Keep sharing good news without ads.
#FreeMenHere2021
Let's jump right into this. We're gonna continue this conversation with Ruslan, and we're gonna hopefully let them talk a lot more this time around. But before I begin, let me just say this. I just got off the phone with a friend, an online friend, a supporter of the channel and all that kind of thing, and this social justice stuff is literally tearing his church apart, and it's gotten bad.
He called me because he's meeting with this pastor, and he wanted just some advice on how to talk to him about this, and this is not the first meeting. He's been meeting with him for a long time, and what this guy was looking for, he was looking for the right words, just the right way to explain what the problem is, and I offered him some of the ways that I explain it, and he told me, well, I've already done that.
I've already tried that, and this is what his response was, and the responses were all nonsensical, and the reality is, guys, that there's no way to convince people, because this is a matter of the heart.
This is a matter of who you serve. This is a matter of your decisions, I'm sorry, your decision-making processes, and if it's not being decided based on the Word of God, and explicitly, and with the good and necessary consequence of that explicit Word of God, then we're gonna have...you're never gonna be able to convince someone that what they're doing is wrong.
It's just not gonna happen, and so, you know, eventually you just have to decide for yourself, can I participate in this anymore? Is this something that I can condone anymore? Can I consent to this? And whatever everybody else does, even if it's your whole church that's decided to go after this gospel of Black Lives Matter and all of that, you don't.
You don't bow the knee, and that's the important thing. So be long-suffering, you know, bear with people, be patient. All of that is good stuff, and this guy's been so patient, so patient, but eventually, you know, you've got to make a decision who it is you serve.
It's serious stuff, man. We have a good time in the channel, but it's serious stuff, man. It's just...anyway, let's continue with this. I'm sure a lot of this stuff is gonna come up in the course of the video, so I hope you find this helpful.
It's a whole other conversation.
I definitely want to dismantle the program. But again, that's another conversation.
Oh, hold on. Mac and cheese. Mac and cheese advertisement. Mac and cheese is good. And now we got a Wendy's advertisement. Enough of this stuff. Coca Chino. That kind of sounds actually pretty good. I don't know.
Alright, but if, just to catch you up, what they're talking about is that Marcus wants to dismantle, you know, the tax system and the Department of Education, and Ruslan's like, I don't disagree, but that's just too hard.
We're gonna have to focus on these simpler solutions. There we go.
I think that's the case, because I think that, you know, one, I don't think that a particular group of people, whether they're poor or whatever, are incapable of overcoming really incredible obstacles.
Sure. I just said, but do you understand that, like, you ever studied the concept of survivorship bias? You can film me and I've heard it before. So survivorship bias is when we look at just the survivors in situations.
Our brain naturally goes to the folks that made it, to the folks that lasted. So it's like, no one's paid to give a speech at the end of their life about how they ruined everything and how their life sucks because they are terrible and they come from a traumatic background and just completely squandered.
Our brains naturally go towards survivorship bias. It's connected to a study done in World War II about airplanes. You should look into it. It's a really fascinating concept. I've heard that story. Now that you talk about it, yeah.
Yeah. And so we can look at folks and say, systemic racism is not real. Well, what about Obama and Oprah? And it's your point that you're picking out two of the most outliers in all of history and ignoring the millions of people.
I'm not picking out outliers. I'm saying in general. People can overcome obstacles. People overcome obstacles. That I think is really solid.
And I would say if we're talking from a, you know, I'm assuming you probably lean Calvinist.
And by the way, I just want to make it clear. I'm not saying just abandon people. What I'm saying is that most importantly, the government in Romans 13, it says the government's job is to terrorize those who do evil.
It doesn't say that they're to give out money, give out welfare, give out support and stuff. All those stuff, health care, providing for the poor, providing for the sick, all those sorts of things are giving should be on the church.
Yeah, right.
That's the church. Has the church done a great job.
Let's stop there before, before we get into Russell and dunking on the church here, which is something that the social justice warriors love to do. They love to drag the church through the mud and all that kind of stuff.
But, but what Marcus is saying is very, very simple, but it's very important. One of the chapters in my upcoming book is a very simple primer on this exact concept. What is the government for? And if you read the scripture, the famous one is Romans 13.
