John Piper and John MacArthur talk Church & Politics

The Conversations That Matter podcast, I'm your host John Harris. I'm kind of in my work around the house outdoor clothes today because that's what I've been.

Doing.

I actually just set up an archery target. I didn't think I could do it in my yard, but I did.

I actually did.

Thinking a little creatively, I had to make use of a hill. I live on a hill, so there's this elevation kind of Let's just say that I'm shooting up, but I have a rock wall that kind of captures whatever I shoot in case I have a stray arrow, so it's safe, but it's not straight.

I just thought of a range, somewhere to shoot, as being straight. It's having to be straight because that's always where I've shot. The closest archery range to me is like 20 minutes away, and I was looking at the requirements to be able to shoot there, and you have to join their organization, which means 15 hours a year of service work, which is fine.

I'm like, I don't know if I'm that into this sport, and then you have to pay, I think it's like 300 bucks a year or something like that. I was like, between the time, it was like 40 minutes there and back, and then I have to pay a toll going across the bridge.

That's gas.

I started doing all the math in my head, and I thought, let me just try to be creative, so I actually built myself today, and for my Actually, I have my bow right here. I'll show everyone. This is my Matthews compound bow.

I've had this for This was one of those impulse buys in 2020 that I'm sure none of.

You did that.

None of you went out and bought something in 2020 thinking like, well, now I have I can't really get a full screenshot on this, but I thought, I'm going to have all this time now because everything's online.

I was going to Actually, I think I had just graduated. There was some overlap with me doing my thesis work and graduating, and anyway, though, people weren't meeting. Church wasn't even meeting, the church I was going to for the first two months, and so for the first few weeks, I was looking around, what kind of services are even out there, so Bible studies were canceled.

None of the stuff that I would have been involved in was going on, and I thought, I'll get back into archery because that's what I used to do in my teens a lot, and I enjoy it. I love archery. I think

I mean, that was my thing when I was probably like 12, 13, 14, had a bale of hay in the backyard, and I remember my first compound bow because I had a I think it was a recurve, I think, this kind of practice recurve bow, and then my dad bought me a compound bow, and I was overjoyed when that happened, and I got all into it, and I don't know what.

Happened.

I guess I got into fishing or something else. I go through little phases sometimes, but anyway, I thought today I would take some time. It's like 67, 68 degrees it was earlier today, which is just amazing for the month of November.

It's been in the 70s, like the last three or four days, and so I thought, I only have a few more good days to do this, so I built kind of like a cage for my target. I got a target, put it in that cage, and I had to adjust it to my hill, which was pretty drastic, but I figured it out, and I have a lane

I got to measure how many yards.

It is.

It's probably like 30 yards, though. Maybe I could I don't know. 30's probably my limit on that, but it's still good because in New York, you're not taking long shots most of the time if you go hunting, so I got my hunting license.

I got everything I need, and I could on opening day go out with a shotgun, or in my county I can use a rifle, but I'd rather use a bow if I can, so we're going to see what happens with this, but anyway, that's why I've got my work clothes on, and I have Bible study coming up.

Actually, I probably have to leave in about an hour, so I've got a hard break that I got to do on this podcast, but just trying to get everything done, helping my wife with hanging some shades, and just a work around the house kind of day, which is great, but it's also election day.

No, not the election day you Calvinists are all thinking of. No, it's the day that we go and we vote, and you get weird stickers if you live in my county in New York. That's right. This is what they gave me.

True story. This is what they gave me. I'm used to getting an American flag or something. That's what I was getting in Virginia, North Carolina, and I thought I was getting this in New York, as I remember, but this is the first time I've gotten weird, sleep-deprived, purple monster spider chaos man or androgynous figure.

I don't know if it's a man or a woman. Can you tell? I don't know. This is what they're giving out. I looked online because I was coming back from voting, and I was sounding like an old man according to her.

I was saying that this is crazy. This just shows kind of where we're at, and when I get an American flag, I get a purple people eater. She said, well, no, I've seen this before. There's an explanation for it.

Before you talk about it and go on a cross-politic tonight with A .D. Robles, because they said I might be doing that later tonight, talking about the New York gubernatorial race, and A .D. Robles is hosting cross-politic.

He asked me to come on. I said, I'm going to talk about this, and she said, before you do that, you may want to research. I looked it up, and there's no explanation. It's a 14-year-old kid who designed it, and they had some online contest, and I think it's a 93 of the people who voted voted for this sticker.

