Rittenhouse, Kanye, and a Listener Question

Kyle Rittenhouse, Self-Defense, and the Public Divide

Kyle Rittenhouse found not guilty on all charges. Bieber and Kanye worship with Marilyn Manson. And we answer a listener question today on conversations with a Calvinist stay tuned. Welcome back to conversation with the Calvinist.

My name is Keith Foskey and I am a Calvinist and don't adjust the sound on your computer or smartphone. This is my real voice. And it's one of the reasons why it's been a little while since I did a podcast.

I have been suffering not with the pandemic. No, I've been suffering with just good old bronchitis. And it has put me down for the last several days. If you listen to my sermon last Sunday, you'll notice that I was already dealing with some of this.

And for the last week, it's just it got increasingly worse. As the days went by, I finally went and see a doctor and went and saw a doctor. The doctor prescribed me a prescription and I have been taking that prescription and I'm slowly getting better, but I am dealing with bronchitis.

So my voice is not as strong as it normally would be. And so if you're hearing me for the first time, this is not what I normally sound like. But I am thankful that you're listening today. And what we're going to be doing on the program today is a little bit different.

Normally, I have one topic that I'm dealing with one thing that I focus on. But today, I don't have a guest. A lot of times I have guests on the program today. I don't have any guests. What I'm going to be doing is I'm just going to be talking through some subjects, some specific news items that have been in the news, things that I like to bring up and look at from a Christian perspective.

And then I'm going to deal with a question from a friend of mine, a Bible question that she asked. And I asked her if I could come and talk about it on the program, rather than writing her response. I said, sometimes it's easier for me to provide a verbal response on a platform like this.

Give me a little more time to work it out and to talk through it. So I want to begin by talking about the fact that today is November the 19th, 2021. When I'm recording this, you might be listening to this at a later time, but that's the recording of today's program.

And today is the day that Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty in the Kenosha shootings. And if you're unfamiliar with this particular situation, well, praise the Lord. That means you probably don't get on social media much, and that's probably pretty good.

But most of you probably are familiar that this all took place during a riot that had broken out. And this young man was carrying an AR -15 and was seeking to provide protection for a particular location and provide medical assistance to people who needed it.

And in the midst of this situation, got caught up where he was attacked. And during that attack, he discharged his firearm into some attackers. He ended up killing two people and wounding one other. And the question was, is this homicide?

Is he guilty of essentially murder or was this self-defense? And the country was largely divided over this. I watched particularly on social media. And again, if you only ever look at your social media page, if you never look at anyone from the other side, then it's easy to think everybody thinks just like you do.

But if you had a chance, if you got family members who maybe are on a different political stance than you, you probably noticed that most of the people that are conservative on the right for self-defense, for the second amendment, things like that, they were very pro-Kyle.

And on the other side, you had people who were very anti-Kyle. And what's interesting is oftentimes this falls down to Christians as well. You'll see Christians on one side and Christians on the other.

But this is one of those times when that wasn't really the case. In fact, I was pointed to an article, I think, that came out very early by the Gospel Coalition. I think it was Gospel Coalition that actually called him an active shooter, compared him to, I think, one of the Columbine shooters, which was a very unfortunate thing that happened.

But it just goes to show that not everyone in the quote unquote Christian community felt the same way about this particular case. And that makes sense. This is not necessarily something that Christians couldn't disagree on.

Certainly Christians can disagree on this particular subject. Just a few weeks ago, I talked about the subject of self-defense. I said, there are some Christians who believe that self-defense is a God-given right.

Some people believe self-defense is always wrong. And I said, obviously, I believe that self-defense is a God-given right and something that we should be able to do. But certainly not everybody agrees.

And this is an area where we have to exercise some of the conscience that we're given, that we have to be able to address things from the conscience and from the Bible. What does the Bible say about these things?

And we talked about that on a previous program. But my reason for bringing up Kyle Rittenhouse today, again, he has been exonerated. All charges have been, he's been found not guilty on all charges. And this is going to lead to a further divide.