It says, you know, be subject to the authorities. Let me actually pull it up here, here. So I got the NIV so that everyone can be happy. Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except that which God has established.
The authorities that do exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
This is what part that Marcus brought up. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Okay. So that's important. That's a very important concept. It's basically saying that, that, that, that the, the, the, the governing authorities are there to punish evildoers, to bring, to terrorize evildoers.
And it actually goes even further than that. It says that the one in authority is God's servant for your good. So he's saying that the government, civil governing authorities, the government is a deacon of God.
It actually says in the, in the, in the King James version, it says that it's an Avenger of God, right? It's an Avenger to bring wrath and punishment on the wrongdoer. And this is an important concept because in the chapter right before this, it talks about how you shouldn't take vengeance for yourself.
So don't take matters into your own hands. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. That's Romans 12. And then Romans 13 says, by the way, I got a servant for this exact issue. Vengeance. That servant is the civil governing authorities.
And so it all fits together in a nice little bow. And so Marcus is saying, look, the word of God says that the government is an Avenger of God. He's supposed to be carrying out wrath upon the evildoer, terrorizing the evildoer.
Now all that other stuff, charity, education, you know, all this other stuff, you know, unemployment benefits, that's not in the purview. That's not why the government is a servant of God. The government is not that a servant for those kinds of things.
The church and individuals are responsible for God, for those kinds of things. Charity, education, unemployment. That's a very important concept. Now, Ruslan is going to, his response is to talk trash against the church.
So here we go.
I think they've done a terrible job of it. We agree. But that doesn't, I don't want to give it to the government. I'd rather the church do a terrible job at it than have the government do a good job at it.
You'd rather have the... Yes. I'd rather have the church do a terrible job. Unpack that. Yeah, because, okay, so...
So you'd rather kids not be educated, people not be fed.
Okay, okay, yes. Ruslan doesn't understand because his mind was just blown, right? You can even see it in his face. He's like, huh? Because in Ruslan's world, if the government, which let's just face it, guys, when people talk like this, you know, he even said this in the last episode.
If I didn't have free school lunch programs provided by the federal government, I would have gone hungry. I wouldn't have made it. If the government doesn't provide education, people are just going to be stupid and ignorant and nobody's going to know anything.
And it's like, okay, so let's think about, let's backtrack a second here because what does that mean as far as where your help comes from? Like, this is a profound thing. You need to think about this.
When people start to talk as if education is impossible without the federal government, food is impossible without the federal government, charity for the poor, housing is impossible without a strong federal government providing for them, where does their help come from?
It comes from the government. It's idolatrous. It is pagan thinking. They've put government in the place of God. Government will provide for them. Government will lay them by the still waters and preserve their soul and all this kind of stuff.
Government is their daddy. You see, Ruslan, he might be a hip-hop guy. He might be connected and all that, but at the end of the day, he calls government daddy. You see what I'm saying? That's bottom line when you start talking like this.
And so Marcus says he'd rather... Now, Marcus, I love you, brother. This was a little awkward, in my opinion, the way you said this. I'm with you. I can follow you. But I can understand why people would be like, what?
Because here's the reality. He said that he'd rather the church do something poorly. And by the way, I don't necessarily agree with both of them that the church has failed at this. They have failed at something, and I'll talk about that in a little bit.
But I don't think they've actually failed at this historically. But anyway, he'd rather the church do something poorly than the government do it well. And I can understand a little bit of the confusion there.
Because if the government is actually doing it well, then that's cool. I'm okay with pagans doing something well. It's okay. But the thing is, what Marcus is saying, I believe, and Marcus, correct me if I'm wrong.
But what I think you're saying is that the government teaches people well, but they teach them wrongly. In other words, they're really effective at teaching, but they teach an upside-down worldview. And so I'd rather a kid have zero education than the miseducation that the government is going to provide for them.
That's what I think Marcus is saying here. I'd rather a kid not go to school at all than go to school and learn about how they came up from the primordial soup. And they're just essentially monkeys and all this kind of stuff.
