WWUTT 1385 Q&A Banned from Twitter, Tom Buck's Jezebel Tweet, Prepare for Persecution, Prayer for Voddie Baucham

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February 19, 2021

Responding to comments from listeners about being banned on Twitter, what Tom Buck tweeted about Kamala Harris and Jezebel, being prepared for persecution, and praying for Voddie Baucham. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

00:00: How did I get banned on Twitter? How is our church doing in light of the whole Jezebel controversy?
00:07: And how must we be more prepared for the persecution that is coming soon? The answers to these questions, when we understand the text.
00:24: This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible teaching podcast. That we may be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the
00:32: Lord. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here once again is
00:38: Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. Sorry that this episode is a little late today. Some of you know that I have a studio set up in a storage closet at the church, and you might be aware that Texas has been experiencing snowmageddon over the course of this past week.
00:54: The church has not been open all week long. Nobody can get here. That's how bad the weather has been.
01:01: The podcast episodes you heard me record earlier this week, Monday and Tuesday, I had done in advance.
01:08: Wednesday and Thursday, I had to trudge through snow to get here in order to stay up on the podcast.
01:15: And then Friday, I'm just late because it's still weather -related. But anyway, we're finally getting some warm enough weather.
01:22: Here on this Friday, temperatures are getting above 32, so that should help melt some stuff away.
01:28: Saturday, it's going to be above 40. Sunday, it'll be 45. So it's like every day we're increasing increments of 5 degrees until we get to like 60 on Monday or Tuesday or whenever that's going to be.
01:42: This snow will not be anywhere. There won't be a trace of it a week from now. But in the meantime, it has been chaos all over the state of Texas.
01:51: This state is just not equipped for this sort of a thing. It's very irregular to ever get a snow of this kind, let alone that it has covered the entire state all the way down past the
02:02: Mexican border. There has been in some places a foot of snow. Here in Lindale, we had at least eight inches.
02:10: And then there was another day it snowed one or two. So maybe we got 10 inches total, something like that over the course of the week.
02:16: Pipes have been bursting because the pipes, they're just not insulated. They haven't been created to withstand cold temperatures like this.
02:23: So you've probably heard about buildings that have been severely damaged because of burst pipes, heaters, furnaces that have been shutting down.
02:31: Power has been out over a lot of the state. And that really is not because of power grid issues.
02:38: It's because Texas just isn't equipped to deal with weather like this. A lot of political blame has been going around.
02:46: I don't blame anybody for this. It's just a weird weather year. That's the reason for these problems.
02:54: We'll get over it. We'll get past it. But the infrastructure is in place to be able to recover from this, although it's going to be more difficult for some folks than it will be for others.
03:04: Keep praying for us, as there are still a lot of places without power. Folks are going to have to boil their water now because of burst pipes.
03:12: So there's going to be some impurities and stuff like that getting into the water. I think there's a boil water statement or something like that has been issued even here for Lindale.
03:23: So we're careful with our water. But yeah, that's just the way things are right now. Because of that,
03:28: I'm behind on the podcast, including this episode. Now some of you have been praying for us because we were supposed to move this weekend.
03:36: Well, that's been put off because of the weather. So everything's been postponed. We're not going to be moving into our new house until next week.
03:43: A week from Saturday, last Saturday in February, we'll finally be moving into our new home.
03:49: This is also me saying this for the members of our church who were going to get together and help us with moving.
03:55: We're not doing that now. Don't worry about having to navigate all of this ice. We're going to wait till it melts. We can't close on the house anyway.
04:03: The title company is even closed right now because of the weather. Nobody can get to work.
04:09: Nobody can go anywhere. So we're going to hunker down. We're continuing to stay where we are on the campground where we have been living over the last few months and still grateful to Timberline Camps for giving us a place to stay.
04:24: Be praying for other folks here in Texas as we continue to navigate the weather phenomenon.
04:30: On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and you can submit those questions to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
04:37: This first email comes from Thad who says, Hey, Pastor Gabe, sorry to hear that you've been banned from Twitter, but I appreciate your boldness and speaking out on some of the issues that you do on social media.
04:50: I hope this doesn't mean that you are gone for good. No, it's just a temporary ban.
04:56: Yeah. In case some of you didn't know, I've been temporarily banned from Twitter for preaching the gospel to LGBTQ people.
05:05: That was that was really what I got banned for. This is the tweet that ultimately led to me being temporarily banned.
05:14: It's a temporary lockout. But nevertheless, I've been punished.
05:20: So here's the tweet. I said, quote, No one is gay. No one is trans.
05:25: No one is bi. No one is queer. You are a sinner, guilty of sexually perverse acts and worthy of the righteous judgment of God.
05:34: You must repent and have faith in Jesus Christ. You will be saved from God's wrath and he will make you a new creation, unquote.
