Is it Time to Forgive Each Other Our Pandemic Sins?

Apologetics Live

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We do actually mean that if you think you have a really hard question, you think we just can't answer

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I think I don't know is a perfectly good answer Alright, so what we're gonna do.

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Let me bring it drew in here drew, you know there we are supposed to get I heard rumor

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We're supposed to get a super special Guest coming in. His name is Chris Han holds You know,

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I think I heard that rumor. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, we started it right here

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But actually no, I started it earlier when I told him that I heard that rumor and and he went yeah, okay

01:44

Yeah, I I get out when you start and then I gotta drive home I well, hey, look he could he drew is it is it true that he could

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Stream or at least Marco Polo and drive Yeah, I mean,

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I don't know what the laws are where you know for that but Ellie Marco Polo's while driving.

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I just yeah, I mean in Georgia, you can't do that And hold your device and drive.

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I don't know about anywhere else, but He well, I mean, I think as long as he's got a badge he can do whatever he wants

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I think that's there you go when you're in a police police car. Yeah, you know But this first part would be good to get his input on so I you know

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So what we're gonna do folks is the question tonight is is it time to forgive each other?

02:35

over our pandemic sins now what this refers to is an article that that I saw

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Jim Osmond had had tweeted about and It was in Christianity today

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I was thrilled when I saw this because actually it refers to an article from the

02:53

Atlantic and I actually had that for quite some time Waiting for a good time to have the discussion the the

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Atlantic article was written back in October and so I had been waiting to Use that for the show and I'm glad that we didn't use it before because I think it'll be much better dealing with it from Christianity today's you but before we do that.

03:16

I want to bring someone in he's he's new here His name is Matthew where Matthew welcome?

03:23

Welcome, it's good to be here I'm gonna turn the banner off so everyone could get your handle there.

03:29

That's a barely preacher man is your YouTube channel? And so I want it folks to be able to catch that because we're gonna be watching one of your videos

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So, let me also bring in the one the only and actually I should say this before I bring him in in my opinion

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The world's best preacher, yes, I said that I think he's actually better than MacArthur just saying for the record

03:56

Jim Osmond How are you, sir? It's he's shaking his head. It's true. This is your way of teasing me

04:04

It's not teasing. I've actually verified this with Justin Peters. He agreed with me So I got to be right, you know,

04:09

I will verify it too because on Facebook, I think Sometime last year

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I put who I thought my top five expositors were and I think I think I had Jim above MacArthur as well.

04:21

You guys are making me blush. I mean, have you heard your your exposition of Hebrews?

04:29

Right. Yeah, I mean, it's really well done and it makes you go Wow He's He's not

04:42

So I want I want I don't some of you guys may not have seen this and I think it was in Daily Wire I know that I have an article up on Epoch News But I want to before I show a video

04:54

I want to read an affidavit So we're gonna talk about someone that was arrested and I want to read the affidavit before we play this video

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That Matthew you were just by God's providence able to be there because that I think makes a major change in the way this this went down, so here's what this affidavit says

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Okay affidavit of probable cause on June 3rd 2023 at 9 o 'clock.

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This is an officer speaking. I was Assisting to work at, you know community event 800 block,

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Washington Street Now this is by the way folks this is in Redding, Pennsylvania, this is not far from me

05:36

This is my neck of the woods The so it goes on the the event was a flag -raising ceremony at City Hall for the beginning of pride month

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This event was approved by the city and organizers were issued a permit

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There were a few protesters on location. I told them that they had to stay on the opposite side of the street and They could not be disruptive

06:00

At approximately 1005 another male identified later or later identified as Damon Atkins Arrived at location.

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He was carrying a sign with a slogan on it That showed his opposition to the event

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He began to yell to the people at the event I immediately approached him and told him that While he was free to stand on that side of the street and and hold the sign

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He could not cross the street nor yell comments intended to disrupt the event

06:39

Atkins said he understood less than a minute later. He resumed remember that word

06:45

Yelling derogatory comments derogatory. Remember that? Okay, those two are gonna be really key

06:51

Derogatory comments to the people at the event because I had already warned him.

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I immediately told him I Sorry, I immediately told him he was being arrested for disorderly conduct

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Officer Dupree and I handcuffed him and escorted him away from the location You await transport.

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All right, so this is this right here is the affidavit Now I Want to play a video.

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I don't know if you guys have seen this Jim and Drew but Matthew just happened and I'm gonna play the beginning

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Matthew because it has some of this on here. This is Shocking Okay, I I really kind of don't know what other term to use for it

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Because it's just it just was But the the key reason

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I want to read the affidavit first is because when you look at the that affidavit There's a couple things.

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I want you to do when we watch this video First is the fact that he says he spoke to this man

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Damon the man he's gonna arrest he spoke to him for yelling at the crowd

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You're gonna see I'm gonna challenge you to take a look and see when this man the man's gonna have a beard

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He's gonna have a backpack on he'll be carrying a sign. I want you to see when it is that that guy comes into the scene okay, and You see there's there what the derogatory term is

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Once he starts speaking Listen for that derogatory term to the LGBT. All right

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So let's let's give this a listen. Let me get rid of the banner there.

08:45

All right, here we go We got a bunch of people coming from out of town to celebrate evil

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It was a wonderful providence of God. I was driving with my family down the road and we passed this

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Okay, so that speaking is Matthew who you just saw Matthew where I want you to notice before at this point notice the sergeant there that is right in the camera view okay, he's the one to be watching and I want you to notice that as you see the the people that are the the

09:18

Protesters there that's a total of what it looks like four people The the person

09:23

Damon Atkins is not on scene yet Okay, he's gonna come in. He'll be at the the far end of that group

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I'm saying that so you see that he's not there you so we'll see that the full car the full interaction between this officer and Damon faithful brothers over here that are standing

09:41

I Came out and got to preach for about 12 minutes before a cop got in my face laid hands on me and threatened to arrest

09:48

Me if I didn't stop Of course, I don't have my goat had no idea.

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This was happening. I just happened to drive by But the gospel went out drag queens

09:59

They got children here. They're about to do a flag -raising ceremony Our own mayor and Moron is out here.

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And yeah, no, this is the type of insanity Now what's amazing about Reading is it is largely a

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Hispanic population But if you don't know how well you can see there's not a lot of Hispanics out today.

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It's a bunch of white people I'm sure they drove over from West Reading or from out of town because the Hispanic community largely would shun this

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But yeah, that's what we got. This is what they're doing in Reading City. Okay, so just set it up right now

10:36

Matthew you just happened to be there. You weren't planning to be there You just have to take your phone out and and take some footage which by God's providence is gonna be very important To what ends up happening?

10:48

Yeah I So right after this is when we're gonna see

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Damon come into the scene So watch it on the end on the left side of the screen Professing Christian, too.

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That's the horrible thing about this Okay, so right here you see you can see him all the way back there with the white shirt

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The guy his friend with the brown shirt Matthew's gonna say he just came on scene You can see the officers looking soon as he walks up Now this this sign that he has this most dangerous sign that he has just says

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Jesus said go and sin no more That was the

11:41

Huh the horror of that yeah the horror of that that's remember They said that this this sign was the proof now.

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I'll grant for the you know from one perspective you could argue that the that might seem like it's against the the purpose of This flag raising

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Okay, the officer doesn't know that this gentleman Dwayne carries the Damon sorry carries this sign regularly

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But watch the reaction now remember the officer on the right is the one to watch

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Okay So at this point right you see the officer looking get ready to hear

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You now know who to watch for let's hear this derogatory speech that he's gonna say toward these people ready

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That's it. Did you hear it God? God That's a that's a I'm gonna back this up so you could see how quick that officer responds at one word

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God now remember the affidavit. I said he said he Contained he he again was yelling at the people.

13:27

Well, you saw the full interaction with the officer He says not only that but he said he was he was yelling derogatory things

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What did he say? They won't even let him give his bag away

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Now right there I want you to see I want you to see where the police officer's foot is

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Okay, this is a subtle thing that that I'm gonna Show this again because the officer as you can see right there trips

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Damon and then accuses him of resisting arrest And he's because that was one of the claims that was made.

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He was resisting arrest and Yet, it's the officer that tripped him. I don't think it was on purpose.

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I think their feet just got intertwined just to be fair to the officer, but What you end up seeing is here you have someone who

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He didn't want because what Damon tried to do is continue saying and I did speak to Damon on the phone today

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He all he wanted to say is God is not a god of confusion. That's all he wants to say And he tried finishing it and he spun him around to put him up against the wall and then they they arrest him and end up Walking him over.

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I did think it's interesting that they went through Matthew You you were good enough to record

15:22

They went through and went through his bag without him behind his back. Oh Yeah They struggle with that bag for a long time, too

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He literally offers right at the beginning Can I give this guy my bag and they say no and then they're struggling with it and they end up dropping it on the

15:40

Pavement once they get it. No. No. Well, no, they threw it on the pavement. Yeah Yeah, so so We'll show that because you were still filming they're struggling to get it off of them is what they were trying to do and Yeah, I mean they could have just you know, let him but but I Wonder if it's even legal for officers to to search a bag

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Without the owner. I know it like TSA can't do that, right? The Fourth Amendment.

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Yeah, correct. That's right So what watch this? They're trying to get it off of his because they're not uncuffing them

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See how he just tosses it and then she's gonna go through it.

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He can't see what they're doing. Oh Yeah, we should listen to what they say on the mic

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That on the mic Yeah, did you there? There's a god bless you and God bless you and Allah bless you and may he put some love in your heart.

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That's what they said to us Wow He was being Damon was being handcuffed Yeah, and and you know, just we could talk

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I'm just muting it so we could see but you'll see look they're going through his bag behind his back

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Putting it on the ground taking everything out putting it on the ground and so Demon lady, so What would you end up seeing there's

17:24

I I question whether that's even legal what they were doing right there Okay, but this you know, this is

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Matthew it just happened you and I happen to be Facebook friends. We met at the cruciform conference

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Some years ago. And so when I saw your name mentioned I was like, wait a minute So I reached out to you and and you happen to have

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Damon's number. So I just called him to see you know get you know, he he didn't you know His the lawyers there's still a case going on.

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So his his lawyers, you know, rightfully They always say hey don't say anything because anything you say he's gonna get used against you.

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So I believe he may be watching but you know, he he just what all he said was

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God That was Scripture God is not the author of confusion.

18:18

Well can't have that. Well, he can't even get he couldn't even get that far Yeah, and that's why

18:23

I said in the affidavit. He the claim is that he you know that he had the officer

18:30

I immediately approached him told me he's free to stand on the side of the street.

