Politically Incorrect with Phil Johnson

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

00:53

This is a ministry of striving for eternity in the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

01:03

All right, well, welcome to another Wrap Report. I'm your host, Andrew Rappaport, and I am joined with Bud from sunny Florida.

01:12

And today is Inauguration Day. A lot of people have been—

01:18

I don't know that we could say they've been eased with conclusions, but at least we can now finally put many false prophecies and conspiracy theories to rest.

01:30

Trump didn't take over last minute and arrest all the Democrats and put them in Guantanamo and hold on to the

01:38

United States Corporation versus whatever that was that was theory going around.

01:45

And many false teachers have now been officially wrong again, again, again. So it is also something else,

01:53

Bud, that you may not realize. Today we are recording on Inauguration Day. It is also the 20th anniversary of podcasting.

01:59

Today is the 20th anniversary. Podcasting started 20 years ago today. And so good—

02:06

Do we offer thanks for that? I don't know that we do that. But today what we wanted to do, being that we're dealing with the inauguration, is bring someone in who always, always talks about podcasting.

02:18

It is like his number one topic. Phil Johnson, from Grace to You, welcome.

02:26

Welcome. You obviously don't listen to me very much. Yeah, it's like there's

02:31

Rush and then Phil. I mean, you're right there. It's the same genre. Well, actually, no—

02:36

There is a nest of critics on Twitter who constantly reproach me.

02:46

They say for my support, my campaigning for Donald Trump. And the truth is,

02:52

I've never campaigned for Donald Trump. I don't know where they get that, but whatever. I try to stay as clear from partisan politics as possible.

03:01

I think it's because you're a Christian, and therefore, by definition, you're supposed to be the cause of all the ills and supporting of Trump.

03:09

But I have— Maybe I'm also just not a very likable guy, so I'm kind of a lightning rod for all these angry critics who are looking for someone to just pour their animosity on.

03:21

Well, I disagree. You are a likable guy. I happen to know that. But I know your view on politics, because actually,

03:30

I've read—well, I have written my own book, but I read your foreword to my book, where you actually laid that out in my book,

03:37

What Do We Believe?, and you gave that lesson of really your life, your background, where you were very politically involved and then met

03:47

Christ. So maybe you could just give a short synopsis of why— because I think you're specifically— the reason we wanted to have you on is your background with the topic we want to talk about today with politics and political activism, a

04:01

Christian's role, I think your background helps people who are very, very politically motivated and, shall we say, even addicted.

04:10

Yeah, and I was into politics early. I grew up in the 60s, you know, when student demonstrations were, if anything, more widespread and more violent than they are today, and left -wing politics was sort of the staple of my generation.

04:28

And I went the other way. I've always been a conservative, and still hold to a lot of conservative convictions.

04:36

You can see that both in my theology and, you know, if I talk about any particular issues these days, you can tell my conservatism.

04:45

I don't try to hide that. But I was into partisan politics, party politics, you know, the nasty stuff.

04:52

As an unbeliever, I really felt like what's wrong with our culture can be fixed and must be fixed by politics.

05:01

And one of the things I instantly understood as a brand -new Christian was politics does not hold the solution for what ails our culture.

05:11

The gospel does. And my calling as a believer is to preach the gospel, not to campaign for any particular candidate or party.

05:21

It's difficult to say that and then have people not accuse you of hypocrisy these days because so many of the issues that are on the table for politicians are moral issues, you know, abortion and homosexuality.

05:38

If you're going to preach the Bible faithfully, you're going to deal with these moral issues that intrude on current political issues.

05:46

And people are going to say, well, there you are in politics. And my answer to that is I'm not going to leave an important moral standard behind just because some politician got a hold of it.

05:57

So I will, yes, oppose legislation that utterly overthrows the moral foundations of our society or whatever.

06:05

But I don't think legislation is going to solve the problem that is causing our culture to unravel.

06:14

I think what we as Christians need to do is focus on the gospel and proclaim the gospel because it speaks directly to people's hearts.

06:23

And the underlying problem, of course, is sin, and that's a heart problem.

06:30

It's not a legislative problem, and it's certainly not something that can be fixed by legislation.

06:35

And Scripture expressly says that. It says, look, if righteousness could come by the law,

06:41

Paul says, then Christ is dead in vain. So we need to get away from thinking that the fix for what's wrong with our culture is purely political and that Christians need to throw themselves more and more into the political process and get further and further away from preaching the gospel.

07:01

That's a huge mistake. Yeah, how could government be the solution when it's actually the cause of the problem?

07:07

Yeah, that's right. It's one of the things that I've been seeing.

07:13

Unfortunately, this trend, and I'm sure you've seen this as well, that especially around election years, we have more and more

07:19

Christians that seem to be more politically motivated than they are gospel motivated.

07:26

I said in last week's episode and in the paper I wrote on political activism and a

07:32

Christian's role that unfortunately many Christians know and teach or preach the

07:40

Republican Party's message more than the gospel message. And to me, it's been a concerning thing to see this election cycle with Trump, even after with all the stuff with the question of ballots and everything else, so many

07:57

Christians seem to put so much, it seems, emphasis on Trump having to be there to save America.

08:03

Yeah, it's a dangerous temptation because as time has gone by, the focus of American politics has shifted more and more towards issues that, like I said, directly overthrow the moral foundations, biblical moral foundations of our society.

08:24

And so it is a temptation to think that this guy who's finally willing to fight against that and speak against that, he's the savior we need.

08:35

And he's not, that's not to say I don't like all of his policies, but you know.

08:43

He's far from a savior. That's right. That's right. And, you know, again,

08:48

I don't want to be critical of any politician in an unfairly personal way.

08:54

We're commanded to pray for them and pray that we may live in peace and all that.

