WWUTT 1305 Q&A (Part 2) Necromancy Technology, Tim Keller Voting Democrat, Getting the SBC Turned Around

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Has technology made it possible to call up spirits from the dead? Can a

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Christian vote for a pro -abortion Democrat? And can the Southern Baptist Convention be turned around?

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The answer is when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible teaching podcast to help encourage your time in the Word, training us to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age.

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Tell your friends about our ministry at www .wutt .com. Here once again is

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. Who I managed to pull in for part two of this

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Q &A. You had the right idea of going to bed. Yeah. Yesterday, last night.

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Yeah. I was so tired. Two nights ago. Oh my goodness. My bedtime has gotten earlier and earlier and earlier, and I've just been...

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So has mine, though. I mean, I still go to bed after you, but it's been earlier.

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Uh -huh. Yeah. It hasn't been as late as usual. I think it's stress. Yeah, we're trying to get the household, obviously, get moved down to Texas.

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We've had a lot of wonderful, kind, encouraging messages from people. And people stepping up and helping and everything.

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In a big way. It's not that we're anxious about anything. It's just a load. It's a lot of work. Yeah. A lot to do.

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Yeah. We've got a carpet that still needs to be laid. We got the outside of the house that needs to be painted. Yeah. A couple of projects inside that needs to be done.

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Yeah. The garage sale today. Yes. Big garage sale today. Yes. Getting rid of most of our stuff.

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Yeah. Come on by. I hope so. Anyway, I wanted to start with this.

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We've been doing... We've still been doing Bible study on Thursday night in the midst of all this. Right. It's gone from being

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Old Testament study, though. And I asked the class, let's do one more book. We'll do it in like eight weeks.

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Right. What do you want to do? And what did they pick? Of course, it was Revelation. Yes. So we've been doing a blitz through Revelation.

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Blitz. Except he overestimated his time. He said about eight weeks.

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And really, he only had six. Yeah. I only had six Thursdays because we're going to be gone for the Cruciform Conference. October 23rd and 24th in Indianapolis.

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Which means we're going to be gone the 22nd. That's right. Which is that Thursday. We got to travel that day. And then the 29th, we will likely be gone.

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Yep. So we've got two more Thursdays. Yeah. And that's pretty much it. I have to finish the second half of Revelation.

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You have 11 more chapters to do in two weeks. Yep. It's that many. That's right. I've done 11 chapters in three weeks.

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Yeah. So I have to... You have to pick up the pace a bit. I have to do the next 11 chapters in two weeks.

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Six and five. Six and five. It's going to go really fast. In the last lesson that we did in Revelation chapter 10, the

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Apostle John said this, a voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, go take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.

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So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll. And he said to me, take it and eat it.

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It will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth, it'll be as sweet as honey. And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it.

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It was sweet as honey in my mouth. But when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. And I was told, you must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.

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Now, John is doing the same thing that Ezekiel did. Yeah. Ezekiel was likewise given a scroll and he ate it and it was sweet to him.

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And where was that? In Kings? That's in Ezekiel. Ezekiel. Yeah. The book of Ezekiel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not Kings.

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I need more coffee. Don't mind me. What you've said over there. No, this is tea.

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I opted for tea. Got it. Okay. You went light caffeine. Yes. Anyway, Ezekiel was given a scroll and he ate it.

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And it was that the word of God would fill him. And as a prophet, what he would speak would be

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God's word. Now, John is doing the same as Ezekiel did. He's eating the scroll, the word of God.

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It's sweet in his mouth, but it's bitter in his stomach. Of course, when we feed on God's word, it's always going to be sweet to us.

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We who love God and love his word, the word is always going to be good to us. But it's bitter in John's stomach in the sense that, again, he has to prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and Kings.

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What John understands is that he's going to proclaim the word of God, but many are not going to believe it.

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Would you call that anxiety or stress? Yeah, in a sense.

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It's a spiritual mournfulness. Because even Jesus said, blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted.

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We will mourn in this world for a time, but then in glory above, we will be comforted by God. John mourns that he is going to speak the word of God to an obstinate people.

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He loves God's word, but it's bitter to him in the sense that he's going to have to watch many people turn away from it and so go to their destruction.

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And we must remember that as we hold out the word of life in this world, there are many people who are going to hear it.

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There are so many who are going to turn away from it. And keep that in mind as we answer some of the questions we're going to respond to here.

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So yesterday, part one of the Q &A was me responding to mostly Bible -related questions.

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This is going to be mostly opinion questions. Yes. With me, lack of sleep.

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It's a good thing that I wasn't here because I would have been all over the place. For the opinion section, probably so.

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No, for the Bible section. Oh, yeah. Is that in Kings? Everybody knows what happens to you when you get tired.

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You don't sit over there. You don't go all over the place. You're just gone. Gabe's just suddenly,

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Gabe's just talking to himself now. We're not hearing Becky respond at all anymore. Everyone's so, uh -huh.

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Yeah, that's right. Is Becky still there? Oh, okay. She's there. I heard her.

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That's so true. I just kind of glaze over.

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Yeah, that's right. We're going to start with something.