18:35

Well, that's true and hold this sign But he can't disrupt the event Let me ask

18:41

Jim do you remember this with black lives matter where they were told in their protests? They had to say on a certain side of the street and they couldn't they couldn't yell at people or Well, I think they stood on one side of the street while they burned the other down memory served

18:56

So they were on one side of the street Yeah And so he says less than a minute later.

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He was this is the affidavit. He resumed yelling now folks You saw the entire you saw when yeah even gets there resumed yelling

19:15

Soon as he got there the officer Called, you know approached him. He hadn't said a single word yet.

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He just got started by saying God is Not and the officer was was on him at the word

19:28

God Well, it's it also seemed like in the first interaction that they had Almost like the officer was trying to tell him he couldn't stand there because he kept saying this is public property

19:38

Yeah Yeah No, did he Matthew did he tell you guys that you had to move down the street?

19:46

Yeah, so what happens before the film starts is again. I'm driving with my family

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We're just on and going out of the city we live in the city and we're going out of town for a Saturday fun day and I see the two older men are on the same side of the street as Let's call it the crowd much smaller crowd then

20:04

I know what's going on then and I tell my wife I just got to pull over and encourage these two older men because I know what it's like I've been doing this for years.

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I know what it's like when you're out there. So I wasn't gonna stay long Just wanted to encourage them and then we're gonna be away with my family when

20:19

I park on a different Street I walk over to them The crowd is doubled in size and the two older men that you see in the video with the signs

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They are now on the other side of the street where you see them in the video And I speak with them and they warned me immediately

20:34

There's an officer over there who threatened to arrest us if we didn't stay on this side of the street Same officer and so I I listened to what they said and I started preaching for about 10 or 12 minutes

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Then that officer walked across the street came right up to me put his finger on my chest as if you don't stop shouting

20:53

Insults at those people I will arrest you. Do you understand and so I stand there and I calmly say sir.

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I am NOT shouting insults at them. Just like if you keep shouting at them, I will arrest you I told him sir,

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I care about their souls and he said well get over it And so I looked at him and I knew my wife and my son are in the car on another

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Street They have no idea where I am. No one here knows who I am. If this guy drags me away They're not gonna know what happened to me.

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I've been preaching for about 10 or 12 minutes. The Gospels gone out I just decide God bless you, sir

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And he looks at me kind of scowls and then he turns around and walks away a few minutes later

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I start filming that and that's what you see. And so what happens with Damon what I think is what happened is

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Damon shows up. He just got there, but this officer just got busy threatening the older men

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Me and then Damon shows up and that's kind of like the straw that breaks the tyrants back And so Damon kind of walked into this already really hot situation

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And where it says in that affidavit that like Damon had already been shouting across the street I can't help but wonder if he got me and him mixed up.

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I don't know that for certain. I mean you look so much alike

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Yeah, I was laughing at your your comment the straw that broke the tyrants back in case people didn't hear that and wonder why

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I laughed Yeah, I mean this I saw this I mean this was on the

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Epoch News I think Daily Wire had it You know this was

22:29

Just it it kind of shocked me I'll have I'll have a link to your YouTube channel where you have the video

22:35

I'll link that in the show notes for for the the podcast No, the

22:41

Lancaster Patriot one of our local papers did a really good job covering this too. Yep I was

22:46

I was just about to mention that. That's good I had it queued up because you told me to read that and that's where that's where actually where I got the the affidavit from so So, yeah, so let me just open it up you know drew and Jim you you guys didn't know about this, but What are your thoughts seeing this for the first time hearing this this account?

23:10

Well, we came on to the apologetics live to talk of people abusing power and then Being asked to be excused for it.

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And here we are opening up with the very this is a mini Cove it is what's going on you have people on one side of the aisle basically abusing power and it'd be like somebody stepping in and saying well now we've all

23:28

Made mistakes and so let's just all forgive one another for the mistakes that we've made This is unfortunately these people are not going to be held accountable

23:34

Likely for what they did they'll get a slap on the wrist Maybe some paid vacation and they'll be back out on the streets people like that should be fired.

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That's an abuse of power. Yeah Yep. Yeah, I believe that the

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And I think a lot because this video that Matthew did got a lot of news got a lot of attention and Because of that,

24:00

I believe they've dropped the case They looked supposedly

24:05

I guess they looked at the police camera footage and realized They don't have a case

24:11

Whoops Yeah, whoops. Well, they realized that the case they wanted to make did not match what got recorded if Matthew had not recorded it

24:19

They would still have a case Prosecuting him and and this is why I say God's Providence. I mean, yes

24:26

We were talking before we went live, you know, we cannot as as street evangelists

24:31

There's no way we can go out anymore without a camera running. I mean several cameras because You just don't know

24:39

I mean God's Providence there weren't a lot of people there Matthew you're at the right place at the right time

24:45

Because had you not had this footage they wouldn't have used the police footage. Yeah.

24:52

Oh, there's something wrong with the camera Yeah One look at our brother

24:58

Damon and be like, oh you see he's dangerous and then they You'd have no chance against us, you know, one thing that got me when

25:07

I first watched this video was when they're arresting him and He's heartbroken over the fact that the people are clapping that he's being arrested

25:19

Because he actually cares about them, but they don't care about him And they're and they're the ones talking about love.

25:25

No, it was horrible They were clapping it and then they had the speakers are going on they're saying

25:32

God bless you over there and may God put love in your heart as Damon's getting carried away in handcuffs and it's like it's

25:41

It's still I you know I've told this story maybe like 30 times in the past week now since all this has happened

25:47

That's still so hard to believe this happened So I've been open -air preaching in Reading City and around Pennsylvania for years

25:54

I have never come across police officers like this Like I knew that they existed and they were out there but something like this in Reading I was genuinely shocked that I was coming across this.

26:05

Well, I mean I've seen similar stuff just from churches who do abortion ministry

26:11

Arizona there's there's a law that's on the books that says you cannot murder your baby through abortion and so they'll go out and they'll preach and The abortion mills have called the cops and the cops come out and say you can't use amplification

26:26

You can't do this. You can't do that or we're gonna arrest you and they're standing there with the law going This is what the law says.

26:32

Why don't you read it and the cops completely ignore it? Yep So So KT is saying is asking does he have a lawyer like a

26:44

C LJ? The answer is I don't think not yet, but I did put him in touch with somebody from repent

26:52

America who is very knowledgeable in these things and Hopefully, they'll they'll be able to get him a good lawyer

27:00

I can say a lot of people are reaching out about that. So he the Lord is providing

27:07

Yeah. Oh Look, someone said so nice about Jim. Look at this. Melissa says

27:12

Jim Osmond. Hey, brother I really appreciate your ministry and really enjoy your book truth or territory.

27:19

Well, very kind of you Melissa. Thank you that was that was your book that you wrote on how to how to You know make my

27:26

Satan. Oh No How to properly speak in tongues, yeah, that's right pass the hedge of protection

27:36

Alright so Facebook user says you can't record the police in California.

27:42

It's against the law Which by the way Facebook user go to a project live And you can get

27:50

So we can see your name. There's instructions on how to do that. Yeah, that might be hats Yeah, that could be you mean the fact that you can't record the police

28:05

When you know there's See the the problem with it is is like we would sit there and say well if you're not doing anything wrong why do you mind why do you care but Nowadays with I can understand.

28:18

Oh, he does say it's apps. I see that What you do have now is you have a problem where you have?

28:23

Officers for their own safety like what was going on in New York when they were just killing officers. I can understand

28:29

Why you wouldn't want to record officers? the officers are required to have body cameras and that's

28:39

Required so, you know when they go to court they there's the evidence there Jim I got a question for you.

28:46

I asked drew and Matthew earlier before you came in backs before we went live We if all the police officers are required to carry body cameras with audio and video going

28:58

Why don't they require that in schools? Yeah Because there are some times that they want something recorded there are times that they don't want people to have access to it

29:08

They don't want parents seeing I actually I think we know what happens when parents do see what's going on in schools

29:14

Yeah, they show up at school board meetings to protest it. Yeah, and then the FBI shows up and that's right

29:20

Yeah, I mean that's exactly what happened during kovat all the parents suddenly realized what actually was going on in the schools oh

29:30

So now enough this is still haps, but he says officers can turn Turn off body cams though.

29:36

This is why we've been fighting for police to have to wear body cams Interesting.

29:42

Oh, this will be a fun. We may never get to the topic now. Here's a question question for pastor.

29:47

Jim Osmond What are your thoughts on Christian nationalism? Can always count on John I Like John, you know just I mean start right out of the gate

30:05

I mean, there's definitely some overlap there and theology and Implementation of it, isn't there?

30:11

I mean, that's that's such a huge issue though, because not every Post -millennialist would be a

30:16

Christian nationalist though Christian nationalism itself would probably be more akin to post -millennialism in its eschatology and implementation than pre -millennial is for sure

30:28

I Think you know drew may will do is we should do a show on Christian nationalism

30:33

It probably needs its own episode. Yeah, the problem is when you start

30:40

Nationalism, it's okay. Well, what what flavor? What do we mean nationalism? Yes What do we mean by that you define our terms and that's where the confusion comes in So what we want to do

30:51

Jim, I asked you to come on because I wanted to ask this question You you posted this article that was from Christianity today

31:00

And the article says It's time to forgive each other of our pandemic sins

31:10

This was quite an interesting article and and so Make this a little bigger.

31:19

I mean, I don't know that we can go through this whole thing It referenced this

31:24

Atlantic article and so Let me sum it up Jim and then I want

31:30

I would I'd like to get your what you post what you had what you had said about this, but basically the summary of this is a

31:39

Bunch of progressive Christians that said hey, you know You got to love your neighbor You shouldn't you should be wearing masks separating and not going to church and if your if your church is open

31:50

You're not loving your neighbor essentially. Yeah, you're violating Romans 13 Now that we find that Well as it says right here

32:02

We got things wrong Masks were not terribly useful Unless he used an n95 and we're just right

32:14

Some public schools stayed closed for far longer than necessary and social distancing was

32:20

Unnecessary outdoors a lot of disinfection in public places was just hygienic theater

32:29

So, okay. Hey, we said we got it wrong So Jim is this enough for us to just say forgiven

32:39

No, I don't think it is and that was the point that I was making in my post on Twitter about this

32:44

I don't think it's This this article I think is filled with some logical fallacies. So first of all, he talks about in the article

32:52

Some seem eager. This is about the second pair one, two, three four paragraphs down Some seem eager to relitigate who said what about masking social distancing infection rates or church closers years after the fact so he just wants us to pretend that One side of this debate was entirely wrong about everything regarding the kovat the kovat scandemic he wants us to pretend that One side was entirely overbearing in their approach to this and and shamed the rest of us

33:26

And he wants to us as in his words. It's time to declare a pandemic amnesty. So You know, he talks about later on in the article

33:33

We collectively said and did can things during these confusing and unprecedented times?

