Pastors Are Not Nearly Enough

All right, everybody, God bless you. It is Friday, so I hope you had a productive week.

I had a mediocrely productive week, and some of that is my own fault for being distracted and all that kind of thing.

But, you know, we'll see, we'll see. Next week's a new week, and we're gonna go all out.

That being said, I wanted to just let you know I caught a brook trout yesterday, which was really fun.

I've been at one of my favorite spots, and I've been waiting for the fish to come back, and I just had nothing. Yesterday, I got one brook trout, and I had a bunch of other trout that short -striked, didn't get hooked, like they were very interested, but they didn't go for it.

I could see them in the water, and so I'm gonna go back today and see if I can get a few more. We will see, but I wanted to just do a quick video because I had a thought, and I've seen a lot of people kind of share a similar thought, but I didn't quite know why.

But in my preparation, I'm preaching this Sunday, and a lot of people have asked me if my sermon's gonna be available on video.

Yeah, my church puts all the sermons out on video, or at least my previous church, because that's where I'm preaching. So I'll be able to share it with everybody.

Basically, I'm preaching on the joy of the Lord being our strength. I'm gonna be teaching the congregation about what the black pill is and how, as Christians, one of our primary prime directives is we need to avoid the black pill, like the plague.

So that'll be interesting, because I've got a bit of an older congregation, so they've never heard about the pills, you know what I mean?

So they're gonna learn about the black pill. Anyway, the joy of the

Lord is our strength. I think that's a perfect way to kind of kick off the month of June with all the celebrations of homosexuality and sexual perversion, all, of course, intended to sort of beat you into submission if you're a bigoted, homophobic

Christian, like James Lindsay would say. If you're a homophobe, you're gonna take the bait.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. June is a good month to party.

There's just no question about it. June is the month to eat the fat and drink the sweet, no matter what they say about you, because when people revile you for your beliefs, then you should count it a joy, my friend.

You should count it a joy, because the Lord is blessing you in that.

So, in the month of June, as you're being reviled, count it a joy, because the Lord is smiling upon you.

God bless you all. But one thing that I've noticed, so Ezra and Nehemiah, I talk about them all the time.

If you don't know, that's where, eat the fat and drink the sweet. The joy of the Lord is our strength. Nehemiah says that to the people, because the people, you know, after they build the wall, and they're successful in building the wall, they've got a lot of opposition.

They're building the wall around the temple, they're around Jerusalem, so they can defend themselves. They've got the temple back, they've got the wall back, and they're ready to go, and so he gathers the people.

Jeremiah's the governor, he's a layman. This is what I think is so awesome about Nehemiah, is that we've got the same story from two different perspectives, right?

We've got Ezra, who is a scribe, he's like a very, he's a very, he's an academic, he's a priest, he's, you know, he's a religious man, right?

And he's encountering all the same events that Nehemiah's encountering. Nehemiah's a layman, and he ends up being the governor.

So he's, essentially, he's the Christian prince of the time, so to say. And they encounter the same problems, but they handle them very differently.

And I think that is so important, as you're thinking about the church, and the state, and what the roles are.

I think Ezra and Nehemiah is such a good place to look as far as what that could look like.

But anyway, Nehemiah gathers them together, and he has Ezra read the book of the law, and this should be like a momentous occasion.

This is a day that's holy to the Lord. They've done so much work to get them to this point, and this is the pinnacle.

They're gonna hear from the Lord directly, and the people start weeping.

And they're in, they're at the precipice of despair. And why are they at the precipice of despair?

Well, they're hearing the law of God, and maybe some of them have never heard it before, and maybe some of them have, but they are recognizing how far they have fallen, how much they do not measure up, and it seems hopeless, because they've been skipping all of this stuff for years at this point.

And it's just like, they're just totally the opposite of what the law's over here. They're over here, and they're not, they don't match up.

And so they start weeping and crying, and they're in this state of despair. And Nehemiah, he says, whoa, hold on a second, guys, hold on a second.

This is a holy day for the Lord. This is a good day. God is blessing you.

He is smiling upon you. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna get the choicest meats, the fatty parts, you know, the parts that taste really good, and they're good for you, and we're gonna get the best drinks, get some nice sweet wine, and you're gonna get a lot of it, and you're gonna get enough for you, and you're gonna get enough for the poor, and we're all going to celebrate, because the joy of the

Lord is not something that you scrape and screech by, and maybe you'll get to it one day. No, no, that's that you can have that right now, and not only is it something that you can strive for, but it's actually a weapon that you can use right now.

We've got all this opposition. People were conspiring against me, and all this kind of thing, and we can use this right now as a weapon.

All those people, all those haters who did not want us to build this wall, take a look at this. Not only did we build the wall, but we're also having a freaking good time.

