Christian Responsibility to Other Christians

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Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.
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This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.
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All right, we are live. So we are, I'm Andrew Rappaport from strivingforeternity .org, I'm with a good friend of mine,
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Greg from Dead Man Walking, and we're hoping to get our mutual friend, Keith Foskey, from Your Calvinist together.
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This is something we're doing kind of just spur of the moment. I know folks may not have known in our audiences we were looking to do this, but we actually had a reason for doing this.
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We want to talk about Christians' responsibility to other Christians. We got some good questions that we're going to discuss, hopefully be educational for everyone.
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But the real purpose behind it is to help a fellow
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Christian family. Someone that Greg and Keith and I all know got to meet, Aaron Brewster, he was impacted by Hurricane Helen, and what we're trying to do is do a give, send, go to help him raise money.
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I'll just show this really quick. That was the wrong one. I want to get both of us there. There we go. Make that bigger.
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That's a picture for those who are watching the video. In the center there, that's his mailbox. That's how high the water came in.
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We'll talk about it more later on, but basically he is, they lost their vehicles, their water came up, took out their
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HVAC system, his son was living in the RV because he lives in his parents' place while the
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RV is toast, filled with water. So we wanted to try to help support him, but we also, and so we have a give, send, go if you want, and we'll put it up throughout, givesendgo .com
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.sfe has the details there. But we figured let's not just make this about supporting a person.
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We wanted to get in some good discussion, and so Greg, when we talk about Christian responsibility to other
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Christians, I guess the first thing, right, you and I were talking some questions we should first ask.
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I'll hand it over to you to maybe, you could either share what you want about Aaron or start us off with some fun discussion.
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Oh yeah, absolutely. First of all, thank you for inviting me onto this live stream because we were talking off air a little bit too, and it's like, you know, a lot of Christians talk about charity.
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They talk about giving. They talk about discipling. They talk about all these things.
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But when their money has to meet the road, right, when they got to put their money where their mouth is or however you say that, they disappear, it seems like.
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It seems like, oh, I don't want to give to that or do that, right? So I have a brother in you,
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Andrew Rappaport, when you said, hey, we met this guy. We've hung out a few times. We were with him for three or four days at the conference last year in February.
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He's got 10, 12 or 10 foot of water in his house. He's, you know, basically the house is ruined.
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I've worked in restoration, water restoration for quite a while, especially in real estate. That house is destroyed.
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You said, let's raise some money and have good discussion. And I went, well, here's a brother that I that I know.
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And you're a brother that I know. And I love the fact that you actually are a man of action and you just don't sit back and write books about charity and talk about giving cheerfully, but you're actually doing it and you're using the platform at your disposal.
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You're using your connections and networking to go. Yeah, I want to help this brother out. So, yeah, that link on there, guys, if you're watching right now, go give freely because we're brothers in the
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Lord. He's a brother in the Lord. That's all you need to know. And honestly, that's how the church should work.
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We should not be waiting for FEMA to give us a seven hundred and fifty dollar check. The Biden Harris presidency, while giving out millions and millions and millions of dollars and billions of Ukraine and millions of illegal immigrants, they're going to write you a check for 750 bucks.
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So I can tell you right now, Mr. Or Mrs. Christian, the government does not love you, does not like you and will not provide for you.
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But who will is God. And how does God provide for you through the loving, cheerful, giving and charity of your brothers and sisters in the
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Lord? That's how it's supposed to work. Right, Andrew. So, yes, we're doing this to help with Aaron Brewster, whose house was essentially destroyed.
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But also, I think this is an important discussion to have because this is an area where I see a lot of Christians talk about it, but they don't have the action to back it up or they've given and seceded to the secular culture and said, oh, well,
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I'll get on that welfare check. I'll collect that government assistance. I'll take that PPP loan that's forgivable.
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I'll take that hurricane money. Now, look, I'm not saying all of it's sinful or biblically unjust or anything like that.
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I'm saying we're going to have a discussion about what our default should be as Christians. And I think these four questions that you have here,
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Andrew, are phenomenal because we're not really talking about it. And this is a great time to talk about it. Yeah, no,
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I have to laugh. You mentioned the seven hundred and fifty dollars that the Biden -Harris campaign is giving to those in need, because I don't know if you noticed or if you heard on the news, but they're like, you know,
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Biden's press secretary was saying, well, these people don't want it. They're not they're not taking advantage of it.
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Yeah, because you're requiring people that have no electricity to first go online. Online.
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Yeah, a little out of form. You gave them a time limit and they have to have electricity, which they don't have.
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They need to get a computer, which is not where you like. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Oh, it's ridiculous.
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Let's not forget, too. And I don't want to make this too political, but for those watching out there, let's not forget that that Trump underfunded the
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FEMA budget. OK, you can say that he did do that. He cut it down. Biden came into office.