33:38

Well, no, we didn't collectively do that your side or one side did this so if you want to be forgiven if you want to come clean with Progressive Christians if you want to come clean with what you did to the rest of us during this period of time

33:52

Then go ahead and come clean admit it repent turn from that sin confess where you were wrong come back and say yeah

33:58

We were wrong about social distancing. We were wrong about masks. We were wrong about the lockdowns We were wrong about the economic effects of it.

34:04

We were wrong about We're wrong about the CFR the case fatality rate. We're wrong about the IFR the infection fatality rate.

34:10

We're wrong about the How it was spread we're wrong about the hygiene. We're wrong about everything. They were wrong about everything and it's not just they were wrong

34:17

They lied about these things. We've known for a hundred years that masks don't stop respiratory viruses

34:23

We've known for a hundred years that social distancing does not stop respiratory viruses Which is why for the last hundred years we haven't worn masks during every flu

34:31

Season that has rolled around through the general population They lied to us about all of these things from the very beginning and there was one side of this debate that was calling bunk on the other side of the debate and saying no you're lying to us and There were some people who kind of wavered about it early on in the scam

34:50

Demick for a couple of weeks I was kind of in that mix but it took me about two weeks to realize no we're being lied to about every aspect of this by everybody who's in authority and So the people who lied need to be held accountable for what they did.

35:04

They committed I think crimes against humanity Yes by what they did they they made sure that your grandmother died in nursing home all alone without any physical touch

35:13

They made sure that your graduations were canceled your senior proms were canceled. Your potlucks were canceled Your churches were shut down your businesses went away

35:20

I think there's something like a hundred thousand businesses in this country that will never that that died during the kovat scam

35:26

Demick and This was imposed upon us by fiat from people who have no authority in this regard

35:33

And there was one side of the Christian Church who lapped up everything that they were told about this

35:39

Believed all of it and then told the rest of us that if we didn't go along with it We didn't love our neighbor We didn't love grandma and we just wanted to see people die and be killed and that was not the case at all so they judged our motives they judged what we were doing about it and and and called us liars and Conspiracy theorists and wingnuts and now that the whole thing has come out and we've realized now or at least

35:59

Same people have realized that they've been lied to about all of this. They just want to come out and say oh, I'm sorry

36:06

I guess we just all need to forgive one another and I'm Happy to forgive you if you want to admit that everything you did in in pimping the government narrative

36:16

Was wrong and it was a lie and what you did was unchristian Uncharitable and and absolutely inexcusable you want to admit that then yeah, we can we can have a conversation

36:26

But you just want us to come out and forget it and pretend that it never happened And that is not the essence of forgiveness.

36:32

Yeah, and in this article he keeps talking about things Well, we didn't know we didn't know this we didn't know that we didn't know that but then during the whole time you had

36:42

People who were actual doctors and just on Twitter Telling you what was going on and they were silenced social media.

36:51

That's right and remove. That's right Yep, they were canceled and those people were ignored by the church by government officials by everybody else

37:00

And and this is the thing you bring up an important point because in here what he's doing the the author of the

37:05

Articles are saying we got some things wrong. But hey, it was a confusing time We all didn't not all of us did.

37:13

Yeah, correct But but there's no real admission of guilt here. No exactly

37:19

I wasn't even aware we were allowed to say the quiet part out loud yet I thought people were still trying to pretend that this all was actually working.

37:26

You're telling me they actually admit this now I Was thinking they'd never admit it.

37:32

I you know, I my wife and I we got married April 2020. Oh We lost the wedding.

37:38

We lost the seven -day cruise all these things We we got to get married in my parents porch like we lost a lot

37:45

I ended up losing friends and things over this because of these disagreements and now they're gonna come out all this time later and say

37:52

Okay, you know it was a little confusing. You know, you were a little wrong here. I was a little wrong here Let's just forget about it. No admission of guilt here.

37:58

There's gonna be no reconciliation with this well, okay, you just mentioned Matthew the word that I wanted to talk about and and I specifically wanted to talk with Jim is reconciliation, so Jim as a pastor you have to do do lots of counseling.

38:13

You have to deal with church discipline Is this fitting with a biblical definition what we're reading here is this fitting with a biblical definition of reconciliation and if not what is

38:26

Reconciliation. Well reconciliation is when hostility ceased between two parties That's a biblical the biblical definition of reconciliation

38:35

So what what the author of this article is doing and this is what everybody on that side of the theological political social aisle wants to do

38:43

It's just to simply say look mistakes were made We all got some things wrong Well, that's like I mean if I had two two couples come into my office and they and they are at war with one another

38:55

And they've filed for divorce papers and they've got it there But then they said well, actually I think we might be willing to put this marriage back together

39:02

And then I have both of them say well look we both got some things wrong Let's just forgive and forget and move on you're not dealing with the hard issue of what what really went on in this thing if a man says

39:13

Let's say that one of the one of the persons in that couple Let's say the man had an affair on his wife.

39:19

He left his wife for a period of time He's been having serial affairs with multiple women Coming home verbally abusing his wife

39:26

You know verbally abusing his children and his wife says she's fed up with it And then they step into my office and the man says look mistakes were made on both sides

39:34

Collectively we said and did things that we are not proud of. Let's just forgive one another and declare marriage

39:41

Infidelity amnesty and let's thank it all go away. No, no pastor. No sane pastor in his right mind would say yeah

39:48

That seems like a good idea Let's just pretend it never happened and move on with it and let's just give forgiveness to one another

39:53

Now there needs to be a recognition of guilt and humbling and there needs to be a here's where I did

39:59

Here's where I stand against you. Here's what I did. I know this is what cost what it cost you and and And I'm acknowledging my sin in this against you

40:09

There needs to be that This article is not that and those on that side of the debate through this whole scam demic

40:17

None of them have done that I have not seen a single high -profile Christian who comes out and said look it's true that you know a year ago

40:25

I published a blog post telling you that if you didn't get the jab and your booster that you didn't love your mother you didn't

40:31

Love your children and you weren't loving your neighbor and now that we find out that in the last year 92 % of those people who died from kovat were triple vaccinated.

40:41

So yes, I was wrong And they don't have any confession any recognition of their guilt

40:46

No recognition of where they went wrong or what they imposed upon the rest of us and what they tried We have

40:52

Christian alleged brothers and sisters in Christ who wanted to take away our lives our livelihood and our freedoms

40:58

If we didn't go along with it, and there were some of us who just said no We're not gonna do it. And and now you want us to come out when and just just say oh, yeah

41:06

No, we'll just forgive and forget he makes mention in this article about And if I can just find it here.

41:17

Oh Yeah, so listen to this this is a quote several a couple pages down He says as much as we find it easy to criticize governments for the decisions

41:24

They made in the spring of 2020 They likely could have made the pandemic shorter and less severe had they acted even faster earlier and more decisive than they did

41:32

So what's it? What's his answer? We could have shortened if we could have shortened the Pandemic if we would have just locked down harder if we would have just ruined lives faster and more severely

41:42

We could we could have shortened the pandemic So he thinks that the real problem was not that not that the churches were shut down Too fast, but that they weren't shut down fast enough your lives weren't ruined fast enough and hard enough

41:56

So he says quote some officials made mistakes in the early days That should not deter future decision makers for doing from doing all they can to protect public health in the next emergency

42:09

So what he says in that paragraph is we should have done it harder. We shouldn't have faster We should have been more abusive with it

42:15

But hey the fact that they made this mistake of not crushing your life fast enough and hard enough

42:21

Don't let that make you question at all When they come and want to do it to you again in the next public health emergency

42:29

In other words, you shouldn't question them at all He's still in that paragraph saying that you and I for questioning government officials and for anybody who went along with the lie narrative he's still saying in that that paragraph that There's no way that we should question them next time around and you know, there's gonna be a next time around That's the whole agenda

42:51

Yeah You know, so he so who does he think made the mistakes? Who does he think committed the sins that need to be forgiven?

42:58

He thinks we did. Yeah Yeah, we people on our side of the aisle. Yeah, and that's not it at all. I'm sorry, but it's like a man who's serially

43:07

Been unfaithful on his wife and verbally abused her coming into my office and expecting her to apologize to him because he wasn't

43:12

Unfaithful enough. You should have been more unfaithful. You should unfaithful harder That right there folks is called is a way of debate called

43:26

Arguing from the absurd just take that argument make it as absurd But it makes the point because the the argument is the same no one's gonna come in the office and say why you know,

43:36

I This would have been better if I just you know Had a more adultery as much more of them faster of them sooner, you know

43:44

No one's gonna say that because it's that is it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but that's exactly how we're gonna read this article.

43:51

Yeah Well, I was just gonna say in this article there's there's a lot of things that he doesn't seem to realize like government overreach

44:02

Government has no no authority to come in and shut a church down They they argue about this whole idea of the separation between the church and state

44:12

But yet they have no problem when the state wants to come in and shut down the church They have no problem when the state wants to come in and shut down someone's business so that they can't make any money and provide

44:22

For their family. There's a part in this article Where it speaks about 20 million people that died and he says 20 million people that died of kovat

44:31

Well, the CDC actually put out an admission Was it last year or or maybe the year before that that number was was falsified?

44:40

It wasn't accurate because they were counting everyone who died That happened to have with as a kovat death with kovat

44:48

Yeah, I'm like between with and from right like a friend of mine who's his his friend died in a motorcycle accident from kovat

44:58

Now I don't quite know how you do that like kovat must have thrown him onto the motorcycle and But you know the article had this this is really interesting because this is this is the kind of Backhanded apology where you you you want to sound like you're apologizing

45:13

But you're really not because they say in the article but churches in jurisdictions with a track record of hostility to religious freedom were

45:24

Justified in viewing pandemic restrictions with suspicion while few churches had to resort to lawsuits a few did and they almost

45:34

Almost entirely and they were almost entirely vindicated We all benefit from the legal precedent that were established or strengthened from those legal victories

45:45

No, let's just I mean next week on apologetics live we're gonna be having the the director of the essential church film on and this is what we're gonna end up talking about because He's got he'll talk about the fact that no the churches were not winning legal precedent

46:03

In fact, they were losing one after another after another and when they at Grace Community Church Went to stand up to the government.

46:11

The lawyers told John MacArthur. We don't have a good chance of winning because there's no precedent

46:18

None Because all the cases were losing It was when

46:23

John MacArthur stood up and oh, by the way when John MacArthur stood up these same people

46:29

Shouted at him that he should shut down That he was loving his neighbor that he was violating

46:36

Romans 13 that he wasn't qualified and he stood up and said no

46:41

This is what the law says and after they won the case That's when the president's precedent was set for all the other victories, you know,

46:49

I can't remember who said it on Twitter But they said they pointed out the fact that all the people who were coming against John MacArthur for standing up were the same people

46:59

That rode his coattails Mm -hmm for so many years. Yeah, and So we have a police officer backstage

47:08

The one and only Captain America himself, mr. Chris on holds, how you doing, sir? Well, but you got to unmute yourself

47:18

He's a professional podcaster folks. Don't mind him. It's been a long day. Okay.

