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#NoDespair2020
All right, just wanted to get right into it today. I hope you had a good weekend. I know I sure did.
Before we begin, I wanted to just talk about my pastor's sermon on Sunday. We were preaching, we've been preaching through the book of John.
And he's one of these guys that goes pretty slowly, you know, so it's like a few sentences every week.
That's very different than how I preach. I usually try to get big chunks done at a time. But you know, different different styles actually appreciate his style very much just different than me.
Anyway, john chapter seven, the end of it. So this is back, this is when the
Pharisees and the Sadducees are like plotting conspiracies theory style to arrest
Jesus, Joe Carter that Joe Carter would have been against all of these theories totally against it to send even look into it.
Anyway, so they send these they send some officials, they sent some Levites to go arrest Jesus and Jesus is this is preaching at the feast of booths and all that kind of stuff.
And they come back the the officials and they're like, how can we didn't arrest him? And the the the officials say, the officials say no one ever spoke like this man.
And this is starting at verse 47. The Pharisees answered them. Have you also been deceived?
Have any of the authorities of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.
And so the Pharisees are like, look, if you're an idiot, you'll be deceived by Jesus. But the smart guys like the
Pharisees and the officials and the authorities, none of them believe in Jesus, which was false. I mean that, you know, people that are against Christ, they obviously often don't have any love for the truth at all.
And that was that was false. There were some authorities and Pharisees that believed in Jesus. But they said that they didn't.
And basically, if you don't believe in if you if you believe in Jesus, then you're just must be an idiot. Anyway, this is an interesting passage.
So Nicodemus, if you remember, Nicodemus went to Christ earlier, listen to what he said, these are the
Pharisees, the people that supposedly love the law of God so much that they're just Pharisees.
It's a pharisaical to love the law that much, of course, Nicodemus, who had gone to him before says this, quote, does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?
And so Nicodemus is saying, look, you guys love the law so much. What doesn't our law say that you can't just condemn a man without a trial like you need witnesses, you need to see what he's about, you need to need to prove your case, you need to give him an opportunity to speak for himself to defend himself.
That's what our law says. And the Pharisees, the rest of the Pharisees, because Nicodemus was one of them.
The rest of the Pharisees said to him, this is how they respond. Listen to this. Ready? Are you from Galilee too?
Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee. So listen to this. Listen to how this all goes down.
Like, like Nicodemus is like, but look, but, but, but the Bible says this, you know, and, and so we're, we're, we're talking about the
Bible here. Right. And look how they respond to him. They say, you're from Galilee too.
And it's like, I just could not help but see the parallel here. Like oftentimes when you bring up a passage from the scripture, um, that's contra social justice, like, you know, sons don't pay for the sins of the fathers and stuff like that.
Or you shall not show partiality even to a poor man or stuff like that. Their response so often is, well, you must just be a racist.
What are you from the South too? What are you a Confederate? We saw a whole lot of that last week.
Well, you must be a Confederate racist, totally racist. We're gonna do better than that.
Right? Like, like people, this is how liars argue. This is how they argue. They just don't, they just insult you. And so Nicodemus is like, yeah, but we, you know, we're, we're all about the law.
And like, I love the law of God, just like you guys love the law of law of God. But you know, shouldn't we just give him like a fair trial or something?
And they're like, well, what are you, what are you from Galilee? And then of course they play fast and loose with the facts too. They say, see that no prophet arises from Galilee.
That, that was untrue as well. There were prophets from Galilee and everybody agreed that there were prophets from Galilee.
So it's like, you know, liars often play fast and loose with the facts and they claim to be about the law of God while ignoring the law of God.
Watch out for them. There are so many liars in the social justice movement, social justice
Pharisees. That's just how it is. They do all the same kind of stuff. And it's really amazing when you see it.
The point of the sermon was that you need to be willing to follow Christ alone if you have to.
And I would say not only do you need to be willing to follow Christ alone if you have to, but you also have to be willing to be the lone person saying, yeah, but the
Bible doesn't seem to comport with what you're saying. You have to be willing to do that. And it can't just be like this thing.
Well, well, you know, scholars, very respectful scholars of very faithful scholars disagree on this.
Yeah, that might be true, but, but that's often used as a way to shut down conversation as opposed to really getting to the truth of the matter.