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He didn't refund it. He didn't build it back up. He kept it low. But then what he did is he made two subcategories.
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One was for relief. One was for immigrants. And he took the money from the relief, gave it all to immigrants and then said, hey, we don't have any money.
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And when people press back on, he said, what, I didn't spend FEMA funds on immigrants. That fund is still there.
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It's just depleted. So that's the word games that they're playing. So, yeah, the seven hundred fifty dollars will barely cover your
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Uber ride to the next state over where there is a hotel available. It's ridiculous. We shouldn't be depending on a secular government for anything.
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I think we should be depending on the charity aid and love of our brothers and sisters who are we who are we're bonded to by the blood of Christ.
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Yeah. So so a question that we started with, you and I were talking should
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Christians rely on government assistance? So what do you think? Should we were as Christians, whose responsibility is it?
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Look, look, look, look, look. First of all, you know, me and you are the same here. We need to define terms. What are we talking about when we say rely on?
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Let's define that for the listeners. Are we saying habitual all the time without looking for any new type of work or changing your situation?
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And hey, the money's coming in. So that's what I'll rely on that way or rely on for a few weeks or a few months in a situation where you need financial aid.
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Are we talking about all those things? Well, it could be all those things. I mean, right now, specifically thinking with a situation like this, where people have unexpected emergencies that occur now, we could look
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I mean, you think of the welfare system. I mean, look, where where did the welfare system come from?
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First Timothy Chapter five. That's where I mean, that's where we see it. Right. It actually comes from the synagogue, the synagogues.
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Well, Acts Chapter six. Why did we have the deacons, the first deacons?
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It was because their widows weren't being taken care of because they weren't being treated in the synagogue anymore as as believers.
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So now they needed help. So it's like, OK, we got it. So it was always in biblical times, it was always that the church slash go further back synagogues responsibility to care for those in need, even if they were in in need for a long time, because they're
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First Timothy five gives us some instructions for the widow. Right. Chapter five, verse three, you know, honor the widows who are widows indeed.
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In other words, and he describes what that means. OK, they don't have children or grandchildren that could take care of them. But if they are widows, indeed, verse five, what do you do?
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Well, they shouldn't be left alone. And so it says in verse nine, a widow should be put on the list only if she is less than 60 years old, if she's not less than 60 years old and has been a been the wife of one man, having a reputation and good works.
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Right. So there's instructions. OK, if she has no other means of taking care of herself, if she can't remarry.
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Paul says to Timothy, the church has a responsibility to take care of her. And that would be a long term. Yeah, yeah.
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So, I mean, you see, biblically, our responsibility, the church's responsibility is to those in need, the widow, the poor.
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Right. It's not the government. So first and foremost on should Christians rely on government assistance?
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My first answer is no, at all costs. Try not to just because the word rely also assumes trust.
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And frankly, I don't trust the politicians and the federal and state governments that are in charge of our civil sphere right now.
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Wait a minute. Aren't you a politician? I am a local politician and I make sure that we that we not only cut taxes, but we spend appropriately within our means.
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We've rolled back all kinds of taxes in my tenure in eight years. We're one of the counties in Michigan that are doing that.
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We have a budget surplus, which then we reduce our budget each year. That's unheard of.
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But but that's only because there's guys like me on the board that are always pushing for that. You know, a lot of a locally elected official state and federal, they become apathetic.
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And it's all about how much more can we take. That's why we're running a 30 trillion dollar deficit.
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But my point being is the churches have stepped back over the last hundred years. I know you and I were talking offline earlier and just going, you know, a hundred years ago, you could go to a
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Catholic charity if you lost your job or if you had substance abuse issues or you were a widow.
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They would train you. They would house you. They would feed you for amount of time. They would job place you. You were required to go to mass, but they would get you back on your feet.
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And the Catholic Church did that. There was many Presbyterian and Baptist churches that had those same types of programs.
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And then you have the end of World War one and two. You have the introduction in 1913 of the federal income tax.
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You have the expansion of the progressive government by Roosevelt. And next thing you know, churches have just stepped back and they've said, oh,
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I guess it's the government's job to take care of people who can't help themselves. And instead, the church has turned inward and started building their 10 million dollar churches and running churches like an escort, paying their pastors millions of dollars.
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And now I'm generalizing. But that goes on a lot. You have to realize if we had if we took 20 billion dollars, put it into a fund, we could buy every single homeless person here in America a house.
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OK, we said 30 billion to Ukraine just last month. 20 billion. We could solve homelessness. Guess what?
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If you take the top 50 mega churches and you add together their budget, it's about 20 billion dollars.
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That's insane. That's that's telling you that the church has the resources to take care of every single person in this country appropriately.
