotent. Look what's happening in society.

01:44:53

It's being kicked around all over the place. It's kicked off of shows. It's misrepresented.

01:45:00

It's mocked. It's full of hatred. People in schools are telling me, I'm 66.

01:45:05

I have young friends. They're telling me in college that Christianity is just attacked without provocation.

01:45:15

It's happening all over the place. Our country is in incredibly bad shape.

01:45:21

And the only thing that's going to save it is a revival. And so what do we do? The first thing we need to do as Christians is to seek the

01:45:28

Lord Jesus Christ and to pray and to fast. First thing we've got to do, seek our own repentance.

01:45:34

We need to pray biblically for the national repentance, for the salvation of our leaders, and for the pastors to start preaching the truth and equipping the

01:45:43

Christians, instead of babysitting them and teaching what I call Diaperinian theology. Koochie koochie koo.

01:45:50

Get in here, we'll comfort you. And just tell you how the blonde haired, blue eyed Caucasian surfer Jesus will comfort you.

01:45:57

No, I don't do that. I say, no, you've got to understand. Jesus is calling you to work. He's calling you to discipleship.

01:46:03

He's calling you to sacrifice. He's calling you to change. And like Melissa said, raising godly children.

01:46:10

That's an incredibly important thing that women need to do, and they need to be praised for it.

01:46:16

It's incredibly important to do. We need to ask the Lord to use us and be willing to undergo what it means to be changed in that sanctification process.

01:46:26

Christianity is the hardest thing in the world. Not because I have to not lie to somebody, because I've got to face what's in me and I don't like what

01:46:33

I see. So trials and tribulations show us two things. They show us God, they show us ourselves.

01:46:39

We need to move with the Lord guides. We need to seek like -minded Christians and we need to join where the spirit of God is moving the unbelievers to go.

01:46:47

And the only way to do all this is if we're in prayer and in harmony with the Holy Spirit of God, the one spirit of God.

01:46:54

One faith, one Lord, one baptism, Ephesians 4, 5, so that we could hear the one voice of Christ and we all somehow end up in the same location because he's calling us to do the same thing.

01:47:06

But what's happening now is that churches are under division. Calvinist, Arminian, Wesleyan, Lutheran, cessationist, charismatic, dispensationalist, or the true position called covenantalism and all kinds of stuff.

01:47:21

Yeah, now I'm messing with people. So I've been thinking about this so much.

01:47:26

I don't know if you guys know what I do, but I'm in this all the time, all the time for decades.

01:47:34

And the Christian church, I know what it can do. And it needs to start moving. The pastor is gonna start preaching to please

01:47:41

Christ and not the congregations. They're gonna preach to thin out the church and get rid of the dross, get rid of the goats.

01:47:49

They wanna stay, that's fine, they hear the word, but they gotta equip the Christians. And I got stories about that, but the

01:47:55

Christian church has gotta change and that's gonna begin with the Christian people. And of course, we men have got to stand up and be willing to take risks.

01:48:02

It's not easy, it's what's necessary. Now, for those of you listening, whatever time it is you happen to be listening, we're gonna be, we're not done yet.

01:48:12

We're coming to a close here soon. I just wanna put this into your ear before we get too much further. You're gonna fall into one of two categories, those of you listening here today.

01:48:20

You either are a child of God and Lord willing, and you, like I, have been stirred in your spirit.

01:48:27

The Holy Spirit is potentially even convicting you of those ways that humanism and the lies of this world have crept into your lifestyle.

01:48:37

The fact that your little light is under a bushel. The fact that you are not being,

01:48:44

God hasn't necessarily called you to revolutionize the world single -handedly, but he has called you to make a difference on the people in your life, and are you doing that?

01:48:54

And if you are, then God has called you and I to repentance. At the same time, there may be those who are listening who are just tuned in here because they wanted to listen to the crazy

01:49:06

Christian crackpots and what they have to say about America and judgment. And maybe you'll take snippets from this conversation and throw it on your

01:49:13

YouTube channel and poke fun at it. But the reality is perhaps maybe someone's listening right now who you fall into that category of somebody who is a

01:49:24

Romans I receiving the condemnation of your choices. You recognize the fact that this country is receiving a corporate judgment, a corporate consequence because of the choices it's making.