I'd rather my kids have zero education than the lies that they get at public school. I think that's what Marcus is saying, but I'm not 100 sure. So Marcus, brother, you can correct me if I'm wrong. It was a little awkward the way you said it because teaching someone well sounds good.
But I think what he meant was teaching them well according to their principles. I'd rather my kids be no school at all than to learn the ways of the Egyptians. Because the schooling doesn't do them any good if they're falling on their knees in worship of Pharaoh.
You know what I mean? Maybe they'll understand E equals M squared, but if they're worshipping the state, that doesn't do them any good. I'd rather them be as dumb as a rock but worshipping the Lord of Glory and following God according to His ways and all of that kind of stuff.
But this is the thing, though. Ruslan is putting this false choice before us where it's like you'd rather them go hungry, you'd rather them be not educated than be educated. And it's like that's a false choice, though, because that's not the choice anyone is forced to make.
How about this for a solution? And I'm getting a little heated here. Honestly, maybe I should cut this one short because I feel bad for my friend over here. But it's a false choice. Because how about this as a third option, Ruslan?
How about teach people to obey Christ? So it's not that your kids won't get educated, but it is that you have to educate them. And if you're a Christian, and God forbid you're a Christian Democrat, first of all, you need to repent of your being a Democrat and start teaching your kids the way God told you to.
Take responsibility for yourself. And if that means you can't afford to send them to a private school, you can't afford that, then you've got to figure something else out. You can't afford to homeschool them yourself?
Well, get your parents together at your local church and come up with a group where you can all take a turn, where you can educate your kids the way God told you to do. Oh, you don't want to do that? It's just too hard?
It's too much work? Well, guess what? That's on you. That's on you. I'd rather your kid have zero education than the miseducation that they're going to get at the pagan schools. That's what I think Marcus is saying.
Blew Ruslan's mind. He hasn't even thought in those terms because he calls the government Daddy. And so Daddy will take care of me. I mean, the church is horrible at taking care of people, but Daddy will take care of me.
Daddy's good. Daddy's benevolent. And it's like, okay, if that's how you want to be, then that's up to you. I'm not going to be able to change your mind on that. You need the gospel though, because government ain't your daddy.
You know what I'm saying? Your help doesn't come from the government. And if it does, then I'm sorry, but that help is going to fail you. You see what I'm saying? I don't trust in chariots and all that kind of stuff.
I trust in the Lord, right? I trust in the Lord. I'll tell you right now, if the government told me that I had to send my kids to their pagan schools, I had to, I'd flee. I'd get out of here. Because I'd rather my kid have zero education than be educated by those fools.
There's three spheres.
You say that. But I don't think that would happen, but let me explain why.
See, Marcus is about to drop it here, drop knowledge here. Because he looked at Russell's face where Russell was like, but wait, Daddy's the one who gives me all this stuff. And Marcus laughs. He kind of chuckles.
He said, I don't think that would happen. You're not going to go hungry. You're not going to go without education. Obviously, there's other ways to do this. And the fact that someone's mind is so degraded that they can't even think of another way to provide this, if not for Daddy, that's a sign that you're in a state of idolatry to such a degree that you can't even think straight.
Because to Russell, if Daddy doesn't give me this education, they're just going to be stupid. If Daddy don't give me the food, they're just going to go hungry. And it's like, no, no, that's that's not true.
And Marcus is like, that's not true.
These spheres of government that God gives, there's the end of the family, the church and the state. So those are the three institutions. They each have their separate boundaries. When the church runs a state, you get the Vatican.
When the family runs a church, you get these weird patriarchal cults. Or like these tribal sort of communities, like these tribes in the jungle where the patriarchs are running the religion. So you get these weird things.
And so I think God has implemented and given instructions and curses and blessings to those in each organization, each covenant sphere. And then we step outside of those bounds. We actually make things worse.
So my thing is the church doing a bad job at feeding the poor. As long as the government's doing their job, I think ultimately everything would be better than having the problems of government schools where they're teaching kids to, you know, it's OK to cut your genitals off or whatever.
So why not address that and empower the church to do a better job so that we wouldn't be as dependent on government?