05:45: And Twitter told me we determined this tweet violated the Twitter rules specifically for violating our rules against hateful conduct.
05:55: You may not promote violence against, threaten or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or serious disease.
06:09: Now, I have appealed the ban. And so Twitter is going to determine somebody complained like this happens because someone complained about the tweet.
06:18: So I've appealed the ban. They're going to review it. And if they still uphold it, if they still say, no, your tweet still qualifies as harassment under our policy.
06:28: Well, I'll go ahead and delete it. And then I'm also going to wipe out my entire Twitter history. So I'll just start over fresh.
06:34: This isn't the same as apologizing. I'm not apologizing for what I said, because what I said was true and it was said in love.
06:41: I was not harassing anybody, but I'll go ahead and wipe out my entire history. So Twitter can't do this again to any older tweets.
06:49: I've done this before. I've I've wiped out my history on Twitter before and just started that over new.
06:55: I still do Twitter exactly the same way. So for now, they've not deleted my account.
07:01: I'm not permanently banned from Twitter. You will still see me on there, but I'm going to I'm going to let the process go through before you see me on Twitter again.
07:11: In the meantime, I'm also on Gab. Are you familiar with Gab? It is the conservative alternative to Twitter.
07:19: So go to gab .com and my account. Let's see. I'm going to try to bring it up here.
07:24: See if I've got a specific address for my account. It's gab .com slash pastor underscore
07:30: Gabe. Same username that I've had on Twitter and Instagram and some of those other accounts, pastor underscore
07:38: Gabe. So that's where you can find me on Gab as well. Now look, before I had been blocked on Twitter, I had been posting about James Coates, the pastor at Grace Life Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, who was taken away in chains and put in jail for preaching the gospel.
07:59: I'm just in Twitter jail. I'm still with my family. I'm still with my church. I can still go to the grocery store or whatever.
08:06: James Coates is in jail, jail, jail for preaching the gospel. He can't see his family.
08:12: His family's not even allowed to see him. And the law has told him they will let him go as long as he agrees never to preach again.
08:21: So I was putting out some statements about that, some messages that have been shared by his wife and from his church.
08:31: So be in prayer for James and for that church. See that's a level of persecution way above just getting banned on Twitter.
08:40: I can deal with this. Let's pray for our brothers and sisters there at Grace Life Church in Alberta, Canada.
08:48: I've received some emails from some folks that have other people in Canada who've either asked questions about it or shared opinions about that.
08:55: I'll talk about that sometime later in the future. In the meantime, let's just keep our brothers and sisters in prayer.
09:01: It appears as if Canada wants to make a, they want to make a spectacle of James Coates.
09:08: They want to use him as like, like, see, here's what's going to happen to you if you don't do what we tell you to do.
09:16: If you don't follow our lockdowns, our mask mandates, our, uh, our gathering restrictions, then you're going to be like this guy.
09:24: So they're trying to make an example of him. It's evil what they're doing.
09:29: It's just plain evil. And we as Christians need to not back down. If you do, they're going to walk all over you because that's what's been going on throughout this entire pandemic.
09:39: The government has been testing its limits. What are the people going to allow us to do? We're going to issue this restriction and everybody goes, okay, all right.
09:47: It's for our safety. So let's do it. And then try to shame each other because they don't go along with what the government says.
09:53: And we, we look at these scientific organizations like, well, Hey, it's the science. They tell us if we don't do this, then this is going to happen to us.
10:02: So we have to listen to the science folks. Science can be politically motivated. So we need to, we need to use some common sense here.
10:10: Protect your rights. If you don't protect your rights, your government will take them from you.
10:17: Use those rights to your advantage for the purpose of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ.
10:24: When you go to the book of Acts, that's exactly how Paul used his rights as a Roman citizen to have the gospel of Christ proclaimed.
10:32: And he still submitted to the governing authorities. He wasn't raising up an insurrection or encouraging a rabble to rebel against the government.
10:42: He submitted to those authorities, but he also argued for his rights. And when those rights were violated, he would call that out to protect those rights that he may continue to preach the gospel.
10:54: Just consider the story of him and Silas in Philippi and Acts chapter 16.
11:00: They were arrested for preaching the gospel and thrown in jail. They were beaten and thrown in jail.
11:07: And you know the story, how miraculously God had even caused an earthquake, causing all the jail doors to fly open.
11:14: Yet Paul and Silas, who had been singing hymns while locked in chains, they did not leave even though the jail doors were open.
11:23: They stayed there and all the prisoners with them. The jailer saw what had happened and he pulled out a sword to kill himself because if any prisoner escapes under a
11:32: Roman jailer's watch, he would be put to death. So to prevent himself from being shamed and his family from being shamed, he was just going to take his own life.
11:43: Paul, in the interest and safety of this jailer, called out, do not harm yourself.
