Situational Ethics and a Powerful Testimony

Apologetics Live

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:08

This is Apologetics Live, to answer your questions, your host, from Striving for Eternity Ministries, Andrew Rappaport.

00:23

All right, we are live, Apologetics Live here, for you Thursday night, answering your questions, anything about God and the

00:30

Bible, come on in, we can answer it, just go to ApologeticsLive .com, and from that link, you will be able to see the little duck icon for StreamYard, and join us for any discussion.

00:44

We're glad to have you with us, we will have some programming notes here, we had planned to have a special guest,

00:53

Justin Peters, to talk about, well, heretics, identifying heretics and cults.

01:01

Well, his flight was delayed, and he just landed in San Antonio. So, we're gonna have to do a plan

01:09

B. Well, let's see, plan B. Here's Justin Peters, and he's feeling sick tonight, so he doesn't want, he's not up for it,

01:19

I was planning on taking the night off, so maybe we just make it the Anthony Silvestro show, since he wanted to just make us nervous.

01:28

There we go, his mic's probably not working. There we go, it works, finally. He -

01:35

I can't hear me. I've spent the last half hour restarting my computer after Big Sur, the audio wasn't working on it, and I'm on my laptop,

01:50

I switch everything over to my laptop right now, and it's still not working, right, I can't hear myself speak, so, through the headphones, it's terrible.

02:01

Well, you're probably not, yeah, can you hear us, is the question. I can hear you guys, yeah, she's kind of weird herself.

02:09

I feel like I'm talking to nobody, so. Hi, I'm nobody. Yeah, nobody one and nobody two.

02:17

Yeah. Andrew, Andrew, look, this is what we're gonna do. When we get to Florida on Thursday, you're going to tell

02:25

Julie, my seven -year -old Mac computer is just not cutting it anymore for the high -tech software we need.

02:34

So I then will get on the computer and buy a new Mac. Wait a minute, wait a minute, hold on.

02:39

I want everybody to record this and get that little video shot. The seven -year -old

02:44

Mac, the Mac doesn't work. No, the Mac is fine, that's not the issue

02:50

I have. The issue I have with it, you know, Pastor Justin, maybe we should get into a counseling session here right now,

02:57

I think. Let me see if I understand this correctly. He's asking us to lie to his wife to justify him.

03:06

Oh, look, he's in twice now. It works. I'm switching this over.

03:14

Okay, so, you know, and then we have Linda saying, Anthony, I'm telling

03:19

Julie. Like, oh man, you're in trouble now. Yeah, so I think he was asking us to to break the ninth commandment.

03:30

Because there's, I mean, the technology we're using that for StreamYard, I mean, he could work with on a, you know, on a

03:37

Google computer. So he doesn't need a high -tech Mac to do

03:42

StreamYard. So it's almost as if he's asking us to lie to his wife so he can get an experience.

03:50

I know there's a group of people. So I know there's a group that likes to say, well, you know, is it a lie if you're, how's it go?

04:01

Like, if you're, you know, being told, you know, somebody's gonna get murdered and you're telling the lie to your -

04:08

Yeah, I don't believe in situational ethics. I don't think it's justified. Yeah, let's explain those two since you brought that up.

04:17

I mean, is Apologetics Live, we educate. So what is the difference between what you were just discussing, situational ethics versus what

04:26

I hold to, which is I am a, what's called a non -conforming absolutist.

04:32

So you throw a lot of big words in there and it sounds like really impressive, but it's really not, break it down and make it simple.

04:39

So in situational ethics, the idea is that the, what is right and wrong, right?

04:45

Ethics is deciding right from wrong. And in ethics, you have what's referred to as situational ethics is the idea that the situation could define whether it's right and wrong.

04:58

The classic example given is the Nazis come to your door and they ask, do you have any

05:04

Jewish people in your home? And you do have Jewish people in your home, but you know, if you say yes, they're dead.

05:10

And if you say no, you're lying. So which do you do? And I've said this countless times,

05:16

I do neither. Now, a situational ethicist would look at that and say, well, the right answer is to lie because of the protection of life.

05:25

So the idea that you have there is that in that, the human being is defining the greater ends.

05:35

So the ends justify the means, and it's the human who's going to define what is greater in that situation, whether lying is greater or whether having someone kill the

05:47

Jewish people that are hiding in your home is greater. Now, as a non -conforming absolutist, it means, let me break this down.

05:54

Non -conforming means I don't conform to the situation. Situation does not matter in whatever the ethical dilemma is.

06:03

So I'm a non -conforming absolutist. In other words, absolutist meaning that I believe that it is never right to break

06:12

God's law. There's never a time that lying is acceptable. Now, what you have there, and now there's a difference that people will make when it comes to lying.

06:25

There is, lying is deception. But when you get into ethics, there are two cases that people will say with case of lying, ethically, that it is acceptable.

06:39

One is in warfare. So there's just war theory. And there, it is a case where you don't, you're deceiving your enemy to win the battle.

06:51

The other is in, well, joking around. Sometimes we will surprise parties or do things where our intention is to tell the truth in the end, but we're deceiving for a short period of time for that.

07:06

So in that case that many would say that those two cases are different.

07:13

It's not based on the situation. It's based on the ethic. And so lying is wrong because of the fact that what we end up seeing is that it goes against God's nature.

07:26

And so I don't think it's ever okay to make an ethical decision that is one where you're knowing that God says one thing and doing another, okay?

07:40

So that is what it would be in a nonconforming absolutist. In other words, I believe in that same situation, the

07:47

Nazis come to your door, I believe that there is a fallacy called the fallacy of the excluded middle in that case.

07:57

So the fallacy excluded middle is, and it's sometimes called the either or fallacy.

08:03

It's where you're given two options as if those are the only two options. Like the only thing you can say to the

08:09

Nazis at your door is yes or no. There's many other answers you can give.

08:16

And the example of this would be, so the fallacy of excluded middle assumes only two answers when there is a third possible answer.

08:24

And I have a third possible answer easily. Nazis come to my door. Are you hiding Jews in your house?

08:29

My question would be, why in the world are you asking me that? I'm never answering the question and I'm never deceiving them.

08:37

So what I'm end up doing is I'm changing topics or I'm getting into a different discussion, get into why are they asking this?

08:48

Lots of different things we could do. But the other thing we could do is trust

08:54

God. I mean, this is one of the arguments that I would say with Rahab the harlot, when she had the spies come to her door, she hid them, she lied.

09:08

I would say she was wrong for lying. But wait a minute, wait a minute. She's mentioned in Hebrews 11.

09:17

And therefore that must be a good thing. Well, in Hebrews 11, it does not praise her for her lie.

09:22

It praises her for her faith. She had faith in the God of the

09:28

Bible, but God didn't want her to lie. Could God have protected her?

09:37

And she'd tell the truth when they asked about the spies. Yeah.

09:44

That's one way we see God do this. I've told this account before on the show.

09:50

We had a guy who I knew many years ago who was going in and out of China.

09:58

And what ends up happening is he would go in with Bibles to give away, but he refused to lie.

10:06

He actually was asked once. He told me as he's going into China and they asked him, what are in these suitcases?

10:13

His answer, Bibles. Bibles. He was joking and let him go.

10:20

He even had once where they opened the suitcase and saw Bibles and gospel tracts. I think

10:25

Stan, I think Stan's getting the issue. You think what?

10:32

I think Stan's got the point that you're making here. He starts out and he says, neither.

10:38

Cause you said that you don't have to answer either way. And he says, I get why, but I must admit that it's hard to swallow.

10:44

And then Stan comes up after you finish, he says, you never answer. You just ask another question, like when you're doing evangelism.

10:52

I really like that. I like that answer. And it's the truth. You don't have to lie.

10:59

You just tell the truth, let God be sovereign and do what he will. Yeah, and Linda adds a question to it, but didn't the midwives lie about killing the

11:08

Hebrew baby boys? Well, yes. If they were delivering those children and then saying that the women were giving birth too quickly, but could

11:23

God have spared them? Yes, if he so wanted to. Laura Anderson is saying,

11:30

Abraham lied about Sarah being his wife. Still not just. Yes, and there's some consequences with that as well.

11:37

And so the thing is, is that we have to recognize one simple thing.

11:47

We do not decide what's right and wrong. We get that from God's word.

11:54

It's God's nature that's the standard. That's where we get our ethics from.

12:00

And now we as Christians understand that the ethics come from God. And the world may not realize that, but that's where their ethics come from as well, right?

12:12

Why is stealing wrong? Because God's not a thief. Why is murder wrong? Because God's not a murderer. Why is lying wrong?

12:18

Because God's not a liar. That's what you end up seeing. And so Stan ended up saying,

12:24

I think this is what you were laughing at earlier. He said, I listened and learned from Andrew Rappaport.

12:29

That is true. Stan has been out with me many times, so. Well, you know, one thing that I like on this flow of thought as we're talking about it is that we don't have to, of all the comments that we've seen here talking about the different liars in the scripture, what we have to realize is that Bible doesn't tell us what they should have done, but what they actually did do.

12:54

So it's not justifying that Abraham was a liar or Rahab was a liar. All it's doing is telling us the fact that it happened, and the principle is still, thou shalt not lie.

13:06

And they didn't work it out right. They didn't do it right. And the Bible records that they did things wrong.

13:12

And that's just the truth. That's human nature versus God's sovereignty. Correct.

13:18

And that's the thing that we have to realize here is that ultimately situational ethics puts man in the place of God in defining morality.

13:32

That's what atheists wanna do. So when, my opinion, you could disagree with me, when

13:38

Christians start using situational ethics, I think what they're doing is using an atheistic ethical system, one that wants to put man in the position of deciding what's the ultimate good rather than God.

13:54

And so this is the reason I would not be a situational ethicist, okay?

14:02

I wanna post a question or pose a question to the audience. My question is, maybe push back on that.

14:11

What do you think? What would your view be of this?

14:18

And I would invite you to come on the show. This is why we do Apologetics Live. Are you talking about Total Bear stuff?

14:25

No, no, no, just anybody. Anybody that wants to speak about it, to profess about it, in any situation, come on in and talk about this because this is why we do

14:39

Apologetics Live. We do this to answer questions, to give feedback, to learn from each other.

14:45

We don't have all the answers, but we try to learn from the scripture, so. Well, let me respond to Total Bear stuff podcast, which, okay, right off the bat.

14:57

All right. Let me just say, as someone who is the executive director of the Christian Podcast Community, Total Bear stuff podcast tells me absolutely nothing about what your podcast is about.

15:10

Is it about bears? Like stuffed bears? Is it all things about bears?

15:17

So maybe you could let us know what your podcast is about. I am curious,

15:24

I'll admit that, but all right. So let's get to it. He says, he, she, because I don't know. I love your take, but disagree.

15:31

Corrie Tamboon was a great example of lying and disobeying the civil government. And I would say that she's a wonderful example of someone that put her faith into practice in being willing to suffer the consequences of her actions, but I would still say her lying is a sin.

15:51

Even though she had a good outcome. Here becomes the question. Let me pose this.