08:59

And part of that is you want to see policies that, you know, at least reflect a commitment to the

09:07

Lord's standards. But for Christians to think that this is what we ought to be doing, this is what our culture needs, and forego preaching the gospel instead, that's just a huge departure from what we are called and commanded by Christ to do.

09:25

Yeah, you know, in the paper, and for folks listening, I'll have a link to Phil's article called

09:31

Politically Incorrect. It'll be in the show notes. But I want to get your response on, you wrote in your own paper.

09:38

This is from actually a Shepherds Conference message that you had delivered.

09:44

You said, quote, if you think the most important answer to the ills of our society is a legislative remedy, if you imagine the political activism is the most effective way for the church to influence culture, or if you suppose the church is going to win the world for Christ by lobbying in the halls of Congress and by riling

10:09

Christians to vote for this or that type of legislation, then both your trust and your priorities are misplaced, unquote.

10:20

That's a very, I mean, kind of a hard -hitting thing, especially for the church. This is now years after you—this was,

10:28

I think you said you preached this in 2008, right? I think that's right, yeah. And so this seems even more so today.

10:34

Why do you think it is churches are doing this, that they're misplacing their trust into legislation instead of Christ?

10:42

Because our culture's movement away from Christian principles and biblical convictions has accelerated in a way that I don't think anyone ever expected or foresaw.

10:57

If you had told me that, you know, this guy who claims he's a woman, he's been the head of the health thing in Pennsylvania, and now

11:08

Joe Biden has appointed him to a federal office, I forget what it is, but he's very influential now.

11:14

And if you had told me that was going to happen even five or ten years ago,

11:19

I would have said, I don't think America's ready for that. But the culture has so shifted, and the downhill slide of our moral fabric has— that's a mixed metaphor, but you get what

11:34

I mean. It's accelerated so quickly that it's scary, it's frightening, and it seems to be driven, it appears to be driven partly or largely by politics.

11:45

It's also driven by Hollywood. It's also driven by the academic world. All of these things are factors.

11:53

But what it reflects is the church has abandoned her responsibility to hold firm, and the answer to it is not for us to jump into the political process or put ourselves—try to gain control over Hollywood, or even somehow gain control through the academic world.

12:15

What we need to be doing is standing apart from that and proclaiming the Gospel to people, because frankly, people who don't have

12:23

Christ, they're lost, and they feel it. And those who are called will respond to the

12:29

Gospel. That's what we ought to be doing. Phil, do you think that this is an effect of the pragmatic success that seeker -sensitive church growth methodologies have had in filling the pews of evangelicalism with so much worldliness, so many professors not possessors of faith, and this is the logical way to sort of feed them and motivate them?

12:54

Yeah, I would put a large part of the blame at the feet of those in the evangelical movement who have imbibed pragmatism.

13:04

I mean, the very idea that politics can solve what's wrong with our culture, that's a pragmatic thought.

13:10

That's pure pragmatism. So the more we have been conditioned and indoctrinated with pragmatic values, the more likely we are to succumb to that temptation.

13:23

But yeah, the only thing I would balk at at what you said is success. I don't think pragmatic

13:29

Christianity has had really any kind of success. And even long term, the numerical success with their ability to draw large numbers of people, that's eroding now.

13:42

I don't think that's going to last very long. In fact, I wonder if it's going to survive the

13:47

COVID lockdowns. People who haven't been coming to church, are they going to come back for a stage show?

13:53

Are they going to come back for Justin Bieber up there pretending to be a pastor?

13:59

I don't see that succeeding in any sense long term.

14:05

I think what it's done has been a huge distraction. And as you said, as you suggested, it has filled churches with false converts, people who think they're

14:17

Christians because they feel good about Jesus, they like going to church to be entertained, and they've been told that they're

14:24

Christians, but they don't really have a clue what it means to trust Christ as Lord and Savior and to follow

14:32

Him. Yeah. And I don't mean it successful in a positive way.

14:37

No, I know what you mean. Pragmatically, it was. It filled churches. Yeah. But you've given them a

14:44

Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Well, goodness, my country doesn't look like that. I've got to get out there and fight for it.

14:50

And so that motivates the political activism from the pews in that sense where there's no doctrine.

14:57

I think I heard Phil just say that Justin Bieber cosplays a pastor.

15:04

Yeah, pretty much right. He's going to save Hillsong. Yeah. But it is something that's interesting to see because you had mentioned this in your message that the least most popular book that John MacArthur has ever written is

15:21

The Government Cannot Save Us. Yeah, it's called Why Government Can't Save You. And that book and the broadcast of the messages that that book grew out of, when we broadcast that on Grace To You, and we do it periodically around times when the election talk gets very heavy and all that, it's one of our least responded to requested, least requested broadcasts.

15:51

People don't like it. In fact, there have been a couple of, I won't name any names, a couple of very large Christian organizations that pretty much went ballistic when

16:00

John MacArthur wrote and released that book. They interpreted him to be saying that the

16:06

Church should just be this closeted, sequestered group of people who pray to the

16:13

Lord, talk to one another, and don't have any impact on society. You could only think that if you didn't read the book.

16:19

What John MacArthur is saying is the Church needs to get out there and do what we're called to do, which is proclaim the

16:25

Gospel. It's the furthest thing from being cloistered. But why do you think it is that those messages in that book get such little response?

16:37

When you consider everything he's written, I guess the question is, does it seem like there's a large part of Christianity, even what we would consider a conservative

16:47

Christianity, that really looked to the government and wanted to be a savior?

16:53

Yes, and I think mistakenly so. I think they're not thinking clearly or biblically.

17:00

And I try to understand the perspective because, as I said, I think we're all tempted to delve into partisan politics at times because think about the issues that are on the table, abortion, transsexuality, homosexuality, and now the sort of marriages where you've got a group of people instead of just a husband and wife, that sort of thing.