11:48: We are still here. And the jailer calls for lights. They rush in. He falls down at Paul and Silas' feet and says, good sirs, what must
11:57: I do to be saved? And you know this verse, right? Acts 16, 31. They said, believe in the
12:03: Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the
12:10: Lord to him and all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, washed their wounds.
12:17: He was baptized, all his family. And he brought them into his house and said food before them.
12:22: And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
12:28: So I believe that God can use these times of persecution in order for the gospel to be proclaimed.
12:35: And I share that in my latest blog, in fact. So you can read about my being banned on Twitter and how the gospel of Christ has been shared when you go to PastorGabe .com.
12:46: I'm praying for Pastor James that likewise, through his imprisonment, the gospel will be proclaimed even through his church in Edmonton and more.
12:56: People will hear the gospel. Christians will be emboldened not to be oppressed or persecuted by their government, but to stand up for their rights.
13:05: Paul and Silas did this in Philippi, continuing on Acts 16, 35.
13:10: When it was day, the magistrates sent the police saying, let those men go.
13:17: And the jailer reported these words to Paul saying, the magistrates have sent to let you go.
13:22: Therefore, come out now and go in peace. But Paul said to them, listen to Paul. Paul said to them, they've beaten us publicly, uncondemned men who are
13:32: Roman citizens, and they have thrown us into prison. And do they now throw us out secretly?
13:39: No, let them come themselves and take us out.
13:46: The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens.
13:52: So they came and apologized to them, and they took them out and asked them to leave the city.
13:59: So they went out of the prison. They visited Lydia, previously had shared the gospel with Lydia, and she became the first convert there in Philippi at the start of Acts 16.
14:10: And then when they had seen the brothers, they encouraged them, and then they departed. Consider this.
14:16: Because Paul and Silas stayed there, because they said, no, we're not going to leave because they've asked us to, they need to come and talk to us.
14:23: Because they made a spectacle of that, the rights of many others there in Philippi are now protected because Paul and Silas took a stand.
14:33: And that's what we as Christians need to do. We need to live according to our rights.
14:39: Whether you're in Canada, whether you're in the United States, wherever you are, whatever government you live under, know what your rights are and defend those rights and defend those rights for the purpose of sharing the gospel.
14:54: If we have the right to do that, then do that, use it, defend it and use it.
15:00: If you don't, it will be taken away. And how much more difficult will it be for you to even live, let alone share the gospel?
15:09: There are people who are going to have their bank accounts taken away. They're not going to be able to find employment or buy anything at the grocery store because they let their rights be taken away.
15:20: That's what's coming down the pike here. I don't know that we can stop that. If I'm going to be a pessimist about it,
15:26: I don't know that we can stop it. But at the very least, we can slow it down and maybe God will be gracious to us and not turn these nations over to the wickedness and the depravity that have been promoted for the last half century or more.
15:41: Maybe he will grant repentance and that widespread revival will see the gospel preached in all places.
15:48: I certainly long for that and pray for that. But we need to be prepared to be persecuted.
15:53: After all, Paul said to his protege, Timothy, those who desire to live a life of godliness in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
16:03: And Jesus said, blessed are you when you are persecuted for my name's sake.
16:09: So we need to rejoice in that, that we've been considered worthy to suffer persecution for the name of Christ.
16:16: That's what the apostles rejoiced in Christ for when they were persecuted. So let us rejoice in that as well.
16:23: Great is our reward in heaven. This world is never going to be heaven for us anyway.
16:28: For those who are in Christ, this is the worst hell that we will ever have to endure. And right now here in the state of Texas, hell is frozen over.
16:36: But for those who do not know Christ, this is the only heaven they will ever know.
16:42: And we need to boldly share the gospel. We're not going to church because we're asking the government to let us have our hobbies.
16:50: And we're Christians. And so our hobby is going to church. We go to church because we want to obey the command of our
16:57: Lord God, who died for us and rose again from the grave so that all who believe in him will have everlasting life in heaven.
17:05: He gave such a great price for us, was persecuted and died for our behalf.
17:10: Should we not be willing to face the same for the sake of his name?
17:17: And we're not even talking about being crucified here. We're just being we're just talking about going to church.
17:22: We want to honor the Lord, our God. We want to worship his great name because we believe he is king, not
17:29: Caesar. So honor the Lord. Go to church and be in prayer for your brothers and sisters in the
17:37: Lord. Do not shame, shame no other believer for speaking the truth and living a life according to the gospel of Christ and the commands of God.
17:50: We need to be encouraging of one another, not discouraging of each other. Remember the instruction that we have in Romans 12 to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice.
18:01: I rejoice with those who get to go to church. I am grieved in my heart over those whose government is cracking down on them from being able to go to church.
18:11: And it's not because the government cares for people. They're just attempting to flex their political muscle.