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But we just choose not to. And that's horrendous. So it's on us as the church. I would say as a person.
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Yeah. Don't get hooked into the welfare, to the food card, to to government assistance on the other side of that.
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Always have a plan A, B and C to make sure you have backup plan as a Christian. We should be planning right.
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We should be looking forward and saying, what can I do in these situations if I'm a husband or a father and I have to provide for my kids and my wife and even provide for myself if I'm single,
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I should have passive income set up. I should have things going to where I don't have to look to a civil government to say, please help me.
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I can look to my brothers and sisters in the Lord or I have plans set up to where I can be self -sufficient. You know, they put this thing at Ross.
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Ross Perry says it's like he's almost as if he was listening to you and I talked before we started.
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And he's just a great straight man here. He says, why has benevolent funds? Why benevolent fallen aside?
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And I really think Ross said that. You said that. Yeah. Before we talk about that. Exactly. I didn't plan that, but Ross, I mean,
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I think the reason really comes down to we were, you know, Greg and I were talking before we went live and I said,
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I think it's because of the Scopes Monkey Trial. You think about it. What happened after the
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Scopes Monkey Trial? The argument for evolution in public school, you end up having an embarrassment from a fundamentalist.
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And for the record, I graduated from a dispensational fundamental Baptist seminary, right?
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But it was the fundamentalist. It was the fundamentalist, though, that they were embarrassed by the
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Scopes Monkey Trial when the lawyer got put, he was allowed to put him, he let the other lawyer put him on the stand and ends up arguing for a mix between evolution and creation.
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Oh, God created evolution. And it was a theistic evolution. It was an embarrassment. And what did what did the fundamentalist churches do?
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Pulled out of society altogether, pulled out of churches, pulled out of everything. And in doing so, they created this vacuum for secular humanism and the government to just come right in.
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So where the church used to do the well would do welfare and take care of people. The church has pulled into themselves, created this vacuum.
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And, you know, as you mentioned, you know, you think about the New Deal and all that. I mean, it's just, yes, we'll take you.
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We'll create a welfare system. We'll take you all. And you just have to keep voting for us to keep this going. That's that's such a good point.
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I didn't even really think about that trial. But, yeah, you see a pulling back. And you also see the church not being the center of the cultural center of the local neighborhood or city or town or village.
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Right. Yeah. Like think even a hundred years ago, more prevalent, maybe one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty years ago, but even a hundred in the 1920s, before entertainment, before rock stars, before celebrities, before radio stars, you had the church was the cultural center of your geographical area of your town or village or wherever you lived.
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I mean, it was like, what's going on at the church? What is the what did the pastor preach about this week? He's visiting the smaller towns.
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It's like we've really stepped back in the churches. You know, we haven't been the cultural center for seventy five, eighty years, a hundred years now.
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So it's like, how do you expect the church to step in and help when they've abandoned all their other duties as well as being being the cultural leaders?
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We've just bowed to the secular culture. And we've said, OK, federal government, state governments, you take care of our widow and poor.
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We don't think that's a true commandment in the New Testament. Just like you pulled up earlier, Andrew, we're going to abdicate our duties and we'll let the politicians sort it out.
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And I get more I'm more upset of churches making that decision over the last seventy five years than I would ever be upset with someone taking assistance.
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I'm just saying I don't think it's not a good road to go down. Try to be self -sufficient.
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Trust in the Lord. He's sovereign overall. Now, look, there might be times when that is part of God's plan.
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And that is something that that's why we are wise and discerning. And we meditate on the word of God and we listen to the
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Holy Spirit when he speaks through the word of God. But overall, generally speaking, for question one, yeah, not a good idea to be part of.
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You have a partner in the federal government when you do any of that, when you own a business, when you take welfare, when you take assistance, when you take loans or grants, they are a 50 50 partner now.
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And don't be unequally yoked, as the Bible says. I probably think they're more than a 50 50 partner.
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I think they see themselves as 100 percent once they once they get in a little bit. You know, it is kind of interesting because around Christmastime every year when
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I used to pastor a church, we would get people that are on government assistance and they need something for the kids for Christmas.
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And you know what the government would do? Call your local church. They would send it to a church to get these calls.
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I need something for my kids for Christmas. You know, I'm on welfare. I have nothing, you know, get all the sob stories.
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And, you know, but like you said, we did require they had to come to church. If they came to church, we would we'd share the gospel with them and do things.
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But yeah, it is it is a thing you made a good point relying on it. I think as Christians, we should be finding means, you know, if you have someone in the church who is really not looking for work, you know, they're they're on government assistance.
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They're not looking and they're able bodied. That could be a sin. But as you and I are talking about work, you don't eat the
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New Testament says, yeah. Yeah. But then who's the question now is if if if relying on government assistance is a sin, whose sin is it?