15:58

Was, and this is going to seem very strange coming from someone that's Jewish, okay? But was the killing of 6 million

16:06

Jews, did it have a good outcome? I want you to think about that.

16:14

Here's why I say that. That's a trap question for the rest of us. It is, because here's the thing.

16:23

Your wife, when did you stop meeting your wife? Yeah, when did you stop meeting your wife? The reason

16:29

I ask the question that way is this. What we look at this is we're looking at human life.

16:36

Okay? We want to preserve the human life. God has a broader view and he's doing things we're not always aware of.

16:46

So one of the things that God used the killing of 6 million Jewish people in the Holocaust was to bring about the nation of the

16:57

UK or the English nation empire is what it was,

17:03

British Empire. I was trying to think of the right word for it. But British Empire to take its land that it had and create the state of Israel.

17:12

Now would we see a state of Israel in 1948 had Germany not done what they did?

17:19

Probably not. And so in God's grander scheme of things, we would see the return of Jewish people to Israel as a fulfillment of prophecy and see that this is working into God's greater scheme, his greater plan.

17:39

Guess what? The 6 million Jewish people would have died either way, but God ended up using that in a way to bring about his plans.

17:50

Does that mean we should take human life? No. But does it mean that human life is the ultimate standard of right and wrong?

18:01

No. So even with Corrie Tamboon, she saved many lives, but that doesn't justify the line.

18:09

Yeah. And I will say again, do we trust God to be sovereign?

18:17

And if he wants to work a way out, we have plenty of examples. You have

18:23

Moses being put into the water and pushed off and Pharaoh's daughter raises her.

18:31

Okay. Laura said, thank you for posting this Laura Anderson on YouTube.

18:38

She said, my family died in the Holocaust and I never looked at it that way, Andrew. And I think she's agreeing with you as far as I can tell from the tone of what she's written.

18:50

And I have the same take. Let's think of it more along the lines of every person that has come to Christ.

18:59

There are so many of us that will say something along the lines of, I wish I could go back and redo my whole entire life and I hadn't done all these different things and I was such a this or such a that.

19:12

And I have a take on it that maybe it will help people. As you're dealing with the reality of your own depravity, every single second of your life, every moment, every left turn, every right turn, everything you did good and bad, the way

19:30

I see it according to scripture is a part of your life that God sovereignly worked so that you could be brought to Christ at his point in time.

19:41

And from then, every point in time and every moment in your life, God is working out in your life so that you can be a blessing to someone else.

19:49

I've told people this so that they understand that God never puts us in a situation that he doesn't want us to be in, but he's willing to put us in a situation, even if it's to our harm, if others will come to Christ and come to know him.

20:04

And my greatest example is the thousands, if not millions of believers around the world who have been persecuted and martyred for the name of Christ whose blood was spilled, and yet God used that death to bring about the salvation of many others.

20:24

And so, we don't know what God's doing all the time, but I'm gonna tell you, it's amazing to be a part of it.

20:32

It is truly amazing just to be a part of it and to watch how God works. And we have to admit that everybody here on this show and everybody that we know is fallen sinners saved by grace and God uses us in our feeble ways to his own glory.

20:48

Okay, so let's deal with, and we haven't even gotten to the introduction of who we are. We just jumped right into this.

20:54

Oh, we didn't, did we? Yes, why don't we just wrap it up? I'm Anthony Silvestro. Yeah, don't be confused with people.

21:01

So, I'm Andrew Upward, Executive Director of Striving for Eternity. To my,

21:07

I guess, I don't know if it's right or left on your screens, but Pastor Justin - The right.

21:13

Yeah, Pastor Justin Pierce. And on the bottom there is Dr. Anthony Silvestro.

21:18

So, Dylan's asking, where's Justin Peters? We did mention this early on, but some people came in late.

21:25

So, Justin just landed in San Antonio. His flight was delayed. And so, the show that we were gonna do tonight, well, we would like to do next week, except, well, we won't be here.

21:36

We may do a love show. We will let you know next week, but we will be at Beulah Baptist Church.

21:43

We will be, Dr. Silvestro, Justin Peters, myself, we'll all be doing the

21:48

Snatch Them from the Flame seminar. And so, we will be landing, or getting into, well,

21:55

Winter Garden, Florida is where it's at. That's the Orlando area. If you wanna get details, just go to beulahbaptistwg .org

22:02

to get the information for the seminar. And I believe it's free.

22:08

They're gonna do a love offering. So, the four of us, Justin Peters included, will be together next week, and we hope to be able to do a live show from there.

22:19

If not, then we'll have to cancel. And possibly the week after that,

22:25

Justin Pierce and Justin Peters will do the show we planned for tonight. So, we are sorry about that.

22:31

Let me get back to Ross's question. And then Total Bear Stuff has got another comment.

22:37

Well, before you get to this, Andrew, we should probably announce that it's gonna be open question night, right? Open Q &A.

22:43

So, if you guys are sending in your questions, come on the show live. Yeah, so Frank is saying

22:50

Justin is in San Antonio. He is, oh, what is it? The, I think it's a

22:56

Southern, is it Southern Texas? I can't remember the name of the conference he's at.

23:04

But if you go to justinpeters .org, he usually has on his calendar where he's at, Frank. So, go check that out.

23:10

If you are in the San Antonio area, go find out where he's gonna be speaking. So, yeah, open questions.

23:16

Go to apologexlive .com to join us with any questions you have. Take me up on my challenge.

23:22

See if I can answer any question that you have about God and the Bible. Any question, I believe

23:27

I can answer it. If you're questioning that, come on in. And so,

23:35

Marlene, South Texas Bible Conference. There we go.

23:41

Maybe you could put a banner up in for that. Marlene says, coming to our neck of the woods, the free state of Florida.

23:49

I am looking forward to this. Having spent a long weekend down in Texas myself, last weekend, or two weekends ago,

24:01

I am looking forward to Florida, a mask -free environment, the land of the free.

24:09

Marlene, I hope you're close enough to Orlando that you can make it to the conference. So, there you go.

24:17

There's the South Texas Bible Conference. The events, you just go to justinpeters .org slash events slash south -texas -bible -conference, or just go to justinpeters .org,

24:29

and you look at the calendar. So, there you go. All right. Let me get to Ross's question here.

24:36

He says, 1 Kings 22, verse 23 in King James Version says, now therefore behold, the

24:43

Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all thy prophets, and the

24:49

Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee. Now, what you end up looking at with this verse is one of the things we have to remember is that God is sovereign.

24:59

So, there's nothing that happens that God doesn't take credit for. But then you say, well, wait a minute.

25:06

Does God cause sin? Well, no. He allows people. He gives them choice and allows them to do that.

25:14

And that's a thing that ends up happening with both angels and with humans.

25:19

He gave them morality, and in doing so, they can make choices.

25:26

And he still is sovereign, even in those choices. In other words, he can take their wicked deeds and use it for his good.

25:35

Best example of that, let me just, let me turn to - Romans 5. Well, I was gonna go a little bit further away, and I was gonna go to the last chapter of Genesis, in the last part of Genesis.

25:51

And that is Genesis chapter 50, and exactly with Joseph.

26:01

And this is specifically where his brothers come to him. So, you remember the scene? His brothers end up saying that they think that Joseph may, after the death of the father, that he may take out harm for what they did.

26:16

They say, hey, Joseph, your dad said, take it easy on us. And so, what you end up having, just looking for the specific verse here.

26:32

Let's see. I'm just trying to find the verse where he says, am

26:38

I, where they come to him. Says, am I in the place of God? Yeah, which

26:44

I'm just trying to find the verse, and I - Oh, I didn't pull it up. I just know it. Yeah, I'm going from memory as well.

26:49

So I'll just, so basically what he ends up saying, I'm trying to find the exact verse. Someone will probably put it in the chat quickly.

26:55

But where he says, am I in the place of God? What you meant for evil,

27:01

God meant for good, to save these many souls. As a paraphrase, but that's essentially what he's doing.

27:08

It's a doctrine known as the doctrine of concurrence, that God can use even our sinful evil deeds to bring about his good.

27:18

So in 1 Kings 22, 23, God puts a lying spirit in their mouth.

27:25

He is either allowing a demon who's lying or allowing them to lie.

27:31

But he brings that about for the good that he speaks evil concerning these wicked prophets.

27:40

So this is more, okay, Pauline is saying verse 20. Thank you, Pauline. And it says, as for you, you meant it for evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.

27:56

So there you go. Thank you. I knew someone would get that. And Stan, who has sat under my teaching for years, knows this doctrine, the doctrine of concurrence.

28:06

So this is an important one, because this is something where we see that God can work through things and be able to still say

28:15

God is bringing these things about, just like the Holocaust. We can look at the Holocaust and say, man meant it for evil,

28:22

God meant it for good. And it's good to know Chris Honhold is letting us know that he's now home. He was riding home.

28:28

Now he can heckle me in chat. Thank you, Chris. Okay, so I said we'd get back to Total Bearer stuff, podcasts, he had put another comment.

28:38

I am willing to answer for the crime of protecting life by lying or fighting when compared to the apathy of justified cowardice to pretend to be righteous.

28:50

Okay, so let me, and whoever this is putting this, I encourage you to come on the show, let's be able to talk it through, because it's hard to, it is difficult to read something that someone types, you end up, we all do this, but we tend to sometimes read emotion into it and things like that.

29:08

So I'm gonna try not to do that with this. But I think in the way

29:14

I'm reading this, and if I'm wrong, maybe let me know, but what, it sounds like he's saying that my position of a non -answer is cowardice, where that's not, it's not necessary.

29:31

You know, the reality is that there's plenty of things I could do in a situation that is not cowardice, but still protecting both human life and God's honor.

29:45

I guess the issue, the way I view this is I have a very high view of God. Such a high view of God, that God is more important than even my human life, more than any human life.

30:03

So the question is, is it cowardice to have a high view of God and His sovereignty that He is capable of working things out any way

30:14

He so desires? You know - I would ask it this way, Andrew, just to kind of clarify it a little bit.

30:24

When I'm in the room or in the house, and these soldiers, whoever this hypothetical group is, they kick the door in.

30:33

Harlot Rahab, that's not a hypothetical, it happened. Okay, so she's standing there and they kick the door in, and they say, where are these men at?

30:42

They're not asking if they can come in, they're gonna come in anyway. They're gonna search, they're gonna do anything they wanna do.

30:49

And in their moment, they are sovereign. They have power, they have absolute power, they can do whatever they want.

30:57

And for me, I'm trusting the one that's sovereign over them. I'm saying,

31:03

I don't have to lie, I don't have to give them an answer. I can stand there, and I know for a fact that if they want to, they can kill me, okay?

31:12

I can't stop them from killing whoever's in the house or dragging away anybody else, but I don't have to be a party to sinfulness or wickedness.

31:22

I don't have to be part of that. I can uphold my honor before God, and I can proclaim his truth and say, look, you guys, you're murderers, you're rapists, you're thieves, you're vile and wicked.

31:35

I don't have to be a part of that. I can tell the truth. I can say, who are you to question me?