Because for those who were automatically saying that this young man was guilty, that he was essentially a cold-blooded murderer, and even the prosecuting attorney, who I watched much of the trial, and this guy was a, well, he really made some real boo-boos.

One of the things specifically, holding an AR -15 with his finger on the trigger in court, even though, of course, it was unloaded, doesn't matter. You treat every gun like it's loaded. By the way, for those of you who don't know, I am a firearms instructor.

And when I saw the picture of this man holding an AR -15, pointing it essentially at the jury with his finger on the trigger, even though I know it's an unloaded firearm, I know it's been checked probably multiple times, it didn't matter.

He's breaking the three rules right away. When I teach firearm safety, the first rule is always keep the gun pointing in a safe direction. Pointing it at the jury is not pointing in a safe direction. Always keep your finger off the trigger.

He's got his finger dead on the trigger. There's a photograph of it. And then the third rule from the NRA is keep the gun unloaded until you're ready to use it. That's not the rule that I tend to focus on.

Treat every gun like it's loaded. Don't ever assume a gun's unloaded. Even if you've checked it yourself, treat it like it's loaded. Never treat a gun like a toy. And here's a guy treating this firearm like it's a toy.

He's holding it up and pointing it at people. So it's just ridiculous. I think this guy was, I think he was just a, he made a carnival of errors and we saw it throughout the trial. But ultimately it shouldn't have been a trial because the videos showed that it was self-defense and Kyle exercising his right to self-defense is something that all of us should be glad is still a right in this country because there are certain countries where you don't have the right to self-defense.

There are certain countries where someone can be hurting you. Someone can be attacking you and you don't even have the right to fight back. Somebody can come into your home, steal your things. You have no right to protect your home.

And at least in America, in many areas in America, we still have the right of self-defense. And I'm glad that that right was upheld today by the law. I'm glad that Kyle Rittenhouse was ultimately found not guilty.

And I'm disappointed in our president who came out and said that he was essentially angered by the, by the decision of the jury. And of course he is, because again, this, this thing divided people right where the divide is.

And on many issues, the right left divide falls down to things like personal responsibility, the ability to defend yourself, the ability to have your own firearms and defend yourself. All these in this, in this case clearly showed that.

False Conversion, Cultural Christianity, and the Kanye West Service

And again, from a, from a biblical perspective, I believe it is a biblical right to defend ourselves. And I believe that that right was upheld in court today and I'm thankful for it. Now, the second thing I wanted to mention before I get to the most important item of the day, and that is the Bible question, is that a couple of weeks ago, actually on October 31st, which we celebrate as Reformation Day, also celebrated by the world as Halloween, there was an event that took place with Kanye West.

Now, if you're not familiar with Kanye West, he is a singer, entertainer, and about, I guess it's been about a year and a half ago, he came out and proclaimed to have been saved, proclaimed to have believed in Jesus Christ.

And there was a lot of hope within the Christian community that this was a genuine conversion. There were some things that he did that seemed to indicate that his conversion may have been real. And there were things that he was doing that caused a lot of people to feel like, you know, maybe this was genuine.

But some of us said, you know, we need to be patient and watch what's happening because there is, there's plenty of scripture which shows us that a person can claim faith and not truly possess faith, that they can profess without possess.

And this, of course, takes us back to the parable of the sower, who the Bible says, Jesus tells the story of a man who is sowing seed, and the seed falls upon the rocky soil. Some seed falls upon the pathway, some seed falls upon the weeds, and some falls in good soil.

And it's only that which falls in the good soil that grows and produces a crop. The rest of it does not produce a crop, and the rest of it demonstrates that the seed can fall. It can even take a little bit of root, but if it doesn't bear fruit, then it's not genuine faith.

And what we're seeing out of Kanye West, who now has changed his name apparently to just Ye. I don't know if I'm saying that right. It's written here as Ye, so I'm assuming it's Ye or Yay that he's going by.

And, you know, the things that he's doing and the silliness that he's engaging in doesn't seem to be indicative of a person who's had a genuine life change. And the picture I'm looking at is, first of all, it's very, just very weird looking.