That is what I'm talking about. Nehemiah, man, that's where that comes from, right? But anyway,

I got sidetracked. So Nehemiah and Ezra, you know, they encounter the same problem from two different perspectives, and I just,

I love it, because Ezra is necessary. He's a priest. He's a scribe. We need those kind of people, and I use that as an analogy.

Like, we need pastors, too, right? We need pastors. We need our religious leaders.

We need our religion. We need our ecclesial authorities. Like, nobody's saying we don't need that, but pastors are not enough.

I've seen a number of people. I believe I saw Boniface Option. I believe

I even saw Stephen Wolf say this, and I don't think I retweeted it, because I didn't quite understand what they were saying, but I do understand now where they're glad that sort of this

Christian nationalist, sort of this re -energized involvement in the political and national stage, you know, what it is to be a nation and stuff like that, that they're glad that's not being driven by pastors.

And again, pastors are great. Pastors are necessary, but they are not enough.

Ezra needed Nehemiah. He did. Ezra, so this is the one example that I just love to use, because it's just so, it shows you the stark difference, and it puts flesh and blood on what this could look like, right?

So, you know, one of the big problems for Israel is intermarrying, right? They were intermarrying with pagans.

You know, they were marrying, you know, women who would sacrifice their children to the demon god of Moloch.

You know, they would worship Dagon, and then their kids would be like this weird mix of paganism with Judaism, and it was just this disaster.

They were not allowed to do that. Intermarrying was not allowed for Israel, but they were doing it, right?

Anyway, so Ezra finds out that they're doing it, right? Ezra the priest, the religious man, a great man.

Look, pastors, there are a lot of good pastors out there, but they are not enough. So Ezra finds out about this, and he tears his clothes.

He's so distraught, and he's upset, and he cries out to God.

He pulls his own hair out, and he sits appalled. That's what the Bible says.

He sits appalled for hours until it gets dark out. He just sits there in a state of horror.

He's in a state of, he's just appalled for hours. And he was probably praying.

He was probably, you know, entreating

God to have mercy on them and things like that, and that's what Ezra the scribe, the ecclesial authority does, and that's all well and good.

Nehemiah hears about it too, and I love this, man. Nehemiah hears about the intermarrying too, and he sees that some of their children of the intermarriages, he sees that some of the children don't even speak the language.

They're not even Hebrew. He sees the result of this intermixing, and he's like, he can't even believe he's beside himself.

But does Nehemiah tear his clothes, and pull his own hair out, and sit appalled for hours?

Nah, Nehemiah doesn't do that. Nehemiah's a layman. Nehemiah's the governor.

Nehemiah doesn't hold the keys to the kingdom. He holds the sword, so to say. And so what does

Nehemiah do? Nehemiah goes directly to them. He confronts them immediately.

He calls curses from God down upon them for what they have done. He grabs some of them.

He beats them. He pulls their hair out, not his. He doesn't pull his own hair out.

That was for Ezra the scribe. Ezra the scribe sat appalled, pulling his own hair out, because he was so horrified of what had happened.

Nehemiah does something different, because he doesn't hold the keys of the kingdom. He holds the sword, and he goes right to them, pulls their hair out, calls curses upon them, and he says, look, you're going to promise right now, you are going to swear right now that this stops now.

And it's amazing, because Nehemiah, he calls this scene out.

He calls what he did here out to God, and he says, God, remember me for this.

He says, remember me for this, and he doesn't disparage Ezra. He doesn't say, oh, we didn't need Ezra to sit there appalled and horrified and keeping his hands clean.

Oh, no, that guy was a loser. That guy's a do -nothing loser. He didn't do that.

He knows that Ezra was there doing the right thing, reaching out to the Lord and begging the

Lord for mercy. That was the right thing for Ezra to do, but he calls to God and he says, but God, remember me.

Remember me kindly for wielding that sword for good and doing what needed to be done, because what

Ezra was doing was not enough. I was the governor of these people.

I was the leader of these people, and I took some action to put a stop to this pollution of your people.

Man, I love that. Man, I love that. That's what we need, man.

That's what we need. Pastors are enough. Pastors are great, and pastors are wonderful.

Churches, they hold the keys to the kingdom, but there is something else that we need to be explicitly

Christian, to have an explicitly Christian approach, unapologetic, just zealous for the

Lord from a Christian perspective, and we need people wielding the sword that have that kind of zeal.

Now, this is making a lot of pastors uncomfortable. It is making a lot of pastors uncomfortable.

In fact, you can see it in some of the ways they've been criticizing Christian nationalism. They say things like, the people wrote these books.

They're not even theologians. They're not even pastors, and it's like, it would be as if Ezra saw what

Nehemiah was doing and was rebuking Nehemiah for doing what needed to be done and saying, we don't need governors.

We don't need Jewish governors. All we need are the Levites and the scribes and the priests, and then we can discuss the scriptures, and that's all we need.

No, that's not all we need. He never said that. Ezra didn't rebuke Nehemiah for what he did. They were working in tandem.