That's right. Above bald eagles and American flags, the purple spider people eater, sleep deprived, way too much caffeine man. I don't know what this has to do with anything civic related, but that is what's going on.

Local politicians, here's the thing, are getting in on it. In fact, one of the guys running for, I don't remember, I think it's a town board or something in a local election in New Paltz, decided to get it tattooed on himself before the election.

Literally getting this, this is tattooed, I think on his arm. You have others who are saying how great it is to participate in democracy. No one can criticize it. That's how you know you're in a bad state.

No one can criticize that. Look, whoever made this is good at those rage comics, but I don't know what that has to.

Do.

How is this a, I don't know, maybe my wife is going to say I sound like an old man if she hears this. That was interesting. That was a difference this time around going to the polls. I don't know what the results obviously are at this point.

It's evening, but I would assume, I think the polls close I think at 8 or 9. So we'll probably start getting results obviously between 10 and midnight. And then if it's close, we won't even know until early in the morning.

And who knows? Who knows, right? After 2020, maybe it'll be a few weeks before we really know. But I think in New York it's likely that, I just can't see the Republican Lee Zeldin pulling it off in the gubernatorial race.

I just can't see it. It's just because New York's become a one-party state. And once a state becomes a one-party state, it doesn't really go back. I don't know if you've noticed that. I'm trying to think of an exception.

I mean when the Democrats get in control. I don't mean if it's a Republican one-party state. The tendency is conservatives tend to play on a, they want, they respect the rules of the game. They want a fair fight.

They want the rules the same for everyone on the field, open field. Everyone gets a chance. Democrats tend to lock the door after they get in the building and they gain control. They don't let anyone else in.

That's part of it, I think. And then there's a tipping point too. When you get a voter base that's committed to enriching themselves through the public treasury, raiding it, then it's really hard to get back from that.

So anyway, that's where New York's at. I mean if Zeldin won, I would be grateful, but he's not a conservative at all. In fact, he's pretty much, I would say pro-abortion. I want to say that he's a cautious pro-lifer.

In fact, it's funny. The local Christian, believe it or not, there are Christian organizations in New York and one in particular, I won't say which one, but it's an organization that does a lot of good work, but they put out their kind of last get out the vote email and they're trying to paint Lee Zeldin as pro-life by using what the Democrats are saying about Lee Zeldin as if they were true.

But the Democrats, they're always going to use these scare tactics. He's going to force your little girls to have to carry babies, even if it's rape or incest, and they'll die on the operating table because the doctor won't be able to take the baby out that's threatening their life.

They do all that kind of thing to try to get you scared. But the reality is Lee Zeldin himself has said he's not going to do anything to stop abortion in New York State. He has no intention of it. And so either way, you're not voting for a pro-life candidate.

And he's even got the conservative endorsement. So New York, it's a huge, it's a big, big tent that includes libertarians. And I mean, pretty much every stripe of I'm not a Democrat, as you can imagine, is lined up against how do we depose of Hochul.

And Hochul is just, you know, she's underestimated, I think. A lot of people thought she'd be easy to depose, and that doesn't seem to be the case. But for all of you who don't care about New York politics, I hope that it's going well in your state, wherever you are.

I hope that the elections are fair. I hope that godly rulers are elected. And there's a few races that I am watching closer than others. Local politics, obviously, I can't know all the hundreds of politicians or statesmen running across the country.

But obviously, it's been getting a lot of press in Arizona, Carrie Lake. And I'm really curious to see what happens there. She's impressive in some way. And really, the thing that makes her impressive is the way she handles the media.

I think it's the same thing that's gotten Ron DeSantis traction, same reason Donald Trump had traction is because I think conservatives especially know that the, and Christians, I think, that are conservative, that are biblical in their values when they take those in the polling booth with them, they realize it's a battle against the media, it's a battle against every institution just about.

And so if you have a fighter, someone who will take it to the media, isn't trying to garner favor with them, that's automatically someone to watch. And Carrie Lake is certainly that. So that's one of the races I'm watching to some extent.

Obviously, the Florida race, a lot of people are watching that. So we'll see what happens tomorrow, but let's just pray. I think we're under judgment. I think that the Lord has given us the rulers we deserve, whether they were legally voted in in some cases or not.

But I think there's always, I mean, there's mercy. The Lord does give mercy, and we always pray for that. We don't want to see the effects of sin manifested in their full display, despite what some people say about loving persecution.