31:43

They can stab me, shoot me, kill me, beat me or whatever else for daring to question their authority, but what they can't do is make me sin against my

31:52

God. And here's the thing, Pauline has it right out of Isaiah. His thoughts are not our thoughts, his ways are not our ways.

31:59

And let me read another passage that explains this as well, and that's Deuteronomy 29, 29.

32:05

The passage I use all the time when I teach my theology class, because someone's gonna ask a question

32:10

I don't have the answer to. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.

32:23

The reality is, is it's not us who gets to make the law. Okay, now

32:28

Chris Hanholds here has a comment. Yeah, I'm sorry, I was pulling that up. Yeah, here's the thing.

32:34

He says, here's the thing, almost none of us will ever face the extreme examples of Nazis at the door.

32:40

So why do we ask the question if the extreme is the norm? Oh, we got to put our friend here in.

32:48

We can never have a show without our chickens that visit us. So now what you end up seeing with what

32:55

Chris is saying, unfortunately, thanks, John. We always have that. My job is done.

33:04

So, you know, Chris, I wouldn't say that, you know, I think a time is coming that it may not be an extreme example that we have

33:11

Nazi like soldiers coming to our door. But you make a good point of the example for, that's always given is the extreme instead of looking at the norm.

33:23

And that's a valid argument to make. And so looking at this, when we look at it, we have to remember as someone who's been in the military in the chat,

33:34

I think it was clergy. No, it wasn't clergy talk. Someone said, I thought that Satan is the father of lies.

33:42

And that's the thing that we have to realize. In the example, he said Satan is a liar and look at the damage he caused.

33:50

That's what clergy talk had said. And so we have to realize in my opinion,

33:57

God's standard is higher than our standard. And this is the difference, okay, is what you see with situational ethics is

34:08

I believe they put man's, what man thinks is the better good as the authority.

34:17

And now it puts us in the decision -making seat of what defines the better good.

34:24

Joseph did not say that it would have been better for them not to have put them in slavery.

34:30

He recognized that God was working through that to sell them as a slave, to be put into prison.

34:39

He recognized God's working hand through those trials. Here's the thing, someone brought up Corrie Tamboon.

34:48

Would you know of Corrie Tamboon's faith if she lied to the police, to the

34:56

Nazis and never went to the concentration camp? No, the many people that have been encouraged by the faith of Terri Tamboon is strictly because of the fact that she suffered the consequence of standing up and doing the right thing in trying to save Jewish lives, right?

35:15

She tried to save human life. We know of her because we know, you go through Hebrews 11 and you see a lot of people who suffered greatly for the faith.

35:27

It doesn't mean that somehow they should have broken God's law to do so.

35:34

So you put up Chris's comment, why don't you read it? So Chris said, if we conform ourselves to God's commands with every day, living to glorify him in the mundane, we'll be able to stand rightly in the extreme.

35:49

I got to agree with that completely. The scripture tells us not to worry about what you're gonna say in the time when you're in persecution.

35:57

And we talk about these philosophical arguments when it comes to our

36:03

Christian standpoint and standard, but he's right. We are gonna stand up as we stand up now, as we stand today, you claim to be a

36:13

Christian yet you live your life conformed to the world. You're not gonna stand up when it's time. But when it's time, as you've been standing every day, you're not gonna back down and drop your faith at that last moment, the way

36:26

Chris is saying. And I agree with that. You know, and then you give another comment to Chris. This is the other one here.

36:33

This is why folks, if you don't listen to Voice of Reason Radio with Chris Honholz and Richard Story, these are the gems you're missing out on.

36:40

Their whole podcast is filled with their wisdom. Chris says, we must affirm that God is holy, sovereign in all things, even in the evil that happens in our world.

36:53

Thus, we must seek to conform ourselves to Christ in the lives we actually live.

37:00

Yeah, amen. So, you know, and that's the thing that I would say with this. I mean, this is a, granted, you know, this is not the topic we planned on talking about tonight.

37:09

We planned on talking with Justin Peters about identifying heretics and cults, but even in that,

37:16

God is sovereign, right? And so, go ahead. I was gonna throw one last thing in on this.

37:25

You know, people will say, you know, well, I'm responding to murderers, you know, and I'm lying to them, so what's the big deal?

37:34

Well, I have a take on this from the scripture that says that we are going to answer to God for our sin.

37:42

I'm not gonna answer for Anthony's sin. I'm not gonna answer for Andrew's sin. I'm gonna stand before God and give an account for my sin and for my life and whatnot under the blood of Christ.

37:53

So, I'm gonna look at it that way. I don't have to join in their wickedness.

38:00

I hope that helps. Yeah, and Linda's saying here real quick, agree, Justin, if we were not truly living for the

38:08

Lord now, there's no way we're going to die for him in the future. Anthony. You know, social justice, though, says that you're supposed to pay for the sins of others.

38:18

I don't know what you're talking about, Justin. I'm in trouble now. I'll be addressing that next week.

38:25

Yes. On Saturday. You know, one thing I do wanna say, though, Andrew, you brought up Joseph.

38:31

It's a great example to bring up, but we should have a clarification here. The scriptures don't say that Joseph knew all along why things were happening the way they were, right?

38:43

He trusted in God the whole time, and at the end, he could see back and see that this was all according to God's plan.

38:52

Well, yes, and there was a comment that was made here that answers that.

38:58

I think it was from, it might have scrolled off here. I think, I thought it was from Clergy Talk. Let me just find it real quick.

39:08

Do -do -do -do -do. I don't know where it went. This is not you. Here it is. It was Stan. Yeah, it was

39:14

Stan who said it. Joseph remembered his dream from Genesis 37, and that gave him the strength through trials.

39:22

Faith, he knew God would keep his word, and that is something that he was given direct revelation, and he knew that in some way,

39:33

God was gonna bring about that dream that he had, so he somehow trusted in God to know that he was gonna be back with his family again.

39:44

He didn't know how. Yeah, and we have got great promises in our scriptures, right?

39:50

We can go to Romans 8, 38, and 39. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our

40:09

Lord. So there we go. We have a great promise to be able to always live by as well, knowing that we're not gonna be separated from that love.

40:18

Okay, Dr. Silvestro, maybe you could respond to Linda here. I think this might trigger you. Social justice proponents should live what they preach.

40:28

Go. Linda's on fire, man. Well, you know, once you get away from a biblical worldview, it becomes problematic in many ways, and the social justice movement is really no different.

40:44

But I don't know how much we should really spoil it tonight because it's gonna be recorded in a week, isn't it?

40:50

Yes, well, we will. It'll be recorded there, and we'll make it available,

40:56

I'm sure, the Statue from Flames Conference that we're doing down in Winter Garden, Florida. And, you know,

41:04

I will admit that I'm looking forward to getting down to Florida, some nice weather.

41:11

You know, I'm packing. I'm sure, Anthony, you're starting to pack for the trip, but I'm starting my packing.

41:18

And I know one thing that I am packing, it's already put aside, is I have a

41:24

MyPillow. Yes, I do travel with my MyPillow, and I travel with it because I like a good night's sleep.

41:31

And so if you would like to get a MyPillow, I'll tell you how you could get a

41:36

MyPillow and at the same time support Striving for Eternity. You can call the number that they set up for us, 1 -800 -873 -0176.

41:47

That's 800 -873 -0186, and use promo code

41:52

SFE, or go to mypillow .com and use the, go to the

41:57

Radio Listener Square, click on that. You put in the promo code SFE for Striving for Eternity, and that's the promo code to get great discounts.

42:07

They ended up putting their premium MyPillow back on sale for just $30, so I ended up buying a couple of those.

42:15

Got some, needed some gifts and things, but I'm looking to pick up, gonna be getting a,

42:22

I'm gonna be picking up a, I think the slippers. I'm gonna probably get those for Anthony to wear and maybe the robe.

42:29

I'll give that to him as a Christmas gift. That sounds good. I'll get the toppers. Hey, where's the website again?

42:35

I wanna look for that pillow. It's mypillow .com, and it's right there.

42:41

They have all these different squares. Just click on the Radio Listener Square and use SFE as the promo code.

42:48

I'm doing it as we talk, so. Well, that's good. Where's this square at? Make sure everyone knows.

42:55

Well, I would have to. Oh, you said Radio Specials, click here. Yeah, they changed the label,

43:01

Radio Listener Specials. And I think you could actually click on anything, and I think they give you a place to do the promo code.

43:09

Okay, cool. But I found it. The mattress top. That's actually quite easy. You know, in God's providence,

43:15

Justin, I was panicking about how, which one of us is going to have to do the MyPillow advertisement tonight, and with Andrew supposing to not be on.

43:26

Well, I'll tell you what, I was actually, I was thinking to myself, you know, if Anthony does the

43:31

MyPillow plug, I mean, that'll work really good, and we can have him do that. And then, you know, when you get done talking about that, maybe we could, you know, kind of swing into the

43:41

Logos Bible software plug and tell everybody, you know, if you really want to be theological and doctrinal, and you want to have things that you can study well in your hands, if you go to Logos Bible software, it's, we can give you a good discount for Striving for Eternity Logos material.

44:02

And as I believe, Andrew, you correct me if I'm wrong, but is it five free books that come with this order, or?

44:08

Yes, so if you use the link that they've created for us, and their link they created for us is kind of long, so we've shortened it, and we'd use bit .ly,

44:17

so just bit .ly slash S -F -E Logos. So it's

44:22

S -F -E L -O -G -O -S. Their Striving for Eternity will give you five free books to choose from if you upgrade to their newer package, or if you're a new user.

44:32

And so that's something that you, again, they're a sponsor, they will help us out with each person that uses that link, so encourage you to do that.

44:42

I am a big proponent of Logos. Chris Honholtz says, I still have no idea how to properly use my

44:48

Logos. Join the club, Chris. Nobody does, nobody does. Now, I do have a question.

44:54

I have a, well, hold on, I have a solution for that, okay? We do have, if you go to the

44:59

Striving for Eternity YouTube channel, I have done two, I forget if they're one or two hour training sessions.

45:06

So, and maybe it's time for me to do another. Real quick, before we switch, I think, actually,

45:12

I think Chris Honholtz should have you out to his church to do a seminar on Logos.

45:19

I'd like that. And then we'll all fly out there to be part of the seminar. That's a good idea. Chris, it's on your shoulders.

45:26

So Chris, MyPillow commercial break. Laura says the MyPillow plug. Chris says nice, but then

45:33

I like this one. Richard says, Justin Peters is crying in his MyPillow being so close to Charlestine right now.

45:40

Well, and that's what I was gonna ask about. Do the, can I get five free Joel Steen books?

45:47

I mean, I want every day to be a Friday. What do you need? You need kindling for your fire? Okay, so Michael here says, what to, well, what to you by MyPillow?

46:02

That brought to you. Okay, that's it. So that'd be a better way of saying it. Laura says she loves

46:08

Logos. And Linda's saying I have the free version, but can't figure it out either,

46:14

Chris. So Chris, you're not alone there. All right, so we got someone backstage.

46:19

I wanna bring them in. Oh, wait, hold on. I see a comment from Chris. I'm afraid, let's put it up.