17:23

These are being aggressively promoted by legislation and politicians and government.

17:32

And these are issues that any decent, biblical -minded Christian is going to feel passionate about.

17:38

Understand the passion. What's wrong is the notion that the solution to these problems is purely political as well.

17:47

And so what we need to do is set aside what we've always done as the Church and throw ourselves into politics instead.

17:56

And that's been a trend, I think, really, since Roe versus Wade. You can trace it almost back to that.

18:03

Prior to that, there were, when I was a young Christian even, there were small groups of evangelicals who were politically engaged in a way that sort of drowned out the gospel message.

18:19

You had Billy James Hargis, and I forget the other names, but these were like radio preachers who were ardent anti -communists, and most of them very conservative.

18:31

You'd probably agree with a lot of their politics, but the way they did what they thought of as ministry was actually a reproach to the gospel.

18:41

I think they did far more damage than good, but they were the unusual examples.

18:48

Billy James Hargis actually had his headquarters less than a mile from where I lived when

18:53

I went to high school. And I knew I had friends whose parents were on the staff of that organization, and what was going on behind the scenes was abominable.

19:03

It ultimately melted down because of some moral scandals that came to light. And I noticed then as a high school student that that sort of politically oriented religion often goes hand -in -hand with moral problems, because what it reflects is someone who's lost his focus on the biblical issues.

19:25

Now he's into politics and worldly matters. He thinks the wisdom of this world isn't foolishness with God, and that's a bad direction for Christians to go.

19:37

Yeah, and I want to get to the abortion issue, and you brought it up in your message. And before you did, you had some things for pastors, and this is who you were speaking to.

19:47

You had said this, quote, We are pastors and church leaders who formally and confessionally recognize the authority of Scripture.

19:56

Practically the worst kind of spiritual treason we could ever commit would be to supplant the gospel with a different message or to allow an earthly agenda to crowd out our spiritual duties.

20:10

That is exactly the risk we take when we pour our money and resources into political and legislative remedies for our society's spiritual problems.

20:21

And so that comes right into some of the problems that we see that you had dealt with, and one of them being abortion.

20:28

And I couldn't help but to think, because you brought that out, that here's the one thing that we've kind of seen, abortion, and Christians have gone behind it, and it hasn't ended.

20:38

And so you kind of asked, like, are we successful at that? But the question

20:43

I have for you is, has that actually become a distraction? Have we so focused on the abortion issue that we allowed the other side of the political aisle to take the cultural issue?

20:56

And we're focused on just one part of a cultural thing, and they've taken over everything else, where even if we win on the abortion issue today, we're never going to get back the cultural without Christ doing something.

21:10

Yeah, but I think I grasp what you're saying and probably agree with it.

21:18

I'm not saying we should be less concerned about abortion, lest anyone read me that way.

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Whenever this subject comes up, someone will say, well, again, you just think people should be cloistered, they shouldn't be concerned about these things, and who cares what the government's position on abortion is?

21:35

I'm not saying that. If there's legislation to vote for, I'll vote for it and all that.

21:40

What I'm pleading for is for Christians not to think that the ultimate answer lies in some kind of political solution, because it never does.

21:48

And we ought to have learned this lesson from history. You can survey church history, and whenever the church has gained a political clout and managed to use legislative means to try to enforce the will of God or the opinions of the church on the rest of society, that's never been successful, because if you're trying to enforce –

22:16

I mean, this is the whole lesson from the Old Testament law. Again, righteousness doesn't come through law.

22:21

If it did, then Christ is dead in vain. It's Christ who changes people's hearts. And you can make a law outlawing abortion,

22:29

I hope, for a law like that, but that isn't going to solve the underlying problem, which is corrupt hearts who just love sin.

22:38

The most recent, I think, modern example of this would go back to the –

22:44

I would go back to the Prohibition era, when Christians – in fact, this was,

22:52

I think, what laid the groundwork for today's evangelicals to be so politically engaged.

22:58

Our great -grandparents were all agitated over the effects of drunkenness and liquor, and so they managed to get liquor outlawed in the

23:09

United States. Did that solve the problem of drunkenness and crime? It actually inflamed it, which is what

23:16

Paul says about something as simple as covetousness. I wouldn't have known covetousness unless the law said, thou shalt not covet.

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But the law took advantage of it and stirred up in me all kinds of covetousness.

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And the same thing happens when you try to address a moral issue with law, and just leave it at that.

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If you haven't changed a person's heart, if a person's perspective and values haven't changed, then outlawing abortion is going to save some lives.

23:49

And again, I'm all for that. I want that. But that's not the goal. As a

23:54

Christian, the goal is to get the Gospel out there so that people's hearts are changed so that mothers don't want to kill their babies.

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And we have the means to make the Gospel known, and instead we're suppressing the

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Gospel message. And there are Christian groups who literally do this, suppress the

24:15

Gospel message so that they can maintain an alliance with the Roman Catholic Church or the

24:21

Mormons who link arms with us against abortion. But at the cost of silencing the

24:28

Gospel? No. And yet I rarely find modern evangelicals who understand why that's a bad idea.

24:38

I love when I see guys who go outside of abortion clinics, and you'll always see the Roman Catholics there, and they're going to pray their rosary beads.

24:47

And the thing that's interesting is you'll see some that will actually not speak out against Catholicism.

24:53

But I like to see the guys that will not only preach the Gospel to the women going in, but to the

24:59

Catholics that are there. And I remember one friend of mine who said, he had one of the Catholic people come up and say, we're on the same side on this.

25:06

Why are you calling us out? And he said, because you need the same Gospel. They want to just, let's be all on the same side because somehow if we have a majority of people, we can win.

25:17

Well, we actually have a majority. I mean, there's a simple reason they have never legislated abortion, because they know that it would get them in trouble.