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As much as we're laughing here, we're going to like totally change gears. All of a sudden, yeah.

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There is an interesting campaign going on encouraging people to get out and vote.

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But they're using artificial intelligence. They're calling it artificial intelligence of dead people to encourage people to go out and vote.

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So I'm going to play one of these ads for you. And Becky and I have watched the video.

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You're not going to get to see the video. But Becky and I have watched it. And we're going to play the ad from these two parents who bring back their son via artificial intelligence to encourage you to vote a certain way.

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Then we're going to talk about this on the other side. Okay? Yeah. Here we go. I am

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Patricia Oliver, and this is my husband Manuel. Two years ago, our beautiful son

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Joaquin was shot and killed at Parkland. Every day I think about him and what his last moments must have been like.

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Meanwhile, every day, nearly 100 more families lose someone they love to gun violence.

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Every single day, we keep telling people it doesn't have to be like this.

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They don't listen. So we found a way to bring back someone that no one will ignore.

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It's very hard for me to look at this. So please, please listen to what our son has to say.

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Yo, it's me. It's Guac. I've been gone for two years and nothing's changed, bro.

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People are still getting killed by guns. What is that? Everyone knows it, but they don't do anything.

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I'm tired of waiting for someone to fix it. The election in November is the first one

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I could have voted in, but I'll never get to choose the kind of world I wanted to live in.

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So you've got to replace my vote. Go to UnfinishedVotes .com, register, then go vote.

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Vote for politicians who care more about people's lives than the gun lobby's money. Vote for people not getting shot, bro.

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I mean, vote for me because I can't. We've got to keep on fighting and we got to end this.

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Now, I feel very, very sad for that family and the loss of their son. Definitely. But this is godless.

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It's not going to help them any. This is necromancy. It's like necromancy with computers.

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Yes. It's divination. It's calling up spirits from the dead. And what you saw in the video, which, of course, you, the listener, weren't able to see, but it's clearly an actor standing in front of a basketball court.

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You kind of heard the dribbling basketball in the background. Yeah. It's an actor, a real person, but he's got a computer animated, a digital face over him.

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Okay. And probably also a voice actor on top of that as well, who's just imitating Joaquin's voice so that it sounds like him.

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But this is not Joaquin talking. It's not artificial intelligence. It's staged, which is exactly what divination and necromancy is as well.

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Calling up spirits from the dead, but you're not really calling up spirits from the dead because you can't do that.

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So whatever it is that you see is staged, it's either some sort of con that is done by a necromancer or a psychic or something like that, or it is the devil playing tricks on you.

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Some sort of demonic force that could be doing something to your mind, but it's not really a spirit that's being called up from the dead.

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Right. It's not the spirit you're wanting called up from the dead. It's something, right. But it's not the spirit of that person who has died coming back and sharing with you, well, here's my thoughts from the grave.

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Right. We know from the story that Jesus tells about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke chapter 16, that if they will not believe

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Moses and the prophets, they're not even going to believe if somebody should rise from the dead. Right. So somebody's not going to come back from the grave and announce to you.

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And if he could, Joaquin wouldn't be talking about guns on this side of the grave. Right.

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He would be talking about what's on the other side of the grave. Yeah. Because he couldn't help himself. Right. At that point.

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He would be warning, here's what's over here. Yeah. He's not coming back saying, hey, y 'all have got to do something about your guns.

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Right. He's going to be saying, you need to know what's on the other side of death. Yeah. That's what he's going to want to talk about.

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If that were possible. Exactly. Yeah. And I'm not saying Joaquin's in heaven or hell.

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I don't know, did not know the man. Right. But I am saying that what his parents are doing here is evil.

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Yeah. This is godless. And all the people behind it as well. Like he says, his AI self says, we need to vote in a way that's not for the gun lobbies or whatever.

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Well, the people who are behind doing this, they're making money off of this. There's an agenda here. Yeah. So don't think this is some principle.

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See, we're not doing this for money. We're doing this out of the interest of people's lives. The gun lobbies are only after money.

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No, somebody's always after money. Yeah. When it comes to these things. Deuteronomy 18, nine through 12.

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When you come into the land that the Lord, your God is giving you. You shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.

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There shall not be found among you. Anyone who burns his son or his daughter is an offering.

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Anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead.

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For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations, the

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Lord, your God is driving them out before you. So we understand it is evil to inquire of the dead.

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Right. And that's what's being done here. It's kind of interesting how now we can utilize technology.

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We can utilize science. Right. And it's not the same thing. It is the same.

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It is. It's exactly the same thing. Yeah. We should have nothing to do with this and we should abhor it.

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Our heart breaks for those people that think that they have to rely on this kind of thing in order to get truth or change.

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But the truth and real change only happens through Christ. We need to be compassionate toward these individuals, but never withholding the truth from them.

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Telling them the only resurrection from the dead is not going to be through computers and artificial intelligence.

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Yeah. The resurrection from the dead is in Jesus Christ who will raise us from the grave and transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.

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It's interesting. Becky made this comment when we were watching the video. There's nothing new under the sun.