46:26

I meet and I think he meant, I might end up under church discipline if I brought

46:34

Andrew to my church. I think, Chris, you need to do it and find out.

46:40

That's the thing. So before we get to someone that's backstage, any of you guys have anything else that we want to share?

46:50

Any other sponsors or things you wanna plug? Well, I will say in all fairness, Julie doesn't care if I go out and buy a new computer.

46:58

But it turned out to be a great opening segment tonight. Yeah, let's have that opened up a whole discussion.

47:03

You know, on ethics. And now here's the thing with that though is, Anthony, as you know, my bride has the policy that since I'm the breadwinner of the family, she lets me spend the money as long as there's more money coming in than going out.

47:20

She doesn't say a word. So, you know, I get myself a new Mac when I need one. I don't ask permission like some people.

47:28

She just knows - I don't ask. Things just appear - I just pointed her shoe closet. She's like, okay, get you what you want.

47:33

Yeah. Okay, so - I heard her yelling in the background, I think. All right, we're gonna see what

47:39

Justin thinks about this counseling. I was discipling a couple, my wife and I, we were discipling a couple.

47:47

And one of the things that came up in discussion, and Pastor Justin, I know you can understand this dilemma.

47:53

The wife was not so happy with the amount of books that her husband was buying.

48:01

And he would buy a lot of books. And she didn't think he should have so many books, especially when not having read them.

48:11

And, you know, more books than had time to read. And he had made an agreement that he wasn't gonna buy any more books until he had read the ones that he had bought that year, and then he bought some more.

48:21

And I just kind of asked, is there anything that she likes to purchase that you think is, to the husband, that you think is over?

48:31

And he said, well, she likes to buy a lot of shoes. I mean, how many pairs of shoes does a woman need? And I just turned to him and I said, well,

48:39

I think we have an easy solution here. If you want a new pair of shoes, he gets to buy a new book.

48:46

If you want a new book, she gets to buy a new pair of shoes. Problem solved. You post it.

48:52

How'd that go? I think it's a good situation. Well, you know, and you think about it, some people do and some people don't, but I love

49:03

Dave Ramsey's plan on the Financial Peace University. And they actually have a situation where you save money for these purposes.

49:10

You don't just, you're not willy -nilly. You don't just throw money around and you actually save money for that. So that's a good plan.

49:16

Yeah. So Laura Anderson's asking, aw, does she make you reform sandwiches,

49:24

Andrew? Sandwiches. She doesn't make me sandwiches because she doesn't want me to make her bread.

49:31

But one thing I will point out is that, is that this means that Anthony is not on a financial budget because he should be able to have that money saved up so that this wouldn't be an issue.

49:41

That's right. We should have like - We're going to have to do a counseling session now. Yeah. Linda says,

49:46

I'm going to tell her anyway, Anthony, fact -checking you. I'm telling you, she won't care.

49:53

I like that. Chris says, some of us love our wives enough to include them in major financial decisions.

50:00

Just saying. Oh, I include my wife in major financial decisions. I just don't think Christian books are a major financial decision, especially when

50:08

I'm at Shepherd's Conference, Chris. You know that. You know what that's like. That's right. Books, guns, and electronics do not count.

50:16

Oh, I was at the ARC Encounter Conference. Remember Anthony? Yeah. A couple of years ago.

50:22

I had these boxes filled with books. And I'm like, how am

50:28

I going to justify buying these books? And it was like $380 worth of books. And I'm looking, I'm like, how am

50:33

I going to justify this? And she looks at me and my wife was so sweet. She looked at me and she says, sweetheart, we're out here and this is just fun for you.

50:42

It's paradise for you. You buy those if you feel like you want to. And there was no argument.

50:48

It was, I wanted them. We had the money for it. We've already saved up for it. And she was just so quiet.

50:54

You know, there is something else you saved up for. And that is, you saved up to go to Israel with us.

51:01

Yes, yes. And at least most of us will be there. I can't vouch for Dr. Silvestro because he's, you know, if they require a vaccine, he's going to, you know, wimp out and not trust

51:13

God's sovereignty. But, but - Eric said, Anthony, you may not have known this, but Eric said that he was talking with the officials and if you've had

51:23

COVID and you take the, they have a test, if you've had it, you're fine.

51:29

Yeah, that's what they're looking at. They're going to probably remove the vaccine thing in the fall and maybe just do a test.

51:35

But if you want to join us in Israel, there are still seats. There's only two, we only have two spots left that have flights included, but we have five others if you want to meet us in Tel Aviv.

51:45

So if you go to IsraelTour2021 .com, that's IsraelTour2021 .com, you can join us in Israel.

51:53

I will be there. Pastor Justin will be there. Dr. Silvestro will be there. And Justin Peters will be there along with some others.

52:00

Pastor David Cunningham will be there as well. Pastor Casey Butner, all of us will be doing the devotions.

52:06

And so if you want to join us, just go to IsraelTour2021 .com.

52:14

All right. Boy, Andrew, you know, you've mastered the spiritual transitions game so well that now you are doing advertising transitions.

52:23

Well, you know, on the rap report, it is really funny to watch Bud's face, which you can't see when we do just the audio, but Bud never knows how

52:32

I'm going to transition into the different supporters. And he's always waiting for how

52:39

I'm going to do it. And he told me once he was trying to guess how I was, on the topic of the show, he thought

52:45

I was going to transition one way. It was totally different, but. All right, so let's bring in, well, it just says

52:52

Bear, Bud. Okay, so what's your, tell us your first name so we know it's called you other than Bear.

53:00

It's Peter. Peter. So Peter, first off, I got to ask, explain the story behind the

53:08

Total Bear Stuff podcast. Well, all right, so my nickname for most of my life, but primarily in the military was

53:18

Bear, because I'm a big guy and I have a tendency to be grumpy.

53:26

So they just called me Bear and it just stuck. So my podcast, I originally started out as Total BS, just to, you know, play on words.

53:35

And well, when you talk about God on a podcast, and BS is in your title, all the atheists come out of the woodwork and they say, you're right, you should have named it

53:46

BS, because that's all BS. And I'm like, all right, fine, I'll just change it to what it was supposed to be, which is

53:52

Bear Stuff. And it's just, you know, because I needed to create an outlet that allowed me to untwist patriotism and Christianity, because I grew up with them wrapped really tight together.

54:05

So I, you know, so basically it was discussed the founding of the nation and the different amendments and where we did good and where we did bad in our founding.

54:19

So basically it's just therapy for me. I don't, you know, I think

54:25

I have like one listener and it's my sister. So, you know, but it's therapy for me.

54:32

It allows me to undo all of that patriotic, you know, rigmarole of, and it really happened after January 6th when

54:46

I was getting hit by two different sides, you know, the -

54:52

Insurrection, insurrection. You can't call it an insurrection, they found no weapons. Yeah. You can't call it an insurrection.

54:58

The only person that died of unnatural causes was shot by a police officer.

55:06

I thought we were supposed to protest the police. Right. I guess not when it's a white woman. But I got caught in this confluence of, you know, the

55:16

Trump derangement syndrome and the Trump is a God syndrome and there had to be a middle ground.

55:23

So I agree with you. And I started listening to you, all your different podcasts, and I'm gonna be honest with you,

55:32

I love what you say, but when you sit here and you play the, I'm gonna lay down thing, you get me so spun up,

55:40

I'm gonna be honest. Me too. I was gonna say, Anthony, it may be a good thing for Anthony to do a podcast like yours.

55:49

It might be therapeutic for him to get, you know, get all of his patriotism out and, you know, then maybe he could, you know,

55:56

I mean, we wanna be Christian first before American. I agree with you.

56:01

And if you go and deal with the people I do, they all claim to be Christian, but it's always second amendment, patriot first, and then it's

56:11

Christian. And I don't ever wanna be that guy. I've been that guy and I don't wanna be that guy anymore.

56:16

Justin, you put up a comment from Chris that you're gonna have to explain. Chris Honnold's posted, man, that's a lot of Andrew to listen to.

56:25

Bear, you said that you'd listen to Andrew. Man, I'm gonna tell you, you got thousands of hours in.

56:31

That's a serious dedication. Well, I sit here and I am legally blind, so I listen to everything at two or three times speed.

56:41

Thank you. Does it make sense to listen at three times speed? I do. It's because that's how

56:47

I process information. Exactly. And everyone thinks I'm crazy that I listen to podcasts at triple speed.

56:53

It is really disorienting to listen to you on YouTube though because I'm like, you have to go faster.

57:00

I'm just, I'm not being mean. It's just the times two feature just isn't enough on YouTube.

57:06

Yeah, no, I have a, there's a way to get a times three feature. I could, there's a plugin that helps with that. So I listen -

57:12

I will look that up. But so I listen to a lot of that stuff.

57:17

It really helped me start that whole separating them apart.

57:23

And I had to wrestle with the whole Romans 13, if it's absolute. I still disagree with you on that if it's absolute, but this particular, the comments that I made in this particular was that we can't justify doing evil acts if we think we're doing

57:42

God's will. And I am a victim of sex trafficking. So I work with organizations that do sex trafficking.

57:52

And I'm going to tell you, I have no problem going to meet my creator for lying to these people to catch them.

58:00

Well, no, no. See, now here's the thing. Okay. I said, and I should,

58:05

I'll just give you the thing. It's called Channelytics is the tool that I use that ends up having some, when you click on a video they have like these extra tools that will let you get some extra, kind of extra speed out of it.

58:25

So just so you have that. So the, I had said like when it comes to warfare, okay.

58:33

And when you are trying, there is in warfare, an ethic called that we would refer to as just war ethics.

58:43

And in a just war ethic, deception is, we end up seeing that deception is a specific thing laid out to say that you are doing in warfare, deception is required to win a battle.

58:57

Okay, you're not going to go to your enemy and explain what the game plan is. I mean, it is what

59:02

Democrats always expect Republicans to do whenever they go, like they should somehow, like they were upset with Bush because Bush wouldn't, you know, wouldn't give his game plan to the

59:15

Middle East of what he was doing. And so let me take that as actually an example because this is, though this is not commonly known, but it's not, it was, this is not classified information.

59:33

Back during the Gulf War, we had a very interesting incident happen.

59:38

Now, many people criticized George W. Bush for going to war and with Iraq.

59:46

People said, why is he going there? There's no justification for it. They questioned the weapons of mass destructions, but he was not coming forthright, being forthright in telling the world what his plan was, but he did have a plan.

01:00:03

There was a military plan for why to go to Iraq. And that plan was ended up becoming known by CNN.

01:00:11

Now, here's what ended up happening. The plan, the reason to go to war in Iraq was because Iraq was the strongest force there in those countries.

01:00:21

There was justification. We had, you know, Saddam Hussein saying that he had these weapons, saying he was gonna use these weapons.

01:00:27

We know he transported weapons to Syria, but what did that do? It brought all of the terrorists into one location.

01:00:34

How do you get terrorists that hide in caves? It's hard to get them, but getting them all out of their caves, out of their own countries, leaving

01:00:42

Pakistan and Iran and all these other places and coming into Iraq to fight the

01:00:48

Americans, it made it a battle that we could win, but only if they don't know that.