18:18: We need to care for one another. And that begins in the body of Christ, his church,
18:24: Galatians 6, 10. So then as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone and especially to those who are of the household of faith.
18:35: I want to shift into something else here. This has to do with a tweet that my pastor,
18:40: Tom Buck, shared on Twitter back in January, January 22nd. In fact, you've heard
18:46: Becky and I talk a little bit about this on the podcast. The tweet that pastor
18:52: Tom made that is still stirring controversy, even to this day, we're about a month later here and people are still talking about this.
18:59: But here's the tweet that pastor Tom made. He said, I can't imagine any truly
19:04: God fearing Israelite who would have wanted their daughters to view Jezebel as an inspirational role model because she was a woman in power.
19:13: Now you can tell from that tweet, even though he didn't mention the name of Kamala Harris, that's who he's referring to.
19:21: And there are people who have taken this tweet and said that pastor Tom said something racially discriminatory, like he was using a racial slur in his reference to Kamala Harris.
19:34: No, he wasn't. He was making a comparison with an evil ruler in the Bible. And by the way,
19:40: Kamala Harris also is a very evil ruler, somebody who is pro abortion, pro baby murder at every stage of a child's development in pregnancy.
19:51: She is pro LGBTQ in favor of changing a child's sex.
19:59: If a boy decides that he wants to be a girl, subjecting that boy to hormone therapy and things that would permanently damage him for the rest of his life.
20:10: If that little boy decided that he wanted to be a girl, it is it is wicked what
20:16: Democrats and the leftist ideology is attempting to force on people.
20:21: Now, of course, they're in power because there are people that love that sort of a thing and they want that kind of a thing to happen in the
20:28: United States. That's the reason why they're in power. But as Christians, we need to make sure that people are not led astray by this stuff.
20:35: And there are Christians that are praising somebody like Kamala Harris just because she becomes the first woman vice president of the
20:45: United States. Nobody should be excited that she is there because her policies are so wicked.
20:52: She's not breaking any glass ceilings. She is advancing perversity, the murder of unborn children and sexual immorality.
21:02: And that's more the reason why she's in the White House, not because she's a woman.
21:08: The apostle Paul told us in Ephesians five, beginning in verse 10, try to discern what is pleasing to the
21:14: Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
21:23: And so we as Christians need to caution our fellow believers, warn them not to partner with things that God has promised he will judge.
21:33: That's what Pastor Tom did in his tweet. But even fellow believers are throwing him under the bus for saying what he said.
21:42: Even people within our own our own convention, the Southern Baptist Convention, have been speaking out against Pastor Tom from seminary presidents to the president of the
21:52: SBC himself. Because of all the excitement that was stirred up over this tweet,
21:58: Pastor Tom addressed our church at a recent business meeting at our most recent meeting, which would have been on January the 31st.
22:06: So he made this tweet on the 22nd. He addressed the body on the 31st and we record our business meetings.
22:13: I have that statement that Tom made to the body and with his permission,
22:19: I am sharing that with you now. So here is Pastor Tom Buck of First Baptist Church in Lindale, Texas.
22:26: Some of you may have seen a Baptist News article that was published this past Monday claiming that I called
22:31: Vice President Harris Jezebel. And since then, there have been multiple, multiple articles written that are based on that original article.
22:39: I can't even keep up with all of them that are being written. The headline saying that I called Vice President Harris Jezebel and most of what was in the article was actually a lie.
22:48: It was not fair representation. It was untruth. R .C. Sproul, Jr. said on social media in my defense, quote, comparing two people is not calling one person the name of the other.
22:58: You have falsely accused a brother, speaking of me, who called no one Jezebel at all. You eagerly repeated a false accusation against Pastor Buck.
23:07: Sadly, Dr. Danny Aiken, president of one of our SBC seminaries, among other SBC voices, have been perpetuating that untruth.
23:16: Dr. Aiken pointed people to one of the articles and said what I did was, quote, disappointing and uncalled for, unquote.
23:23: R .C. Sproul, Jr. then responded to Dr. Aiken publicly saying, would love for someone to actually address the obvious truth that Pastor Buck called no one a
23:31: Jezebel. He did draw a comparison, he said. When James says in the
23:36: Bible, you believe God is one good, even the demons believe he wasn't calling anyone a demon.
23:44: So a group of SBC influential people are publicly calling for me to be excommunicated from the
23:49: SBC and for our church to not be allowed to seek messengers at the upcoming convention if I don't repent of what
23:56: I said. Now, these are serious charges, so I want to clearly explain to the church what happened, what
24:02: I actually said and why I continue to stand behind my statement based on what
24:07: I said. Here's what happened a week ago this past Friday. I saw Christians publicly celebrating
24:13: Kamala Harris as a role model. Some of these, the ones I were seeing were evangelical leaders or respected people within evangelicalism in the
24:19: SBC. They were praising her as a role model for our daughters because she was the first woman of color to be vice president.