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Is it the individual who does that? OK, well, it could be. But we also say it's the church's responsibility because they didn't do anything like or disciple them properly to say that that isn't what you should be doing.
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Right. Yeah. I mean, yeah, no, I agree. I mean, it's the church that pulled out if the
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I mean, if the church is not taking care of, especially those within their church. Right.
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I mean, that's a command we see or instructions we see from in Timothy. Why is the church not doing that?
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Yeah. I mean, it's very easy for us, I think, Greg, to say, oh, government bad, government bad.
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Let's all blame the government. But the government took over what the church used to do. We complain about the government, but it used to be the church a hundred years ago before the
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Scopes Monkey trial. It was the church that did the educating. Yeah, it was the church that was the that's why evolution became such an issue, because it was the public education was done with a heavy
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Christian emphasis. Yeah. And so when the church pulls out, well, now you got that problem, though.
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So the government comes in and says, OK, we got that. We'll take the education. We'll take the welfare with everything the church used to do.
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Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Yeah. So question number two here says during disasters, who is the first in to help the church or who is the first in to help the church or the left that claims they are a little snarky on your questions there?
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I'm so yeah, that's a good point, though. Like what say what you were saying earlier, how you were like, we don't see any leftists down there.
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Yeah. Right now we see a bunch of churches helping people. Right now you have Milton, you have
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Helen, these two hurricanes, who are the first ones in? Yeah, it was the
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Christian churches that went in there. I know people that that from different parts of the country that weren't affected, but they they went in there.
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Now, granted, I do know one that after Helen, someone who I know was had news, knew a
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Christian brother that was that came out to try to bring him food, water, different supplies.
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He, you know, and he was stopped by FEMA. FEMA stopped this person and said, if you go, they had
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FEMA wanted to confiscate all the the water because he had just gallons and gallons, gallons of water, all this water and food in the back of his bed.
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They wanted all of it and they were going to distribute it. And if he didn't, they they were going to arrest him.
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Wow. It was like, that's crazy. Yeah, it's like, no, I'm going to I'm going to a friend's and I'm going to help someone individually.
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But yeah, I mean, this is the thing. It's the Christians that go in first, the left. They say they care with seven hundred and fifty dollar.
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By the way, that's the those that came here illegally that got the FEMA money don't have to pay it back.
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But I don't know if you know, Greg. The FEMA money for those in the hurricane, the seven hundred and fifty dollars, if you have a working computer and have electricity and can apply.
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And also part of that is there's all there was like, you know, how much money you make things like this.
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But if you can get that, don't forget, you got to pay that back. Yeah, it's a loan. It's a loan. That's crazy, man.
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So, yeah, you know, I was just going to jump on your jump on your point as well, too, and just say, look, that's all we see all day long is leftists and progressives and nonbelievers going, where's your charity?
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You guys don't care about the woman. You guys don't care about the climate. You guys don't help people. You know, the big argument on abortion is, well, what about after they're born?
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Why don't Christians believe in, you know, and it's a false argument. Of course, more adoption agencies are owned by Christians, more, you know, aftercare pregnancy centers, all
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Christian, Christian, Christian, Christian. Right. But here's where the rubber meets the road. And if you go take your cameras down in the last two, three weeks down to these places that were hit,
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I don't see any blue haired people. I don't see purple haired, you know, nose and, you know, lip ring people walking around non -binaries.
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I see a bunch of churches. I see the Red Cross. I see a bunch of people, you know, using it as a mission field.
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So it's like, what are we talking about here? Because the church has always been the first to respond.
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I, you know, we just in the last segment, you know, basically called out the church and got mad at him.
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But, you know, and said, hey, fix your stuff. But I will compliment the
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Western Christian church for this. We are very good at making sure we respond in times of crisis.
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Maybe it needs to be more than times of crisis. But at times of crisis, we're the first in line to help, to give money, to give time, to give effort, support.
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So I would I would say kudos to the church, because, yeah, that's all you saw on the videos down there were churches.
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And that's why we're doing this as a way to help at least one family, the Brewsters, who were struck by hurricanes, by the
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Hurricane Helen. He is someone who's devoted his life to Christian ministry, lives in a very meager means that he could be in full time ministry.
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We've brought him on as one of our speakers at Striving Fraternity. And we're trying to raise the funds to help him out.
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So you could go to GiveSendGo .com slash SFE. GiveSendGo .com slash
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SFE. I'm going to have that here on the video. You know, I'll have this. I'll put that in.
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I'm going to make at least I'll make this into a podcast episode and we'll I'll put it in the show. Can you show that picture again for those watching?
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Sure. Look at that. I mean, so you figure that's at least five foot of water there.
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Yeah. I mean, if you look at if you look at the house across the street from in the center, there is his mailbox. So it's all the way up to the mailbox.