If the Bible says X and a very respected faithful scholar says Y, I'm not saying they're an unbeliever, but we need to be okay calling that out harshly if, if necessary, harshly, if necessary, of course, patience, of course, gentleness.
But if, if there's no change, if there's no, if there's no give there and they're, and they're preaching contra to the scripture, we need to reject it with reckless abandon.
Anyway, let's jump into the video today. So last Friday, Donald Trump had a quite incredible video that he put out.
I want to just play this entire video. It's two minutes long. I want you to just hear this because this is why lots of people love
Donald Trump because he speaks with a lot of clarity very often. And this is very clear thinking.
Let's just, let's just, let's just play this for disease control and prevention is issuing guidance for communities of faith.
I want to thank Dr. Redfield and the CDC for their work on this matter and all the other work they've been doing over the past.
What now seems like a long period of time today. I'm identifying houses of worship, churches, synagogue, and mosques as essential places that provide essential services.
Some governors have deemed a liquor stores and abortion clinics as essential, but have left out churches and other houses of worship.
It's not right. So I'm correcting this injustice and calling houses of worship essential.
I call upon governors to allow our churches and places of worship to open right now.
If there's any question, they're going to have to call me, but they're not going to be successful in that call.
These are places that hold our society together and keep our people united. The people are demanding to go to church and synagogue, go to their mosque.
Many millions of Americans embrace worship as an essential part of life.
The ministers, pastors, rabbis, emoms, and other faith leaders will make sure that their congregations are safe as they gather and pray.
I know them well. They love their congregations. They love their people.
They don't want anything bad to happen to them or to anybody else. The governors need to do the right thing and allow these very important essential places of faith to open right now.
So that's the video. That's the video. And it's not perfect because obviously there's some pluralism there.
I don't think that the president of the United States should be advocating or supporting mosques to be open.
I know that makes me a fundamentalist, but it's not perfect. It's not perfect, but Donald Trump is not a perfect president.
But I asked on Twitter after I retweeted this video, which I think is a great video.
I retweeted and I said, why is it so hard to find thinking this clear in the evangelical
Twitter world? It's a very simple case. We've got states that have identified liquor stores and porn stores and abortion clinics as essential services.
And they have ordered, some of these states have ordered churches to shut down. It doesn't get much more clear than that.
This is insanity. The church has no authority over the church. The state has no authority over the worship of God.
None, at least in this context. And so Donald Trump, what
I love about it is this is very brief statement. It's very clear thinking. What I also love about it is he appears to me,
I've seen Donald Trump speak a lot. He appears to be angry and rightfully so.
It's an injustice. It's a clear injustice. He labeled it as an injustice. And he said, he's going to rectify it right now.
Well done. I mean, this is well done. This is late. It's not perfect, but good on Donald Trump.
Good on President Donald Trump. And of course we have
Russell Moore. He can't get out of bed to talk about any anything important.
He's been posting videos about his favorite rich boy book collection.
You know, Where the Wild Things Are was his most recent one, I think. He loved it. He loves it. He could spend 10 minutes talking about where the wild things are in the midst of the biggest crisis of religious liberty that he's ever faced, definitely.
You guys are paying him. He's showing off his rich boy book collection. He's talking about his favorite country songs.
He can't get out of bed to talk about anything important. You know, there was a church in Chicago that was raided by Mayor Lightfoot, looks like she could be
Beetlejuice's mom. And she's over there with her totalitarian dictator dreams, raiding churches.
You know, and Russell Moore can't be bothered. I mean, he's talking about his favorite comic books, you know.
But the minute Donald Trump says, you know what, churches are essential services. So enough of that, enough of this nonsense of liquor stores being essential, but churches aren't essential.
Like enough of that. Instantly, Russell Moore gets out of bed. Instantly, Russell Moore gets out of bed because Donald Trump, the great evil dictator, decided, you know what, enough of this.
This is an injustice. You know, out of all the institutions in the
United States, all the kinds of businesses and nonprofits that exist in the United States, there's really just a handful that the
Bible, or I'm sorry, not the Bible, the Constitution directly addresses. And religious institutions are one of them.
And what does it say? What does the Constitution say about religious institutions?
I'm not sure if Russell Moore knows. So Russell Moore gets out of bed. He has to take President Trump's clear thinking and mix it all up.