25:28

They keep it in the courts. But Congress could get together and just say that they're actually going to vote it.

25:35

But they won't do that because they know that the majority is not for them. It's not really a majority issue,

25:41

I think. And I think one of the things I see with the abortion issue, more than any other, and this is why

25:47

I noted it when I saw it in your message, was we see people who,

25:53

I mean, I would say that Trump was probably the most pro -life, at least in what he tried to push forward, is probably the most pro -life president we've ever had.

26:06

And yet there's a lot of Christians that wouldn't vote for him because he wasn't pro -life enough, or in their mind wasn't even pro -life.

26:16

And over that one issue, I think you end up giving up the whole culture, because we now have with Biden, we're going to have a cultural war that is far greater than we would have had with a

26:28

Trump. And I just wonder if we've become a one -issue party, or as the

26:34

Christians, some Christians have become a one -issue voter, and if that then is, you know, how that ends up affecting the way we view church when it's just everything is this one issue.

26:45

Yeah, well, and let's face it too, it's been difficult to be a Christian and be politically engaged for more than a decade now, because it seems like both of the major American political parties have been devoted to nominating the most deplorable candidates they can possibly come up with.

27:05

The most disliked people in America become our presidential candidates. I don't understand that, but that's the way politics have gone.

27:14

So it's pretty hard for a Christian to throw himself into that process and even convince himself that he's doing

27:23

God's work when our best choice, literally our best choice, is someone who's morally depraved.

27:32

And that's not a new problem. I mean, that is the nature of secular politics. I don't know, in the history of America, if there's ever really been a thoroughly devoted godly candidate for president.

27:46

It's possible, and I don't know the older history that well, but until that happens,

27:54

I'm not going to champion someone who's immoral as if he were the savior of what's wrong with our country.

28:03

I vote for a person based on whether I like his policies or not. And that's what you're really forced to do, because if your main concern is the guy's character, there really isn't anybody that a

28:16

Christian can, in good conscience, campaign for and vote for. Yeah, every four years

28:22

I always have to say I'm voting for president, not pastor. And you just have to understand those roles.

28:28

So after this break, what I want to do is I'd like us to talk about the solution. You laid out four points in that sermon, and I think it would be helpful for folks if we could go through some of those so we know, okay, where do we go from here?

28:43

So let's talk about that right after this break. Can you answer the following questions for your children or for the person to whom you are witnessing?

28:51

Number one, is the New Testament reliable? Two, can you explain the Trinity to me?

28:57

Three, how is Jesus both God and man? And a slew of other questions you will be able to answer if you get

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Andrew Rappaport's new book, What Do We Believe? It will help you a ton.

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Get your copy at whatdowebelievebook .com, whatdowebelievebook .com.

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The good news is Striving for Eternity would love to come to your church to spend two days with your folks, teaching them

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Biblical hermeneutics. That's right, the art and science of interpreting Scripture. The bad news is somebody attending might be really upset to discover

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29:39

to host a Bible interpretation made easy seminar in your area. Okay, so Phil Johnson, from grace to you, we're glad that you're with us.

29:49

And as we're talking about where we go from here, you gave four points of an outline for pastors at the

29:56

Shepherds Conference. Just to remind us where priorities are, the first that you had was preaching, not lobbying, is how we make truth known.

30:08

Could you expand on that a bit and help us see why that's so important? Yeah, you know, that sermon's so old that during your break

30:15

I had to call up my notes on my computer and try to remember what I said. And it's a pretty good outline.

30:21

Preaching, not lobbying, is how we make the truth known. God chose by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.

30:30

That's what Paul expressly says in 1 Corinthians. And one of the most difficult things to convince a contemporary evangelical of is that preaching is

30:43

God's chosen strategy. It's not just one of, you know, like we could come up with a better plan, right?

30:51

And there are lots of people in evangelical leadership who are convinced that we could come up with a better plan.

30:57

And lots of them think the better plan is politics, political lobbying. You know, let's get our, let's throw our resources into this or that party or some kind of lobbying effort.

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And in fact, that is not the means God chose to get the word out to save those who believe, the scripture says.

31:19

But preaching is, which seems like a foolish strategy. And Paul even acknowledges that.

31:25

It was a foolish strategy in the first century as well. It isn't that people then were more open to hearing someone preach that they are hopeless sinners who cannot save themselves.

31:36

They hated that message just as much in the first century as they do today. And Paul acknowledges that the gospel itself is a stumbling block.

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It sounds like foolishness to the enlightened people of the world. And yet, he said, the foolishness of God is wiser than men.

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And God hates the wisdom of this world. And so he chose a foolish strategy, preaching, to save those who believe.

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We need to embrace that, understand it. And the scripture is very clear about it.

32:05

And I don't understand why contemporary evangelicals, frankly, have such a hard time with that.

32:12

But if you ever say that, just what was the outline point again? That preaching, not lobbying, is the means

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God chose for us to get the truth out. You say that to the typical evangelical today, you're going to get a whole lot of pushback from people who are going to accuse you of being hopelessly naive and out of touch with this culture, and you're not engaging the culture if all you're doing is preaching and all that sort of stuff.

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It's, in my view, disobedience to something that is very clear in scripture.

32:44

Why do you think that is, though? As you said, even in Paul's day, this was not popular. It's even more so,

32:50

I think, in our day with all the entertainment we have. You have all these churches that put dramas on instead of preaching.

32:57

Why do you think it is that it has always been something that people don't think preaching is the right mode for communicating truth?

33:05

Well, because, let's face it, there's something in following human flesh we don't like to be preached to.

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None of us like to be preached to by something that's going to convict us and all that.

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But until you get through that hard exterior and with the truth, you convict the heart.

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And the Holy Spirit does that. His job is to convict people of sin and righteousness and judgment.