47:23

He knows what he is doing Hey, that is a fabulous house. You got there. I know Well, I figured you were so nosy about it the last time

47:33

I would just put something else up Mark hey mark, don't blame me if you have

47:38

Batman. We now know your love So Chris on holds a voice to reason radio welcome

47:51

So, yeah I mean, I I think it's it's so interesting that the guy is the the author of this article is justifying the fact that well

47:57

The there wasn't really an issue. I mean the church has won their court cases though those that went to court

48:04

Ignoring the fact that not only did they were they not winning court cases I shared

48:11

I so I really recorded with the director of the the essential church for the rap report podcast

48:18

That'll be out Wednesday next Wednesday next week Just before the apologetics live

48:25

So we're gonna go into more of the film so I encourage you to watch to listen to that one first before listening to or watching apologetics live because Rap report we're gonna go into the film what it's about why it was done

48:36

But one of the things that you know, we ended up talking about was the fact that these these court cases

48:43

They were not winning them The churches were being shut down over this stuff and I shared the story what happened in New Jersey Where you had a pastor in the building?

48:55

He's the only one in the building and He's preaching to a microphone that's being going to am or FM radio

49:02

I forget which to the cars that are parked in the parking lot and even the cars windows up are socially distanced they were parked every other

49:13

Lane, this was early on and the pastor was arrested and Every car fined $1 ,500.

49:22

Well, the science doesn't lie. Well, here's the That I think was the next week or the week after I went down on a

49:31

Friday to the mosque where I know they would Always have a police officer there and sure enough Just a week or two after arresting a pastor,

49:39

I think it was on Resurrection Sunday. He was arrested Here's the police officer in the middle of street waving cars into the mosque so that they can walk into the building

49:49

Nobody's arresting them. The police are directing them in Double standard

49:56

Right. So when we look at this, this is the thing that I There was there was no reconciliation sought in this

50:04

Jim This is what your comment on Twitter when I saw it what got me and and that's the whole thing here

50:12

They're asking for us to forgive without reconciliation Is that without any admission of guilt or wrong or anything at all?

50:21

Well, they would say that they got some of the facts wrong because it was just you know It was they they didn't know everything back then even the other article

50:30

The the Atlantic article which which does a better job I think of actually saying the things they got wrong, but it says obviously some people intended to mislead

50:39

This is dealing with the vaccines. Obviously some people and some there is is is

50:46

Metallics some people intended to mislead and made wildly irresponsible claims remember when public health community had to spend a lot of time and resourcing urging

50:58

Americans Not to inject themselves with bleach That was bad

51:04

Misinformation was and remains a huge problem But most errors were made by people who were working in earnest and for the good of society

51:16

Now the people the only people I remember talking about injecting bleach Was Nancy Pelosi Yeah, claiming that Trump was saying that so all of that was yeah

51:29

I mean, I mean like I'm just I'm amazed that this woman could write this like and not realize

51:36

She's talking about misinformation That's bad and that people could do this

51:44

Intentionally when that was exactly what the bleach incident was. Yeah You know in the beginning they're saying well, you know mistakes were made on both sides

51:53

But you know, they have very good reasons for their mistakes and you whatever but at the end of the day

51:59

It almost kind of seems like they're saying, you know, we forgive you. It's not will you forgive us?

52:05

It's we forgive you even if we were wrong. Sometimes we had good reasons for Well and add into that I mean, let's just Revisit what actually happened when you guys have just done that the whole pandemic response

52:19

Was under the guise of this is what's best for you. This is what's best for everyone

52:25

Give us complete trust give us complete control. I mean it was the New Zealand Prime Minister says

52:31

Oh, we are your only source of information We're the only two sorts of information and that was true to pretty much the the mantra from every governmental source across the globe and What we're being told is

52:48

Okay. Yeah, there were some things wrong. We could have handled it better. But really this was still what was best even though mistakes were made and there's zero acknowledgement zero acknowledgement of The guy as Drew said government overreach zero acknowledgement of the you know, manipulated data zero acknowledgement of the misuse of The Christian scriptures to say you must do these things

53:17

Zero acknowledgement that you know that in order to cozy up to the government and and have that continued influence we partnered with governmental entities and people like Anthony Fauci and others and Did net and never allowed never allowed for any questioning if you questioned you were absolutely

53:44

Trying to kill grandma you were concerned about your rights you did not love your neighbor and this was coming from Christian entities creating a supposedly

53:55

Christian voices and so when they say well Yeah mistakes were made what they're really saying is we didn't do anything wrong the only mistakes were made were not understanding the data and we reacted based on what we knew and so therefore your outspokenness your willingness to say this isn't right is just as evil and just as sinful as Shutting down churches without warrant tell it locking people into their homes masking children shutting down schools misusing scripture lying to the

54:35

American public cozying up and not allowing for any questioning and Guilty the you know the church into this behavior you made people feel bad

54:45

You made some true I mean the article says some true pastors felt that their churches were being made a litmus test if they did this

54:53

So therefore you made pastors uncomfortable you made churches uncomfortable You made people who were arguing for the best interest of the of the

55:02

American public uncomfortable when you said This isn't right. We need to stop this

55:08

That is what they're equating They're saying that you being willing to use your brain

55:14

To think to a reason through scripture is as evil as all the things that were done

55:20

And by the way, we aren't acknowledge that those things are evil and that's when they're saying so you need to forgive first off What do

55:28

I why am I the one needing to forgive? Why am I the one that needs to do this when you guys don't even acknowledge that there was anything to forgive?

55:38

You're not acknowledging. There's anything to forgive you're saying. Yeah, we kind of rushed to judgment

55:43

Yeah, we kind of did these things but we you make you make no acknowledgement whatsoever of Any wrongdoing on your own part, but you want me to forgive and then you want to equate being vocal about this with the

56:01

Just direct evil that was employed upon the American public and specifically on churches It's unconscionable.

56:07

It's utterly unconscionable. Well this in this article. He actually misuses scripture as well

56:12

He misuses. Yeah, first Corinthians 13 where he says love keeps no record of wrongs

56:18

Okay True love keeps no record of wrongs to the person who is truly repentant right, but Given everything that we've just gone over about how they're not repentant.

56:32

They're not actually seeking forgiveness What they're saying is you're not a true Christian if you're continuing to keep this record of wrongs.

56:39

Yeah, exactly So it's actually the same thing. It's you're not a Christian if you don't shut that church down Mm -hmm, and you're not a

56:47

Christian if everything you said was right And and you don't just forgive us for trying to end people's jobs civilization

56:59

Western civilization. Yeah, and and you know, here's the thing They put this comment up and we could you know, this is someone

57:06

I don't think I've seen him in before But let's read this comment from Chris Gary. It says brothers going into this and that preach the gospel to the

57:17

Internet that God has given you this place step down from your ivory towers and for for the some people that are on this live that don't even know and You know,

57:31

I totally agree. I totally agree. I think it's one of the wisest statements. I've read yet today Yeah later.

57:38

He said this he said the gospel I think that was written by all Harrison spoken by Joe Biden, but go ahead

57:44

Yeah, men of men of God preach the word to the Internet world.

57:50

Well for first off Matthew it's your first time being here

57:55

Jim. It's I know it's not yours But Chris drew you guys are a us does this show typically preach the gospel

58:06

Single episode Yeah Yeah, I mean we we have what just two weeks ago three weeks ago we had a an

58:16

Orthodox Jewish person come in and preach the gospel to him and Do apologetics for three hours, but not only that Andrew you did it privately through email.

58:25

I did it privately through email But at the same time Let's just go through the panel here.

58:31

Okay, Andrew, you're an evangelist You're a former pastor your former pastor and an evangelist. So you go out preach the gospel

58:37

Jim. You're a pastor You preach the gospel every single week. Okay, I'm an elder at a church.

58:43

I preach the gospel Chris you are a police officer. So you're ministering to to the community arrest.

58:50

He arrest them to preach the gospel Share the gospel with them

59:06

And you and you preach the gospel and Matthew in the video we just watched, you know You were telling us before you started videoing you were preaching the gospel

59:14

So all of us go out and we we don't just we're not just internet theologians

59:20

We go out and we actually proclaim the gospel to a lost and dying world. Okay Just one other thing.

59:27

I want to add real quick in every one of these circumstances Whether it's on voices radio on this program in the various Avenues that we all have had we're all preaching the gospel

59:41

In addition to preaching the gospel. It is important to equip the body of Christ to think on biblically on Major issues.

59:48

This is a major issue. We have a Reportedly Christian magazine. I I think top trio calls it right?

59:54

It's good. It's not Christianity today It's just Christianity astray, but it is a reportedly

59:59

Christian magazine telling Christians Supposedly from Scripture how to respond to post kovat society that's important to respond to because as we are out preaching the gospel and We and it will be said on this show.

01:00:18

I can guarantee it has been and will continue to be We are also talking to Christians about how we interact with the world that is telling us

01:00:28

Every time we turn around we're being told by the world You're a fake Christian if you don't do this You're a fake

01:00:33

Christian if you don't do that and all of that was being said during the kovat pandemic issue All of us were told we were fake

01:00:41

Christians We didn't love people. We didn't love our neighbors all gospel issues

01:00:48

Because scripture was being misused Yeah, so it's important to respond to this

01:00:53

Especially as this magazine is now trying to inform Christians on how to think biblically on this

01:01:00

I think it's necessary to respond it. So Chris Gary brother. I love you I understand what you want and it will continue to be

01:01:08

But brother it is wrong to assume that we can never speak on these issues We have to because you they are the there are voices that are misusing the word of god to tell people to acquiesce to secular thinking

01:01:25

And we just need to shut up about it. I think that's wrong. I think we need to respond as well Yeah, I mean the purpose of go ahead

01:01:32

I was gonna say notice the response of that writer is the same as the response of the

01:01:38

Article that we just read they just want to move on and just say why aren't you guys just doing other things? Preach the gospel preach the word share the gospel.

01:01:44

Why are you even addressing this? That's what he says in the article some seem eager to relitigate who said what?