01:00:54

Well, CNN International, notice, I didn't say CNN, CNN International, they did not play this in the

01:01:01

American airwaves. CNN International found out that that was the plan, did a show, an episode explaining that that was the

01:01:10

American plan, and that very day was the first day that American contractors started being kidnapped and beheaded.

01:01:19

This is why you don't give that in a war situation. Now, you're saying with the human trafficking, that is a very similar situation.

01:01:29

It is a warfare situation. This is where you're going in undercover, okay?

01:01:35

And as someone who's going in undercover, you have to pretend to be something you're not in order to bring about justice by the standard that we have, okay?

01:01:47

Now, that is a different ethic, and in that case, we're not using, we're using a different ethic that's applied.

01:01:56

In that case, the line is not to preserve, is not for self -preservation, in other words, to protect my reputation or protect myself, but it is for the idea that you're at war, and so there's a different ethic that gets played in there.

01:02:17

Now, what level do you take that to? Because I would never, like, I would never use a weapon to defend my own life.

01:02:25

But I will use a weapon to defend the life of those who need it. My wife, my son, somebody down the street.

01:02:33

I don't have any problem with that, and I'll be fine meeting my creator going, yeah,

01:02:38

I laid down my life to remove that guy. Yeah, you know, it's an interesting thing you bring that up, and Dr.

01:02:44

Silvestro and I do a lot of open -air evangelism where we stand up on streets, and yeah, we do have people that can get a little bit rowdy.

01:02:52

And I was once asked on a podcast if I ever used my martial arts background when doing street evangelism.

01:03:02

And my thing I always realized was, and I've said this a couple times over the years, I think my martial arts background gives me more of the confidence that when

01:03:11

I was in those situations, I used my mouth to get out of it. In other words, it didn't raise to the level of conflict where it got violent, but I have used my martial arts two other times.

01:03:27

Both times were to protect someone else in evangelism. Once was one of our hecklers, and Anthony will remember this very well.

01:03:37

It's one of our most vile heckler that we have in New York City, Solomon. I kind of miss him, actually.

01:03:42

Yeah, I do. It's been a few years. We got to go up there to go see him again. We've, I mean, after 13, 14 years of having the same heckler you kind of build a good relationship with him.

01:03:54

And great Chris, Andrew, the most lethal weapon is his ability to speak. That's true,

01:04:00

Chris. Okay, I'll give a story about that in a second, but here's the thing. I saw a

01:04:05

Bluetooth headset from one of my hecklers fly in front of me. Without thinking, I jumped off my box as I was preaching, jumped in front of my heckler and his attacker to defend him.

01:04:16

And that actually changed the whole way he treated me and anyone that's out on the street with me. He gained a lot of respect because he was born in Israel.

01:04:26

He likes to brag about that he knows martial arts because he had to when he's in the military. But I've heard from friends that he talked to that said he never saw anyone move that quickly.

01:04:37

He actually jumped backwards because I jumped off that quickly. And the other time was with a friend of ours,

01:04:44

Mike Stockwell. Someone that both Dr. Fester and I know, and there was a guy who was drunk and charging him.

01:04:50

Just, I could see that that guy had violence in his mind. And I just did one of these things where I moved in a position where I basically put myself where I was able to trip the guy, but I grabbed him so he didn't hit the ground too hard.

01:05:05

And I grabbed him, they made it look like I was helping him up. And I'm like, oh, are you okay? I'm sorry, I got in your way. I'm like, I think you tripped over me, and I picked him up, right?

01:05:15

And just totally disarmed that situation. Now, I did have a time, Chris was saying,

01:05:22

I had one time in Union Square, New York, place Anthony knows well. And I had a guy who,

01:05:29

I was standing on a box preaching. Okay, I'm not a very tall guy. Maybe not as big as you,

01:05:35

Bear, or Peter. I'm five foot 11, but I'm on a box.

01:05:40

So it's putting me at least what, six inches of foot in the air. And I have this guy that I'm looking eye to eye to, and he's about just as wide, right?

01:05:51

Huge monster of a man. And he'd been upset with me sharing the gospel this whole time.

01:05:58

And he finally got fed up enough. He says, he starts walking up into my face.

01:06:03

He goes, if you don't shut up, I'm gonna punch you in the face. And I said, okay,

01:06:08

I got a question for you. I got a couple of things I wanna ask first, but I'm gonna have a question for you. But I mean, first off, I mean, let's get some things clear.

01:06:15

Clearly you're in the gym like three hours a day. I mean, you're all like buffing stuff. And so like people in the crowd are kind of laughing at that.

01:06:22

I said, now, these are your friends over here. I point to the guys he walked up with, and he turns, looks at them and goes, yeah.

01:06:28

I said, okay, I got a question for you. Don't you think looking at you and looking at me, don't you think that your friends are gonna think you look pretty pathetic beating up an old scrawny guy like me?

01:06:40

And he turned and looked at his friends. And when he looked at his friends, I knew I had him. Because when he turned back, I leaned into him.

01:06:46

I said, here's my question. What if you can't? He realized then he's in a kind of a no -win situation, right?

01:06:53

If he beats me up, he looks pathetic. And if he doesn't, he looks even worse. And I wasn't afraid, like I'm leaning into him.

01:07:00

He literally just turned through his hands toward me and went, man, you ain't worth my time and walked away. Just totally disarmed him.

01:07:07

But that is, again, that's a way of doing the, with my ethical system of looking at things, of saying there's other ways to handle situations than just throwing fists or walking away.

01:07:21

Does that make sense? It does. I just, you know, I get tired of,

01:07:29

I get tired of mealy mouth, peace, peace, hippie, peace

01:07:36

Christians who are willing to accept anything that the world throws at them and not fight back at all.

01:07:43

I mean, and it's not even, it's not even a right patriotic, anything like that.

01:07:51

If, you know, human trafficking, abortion, you know, it goes on and on and on.

01:07:57

Come on. I just want to say, where are you? At some point, men have to be men, right?

01:08:03

Churches have feminized guys for decades. Sometimes you have to point at your blood rock and go, you can come this far, but you will go no farther unless my blood is spilled.

01:08:16

But we don't take that. Okay, that's just for the record. It's different than cutting the fence that, you know, there's other ways of dealing with it.

01:08:24

That's all I'm saying. I didn't say bomb a fence. I just said, cut it. I mean, this is really quite tame.

01:08:34

So there is a point, look, you know, it's one of the things, so, you know, someone who's local here, who knows me, listens to the podcast, asked me the question after one of the podcasts.

01:08:47

Okay, Andrew, you know, you're saying like, you're saying with Anthony about the whole thing with cutting the fence up at the church in Canada.

01:08:54

But he also knows I have thousands of rounds of ammunition. He's like, what do you have all the ammunition for?

01:09:00

Very clearly, I'm preparing. I mean, I'm preparing for when someone's gonna come in and try to break into my home and threaten my family.

01:09:09

I will protect them. And, you know, there'll be a lot of dead bodies at the front door, but I have enough ammunition to go quite a while.

01:09:17

Well, I remember, I think it was last month when Anthony had asked the question, at what point do you draw that line of violence?

01:09:27

You know, it's one thing to sit here and say, I'm willing to die for my faith.

01:09:32

It's a whole different thing to watch your kid die for their faith. Well, and, you know, or to let something happen.

01:09:40

Chris Hunhold says, as someone who has served in the military 22 years in law enforcement, I find nothing mealy -moused about being willing to endure suffering for Christ.

01:09:53

Can we fight? Yes. Do we have to? And then he puts his hands up saying, I don't know. And that's the thing

01:09:59

I question. That's the question. And I mean, and I think, Peter, I would agree with you.

01:10:05

I am more likely to fight to protect someone else than I am to protect myself. Right.

01:10:11

And that's the thing. I'm gonna be, you know, last week we did, we went through the video of the gentleman.

01:10:19

I don't know if he was an elder at Grace Life Church in Canada. Don't know if he's an elder there, but I think the way he handled the police was very

01:10:29

God -honoring. He did not, he was definitely not mealy -moused. I mean, he said, here's what the law is. We're gonna follow the law.

01:10:35

You're breaking the law. You're asking us to break, we're trying to work with you. You're not willing to work with us. And we're even telling you we are in violation of the law and we will suffer whatever consequences.

01:10:45

And he gave lots of different ways for them to examine that they were not in violation. They said, hey, we're at max capacity.

01:10:52

So you know, we're not at 15%. You know, you can count the cars and know that we're, if each car was driven by one person, we're not in compliance.

01:11:01

I mean, whichever way you wanna look at it, you count the people coming out, you'll know we're not in compliance. They were willing to suffer the consequence for worshiping

01:11:10

God as a congregation, okay? The consequence ended up becoming that they set some fences up.

01:11:16

That's what they ended up doing. And so I think that in that case, you know, for me,

01:11:23

I'm not gonna stand up. That's not a case where I'm picking up arms. You know, they're coming at it in a legal way and we address it in a legal way.

01:11:34

We don't escalate it. I don't think the Christian should be the one escalating the situation, if that makes sense.

01:11:41

Yeah, that makes sense. Like, I would defend, I could go with, we never initiated the violence.

01:11:53

I can agree with that. I still think that we should be able to finish it though. Yeah, well,

01:11:59

Chris, Chris Honnold says, hold on, you gotta read Chris, I gotta read Chris's quote. You just, when

01:12:05

Chris posts something, it's always so good. Okay, Chris Honnold says this, to quote the great theologian Patrick Swayze.

01:12:11

Now, hold on, let me just stop there. Wasn't Patrick Swayze an actor? He was a Buddhist. Okay. To quote the great theologian,

01:12:19

Chris Honnold. Yeah, to quote the great theologian Patrick Swayze, quote, be nice until it's time to not be nice, unquote.

01:12:29

There are times we must fight, but not every time do we need to fight. Yeah, I have a theologian like that, it's the

01:12:37

Boondock Saints. You know, in the beginning where the Catholic priest says, you know, we must all fear evil men, but the one thing that we must fear even more is good men who do nothing.

01:12:51

And so, I just, I don't wanna be that guy that's, well, I'm supposed to be this dove of peace.

01:13:01

But there's a difference between doing nothing, right? I mean, let's take the example that we're kind of disagreeing with, having a good disagreement.

01:13:12

It's okay to have differences, folks, all right? You heard Pastor Justin and Anthony having differences, but you didn't see them slinging each other's names in the mud.

01:13:22

You didn't see them, you know, trying to ruin one's reputation. You saw them disagreeing and bringing up the points that they have.

01:13:30

For the record, I did wanna put a fence up around Justin's house and I'd see what he was gonna do about it. We're gonna see each other

01:13:37

Thursday or Friday and then we'll see. I'll bring some zip ties.

01:13:42

And I am, look, Anthony knows this. He's been on the mat with me.

01:13:48

I am happy to roll. If you wanna get on a mat and we could practice some jujitsu,

01:13:54

I'm okay with it. I would encourage it. Well, you know, one thing

01:14:00

I wanna say is like, in my case, I was in law enforcement for years and I fought every fight that I could imagine fighting, the good, bad, and ugly.