He's in an all-white outfit. He's next to Justin Bieber, who is in an all-white outfit with a white hoodie, who is next to Marilyn Manson, who I remember when I grew up in the 90s. Marilyn Manson was known as everything Christians did not want anything to do with.

He glorified Satan and demons in his shows. He exercised the most severely depraved things in his shows. And he's dressed as Storm Shadow from the G .I. Joe series. I'm just kidding. He's dressed in like a white ninja outfit, got his mask on and everything.

And I'm looking at this article, and the article I'm looking at today is from thedailybeast .com, and I don't know anything about them. I just happened to pull this article up, and it says, this is what it says, Christians divided over Marilyn Manson's appearance at Kanye West's Sunday service.

Christians are divided. Really? Real Christians are divided over this? This is what you think? It says, Kanye West's decision to bring the shock rocker and accused serial sexual predator on stage during a Sunday service where he and Justin Bieber prayed has Christians torn.

Really? Real Christians are torn over this? Real Christians are wondering if this is a good thing to do? I think this is indicative of a bigger problem, and that's why I wanted to talk about it on the program today.

I think it's indicative of the problem that there's a lot of people who call themselves just are not Christian. And somebody might get mad at me and say, well, who are you to judge? I'm not judging them.

I'm saying that it is a reality that there are people who profess faith that don't possess faith. There are people who say they believe in Jesus, who either the Jesus they believe in is not the Jesus of the Bible, or their faith is misplaced.

It's not in the Jesus of Scripture. And so that's what we see in this situation. We see three men who I would say are utterly, utterly confused. I don't think any one of them is regenerate. None of them have had any evidence of regeneration.

The first evidence of regeneration for any of these men would have been stepping back from all this nonsense and coming underneath the instruction of godly men and being taught in the ways of God and become a disciple of Jesus Christ, and then would by that demonstrate that their lives had changed.

That's not what has happened here. These men continue on in their worldly, godly lifestyles. And somebody says, well, wait a minute, but Bieber is praising Jesus. Again, what has he been taught? He's been taught the Jesus of the prosperity movement.

We see him hanging out with people from the prosperity gospel movement and from these false new apostolic movements and stuff that he's been seen hanging around with. And I said new apostolic, it could be Bethel.

I'm not sure, but the people that he's hanging out with and the things that he's doing are not indicative of a genuine believer. And again, hanging out with Marilyn Manson, all these are just major signs that we have a problem here.

And the problem is not with Kanye and Marilyn Manson and with Justin Bieber. They are a product of the problem. The problem is we have a generation that doesn't know how to define Christianity, and that's it.

We have a generation that doesn't know how to define Christianity, and they have chosen to define Christianity in the most ridiculous of ways. For instance, to say that Christianity is really nothing more than saying you love Jesus.

Well, I've got news for you. Just about every religion out there can love a version of Jesus, but it's not the Jesus of the Bible. I mean, Muslims talk about Isa in the Quran, and they talk about him as the Messiah of the Jews and him being a prophet, one of the prophets of Allah.

In that sense, they would say they love Jesus, but they don't love the Jesus of Scripture. They don't love the second person of the Trinity, the God-man, the one who took on flesh and came to the earth, died on the cross, and received in himself the penalty of sins for those who would believe on him and provided a righteousness by which they stand before God.

That's the Jesus that they would deny, and therefore, they don't love Jesus. And again, when we look at things like this, I mean, this Kanye West thing, it's just scary looking. It has all the makings of a cult look when you look at it.

It doesn't have any semblance of church or godliness or righteousness. It has every semblance of what you would say if you wanted to know what a cult group looked like, and that's what we're seeing here.

It was bizarre. It was odd. It was not a worship service, unless one might argue there was a worshiping of demonic activity or maybe a worshiping of the devil. And again, though, the problem is not this.

This is a product of the problem and a product of the bigger problem, which would be that many Christians out there, and maybe some of you listening to me right now, would say, how dare you have anything to say about this?

How dare you have an opinion about this? Didn't you hear Jesus who said, judge not lest ye be judged, and therefore you have no right to judge any of this. If you're thinking that, if that's your thinking right now, just know that you have been, the culture has co-opted you.