01:01:49

About making social distancing infection rates church closures years after the fact So the article the author of the article laments the fact that anybody would bring this up and say hey

01:01:59

We we've been done wrong by this He laments that and he wants to relitigate it

01:02:04

But only insofar as to get those of us who think that we've been done wrong by them to just simply ignore it and forget

01:02:09

About it. So they they just want to brush it off. It's the same response. It's the same knee -jerk reaction

01:02:14

Let's just move on and my my position is I don't think you can move on there needs to be a reckoning yeah, and Excuse me part of the thing to realize let me let me just let folks know man

01:02:27

What's the purpose of this show? The purpose of the show? Is to teach people how to do apologetics and the defense of the christian faith

01:02:34

Well when you have an article coming out in a magazine called christianity today

01:02:41

That has criticized churches for opening criticized churches for Having views that we now know were founded in science you know, um

01:02:55

And to then they just want to play kid. Well, here's here's why this becomes the thing The reason

01:03:01

I asked jim about reconciliation the examples jim gives about an adulteress This behavior is not something that we see only in this realm

01:03:11

This is behavior jim if I if I You know ask me there's probably plenty of times

01:03:17

That you've had to counsel people where you see the same exact behavior where someone who's in the wrong Just wants to brush over the sin and say look we both did wrong.

01:03:26

Let's just move on. Let's forget it And really what they're saying is hey, I don't want to have to address it.

01:03:32

I don't want to have to repent I don't want to have to change I want to be able to continue doing what i'm doing.

01:03:39

I just don't want the consequences Yep. Yeah, and here's here's something else.

01:03:45

I want to address because of that when paul miller posted this I I went and looked at his his twitter page.

01:03:52

Somebody shared this. This is the very man. He says we need to forgive They shared what he posted august 9th 2021

01:03:59

The idea that we should refuse to Cooperate with common sense public health measures in the name of freedom is irresponsible

01:04:05

And literally juvenile the founders would not have recognized the kind of freedom described here There are they may be some folks who cannot mask because of health conditions or get backs because of very rarely

01:04:17

Religious a conviction. I don't support forcing them to get backs But I have no patience with the claim that it violates our freedom

01:04:25

We aren't pre -ignored to ignore the consequences of our actions at least not without expecting those consequences to Redound upon us as is clearly now happening to be more specific

01:04:35

One not wearing a mask last year led directly to the prolongation of this pandemic The pandemic this year to unvax people are not masking today makes it worse for everyone three

01:04:45

Not getting backs is in most cases unhelpful. This is the man who is saying It is you and I Because we spoke up We need to forgive but he makes no acknowledgement that he

01:04:59

Told christians you have no right Yeah, you have no right. This is a man writing an article and then he gets offended and later then says the replies to my article are proof of how

01:05:13

Necessary it is and also proves i'm guessing that most people read the headline and not the article

01:05:19

This man will not acknowledge his own fault in promulgating these lies and guilting the church into behavior that was

01:05:29

Unnecessary and unbiblical And unhealthy as it turns out And which he tokenly acknowledges in his article

01:05:39

But wants us to forgive look. I am totally down with forgiveness. I have a no problem with saying

01:05:45

I could I forgive sin Here's the thing If as jim said if you've got a man who comes in and says well i've been a serial adulterer

01:05:53

But just forgive me Uh, okay, we can talk about forgiveness, but we also need to talk about repentance

01:05:58

We also need to talk about how we're going to limit your behavior. So this doesn't happen again We're going to talk about how you what we need to do to make sure you don't hurt others

01:06:08

If you just say blanket forgiveness and ignore the rest of scripture You are again manipulating people and that's why paul miller should be called out for what he said see and the thing is that This really gets to the heart, you know,

01:06:22

I don't want to Chris, gary has pushed some other things. I don't want to go through them because to balance it out, but When we talk about the gospel

01:06:29

Okay Let's be fair, right? Is the whole thing of the gospel is forgiveness, but is this the forgiveness the forgiveness?

01:06:39

He's writing about in christianity today Is this the forgiveness that we would present in a biblical gospel message?

01:06:45

No because this the forgiveness he's saying is Hey I come to christ just as I am.

01:06:51

I don't need to change god just forgives me He just lets me into heaven. I don't need to repent.

01:06:58

I don't need to acknowledge anything I you see that the whole thing is what is at the core of this of this progressive christianity

01:07:07

Is a it's not christianity It's it is a perversion of christianity

01:07:12

And yet it's so pervasive that people don't recognize it And that's why we we call we want to address it and call it out

01:07:19

Now jim your original comment addressed the progressive christianity Let me just read the other things chris has said here so that we have it.

01:07:27

He said um But I know all five men on the screen are godly And know the truth.

01:07:33

I'm just saying preach the truth. I Don't just leave it to the church on sunday preach it right now

01:07:40

He then later said um, brother. I I love I love you guys.

01:07:46

I want to hear all you preach the scriptures I follow all your ministries It's it's sad jim had to hear that.

01:07:53

Um, so I guess he knows who you are jim Uh, he said I support your ministry financially.

01:07:59

I just want to hear brothers preach more than following the broken political system

01:08:04

We always have lived in and always will um Well, we're simply evaluating truth claims really what we're doing and trying to get people to think biblically about biblical issues

01:08:16

That's what it is. That is preaching the truth. Yeah, and plus scripture Tells us about how we live within a governmental system like that Right because what we saw throughout the whole pandemic was the abuse of romans 13

01:08:29

And we saw even church leaders saying well you must follow romans 13 You must obey your leaders.

01:08:35

The problem is Our highest authority in this country is not a senator. It's not a president.

01:08:41

It's the constitution Correct. So so when we actually step out and we say, okay, we are following romans 13 by following the constitution

01:08:50

Now we we're actually having a biblical argument because we're following what what the scriptures are actually saying

01:08:57

Okay, okay, so the the issue I always have with people that make arguments like this is is

01:09:04

You know, okay, so in this case, it's chris But let's take him out of it and just with say with anybody when someone makes an argument against us something that we're doing

01:09:14

Especially when in this case you have this article in christianity today That is basically political

01:09:22

They're addressing a political thing You know are the same people that would say we need to we need to preach the gospel and not talk about These political things would they be willing to write christianity today and make the same argument?

01:09:35

You see that that's one of the things that you often don't find people willing to do because It's it's not us who's it's christianity today that's making this an issue and we're responding to it

01:09:46

Um, you know one of the things that kofi had said to to to gary and and I this thing I like about kofi

01:09:52

He's he's very polite. He calls him Respectfully. Mr. Gary doesn't call him by a first name, but he says these men teach every week

01:09:59

Sometimes we need to do application of truth in real world issues if you're watching this show every week

01:10:06

We don't talk politics that often right? Okay in fact Andrew when we were when we when we had uh, the orthodox jew on what were we doing?

01:10:15

We were in scripture the entire three four five six hours Three and a half hours.

01:10:21

Yeah, however long the we were going we were in scripture the entire time. Yeah so, you know just I want to be fair to him and give and so people see his comments because you know,

01:10:32

We can see his comments, but you know people that listen on the podcast can't so he says I agree we have

01:10:38

Uh, we have to but on this platform you could preach the truth that saves lives

01:10:44

But instead we hear social political issues Well, the issue is there's people who actually get saved through discussion of social political issues as well

01:10:52

They they come in because they want answers and they hear the gospel because we're we share the gospel, right?

01:10:58

but the the point is You know chris Um, I should be more like kofi.

01:11:03

Mr. Gary the the issue is is Do we do nothing but preach the gospel?

01:11:10

The answer that's no We have to work We have to raise a family we have to Disciple people around us, but that's not just you know, but it's not just preaching the gospel, right?

01:11:23

This show is called apologetics live not the gospel hour

01:11:29

Right. I mean How do you deal with the issue like abortion which is like a social political issue nowadays without getting into talking about?

01:11:38

The the intricacies of abortion and then you preach the gospel into that Yeah well

01:11:47

Um, layton, i'm gonna try to get through some of these because he's he's pretty active there And I want to be fair to him.

01:11:52

He's the same driver Huh? He he's quick at typing. Yeah, he says brother truly.

01:11:58

I i'm so grateful for all of you. Uh, All of you I pray and don't feel

01:12:04

I uh don't feel i'm being attacked at all. I don't have A plate platform.

01:12:10

I think he meant I just love you guys biblically and stand with you. Um lately doing so whoop

01:12:19

Uh, that's the next one and he says much outreach and one -on -ones. I agree how important the political world

01:12:26

Uh is and men of the of god. We should root out all evil in our community.

01:12:32

I'm, sorry to uh I'm, sorry, though brother. This isn't the best place

01:12:37

Um now granted he did say He's chris hon holds. You're gonna love this. He says sorry for my bad grammar

01:12:45

Chris is like I I mean i'm gonna just leave that there because you both we both know my grammar is far worse

01:12:51

Okay, he says you guys at all Theoretically, um, but But yeah political yes,

01:13:00

I I disagree and brother andrew i've watched your show for over a year well, if you have watched it for over a year, it's this is

01:13:07

We typically don't and we're not really the purpose of this is actually not to address the political relevant

01:13:14

I mean, we're not getting into discussion of marxism and all that which we we easily could What we're addressing

01:13:21

Is the issue of forgiveness and reconciliation? That's the the heart of this discussion.

01:13:26

So I I want you to take a maybe take a step back because I don't I don't I don't know. Mr Gary, I don't know where he's from or what the you know but maybe something triggered him, you know, but the the point is the the point that We're looking to address here is you can't have forgiveness without reconciliation

01:13:50

That's what jim said in the in the tweet that he had originally put out which got my interest in it

01:13:56

And I think it is important for us to discuss as believers the importance of What biblical reconciliation is?

01:14:06

And to have biblical reconciliation it it means saying you're wrong

01:14:11

So so one of the things when I had my kids raising my kids You are not allowed in my home to say i'm sorry

01:14:21

You had to say please forgive me and name the offense

01:14:26

Because i'm sorry Is not actually reconciliation I'm sorry is what this article is doing.

01:14:34

I'm sorry is hey, let's just move on Biblical reconciliation

01:14:41

We say please forgive me because I did this to you.

01:14:46

So what does that do? That identifies I was in the wrong I need your forgiveness

01:14:55

That's that's the heart of what we're trying to to bring up right and the heart position of the true christian

01:15:03

Is a position of forgiveness But also the heart position of the true christian is

01:15:10

One that's that admits where they were wrong and admits the sin because I have to have something to be forgiven for therefore.

01:15:23

I must admit what I need forgiveness from So the so the true christian yes, we have the heart posture of forgiveness and willing to forgive

01:15:35

But the true christian must also say hey This is where I was wrong.

01:15:42

Will you forgive me? So so jim when we when we

01:15:47

You know, even whether we're sharing the gospel or in an article like this we're talking forgiveness We talk about repentance

01:15:55

And some of us would say that, you know when you're sharing the gospel, you got to include the idea of repentance not the word repentance

01:16:03

But the idea of repentance. Yeah, you got to explain it um what

01:16:09

I mean, what is what is repentance what is the importance of that and Do you see that in this article?

