WWUTT 1110 Q&A Year in Review Mega Episode?

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Responding to the biggest headlines of the year in religious news, and what the Bible has to say, as we close out 2019 and head into 2020. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!

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This is our final Friday episode for the year, our mega episode, as we're counting down some of the biggest religious headlines from the year and even reading what the
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Bible has to say about some of them when we understand the text. This is
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When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible teaching podcast to help encourage your time in the Word. If you would like to send a year -end gift to our ministry, visit our website at www .utt
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.com. Hey, once again, it's Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. On the subject of that year -end giving, we did not ask this year for donations to help us get to G3.
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Right. And the reason for that was mostly because we paid for it a long time ago.
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Right, we did. And at the time when, whoa, I didn't know my mic stand was so squeaky. Shh. At the time when we paid to go to G3, our financial picture looked much better than it does now.
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Yes. We had some financial difficulties hit us toward the end of the year, some unforeseen things, which is usually the way that goes.
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Of course, always, of course. Including a hailstorm that decimated our roof.
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Several hailstorms, yes. But like any good insurance company, we were promised a certain amount of money that we didn't get all of.
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Yeah, you know. You know, you know how that goes. So that has been an added expense. There's been some other things, not to go into any of the details, but we started kind of rough, but had enough cushion at the start of the year that we were able to make up for.
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Yeah, it was decent. Yeah, some of those things that hit us right at the very beginning of the year. But we went through that money rather quickly and then paid for the booth space at G3, which went up 50 % this year.
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Yeah. I mean, not to knock G3, I know that they've increased their numbers. Definitely.
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So the booth space is probably worth, you know, what we're paying for it is probably what it's worth now. Yeah. But it's gotten a little out of our price range at the moment.
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If we had waited to pay for our booth space at G3, we wouldn't have been able to make it. Right. It just, the money would have been too high.
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But if you are able to help us out, somebody has already stepped forward and paid for our hotel.
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Yes. So thank you so much. Yes. Super kind of you to do that. And, but if there's anybody else that could help us cover the booth cost, we would greatly appreciate it.
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Now you can either go to our website, www .utt .com, click on the give tab and give that way.
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You can either give online or there's information about sending a check to us. And all of that goes to our church.
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So that's tax deductible. You could still get a year end gift in, year end gift in.
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Get all those words in. That's right. And it would still go toward your 2019 tax return.
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Yeah, something to whatever that would be. Deductible, not deductible. Wrong word. Yeah, you're talking to a guy who's not an expert in finances.
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Yes. And we're doing this late at night. So you can either give that way. There's another way that you can give through PayPal.
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Cause I have had some folks ask me, can you give a PayPal link? We don't have a PayPal connected with our church, but you could give directly to me.
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It wouldn't be tax deductible, but it would go directly to us. And since I'm asking for a donation that would help with the what booth, you know that's where the money would be going cause we paid that out of our own pocket.
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So, but go to paypal .me slash
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Pastor Gabe Hughes. That's what you have to donate to. So there's like this new thing now called, what is it?
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PayPal .me. I have, oh yeah, the me, yeah. PayPal .me. Is that what it is?
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PayPal .me. I think so. I'm not for sure on that, but I think it's kind of funny. PayPal .me. PayPal .me.
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If you're looking for a way to send money directly to us through PayPal, that's the link that you're supposed to use.
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So it's paypal .me slash Pastor Gabe Hughes. That's the account that I had set up.
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I guess in hindsight, I might've put what on there. Yeah. Or something. W -W -U -T -T.
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Don't send it to that one. That one's not set up. Stop it. PayPal. You're gonna confuse everybody.
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PayPal .me slash Pastor Gabe Hughes. And if you want me to email you that link, then shoot us an email.
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Yes. And I'll send it to you that way. When we understand the text at gmail .com. Being the Friday edition of the broadcast, that's usually where you could send your questions to, and then we would be responding to those questions on the
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Friday episode. Right. Today we're doing something a little bit different. We're gonna go back through the biggest headlines of the year.
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The biggest. Because this is the last Friday of the year. Last Friday of 2019. So we're gonna go through the biggest religious headlines.
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We'll put it that way. Oh, okay. Not all of these are strictly Christian either, but we'll say the biggest religious headlines of the year.
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You'll understand why they're not all Christian. Okay. Because some of these are going, whoa. I wouldn't have tied that into a
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Christian category, but you would certainly find this under religious news. So we're going to,
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I've got, I think, 33 stories here. Oh, man. Let me see what I've got here. 30, 32, 32 stories.
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And they're not in any particular order. Oh, okay. I could narrow it down to a top 20.
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Yeah. I couldn't find enough for a top 40. What about a top 25? To go with 25
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Christmas news? Yeah, sure, why not? Some of these I've even grouped together.
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So I was able to narrow it down to 32 headlines.
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All right. And this is not in any ascending or descending order. Okay. I didn't even get the chance to put this in like order of appearance.
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Okay. Like we're starting with January and we're going all the way through to December. No, not at all. I didn't even do that.
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Okay. Oh, I mean, I even, there was another story I meant to get on here. So 33 headlines that we're gonna be covering here.
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All right. We better get cracking. That's right. I'll get to that last one at the end here. Okay, so number one, here was the first headline of the year.
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Paula White Cain becomes Donald Trump's spiritual advisor. Wait, that was this year?
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That was this year. Oh man. As a matter of fact, it was only like two months ago. It was in October.
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Was it? Yes. So every one of these.
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It has been a long year. Every one of these that I go through now, you're gonna be going, was that this year?
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Yep, probably. Now, what are you writing down? I'm writing down number 33. Oh, okay. So we don't forget.
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I was like, if you're gonna be writing down all of these, I might need to get you a notepad or something. No, no. I would just have you print it off.
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Oh, okay. She was writing it on like this scratch piece of paper over here that you couldn't fit 33 headlines on that.
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And the pencil's out of lead. So it took a minute. Okay, anyway. Yeah, so basically
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Paula White Cain. You know Paula White. She married one of the guys from Journey. So she became Paula White Cain.
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Okay. And her role as Donald Trump's spiritual advisor is primarily to solicit input from religious groups on White House initiatives and maintain
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Trump's strong ties to the religious leaders who support him. But as you probably know,
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Paula White is a heretic of the highest order, a televangelist.
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She is a prosperity theologian associated with the new apostolic reformation.
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Okay. One of those clips that I come back to every once in a while, I think it even appeared in a what video at one point.
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I did have her in one of our videos this year. It was the one on the little
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God's doctrine. The little, okay. Yeah, you are little God's. Yes, okay.
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I'll play that one at the end here. So this, what video will be associated with this first headline?
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Okay. But anyway, one of the clips that you come and see from her is she's talking on TBN.
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I can't remember the guy she's talking with, but they're discussing how Jesus is not the only begotten son.
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Whoa. Yeah. Okay. So you're a begotten son. Wow. And you're a begotten son. It's like Oprah, you're a begotten son.
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Yeah. Anyway, that's Paula White Cain. And you're a winner, and you're a winner. Everyone gets a card.
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Everyone. So my next headline actually also has to do with Paula White Cain.
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Okay. But before getting to that, here's that what video that I did this year on the little
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God's doctrine. You are
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God's, little G. You are a little God. I am a God and you're a
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God. Psalm 82 .1. God standeth in the congregation of the mighty. That's you. He judges among the gods.
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Who are the gods? You are. God calling his creation, his man, little gods. Psalm 82 says,
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God has taken his place in the divine council. In the midst of the gods, he holds judgment and says, how long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?
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Evil kings who perverted justice had let authority go to their heads. So the Lord sarcastically called them gods.
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But unlike God, they have neither knowledge nor understanding. They walk about in darkness. He goes on to say, you are
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God's, sons of the most high. Nevertheless, like men you shall die, reminding them that they are not gods.
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In John 10, the people wanted to stone Jesus for blasphemy because he called himself God. Jesus said, is it not written in your law,
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I said you are gods? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came and scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the father consecrated and sent into the world, you are blaspheming because I said,
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I am the son of God. Jesus was saying, you hate the son of God and you're accusing me of blasphemy.