01:14:09

And I've been in all those situations that everybody brags about how they would deal with things. Hold on,

01:14:16

I'm trying to figure something out. You said the good, the bad, the ugly. I know I'm the good, but which one of these guys is the bad and which one's the ugly here?

01:14:23

I volunteer as tribute for the ugly. Anthony, that leaves you as bad.

01:14:32

Well, think about it. I mean, I've been in all these situations and as we trained in ground fighting, jujitsu, and all that, we trained in all kinds of different fights.

01:14:41

And not one of them did I ever want to get into, but when we had to get our hands on somebody and physically restrain them, there's a difference between restraining somebody because you wanna stop them from hurting themselves or you or someone else, and when you actually have to fight somebody.

01:14:59

And it's vastly different than when you actually have to fight somebody who's trying to kill you.

01:15:07

And I wanna point out that when we're talking about the law enforcement, they're doing what is their job to do in whatever situation, they're not actually actively trying to kill somebody.

01:15:20

The Nazis were, they were trying to murder people. They wanted to pull people away and to kill them.

01:15:27

What we're discussing is not when police officers pull us over and give us a ticket and we don't like it, or when they're gonna tell us that we can't do something and we have to fight them on legal grounds.

01:15:39

We're talking about when somebody busts the door in to kill my wife or my child, or to hurt a family member, or I'm at church and some radical

01:15:50

BLM nut comes in with his firearms and wants to murder people in my church or burn the church down, what do

01:16:01

I do then? Well, I'll tell you what I do. I praise God that he's given me the ability to pull a firearm out and to stop them until I can't stop them anymore.

01:16:12

I'm gonna do everything I can to stop them. I just wanna make it clear, Chris and nobody else,

01:16:20

Andrew, nobody is trying to say that we just sit by willy -nilly and watch people get murdered.

01:16:26

We are the ones that are standing in the front calling people to do what's right.

01:16:32

We're calling for people to do the good, right thing. So I wanna make sure that's clear.

01:16:37

None of us are saying we just sit by and do nothing. What we're saying is we don't dishonor God while we do it.

01:16:46

So first off, there was a comment here from Linda. She said, aw, Grumpy Bear, what a saint.

01:16:53

Very good. All right, this show is about to get lively. I see someone backstage. I see someone backstage.

01:17:00

So Grumpy Bear, you gotta come out at some point in the future and talk more about what you do, because I'm fascinated by that.

01:17:07

I have a very interesting testimony. Let's put it that way. I think it's Linda who called him Grumpy Bear. His name's

01:17:13

Bear, not Grumpy Bear. My wife would agree with you. I'm just saying.

01:17:21

No, it is the only tattoo I got. And it was when I left the occult. And it was the,

01:17:28

I got the yin -yang symbol with the bear paw prints in the middle so that I could always remember that there is two sides to me, and there is the sinful person, and then there is the person that strives to pick up their cross daily.

01:17:42

And it reminds me of that balance. Okay, so you got my curiosity.

01:17:48

I mean, Anthony kind of said to give a little more, but each time you keep talking, I get more and more curious.

01:17:54

So could you give us just briefly, maybe like a five minute, like your background, your testimony?

01:18:02

Yeah, I can try to sum it up. From the ages of six to nine,

01:18:08

I was a sexual trafficking victim.

01:18:14

And the one time that I ever fought back, they went after my sister.

01:18:23

So it was at that moment, I stopped resisting. I became the defender. I took everything.

01:18:30

Oh, I always tear up, but it built the defender.

01:18:36

So I've always been that guy who wanted to be the wall. And, well, and, and I ended up needing power and I hated

01:18:53

God. I knew he existed and hated him. And so I got into the occult for a long time and I joined the

01:19:01

Navy and I ended up suffering a traumatic brain injury, which gave me brain cancer.

01:19:10

And that's what took my eyes and a bunch of other medical stuff.

01:19:16

But when I went in for the surgery, the doctor told me that I had a very low chance of survival.

01:19:26

And if I wanted to see a priest, because I didn't have any, all my dog tags,

01:19:31

I didn't have any religious affiliation. And I had a moment of perfect clarity that it was at that moment that, because I knew who

01:19:43

God was, you know, that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had no power here, that everything that I had fought against, everything that I had, you know, converted

01:20:00

Christians to become witches, to leave their faith, because I knew the

01:20:06

Bible better than they did. And that whether I lived or died on that table wasn't my call.

01:20:14

And I was okay with that. I knew that I was gonna go to hell. And it was my moment of perfect clarity.

01:20:22

And that is not where I had my conversion story, because I didn't feel that I was worthy.

01:20:29

My conversion story actually comes several years down the line. I have been working with different organizations on social media too.

01:20:40

I needed to continue, even though I'm disabled, I can't see, I'm still really good on a computer.

01:20:47

And I have, I don't ever quit. You know, I'll go four or five days without sleep to track down somebody, because I don't want anybody to be, go what

01:20:57

I went through. And my conversion story happened when six, nine months after my surgery, they had, or they had, after my surgery, they gave me six, nine months to live.

01:21:12

And that was in 2004. And so God granted me that time to,

01:21:24

I had a purpose. I had a calling. And it wasn't until my wife was very mad and I tried to take my own life, you know, the demons in the head, that the gun failed.

01:21:43

And I knew that there was God, hey, stupid, pay attention. You're not done.

01:21:50

I know God didn't call me stupid. My wife says that the only time God is gonna give my attention was to smack me with a stop sign.

01:21:58

And found out that my wife was pregnant, which he's my miracle baby. I'm not supposed to be able to have kids.

01:22:05

I don't, you know, it damaged my pituitary gland. I don't have an immune system. There's, you know, my body is broken and I lived in pain.

01:22:14

And she told me that she was pregnant. And it was at that moment, I knew that God had blessed me and I did not deserve it at all.

01:22:23

And I walked away from the occult. I walked away from alcohol.

01:22:29

I walked away from all of this stuff because I knew that I had to focus on my purpose.

01:22:37

God kept me on this earth past my expiration date. I can tell you the exact day that I was supposed to die twice.

01:22:47

And the expiration, and then the, when I tried to end it. And, you know, it was

01:22:54

PTSD and, you know, all this stuff just fell away. But I held a lot of guilt for my past.

01:23:03

And every time it seemed like I would take a step forward, you know, towards my faith, that I would get, you know, that the devil would just bring up my past.

01:23:12

And you're not worthy. And God showed me not a vision, but we were meditating and I was,

01:23:27

I wanted to understand love, you know, biblical love, not the twisted thing that I was exposed to.

01:23:35

Real biblical love. And I went and studied all the different words in the

01:23:41

Bible that, you know, love has all these different terms in the Hebrew and the Greek.

01:23:46

And so I wanted to learn all of them. And when I got to Agape, God reminded me, showed me where he was when all of this bad stuff happened.

01:23:58

How I survived it. How when the traumatic brain injury when, and I don't know how many of you are familiar with how powerful a 50

01:24:10

Cal is. I had a 50 Cal go off eight inches from my face, the end of the barrel. Ooh.

01:24:16

The doctors said, you shouldn't have a face. Just the shock wave coming out of the gun.

01:24:23

And it went through metal and rained down all of this metal. I had holes, but no punctures anywhere in my skin.

01:24:33

He showed me where he was. He showed me how he protected me, what I knew and how it built me to be who

01:24:40

I am now. Somebody who's a defender for those who cannot defend themselves. And then

01:24:46

I listened to people. No offense Andrew. I listened to people that talk about, you know, being loving and understanding.

01:24:56

And I read this book, you know, I homeschool my son. We go through it every day for hours doing different Bible studies.

01:25:09

And I try to understand this pure love that I just can't grasp, at least not the way that, you know, and I believe

01:25:25

God kept me on this earth to be a defender and to speak, but I still fight with that rage.

01:25:35

When I see evil on the earth and evil that could be stopped, you know, abortion.

01:25:42

If Christians will use that one because it's easier than child pornography to talk about.

01:25:49

Can't believe I just made that statement. But if Christians really believe they would abandon the pro -life movement and go for a straight abolition of it.

01:26:00

And yet they're willing to compromise. Don't compromise, you know, I cannot stand a compromise and maybe it's who

01:26:08

I am, you know, but I struggle with that whole love, you know, the sickly sweet love because I love my son.

01:26:19

I love my son. He's my third favorite person, you know, person, God, my wife, and then my sons.

01:26:27

And I love him, but I still disciplined him.

01:26:33

And when people talk about love, you know, especially in the church now,

01:26:39

I mean, you guys are different. John McArthur is a different, the concept of love is more encompassing, like the father type love where there's discipline and stuff like that.

01:26:51

But I hear it everywhere. And my, you know, people that I love fall into that category of they listen to pastors, they listen to megachurch podcasts, where they talk about love, you know, they want you to feel good and love everybody and don't judge anybody.

01:27:14

And I just wanna scream at them that this is not what was meant. There's a false gospel of God is love.

01:27:22

Yeah, no, the false gospel is not God is love because God is love.

01:27:27

The false gospel is love is God. Yeah, they say like that God is only love is what they end up saying.

01:27:34

But let me read to you some of the comments that were coming in as you were sharing your testimony, just so you could see what was said.

01:27:44

Lauren says, praise God, you're out of a cult. Marlene says, God bless you, brother. Purgy Talks says, praying for you,

01:27:52

Bear, God loves you. Richard said, God bless you and your brother. Marlene said,

01:27:59

I hit rock bottom too. Clergy Talks said, God is good. Lauren says, powerful testimony, brother

01:28:06

Bear. Linda is saying, thank you, Bear, for your honest humility and your testimony.

01:28:12

Humble Clay is saying, God is good all the time. And so I want you to just know that also, so you know, because I know that Pastor Justin here sent you a comment in the chat, but I don't know if you're able to.

01:28:28

Yeah, I can see it. I'll write it down. Yeah. I have a magnifier on my screen. Okay.

01:28:34

But. You can get ahold of me at just info at strivingforeternity .org.

01:28:40

All right. So we could talk. Let me, in the half hour that we have left, we have a superhero backstage who is actually clapping in enjoyment when you, you know, said about me that I wasn't, that you were like, sorry,

01:28:59

Andrew, when you were going to criticize. So he liked that part of it. But the man, the myth, the legend himself, the host of Voice of Reason, Chris Hanholds.

01:29:11

How are you, brother? And so for folks. I'm wonderful. How are you guys doing? For folks who don't know, the reason

01:29:18

I say he's a superhero, he's a police officer by day and Captain America slash

01:29:25

Daredevil by night. So he's been changing it up. I mean, there should be a rule that when he comes on the show, he has to be in costume.

01:29:33

He has to be in costume. Hey. If it makes you feel better,

01:29:38

I took out my eye patch. What's that guy's name with the eye patch on the.

01:29:46

Nick Fury. Pleasure to meet you. I usually wear an eye patch because this eye has no vision in it whatsoever, but it tends to always find the sun.

01:29:58

So I have to cover it so that I don't. I have no idea what you're talking about. So. So Chris, welcome to the show.