01:49:37

And perhaps these conversations about God have stirred something in you. I wanna strongly encourage you to reach out to a born -again believer who can show you the truth, who can show you what repentance is, how to confess, to believe in Jesus Christ.

01:49:53

I used to be able to say, reach out to your local church. Unfortunately, I can't really say that too much anymore because who knows what that local church actually preaches and teaches.

01:50:02

So I tell you this, you can reach out to Striving for Eternity. You can reach out to any of the podcast hosts who have their podcasts and the

01:50:10

Christian podcast community. We would love to talk with you. I'm a biblical counselor and I would love to have a conversation with you personally to be able to answer your questions about who

01:50:20

God is and who you are and our responsibility to him as the creator and sovereign king of this universe.

01:50:26

So if you're in either of those two groups, something's gotta change. We've gotta do something. I suppose it's possible that some people are listening and you are being that change.

01:50:34

Praise God. I pray that you're encouraged in it. I pray that you continue to be that salt and that light.

01:50:41

But as we are starting to wind down here, we've hit on a lot of really important topics. And the question that Garrett gave us was, is

01:50:48

America under God's judgment? The answer to one degree or another is definitively yes. Is it too late for America to repent?

01:50:55

No, but the reality is it's not good enough for any of us to wait for somebody else to do their part.

01:51:00

We have to do ours. So more thoughts from you guys on what that looks like. What can we do?

01:51:06

What should we do? What does that look like? Some of this grassroots type of stuff is fantastic. What are you guys thinking?

01:51:13

I wanna tell you what we do, because I came to a realization a while back, which was whether or not we're under specific judgment, whether or not the wrath of God is being poured out on the world right now, whether or not we are in the tribulation or beginning the tribulation or a hundred years from the tribulation, ultimately, once we're saved and once we're leading our families towards Christ and towards his kingdom, our job doesn't change.

01:51:42

Our job is specifically to go out and make disciples and not be ashamed of the gospel and share it boldly.

01:51:50

And so what we do is we share the gospel boldly on every show.

01:51:56

We share the gospel boldly in everything we do through our ministry. And we believe that specifically our job, we are called to build up, preserve, and grow the remnant.

01:52:10

We wanna see the kingdom enlarged one family at a time, and we pray for thousands and millions of families.

01:52:17

But if it means we do one a year, if it means we do one in 10 years, but that changes is real and eternal to the glory of God, then praise him for it.

01:52:28

We are working to grow the remnant. Amen for the passion.

01:52:34

I share that passion, specifically for families and what I do. Amen for that. Someone else.

01:52:43

I guess. Go ahead. Go ahead, Melissa. Well, I was gonna speak to the women because that is what my podcast is about.

01:52:56

The way a woman fights is going, it's not physical. It's not by shouting or being over exuberant or it's just a faithful service to her husband and her children and to be in the word, number one.

01:53:13

And I think one of our biggest issues as I'm hearing everybody talking, especially as we're looking at the church, churches nowadays are, women's ministry is all focused on women in leadership.

01:53:26

And yes, it's all under the guise of making disciples, but we forget the next part of that, which is to obey everything that God, that obey

01:53:39

Christ, to submit to Christ's commands. And Christ commands his women to serve in the home, to be workers at home, to be submissive to husbands, to love their husbands and children.

01:53:55

Serving in the home doesn't necessarily mean that it's just you're a homemaker, but that everything is about the home.

01:54:03

You're serving your husband. And if that means you have to work outside of the home to support, nowadays, most women, that's what they're stuck with.

01:54:12

But your focus is in the home and your focus is raising godly children. And it's sacrifice, us women sacrificing for the glory of the

01:54:25

Lord. And it's a hard thing to do. And we don't think that it's actually any, has any power behind it, but it really does, because it is an example of Christ and his church.