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You're among the gods scripture says will die like men. When God calls men little gods, it's not a description, it's derision.
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So humble yourself and fear God when we understand the text. You know, when
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Donald Trump was running for president of the United States, the other front runner from the
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GOP was Ted Cruz. Right, uh -huh. Admittedly, if Ted Cruz had become president instead of Donald Trump, he probably would have nominated somebody like Paula White Cain to be his spiritual advisor too.
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Oh, really? Yes. Okay. He was associated with exactly those same groups. So don't think that Ted Cruz would have been any better than Donald Trump, at least when it came to his spiritual integrity, discernment.
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I mean, how do you even pick? Like, how do you just pick one? I can't even pick one pastor aside from you, of course, but that's a given.
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If you become president, babe, I'll be your spiritual advisor. Oh my goodness, that's not what I meant. But I mean, like one favorite to listen to all the time, you know, and like gleaned from and stuff like that.
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I have a few favorites, sure, but one, like I said, aside from you, you don't count because you're my hubby and you know, that's just a given.
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But. Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah. I mean, I would wanna ask somebody like John MacArthur.
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Yeah. And then when he turns me down, Yeah. Then I have to go down a list and you know, see who else it's gonna be.
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But so I get that. Yeah. John MacArthur would consider that to be, you know, he would say, I don't have to give up what
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I'm doing here. Yep. Yeah. That wasn't a John MacArthur impression, by the way.
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I was just saying, that's. Would somebody have taken that as an impression? I don't know.
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It's like usually I try to sound like the person. Oh yeah, that's true. That's very true. Okay, we gotta get back to these headlines here.
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Get to it. So right in line with that headline featuring Paula White Cain, we have our number two headline here,
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Southern Baptist pastors endorse Paula White Cain's book. What? Yep. Robert Jeffress, Jack Graham and Greg Laurie, who's a
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Southern Baptist pastor now, in case you didn't know that. They all promoted Paula White Cain's. Well, yeah, but Greg Laurie is with Calvary Chapel.
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Oh, okay. And they became Southern Baptist in 2017. Got it. They're like co -denominational now.
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So. You can do that? That's apparently. I guess the Southern Baptist denomination like opened it up to Calvary Chapel in particular.
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Hey, come over here. You can still be Calvary Chapel. That sounds like Baptist. Or you can. But you can also be
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Southern Baptist. That's how I was greeted into the Baptist church. They're like, oh yeah, you were
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Catholic. You're close enough. You're close enough. I was like, okay.
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As a Catholic. Yikes. Yikes. So anyway. That was funny.
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Yeah, I told them I had been baptized in a Mennonite church. Oh, that's close enough. And they told you the same thing, yep.
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So Paula White Cain came out with this book called Something Greater, Finding Triumph Over Trials, which released,
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I don't remember when this was, but I guess it was October. Anyway, it was also endorsed by Franklin Graham.
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He also endorsed it. Oh yeah, I remember that, okay. Yeah. And Kosti Hinn had a great response.
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Oh, what was his? Calling those guys out. Oh, well, I can read it for you. I've got it pulled up. I was just trying to keep this short.
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Oh, I'm sorry. But now that I've mentioned it, I gotta read it. Well, of course. So Kosti Hinn, specifically he was talking to Jack Graham.
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He said, Pastor Jack, I respect your decades of service, but enough is enough. I don't know you personally, and I have no way of getting into your inner circle to say this, so here it is.
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Paula White Cain may share White House privilege with you, but I've shared a family Christmas with her before a particular divorce was final, then watched them spin the
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PR, lie to millions, twist biblical parameters, and slowly creep back into the mainstream.
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This is a fine, or I'm sorry, this is fine for false teachers, 2 Peter 2 .22, but you know better than this.
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My generation doesn't care about politicking, book contracts, or unwritten SBC rules.
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When you actively promote liars and charlatans, you will watch Gen Z exit your roles and look to unwavering leaders who will pick up the torch you dropped.
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This is no woman at the well moment or petty Pharisaism. This is about unrepentant lies, standing for truth, and a man of God's mandate to be faithful to Christ no matter the cost.
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Forget the politics and finish strong like the warrior you're called to be. That was on October 14th.
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Drop the mic. That's right. Boom. Kosti Hinn with the own. I don't know what Jack Graham's response was to that, but I hope he read it, and I hope that he withdrew his nomination, his endorsement because of backlash like that, but I never saw anybody come out and apologize.
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No, at least not mainstream. Yeah. Publicly. Not publicly that way.
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Yeah. So this next one here, the number three headline, I actually grouped several things under this one story.
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Okay. So number three, Christians completely fold under the pressure of LGBTQ mafia.
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Yeah. You had several. Yeah, that was several. Now, Chick -fil -A of course was the biggest one, and this happened.
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This was just this month. And most recent, yeah. Yeah, and the most recent one. So the home of the original chicken sandwich no longer donating to Christian organizations like the
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Salvation Army and Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Paul Anderson Youth. These were groups that the
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LGBT community had targeted as being hate groups. Right. And at first,
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I mean, Chick -fil -A had a huge support base from the Christians that not only ate their wonderful chicken sandwiches, but just loved the fact that Chick -fil -A was a
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Christian owned and operated business. Yeah. That wasn't having to answer to shareholders, and they.
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And valued families. Right, and donated to exactly those kinds of causes. Yeah. But even being one of the most successful restaurant chains in the country, even though they were facing this backlash from LGBTQ, they were still as successful as they were, yet they folded under the pressure.
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Yeah. And completely threw Christians under the bus. And in fact, this article came out, this was just a couple of weeks ago from Discern, which is
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Adam Ford's brand new news website, which he launched this year. Okay, yeah.
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Hey, I guess I could have. Yeah, there's a number. Could have made that a Christian headline. Added to the numbers.
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So anyway, yeah, that's right. Added to the numbers, this is 35, number 35 now. Oh. So he said, Chick -fil -A has donated $230 ,000 to homelessness charity,
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Covenant House, since 2017, LGBT website Pink News reports noting that $100 ,000 of it went to a
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New York affiliate that provides community space to host Drag Queen Story Hour, the controversial program that stages events where men dressed in drag read stories to young children at public libraries.
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No, thank you. This cause is being funded now by Chick -fil -A. No, thanks.
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Previously very passionate about supporting families and traditional marriage. And I mean, it's not like they've, it's almost as if this isn't a gradual moving into this territory.
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It's like all at once, boom. I heard, I mean, like as I'm reading and watching it unfold, some people were saying that this has been going on behind the scenes a lot.
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It has. And then they just all of a sudden showed up in public with here's our lack of support for those that we previously supported.
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Yes, it has been, it's basically been since Truett Cathy died. Right, it really has.
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But we didn't know about it until they got rid of the causes that they had been donating to that were targeted by LGBTQ groups.
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And then once Chick -fil -A came out and said, we're not gonna be donating to them anymore. Then people started looking with a magnifying glass at their handlings and we're finding out, ah, so you've been doing this for a few years.
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That's sad. I still eat Chick -fil -A. We do. I'm not a boycotter. Promoting of them.
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Yep, and it doesn't taste as good anymore. It doesn't, and their sandwiches have gotten smaller.
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Over the years they have. This has not been a recent thing, but I've just noticed, cause
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I've been eating Chick -fil -A for a long time. Yes, you have. I grew up in the
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South where Chick -fil -A was all over the place. Then we moved to Kansas, there wasn't Chick -fil -A anywhere. And the story behind that actually is there was a guy in Wichita that had signed the contract on the franchise and would not let anyone else put a restaurant.
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So he wasn't building Chick -fil -A restaurants and he wasn't letting anyone else do it. So that's why
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Chick -fil -A wasn't in Kansas for the longest time, but now there's quite a few of them.
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We've got one just 20 minutes from us now. Yes we do. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, so I've been eating
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Chick -fil -A for a long time and I've just gradually noticed those sandwiches have gotten a little bit smaller.
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Yeah, they're not quite the size of the bun anymore either. No, they do. I had a pretty good juicy sandwich the other day.
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Did you? The chicken patty was definitely coming out from the edges of the bun. I think it just depends on what the size of chicken breast they give you.
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Yeah, maybe. The person behind the counter has to like you. Yeah, very true. Then they give you the more succulent chicken.