They have corrupted your mind. And that type of thinking, that type of thinking that as a Christian, we can have no discernment, that is absolutely destructive. And it will melt your mind if you continue to allow it to invade as you already have, if you're thinking that way.

Pardon me, I'm going to take a sip. I just want to say something. I'm so happy that it's Christmas season because I get to drink eggnog out of my Batman mug. Praise the Lord. Oh, God bless whoever came up with that idea.

Eggnog is the best. Okay, so I think I've talked enough about this, but again, just to reiterate, we're talking about this thing, this Kanye West worship service. What we're looking at is we're looking at a situation where, when it says Christians divide over this, no, true Christians see this for what it is.

It's false worship. It's a false Christianity. It's a fake show. It doesn't divide Christians. It shows that there are people out there who call themselves Christians who have nothing, who know nothing about what it means to be a believer in Jesus Christ.

You say I'm mean, you say I'm hard-hearted, you say I'm judgmental. I'm not. I'm pointing you to the truth that there's a lot of people out there who call themselves Christian, who do not know. Here's the thing.

We have the blind leading the blind, too, because we have a lot of churches who will take people who know nothing about Christ, they'll put them in charge of small groups. Then those people will become the leaders of the led, and the leaders know nothing, and the led who are being led know nothing.

Then you have the blind leading the blind. What does Jesus say? He says they both end up in a ditch. That's what happens. This is the kind of stuff you end up with. You end up with people in ditches. You end up with people in confusion.

You end up with entire churches that can't say anything is right and wrong because everything is relative. Everything is subjective. Everything is subject to my truth. How can I say anything about Kanye?

He's living out his truth. Well, if his truth is wrong, then it's not the truth. Truth is not up to you. Truth is a person, Jesus Christ. If you've got the wrong Jesus, you've got the wrong truth, and your truth is error.

Your truth is falsehood. Your truth is a lie. I've said what I wanted to say about that. Let me move on now to the time for the question of the day. This is from Ms. Rosanna, who I appreciate sending in this question.

It was a very good Bible question. She's asking me a question about John chapter 15. If you have your Bible and you want to open up, we're going to read John chapter 15, and we're going to begin at verse 4.

We're going to read down to verse 10. Excuse me. Yeah, that bronchitis. Okay. Chapter 15, verse 4. Jesus is speaking, and he says, Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch, and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, so you will be my disciples. As the Father loved me, I also have loved you.

Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. All right, that ends the verses, and now here's the question.

Jesus is speaking to his disciples at the end of his time, and they are his, and they believe, and they have faith. This is true. Can we abide in him? That's the question. We are already in him, saved and sealed.

Why give a command to abide when it's not in our power to do the abiding? It's the Spirit's work to keep us abiding. All right, well, that's a good question, and that is a question that is not being raised only once.

This is a question that people ask all the time, and it really has to do with the relationship, if you will, between God's role and our role in our perseverance. I want to really discuss that particular concept because when we read the Bible, there are two truths which are absolutely indispensable, two truths which cannot be denied.

The first truth is that it is God who saves us, sanctifies us, and glorifies us. It is God who does the work of our salvation. We do not cause ourselves to be saved, and we do not ultimately cause ourselves to persevere.

That is the work of God, and it is God's work alone. And I say that, and I hate to now use the word but or the word however because it's going to sound like I'm now contradicting what I just said. I'm not, but I do want to be clear from the outset when I say your salvation begins and ends with God.

Now, I've said that. Now let me clarify it by saying this. We are told in Scripture that we are to persevere in the faith. And in fact, we are given warning after warning as to what happens if we do not persevere in the faith.

In fact, if you really want to get real, Hebrews is one of the most difficult books for many people to interpret because of the warning passages. It has several warning passages throughout which tell us that if we turn back, if we count the blood of Jesus Christ as no value, if we trample underfoot the blood of the Savior, if we turn back from this most holy salvation, then we are going to suffer, and we are going to ultimately be lost.

And that's the problem there is people begin to deal with the question of, well, does that mean a Christian can lose his salvation? And that's where a lot of people end up when they read Hebrews, especially in places like Hebrews 6.