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It's very not only the house, but think about personal items all the time and effort it takes for all those people to to get back documentation and all that stuff, man.
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And it's like there is so heart wrenching. And absolutely.
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Aaron Bruce is a brother in the Lord. He needs financial support. We're going to support him.
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So, yeah, GiveSendGo .com forward slash SFE. Yeah. I mean, one of the things to realize is you mentioned documentation, things like that.
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Well, all of that was stored in their basement. And that's what so he was and he shares the story in this.
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They had several sump pumps going, pumping out a hundred gallons a minute until the electricity went out.
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Wow. I mean, you know, you're just you're pumping, pumping, pumping, pumping. So they knew they were once electricity went, they were done.
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And so all the storage they had in the basement, it's all gone. I mean, you know, so I mean, but this this is the thing.
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I mean, when we think of these these disasters. The question is, is how can how can we as the church take care of others in time of disaster?
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And I mean, yeah, we can be the first ones in. Yeah, there are some people who are
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EMTs and if you're an EMT, I mean, there's there are, you know, maybe there's not much the
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Southern Baptists do well, but at least at least one thing the Southern Baptists do well is they do have an emergency relief group that is one of the first ones to go in and they're volunteers.
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So when you're giving to them to support those efforts, you know, I get it that some people feel they can't give to the
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Southern Baptist Convention, but but if you are, I mean, you're giving you're giving to volunteers to go into situations like that.
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It's much better than the Red Cross. You know, yeah, I'll just I'll just let you know it's a big thing happened with the
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Red Cross in 9 -11. They raised a billion dollars after 9 -11.
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Some of you are going 9 -11. What's that? I'm not that old. Yeah, OK. You'll read about it in the books.
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But they raised so much money in outpouring to help the families that what the
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Red Cross did was they were like, oh, well, you know what we should do? We should put this money in the bank and we'll use the interest.
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Nice. Granted, the interest on a billion dollars is enough to take care of people. But people are like, no, no, no, we didn't give you the money so you can have a, you know, have a nest egg for the organization.
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But that's how some of these big organizations now think. Yeah. You know, but there are churches that are going around trying to raise funds and help.
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And there's churches in that area that have been devastated. Yeah. So, you know, that's why we want to do this.
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We wanted to do it. You know what little we could do to help at least one family that has a lot of expenses now and they don't have the means.
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And you've got to realize that as a church member, as a believer, churches just don't help by writing a check.
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I mean, you have congregations that have gifts, congregants that have gifts and skills.
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Right. Especially, you know, I think of my church. We have guys that own drywall companies, construction companies.
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I'm a real estate broker. I have guys that are painters. I have guys that do fire and water restoration.
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We have guys that do web design. We have it right. And they're all very skilled. Most of them own their own business.
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If not, they're an influencer or a decision maker at their business. That's how you can help as well, too.
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I mean, we built a 20 ,000 square foot church and it was all on the back of the congregants coming in and doing the concrete and doing the roof.
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And right now, it all pass code and everything. Don't worry. You come to my church. It's not going to collapse. We're all skilled labor.
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But the point being is there's ways for churches to help outside of just, oh, here's some money.
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Right. Correct. A church I used to go to, we had flooding in mid -Michigan up here.
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Some dams broke and it flooded a whole city. And all the churches down here in Monroe County, which we were 200 miles away south, all the churches got together and sponsored a whole house and went up with their church members and ripped out drywall, restarted walls, retiled.
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Right now, there was some money given, but the majority of that help was done by actual labor, by skilled congregants and church members.
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And that's just that's just as ineffective. And sometimes it's harder to do right to give your time and your skill instead of I just write them a five hundred dollar check.
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I'll write them a thousand bucks. Right. That's easier to do when you have actual believers that go,
29:11
I want to give my time away from my family and my wife and my job or whatever to go help this person.
29:17
I mean, that's true charity. So it's not just writing a check. I think in that third question, how can we care for people, how the church can care for people in disasters?
29:24
That's one way to let's let's think about how we can use our skills that God gave us, our gifts that he gave us, how we can use it better for the kingdom and helping others, too.
29:32
And some of this stuff doesn't take you. You don't have to be an expert in drywall or some of it just after a disaster like this, you just need someone to come and just shift through all the garbage, throw out the trash or sift through this.
29:47
OK, yeah, no, this toss it right. I mean, a lot of it is going to be thrown out and it's, you know,
29:53
I mean, that's what Aaron had to do. So Aaron, Aaron actually couldn't leave his house because I think his father has health issues.
29:59
So his father couldn't be evacuated. So his his wife and daughter got evacuated.
30:05
His son happens to be in in Washington, D .C. He is an actor in the
30:11
Pilgrim's Progress play that they have there at the Museum of the Bible. Oh, cool. Yeah, it actually was kind of neat.