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Nope. This is exactly the same kind of stuff people have been doing long before there were computers. Yes. Conjuring up and bringing back the dead and trying to inquire of spirits and all this other kind of thing.

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And here we're still doing that same thing. We're just utilizing. A different avenue. Yeah. Yeah. New technology to do it.

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Isn't there a story in the Bible of had someone call up the spirits? Saul.

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Saul. Went to the witch of Endor. Yes. Yeah. And she was surprised to actually see the spirit that she was trying to come up.

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Samuel. Samuel. And she was surprised that it was actually Samuel who came.

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Not the usual spirit who contacts her. Right. She usually gets some sort of little dancing demon thing that would come up.

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But this was a person. It was Samuel. Yeah. It was actually the spirit that Saul was asking to come back.

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Who he was. Right. King Saul was because of who the spirit was.

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Yeah. And so, you know, by the Bible saying, because the Bible is true. So, you know, by the

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Bible saying that, that doesn't happen. Right. Yeah. Her reaction to it was like,

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I've never actually done this before. Right. I've never successfully called up a real spirit from the dead.

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Right. Just my little dancing wisp. Right. And then I could say whatever it was. Yeah. But this was

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Samuel actually coming back and this was by the providence of God.

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Right. This wasn't. Precisely. An ability for a spirit to actually come back and communicate something. It was

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God communicating to Saul through the spirit of Samuel. But it doesn't mean that you can call back spirits from the dead.

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Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That is not up to us. That is not our thing. That is not.

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It just doesn't happen. And it's not meant to happen. Well, we're commanded not to do it.

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Right. Yeah. All over the Bible. Everybody was doing this with sinning. Yes. This was through Samuel.

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He was even. He even had a law against that. That he was. Saul did. Right. Yeah.

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He was putting all the mediums and necromancers to death. Right. Right. And so then that's why he was sneaking through town.

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Had to go find this witch. Out wherever he was. Yeah. Right. This being. Well, I was going to say the

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Friday edition, but Saturday now. Part two. Part two of the Q &A. You can submit your questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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This one's from Caleb. Good morning. I watched your video on the Bible Project and appreciated it very much.

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I'm curious to know if there are any alternatives with similar content in regard to doing an overview of the entire

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Bible, books, passages, etc. Thank you for your work over the years.

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Not that I'm aware of. Me neither. I had put at the end of that video warning about the

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Bible Project. I said comment below if you know of some other video sources that would be an alternative to the

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Bible Project, covers entire books like that, does a summary of them, but they're more doctrinally sound. Right.

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I did get a few mentions, but the comment section was so overwhelmed with people criticizing the video that when

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I went back to try to find them, I couldn't find those comments anymore. I didn't keep a log of all of that.

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That's something that honestly I've wanted to do, but right now we have to move. Yeah. We have to get somewhere else first before my time is freed up to be able to work on projects like that again.

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But yeah, through when we understand the text, I hope to be able to have a video on like here's what Genesis is about.

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Yeah. Here's what Exodus is about, you know, so on. That'd be pretty cool. That's not like what the

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Bible Project does. But for now, I don't have any recommendations for you. So if any of our listeners have a good recommendation, that's sound.

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Yeah, please send us an email. Yeah, shoot us an email and we'll look that up.

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We'll relay it on. Yeah. Next question comes from M. That's all I have. Just the letter

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M. Dear Pastor Gabe, I appreciate your presence on Twitter. I understand taking time away, but I hope it isn't permanent.

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What would social media be like without the presence of great Bible teachers like yourself and Pastor Tom and James White and Nate Pickowitz and Dustin binge and the just thinking guys?

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And there's just too many to name. I believe that social media gives us a platform to preach the gospel.

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I know Twitter can be a cesspool, but isn't that basically the rest of the world in general? So please come back soon.

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You will be missed. I wanted to ask your thoughts on a recent string of tweets from Tim Keller about voting.

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I guess I'm just trying to figure out how I would respond to it. On the one hand, it seems practical enough.

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But on the other hand, it just seems like he's trying to give a Christian permission to vote for a

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Democrat and not defile their conscience. Anyway, here's the thread. And if you already have had any interaction with it, let me know.

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OK, so here's the comments from Tim Keller. All right. He says Christians and the freedom of conscience in politics.

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I suppose that's a title. He just threw that in there as a title. The Bible binds my conscience to care for the poor, but it does not tell me the best practical way to do it.

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Any particular strategy, high taxes and government services versus low taxes and private charity, may be good and wise and may even be somewhat inferred from other things the

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Bible teaches, but they are not directly commanded. And therefore, we cannot insist that all Christians as a matter of conscience follow one or the other.

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The Bible binds my conscience to love the immigrant, but it does not tell me how many legal immigrants to admit to the

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US every year. It does not exactly prescribe immigration policy. The current political parties offer a potpourri of different positions on these and many other topics, most of which, as just noted, the

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Bible does not speak to directly. This means when it comes to taking political positions, voting, determining alliances and political involvement, the

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Christian has a liberty of conscience. Christians cannot say to other Christians, no Christian can vote for or every

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Christian must vote for unless you can find a biblical command to that effect. There you go.