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And what's ironic about that is those are the very subjects that today's church growth gurus tell you you shouldn't put in your message.

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Don't talk about sin, and don't talk about judgment, and don't talk about righteousness. Talk about self -help and felt needs and things people want to hear.

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And so they're counseling pastors to scratch people's itching ears when, again,

33:57

Scripture's very clear on this. God chose this other means, and the Holy Spirit's job is to convict and convince people of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

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So if you preach as Scripture says you should, people who are called will respond.

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And, you know, the church I belong to is proof of that. We have no shortage of people coming to hear two hours of preaching every

34:22

Sunday morning, two hours of preaching on a Sunday morning. And the average person today will tell you, well, it doesn't leak.

34:29

We've been doing it for years, and people do respond. And we're right in the heart of the entertainment community.

34:36

Our church is less than 10 miles due north of Hollywood. So I just don't buy all the cultural stabby that some of these church growth gurus pretend to have.

34:50

They're wrong. Well, I love when John MacArthur will refer to the book that was written on homiletics, on how to preach, and they have a chapter on him, and basically say he does everything wrong according to their style.

35:04

Everything's wrong, but yet everyone wants to hear him. I think the thing that I find interesting with what you've said is we actually listen to preaching for the formidable years of our life, right?

35:17

I mean, we sit in classrooms where someone lectures to us, and yet I don't see people saying in the school systems that, well, we need to have dramas because we need more entertainment.

35:29

We have this, like, in every other area. So it's just puzzling to me that somehow preaching is just not the proper means of communicating truth.

35:39

We need other things. I mean, we're speaking specifically with politics. We know that with 501c3s, the argument is we can't speak on politics, but we shouldn't shy away from political things, political matters, because they are, they do deal with moral issues.

36:01

And yet when we look at this, there is a second point that you had. So first, preaching, not lobbying, is how we make truth.

36:08

But your second point, gospel, not law, is what changes sinful hearts.

36:13

And I think this, you were referring to it earlier, I think this is the major problem people have with John MacArthur's book that we referenced earlier or my article that gets me in trouble every year on political activism, because this is the main point of it that we're trying to point out.

36:32

Why do you think that's such a stumbling block for people? Well, again, I think we have fallen hearts and sinful hearts.

36:40

We think worldly wisdom is important, and we lean towards law as opposed to gospel.

36:49

Those are all tendencies that Scripture counsels us to, as believers, to reject and fight against.

36:57

So I can't give you a why other than to say I think we need to recognize that these are sinful tendencies that should not be encouraged and certainly shouldn't be adopted and embraced by people who pretend to have expertise in church growth.

37:14

Now, this point being, this is a central point, I think, to where this issue is, why people get so tied up with politics, with a politician they think is going to save the day.

37:28

If we just get the right politician, we can end abortion. The issue I always see with this, and I think you brought it out in your message, was the fact that people start to lose the sense of what the gospel message is and start arguing for political things or laws, and they spend more time, it seems to me, researching all of Trump's policies and the good he did for the country over their study of Scripture.

37:57

Is that a trend that you notice as well, and why is the gospel so important in discussions of politics?

38:03

Yeah, and that's the lure of politics, I think. What it does is distract. It's just one of many things that distracts from the simplicity of the gospel message, the foolishness and stumbling block of the gospel.

38:18

It just doesn't fit with partisan politics, because in politics, politics is all about compromise and winning the favor of people and votes and stuff like that.

38:32

So you have to be concerned with public relations and political correctness and all of these things that, frankly, they all work against the truth.

38:42

So I don't want to be clear. I'm not saying that no Christian should ever have a career in politics. If the

38:48

Lord has called you to that, it's as valid a vocation as anything else. What I am pleading for is for Christians not to imagine that a political solution exists for what is wrong with people and what is wrong with our society.

39:03

We have the gospel, and to set that aside and put more emphasis on anything else, politics just happens to be the one that's the big temptation right now.

39:15

But if you were coming to me saying, no, as Christians now, we need to be philosophers.

39:23

We need to cultivate the wisdom of this world and understand it and all that, I would say, again, that's a legitimate vocation if you want to do it.

39:32

But if it crowds the gospel out from your thinking or your message, then it's counterproductive.

39:39

It's counterproductive. Imagine if we could elect a candidate or a slate of candidates, enough senators, to outlaw abortion tomorrow, and so abortion is suddenly illegal in America.

39:54

Do you think that's going to usher in a period of peace and acceptance of that law? That's simply going to inflame the hearts of people who think somehow that abortion is an important right that they need to, they'll fight harder.

40:09

Until you've changed their hearts, until people understand that, yeah, this is murder and it's a sin against God, you haven't really put the issue to rest.

40:21

And again, I'm not saying that I think outlawing abortion would be a bad idea. I think it's a great idea.

40:27

I just don't think that's the end game for Christians. The end game for us is the gospel, and if we stop preaching that in order to fight for a lesser goal, a legislative goal, then we have abandoned our actual calling and we're not being faithful to what the

40:44

Lord has told us to do. But people think in that way, and that's why people lean more towards law than gospel.

40:51

It's interesting. I've always said for years that if you really want to see the culture change, preach the gospel.

40:57

Because the more Christians, if there's more people receiving the gospel, more Christians that are living by God's word, politicians will follow along.

41:05

And I was talking with my bride today, and it was interesting because she brought it out. She was like, you look at the

41:11

Republican Party, why did the first two years of Trump's administration, they didn't support him. He could have done a whole lot more if he had support from his own party.

41:19

Until they realized that he was the one that had all the followers, he had drummed up a whole lot of movement.

41:28

And then all of a sudden the Republicans are, oh, we're supporting Trump. And now that he's out, you're seeing some of those people just go right back to where they were because the support's not there.