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But still under this headline, Christian's folding under the pressure of LGBTQ mafia, you had
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Drew Brees. Oh. The quarterback of the New Orleans Saints. He was promoting Bring Your Bible to School Day from Focus on the
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Family. He was attacked by left -leaning media for participating in Bring Your Bible to School Day because Focus on the
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Family is a hate group, since they promote traditional family. Oh man.
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At first Drew Brees defended his relationship with Focus on the Family, but then he apologized for being part of it.
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Of course. Still promoted Bring Your Bible to School Day, but just didn't associate himself with Focus on the
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Family anymore. Wow. So here was, it wasn't exactly a press conference, but some media folks asking
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Brees some questions and him giving an explanation. It's like, I didn't know they were a hate group.
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Were you aware of the group that was starting this promotion? I was not aware of any of the things they said about them lobbying for anti -gay, any type of messaging or inequality or any type of hate type related stuff.
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I was not aware of that at all. And again, the video itself was just focused on national
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Bring Your Bible to School Day. It was not promoting any group, certainly not promoting any group that is associated with that type of behavior.
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Because I know that they're, unfortunately there are Christian organizations out there that are involved in that kind of thing. And to me, that is totally against what being a
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Christian is all about. Being a Christian is love, it's forgiveness, it's respecting all, it's accepting all.
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It's everything that I said in the video that hopefully you guys saw and everybody else will. So what's a shame is that people will make headlines just to get hits, just to get views.
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And all of a sudden these rumors spread that are completely untrue. So shame on them. And it kills your message, didn't it, for the kids?
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Well actually, we're sitting here talking about national Bring Your Bible to School Day. So that's a good thing. It's October 3rd for anybody that wants to know.
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Okay, so the irony in this is that I'm not associated with Focus on the
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Family because they're a hate group. I promote love and tolerance and forgiveness and accepting each other.
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Apparently Focus on the Family does not promote any of those things, according to Drew Brees. So I'm not associated with them, but I'm still all about Bring Your Bible to School Day.
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You know, that book that says that homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God. Yep, right there, black and white.
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First Corinthians six, starting in verse nine. Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
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Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God, and such were some of you.
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But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the
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Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God. So these LGBTQ groups were not going after Take Your Bible to School Day.
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Right. It was just that Drew Brees was associated with Focus on the Family. Mm. That's a hate group in the eyes of the
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LGBTQ community. So Drew Brees was another one buckling under the pressure. And then last but certainly not least,
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J .D. Greer. Yeah, that's sad. Man, he pandered to this side all kinds of ways all year long.
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Yes. You had his infamous sermon back in January where he said the Bible whispers about sexual sins.
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Yeah. I did a what video on that. You have his preferred pronouns thing, which this was just a few weeks ago, where he said if somebody comes into his church, a man comes in saying he wants to be called she and her, then
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J .D. Greer's gonna do that. Yep. Which Becky and I responded to that going, okay, so you're gonna let him go use the women's bathroom?
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Yeah, there's all sorts of problems with that. Because it never stops with pronouns. And besides that, when somebody comes up to you and says,
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I prefer that you use these pronouns when addressing me, if you're talking to that person, you're not using pronouns, you're not using third person pronouns like she and her.
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Kind of what I'm thinking too, but I mean, whatever. So these guys like Chick -fil -A, Drew Brees, J .D.
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Greer, they gave up ground, they didn't even have to give up. There was no reason for them to pander to the side that they pandered to.
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But nevertheless, that's what they did. J .D. Greer also apologized to the
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LGBTQ community for injustices committed by the church. That was something else he did this year.
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And did this speaking at an ERLC event. So here is the clip from J .D.
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Greer saying exactly that. Jesus representing churches will be known as the friends of the
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LGBTQ community. I think the question to us as church leaders, have you drawn the gay and lesbian community close?
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Are you an advocate against abuse, injustice, and discrimination on their behalf?
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Isn't that what you would do for a friend? I do want to apologize to the gay and lesbian community on behalf of my community and me for not standing up against abuse and discrimination directed towards you.
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That was wrong. And we need your forgiveness. My question is, which churches have been abusing
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LGBTQ persons? That's what I was stuck on. I couldn't get past that. What is he talking about? I have no idea.
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It's very, very common for people with those platforms in the Southern Baptist Convention to make these ad hominem straw man attacks at thing.
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It's virtue signaling. Yeah. It's look at how righteous I can be attacking this thing that doesn't exist.
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Yeah. Or if it does, it's like very, very limited. Minimal.
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Yeah. So I don't know. I haven't heard anything about abuse unless they're considering the whole, you know, they don't call me by my right pronoun.
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Well, yeah. See, and that's the thing. And that's not abuse. An LGBTQ person is going to say that's abuse.
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Love your neighbor. Absolutely. You should love your neighbor. You should love your neighbor to tell them the gospel.
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Right. And don't let them continue in the charade that they're doing convincing themselves that they're not in sin and not going to go to hell because of the sexual immorality that they continue to practice.
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Yeah. Don't let a person think that they're okay before God practicing sexual immorality of any kind.
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Not just if it fits in the acronym of LGBTQ. Right. But if they're an adulterer, if they're into porn,
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I mean, whatever it is, confront those persons and let them know what they're doing is sin and they must repent.
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But yeah, JD Greer, he's going to continue to pander to. LGBTQ persons, the
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LGBTQ community. It's not a community. It's not. That's the term we keep using because it's the thing that just keeps floating around in the culture, but it's not a thing.
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It's not even a thing at all. And yet he continues to play by that name and that acronym.
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Right. And their pronouns. Thinking that he's doing someone a favor, but this is just the next chapter of how far the
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Southern Baptist Convention has fallen into pragmatism. That whole thing of, hey, if we do this, they will come.
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If we build it, they will come. If we give it away, they will come. If we appease their fleshly carnal desires, they will come.
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And then we'll drop the gospel on them. But then you drop the gospel on them and they all walked away. So then the pastor started going, well, we can't do that because we lose people.
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Gotta change what we say. Yep, so this is just the next chapter of that budding pragmatism.
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It's just now pandering to the LGBTQ side of things. Those that claim to be
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LGBTQ. All right, so next headline. We're making great progress here. We're up to number four.
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I don't think we're gonna get through all of them. The number four headline, Notre Dame Cathedral Fire.
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Oh yeah, that was sad. What a beautiful building. It was, it was gorgeous.
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And the article that I just read a couple of days ago, this was right after Christmas Eve, is that there's about a 50 % chance that Notre Dame Cathedral cannot be saved.
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They did not hold Christmas Eve services at Notre Dame and they may never again. So it could be the building's a total loss.
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We don't know yet. Number five, living out the ministry, living out.
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Right. Exposed for the godless ministry that it is. Wow. This was back in March and it was a series of articles that was written by Dr.
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Tom Buck. I think at the time he wasn't Dr. Tom Buck. No, he wasn't. He was just regular old
29:46
Tom Buck. Pastor Tom Buck. Pastor Tom Buck. But now since graduating from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, he is
29:55
Dr. Tom Buck. And he wrote a series of articles that was published at Alpha and Omega Ministries, exposing living out.
30:04
Now I had a list of the problems that he laid out regarding this particular ministry, but for the sake of time,
30:11
I'm gonna skip to some questions that people have asked following the series of articles that he published, which was about four articles.
30:20
So one of those questions is, haven't all the objectionable resources that were exposed in your articles, haven't they been removed from living out during the audit?
30:30
And Dr. Buck's answer is no. Only two resources were removed and all the resources quoted from the section above are presently live on their website.
30:39
Although I trust that an audit is being carried out, this reckless and unbiblical teaching remains unedited for people to follow.
30:46
So still the same problems with living out that there was before Dr. Buck's articles. Next question, didn't evangelical leaders like Russell Moore withdraw their support of living out?
30:55
Answer, no. The endorsement of pastor and TGC founder, Timothy Keller remains live on the website.
31:02
The ERLC released a statement that it indicates Moore did not actually request his endorsement to be removed, but living out proactively removed it.