He's a water boy. You know, Russell Moore's a water boy. He takes the cover that Donald Trump provides him, the clarity of speech that Donald Trump provided, and he, of course, wants to make it unclear.
He wants to mix it up a little bit. He wants to muddy the waters. And so he posts this tweet thread.
Let me just read this. Very unhelpful, very ridiculous. I mean, how can you take such clear words?
Like, look, their abortion clinics are open, churches aren't open. That's ridiculous. Here's what Russell Moore has to add to Donald Trump's clear statements, because, of course, he can't let that just lie.
He has to confuse you. Every church I know is paying close attention to the safety of their members and communities as they plan the stages of regathering.
Almost all of them are telling members what benchmarks they will watch in consultation with up -to -date public health information in their areas.
Most of us want more than anything to be, quote, back to normal. But regardless of when churches regathered for worship, some things will be changed for a very long time.
The new normal. Russell Moore wants you to accept the new normal. States should treat houses of worship the same as they do other similarly situated groups.
When a casino or mall is deemed safe to reopen, a state should not say that a church practicing safety measures and social distancing cannot gather simply because it's a church.
Do you see what he's saying here? Like, like, this is this is this is the kind of say how
I can do this in a in a nice way. This is the kind of garbage that just drives me up the freaking wall.
Listen to this. Listen to this sentence. States should not treat houses of worship the same as they do.
I'm sorry. States should treat houses of worship the same as they do other similarly situated groups.
And then he gives you two examples of similarly situated groups, casinos and malls.
Russell Moore's unmatched intelligence, ethics expertise says that states should treat houses of worship the same as casinos and shopping malls.
And so when a casino and a shopping mall is deemed safe to open, well, then the church should be deemed safe to open.
I want you to think of the clarity of President Donald Trump's words. And I want you to think of the confusion of Russell Moore.
States should be treated, should treat houses of worship the same as they treat casinos and malls and other similarly situated groups.
And listen to what he says here, because this is what he's setting up the goalposts here. Everything's fine in Russell Moore's twisted universe, unless ready.
So basically in Russell Moore's fantasy land, as long as the church isn't officially telling you, you cannot meet because you are a church, then everything's fine.
There's no persecution. I mean, there's no religious liberty problem. I mean, because that's how, that's how it always goes down, right?
Like what, like the state always will tell you when they're persecuting you, they'll say, well, you officially are practicing the
Christian religion. The Christian religion is now banned. You must not meet because you are a church.
That is the official status of our persecution. And therefore it is officially persecution. Yeah, that's how they do it.
That's how they often do it. They say you can't gather because you're a church. Now, of course they don't do it that way.
They say you can't gather because it's, it's, it's, it's not healthy. It's not safe for you to gather. They say you can't gather because it's a mental health issue for your young, because you're teaching them strange doctrines.
Like for example, like boys are boys and girls are girls. That's unsafe. That's unsafe. Oh, you won't even marry gay people.
I mean, that's why you can't meet because you took the funding, the public funding from the PPP and the loans and stuff like that.
And yeah, well, I guess, you know, you know, now you have to go by our rules. Like, like, like it's hard for me to think of how to respond to this.
This is unbelievable. This is unbelievable. States should treat houses of worship the same as they do other similarly situated groups.
When a casino or mall is deemed safe to reopen, a state should not say that a church practicing safety measures and social, see that's also according to their guidelines.
So if you're a church and you are, and you are practicing everything that the government has told you to do, you know, social distancing, safety measures, all that stuff, then everything's fine.
And if they tell you, but you still can't meet because you're a church, well, then that's when we have potentially an issue.
Maybe we have an issue at that point. Remember the Jonathan Lehman article at that point, maybe we can do some civil disobedience.
Maybe, maybe. So compare Donald Trump's words. This is an injustice.
Liquor stores are deemed essential. Portion clinics are deemed essential and churches are not. Well, I'm rectifying that right now.
Good luck trying to convince me. Otherwise it's not going to happen. And then you take Russell more well, as long as the state's not treating the church differently than a casino.
And of course, we have to be complying with their safety guidelines. Of course, he goes on.
The state has an interest in promoting public health and safety. Almost every church has shown full cooperation with that and have helped lead communities in that mission.