They come to think that you can lose your salvation because they say you can lose your salvation because Hebrews has these warnings about falling away. And that is something that people think is a natural reading of the text, and that is an automatic reading of the text.

And then you have those on the other side who would hold to once saved, always saved, which I do believe in, but I think that's a bad way of putting it. But just to be clear, I do believe in what's called perseverance of the saints or eternal security, for the simplest of terms, once saved, always saved.

I do believe that, but I want to be clear. When someone says, I believe in once saved, always saved, oftentimes what they mean by that is they mean that once a person is saved, that ultimately, no matter what happens in their life, that they're always going to be saved.

They can never lose their salvation. And they oftentimes deny what the Bible clearly teaches in something called apostasy. Apostasy is when a person has claimed to be a believer and then has departed from the faith.

How do you qualify that person? I want to ask you in your mind right now, you listener, how do you qualify the person who says, I was a believer in Jesus Christ and now I'm not? Well, if you take the once saved, always saved approach, as some do, that says, no matter what happens after you get saved, you're going to be saved and you're always going to be saved, then you might have to say, well, that person is still saved no matter what.

They're just maybe a carnal Christian. I've heard people make that argument. Well, they're just carnal, but they're still Christians. However, that's not what the Bible teaches us. What the Bible teaches us is that if a person falls away, if a person departs the faith, then the person who is departing the faith, who genuinely, and I don't mean they've just fallen into sin for a season, but I'm saying they have rejected Jesus.

They have rejected the gospel. They once proclaimed Jesus, and now they proclaim that he is false. Those people are what the Bible describes as apostate. They have left the faith, and in doing so, they have demonstrated that they were never saved to begin with.

And you say, now, wait a minute. You said earlier, they believed. Okay. James tells us in James 2 that there is a faith that doesn't save. He talks about the relationship between faith and works, and he says that a person who has faith that doesn't have works, he asks the question, can that faith save him?

The word that is what's called a definite article, and it indicates that there is a type of faith that doesn't save, and the type of faith that doesn't save is the type of faith that doesn't persevere ultimately.

It's a type of faith that doesn't demonstrate itself in righteousness. It doesn't demonstrate itself in good works. It's a false faith. In fact, probably the best example of this is in Matthew 7, when Jesus said, on that day, being the day of judgment, many will come to me and say, Lord, did we not do miracles in your name, cast out demons in your name, do many mighty works in your name?

And Jesus says, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. I never knew you. He didn't say I knew you for a time. He didn't say you got saved and you were saved for a hot minute, but then you fell away.

He says, I never knew you. And the word no there is important because from a biblical perspective, when God knows someone, when Jesus knows someone, it's referring to intimacy. It's referring to salvific knowledge.

Amos 3 .2, God speaking of Israel, says, you have I known of all the nations of the world. That's speaking of God's love. Adam knew Eve and they conceived and bore a child. That's intimacy. That, of course, is the ultimate intimacy, which is sexual intimacy, but as far as physical intimacy.

And the word no speaks of love. It speaks of intimacy. And when Jesus says, I never knew you, it means I never had a relationship with you. You didn't have the relationship and fall away. I never had the relationship with you.

And you say, but wait a minute, these people, they called him Lord. They said, did we not do many mighty works in your name? Did we not do these things? So it's obvious they believed something. But like I was talking about earlier, when we're talking about Bieber and all those guys and Kanye, we're looking at false faith.

And there are people who have false faith. I have a feeling that unless God changes one of the hearts of either Kanye or Bieber, that it could be that one day they're going to face the Lord and he's going to say, I never knew you.

And they're going to say, but wait a minute, did we do this worship? Then we do worship services in your name. Didn't we get thousands of people to chant Jesus, Jesus, Jesus? Didn't we get people to sing songs about you?

Jesus is going to say, yes, but you never departed lawlessness. You never repented of sin. You never truly believed. Depart from me. Isn't that a frightening thing to think about that's going to happen to people?