01:16:16

Why would that happen? Um repentance is a turning from sin and that involves more than just simply changing your mind about something which the

01:16:27

The author of this article doesn't seem to have changed his mind at all about covid Doesn't seem to recognize that he has was guilty of of doing some of the same the same things that he accuses us of doing in that article um, namely, you know blame casting and and judging motives and and Calling on other people for their stance on covid etc so repentance would mean

01:16:51

And this is what repentance is you come to understand what your sin is the gravity of it How it offends how your sin against others is not just a sin against others, but a sin against god

01:17:00

There's a horizontal as well as a vertical element to our sin And then you you see that sin for what it is and you turn from it you walk you you you you hate the sin

01:17:09

You turn from it you abandon it you leave it and instead you go a different direction This is what paul described in first thessalonians 1 10 when he says you turn from idols to serve the living and true god

01:17:19

It's a turning from one thing towards something else So that's what repentance is and that's what is necessary for and there to be any kind of true reconciliation

01:17:28

There needs to be a recognition of wrong and error that was done Yeah, you know we got we got a regular that only is regular when jim osmond is on I wonder if it's because He attends jim's church even even though he's been here before no the the christian gamer

01:17:46

Oh, that's interesting Yeah, he says he goes I forgive them, but I demand consequence for their evil actions and many murdered murders of our people

01:18:00

But logic is dead on earth today. The wicked will be ruled not guilty

01:18:06

Uh and given a peace prize Yeah So he also said this earlier when we're talking about christian nation

01:18:13

He said i'd rather have a christian nation than a satanic one. We are living in a non -christian nation right now gotta say

01:18:21

More morally and the high crime rate should show people. What's what happened, you know, and and that's that's the the thing that You know, here's

01:18:31

I'll tell you why I think this is important of of an issue Because I think this is why the church as a whole in america is anemic

01:18:46

Because we're you have you have those who stand up on the bible stand on truth

01:18:53

And then you have the progressives and others who just want to be liked by the world I mean he this this should be a concern, you know, jim

01:19:00

You started saying this but you didn't make the full connection. Maybe you had it in your mind, but You have an article written on christianity today by a professing christian

01:19:10

That is parroting the same thing that a secularist in a in a christian hating magazine is saying

01:19:19

That should be some concern that you have the same worldview as the secular world, but but that's the thing is so much the church is anemic because the people that the world wants to promote is is those who are

01:19:35

Parroting what the world wants to hear And then trying to say well you you crazy fundamentals that actually believe the bible like there's something wrong with you

01:19:47

And yeah, well the author of the article is consistent as chris pointed out with the tweet that he read earlier he he was

01:19:53

Lapping up the world's way of thinking from the very beginning. He adopted their narrative. He promoted their storylines.

01:20:00

He he He pimped their solutions. He He adopted their entire way of thinking and his way of reasoning and the way of approaching this issue that the world has there was no there was not a

01:20:13

Hare's breadth of difference between what he was saying and what anthony fauci or debbie burks or joe biden was saying

01:20:20

So now he's now when it comes to dealing with the pandemic in retrospect. Guess what? His perspective is the exact same as the world's he's promoting the same narrative

01:20:29

He's approaching the errors the same way and it's exactly what you would expect to hear from any pagan

01:20:35

And he's a great apologist Yeah for them. Yes Well speaking of christianity today, and we know that they're they're more progressive uh, let me just quote james chapter 4 verse 4 you adulteresses

01:20:52

Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility towards god? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy

01:21:02

Of god, and that's what we see with people like christianity today yeah, and and this is my big concern with it is

01:21:11

Look You do we have a world that is coming up against christianity?

01:21:17

Yes i've been saying that for two three decades now that We have a persecution that is going to be coming much like the holocaust

01:21:24

That will be against christians I've been saying it for a long time those who are regular listeners.

01:21:30

You've heard it but when we look at this the concern I have with people like this is when we when we

01:21:40

Say, okay. Hey, look, let's just forgive let's move on Well when they haven't changed when they haven't repented

01:21:49

As as I think jim said they're going to do this again because there's been no change And the expectation is

01:21:57

Will you you rolled over last time roll over again? And roll over faster is what?

01:22:04

yes, that's right and and We need we need to encourage listeners to say no.

01:22:10

I mean next week we're going to talk about the essential church Why why is there a precedence? At least in california, but then elsewhere for churches to remain open because one church

01:22:24

In the vast sea of others who were being sued and shut down one church stood up and said no

01:22:30

This is an issue a constitutional issue And they made the case And they won

01:22:37

But had grace community church not done that have they just rolled over Would the churches be open

01:22:44

I don't know but I I have to say that I I would

01:22:49

I would think that there wouldn't be as strong of a voice for it And the government could have continued their shutdown of churches that they tried to do

01:22:59

You know, there's one thing I want to say about that with that with um grace community church We got to remember that the county

01:23:09

Settled they didn't take it all the way to court because they were didn't want to they didn't want to because A precedent would have been set

01:23:16

Yeah, once that president precedent was set they would have been in trouble. Well, so I I I does my firm believe

01:23:23

To avoid that. Yeah, there was a precedent set because at least in california because it became the the law that they couldn't shut down the churches but because that was part of it, but the

01:23:35

The real thing I I think would really turn the case over was In their discovery grace community church wanted all of the health records.

01:23:43

Yeah well, and that's what I'm saying in court where that's now public because that would have

01:23:49

That would have shown That would have shown me the game's up no,

01:23:54

I I agree, I just want I just want to make that make that distinction because absent a court ruling

01:24:00

When we say hey, we're going to drop it. We'll settle on this and and absent an actual court ruling that boom you're wrong

01:24:07

You have more wiggle room. And so yes not not being forced to put the data in not being forced by a court

01:24:14

Say you lost Those are things that you know, this will come up again and california

01:24:20

One I think wanted to be able to reserve that. Yeah So, let me see some some things we had real quick here.

01:24:27

Chris honhold says oh good grief I just noticed youtube threw up a covet notice on the live episode.

01:24:33

Don't don't worry chris They had it up as soon as I posted

01:24:41

Oh, okay I thought the pandemic was over covet wasn't anymore.

01:24:47

So why the notice boy you Mention it. All you had to say was pandemic and they were ready.

01:24:53

That's right. Yeah Now i'm sure there's not a I wonder if there's a if I share the article on facebook

01:24:58

If they'll put the covet thing like for this I watch facebook put up covet notices for pictures that have zero to do with covet

01:25:09

Their algorithm is so wackadoo Everything has everything to do with covet

01:25:15

Yeah, everything is a covet. So chris carrie had said i'm on board.

01:25:20

Um, I agree as a reformed uh reformed baptist pastor of the inner city

01:25:27

Uh in baltimore i'm more than used to people going woke and choosing political motives or just flat um

01:25:35

Yeah, I mean look and and chris Hon holds you you had said to gary, you know grateful for your faithful service to your congregation brother

01:25:42

So it's not that we have anything, you know against him specifically. I and and you may be interested

01:25:47

This is the these are the arguments we end up seeing from folks. You know, this this is the argument though coming from you know

01:25:55

Christianity today, right? It's just move on. Let's let's focus on the gospel. Yeah, the gospel is important But I would argue that we we

01:26:10

If we don't address the issues of the culture Okay that people are asking about then then we kind of become an island unto ourselves

01:26:19

Where people don't listen to us, but what's really important what's dangerous about this article?

01:26:25

I think is the lord really graciously showed us over the past few years Who are allies who can we trust who can we count on?

01:26:34

And we saw a lot of people that we used to trust go along with all the state lockdowns They were just like these people in the article and we're saying it again and again tonight that you know

01:26:43

When next time comes because it will well this article is coming in and what it's pretty much telling you is that Oh, you can trust us again.

01:26:50

We can be friends again Reality is I don't think we can These are the same people that are going to turn on us again when the next thing comes and if you listen to the article

01:26:59

And you just say oh, well, I guess it makes sense that we can all be friends again You're going to let those same people back in you know like this is

01:27:07

God showed us who was trustworthy here and they were not And instead of really

01:27:13

We can be reconciled. They're just trying to act like we can be friends again, but they're just going to turn on us again

01:27:20

Yeah, michael. Lewis and I uh, my co -host chris huff We you know in in some of the shows that we did discussing covet

01:27:28

Where the churches churches that did shut down and shut down for a very long time. We made the comment that well

01:27:35

The lord is purging his church. Now. We see who the faithful are Yeah, and think about the way the article was written, you know, jimmy brought it up the

01:27:45

Well, there are some people that want to re -litigate And well, there were some mistakes made but you

01:27:51

What does that sound like Well, you know, this wouldn't be so bad if you just hadn't done That's a that's abuser language

01:27:59

Yeah, you know when a husband abuses his wife and says well I wouldn't have done that if you just look what you made me do and and really this is your fault, too

01:28:07

This is abuser language that is being used against christians who

01:28:14

We've talked about this in the past. Why why was crt and systemic racism and woke suddenly so easily to adopt?

01:28:22

Because as voddie falcom says christians want to forgive christians want to do what's right christians want to be loving

01:28:30

Why is this language going to be effective to people who open that magazine? Because they want to be able to forgive they want to be able to say yes i'm not going to hold a record of wrongs and the problem is this is what abusers do they expect the abuse the person they're abusing to Roll over to feel better.

01:28:49

You know, I I promise it will be better next time and that's exactly what's happening here

01:28:54

And so when you know as as matthew said, oh we can all be friends again. We were not friends to begin with you from day one

01:29:02

Brought into the agenda and it and slapped the church around for not doing so.

01:29:08

Yeah, and now Look what you made us do You need to forgive us So so let me put this out.

01:29:15

Chris just says hey. Hey, brother. Thank you so much for even responding to me It's crazy. You guys are the ones

01:29:20

I always Listen to and check out. So first off chris if you're you're in baltimore, that's not too far from me

01:29:26

So let's you know email me at info at striving for training .org And let's get together and talk in person.

01:29:33

I'll buy you lunch dinner, whatever and uh, we could chat more about it for sure um, we'd love to do that so, uh

01:29:41

Here i'll put the email address up there there. So one of the things though is that what you end up seeing

01:29:46

I think with this is These guys these progressive christians have outed themselves as false teachers

01:29:55

They took scripture they abused scripture and This is the thing scripture is really clear what we should do with people like this you mark and avoid them right

01:30:07

And so this is what we have to do we we have to Recognize these people as people who are one

01:30:17

They were they were wrong about what they said the the and they were they were

01:30:24

Not repentant in in the behavior now and so when they miss you scripture and Chris is saying i'm i'm not progressive.