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That's that's the thread from Tim Keller. And he said it was from an article that he was writing on politics and conscience or something like that.

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Okay. Okay. Now, M's question is, how do we respond to this? Well, to understand what

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Tim Keller is getting at, he did a follow up tweet where he explained what he was talking about.

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Okay. He says some folks are missing the point of this thread. The Bible tells me that abortion is a sin and great evil, but it does not tell me the best way to decrease or end abortion in this country, nor which policies are most effective.

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That's exactly what Tim Keller was getting at with this thread. He was trying to say you can vote

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Republican, you can vote Democrat as a Christian and not defile your conscience because abortion is wrong.

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But the Bible doesn't tell me the best way to go about that. So I should be able to vote for a Democrat when there may be some

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Democrat policies that help to reduce abortion, even if a Democrat is pro abortion.

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Becky's just making a face. I can't get her to respond. That doesn't make sense to me. No, it doesn't.

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It's nonsense. It's complete nonsense. Okay. So I'm not just sitting here trying to make sense of that, right?

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I mean, okay, because that's why I wasn't responding because I'm like trying to put the ends together and I'm like, okay, my brain's really not working or that just doesn't make sense.

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Abortion is a Holocaust. You're talking about 3000 unborn lives per day.

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Definitely ripped apart, slaughtered by this practice of abortion. This would be akin to voting for Hitler and saying,

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I'm going to vote for Hitler because, he does have some other policies that are good for the poor. But just because he goes out and kills 6 million

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Jews, that shouldn't be a reason for me not to vote for him. That's essentially the same argument.

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Right. I agree. If you have a person who's supposed to be upholding the Constitution, our documents that make this country a nation that define our laws,

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Declaration of Independence, where it says that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, which include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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If the first inalienable right that we are given by God is life, and you have a politician that will not uphold that, he is unqualified, do not vote for him.

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Precisely. I don't understand why this is even a question, why it even comes down to a

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Christian should be able to vote for a Democrat. If they are pro -abortion, no, you cannot, in Christian conscience, elect that person for a public office.

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Who cares if he's for the slaughter of a million babies per year? He does some other policies that are actually good for the poor.

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Now, I would challenge you on that. I would say Democrat policies are not good for the poor. Yeah, right. I think that's ridiculous.

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But Keller doesn't have to define himself here. He doesn't have to explain that, well, here's what

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I mean by policies that are good for the poor. And this is where a lot of these guys have gone. A lot of the big

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Eva guys, big evangelicalism. They just say things without having to define their terms. Let me give you another example of this.

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And this is actually going to reveal Tim Keller's statements to be quite hypocritical. So this is

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Tim Keller talking about how all white people are unjust.

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We are all involved in injustice. If you have white skin, you're unjust. OK. Here he is.

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A friend of mine recently who's a pastor was talking to a Norwegian man who had just moved into his community and went to his church.

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And at one point he heard the pastor talking about the fact that we are all complicit in creating this narrative that black people are dangerous, et cetera.

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And so we're complicit in this. Afterwards, the Norwegian came up and said, no, no, no,

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I'm Norwegian. No, I had nothing to do with it. And my pastor friend said, studies have shown, have pretty much proven that if you have white skin, it's worth a million dollars over a lifetime over somebody who doesn't have white skin.

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And that's because of historical forces that have come about. And at this point, you could go out of several ways.

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One, as I mentioned, if you have that asset of white skin right now, historical asset, then you actually have to say,

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I didn't deserve this. And also, to some degree, I'm the product of,

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I'm standing on the shoulders of other people who got that through injustice. So the

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Bible actually says, yes, you are involved in injustice.

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And even if you didn't actually do it, therefore you have a responsibility not just to say, well, you know, maybe if I get around to it, maybe we could do something about the poor people out there.

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No, you're part of the problem. If you do actually let your understanding and responsibility be shaped by the

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Bible instead of American individualism. So notice there that he says, if you have white skin, you're involved in injustice, but he doesn't say how.

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Like all of this is just assumed. Yeah. And I know plenty of people who are white who are poor.

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Yeah, right. I mean, poor. Yes. Yeah. And they're not involved in injustice. Their skin isn't worth a million dollars over their lifetime.

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I just, I don't, I don't understand how you can earn white skin.

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Yeah. How, how did the people who unjustly earned their white skin to begin with?

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Right. And he says, the Bible says you are involved in injustice. Where? Point that out to me.

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I mean, we're all unjust. Yeah. The world is governed by wicked men.

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Everybody. Exactly. And not any system of government is perfect because it's run by sinful people.

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I just don't understand where it says specifically white. I know. And how white is white?

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And again. Like, is it the white people or the white people who tan? Or is it everybody who's white? Or is it like the somewhat white or the white, white or the people who have like skin diseases that like their skin becomes white?

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I mean, like, what are we talking here? Yeah. And notice there that that's like the rules of this game of woke evangelicalism.

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The rules keep changing. Oh, yeah. Big time. Because here he's talking about.

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From the beginning of it. Yeah. It's a joke now. He's talking about a white Norwegian man who comes to America from Norway.

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Poor guy. But he's still complicit in injustice, even though he has nothing to do with America's history.