41:37

Politicians are politicians. They're going to pretend to be whatever they think they need to be to get votes.

41:43

And I think that's the thing is that it's the gospel that's going to change hearts, not the laws.

41:50

So you said, okay, preaching, not lobbying is how we make truth known.

41:57

Gospel, not law, is what changes sinful hearts. And then you said a third point, service, not dominion, is the most effective ways to win people.

42:10

So when you talk about service, why would we see service toward others as something, you know, over, like you were just saying, trying to win a, you know, having your candidate win?

42:23

How does service play a role? Because that's what Jesus taught, right? He said, in fact, he used a political, this was one of the more political statements he ever made.

42:31

He said to the disciples, you know that the rulers of this world want to have dominion over people.

42:37

But he says then to his disciples, it shall not be so among you, but whoever is first, let him be last.

42:44

Whoever wants to be, whoever wants to basically have influence, is what he was saying, who wants to be the leader, be a servant.

42:53

And that's a basic, I mean, that's one of the most basic things that we believe as Christians that runs against every possible cultural or idea of human wisdom, right?

43:08

That's the most countercultural aspect of how we think things ought to be done, how leadership is done.

43:16

It's not about dominion, it's about service. And politics flips that on its head.

43:23

And inevitably, when Christians become sold out to partisan politics, they lose sight of the importance of service as a way of leadership.

43:35

Yes, servant leadership's not really seen too much. I think this is where Alexander Strzok had done well with his book on biblical eldership in expressing that the elders are not there to lord it over people, but they're to serve the people.

43:51

And we don't see our politicians doing that anymore or having that kind of mindset where they're there by the people.

43:59

But I think that is something that we as Christians need to focus in on. That's right.

44:04

Go ahead. Well, again, this is built into the gospel message. Right after he says the rulers of this world want to have dominion, he contrasts with his own mission.

44:16

He says the Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many.

44:22

It was the ultimate sacrificial kind of service. And I don't think anybody, even the most ardent anti -Christian, could argue against the truth that there's never been a more influential person in existence than Jesus.

44:39

That's true. And yet he was totally a servant. He was never engaged in partisan politics. He lived in a culture that was, if anything, more corrupt than ours.

44:48

And the politics and the morality of their rulers was as depraved as you can possibly imagine.

44:57

And you never see him trying to drum up a voting block to vote these people out or rouse a militia in order to take over government.

45:10

There is coming a time when he will rule the world with a rod of iron. But that will be not the fruit of some political effort.

45:20

That will be because that is the judgment of God against a world that has become irredeemably and hopelessly corrupt.

45:29

And when Christ returns. Yeah, I think that a lot of Christians seem to have lost focus, as you just mentioned, when

45:35

Paul wrote 1 Timothy 2, 1 and 2, about praying for our kings, our rulers, and he did that under Nero.

45:45

People sit there, and I have so many people, Phil, that got upset because I said that it's time for us to start praying for our soon -to -be

45:52

President Biden and I quoted 1 Timothy 2. And, I mean,

45:58

I have people calling me that are telling me I worship Satan, I'm evil, I'm wicked, I don't understand anything.

46:05

I'm like, Paul wrote this in a day where it was someone far worse than Biden. And I had one person say, there is no one worse than Biden.

46:11

Don't fret over that, Andrew. I think Russell Moore wrote the same thing in the Gospel Coalition today, and his is going over like gangbusters.

46:18

It's going to be. It's just you. Maybe that's it.

46:24

So I think your fourth point is probably the most important.

46:30

So you mentioned that preaching, not lobbying, is how we make truth known.

46:36

Gospel, not law, is what changes sinful hearts. Service, not dominion, is the most effective way to win people.

46:42

But then, fourthly, Christ, not moralism, should be the primary substance of our message.

46:48

And I really think that your whole message really hinged on this one. I mean, you started with preaching.

46:54

This is the way we communicate it. But I think this is really the foundation of how we have to view a

47:00

Christian's role in political activism. What is it you see with the Christ versus moralism issue?

47:07

Yeah, and again, I think a lot of this goes back to one of the dangers of being involved in partisan politics is you have to build a coalition of people who don't necessarily share your spiritual values.

47:21

So you have to stifle those parts of gospel truth that people get offended at.

47:27

You can't preach that Christ is

47:33

Lord of all and God in any kind of political environment. That was the thing that got the early

47:38

Christians in trouble because Caesar claimed he was Lord. He wanted people's obeisance.

47:44

And when the Christians said, no, Jesus is Lord and we bow to him before Caesar, that got them in trouble.

47:53

So Christ is the focus of the Christian message. It's not ultimately about homosexuality and abortion and all that.

48:00

And I'm not saying we don't speak on those issues. Of course we do. But that's not the point.

48:07

That's not the point we're leading to. We want to call abortion sin because it is sin.

48:14

But the part of our message that's important is that Christ offers redemption for people who are hopelessly in bondage to sin.

48:23

And if you don't get around to that part, in fact, if that part isn't the biggest part of your message, then you're off topic.

48:31

And even though you may be right about the moral values you're talking about, if you never get around to Christ and what he can do to save sinners, you're off message.

48:43

This has been my complaint about the social justice issue and all that. Everybody's in favor of justice.

48:51

I mean, every morally sentient person is in favor of justice. But if that's the substance of our message, we're off message because the justice of the gospel is not the same as social justice, what people mean when they talk about that.

49:08

And again, that's one of many examples you could cite to say this is the church getting off message.

49:16

I would say the same thing about preachers who get in the pulpit and exegete the latest movie or pastors who don't preach at all but make the majority of their worship service into an hour of entertainment, stage entertainment with light shows and smoke and all that sort of stuff.

49:32

It's all a distraction from the point of what we're supposed to be preaching, which is to uplift Christ and preach the gospel.