01:30:34

I wasn't saying you're progressive. I don't think any of us were saying you're progressive We're saying the the author of the article in christianity today um is progressive so That that's what

01:30:46

I so if I wasn't clear on that one, then please forgive me. Um So notice it's please forgive me why not, you know if I said something that made it sound that way

01:30:57

Yeah, I didn't say sorry i'm saying i'm wrong if I did that because that was not the intention no

01:31:03

But but when you have the progressives that take these scriptures twist them give them new meanings to apply so that you know for a tyrannical government to oust christians

01:31:17

They have exposed who they are When they're when they're saying hey, let's get along.

01:31:22

Let's move on without reconciliation you know like Jim gave a a better example than I would have thought of but you have the married couple there and it's like well i've had all these adulterous relationships, but Let's just move on.

01:31:37

I mean the mistake was I didn't have enough of them I didn't have as many of them as I should have had I should have had more of them and and you know quicker, you know that is the most crazy thing you'd ever you

01:31:49

You'd expect to hear in in a marriage counseling and any good pastor is not going to say

01:31:55

Well, okay, that's good. Well, let's just move on No, he was sorry Yeah, he said he was sorry like that's enough

01:32:05

I mean, you know jim is is it enough to just say i'm sorry Well, no none

01:32:12

Unless there's a recognition of what you did and this this author in the article gives no indication that he understands that at all

01:32:20

Yeah Well, let me and he says in the article Next time it happens

01:32:25

We just need to be even more compliant to a government that might overreach and do even more than they did this time

01:32:31

And he wants us to apologize and just forgive what was done in preparation for the next time

01:32:37

It's it's unconscionable, which is everything because The church needs to obey but yet The summer of love and the riots of 2020.

01:32:47

They don't have to yeah, that's right. They were not responsible at all for for possibly spreading or continuing, uh the covid outbreak

01:32:57

Well, no, no you you missed it because that was herd immunity. That was the cure. Oh, right. You forgot about that.

01:33:03

But I'm sure some of them had some masks. So, you know, I probably We'll just I don't think it was

01:33:12

We'll just pray to the saint george floyd to protect us in that moment, okay now you're really

01:33:20

Stepped in it with that one so but the thing is I mean The issue

01:33:27

I see is that when we have folks who come to us and say well, let's just move on Without repentance without reconciliation without genuine asking of forgiveness

01:33:38

We can't move on And I think jim like you had had said, you know, they're

01:33:44

When they're saying hey the next time well What they're saying is so even they know it's the next time.

01:33:51

Yeah The next time and and the issue is it's like look You you were right.

01:33:57

I was wrong, but next time Listen to me sooner Yeah I mean, that's that's that's essentially what it's saying.

01:34:06

It's like What and except they're not saying I was wrong. Yeah, or they're saying you were right

01:34:11

They're just saying look mistakes were made on both sides, right? We all said collectively things that we regret

01:34:17

No, we didn't all say collectively things we regret you specifically said things that you should regret

01:34:24

Yeah, no, I mean I might have said things that I don't regret that youtube didn't want heard

01:34:31

So they removed it But I still said it and stand by it and guess what? Uh youtube now would uh, right?

01:34:38

Well, they would allow it if the cdc says it All right, so melissa's been backstage, uh pretty early on she's got a question let me bring her in melissa welcome

01:34:50

To paul's lunch, yeah, you should have brought me in sooner since was with your uh,

01:34:56

What you had earlier? Um, i'll talk about pride. Um, i've wrote down What I gotta say.

01:35:02

Um I was wondering about pride Is there good pride and bad pride by good?

01:35:08

I mean like when someone says oh They've done something good and like you're proud of them and um

01:35:15

How does the bible? Define what pride pride is like the bat whatever's bad

01:35:21

Now are you are you asking this in the context of like pride parades? or well, well, uh, well, yeah,

01:35:30

I was thinking because of that but um, I I was thinking in general because like people say things like like oh i'm proud of you you did that and then

01:35:39

That's they'll say but then people say pride is bad. So I don't know I want to get some

01:35:46

Uh clearing on this subject Yeah, so i'm i'm looking up I'm gonna look up this passage

01:35:56

Let me let me jump in here real quick I think it needed to find some terms because I think that when we use that word pride we're doing using it in two different Ways.

01:36:05

Yeah, so if i'm prideful if if i'm proud That can mean a haughtiness or an arrogance and it's a it's a self -centeredness and a narcissism and a way of leaving god out and putting myself on the throne and thinking that I have something that I have

01:36:19

Not been given that I can boast in myself That's the essence of pride in a negative sense

01:36:25

But when we use the term proud like i'm proud of you i'm proud of my wife I'm proud of my kids i'm proud of my grandkids stuff like that.

01:36:32

We're not suggesting that they have What we're really doing by using the word and I wish there was a different english word to describe it

01:36:40

But i'm not describing the exact same thing. I'm describing something entirely different If i'm when I use the word proud in that way

01:36:46

I could even be describing I am thankful and I am honored that god has blessed me with this wife or with these children and I I am

01:36:54

I rejoice to see what they're doing in their lives and what they have become and And the work that god is doing and so I am honored and I delight in what

01:37:04

I see in them So when I say that i'm proud of my children for being hard workers and for being good spouses and good parents

01:37:13

I'm, really expressing my own delight in a character quality that I see as a gift from god to me through them

01:37:19

You see that's a totally different thing. I wish there was a different way of using that word proud But I don't think we're describing the same thing.

01:37:25

We're actually Committing a logical fallacy of equivocation where we're using the same word in two different ways to describe two different things

01:37:32

So even even if I say i'm proud of my children That could be a sinful thing where I say look what

01:37:39

I have done to raise these children in this way and I have so much to boast in and to To brag about because i've been such a great parent that my kids turned out this way

01:37:51

And I did it all on my own and I sacrificed and look what I have done And so I have now i've resulted in this so i'm prouder arrogant

01:37:59

In that sense, but that's that's not the way that we mean it when we use the term proud in a non -sinful sense

01:38:06

Would anybody else contribute that? Well, yeah, I mean I I'd like to add I mean from scripture we we have a there's a difference between the pride of That we would talk when we share the gospel of the pride of self of thinking

01:38:22

I can earn heaven. I can be a good person and god, you know owes me

01:38:28

You know some righteousness That I mean that we is what we saw in the garden

01:38:33

Right where god is keeping something from you and so they ate the fruit why because they they

01:38:40

They felt you know Eve's like well that I won good and you god obviously is keeping something from me

01:38:46

But it really it finds its root in satan. This is isaiah 14 I'll start in verse 13, but it's starting 12.

01:38:55

It says how you have fallen from heaven. Oh star of the morning star of the dawn You have been cut down to the earth

01:39:02

You have been weakened to the nations, but you said in your heart I will ascend to the heavens

01:39:08

I will raise my throne above the stars of god. I will sit on the mount of the assembly

01:39:14

In the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high

01:39:23

That's really the issue when you go back to the garden And you you look at what the issue was in in the garden um was

01:39:33

I don't know if we accidentally lost jim or But we we look at the garden with what satan had said to her

01:39:41

His his thing is when he's tempting her There we go. Let me put jim back in There we go um

01:39:52

So when we look at in the garden It says now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field and he said to the woman indeed has god

01:40:00

Said you shall not eat from any tree in the garden right, so first thing he noticed what what the satan is doing is he's

01:40:09

Twisting it to say. Oh, you can't have anyone though. There's only one they can't have But the serpent says a woman you surely will not die

01:40:16

For god knows in the day you eat of this your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, so what do you have in isaiah 14 genesis 3?

01:40:28

The idea of being like god, so there is a pride where we think we are in control we can

01:40:35

Set our own destiny. We have the Ability the right to decide what we want

01:40:42

In fact the pride that we would see in our current culture that I could identify

01:40:48

As a female if i'm male I have that right that that's the pride of satan to say that I could be god

01:40:57

I can overcome Whatever god has has chosen

01:41:04

That's the difference. There's a difference there. But then me saying I can do something versus saying i'm proud of you

01:41:13

Who's the object the object that satan that we see in satan with the garden is me

01:41:18

Hmm when you're proud of what your children do it's The object is someone else.

01:41:24

Yeah, so we can we can have a pride in what others do Rejoicing in in their accomplishments and recognizing that they've done something

01:41:34

But we shouldn't be saying look I could be like god. I'm the the master of my destiny There's a difference there.

01:41:40

Yeah Along the lines of that atomic apologetics says much like the word itself wrongful pride is center when the eye

01:41:49

Is in the center? Yeah Yeah, that's a good point.

01:41:54

That's a good answer Uh, thank you all and check out trippytoe radio .com

01:42:01

I was waiting for because I knew she'd plug it All right. Thanks All right

01:42:08

So with that, you know, we're getting we're getting a tad bit late um But I want to give you guys, uh, any any closing comments you you guys want to make?

01:42:22

Wow Silence I'm, just gonna let the guests go first I've never seen silence here, especially

01:42:29

I mean i've seen it with jim Deference to others but you know chris and drew wow now

01:42:37

Well chris is under the weather folks for the record. Yeah, sorry Stomach's been a little queasy today.

01:42:42

Um, I was gonna see if you would ask my forgiveness if I played the the uh, Marco polo he sent me and you know where he was but I only would ask you because I did it from my office not to play it and There's stuff in the background.

01:42:59

I'd rather not everybody has to see um as far as um

01:43:04

You know this this topic goes I it's in in my in my estimation,

01:43:11

I I think what you guys uh, you pointed out was the most paramount of importance is that Forgiveness is a gospel issue.

01:43:19

It's it's what we as christians are about We are forgiven people if we are sinned if we sinned against christ and he forgave us we are called to forgive others

01:43:31

So it's not it's a no -brainer for us to say we should forgive people who've sinned against us

01:43:37

The issue isn't whether or not we forgive but what is the path of forgiveness?

01:43:43

What is the path of reconciliation? Which is what exactly what jim said? and When you have someone like christianity today who

01:43:54

Who Says, oh we're just going to use the word forgiveness and we're just going to kind of hint at the facts and things were done

01:44:01

Wrong, and then we're going to demand of you That's manipulation You are

01:44:07

You are playing with the word of god, which is exactly what you did at the beginning of the pandemic And what it has demonstrated is you are not to be trusted because you can't even use the word of god rightly

01:44:19

You will use it as a weapon against people Because you know that the the natural inclination of the christian is to honor god by being forget to forgive

01:44:31

And you're going to use that in such a way To kind of carte blanche yourself act like you didn't do anything wrong

01:44:38

Browbeat people into compliance, which was what happened at the beginning It is it is unconscionable and it reveals your true heart

01:44:49

And then when people call you out for it as mr Miller was called out repeatedly to go.