01:30:07

What do you have for us tonight? Just chatting. I just want to say first and foremost,

01:30:17

Barry, your testimony is absolutely powerful. Praise God for what he has done in your life. And praise God for what he has brought you through to be a trophy of his grace.

01:30:28

I mean, talk about a Saul type conversion, somebody who led Christians away from the faith, but now you're speaking for God and you're speaking his word.

01:30:39

Praise God. Praise God for that. So I just wanted to say, because I get what you were getting at earlier when you made the comment about, no,

01:30:48

Jackson, I'm not coming on in costume. You can't respond to the comment. You actually have to read it.

01:30:55

Jackson from the Philippines says, I agree with Anthony. Chris has to come on in costume.

01:31:01

So you can't just respond to the comment. You have to. You have no idea how much effort. You have no idea how much effort is involved in a costume.

01:31:10

No. So anyway. It would mean so much to me. Hey, let me talk.

01:31:21

You had made mention of the kind of the mealy, the mealy mouthed Christian, the person who says to be loving and to not necessarily fight against something.

01:31:33

And I get what you're getting at. And in fact, you had mentioned it toward the end of your testimony.

01:31:39

There are so many Christian churches, so -called that preach a

01:31:46

God of love, but never a God who is the Christ who overturned to tables.

01:31:53

Never the God who sent Israel to war or guided the rock into the head of Goliath.

01:32:00

Not the God represented by David who slayed 10 ,000. So I get what you're getting at.

01:32:07

I just wanna make a point that perhaps will clarify something. When you are, there are times as Christians, yes, we have to stand and we have to stand firm.

01:32:19

There may be times when they come to our doors, they come for our families, and they say, like the

01:32:27

Jews in Nazi Germany, into the boxcars you go. That may, and Andrew, I don't disagree with what you said earlier.

01:32:34

That day is probably closer than we think. But I also wanna point out that we also serve the

01:32:41

Christ who in the face of persecution of the worst kind when he was whipped, beaten, put on a cross, lifted up not his voice in resistance at all.

01:32:59

His love was so great for mankind, for those whom he would die, that he willingly endured the cross for that.

01:33:09

There is a love that we display sometimes in our willingness to endure for his sake.

01:33:19

So yes, I totally agree with you. There are times we have to stand up and say this far and no further.

01:33:28

But that doesn't, but just because we also recognize we may have to endure like Christ and endure willingly suffering doesn't make us melee now.

01:33:41

It doesn't mean that we don't stand up. So I just, I wanted to bring that up because I think sometimes we create a bit of a false dichotomy.

01:33:52

You're either this manly man that's going to take on bears and lions and beat them off with a club.

01:33:58

And that's a true man. Or you have to be loving and kind and rainbows and unicorns and everything's great and never want to talk about anything that might offend someone.

01:34:10

And that's how you love people. No, it's not an either or situation.

01:34:16

Every circumstance is gonna be dependent on what God has put us in.

01:34:22

And that you're gonna have to make that call based on what you know from the word of God, how you've grown, what has his

01:34:30

Holy Spirit put in your heart to deal with that situation. And I think a truly, a true man of God is he who stands up and calls sin, sin, proclaims to the world, repent because judgment is coming, turn to Christ and be forgiven.

01:34:48

And is willing to endure the slings and arrows of culture, who is willing to endure the downgrading of his character, his reputation, to have things taken from him, but is also willing to stand when someone's coming after his family, when somebody's trying to hurt another person who's not afraid to have to ball up his fists and fight if he needs to.

01:35:13

The question isn't, should we fight? Because sometimes we have to. The question is, when do we fight?

01:35:21

And that's where I think I would make that call. And I respect your service, sir. I know exactly what a 50

01:35:27

Cal can do. For you to have that gone off in front of your face in that manner, holy

01:35:33

Toledo to it. So I know what a 50 Cal can do. Praise God he spared you.

01:35:39

I've served in law enforcement for over 22 years. I've had to point my gun at people. I've had to arrest people.

01:35:46

I've had to wrestle people. And I've done so in the defense of my partners and others.

01:35:52

So believe me when I say, I absolutely 100 % agree with you that in this culture, we bred some man bunned, you know, latte sipping weaklings who couldn't fight the way out of a paper bag if they needed to.

01:36:07

But at the same time, I don't think the answer is to always take that stance. No, I agree with you.

01:36:14

Like for me, I would never raise arms to defend my own life.

01:36:21

I'm willing to lay down my life, but I'm not willing to let somebody else suffer if I can stop it.

01:36:27

I will gladly lay my life down because I look at it this way. I believe in a sovereign

01:36:32

God and he's given me 17 years past my expiration date.

01:36:38

And then another decade after I tried to take my own life, I honestly shouldn't be here.

01:36:44

So for me, it's like, yep, I'm ready. Let's go. You want me to die for you, Lord? Send me in that direction.

01:36:52

I'm going. You know, and to fend Anthony when it comes to the vaccine,

01:36:57

I believe in a sovereign God and I have no immune system. I don't wear a mask and I'm not getting vaccinated.

01:37:05

I'm just saying. And it's because I believe in a sovereign God. If it is my time, no mask, no vaccine, no hiding in my house, no hand sanitizer is going to save my life.

01:37:16

But if it is my time, but if it's not my time, no virus, no tyrannical government and no demon from hell will stop me from my appointed rounds.

01:37:28

Peter, I'm going to say this. First off, you're wrong about your expiration date. I know that for a fact.

01:37:33

You know how I know that? Because you're still alive. I agree. OK, I count it as bonus time.

01:37:42

Yeah, you won't need to die that day. And I'll agree with Chris. As someone who shot the 50

01:37:49

Cal, you know, yeah, that's it's a toy. But yeah, I'm not in front of your face.

01:37:56

For folks that don't know, it's a very big weapon and you sit very far behind.

01:38:02

I still have my. Yeah, I still have the casing.

01:38:08

They gave it to me. Wow, wow. Yeah, that's so.

01:38:14

So the thing, though, is that, you know, I think that what you're expressing is the fact that when we you're actually expressing what

01:38:24

I'm saying as far as the biblical principles of honoring God come first before honoring humans.

01:38:31

So I don't I agree with you. I don't I'd be more likely to defend someone else than defend myself.

01:38:38

You know, and I'll use I mean, I will admittedly use in crazy ways to defend myself that don't involve violence.

01:38:47

I've told this story before, but, you know, when I was in New York City as I'll say a kid, but I was like 18, 19 years old.

01:38:56

And, you know, I had someone pull a knife out on me asking me for my wallet. I don't ask me why

01:39:04

I thought of King David in the Bible. You'll know the scene. But were he asking?

01:39:10

But I started to argue with myself whether the man had a knife or not, whether I had a wallet or not, whether there was even a man there.

01:39:21

I mean, I just started to argue with myself and so convincingly that this guy figured

01:39:26

I must not have a wallet because I was insane. And he walked away. Well, that's that isn't again.

01:39:33

That's another option. The guy is asking me for my wallet. I could say, no, you can't have it or I could hand it over or I could choose to act insane.

01:39:42

Now, I do. I personally think that Dr. Svestro is not going to disagree. He's going to think

01:39:48

I am insane. Chris, I know there's no complaint from you.

01:39:54

That's right. You know, but the reality is,

01:39:59

I think there are other options that are that we sometimes overlook in how to answer an ethical dilemma.

01:40:06

And sometimes the issue is, we have to be prepared to have another way. I mean,

01:40:12

I'm going I'm dealing with a situation in my life right now where I'm dealing with some people and their default reaction is to protect themselves by lying.

01:40:22

I mean, with everything, everything that comes up, their answer is a lie. That's that's sinful.

01:40:30

It doesn't matter that you're trying to protect someone's reputation. You're lying about it.

01:40:38

And if you're doing that to protect someone's reputation, it's not honoring to God.

01:40:44

So John McCain says, a good type of crazy, Andrew. I'm with him. I like that.

01:40:51

And John, we expect to see you next week, by the way. Make sure, Anthony, that he's there.

01:40:57

I talked to him yesterday. OK, good. You know, but let me let me read one passage of scripture that many people and sorry, my

01:41:06

Bible's over on this screen. But, you know, a lot of people don't understand this passage.

01:41:12

And this is out of Philippians chapter one. Many people know and memorize the verse that says, for me to live is

01:41:22

Christ and to die is gain. And what most people, when they read that, what they focus on is living for Christ.

01:41:28

That is not Paul's focus. How do I know? Because I keep reading the context.

01:41:34

Let me continue reading. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

01:41:41

But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean more fruitful labor for me.

01:41:49

And I do not know which to choose, but I am hard pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ.

01:42:00

For this is much, very much better. Yet to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.

01:42:09

The word that he has there for, that he uses there for hard pressed.

01:42:16

It's a very interesting word in the Greek. It's a word that's used when you have a butcher would use when he's going to slaughter a cattle.

01:42:26

And so he has the very, it's a gate, a guardrail that's very wide at one end, and it just gets narrower and narrower.

01:42:34

And the animal would walk down the gate till it gets wedged in.

01:42:39

It can't move to the right or to the left. It's wedged in so that when the, sorry to get graphic, when the butcher is going to slit the throat of the animal, it doesn't ruin any of the meat.

01:42:50

It doesn't hurt anybody because it's wedged in. It can't move. That's the terminology that Paul uses to describe whether to live or to die.

01:43:00

He's saying that to die is very much better. But hey, as long as I'm here on earth, it's going to serve a purpose.

01:43:09

This is on death. His focus on when he dies and gets to be with Christ, it is far better than life, but he's wedged in.

01:43:21

He can't move between life or death, which he would desire more. I personally think that many of us as Christians need to have more of that mindset, need to have that mindset of that.

01:43:34

And where do we see that? Well, here's another passage we see in Colossians chapter three, verses one and two.

01:43:41

Therefore, if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, set your mind on the things above, not on the things of earth.

01:43:54

That's where we get the idea of striving for eternity. It's right there in that passage. We are setting our things, our minds on the things of God, so much so that the things of earth, as the hymn says, grow faintly, faintly dim, strangely dim.

01:44:11

And that's the focus is that we so focused upon Christ, that yes, bad things will happen on earth, but we are looking to see what

01:44:21

God is doing and working through every incident. That's the goal.

01:44:27

And so when I approach the issues, when I'm going to approach these things, I'm not mealy mouse and I'm not cowardly.

01:44:35

Okay, Anthony will vouch for the fact that I'll stand on street corners in New York City, and I will talk to anybody about the gospel, even when they're looking like they're going to get violent.

01:44:44

Oh, we had a time a couple years ago with some black Hebrew Israelites that... Oh, yeah. If they could have killed us there in front of the police officers, they would have.

01:44:52

Yes, they would have. I think me first. They do not like a real... Okay, so I'm not a coward in that sense.

01:45:02

I'll stand up to people, but my default is first, what's more important to me is the gospel over protecting my rights.

01:45:11

And that's where I may have a difference. I'm not so worried if we lose our rights as Christians, then we lose them.