I don't like hearing that language so much. And maybe they won't say loving, but you hear things like, well, you know, the church is only pure if it's persecuted, and so as things get worse, that's going to be good for the church.

No, it won't. I don't know, maybe you could see in some ways how it could be when there's not an advantage to being a Christian, you get the pure Christians there, but you're still going to have heresies.

You did in the Old, you did in the New Testament church, and they were under persecution, and you still had false teaching. It doesn't eradicate it completely at all. You're going to have, you're still going to have problems, and I look at recent examples.

Look at the church in places like Afghanistan or Iraq, where Christianity was, the doors were open, and then in Afghanistan in particular, the Taliban takes back over. What did that do for the Christians there?

It wasn't good. It doesn't grow the church necessarily. I don't think that's a good church growth strategy, is let's get persecuted. So I'm always praying for politicians, leaders, who are going to not only respect God's law, but at least allow the church a place to exist in freedom, to propagate the gospel, to make disciples, to evangelize, to do all the things the church is supposed to do without being.

Harassed.

And so anyway, I know a lot of you have the election on your minds, and in that vein, we're going to talk about a recent Q &A that John MacArthur and John Piper did. I've had a lot of people asking me about this, John, have you seen it?

And I finally decided, you know it, I'll listen to it, and I did today while I was doing some work outside, setting up my archery target, and I thought, well, this is actually, this is worth it, I'll just comment on it as I play a section from it.

And so I think that's, maybe we'll just jump to that right now. But hey, tonight, I just want to say this, I don't know where you would, I guess you'd go to Cross Politics website, I don't know, maybe the Cross Politics YouTube channel, but somewhere between 10 and 12, I think I'm going to be on there talking about the New York State gubernatorial race, Lord willing, so maybe I'll see some of you then.

All right, so let's go to this, let's see if I can pull it up here. Here it is, this is posted, Desiring God posted this, and you have Nate Buznitz, who actually I had in seminary in 2011 when I was at master's, Nate Buznitz was my historical theology teacher at that time, so I did at least, yeah, one semester with him in historical theology, and he was always, you know, always good to me, gave me good grades, which I appreciate.

But he's the one, I think they have him doing the questions here because it's a Puritan conference, that's the theme, and he's their church history guy at TMS. And so there's some good nuggets in some of this, in particular some things MacArthur shares about advice for new pastors and things like that, which I think, honestly, that's one of John MacArthur's, some of the best wisdom that he has is just very practical ministry wisdom for young pastors, I've just noticed.

I have a whole series, I think it's on my shelf somewhere, here it is, I think this is it, Insight into a Pastor's Heart, John MacArthur, I think it's the only CD set I have of his up there, but I just think he does so well when he talks about practical ministry things, because he's got such a long span to draw on.

But they get into this section on, oh man, I don't know if we're going to get through all this, so it's first, what is the pastor's role in speaking God's truth to the political sphere, and then how can Christians in America prepare for persecution, and I want you to hear this, there's just so many things, I don't know what I'll share and what I won't.

This is sort of spontaneous, I don't have any notes that I've written down, but I definitely have some thoughts, and there's some wisdom to be gleaned from some of this, but there's also some critiques I think to be made here.

These are two guys that are not, would not be considered at all on the religious right, by any stretch, especially John Piper, John Piper is the one who right before the 2020 election came out against Donald Trump, couldn't vote for Donald Trump, he kind of made this moral equivalency argument that Donald Trump's meanness and his, he put all his sins in the Greek and then he compared that to Joe Biden's support for abortion, and Donald Trump's got a big ego, Joe Biden supports abortion, they're both bad, can't vote for him, and he's been, I would say over the years, with the exception perhaps of abortion, he's been, he's pushed the needle left, there's no doubt, there's no doubt about it, he's pushed the needle left, I'm just remembering even what he's written about CRT, I know we've critiqued it on this podcast, it just muddied the waters, and it was a misunderstanding, and he definitely gives it a benefit of the doubt that he shouldn't, aspects of it, he definitely ran cover for people who voted for Obama, because he talked about even people on his pastoral staff who did, and how that was acceptable for Christians to be able to do this, somehow, he, with the, even the vaccine, remember, it was about a six month period, first he says look, there's a pro-life concern here because of the cell lines that these companies have used in order to manufacture the vaccine, and that being linked to abortion, and then six months later he's talking about, he's encouraging Christians, you better get the vaccine, and so he's been, he has not been helpful on some of these, MacArthur's been much more clear in my opinion, but MacArthur also, he hasn't pushed the needle left, in my opinion, what he used to do though, at least I used to have this thought, is he used to somehow, sometimes, I think neutralize Christians in some ways, some of the, the effect of some of the things he taught, I think, had the effect of neutralizing conservative Christians, because they would get the impression from him that God's kingdom is, well, here, check out this video, and you'll see what I'm talking about.