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Poor guy. So, again, the rules keep changing on this. It used to just be about, well, this was an

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American problem. Now it's now it's a global thing. Right. Now, everybody who's white is complicit in injustice.

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Well, because they couldn't draw any lines and because they couldn't draw any lines and they refuse to draw any lines on where this where it stops.

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Yeah. How far does the injustice go? Where does it stop? They they wouldn't. They refused. And so now it's just all encompassing.

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Yeah, they didn't find. Which is what they wanted in the beginning. Of course. Right. We knew that's where all of this was going. But that would have been insane.

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And nobody would have accepted it at that point. Yeah. So they had to start small and then just keep growing like a sponge and soaking everybody up.

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Yeah. And they don't admit that they've changed their minds on all of this stuff. These guys were not talking this way five years ago.

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Well, and that's the thing with sin, though, is that you start small and then it keeps growing bigger.

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But no, you've never changed. You know what I mean? But you don't realize how much you've changed.

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When you're not truly grounded in the gospel, then your rhetoric begins to sound less and less like the gospel.

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Speaking of these of these evangelical teachers. Yes. Let me tell you what the Bible does say in Ezekiel chapter 18, beginning in verse 19.

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Yet you say, why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father when the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to observe all my statutes?

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He shall surely live. The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son.

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The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

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Are you involved in injustice just because your skin is white? No. Nor are you involved in injustice just because your skin is black.

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Any color does not mean you are an unjust person. What Tim Keller is espousing there is racism, pure and simple.

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It is racism. You white people are guilty and you need to do something about it.

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That's what he's saying there. Yeah. And you've mooched off to somebody who earned that unjustly.

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Yeah. I don't, I still don't understand. Yeah, you're standing on the shoulders of those. I want to sit him down and ask him how that happened.

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Right. Like, explain to me how that happened. And slavery, incidentally, if we're just limiting it to the

29:18

United States of America, and we're talking about the system of slavery that existed prior to the Civil War over 150 years ago, that was not everywhere in the

29:27

United States of America. No, it wasn't. So you're not even talking about every white person was complicit or guilty in slavery.

29:35

No. Not from America and not from Europe, nor anywhere else in the world. Right. It's just absurd.

29:41

It's absurd where he goes with this. Anyway, I played that clip in relation to the question about the thread that he made online because he's contradicting himself.

29:50

Okay, explain to me how he's contradicting. Let me go back to the beginning of his tweet thread. He says, Christians and the freedom of conscience in politics.

29:59

Right there from the title. We don't have freedom of conscience. We can't, we're white.

30:05

If you're white, right, there's no freedom of conscience. You're guilty. You're unjust. Okay, going on.

30:11

The Bible binds my conscience to care for the poor, but it does not tell me the best practical way to do it.

30:18

But what was he saying in the clip? You're guilty and you're obligated and you have to do something.

30:24

Yep. You have to do something for the poor. And he's even saying in that clip, you're the oppressor.

30:29

You're the reason why they're poor. Right. So it's not just about there's poor people and you need to go help them. You've made them poor and you need to fix this, which is guilt.

30:38

It's heaping guilt upon a person. This is, and this is extremely pharisaical.

30:44

Consider what Jesus said about the Pharisees in Matthew 23, four, they tie up heavy burdens hard to bear and lay them on people's shoulders.

30:55

But they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.

31:01

That's what the Pharisees do. This is what every woke teacher does. Yeah. When he says you're guilty because you're white or when he says you're a victim because you're black.

31:11

Yep. You are also laying on that person a burden that they cannot bear. It's a burden of bitterness.

31:17

You're telling people of minority races, which is ethnicities.

31:23

We'll say ethnicity. The race isn't really a thing anyway, or race is just a difference in color of skin.

31:29

But at one point, at what point do you go like you were talking? At what point do you go from being white to a brown person?

31:34

I know. And like how much melanin does that take? Yeah. There's so many different shades of the same ethnic group.

31:42

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, some of them are pretty close, but there's others that have like a wide variety.

31:48

Yeah. There are certain persons who are African American. They would write down on like a job resume that they're

31:55

African American. I wouldn't have been able to tell that by looking at them. Right. And likewise, there are people that identify themselves as Caucasian.

32:02

Looking at them, I wouldn't have thought so. Right. We actually have two friends that are two

32:08

Caucasian people, and they had a child you would have sworn was from a black family.

32:13

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yes. You remember what I'm talking about? Yeah. Yep. Yes, that's true.

32:21

Now, we know that as that child has grown older, they've actually become lighter. But as an infant, everybody thought they adopted that child.

32:29

They didn't think was actually their biological child. Yeah. It's really kind of strange. The way

32:35

DNA and genes work, I don't have any idea. And I have people in my own family who are darker toned and dark hair, dark eyes, dark tone.

32:46

Yeah. Skin. And they had a blonde hair, blue eyed baby. Yeah. Fair skin. Your side of the family has more redheads than I think

32:54

I've ever seen in one side of the family. How do you have so many redheads? But you're not one of them. Nope.