So this is the clearest that Ruslan is thinking in this entire interview. This is very, very smart. That's exactly right, Ruslan. That's exactly what you should do because I disagree. So let me just unpack this a little bit.
So I disagree that the church has done a terrible job historically at feeding the poor and educating and stuff like that. In fact, I would argue the church historically has done a fantastic job of doing these things.
Now, here's where they failed, in my opinion. They did not stand up to the government when the government started encroaching on these things. They did not stop the government from saying, all right, well, we'll start to get in a little bit on this education thing and the food program and stuff like that.
Like, we're going to get in on that. And it didn't happen all at once. It kind of happened gradually. And it happened with the support of the church, by the way, in some ways. And so the church started abdicating that responsibility.
And I don't think that that's something that is the norm. I think that's kind of a more recent type of a thing. But the fact that the church continues to allow the government to be in that place and to step in that lane is a disaster for people.
It's a disaster for the world. And so the time to draw a line in the sand is now. And so this is the clearest Ruslan has thought in this entire thing. Why not empower the church to do this better, teach better, feed better, all this stuff, business better, the whole thing better?
That's exactly right. That's what we should do. That's exactly what we should do. But it's a little hard, Ruslan, when we've got guys like you that are like, yeah, but UBI, though. I mean, come on. Why not a little bit UBI?
Oh, by the way, we got to fund those schools more. It's like, no, that's actually the opposite of what we need to do. We need to do the opposite of that. And so, yes, we should do what Ruslan just said.
But it's a little hard when you're unstable in all your ways and you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. Because if you really believe that, Ruslan, why not do that? OK, I'm with you. Step one, defund the schools.
Step one, defund the schools. Anyway. So, yeah, let's continue a little bit.
To your channel? Yeah, well, across politics in general, apologia. That's literally all they do is say, look, we need to take over these things. Samaritan.
But that's what I'm doing. Even if I don't listen, that's literally what we do. Like my son is homeschooled and he will smash any other kid his age on any measurable metric. Right. So, like, we're doing that.
Our church does that. The co-op group he does goes to a church does that.
What I'm saying is, I think. Don't you see the polytheism at play here, Ruslan? Because that's great that you're doing those things. Commendable because you're obeying Christ. Every time you obey Christ, that's commendable.
You're obeying Christ with your own kids and all that kind of stuff. Your churches and all that kind of stuff. Right. But the Great Commission applies to everybody. So we should be teaching everybody to obey Christ, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
And then teaching everybody, the nations, to obey Christ. And so your neighbor who's a drunk needs to do the same thing that you're doing. We got to figure that out. Right. But what you put the problem that we have here is that Ruslan, that's OK for you.
You're a Christian. You're doing that. But then in the culture, you're like over here saying, yeah, yeah. But in the culture, government's daddy. Government will take care of you. He'll feed you. He'll take care of you.
Put you in housing. He'll get you education. And that's fine. That's polytheistic, man. That's double-minded because it's not what's good for me is good for me, what's good for you is good for you. That's polytheistic.
What you should be doing instead is doing the things you're doing with your own family and church, Ruslan. And then also taking that gospel and that word to the culture as well and insisting that they do the same thing.
They do the same thing. So you should never vote again for a school funding bill. You should never advocate UBI. You should never advocate for those things because when you do that, you're being polytheistic.
Yeah, sure, God and Christ in my home and in my church. But then, you know, I guess Demos over here. Demos over here because all these other pagans, otherwise how are they going to get fed, right? I mean, they need daddy to feed them.
That's the problem. That's the problem. So let me correct that because Ruslan's not actually calling government his daddy, but he's encouraging everybody else to treat the government like daddy. So he wants everyone else to call the government daddy.
So for him and his family, he's worshiping the Lord. Everybody else, he's like, it's cool if you worship daddy. That's the thing. And that's a big problem, man. That's a big problem. That's double-minded.
That's unstable. That's not going to lead to any good results.
That communication and that demonstration should be what the church is known for if that's the solution you think is the most qualified. I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm saying, hey, within these parameters, how do we work within these parameters?
It's similar to
Wouldn't you say that's pragmatism though, Ruslan? I don't know if it's pragmatism.