30:16
I went down there not knowing his son was going to be in there. And so I got I got to hang out with his son at the
30:22
Museum of the Bible. But you look at that. He's he had to stay behind, take care of his father, try to.
30:30
And they're trying to like he's trying to take as much of the storage out from the basement, get it as high as they can.
30:36
They tried getting everything as high as they could. But, you know, he's he's not a young guy anymore.
30:42
He's like, you know, going down there and doing all that. He was like he was in pain and he had to speak at the
30:47
ACBC conference in Dallas like a week or so after that. Wow.
30:53
So he's he's trying to like get his family set up. So he was working nonstop when the water started to recede to get them where they like to be, where they could be able to be
31:03
OK for him to go and speak. And so he had to wait to try to get out of town.
31:09
And, you know. Well, look, if there's anyone on this live stream to that would feel the urge to to donate to this,
31:17
I would say do it. He's a good brother in the Lord. He's been through a lot. Give send go dot com forward slash
31:23
SFE. I know, Andrew, you have it here up on the screen. I'll make sure I link it to this live stream when we're done as well, too.
31:30
And I mean, Aaron, what a fun time we had with him in February. Really loved his sense of humor.
31:36
You and him together are hilarious. And we all stayed in the same house for like three or four days, but just a good brother in law doing a lot of good stuff for family ministry as well, too.
31:45
I know he's connected with striving for eternity. But last time I checked, he was doing a lot of family ministry stuff, too, right?
31:52
Like he counseling or. Yeah, he does. Evermind Ministries, which he does. He's got a podcast called
31:57
Truth, Love, Parent and Celebration of God. He does counseling. He's an ACBC counselor. And so he's got his own ministry.
32:05
And I mean, what we do at Striving Fraternity is we disciple. So he's he wanted to get out, start doing public speaking.
32:11
So I said, well, why don't you come join us, travel with, you know, get to travel with me and speak at places and then he'll get better known and and get some.
32:19
He's he's probably a better speaker than me. So I think it won't be too long before people are asking for him instead of me.
32:28
But that's all good. OK, as we put bookends on this, this question number four here is one that I really like because you brought it up, a viewer, a listener brought it up.
32:40
We were mean to churches in the beginning of this. Then we got nice to churches. Now we're going to be mean again a little bit. I said, do churches have a fund for these needs?
32:47
Is there a benevolence fund? Like I feel like that benevolence fund has went away in general.
32:52
I mean, that was a good question to ask. What do you think, Andrew? I mean, is that something that more churches need to be aware of, like having a special set aside fund for stuff like this?
33:01
Yeah, I mean, I have been almost every church I've been in has had a deacon's fund to take care of people that maybe in the church something happens.
33:09
OK, we're we're low. You know, I had a bad week, you know, something unexpected. And in all churches
33:15
I've been in, typically what they'll do, they don't give money, but they'll pay bills. Something happens and you got a car accident.
33:21
OK, you know, here's some money to to pay bills, things like that. But I haven't been in any churches where they actually had a plan.
33:30
My very first church, we were talked about it, of having an actual widow's fund, of actually setting money aside to take care of the widows and the, you know, to take care.
33:41
We at the time, the reason it came up is we had someone who was on welfare. And so the pastor put it before the congregation and said, look, we have a person who, you know, she got saved.
33:52
She was on welfare before. We didn't feel it right to be on welfare. But church, if you guys don't think it's right for her to be on welfare, we either need to start giving her some training so she can get a job or what we need to do is we need to start raising money to take care of those in need.
34:11
And so we had a discussion at a church level about it, but I've never heard that anywhere else.
34:17
I don't know of any churches that really have, unless they're like the really big megachurches, that have big funds where they actually plan.
34:23
I mean, I don't know a single one that has plans for like hurricanes. Yeah, you would think those in the hurricane path would might have that because I was that's what
34:32
I got me thinking when you mentioned this, I go, man, the ones that are in Florida and kind of the
34:37
South, I wonder if some churches go, hey, X amount of the budget needs to go to natural disaster funding for when our church congregates and those around us in our neighborhood are put out like this.
34:49
I think it would be very smart, intelligent thing to do. Yeah. I mean, we, I think,
34:55
I think if you think about it, though, so many churches. Okay. So the average size church is 75 people.
35:02
Yeah. Small, actually pretty small. Yeah. So when you look at the church and when they, when we talk church, when they talk about the church sizes, they're not distinguishing.
35:12
They're including Joel Osteen in those types. Right, right, right. So when you think of those churches that have thousands and thousands of people.
35:19
Which, which by the way, locks their doors when it floods. Remember that like five years ago or whatever that was?