33:00

I have strawberry blonde highlights. Isn't your dad, isn't he kind of redhead? No. Because your brother is, isn't he?

33:06

Yeah. John was. Yeah. So, how does that work? Yeah, see, so like we're saying, it's -

33:13

He's kind of like a dominant trait -ish. We have a lot of green eyes too. Yeah, you do. Yeah.

33:18

That's supposed to be a non -dominant trait. It's interesting. I mean, yeah, just because you've got two white people doesn't mean you're gonna come out with a child that looks just like their parents.

33:31

Very true, yeah. You never know. Anyway, all of that is extremely funny.

33:37

Very mysterious. It is mysterious. But incredible the way that God has made us, formed us in his image.

33:43

Every person is made in the image of God. But we are playing this constant game of discrimination -

33:50

Through all of these woke politics that are being forced on everybody. And if it were just happening in the wider culture, that would be one thing.

33:58

We'd all be sitting there nodding our heads going, okay, I see why the world is latching on to this.

34:04

I know why they're behaving in this way. They've always played these identity politics games.

34:09

Right. We've been seeing that in our culture for long before we were even born. But to see this so pervasive in the church right now.

34:17

Yeah, it's all over and being pushed on our face. I don't like that. In the

34:23

Southern Baptist Convention, it is practically a plague. Speaking of that, going on here to this next question.

34:31

Did we answer his question? Well, he wanted to know, he or she, I don't know, it's the letter

34:36

M. Yes, M wanted to know how to respond to it was all. Oh, okay.

34:42

We kind of responded. We had a conversation. That's right. It was to show that Tim Keller really doesn't actually believe what he was putting there in that thread.

34:53

So what he put in the thread in the five tweets that he made, that might have been thought provoking when it comes to binding your conscience, when it comes to politics.

35:00

But then you see, he clarified what he was really talking about was a Christian should be able to vote for somebody who's pro abortion and that be fine.

35:10

No. Right. That's what he was saying. I know. I didn't want to say, uh -huh. Yeah, it's not.

35:16

And then the clip that we played exposed his hypocrisy. Right. Because he says that Christians should have the freedom of conscience, but not really.

35:26

The Bible binds my conscience to care for the poor, but it doesn't tell me the best practical way to do it. Well, no, according to what he just said there, everybody's guilty if they're white.

35:34

And he says, maybe somewhat inferred from other things the Bible teaches, but they are not directly commanded, and therefore we cannot insist that all

35:42

Christians as a matter of conscience follow one or the other. Well, the Bible does not say that I'm guilty because I'm white.

35:49

So point out to me in the Bible where it says that, that my conscience needs to be bound to that. He's talking out of two different sides of his face.

35:57

Right. He's laying down one set of principles when it comes to a Christian being able to vote for a

36:02

Democrat. Right. And then he's laying down a completely different set, contradictory set of principles when it comes to how we should consider critical race theory and intersectionality.

36:15

And they are contradicting principles. But one set of principles applies to voting, and another set of principles applies to woke.

36:24

Which is obviously not from the Bible. Yeah, right. It's godless all the way around. Everything that he said there.

36:31

Not biblically based. None of what he said is biblically based. Yeah. Not on either set of principles. He didn't ground any of that in scripture anywhere.

36:38

Right. And that's the way that a lot of this woke conversation has gone. It's just been,

36:44

I don't have to define my terms. Which is why it's gone as far as it has.

36:49

Right. Because nobody's defined terms. Yeah. I've got the high ground. I know it.

36:56

And are completely uncharitable and ungracious in the way that we interact with people on this. It's claiming the high ground.

37:03

Tim Keller can say, I've got the superior ground here because I'm espousing the theory that is most widely accepted in the culture.

37:11

So if you're going to be against it, you're going to have to show me. You have to define your terms, but I don't have to define mine.

37:16

You have to prove to me. Right. Which they don't really want because there's not really a conversation going on here. There's not.

37:21

Yeah. It's kind of like period. That's it. End of story. Regarding the comment that I made earlier this week about Breonna Taylor, the tweet that I made.

37:30

Right. And then the apology that I gave online. There was one fellow who responded to this and said, we need to have a public discourse about this, trying to include me in it because the comment was made publicly.

37:44

Therefore, the discourse, the exchange, the conversation needs to be held publicly. Oh. But he didn't really want a conversation.

37:52

He wanted me to sit there and shut up and him tell me all the ways that I was wrong. Right. And even that my apology wasn't legitimate.

37:59

That seems to be very popular right now. Right. Because BLM and Antifa and everybody going around and screaming in people's faces.

38:07

Yeah. Interrupting their evenings and houses. Right. Everything and everywhere and shops and everything.

38:16

That's how they engage. Now, there may be varying degree. Well, I mean, they are engaging.

38:22

Oh, they're engaging. But it's not conversational. It's all completely one sided.

38:29

It's confrontational. Yeah. There may be varying degrees of aggression.

38:35

Mm hmm. So one may be more passive aggressive. The other one is just outright aggressive.

38:41

But all sides of it are non conversational. It's all confrontational.

38:47

Yeah. Yeah. Unless you're like, oh, yeah, I'm going to put up my fist and whatever else they tell you to do.