24:27: I made the following public statement. Let me quote it. I can't imagine any truly
24:32: God fearing Israelite who would have wanted their daughters to view Jezebel as an inspirational role model because she was a woman in power.
24:42: Now, I immediately followed this up by saying in right underneath it, if Trump had been the first white man to become president,
24:50: I wouldn't want my sons to look to him as a role model. So I was clear about that. Now, people have claimed that Jezebel is a racist term and therefore
24:58: I'm a racist. That's what's been charged against me. I never heard of it. I never heard it used that way.
25:04: It wasn't my intent. I'm a pastor. My worldview is shaped by scripture. It's not by how godless people may have twisted scripture in the past to fit their evil purposes.
25:15: I made the comparison from a biblical perspective of a woman in power who had governed in godless ways in scripture with a woman in power who had governed in godless ways today.
25:26: We should look to someone as a role model, not based upon the color of their skin or gender, but upon their character.
25:34: Vice President Harris is the most radical pro -abortion vice president that we've ever had.
25:39: When Planned Parenthood was exposed for selling aborted baby parts, Kamala Harris was attorney general of California and she did not prosecute
25:48: Planned Parenthood for that wickedness. She prosecuted the individuals who exposed what
25:54: Planned Parenthood was doing. Have Christians forgotten the proper outrage we had at the travesty when those things were exposed?
26:04: Harris was not outraged. She protected the murderers. When she became a senator, she voted against the
26:11: Born Alive Act that would have required doctors to treat a baby who survived an attempted abortion.
26:17: In other words, in the process of trying to kill the child, the baby, and I'm speaking very bluntly about this, in the process to try to murder the child,
26:28: I believe is even more correct, the baby somehow survives and is out of the womb, lying on the table with nurses and doctors around.
26:36: The normal procedure is to let the baby lie there and die. That's the procedure.
26:43: This law would have said that the doctors present would be required by law to give that child care as he or she would any other child.
26:50: Harris voted against that bill. Harris also performed one of the first lesbian marriages, quote unquote marriages, and champions transgender rights, supporting to make it a law to force schools to allow biological boys to play girls sports and use girls bathrooms and girls locker rooms.
27:08: Therefore, I said in my public statement, we should, quote, pray for her, but don't praise her.
27:15: So hear me clearly. This is not about her being a woman. It's not even about her being a Democrat. When Trump was running for office,
27:22: I was just as publicly clear about my problems with his morality at the chagrin of some, even in our own church.
27:28: None of those statements I made about Trump were ever reported or condemned by Baptist News.
27:35: Never. No SBC leaders publicly chastised me when I called out
27:40: Trump. The reality is, if you read my statement as it's written. I did not even speak in order to shame
27:48: Vice President Harris, although she should be shamed of what she does. In fact, it was not so much a rebuke of Kamala Harris, but of Christians lifting her up as an inspirational role model because of her gender and ethnicity.
28:03: Such thinking doesn't come from scripture. It comes from a worldly ideology that places our identities in our ethnicity and our gender.
28:11: This is not who we are as Christians. As Christians, we are not to be guided in what we value based on our gender or ethnicity.
28:18: We are not first and foremost, men or women or black or white. We are not Republicans and Democrats. We are citizens of Christ's kingdom where there is neither
28:27: June or Greek male nor female. Second Corinthians 5 16 says, therefore, from now on, we recognize no one according to the flesh.
28:36: The values that guide us are those of Christ's kingdom and not this world. And when someone's values are completely antithetical to God's kingdom, that person is not a positive role model for us.
28:49: One may ask, well, why not just say we shouldn't praise someone simply because of their gender, but their character?
28:55: Well, that is what I did. But I used biblical illustration to make the point. I'm going to speak the truth from a biblical perspective.
29:02: I will do it in the public square. I will do it behind the pulpit. You know, don't tell me that someone is worthy of being a role model for young girls when that someone advocates for the slaughter of baby girls in the womb.
29:15: My daughter was adopted from an agency that helped women choose adoption over life.
29:21: I will not point my daughter or any other Christian's daughter or any daughter to someone to be a role model that would have been more than happy to see her exterminated in the womb.
29:31: Don't tell me someone who wants to destroy biblical marriage and fill the world with LGBTQ leadership and justify transgender godlessness that puts biological boys in the bathrooms and locker rooms with their daughters.
29:44: Don't tell me that that person is worthy of being a role model for anyone's daughter or the girls or women of this church.
29:51: This doesn't mean we hate those enslaved to their sin. But if we aren't crystal clear about the depth of wickedness of their sin, we can't truly call them to repentance and offer them the gospel.
30:01: John the Baptist spoke in the public square very boldly about King Herod's sexual sin and Herod hated him for it.