31:11
Moore has yet to publicly renounce the teaching of living out. The ERLC offers a statement for those who make inquiry that Moore has always taken a strong stand against homosexuality, and his hope is that clarity will prevail in answer to any questions about living out.
31:27
All right, headline number six, still along the lines of the Southern Baptist Convention, Resolution 9.
31:35
Oh yeah. Passed at the Southern Baptist Convention. That was back in June in Birmingham, Alabama.
31:41
The section of Resolution 9 in particular that was the most problematic was critical race theory and intersectionality alone are insufficient to diagnose and redress the root causes of the social ills that they identify, which result from sin.
31:57
Yet these analytical tools can aid in evaluating a variety of human experiences.
32:04
Dr. Josh Bice, who's the guy behind the G3 Conference. Right. He said, you cannot attach identity politics to the sufficient scriptures and still claim to be champions of sufficiency.
32:16
God's word must stand alone. Like a confident lion walking in the afternoon sun on the
32:22
African plains, it doesn't need assistance to diagnose and address the social ills of a depraved society.
32:29
What the SBC did in passing this resolution is make a clear statement to the watching world that we believe the
32:35
Bible is not quite capable of addressing the lived experiences of broken people and may need the assistance of CRT and intersectionality.
32:45
Wow. Unquote. I think that Dr. Bice was right on with that. You know, earlier this year,
32:50
I talked to a friend of mine who was also, this year he also graduated.
32:56
He's also a graduate from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Trying to find the best way to say that. Unlike Dr.
33:02
Buck, he didn't graduate with a doctorate, but he is a graduate of SBTS. He received his first pastorate.
33:10
So he's pastoring his first church and it is an unaffiliated Baptist church, not connected with any particular denominational group.
33:19
So when I talked to him on the phone, just to say, hey, congratulations, and encourage him a little bit, I said, what are the chances that you would bring your
33:28
Baptist church over to the Southern Baptist Convention? And he hesitated, as though we didn't wanna answer my question.
33:35
And he said, not good. Afraid that you're gonna quote him or something. That I might talk about him on a podcast, maybe so.
33:45
He said that it's very unlikely that he's gonna do that. And I asked him why. And he said, because of the things that he saw when he was there at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
33:54
He said, I feel like the campus is moving toward intersectionality and critical race theory and the woke movement having an effect and egalitarianism is once again, very prominent on the campus, which was the case when
34:09
Dr. Albert Muller got there. And he got that all out, but seems to be creeping back in, even under his leadership.
34:17
Wow. Which he's spoken out against it. That's gonna come up here in a moment. Yep, keep going.
34:23
Okay, so headline number eight. Yes. The Shepherds Conference Q &A panel back in March.
34:29
You skipped seven. Oh, I did skip seven. Okay, number seven, the Shepherds Conference Q &A panel.
34:35
There we go. Which was back in March. If you'll remember this, it was Phil Johnson who was doing the
34:41
Q &A. Yes. Albert Muller, Mark Dever, and Ligon Duncan. Yes, that was a long time ago.
34:47
Okay, yeah. Yeah, start of the year. Yeah. But you also think the headlines that were in October were a long time ago.
34:52
Yep, I do. It was all ages away. But yeah, this was a pretty heated conversation.
35:01
Yeah. Not on Phil Johnson's part, but Albert Muller, Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan definitely did not like being questioned on it.
35:07
And it basically started with the question, why didn't you guys sign the statement on social justice in the gospel that was written and passed back in the middle part of 2018?
35:20
Yeah. And Albert Muller, of course, wasn't a signer of it. He also had Ligon Duncan, who wrote the foreword to Woke Church.
35:29
And Mark Dever has, I mean, he also seems to be fostering a woke church.
35:34
So, unfortunate the direction that these guys have gone. There's some other things that I happen to know about this particular
35:43
Q &A panel, but I won't talk behind the scenes stuff. Yeah. It was nevertheless. That wasn't headline material right there.
35:52
It was significant enough. No, I mean what you're behind the scenes stuff. Right, that's not the headline stuff.
35:58
That's not the headline stuff. Yes, it's nevertheless a sad situation. Yeah. And it's a sad situation because of the direction that these three men have gone.
36:07
I still believe in Albert Muller. I hope that he becomes president of the SBC. I hope he makes changes in the
36:13
SBC. But it is still nevertheless disappointing that he's not taking a stronger stance on these things than he has been.
36:22
He will talk about them on the briefing, but it's kind of like off the briefing, he's not making strong leadership decisions, especially when it comes to the kinds of persons that he's appointing to dean and professor positions at Southern Baptist Theological Seminaries.
36:39
That makes a difference. Yeah, all of these guys seem to want to jump in the direction of the woke movement. Yeah. So yeah, skipping back to number seven, which
36:47
I guess now this is number eight, but Pope Francis changes the Lord's prayer.
36:52
Yep. Instead of saying, lead us not into temptation, Catholics will say, do not let us fall into temptation.
36:59
Hmm. Number nine, the United Methodist Church upholds a biblical ethic on sexuality.
37:06
Imagine that. This was back in April. The United Methodist Church decided to uphold traditional marriage.
37:16
So the Methodists are not LGBTQ inclusive. They're not doing gay marriage.
37:23
They're not appointing gay clergy. They have decided to uphold a traditional view of marriage, which is continuing to be fought, of course.
37:32
Yes. But nevertheless, I'm proud of the UMC for upholding that. Yeah, definitely.
37:38
Number 10, we're going back to Southern Baptist News here. The Houston Chronicle breaks the sex abuse scandal in the
37:45
SBC. This was, was this back in February? February, I think it was that this story came about.
37:53
I don't know. Researching 20 years, they discovered 700 victims.
37:59
It became a focus of the Southern Baptist Convention at Birmingham, Alabama. You know, the odds of walking into a
38:07
Southern Baptist Church where someone there at some point was sexually assaulted in that church is one in 300.
38:14
Oh, wow. So your odds of finding a Southern Baptist Church where this has happened is very, very low.
38:22
Okay. It's not likely you're gonna walk into a Southern Baptist Church where this is taking place. But the odds of your student being sexually abused at a public school, one in 10.
38:37
What? One in 10 public school students say that they have been sexually abused at public school.
38:44
Oh my goodness. Where is the Southern Baptist Convention taking a hard stand on that issue? No joke.
38:50
That's crazy. I'm glad they've made some of the changes that they have made or made a statement on the things that are going on in, you know, if there is sex abuse that is happening in a
39:02
Southern Baptist Church, I agree that that church should be removed from the Southern Baptist Convention.
39:09
But some of those churches that were cited in that particular article from the Houston Chronicle, some of them did handle that the right way.
39:16
When there was abuse discovered in their church, they handled it the way that a person should handle it. Good.
39:22
But then there were others that did not. I mean, you had stories of churches where a pastor had been guilty of sex abuse and then he stayed there.
39:32
And the church even defended him staying there. That's crazy. Which we've seen this before. Yes, okay, so moving on.
39:39
Okay, moving on. Because I could get, oh, don't get me going on that one. You know, I could add another headline to this.
39:46
Another one. Yeah, so you remember the guy, Andy Savage, that church in Memphis, Tennessee, turned out that he had sexually abused a teenage girl like 20 years ago or something like that.
39:56
So then at first he apologized, his church applauded, but he remained on staff there. And then eventually he resigned when the backlash became severe enough.
40:05
He's trying to start his own church now. So he's still trying to come back into, hasn't learned anything from this at all.
40:13
So it's stuff like that. I'm glad the Southern Baptist Convention addressed that because of situations like this.
40:19
Right. Where a pastor is gonna try to resume those kinds of, well, a former pastor, we'll put it that way, will try to plan a church or he will think that there's nothing wrong with this.
40:31
As I address this regarding the Andy Savage situation, and Becky and I have talked about it in the
40:37
Q &A as well. If a pastor is found guilty of sex abuse, adultery, you know, whatever that might happen to be, elder, pastor, youth pastor, worship leader, anybody in those upper positions in a church, leadership positions in a church, they're found guilty of adultery, they can't ever serve in those positions again.
40:59
Nope. That is in my opinion, a personally disqualifying sin. Yeah. And I've given reasons for that before, biblical reasons for that before, we don't have time to go into that now, but hopefully you can find those older episodes.