38:53

Yeah. I'm glad the whole. Bow the knee, put up the fist, whatever it is. Yeah. I'm glad the whole laying on the ground has given up.

39:00

They gave up the laying on the ground thing. As far as I've seen. Anyway, I was transitioning to you were transitioning to something else there.

39:08

Yeah, the let's see. This was SBC. It was SBC and having the the critical race theory.

39:16

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Being interwoven into SBC. And yeah. So there was Tim from Jacksonville who said,

39:22

Pastor Gabe, what is happening to the Southern Baptist Convention? You're going to ask that question any day of the week. Yeah, and it'll be different answer.

39:30

That's right. Just today, I saw this collage of tweets from Michael Georges, Jr. I guess that's how you pronounce that.

39:37

He is a worship pastor at J .D. Greer's Church, president of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is on Twitter.

39:43

Talk about Michael Georges, Jr. He's on Twitter saying the sports and LGBTQ communities are leading out the civil rights movement way more than the church.

39:54

And if you believe otherwise, you are sadly in denial, beloved. I sincerely applaud them, unquote.

39:59

He also retweeted a man who said you cannot be pro -black and anti -LGBTQ.

40:06

His Twitter is full of Black Lives Matter propaganda. Is there any way to rescue the

40:12

Southern Baptist Convention from this? Or is it totally a lost cause? Well, no matter where we are as the church, there's always going to be things that need to be responded to.

40:22

There's always going to be an enemy that is infiltrating the flock in sheep's clothing. But inwardly, he's a ravenous wolf.

40:30

In the Southern Baptist Convention, I see that we have a greater opportunity to confront some of these problems that are going on in the convention if we're part of the convention.

40:41

Right. If we pull out of the convention, if we pull out our votes, any influence that we have, then there's going to be less likely.

40:48

And not attend. Yeah, right. It's less likely we're going to be able to make a change. Are we to a point where it's irreversible?

40:54

I don't think so. And the reason why I don't think so is because the statement of faith that we have, the

41:00

Baptist Faith and Message 2000, is still a doctrinally sound statement of faith. There are certainly things

41:06

I wish were better defined about it, but it's not heretical. Right. There's nothing about this statement of faith that pushes toward heresy.

41:13

Now, if the convention continues on the trajectory that it's on, I believe what will end up happening is they will change the

41:21

BFM 2000. And if that happens, or if that even is threatened to happen, if it comes about like the next convention, we need to talk about some of these things in the

41:30

BFM 2000. We need to remove that pastors have to be men. We should be more inclusive.

41:37

We need to remove that part where it says marriage is one man and one woman for life. We need to remove that.

41:43

Once people start moving into that direction, and they start removing those aspects of the BFM 2000, then

41:49

I'm out. But in the meantime, we've got a biblically solid statement of faith.

41:54

And so I hope that we can move the convention in the direction of reformation, of recognizing what it was that we stood upon when we laid out these doctrines and summarize them in the

42:06

BFM 2000. Biblical doctrines summarized in the Baptist Faith and Message. Yeah. What I am seeing, another side that I'm seeing to this, and this one isn't talked about as much, but there are also the woke guys leaving the

42:19

SPC. True. The woke people are leaving the Southern Baptist Convention. So if our holding fast to biblical principles means that the woke guys are gonna bail, well, let's do that.

42:30

Yeah. Because I mean, I'm seeing a lot of strong biblical standing, biblically.

42:39

Biblically solid. Biblically solid churches coming up, rising up, speaking up.

42:44

Yeah. Finally. Saying things that they hadn't said in the past of now it's a concern because this does affect us now.

42:53

Whereas before it didn't affect them because, oh, those are the big churches and they're big cities, and it doesn't affect the little churches.

43:01

Because the SPC is so big. So it - It's a big ship. It is. Yes. And so it wasn't everybody.

43:10

And now I'm seeing a lot of the little guys come up and it's like, so -

43:16

Smaller churches speaking out. Yeah. And it's encouraging. I thought it was very encouraging. Right.

43:21

So I just hope that more people are able to come to next year's meeting, but -

43:27

In Nashville. But it sounds like it's a little difficult for people to get a hotel room in there.

43:33

At the Opryland? Yeah. From what I saw on Twitter, a few posts.

43:40

All I saw was that the reservation, you can now reserve a room, but I didn't see that there was any complication.

43:45

I heard it was very pricey. Oh yeah, I know that. Yeah. The Opryland is very pricey.

43:52

So people who are from a small town and don't get paid much or like buy a vocational.

43:59

Yeah. They're not going to be able to afford that unless they start saving their pennies now. And so if you're from a large church and you want these people, think about sponsoring the smaller churches.

44:10

Right. Bringing them on with you. Yeah. Sharing a ride, caravanning, all that stuff. Gung -ho, pick up people on your way.

44:17

Yeah. That sort of thing. Just be in contact with one another. Be encouraging. Yes. Be encouraged.

44:24

Yeah, I don't know what a church accomplishes just being a church by itself and not part of a larger group.

44:34

Yeah. That's a much broader conversation for another time.

44:40

There are certainly things about that that are kind of romantic in nature.