I'm saying it's similar to this. It's similar to this. And I don't want to completely derail the conversation. It's similar to
Ruslan does that a lot. When it's something he's not really interested in talking about, he pretends like it's derailing the conversation. But this is every time Ruslan says, I don't want to derail the conversation, that's a different conversation.
Every time he says that, make a mental note and drill down there because those are the points that are critical for the conversation we're having. This is critical because he's saying, in the parameters that really exist, because Daddy's over here doing his thing, so in those parameters, I want to finagle things so that they're as good as they could possibly be.
And it's not going to work that way. It's not going to work that way. Actually, we do need to just have mass repentance. We need to bring the gospel to that place where they're over here worshiping Daddy, and we're over here like, no, no, no.
Stop worshiping Daddy. That's actually a fake Daddy. What you've got to do instead, though, is bow to the knee to Christ, get baptized, and obey every single thing that he commanded. Everything. The whole thing.
That's how we do this. That's how we do this. You repent of your sins. You get saved. You get baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Then you are taught to obey every single thing that Christ commanded.
You've got to shut this down. You don't repent of your sins by staying in your sinful system and just kind of dabbling around the edges. That's legalism, by the way. That's legalism. So I'm going to stay in my pagan system, but I'm going to try to finagle it so it's as good as it could possibly be.
That's legalism. Instead, what you've got to do is say, no, no, this pagan system, I reject the whole thing. I'm going to do something different. What I'm going to do instead is I'm going to follow God because, by the way, this is the most logical thing anyone could ever do.
God created the universe a certain way, and he tells us how it works and what is required of us. That's it. So our responsibility is to fear him and do what he says. Keep his commandments, essentially.
So it's funny because this is a habit of Ruslan that I've noticed at least in this video. I've never actually watched another one of his videos. But in this video, every single time he says, I don't want to drill the conversation, that's a different conversation.
That's always false. That's always the exact point that needs to be drilled upon in this conversation, and it's making Ruslan very uncomfortable because it's going to change his whole paradigm if he pursues it too much.
And so he tries to change the subject and pretend it's a different conversation. No, that is the conversation. That is the conversation.
Law enforcement is dropping the ball on some of these police shootings, which I think you would agree on. Oh, yeah. So we're going to defund the police. Right. What does that mean? Right. No, no, no, no, no.
I'm just doing a thought experiment with you. We're going to defund the police. Okay.
I don't think he was expecting that. At who you ask, it means different things. Right. And then it's like abolish the police. Whoa, knee-jerk reaction. Are you saying we should get rid of police? Some people say we should get rid of police.
Then the solution that's presented, which is what happened in Camden, New Jersey, where they abolished the local police department and then rebuilt it by having the sheriff step in. They fired all the cops, made them go through a rehiring process.
And what they saw was once they did that, retrained the police officers, put them back and drop them back into the neighborhoods, made them build community rapport, the violence, the murder rate, the poverty rate, all around Camden, New Jersey, that community completely transformed.
Right? So I'm using this as an example. It depends on what you mean with these things. Because when you say something out loud, you say defund the police, you're going to get a knee-jerk reaction from people.
You say abolish the police, you're going to get a knee-jerk reaction from people. And so I didn't know that was an option in the police situation. Oh, that's an option.
That sounds like a great option. Yeah, maybe some of these smaller cities need to be completely abolished and rebuilt.
I'm saying Camden is like a prime example of the most radical version of abolish the police playing out in a way that benefited everybody. Small businesses, the community, the police officers, everybody's happy in that situation.
But most times when we say that, that's not what people envision. So the ideas you're presenting, I'm not against. But I think if we're specifically talking about systemic racism, people aren't thinking abolish education, equip the family.
That's the problem.
Maybe it is the problem. That's why I wanted you on the show, because I hear you have these conversations with these guests. And it's important for me whenever we're talking about what is the basis for these things?
I believe that God's law that God gave Israel is a beautiful system of justice. I mean, I've heard Eric Mason and Jamar Tisby go to Old Testament passages and talk about leaving the edges of the field so that the homeless can come and they can work.