41:11
But remember the first qualification for an elder in 1st Timothy 3 .1 is that he must be above reproach.
41:19
Right. 1st Timothy 3 .2, it's actually verse two where it starts talking about that. And so a person who is guilty of that is no longer above reproach.
41:27
Right. Number 11. The Babylon Bee owns absolutely everyone.
41:34
As I've stated, the internet belongs to the Babylon Bee. Yes.
41:41
And we're all invited to participate. And giggle. So here's some of their big headlines for the year from the
41:48
Babylon Bee. If you don't know what Babylon Bee is, it's a satire. Christian satire website.
41:55
There you go. Yes. Yes. It's satire, but with a Christian angle to it.
42:00
Yes. These guys are all believers. Yes. I've talked to them, they're awesome, I love them. So here's some of the big
42:06
Babylon Bee headlines of the year. Number one, airport revenues soar after allowing travelers to pay to turn off CNN.
42:16
Trump, if you impeach me now, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. I love that one.
42:23
New Greta on the shelf doll will track your climate sins. Motorcyclist who identifies as bicyclist sets cycling world record.
42:35
Jussie Smollett offered job at CNN after fabricating news story out of thin air. Pope announces any time spent watching
42:44
The View counts as time served in purgatory. Impeachment inquiry canceled after five episodes due to low ratings.
42:57
And last but not least, husband daycare now available at all Hobby Lobby locations.
43:07
Hey, Babylon Bee, if you need an on -air announcer, I'm available for you. I can read all of your headlines.
43:13
That's funny. Just the headlines. Just the headlines. Number 12, here's our 12th headline here.
43:20
Donald Trump visited David Platt's church and David Platt did exactly what a pastor should do in that particular situation.
43:28
He prayed for him. That's awesome. And as a result of this, this was the passage of scripture that was shared on most articles that covered this story.
43:38
First Timothy 2 .1, first of all then I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
43:56
This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.
44:04
For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man
44:10
Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
44:17
Amen. Well done, David Platt. Yeah. Praying for Donald Trump. I wasn't so thrilled about what he did after that then.
44:24
He basically apologized. Oh. Well. Not for praying for Donald Trump, but for even having him come up there in the first place.
44:33
Okay. Hey, if somebody leans over to me at church and whispers, hey, Donald Trump's here, he wants you to pray for him,
44:39
I would do it. Yeah. And you know I'm not Donald Trump's biggest fan.
44:46
But I would. Man would come up, I wouldn't even try to make anything political out of it. I would pray for the man.
44:52
Number 13 headline, Joshua Harris becomes an ex -vangelical. Joshua Harris, the guy that wrote.
44:58
Oh, right. I Kiss Dating Goodbye. Speculation is, now this is speculation, it's only rumor, but speculation is that Joshua Harris is probably gonna come out as LGBTQ.
45:11
He also divorced his wife. Right. Very sad situation. Sad for the entire Harris family.
45:17
Number 14, speaking of sad headlines, Rachel Held Evans died at the age of 37.
45:23
Yeah. That was May 4th. And I was the last person that she had an exchange with online.
45:32
Not like the last person she spoke to online, but the last person she disagreed with on Twitter was me.
45:40
And anyway, wrote a blog about that. I've read some things just in the last few weeks from Rachel Held Evans' husband, who's now a widower.
45:51
Yeah. And very sad the position that he's chosen to take.
45:58
There are all kinds of doubt he's got in his heart, even about whether or not, you know,
46:03
God is good, any of those things. So very sad. Still pray for the Evans family, if you think, and the
46:09
Harris family, if you think about them. Number 15, Francis Chan defends preaching with false teachers.
46:16
This was back in March. Yep. So he was part of the new Apostolic Reformation group.
46:21
It used to be called The Call. I don't remember what it's called now. I don't have any idea. He was pictured with Benny Hinn.
46:29
Yeah, I saw recently, because I remember seeing his picture up there with a few different,
46:37
I didn't recognize all of them, but yeah. He's probably got another group he's going to be speaking with. Yeah. Full of all those folks from Bethel Church and basically anybody who writes for Charisma Magazine.
46:52
Yeah, yep. Or would be spoken about favorably by Charisma. Number 16, number 16 article here.
47:00
Brant John hugs his brother's killer. Oh yeah. Remember this story? Yes. So Amber Geiger, who was an off -duty police officer, walked into the wrong apartment, killed the guy,
47:11
Botham John. She was convicted for murder, received a 10 -year sentence. Brant John, Botham's brother, hugged her, shared the gospel with her.
47:22
The judge walked down and shared the gospel with her. And all of this was even featured live on Court TV.
47:27
Yeah, and gave her Bible. Yeah, the judge gave Amber her Bible.
47:33
Pray for Amber while she's serving her time, that she will continue to grow in the gospel that was shared with her at her sentencing.
47:41
Number 17, this may very well be the biggest Christian headline of the year. Okay. Kanye West releases,
47:48
Jesus is King. I still haven't heard it. No, I haven't either. Probably won't.
47:53
Yeah. Just not my bag. Yeah. It isn't my thing. But I'm glad if you listened to it and you thought it was great, that's okay.
48:01
It is concerning the direction that Kanye has gone with this. Yeah. Because now he's touring around with Joel Osteen.
48:07
Yep, that was a big year. Yep. Pray for him. Yes, please.
48:13
Number 18, Benny Hinn repents of the prosperity gospel. Kind of. He didn't really, yeah.
48:19
This was a big story. Yes, it was. A lot of people covered it, but it wasn't true.
48:26
Benny Hinn had a moment on TBN where he shared his thing of like,
48:31
I'm repenting of my former theology. And then it wasn't really. The next week. Yeah.
48:37
Within a week. Within a week, there's already another program of him telling people to sow a seed.
48:42
Call this number at the bottom. God said, you need to give this many dollars. Yeah. Still same stuff as usual.
48:48
He's still at his same old tricks. And by the way, and I think I mentioned this even in my blog, when
48:55
I wrote about this, Benny Hinn has been repenting of prosperity theology for 30 years. Wow.
49:01
You can go all the way back to the 80s and find clips of him repenting of his prosperity theology.
49:07
But we didn't have social media back then. Yeah, right. So we didn't know about it. You will probably hear yet another story sometime in Benny Hinn's lifetime of him repenting of the prosperity gospel, but not actually doing so.
49:20
I hope he means it the next time. Yeah. Yeah, still praying for true repentance, which cost he is as well in his response to that story.
49:28
Number 19, James MacDonald, Mark Driscoll, Tulian Javidian all resurface. So we talked about pastors that are disqualified and yet they try to assume those roles again.
49:41
James MacDonald is gonna try to plan another church. He's gonna try to do that again. Mark Driscoll got everybody's attention several months back when he disavowed any of his association with Calvinism and threw the whole
49:56
Young Restless Reform Group under the bus, which he was one of the pioneers of. Yeah. Maybe he's just having a bad day.
50:05
And then Tulian Javidian who is guilty of multiple acts of adultery has started a church now in Florida.
50:12
So he's still doing his thing, hadn't learned anything from that. Number 20,
50:18
Australia and Taiwan legalized same -sex marriage. So there's two more countries that have legalized same -sex marriage this year.
50:27
Number 21, terror attack kills 50 at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
50:34
Number 22, serial bomb attacks in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday. Oh yeah,
50:40
I remember that. Over 250 dead, 500 injured and the Islamic State of Iraq claim responsibility for those attacks.
50:53
Number 23, the first abdication by a Japanese monarch in 200 years.
50:59
Japan's Emperor Akito formally abdicated Tuesday during a, well,
51:05
I'm reading a CNN article from back at the time. So he formerly abdicated during a historic ceremony in Tokyo, becoming the country's first monarch to step down from the
51:15
Chrysanthemum Throne in two centuries. His son, Crown Prince Naruhito, who's 59, will be inaugurated as the 126th
51:25
Emperor Wednesday ushering in the Raiwa era. How is that again?
51:32
Era, era. Era. The Raiwa era, that's what
51:37
I meant to say. Okay. Now, why do I include this in religious news?
51:43
Because the Emperor of Japan at one point was considered a god. Mm -hmm, yep.