I think Christians ought to stand up against abortion, and gay rights, and the ERA, and a lot of other things. I really believe that we ought to take our stand on those issues. But somehow, what happens is, in the midst of wanting to take the right and legal means to take a stand and preach and proclaim against sin, we get diverted into the illusion that we can change our country by effecting changes in the political system.

The reason I don't belong to the moral majority is because I'm not willing to alienate all the Democrats. Well, what do I gain by that? Because politics isn't the issue.

There's no such thing, by the way, folks, as a Christian country, and there's no such thing as a Christian government. Well, there will be a Christian government in the millennium with Christ ruling. I don't expect my government to act in a Christian way.

They have nothing to do with the church. There's no such thing as a Christian government, no such thing as a Christian nation, never has been, never will be until Christ establishes a worldwide theocratic kingdom.

All I expect out of my government is that I can get here when I want to get here, not get shot in the process, and that the water comes when I turn the faucet on. We want to do everything we can because we live in a democracy to bring about the best conditions that our people in this society may enjoy.

There's always the temptation to cross the divide between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness and borrow things from the kingdom of darkness that you think are going to aid you. I mean, Jerry Falwell believed that, right?

He believed that, you know, if we're going to reach the world, we've got to have a Christian president, a Christian Congress, and a Christian Senate. That has nothing to do with the kingdom of God. And what you do in terms of social change, lobbying hard and fast for social change and giving too much of your time to that has nothing to do with the kingdom of God.

That's why Paul said we preach Christ and Him crucified. There's a singularity in our focus. We do it with love and compassion.

So hopefully you can see what I'm talking about there. Some of this is good. I mean, having a focus that's singular in the sense that for the church itself as an institution, the ecclesiastical realm, institution, the lane that we're in as a church, when I put my church hat on and I go to church, there's a purpose there to make disciples, to use our spiritual gifts for the building up of the body.

And to have a mission drift where you now make the church a political institution is absolutely wrong. And that's exactly, by the way, what the social justice movement eventually does with the.

Church.

They turn it into a political institution. And, of course, they'll call it other things. They'll say that it's a justice issue or something, but it's a political institution. Where I think I've diverged from John MacArthur over the years, and again, with much respect for him, but where I've seen things, I think, a little differently when I read the Bible is I do think that it is good for there to be a Christian government in the sense that who knows justice better than Christians, right?

We want Christians in office. God's diakonos, according to Romans 13. And we're supposed to pray for our leaders so that what? It's not so that they'll become saved necessarily, although that would be good, pray for all those who are in authority, but it's so that we will live these decent and quiet lives.

We'll be unmolested from the government. If you don't have Christian morality or a moral standard that's being applied, a right, correct moral standard, then what's to prevent you from getting shot at on your way to church?

Eventually that's where things are going to lead to, chaos, when there isn't a standard. And the concern, of course, now is that another standard, a competing standard, which is utterly pagan is being substituted for what was a Christian standard.

And that has led to a lot of negative consequences for everyone, not just Christians, non-Christians.

Too.

It's not good for them when they're shut down in their houses because the government wants to take more power. And given a gene therapy and told that the government is encouraging this when it's not good, or that you'll lose your job, or that abortion is fine, or a legitimate option, or that your 13-year-old can mutilate themselves, and that's somehow being true to what they actually are in their experience.

These are all evil, evil, evil, evil, evil things that are happening right now, and obviously John MacArthur would be against them, as I would be, but I think that the remedy for this is, in part, trying to get some godly people into office and trying to get Christians to take the lead when it comes to our public policy, writing laws, passing legislation, enforcing them, all that.

So that's where I come down, and I look at Jerry Falwell, I probably have differences with Jerry Falwell too, but I look at someone like a Jerry Falwell, and I think the guy was actually really trying to do something here.

He saw that there was a big problem, and he did try to mobilize Christians, and it's true that sometimes this can be confused, that people think that the church is now an engine for that, and that's true.

Sometimes that happens. We've seen that in the social justice stuff, but you can have that on the other side, and we have had it on the other side before, but I don't think that was Falwell's main emphasis.