30:09: John the Baptist ultimately lost his head because of it. And I said this morning, being merciful doesn't mean you softball sin.
30:16: Listen to these words of scripture. First Corinthians 6, 9 says, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
30:24: Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals nor thieves nor the covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
30:35: And yes, I'm quite aware that covers most of Washington, D .C. But what this would say, what would this say about those who advocate for these things to be rewarded in our nation?
30:47: Scripture says that the purpose of government is to punish evil doers and to praise those who do right.
30:54: And government doesn't get to define what is good and what is evil. God's holy law defines that.
31:02: When John the Baptist confronted King Herod, he said what Herod was doing was, quote unquote, unlawful.
31:09: It wasn't unlawful by Rome's standards. It was unlawful by God's standards.
31:15: Throughout scripture and church history, when governmental leaders have defied God's law, there have been men of God to boldly speak against it when necessary.
31:23: Now, that doesn't mean that I or any of us should take to the streets, calling out everything we see. I do not want our church to be a three ring media circus every week, and I must be careful in what
31:35: I say because I don't want that to every week end up being something like we've I've experienced and some of you have experienced this week.
31:42: So pray for me to have boldness and wisdom to speak to what should be spoken to and to be silent when
31:47: I need to be silent. And I admit many times I need to learn to be silent. Let us not equate being a
31:56: Republican with being a Christian either. We are citizens of God's kingdom. We're exiles and aliens in this world.
32:03: And too many Christians excuse the sin of their own political interests, those that hold their own political interests while castigating the other side.
32:10: God forbid we do that. So I ask all of us to let God's word guide what we think, what we praise rather than political parties.
32:18: Let's stand where God stands and nowhere else. And if our children need role models, let's not first look to the
32:24: White House or the sports arena or the halls of academia. The greatest role model for your daughters is not a woman who has made it to the top in this world.
32:35: It's a Titus 2 woman who is living in reverent fear of God. It's a Proverbs 31 woman.
32:43: We ought to point our children first to Christ. And if we need some men and women, go to Hebrews 11, the men and women of faith.
32:53: There you will find Abraham and Sarah, not just men, but women. You will find
32:58: Moses's mother and Moses. You will find Hebrews 11 says this, the faith of the women who received back their dead by resurrection and others who were tortured, not accepting the release so that they might obtain a better resurrection.
33:14: Let our role models come from here and let our values come from God's word alone.
33:26: And this is important on both sides, because one of the reasons that we have hurt our witness to be able to speak out against things right now in the administration is because maybe we overlooked some things we should have said in the last one.
33:42: Let us just stay true to God's word. Let us praise when the government does what is good according to God's word, but let us not be silent when we need to speak where there's evil.
33:54: And then he asked me to come up and pray there at the very end. So that's the statement that pastor Tom made to our church.
34:01: And I, for one, am very grateful for his witness, his example, and his leadership consider something that he said there toward the very end.
34:09: He said, maybe one of the reasons we've heard our witness to speak out is because we did not speak out when we should have let us hold true to God's word.
34:18: Sometimes we have this idea that by speaking out, we can hurt our witness.
34:24: But it's also true that we can hurt our witness by not speaking out at all. And that's what's going on in the
34:30: Southern Baptist convention right now, especially in regards to the reaction to Tom's tweet right after pastor
34:38: Tom made this statement. So he made this at the business meeting on a Sunday, the very next day, which was
34:45: February the first JD Greer issued a statement on Twitter in which he threw pastor
34:52: Tom under the bus and even said that what pastor Tom had done was sinful, kind of had a, he didn't directly say it because he didn't say pastor
35:02: Tom's name, but anybody would make a comparison between Kamala Harris and Jezebel is doing something sinful.
35:09: According to our SBC president, JD Greer, he will not speak out against the clear evils being perpetrated by this wicked administration, but he will throw his fellow pastors to the dogs if that's politically expedient.
35:26: And that hurts our witness to be able to speak up against some of these evils. It's going to be very, very easy for the government to come in here and take our rights away from us when we're too busy fighting ourselves instead of this stuff that the government is doing.
35:43: My friends, we have to be willing to accept that we're going to be hated for what we believe we're going to be hated by our own family members.
35:50: They would be willing to lock us up because we're going to choose to worship
35:56: Christ instead of stay home or limit the size of our gatherings because the government told us to.
36:03: Our own family members will hate us for that. And there will be people who will hate us in the name of Jesus, because they've chosen to go after a form of Christianity that looks more like the world rather than what the
36:16: Bible says. Let me share with you a comment that was made by someone who used to be a friend of mine, and she has since left.
36:24: The faith has gone in a very liberal direction, but I saw her make this comment on social media yesterday.
36:32: Listen to what she said. She said, dear Jesus, please let my entire family, besides my siblings who are too young to be stupid, die from COVID -19 that they are insisting is not a big deal so I can reconnect with the family members who have a few brain cells.