The state should make decisions on the basis of actions that are measurably safe or unsafe, not on the basis of whether the institutions involved are religious or not to do otherwise is to overstep the bounds of the state in unlawful ways.
This is the thing where Russell Moore sets the goalposts so far in one direction that they cannot possibly ever reach the point where the state has done something wrong.
It's like the same thing with the Kastihin thing. As long as people aren't being burned at the stake, as long as Christians aren't being put in Roman candles to light up one of Nero's parties, as long as that's not happening, then there's no persecution.
You see what you're doing? You're setting up a situation where there could never be persecution until these weird conditions are met that are never going to be met.
You know what I mean? It's very difficult to understand where these people are coming from.
He says it also creates confusion and mistrust where there's largely commonality of civic purpose in fighting this disease.
Even when an area is safe to reopen, churches will make their own decisions on how and when to go about that based on the unique needs of their members.
Such decisions will also be based on their ability to make worship gatherings as safe as possible. That sort of planning is already happening in the overwhelming majority of churches.
The CDC guidance that seems available seems reasonable and helpful. The tone is appropriately not a directive to churches, but counsel based on the medical data, even though this counsel is hard to make specific since practices differ so much from congregation to congregation.
This is the thing. It's appropriately not a directive. Here's how this works in Russell Moore's fantasy land.
Ready? In Russell Moore's fantasy land. By the way, you're paying for this if you're a Southern Baptist. Maybe this is just the Southern Baptist position.
I mean, maybe that'll get people out of bed to just get this guy out of this office that he's in. So this is what
Southern Baptists say. The government can direct you to close.
Definitely. That's within their purview. They can direct you to shut down the worship of God. But what they cannot do, what would be overstepping their bounds, you see, is to order you to reopen your church.
So they can close you down. They can shut down the worship of God. What they can't do, though, is start up the worship of God again.
And would you want to bet that if it was President Hillary Clinton that was doing this,
Russell Moore would be so, I can't, it's so great. You absolutely misled Madam President.
You could, of course, she's a Christian after all. Yeah, it's reasonable and helpful.
The tone is appropriately not a directive to the churches, unlike the shutting down. That was fine, though. But again, every church
I know is working through a staging plan, telling their members what benchmarks they're looking for to know when to regather and when they will, the phase of regathering in and what steps they're taking to ensure safety when they do.
The CDC guidance is not a blueprint, but a prompt to help leaders as they think through what questions to ask. This is a tough time, but let's come out of it in a way that jeopardizes neither our first responders nor our
First Amendment. We can do that. We've done it before. Russell Moore, I don't even know what to say.
I think I'm going to end the video here because I think I've been triggered sufficiently. Was causing some trouble based on young earth creationism.
And so I posted, I'm a younger, younger creationist. I definitely am not, not ashamed of that at all.
Anyway, but I got to say there are a lot of responses. I asked why people weren't younger creationists, just wanted to see what people would respond.
And the one that I don't get, maybe you guys can help me out is that if there was a young earth, then that would make
God a trickster because he made it look old. And so like one of the things that people like to point out is starlight, right?
Like the, you know, just the distances there, like starlight has to have been traveling for millions and billions and trillions of years because, um, you know, it takes a long time for, for the light to get to us.
And so if God made the world 6 ,000 years ago, then he's a trickster because he, uh, it made it look like the starlight was traveling for millions and millions of years.
That's that's an, and it's, it's almost like, like low key, like God would be sinning because he'd be tricking us by setting up the universe to look old when really it was young.
And I got to be honest with you. I don't get that objection at all. Can somebody help me out?
I don't even understand what they're trying to say. Like, are you trying to say that if, if he did that, that that would be like somehow sinful or like, you wouldn't worship him if he was a trickster
God or, or like, I don't see how he even makes him a trickster God. Like, it doesn't make any sense. Like one of my friends was saying, yeah, you know, like when
Adam was created, like he looked like an old man, but he was five seconds old. And it's like, that's very easy for me to,
I mean, yeah, that makes, I mean, that makes sense. I'm not saying that proves anything, but I'm saying like, obviously that doesn't make
God a trickster God, right? Like, well, what is the actual, what is the actual claim here? What is the actual accusation here?
I don't get that again. I'm not saying that proves that the world is young. I'm just saying like, what is this trickster
God thing? I don't get that. Anyway. I hope you found this video helpful. I'm going to go calm down.