44:46

It's like we're just one family and we just love each other. And we don't have any interference from any outside group, no bigger group telling us what to do, so on and so forth.

44:56

Yeah, but you also don't have that iron sharpening iron and making sure that you're standing strong and not getting wayward or...

45:02

Yeah. The thing that you run the risk of happening when you're a church by yourself and not part of a larger kind of grouping of churches, you risk becoming

45:12

Westboro Baptist Church. You know, they're just by themselves and they don't answer to anyone.

45:20

Yeah, they don't. Yeah. They sure don't. You know, Westboro, because of everything that they're against, you don't know them at all for preaching the gospel because that's not what they do.

45:30

That's not what they're about at all. Well, because they don't think that anybody else is saved. Yeah, that's true, except the people of Westboro.

45:38

Exactly. Anyway, yeah. And I'm just kind of thinking out loud. Yeah. And I could certainly go on a rant of all the things that frustrate me about the

45:48

Southern Baptist Convention. Of course. Tim, you're not alone in expressing your frustrations.

45:53

I had problems with the SVC when I became a Southern Baptist pastor, but I was very encouraged by the direction that things were going.

46:01

Even though I was frustrated with certain things, I saw some other things moving in the right direction. Well, those things that I was very positive about, even five, six, seven years ago, are not there anymore.

46:11

Very unfortunately. This is the trouble with big tent mentality. When you want to have the biggest tent possible to include the most number of people.

46:19

Oh, yeah. You run into these problems. There are still some very gospel -centered, biblically sound churches out there that are making a difference in the

46:27

Southern Baptist Convention. They just don't get as much attention because it's always the negative stuff. Yes. That ends up being in front of everybody.

46:34

Yes, no joke. I was talking with a couple of my friends and my cousin, and I told them that they asked how

46:43

I could be so happy. And I said, you know, it's easy to latch on to the negative things and to make life difficult.

46:53

It consumes your life. Yes, it's easy to do that. And it's difficult to look for the happy things and to latch on to those.

47:01

I choose to make my life difficult. By latching on to the sad things.

47:08

By dwelling on that bitterness of stomach instead of the sweetness of mouth. So do the difficult thing.

47:15

Fight your nature to want to search out those, you know.

47:21

Bicker and complain and argue and fight and quarrel. And go for the enjoyment of life.

47:27

Remember the instruction of Christ in Matthew 6, to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.

47:34

And all these other things will be added to you as well. Amen. If it were not for the

47:40

Southern Baptist Convention, we wouldn't be moving to Lyndale, Texas. This is true. And becoming part of First Baptist Church.

47:46

So see, there's a good thing. That is great. That's come out of the network of people that we know and love and have ministered with and encouraged and uplifted.

47:56

And even admonished. Because I got some good wisdom from Pastor Tom earlier this week about something

48:02

I tweeted that I shouldn't have. I think I said on yesterday's program, I was going to address some comments related to the whole

48:09

Breonna Taylor thing. Well, this part two of the Q &A has now gone 50 minutes.

48:15

And we're not getting to that. So you can go to my blog, pastorgabe .com. And there's where I have the apology posted.

48:22

Maybe I'll respond to some of these comments at a later time. Yeah, we're pretty busy. Yeah, too much going on.

48:28

Speaking of which, let's get back to it. Yep, let's go. All right, concluding with prayer.

48:34

Yes, please. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time together. And I pray that we would have a spirit that is encouraged by the things that we have in our lives, the blessings that have been poured out upon us through your spirit, through the people that are around us, through the sanctification that we receive.

48:53

Looking back at who we were, sinners that were walking in this world worthy of the judgment of God.

48:59

And now in Christ Jesus, we are being made new. We've put off the old. We're putting on the new.

49:05

We're walking in newness of life and help us to rejoice. Even in these days, we mourn because we're not meant for this world.

49:13

We hate to see the sin that is going on around us. Those that are walking to their destruction, we desire that they would turn from their sin and turn to Jesus Christ.

49:22

And so be saved. But let it not tear our eyes away from Christ seated in heaven above at the right hand of God.

49:33

And when Christ, who is our life, appears, then we will appear with him in glory, as it says in Colossians 3, 1 through 4.

49:40

So may our focus be upon Christ. May our encouragement toward others be Christ to help lift their eyes when they become so burdened by the stuff that is going on in the world to not walk around in despair, to kick at the dirt, or to grumble and complain about how things are not as good as they could be, but help to lift that person's gaze that they would set their eyes upon Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God.

50:12

Help us to finish strong in the Lord. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray.

50:17

Amen. I better put this down.

51:30

It's going to cause me problems. You can set it here. No, because then it's really loud. Oh, okay.

51:37

Especially with my spoon. Your spoon in the glass. If it just sits there, it's not going to make it.

51:42

The cup sitting there with a spoon in it does not make noise. And then I went to stir it.

51:48

It tempts you. So all the way through the program, people are going to hear this tinky, tinky, tink. Yes.

51:59

Here's mine. Mine's right over here. It's in a plastic cup, so nobody can hear it. But it's hard to make hot tea in a plastic cup.