And I live in a farm town here in Idaho. And you look on the edges of the field by the side of the road. They didn't harvest those. And the reason is David Chilton talks about this book. I don't know if you've read this book, by the way.
We'll stop here. This is good. It's called Productive Christians in the Age of Guilt.
This is a fantastic book, by the way.
And he talks about how to get the edges, to actually sew the edges of the farm is very laborious and time consuming and unprofitable. So when you come in and you say, well, hey, look, I'm just going to let homeless people come and they can pick it up on their own.
You're not you're not actually you're actually saving. But you're doing two things. One, you're allowing more profits in the hand of the farmers because they don't have to go back until that area. And then, too, you're providing work for people that can feed their families and stuff like that.
So there's all these stipulations and we call it general equity. There's all this beautiful general equity in in the Old Testament that David Chilton writes on in terms of economics. And so it's really fantastic.
But but but these are the sort of conversations we're not we're not having these conversations of, you know, we talk about like prison systems. It's like no one's having the conversation. Well, well, well, what does God think about prisons in general?
Is God OK with leaving people in a cage for all their life? Right. Like is like is God OK with that at all? No. Provide he provided the death penalty. Why did he provide the death penalty? Well, because one death frees a marriage covenant so the wife can get remarried again and can work and not have to be, you know, be able to provide for.
There's all these beautiful things, really, to those sort of things that we're not even talking about. And then, of course, you know, there's the you know, the issue of restitution and things like that.
I just think God's all is really beautiful. And I don't think we cover it rightly. Like even Tim Keller, when he was talking about, you know, sewing the edges of the field the other day, he said that even those profits belong to God for the use of other people.
And it's like, no, that's not the point of that. That's not the point of that law. The point of the law is that it's it actually spares the the farmer from from wasting money and wasting time getting unprofitable parts of the.
It's a win, win, win. It sounds like it's a win. All God's law is win, win, win. Yeah, I agree with him.
Okay, so if Ruslan agrees, and we're going to stop it right there. If Ruslan agrees with Marcus that all of God's law is a win, win, win, then let's go ahead and start talking about getting this implemented right away, as soon as possible.
Insisting that the government does not enact laws that go against God's law and does enact laws that go with God's law. Marcus's examples there, there was a lot of good stuff there. I love that, man. I love that.
Because, for example, the the edges of the field, right? The poor were going to get the edges of the field so they could feed themselves and all that kind of stuff. We could apply that law directly today, but we could also apply the general equity of that law in numerous ways.
And like the waste of food at the grocery store or or restaurants and stuff like that. You could leave it out for the poor to just collect and take if they needed it. You know, that kind of thing. But what does the government do?
They ban that kind of stuff. No, no, no. You can't feed the poor. That's daddy's job. Daddy, daddy take care of the poor. And we've got lots of gaggles of Democratic Christians who invoke these people into office and Republicans do.
This is bipartisan. This is bipartisan stupidity. And they'll ban stuff like that. They'll ban people from putting out their excess food so the poor could take it and stuff like that. And so this is the thing, man.
We got to have a conversation about God's law. And that's the bottom line. We've got to stop treating the government as if it's daddy, as if it's our God, as if it's where our help comes from. And I pray, man.
I hope that that Ruslan's mind was blown during this interview. It certainly seems like towards the end of this, we'll get there at some point. He digs in his heels and he starts kicking back and stuff like that.
And it gets plainly obvious that he has been outmatched, at least biblically speaking, on this topic. There's just no question about it. But that's what I hope he thinks about these things. Yes, God's law is better.
God's system is better. And we can't just do this place where we're kind of being polytheistic about things. Where it's like, okay, yeah, my church were doing it and my home were doing it. But then all the pagans over here, they need their daddy to provide for them too.
And it's like, okay, let their daddy provide for them because their daddy's a demon. You know what I'm saying? Their daddy's a demon. He can't do anything. So let's stop supporting the demonic system and let's start spreading the gospel.
Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded. Amen. Let's do that. Now, I hope you found this video helpful. I calmed down towards the end there.
It's probably worthwhile that I calmed down. I can't take it out on Ruslan KD that my buddy's church is such a disaster right now. Anyway, I hope you found this helpful. God bless.