35:26
Hello? Yeah. Yeah. They weren't trying to get into that. Can we stay here? And he's like, oh, no, door's locked. I'm out of town.
35:31
Yeah. You got some pushback on that. That was nuts. But anyway, rightfully deserved. But yeah,
35:38
I mean, how many churches are 20, 25 people with a pastor who's bivocational that they're barely paying him?
35:45
Are they really going to be able to, if they can't pay their pastor, how are they going to have a deacon's fund? I mean, they got, we got to take care of the pastor first, right?
35:55
Because he's laboring on behalf of, of the church. And so you think about it, that's, we got to first make a distinguishing thing.
36:06
I mean, I think the churches need to take care of the pastors first. But after that, I think that churches should have a sizable, if they can, start saving towards sizable money to keep in the bank for major things.
36:19
If something was to happen. Look, I'm not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, though I am a
36:25
Levite. But the thing though is, is I'm just going to predict this isn't a prophecy.
36:36
So, you know, Michael Brown, if you're listening, sorry, that's not a prophecy. Okay. He's taking notes right now for you guys in discussion in the future.
36:44
That's right. Try to get there. Yeah. Well, the, the, the reality is I think come, come
36:51
November, I'm saying if Donald Trump wins, there is going to be mayhem in the streets.
36:59
I think there's going to be churches that are going to be burning. Really? Oh yeah. Yeah. I think,
37:04
I think that they're going to, between, between November through to January. I think it's to be worse than BLM riots and they're going to just let it go.
37:13
And they're going to say, it's all Trump's fault. It would be an actual insurrection with violence, you know, and they won't do anything to stop it.
37:20
It is crazy because they always, the left always says, Oh, the crazy conservative gun toting, whatever, but it's always the left that always riots and breaks and burn stuff.
37:29
That's nuts. Yeah. Yeah. Cause the, the, the supposed insurrection on January 6th, that's a weird thing. They forgot to bring their guns.
37:36
Actually, some of the guys got in trouble. Brought a Buffalo headdress. Yeah. Well, there's, there's, there's one guy that got in trouble for leaving his gun behind.
37:44
He's, he was arrested for leaving his gun in the hotel, locked up. So see, that's something we do at deer camp.
37:50
I mean, you come up to deer camp, you don't bring at least five guns. We're probably not letting you in. You know, I got to come to deer camp.
37:57
I can bring six. Hey, Hey, if you make that move, we were talking about before, won't be too far away.
38:02
You have to come up to my property. Yeah. Uh, yeah, but yeah. Yeah. So churches should have the fund. Uh, every church should have a benevolence, but here's the problem though,
38:10
Andrea, as we wrap this up, cause I do have to go in a few minutes, but, uh, churches have become competitive.
38:15
Now I saw when I knew the end was near was like three years ago, I was talking to a, um, a church planner of a mega church and he said,
38:24
Oh, this is crazy, man. This is what we do. We have geo tagging to where we geo tag around other churches.
38:29
And then when people walk into the church, it pings us and lets us know. And then we link that to Facebook where we can see what their average income is, because we have that.
38:38
And then we can target where they're going. So if like 10 new people go to this church down the street, we, uh, we, we tag it and then we try to get them to our church because we know that they make money in their tithers.
38:50
That's when I knew the church was in big trouble when we're competing that way. Oh, it's your
38:55
Calvinist, the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Keith Foskey. How are you dude?
39:01
I'm doing good. Better late than never. And anyway, back to the show, Andrew. Um, so we were saying, Hey, I thought it would be nice to get on and apologize to you both for, for not being able to be here for the main part.
39:16
I was listening. I don't know if you noticed I was watching, but, uh, but I, I, I, you know, as a father,
39:21
Oh, I want to show my address. Walking around on my front porch here.
39:30
I know I, I, I had to, I'm, I'm babysitting my kids, but I wanted to hop on to at least say just how much
39:37
I want to encourage people to give, uh, to Aaron and his family, uh, and, and, and, and how much
39:42
I appreciate you guys doing this. Aaron has become a super good friend to me. He came down this summer, spent a week with me teaching a youth karate program.
39:52
And, uh, he and I, he and I become super good friends. And, and when I saw that his house and everything, all the bad stuff was going on,
39:59
I, I, I wanted to do something to help. So thank you, Andrew, for putting this together. Thank you, Greg, for, for doing this.
40:05
And I just, I just wanted to hop on to say love you guys. And I appreciate it. Well, we, I've been, I was waiting for you to come in.
40:10
Cause there was a question that we've had. And so it's, it's right up your alley. So the question is from brother
40:16
John. He says, could you explain natural disasters according to a Calvinist?
40:22
Thank you. So you're our Calvinist. So I've got your Calvinist here. Yeah, you're, you're our
40:28
Calvinist. So that's, that's, oh, no, I, that wasn't for his question.