49:41

I usually, especially as you know, I do a lot of, or at least before COVID, I did a lot of street evangelism.

49:50

That's to an open air now has changed. There's not as many people on the streets.

49:56

But the thing is, when I would do it, I would often talk that there's only two religions in the world. And we have a religion of man -made religion that's moralism and a religion of Christ.

50:05

You can't remove Christ from Christianity because you no longer have Christianity.

50:11

You can remove Joseph Smith from Mormonism and still have those teachings or Buddha from Buddhism or Muhammad from Islam.

50:19

Those are nothing more than a moral system. But I think there's something in our flesh that prefers moralism over righteousness.

50:29

And so we gravitate always toward moral laws. And even when we as Christians know there's this difference, we still seem to gravitate toward this.

50:40

It seems we always are. It's just easier to give into lawmaking rather than righteousness and preaching righteousness.

50:48

And so as I think about it, when it comes to this one issue, this is, I think, really, like I said, the foundation of where we have to view political activism is what is our focus?

50:59

Is it Christ or is it changing the country? And so the question I always ask people, and I'm going to ask this of you, is, so is it a big deal if we go socialist?

51:09

I mean, does it change the message of the gospel? How does that affect the church? We'd be so worried if Biden brings in and ushers in a

51:16

Marxism. Does that mean the church is over? No, it doesn't. And, you know, to answer your question, yeah, it's a big deal.

51:23

It'll change the way we live and all of that. But does it change our duty before God as a church?

51:30

The answer is no. And in fact, I think the current political drift, which obviously is making it more and more difficult for believers to stand up and speak up for biblical values, it's soon going to be illegal to say that homosexuality is a sin.

51:53

I think that's inevitable. It's already happened in some countries, basically. You can't say that on any public radio station or whatever.

52:04

So it's becoming harder and harder for Christians to speak up and speak out.

52:09

And yet that's what we're called to do. And I think, again, you have to look back at the early church and realize that they were under a government that was, if anything, far more hostile than the current

52:23

American government is against the church. We may be headed that direction. I'm not sure that's a bad thing for the church, you know, from heaven's perspective.

52:32

I think what it's going to do is is purify the church. And we'll find out that the remnant who genuinely believe the 10 ,000 knees that haven't bowed to Baal is probably a smaller group than most of us imagine it is.

52:46

Because we look at church attendance and the Lord looks at the heart. And it's going to turn out,

52:52

I think, that there are a lot fewer people who genuinely believe than those who profess to be believers in Christ.

53:01

But I think in the long run, that'll be good for the church because it will force us to focus our message and use our efforts as wise stewards, maybe better than we do now.

53:15

Yeah, so are you implying that Joel Osteen's stadium may be empty if this goes this way?

53:22

We can only hope. I mean, that is what I hope for. I think that ultimately would be a good thing for the church.

53:30

And it may make ministry difficult for those of us who really do want to proclaim the gospel, but it isn't going to change our duty.

53:42

And who knows, it may in the long term increase our effectiveness because it forces us to stand apart and be different from the world.

53:51

And I think one of the biggest mistakes of evangelicals for the past 200 years has been they seem to think it's their duty to fit into the world as much as possible, rather than stand apart from the world and proclaim a message that actually is an offense to worldly ears.

54:10

And I think we're about to be put in a position where that's going to be our only choice. And I'm not afraid of that.

54:17

I'm not afraid of the future. I often tell people, I'm not a pessimist.

54:23

I'm a Calvinist. And so while I agree the future looks bleak, the future looks bleak.

54:32

But as a Calvinist, I'm saying, all right, bring it. Because I know in the end the truth will triumph over every lie.

54:40

Righteousness will triumph over evil. And I'm just not afraid of that. There may be some pain to go through in the meantime, but the

54:48

Lord will give us grace to endure. I'm writing that quote down. I am not a pessimist.

54:53

I am a Calvinist. That is a great quote. That is going on. That's being shared on social media today.

55:01

We've got this thing called, oh, sovereignty. Yeah. Wow. That's right. What great comfort.

55:07

We've got doctrine and all that. Do you think cultural Christianity of the last 10 years, is it over?

55:13

You think so? You know, John MacArthur recently said that in a message, that he thinks this is going to be the end of that sort of superficial, shallow evangelicalism.

55:24

I hope he's right. I'm maybe not as hopeful that it's as eminent as he believes it's going to be.

55:33

I think it's going to take a while. I think this is, at the very least, the beginning of the end of the kind of pop

55:39

Christianity that's really dominated the evangelical movement for, as I said, almost 200 years.

55:46

Spurgeon was fighting against this very thing in the downgrade controversy. So essentially, it almost seems like the

55:54

Marxists are doing what Christians have not been able to do for years, put an end to the word of faith and other nonsense that we have in Christianity.

56:07

They've definitely blown a hole in the side of that ship. All the prophets were wrong about who was going to win the presidential election.

56:16

And that makes me profoundly happy that they've been exposed as false prophets. But the question is whether this is really the end of that or not.

56:28

I'd love to think that. But honestly, when all of the mainstream denominations that it had imbibed liberalism began to dwindle and die out in the middle part of the 20th century, and you had a resurgence of evangelical vigor, you know,

56:48

Explo 72, and all of a sudden evangelicalism, the Jesus movement, it was big.

56:53

And you might have thought, well, that's a harbinger of good things.

56:59

And then it kind of happened again when the emerging church movement dissolved, and you had suddenly two organizations, the

57:07

Gospel Coalition and Together for the Gospel, that were talking about the gospel and supposedly reuniting evangelicals to defend fundamental gospel principles.

57:18

And again, I thought that's a hopeful sign. But it seems to me that pragmatic

57:23

Christianity, shallow Christianity, the type of evangelicalism that is so desperate for, sinfully desperate for academic acceptability and worldly accolades, that is a religion that is pretty hard to die.