01:45:21

If I lose the right to stand on street corners and preach the gospel, it means I'm probably going to go to jail because I'm not going to stop preaching the gospel.

01:45:32

But the thing is that if I'm... And this may be just the difference with Anthony and I.

01:45:38

If they chain up my church building, I'm just going to find another place to worship God and fight them legally.

01:45:45

That's my position. I want the gospel to be heard louder than my rights.

01:45:52

I don't think that's Mealy Mouse, but that's my position. I'm not going to run away from oppression.

01:46:03

But I'm more like you in that sense, Bear, where I'm more likely to defend someone else's right and defend someone else's life and liberty than I am my own because I know where I'm going.

01:46:17

Yeah, I know where I'm going. One thing I was going to say is if you look, what we're talking about too is you got myself and Chris down here.

01:46:27

I was a police officer for eight years and Chris has been in law enforcement for probably 100.

01:46:38

It feels like it. It feels like it. Hey, he's retiring in two years.

01:46:44

Two. The only question is... Two years and nine months. The only question is, will we be under a military state by then?

01:46:55

And will it matter that you retire because they're just going to take your retirement anyway? Well, but think about this.

01:47:04

Peter, just for a second. Here Chris is, and I was there as well.

01:47:10

We were, as Christians... I wasn't a Christian for the most time when I was in law enforcement.

01:47:17

When I became a Christian, my perspective changed. I still wanted to uphold justice.

01:47:22

I still wanted to do the things that were right and also uphold the glory of God and to do what was right within the context of the scripture.

01:47:31

And now there may come a point in time, like Andrew just said, where Chris and other officers will need to step away saying,

01:47:38

I can't go this far anymore. I mean, that may happen. But as of right now, we have godly men that are trying to uphold justice, do what's right, trying to be that salt and light in the law enforcement community.

01:47:58

And unfortunately, we have so many Christians that are saying, well, you just need to get out because bad things are happening.

01:48:05

If all the good law enforcement, all the good police officers leave, but the only thing that's going to be left is the brown shirts.

01:48:11

And I'm going to tell you, that's what the guy from the White House that stole the election. Yeah, I said it.

01:48:17

He stole the election. And I'm going to tell you, that's what they want. They want to get all the wicked people into the ranks of power.

01:48:26

They want to get all the people in the situation so that they can do whatever they want to with impunity.

01:48:32

And that is exactly what Adolf Hitler did. That is exactly what Hitler did. But it won't be the

01:48:38

Jews this time. Andrew, who's coming next? It's coming after the Christians.

01:48:43

That's who's next. And yeah, I do think that there's going to be a time we end up standing up and fighting.

01:48:50

I think there's going to come that point. But I think that we got to be more focused.

01:48:59

And let me be really clear. I'm not saying that Dr. Silvestre is not. He's on the streets just as much as I am preaching the gospel.

01:49:06

So I know how important the gospel is to him. So it's definitely not that. But for me,

01:49:12

I'm just saying that I think that the gospel has to be heard louder than our demand for our rights.

01:49:21

That's all. That's my position. So I understand what

01:49:27

Anthony's saying. I understand what Anthony's saying as well.

01:49:33

We do have to stand somewhere. And I agree with you. We've talked a lot about this.

01:49:41

We have to stand. But what are we going to stand for? Where do we draw the line?

01:49:47

And when do we stand up and say, look, what I heard Andrew say a minute ago was, is

01:49:52

I'm going to stand. I'm going to use law enforcement. I'm going to use the government as the tool that God gave us as long as it will happen.

01:50:00

And when they turn around and become the oppressors, I'm still standing and they're going to put me in prison. And that's fine.

01:50:06

I got a prison ministry. And I understand that. And I understand also where Anthony's saying, look, we've got to stand up.

01:50:13

And there comes, there does a come point in time when we do have to be there making some noise and whatnot.

01:50:19

And I agree with that too. All right. So let's close out the show. Let me go with Chris Honholz. I'm going to go with you.

01:50:25

Then Peter or Bear, we're going to let you give any closing things that you want to say.

01:50:31

And then Anthony will let you close this out before I give some, I'll give some closing comments after you. But Anthony, sorry,

01:50:37

Chris, go for it. Yeah, I just, I want to say that when it's this issue of taking the stand and standing for rights and stuff like that, which we have the legal ability to do.

01:50:50

We even have a biblical precedent for that, which Paul Evans is in the book of Acts when he says, is it right to treat a

01:50:56

Roman citizen this way? The question though, I think the Christian is why are we doing it? Why are we taking that stand?

01:51:04

I think Andrew, this is where what you said makes the most importance.

01:51:10

We take the stand, not just simply because this is our right, but we take the stand because we are called by God to proclaim his gospel, his message of repentance, his call to turning to Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

01:51:30

And we live in a place in time where we have that ability, at least for the moment, to do so freely.

01:51:38

And so when we stand and we say, government, you are wrong in doing what you're doing.

01:51:44

I like what Tom Askell has said from Founders Ministries, government, get back in your lane. They have a lane that God has set them to be in their place for as ministers of righteousness.

01:51:57

In other words, protecting and establishing law and holding people to godly laws, but when they start to interfere in the lives of Christians who are doing what they are supposed to do, gathering for church, proclaiming the gospel, going out into the street and making disciples, standing outside of abortion clinics and begging women not to murder their children.

01:52:23

The government has no right to do that because the God that gives them their authority is the

01:52:28

God who has given us our marching orders. And so when we do stand, let's not do it because we're second amendment, hoorah, first amendment, constitutionalist and all this stuff.

01:52:39

Not that those are bad things to support, but because we are God's ministers, we are

01:52:46

God's servants for his gospel and his glory. And so when we do stand, we do because we have our orders from God and no government gets to tell us what we can and can't do.

01:52:59

And will that put us on the front line? Will that put us in a place where we were going to one day be going head to head with the government?

01:53:07

Yes, and I think very, very soon. So to Bear's point, I absolutely agree. We do have to stand up and we do have to be willing to fight, but we do it in a way that we are proclaiming

01:53:16

Christ and his message of the gospel. That's all I'm saying. Okay, Bear, I'm going to put you up next.

01:53:25

So anything you want to close out with? Yeah, when we look in the

01:53:30

Bible, when it comes to the line, my line was March of last year, but the historical standard for Christians should always be when the state commands that which

01:53:46

God forbids or forbids that which God commands, we have a duty to obey

01:53:51

God rather than man. And regardless of your political leanings or your ideologies, you know, we can see through Scripture and through history times where that narrative has been changed that we obey the state and we don't question and we need to strike that delicate balance.

01:54:19

What I love about America is that we have the doctrine of the lesser magistrate where we have the sheriffs that can oppose, you know, the governments ahead of them.

01:54:31

The states can oppose the federal government. And it's not just an

01:54:39

American thing. We just celebrated the 500th anniversary of the

01:54:45

Madgeberg Confession, which was written by the guy who rescued Martin Luther. And he really lays out the doctrine for that where it talks about when we should and we should not resist.

01:55:00

And they give examples like we don't, you know, the different governments that govern man, you know.

01:55:07

And I just, we need to not be ruled by our emotions.

01:55:15

And I struggle with that a lot when it comes to action and both for or against the government.

01:55:26

If you support it, don't use emotions to support it. Use logic and facts and reasoning. So that's all

01:55:32

I got. Okay, so we're almost into Anthony time.

01:55:38

Maybe what I should do is I should just close the show out now. Or what

01:55:44

I could do is I could just say my closing comments and then just let you go as long as you want, Anthony.

01:55:49

We'll just all leave. And, you know, an hour later, you'll be here by yourself still talking. Folks that don't know what

01:55:56

Anthony time is, the show's two hours, but when Anthony seems to make it go longer, you know, he likes to go into the long hours.

01:56:04

But anyway, I'll keep it short. I like what everybody has said. I think it's a great balance.

01:56:10

And, you know, I pray that for all of us,

01:56:15

God, through his word, is going to be able to prepare us enough to be able to face these realities.

01:56:24

It's great when we're on screen and we have a chance to just kind of talk about these things in our comfy chairs and our comfy homes with a thermostat set just right.

01:56:34

It's another thing when it's the barrel, we're looking down the barrel when we're having, when we're in the middle of it all, right?

01:56:41

And so, you know, we pray, one, for that we are prepared very well biblically.

01:56:47

And then number two, that we do a good job in our preparation to be able to hold our ground the way we're supposed to biblically, right?

01:56:57

Because that is the primary thing. And so, but I do appreciate everyone's words here.

01:57:05

Peter, of course, you know, you and I are kindred spirits in terms of where you stand on this.

01:57:12

It's pretty much where I stand. It's where a number of other brothers stand. We're going to do a show one of these days on this because I think it's good for people to continue to hear this and for us to continue to be prepared in our minds for these things happening.

01:57:27

So turn it over to you, Andrew. All right. Well, again, another great show. Just for the record, we're what looks like three minutes early.

01:57:36

So before Anthony time, but we'll see if we can end on time. Just saying, he's laughing in the background as well.

01:57:45

But we want to just let you know, this is a ministry of striving fraternity. We hope you enjoyed this. We hope that you got value out of this, that you found some value in what we've done here for you.

01:57:55

If so, would you consider supporting us? Would you consider coming alongside of us as we are trying to produce good content for you, help you in your

01:58:04

Christian walk, help you to grow, help you to think through these things. You can support us. Just go to strivingforeternity .org

01:58:12

support. That's strivingforeternity .org support.

01:58:18

You can give monthly. You can give yearly. You can give weekly. You could give one time offering, whatever.

01:58:24

Monthly helps us because it helps us to be able to line up our monthly bills. But I've really been given a plea to folks recently, just to let folks know, want to be open with you guys and let you know,

01:58:41

COVID has not been good for ministries like ours, where we travel and speak. And that's where we get a lot of our donations.

01:58:47

And we go into churches where they can't afford us and can't afford any seminars.

01:58:53

And so we try to help those smaller churches, which most people don't want to deal with. And so because of that, we're down our donations due to COVID is down 60%.

01:59:04

And that's a large chunk that's going to make a big difference in what we're capable of doing next year.

01:59:09

And so we're asking that if possible, whatever the amount, if you could help us out, that would be a great help.

01:59:17

If you could just go to strivingforeturning .org and support with any amount possible, we would greatly appreciate it.

01:59:24

We could really use your support. So if you've got some value out of this, then we hope that it would be enough that you might come $1, $2, $5, $100, whatever you can give, we appreciate it.

01:59:37

So until next week, again, I don't know if we're going to have a show. We're going to try to do a live show from Orlando, Florida.

01:59:45

Just be going to the, watch the Facebook group, the Apologetics Live Facebook group. We will announce in there whether we're going to have the show or not.

01:59:54

We will, if you're not part of that Facebook group, you can go join. It's where you give updates about the show.

01:59:59

We answer questions from there. So that'd be a good place to go. And if we don't have a show next week, then the week after,

02:00:06

I think maybe we'll have the two Justins doing a show as Dr. Fletcher and I will still be in Florida enjoying the no mask mandate.

02:00:16

Yay. See you next time. Just remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.