40:33
I'm literally staring into the sun. Oh, no, I know you're staring into the sun. So, uh, so could you explain natural disasters according to a
40:41
Calvinist? What do you think? Yeah, if you go in, if you go into Isaiah, it tells us that, uh, that God is sovereign over all things.
40:49
And Isaiah 45, I just preached this, uh, a week ago, I was in barrel Baptist church in Arkansas.
40:55
And I preached about God raising up Cyrus to, uh, to allow the people of Israel out of bondage.
41:02
And I talked about how God raises up leaders and God is sovereign over who's in charge.
41:07
God is the one who is sovereign over, um, bringing all things about. Now he uses means he uses people.
41:14
We should still vote things like that because God uses those as, as part of how he brings his will about, but his will will ultimately be done.
41:21
And in that passage in Isaiah 45, it says that God, uh, God brings good and he creates calamity.
41:28
And he does it for his own purposes. And we don't understand always what God's purpose is, but the
41:33
Bible does promise us that he will work all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. That doesn't say all things are good.
41:41
It says all things will work together for the good of those who love him. And that's a very specific group.
41:46
It's not everybody. All things don't work good for everybody, but work together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
41:53
That means those people who trust in Christ can know that nothing is going to touch them that doesn't have the purpose of God.
42:00
And that is not out is, is, is going to take away God's love for them. That's what Paul says in Romans chapter eight.
42:06
He says, all things work together for good and nothing can separate us from the love of God. So that's our, that's our confidence.
42:12
Are you, are you saying that God doesn't have a wonderful plan for my life? Well, you know, he, he had a wonderful plan for, for John Huss's life and it ended with him being burned at the stake.
42:24
And it was a wonderful plan because the last thing he saw on this earth was the fires that surrounded him.
42:29
But the first thing he saw in eternity was the face of Jesus Christ. So yeah, amen.
42:36
Yeah, I like it. All right. Well, uh, I know you can't stay long, uh, Keith, and I know I got to get going here soon too, but I just want to point out to everyone that, uh,
42:44
Aaron could not make it on the live stream because his house is under five foot of water. Keith could not make it on the live stream because he was babysitting his children.
42:52
Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, do not say babysit. You don't babysit your own kids.
42:58
Well, that's right. That's what I was getting at. You are in so big trouble with your wife when she sees this.
43:05
All the moms are going to freak out. Let me clarify on a normal work day.
43:11
When I am normally working, I took, I took time away from work to be home so that my wife could take my daughter to an appointment.
43:19
Uh, we have six kids. I don't babysit my kids. So thank you for that correction. I took time off of work.
43:25
Yes. I love you too. I'm glad you said it. Cause somebody is going to nail me in the comments. Might as well, might as well preemptively strike them.
43:32
All right. You know, there's all kinds of suffering. Some people suffer hurricanes. You know, he's got to suffer taking care of his kids and babysitting his kids.
43:42
I love my children. We just came on here to start a rumor about him and his kids, but I, all right,
43:50
Keith, get on out of here if you need to. I know Andrew, we're wrapping this up too. Love you brother. Love you guys. Thank you.
43:55
Thanks Keith. Yeah. The plan was for all three of us to be here, but Keith knew that he had responsibilities at home that he was hoping he'd be able to be in, but he just jumped in quickly.
44:05
So, um, so with that, yeah. I mean, if, if you guys could help out, you know,
44:11
I'll, I'll put the picture up again, but if you can go to give send go .com
44:17
slash SFE, give send go .com slash SFE, give send go is the
44:23
Christian version of, you know, the crowdfunding cause it's since, you know, the crowdfunding got rid of Christian, uh, people giving, uh, so if you, if you, uh, can help out, that would be great.
44:36
Give send go .com slash SFE. Give any amount.
44:41
I will, you know, I'll admit that I, I am someone who donated, but I wasn't just going to put, you have to make sure you donate if you're asking others, right,
44:49
I can't go doing that and not, not doing it myself. Right. But, but if you can help out, they do have a lot of needs and, uh, it would be a great way of just, uh, not only helping a fellow brother, but also encouraging him and his family and, and those in his community.
45:05
Cause I know I'm, I'm knowing him. I know that he's going to be trying to help others out with what he can.
45:11
A hundred percent. Yeah. Well, Andrew, thank you so much for, uh, uh, invite me on here.
45:16
It was a great discussion. It's a good thing to help a brother in the Lord. Um, let's help Aaron Brewster out way in this time of difficulty.
45:23
I know he trusts in the Lord. He trusts in his sovereignty, uh, as a UNI. So, um, thank you so much for letting me be part of this.
45:29
Yeah. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for Keith for coming in. Uh, I'll just close by saying give send go .com slash
45:35
SFE. And that's a wrap. This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.