51:48
So basically by abdicating the throne, it's Emperor Akito admitting he's not a god.
51:55
This was back at the end of World War II. The Emperor already admitted that he wasn't a god.
52:01
That was part of the terms of surrender. Yeah. That the Emperor of Japan had to admit to his own people that he wasn't a god.
52:09
Number 24, you'll find this interesting. Extreme poverty drops to its lowest numbers in recorded history.
52:17
Wow. As I saw several news articles report or several news websites report that we've just had the best decade in the history of planet
52:29
Earth. That's crazy. And at least as far as recorded history goes. That's exciting though.
52:35
So you have the lowest numbers of poverty ever recorded. That's wonderful. Just in the last 10 years. That's great news.
52:41
Yeah. All of the post -millennialists are going that post mill. Yeah. Number 25,
52:48
Pure Flix released the film Unplanned. Oh yeah. Undoubtedly the most popular
52:54
Christian film of the year. That was this year? Yep. Okay. The story of Abby Johnson. Yeah. That just doesn't seem like it's this year.
53:02
I wrote a review of Unplanned and also did a response video to that review, which you can find at WhatEXT.
53:13
Yeah. YouTube .com slash WWUTTEXT. I could have included that as another headline.
53:19
You could have. What launches another YouTube channel? But it wasn't mainstream headline. Sorry, love.
53:25
Oh man. We can make it though. Let's get it up there. Yeah, this next year. Number 26,
53:31
Christian comedian John Crist reveals he's been living a sexually immoral lifestyle and apparently a lot of pastors knew about it and didn't say anything to anyone.
53:41
Think we'll hear a little bit more about that in weeks to come.
53:47
You think so? As the fallout from this starts coming to light. Yeah. I mean, this story was only a few weeks ago.
53:54
It wasn't that long ago. So as we started hearing about some of these guys who knew about it, but didn't say anything about it, didn't try to expose
54:01
John Crist, even though they knew he was living an immoral lifestyle. I think we're going to hear about them coming up fairly soon.
54:10
Number 27, Ireland makes abortion legal and U2, the band
54:17
U2, supported it. Guys, quit saying U2 is a
54:22
Christian band. No, it's not. They're not. Number 28, U .S. abortion bans and heartbeat bills all over the country.
54:30
You also had New York passing a bill expanding abortion. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam in his infanticide interview that he had a couple of months back, he had the
54:41
Justice Kavanaugh hearings that happened over the summer. And all of that happened just to try to protect
54:48
Roe v. Wade. There wasn't anything substantial against Justice Kavanaugh at all.
54:54
It was totally made up by the Democratic Party. The whole thing was a huge fiasco, but all of this was done to try to protect
55:03
Roe v. Wade from being toppled by a conservative Supreme Court, which President Trump is building with the nominations that he's appointing to the court.
55:12
Thankful for that. Yeah, definitely. And thankful to see these abortion bans and heartbeat bills.
55:17
I hope more of them are passed and Roe v. Wade eventually does get toppled in the land. That would be awesome.
55:23
Number 29, women's U .S. soccer team wins the Women's World Cup and Jalene Hinkle wasn't among them.
55:32
Jalene Hinkle was cut from the U .S. women's soccer team because she didn't want to wear a jersey that gave homage to LGBTQ pride.
55:44
Oh, okay, right. So she was cut from the team. She wasn't on the soccer team when they won the
55:51
World Cup. And Ashlyn Harris, the team's goalkeeper, said outright that the problem with Hinkle was that she was homophobic.
55:59
That was exactly the reason she got cut. You don't belong in a sport that aims to unite and bring people together.
56:05
You would never fit into our pack or what this team stands for, unquote. Number 30,
56:12
Beth Moore ignites debate over women preaching. Yep.
56:19
This was big this year. It was huge. It was a big story, especially her preaching on Mother's Day at her church.
56:27
And then she preached another Sunday at Derwin Gray's church.
56:33
Religion News Service in June, they ran this article. In the world of Bible teachers, Beth Moore is a rock star.
56:40
She packs sporting arenas and big name churches. She has written dozens of bestselling books.
56:45
She has an outsized social media following. But among some of the male leaders in the
56:50
Southern Baptist Convention, where she is a member, she has also become a liability. After suggesting on Twitter that she was spending
56:57
Mother's Day preaching at a church, though she did not use the word preaching, which was exactly what she was doing.
57:03
Yeah. A crowd of prominent Southern Baptist men charged after her. For a woman to teach and preach to adult men is to defy
57:11
God's word and God's design, wrote Owen Strand, professor of Christian theology at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City.
57:19
There's just something about the order of creation that means that God intends for the preaching voice to be a male voice, piped
57:26
Dr. Albert Moeller, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Josh Bice, pastor of a
57:32
Southern Baptist church in Georgia, was even more explicit. The title of his recent blog post, why the
57:37
SBC should say no more to Beth Moore. I got in on that too, by the way.
57:44
Yeah, you did. I did a what video about it. Yeah, you did. I'm gonna go ahead and play it. Okay.
57:49
I'm gonna play it right now. Do we have time? We're gonna go over an hour. Oh, okay. Stay tuned.
57:55
Because I'm gonna play this video. Okay. Beth Moore is one of the most well -known women
58:04
Bible teachers, but her teaching is very concerning. Here are four problems with Beth Moore.
58:09
Now this is not calling into question her love for Christ, but not everyone who loves God is a qualified teacher.
58:15
First, she makes the Bible about you. Her lessons are man -centered, or woman -centered, appealing strongly to emotion, and she interprets the text to fit her topic.
58:24
One thing was between them and their land of promise, and it was the Jordan River.
58:30
This will always be the case, that whatever stands between you and your land of promise will always be at flood stage.
58:39
Second, egalitarianism. Continuing to undercut the authority of scripture, Beth defies God's instruction that women are not to teach over the men of the church.
58:48
God has ordained men to be the shepherds, and what she is doing is shameful. Third, her ties to prosperity theology.
58:54
Now Beth has said Jesus never promised us a health and wealth prosperity gospel life, yet her teaching is prosperity light.
59:01
She promises things God doesn't promise. Worse still, she ministers with prosperity wolves, like Joyce Meyer, Brian Houston, and the
59:08
Osteens. Fourth, Beth says she hears from God and receives visions from him. God began to say to me,
59:14
I'm gonna tell you something right now, Beth, and boy, you write this one down, and you say it as often as I give you utterance to say it.
59:20
What do you call a teacher who misuses and defies God's word, keeps company with heretics, and claims to receive divine instruction apart from scripture?
59:28
The Bible calls them a false teacher when we understand the text. Do we have time?
59:33
It was only 90 seconds, babe. 90 second video. I was just teasing.
59:41
Headline number 31. The gospel proclaimed on The Bachelorette.
59:47
Oh, wow. This was actually an interesting thing. So there was this contestant whose name was
59:54
Luke Parker, who was a Christian and was even committed to saving himself for marriage.
01:00:00
And he decided he was gonna go ahead and go on the show. He did? Yep. That's surprising.
01:00:06
He decided to go on the show. Those shows are not meant for that, I don't know.
01:00:12
They almost encourage you to not. Right, so yeah, that even plays into this story.
01:00:18
Oh, does it? Okay, I'll stop talking then. He met The Bachelorette gal, and I think even brought her to a
01:00:24
Bible study or something like that. And she said she was gonna be committed like Luke was. She was gonna be committed to her
01:00:29
Christian values and saving sex until marriage, no matter what ABC decided to show.
01:00:35
Okay. Even though they might show risque, sorts of stuff going on, she was gonna be committed to remaining abstinent until marriage.
01:00:44
Well, that's not the way that turned out. She actually did end up sleeping with, I think more than one contestant.
01:00:52
And so Luke dropped out. He dropped out of the show for that reason. And I think this even,
01:00:57
I can't remember The Bachelorette gal's name. I don't watch this, it's garbage. But it even, she had even made some sort of defense on social media.
01:01:08
And I think it was like a back and forth she had with Luke Parker. It was what prompted the whole thing.
01:01:13
But she said, Jesus forgives me no matter who I sleep with or something like that. So she talked about being promiscuous and God's just gonna forgive me for it anyway.