01:54:37

And that is the most visible gospel you can see in the family, working out headship and submission.

01:54:47

And it is a spiritual battle, something that I think just we undermine and we don't think in our feminist worldview that it's actually a beacon and a light.

01:55:02

And so that's part of what I do for my podcast is show women that scripture is sufficient and that our role is much more powerful than the world makes it look.

01:55:17

Amen. Pauline, go ahead. That was one of the most politically incorrect speeches

01:55:23

I've heard, Melissa, but you were right on. Amen. Right on. I just think it's so important and I have to remind myself of it.

01:55:33

In the years that I've been a born again Christian, I still need to, we need to stay focused on God and Christ.

01:55:43

And Christ is our chief shepherd. Without him, we can't do anything.

01:55:49

It's impossible. He's given us his life. He's given us his

01:55:54

Holy Spirit. He's given us the word. He's given us his power. He's given us everything we need. And brother, we need it.

01:56:01

And so all the things we've been talking about here, if we don't stay focused on Christ and his character and becoming

01:56:07

Christ -like, we're just gonna sit here. So I think that's really important.

01:56:13

We have to remember every day, we owe it all to him. I think it's really important that we kind of wind this down and focusing on something that Garrett said earlier, this idea of staying awake.

01:56:27

The word that I like to use a lot in my ministry, a lot of other people use as well is the word intentionality.

01:56:34

To be intentional is to be purposeful. Too often, we turn our brains off. We go into autopilot.

01:56:39

We feel our way through life. And that's how I think to a large degree, Christians, that's how we've put our candles under bushels.

01:56:47

That's how we've lost our saltiness because we're such sensory beings that the things that inundate our five senses have become the most important thing to us, eating and pleasure and making money and all that kind of thing.

01:57:00

And our minds have been turned off and we feel our way through lives. And you're never going to accidentally glorify

01:57:05

God. You're never gonna accidentally, purposely do something that is going to change this world for Christ.

01:57:12

So this idea of staying awake. Jesus in Mark chapter 13, he says, stay awake for you do not know when the master of the house will come in the evening or at midnight, or when the rooster crows or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.

01:57:28

And what I say to you, I say to all, stay awake. And Christians, yes, regardless of what nation you live in, let's be honest, your nation is under God's judgment as the centers in your nation are under God's judgment.

01:57:41

You may be feeling that right now, or you may not. You need to stay awake. For those of you who are experiencing

01:57:47

God's judgment in your own life, you need to wake up. And for those of us who have kind of fallen asleep because life has just soothed us into complacency, we too as well need to wake up and we need to stay awake intentionally, premeditatedly grounding ourselves in God's word, in the power of his

01:58:09

Holy Spirit and for his honor and glory. Thank you everyone who joined our panel tonight.

01:58:14

We thank you for coming out. Thank you for everyone who's listening. I hope you guys will continue to subscribe and listen to Theology Throwdown for future conversations where we in grace and in love discussing, sometimes disagreeing with each other because the scriptures is not a textbook and it is our responsibility to know it and interpret it and apply it.

01:58:34

So I hope you guys were challenged tonight and I hope you're encouraged to check us out again. And please go and listen to any and all of our podcasts on the

01:58:42

Christian community, the podcast community. No doubt you will be encouraged and we love to interact with you guys there.

01:58:47

You guys have an awesome day. Thank you. God bless. Thanks guys. Thanks a lot guys.

01:58:53

Thank you. Thank you. And we'll find out later if we're all in trouble with Andrew.

01:59:00

You're not gonna tease me for calling you Andrew. He will do that. I'm gonna hear it. He sent me a text.

01:59:07

He says, no picking on me just because I'm not there. I think we did a good job.

01:59:14

I think we were withheld. We miss it. It's not the same without Andrew, man. It's true.

01:59:20

It's true. You know, when you introed it, you called it the Christian parenting community.

01:59:26

Oh, did I? Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure Andrew can edit that somehow.