01:44:54

Oh see this is proof. This is proof why this article was needed It's it is really just heart -wrenching and angering at the same time

01:45:05

Because it is such an abuse of the church. It is such an abuse of god's word.

01:45:11

It is such an abuse such a beautiful act Forgiveness is a beautiful thing.

01:45:17

It's not something that's deserved when you Sin against someone you don't deserve forgiveness forgiveness is an act of mercy.

01:45:26

It is grace shown upon you Justice is what you deserve So if paul miller and christianity today are saying well, you need to forgive

01:45:35

That what he's really saying and he'll never admit this is we deserve justice

01:45:41

What we deserve is justice and if justice was visited about upon them christianity today would be shut down tonight

01:45:49

And that is heartbreaking for them to not even see what they're saying They're just demanding something that they don't deserve

01:45:56

They're acting as if that is the default that we just need to give it to them And then they want to browbeat the christian into that I'm, sorry

01:46:06

Folks, yes, I will happily forgive someone But I also i'm going to call you to repentance.

01:46:12

I'm also going to call out what you've done I'm also going to say people ought not trust what you say and do until you have shown

01:46:20

Repentance because I am not going to I don't want to see people victimized yet again by an abusive uh entity such as christianity today who pushed them in the way that they did and then acts like No, we didn't really do anything wrong

01:46:38

Folks that's just wrong. That's just flat wrong And then they take this high ground and and pretend like they're the spiritual ones for calling on the rest of us to to More forgiving, you know what's going through my head like this because we started with my video and what happened to poor damon out there

01:46:54

But it almost seems like christianity today's kind of acting like the crowd on the other side of the streets

01:47:00

You know, they're seeing damon get unjustly arrested And then they're clapping and applauding that this horrible man is being taken away and then they're going to get on their speaker and they're going to preach the good news that they

01:47:12

That god or allah or whatever will love all of us and we love you and we want what's best for you

01:47:18

So they're abusing our rights and then they're saying that we're the loving ones And you know,

01:47:24

I can't help but see christianity today And how they're giving us the false repentance and all is if you even want to call it that And then saying can't we all just be loving?

01:47:34

And what they were doing with us across the street? It's interesting christianity today kind of reminds me more of the the pride group than they do christianity indeed

01:47:44

Yeah, it's very I mean, although at this point, it's not surprising coming from christianity today, but it still is disappointing when an entity like christianity today

01:47:55

Does what they did in this article Because paul miller he lists out things that are blatantly false

01:48:03

That that are that are absolute lies and he doesn't even recognize he's doing nothing but bearing false witness

01:48:09

And then accusing christians as though they're the problem Yeah, and so I I mean i'm with i'm with chris

01:48:17

I I would absolutely love to extend forgiveness because that's what we should do but But no one's no one's been repentant of anything and and they've tried to make us the problem

01:48:31

And and that's that's where you know, I thought this was important thing for us to discuss because this is really just a a picture what we see on the streets when we're sharing the gospel is the culture wants to say

01:48:48

Hey, we we might be wrong, you know with god, but just forgive us and move on Just let us be

01:48:56

It's and and when when you have professing christians Promoting that same false gospel

01:49:05

We have to stand up and point out what it is so people can recognize it Because this is

01:49:14

You know, whether whether in this situation with the article whether it's the situation, you know, matt matthew that you recorded with damon and with You know jim's example of a married couple with adultery

01:49:28

If you don't have genuine repentance You're not going to have true biblical reconciliation and those are required for the forgiveness

01:49:40

Now i'll say this you you can You can forgive somebody So so someone can wrong you

01:49:48

And you can forgive them even though they never ask for repentance or ask for forgiveness that is possible

01:49:56

Okay um, and there's times where that's that's necessary where even if the person won't

01:50:01

Admit to wrongdoing We should still be a people who are willing to forgive

01:50:07

But there is a difference here Because and let me explain what I think that difference is in this case

01:50:16

Is the christianity article is not asking for forgiveness It's demanding it

01:50:23

Without the repentance and without the reconciliation You see and that's a difference so there's times where I remember counseling a uh, well

01:50:33

She wasn't such a young woman at the time But when she was a younger woman her uncle had had molested her and her uncle was now passed away

01:50:43

You know How does she oh look at that matthew's got the little one on on camera there you just That is adorable stealing the show with you come on So now you know that I like that man

01:51:03

Everybody has just forgotten about the show and we're all good gaga over the day Hey, we like to save the best for last year in redding

01:51:09

Well You know jim and I as grandfathers, you know, we we look at this i'm sure jim does do it

01:51:16

I'm, like I can't get enough of my grandkids So it just makes me like want to go up to see my kids

01:51:24

Don't hit the computer. Don't hit the computer And the baby's just like what's going on So so the issue is that that I see with it is you know when we have

01:51:38

Someone that says You know, hey, how do I how do I get over this situation? My uncle had had sexually abused me, but now he's dead

01:51:47

You know The counsel I gave is you need to find a way to to forgive him

01:51:52

Even though he never asked for it. He can't he's dead and she chose to go to the cemetery

01:51:59

And read a letter that she wrote where she Said she forgives him for the atrocities that he did

01:52:07

And she felt immediately relieved she felt the forgiveness mcarthur has a book titled forgiveness

01:52:16

Um, and the subtitle of it Uh is the the power and freedom of forgiveness

01:52:24

And when you when you forgive somebody for a wrong they've done to you um

01:52:31

There is a It's just a freeing thing, especially if you've held it for a long time um because If someone holds it for a long time

01:52:42

There's a bitterness that that grows in there and it just eats at the person and when they finally forgive the person.

01:52:48

It's just ah Well, that's what she experienced even though he was dead But there's a difference there and what

01:52:55

I see in this article because in the article it's You you should forgive me because we both we all got things wrong

01:53:05

Yeah Well, they're they're demanding it They're not asking for it. They're not repenting. There's not reconciliation and that's the issue

01:53:12

That I see Yeah, if you're demanding mercy, it's no longer mercy Yeah, exactly.

01:53:19

It's just more abuse correct so, um You know, so so that's that's what

01:53:26

I would say. Um, I just put this uh Chris chris had said chris gary said brother.

01:53:32

Andrew, please email me if you're able Well, I I don't know that I have your email address.

01:53:38

So I will put up My email address so you can email me. Just shoot me a quick note.

01:53:43

Say hey i'm chris gary, but info at strivingforeternity .org

01:53:50

Oops, sorry .com Either one they both get to me. Um Forgot that we had changed the the

01:53:58

The public one to info at striving fraternity .com. So just email me there and uh, yeah, and let's let's get together gary

01:54:06

So with that, I mean the thing is that this is essential to what the gospel message actually is, right?

01:54:12

We come before god having broken the law We offended him and this is the thing the world doesn't really like to recognize

01:54:21

We offend an infinitely holy god. Why? Does our sin if we tell one lie, why does it have an infinite consequence?

01:54:30

Why do we have to pay? The the second death eternity in a lake of fire Because of who we offended he's infinitely holy infinitely just so as an infinite consequence and because of that We can't come to god and say yeah, let's just Overlook it.

01:54:47

No, we come to god recognizing We have sinned We're wrong

01:54:52

We need his forgiveness because We're we rightly deserve eternity lake of fire

01:55:00

But god in his his mercy died on that cross so that we could have forgiveness

01:55:06

He paid the fine that we owe and so what we end up seeing is that We can look to the cross and know that we can have forgiveness because he paid an amazing price one that we can't even conceive of that An infinite being would pay the infinite fine

01:55:27

And so that's that's the thing that I would i'd encourage folks is

01:55:33

You know, we the we started this this with the video with damon and and we should expect more of it folks

01:55:41

I'm, sorry, but that's the reality We should expect more of it. Do not be surprised by it

01:55:48

But we need to be even more bold As you saw with with matthew and with damon on that video

01:55:57

Even if the police are going to get in your face Even if the crowd doesn't like what you're going to say and they're going to cheer when you're arrested

01:56:02

We need to proclaim the truth that god That god came to earth as a man to die on that cross

01:56:13

That is the only way we can have forgiveness of our sin And so next week we're going to have the director of the essential church documentary come in I really want to encourage you guys to check that out.

01:56:25

He's going to give some behind the scenes Uh things of what went on with the with the making of that So encourage you to check out my andrew rapports rap report

01:56:34

Which will drop wednesday where we'll talk about the film the contents why it was done And then you'll want to check out apologetics live

01:56:42

Live so you can come in and ask shannon questions about the film Uh, and it will be in theaters.

01:56:48

So I want you guys to check that out And do you have any sponsors for today's show?

01:56:54

Yeah, I wasn't going to do it. But sure. I mean I have this we have the craziest, uh The craziest audience i'm telling you how many audiences have people that ask for commercials

01:57:08

Time for my pillow You know, john is saying I need i'm in need of a my pillow ad right about now

01:57:16

That just means that we're putting him to sleep. Yeah Use my pillow while using lagos bible software, right?

01:57:24

I mean We should do a my pillow advertisement halfway through my sermon. Yeah Well, you know

01:57:33

We could we could probably bring up Where's where where is he? Here you go.

01:57:38

Jim. You probably haven't seen this one, but this was chris knows this was we had a show we had someone who was backstage and He he this was we actually brought him in and he still he still was like this

01:57:53

And so we made a promo from this. Um, if you wanted my pillow be like cole here um, and this was cole during the show look

01:58:03

Look He said I need a my pillow use promo code sfe

01:58:09

No, I mean cole was out now when I say cole was out I mean we brought him into this the studio and we're talking and he was he was out like this

01:58:21

He didn't wake up he woke up to realize we were all gone So Yeah, go to mypillow .com

01:58:28

use promo code sfe It'll get you a great discount on a great pillow and also let them know that they you heard about them here

01:58:35

So they'll keep sponsoring us. And so we do appreciate you guys doing that. We do have a new sponsor coming

01:58:41

We're working on it. So look forward to that And so we will end with this message

01:58:48

That we like to play but remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of god and we'll see you next week

01:58:55

All other religious systems are based on a system of morality of good works what makes christianity unique It is is not a system of morality.

01:59:04

It is about jesus christ Buddha is dead. Muhammad is dead. Joseph smith is dead.

01:59:09

Mary baker. Eddie is dead But jesus christ rose from the dead if jesus christ was not both fully man and fully god

01:59:17

There would be no payment of sin. This was a debate in the first century Jesus christ was fully man.

01:59:23

It's important to note that he did not have a human father Therefore he did not inherit a sin nature.

01:59:29

Jesus christ not only had to be fully man But he also had to be without sin never breaking any part of god's law

01:59:36

If if jesus was not a man, then people would have no payment of sins, but jesus christ is also fully god

01:59:44

Jesus had to be god in order to pay an eternal fine only an eternal being can pay an eternal fine