01:01:23
Yeah, I had that thought process. That same sort of worldview. Yeah, like God just wants me to be happy so I can do whatever
01:01:32
I want. So, yeah. Yeah, but living in sin, this is
01:01:37
Paul in Romans six. Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound?
01:01:43
By no means. How can we who have died to sin still live in it? So you submit your members to righteousness rather than continuing in unrighteousness.
01:01:53
If the grace of God has come upon you, you're gonna be convicted of your sin and you're gonna turn from it. Right, exactly.
01:02:00
And that's, I mean, I thought I was saved the whole time because I believed in Jesus. But that was my making of Jesus, not the
01:02:08
Bible. Right, the Jesus that permitted you to go do whatever you wanted to do. But remember what
01:02:14
James said, even the demons believe God is one and tremble. Yeah. John 3 .36,
01:02:23
whoever has the son has life, whoever does not obey the son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.
01:02:31
That does not mean that we are justified by our works. It does mean that our works are going to demonstrate who we follow.
01:02:40
Right, definitely. Do you follow Christ? Then you will want to imitate Christ. Doesn't mean that's not gonna be hard.
01:02:47
It doesn't mean that you won't stumble, but you're not gonna continue in this habitual sin and just continue in it and continue in it and believe that it's okay.
01:02:55
And you're not offending God with this. Right, you're gonna be heartbroken over it. Yes. Or you should be.
01:03:01
Right, if you have the Holy Spirit within you, you will genuinely be heartbroken over any time you fall into sin.
01:03:07
Yeah. It will vex you, it will weigh on you like a ton of bricks. But we are promised that if we confess our sins,
01:03:15
God is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Praise the Lord. That doesn't mean a continual sinful lifestyle and then go to confession.
01:03:23
And now boom, the slate's clean. Right. Now you can go out and do it again. That's not what that means. But we do have a wonderful, beautiful Savior who has died for us and forgives us of our sin and has called us to himself.
01:03:40
And he has said to us in Revelation three, those whom I love, I reprove and discipline.
01:03:46
So be zealous and repent. Right. Turn from your sin, don't do it anymore.
01:03:52
All right, last headline. Oh wait, I think I got a number 33 written on there. Yep, you have a number 33.
01:03:57
Which is probably like 36 or 37 at this point. Eh, you know. Number 32, Chinese pastor disappears.
01:04:04
Oh. This actually goes back to, this goes back to December of last year.
01:04:11
The pastor Wang Yi who disappeared, but he's still gone, he's still missing.
01:04:18
An article was published in the Washington Examiner on March 25th, 2019, said in 2006, three
01:04:26
Chinese Christians traveled to Washington to ask President George W. Bush for his support in their fight for religious freedom.
01:04:33
One of them had converted to the faith only a few months earlier, Wang Yi, a 33 -year -old lawyer from the southwestern city of Chengdu.
01:04:41
But Mr. Wang had already become such a prominent Christian that organizers made sure he went to the
01:04:46
White House. A nationally known essayist and civil rights lawyer, he would soon found a 500 -member church that was independent of government control along with a seminary, an elementary school, and even a group to aid the families of political prisoners, all illegal, but he accomplished by sheer force of will.
01:05:06
Wow. According, it was by the grace of God. Yeah, amen. But this is according to the Washington Examiner.
01:05:12
Today, Mr. Wang, now 45, is back in the spotlight, this time at the center of an intense crackdown on Christianity.
01:05:19
His early reign covenant church and others like it are popular among China's growing middle class and have resisted government control, testing the ruling
01:05:27
Communist Party's resolve to bring China's churches to heel. Last December, he and 100 church members were detained.
01:05:35
Although most have been released, Mr. Wang, his wife, and 11 others are still being held incommunicado without access to a lawyer.
01:05:46
So letting you know, that's still a story this year as much as it was also back in 2018, right at the end of 2018.
01:05:56
All right. So sad. Last story that I had here was, of course, what we wrote down is number 33.
01:06:02
We're just gonna say this was 40 stories. Yeah. I made it, I rounded up to 40.
01:06:09
But yeah, the last story was Christianity Today's article calling for Donald Trump's impeachment, which is the biggest story that Christianity Today has published all year.
01:06:22
Wasn't that recently too? Yeah, that was just last week. Yeah, wow. This is why you wait until the actual end of the year to do your biggest headlines of the year.
01:06:33
Very true. Whereas, who was it? Colin Hansen of the Gospel Coalition.
01:06:38
He published his biggest headlines of the year like December 5th. Well, you know. You still got four weeks left.
01:06:45
It's four weeks of the year. Something huge could happen. Then you just tack it on to the next year, I guess. I don't know.
01:06:52
But yeah, so Christianity Today called on Christians to call for Donald Trump to be impeached.
01:07:00
And we needed to disassociate ourselves from him because of his lifestyle and his disrespect for authority and the constitution and all these other kinds of things.
01:07:11
Like I said earlier, I've never been Donald Trump's biggest fan. I've been far more critical of him than I have been praising.
01:07:18
There are things he does that I like. Right. Speaking of which, we could add this as another headline to round up our top 40.
01:07:25
Sure. But Donald Trump has probably made the most pro -life statement I've ever heard a president make in a
01:07:32
State of the Union address. Oh. And that was back in January of this year. I don't know of anybody, any other president that's made as pro -life a statement as he did in a
01:07:42
State of the Union. Unfortunately, Donald Trump is still pro -LGBTQ. Yeah. He is one of those guys.
01:07:48
People tend to ignore that. I know that he appoints conservative judges.
01:07:53
I'm appreciative of that, but he is pro -gay marriage. Yeah. That is Donald Trump's position on that.
01:07:59
He has fought for the rights of churches and Christian individuals, but I did not vote for him.
01:08:07
I don't know that I would. The problem that I have with the Christianity Today article is that there's no plan of action.
01:08:14
First of all, they're radically inconsistent because they didn't call for Obama's impeachment, even though, in my opinion,
01:08:20
Obama did far worse than Donald Trump has done. Yeah. Donald Trump has never tried to sue reporters.
01:08:26
Yeah. Obama did. Yeah, funny. He wanted reporters to go to jail.
01:08:32
As much flack as Trump gets for the way that he harps on the media, Obama was worse.
01:08:39
And the way they attack his whole family. They're just ruthless. Yeah, people are ruthless regarding Donald Trump.
01:08:45
Yeah. So Christianity Today is radically inconsistent in this, number one, but number two, there's no plan of action here.
01:08:53
They're just dogging on him for the sake of dogging on him because it's the popular thing to do. Right. So they gain notoriety for it.
01:09:00
They gain quite a bit of notoriety for it. They're gonna lose all kinds of credibility for it, but they did get a lot of notoriety for it.
01:09:07
But there's no plan here. Okay, so you call for Donald Trump's impeachment, then what? Yeah.
01:09:13
It's kind of like the whole bully thing has become very popular, especially this year, where everybody's just like, yeah,
01:09:21
I'm gonna pick on and beat up and use this little minute part and microscope, all my words are going away.
01:09:33
But you know what I mean? Pick it to pieces and beat them up over it. And throw other people under the bus and that sort of thing.
01:09:41
And it's just all of these bully tactics have become very popular. So what's the end goal here?
01:09:47
Right. What's gonna happen? Those bullies should get in trouble, is what should happen.
01:09:53
That's usually what happens. Right. But this year it's kind of like turned upside down. Yeah, they should get what they're calling for.
01:10:01
Yeah, exactly. I had a situation happen to me earlier this year where a person sat down with a whole list of complaints that they had about me.
01:10:08
Oh, this is multiple times. This has happened several times, right? But I'm thinking of one instance in particular this year. Somebody sat down with a list of complaints they had about me.
01:10:17
And at one point in the conversation, I looked at this person and I said, so what do you want me to do about it?
01:10:23
And they were totally stuck. Like hit a moment of silence, looked down at their pad and said, hang on,
01:10:30
I'm looking at my notes. It's like, you did not think this through. You had no idea what you wanted out of this scenario.
01:10:39
You just wanted to tell me all the things that you don't like about what I'm doing. And in my opinion, the
01:10:46
Christianity Today article was the same way. We just want the platform to say all the stuff that we don't like about Donald Trump, but we don't actually have a plan of action here.