57:41

It just seems like it never dies out. You can trace it back to the Old Testament, frankly, where Israel constantly wanted to be like their neighbors, and they were frequently,

57:54

I mean, incessantly, syncretizing pagan worship with biblical ideas.

58:03

It's just a relentless effort of the devil to blend false religion with Christianity.

58:10

And so do I really expect that this is the end of superficial

58:15

Christianity? Probably not. I think something even worse is going to come up in the next ten years, and we'll see it again.

58:24

Well, evangelicalism has been so adept at fad chasing and culture that they can morph into whatever they think it is that the culture wants, what you know, to see in the pulpits.

58:37

Right. And so now, what's going to happen now? Yeah, you're right. And if we're not faithfully preaching the gospel against all the cultural drift, then the culture is just going to get worse and worse.

58:51

And if it's the inclination of leading evangelicals to imitate the culture or follow the culture or try to absorb and embrace whatever parts of pop culture they can, it can only get worse.

59:04

It won't get better. Yeah. And that concerns me. Again, I'm not a pessimist, but I look to the future and think, it looks bleak.

59:14

But as a Calvinist, you can at least say, you know what? The truth will triumph. The Lord's distinguishing his true bride.

59:21

I mean, he is really doing that. Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, that's the thing that I think we end up seeing, you know, as I think you guys know that I used to pastor at a

59:31

Chinese church. And so it gave me insight more into Christianity in China.

59:37

And it always struck me, because Christianity in China, where the life expectancy of a pastor is about two years.

59:45

After two years of being identified as the pastor, you're going to be thrown into work camps or killed. So, but it's basically whoever knows the

59:53

Bible best becomes the pastor. They do that willingly. And the one thing, I remember Voice of the Mortars doing the whole thing on the

59:59

Chinese church. And the one thing they said is that they had an eternal mindset, an eternal perspective.

01:00:05

Because they didn't have anything in this world to live for. And I think that, yeah, there's probably going to be a purging within Christianity.

01:00:14

We're going to lose our things. You know, we're going to be off of social media.

01:00:19

We're going to be not able to use our phones. You know, things like this. We're going to have to do without some of these things.

01:00:26

But I think the end result is going to be a more eternal -minded Christian.

01:00:32

Because we won't have all these distractions around us that are really, I think, distracting us from that.

01:00:38

No question about that, Andrew. And recent history underscores that. I mean, think about Europe post -World

01:00:45

War II. You have Western Europe, which is politically free and full of churches and massive cathedrals and Christian symbols everywhere.

01:00:57

Then you have Eastern Europe and Russia, where the gospel was pretty much illegal to proclaim publicly.

01:01:05

Christians were harshly persecuted, thrown into gulags and whatnot. And Christian symbolism was deleted from the culture.

01:01:16

I mean, they went way further than we've seen even in recent years here in America, trying to get rid of Christian standards and the

01:01:25

Christian message and all that. And yet, when the Iron Curtain fell in 1989, the church in Western Europe, where everything was free politically, that church didn't exist.

01:01:36

It was dead. You can't find lively, healthy churches in Western Europe, except here and there are a few.

01:01:45

In Eastern Europe, where the gospel was suppressed by government policy, churches were strong and healthy, and Christians were devoted and not at all superficial about their faith.

01:02:02

And in fact, since the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the church in Eastern Europe has weakened because of its affiliation now with the

01:02:12

West. So, you know, they used to say the blood of the martyr is the seed of the church.

01:02:18

The church grows when it's under persecution, and I think it's more than that. The church grows stronger under persecution.

01:02:25

Not that I want to see persecution or experience it, but I don't fear it.

01:02:30

And I think, you know, we deserve it. And the Lord, who is sovereign, knows what's best for His church, and I trust

01:02:39

Him. Yeah, and I mean, that's a great way to end, because that is the point, is that we're not to fear.

01:02:45

This may be—this is the biblical church growth model. You know?

01:02:51

That's right. That's a good point. Fear not, I have overcome the world.

01:02:57

Yeah. So, Phil, we appreciate you taking some time, helping many to have a more biblical perspective.

01:03:05

Even while we were talking, I was getting text messages from people that said the last episode that we did, where Bud and I dealt with a

01:03:12

Christian's role in political activism, and the Apologetics Live show that we did, have helped people to see that they were too engaged in politics, and they're trying to deal with that struggle.

01:03:27

And so, I think that this is going to be very helpful for many. I think the perspective you give, especially as one who comes from where you've admitted you were once addicted to politics, really the political party, and now you can go from there and see that Christ is the answer.

01:03:47

Christ is the solution. So, I just want to give you any last words you want to share before we wrap up.

01:03:52

No, thank you for having me. It's always good to talk to you, and Bud, always good to see you. You too, sir.

01:03:59

Appreciate you guys. Yeah, and I will look forward to seeing you in a few months.

01:04:05

I mean, it's just so strange. Since the last time I've seen you at Shepard's Conference, the world literally has gone nuts.

01:04:14

People have lost their minds. So, you're coming to Shepard's Conference again? Oh, yeah. All right, good.

01:04:20

Yeah, that's the plan. I had a call from a friend of mine this morning who wondered he's registered for the

01:04:26

Shepard's Conference, planning to come, but then he read that California has these draconian quarantine rules where if he came, he'd have to quarantine for 10 days.

01:04:37

So, I'm checking into that. There is an exception to that rule for anything that's deemed essential.

01:04:45

And so, I just want to tell you it's essential for you to come to the Shepard's Conference. Amen. And because it's essential, you don't have to quarantine.

01:04:54

I will quarantine inside of Grace Community Church for 10 days. All right.

01:05:01

But thanks, Phil. It is always good to have Jan, always good to gleam from your wisdom.

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