36:52: Amen. That's incredible. Wishing death upon your family because they are choosing to follow
37:02: Christ instead of the government. And there is even an effort right now among some
37:07: Christians to redefine what it means to be persecuted so that Christians will not be able to say when the government limits a gathering or shuts down a church in the midst of the
37:16: COVID -19 pandemic, that church will not be able to say they're persecuted because of this revisionist narrative that's going on.
37:22: Listen to this comment. It was just passed along to me. And in fact, my phone buzzed with this comment while I was playing that clip from Dr.
37:30: Buck, listen to this. I'm not going to say who this was, but he is pursuing his doctorate right now at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
37:39: Here's the, here's the comment that he made. Quote, I think the Apostle Paul was the victim of injustice perpetrated by his religious opponents.
37:49: And then he got caught up in an unjust, slow moving bureaucracy. He was a victim of false accusations and political manipulators.
37:58: I would not characterize him as a victim of persecution. Unquote. Wow, wow.
38:07: So what we just read there out of Acts chapter 16, that wasn't persecution. That was just an unfortunate set of circumstances.
38:15: See, that's what's happening right now is that terms are being redefined so that Christians will not see the persecution when it's happening.
38:24: They'll go right along with it. Many of them turning against their own brothers and sisters in the
38:31: Lord to their own destruction. Consider what Jesus said to his disciples in Mark chapter 10, verse 29,
38:39: Jesus said, truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the gospel who will not receive a hundred fold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life.
39:07: So we are going to receive a wonderful family of God in this life. That's what we have in the church, but it will come with persecutions.
39:16: Jesus said we may lose our blood brothers and sisters who will hate us because of the gospel that we believe and we proclaim, but we receive many more brothers and sisters in the kingdom of God, in the church of which we are a part.
39:31: My friends do not be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it and it alone is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.
39:45: Amen. Now that's a great place to stop. I would love to just go into my closing prayer from there, but I have a couple of other things that I want to mention.
39:53: I'm going over my time as it is. I only meant to spend a half an hour on the broadcast today and already we're over 40 minutes.
40:00: So, uh, I want to mention about Votie Bauckham. Uh, Dr. Bauckham, you've probably heard was experiencing heart failure while he was in Africa.
40:09: He was just in the States a couple of weeks ago. Pastor Tom actually went to go see him while he was at the founders conference in Florida.
40:15: When he got back to Africa, he was experiencing a lot of fatigue, uh, became very, very ill.
40:21: And it turns out that he was experiencing heart failure. He had to get back to the United States to get the surgery that he needs to save his life.
40:30: In coming back to the U S he would have flown into Dallas, which he did. He ended up flying into Dallas, but that trip was delayed because of the weird winter weather that we were getting here in Texas stuff was able to let up enough that he was able to fly in, but he could not get to the hospital that he needed to go to.
40:45: So he was flown from Dallas to Jacksonville, Florida, had a really bad night. A couple of nights ago, they almost lost him, but, uh, but he managed to pull through and, uh, he posted an update on Instagram, said that he's very grateful to be where he is one of these days.
41:02: He will share with us all of the ways that God has shepherded him and his family over the course of this whole ordeal.
41:08: But in the meantime, he praises the Lord. Thankful for Tom Askel also, who is, uh, who of course is the president of the founders ministry, he started a fundraiser online.
41:21: What was this through? This was, um, I'm looking at it here. Go fund me. It was a go fund me for Dr. Bakom to cover his medical expenses.
41:28: Dr. Bakom may need a new heart. We don't know just yet, but that might be the procedure that he will have to undergo.
41:35: And that could cost over a million dollars. So Tom Askel managed to raise over $1 ,250 ,000 for Dr.
41:45: Bakom, and he accomplished this in just a few days. Praise God. That is amazing.
41:51: And thank you to everybody who has donated and given my wife and I have given. And, and, excuse me,
41:57: I would be willing to bet that a lot of you listening have probably given to that cause as well.
42:03: We had posted it on the what Facebook page. I had shared it on Twitter, as I said before, even before I got blocked.
42:09: So every dollar that was needed has been raised. Pray now that the Lord will protect
42:15: Dr. Bakom and his family, and that he will get the treatment that he needs and his life will be saved.
42:21: I would love to see this brother stay with us for many, many more years. Cause I have benefited greatly from his ministry.
42:28: I am an expository preacher today because of the faithful preaching of Dr.
42:34: Voti Bakom continue to pray for him. And we'll say a prayer for him here at the conclusion as well.
42:39: One last thing. I've been getting some emails about the Ravi Zacharias scandal.