01:10:54
You understand that all of this is happening because the left wants to run ramshot all over you.
01:11:02
You had a guy like Beto O 'Rourke in one of the presidential debates.
01:11:09
It's not really a presidential debate. None of these persons have been nominated yet. But anyway. The pre -presidential?
01:11:15
The Democrat nominee debates. Anyway, you had Beto O 'Rourke in one of those debates.
01:11:23
He was asked, would you take away a church's tax exempt status if they won't support
01:11:28
LGBTQ rights? And he said, yes. And now there were a couple of folks, a couple of Democrat candidates that came out and said, well, we wouldn't go that far.
01:11:38
Pete Buttigieg being one of them. And even though he's the professing gay man who's running for president. But the rest of them,
01:11:46
Beto O 'Rourke was just saying what the rest of them wanted to do. They all thought the same way. They would take away a church's tax exempt status if they won't support
01:11:54
LGBTQ rights. Basically, according to this Democrat president, if they don't do gay marriage, they don't get any tax benefits.
01:12:03
So if you take Donald Trump out of the picture, this becomes a steamroll all over the constitution and the rights of Christians in this country.
01:12:12
But people think that they're upholding the constitution by calling for Donald Trump's impeachment. Even though this impeachment vote was a party line vote, not one single
01:12:22
Republican voted for it. And I agree with Peggy Noonan, who made the comment about how history is just gonna think of this impeachment as like it just shrugged the shoulders at it.
01:12:35
Like history is not gonna care about this particular impeachment. It doesn't look at all like when Andrew Johnson was impeached or Bill Clinton was impeached or when
01:12:43
Nixon was threatened with impeachment. So yeah, like I said, I'm not a fan of Donald Trump, but this whole thing has been absolutely ridiculous.
01:12:50
And all of it is an attack on conservatism. I don't even think Donald Trump's a conservative. I don't think so either.
01:12:56
But he's just standing in the way of the liberal party getting what they want. Praise the
01:13:02
Lord for that. And that is God's doing. Because as we have said to us in Romans 13 one, let every person be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God.
01:13:14
And those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what
01:13:20
God has appointed. And those who resist will incur judgment for rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.
01:13:28
Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good and you will receive his approval for he is
01:13:34
God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid for he does not bear the sword in vain for he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out
01:13:44
God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore, one must be in subjection not only to avoid God's wrath, but also for the sake of conscience.
01:13:52
For because of this, you also pay taxes for the authorities are ministers of God attending to this very thing.
01:13:59
Pay to all what is owed to them. Taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
01:14:11
Closing with this from Lamentations chapter three, I'm gonna start here in verse 22. The steadfast love of the
01:14:19
Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end.
01:14:24
They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion says my soul.
01:14:33
Therefore I will hope in him. The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
01:14:41
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
01:14:50
Let him sit alone in silence when it is late on him. Let him put his mouth in the dust.
01:14:57
There may yet be hope. Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes and let him be filled with insults.
01:15:04
For the Lord will not cast off forever. But though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.
01:15:16
For he does not afflict from his heart or grieve the children of man. To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth, to deny a man justice in the presence of the
01:15:28
Most High, to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not approve.
01:15:35
Who has spoken and it came to pass unless the Lord has commanded it?
01:15:40
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?
01:15:46
Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins?
01:15:54
Let us test and examine our ways and return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven.
01:16:03
We have transgressed and rebelled and you have not forgiven. You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us, killing without pity.
01:16:15
You have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through. You have made us scum and garbage among the peoples.
01:16:24
All our enemies opened their mouths against us. Panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction.
01:16:33
My eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
01:16:40
My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, until the
01:16:45
Lord from heaven looks down and sees. My eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city.
01:16:55
I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause.
01:17:01
They flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me. Water closed over my head.
01:17:08
I said, I am lost. I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit.
01:17:15
You heard my plea. Do not close your ear to my cry for help. You came near when
01:17:21
I called on you. You said, do not fear. You have taken up my cause,
01:17:28
O Lord. You have redeemed my life. You have seen the wrong done to me,
01:17:33
O Lord. Judge my cause. You have seen all their vengeance, all their plots against me.
01:17:41
You have heard their taunts, O Lord. All their plots against me.
01:17:47
The lips and thoughts of my assailants are against me all the day long.
01:17:53
Behold, they're sitting and they're rising. I am the object of their taunts. You will repay them,
01:18:01
O Lord, according to the work of their hands. You will give them dullness of heart.
01:18:06
Your curse will be on them. You will pursue them in anger and destroy them from under your heavens,
01:18:15
O Lord. Consider this passage as we wrap up 2019 and we head into 2020.
01:18:22
Repent and turn from your sin and you will be saved. Amen. Let us conclude with prayer.
01:18:29
Yes, let's. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the blessings that you have given to us, to me and to my wife, to our children, to our family this year.
01:18:39
We thank you for always taking care of us and providing for our every need. We thank you for this ministry, when we understand the text, what it's been able to do this year through the videos and the podcast, the many thousands who have been reached by this
01:18:53
Bible teaching ministry and the gospel that has been proclaimed here. And it's all by your grace.
01:18:58
And I pray that we continue to do this and do it faithfully. And may there not be any wicked way in my heart, no seeking for selfish gain, but only to proclaim
01:19:10
God's word and doing so in the face of a culture that is constantly after it and wanting to attack it.
01:19:19
Help me to stand firm upon the word of Christ that this may be proclaimed and lead many to faith.
01:19:25
For it is in Romans 10, 17 that we read, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
01:19:33
We pray for many that we read about over the course of summarizing the biggest topics of the year.
01:19:39
We pray for the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. We pray for the president of the United States of America.
01:19:44
We pray for the pastor that has been detained in China. We pray for the president of Chick -fil -A.
01:19:52
We pray for many of these persons who have felt persecuted and attacked by the culture and have yet stood firm.
01:20:00
We pray for those who felt pressured by the culture and gave in. May our hearts be convicted before you.
01:20:07
May we turn from our sin. May we seek the righteousness of God and stand firm in it until the day of glory.
01:20:14
May we not shift to the left or to the right, but we remember the statutes of our
01:20:20
Lord and we meditate on these things day and night. Genesis to Revelation, the entire scripture is relevant.
01:20:28
It is sufficient for our every need. May we stand upon the inerrancy of this word and know its authority over each and every person, over us and over all those that we would share the gospel with so that those who hear the gospel of Jesus Christ would turn from sin and believe.
01:20:50
May every year be a banner year for the gospel of Christ. May more souls be reached this year than the year before so that many would turn from their sin and know
01:21:00
Jesus Christ is Lord and be saved. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.
01:21:07
Amen. Happy New Year, everybody. Happy New Year. ♪
01:21:14
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey ♪ What?
01:22:15
Okay. This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible teaching podcast to help encourage your time in the word.
01:22:22
If you would like to send a year -end gift to our ministry, visit our website, www .utt
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.com. Here, once again, it's best to... Okay. That was okay. Why did you stop?
01:22:33
It wasn't okay. I thought it sounded okay. No, I was not satisfied. It sounded fine. I was not satisfied. I was not satisfied.
01:22:39
Can I move this? You're starting to sound like me now. Yeah, you want this out here like this? Well, I stuttered all the way through it.
01:22:46
No, you didn't. I didn't? No. I heard myself. You heard yourself in your head stuttering.
01:22:54
I did. Biddy, biddy, biddy, biddy. That's all, folks. When do we understand the text?
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Ah, okay. This is When We Understand the Text, a daily
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Bible teaching podcast to help encourage your time in the Word. If you would like to send a year -end, a year -end gift.
01:23:16
A rear -end gift. Well, you know, preferably not.
01:23:25
Unless we're talking your wallet, in your back pocket. Ah, there you go, ah, see?
01:23:31
You were gonna bring that back around. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, yep, yep, yep.
01:23:40
Oh, dear. You're gonna put your behind in your past. What was that from?
01:23:48
That sounds familiar. That's Pumbaa in Lion King. Pumbaa. Now, now, now, sit down before you hurt yourself.