Ezra was there reaching out to the Lord, sitting appalled, begging for mercy, and Nehemiah, the governor of Judah, was taking action.

He was taking action, and he was calling upon the Lord as well, and he recognized himself as working zealously for the

Lord, doing what needed to be done, doing what was right, and they worked really well together.

I'd like to think, and this is what I'd like to think, and it doesn't say this in the Bible, but this is what I'd like to think. I'd like to think

Ezra was there, seeing what Nehemiah was doing and kind of rolling his eyes on the inside, and he's like, oh, man.

Man, God, if he sins in this, please forgive him, and seeing

Nehemiah and maybe thinking, eh, maybe he's a little too aggressive, you know, maybe he shouldn't have beat them that bad, like that kind of thing, and asking the

Lord to forgive him. That's what I'd like to think, and I'd like to think

Nehemiah was looking at Ezra and saying, man, look at Ezra, man. God bless him. God bless him.

Sitting there appalled until nighttime, tearing his own clothes, pulling his own hair out. I mean, man, talk about an overreaction.

Why don't you just go to him? Why not just go to the people and say, wait, what are you doing?

Pull your own hair out, man. You look weird. That's what I'd like to think, but they were brothers.

They recognized that there were different parts of the body for different things, and I think that there's a lot of sensitivity with pastors here that start to see people making moves that maybe they weren't trained as well as, and Nehemiah probably wasn't trained like Ezra was in the scriptures.

Man, did he even know the scriptures? He didn't go to seminary.

There's a lot of pastors out there that are feeling very sensitive right now, very sensitive, but pastors are not enough.

Pastors have an important role. They are not enough. Pastors have a necessary role.

It's not the only role. They're not enough. I love pastors. There are so many good ones out there.

They are not enough. We need Christian everything. Christian everything, and a

Christian prince. I know you guys think that, oh, that sounds scary. We need

Christian princes, and you don't have to call them princes. You can call them whatever you want. Christian senators, Christian representatives,

Christian whatever it is, governors, whatever you want to call them, because we need to do more than say woe is me and lament.

We need a lot more than just lamentations, and Nehemiah knew this. He knew this, and he was probably appalled in the same way

Ezra was appalled, but he was wired to work a different way, and not only was he wired, he had a duty before God.

As a layman, as a governor, he had a duty before God to crack some skulls, metaphorically speaking, because as Christian nationalists, we must reject, absolutely flat out reject violence, flat out, as they're antagonizing you, because that's what they're gonna do.

They're gonna antagonize you. You have to reject it flat out, but that's the point, guys.

We love our pastors, and pastors have a lot to say to us, and pastors are there to shepherd our souls, and they're there to protect us and to entreat

God for us, and this is why I like to imagine Ezra praying to God about Nehemiah. Nehemiah is a good guy.

Man, maybe he went a little too far. God forgive him. God forgive him. What he doesn't need is

Ezra stabbing him in the back. That's what he doesn't need, and he doesn't get it. He doesn't get it, if you notice.

Ezra kept his hands clean. He sees Judah wielding the sword, and he doesn't stab him in the back and say,

I denounce, I renounce Nehemiah's extreme tactics, and he doesn't go to the equivalent of the

Atlantic to say, oh, this is not the way of Christ. This is not the way. He doesn't do that.

He knows that something needs to be done, and whatever happens, it's not going to be neat and clean and tidy.

It's gonna be dirty. It's gonna get, he's gonna have dirt on his hands. Nehemiah does not walk away clean, but Ezra was there, and he's responding to God the way a priest should respond, the way ecclesial authorities ought to respond, and you know what

Nehemiah was doing? He was responding the way governors ought to respond, and I love that, man. It's just beautiful.

It's so awesome that God gave us that picture, that window into that period of history with two different perspectives, two wildly different personalities, and two different roles before God, two different duties before God, both zealous in their own right, but differently.

Pastors are not enough pastors. If you're listening to this, no need to be threatened by what I'm saying here.

No need, I love pastors. I was one at one point. Your role is so important, it's so necessary, but it is simply not enough, and so we need to really come up with a robust way for people to be

Christian governors in the way that Nehemiah was a Christian governor, so to say, where they can work for the

Lord while wielding the sword without having sniveling little weasels, oh, that's not the way of Christ.

It's the way of Christ as king. It's not the way of Christ as a pastor. Those are different roles.

Let's stop blending the sword and the keys. Let's try that. I think that a lot of what's going on here, though, is that people that claim that Christian nationalism blends the sword and the keys, that's actually projection.

They blend the sword and the keys. What do you think we're shaped by the government? That's you blending the sword and the keys, not us.

That's you. Pastors are not enough. Theological conferences are not enough.

Reading theology books and systematic theology books and writing them is not enough.

We need other kinds of books, too. We need other kinds of things, too. I think

I've made my point. God bless you pastors. I love you. Remember that. I love you.