42:46: In fact, it was Thursday night last week. I was here in my little storage closet to record, and I pulled up my phone just before I was about to hit record and start recording, and I saw the article that had been, uh, uh, written by, uh, written and published by Christianity today about the new findings in the internal investigation that had been done into some of these allegations that were made against Ravi Zacharias.
43:13: I went ahead and read the article. Even before I started recording, I texted Justin Peters and he and I talked a little bit about it.
43:21: I decided not to change the program last week though. I already had everything together that I was going to talk about.
43:28: So I went ahead and recorded the program as I had planned. And I was going to play that clip from Dr.
43:34: Buck on this program this week. So that didn't afford me much time to talk about the Ravi Zacharias stuff either.
43:41: So we're putting this off until another time, but I don't feel an urgent need to address it again. My statements have not changed from what
43:48: I said back in October when the allegations came forth and were corroborated by two independent journalistic investigations, one by Christianity today and the other one that was done by world magazine.
44:00: They confirmed that Ravi Zacharias was living a sexually immoral lifestyle for years.
44:08: He was a hypocrite and he was a pervert. And I said then, and I still believe this now that Ravi Zacharias international ministries is through.
44:17: Do not give them another dime, not to do an apology tour, not to do any rebranding.
44:24: It's time for that ministry to pack up the tents and burn them. What is said of false teachers in second
44:30: Peter chapter two is true of Ravi Zacharias. Many will follow their sensuality and because of them, the way of truth will be blasphemed and in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.
44:45: Their condemnation from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep.
44:52: I was not planning on saying anything else about this scandal because what
44:58: I said back in October still holds true, but I do have a particular obligation to my church and I feel a responsibility to my listeners and my blog readers as well.
45:10: So I will come back to this issue again sometime in the near future. I'm not for sure if it's going to be next week or it might be sometime later since next week, we're going to be moving into our new house, but I will address these things again at another time.
45:24: I didn't want you to think that I was ignoring the issue or ignoring some of your emails about it. If you want, you can go back and listen to the comments that I made on the podcast.
45:34: October 16th was the date of that particular episode. Thank you all so much for all your prayers and your kind support.
45:42: I received a message just a couple of days ago from somebody who said, I'm praying for you and for Pastor Tom.
45:48: This is from somebody who isn't even a part of our church, but they were saying, I know that pastors are going through a lot right now and I appreciate what you men are doing standing for the truth.
45:57: God bless you and thank you so much. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are so grateful for the goodness that you've shown to us in Christ our
46:05: Lord, for we all were like sheep who had gone astray. Everyone turned to his own way.
46:11: And yet you and your kindness and love toward us laid on Jesus, the iniquity of us all.
46:19: He who laid his life down, who died for our sins, who rose again from the grave so that all who believe in him, we have the forgiveness of sins and we have fellowship with God.
46:30: We have everlasting life with God. And more than this, we have become fellow heirs of the kingdom of God, citizens of this kingdom and adopted into a family in which we have received so many more brothers and sisters in the
46:45: Lord through the blood of Jesus. I pray that we would regard one another with kindness, with gentleness and with humility, as we've been reading about going through Romans 12, 13 and 14, as we're now in Romans 15.
47:02: And I'll resume that study next week that we put others needs ahead of our own.
47:07: In these days, the world is coming against the church. There are people who look like they're part of the church that are coming against the church.
47:15: May we hold fast to the word of God. May we be built up according to this foundation and build one another up in that as well.
47:25: I'm so grateful to the men and women who saw a need with a pastor that we all love and have affections for Dr.
47:34: Voti Bacchum and have raised this money to help with his medical costs, his surgeries, his operations.
47:41: I pray that you would show favor to this great preacher of the Lord and that he would recover from whatever it is that is ailing his heart, that you would give him more years of strength, that he may continue to proclaim the gospel of Christ to a lost and a dying world.
47:59: We are grateful for his boldness. And may we be imitators of Dr. Bacchum, who has been an imitator of Christ.
48:07: I pray for Pastor James Coates in Canada, who is being persecuted for preaching the gospel.
48:13: And I pray that you would give him boldness and give peace to his family as they go through a difficult time.
48:18: Give wisdom to the other elders there at Grace Life Church as they continue to shepherd this flock, even in the absence of their pastor.
48:27: I pray for other Christians around them that they would be energized and emboldened by seeing the witness that is put forth by this pastor.
48:34: May we not let our rights be taken away from us, but stand boldly for them as we would stand for the gospel of Christ to be proclaimed in all of the earth, in all nations, baptizing in the name of the
48:47: Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that you have commanded.
48:53: For we have this promise. In Matthew 28 20, Jesus says to us,
48:59: Lo, I am with you always to the very end of the age. Make us to stand in Jesus name.
49:07: Amen. This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great
49:12: Bible teaching programs on the Web, and we thank you for selecting ours. But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family.
49:20: Find a good gospel teaching Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend and join us again Monday for more