He started other organizations. They weren't even necessarily all ministries. They were, I mean, the moral majority was really a political operation, but it was to mobilize Christians, and so when I leave, when I exit the doors of the church and I enter the, like I did today, the voting booth, I'm still thinking like a Christian, right?

I don't cease to be a citizen. I cease to have civic responsibility when I join the church. The two aren't mutually exclusive is what I'm saying. In fact, I think MacArthur makes a good point in what you're about to hear, and I'll start playing it in a minute, that actually it's the church really has the answers for the maladies affecting our society.

They inform the other institutions in society as to what their proper roles are because it's those in the church who are the most equipped and most responsible for articulating, teaching God's word, and so I think MacArthur has a tension in some of the things he, he'll say one thing over here, and then he'll say another thing over here sometimes, and of course you're looking over decades of ministry here, but even within, I don't know, the last few years, I can see this with him sometimes where he'll, he really I think has this motive that's so pure that he wants to protect the gospel.

He wants to make sure there's not a mission drift from the church, that they're pursuing things other than the gospel. He wants to give Christians the impression that it's the Holy Spirit work in an individual's heart that makes the difference.

It's not passing legislation. We can't get back to being a more Christian society just through political action. There's got to be something else, and I see that, and I agree with that, but I think he then overstates his case a little.

That's just, that's just my, I know, who are you, John, to say anything about someone that's been in ministry that long? I get it, and if you disagree, please put a comment in the info, or the comment section.

I'd be more than happy to, to be corrected if I'm off on this, but, and I, and I love John MacArthur. I just, I think though that, because I've seen it. I was there at Masters. I remember Nate Buzanitz did this one, I've talked about this before on the show I think, he did a session on, I think it was called What Hath Athens to Do, no, What Hath Jerusalem to Do with Athens.

I think that was the name of it, 2011 Shepard's Conference, and I remember I talked to him beforehand. I said, look, there's, there's people here in our class that think that it's wrong to be involved in politics, and please don't give them a reason to justify that opinion, and he appreciated it.

We had a good talk, and then I remember he gave the presentation. I don't even remember exactly what he said, but I remember going to him afterward, and I was probably actually thanking him or something, but there was someone who came, who was before me in line to talk to him, and this person said, thank you so much.

I used to be very involved in politics. I would vote. I wanted to try to get my friends to vote, because I thought we gotta stop these Democrats, and then I listened to you, one of your sessions, I listened to your teaching, and I don't even vote anymore, and I'm so much better off for it, because now I'm focused on the kingdom of God, and I thought, something's wrong with this.

Something's wrong with this. If people are getting the impression that they should just not vote, they should, they don't have a civic responsibility anymore, because now they're mutual exclusive somehow.

The kingdom of God is the only thing to be concerned about, and having godly, righteous rulers has nothing to do with the kingdom of God, and we have a problem, because guess.

What?

They are related. They're not the same thing, but they are related. In fact, this is one of the big things Stephen Wolfe says in his book, and I think he articulates it very well, and he draws on a rich history that we have in the Christian tradition, that the righteous ruler is, one of the responsibilities of the righteous ruler is to ensure that the freedom, that the church has freedom, Christians have freedom to share the gospel, to propagate the faith, to, for the good of society, implement the sacraments, etc.

So if you have a government that's opposed to that, very bad for society. A government that encourages that, very good for society, and this is what Christians have believed in forever, or in memoriam.

This is pretty much been the main view held by Christians, that that's a good thing when the government is Christian, in that sense, until very recently, five seconds ago, really. So anyway, I wasn't planning on giving all that background, but here we are, and I gotta start this video, so let's do it.

Let's talk about what Piper and MacArthur said here, and since people want me to weigh in on this, and I think if I can, I'm gonna speed it up, just for the sake of time, let's see here. What do they offer me?

So if we play it back, I'm gonna 1 .25 speed it, just so it's a little faster, so if you're listening on two speed already, they're gonna sound really fast, but here we go.

When we look back at the Puritans, we see that they ministered at a time when those in governing authority were hostile to the truth, they persecuted the church. We have great examples in the Puritans of pastors who spoke boldly God's truth to those in power.

I know in 2013, Dr. Piper, you preached a message that you directed part of to President Obama on the subject of abortion, entitled, No, Mr. President, and Dr. MacArthur, last week, you wrote an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, calling him to repentance.

So I wanted to ask you men to comment on the church's role as the conscience of the nation, and maybe more specifically, the pastor's role in speaking God's truth to those in power.