Jesus didn't say it might happen. He says on that day, many will come to me and say, Lord, Lord, and I will say, depart from me. So there is such a thing as falling away. There is such a thing as apostasy.

It does exist. Therefore, the call of Christ in this passage, getting back to the question, the call of Christ in this passage that we have read is to abide in him, not to abandon him. That is the call of the gospel.

You believer have been called to abide in the son, not to believe in him once and then to depart off into the world, but to abide in the son forever, to continue to walk the Christian walk. This is why Christian living is not called a Christian decision.

It's called a Christian walk. It's ongoing. Paul says, I buffet my body and I bring it under subjection so that while I have preached to others, I myself would not become a castaway. Now, some people translate that as to mean Paul is simply saying that he would forfeit his right to be an apostle or something like that.

But it could be that he is speaking in the gravest of terms to say after having preached to others that I proved myself to be a false convert. Now, could it be that Paul was a false convert? Certainly not.

But the point he's making is very clear that there is discipline that is part of the Christian life, the discipline to persevere, to be like soldiers who train to persevere, to be like athletes who train to persevere.

We're looking toward that upward call. We're looking toward that crown. We're persevering. And the question, of course, for the questioner who asked, but isn't it the Lord who's doing this? Yes. If you are persevering in the faith, you can't congratulate yourself.

All you can do is thank the Lord for he is the one who is causing you to persevere. So I know that sounds like a paradox and maybe it is somewhat paradoxical, but I think that we find the answer in Philippians 2.

And this is where I'd like for you to turn. If you have your Bibles, go to Philippians 2 and listen to verses 12 and 13. I preached a sermon on this last year. We had a conference on perseverance. And again, I want to encourage you, if you have questions on the subject and the doctrine of perseverance, I would encourage you to go and listen to our teaching.

Brother Mike, Pastor Mike, Pastor Andy, and myself, we all taught on the doctrine of perseverance at a conference. It's available on our church's website under sermon audio. Just go under the little magnifying glass, type in perseverance.

It'll pull up the messages. But this was the passage I preached on. And this is what Paul says to us. Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only is in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do his good pleasure.

The ESV says work for, but I like the word do. It is God who works in you both to will and to do his good pleasure. See, that's the answer. We are called to work out our salvation. That is another way of saying persevere in the faith.

We are called to abide in Christ, to continue to hold on to him, knowing at the same time that it is he who holds on to us. It is God who works in you both to will, that means to want to, and to work or to do his good pleasure.

You see, here's the thing. If you're saved, if you're genuinely saved, if God has changed your heart, then you will be a changed person forever. That doesn't mean you're never going to have sin for a season.

That doesn't mean you aren't going to have struggles. Doesn't mean you aren't going to have to face battles and at time, possibly even lose some battles. Sanctification does not go from here to here. It goes from here, here, here, here.

It's an ever moving thing. But we are being conformed to the image of Christ by the Spirit of God, and yet we are called, we are commanded to do it. You say that's paradoxical. It's not contradictory.

It is a little paradoxical, but it's not contradictory because what we're told is this. It is our responsibility to persevere, but it is God's power that enables us to persevere. That's the beauty. That's the wonder that it is God working in us to work for and to even want to work for his good pleasure.

Christ says, abide in me. And why would we abide in him? Because he is the vine. We are the branches. And as we are in him, he strengthens us. He empowers us. He causes us to walk forward. It's a command.

We are commanded to abide in him, but to know also that if we are in him, his power is in us to give us the ability to abide in him. So I hope that that is helpful. Thank you so much for the question, and thank you for listening today.

I appreciate you being a part of the program. I hope that you enjoyed Conversations with a Calvinist. If you have a question that you would like me to address from the Bible, please send me a message at calvinistpodcast at gmail .com, and I would love to answer it on a future program.

Thank you for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist. My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

May God bless you. Thank you for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist. If you enjoyed the program, please take a moment to subscribe. And if you have a question you would like us to discuss on a future program, please email us at calvinistpodcast at gmail .com.

As you go about your day, remember this, Jesus Christ came to save sinners. All who come to him in repentance and faith will find him to be a perfect Savior. He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him.

May God be with you.