Well, first of all, some categories. We understand that there are divisions of responsibility in the economy of God in the.

World.

There is government, and government has a role. There is the family, and the father and the parents have a role. And the church doesn't become the father to the family, it's not the parents, and the church is not the government, and the government cannot rule the church.

I mean, we've talked about that. We did a document, Christ is head of the church and not Caesar. But at the same time, the church informs everybody of what that role means. We tell the parents how to parent, we tell the government how to govern, because it's laid out in Scripture.

So the division of authority doesn't mean that we sit back and let the government be whatever it wants to be, or let parents be whatever they want to be. We have to bring the word of God to bear. The Bible is crystal clear that whoever rules over men must be just.

OK, so this is a point I was just obviously making, and I totally agree with what he's saying here. In fact, I would love him to weigh in on some of the things he said before that just seemed to, I don't know, when that has nothing to do with the kingdom of God.

Political involvement has nothing to do with the kingdom of God. And yet here he's saying that actually this is the responsibility of the church. And in other words, there's an obligation that Christians have, and the church as an institution has, to keep these other institutions, the family and the government, accountable to God.

That's what being an actual prophetic voice is, unlike Russell Moore writing from the New York Times to lambast conservative Christians. John MacArthur is speaking prophetically to these other institutions.

And so 100 percent. But I just want you to note in your mind, put a little footnote back there and say, we as Christians have a responsibility. That's what John MacArthur is articulating here, and he's doing it based on the fact that leaders must be just.

They have to have a moral standard they're utilizing. So who knows what the moral standard is? It's us. And we live in this society. In fact, I could extrapolate out and say, too, I mean, you see this in Old Testament Israel that there were times when the whole country, the whole nation would be punished because of the actions of a wicked king.

Well, why would they do that?

Right. Why?

When it's the wicked king's fault. Why not just him? Well, because there's there is a an obligation that the citizenry has to make sure that their rulers are following God's law. And I don't want to put meat on all those bones right now and give you all the details of what I think that looks like.

But but there is some kind of a an agreement or a covenant. There is something there between citizenry and the rulers. In this case, John MacArthur says the church and rulers, the church has an obligation.

So that's that's a high bar in my mind. That's. That's big stuff for the church to have that kind of a an obligation.

Putting in the fear of God, for example, so we're always going to be the conscience of the the family, the conscience of parents, individuals and the government. So that's just a kind of a categorical way to look at it.

What I've seen in the evangelical movement for the last 20 years or so when evangelicals have gotten into politics is that they are very busy trying to manipulate. The political picture, they want to go to Washington and they want to set up organizations that lobby with politicians.

You even hear it was Tim Keller who made some statements about we have a urban mandate to speak to the cities. Well, the urban mandate, for example, is it'll be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than it will be for you if you've heard the gospel and rejected it.

The urban mandate is to pronounce judgment on the rejection of Christ on every city that does that. And the responsibility for the church is not to somehow gain favor with the government by lobbying, which leads to compromise, which leads to compromise that is so severe and so bad that it can take a large denomination and fragment the whole thing into chaos.

We've just watched that play out.

He's talking about the Southern Baptist Convention here. Here's the question I have, and I obviously wasn't in the room to ask this and Nate Boosness doesn't ask it, but if there is this great obligation that the church has to government officials, then how come a mechanism like forming a lobbying group can't fit into that?

Now, I think if what he's saying is that if that's the sole thing you're doing, that's the only thing you're doing. If that's the recipe for success in your mind and that's it, and absolutely there's a problem there, but why can't that be part of the responsibility that he just articulated the church has to keep governments to speak prophetically?

Because John MacArthur, he wrote a letter to Gavin Newsom, but he's not, and he has a platform where he can do that. Most of you listening, if you're a small time pastor, you go to a medium sized church, whatever, you don't have that platform.

So how do you get the attention of leaders? How do you speak prophetically so that they know this is what God says and you're in violation? Well, you kind of have to go visit them or you have to have a voice that can speak to them somehow or apply pressure somehow or get their attention.

You're not probably going to get it just by, you could call, you could write, but it's more effective to have a lobbying group, especially in a day when every other industry and institution, group of people, business, they all have their lobbying arm.

So why not the church? Now, again, understand though, if what he's trying to say is that shouldn't be the silver bullet, totally get it.

Church has to speak gospel truth. We have to do this. We have to talk about righteousness, self-control and judgment to come. What Paul told Agrippa, that God has a righteous standard, you have exhibited the inability to live up to that standard, you are under judgment.